From the minds and actors of Playbill.com comes an interesting, and hilarious take on MTV’s Jersey Shore. Played out in the style of Oscar Wilde, some of the most head-scratching quotes featured on the normally migraine inducing reality series gets a very British makeover. Here in a five part series, we see actors Santino Fontana and David Furr showing us what television would be like in a smarter world:

It has been said a hero is defined by their villains. I think this is a pretty truthful statement. I like to think of it this way: Spider-Man had a live action TV show in the 70’s, the Flash did in the 90’s. Spidey tanked pretty quick, partly due to the fact that there weren’t any super villains on the show, and had the webhead taking on petty crooks and the like. While the Flash only lasted one season, it is better remembered, especially the episodes with the Trickster. Villains make the hero more entertaining just by being there! An easy way to create a villain is to use the “dark mirror” method of just making the villain the goateed evil opposite of the hero. This works well more often than not, but my favorite example of this is a dark mirror villain who takes that trope and spins it on its ear. This baddie has a similar origin to the hero, but the effects cause a decidedly opposite reaction, as we’ll see in: The Secret Origin of… The Leader!

As our story begins, the Leader is sitting, deep in thought with his newest creation, the Humanoid! That’s something you should know about a genius intellect; You can make amazingly sophisticated electronic apparatus, but you’re gonna suck at naming stuff. Anyway, the leader starts to remove his radiation/beekeeper’s suit and starts to think back to how he got his start…

In the 60's Marvel Universe, one-in-a-million means "Every Tuesday"

And as always in the Marvel Universe, the laborer didn’t develop cancer or instantly die of radiation poisoning. Instead, he wakes up in the hospital pretty much none the worse for the wear. There is one thing though. The laborer (who is not named in this story, but is named Samuel Sterns) has gotten a voracious appetite for reading!  Even after he is released from the best care an unskilled laborer’s pay will get you, Sterns finds himself soaking up knowledge and information better than even the leading paper towel brand!

"Must... wave hands in air... then pretend... like I JUST DON'T CARE!"

Seriously though, what really happens is that it’s just taken this long for the Gamma Rays to kick in with full effect. Sterns collapses to the ground and falls into unconsciousness. When he comes to, his first instinct is to look into a mirror, where he find something startling… DC Comics/Hector Hammond are going to sue him for copyright infringement!

Are you sure about that, buddy?

In addition to a visage that puts Master Billy Quizboy to shame, apparently Gamma rays give you a kicky mustache as well. With that, Flashback time is over, and we see The Leader remove his suit’s mask to reveal… well, himself really. He thinks to himself (because when you have a brain the size of Rhode Island of course you’re going to think to yourself), that the Gamma rays have made him the most formidable brains on Earth. He also muses on the vast network of spies he has amassed to take over the government (it was the 60’s after all). Finally, he boasts to himself that his humanoid is all-powerful, bringing us full circle.

"But first, my origin! Wait! Damn, my mind got stuck in a recursive loop again!"

We leave the Leader now, because while the origin is done, the story is not! It seem back at the army base, Dr. Bruce Banner has again invented such a mind-numbingly insane nuclear-powered device that Uncle Sam needs to see it personally. It’s being transported by train, and Banner has to be on board to show them how it works. “Thunderbolt” Ross and Major Glenn Talbot don’t trust Banner, thinking he’s somehow involved with this ongoing Hulk business (very astute, what with him always appearing in rags after a Hulk sighting). They tell him to his face, while one of the Leader’s supposedly ineffective spies overhears and goes to inform his master. Back at the Leader’s hideout, he already knows the situation and tries out his precious Humanoid…

"That's it! Use the power of mental thinking!"

After the Leader is done showing off, he thinks at the Humanoid to fly his helicopter and rendezvous with the government train Banner’s McGuffin, I mean, device. The Humanoid starts his attack, the soldier’s bullets go right through him. They say it’s like a sponge, but if that were the case, wouldn’t the Humanoid absorb the bullets? Anyway, comic book-based semantics aren’t going to get us anywhere. Ross & Talbot are informed of the attack, while Banner is understandably worried about his nuclear device. Instead of being rational, Ross locks Banner in the train car, thinking it is some elaborate scheme of his. Well, if you’ve ever read a comic, I don’t have to tell you what happens when Bruce Banner is locked up and agitated…

General Ross forgot that Kryptonite® locks only work on that other guy.

So of course the Hulk breaks out of the train car. Just as he emerges, the Humanoid is decoupling the rear cars, because that’s what you do during a train heist. The Hulk uses his mighty leg muscles to bride the gap. He one-man dogpiles the Humanoid just as the Leader, looking through its eyes, is about to get a good look at the device in question. The rubber/sponginess of the Humanoid causes the Hulk to bounce off, and the Leader can hardly believe what he sees…

Mmm, It's a possibility, Doc.

The Hulk and the Humanoid tussle for a while, neither getting the upper hand, thanks to the Humanoid’s highly pliable body. As they reach an overpass, the Leader plays his ace in the hole. He commands the Humanoid to electrocute the Hulk, thereby knocking him off the train, and hopefully to his death below. If you think that’s what would happen, then you may be ready for an advanced physics class, but not Comics 101! Seriously though, of all the downright silly things I have seen in a comic (trust me, there are a lot), this has to take the cake as the most inexplicable, and that is due mostly to the explanation…

Only a 6-year-old would believe it!

So after that defiance of natural laws, the two titans grapple again! The Leader tries for the electro-whammy again, but this time, the Hulk is ready for it, and just shakes it off. The struggle continues, stalemated, when the Hulk notices that their tussle is loosening the bolts holding Banner’s device securely to the train car! You might think the Hulk is too brutish for that to be the case, but we’re talking about the pre-Hulk Smash! day, where the green-skinned Goliath could speak and think semi-coherently. Anyway, the Leader switches tactics, ordering the Humanoid to smother the Hulk, guessing he’d be easier to subdue if he’s unable to breathe. The Hulk can of course, hold his breath a long, long time.  Finally, in an act of either desperation, or sheer dumb luck, the Hulk flips both he and the Humanoid and manages to take out his adversary.

"Much like a couch potato, or your average comic reader!"

With the Humanoid taken out, the Hulk can focus on the task at hand. Just as the nuclear-powered device is about to hit the train’s tanker car, the Hulk leaps into action, tackling the device off the train. Astoundingly the Hulk’s actions didn’t cause a nuclear disaster, what with radioactive materials being volatile and all. The device itself is completely intact as well! With the adrenaline rush over, the Hulk reverts back into Banner, just as Talbot and Ross arrive on the scene. Since he was supposed to be locked in a train car, Banner is immediately arrested, giving the Leader a bit of a Pyrrhic victory, one which he’ll never know about.  As we leave the players in this little vignette, one man discovers a life-long enemy and another is about to make the most fateful decision of his life:

Banner: "Yes, I'll tell them I'm the Hulk! They'd never arrest me then! It's flawless!"

The Leader/Hulk feud would continue in subsequent months, and both characters would go through a series of metamorphoses throughout the years. The underlying message is always the same though, sheer brute strength will defeat pure intellect always. Wait a minute, that can’t be right! Anyway, see you all next week!

This story originally appeared in Tales to Astonish #63 January, 1964. It has been reprinted many times, notably in Marvel Masterworks: Hulk Volume 2 and Essential Hulk Volume 1.

It’s the weekend, and news is kind of slow, so I thought I’d share something I found with you all. We’re all aware of the Chinese Zodiac, you can always tell someone “I was born in the year of the Rat!” or whatever. Sadly, aside from Year of the Dragon, there isn’t much inherently cool about the old zodiac. Thanks to the joint efforts of James Wright and Josh Eckert, that has all changed with the Geek Zodiac. It works just like the Chinese version, but each of the 12 signs has a keystone year. That is to say, a year that is special to that particular sign.

I myself am proud to have been born in the year of the Time Traveler. I have such greats as Marty McFly and The Doctor to look up to, and I’d say it fits me, because I love vintage everything, especially when it’s geeky. I like Old Time Radio, classic Video Games and Silver Age comics. You can find your sign below (click to make it bigger), and let us know what your sign is, and if it fits you!

After a short hiatus – that we here and BSR can only assume was gay porn-related – the boys from Laser Brain are back with a brand new, just as awful episode! We know you’re jonesin’, so here you go!

Laser Brain Podcast – 04/13/11

In this episode Tristan tells the tales of his privates and battle with stinky skin!

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Also, Laser Brain would like you to take the time to check out:

http://www.vomitusprime.com/

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My Pub Quiz co-host Shannon Barnson, panelist on the Geek Show, pointed this out to me on the Facebook and it was too much to not share. Apparently some fellow named Kevin Murray went the full nine yards and made a wearable glass pipe (that you put on to smoke) shaped and colored like Boba Fett’s helmet.

This is a pretty intricate design and quite impressive. I can’t imagine ever needing one of these, but I’m sure some Star Wars fan out there wouldn’t mind getting their paws on something like this.

I found it over at a site called Obvious Winner (here) but all of the links to the original artists website are down or don’t work.

Does anyone know how something like this would even work?

It reminds me of a sketch by a guy who used to be a standup comedian, Dennis Leary. Now he’s Captain Stacy in the new Spider-Man picture. But he had a bit explaining that marijuana doesn’t lead to other drugs, it leads to carpentry. And looking at this, I see that he has a point.

Last month, I ranted a bit about a certain comic of Halo and Sprocket creator Kerry Callen’s that was going around uncredited. Today, Kerry has released something similar on his blog, and I figured I’d post it now before it got lost in the shuffle of forced internet anonymity. It’s a fun and funny alternate take on just what inspired Bruce Wayne to become a costumed hero. There is plenty more funny at Kerry’s blog, so take a look if you’re so inclined.

In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, actor Sean Patrick Flanery (Boondock Saints) and Funny or Die bring us an informative video about how green beer is made.

It doesn’t quite appeal to my particular sense of humor, but I’ll watch anything that has Sean Patrick Flanery speaking in an Irish accent.

But beware . . . you may never look at green beer in quite the same way again.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

This is pretty cool. If you are unfamiliar with the series of games by Namco called Katamari Damacy, you play as the Prince of the Cosmos. You are tasked by your father, the King to use your magical ball called a katamari. to collect as much junk as you can on Earth. The goal of this is ostensibly to make new planetary bodies, but to be honest, the fun lies in just roaming around and trying to pick up random stuff. You know, paper clips, erasers, the mailman.  The katamari picks up any and everything it sees, and gets larger accordingly. It’s a very charming and addictive game, and now thanks to the efforts of the Katamari Hack, you can play it on any website! Of course I couldn’t resist playing ir here at BSR, and here’s the result:

Just as in the game, you start off with a tiny katamari, but as soon as you start letting it pick up words and images it gets progressively bigger. Best of all, it is accompanied by the game’s distinctive theme song! If you’re curious as to how it works, here’s the skinny straight from the source, but to be honest, I can’t makes heads or tails of it.

Short version: css transforms (for things stuck to the katamari), canvas (drawing the katamari), and z-index (illusion of depth).

Long version: The bookmarklet loads jQuery and kh.js into the current page. jQuery is used mostly for.offset() and .css().  kh.js is where all the action happens:

• Splits all the text on the page into words/spans. (StickyNodes::addWords)
• Builds a grid data structure so that intersections with elements can be found quickly (StickyNodes::finalize). Essentially grid[floor(x / 100)][floor(y / 100)] is a list of elements in a 100×100 pixel block. This should probably be an R-tree, but the hot-spot in this program is definitely in the rendering.
• The ball and stripes are drawn in a canvas that gets moved around the page (i.e. position: absolute; left: x; top: y;). See PlayerBall::drawBall.
• When an element is attached to the katamari, a clone is made. The original element is hidden. The new element is moved around by setting -webkit-transform. The transform rotates the element about the rolling axis of the katamari and scales the element to make it look like it’s coming out of the page. See PlayerBall::drawAttached, transform_test.html, andtransform_test2.html.

So, there you have it. The bookmarklet works best on Google Chrome and Firefox 4, so if you have a few spare minutes, give it a shot. I myself am going to eat more text so I can pick up the Big Shiny Robot himself!

Source: Katamari Hack

Here it is folks! A brand dick-spanking new episode of Laser Brain! This is actually episode 15 – and, no, episode 14 wasn’t skipped, it’s that episode 13 was actually episode 14 because the boys from Laser Brain are superstitious and “skipped” episode 13. In my ignorance I labeled the last episode incorrectly, I’m sure I’ll have to pay my penance in some sort of homo-erotic fashion. . .

Anyways, if you missed out on “episode 14” I suggest you go back and listend to it prior to listening to this latest episode. I have thoroughly enjoyed every episode of Laser Brain thus far, but I can honestly say these last two are far and away my favorites with the reading of Nick’s old love letters. I shit you not when I say this episode almost made me cause a car accident as I was listening to it on my way to work – I was laughing so hard my eyes were tearing up.

Enjoy the latest Laser Brain in which the saga of Nick’s relationship via love letters is wrapped up!

Laser Brain Podcast – Episode 14 Episode 15 – “Young Rove 2.0”

In this episode we finish out our journey through Nick’s loveless and note-filled past.

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Also, Laser Brain would like you to take the time to check out:

www.vomitusprime.com

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SUPER WRESTLING FIGURES

PURCHASED: at HONKS $1.00 ea.

MADE IN CHINA (Zhongshan City, Guangdong China)

The reason I like to contribute to Tuff Toy Tuesday is for weeks like this one. I was at Honk’s for some reason and came across the funniest fuckin’ toys on the planet. These bondage wrestlers are children’s action figures with movable arms, legs, and head!

The most eye grabbing figure had to be “Spider-Loc” with his black sunglasses, black and yellow Argiope (spider) on his chest, and boot-cast weapon. He’s paired up with “Blow-Job Bob” a lion scratched, soul-patched fighter…who fights with a dumbbell and crutch?!

The most versatile wrestler from the crew had to be the “Texas Chainsaw Mexican”. Not only does his body change from bloated with a chainsaw to chiseled with chainsaw, he continues to bring a sweet grip for clutching foes, or cock. His opponent “Tygr-Mylk” is not as fortunate. He has the back part of my Futon to defend himself with. Poor bastard…

There is however, much more to be desired. “No shit.” Right? That is until you see the assholes on the cover of the package: “Salamander Sal”, “Tin-Foil Tito”, “Peter Chriss” and so much more!!! Why were these not available? Was I too late?

There’s no reason not to collect these! After all, they’re the “cheapest” figures you’ll ever buy and they’re all like waaayyyy buff!