Monday, September 27, 2021
Star Wars Visions
I am usually a big fan of major franchises like Batman or Star Wars when they get the Manga treatment. The artform is so expansive and gorgeous that any story is only made better by those Japanese visuals set before me. These nine short films are all done by their own directors in their own individual style but each is still set in the far reaches of the Star Wars Universe and heavily influenced by Manga storytelling.
My only critique is that Stars Wars should be more than about light sabers - red vs green or blue and this one has several episodes where not every person follows his path to become a Jedi. In that spirit we do get to meet Boba Fett and Slave 1 but only in his role as a bad guy.
Each animated short is exciting in it's own style and the greater story is marginally connected. The voice actors are also very good and everything is Lucas approved and that allows some stories to go off on their own but not too far from the 'vision'. The one about the rock band was very good.
If you love your Star Wars you will find this series in your travels because it deserves to be seen by fans. The varying styles of animation are always interesting when put to the service of any Manga story regardless of franchise.
Sunday, September 26, 2021
The Story Of The Giant Kitties
When I taught computers many moons ago I had the kids work with photoshop to create a series of doctored photos that had to tell some kind of story. They also had to include themselves in the pictures in some way. This was the one I created as an example. Some are taken from the net and some I created myself. But they didn't have to know that did they? And YES I was obsessed with giant kitties back then.
No one is really sure exactly when it was that the Giant Kitties came on the scene. It was like they were everywhere all of a sudden. We all knew then that our lives would never be the same. Here we see a rare archival photograph from the 1950s which shows one of the first recorded sightings of the Giant Kitties. Unfortunately the unknown reporter in this photograph went missing along with the cameraman who took this shot. All that was found was the map, a fedora and the camera this photograph came from.
Of course it was only a matter of time before the Kitties moved into the cities looking for more and more vehicles to play with. By climbing such buildings as the Empire State Building they mocked us openly. Their curiosity and playfulness left a path of destruction throughout most of North America.
Of course it was only a matter of time before the Kitties moved into the cities looking for more and more vehicles to play with. By climbing such buildings as the Empire State Building they mocked us openly. Their curiosity and playfulness left a path of destruction throughout most of North America.
Even though we had always heard of their dislike for water, a few swimming kitties was all it took to destroy the island of Japan despite the brave efforts of the Japanese people to battle the Giant Kitties. But it was all for naught. The kitties acted with a vengeance unheard of. This one that they called Catzilla was particularly spiteful.
Within less than a decade the giant animals had devastated most of the earth. Chief among the offenders where the before mentioned Giant Kitties, Dogs and Mice but also the Giant Squids off the coast of Iceland, the Man-eating Giant Rainbow Butt Monkey of Borneo, the Carnivorous Giant Spotted Root Mole of Siberia and the Giant Fire Ants of Africa. So expeditions were sent into space to find new planets for humans to colonize, planets unpopulated by anything bigger than it was meant to be. But the Kitties followed us, with a mad zeal, determined to wipe humanity not only from the face of planet Earth but from the Universe as well!!!.
It was then that one of our brilliant scientists came up with the idea to "travel back in time" to defeat the evil plans of the Giant Kitties and save some part of humanity. We chose the late Jurassic period but we were unaware that the Giant Kitties also possessed time travel technology. With their misbegotten offspring they continued to plague us and our efforts to rebuild our civilization.
However many of us decided to not return to the distant past but instead time travelled to the future - perhaps out of the deadly grasp of the Giant Kitties. But unbeknowst to us the kitties had only mutated, developing powerful lazer death beams that they shot from their eyes. The years had only made them more bitter, more hostile. But we fought them anyways. Crawling from the safely of our caves we lauched the first sucessful offensive against the Giant Kitties. Despite high casualties we were able to destroy a kitty litter processing plant they had outside of Poughkeepsie, N.Y.
Just when the advantage was clearly ours, they unleashed their biggest surprise yet on us. The damned kitties had made the perfect alliance. They traded all their buried poopies to the Giant Dung Beetles for the help is destroying my unit! We lost 147 men that day. Most looked like overcooked barbecue or scratching posts once the Kitties had gotten finished with them. The alliance between the Beetles and the Kitties was devastating to our cause. Everything seemed hopeless until...
No one is really sure exactly when it was that the Giant Kitties came on the scene. It was like they were everywhere all of a sudden. We all knew then that our lives would never be the same. Here we see a rare archival photograph from the 1950s which shows one of the first recorded sightings of the Giant Kitties. Unfortunately the unknown reporter in this photograph went missing along with the cameraman who took this shot. All that was found was the map, a fedora and the camera this photograph came from.
Of course it was only a matter of time before the Kitties moved into the cities looking for more and more vehicles to play with. By climbing such buildings as the Empire State Building they mocked us openly. Their curiosity and playfulness left a path of destruction throughout most of North America.
Of course it was only a matter of time before the Kitties moved into the cities looking for more and more vehicles to play with. By climbing such buildings as the Empire State Building they mocked us openly. Their curiosity and playfulness left a path of destruction throughout most of North America.
Even though we had always heard of their dislike for water, a few swimming kitties was all it took to destroy the island of Japan despite the brave efforts of the Japanese people to battle the Giant Kitties. But it was all for naught. The kitties acted with a vengeance unheard of. This one that they called Catzilla was particularly spiteful.
Within less than a decade the giant animals had devastated most of the earth. Chief among the offenders where the before mentioned Giant Kitties, Dogs and Mice but also the Giant Squids off the coast of Iceland, the Man-eating Giant Rainbow Butt Monkey of Borneo, the Carnivorous Giant Spotted Root Mole of Siberia and the Giant Fire Ants of Africa. So expeditions were sent into space to find new planets for humans to colonize, planets unpopulated by anything bigger than it was meant to be. But the Kitties followed us, with a mad zeal, determined to wipe humanity not only from the face of planet Earth but from the Universe as well!!!.
It was then that one of our brilliant scientists came up with the idea to "travel back in time" to defeat the evil plans of the Giant Kitties and save some part of humanity. We chose the late Jurassic period but we were unaware that the Giant Kitties also possessed time travel technology. With their misbegotten offspring they continued to plague us and our efforts to rebuild our civilization.
However many of us decided to not return to the distant past but instead time travelled to the future - perhaps out of the deadly grasp of the Giant Kitties. But unbeknowst to us the kitties had only mutated, developing powerful lazer death beams that they shot from their eyes. The years had only made them more bitter, more hostile. But we fought them anyways. Crawling from the safely of our caves we lauched the first sucessful offensive against the Giant Kitties. Despite high casualties we were able to destroy a kitty litter processing plant they had outside of Poughkeepsie, N.Y.
Just when the advantage was clearly ours, they unleashed their biggest surprise yet on us. The damned kitties had made the perfect alliance. They traded all their buried poopies to the Giant Dung Beetles for the help is destroying my unit! We lost 147 men that day. Most looked like overcooked barbecue or scratching posts once the Kitties had gotten finished with them. The alliance between the Beetles and the Kitties was devastating to our cause. Everything seemed hopeless until...
Saturday, September 25, 2021
I Teach Because I Love
Willie Jackson
September 23 at 11:57 PM ·
Goodbye to the Black Panther. I was saddened to learn about the death of the great Waka Nathan today, who many would rate as the greatest Māori rugby player of his era. I got to know Waka when I was a sports broadcaster on Aotearoa Radio in the early 90s and when he had his butcher shop in Mangere Bridge. He was a very humble but interesting man and I always had excellent conversations with him.
One of those conversations was when I interviewed him for my special show on Māori Rugby Greats. I decided to do that show in the early 90s as a tribute to the Māori players who should have been All Blacks.
It always made me angry when I thought about how many great Māori players had missed out on the All Blacks because of the New Zealand Rugby Union’s policy that they would comply with South Africa’s racist direction that no Māori could be selected in All Blacks teams who were to tour South Africa.
The consequences of that meant players were overlooked not just in the year of South African tours but the in-between years also, that angered Waka who actually was quite a conservative, but I will never forget him saying that “Māori players had to be twice as good and in some cases three times as good as Pākeha players to make the All Blacks.”
That was a huge statement from someone like Waka, who never talked about politics or racism. But the reality was, he was upset with so many of his mates missing out on an All Blacks jersey and just thought it was an appropriate time to talk and I think it’s appropriate to mention it now because Waka wasn’t just the greatest Māori rugby player of his time. But he was a proud and passionate advocate for his people and Māori sport.
Of course, as a player, he was simply magnificent and it was the French who called him la Panthere Noir or The Black Panther probably a name that would not go down too well today. I know Waka though wasn’t bothered by it at all. He was part of a great All Blacks era and I think in many ways he was the Michael Jones of his time.
A strong defender and brilliant attacker. In fact, Collin Meads described him as the most virile runner with the ball in hand. Along with Kel Tremain, they were rated as the two best Flankers in the world. He played 14 test matches from 1962-1967 and never lost a test he also played 88 games for Auckland and is rated as one of the all-time greats.
nd he was one of Waka’s greatest fans.
Waka wrote himself forever into Auckland Rugby folklore when he won the Ranfurly Shield with a last-minute try against Canterbury in 1960. He went on to become a top administrator, coach and contributor to Māori rugby and was one of the reasons why Māori rugby remained and stayed strong in the 1970s and 80s always advocating that Māori rugby was unique with its own flair and style which is ironically exactly how I would describe how Waka played.
Yes, Waka Nathan a Mangere and Otahuhu legend having gone to school here in South Auckland, a Ngapuhi, Tainui descendant , Freezing Worker, Butcher, Administrator, Coach, Māori and All Black great must always be celebrated and remembered as part of New Zealand’s rich sports history.
No reira e te rangatira Waka, moe mai, moe mai ra.
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