I'm getting burned out with collabs. While I do like the Idea; it's the execution that I have a problem with. Here are the problems that I see with collabs in general.

1. Too much like Robot Chicken (as in linear and derivitive).
I am talking about the comedy collabs here (e.g. Blamformers, Nin10Doh!, MG Collab, etc.). While the animation in these are decent to excellent; there are only a few enjoyable shorts offset by mostly boring/annoying ones (see number 2). Why make something that obviously copies off of Seth Green's sketch comedy show while they can do it like Queers of War? At least it was non-linear.

2. Style over substance.
What do I mean by this? As in animation quality over content quality that results in something that looks overproduced. Look, I understand the effort that goes into this part, but no one cares about animation quality if the jokes/stories/etc. are dog shit. I'm getting sick of such animation quality getting wasted on bad content.

3. Too many art styles which result in style clash.
Even though I loved All Fads Die; what worked for it doesn't work for others. Truth be told, many of these art styles I like, but for a big story, these result in a inconsistent look that looks like a demo reel than an actual cartoon. Electric Blue, on the other hand, had a consistent style from all of its artists. Thus, It is an example of how collabs should be done.

4. The voice acting
Voice acting in collabs is usually more misses than hits. The deliveries on this part are either flat, overdone, or just plain annoying. I hate being harsh due to this, but at least it shows some form of honesty.

5. The Ammount of artists involved.
I'm getting sick of collabs that have ten or more people working on them. As I said before, this usually results in having a few good parts offset by a lot of mediocre to bad ones. This is why I prefer Queers of War and Banned Slim Jim Ad over the Official ________ Collabs any day.

This rant may sound derisive, but I'm trying to be honest here.

Anime I do Like part one.

1. Rozen Maiden: I just can't explain how funny this is, it is best seen than explained. However, I'm getting sick of people using Suiseiseki's speech impairment as a cheap internet gag. I'm also sick of people trashing the dub just because Geneon took out the dolls' speech impairments; that pisses me off. The reasons I don't like the dub are the pronounciation mistakes the actors made, and the acting itself is below average.

2. Tekkaman Blade/Teknoman: A considerable step up from the original Tekkaman, and the dub used music from Transformers: The Movie (good but overrated) along with Steve "Onslaught" Bulen.

3. La Blue Girl: Even though this was censored in certain ways, I still think it rocks.

4. Sousei No Aquarion: I dig the designs that this one has.

5. Transformers Zone: Even though one episode was made; this was much better than most of the First-generation episodes in terms of animation quality. Too bad it wasn't released stateside when it was made. However, a fandub was made a few years ago that can be found online.

6. Soul Taker

The links:
Don J. Easterbrook

Junkfood science: The Silent pain of bullied children.

Cato Institute: How to deal with Kim Jong Il

American Lycurgus-A former member of Lyndon LaRouche's cult trashes it with in-depth reports about that insane cult.

Cato Institute: Not everyone needs to go to college.

Last Datatrack

1. The Speed Racer movie: I haven't got the chance to see the whole thing, but from what I saw it was a case of unintended laughter and cartoon overkill. While it's not a total piece of shit (I have seen much worse); it isn't a better than sex experience that its proponents say it is. Look, the original Speed Racer/Go! Mach 5, Go! had realistic racetracks instead of the ones that were taken out of F-Zero and Xtreme-G. In short, not bad, but not great at the same time. Then again, at least it doesn't have the assload of parodies that DBZ and Naruto have.

2. Comic-Con: I have mixed feelings towards this event. On one hand, you get to meet cool people, and check out some really cool stuff. On the other hand, I think it has become a bit too big to the point where it is starting to lose focus on comics themselves.

3. Ebolaworld: Is it just me, or is he not as good as his fans say he is? Sure he can draw and animate, but when compared to YAAFM or The Kubby Chronicles, he just isn't funny.

4. Tibet: Yes, I know that the Chinese Communists are brutal assholes. However, when the Dalai Lama ran Tibet; he did things to the Tibetans that were far worse than what Mao Dzedong's government was capable of doing. You had the Lama class of monks who were living in luxury, while the rest of the Tibetans were pretty much serfs living in squalor. Hell, the tibetan people were also subject to rape and lawbreakers were subject to torture.

5. New Batman Cartoons: I loved the first animated series that came out, and I also liked Batman Beyond. Hell, Mask of the Phantasm and Sub-Zero were much better than the Schumacher camp fests. The Batman was ok, but having Adam West but not have him as the caped crusader is just fucked up. Of course, this is coming from someone who likes Rino Romano. As for Brave and the Bold; I haven't seen it, but I have heard both good and bad things about it.

6. Strip Clubs: Am I one of the few people that appreciates a decent titty bar here? Probably not, but it sure feels like it. At least going to one doesn't cost as much as college. Plus, I credit HotDiggedyDemon for having one in his Jackie cartoon. Seriously, there's not enough strip club humor in flash movies.

7. BiffTheTimid: Is it me, or does his How 2 Succeed on NG movie seem to be a remix/rehash of both Portal Detour and NG Sticks. I do appreciate how he took potshots at Egoraptor and the other four popular VAs; but Biff isn't very good at comedy and instead should stick with his own ideas. He is great at art and animation, though.

8. The BMI scale: Here's something that will change how you people think about obesity:
http://www.consumerfreedom.com/games.c fm
It's a simple, but effective way that shows how worthless that the Body Mass Index deal is.

Junk Science: Why animal "liberation" is bullshit

Sandy Szwarc on govenment-run healthcare

National Post on Not Evil, Just Wrong

I have been thinking about doing another "Things on my mind" rant for sometime, but even though I have many subjects that I can comment on; I tend to get writers block and end up burned out & discouraged. The most important reason why I do it is simply because I can. And here are the subjects that I have rounded up for the next edition:
Ebolaworld
HotDiggedyDemon
Collabs
The Simpsons
College
Strip Clubs
New Batman Cartoons
Madworld
Hell, I might do a compiled edition of all previous columns and revise them up a bit. It's like I-Mockery's Tales from the Longbox minus Protoclown's crappy jokes.

Update: Two new Conceptart.org sketchbooks.
Microballistic
DevilMiner

Here's some Atari-related stuff I found yesterday that I think would interest someone here.

Atari Lynx Development Documents

Alpine Games at Duranik.de

Bastian Schick's Atari Lynx page

Shadow of the Beast for Atari Lynx Longplay
Part 1

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Part 2

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Part 3

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Here's something that you probably didn't know about me until now: I used to own an Atari Lynx handheld until I sold it back in 2001. The Lynx was pretty advanced for a handheld when it came to graphics department; too bad it's short battery life and bad marketing resulted in its demise in 1993. This is a little 20th anniversery tribute to this overlooked handheld.

SSB Brawl was and still is an enjoyable game, but it has glaring flaws that prevented it from being the best game of 2008 (that rank goes to Space Invaders Extreme).

1. The character roster: Even though I enjoy many of the game's fighters; many of them were completely unnecissary. These are:
Toon Link
Wolf-I liked playing as him, and Jay Ward did a great job; however, he's still superfluous.
Ness-Even though I like Ness, but wasn't Lucas enough?
Seriously, the clones only worked for the First two SSB games, but here they weren't really needed. There were characters that could have used some much recognition, such as Mike Jones from Star Tropics, the BattleClash crew, Saki from Sin and Punishment (even though he was an assist trophy), Muddy Mole from Mole Mania (I remember seeing it at Service Merchandise over ten years ago), or what have you.

2. The music: While many of the songs are good to great; SSBB suffers from quantity over quality in this category and a good share of the songs feel out of place. They should have gotten Kenichiro Fukui to do some original scores because he knows how to make some great action pieces. I also feel that Jay Ward's narrations were completely unnecissary. However, I do like how they worked in that Game Boy Game X into the song roster. (Fun Fact: Fukui was mentioned in the credits of BattleClash and Metal Combat: Falcon's Revenge.)

3. Online mode: Look, I steer clear of online gaming for various, unrelated reasons, but I think they should have upped the number of onscreen characters from four to eight.

Overall, these are the biggest flaws with SSB Brawl. There are more, but I can overlook them. Besides, I'd rather play SSBB over MGS4 any day. (Note: The MGS4 quip was meant to be a joke.)

Scientific Literature:

Steve Milloy on the Ozone layer

Greenpeace takes cash from large corporations-It's ironic that they claim to hate free enterprise, yet they take donations from all kinds of businesses.

Videos:

Super Darius 2

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Darius Gaiden

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The Great Global Warming Swindle-This is what kids should be watching in schools.

The Supplementary Material that goes with the aforementioned.

Misc.:

Beware the Cult of Obama

Congrats to Tom and April, now you are even with Wade!

Remember the early days of the portal when voice acting in Flash cartoons was a rarity, but was done rather well most of the time. Back then it was just Evil Dave (who needs to make some new cartoons), Sharem Ma'Ten (the original voice of Miss Dynamite), Jason Buck (who Ben Spurgin had as the Stick Slayer), Mike & Andy Parker, Mike Roach (co-creator of The Lloyds), and the guy who created Portal Detour (which is the precursor to How 2 succeed on NG). Of course, this was before people started taking animation too seriously. If you are going to voice act in a Flash cartoon, at least put some effort into the actual acting part like the aforementioned did. Look, I may not think highly of the VA Club or the VA Alliance now, but they emphasize on high-end equipment over actual acting skill. Having a microphone that (almost) matches that of a studio will not make you the next Mel Blanc, Bill Scott (from Rocky & Bullwinkle), Walker Edmiston, Ian James Corlett, Jon St. John (from Duke Nukem 3d), or what not. At least study a few old cartoons and observe how the voices are done a bit. Now to discuss a few voice actors on this site:

1. Egoraptor: Even though his Awesome Schtick is getting stale, but at least he knows how pull off character voices for all of the flash he did. However, I think it's time he focused on his own projects for once instead of doing stuff for other cartoonists. Besides, not every cartoon he does voices for is worthy of a high score. (Fun fact: He also used to draw custom sprites at some point.)

2. Kirbopher: Although I did not like the stuff he did after Mario RPG: Rawest Forest; He is still much better than most of people that the VA Club and VA Alliance when comes to character voices. What bugs me is why aren't people having him in their flash cartoons and games? Plus, I know plenty of stuff that he can be cast into.

3. Hans Van Harken: What's the big deal about this guy? I can credit him for being able to draw and animate; however, as a VA, he's nothing special. And seeing him get voice roles over Cailen Denton (from TTA and the Parody Rangers) or Chris Zito is rather lazy and uninventive.

4. Francine Louise: I don't see anything interesting about her. Her voices come off rather flat at best, or somewhat annoying at worst. Honestly, there are much better VAs than her, such as Rebecca McCarthy (from Griswold the Goblin 2) or Princess Aurora.

5. Chris Zito & Cailen Denton: How come nobody's having these guys in their cartoons and games? Seriously, they're seriously overlooked and I think it's time they did something other than the latest Kirbopher cartoon. The reason that I'm lumping them together because there isn't anying I can say about them without repeating myself to the point of sheer annoyance.

Libertarian Party: Did so called "universal health care" Kill Actress?

I'm sure that it has.

Patrick Moore on Toilet Paper.

I dare any of the liberal users on here to debate Patrick Moore.

Michael R. Fox reviews Red Hot Lies.

I would recommend everyone here to pick up this book.

As for a rant involving voice acting in Flash movies, I'm too tired to do it right now, so I have no other choice than to put it off.

MMT

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It's an SMB 2 clone with excellent graphics.

Fren-Ze

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Vectorized space shooting action!

Boot Fighter Windom

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If anyone is familiar with the Sega Saturn game Bulk Slash; this is a game involving giant robots that can transform.

Es

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Another indie game to look out for.

Dysnomia

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Virtual ON with maids.

Blood Over

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Devil May Cry meets CastleVania

That's all for now, but I might put up a rant dealing with voice acting the next time.