ARF! ARF! ARF!!!!!

This...



...is an ARF Trooper. He is super-rad. I will now tell you why:



These are the standard Clone Trooper action figures from the animated Clone Wars series. Every figure in this series of action figures is stylized to match the look of the CGI cartoon. They are AWESOME. I don't really care too much for the rest of the figures in the series mainly because I'm not fond of the cartoon designs, but the Clone Troopers are so darn close to looking like the actual Clones from the movies that they work for me quite nicely. That, and these are some excellent figures in almost every category.



These guys are articulated out the wazoo. Ball-joints are present at almost every articulation point. They are super expressive and can hold their weapons and look pretty much like real people holding weapons.

There's just one thing that they can't do:



The Splits.

All these super awesome ball-joints everywhere and no ball-jointed hips. These guys can't even sit down worth a darn. The first Star Wars figures came out in 1977. It has been over 30 years, and we're still dealing with action figures with simple cut-articulated hips. GI Joe figured this little hitch out from day one. Hasbro's long-standing defense of this practice was always "Giving these characters ball-jointed hips would damage the aesthetic of the character design." Yeah. Right.

Hasbro just made up for a LOT of sins with the ARF Trooper.



Do I know what an ARF Trooper is? Not really. From the packaging it says that these guys ride some kind of two-legged un armored scout vehicle. Who gives a crap... all I know is...



These guys have all the articulation and design qualities that I value in the standard Clone Troopers and...



BALL-JOINTED HIPS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



Did you ever have a 3.75 inch tall Stormtrooper that could do that? Me neither!!! HEEEEYAH!



He stands much, much more naturally than the regular troopers and you can pose him in some pretty darn awesome stances:



I'm not the biggest fan of the helmet on this monkey, but thankfully...



The heads are interchangeable!

So... if you like Stormtroopers/Clonetroopers, smaller scaled figures, and awesome articulation... go grab an ARF Trooper while they are still on the shelves.

It costs too darn much to buy a 3.75 inch figure these days, but you can't really do anything about that-- the price will never be going down again now that they know dorks like us will buy them for that much. However, this is one of those rare cases where I bought something at retail price and didn't feel a bit let-down.

A Tale of Two Zillas

So today I did the flea market thing. It was much hotter than it needed to be. I'm totally serious. It could have easily been about 30 degrees colder.

I grabbed an old vhs copy of two Pete and Pete episodes. Gosh, but I miss that show. I was amazed at how quickly it sucked me right back into the fun and weirdness. Nickelodeon was really pumping out some good stuff in the early 90's. The only thing worth watching on there nowadays is Spongebob, and that's hardly ever new (which is OK for me seeing as I only recently started watching it and needed to catch up). My P&P tape came with a tattoo of Petunia.



If you don't know what I'm talking about, you really need to go hunt down a P&P tape or dvd... trust me.

I bought some DVD's as well... there's a guy who sells DVD's for 3 bucks or 4 for 10 bucks. They're used, but they are always in fabulous condition. I check anyways, because if anyone ever has a problem with you checking the quality of their used merch, DON'T BUY IT FROM THEM.

I grabbed Stand By Me, American Psycho, Sin City, and Godzilla. Yes... that Godzilla. The Dean Devlin, Roland Emerich version. Why would I buy that? Until today I honestly couldn't tell you why. I have been wanting to own it for some time now, but did not want to pay for it. I guess $2.50 is a reasonable compromise.

vs

After watching it again I have to say that it does wonders for anyone who loves the traditional "man-in-rubber-suit" style of Godzilla movies. Devlin and Emerich threw millions of dollars of Hollywood cash at this colossal crap pile of a movie and it still can't compete with the old-school Godzilla flicks. Were the old ones cheesy? Heck yes they were! Were they fun? You bet your butt they were! Did they spawn sequels? How 'bout over 25?!?!? That's something America's Crapzilla can't say. Well... actually it can't say any of the above.

Crapzilla is a long, sappy, preachy, and just really... bad. The special effects were kinda neat. The monster looks pretty cool, but he's no Godzilla. If this movie had been called IGUANDOR or REPTILLIDOR or something else, I'd be all over it... but it's just two jerks with a lot of money and no taste making a rip-off of a franchise that's done pretty well over the years. In the "making of" featurette Dean Devlin says his first step in approaching Godzilla was to completely change everything about the character.

Yeah... smooth move, Ex-Lax.

Here's what Japan had to say about the American Godzilla:

Stuff and something unexpected

Someone asked me why I haven't put any updates up with artwork... well... a few things I'm working on are top-secret kinda things, so it wouldn't be fair to show them until the people who commissioned them wanted them revealed. Just be patient, and there will be a payoff.

In the meantime, here's something I found yesterday, and it has made my day. Someone leaked a chunk of the new Transformers movie with the character that I was full-well set to hate from the pics of his character design alone-- Wheelie. Sigh... Wheelie. Ugh. Then I saw a leaked bit with german dubbing (I'll have to admit... this character works MUCH better with a saucy German accent, but this is ok too). The attitude of the character REALLY sold him for me. Wheelie was always a survivalist, and making this tiny, scrappy, bombastic, overcompensating jackass REALLY works here for me. WARNING: He says some spicy things here, so parental guidance is suggested:



If the voice sounds familiar, it should. It's Tom Kenny. Yes... THAT Tom Kenny. The voice of Spongebob Squarepants. This has, to say the least, made my day.

Now I want a toy of him.

Live-Action Grimlock... sort of...

Well... it seems the rocket scientists who wrote the two Transformers movies are unwilling to actually put the Dinobots in their movies because one of them-- get this-- "doesn't like dinosaurs."

I have this hard, fast rule. If you're a guy and you don't like dinosaurs, I don't trust you automatically. Something is seriously wrong with you, and we need to get you to Jurassic Park STAT! Wait... that movie might just make you hate dinosaurs... nevermind. At any rate, these brainiacs can't even see that every darn kid in the world just loves dinosaurs at the very core of their collective being. Growing up as a boy (I'm really not actively trying to exclude the ladies, I just don't know any who really like to expound upon the wonders of Pachycephalasaurus' fantastic noggin... and I know even fewer who happen to also dig Transformers) you're just hard-wired to like dinosaurs. That Orci guy needs to just rethink his role as a writer of popcorn cinema if he has a hard time getting his head around the concept of children going monkey-crap-crazy over gigantic robot dinosaurs.

I say all this to frame up my post tonight. I just found this INSANE commercial from Germany's Saturn consumer electronics company. It features the possible only live-action dinosaur robot we'll see for quite some time. It's only in the commercial for a short moment, but it's quite possibly the best moment of the whole darn thing.



Is it just me, or is that chick at the end about the creepiest thing you've ever seen? She just kinda killed the whole "sexy-robot-girl" thing for me when she started talking.