Category: Random

how Transformers CGI should have looked in the movie

If you’re a Transformers fan like me, you might’ve been disappointed by the redesign of the characters in the 2007 movie.  I very much was.  I was willing to accept some redesign, to be more modern, and in a few cases, to be more practical (like with Megatron and Soundwave).  But the movie took it way too far.

To give you a taste of how it could’ve looked, I present this video clip.  It’s the fight scene between Megatron and Optimus Prime, the one with the famous quote of “One Shall Stand, One Shall Fall”.  This starts as the original cartoon and switches into 3D CGI.

CGI rendering of G1 Transformers clip

[Update: 7/8/11]

Apparently Hasbro took the video down off their site, for whatever reasons.  But it’s still on YouTube:

A fan took this video and replace the audio with music from the original G1 cartoon series, which makes it even better:

It’s not the highest of CGI quality (due to budget and time, I’m sure), but it shows that the characters in the live-action movie could’ve been made closer to the originals and still looked good, especially with a high-dollar budget.  So why did Michael Bay and crew decide to totally change the design?  The new look for the Transformers in the movie didn’t have much personality, as they all looked too similar and generic.

Until someone does a live-action Transformers movie RIGHT, I’ll always wonder what might’ve been…

a spamtastic secret to skinniness

I got a spam e-mail today with the subject line of:

RE: Clean Colon = Flat Tummy

First, that’s just an odd association.  But second, my research* has proven that’s not true at all.

* I know some people who “cleanse their colon” on a regular basis, and, well, that’s all I’ll say.  🙂

the special days of May, pt 3

Now we will conclude our look at the special days / celebrations / observances of May.  (To see the previous entries, click here to search for them.)

  • 16 Love a Tree Day — This seems absurd to me.  I appreciate trees, but I don’t love them.  But I reckon there are a number of tree-hugger type people out there…
  • 16 National Bike to Work Day — This is a good idea.  If only people would take gas-free transportation to work once in a while, then demand for gas / oil would go down.  A one-day boycott of buying gas will not make any difference whatsoever to the “Big Oil” corporations if you still drive your vehicle.  But using less gas, and therefore reducing their profits, they will notice.
  • 17 Pack Rat Day — This must be for me!  Actually, I’m not nearly as bad as I used to be, when my room would have piles of stuff in it…
  • 18 No Dirty Dishes Day — To have no dirty dishes, you need to use no dishes.  So either use paper plates or go out to eat.
  • 20 Be a Millionaire Day — Where do I sign up?!?  I’ll participate!
  • 21 National Memo Day — This is when all your bosses make sure they tell you (again) to put cover pages on your TPS reports.
  • 22 Buy a Musical Instrument Day — If you can’t play an instrument, you should learn — it’s a great hobby.  If you have children, they should learn.  It broadens the mind.  And if no one in your household wants to play one, you can buy me one!  🙂
  • snail24 National Escargot Day — Escargot may sound like a fancy food, but it’s just snails.  I’ll pass on this one…
  • 26 Blueberry Cheesecake Day — Ah, a day to eat cheesecake!
  • 26 Memorial Day — A day to remember…  And there tends to be grilling, which is awesome!
  • 29 ??? — My sources say there isn’t a special day on May 29, that it’s waiting to be claimed.  So I claim it Buffet o’ Blog Day.  On this day, people shall get off work, catch up on reading this awesome blog, and grill burgers, steaks, and hot dogs (or eat at pizza buffets if you’d prefer).
  • 30 Water a Flower Day — Let’s hope it rains this day!
  • 31 National Macaroon Day — A Macaroon is a flourless cookie, and it’s popular among the Jewish community, especially during Passover.  I don’t know if I’ve ever had one, but it’s a cookie, so I’d try it.
  • 31 Save Your Hearing Day — The world can be a loud places, from all the traffic and the whirring of computers and phones ringing.  So for this unique holiday, you should stay home — in bed.  Turn the phone off, and just sleep.
  • 31 World No Tobacco Day — This one should be year-long.  Tobacco is not something you should smoke or put in your mouth — it kills you.

That concludes the special days of May.  I hope you found some that you could celebrate.

Thank you, drive thru…

the special days of May, pt 2

Now we will continue our look at the special days of May.  This part will focus on holidays or observances on individual days.

  • 1 May Day — This is supposed to be a celebration of spring and the coming of summer.  In Hawaii, it’s known as “Lei Day”.  In many countries, it’s a one to three day holiday.  If it means getting off work, we should celebrate it here in the U.S.
  • 1 Space Day — I suppose you can just stare off into space this day.  It would be great if we could all get a free trip to space, so we can really appreciate it.  But that’s probably not in the space exploration budget…
  • 3 Lumpy Rug Day — Uhh… what exactly are you supposed to celebrate here?  I’d figure you don’t want your rug to be lumpy… but to each his own.
  • 4 Bird Day — This holiday has gone to the birds…
  • 4 National Candied Orange Peel Day — What?  I didn’t know people even did this?  Why?
  • 4 National Weather Observers’ Day — I sometimes observe the weather, so I reckon this is a day for me!  Maybe there will be a thunderstorm with lots of lightning on this day!
  • 5 Cinco de Mayo — I hear a lot of people talk about this holiday every year, but it’s supposed to be a day to be proud of your Hispanic descent.  So it doesn’t apply to me (or most of the people I hear talking about it).
  • 5 National Hoagie Day — This is a holiday I can support.  This day you should eat a large hoagie / sub / hero sandwich, piling on the toppings of your choice.  Remember, since it’s a holiday, diets don’t apply, so add all the toppings you want (including bacon).
  • 6 Beverage Day — My favorite beverage is sweet tea, specifically BOH tea from Malaysia (which is difficult to acquire in these parts).  But I drink this regularly, so for it to be a special day, restaurants ought to make beverages be free.  It sounds reasonable to me.  🙂
  • 6 No Diet Day — This is what I’m talking about!  This should be a holiday every month!  Like it says, no diets apply, so eat whatever you want this day.
  • 7 National Tourism Day — If we’re supposed to support tourism on this day, that means we need to be off work!  You can’t be a tourist in your home area, so you need time off work to travel around.
  • 8 No Socks Day — The person who created this day professes that not wearing socks will reduce your laundry load, therefore it’s good for the environment.  If that’s true, we might as well take it a step further.  Just stay home this day, wearing only your underwear, and playing video games.  🙂
  • 9 Lost Sock Memorial Day — A memorial for lost socks?  There’s no need to get mushy or sentimental over that!  Just buy some new socks.  Although, if you happen to have a problem of mad goats eating socks out of your dryer, then that could get expensive, but you might want to do something about that…
  • 10 Clean up Your Room Day — Let’s not and pretend we did…
  • 11 Mother’s Day — I’m very thankful that my mom had me.  You should be, too.  Because if I hadn’t been born, the world would really be missing out…  🙂
  • pizza11 Eat What You Want Day — Obviously diets don’t apply on this day, either, because what I want doesn’t fit into normal diets.  Hmm, what should I eat this day?  Pizza is always a good choice, and cheeseburgers, and nachos, and Mexican all-you-can-eat places would be a great place to go, and seafood buffets, and fudge brownies and ice cream with chocolate syrup drizzled over it, and I could go on.  This really needs to be more than one day!!!
  • 11 Twilight Zone Day — Dun dun DUN!
  • 12 Fatigue Syndrome Day — One of the suggested activities today is to sleep in.
  • 12 Limerick Day — If you want to flex your poetic non-muscles, this is the day.  Perhaps someone would like to write one in the comments section.  (Any time is fine.)
  • 13 Leprechaun Day — Has anyone ever seen one of these Irish midgets?  (Or is it a faerie?)  If you catch one, ask him where his treasure is hidden, because he’s supposed to tell you.  I could use some extra treasure, so let me know if you know where one is.
  • 14 Dance Like a Chicken Day — Do chickens dance?  I dunno.  According to one website, this is a “tradition at every wedding reception”.  I’m glad we didn’t know about it at my wedding!  There were way too many people with cameras there for me to act the fool.  But I don’t believe that anyway — I think they’re just making that up, trying to make people act stupid for others’ enjoyment.
  • chocolate chip cookies15 National Chocolate Chip Day — This is a most excellent use of a holiday (much better than the last one!).  This day, you should eat as many chocolate chip cookies as you want.  And have plenty of milk handy, too.  I don’t know why, but milk goes really well with chocolate chip cookies.

This list is getting considerably long, so I’m going to continue it in the next post.  (Click here to search for the other ones.)