Classic stuff from Eddie Izzard

A swathe of religious leaders are clamouring to have these toys banned.  Apparently, the glorify terrorism and the holocaust.  I don’t see it personally.  Laughter is a universal medicine that heals many wounds and cures many malodies.  When I saw these, I laughed.  I thought themfunny.  Are we foverer bound to complete solemnity over these subjects?  Is a lego character going to turn some 8 year old child into a suicide bomber?  No.  It’s not.   I remember being confronted by a bully at school, threatening to pound my face in over some triviality.  I laughed in his face. and pushed passed him.  I never had another days trouble from him.  That’s my opinion – what’s yours.

I’m so proud.

A copy of Marvel Tales #2 from the actual 1965.  Wow!  As someone who’s developed a slight interest in comics over the last year or so, this is the sort of thing that is really appreciated.  Reading the old stories was fun and educational.  The language in particular was most amusing.  Old people talk funny!

Thanks Chris, it’s really appreciated.

Well it would appear that summer is finally over.  Whilst the air outside is cooling, I’m burning up a fever with excitement.  The magnificent guys over at Lost Hemisphere have brought their magnificent series to a thrilling and dramatic conclusion with a truly artistic presentation of the final bout.  My Family of One (Fantastic Four / X-Statix) deck went up against Brian Foley’s Adamantium Skrullmate deck in the final match of the event.  I won, but that’s not the story.  The main news is the brilliantly creative presentation of that final.  Definitely go check it out today!

http://losthemisphere.wordpress.com/2008/10/27/summer-of-love-finals/

I can’t believe I’ve only just stumbled across it, but in a recent Origin Stories article on Read / Rant, Billy Zonos slipped in a little preview of some of the art we might see in the forthcoming Marvel Evolution expansion for Vs. System.  This one particularly caught  my eye.  Longshot is the character that Rian “stubarnes” Fike has obsessed over since day one of this mighty game, yet in the days since Billy splashed this over his pages, there’s been no fanfares from the Fike camp!  Is the most psycadelic player the game has ever seen asleep at his post, or has his love of mulletman diminished over the years?  Wake up stu!

This week’s show saw the atheletes travel to Burkina Faso in Western Africa.  Here they would compete in traditional Samo wrestling for the small village of Nyon – the groups hosts. 

Samo Wrestling

Samo wrestling is highly physical and energy sapping, one wrong step swiftly results in smashing to the ground.

The rules are… you wrestle on your feet.

If you go down… on your front… your back… even your knees – you’re out.  It’s that simple. – BBC.CO.UK

The general feeling in this episode was one of fun.  The locals seemed to be far more sociable and training seemed more enjoyable than the last episode in Ethiopia.  Perhaps because the atheletes were not getting their skulls split open by seven foot long sticks.

As usual, the atheletes were put through initial training.  Wolé quite predictably stood out due to his size and strength.  Ed fell by the wayside after injuring his knee and took no further part in the episode.  I thought Jarvis and JJ might be good in this one, and Jarvis did show a lot of early promise.  JJ, as a wrestler, seemed to find it difficuilt to adapat to fighting on his feet – something I findd strange.  OK, so the moves are different when you wrestle on the mat, but the principles of leverage remain the same.  Still, perhaps I’m being too critical. 

There were some rather interesting scenes in the show that involved sacrificing poultry to crocodiles (or alligators – I’ve no idea.  They had big teeth and looked like they wanted to eat people, not birds).  In what amounted to a pre-season friendly, a suprise prospect stood out in the form of Joey.  He looked strong in a series of matches against another local village. 

The main event rolled around and Jarvis wiped out.  JJ got one victory but dropped off.  Murray stole one – which did the impossible and made him smile even more.  Wolé drew the first match, won the next.  Joey did the reverse.  With those two tied, the third match would be the decider.  Wolé, who had been talking up his size and strenght all show got dumped on his arse while Joey won.

I was pleased to see Joey with a bit of fighting spirit but he still seems to be a bit of gobby shite.  Everyone is complaining about Wolé being mouthy – rightly so, but I think Joey is coming across as being just as verbal.

Anyway, the show is fantastic and there’s a few interesting bits popping up on the official site, including production blogs and interviews.  Make sure you check it out.  There are also LMS features on Youtube and Facebook.

Next weeks show will have the atheletes competing in endurance runs through the mountains of Nepal.  I’m going to cast a predicition and say that Ed and JJ will be the top two.  Hopefully Ed’s knee is fine.  I’m going to say that JJ wins.  I also think that Wolé and Murray will struggle.  I can’t wait to find out if I’m right.  I can’t wait to see the next episode.  Broadcast times can be found here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00f7hn5

Endangered Species and Rapid Strike are plot twists from the forthcoming Marvel Evolution expansion for the Vs. System trading card game.  Both fit into this weeks theme of X-Force and combat Plot Twists.  The X-Force team seem to thrive on combat, and this weeks cards highlight that quite effectively.  The preview is up now:

http://the-kamiza.com/vs/?p=402

http://labs.google.com/inquotes/

“In Quotes” is a really simple search facility that will help you find out exactly what any politician has been saying about an issue you’re worried about.  Simply select your region (US, UK etc) and select your politicians.  Currently, the US default is unsuprisingly John McCain and Barack Obama.  Then you can enter any keyword you wish and it will bring up any quotes from the politician with that keyword.  Cool huh?  Go play!