Random Happenstance

"Day late, Dollars Short."

June 6, 2009: That makes it three years since the release of the remake of the Omen. And...no one cares. So, we'll be talking about something else, yeah...especially since I'm a day late there.

"Well son, the funny thing about regret is, it's better to regret something you have done, then something you haven't done. And by the way, if you see your mom this weekend, tell her..."

That's been my tagline over at Oafe.net for about ever. It's cribbed from the live version of Orbital's "Satan," a song probably better known for playing over the opening credits of the movie Spawn. I have no idea if the spoken dialog's something the brothers Hartnoll threw together themselves, or if it's sampled from a movie or something else; but the fact remains that it's good advice. (Usually. Not a hard and fast ironclad rule, though...)

So, let's apply it to toys, shall we? Today we've got some links to toys I passed up when they were on the shelves, yet covet fiercely now. (As opposed to figures I covet fiercely yet have never actually seen, like that Super-Skrull I wanted.) For example, a Babbage's next door to my old job a few years back, had a Muppet Show Pigs In Space playset on sale for months. $9.99. Never picked it up. To this day, I'm still kicking myself, since I would've loved cramming Kirk, Spock, and McCoy in there.

Similarly, while I bought far more of the new Masters of the Universe than I had ever expected I would, I missed Castle Greyskull. Ordinarily, I could accept that, but it was marked down to less than $9.99. What the hell was I thinking? Well, the Wife thought she was pregnant...OK, that's a pretty good reason.

A better reason, than "Meh, he's sort of cool. I guess." Poor Steel wasn't deemed worth the ten bucks Big Lots wanted for him, the one time I would ever see him. The variant for Bishop was even cheaper, but I skipped him since he was a colossal tool. Only now, sadly, do I realise the inherent comedy potential of Bishop, colossal tool. (That seems to be his current role in Cable and the X-Men books; Cable was another character I similarly didn't buy right away.) Hell, I probably should'a picked up X-23 as well: not a character I love, but a character I'd doubtless love mocking, although I was beaten to the punch by Fanwank!

It would probably have still been out of scale now, but I'm sorry I didn't pick up the 9-inch scale Homer Simpson, if for no other reason than Pinchy. Ah, Pinchy...there's still a lobster-shaped hole in my heart. I need a moment...

Ahem. Anyway, the point of all this is, while it may seem like it sometimes, I don't buy every single damn toy I see. And sometimes I regret it, either because I can see the whole left in my collection, or I get the bright idea for a joke for a figure that'll cost me now. Toy Bender had a discussion about being broke, but trying to get the figures you want on the shelves right now. Sometimes, you get lucky and find it on sale later; sometimes you pay through the nose further down the road.

Anyway, I'm a day late here, but since I've been on a four-day blogging schedule lately, I thought maybe trying single-panel gags on Fridays would get me back on track. So, I'm going to try that from now until whenever I get writer's block and quit or I forget. Here's a crappy joke:

Panda and Clownface, from Jason Pearson's Body Bags and Legendary Heroes, were on sale for five bucks at Wal-Mart. In fact, I damn near bought another one, but not for scalping purposes. Can't say until that strip comes up...

Oh, and one more random, but marginally related item: I was in the mood to see a zombie movie yesterday, so at Blockbuster I was surprised to see a new Day of the Dead on the racks. Like Dawn of the Dead from a few years back, this wasn't quite a remake, but more like a retelling ("re-imagining" is a term that makes my stomach churn); but unlike Dawn, it's not very good. No, that's not right: while finding this in the video store without having even heard of it before didn't set off any warning bells, but the previews did: uniformly crappy looking low budget horror films. Now, a lot of low budget horror can be creative and terrifying, but these--and the new Day--were not only charmless, but also have just enough computer graphics to abuse it. The first time I saw a zombie jump ten feet straight up and crawl along a roof ala Dracula or Spider-Man; I cursed out loud in my living room.

Sweet Zombie Jesus, the terribleness of the new Day of the Dead saddens and sickens me. Zombies using tools to hit at a roof. Zombies "running" via sped-up film. (28 Days Later introduced the idea of faster "zombies," but later films ran it into the ground.) Bud...I had thought this version was going to be a prequel, and Bud would become the zombie soldier domesticated in the original. (Watch the original. Seriously.) Instead, he's a vegetarian zombie. Who remembers how to fire a gun. Apparently, because he really, really wants to.

Rrrr. Sometimes, when reviewing or discussing comics, I sometimes bite my tongue a bit, since the writer may have worked hard on that material. But this time, I not only want to badmouth this movie, I want to warn everyone I can to avoid Day of the Dead: there's better crappy zombie movies out there.