Soldier Ant 

Stikfas are 3" tall, fully poseable and customizable action figures, and they look like a lot of fun.

On the site, click the 'About' tab (it's Flash, or I'd link to it) to read a refreshing tale of the inspiration for Stikfas, and the high standards that the creator Banyj held himself to in producing the finished line.

It must've paid off, because I understand that Hasbro has decided to partner with them, handling distribution and sales through their (considerable, I'm guessing) channels. I don't know the toy industry, but I'm guessing a Hasbro partnership is the equivalent of having your first novel optioned by Dreamworks.

It's nice to see that some industries still reward quality work and attention to detail. Now I gotta go order me some...

Every once in a great while, it gives me pleasure to look at an old, old project of mine on the Web - Bryce's Buttons & Widgets.

Completed when I was a grad student at Georgia Tech, the goal was not only to contribute to the burgeoning community of freeware Web icon-and-art providers. I also wanted to make layered, deconstruct-and-bake-your-own versions available for people to learn from. (Apparently a secondary goal was to test out every Photoshop filter I could get my hands on.)

For a while (all of 3 or 4 months) it was a smashing success. Ever since, it lies in a bit-bucket, a forgotten directory on a departmental webserver. It makes me feel all warm and cuddly to know that it's still out there, though, serving up it's meager (if dated) collection of drop-shadowed fun.

That last post made me feel like doing something creative, and I've always loved robots. So I started goofing with Illustrator a bit tonight to do some character design:

Screwtop the Robot will probably end up being a blatant ripoff of two of my favorite characters - Bender the robot and Mike Mignola's Amazing Screw-On Head. (Although, truth be told, the name came to me in a blinding flash. I remembered my best friend from high school, Brad, whose common refrain upon entering any bar, basement, or general area near alcohol was "Gimme yer best bottle-a' screw top!")

Yamaha Motors has a small but nice collection of Paper Craft models available for download in PDF format. These are great! Ostensibly, a way to promote their own cycle line (check out that badass VMAX) they also offer up some great models based on nature and Japanese culture. (My favorite is probably the Kabuto-Kazari, warrior's helmet, for the festival of Tango-no-Sekku.)

Here're some fun little icons. You can download them in PDF format for use in Photoshop or Illustrator.

This site cracks my wife up. It's a particularly charismatic cat, whose owners like to snap pictures of it with the lights off. "A thing was born of me that day. A monster I am that will never die."

And check out Beastly as Liza Minnelli. (For the record, this cat is nowhere near as frightening as seeing the man-mouthing suckfest of a kiss administered by 'husband' David Gest at Minnelli's 'real-life' wedding. Ick.)

I was one of those people who came onto the Harry Potter book bandwagon after the last book was made, The Goblet of Fire. I had the luxury of reading all four books in a month's period, devouring all of them in record speed.

I really liked them. They weren't all time favorites, but they were fun reads.

Then the movie came out last year, and I thought it was alright. Not amazing, not bad, just alright. And now comes movie #2.

I'll tell you, dudes, I could care less about this sequel. Yawn yawn yawn. I don't think I'll see it this weekend, I might not see it at all. I don't know yet. I think after seeing The Lord of the Rings rule the fucking world last year, anything else magic-related just takes a very back back seat to it all.

Bah. Muggle-bug.

First came the Extreme Thong-Diving escapades on Oxygen last night. Now comes this. Does it put anyone else in mind of Buffalo Bill's heinous plot from Silence of the Lambs?

(Speaking of which, the actor who played Buffalo Bill -- wasn't he also in Crime Story, one of the finest stylized television dramas to air on network TV? The IMDB doesn't seem to think so..)

Offered without comment.

George Bush has never looked better? My Sunday morning has never looked worse.. Wgirls provides a series of poorly-done Photoshop manipulations placing the Shrubs mug on various curvy female forms. (Dick Cheney, please medicate before following that link.)

The New Yorker offers this amusing cartoon of "Tolkien Characters that Never Made It Out of the Author's Notebooks."

Children of the 22nd century, when you read this entry, know that tomorrow was opening day "The Two Towers" ... albeit the old, 2D non-virtual reality version, and we didn't even get to fly our personal helicopters to the theater.

Funny. This is the exact same reason that I am no longer allowed to visit Malaysia. Small world, eh brad?

I just love the idea of phooning: true, some may argue that travelling to the far corners of the world just to photograph your friends 'striking a pose' smacks of imperial elitism, and may be culturally insensitive at best. But I think it's a victimless crime.

I recently discovered an online gallery that phooning fans might also like: it's folks from all walks of life proudly showing their booty. (And it's not what you think -- safe for work-viewing.)

What do the above have in common?

Exposure to any of them may lead to hearing the Wilhelm Scream, a specific cry of pain re-used by film sound editors for the last fifty years. Watch a highlight reel, (27MB Quicktime) and check out a list of Wilhelm appearances (I think we all could have guessed the Elves at Helm's Deep would scream school girls.)

Fly Guy really made me smile for the ~3 minutes that it held my attention (and -- backhanded though it sounds, that's really a compliment -- most things hold my attention for hours and never make me smile.) Give it a chance and be sure to explore around.

Now this squirrel is bold! Cute picture. (Site found via Robot Wisdom.)

Someone's actually making a Starsky & Hutch video game. This is not a joke.

Need a compelling reason to buy? According to the site, this is 'the only game that truly captures the action and excitement of the hugely successful TV series "Starksy & Hutch."'

I want to live in a world where this idea makes good market sense. Especially for 15-25 year old gamers. And where David Soul enjoys some kind of Tiger Beat resurgence.

Is Charlie out there? Is he listening? Can he possibly believe that there was a second (never-aired) commercial that Ellen Feiss did for Apple? Believe it, Charlie. Check out that yellow belt.

I'll be damned. There's a chicken in the mints!

God damn. What a huge rabbit.

Apropos of nothing, here are 10 things that, when I think of them, make me feel like a bright-eyed little kid again:

1. Don Knotts as the Incredible Mr. Limpet.
2. Fun Dip!
3. The old Ohio Power Campgrounds (now AEP).
4. Daisy BB guns.
5. The legend of the Black Lady.
6. Disco.
7. BMX Bikes
8. Burt Reynolds movies. Particularly Hooper
9. Hard plastic Cincinnatti Reds batting helmets.
10. 10-cent deposits on tall Coke bottles. (And the bags of penny-candy we'd buy with the proceeds. Especially those little creepy liquid-filled wax skulls.)