Here's Ed's birthday gift, if you're interested... 

Mac Res-Q sent back Ed's old iPod Mini and I finally got those damn VIZ annuals from Amazon UK that I've been waiting for since about the 19th of December. Who knew VIZ had been around for over 25 years? 

Accidents Will Happen 1:11 PM

Staci sent this photo of her car. The saturday after Thanksgiving, while I drove to the MSP airport, My sister got in a wreck. She hadn't even got out of Minnesota. Some guy blew through a stop sign and t-boned the Honda. My sister only got a few scrapes across her knuckles from the broken glass and her back got thrown outta wack, but otherwise she and her boyfriend Doug walked away without any serious injury. You can see my Dad and Doug at the back of the car in this photo, and Staci is next to the Minnesota State Trooper mostly hidden by the Honda... 

Merry Christmas! 6:06 PM

...and a happy root canal! Yeah, It's confirmed. My teeth are rotting through my head. Gonna need a root canal. And it don't make me too happy. But the headaches are getting worse, much worse then Thanksgiving weekend. And it looks like it's gonna cost me at least a grand...

283 Originally uploaded by tohoscope.

Marty Robbins is too damn cool 1:15 PM

I gotta put this to a comic! EL PASO by Marty Robbins Out in the west texas town of el paso I fell in love with a mexican girl. Nighttime would fine me in rose'€™s cantina, Music would play and felina would whirl. Black as the night were the eyes of felina, Wicked and evil while casting a spell. My love was strong for this mexican maiden, I was in love, but in vain I could tell. One night a wild young cowboy came in, wild as the west texas wind... Dashing and daring, a drink he was sharing, With wicked felina, the girl that I love. So in anger I challenged his right for the love of this maiden; Down went his hand for the gun that he wore. My challenge was answered, in less than a heartbeat The handsome young stranger lay dead on the floor. Just for a moment I stood there in silence, Shocked by the foul evil deed I had done. Many thoughts ran through my mind as I stood there; I had but one chance and that was to run. Out through the back door of rose'€™s I ran, out where the horses were tied... I picked a good one; he looked like he could run, Up on his back and away I did ride. Just as fast as I could from the west texas town of el paso, Out thru the badlands of new mexico. Back in el paso my life would be worthless; Everything'€™s gone in life nothing is left. But it'€™s been so long since I'€™ve seen the young maiden, My love is stronger that my fear of death. I saddled up and away I did go, riding alone in the dark... Maybe tomorrow a bullet may find me, Tonight nothing'™s worse than this pain in my heart. And as last here I am on the hill overlooking el paso, I can see rose'€™s cantina below. My love is strong and it pushes me onward, down off the hill to felina I go. Off to my right I see five mounted cowboys, Off to my left ride a dozen or more. Shouting and shooting; I can't let them catch me, I'€™ve got to make it to rose's back door. Something is dreadfully wrong for I feel a deep burning pain in my It's getting harder to stay in the saddle. I'€™m getting weary, unable to ride. But my love for felina is strong and I rise where I'€™ve fallen; Though I am weary, I can'€™t stop to rest. I see the white puff of smoke from the rifle, I feel the bullet go deep in my chest. From out of nowhere, felina has found me, Kissing my cheek as she kneels by my side. Cradled by two loving arms that I'€™ll die for, One little kiss and felina good-bye.

399 Originally uploaded by tohoscope.

Rajah at Rest 1:01 PM

And that's when I turned into a pumpkin! Big thanks to Bruce, Mundee, Ed and Ms. Echo for a great Christmas party!

Rajah at Rest Originally uploaded by tohoscope.

Christmas Cheer and all that 8:50 AM

Ed drew up his annual X-Mas illo and I'm working on the inks. Soon I'll have Bruce add the colors and we'll have it up on the Cheap Disposable Website...

177 Originally uploaded by tohoscope.

Mista Vampire 3:26 PM

That's right! I finally got the classic Lam Ching Ling unibrow Taoist Hopping Vampire movie on DVD!!! Took me long enough. Sheesh. Also got TWINS EFFECT, a Buffyesque Hong Kong vampire movie that looks interesting. I also got GraveDigger Eye Pollution Vol. 1 and The Hypnotic Eye Vol. 5/6 from a trader who I can't seem to find right now. The Hypnotic Eye interests me the most, it used to be a Cable Access show in Dallas, and from the descriptions I've read it sounds like the show is very similar to OtakuHELL...

278 Originally uploaded by tohoscope.

X-Mas soon...New Years later... 1:07 PM

Spent the early part of this week nailing down the rest of the presents I need to get before Christmas. I got Bruce and Mundee covered, and Ed's got both X-Mas and Birthday gifts, and I've even got Joe and Echo something. I know what I'm getting Mom and Dad, I just need to order it. And I need to get my brother and sister's amazon wishlists so I can take care of them.... I'm glad I've got credit cards.

171 Originally uploaded by tohoscope.

Bet it don't taste like steak 9:33 AM

Does anybody else find this stomach turning? This ad ain't working for me.... 

Food From Home + Part Two 10:04 AM

It's white, it's bland, it's Norwegian food. That means the staple of northern european cooking, potatoes! And what do you make out of potatoes if you're Norse? Bread.

And I'm not talking potatoe rolls or loaves of potatoe bread. Nope, I'm talking about the holiday food we in Minnesota call LEFSE.

It's pronounced, lef-sa, short 'e' sound, short 'a' sound. Just say it like the Swedish Chef and use your umlauts.

Making lefse is kinda labor intensive. At our house Mom would mix up the lefse dough and put it in the fridge overnight. The next day we'd get out the rolling pins and cooking iron and start. Mom whould take out a small piece of the lefse dough and roll it into a small ball. Then me, and my brother and sister whould take these bits of dough and roll them flat with a special grooved rolling pin. The trick was to try and keep the lefse a uniform thickness all the way around. Thick spots or very thin spots whouldn't cook properly. We'd also dust the rolling cloth with flour, to keep the lefse dough from sticking to the rolling surface and to the rolling pins. But you didn't want to add too much flour because the excess flour whould make the lefse tough and chewy. Once we'd rolled out the lefse to the proper size Dad whould use a special stick, a hand carved thin and tapered length of wood, to pick up the thin dough and place it on a smooth flat cooking iron. When brown spots start to appear on the surface of the dough the lefse was cooked.

Making lefse whould take a good afternoon to make, and I think it was more fun to make the lefse then to eat it. Cooked lefse looks like tortillas, but the taste is different and you don't eat 'em like tortillas, either. The way we eat a lefse is to open it up and lay it flat. Then spead butter on one side and sprinkle some sugar over it to taste. (Personally, I don't like to add sugar, but that's just me.) Fold the lefse over and roll it up and eat. Simple really.

Hmmm-mmm! Lefse goodness!

Food From Home + Part One 1:17 PM

I brought back alot of foodstuff from my trip to Minnesota. Food that I just can't find down here in Texas, and no, not all of it is white and bland.

One of the things I had to find room in my luggage for was 10 frozen pizzas. That's right, $2 a pie frozen pizzas.

What's so special about these specific frozen pizzas? Well, every saturday night back in New Ulm, Minnesota, me and my brother Chad and my sister Staci whould eat Roma Pizza and watch THE MUPPET SHOW and BANDWAGON. Dispite having very few toppings and "crust like cardboard" as my sister put it, I still occasionally crave the taste of a slightly burnt slice of Roma. Maybe it's the sause, or maybe the memories.

The kicker is that Roma Pizza is only distributed in Minnesota and Wisconsin, and you won't find it outside the area. I may need to call up Mom and Dad and have 'em send more Roma Pizza, I'm sure my private stock be gone before X-mas...

Birthday Oekaki 9:57 AM

Still sorting things out since the trip to Minnesota. I visited my Oekaki board this morning and was pleasently surprised to find a couple of birthday doodles from my japanese friends on the Cream Parfait Oekaki board. What a nice way to start a very cold day!

cp000498 Originally uploaded by tohoscope.

Thanksgiving is my birthday, too 2:06 PM

Getting ready to fly back to Minnesota tomorrow. Gotta finish packing and stuff. Lots to do, lots to get done and such. Lots of folks I'll try to get in touch with when I'm there. And there's my birthday, too.

HI HI PUFFY AMIYUMI 9:28 PM

No Time For Purrs or Pats
by Alan M.

There's a long tradition of music and cartoons that goes back to, well, the first time sound and animation were combined. From STEAMBOAT WILLIE through today's anime music videos popular music and cartoons go together like a fiend and his dope or a drunkard and his wine. Television has exploited the rock and roll solubility of cartoons with fabricated and real acts such as THE ARCHIES, THE JACKSON 5, and THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY, 2200 A.D.. And now, Japan's PUFFY, or as they're marketed here, PUFFY AMI YUMI.

First off, HI HI PUFFY AMI YUMI isn't anime. It's more like the bastard child of UPA's GERALD McBOING BOING and JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS, without the later's need to solve mysteries. Each half hour episode is broke down into 3 shorts which econimizes the storytelling, and cuts way back on any music showcasing. Musical interludes are the staple of this kind of show, unfortunately there's only enough time for maybe a minute of HARD DAYS NIGHT type hyjinx and we've got to get back to the story. Here's hoping that maybe we'll get some long playing luv in the future, and if you would please use Rodney Greenblat's designs from the PA-PA-PA-PA-PA-PUFFY show, please?

How much you like this show depends on how much you like extreme cuteness. Because, from what I've seen so far, this show isn't a triumph of the human spirit. It's cotton candy for the eyes and empty calories for the soul. And while we're not talking HB cartoons ala PIXIE AND DIXIE the limits of limited animation are on display here. Is Macromedia getting a piece of the action?

You wanna watch it? Sure, go ahead, it's perfectly harmless...

I've been sick.... 10:29 AM

Sorry about the lack of blog. I was down all day yesterday because I started the morning with the contents of my stomach coming up. I followed that with a deep coma-like sleep for about 7 hours...

While I was out the DVDs continue to trickle in. From Amazon I recieved Peter Jackson's MEET THE FEEBLES and CARTOONS THAT TIME FORGOT: THE UB IWEKS COLLECTION VOLUME ONE. This will sate my appitite for gross puppets and Flip the Frog for awile. I guess I should finally get that copy of LET MY PUPPETS COME someday. Showa Video came through with 4 DVD-Rs of PRINCE PLANET. I'm guessing that the titles will be edited out, but I'll still screen them tonight.

I haven't mentioned the 20 hours of Something Weird Video that I got on monday. Their Super Sale ends on November 30th, and I'm probablly gonna place at least one more order.

This is so wrong... 

Commercials: EPISODE III 1:14 PM

Today I got AUDITION from HKFLIX and NINJA SQUAD from Amazon UK and I finally got that STAR WARS TOYS COMMERCIALS DVD Compilation that I won on Yahoo Auctions.

Somehow I screwed up and got 2 copies of AUDITION, so I gave one to Mundee, she's amped about it because she saw a few clips of AUDITION on 100 SCARIEST MOVIE MOMENTS on Bravo. I'm looking forward to watching it, dispite the crappy Bravo clip show.

Dude, don't dis the clip show!

Playlist 1:45 PM

Working once again on the OtakuHELL DVD, making a list of shorts for the compilation. MY JAPAN goes to the top, of course. As do a number of Sid Davis shorts, LIVE AND LEARN for certain, DANGEROUS STRANGER is a possiblity.

Still haven't solved the commentary recording problem. Looks like it could be much more expensive to pull off then I once thought.

I've been thinking about another project, involving flash animation/machinema of public domain films. My first idea was to take NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and divide it up into scenes and have animators sign up and animate each scene to it's original public domain soundtrack. But I realised that it'd be unmanagable for a first project. The film is long and the odds that I could find enough people to sign up for scenes is a long shot.

However, if I picked something smaller, like a short from the public domain, I could animate it myself. And that's an easier goal then a whole motion picture. Although I'd still like to try to do an entire public domain movie eventually. Looks like I need to start working on my MOHO skillz and get to work....

Corto Malase 1:37 PM

CORTO MALTESE "LA COUR SECRETE DES ARCANES" 

The 2 DVD English Subtitled release from France.

I got the CORTO MALTESE DVD from Amazon France some time ago. I've been wanting to write it up but somehow I can't bring myself to do so...

Johnny Socko and Tetsujin 28 Gou! 1:24 PM

Today's DVDs include JOHNNY SOCKO AND HIS FLYING ROBOT from Showa Video, and TETSUJIN 28 GOU Part two and GOLD LITAN from Discount Anime DVD. Now I have all the episodes to the new Tetsujin 28 series, no thanks to the fansubbing community.

Well, I'm not as impressed with Showa Video's handling of TV shows. They edit out the openings and end credits to each and every episode. Which I suppose is good if you're one of those folks who fast forward through that stuff. Me, I like opening and ending theme songs and all that stuff. So the Showa Video disks kinda chaff me. Especially when I see that there's still room on the DVD-Rs for something like THE SHOW CREDITS. While I'll be the first to admit that the American International credit rolls are no triumph of the human spirit, they are part of the whole package. And the episodes feel lacking without the credits and theme songs.

Will I order more tv shows from Showa Video? Yeah, I probablly will. But I'm more likely to order movies that are unedited...

Weak Ends 9:03 AM

Went to Wizard World Texas with Bruce. The con was rather disappointing. Quarter bins are now non-existent. Found some fun stuff in some fifty cent bins, but no Millies under $20. Crud.

Brett and EK showed up to hang out with George 'Space Ghost' Lowe and brought Bob dog and Dini. And we took George to Dave's BBQ, much fun was had.

Over the weekend CHARLEY SAYS came in from Amazon UK and KAIJU BIG BATTEL from Overstock Dot Com.

On the down side, I went to copy THE LAST WAR for Bruce and couldn't find it. I ONLY JUST GOT IT ON FRIDAY! I remember watching it Friday night before falling asleep and now it's AWOL! WTF?

New DVDs Today... 11:48 AM

From India Plaza:
2004 SUPER HIT SONGS and DJ DOLL
From Showa Video:
THE LAST WAR and LAST DAYS OF PLANET EARTH
And lastly, from HKFlix:
THE STORY OF RICKY, TEMEGOTCHI, 2002, THREE and VAMPIRE VS. VAMPIRE

Note: This was originally a much bigger post but Blogger had an "Internal Server Error" and I lost a rather long and time consuming post that I couldn't reconstruct from computer memory or my own memory. So, this'll have to do. See you Monday!



Shout out to Chris for letting me use his credentials at Wizard World TX...

Badge Designs 2:30 PM

I'm going through the sketchpiles for suitable illos for the one inch buttons. Cute popart style things to scan and vectorize and color and layout. I'm just gonna try it for now, I really don't know what to expect, but I'm gonna give it a chance. While I know what I like and I like what I draw I can't predict the tastes of the public at large. Whoo boy, who knows what's going on in the heads of my fellow Americans these days...

On the video front, we got some good video in. I watched as much of FREE TO BE YOU AND ME as I could stomach last night and was thrilled with Fantoma's release of FORBIDDEN ZONE. The extras are worth the price of the disk alone! I need to contact Showa Video about THE LAST WAR, I haven't heard a thing since I sent the money...

The Last Man on Earth 11:14 AM

Went shopping at Target on Halloween morning and found a widescreen DVD of THE LAST MAN ON EARTH with Vincent Price for only a buck. So, along with a big ol' bag of candy for the Trick-or-treaters I bought it and watched it as soon as I got home. Brother lemme tell ya, this was more then a bargain.

This movie was one of those, "I'll get it, someday" type of movies. I've seen it on Something Weird's Catalogues, and Sinister Cinema, others. And I've wanted to get it, but not as much as other films. I just didn't want it bad enough. I should've wanted it more, it's a great little movie, especially for Halloween.

The movie is like a sidebar to NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and it's much better then the more visible OMEGA MAN. Vincent is much more believable then Charles Heston, and TLMOE isn't burdened with the cultural baggage of OMEGA MAN. No hippy bullshit instantly makes LAST MAN a thousand times better...



Bruce tipped me off to CHARLEY SAYS on DVD so now It's on the way from Merry Ol' Amazon UK and with any luck I'll be showing THE AMBER GAMBLER at the next OtakuHELL!

In other video news, I tracked down a copy of THE LAST WAR for Bruce, and TETSUJIN 28 GOU Part 2 just became available. Happy? Oh yeah, I'm feeling really good about the finds. Can it get any better? Check it out:



THAT'S RIGHT! I got the CARNIVAL OF SOULS SUPER-EXCLUSIVE MIKE NELSON AUTOGRAPHED COLLECTOR'S EDITION. If you squint you can sorta make out, "Mike J N" on the cover...

Flim Flam Film Frag 10:45 AM

Last night I caught this bullshit reality show called FILM FAKERS. Where they sucker 3 actors into thinking they've been cast in some sort of straight to video thing. So, for a full hour we get to watch these three kids put up with a metric tonne of crap to the sadistic delight of the actors who're in on the joke and don't know a thing about filmmaking. And the marks literally bend over backwards just to be in a movie, ANY MOVIE.

And the real fucked up part, The fake movie they aren't making, looks like it'd be a better movie then most of the shit that gets released these days. The acting and dialouge is like something out of an Ed Wood movie, delivered with straight faces, it's hilarious. Screw the reality show, I'd rather watch the fake movie they made...

The Ninja Squad [1986] 10:08 AM

Lots of people have asked me about THE NINJA SQUAD and if you've looked around the internet you'll see that it's out of print. But if you still want to own a copy of it you can get it on DVD. Of course I still recommend that you just check the shelves at your local used video stores, which is where I found my copy for only $3. There are lots of copies out there on VHS just waiting to be found on the cheap... 



If you're interested in FORKLIFT DRIVER KLAUS you can buy the region free DVD here. 

Fred Ladd called it.... 

Don`t go in the basement!!!! 11:24 AM

Halloween 2004 and I'm thinking I'm not gonna be there. Nope, not this year. I'll turn all the lights off and hide out in my room or maybe over at Bruce and Mundee's place. I'm just not feeling like passing out candy to teenagers without costumes on. On the other hand, listening to Ed's Boingo Alive CDs got me in a pretty good mood, not to mention the Ghouls With Attitude MP3s...

Oh..
You can tell a dirty story
In the old conservatory...

But don`t go in the basement!

You can make a scene
On the mezanene

But don`t go in the basement!

You can fill yourself with static
With the ghosts up in the attic

But don`t go in the basement!

You can light yourself a torch
On the old front porch

But don`t go in the basement!

Oh you may think that it`s real cool
To ride down the bannister like some darn fool
Oh don`t go... DONT GO!!
Don`t go in the basement!

You can feel quite aloof
Playing rummy on the roof

But don`t go in the basement!

Where the cockroaches dance
You can wallow in romance

But don`t go in the basement!

You may think that it`s deluxe
To ride the bannister filled with rust

Oh don`t go, don`t go!
Don`t go in the basement!!!!

And I can't get RIBOFLAVIN outta my head:

When the moon arises on the western sky
and the vampires are out on the sly
at times they have trouble finding necks to bite
that's why I cook up in my roon tonight...
My riboflavin flavored, non-carbonated, polyunsaturated blood
(her riboflavin flavored, non-carbonated, polyunsaturated blood)

Drac came to me one night at 12
and said the blood bank had no blood on the shelf
I exclaimed "don't fret!" i'll give you on fix
of my newly regenerated mix
I gave him riboflavin flavored, non-carbonated, polyunsaturated blood
(she gave him riboflavin flavored, non-carbonated, polyunsaturated
blood)

It gives you quick relief you see
from fang aches and corpusle deficiency
Natter! consuming my laboratory brew
will make a new vampire out of you
It's that quality unleaded, only one calorie, polyunsaturated blood
that riboflavin flavored, non-carbonated, polyunsaturated blood

Drac enjoyed my brew without a hitch
now he's one of those that would rather fight than switch
if you're biting mre necks enjoying it less
try my new non-carbonated best
My riboflavin flavored, non-carbonated, polyunsaturated blood
(her riboflavin flavored, non-carbonated, polyunsaturated blood)

Playing with blocks... 2:45 PM

I was thinking about design and shapes and volume...I want to have backgrounds that have an odd yet simple feel about them. Like a video game type of design, with fake 3D, not iso but similar... 

Ed's new trading figure... 2:11 PM

Lum Assembly Required... 

Post Oni-Con thoughts 8:44 AM

Rented a Malibu II and drove down to Houston with Ed. Found Oni-Con and spent a few minutes looking for a parking spot, got lucky and found one close to the loading dock. Went in and found Bruce and Mundee, went to the bar and knocked back 3 G&Ts to steel myself for OtakuHELL. Found the room, it was a smallish video room and luckily I was able to set up a half hour before the show. Unfortunately we had sound troubles. I broke out the portable speakers and hooked them to the Audiovox but they couldn't really do much for the room. I may need to look into some sort of portable yet powerful computer speakers/amplifiers for future shows. And it looks like I'll be buying a switch box just for the VCR/DVD problem. As things were set up in the Atlanta room I was unplugging the Portable DVD Player and plugging in the VCR because the DELL Projector wasn't getting a signal from the L1/L2 inputs on the VCR. [It was a decent VCR, too, I didn't run anything from the Audiovox Portable VCR] Eventually I got a tech who figured out where my sound problem was and I cannibalized the connector from the Eddie Bauer and we had sound. That left me with about an hour left of the show before the GTO Movie was scheduled. I felt ok with that. I'd rather surrender the room to GTO then something like, say, HentaiFEST...

We had a great crowd for the show, and the room was packed the full two hours, and they even put up with the prerequisite technical snafus. Gogo and his Gold Ruberg egg machine was well received, as was Lolita 18's VIDEO KILLED THE RADIO STAR. FORKLIFT DRIVER KLAUS was a bigger hit then I expected, despite the fact the DVD player froze up at least 3 times. Once the audio problems were licked I played ARE YOU LISTENING and TOOTHACHE OF A CLOWN. But once again the break out hit was NINJA SQUAD with Master Ninja Gordon up against Ivan the Red in an all out Ninja battle for Ninja supremacy. I ended the show with some FARTING EVANGELIST to appeal to the lowest common denominator factor. Then I packed up just as the Oni-Con Video Director, Michael Unfried, came in to run GTO. I shook his hand and then we were off for a big steak dinner!

All in all it was a great show and I want to thank everybody who showed up and had a good laugh. I hope we can do it again next year.

Tetsujin 28 Gou Trading Figures 1:59 PM

TETSUJIN 28 GOU for my wallet! Yeah, I'm a sucker for trading figures and this set is pretty damn cool. If you like GIGANTOR you'll want this... 

OtakuHELL Oni-Con update 1:49 PM

Just got an e-mail from the Oni-Con Director of Video. I'll be mixing a 2 hour set sarting at 7pm on Saturday, October 23. I'll try to keep it as tight as possible and get as much stuff in as I can. I've got new YATTA footage, VERMILLION PLEASURE NIGHT, FORKLIFT DRIVER KLAUS, New Shorts, New Trailers, New Commercials, and much, much more!

Happy Halloween! 1:23 PM

Happy Halloween: I gotta burn this compilation to disc! Too Freakin' Cool! 

UPDATE: This is a very popular page, I couldn't download more then a couple MP3s yesterday and today [Thursday] I'm getting bandwidth errors on everything. Luckily somebody posted torrents...

Koadzn 1:17 PM

Koadzn, I'm digging this website, especially WAR OF MONSTARS! 

Bad Logo 7:14 PM

That's a damn ugly logo!

The OtakuHELL Video Project 10:08 AM

I set up a project page for the OtakuHELL Video Project. In the meantime I'm just gonna make some copies of the OtakuHELL SVCD that I passed out at AWA-X to give away at Oni-Con. I should probablly add that to the Project list, too...

Tentacles with cuticles? 2:51 PM

Ed had his fondly fondue get together last night. The usual gang of reprobates showed up and snaked and drank all the wine. I made many trips to the recycling bin with empty magnums, the beer was hardly touched by comparison. I don't know why Ed had stopped having his Sunday night saturnalia for so long. Everybody likes hanging out and eating and drinking. Earlier on Sunday I waited for Bruce to come over. We'd plan to go to Home Depot and pick up a lawn mower. We got a model exactly like Josh's for $150. It's cheaper then hiring a lawn service...

354 Originally uploaded by tohoscope.

Cats do not understand fences 11:43 AM

This morning it was Chico who was trapped behind a fence. And once again I had to coax him out. I think the score is 2 all for Chico and Sgt. Tibbs being trapped behind fences. Who sez cats are smart?

I found that The Illuminated Lantern is back online and I'm rereading the Lam Ching Ying reviews. Swinging times with hopping Vampires!


Today's doodle...