ZEBURAMAN VS WAAAAAAAAGE!!

I just wasted nearly 3 hours watching the worst movie I've seen all year. The Dark Knight? More like The Darsh Knight. There wasn't a single thing that got me going "woah!" in the whole picture. Heath Ledger did alright as The Joker- nothing incredible, but he did a decent job. I really don't understand how people can say that no one else could've played that part when it's such a basic role and didn't have anything that other actors couldn't have brought to the table. That's not even to disrespect him either, but The Joker was just another regular bad guy in my book.

Batman still doing the "dark" voice is annoying as hell. I couldn't take it seriously in the first movie, and it only got worse here. I'M GOING TO KEEP TALKING LIKE THIS, EVEN IF YOU ALREADY KNOW MY TRUE IDENTITY. And Two-Face...I had to pause the movie when he first appeared because I was laughing so hard.

There weren't any gags that I laughed even a little at. None of the action scenes impressed me. None of the IMAX shots wowed me. I wasn't even expecting to be blown away because I know better than to do that with a movie that got people beating off to it as much as this. And here I thought Batman Begins was going to be the boring one of this new Batman series. Nope. Well, ok they're about even.

This isn't a joke entry or anything either. I did not like this movie at all. I kept checking my email and other sites during the many "quick we have to find x person!" scenes, and when the movie was over, I ejected the disc right away, put it back in the Netflix slip and put it in the mailbox. And it's sunday morning, and the mailman doesn't come until monday afternoon, so it'll be in the box for a while. That's how much I didn't want this thing in my home any more. I gave it 1 star on Netflix, and 1/2 a star on Flickster on FaceBook since that's as low as you can go. I'm dead-serious: Elektra didn't bore me this much. That at least had a stupid factor that had me laughing from beginning to end. Here, it's just an overblown budget movie that took itself too seriously and tried to throw in little bits that made you question society and humanity. Wow, how deep. Really.

I think another reason I couldn't get into The Darsh Knight was because I can't stand superhero movies. X-Men was ok, X-Men 2 was pushing it, and X-Men 3 is better left for dead. I didn't like any of the Spider-Man movies, especially both sequels. Iron Man, I really wanted to like since the character always interested me, but that one didn't have enough Iron Man in it- they could've just called it Tony Stark and gotten away with it. Fantastic Four...fuck both of those movies. The first one is THE worst comic-based movie I've ever seen. Both Hulk movies? Ugh no.

The only superhero movie I've ever seen isn't even based on a comic. It's mother fucking ZEBRAMAN:



Don't let Takashi Miike's name on the poster fool you- the movie's excellent, and I wish Zebraman had appeared in The Darsh Knight and made everything good. I would say "better", but that's saying it was any good to begin with.

Ok, enough of talking about things that make me mad. Though there's one more thing. I lost yet another Aaron Wild thing auction yesterday. He went for $41(!), and I -know- it's because I've been making videos of these guys for YouTube. There are a few more listed right now, and if I lose any of these ones that are up as of this typing, I'm going to put him on hold unless I find an insanely low BIN one like I did with Max and Goat Boy.

Man they need to make some Zebraman toys. I wouldn't care if Hot Toys or Medicom made a 12" figure and charged their usual $150+. I'd buy one in a second.

Speaking of 12" toys, did you see the upcoming Dutch from Predator by Hot Toys? This thing's crazy:





I'm really tempted to pre-order one, but it's about $160-180 on most sites. But god would that look incredible in-person. 'definitely want to get one of the Predators by Hot Toys in the next month or two now that I decided on a great bass that's $220 cheaper than the Schecter I wanted. I got to play a slightly lesser model at Watz Up yesterday and I was really impressed. The neck on it wasn't as wide as I was expecting, and it was a lot smoother than the Schecter's. If it didn't come in an ugly camo green with stripes[???], I would've probably put it on layaway.

Kairi's birthday party is today and I think a lot of people are coming. Hopefully, from my standpoint, it goes better than last year's where I missed out on a lot of things because I had to keep doing stuff for people and even missed them singing her Happy Birthday. But this time I don't want it to be sang since Kairi hates that song and starts crying as soon as she hears it. Besides, her birthday was over a week ago. I don't want my little Monk to be crying when she has all kinds of cool presents around her.

Oh, in retaliation to one of my friends on YouTube mentioning me in a video of theirs, saying that I have some of the best videos, I made this for them:

PUSH THE BUTTON!

Kairi woke up about 35 minutes ago. It was so sad seeing her walk out here crying, holding her Wubbzy blanket in one hand while she was hugging her Wonder Pets Ming-Ming with the other. I think she had a bad dream since she wouldn't go back to sleep when I put her in our bed. She just wanted me and now we're watching Pixar Shorts.

The guy I bought the IG-88 figure from sent me a message saying the figure was sent back to him from the post office and the box was completely crushed, ruining IG-88 inside. That blows so much, but he was nice and gave me a full refund. I still want the figure, but I opted for a Dunny I liked instead. I'm going to use the rest towards HOPEFULLY an Aaron figure. There are 3 up right now, and if I don't win one of them, I'm going to be pissed. I don't get why he suddenly jumped in popularity. The order always seemed to go Moishe, Bernard, Emil, Goat Boy, Aaron and Tzippy. Maybe I made a mistake in uploading videos showing off the figures on YouTube...

This showed up on eBay a few days ago:



I emailed the seller asking if there was anything inside the magazine that mentions new Olivia figures coming out and he said there was just an ad for the show. That'd be rad if they released a whole bunch to go along with the show. It'd mean I could get a new figure instead of holding out for that damn rare one that goes for a stupid amount of money. But that looks like a figure on the cover of the magazine, and not a character model from the show. Or does it? The show's done in such a bland CG style that it doesn't look like the usual CG shows on these days. Man I hope this means new figures. Now if only they'd make some of the Backyardigans too.

As far as the new bass goes, I still plan on getting one, but I might be leaning more towards an Ibanez EDB like I used to want. The two main reasons being that the neck on the EDB400 I played 2 years ago is fucking incredible and I could play anything effortlessly. The other reason is that EDBs are very cheap on eBay. Like...1/3 the price of the Schecter I wanted cheap. But the risk there is not being able to play before you buy. Sure I could always file a dispute with PayPal, but those always take a while. Maybe I'll go to the music store down the street this weekend and see if they have any EDBs in-stock that I can try out and see if they're still great. I swear though, every EDB on eBay is less than $400, usually less than $300 even. But I've went through bass info over the years hearing that heavier bodies are better, and apparently the EDB models are plastic. Eh, time to go on a bass board and ask what the geniuses over there think.

Awww, now she wanted to go to sleep, but wanted to kiss Moishe and Emil (or as she calls him, "The chicken"). She's such a sweet little Kai.

Yo it's 3030.

Damn. Aaron went for over $30 and Olivia went for well over $50. I said I wouldn't bid more than $55 on her, and I didn't. So I didn't win. And when I saw Aaron going for more than I paid for Moishe, I just didn't bid at all. But there's another one listed right now, so maybe I'll have luck with that one. It just sucks to me because the seller of the one that ended yesterday was really cool and took time to send me extra detailed pictures showing if there were any paint defects on the eyes or anything. 'feel like I wasted his time now. But I think I'm going to hold off on the Olivia figure unless I can find a super good deal on one sometime down the road. But it's just such a sweet little figure when you see pictures of it that you can't help but want it right away. If you haven't read the books, I've only read Olivia Hels With Christmas, and it's one of the cutest kid's books ever. Even with there being like 3 or more books in the series, and this is the only exposure I have to her, I love that little pig. 'need to start watching the cartoon.

We didn't do a whole lot for Valentine's Day, but went out to a good Chinese eatery we haven't been to in a while. I made the mistake of ordering fried rice, which is a huge plate there. Actually, I told the guy that I wanted white rice but he was new and he didn't seem to speak much English, but I didn't complain. I got killer spring rolls, and just typing that made my mouth water. No one has spring rolls like these guys do. Then we went to Target where the Mrs. found a Mighty Mugg Ewok and put it in the cart immediately. I also won her the Gingerbread Dunny before we left, so these were her two presents. The Ewok, Teebo, is creepy as hell since he looks like a hamster that was walked in on when he was going to the bathroom. Wicket at least looks happy.

I had no clue that Mountain Dew Slurpees had ginseng in them. When I went to pick my flavor, I looked over the Mountain Dew logo and saw that one of the main 2 ingredients was ginseng and said out loud, "whatthehell, it has ginseng in it????". I think that's one of the most unexpected things I've ever seen.

Kairi's eaten so much these last few days, and you can tell that she's growing. Her face has changed a little bit, but you can't see it unless she's talking. Her mouth movements and expressions look a lot different from how they did just last month. And her hearing and vision's only getting even better than it already was. My hearing's incredible, and it surprises me when she can hear something I can, that I know barely anyone else could, and she goes, "wassat?!". And with her vision, she can see airplanes far off into the distance and points them out when I can't see it unless I really focus. Man I hope she has excellent senses all around and keeps them for a long time. I don't want her to suddenly get horrible vision when she hits 4th grade like I did.

Oh yeah, I saw the anniversary edition re-releases of the original Ninja Turtles at Target too. It was so weird seeing the same figures at the same store from almost 20 years ago. 'be lying if I said I wasn't a little excited to see that. All 4 of the turtles were there, and I was -this close- to getting Donatello. It took a few minutes of walking around and looking over everything before I put him away and decided to hold off and get the NECA version instead (sorry old Don!). The two things that did it for me were that the NECA one is just so much cooler and has great articulation, and I'd almost feel bad opening this re-release because of how classic the packaging is. Now, I can't stand people that leave their figures and toys in the packaging. The main reason being that there's always someone out there who would've paid just as much for it to open it and appreciate the toy instead of leaving it just to be looked at in a neutral state. But I have to admit, these guys looked really good in their oh so 80s/90s packaging that I actually thought about ways to open the figure without ruining the card. April was on it in the bottom-right corner too! When they're released, I'll definitely get Slash, Bebop and Rocksteady. 'don't know about Shredder, Splinter or April. Casey Jones and the Foot Soldier are on their way too, but I'll have to look at them again for the first time in ages before I make up my mind. The turtles also came with a dvd of an episode from the show. Even if it's just one episode, it's a nice extra. I didn't like seeing the $9 price tag for these guys since they were $5 back in the day. Hey, if they're gonna look the same and have an extra dvd that barely uses any of the disc space, it should be a little cheaper than $9!

Hmm...it was also weird to see the huge brown rack of weapons that the turles came with. I forgot how many were on that thing. Donatello came with a scythe-like weapon, two different katar, throwing stars, and other things. That always bugged me that their weapons were brown, and I still don't like it now. Donatello's makes sense since he fights with a wooden bo, but all the other weapons are metal. I can remember 5 year old me asking kids at school if they thought it was stupid that the turtles had brown swords and throwing stars too. Most of them agreed.

Piso mojado.

Kairi turned 2 on thursday. She was in a grumpy mood for most of the day, but you could tell that she had fun. She was excited as hell to sit in her car and go around the living room. She barely leaves it still. When we get back home from doing whatever, she goes straight to the car. She'll eat in there. Play with toys in there. And manages to lay down in there too. That was probably part of the reason she was so grumpy while we were out- she was probably thinking about her car the whole time. She was fine when we went to a park, especially since we were the only ones there and she got the whole thing to herself. But when we took her out for dinner at Red Robin, she was fussy and cried when everyone sang her Happy Birthday. Poor Kai. Even at Toys R Us we were going to let her get any one toy that she wanted, but she kept saying no to everything. She settled on a big paint set, but wasn't that excited about it until we got back home. Kairi fell asleep for about 35 minutes or so in the car and when she woke up, she was in a super good mood at Borders. It's so cool how kids can do that. But she still has a lot of birthday cake left. When she came home from getting her birthday pictures done, Kairi just ate the sprinkles, one by one, off of the cake. She didn't eat any of the cake itself until later that night. She's so cute.

Something else I noticed is so obvious, but it's not the kind of thing you notice much. I was looking at this foam elephant on a wire that she got at the zoo earlier this week. It's just a simple purple and yellow elephant shaped piece of foam that's connected to a long wire with a handle, like a dog on a leash. This is such a basic concept, and Kairi loves it. How she plays with it is equal to how a giddy teenager is when they get the newest model of phone. It really is the little things that give [most] people the most in life, no matter what their age is.

I ended up getting some water behind the LCD screen of my camera last night, and spent an hour looking up tips online for how to fix the problem. The most common solution I found was putting the camera in a bag of rice, covering it up with said rice. The rice should absorb the water, though I don't get how it'll absorb water that's behind an LCD screen when the rice is on the outside of it, unless the screen's just that thin. The camera works fine and all, but having this big spot on it that's lighter than the rest of the screen is annoying. Luckily, pictures and video come out normally, so it's not a big deal. I was planning on getting a new camera within the next couple of months anyway. My friend James is always up for whatever I sell, so I can probably sell this one off to him and buy a new one, only paying half of it with my own money. It's nice that good digital cameras for casual users are getting cheaper. Today at Target I saw a newer Nikon model on sale for $90. 'had equal MP to my camera, 8.1, but was faster and less bulky.

In the off-chance that things are going ok enough for me to get a new bass in the next month or two, I can't decide between the two versions of the same bass. It's the Schecter Stiletto Studio-4 Bass. Unlike my last bass, which was the Schecter C-4 Custom, I've actually played this one prior to buying it, and this sucker is incredible. The only thing I didn't like about it at first is that it has a multi laminate neck instead of a natural finish. On most basses that have the multi laminate neck, my hand gets stuck because of the gloss or paint, and I can't play some faster tracks as a result. But this one I got to play on didn't give me any of those problems, and here I hadn't played in almost 2 years. The problem of buying comes in on the color decision. There's honey satin:





and see through black:



The honey satin, even if it might look boring in those pictures, is gorgeous in-person. But I don't like the gold hardware since it tends to chip away over time, or just plain discolor. The black doesn't have that problem, as you can see, but...I really don't like black when it comes to guitars and basses. They look so boring. The one pro to this is that stickers and stuff like that don't look as weird since black goes with everything. And even if it'd mean spending extra on the sweet honey satin number, I COULD buy black parts and replace the gold ones, but I really want to just be happy with everything right when I get it. 'suppose that might be asking for a bit too much though since the bass sounds incredible as it is. I know I said that even with playing all the instruments I have over the last 10 years, that I never really enjoyed doing it, for some reason I've been really back into music lately and analyzing the hell out of some tracks that I want to learn how to play. Like Hot Cake by Dragon Ash, it's so easy but now that I'm in the mood, I'm picking up on a few little bits that I never heard before now. And here I've had Viva La Revolution since god damn late 2000!

'played the bass at Guitar Center though, and it always makes me laugh to see people really into their own playing no matter how bad they are. There was this one kid playing a really nice bass- the kind that a professional would use, and he was playing generic metal tunes, very sloppily. It was kind of embarrassing. Kairi could do better than him. In fact, she did, on drums anyway. She loves bongos, conga drums, anything like that. Since she loves the whole King Louie scene from The Jungle Book, she finally got to play out the I Wanna Be Like You number on bongos. It was so cute seeing her all happy while smacking the hell out of those things.

Oh, as I'm eating concha, I just remembered. If you can't eat a whole lot in one sitting like me, don't even try to eat a muffin from My Favorite Muffin. I tried to eat a chocolate one the other day and I felt sick within 7 bites. These things are the size of standard muffins you can get at Winco, but holy crap, they weigh at least twice as much. My cousin Daniel made these chocolate chip pancakes a few weeks ago, and I tried one, and couldn't go beyond 8 bites, and those at least had something other than chocolate in them. Though to be fair, I think he just added a little bit of pancake mix to a bag of chocolate chips. I swear to god, one of those things could kill a village of diabetics. These muffins? They're capable of taking out entire countries, easy. No wonder I find so many bags from there with half-eaten muffins at work when I'm emptying conference room garbage. I totally understand now.

Before I'm done with my little break before doing my sit ups and push ups again, I just figured I'd share what I ordered in the last 2 days with leftover money from the Muggs I sold. These are two figures I've wanted for a while, shirtless Kit Fisto ('comes with his lightsaber of course):



and the best IG-88 made so far:



I have an idea of something to do with a few figures that'd make a good picture, and these two had to be involved.

'back to working out and praying that no one else bids on either the Wild Thing Aaron or the super sweet Olivia figure. With the money I got for Rain ($168!!), I'm going to use $60 of it for the Mrs.' eye exam, $40 for my contacts soon, and the rest towards Aaron or Olivia. Ok, Aaron most likely won't go for THAT much (I think the average for him is $30), but Olivia's tricky. I really wish I'd did the Buy It Now for her a few weeks ago for $15 when I had a chance. It was 2 days before I got paid though, and the guy needed the payment within 3 days. Bastards. Originally, I wanted to use the money towards the Master Replicas Animal photo puppet, but I'm going to put him on hold for a little longer, if ever. I know a few friends on Flickr have shown some just amazing shots of theirs, but others look pretty bad. Animal's unlike Kermit- he requires some fixing up in order to make him look better. And if I spend $150+ for a replica, made by a company called "Master Replicas", it shouldn't require any fixing up. Then again, the Muppets line isn't looking good since there still isn't any new news on Fozzie, and I guess they only have another year left on the Muppet contract. All this time and we've only gotten 3. Wow.