Lego StarCraft: Brick Rush

National Coffee Milkshake Day

July 26th is National Coffee Milkshake Day!

While I'm sure you can purchase such a beverage at your local Dunkin' Donuts, McDonald's or even Starbucks, I have a even better recipe to celebrate this day!

Kahlua Cream Frosty

• 1 cup Kahlua
• 1 pint vanilla ice cream
• 1 cup light cream
• 1/8 teaspoon almond extract
• 1 1/2 cups crushed ice

1. Combine first four ingredients in electric blender.
2. Add crushed ice. Blend on high speed until frothy.
3. Pour into chilled glasses

You can add an additional scoop of ice cream if you want, along with some shaved chocolate to be really fancy!

Yields 6 cups

Tron Light Cycle Game

Tron Light Cycles Do you remember the movie and video game from the 80's called Tron? This is the part of the game where you drive a light cycle and try to kill your opponent.

Marvel's Anime Series "Iron Man" Coming to G4 in 2011

WHY is THIS the first time I am hearing about this?

Total.

Awesome.

Game Reviews - E3 2011

The Starships of Star Trek: Online

One of the reasons I like sci-fi is because of the starships.

Star Trek: Online has one of the best designs of these space faring vessels!

(Click on image to see its full resolution.)

(You can also click  * here * to download it to see it REALLY BIG!)

You can click * here * to see various orthographic and ESPECIALLY animated views of these designs!

Enjoy!

Also, you can look me up on Star Trek: Online. My name there is:

Viceroy@DarkShinobi

Star Trek Online: Season Two "Ancient Enemies"

Tron Girl

Tron: Legacy

Darth Vader robs a Chase Bank!

The Empire has apparently fallen on hard times!

Mortal Kombat: PAPER-ALITES!!!

FINISH HIM!!!

War Machine 1/6 Scale Figure

Just as I thought, (and really hoped!) they are indeed making a 1/6 scale version the black and grey (and of for me, darker because that's how *I* roll...) complement to the traditional Iron Man Armor.

Now, granted that these are fairly early images of the product, and while its doesn't appear to have as many extra accessories as the Iron Man figure I featured here (such as battle damage, for example) I can't help but wonder if such features will be available when it goes to market.

Nevertheless, as you can, War Machine, just like it’s red and yellow counterpart, is a combination of an action figure and a starship model, since it has all the movable and removable parts and accessories to make the most awesome sort of display,  and is also illuminated in all the right places as well!

Iron Man 2 Mark VI 1/6 Scale Figure

This particular piece is like a combination of an action figure and a starship model, since it has all the movable and removable parts and accessories to make the most awesome sort of display, not to mention the fact that its illuminated in all the right places as well!

Granted, I am more of a War Machine Fan, simply because that particular armor's color scheme goes more so with my personality, (as well as the, shall we say...extra munitions) and I guarantee that there will definitely be one of those made as well. 

This figure is currently scheduled to be released in January, 2011.

"Begun the Atomic Age has..."

“I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.” -J. Robert Oppenheimer: "Father of the Atomic Bomb"

Sixty five years ago, on today's date, the first nuclear weapons test of an atomic bomb was conducted by the United States Army at a location about thirty five miles southeast of Socorro, New Mexico, at the White Sands Proving Ground. (Today known as the White Sands Missile Range.)

This operation was given the code name of Trinity being that it was a series of tests for an implosion design plutonium device. The informal nickname for the weapon itself was "The Gadget."

The Trinity detonation produced an explosive power equivalent to the explosion of about twenty kilotons of TNT.

Because of this, July 16, 1945 is considered by many to be the beginning of the Atomic Age.

Today, the Trinity Site is a National Historic Landmark District and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Residual radiation at the site still measures about ten times higher than normal. The amount of radioactive exposure received during a one hour visit to the site is about half of what an adult receives on an average day from natural and medical sources.

Transformers 3 Street Closings in Chicago: July 15th through July 19th

(Click image to see at its full resolution...)

Due to the filming of Transformers 3, Michigan Avenue will be closed from Ontario St. to Wacker Dr. from 8:00 p.m. tomorrow (Thursday July 15th) until 5:00 a.m. on Monday (July 19th) and Lower Michigan Ave. will be closed from Wacker Dr. to Illinois from 8:00 p.m. on Friday (July 16th) to 5:00 a.m. on Monday (July 19th.)

To accommodate the closures, the following streets will be detoured:

• Ontario St. will be open to west and northbound traffic only at Michigan Ave.

• Ohio St. will be open to east and northbound traffic only at Michigan Ave.

• Michigan Ave. northbound traffic will be diverted at Randolph St

• Water St. and Lake St. will be open for local traffic only

• Businesses and garages between Wacker and Randolph will be accessible

• Upper E North Water St. and City Front Plaza Drive will be open to local traffic only

ADDITIONALLY

While a specific scene is being filmed on Saturday July 17th and/or Sunday July 18th from 7:00 a.m. – 10:00 a.m., there will be intermittent stoppage of both vehicular and pedestrian traffic on Kinzie St. between Dearborn St. and Wabash Ave., on State St. between Wacker Drive and Hubbard St. and on Wabash Ave. between W. Wacker Dr. and Kinzie. The closures should last no more than 15 minutes at a time and will take place twice an hour during the time frame.

Please plan ahead and expect delays if any of these closures affect your normal commute or other travel plans.

Embrace Your Inner Geekness Day!

When: July 13th

Are you into such things like video games, comic books and doing technically oriented stuff?

Have you modified your computer or laptop WAY beyond its normal specifications?

Do you spend endless hours going to different places on the internet?

Well guess what...

You are a Geek!

And this is the day to ask yourself just what kinda Geek you may be.

(Click on the image below to see its full resolution...)

Here are some common Geek Terms you might have heard about. Do have any of these or do they apply to you, perhaps?

• Alpha Geek: The most technologically savvy dude or dudette in the company 

• Amazonned: This means you’ve lost a chunk of your business to a dot-com

• Back Hack: When you get hacked, you return the favor

• Beta Baby: Child born to a high-tech pro after 1995

• Code 18: Used by tech support to disguise when they’re calling a technical issue user-caused.

• Code ID-10-T: Far less PC version of the above code. (Look carefully at the letters and numbers...see a word forming?)

• Cyberterrorism: Terror on a computer

• Digital Jewelry: Any kind of hi-tech stuff  one would wear. This would also include iPhones, iPods, BlackBerries, Cell Phones...etc...

• Idea Hamster: Someone who always has his/her idea generator running

• Inner Geek: The techie that dwells deep within each of us

So, enjoy "Embrace Your Inner Geekness Day" to the fullest. Spend plenty of time with your computer. Talk computer lingo and jargon. And if you are a Geek, this is the day to roar!

Marvel Vampires

Some of you may  remember when the whole Zombie bit was the rage, (in a way, it still is...) and Marvel Comics jumped on that band wagon with the whole Marvel Zombies Series, along with variant editions of their mainstream comics comics that featured alternate (and more expensive) zombie covers.

Well...guess what?

With the very popular Twilight Saga getting so much attention both in the news and media, Marvel Comics has decided to jump on THAT band wagon as well.

And in case you didn't realize it, Twilight is about...well, as you MIGHT have guessed...

Vampires.

Here are some upcoming Vampire Variant editions of a few Marvel Comic Books.

(Click on the images to see them in a high resolution.)

In addition, there will be a whole new storyline dealing with the X-Men titled "Curse of the Mutants" where they do battle with Vampires.

The person being depicted on this particular Vampire Variant Cover is none other than Vlad Dracula himself!

To be fair though, Marvel Comics has been doing the Vampire thing since the early 60's. They actually had a comic book titled "The Tomb of Dracula" and one of the more memorable stories from that series was when he did have a conflict with Doctor Strange.

Also, the character known as Blade, made popular by the movies starring Wesley Snipes...

...actually started out as a supporting character in the Dracula series, and later got more of a spotlight in the Marvel Preview Magazine.

Marvel had also came up with their own Vampire Superhero in the form of a character named Morbius, who started out as an adversary for Spider-Man.

Morbius was also actually featured in the whole Marvel Zombies storyline I had mentioned before, so I am almost positive that he will make an appearance with the whole new Marvel Vampires.

I can't help but to now wonder...since George Lucas decided to jump on the whole Zombie band wagon with the Star Wars: Death Troopers storyline, will Vampires soon show up in that all too familiar galaxy that is far, far away? Personally...THAT would not surprise me one bit.

NX-01 Enterprise REFIT

Click on the images to see them at a higher resolution...

I think there MIGHT have been a better reception for Star Trek: Enterprise if the ship had actually looked like this from Day 1…or rather Season One Episode 1.

To this day, I still have rather horrid memories of how a starship that was supposed to be in existence a little over one hundred years BEFORE the days of Kirk and Spock was looking way too much like the Akira Class…over two hundred years into the TNG Era.

From what I understand, the basis behind this new schematic is that sometime after the events of Season Four (after the series was canceled) the Enterprise was supposed to undergo a refit process to the configuration shown.

The familiar connection to the Constitution Class is quite literally there now...and a far better design lineage can be seen between the two types of vessels.

There was far earlier attempt to do this, which wasn’t quite aesthetically pleasing (at least for myself and apparently many other starship geeks) as you can see here.

Also, it never occurred to me that where the shuttle doors were in the original configuration of the NX Class was a great place for the dorsal connector (also known as "the neck") for the engineering section and it makes great sense from a design point of view.

Here’s a preview of an artistic rendition that will be featured of this ship in next year's Ship of the Line Calendar.

In a previous SotL, there was a depiction that showed, coincidentally enough, the Enterprise’s sister ship, the NX-02 Columbia, having crash landed on a desert planet with TNG Era Starfleet personnel investigating that scene.

This image actually caused a lot of speculation with fans, and was the motivation for the Star Trek: Destiny Saga. (Which, by the way, has turned out to be one of my favorite Star Trek Novels to date.)

I have no doubt that there will be a similar inspiration to provide a story that explains the reason and method behind the Enterprise’s refit...and that is one I am definitely looking forward to hearing about.

Happy Fourth of July!

A day late...but, better late than never, eh?

Much like the Skywalkers depicted above, I spent America's Independence Day with bar-b-que (which to both my sisters' distress, I like referring to as "seared animal flesh...") beer, fireworks, (which I fondly call munitions...ahem.) and most importantly family.

And we actually had watermelon also!

I can confidently say that no planets were destroyed at our party, but I cannot say the same of other, much smaller objects.

Ahem.

Again.

Munitions...FTW!