Flash Friday: itty bitty Flash

Happy Flash Friday everyone!  I know it’s been forever since I’ve done one of these, but I really haven’t been picking up too much Flash merchandise lately.  Of course the big news is the Flash television show, but there are a lot of sites covering every detail of that.  Today’s update is happening because I ended up at the mall with some family.  As we’re leaving the Hallmark I see a familiar red outside the corner of my eye.  I turn to get a better look and see shelves of small plush characters.  Sure enough there is a scarlet speedster in the mix.  As my mind is processing finding a Flash toy in a Hallmark I hear, “What are you waiting for, you know you’re going to buy it.”  My family knows me well.

 

I can’t lie; the Flash itty bitty is fucking adorable.  There isn’t a whole lot you can say about a tiny plush figure.  He runs 6.95 and Hallmark was running some kind of special if you wanted four of them.  They’d even pack them in what looked like a fast food drink carrier.  There are four DC itty bittys; it isn’t hard to guess who the other three are.  That’s right Batman, Wonder Woman, and Superman are all included. 

The majority of the line is dominated by Disney.  Classic Disney characters, princesses, and Monsters Inc are all already on the shelves.  Star Wars will be joining them in September.  The itty bittys are cute, have a low price point, and are covering pop culture icons.  Too me it seems like these are made to compete with Funco’s Pop series. 

See you next Friday for even more Flash Friday goodness!

Metal Beard's Rules of the Sea

So lets say you've seen the Lego movie, fallen in love with Metal Beard, and want to follow his Rules of the Sea.  The problem with that is the movie only showed you one of those rules, "Never place your rear end on a pirate's face."  What are the other Rules of the Sea?  Thankfull the Lego Movie Facebook page posted all of Metal Beard's Rules of the Sea.  This is probably to get people excited for an upcoming BluRay release but they're too much fun not to share.

Table Titans Kickstarter

Scott Kurtz is more famous for PVP, but he’s been producing a second strip based around and group of people playing Dungeons and Dragons.  The strip switches its focus between what is happening in the player’s lives to what is happening in their game.  Scott took everything he learned about comics and storytelling over the years on PVP and produced a fantastic strip.  I’m biased to the subject manner, but Table Titans has become one of my favorite web comics.

The first volume of Table Titans is now on Kickstarter.  We’re at the midway point in the Kickstarter and the book is already fully funded.   That means it’s time to watch the stretch goals.  There have already been a couple of things unlocked, like a playable adventure module so you can send your party on the same adventure the Table Titans went on.

In addition to the book and the stretch goals there are also a couple of additional items you can pick up by donating at a higher pledge level.  Pinny Arcade pins, beholder dice bags, shirts, and vinyl figures are all available if you have the funds.  If you like role playing games check out Table Titans, if you’re already a fan make sure you check out the Kickstarter. 

Gwar: The Road Behind

"You know I snuffed a million planets but I still found time to cry."  I meant to attach a video to yesterday's update but I wasn't really thinking to clearly. 

 

Thank you Dave, it would be impossible to count the hours of enjoyment you've given me.  

RIP Dave Brockie, Oderus Urungus

There are several news reports coming out now that Gwar lead singer Dave Brockie passed away yesterday.  He was found sitting in his chair.  According to the results drugs, suicide, nor foul play are suspected.  There will be an autoposy to deterime the cause of death.

I just found out myself minutes befomre writing this update, so it may ramble a little.  I had to go back and look up when Corey died because it seems like it was just a little while ago; but that was back in November of 2011.

Dave was funny, intelligent, and of course vulgar as all hell.  I first discovered Gwar not long after Scumdogs of the Universe came out and have been following them ever since.  Somewhere tucked back in my closet is the first shirt I ever wore to a Gwar show, its mostly pink from when someone tried to wash it.  Gwar is easily the band I've seen the most live.  The few times I had run into the guys, they were all incredible. 

My thoughts go out to Dave's friends, family, and bandmates.  There will never be another person like Dave Brockie. 

Medieval Land Fun-Time World

From the Bad Lip Reading channel on Youtube, this is the trailer for Medieval Land Fun-Time World.  Sure it may look like a very popular fantasy series on HBO, but I assure you this is something completely different.

All nonsense aside, I needed a good laugh today and this helped.  Thanks BLR.

ANAmap

Today’s update goes out to all those Game Master’s out there creating maps for your players to loot their way through.  Dungeon Masters, Storytellers, or whatever your game system calls them put a lot of time into running their role playing games.  One of those time consuming things can be creating maps for your locations.  Sure graph paper has been the old stand by for years but there are other options out there.  The ANAmap creator is one of those things.

The ANAmap tool is a free map editor.  It’s simple to use too.  The editor has a list of items you can add to a map; clicking on a space adds that item to the map.  Once you have everything laid out the way you want to you can add text to the map.  Then you can export the entire thing to a PNG and print it off for your next game session. 

There isn’t a whole lot you can say about the tool.  It’s incredibly simple to use, super convenient, and free.  I’ve already started using it for the game I’m running.  Check it out for yourself by clicking HERE. 

Aaron Allston

I feel like a horrible person.  Today’s update is going to ramble for a little bit, so I apologize in advance.  To start with we have to go back a little more than 15 years.  I was in the service and living in a tiny dorm room with no cable.  Because I worked odd hours I was usually up all night.  I watched a lot of VHS tapes since there isn’t much to watch at 2 a.m. even when you have cable.  I watched a lot of the original Star Wars trilogy.  That led me to reading a lot of Star Wars books and I hated most of them.  There were a few authors I did enjoy though and my favorites quickly became the Wraith Squadron books Aaron Allston wrote for the X-Wing Series.

I was spending a lot of time on X-Wing related message boards and eventually started putting together a pilot costume for myself.  Then a small North Carolina convention rolled around and Aaron was going to be there.  I brought the first Wraith Squadron book for him to sign and went to his speaking events.  He was the warm, funny writer who was far too nice to the idiot dressed like an X-Wing pilot and reeking of booze.  We seemed to be hitting the same convention circuit so I saw him a lot. 

Each time I saw him I brought one novel for him to sign.  He asked me about it probably the third time I saw him.  It was obvious I had all the books, why didn’t I just bring the whole stack at once?  I told him something along the lines of I didn’t want to be rude.  He found it funny, since my normal convention mode was that of a loud, boisterous drunk.  The insides of my X-Wing books document my first meetings with Aaron.  They go something like “Good to meet you”, “It’s nice to see you again”, “It’s nice to have a reliable stalker,” etc.

He would laugh at my outrage.  I had told him he was the only Star Wars writer that seemed to understand that a character didn’t need to be a Jedi to be interesting.  I’ll never forget how much he laughed when I told Michael Stackpole that Michael ruined the character Corran Horn by turning him into a Jedi.  It was really fun to make Aaron laugh.

By this point we talked about a lot more than Star Wars.  I had fallen in love with his Doc Savage inspired character Doc Sidhe.  We’d email regularly.  There was a period where I was trying to replicate a coffee/chocolate drink from his novel and we laughed about how poorly some of my experiments had come out.  We talked about roleplaying games and any other nonsense I could think of.  I always looked forward to hearing from him and it was even better when we got to talk in person. 

Life happened.  I stepped away from the Star Wars fan community.  I stopped going to conventions as much as I could when I was single.  I didn’t spend all night in my email blasting off messages to friends all over the world.  I drifted out of contact with Aaron without realizing it.  I was reading a Star Wars rpg thread on a message board last night and I just froze.  I didn’t want to believe what I had just read and went scrambling for an official word on the matter.  It was true, my friend Aaron Allston had passed away on February 27, 2014. 

Not that me knowing sooner could have changed anything of course.  It makes me feel like I somehow betrayed our friendship.  How the hell did I not know?  Rest in Peace Aaron, you were far more wonderful to me than I ever deserved.  You were a true friend and I already miss you.

BabyLit

I am eternally grateful that my son loves books.  He’s not quite at two yet and he’ll sit down with a pile of books around.  Because of this I’m always on the lookout for new books that I can give him that are going to be fun for his parent’s to read him and ones that will be educational for him.  This weekend I found the charming BabyLit on the shelves at my local Target.  There in the 0-2 section was Alice in Wonderland, Pride and Prejudice, and Dracula.

I don’t think it’ll surprise anyone that I immediately checked out Dracula.  A missed the line on the cover that said, “A counting primer by Jennifer Adams,” so I wasn’t really sure how they were going to make Dracula a kid’s book.  Inside were wonderfully illustrated pages counting things like wolves, rats, and castles.  The characters were all there too. 

The concept is wonderful.  The books teach things like numbers, colors, animals, and weather.  The illustrations are charming.  It’s almost like an inside joke for the parent’s; they see elements from these classic books while still getting educate and entertain their children.  Check out the BabyLit website for more about their lineup.  It's worth looking at even if you don't have a little reader of your own, the site sells other items with the wonderful artwork form the books.

Blue Dungeon Tiles

I’ve been rolling dice and filling in character sheets for a very long time.   Over that time I’ve seen a lot of different table set ups.  As some roleplaying games have become more and more dependent on having some sort of representation for players and their enemies.  There are numerous products out there to help build dungeons; maps, white boards, and tiles are all very popular options.  There is a project up on Kickstarter right now that combines a few of these ideas.

Blue Dungeon Tiles are pre-printed tiles that act as miniature white boards.  The Kickstarter also states that permanent marker can be used on these and then still erased by covering that marker with an erasable one and then erasing both.  The basic set is 48 tiles that contain rooms and hallways with solid blue walls and borders.  The blue was chosen so that black markers will show up on both the white empty space and on the blue spaces.  The blue also matches blue painter’s tape, so if you need to tape pieces together it will look seamless.

As of this writing the Kickstarter has 48 days to go and has already raised 6,000 of it 9,500 dollar goal.  There are two sets of “expert tiles” that are currently set as stretch goals.  These expert tiles have more specialized designs like curved walls or diagonal hall ways.  There is also good number of add-ons that you can include with your pledge.  If you are looking for something new to bring to your gaming table check out the Blue Dungeon Tiles on Kickstarter by clicking HERE.

Godzilla Extended Snickers

I knew the Godzilla marketing was going to be hitting pretty heavy soon.  I was not expecting him to show up in a Snickers commercial.  My favorite part is the warning at the bottom of the screen that says "Do Not Attempt".  What aren't we supposed to attempt; partying with Godzilla or driving an ATV in a Godzilla suit?

 

The extended version of this masterpiece is posted above.  I can't tell you how many times I've watched this already.