The Man with No Name: SE

We were given a pretty good Special Edition DVD of The Good The Bad and The Ugly a couple years ago, but Europe got that and SE's of the rest of the trilogy. Not fair.

GBU SE DVD cover - excellent design

Fortunately, MGM is finally gracing us Yanks with not only SE's of A Fistful of Dollars and For A Few Dollars More, but the never-seen-by-me Fistful of Dynamite as well! Color me pleased. Finally, a new DVD release to get excited about.

Oh yeah, this is kinda related: on the airsoft front, we are finally getting an alternative to Tanaka's excellent Colt Single Action Army replica.

Two customized Tanaka SAAs. So pretty.

HWS (which stands for something like Hartford, Japan) is a company that has been making excellent-but-non-firing replicas of sweet Western guns for years. Seeing as both airsoft and Cowboy Action Shooting are huge in Japan, you'd think they would have taken the logical step a long time ago, but nevertheless, they are just now releasing an airsoft version of the New Army Model revolver (I think Eastwood sports one in The Outlaw Josey Wales).

HWS New Model Army

Yep. Gonna have to sell some stuff and get it.

Biola Lacrosse FTW again

I forgot to mention: versus Pepperdine, brother Ben once again scored the game-winning goal in sudden-death overtime. Even cooler since he was scoreless otherwise the entire game. And he got hacked in the neck while shooting.

Way to go, Biola. This week they are on the road, visiting Santa Cruz for three games in as many days, I believe.

This article serves as a companion piece to this one.

Art to get

I decided last year that I'd like to start collecting comic art. I bought my first page (a great Sam & Max page that I'll scan and post eventually) at the San Diego Comic Con last summer.

Pages/Artists I'd like to get:

-Original Doug TenNapel page. I'd like one of the Solomon Fix pages, if they're available. Any of these would be great.
-Original Stan Sakai art. He doesn't sell pages, but he does do commissions. I'm thinking of requesting a samurai monkey, of course. My avatar!
-Original Mike Mignola page or art. From Hellboy, of course. This one might be the hardest/most expensive to get. How awesome would it be to have him do a pin-up for my Pooks book? Very awesome.
-Original Rob Schrab page.

Step-by-step Usagi cover

Stan Sakai posted a great step-by-step example of a painted cover to an issue of Usagi Yojimbo.

Just thought I'd share with y'all.

I'm looking forward to creating a color cover to my book. I know that's a bit premature, since my book has, what, 7 pages done? But still! Seeing eef's covers and his process, and then Stan's, makes me realize that a hot cover goes a long way towards selling a book. I get sold by covers all the time! That Eric Powell book (Billy the Kid's Old Timey Oddities) completely snookered me based on the cover. The interior stunk, but the point is the cover worked.

The Juggalo Response

I was going through old posts, deleting spam comments and adding tags, and discovered that my old post on Juggalos had somehow reached an outside (though very specific) audience.

Read the original post with comments here. Two of them posted in a fairly calm and rational manner, but the rest were reminiscent of certain Muslims protesting the Danish cartoon by torching a neighborhood. (For the benefit of those particular juggalos: I mean that your response supported my original claim, not that you committed arson.)

Also, for the record, to any juggalos who find this post now: I kid you not, I have Faygo in my fridge at this very moment. Please don't eff me up with your hatchet.

Howl's Moving Castle

Pretty darn enjoyable. I loved the castle design, Billy Crystal as Calcifer, and the goofy little dog. The movie's filled with Miyazaki's favorite things: weird flying machines, anti-war sentiments, black goopy people, magic, an old lady who looks like every other old lady he's ever drawn, and a plucky heroine.

Biola Lacrosse FTW

Biola's lacrosse team played long-time rival Occidental on Saturday night in what was easily the best game of the season, if not ever.

Biola and Occidental have a long history together. Occi was the first team Biola ever played in the regular season. The year was 2002 and the game was at Occi. If I recall correctly, that is the game where Tiffin scored three goals to much applause and kudos. We ultimately lost, but it wasn't a blow-out and the scores got closer and closer as the years went by. 2004, after I had graduated, was the year Josh had taken up the Agadoni banner with the quiet dignity befitting our humble name by scoring approximately 3 million goals per game. Unfortunately, Biola needed 3 million and 1, and the 2004 Occi game ended in a heart-breaking sudden-death loss. (Special note: reader J.Ol came all the way from LB for this game! My uncle Dave Stubbs was in attendance as well.) 2005 and 2006 ended similarly. It seemed we were doomed to forever be Occi's "almost."

All this was changed Saturday night. Under the bright lights of Biola's turf field, the Eagles squared off against their old foe at 7pm sharp. The beginning of the game was fairly even, but Occi found an early lead and kept high defensive pressure on the Eagles, which they didn't seem used to. However, the Eagles adapted quickly and brought the game up to a tie by applying the same sort of pressure. The forced a lot of turnovers which kept the ball on the offensive side for a good portion of the game. Also, Biola got this new kid as goalie and he did a phenomenal job. He made some great low saves, and though he let a few high ones slip by, he adapted and made some clutch saves towards the end as well. Biola was up by two going into the 4th quarter. The game was scoreless for quite a bit of the 4th, but Occi took some well-placed shots and managed to tie it up before the clock ran out.

Now it was sudden-death: 5 minutes of clock time and the first team to score gets the game. A situation we'd seen before. Nerves were strained almost to the breaking point.

Face-off: Occi wins it. Their coach calls time out. Crap. Now they're going to set up a play. All it takes is one opening and a decently placed shot and it's over. Please, not this again!

The game starts again, Occi is moving the ball around. There's a shot! It pings of the goalie's leg and then the pole! Biola recovers it, leading to a fast-break. Ryan Smith, long-pole middie, is wheeling the ball out of there as fast as he can. Ben Agadoni on attack is keeping an eye out for the pass. Smith crosses the mid-field line and snaps a nice pass to Ben, who turns, fires, and is leveled by Occi's goalie. But the shot was true, and ball was in. GOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAL!!

Biola wins. Next week is against UCI, our other big rival. Man, good season. Way to go, guys.