Hello
Click image to enlarge.
Download the F.Y.O.C. version here.
Classic Canadian Animated Sci-Fi!
There are a lot of reasons to love the animation studio known as Nelvana. If you love comic books, animation and Sci-Fi then you must check them out.
When I was growing up in the 70's, Nelvana put out a lot of amazing cartoons.
A Cosmic Christmas (1977)
The Devil and Daniel Mouse (1978)
Intergalactic Thanksgiving (1979)
Romie-0 and Julie-8 (1979)
It is a crying shame that you can only enjoy these classics on YouTube under some really painfully low video quality. Having said that; thank God for YouTube so we can still enjoy these classics! I've put in all the links. Enjoy them all.
They also produced the animated sequence for the 1978 Star Wars Christmas Special. Boba Fett makes his first appearance in this cartoon.
And last but not least I'd like to mention the little-known Canadian Sci-Fi classic. Rock and Rule from 1983. (Wikipedia page).
This film was Nelvana's first theatrical release. Warning: I'm about to rave like a drooling fan-boy about this movie.
To my 10-year-old self, this film totally rocked. To the adult I am today, this film still rocks. It's loud and beautiful! A simple story told very well. It comes accompanied by great music you'll want on your mp3 player! And the animation was startling. You can't take your eyes off it, even today.
You won't believe the talent they lined up for the songs in this movie. Just read the names on the poster above. I have a co-worker, she's in her 20's. I read her the names and she had no idea who any of them were. She's never even heard of Blondie!
Kids today! What is the world coming to? (Statements like this that make me certain I was born to be a codger.)
I've linked to the original Canadian version. The quality isn't great but it's still pretty good. Thanks to a company called Unearthed Films you can still get this movie from Amazon. (I've linked to the American Amazon site so you can enjoy what people have to say about the movie in the reviews.)
I watched these cartoons when I was very young. The fact that I've never forgotten them is a testament to the impact they had on me. The style of animation was like nothing I had ever seen before. They really didn't feel like cartoons for kids; even though some of them were. And with a few exceptions, we really don't see anything like them anymore. You can see some of this early Nelvana style in their later and more well-known offerings. Namely Droids: The Adventures of R2-D2 and C-3PO and Ewoks from 1985.
As you probably guessed, I've only just recently rediscovered this movie on YouTube. I stayed up late just to watch it. I just wanted to share my excitement with you all. I wonder how old my son has to be before I can show it to him?
Have a great day.
Hello
Click image to enlarge.
Download the F.Y.O.C. version here.
Harry Kremer's Mom!
As a kid, I bought comics from Harry Kremer.
As a kid, I also bought comics from Harry Kremer's mom.
Everybody who knows about Now and Then Books knows about Harry Kremer. He died in 2002. The store closed in 2007. Last time I visited Kitchener I drove passed the corner of Queen and Charles Streets. There was a clothing store there instead of a window full of comics and it broke my heart to see it.
For those of you who don't know about Now and Then Books you can read all about it here and here and here and here. As a kid I never realized what an impact that store had on comics and the people who collected them. I thought that every town had a store just like Now and Then.
I discovered Now and Then Books when I was about 13 years old. I would hop on my bike and cross town from Pioneer Park to downtown Kitchener (4.85 miles/7.81 km). I would sometimes do this on a daily basis. I didn't realize that new comics didn't come every day.
I once bought a She-Hulk graphic novel (about $8.00 plus taxes) completely with small change. Based on what people had to say about Harry, he probably didn't mind so much. Google his name and the store. You'll find lots of people who have something nice to say about Harry Kremer.
The real subject of this post is Harry's mother. The tragedy of it is that I don't know too much about her. I don't even know her name. She sat at the front desk cash register and sold thousands of comics to probably just as many high school-aged boys. She had gray curly hair and wore glasses. I remember her wearing scarfs or high collars a lot. I can't remember which; my memory fails me.
She also had a thick accent. As you browsed the bins, you could occasionally hear her call "HAR-ree!" (You can hear her voice in your head right now, can't you?)
If anyone knows her name or when she died, please let me know. This post is dedicated to my childhood memories of her.
Thanks for all the comics Mrs. Kremer.
Have a great day.
Hello
The Comic Reader file versions are ready for:
Metropolis Yearbook #1
Metropolis Yearbook #2
Metropolis Yearbook #3
and
Metropolis Volume #1
You can find them all here.
Have a nice day.
Hello
Download the Metropolis Yearbook #3 here.
The CBZ version will be available soon.
Overdosing on Star Trek: The Next Generation
Good things can be bad things if taken in excess.
I learned this recently from re-watching all the Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes. All 178 of them. It took me about two years. That might sound like a relaxed schedule, but that is one ST:TNG every 4 days.
Watching so much ST:TNG is not good for you; especially if you like Star Trek and you want to continue liking Star Trek. When you watch so much Star Trek close together you begin to notice certain things.
1) There seems far too many omnipotent or near-omnipotent alien species in the universe; Q, the Douwd, Nagilum, the Traveler, and those big space jellyfish from pilot, just to name a few.
The Enterprise is always running into super-powerful aliens. How many can one universe hold? And for beings so powerful they never seem to know about each other.
2) Holodecks seem to cause more trouble than they are worth.
The safeties on that sucker get compromised a lot! For goodness sake! Never turn on your holodeck if you happen to be crossing some weird celestial phenomena. You could lose control of your ship or do something totally wacky like create a new life form. Both of which might kill you during the glitch.
Even Chief O'Brien makes fun of how many times the holodeck malfunctioned in a conversation with Worf in season four of Star Trek: Deep Space 9.
3) Their technology is far too advanced.
Does that sound weird? Think about it. There's nothing they can't do. Between the transporter and the replicator and the limitless times they combine the two, they can do anything. Watch the episodes and you'll notice that they keep coming up with stuff to limit their limitless technology for the sake of the episode's plot line. This planet has a field where we can't use transporters. We can't replicate that thingy because it's made of some special material.
Despite these minor annoyances I still enjoy watching Star Trek. I'll probably watch them all over again in a few year so my son and daughter can get hooked.
In some respects my "minor annoyances" made me glad about the J.J. Abrams "reboot". It seemed like a perfect opportunity to start fresh and not "paint themselves into a corner" with too much super-technology... Hmmm. Let's see there is "Scotty's super-long-distance-transporter" and the "Khan death-reversing-super-blood-serum". (Sigh.)
PS: I've started re-watching Star Trek: Deep Space 9.
Have a great day.
Hello
The Metropolis Yearbook #3 was supposed to be out already. Sorry about that. I hope to put it out in the next two weeks... I hope.
The reason I haven't released it yet gives me a reason to talk about Linux; which I have wanted to do on this blog for some time.
I currently have no working computers. (I'm creating this post on my ipad.) Here's what happened. I was ready to take the plunge. I was ready to cast off Windows operating systems forever in favour of Linux. I was sick to death of viruses and hijackers posing as really interesting freeware.
In defense of Windows. I grew up on Windows and one of the things I always liked about it was the community of home developers. Whatever type of software you wanted there was always someone out there somewhere who was programming what you needed and offered it to the world as freeware. Very commendable.
Nowadays, downloading freeware is a sure way to harm your computer, unless you know how to discern trustworthy sources.
My wife was totally behind the switch to Linux. She's on maternity leave and she was willing to take on a new learning curve provided she could "do all the things she could in Windows". No problem.
I spent some time researching which distro I wanted to use. I had it down to Linux Minut, Zorin and LXLE. I thought about Ubuntu; why not use the originator? But I wanted more of a "out of the box" ready to run distro. Mint proved to cumbersome. Zorin and LXLE rocked all my boxes; all of which were not state of the art. One of the boxes is more than six years old. I chose Zorin because I thought it was kinder in its presentation to former Windows users.
I had two weeks and three computers to convert. Again; no problem. That should have been more than enough time.
Problem number one: YUMI. Yumi is "Your Universal Multiboot Installer". It's great. I loaded a single usb thumb drive with six different distros with this program. I was able to try them all out without having to recreate usb iso images all the time.
My problem was that I used YUMI to install Zorin to the hard drive. When I did that Zorin seemed buggy. It stalled a lot. Sometimes the OS even froze. I tried diagnosing it but in the end I gave up and tried LXLE instead. That's when I finally got around to reading the YUMI webpage where it said "Installing Linux from the YUMI created USB Drive to a Hard Drive is not officially supported".
Darn. I should have installed it using Universal USB Installer. It's the same as YUMI, but it can only do one OS at a time. I was so far into install LXLE that I didn't bother going back to Zorin. It wasn't Zorin's fault. It was mine.
I installed LXLE on all three computers. I had all three computers ready to run in just a few hours. I had XBMC installed on the living room box. And all the stuff I like installed on the two computers in the office. Then...
Problem number two: I couldn't successfully network them all together. I worked on them for days. Don't ask me what went wrong. Yes, I followed all the directions mentioned on the hundreds of website dealing with Ubuntu based distro networking problems. I will fully admit that someone with more computer knowledge than me could have solved the problem. I'm no slouch mind you, but I know I have my limitations.
By the end of the two weeks I was burnt out. I needed my computers working again and I had no more time to spend on it. I went dejectedly back to Windows.
Someday, I do plan to make that switch to Linux. It's been a long time coming. I'm sure a lot of people feel the same way. Mint, Zorin and LXLE will all still be high on my list of distros. I recommend you have a peek at them.
Let me make one final point about Linux. IT'S BEAUTIFUL! The install is quick and clean. It looks so good on big screens and small monitors. The OS runs smooth on old and new computers no problem. Boot and shutdown times are quick. Tons of great programs all for free. I didn't have to install drivers or extra programs. It was all there and ready to go in under a 20 minute install. And best of all it's virus-free, worry-free computing. Don't let me mislead you, there is such a thing as Linux virus. But it's totally manageable. Google it and you'll see what I mean. Start here.
PS: It's been a few days and I only have Windows installed on 2 computers. That's just Windows the OS. I don't have any drivers, antivirus programs, office programs or web browsers installed yet (not MS, the ones I like to use).
PPS: Yes, I have heard of Macs. I have nothing against them, but if I had the money for a Mac I wouldn't be holding on to a six year old computer now would I?
Have a great day.
