Rock-‘Em-Sock-‘Em Robots…

Posted October 5, 2011 by vulpesffb
Categories: movies, sci fi
Tags:

 – – I like robots, The Twilight Zone, and Hugh Jackman, so I’m likely to be sucker punched by Real Steel, a movie based on robotic boxing.  Inspired by the Richard Matheson short story Steel which was itself previously produced as a Twilight Zone episode, Real Steel is set in a near-future where human boxing has been banned in favor of robotic pugilism, and Jackman plays a former human boxer (Charlie Kenton) turned manager/trainer for robotic combatants. 

Times are tough, however, and Jackman’s character is reduced to managing  Atom, an old generation robot whose remains are discovered in a junkyard.  Through this vehicle Jackman may attempt a comeback denied his human flesh, and gain reconciliation with his estranged son…as you might expect, the actor who’s played Wolverine and Van Helsing has some wild talents up his sleeve. – -Sure, it sounds cheesy and it ain’t Shakespeare, but this Steel is more than scrap metal, and might be fun…

Comments: 3 Comments

Puss in Boots: The Movie

Posted October 3, 2011 by vulpesffb
Categories: anthropomorphic, famous furries, furry heroes, movies
Tags:

 – – Played by Latin hunk Antonio Banderas and likely to buckle every swash in sight, Puss in Boots:  The Movie is coming from DreamWorks Animation on November 4th.

A spin-off movie for the CGI character from the Shrek movies,  Puss is a prequel which will follow the exploits of the courageous cat before he even met Shrek, and detail the roots and evolution of the character into a Zorro-like figure.  And yes, Puss in Boots will have have a love interest, called (what else?)…Kitty Softpaws! 

As the character with cat-itude most memorably says in one scene, “Stay furry, my friends!“

Comments: 2 Comments

Geico’s Rowing Guinea Pigs…

Posted September 29, 2011 by vulpesffb
Categories: furry, furry commercials, television
Tags:

 – – Kia’s hamsters rock, and Geico’s guinea pigs row…at least they do in the newest Geico commercial!  Faced with skyrocketing electric bills (…yes, I  feel your pain!), we are introduced to one ingenious gentleman who has created a hydroelectric generation facility where a trio of hamsters row a tiny boat in an aquarium, producing enough juice for him to surf the net all day!  Not that it was any easy task, mind you…it took six months to train two hamsters to row, and fully eight months to get the “little chubby one” to yell “row!” 

I don’t know yet if PETA will consider this cruelty or exploitation of animals…probably not, since the guinea pigs are all computer-generated.  You can even download a free iPhone app called “Guinea Pig Getaway” in which the three intrepid guinea pigs escape their owner, and are looking for a better way of life.- -But in any case, we may be living in the golden age of rodent advertising mascots, and maybe guinea pigs will someday power your Prius!  Then there may be a rodent uprising, a great and terrible day of reckoning…(I shudder to think about it!)

Comments: 3 Comments

Some “Thing’s” Coming!

Posted September 27, 2011 by vulpesffb
Categories: aliens, movies, science, space
Tags:

 – – Wow, it doesn’t seem possible that it was way back in 1982 that John Carpenter made his version of the sci-fi/horror classic The Thing, complete with Kurt Russell as that film’s protagonist, R.J. MacReady!- –Well, some Thing else is coming this October, this version a prequel taking place three days before the events of the John Carpenter film and following the exploits of the Norwegian and American scientists unfortunate enough to originally discover the shape-shifting alien.

While it’s hard to beat Kurt Russell, the new version of The Thing includes Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Dr. Kate Lloyd, a lead character somewhat modeled after Sigourney Weaver’s Ellen Ripley in the Alien film series; fortunately, no romantic or sexual elements will be introduced associated with her character in keeping with the dark tone and paranoid atmospherics of the previous film.   Efforts have been made to keep the new film visually consistent with the 1982 Carpenter flick, and creature effects will include both animatronic and computer generated imagery.  We’ll be seeing much more of the interior of the crashed alien spacecraft, and it will also be implied what the nasty alien mimics were doing about in the galaxy.- -All in all, The Thing should serve to remind us that if we find something buried deep in the ice in Antarctica, leave it the hell alone!

I plan on seeing The Thing in October, and you may want to, as well…who knows, The Thing may become you!

Comments: 4 Comments

Franklin, the Fair-Housing Fox…

Posted September 25, 2011 by vulpesffb
Categories: animals, anthropomorphic, furry heroes
Tags: ,

 – – I, for one, can sleep better at night knowing that Franklin, the Fair-Housing Fox is on the job!  Just as McGruff the Crime Dog represents the fight against crime and Homeland Security has Rex, the Ready Kids Mountain Lion, Franklin is meant to help make fair housing everyone’s responsibility, and he looks great while doing it!  It’s good to know that we vulpines haven’t been excluded from the guild of anthropomorphic animal awareness cartoons representing federal agencies.  Created in 2007 to celebrate the 39th anniversary of the Fair Housing Act, Franklin even has an e-mail address and of course, a Facebook page!

Your tax dollars are never harder at work than when they’re funding the creation of an animal mascot, and Franklin Fox has got to be far ahead of some other actual creations such as Energy Ant or Thermy the Thermometer…other creations might include Edward, the Illegal Immigration Eagle, and Arnold, the Anti-Terrorist Armadillo!       

Comments: 2 Comments

Death from the Skies?

Posted September 23, 2011 by vulpesffb
Categories: science, space, strange happenings
Tags:

 – – Perhaps Chicken Little was on to something after all…a dead climate satellite about the size of a school bus is expected to plummet back to Earth around Friday, September 23rd or Saturday, September 24th.  While most of it will disintegrate in the atmosphere, over two dozen pieces weighing a total of about 1,200 lbs. are still expected to survive re-entry, the largest weighing about 300 pounds.  If such were to hit you on the head, it would probably ruin your whole day!

While this is the most massive NASA satellite to make an uncontrolled re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere in more than three decades, not to worry…the odds of the big nasty hitting anyone anywhere in the world are about 1-in-3,200.  The odds of you getting hit personally are on the magnitude of 1-in-21-trillion, meaning that you are much more likely to be struck by lightning or eaten by a shark than to be hit by a piece of the UARS satellite! 

Anyways, a killer satellite might really enliven an otherwise dull weekend…so “Look to the skies!”

Comments: 2 Comments

Of Amphibian Tongues and Arby’s…

Posted September 21, 2011 by vulpesffb
Categories: absurdities, television, weird
Tags:

 – – A recent Arby’s “Chicken Cravin'” commercial features a guy sitting with two friends who whips forth a frog-like tongue several feet in length to lap sauce from one friend’s face; I’m unable to find an image of the act presently, so have done the best simulation that I can.  Following the act, the two friends of the tongue-endowed wonder understandably draw their chairs away from him. 

General reaction to the commercial has been negative, with some denouncing the ad as “nasty” and “gross,” and others declaring their intention not to patronize Arby’s until the offending commercial has been removed!   Licking food from anyone’s face would generally not endear you to the person licked, and be considered a major social faux pas in polite and less-than-polite company; when such an act is committed with a tongue of amphibian dimensions, it becomes unappetizing if not seriously creepy…

Comments: 2 Comments

“Deadliest Warrior’s” Zombies vs. Vampires…

Posted September 18, 2011 by vulpesffb
Categories: cool things, strange, television
Tags: ,

 – – We’ve posted here before about the Spike TV Deadliest Warrior series in which combatants are matched from vastly different cultures and time periods who would not and could not have possibly met much less fought in reality; if you sit through about fifty minutes of debate about the weaponry, fighting styles, and characteristics of the warriors and watch ballistics gel torsos get shot and sliced in tests of weaponry and techniques, you are eventually rewarded with brief but realistic combat footage of the two featured warriors engaged in mortal combat.  Sample matches shown in past episodes have included a pirate versus a knight, and a ninja against a Spartan…the winners in those matches were the pirate and the Spartan, respectively. 

It’s kind of a permutation of the fantasy combat match-ups that guys have entertained themselves with and delighted in since the dawn of time, and it’s great guy entertainment!  Well, the Deadliest Warrior guys kicked it up a notch for this year’s series finale, and featured a closing match of vampires versus zombies!   This added a mythical or otherworldly dimension to the usual reality violations routinely accepted on the show, but hey, why not?! Being familiar with the attributes of both groups yet not identifying strongly with either, I was strangely prepared to be relatively objective and impartial, being at core by my very nature a were-animal guy; that’s where my loyalties lie.


Since a vampire is easily the superior of a single zombie (whose strength lies in numbers), they set a ratio of one vampire for every 63 zombies in the match, and even against such odds the vampires were able to prevail although two of the three starting vamps were ultimately swarmed by zombies and overcome, and it was also strongly hinted that the sole survivor was infected.  While outrageous stuff it was great fun as well, and if similar extreme fantasy “warrior” matches are held in the upcoming season, werewolves would certainly like a crack at this season’s winners…

Comments: 4 Comments

Old Spice “Swagger” Sea Captain and Squid…

Posted September 16, 2011 by vulpesffb
Categories: absurdities, furry commercials, humor, Invertebrates, strange, television
Tags:

 – – He’s self-described as not being a “well decorated sea captain who battles monsters on a large nautical vessel,”  but thanks to Old Spice’s Swagger, he smells like one!  The character we see depicted kind of plays out like Jules Verne’s Captain Nemo as seen on a bad acid trip…he walks into a room with a patently fake killer squid attached to his left shoulder at which the captain throws half-hearted punches throughout the commercial while endless gold treasure pours from his pants, quickly filling the room!

Apparently, Old Spice is trying a variety of spokesman, and this bizarre sea captain is part of a new ad campaign to “smell better than yourself.”  Smelling better than yourself may be fairly easy if you routinely smell like squid, and the squid in this one is wonderful, looking like a low budget creature feature creation from 1950’s or 60’s Chiller Theater type offerings.  I like the little guy, who features moving eyes, teeth, and flailing tentacles…the punches thrown at him don’t seem to faze the persistent squid much, and I keep waiting and hoping for him to remove a chunk from the captain.  Failing in this, perhaps we could arrange a steel cage death match for him with SpongeBob…

Comments: 2 Comments

Batmanning…

Posted September 14, 2011 by vulpesffb
Categories: absurdities, strange, things humans do, trends
Tags: ,

 – – People with entirely too much time on their hands have always found something to do, often by inventing fads or trends, for example cow-tipping or planking.  One of the latest ones is simply called Batmanning, and it basically involves hanging upside down by one’s feet from a door, bar, gate, ledge, or whatever.  It may be done by individuals alone, or in a group of any size as illustrated here. 

To hang like a bat requires a fair degree of athletic and acrobatic skill to say nothing of lower-body strength.  We do not recommend that you try this, or you may experience Emergency Rooming…

Comments: 4 Comments

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »