I GOT A Wii !@!!?!!

Erica brought me home a Wii last night! Hooray! it is absolutely awesome! OMG seriously it is super super fun. It was E's birthday so we had people over, and the party was great. At the end of the night we plugged in the Wii and had at it. WOW. it is seriously as great as I imagined. So much fun. This is awesome. What a great Christmas present. I'm so stoked. :)

Gears of War - Mad World

I know I'm so very predictable with this, but man I really love this commercial for Gears of War. Check it.

If you're interested, I read on Pop Candy this morning that the song in this video is Mad World by Gary Jules.

Gateau of shame...

I am not happy. I just made honestly one of the ugliest cakes ever created. I mean look at that thing! I had three colors of food coloring, and I not enough frosting to risk mixing them. So what do i end up with? bright yellow, neon pink, and boring blue. That weird little yellow man... That's supposed to be a monkey, yes a monkey! I have little artistic talent I know, but man. A monkey?! WTF did i draw? I mean that look like some sort of twisted little yellow happy man. He's no monkey. What's that weird thing he's holding you ask? why its a balloon. isn't it obvious? Look at the writing. Seriously I must be drinking stupid juice. Happy in cursive, B- Day because I couldn't fit birthday, and then ERICA all in caps. What happened to my 8th grade English grammar skills? And I know you can't see it that well, but up in the top left corner is a big yellow blob. That was supposed to be a nice yellow rose corner decoration, but it put it too close to the edge and it started to fall off, so i grabbed it with a knife and pushed it back on. Of course in doing so i ruined the rose design, so i ended up just flattening it out into a circle(ish) sort of shape. I was thinking that hey it could just be the sun. But then I had already used up all the yellow so i didn't have any more for suns rays... You should click on the picture to see it up close, its such a tragedy. The one good decoration is the Tollhouse semi-sweet, and white chocolate chips i put around, I also put a bunch of those into the cake mix, which incidentally is chocolate fudge. I honestly don't know how I'm going to face the party tomorrow with this as my great homemade cake for my girlfriend... so depressing.

let the showers be golden

This is just too funny... according to this story, in Electronic Arts' upcoming new action shooter game Army of Two you will actually be able to realistically pee in game! That's right, its what we've all been waiting for, in game hyper real urination! And we're not talking cut scenes here, we're talking actual controllable peeing. I'm so excited. Really this is something that's like custom made for play on the Wii.

The game actually looks pretty great, so the peeing is really just a bonus.

super cool Heroes news

So guess who is going to be joining the cast of Heroes this January?

Christopher Eccleston

That's right, the good Doctor will become a Hero!

This is flat out awesome. even if he doesn't have powers, it'll still be awesome. The word now is that he will actually be joining the cast... We'll see how this plays out in the days ahead though.

This scoop care of Michael Ausiello at TV Guide.

FNL rings true

I like to talk about Heroes a fair bit on this site, and in real life. It's a great show, with some interesting characters and really cool action. I like the way the story is developing, and I really have a lot of high hopes for the show. I'm also excited to see that its being embraced by the masses, considering how much of a genre piece it is. But all of that said, no matter how much fun I think the show is, its ultimately still a fantasy. It has that comic book appeal that I know very well. I love that, I really do, but there's something to be said for realism too.

The absolute best, 'realistic' show on television right now is Friday Night Lights. It's got a visceral, emotionally powerful, and very true feeling story. The characters just feel so real, so true to life of high school kids that I'm always engrossed by them. The stories are small and believable, and their lives and problems are not easily solved. The stories are grey, confused, and absolutely engaging. The show is really top notch and I want to encourage you, if you haven't seen it, please watch. Personally, I don't know anything about, or really even really like, football; and I'm loving this show. It's got me truly hooked, and I hope you get a chance to check it out.

The latest episode can be watched for free over on NBC.com, and its a great one.

Castlevania poster

I'm a bit worried that the Castlevania movie will be just about as good as Bloodrayne, which although was recently announced as set for a sequel, was just God awful. Thankfully at least this film is being written and directed by Paul W.S. Anderson as opposed to Uwe Boll who has brought so many other video game gems to the masses. Anderson is the mastermind director behind such guilty pleasure films of mine as Alien vs Predator, for which a sequel in also in the works, Resident Evil, and Soldier.

I just hope they make Simon like he was in the old Captain N series, now that would be an awesome film ;)

The film will take place mostly in 15th Century Transylvania, and if you cant read it, there is subtitle "Dracula Reigns". Apparently they've got a budget of around $50 mil, and even though there were reportedly some problems with Dimension over the script supposedly locations are being scouted right now for this surefire hit.

It's kind of a cool poster. Very goth. At least that's a start right.

I read about this on Dark Horizons.

casting Sylar, redux

So, I wouldn't be even talking about this if I hadn't put my foot in my mouth a few weeks ago, but I already apologized for that. Frankly, I don't think you can blame me for getting excited. Heroes is a great show, and I'm really digging most everything about it. I love how all the characters are starting to finally come together, and that there are so many more people with special powers out there that we haven't even met yet. If you're not watching I'd encourage you to, it might be a bit convoluted at first, but you'll get it all down quick enough. And you can really ask anyone who is watching; fans of Heroes seem to definitely like talking about it.

That said I have heard from a number of different sources (here, here, here) now that the actor I had mentioned before as playing the part of Peter Sylar in upcoming episodes of Heroes is categorically NOT going to be playing the part. In fact they have cast another actor in the role. This is not official yet, so take it with a grain of salt, but if you'd like to know the actor now reported to be playing the role of Sylar just click onto his IMBD page here.

Sounds good to me. Even though he looks vaguely familiar I don't know him, and I think that's probably good.

the circle of life in my sink

I know that if E was awake she wouldn't have actually wanted me to get up and do the dishes last night at 3:30am but I did, and why you may ask? Because we've got ants! If you live or have lived anywhere in Northern California, you know about the ants. Everyone gets them at one point or another. They are tiny and black and there is almost nothing that can be done about them. Sure you can get rid of them for a while but they'll be back, there are always more of them.

So last night I accidentally fell asleep before cleaning the dishes, which I usually do every night because we don't have a real dishwasher, just me. But I knew, I just knew that if I left those dishes in the sink overnight, and then through the day today we'd be swarming in ants. These aren't the absolute worse kind of ants you can get I suppose. They don't bite, and they're easy to kill, but man there are a lot of them. These are the ants that you'll see 300 of at a time, all swarming after an apple core. Yes, yes... it's all part of the circle of life and all that crap. still, its totally disgusting.

I'm tired now.

Even newer Spider-Man 3 trailer

I saw this on AICN a few mins ago. This is the really "new" trailer for Spider-Man. It will almost definitely be taken offline soon so watch it now if you can. Its basically an extended version of the trailer that launched last week, and can be seen in the post below. This is supposedly the trailer that will be attached to Ghost Rider next February 16th. A lot of the VFX are rough in this trailer, but some of the scenes are totally new and very cool. Finally right at the end we get the goods though. The reason this trailer has been taken down all over the place for the past few hours. We get one quick very clear and awesome shot of Venom. Screaming into the camera. Its the tag right at the end so stick with it. Check it out.

I've heard a theory that says that possibly Venom will really only be in the film for a very small amount. And even that perhaps he is just really right at the end. As a set up for the fourth film. While I would definitely be disappointed by this in a way, I could honestly see it working too. Venom is a big story unto himself, and if you cloud these comic films with too many villains you run the risk of turning into another Batman & Robin. Anyhow, I'm sure however they do it, Spidey will totally rule.

I'm off now. Later.

UPDATE - obviously the trailer is now gone... oh well, fun while it lasted eh? sorry if you missed it but no worries, it'll be back next year with Ghost Rider.

UPDATED UPDATE - Like pee in a swimming pool. Check here.

New Spider-Man 3 trailer

I declare this to be totally badass.



I love the part where he punches through Sandman, and where he rubs Sandman's face against the train, oh and the part in the bell tower where he's desperately trying to rip the symbiote off, and also the line where Harry says "you knew this was coming Pete..." really I just love it all. Even the LOTR rip off shot where Peter is reaching for the ring. It all looks great to me. What do you guys think?

Keep your eyes on the official site and blog for more wall crawling goodness as it becomes available.

Space Cadet Geoff

I feel like a total space cadet this morning... It's just one of those days where I don't really have my head together at all. Last night I was podcasting with Devon, it was a really good episode I think (ep033), check it out if you get a chance. But so anyhow, as always when we podcast I was drinking. And I accidentally got a bit drunk. but it really wasn't my fault. I was at the store with Devon and I decided that I wanted something other than just beer, so I was looking for one of those pre-mixed cocktails. You know, like a Jack and coke in a can or whatnot, but they didn't have any at the Safeway. Instead, all I had to choose from was the cooler section :( So I figured on a compromise and got one of those big bottles of Mike's Hard Lemonade, which is probably the most manly of girly drinks so at least I can live with myself.

Cut to like 45 minutes later and I'm about 2/3s of the way through the bottle. Oh the bottle is 1 pint, like 9.5 fluid ounces in size. So I'm like 2/3s through and I realize wow, this is kind of really hitting me, seems a bit much. And I finally actually read what the bottle says. It was a CONCENTRATE! D'oh! It was supposed to make 8 drinks! and I'd just tossed back most of it over the course of 10 minutes. So as you might imagine I had an interesting podcast after that...

Good times... good time... so this morning I haven't really got much together yet. Just trying to keep my head straight. Oh, but some awesome news. Yesterday I got my Threadless shirts in the mail. Remember I mentioned them back a few posts ago. They are a great store. So I'm wearing my Strangers with Candy shirt today, even though its probably not dressy enough for work. That's ok, it's Friday. Woot for the weekend. :)

Back in a bit with my thoughts on the new Spidey trailer.

Not to backpedel but...

Well I might've been a bit too easily excitable when I was telling you last week about the awesome news that I heard about Heroes, and who would be playing the shadowy character of Syler in upcoming episodes. Because while nothing has been confirmed or denied as of yet, I'm worried I might've jumped the gun on the casting news, and I don't want to be that guy who is feeding you bad information.

I'd rather not say which actor I announced as playing the part again, because at least one friend complained that I'd given a spoiler without warning. Check out my blog here for all the spoilery details. The actor in question is definitely still a possibility, however the character WIKI lists the actors involvement as a "highly disputed" "persistent rumor". The IMDB page for the actor reports quite differently, although I don't usually trust IMDB very far, as it's far to easy for anyone to change the listed info. This time though I relied on a report based off of that data and re-reported it. For that I apologize. However, despite all of the conflicting reports, know that there still is a definite possibility for this actor in this role.

Ok, enough cryptic nonsense. In this week's issue Entertainment Weekly, they have a fantastic cover story on Heroes. The article is very solidly written, as is par for EW, with interviews from many of the creative people involved in the show including (series creator) Tim Kring, Damon Lindelof, Jeph Leob, and more. One of the most interesting things for me was to read the relationship of Kring has to the comic book Rising Stars; as the two seem so similar and yet so different in a number of ways. The article also has some minor spoilery details, being written while they were filming episode 14 (I believe). Without going into any real spoilers I will say that they mention in the article that as far as right now, the letters in the actors name that they currently have in mind for Syler has a scrabble score of more than 10 points. If this is true then the actor I reported earlier cannot be Syler.

For those of you that are interested here are some of the very minor things we can garner from the article...


(minor) SPOILERS AHEAD

The Save the Cheerleader storyline will apparently be wrapped up with by the Christmas break, so pretty much going through sweeps which start in what? a week I think. This story will culminate in, at the least, Claire deciding to leave school and Odessa, TX permanently as her secret is out for good. The second half of the season starting in January will focus mainly on the hunt for Syler and Nathan Petrelli's election. Kring said he wants to really populate the world with lots of these specials, all sorts of people with all sorts of powers. He also said that he has definite plans to kills off main characters; he wants death to be a part of the series and a real possibility. Although as he wasn't expecting the series to be so popular he's a bit worried now that he'll end up killing off characters and will have a fan uproar on his hands. :) I think he probably will...

SPOILERS END


So that's about all. Like I said, nothing too spoilery there. But just thought I should warn. Considering this came from the horses mouth himself don't blame me if it changes. Anyhow, it wouldn't really matter if it does, I'm really loving the show and I expect to keep loving it no matter what. Better head now. Later.

What happened to Jericho?

Ok, so this morning on the way into work I watched Wednesday night's episode of Jericho entitled "Rogue River" and I just want to say: what the hell happened to this show?! It was doing so well, or at least it looked like it could potentially do so well, and then it all just fell apart. The writing is terrible, the characters seem to have no motivation for their actions, and most importantly NOTHING is believable. The way a show like this works, and I know I've seen the producers saying this in their short interview on the show over at Innertube, that the way a show like this works is that it's based on the idea of what would the world really be like after a nuclear holocaust. Well, with stellar writing like this I don't think we'll ever know. Jericho is really disappointing me. The last three episodes have each been worse than the last.

It had so much potential, and it's just wasting away.

Conversely, I also watched Friday Night Lights and it is just getting better and better each episode. So me, the uber sci fi geek is going for the high school football show over the post apocalyptic survival story. I never would've imagined it.

All 8 episodes of Jericho are available to watch in full over at CBS - Innertube, and you can check the latest full episode of FNL over at NBC.com

The Sarah Connor Chronicles

I don't think I mentioned this specifically the last time we talked about The Terminator, but there are some very interesting things afoot for our favorite futuristic robotic killing machine franchise; namely television. That's right, television. Currently Filming is the pilot to The Sarah Connor Chronicles. It will tell the story of Sarah and her son John between the films T2 and T3. Reportedly there will be some lead ins and connections to the proposed upcoming Terminator 4 as well.

This is only at the pilot stage so it might not actually ever hit the airwaves, but I for one would welcome it. They've just announced the casting of Lena Headey as Sarah Connor. I'm not particularly familiar with her, but a fresh face is fine by me. The show is being made for FOX, which I'm not sure is a good thing, but at least the pilot is being directed by the absolute best tv director out there David Nutter. I'm excited to see this on the small screen. I think it could be extremely cool. But a lot of that will also depend on who they get to play John Connor; as ultimately while the show may be driven by his mother, the really interesting thing to watch will be the transformation of John and how he grows into being a reluctant leader.

form over function

Do any of you guys use evite? I've just spent the last hour making an invitation that was far more complicated than it should've been. I haven't been there in a few months and wow, they've revamped the entire system. It's annoyingnow; all flash, and no substance. I just want to make a simple online invitation. And I'm not saying that before their system was perfect, but now it's just plain aggravating. I felt like I was fighting the system the whole time, just to get a really basic page thrown together. Lame.

This same thing happened with Frappr a month or two ago. I just don't understand how some websites can do these big cosmetic redesigns and not realize that they are giving up their functionality.

some election thoughts

Overall yes, I'd say I'm happy with the way the election went yesterday. I did vote, as an absentee (which is very common in California). Although I'm a Canadian born and raised, I'm also a US citizen as well with both my parents being American. This is how I've been able to live and work in the states without any problems. Being a Canadian though, especially an urbanite, I'm pretty far left of what many American would consider reasonable. In fact I quite happily would call myself a progressive socialist. I enjoy living here in the States, and I like being able to participate in the political process. Despite the occasional frustrations. Thankfully for me San Francisco is a fairly liberal city overall, and I'm happy about that.

While I personally skew closest to Green party, I went for the Democrats this time, and I'm glad to see that they did well overall winning the House back. As of this writing the Senate is still being decided, with the results for Virginia and Montana still too close to call. I'm sure that'll all sort itself out soon though... I hope.

What interested me perhaps more though was the state and local measures. If you're not from California you probably wont know or care about this, but it's interesting to me. SFGate has a nice concise results page that I've been checking. It's the state ballot measures that are the most frustrating to me. Prop 1A-1E all passed - that's $40 Billion in new bonds for public works funding. $40 billion is a lot, and I'm not sure it's being doled out properly, but I voted for most of those (not the highway one though). I thank God that prop 85 failed. Very scary stuff that. but the two measures that I find the most frustrating are the failures of prop 86 and 87. That's the cigarette tax, and the oil tax respectively. I hate the fact that the big business can just throw money at these kind of propositions and make them go away. It's made me crazy these past weeks to see commercials, especially for 87 where people are standing there telling me that the cost for an oil tax will be felt at the pump, when it quite literally in the law says that the companies cannot pass the cost onto the consumer. I mean, don't people read the fine print on their political commercials?! If I see a commercial, that is actually paid for by Chevron going against an oil company tax, you'd think that I'd realize hey maybe its just the oil companies trying to save their own ass. arrgh.... anyhow. I shouldn't be mad, it is what it is. That's just big business and politics. Lame.

I would really like to see a third political party emerge in the United States. I know Nader screwed things up for the Dems a few years ago, but one of the ideas of the Green party that year was to just to get enough votes to become a "national party". And that plan had merit. If we could really break out of this two party mold I think everyone would be better off. Unfortunately 2008 does not look like the year for that. Ah well... I can still dream.

It'll definitely be interesting to see how Bush deals with this turn of events.

update - Looks like Montana went Democrat, just Virginia to decide. That shouldn't take too long, right?

Spidey 3 pics - Venom, Green Goblin II

These are the pics that we're up on Ain't It Cool News this morning and were then taken down.

The Green Goblin design looks to be from pretty early on, but the Venom one is great. He looks all super veiny and scary. I really recommend you click on the images for a full sized view. Pretty cool eh? Well, Venom at least; I'm not totally sold on the GG outfit. Although I'm sure once we get a higher rez, more real, less concept pic, it'll look better. There was also a Sandman image but it was so fantastically uninteresting I'm not going to bother posting it. You've already seen cooler Sandman pics in the trailer. Anyhow, these are still pretty damn sweet if you ask me.

Top Toys for X-Mas - a buyer's guide

With Halloween over it's finally time when we can start looking forward to Christmas. Hooray for Christmas! Ok, I know that there's Thanksgiving first, but that doesn't get commercialized in anywhere near as fun a way as Christmas does. Also aside from any religious connotations, that I'm not prepared to get into at the moment, the thing I always loved most about Christmas is something you just don't get for Thanksgiving; presents. So maybe I'm not really saying hooray Christmas, maybe what I'm really saying is hooray presents!

This past weekend, I received a flyer in the mail which was unfortunately recycled before I had a chance to read it, The Toys R Us Big Toy Book Christmas catalog. I loved toy catalogs. When I was a kid, they we're the kind of thing I could pour over for hours. Sears had a good one, as did Simpsons, and of course The Bay both of which are Canadian department stores. As you might have guessed, I always went for the action figures first, but I really tried not to be discriminatory on the whole. I liked all the toys and would spend time looking through the entire catalog: baby, to toddler, to girls, to boys, to family and games, to sports equipment. Weird how toy catalogs have basically the same set up all the time. Anyhow, it was the action figures I think I liked best because especially back in the day the product shots often had tons of different figures in a single 'scene'. Nowadays its odd, toy companies only seem to advertise the two or three hottest and newest toys of a given line and then leave the rest of the line, or older toys, for you to find when you go to the store. I always loved it when they would show all of the toys of any given line together, and best when they were interacting. I think it had something to do with my collectors mentality, and a small level of obsessive compulsiveness. I just really like the idea of having everything together. Heck it really didn't have to be action figures, If I had a good product shot of ten different My Little Ponies hanging out at The Dream Castle, I would totally love that too.

So without further ado here are my top picks from the '06 Toys R Us christmas catalog for the best toys of the season. Follow along in The Big Toy Book online if you like. This is my Buyer's Guide.

Fisher-Price Kidtronics Digital Camera - $59.99

I know this may be in the preschool section but seriously, what kid doesn't want a digital camera! this is super sweet. I want this. This is one of those 'toys' that's so great because it's so versatile. It includes 8MB built in memory, has an SD slot, USB connection, and fun editing software. It also comes in blue and pink! The only negatives I can see are that the picture quality is apparently pretty bad, and there are a few reports of buggy systems. I think kids will really love this though. I know I would've loved it when I was a kid.

Snugglers - $19.99

Snugglers are basically pillowcases with heads and limbs attached. This is seriously a fun idea. I'm actually tempted to get one myself, so simple and so cool. When I was a kid I definitely would've wanted a huge Spider-man pillow buddy. Also it comes in like 17 different variations, from Power Ranger, to Superman, to cows, and pigs, cats and dogs, to a host of the Disney Princesses. very snuggly cool. and cheap.

Leapster Portable Learning System bundle - $74.99

I really love the toys Leapfrog makes. They're a great company and make (on the whole) very solid learning products. This is their ever popular portable gaming/learning system, I think they try to skew it a bit older than it really plays for but thats ok, kids 4 and up seem to love these. things. They've got a game catalog that is good for preschoolers up to I believe grade 3. And additional games range from $19.99 - $24.99. This is the portable system bundled with their hot new title, Cars, at a pretty decent price. Also, while Leapfrog does make a home console system to play the games, the portable version is the far superior product, and can also be plugged into your television.

Marvel Heroes Ani-Movie Studio - $49.99

This is one of the coolest toys out this Xmas in my opinion. Yes I know that technically its just a mounted digital camera, with some simple software, and cheesy Marvel themed background cells, but I would be all over this as a kid. Basically this is a cartoon making studio, and I don't think you really need to explain much more. Creative and fun, it only requires a bit of patience, but honestly for the sake of my own personalized spider-man cartoon, I would do just about anything.

Play-Doh Creativity Center - $24.99

Play-Doh is always in fashion. This is a pretty good set containing 48 different accessories, including cutters, shapers and extruders. Its also got good storage area inside it, and comes with a full 10 cans of Play-Doh. What pushes this set over the edge from the Mountain of Colors set, or the Big Barrel set, is that it comes with a bonus case of 10 more cans of Play-Doh for free. now that's a good deal.

LEGO Batman: Arkham Asylum - $59.99

Woah! LEGO Batman. This is sweet! I can't decide what's awesomer, the fact that this amazingly cool playset actually exists, or that toy's r us is selling you an exclusive playset of a MENTAL ASYLUM FOR THE CRIMINALLY INSANE as a toy for children. The set comes comes complete with fairly horrific conditions for it's inmates (The Scarcrow, The Riddler, and Poison Ivy) as well as Lego versions of Batman and Nightwing! Actually, I'm not sure if this is really cooler than their other new Batman playset for The Batcave, but Arkham is a TRU exclusive and on sale for $30 cheaper than the other one, so I'd go for this. Definitely for the older kid on this one though.

Dora the Explorer plush - $19.99

Ok so technically this plush Dora isn't in the '06 Christmas catalog, but Dora is so crazy huge I felt I'd be remiss if I didn't mention her. Toys R Us lists a whopping 177 products branded after her. Unfortunately a lot of those products are overpriced garbage. There are a number of battery operated talking and singing versions of Dora dolls for this Xmas and from what I can tell they are all pretty bad. I'm talking worse than Teddy Ruxpin bad... actually now that i think about it Teddy Ruxpin was pretty awesome. Anyhow, why not go for this simple cheap Dora plush instead. She's cute, and this doll would totally hold up to the rigors of childhood. now if only there was a Boots plush.

Disney Fairies Sparkling Tinkerbell Dress -$24.99

Normally I'm definitely not down with little girls dressing up as princesses. Firstly it seems a bit too precious, but also I think it promotes some bad ideas in kids, and bad images for girls. Not as overtly manipulative as something like Bratz or Barbie, I think that the whole 'disney princess' concept can make girls at the worst bratty and self-involved, and at best an avid consumer. I don't really think Disney is evil, I just think they are exceptionally good business people, and if you let them get a toehold on your child it could very well be all over. That said, this Tinkerbell fairy costume is pretty darn nice, as long as you explain that fairies really aren't the same as princesses. Then again little girls probably know this better than you already. This would also apply to this cool Little Mermaid costume. Neither of these are too bad, and I think girls would have a lot of make believe fun with them.

Lifestyle Dream Kitchen - $139.99

Ok, so not only does this play kitchen come with a whopping 27 piece set of accessories, plenty of storage space for play food and other sundries, and real lights and sounds for the appliances, not only all that, but it is just fantastically stylish. I mean come on. I wish my real kitchen was as nice as this. Honestly the only downside I see to this toy is the price tag, which I admit is a bit steep. But hey, some kids are really really into playing like they're in the kitchen. I think this is a very cool playset.

Slurpee Machine - $24.99

I don't think this needs any explanation. It's a slurpee machine. Everyone wants one of these.

Cranium (various games) - $16.99

Cranium is one of the few companies really bringing family fun back into board games. Sure there's a lot of great complex new games for adults coming out of Europe, but in terms of something that can appeal to the young and old, these guys know where it's at. Their games for the most part require only one thing, that you be willing to be a little goofy... and as soon as you do, you'll have no end of fun. These specific games are their ones specifically geared towards parent and child play, but their entire lineup is definitely worth a look.

X-Games 20" Moto-bike, Flybox Ramp - $149.99, $49.99

This is just plain awesome, and any kid would thank you for the coolness points associated with this sweet bike and ramp set. Admittedly once you get this stuff for your kid they'll probably get a bit crazytown on you, and possibly start wanting 'real' and expensive gear. Until then though, I think this is a great starter set into the world of extreme sports. Which of course is where I know I plan to push my children.

Don't buy the helmet or pads; that's for chumps...

Action Figures - Really whatever strikes your fancy. It's weird with the action figures this year. I mean action figures are really all about the licenses. The big ones this year are the obvious one: Justice League, Batman, Ben 10, Avatar the Last Airbender, Ninja Turtles, and Spider-Man. Despite the moderate success of Cybertron, Transformers have a pretty weak showing this year, Not that they don't have toys, just crappy toys. Next year after the movie comes out I'm sure they'll be on top of the world as will Spider-Man probably once again. Some of the standby classics like Star Wars seem a bit flat to me this year. Really for my money I'd say skip the figures this year. But that's just me.

Matchbox - Mega Snow Rig Monster Mission - $34.99

Matchbox still makes some lame-o toys, just look at their "pop-up" series. But I think, or at least hope, that maybe they're finally going to stop trying so hard to be Hot Wheels. Seriously guys, face it, you'll never be Hot Wheels. So when I see something like this Mega Adventure set start to show up I think its a very good sign. It's kind of like a cross between the Fisher-Price Rescue Heroes series, and 80s G.I. Joe. I just think this looks super fun to play with. And for added bonus, the vehicle all comes apart and can be reassembled differently. Fun.

Hot Wheel's Radar Gun - $24.99

It's a Radar gun... it reads speed up to 100 MPH. What wouldn't you do with this...

Nintendo Wii - $249.99

I honestly think the Wii is the toy of the season. Granted I don't think you'll be able to get one. EB Games, Wal-Mart, Target, everyone has sold out of pre-orders. Be careful if you are actually pre-ordering it, cause you might not (ie probably won't) get it by XMas. The Wii, along with the PS3 WILL be sold out everywhere. I'm personally not even going to bother trying to get this until Februrary-March. For a whole slew of reasons including the price, the virtual console, the motion sensitive controllers, the overall fun factor, the degree of 'casual games' that are going to be offered for the Wii, and much more, I think it will be the most fun new console to play with. I'm very excited to get my hands on it and I think you should be too. I don't know if this really is the game system to break that wall between children and adult gamers that industry people have been trying to tear down but it's definitely a step in the right direction.

Check out more information on the Wii here, and here. When you buy it you'll want an extra, Wii-Mote ($40), extra nun-chuck ($20), possibly the classic controller($20), at least one new game ($50), and probably a virtual title or two ($5-$10), so try out this handy online Wii calculator to see how much you'll be set back. For me, it's less than $500 for everything, and that's a heck of a great deal considering how much fun I'm expecting to have.

So yeah, maybe it's not technically a Xmas deal, as you almost assuredly won't be able to get one, its still part of my holiday picks for '06.

Nintendo DS Lite - $129.99

The DS has, to me at least, proven itself to be an incredibly robust and innovative game system. I sometimes get to play my girlfriends DS, and I always have fun. There are some great games out for it now like Animal Crossing, Nintendogs and Mario. But if that's too much there's always the Gameboy Advance SP (now with a brighter screen) which is running at a very reasonable price of $79. Anyhow, I'd go for the DS if you are thinking about the Wii, but not sure you want to spend the cash until a few more hands on reviews are in.

This will make a super great gift for any kid.

MiJam Drumsticks - $22.49

Ok, admittedly I have no clue whether these work well or not, but they definitely look like they'd be fun... sadly I suspect they're utter garbage. Ah well, at least they're pretty ipod white. And frankly if they did work really well, you'd be driven crazy by some kid playing them ALL the time. Let's be thankful that they probably will break in a week.

Ok, so there you go. Finally at the end of the Toy's R Us Big Toy Book catalog. Note that the prices I mentioned are pretty much all the TRU Sale price valid until Nov 22nd. I'm not trying to make this a big TRU advert either. Obviously go around a check out other stores for prices or sales, I just found their Xmas catalog pretty handy, and they really are a one stop shop. So all done, and I only ended up with what? like 17, or so recommendations. Hmm, well that's just my take on the toys of the season. Obviously this isn't necessarily the predicted best sellers of the season. No where on this list did I mention TMX Tickle Me Elmo.. ok, no where unitl right there. Also things like Power Wheels, while always super sweet, aren't really realistic toys, no kid really ever gets a Power Wheels for Christmas. Well, no kid except that one down the street who you all secretly envy and hate. Honestly if you're a parent, don't make you're kid into that one spoiled kid on the block. I'm fine with a degree of consumerism, but avoid Power Wheels. There's more to say of course, always so much more, but this is where I stop.

This post is getting dangerously past feature article length and into ridiculous territory so I'll stop. I hope everyone enjoyed my '06 Holiday Buyers Guide. Maybe I'll do it again next year. Later Gators.

morality at play

This morning I was surfing around looking over the day's news, and I came across this sweet human interest piece on Yahoo News, about a man in New Jersey who found a bag of some 300 letters, many unopened, in a plastic bag washed up on the Jersey shore. The letters were addressed to God, mostly care of a one time assistant pastor at a local baptist church. This pastor died in 2004, and the thought is that he had collected these letters in order to pray for, and pass the messages along to God. The reporter who wrote the article seems to have done due diligence in trying to get to the bottom of the story, calling the church where the minister once worked, trying to locate the deceased minister's wife, and even visiting the couple's former residence and speaking to their neighbors. But he didn't seem to get anywhere with it. No one knows where to find the minister's remaining family, and the church had no comment. Weird eh? I mean I would assume that the church would want to take back the letters and actually do something with them, even just read them and pray. It' s really a very tragic story to find all these desperate prayers. I can understand that perhaps the person who threw the letters out to sea saw it as a romantic and reasonable thing to do. Trust the fate of the letters to the will of God and nature. But the story is also pretty sad, they quote a number of the letters in the article, and it's some heart wrenching stuff.

The story is sad and sweet, and while I'm not expecting a Dear God situation, I did expect something of a happy ending. The letters should get back in the hands of the church, or at least someone who really cares and has a plan for them. Unfortunately though, the man who found the bag, Bill Lacovara, is actually planning on selling the letters on eBay.

What!? eBay! are you serious! That's unconscionable.

Maybe I shouldn't be so surprised; it's really just sad.