Angry Puppy

Nintendo loves to keep its products exclusive, and now that most CEOs would just as soon have a bag of used postage stamps as a bag of US dollars, the limited WiiFits that are in circulation are heading to more profitable markets.

But, friends, another Japanese export is there to whip you into shape for free. Enter Mariko Takahashi and her Fitness Video for being appraised as an “EX-FAT GIRL”. Yes, that’s the actual title.

I’ve been using her program all week, and my forearm-biceps are already getting that healthy, round shape.

Official Nagi Noda site

[Via Meghan. Thanks!]

Here at long last are the results of the Angry Puppy Hot Geek 10.

I don’t have much to say about them, since this was your poll, but I will add that none of my three choices made the top ten. For a hint, the hottest man on a geek show is in this clip:

Our hit count went through the roof for this poll, but it has settled back down to pre-invasion levels, so I know that I am talking directly to our regulars here. Are you satisfied with the results? Did any of your favorites rank much higher or lower than you thought they would?

#10 - Michael Vartan (237 votes)

#9 - Zachary Levi (238 votes)

#8 - David Duchovny (241 votes)

#7 - John Simm (252 votes)

#6 - Michael Shanks (312 votes)

#5 - Robert Downey, Jr. (353 votes)

#4 - Gareth David-Lloyd (788 votes)

#3 - John Barrowman (820 votes)

#2 - David Tennant (1,130 votes)

#1 - Jared Padalecki (1,381 votes)

I can pull the numbers before the so-called “fanboi invasion”, but the poll plug-in I use doesn’t let me export them, and I definitely don’t want to go through all 80-some nominees one by one. However, you can tell by the numbers of votes, which nominees would not be in the actual Angry Puppy fans’ lists and shift everyone else up accordingly.

Click through to see the full results:

Read the rest of this entry »

In this episode:

• Headlines
• New DVDs (Drawn Together: Season 3, Jumper, Funny Games)
• Lost: “There’s No Place Like Home”
• Battlestar Galactica: “Sine Qua Non”
• The Andromeda Strain
• Hot Geek 10 Results
• Plus an XXtreme taste test and the return of Mystery Geek Challenge

Here’s the Octagon Global Recruiting commercial that aired during the Lost season finale. Anyone in San Diego?

With the occasional exception (e.g. Superman: Red Son, Justice League: The New Frontier) I’m not generally a Batman-fan or Batfan, if you will. It looks like I’ll be adding Batman: Gotham Knight to that exception list, though.

This six-story anthology takes place between the events of 2005’s Batman Begins and this summer’s The Dark Knight. Each story has its own art style and writer, including Brian Azzarello (who coincidentally wrote many of my favorite Hellblazers) and Josh Olson. As it happens, Olson is also writing the script for Todd McFarlane’s revisionist version of L. Frank Baum’s Oz stories. Judging by McFarlane’s Twisted Land of Oz collection from 2003, this is going to be considerably darker than the original concept or other revisions like Gregory Maguire’s Wicked. Here’s McFarlane’s Dorothy with some cute little Munchkins:

On Gotham Knight, Olson says:

Just because it’s a cartoon, and because of the nature of the story, I wanted to do the one thing you’d never see in a Batman segment: a decapitation. I was so happy they let me keep it. I thought, “I’ve gotta get it in there.” The director did such a beautiful job. Batman never kills anyone. I wanted to have him do something really grotesquely inappropriate, and yet get the point across that Batman never kills. That was fun … very dark fun.

This sounds like my kind of Batman. Look for it on DVD, Blu-ray and online on July 8. Until then, here are some images, courtesy of our friends at Warner Bros.

“Batman Gotham Knight” (c) Warner Bros. Ent Inc.
“Batman” and all related characters and elements are trademarks of and
(c) DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

We seem to be gamer-themed this week, so here’s the new Resident Evil 5 trailer for your perusal.

In our most recent vlog, guest Flynn DeMarco mentioned the controversy surrounding the trailer that was shown at E3. In a nutshell, the protagonist, Chris Redfield, a white guy, is seen in the trailer killing lots of black zombies. N’Gai Croal of Newsweek criticized the original trailer, saying:

“There was a lot of imagery in that trailer that dovetailed with classic racist imagery.”

Producer Jun Takeuchi has said:

“We didn’t set out to make a racist game or a political statement. We did feel there was a misunderstanding about the initial trailer.”

As Flynn explained, there’s always zombie-killing in the Resident Evil franchise, and the fifth installment takes place in Africa for plot reasons, so it’s not quite as cut-and-dry as it might appear to non-gamers. Some have suggested, however, that the inclusion of a black protagonist in place of Chris Redfield would not only have made the game seem less racist (intentional or otherwise), but would also have added to the relatively small pool of protagonists of color in games.

What are your thoughts? Was this a missed opportunity for inclusion, a misunderstanding or something else?

[Via 1up.com]