Calvin's Canadian Cave of Coolness: March 2014

Monday, March 31, 2014

Vladimir Lukich Borovikovsky 1925

Just because.

Jar Jar Binks And Mace Windu?

Now there is a wicked cool team-up that is worth watching two of my precious last episodes of season six of the CLONE WARS series - they were recently released as THE LOST MISSIONS all at once on Netflix and were the last episodes worked on when THE CLONE WARS was cancelled to make way for STAR WARS - REBELS - the next new series in the Star Wars Universe.

The two episodes I watched tonight were episodes 8 and 9 of Season Six. That means only four new episodes before all my unwatched pieces of the CLONE WARS series are all seen. I loved this series so much from the beginning and it only get better from season one. These additional 13 'bonus' episodes are extras that I had no right to expect nor hope for.

I just had to see how the bumbling Jar Jar and the take no bull Windu would compliment each other. It's a common theme in this series to have characters find their strength within themselves by finding what they do best - even by being a goofy Gungan in the middle of a rescue operation.

Leelo Dallas Multipass

I Can Complain About A Lot Of Things

But I don't have one bad think to say about fishing shows like Wicked Tuna. I have a fresh on in the hopper that I can't wait to get to. I love these days when I can watch what I want to watch WHEN I want to watch it. Makes me king of my own entertainment castle. And my shows selection cannot be questioned. I need to do a major cull of my download files just to abandon some shows that I will never watch. There is probably an interesting reason why I can't seem to watch the last two seasons of THE WALKING DEAD despite the fact that I like the show. It's just so sad and grim. I can't do sad and grim right now. So I watch Tuna get plucked from the sea - one by one.

Wicked Tuna Launch from Brian McDonald on Vimeo.

Early Evening Captions

Favorite Autobot - GRIMLOCK

Of course after Optimus Prime, my favorite Transformer is Grimlock. I like his T-Rex body and his slow manner of speech and thought. He's like Godzilla only without any knowledge about how powerful he is and how much damage he can do. He mostly reacts. He is never proactive and can be a good bodyguard but not a good buddy. He will get you into trouble because you can't ever leave him alone to his own devices.

(click to enlarge)

I Am Not Prepared To Share This Planet With The Dalek

For 2-5 players, aged 10+, Risk: The Dalek Invasion of Earth lets players fight as either black, bronze or silver Daleks of the classic design, or red or yellow New Paradigm Daleks. But watch out for the TARDIS, sweeping across the board, defending the Earth!

And when I play RISK, I play with a kind of ruthlessness that is not genuinely a part of my character. I will break all alliances, I will lie, cheat and steal and I will eventually make you cry at one point during the game. But that is the fun of RISK. I miss games night.

I taught at a school once where they had me sub in for the 'special ed' teacher on Tuesday afternoons. It was the time when they played board games to learn about how to co-operate but these are not the kind of kids who respond well to weakness. They prefer games where they can be predators and attack others weaker than themselves - just like happens in their world everyday.

I played RISK with that same kind of bloodthirsty enthusiasm with them. We would link two boards together like they were two planets with a portal through Greenland and Australia. That way ten kids plus myself could play at one time. It was always a panic but a really good lesson in learning how to deal with defeat because there can only be one winner in the end and I was not going to just throw the game so that some angry teen can feel better about themselves. Don't judge me. It's part of life. It's part of my teaching style. I love watching real life enemies being forced to make an alliance to defeat a strong opponent like me. I love it even more when I crush their pitiful dreams on conquest.

Sorry, got teaching on my mind these days and images online seem to find whatever I am thinking about when something like that happens.

21 more hours of instruction left before they exams are scheduled to be written. Sigh. I wish I knew at the beginning what I know now. I would do things differently for sure. I still don't know if I want another chance to get it right. I might just walk away on a high note and leave them wanting more...before they realize what a fraud I am.

Cool Collage Art Of The Day

Canadian artist Sandra Chevrier’s collaged portraits utilize a facet of pop culture that has never, until recently, been regarded as “for women”: the superhero comic book. In recent years, the world of comics has broken down its macho modus operandi, yet the superhero narrative continues to be emblematic of a dichotomous, stereotypical view of gender. Chevrier creates portraits of women, reclaiming the narratives they have been excluded from by collaging climactic scenes from Batman and Superman into masks that hide the female sitters’ true identities.

HAPPY 75th Batman!

On this day in history, Detective Comics No.27 was released and villains everywhere became a superstitious and cowardly lot! Bob Kane may have drawn a sketch but it was Bill Finger who created all the things that make Batman so timeless a character. He's the ONE superhero that you always thought you could be as a kid, if of course you had been born a billionaire. The first comic I ever read was a Batman comic. Here's to another 75 years. Even DC can't mess that up.