With Great Power: The Stan Lee Story

Video by YouTube Movies

Assassin VS Amazon Warrior Showdown

WARRIOR SHOWDOWN - Season 1 - Round 1 - Fight 3 - Assassin vs Amazon

Catherine Annette

Could not help myself from posting another video in this series after finding out that the actors in the Warrior Showdown actually had some pretty impressive credits behind them and some have gone on to more "fame" after Warrior Showdown.

Assassin - Alex Heartman

Amazon - Catherine Annette

Fight Choreography & Direction - TJ Cencula

If you missed my first Warrior Showdown video post (Biker Chick VS Scottish Highlander) then please check it out HERE.

Biker Chick VS Scottish Highlander

Video by Warrior Showdown 

Season 2 - Round 1 - Fight 4 - Biker Chick vs Highlander

Biker Chick - Catherine Annette
Scottish Highlander - Dustin Szany
Fight Choreography and Direction - TJ Cencula

WINNERS CHOSEN BY POPULAR VOTE!!! 
For alternate endings, behind-the-scenes content & more visit www.warriorshowdown.com

Wells Fargo Bank Robbery Roll a D6 Danielsan

Doom Death Destruction and Other Fun Stuff

I have sat on my blog butt and contemplated the lint in my virtual bellybutton instead of writing for the last few days and that is more than long enough. It seems like weeks already but it has only been a short time since I posted my critically acclaimed and highly circulated "Don't Throw The Tail Away That's Good Eatin'!". I refuse to bask in the daily flood of fan mail and cannot afford to sit on my laurels. Hmmm, actually sitting on my laurels sounds sort of painful as my laurels are fairly sensitive and quite possibly one of my erogenous zones. Oh, um, yes, as I was saying, I will not continue my self-imposed mini-hiatus from Bonez and vow to break the lag between posts today with this erratic and esoteric item for your blog consumption. Bon Appétit.

R.I.P. Yvette Vickers, former Playboy bunny (1959) and SciFi B-Movie Queen.

I know that Mr. Camping is totally wrong on his hysterical predictions of the end of the world because I am going on a long motorcycle ride with friends in Kentucky the weekend after. It's sort of like knowing it is going to rain if you wash your car. Know what I mean? It's quantum mechanics or something or other like where the heck do those missing socks and g-strings go when they disappear out of the dryer? It's frakking bewildering, isn't it? I just know that these poor evangelical fundamentalist doomsayers are going to be spending that weekend hiding from the press and recanting their predictions because of some "new" biblical evidence that was found on May 22nd. Sheesh. Hey, this is not the first time these sort of party poopers have done this and worked themselves up in a lather over bizarre biblical interpretation. I say let them interpret to their hearts' desire. That's their right and I will defend it to the death but don't go telling me about how scary and mean and vengeful their loving God is who will only save a few hundred thousand lucky souls while the rest of the 6.5 billion people cook on the slow roasting spit of eternal hellfire and unimaginable torment. Yeah. Wow, now isn't just like a God of Love for you? So damn fickle to say the least. Love ya one minute and burn ya the next. These are the same folks that probably think it was cool that God struck Japan with the earthquakes and tsunamis .... and are excited about all the death and destruction God is going to exact on America (according to them) ... wow, sounds more like they are praising their boogie man, Satan, and not their "amazing loving God of mercy".

Call of the Dead = Apocalyptic Zombie Killing Goodness

Who best to handle a pesky zombie infestation than a cast of certifiable zombie killers picked directly from a drooling fanboy's fevered geeky wet dreams? Who better can you think of to kick fetid maggot packed zombie boo-tay than the team of Sarah Michelle Gellar (Buffy The Vampire Slayer), Robert Englund (Freddie Kruger of Nightmare on Elm Street fame), Michael Rooker (Merle Dixon on the fantastic AMC series The Walking Dead based on Robert Kirkman's popular comic), and Danny Trejo (Machete). Man, that's even better than the original U.S. Olympic Basketball Dream Team of 1992! All four fictional "heroes" are playable characters in the new Call of Duty: Black Ops storyline that was inspired by B-movie horror master George A. Romero who also shows up as one of the Living Dead. I wonder if we get to behead him, too. Based on the Grindhouse production quality of the trailer I expect this to be full of lame one-liners and over the top gore and extreme fun. Can't wait to get my turn at some hack slash and blast a la Machete-style zombie massacring. Sweet!

Modern Warfare: Frozen Crossing

I Enjoy Sharing My Xbox 360 Video Game Experience

The Sexy Viral Tahiti Cora Xbox Video: The Making Of (Update) (via The Mary Sue)

Big Daddy Comes Alive

Big Daddy (BioShock)

http://volpinprops.blogspot.com/2009/09/big-daddy-bioshock.html

Leave Luck to Heaven

On September 23, 1889 a young Japanese man by the name of Fusajiro Yamauchi started a small company called "Nintendo Company, Ltd". The original intent of this company was to manufacture handmade hanafuda playing cards. Nintendo was successful in this venture and through the years became one of the dominant players in Japan for playing cards, even being the first Japanese company to make cards out of plastic.

However, in 1956, current company president Hiroshi Yamauchi paid a visit to the United States to meet with the US Playing Card Company, then the world leader in their industry. Yamauchi was stunned to find a small and sparse office as the headquarters of an industry leader. Yamauchi decided at that time that Nintendo needed to move in other directions if they truly wanted to grow as a company.

The playing card market hit a saturation point in 1964 around the time of the Tokyo Olympics and soon the company's stock plummeted from 900 yen a share to 60. Nintendo soon began to branch out into other ventures, trying to find the market that was right for them. Over the years they dabbled in taxis, love hotels, a TV channel, instant rice and many other products. It was the release of a toy called "The Ultra Hand" in 1970 that pushed Nintendo headlong into the electronic entertainment industry.

Seeing that there was money to be made in electronics, Nintendo secured the Japanese distribution rights for the Magnavox Odyssey. At the time the Odyssey was the only game console on the home market, predating even the Pong units.

Based on the success of the Odyssey and the desire to more fully enter the market, Nintendo developed a series of dedicated home consoles known as the "Color TV Game" series. Many consoles were released in this series, beginning with the "Color TV Game 6" which offered 6 variations of a game called Light Tennis which was heavily based on Pong.

This continued with "Color TV Game 15" which contained two controllers and 15 variations of Light Tennis. The series continued with "Color TV Racing 112", a racing game that came complete with a steering wheel and gear shifter. Next up was "Game Block Kuzushi" which was a console based on Breakout. The final unit in this series was called "Computer TV Game" and was a port of Nintendo's first arcade game.

In conjunction with the Color TV Game series, Nintendo began manufacturing arcade games, beginning with Computer Othello. They also tried their hand at the hand held console market with a series of games known as "Game and Watch".

Realizing the potential of the home market, Nintendo set to work on creating a home console that would be both affordable and powerful. Their original designs called for a 16-bit processor and a floppy disk drive to be priced at $75-100 USD, but these designs proved too costly to implement and Nintendo soon found themselves rethinking their ideas from the ground up.

On July 15, 1983, Nintendo released their system in Japan. This toy like apparatus was designed to be a fun diversion for the family to enjoy together, hence the name FamiCom (Family Computer).

The FamiCom came complete with two hardwired controllers (the second of which had a microphone built in) and an expansion port that would later be used for various add-ons such as the Zapper, Power Pad, a keyboard for creating BASIC programs and a cassette drive, amongst other things. Most of these additions were never released outside of Japan.

The initial runs of the FamiCom contained a number of problems involving systems freezing and locking up. In order to generate good faith with consumers Nintendo announced a total recall of every unit and re-designed the motherboard. Once these issues were worked out the FamiCom began to shine.

The FamiCom was an unmitigated success and by the end of 1984 Nintendo had sold 2.5 million units in Japan alone. Bolstered by the influx of cash and the prospects of an even better venture overseas, Nintendo began to investigate releasing their console in the American market.

Hoping to find a partner for this venture, Nintendo first approached Atari to see if they would be interested in the distribution rights for their console, then known as the Nintendo Enhanced Video System. Atari was initially interested in this prospect until the unveiling of Donkey Kong for the Coleco Adam at the 1983 Consumer Electronics Show. Atari wrongly believed that this adaptation was an indication of Nintendo being duplicitous and asserting themselves to multiple companies. (However, Nintendo had no role in the creation of this iteration of Donkey Kong.) This mistrust caused Atari to pass on the deal. Subsequently, Atari was nearly destroyed by the "Great Video Game Crash" shortly thereafter.

Nintendo worked on a mockup of what would be their American console, this time branded the Nintendo Advanced Video System. However, analysts disliked the machine and speculation was rampant that it would fail.

Nintendo went back to the drawing board and ultimately created the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) which ended up being the released console. Two major points were settled on prior to releasing the unit stateside.

First, Nintendo did studies and market analysis on the USA and determined that playing with their family was not what most gamers envisioned. Therefore, they removed the reference from the console's name.

Secondly, because of the recent market crash and the fear that video games were a fad that had already passed, Nintendo did not want to brand their console as a video games system. So the initial sets came bundled with a robot called Robotic Operating Buddy (R.O.B.) as well as a light gun called the Zapper.

The initial release of the NES came on October 18, 1985 when 100,000 units were set loose on New York City. Nintendo, aware of retailers' concerns with carrying yet another game system, offered to purchase back any unsold units, therefore putting all of the financial risk on themselves. The system flew off the shelves and by the time of the nationwide release in February of 1986, 90,000 of those initial units had been sold.

Before long the system was a worldwide success and Nintendo found themselves at the forefront of the gaming industry. Whereas a few years prior Atari had been synonymous with gaming, Nintendo now held that mantle. Kids did not play video games, they played Nintendo.

One of the pack-in games for the initial release was Super Mario Bros., the game that more or less created the platform genre and served as the introduction to gaming for an entire generation of American youth.

Apart from the overwhelming success of Super Mario, many other game series which continue to exist today began their life on the Nintendo, including The Legend of Zelda, Final Fantasy, Metroid, Kirby and many others.

In order to maintain strict control over the games market, Nintendo placed inside the NES a chip known as the 10NES, which acted as copy protection for the console. In order to legally manufacture a game for the NES a company had to submit their game to Nintendo who was the sole manufacturer of cartridges for their system.

Some crafty third party vendors devised methods for bypassing the protection scheme and released unlicensed cartridges for the system. However, Nintendo was not shy about taking companies to court for unapproved usage of their system and companies such as Tengen and Galoob found themselves facing the infamous Nintendo legal staff.

As the NES aged, Nintendo felt that they needed to expand their influence. Remembering the success of their earlier Game and Watch systems, Nintendo set out to create a hand held gaming system.

The result of this was the Game Boy, a pocket sized gaming console that had graphics comparable to the NES, though on a 2 color screen that lacked backlighting. The vast library of games as well as the inclusion of some of Nintendo's flagship titles helped the Game Boy dominate the hand held market even after competitors released machines that were more impressive from a technical standpoint.

Nintendo's control of the home market was so strong that even after more advanced systems had been created, (namely the TurboGrafx-16 and Genesis, known overseas as the PC-Engine and Megadrive) many retailers held off on stocking them.

However, Nintendo was not content to rest on their laurels and in 1990 they released the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (Super FamiCom in Japan). The SNES was more powerful than the NES and ushered in the 16-bit era.

Though Nintendo maintained their lead, they began to feel the bite as Sega began to draw players away from Nintendo. This was never more so the case than the release of Mortal Kombat for their respective systems.

Mortal Kombat was a sleeper hit at the arcades, a graphically violent fighting game that involved the killing of your opponent in gruesome and detailed methods. When the time came to release the game to the home market, Nintendo refused to budge on their "no blood" censorship policy.

As a result the Sega version of the game outsold the SNES version by 3 to 1, even though Nintendo's console offered better graphics and sound. It was becoming apparent that Nintendo was not moving forward and progressing with the wants and needs of their audience.

On December 9, 1993, congressmen Herb Kohl and Joe Lieberman held Congressional hearings on video game violence. As a result of this hearing, the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) was created.

Because a ratings system was now in place for games, Nintendo allowed the adaptation of Mortal Kombat II to reach the SNES unmolested from its arcade form. This version outsold the Sega release by a substantial margin.

As time wore on, the move towards 32-bit gaming and 3-D hardware became inevitable. Not wanting to be left behind by the next generation of games, Nintendo sought to both extend the life of the SNES and work on a new console that would fill the needs of modern gamers.

Nintendo had received assistance from Ken Kutaragi at Sony when choosing the sound processor for the SNES. In the end they had settled for the Sony SPC-700. Because of the connections they had formed when making this decision, Nintendo approached Sony to see about creating a CD-ROM add-on for the SNES.

This addition was to come in two stages, the first being an add-on for the SNES, the second was to be a brand new console that utilized both Nintendo and Sony's hardware and upped the ante for what a home system could do.

Nintendo found themselves unhappy with the terms of the contract they had signed with Sony, feeling that Sony retained too much control over the titles made in the SNES-CD format. Because of this they began working in the background with Philips to the same ends.

At the 1991 CES, Sony was shocked to find that Nintendo did not announce their partnership, but instead announced their partnering with Philips. This was an unforeseen and stinging blow to Sony.

This move turned out to be an enormous mistake for Nintendo, as the wrath of Sony played out in the next generation of consoles and Nintendo found their control of the market slipping away. Nintendo's joint venture with Philips, the CD-i was a complete failure. Nintendo entered into lawsuits to prevent Sony from continuing on with their project, but ultimately it came to fruition.

The codename of their original joint venture? The Playstation.

Bo Shuda

I have all sorts of neat stuff to write about at the moment and many cool posts coming up soon. However, I've found myself a bit pressed for time as far as opportunities to write are concerned. Ultimately, this is not a bad thing, as my lack of time for writing is mainly due to the increased time I am currently spending tending to my own needs.

It could be stated with some degree of accuracy that I am a massively obese monster, content on consuming all who get in my way. Each morning after a quick "bath" comprised of a washcloth stuck to a toilet brush, I roll my way down to the car hoping that I don't once again crack the frame of my door as I attempt to hurl myself through.

Okay, so maybe that's a tad of an exaggeration, but the point is that I have a few extra pounds hanging off of me. Well, an opportunity afforded itself this week and I am now being taught a decent exercise regimen with a three-month target date for reaching my ideal weight. (For the record, 200 is my ideal, although they want to add 10 pounds of muscle to that.) So my goal is to try and lose my 30 pounds by the time Radiohead rolls into town for their concert.

Admittedly, I'm a lazy bastard. I work in IT. I write and play video games for hobbies. If I had to describe myself in one word, sedentary would be as good as any. But what I lack in overall enthusiasm I more than make up for with an almost masochistic need to push myself to my limits when necessary.

So there you have it. I will have a couple of new posts up in the next few days including my amazingly exciting trip to the taping of a reality show.

Amped for the Transformers Game

Even though I am over 112 years old I still think video games are the best entertainment in the world. Being immortal has its advantages and I have owned every video gaming system since they were first conceived. In fact, I invented the video game myself. Since I have no need for fame or money I gave the idea to a nerd named William Higinbotham in 1957. He foolishly never applied for a patent since he never thought the idea would take off and lost the rights. Dimwit! I'm glad he's not an immortal.

Futurama: Raiders of the Lost Arcade

Long live Futurama! Watch as Fry nearly saves the future Earth from invasion by the planet Nintendo 64 while listening to Rush. Filled with gratuitous animated game-like violence and enough references to make any old school gamer smile, this clip is sure to please all pixelated pirates and defenders of Earth alike.

Woman Falling Through Bubbles

With your mouse, you control the bikini-clad female body as it falls and contorts to the ever-changing pattern of bubbles. It really is mesmerizing and bizarre but you can't help but keep doing it. This first appeared some months ago on Bad Monkey No Banana, and I can't recall where I found it originally. I've had several people ask me for a repost after I removed it from BMNB, so here it is. CLICK HERE.