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I'm an utter comic nerd, though I haven't followed them too too much for a decade or so. Still, I know and love my comic characters. The last few weeks has seen a surge in movie topics here, and I thought I'd cater to the geekier end of the spectrum with this thread. Vote, explain, discuss I listed a lot of the big films, and some lesser known ones, and didn't bother with the embarrassing ones (ie. Dr. Giggles or Barb Wire). My favorite comic film is Spider-Man 2. It works as a comic and as a movie, the ups, the downs, the humor and the happy ending. A great balance between drama and pop media. Iron Man was decent in this way too, though not as much. Films like The Dark Knight or Sin City seemed too "mature" to be enjoyable. The relentless noir wore me out pretty quickly, around the 50 minute mark. I thoroughly enjoyed V and Wanted, and thought they were successful, and I loved Ghost World and American Splendor, and saw them both in the theater, though because of their heavy subject matter, they are harder to do a rewatch. Also, I liked the new Marvel productions, and thought the new Hulk film was quite watchable, though I liked a lot of the Ang Lee one too. Anyway, I'll have a lot more to add later. Geek it up!

I don't want to argue here as much as anyone, but some points to consider: -the island submerged, not sank. Other islands, notably in Polynesia have had a similar problem. These are islands that are largely at a low elevation, and see their land mass shrink year by year as the beach creeps inward. It isn't a big problem for most continents that are well above sea level. -There is no doubt that the Earth goes through shifts, but it shouldn't surprise people to know humans have an effect on the planet. As someone mentioned, it's considered that humans caused a lot of the desertification in the Sahara. But also in the Middle East. It is called the Fertile Crescent because it used to be very very fertile, but millenniums of intensive farming have it looking as the Middle East does today. That was fairly low concentrations of farmers. Today we have heavy concentrations of industrial polluters in first world countries, getting ready to expand and double into China and India. There has been effects on the planet and it will increase, because nobody wants to give up their lifestyles. Industrial society is like steroids for the planet, pumping up natural climate change. The world is already at an unsustainable point, and the next decades will push this further and harder. The middle class of first world countries will notice the effects later than others, ironically, since they'll be able to pay for food when/if it becomes in short supply. -Global warming does not, and never did, mean winter is hot. It is about overall world trends. No people on that island, so good for them, but looking at other places like Tuvalu, where residents are already being relocated, it seems like the canary in the mineshaft for modern society. The rising waters probably won't be a major problem in itself (I don't know, though), but it will have its own effects on weather and currents. Still, it's just a symptom of a larger issue. The world will survive of course.

As I left my dark ages, I seriously looked at this set a lot, it looks really fantastic. You're dead on the money about the greebling, it is film-quality. I can't track it down here and now, so maybe I'll never get it, but at least I can live vicariously through this review I think the OT Y-Wing is the mark of an AFOL. The X-Wing is all over, but the rest of the alphabet series is beloved most by those who were there at the time.

Nice job! A lovely looking set that has been added to my Brickset 'want' list because of you. Way to sell! But no commission for you With the three new minifigs and two ostriches, plus the rest of the set, it was an easy 5/5 for me. I'm getting excited about the whole PoP line at this point!

Thanks, but no, those are just long exposures on a tripod, no need for touch ups

Spring started a few weeks back here. The southern cherry blossoms bloomed in mid-February.

I've been all over Zelda recently I just finished the SNES one WiiWare, and did the Wind Waker before that. Now, I'm three hours into Twilight Princess. They're all playable, but I think I like the handling on Wind Waker best. I love Twilight Princess, but the game feels a bit too Next Gen when it starts out (high res, but the character doesn't always feel in the world). Wind Waker really provides a coherent world. The N64 Ocarina is a flawless game. Any of the series is going to be worth playing, since the game play is so well done, though I have a hard time to enjoy the NES original now.

Now, already this Mafia game is irregular... If you're short of votes, perhaps a Ouija board could turn up, Pvt. Dan Gale is rolling in his grave

That'd be great if you could do that. I only have the two I posted. It's nice to have a database of this stuff for everyone. #7 and 8 look beautiful.

It's a great book, and you did it justice! Nice job. Hopefully images of this get filtered out somehow to Cormac McCarthy, he might get a kick out of it.

I made a thread for the 1984 show and explained the shows there (link in my signature). But, in a nutshell, one of the big department stores in Toronto hosted a few of these as a Christmas event, this one being Christmas 1986. This book (about 8.5x11 size on high quality stock) was the souvenir program for the show. In the other thread, some Europeans mention having seen some models too. Sorry to not explain clearly in the first post.

Have your pi and eat it too.

My wife lectured me about my poor Japanese tonight after taking a long look at the first pic of this thread. Of course, I was too proud in the first place to ask a native speaker to check it before I posted, but it seemed fine to me. She felt 'ほら' was too friendly, that to convey surprise rather than showing something off, it should be 'あれっ', but possibly 'ほらっ' would be acceptable. Bottom line, don't take Japanese lessons from me I blame myself.

I bought last year's City and Pirates advent calendar at reduced rates, about $16 each. I wouldn't have bought them otherwise, but it's a good deal, and now I can do Kim T MOCs with my new Santa

It's pointless to post a scan unless it's somewhat bigger than average, so that it's legible. I took some time scanning this, since it wasn't nearly as exciting the first World Show I went to. I remember being so excited to go to this, and not having my mind blown. It was a little sophisticated for me, and for as much as I loved Space Lego, I wasn't that into NASA. But, it was still an impressive show, especially the final display. Here's the link to the 1984 Lego World Show, if you want to compare the two. The inside cover was a gate fold opening to a four page spread. (joined version http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/nahadef/...ow/1986/2-3.jpg ) As a gatefold, it was a really bad design choice. Really big waste of money. The two outer pages were text, and the center spread was the planet Earth. This is the money shot. I love that they mixed actual sets in with the model. Is that the Galaxy Commander I see at the top of the display (joined image http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/nahadef/.../1986/18-19.jpg ) I hope you enjoyed Bring back the Lego World Show!

I suppose someone thought the 'pi' was just a spelling mistake.

I modified the poll just a bit, and added 3rd person. Technically, the Mario Galaxy and home system Zelda games are not 1st person or side scrollers. I didn't bother adding overhead, since it's not on any home systems anymore Maybe I'll have to go with Zelda. I love the main Mario games, but they are really pick up and play. I have about 75 stars in Galaxy, and no need to keep going. Some of the later stars suck, racing games and the such. Metroid Prime is amazing though. I finished the first (on the Wii re-release) and it blew me away. Metroid 3, I only half finished it, the bosses drove me crazy, but a real sense of accomplishment there. I adjusted to 1st person gameplay, but don't love it. Zelda gets the best of both worlds; Mario style gameplay, with the Metroid quality of slowly powering up. If you do one temple in Zelda, you will do them all. The first Metroid is recommended though. In Japan, the re-release is half the price of a regular Wii game, but maybe you have to get the box set in the West. But it's worth it Sonic and Sega though, Sega have totally mismanaged its legacy, and Sonic is a great franchise in the past tense.

For tutorial #2, we're going to practice a few things, namely, using curves, color matching, smoke (cloud) effects, and motion effects. The first two techniques are useful to any Photoshopper doing Lego pics, so hopefully they are useful to you too! I said I would do a Mars tutorial, but I decided to do a new pic using older techniques. The subject? Another member of the unloved Life on Mars series, set 7310 Mono Jet. It's pretty darn cool to begin with! Files Original Photo Mars Surface (optional)Edited Photo To begin with, I took some pictures from different angles. I knew I wanted a 'speed' shot, and those are best done at an angle coming at you, but this is a weird looking ship, so I settled on a diagonal angle shot. Then, as in the last pic, I searched the web for high res Mars surfaces. Not a great selection, but I found a decent pic. I realize not everyone has a digi-pen, so this time, I added the optional file so you can skip down to step 5 if you don't want to cut out the image. But it's always good practice since you have to do this every time you do a Lego pic. 1. First, start watching Chuck in the background You don't have to, but it's a good show, especially in season 3! I have a big screen, so it's easy to have a TV going in the background. Anyway, first, duplicate the original layer (lower right) by right clicking the Background layer. Last tutorial, I used the magic wand, but this time, I'm just going to use the lasso, since it's small. I make a layer mask (pic). 2. I use the lasso to draw around it, then I invert it (pic). I fill the mask in, then I zoom in and clean up the rest. This is laborious, and very hard with a mouse, but you can shave off a pixel at a time if you like. Since it's a mask, you can always come back to it if you made a mistake. 3. I create a curves layer with the adjustment layer in the lower right. Curves (basically) set the maximum light and dark of an image, and can really make your image 'pop'. With the curves layer selected, you'll see a window with three eyedroppers, a black, grey, and white one. The black is the absolute black, the white, absolute white, and grey, you guessed it, absolute grey. Select the black one and then touch the darkest part of the pic (I selected in the engine). Magically, the image should be much more vivid. The white level seems okay, but maybe you can touch it up with the white eye dropper. I did it, using the helmet, but there was little effect. 4. For the avid Lego photographer, we're going to use one of the most useful tools, the surface blur. This filter blurs only areas of a similar color, and is first used to cover pores on fashion models or cut noise down on night sky pics. For Lego, it cuts noise and purifies your image. I used a radius of 25 pixels and a threshold (degree of variation) of 10. Experiment with it. As you can see, the image is cleaner, but still very 'Lego' looking. 5. I saved that pic (and made a png for you!) and then applied everything, and copied it to the Mars pic. The Mars pic, I tilted, and embiggened it just a bit, so there were no white corners. I had to shrink down the Lego pic, and got it looking like this: Some of my edge editing wasn't perfect, so here and there, I shaved a bit off to make it look better. 6. The colors are really jarring, so we need to fix that. I want the Mono Jet to suit Mars atmosphere, so we use the Image/Adjust/Match Color. This is a fantastic way to quickly shift the tone of an image. In the Source menu, select your current pic (pic) and then select the Mars layer. With the fade at 0, it's way too red, but if you move it to 80-90, it'll start looking quite nice. Also, I'm now watching Cougar Town, a far better show than the name implies! 7. It's subtly better Now, we'll create a shadow, similar to the one in the last tutorial (so I won't go into detail here). I duplicate the layer, and call it 'shadow'. I open image/adjustment/levels (pic). In the output section, I shift the white to zero, making the image black. 8. I move it to the lower left, matching the shadow direction of the rocks. It doesn't quite reflect a true shadow, so I use a soft brush to delete what isn't needed (head and wheel) then Gaussian blur it, and lower the opacity, to maybe 50%. Again, your vibe on it is most important, and you can always adjust it again if you change your mind later. 9. I duplicate the Mars layer, and filter/blur/motion blur that new image. I had to do it a few times to get the placement and degree correct, but basically I used the vanishing point of the landscape as the center, the upper right. 10. I just want the area around the vehicle to be blurred, since that's how motion photography works. The stuff close by is blurred, the far away stuff okay (like looking out the window of a car). So, I create a quick mask (the bottom button on the left hand toolbar). With that selected, I do a radial gradient from the same vanishing point, and you should have a red pic like this: Unselect the quick mask, and then create a mask, layers/layer mask/reveal selected. This should make the blur fade into view as you leave the vanishing point, right? 11. This isn't a major step, but it looks nice and it's worth trying. I want to create smoke behind the vehicle. There's no one way to do this, but there are some principles to follow. First, make a new layer, and select a light grey/white color, and lower the opacity of the brush to about 30% and the flow to about 50%. I use a rough brush (windows/brushes/load-thick heavy brushes) because it has a little more texture. Then, doodle circles. Make it a little darker, and doodle inside, and darker again, and so on, until it's about as so (pic). After, I Gaussian blur it to soften it, and lower the opacity on the layer to about 80%, so it is partially see-through. Finally, I color match it to the Mars pic, as I did the Mono Jet pic. 12. As one nice dramatic detail, I create a new layer and box, and fill it in black. 13. I use filter/render/clouds to create clouds. I do it a few times to get clouds I like. 14. I take the box and edit/transform/perspective. I want the clouds to move off to the horizon, so I widen the top, and turn it to match the horizon line. After moving it to the upper right, I create a layer mask, and use a gradient to fade it in the horizon. I lower the opacity to blend it into the color of the sky. That's it, you're done! Not so difficult, and can be finished in an hour or so. Give it a try

Great review! I don't love these UCS sets though. I'm a mini fig purist. But, the set would be very useful for parts! Thank you!

But hadn't Ben been on Jacob's side all along? He was deceived into killing Jacob. I was a little confused by that whole thing... First, Jacob was a mystical presence in that magic shed, then later he was a guy on the beach with bodyguards. Some of the transitions from the Dharma Initiative to The Others and after that gets a little fuzzy for me. The time travel part is where I lost the flow.

This is very successful! Nice job all around.

Season 3 (aka the filler season)? I wasn't overly impressed either, it hurt momentum a lot. But, the scenes with Richard Alpert were amazing, and rescued the episode for. I agree, Ben's turned into something else, kind of a middle-man on the island, in control of nothing. From the AV Club review http://www.avclub.com/articles/dr-linus,39051/

That wasn't a particularly suggestive shot... Maybe you're seeing something more sinister than me As for Canada, there are some things I like about it (food, friends) but lots I don't like. I'm not that attached to Canadian (or American) culture. Where I am now, winter's been over for a week or so, and there's never snow. I've traveled around Asia cheaply. I get to learn and use a new language daily. The teenagers don't scare me. I can enjoy all the TV and shopping I like on the Internet. It's easier to live healthier... It's mostly just my friends and family that I miss in Canada, but my lifestyle is much, much better here.

You were making fun of me? Couldn't tell. I guess I'm just that comfortable with myself

I'm anxiously looking forward to the morning of day 4! The intrigue, the intrigue! I'll put this out to any players here, if your time comes/has come, and you want a deceased avatar like I'm using, let me know, I can make 'em in 15 minutes or so... (maybe not the captain who got blown up though )