Belated Anniversary

I just realized now that this here blog has hit its 2nd anniversary. It just slipped my mind while I preoccupied with things like bouts of depression, skin health, reading material queues and other stuff.

I'll say it now in spite its tardy notice. Happy 2nd Anniversary!!! for my blog.

This late announcement is brought to you by the concepts Cyberpunk and Imagination. :)

Painful reading

It has been a while when I go on a ranting mood of late. It was just a matter of time or something to tick this dog off and I found it.

This blog I encountered was brought to my attention through one of my many emails from my former coworker at the call center I left last June. I gathered it was spread through most call center circles given what that abominable blog contains in terms of content.

I was about to sum it as let the thought pass through from one ear to the other ear as if you're flossing your teeth metaphorically. I would correct the image some more: Its more like flossing between your ears with a combination of barbed wire/razor with a major dusting finish of broken glass. That's how painful I would call it.

Reading through it shows how elitist the blog writer is, either that or the blog writer has the power to inspire loathing and hate based on the writing and his all too obvious contempt to the impoverished masses or those connected to the call center business. I mean he uses the race "orc" to denote the poor masses who are way below his economic and social class standing which is like to that writer, universes/realities apart in his perception.

I just find it a mix of being blatant and irreverent in terms of putting down people because they're not dealt the same hand like he has. It part amusing, part annoying and in some way a paradox of whatever content this person is spewing out. The grammar in it is pretty bad enough to drive one's own grammar editting abilities to shame or overdrive. This writer is so full of himself in his kilometric rants about the people and how he brags about the lifestyle he's in as well as himself. He's an arrogant narcissist of a very high order.

I just wait to see the day when this joker gets taken out on account of well-known dislike of the masses. Either it be by some sniping, drive-by shooting or just lynch mob, there would be one less bigot in the world to populate here. Such a waste of space that person is. *Pulls out a VORPAL rifle and zaps a number of poor clueless mooks passing by his properties perimeter.*

Sci-Fi Pics...

..which were inspiration to me and my gaming buddies back in high school. Never thought it would be a long while that I would be encountering them again. These books were pretty much around in National Bookstore, especially where I saw some of them last where the Quad branch was pretty cramped and it got a lot bigger now as part of the renovated Glorietta Mall that most of us who visit Makati see it today as.

These books I'm referring to are the so-called "Terran Trade Authority" books that started back in 1978 up to 1980. Four books were made for this visually impressive series. It has even pretty good fluff writing that goes with the gorgeous pictures these hardbound books pack. But besides them there were other sci-fi themed books possibly under Hamlyn Publishing that was released at that time that deal with other sci-fi staples like aliens and so forth. Some of the visual designs have migrated to actual 3D virtual reality through the game Homeworld.

This unexpected trip into memory lane was brought about by my usual search habits in forum boards and the search led me to the images which brought my grade school and high school memories to the fore out of familiarity. Some of the weapons technology that was used in my RPG campaign which later become the galaxy spanning Twilight Empire universe was derived from these books since it was also chockfull for technical specifications and explanations though some of it is laughingly crude by current standards of high science-fantasy.

For memory lane sake and for those who want to see what I mean, I'll leave you with these links to see for yourselves. They are located here and here. For the second link, click on the sections "Spacecraft of 2100-2200 AD" and "Laguna Wars". Have a great trip looking at them and reading them up.

Beneath The Surface, Lies The Future

Those were the words spoken for the opening credits of early 90's show, seaQuest DSV. It was touted by some viewers are the underwater equivalent of Star Trek during the airing of Star Trek: The Next Generation. seaQuest DSV was under executive producer Steven Spielburg for the 1st season though he bailed out after that.

The reason I talked about this show was that I just recently acquired the Season 1 DVD collection of this series. It may me remember another similiar show from an earlier era, Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea, a show aired in the 60's. I happened to catch a few episodes on Sci-Fi channel before while I was in the US back in 2001 to 2002. Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea was also producer to other shows of that time like Time Tunnel, Land of Giants and Lost In Space.

The show's premise was about the adventures of a super submarine funded and created by the UEO, or to be more thorough United Earth Oceans Organization, a new worldwide organizationm which replaced the United Nations by the year 2018. The chief designer and subsequent captain of this fantastic vessel is Captain Nathan Bridger played by Roy Scheider of Jaws fame.

The seaQuest is actually labelled a Deep Submergence Vessel or DSV in short. Its a massive 1000 ft long vessel which happens to be crewed and staffed by a mix of military and scientific personnel since the seaQuest doubles as both a mobile research platform and a peacekeeper of the seas given its array of weaponry at its disposal.

In spite its futurist presentation of the future, the show lasted for 3 seasons total. Reasons for its demise or the idiomatically termed "Jumping The Shark" was caused by a number of reasons which range from lack of support by Spielberg, casting problems, to changes in story direction which started from believable to ludicrous.

The show was pretty much a high inspiration item for regards to the exploration of the Earth's oceans as Star Trek did for space exploration. Regards, such shows fuel the imagination and inspiration for people to explore the world around them. The spiritual successor to seaQuest DSV is this website which I feature in an old post before.

Been in a cave...

...or a dark doghouse for that matter. I was just surfing around for some Iron Man pics and then noticed this different visual design created by Pat Lee of Dark Minds fame as well as those recent Transformer comics before Dream Wave Productions folded.

I was amazed to note that the signatory red and gold armor of shell head got a heavy retouch in the vein of Japanese mecha designs. I was hooked on them pics available on the net. The reason I found out for that was it was in a storyline labelled "House of M: Iron Man". House of M was the talked about storyline in the X-titles which heralds some changes for the shakers and movers of the mutant population in Marvel. This was brought about by Scarlet Witch's probability manipulating powers which can now extend into reality shaping. The reasons for the reshaping I have no idea of but those in the comic book know would fill in the blanks.

After a YM chat with my brother, I was also informed that the fallout from the House of M storyline have resulted in a major mutant population reduction od drastic proportions which would somehow alleviate Marvel Human's paranoia of the mutant menace. Of course, I quizzed my bro if Alchemy was among those erased. I jokingly referred him to be the "Harry Potter" of mutantdom in that case. A brief background, Alchemy was a character created and submitted in Marvel's create a mutant contest about 2 decades or so as I recall. This young bespectacled male mutant has the ability to transmute organic and inorganic material into different elements among the periodic table. Some enterprising trolls wanted to use his abilities to make him their goldmaking slave. X-Factor comes to his rescue and Alchemy has decided to take up a course in chemistry to better understand his mutant powers. That was many years and he has resurfaced in the footnote comic to House of M "The 198". I also sense a Highlander vibe in this one since the most powerful of mutants would be under the single digit exclusivity of the Seven as analyzed and foreseen by the Master Mold Sentinel ways back. I just hope no retcon mishandling would happen in the later stories set in the X-Titles.

The other slightly surprising twist I was told by my bro that the US govt in the Marvel Universe have adopted plans to use Sentinels to protect the US though with a twist, they'll be foregoing the standard AI systems to operate them and introduce the human element back by having them piloted. It seems that the US govt has been all too aware how Sentinels have run amuck when they still use onboard AI systems which seems to me they have learned their lessons from the Terminator movies for sure. I wonder if the Red Ronin armor would make an appearance to be pitted against these manned Sentinels. If the series lasted long enough, some evolution of the manned Sentinel program would result to some scaled down units that would be on the level of Mandroid armor or better like Iron Man or Guardsmen armor, if appropriate tech was procured to do so for them.

Done with my brief rant and info dump displaying my comic geekiness. I am a comic book tech geek to better underline that.

Being out of the comic book loop would be attributed to lack of economic unit flow to sustain a comic book habit and some other personal reasons which restrict my movements of late.

I'll mosey on while I have to deal with my writing block which held me down bigtime. I need something to get me out of my rut for a while now.