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Thursday, March 31, 2011

Hangover Thursday: F'ing Mini-Bottles

It’s time again for another Hangover Thursday, how’s your head? As promised this edition is going to be Megacon related but not in the way you’d probably expect. While this is a story about booze, it isn’t anything about wild Megacon after-parties. I’m not quite sure I want to share some of the ridiculously stupid things I’ve done at those parties. Today we’re going to be talking about my newest attempt to get the F’ing Monkey name out there, mini-bottles.


I got the idea months ago. It was one of those nights where I call Brandon out of the blue with no regard to his personal schedule. Usually when I’m struck with an idea like this I don’t bother with pleasantries or anything, so the conversation goes went something like this:

Brandon answers phone, “Hello?”

“So, I’m thinking we buy a bunch of mini-bottles of liquor, stick our website url on them, and hand them out to creators at conventions.”


Yeah, that was it. No “hi, how are ya?”; nothing but a face full or random Ken delusions. I’m such an ass sometimes. But beyond that, we both agreed it was a good idea. So I spent about a week researching websites that printed labels, that in and of itself was a lot to take in. Finally I found a site that had the size I wanted and was reasonably priced. So I ordered 80 of them. Actually I ordered 20 of 4 different types. So now I have plenty of stickers for F’ing Rum, F’ing Tequila, F’ing Vodka, and F’ing Whiskey.


The next stop was to the liquor store. Having not done this before, I knew I wasn’t going to need 80 bottles. Honestly, I while I was pretty sure people would want the bottles, I wasn’t 100%. It was quite possible that it’d come off creepy and I’d get a lot of people turning me down. So how many bottles I bought was going to be a gamble. I decided 40 would be a good number. I was the only person in the liquor store when I walked up to the counter and said, “Yeah, this is going to sound really strange. I need 40 mini-bottles.”


The clerk took it like a champ though. I was only able to get 8 of the Tequila; we wiped out their entire stock on that one. Then we moved on to the rum, whiskey, and vodka. The back shelves where all the little bottles are held had these big gapping holes in them as each choice I made pretty much depleted all of what ever brand I picked. We laughed at what his manager was going to think when he came in the next morning. Just for me, I grabbed 3 mini-bottles of Baileys. I figured fixing up the gas station coffee I was grabbing on my way out to the convention center would make the morning better. CYA Note: I added the Baileys once I got to the convention, note before.


So it is the Thursday night before the convention, I’m in my kitchen, and I’m staring at 38 bottles. I didn’t pick the highest grade alcohol because I was on somewhat of a budget. Even shopping the deals I had dropped about 64 bucks. The doubt set in again. Did I just spend all that money on stickers and booze for nothing? This was either going to go over really well or I’d have to throw a party and have all my friends help me get rid of the bottles.


So how did it turn out? Fantastic. I gave the bottles to the writers/artists as I was interviewing them, an incentive to answer my silly questions. Some people happily took them and showed them off to other creators. Obviously I didn’t offer them to the people who don’t drink. Some people politely declined, I was not offended. One person told me they didn’t want alcohol on their breath while interacting with fans and I totally understand that. I ended up handing out somewhere between 10-12 bottles. Which means I’ll have plenty when I start the next round of interviews at Heroes.

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Megacon 2011 Part 2

Today is part two of the Megacon interviews. As seen in part one, we did things a little differently then most comic sites. I’ll quote from yesterday:

The interviews that are about to follow consist of three questions. They relate directly to the holy trinity of That F’ing Monkey; Comics, Games, Booze. The questions were the same for everyone. Comics: “What do you have coming out?” Games: “Are you a gamer, if so what are you currently playing?” Booze: “You walk into a bar, what do you order?” Also, none of the responses are direct quotes. I’m definitely learning here, next time I’ll bring some kind of recorder so I can give you verbatims.




Ron Marz
1. Comics: Artifacts, Witchblade, Magdalena
2. Games: Video games no, but softball and tennis
3. Booze: Guinness, Mojitos


Dan and EVS

Dan Didio
1. Comics: Flashpoint! I know this was my point to demand Wally West news, but I behaved.
2. Games: Not even a little, no time for it.
3. Booze: Depends on the time of day; bloody Marys in the morning, beer in the afternoon, and vodka martinis at night. It’s like the Sphinx riddle made awesome!


Craig Rousseau's sign says he'll be back in 5 minutes.

Frank Cho
1. Comics: Brutal, 50 Girls 50, an unannounced script from Marvel, and restarting Liberty Meadows! Yup, Frank has the rights back so break out the midget circus bears!
2. Games: Not a video game player, although he had recently played scrabble. We probably should have introduced him to Words with Friends.
3. Booze: None. In what is one of the most interesting stories I heard all weekend I learned that Frank is allergic to alcohol. Apparently he knew alcohol had a strong affect on him, but after having like three drinks one night he realized how bad it really was. So it is Sprite from now on.

Phil Noto

Phil Noto
1. Comics: Wolverine Jubilee is just wrapping up. There is another Marvel project that hasn’t been announced yet.
2. Games: Even with 2 Xboxes and a PS3 Phil doesn’t have the time to game. He also has a copy of Bioshock signed by the Development team.
3. Booze: Vodka Tonic

Can't have a Megacon picture without George Perez!

Geoff Johns
1. Comics: Did you know Geoff can’t comment on DC stuff without their approval anymore? So that might have been my first faux pas as an interviewer. We’ll just say Flashpoint.
2. Games: Halo Reach.
3. Booze: Despite rumors about some kind of drunken shuffleboard game Saturday night, Geoff went with the very safe answer of water.


And that is it for the interviews. These weren’t the only people I talked to, but I wanted to save some of it for other conventions. I can’t say anything about the Gail Simone and Ethan Van Sciver mini, but you better believe we’ll talk about it once we are able to. I wanted to again thank people like Ethan Van Sciver, Jimmy Palmiotti, Phil Noto, Joel Carroll, Tim Townsend, and Mike Maihack; you all made the con incredibly enjoyable. Come back tomorrow for Hangover Thursday to see something even more booze and Megacon related.




Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Megacon 2011 Part 1

The dust has settled; the booze has been drunk. All that is left are sore feet and debit card receipts. That’s right Megacon 2011 is over. There is always a short depression after a convention. All the adrenaline and excitement have worn off and your friends that are scattered across the country have gone back to their homes. The next three days are all going to be Megacon related. Expect interviews today and tomorrow; Thursday will be something else entirely.


Before we get started I suppose I should give some explanation of what you’re about to read. If you’re looking for news on the Aquaman announcement or the Rob Granito smackdowns, look elsewhere. The interviews that are about to follow consist of three questions. They relate directly to the holy trinity of That F’ing Monkey; Comics, Games, Booze.

Why would I ask comic creators about video games and drinking? Quite frankly I found it fascinating. So after spending the day being asked why in issue 214 of Captain Floppy Pants, the Ass-Chap Marauder had red suspenders instead of orange; I came up and asked something even more inane. I think I got some really good reactions and a big thank you goes out to everyone I got to talk to.

The questions were the same for everyone. Comics: “What do you have coming out?” Games: “Are you a gamer, if so what are you currently playing?” Booze: “You walk into a bar, what do you order?” Also, none of the responses are direct quotes. I’m definitely learning here, next time I’ll bring some kind of recorder so I can give you verbatims. Hopefully this is interesting to someone other then me, let me know if you liked them.

Tim Townsend

Tim Townsend
1. Comics: Current X-Men story arc (issues 7-10), 2 issues of Avengers.
2. Games: None currently. Tim was a huge World of Warcraft player until his account was hacked twice. After receiving little support from Blizzard he quit.
3. Booze: Wine or after talking to the bartender seeing if they have anything they recommend.

Jimmy Palmiotti

Jimmy Palmiotti
1. Comics: Tattered Man, Jonah Hex, Trailblazer in June. (A side note on this one, we’ve already give Jonah a ton of love here, but Trailblazer is a time travel western. Yeah, we’ll be talking about that when it comes out.)
2. Games: A WWII first person shooter, possibly one of the Call of Duty games.
3. Booze: Always checks what is on tap. A fan of light pilsners.

Dave Johnson and Dan Panosian

Rev Dave Johnson
1. Comics: Covers for Spaceman, BPRD, Abe Sapian mini, and a Lobster Johnson mini. And the coolest bit; his art will be used in a Venture Brothers episode that is set up like an episode of Behind the Music. I got a peak at some of it; and it is just as awesome as it sounds.
2. Games: Likes to wait until games are super cheap. He just finished the first Bioshock two months ago.
3. Booze: A big fan of Hefeweizens (Blue Moon, Shocktop, etc) and Pickle Back a shot consisting of pickle juice and whiskey.

Seriously Impressive Time Machine

Dan Panosian
1. Comics: An upcoming issue of Jonah Hex, DC’s Doc Savage
2. Games: An old school Tekken fan, but wants to play DC Universe Online
3. Booze: Jack Daniels

Is it the Stig or his American Cousin?

Frank Tieri
1. Comics: Writer for Marvel vs Capcom 3, Wolverine and Hercules mini, a story in the Captain America 70th anniversary, and the Fear Itself Thunderbolts issue.
2. Games: Is currently writing and working on two different games he can’t talk about. Needless to say he’s jumped right into the games industry.
3. Booze: Beer and Jagermeister are standbys. Used to be a big fan of 7&7s and once in a while likes a flavored vodka drink.


That’s it for part one of the Megacon review. Come back tomorrow for the second half of the interviews and Thursday for a Megacon themed Hangover Thursday. Just so you know I wasn’t alone in this madness, my wife was a big help keeping this all straight.  So I'm going to use this space to thank her.

Monday, March 28, 2011

Tell Me a Story...

Good Monday peoples of the internet. Today I am going to spin a yarn pertaining to the reasons I don't play very many video games. That's right I am a nerd that does not really enjoy the nerdly passion of the digital avatar.

You see I am a fan of story in all things. I live by the ol' Warhawk motto of "Do it for the story" (for those that don't know what the hell a Warhawk is it was the squadron of drunkards and rowdy crazies that Ken, myself, and a few of the followers of this very blog were a part of in the Rebel Legion {in fact Ken was the head drunkard of this bunch of Lucas rejects}).


Anyway to get back on topic...

Video games have come lightyears in terms of storylines and user immersion since the time that I started really playing them during the NES years.

The problem comes from the fact that I am not all that good at said games, because I don't play them that much. It is a vicious cycle. So being a fan of story it is frustrating for me to progress the narrative. Take Mass Effect for example. Ken swears by the game and it stands as one of his all time favorite games. I keep trying to see the story in its entirety, but I continue to get frustrated when driving that damn APC around and getting one shoted by Thresher Maws. So yeah I put the game down for a few days that then turn into a few weeks.

Now there have been some exceptions to this cycle of rage and cooling down. Batman: Arkham Asylum and Ghostbusters: The Video Game come to mind. These are games that even when I began to get annoyed I soldiered on and continued to play because I was good and hooked on the story, or in the case of Batman I also loved the game play. Even when the tedium of hunting down all the Riddler challenges started, I still enjoyed being Batman for a few hours.

So now you know that I am way behind on the field of video games. I am looking to pick up Dragon Age: Origins and Marvel Vs. Capcom 3: The Fate of Two Worlds at some point.

So what do you think of video games and story? Let your F'ing Voice Be Heard in the comments or the facebook page.

On a side note, I am in the championship game in the Comic Hockey League so cheer on the Coast City Lanterns as they play for the Geoff Johns Cup!!


Reading this week: The Flight of the Eisenstein (Horus Heresy) by James Swallow.


Saturday, March 26, 2011

Penguin Book, #1

I’m out at Megacon today, but that doesn’t mean that you don’t get a Saturday update at That F’ing Monkey. The F’ing Blog update was very clear in saying that I wouldn’t be showing anymore Tales from the Brain Jar for a little bit. But the Brain Jar book is not the only sketchbook that lives in my house. My wife started her own sketchbook in 09 and it has some ridiculously good pieces in it.


Since I am at the convention, this is a very short post. But I bet you can already guess the book’s theme just from the first page. This was done by both Art and Franco of Tiny Titans fame. In a neat collaboration you can see that Franco did the top half and Art did the bottom. Aww yeah penguins! We may be seeing more Penguin Book in the future, so I hope you liked this brief glimpse.

Friday, March 25, 2011

Flash Friday: I'm Lovin It

I really did have a different Kid Flash related post that was going to go up today, but when I got home from work Wednesday afternoon I found two surprises. It seems my awesome wife took it upon herself to do some McDonalds searching for me and not only found the Kid Flash, but she found the Captain Cold also. So I get two new Flash related figures to review and I didn’t have to eat McDonalds to get them! That’s win win right there. The other cool thing about this is I didn’t ask for her to do it, the wife just decided to surprise me with packages of Flash stuff.


As with all the toy reviews, they get a little image intensive, so check it out after the break.

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Hangover Thursday: Moonshine

It’s Hangover Thursday, how’s your head? When I was talking about EverBeer I mentioned that I had a chance to sample a few different kinds of moonshine. These were the kinds that could be used to strip paint off your walls, but most of them did have a taste besides the burn. An interesting thing is starting to happen though; over the last few years moonshine is getting popular. Not just at Civil War reenactments either, I mean really popular.  Note: that wasn't a slam against Civil War reenactments; I was at one the first time I tried shine.


There are numerous sites that not only will give you instructions on how to brew your own shine, but they’ll sell you everything you need to do it. Fermentation buckets, heat sources, connectors, etc... It is all easily available. Don’t want to build it yourself? You can order the entire still. The mail-order stills come in all shapes and varieties. Some of them look like they came from There I Fixed It and others look like they were designed by Keurig.


Before you jump into it, making your own shine is technically illegal. You could legally make your own wine as soon as Prohibition ended and it’s been legal to home brew beer since 1978, but making your own spirits is still frowned upon. Popular belief from home brewers is that it remains illegal because of how highly liquor is taxed (32 percent of the purchase price is tax). So brewing your own is stopping that money from going into Uncle Sam’s pocket. But it is not illegal to own a distiller because you could use it for things like purifying water or making essential oils.


That hasn’t stopped companies from starting up their own moonshine stills. Junior Johnson’s Midnight Moon, Kings County Distillery, Stillhouse Moonshine and many more have started selling their own brand of moonshine. These retail brands are still clear corn whiskey made in copper stills but then they go ahead and refine the process so it isn’t as harsh. You would have to do a lot of drinking to go blind on these; they usually are around 80 proof. I have to admit I haven’t tried any off the shelf moonshine, but it is only a matter of time before I do. Especially that Midnight Moon, some of that just looks interesting.


A special CYA message for today's post. None of the links in today Hangover Thursday go to any of the home brewing stuff, just the commercially available shine sites. Same with the pictures.

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

F’ing Update

You know I thought I had just done one of these, but looking back it that was in mid-December. The site will be going on auto-pilot Friday and Saturday, but every other time I’ve done that the updates have gone through with no problem. I don’t foresee any popping up while I’m at Megacon. There should be lots of cool pictures and information next week with the Megacon aftermath.


Have you been following are Guardian Project updates and started wondering where the second half are? Sorry about that. Those have been more difficult since it requires Brandon and I to get in long phone calls and work schedules haven’t been kind in that regard. I’d expect to see the last three in April.


If you’ve been waiting for the next Tales of the Brain Jar, well that was delayed also. I was trying to do something neat, but I’m not sure that is going to happen. I don’t want to go into details, but if the behind the scenes stuff doesn’t work out you’ll see Tales of the Brain Jar return in late April. The good thing is I should be adding to the sketch book this Megacon.


I’ve talked about merch over and over. Waiting on tax money. Learn from my mistakes, if for some reason your taxes don’t allow you to e-file this year, make sure you sign all your tax forms. So yeah, I shot myself in the foot on that one. I could be asking you what sizes you want to see for T-Shirts right now if I hadn’t messed that up.


I try to keep everything entertaining and sometimes informative. I’ve had a bunch of interviews fall through recently. I promise not to let it bring me down too much. I’ll keep trying and hopefully soon we’ll have some cool surprises.


Damn, that’s starting to sound a little depressing. How about some good news? Recently we’ve been picking up new followers on the site and new fans on Facebook. So let me say I appreciate everyone who takes the time to read. If you’ve passed the site along to friends thank you so much.

Anyway, that’s enough navel gazing. Come back tomorrow and we’ll talk moonshine.

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

There and back again….a Hobbit’s Tale

You could write a book about the long journey it has taken to get the two Hobbit movies made. If you haven’t followed all the ups and downs I’ll give a quick version of the major happenings and delays. I think we can all agree that the Lord of the Rings movies were very successful at the box office, critically acclaimed (together they won 17 Academy Awards) and very profitable for New Line Cinema. So it only seemed natural that Peter Jackson and New Line would jump right into making the prequels. Except Peter Jackson felt that he did not receive everything he had been promised; he sued New Line Cinema in 05. It took two years for them to straighten everything out. Jackson was announced as executive producer of the Hobbit movies and then the Tolkien Estate sues New Line. That suit was settled in 09. So we lost four years to different law suits.


Guillermo del Toro was hired on to be the director in 08 where Peter would act as a second unit director. The two apparently spent a long time working on the scripts. Things looked to finally be moving on schedule. In 2010 del Toro announced he was leaving the project due to the delays causing scheduling issues in other film projects. Suddenly the two movies were without a director. Peter Jackson stepped up as director and things looked to be moving in the right direction again.


Then in September of 2010, the International Federation of Actors issued a Do Not Work order because of New Zealand allowing non-union contracts. For a time it was rumored that they would film the movie in an entirely different location. In late October everything had worked itself out though and the production was kept in New Zealand. January of 2011 rolls around and Peter Jackson has to undergo surgery to repair a perforated ulcer. Luckily he is okay, but this delays things again. In February of 2011 Christchurch was hit with a devastating earthquake, causing more then 30 billion in damages to the city.


I know this seems like a long list of horrible situation after horrible situation, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Filming began on the Hobbit Monday. Sure, it’s expected to take up to two years to make the two movies. We aren’t expected to see the first release until late 2012, but it’s still exciting because things are finally moving. In fact, those two pictures of Jackson you see up there? He just recently posted them to his facebook page. Yeah, I’m excited, bring on Smaug.

Monday, March 21, 2011

Fucking HD...

Yet another quick post. Due to RL responsibilities the Monday Cake Fucker posts will be sporadic at best until further notice. I know that my millions of fans are all crying out in anger, but I will post when I have a chance.

Saturday, March 19, 2011

Mass Effect 2 Arrival

We’ve known it was coming for months now, but the release date has finally been made public. The Arrival DLC is being released for PC, Xbox 360, and Playstation 3 on March 29th. Seven bucks will get you one more jaunt on the Normandy 2 with all your companions. This is touted as the last DLC for Mass Effect 2 and its story is meant to bridge ME2 with Mass Effect 3 (due out at the end of this year).


Arrival’s story says, “A deep cover agent is missing in Batarian space, after reporting evidence of an imminent Reaper invasion. Shepard must travel to the edge of the galaxy, rescue the agent, and discover the truth behind the Arrival. Uncover new research and 3 new achievements in this spectacular new adventure for Mass Effect 2.” Someone else finally believing that the Reapers are out there will be a welcome addition to the game. If you remember BioWare said that the Cerberus Daily News would start up a week before the DLC, so we should be seeing some news stories very soon. Hopefully they will give us more clues as to what is happening in Arrival.


The biggest surprise leaked so far is the return of Admiral Hackett. If you’ve only played ME2 then you missed out on that gravelly voice hitting you up all the time in ME1 to take time out of your duties and to help out the Alliance Military. It might have been that I was drawn to the character because he is voiced by Lance Henriksen, but I really liked Admiral Hackett. From the released images, it looks like you’ll be talking to him face to face for once too.


Anyone else excited? I’ve got 3 Commander Shepards that can’t wait to get back into action.

Friday, March 18, 2011

Flash Friday: The Chemo-Creature

In 1967 Filmation created an hour show called the Superman/Aquaman Hour. This hour long show was made up of short cartoons hit CBS on Saturday mornings six years before the Super Friends did. The show consisted of Superman stories in the first half hour, Aquaman in the last half, and a rotating guest star short in between them. Today we look at the first of three Flash’s cartoons that ran on that show, The Chemo-Creature.


“A scarlet costumer ejects from his ring and in a blur of motion police scientist Barry Allen becomes the Flash, world’s fastest human. The Flash, whose speed allows him to vibrate through solid walls and conquer the barriers of time and space in the pursuit of evil doers. The Flash, scarlet speedster for justice!” That’s the intro that runs at the beginning of the Flash cartoon. If you read about the show in other places you notice the length of the shorts is listed as either 6 or 7 minutes. That’s because the people calling them 6 minute shorts are skipping the introduction.

The short may be only 7 minutes, the article is a little long.  Hit the link to keep reading.

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Hangover Thursday: Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

How is that for timing? The day we talk about beer and booze just happens to fall on St. Pat’s. Here in America Saint Patrick’s Day is one of those binge drinking holidays where people who only go to the bar 3 or 4 times a year show up and get themselves shitfaced. While it is sometimes fun to watch the amateurs wreck themselves please be careful out there. If you do go partaking tonight, stay safe and get a designated driver. You know the police will be out in force too, so save yourself a possible ticket and/or accident. Stay away from the green beer too, that’s just tacky.


Since today has become a celebration of Ireland in general and everyone will be claiming to be Irish tonight, I’m putting up a link to a song by The Peelers about wanting to be a little more Irish then you really are. My Great Great Grandmother was off the boat Irish as were my Great Great Great Grandfather’s parents, as you can see I’m pretty far removed. So I’ll have to admit to being a bit of a Plastic Paddy myself. That doesn’t stop my Grandma from telling me how Irish we are all the time though.  Anyway, check out the Peeler’s, their albums Boots and Suits and Liquordale are pretty damn amazing.


CORRECTION:

Also a quick note, sometimes we all make mistakes. I’ve updated the Hangover Thursday from, a few weeks back about the Skels. I had wrongly attributed an album by THE SKELS to them. On top of that I also updated to the correct website, which recently released a preview track from their upcoming album. Thanks again to the anonymous commenter who corrected me.

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Bloody Pulp Books: Cal McDonald: Detective Tales Volume 1

I got some fantastic news this morning; Blood Pulp Books is now taking pre-orders for Cal McDonald: Detective Tales Volume 1. I realize I just threw a bunch of different things at you all at once, some of the names you may recognize and some may be new to you, so let me slow down and go over just why all of this is a very, very good thing and why I already spent 10 bucks before I finished my first cup of coffee.


Bloody Pulp Books is a small book publisher started by Steve Niles and graphic designer Alex Lodermeier. As the writer of 30 Days of Night, Criminal Macabre, Simon Dark, etc…Steve Niles should be a pretty familiar name to F’ing Monkey readers. Don’t think that Bloody Pulp is just going to be releasing comic related books though; their next book is going to be a biography of Lance Henriksen written by Lance and Joseph Maddrey. The book is going to include illustrations by Tim Bradstreet, Mike Mignola, Eric Powell, Bill Sienkiewicz, Ashley Wood, and Bernie Wrightson. How can that not be amazing?


Now that we got Bloody Pulp Books explained, we can go on to talk about Cal. Cal McDonald: Detective Tales is a collection of prose stories about Steve Niles’ famous pill popping detective. This first volume is written by Steve and will have illustrations by Kelly Jones. The book just went on pre-order this morning and only 2,000 copies of this 84 page beauty are being made. The fact that the website calls it volume one makes be very excited because I haven’t even read the first one yet and I already want more.


Now it is possible some people are reading this and saying, Cal who? Cal McDonald is a detective who is routinely pulled into the plots of the paranormal. For some reason it is attracted to him and he sees the things that most people refuse to take notice of. Seeing werewolves and vampires will take its toll on a person and Cal copes with handfuls of pills and what ever other drug he can get his hands on. Take one part noir detective, one part horror movie, and blend them together with a handful of speed and you get Cal McDonald. You can find Cal stories in the Criminal Macabre comic book series or in prose. If you’re looking for the prose, they made it easy on you a few years ago and collected it all in a single volume, Criminal Macabre: The Complete Cal McDonald Stories. I seriously can not recommend that book enough.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Full House Poker

One of the first posts on That F’ing Monkey was me confessing that I had become addicted to the Liar’s Dice game inside Red Dead Redemption. The betting, the guess work, the sound of the dice shaking just before hitting the table…I was hooked. Now I was finally able to shake that habit but I think I may be heading back to the betting table. This week Xbox is releasing Full House Poker on Xbox Live.


800 Microsoft points will get you single player, ranked, multi-player Pro Takedown, and multi-player Texas Heat game modes. The game is based on your Xbox Avatar, so if you ever wanted to sit at a table dressed as a French maid and sit across from a stormtrooper and a ninja, here is your chance. As you play you’ll earn chips and XP. Leveling up lets you buy animations to use at the table and customize your own play area. Level cap is set at 50, so there will be lots of chips flying before you’ve unlocked all the tables, card decks, chairs, etc that are in the game.


Texas Heat is going to be the big winner here; it’s a 30 minute TV-style tournament hosted by Microsoft. They may have different objectives each time, but during the Texas Heat tournaments you’ll be able to earn even more in-game money, XP, and the ultimate in pointless currency, Achievement Points. I’ll make fun of them, but I’ve been lured in by that particular siren song more then once. We haven’t seen the hosted show yet and I don’t think there has been any word yet as to whom the host will be.


I know how to play poker, but I wouldn’t call myself a fan. I’m going to give this a try for two reasons. The first being this could be the ultimate, I need to waste 15 minutes type game. Jump into single player, add to your bank roll and get out; sounds fun. The other reason I’m willing to try out Full House Poker is this 1 vs 100s replacement. I seriously loved Xbox Live’s game show and I’m very disappointed they canned it. If the Texas Heat shows are anywhere near as fun as the 1 vs 100 shows were; Xbox has dealt itself another winning hand.

Monday, March 14, 2011

Did you see the pool?

Just a quick one today folks, as I hit the "awake for 26 hours" mark.



If you have never seen "Clone High" I would highly recommend checking it out.

Reading this week - Survivor: A Novel by Chuck Palahniuk (yep he wrote more than just Fight Club)

Saturday, March 12, 2011

Convention Season

Convention season is upon us. So I figured I’d take some time to talk about what that means for That F’ing Monkey. As of this writing I’ll be going to Megacon and Heroes. Brandon will not be at Megacon, but will be at Heroes. If he manages to find something to go to in Texas we’ll make sure to update the site.


Megacon is a local one for me and I’ve been there many, many times. In all honesty I skipped the last year just because I didn’t see many new artists on the guest list. I’m heading back this year though so if nothing else there should at least be one more addition to the Tales From the Brain Jar sketch book. After the convention we should also be running some interviews. I can’t give anything away yet, but I think it will be a little different then what you see on most news sites.


Heroes is the con I’m really excited about. I’ve only been one other time and I absolutely loved it. Brandon and I will both be there so there should be double the coverage afterwards. Brandon has an awesome themed sketchbook too, we just haven’t seen any of it on the site yet. By the time Heroes rolls around we should have F’ing Monkey T-shirts; which means I’ll probably be walking around with a backpack full of them for sale. We’ll talk more about F’ing merchandise after I get my tax return; just know it will be happening.


Well I guess we can talk mech a little. Shirts are 100% happening, probably starting some time next month. Is there anything else I should be looking into? I’d like coffee cups, but I’d really like to find a company that can do printing inside the cup. Anyway, what cons are you going to? Let me know your mecrh ideas.

Friday, March 11, 2011

Flash Friday: Flash Coffee

Central City and Keystone City are known as the twin cities in the DC universe. Where they are physically in the US, how they got there, and their history is enough to be saved for an article on another day. Many people prefer Marvel’s approach of using real cities in their books, but I like the DC method; especially when those cities are fleshed out. When Geoff Johns took over the Flash the first time he gave Keystone an identity that moved it from a generic superhero city to something that seemed real.  Keystone became a blue collar town full of factories and people who loved their hockey team. I love Keystone, it made me feel like I was back in Detroit.


In the most current Flash relaunch Central City gets the make over. Quoting the first page, “New York may be the city that never sleeps, but Central City is the city always on the run.” It has become a city of people glued to their phones and their coffee cups. Coffee is suddenly like the blood of the city, the references are everywhere. Central City has become the Seattle of the mid-west. It’s a little jarring at first but I can accept it easily enough. Also in my mind the people of this new Central City probably look down a little on the people across the bridge in Keystone. I don’t think I’ve read that in the comics, but in my gut I know it’s true.


Now I love some coffee. Dumping a shot or two of espresso into a cup of black is about as fancy as I get though (unless we’re adding booze, that’s a different story). I don’t want cream, steamed milk, chocolate swirls, etc… No crazy flavors either please; I like coffee flavored coffee. I seriously have a coffee maker on my desk at work because what they have in our break room is not coffee. So from a coffee lover to a coffee themed book I give you…Flash Coffee. Make it happen DC. Seriously, as a product tie in it makes much more sense then Justice League gliders or a pool sinkers game. Throw the logo on some coffee cups and sell it as a set for all I care, this is liquid gold. I’m giving you the idea DC, all I ask is for a free pound or two…

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Hangover Thursday: Foreign Extra Stout

It’s Hangover Thursday, how’s your head? Get ready for it, everything is about to turn green. We’re a week away from St. Patrick’s Day and already the beer isles in grocery stores are prepping for the storm. Tons of people will be grabbing that six pack or cases of Guinness because “It’s that time of year.” And that’s fine, let the holiday drinkers go for the Pub Draught. This year if you want to drink something a little different you’re in luck. This year you can find out what the rest of the world has been drinking, pick up a four pack of Guinness Foreign Extra Stout.


Foreign Extra Stout has been available in the states for a little while now, but I know at least in my area it hasn’t been easy to find at first. Hard to find in America maybe, but this beer makes up 45% of Guinness’ global sales. Originally named West India Porter, it is brewed with extra hops. These certainly change the flavor but were initially there to help the beer survive long oversea journeys. This allowed it to be shipped all over the world, which Guinness started doing in 1801. The other big difference is Foreign Extra is carbonated while the Draught is nitrogenated, so that changes the feel of the beer too. The ABV of Draught is 4.1%, this bad boy has a 7.5% in the states, so there is a little bit more bang for your buck.


So how does it taste? Well you can definitely taste all those extra hops. You are going to get a little more bitterness then you would in the Draught. Don’t let that or the title of “Extra Stout” scare you though, this beer tastes fantastic. All of that roasty, chocolate flavor finishes off dry and a little sweet. I have no idea if this is a permanent edition to the beer isle or a limited time thing so all I can do is advise you to try it for yourself. I know I’ll be heading back to the store some time this weekend to pick up two more four packs.