As soon as I read the press release, the following song went off in my head: "My customer service has a first name, it's V-I-E-R-A. My customer service has a second name, it's C-O-N-C-I-E-R-G-E...." Not too snappy, is it?

What in the world am I talking about? It's Panasonic's free customer support for the new owners of the company's plasma and LCD HDTV's. I make a big deal about this because almost everyone has free customer support for their electronic products. Panasonic has given theirs a name: VIERA Concierge.

I guess it's like if you own a chicken. As long as you don't give the chicken a name, the kids won't mind it if you slaughter it and eat it. But give it a name and it become a pet. And the kids will never eat a pet.

By giving their free customer support a name, Panasonic probably thinks you'll adopt it as a pet. You'll feel all warm and toasty about your HDTV. You'll come home at night and pat it on its little head.

Here's an interesting line from the press release: "One unique privilege is access to Panasonic’s HDTV loaner program, which makes HDTV loaners available at no charge to customers who have a Plasma or LCD undergoing repair."

Now think about that a second. We're not talking about an old-fashioned 19-inch tube television here. We're talking about a 42- or 50-inch behemoth that weighs a ton and is extremely unwieldy. How are we going to get the broken set out of the house to get fixed? And how are we going to get a loaner in the house?

Oh, here's the answer to my questions: "The VIERA Concierge service also includes priority scheduling for in-home service visits, if necessary, with most repairs completed in two days." A little guy is going to show up at the door with your loaner and camp out until the set is fixed. Sounds a little farfetched to me.

What else does this service provide? The release says, "a Concierge Benefits Card providing a customer ID and dedicated toll-free telephone number which entitles them to a range of valuable privileges within the United States."

That's right: a card with a phone number. An exclusive phone number. Imagine that. Panasonic customer service has a phone number. I would bet that every company that makes TV's around the world has an exclusive customer service phone number.

And those "valuable privileges" the release talks about? It's probably the "privilege" of being able to call that customer service phone number.

But thank god that Panasonic has given its customer service a name. Now I'll know what to curse under my breath when the TV breaks down.

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And you can too!

Coming out this fall [think September-ish] from DarkHorse ComicsThe Buffy the Vampire Slayer “Conversations with Dead People” Board! Named for an award-winning episode from the 7th season of the Buffy tv showThe Buffy the Vampire Slayer “Conversations with Dead People” Board is a big ol' Ouija board designed Totally in the "Buffy" way.

Fearless souls [i.e. players]

"...can let voices from the other side guide the planchette along the board to spell out the answers to their queries."

Accompanying the game board and planchette,The Buffy the Vampire Slayer “Conversations with Dead People” Boardincludes an exclusive comic-style instruction book featuring sequential art by "Buffy" season eight guest illustrator Paul Lee.

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Douce isn't the only one who finds the occasional gem when tooling around on ye ol' interweb.

For those of you who have seen Advent Children this Korean music video may seem a bit familiar. If you ever wondered what Tifa and Loz might look like in real life, here's your chance to see them...

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I heard some interesting news about Kaiju Big Battel on the radio, and when I checked their site it turns out that it was true.


Kaiju Big Battel is filming a TV pilot at their upcoming fight this Wednesday. That's right, all the mini-giant monsters you know and love will be fighting for honor and glory over the airwaves, assuming they can get their pilot picked up.

For those of you who don't know of Boston's native Kaiju Big Battel here's the short and stupid. Kaiju battles are the epic fights for survival that take place between such famous characters as Godzilla, Mothra and King Kong. Kaiju Big Battel is a motley collection of over 30 heroes, rogues, space bugs and the forces of Dr. Cube all fighting for distinction and glory and a shiny champions belt.

So, for all of you that have seen them at Anime Boston the last few years, you now have the right to say I knew them before they caught their break.

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As of late I have been getting into watching cancelled tv shows. Some of them are great and I can't imagine why they were cancelled, but some of them, as could be expected, are terrible.

In my opinion, the jury is still out on how good, or bad, Cleopatra 2525 is. I can tell why it was cancelled, but a few changes to a bumpy first season is commonplace. The first season of most every sci-fi show I've watched (and that's more than I care to admit) is awful and needs a whole lotta fine tuning. Maybe I'm just too softhearted to give up on any series, no matter how terrble it is, but I think Cleopatra 2525 could have been great, given time. How much time.. Well, that we'll never know.

Cleopatra 2525 ran for a short 2 seasons back in 2000 and 2001 for a total of 28 episodes. I think one of the major downfalls of the show was the runtime of only a half hour for each episode. They didn't even get past episode 5 without needing to add "To Be Continued..." to get the whole story told. The episodes all felt rushed and character development was minimal. Just expanding the episodes to an hour would have done wonders for the show.

Cleopatra 2525 has a host of recycled cast and crew from other sci-fi shows. Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert created this series right after Hercules: The Legendary Journeys ended, and it has the same low budget tongue in cheek feel to it that the Hercules, Xena and Young Hercules shows all shared. Some actors that the avid sci-fi watcher would recognize are Gina Torres from Firefly (she guest starred on Hercules), Victoria Pratt from Mutant X (a similarly short lived show, guest starred on Xena), Jennifer Sky and Danielle Cormack (both had recurring roles on Xena) and even Kevin Sorbo's body double Patrick Kake and Strife AKA Joel Tobek. Now, I know everyone remembers Strife. He was the irritating one that always hung out with Aries and Discord looking like a bad Edward Scissorhands impersonator, until of course he was killed by Callisto. So Joel's career has gone from Johnny Depp wannabe to a Gacy/ICP/Circus World kickback. Magicmysticgrl = Huge Hercules and Xena nerd. I'm still sad that the actor who played Aries died. ::Moment of silence for Kevin Smith.. No the OTHER Kevin Smith::

The short and stupid of the story is that Cleopatra (her stage name) an exotic dancer went in for a standard boob job in 2001. They put her under with anestetics but couldn't wake her back up, so they cryogenically froze her. She slept for the next 524 years until woken up by Sarge and Hel, two freedom fighters native to the year 2525. Predictably, much has changed in the last 5 centuries, aliens called Baileys attacked the Earth and humanity was driven underground to a huge network of levels and corridors. The Baileys rule the surface and mutants rule the lowest levels. Betrayer robots sent by the Baileys have infiltrated the underground. Hel and Sarge are trying to take back the surface with the help of a mysterious Voice that Hel can hear through a transmitter implanted in her ear.

All of the amateur Let's-Make-A-Show-About-The-Future mistakes were made in this series, but I'm fairly sure it was deliberate. Just like the bastardization of Greek and Roman history was deliberate in Hercules. (I'm a fan of the actual history of Greece and Rome, so I'm allowed to disparage the show.) The costumes are visually pleasing, if not realistic, made out of metal bits and glowy things and pleather in all sorts of bright colors. The sets are cheap and shake when actors brush by them, but do their job well enough. The acting is hammy and very rarely syncs up with the effects properly. But.. It's got a catchy theme song, what else does a show need. ::Starts Singing:: "In the year 2525, there are women with the will to survive.." It's a remix of an old Zager and Evans hit "In the year 2525."

All in all the quality of this show is fairly awful, but the enjoyment factor is great. For myself I enjoy Cleopatra 2525 as a 4/5 but as for recommending it to others, I'd give it a 3 and consider myself generous. It's just not a show that a great many people will appreciate. You can't be critical and watch shows like this, you just have to sit back and pretend you can't see the guy behind the curtain, just concentrate on the Wizard. It's all a test of your imagination, of how well you can or can't fill in the gaps. If you can still enjoy a movie/tv show without it having a billion dollar budget I think you'll enjoy this show. So, we've got a shiny metal MM, a red pleather MM and a glowy yellow MM.

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I just put up the new podcast episode and realized that I probably edited out the singing of the Pokemon milkshakes parody. Naughty me.

To make up for my most inexcusable error, I'm going to post the lyrics to the parody right now. Who knows, maybe somebody out there will make a music video to go along with these lyrics and send it to us along with their name, and t-shirt size.

Just sayin'!

Here's the lyrics [thanks to Allison]

chorus
My Pokemon bring all
The nerds to the yard
And they're like
You wanna trade cards?
Darn right! I wanna trade
Cards,I'll trade this
But not my Charazard!

verse
I know you want it
It's li-mi-ted ed-i-tion
Looks good in your col-ec-tion
I know i'm right
Just by the look in your eyes
Too bad it's mine!

No,no,no,no,no
You can't have it

No,no,no,no,no
Back off lo-ser

No,no,no,no,no
You can't have it

No,no,no,no,no
Just back off

repeat chorus

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Do I even need to say anything more? Ok wise guy, if you need more convincing the first OVA DVD is out now and if you need visual confirmation that this new interpretation of Hellsing is more like the manga hit the jump and watch the trailer.

I could put a couple of paragraphs of text here to make this page look nicer but you just need to watch the damn video. Hellsing is violent people, so make sure to not watch this thing with little ones or squemish folk around.

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By now, you know that there is a live action movie based on the 80's cartoon "Transformers" but did you know that there is also a "Voltron" flick in the works as well? Yeah, I'm not too happy about the idea myself as I'm sure it's going to suck... but it begs the question, "Where the hell is the Thundercats movie?"

Yeah, you heard me, I said Thundercats movie. How can you make the other two and not this one? Not that I'm really championing this movie being made [because I'm sure it would be done all wrong and suck out loud] but I'm kinda suprised that Thundercats hasn't been added in the lineup of possible live action flicks to be optioned once Transformers got the green light. I mean even at it's core it has the makings of a great action flick... last vestiges of a species from a dying planet take to outter space in hopes of finding a new home. [Superman, but with more people!] Once they land on the new planet, they are saddened to learn that the elder of the group/tribe has not survived the journey. The elder however is available to them in spirit form when needed, [like Obi Wan Kanobi in Star Wars V] to give guidance to the younger members. Throw in the Adam and Eve thing since there is only one female to build up sexual tension and a new mortal enemy on the new home planet, and you have the beginnings of a good screenplay.

It just didn't make sense to me, so I started looking around ye olde interweb [which, as you know, is a series of tubes] to see if a Thundercats movie has ever been in the works and I have to say that I was surprised at what I found. Someone put in a bunch of effort to create a movie poster for a Thundercats movie that featured Mathew McConnaughey as Liono, Ed Harris as Mumm-Ra, Tea Leoni as Cheetara, Wesley Snipes as Panthro, and David Carradine as Tygra. "WOW!" says I, just wow. It's obviously bunk, but impressive bunk in any case... except with the casting of Tea Leoni as Cheetara. Cheetara is a character with gravitas in both her mannerisms and voice... gravitas that Ms. Leoni just doesn't have. Even after looking at the impossible lineup I might have been able to be convinced that this was a plausible flick, but the press release gives away the joke. The fact that the movie was slated for 98' but was held up because they were trying to fight an "NC-17" rating made me spit my soda out of my mouth for all the laughter that was welling up inside.

It did get me thinking though, if I did get my secret wish and a Thundercats live action movie was to be made, who would I cast in the kitty roles? Right off the bat I'd cast Michael Clark Duncan as Panthro. He's used to live action [remember that Daredevil movie?] and has the right build and voice for the character. Then there is Tygra. Tygra is kinda hot, but also quite brilliant... like rocket scientist brilliant. Whoever gets this role has to be able to pull this off, so I'd pick Hugo Weaving. [agent Smith from the "Matrix" movie.] For Cheetara I find myself going back and forth on this one. My gut tells me that Angela Basset is the right choice for the job [you know, the gravitas thing] but a small piece of me would like to see singer Ciara try it out. That girl is FLEXIBLE! As the twins I would cast Haley Joel Osment and Hayden Panettiere. [That's "Sixth Sense" boy and "Heroes" cheerleader girl] Snarf would be CGI with mocap by Andy Serkis. Jaga, the elder would have to be Christopher Lee, which leaves me with Liono. And this was tough. Very, very tough. I first started leaning towards that good lookin kid from the "O.C." the blond one [because Liono is really a kid in a mans body having to grow up] but decided on Marton Csokas because he has the chops and the body build to do it.

There's my cast. What's yours?

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