A Blendsday at the Races

It's been a while since I've done one of these...

Source: Science is so cool like

You know what can turn a good day crappy for me?  I hear "We will Rock You" on the radio, and they DON'T play "We Are The Champions" immediately afterwards, like God and Freddie intended.  What's the world coming to?

Timey Wimey Blendsday

We've been really enjoying the exploits of the 11th Doctor lately.

Artist: James Hance

I loved the classic exploits of the 4th Doctor back in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and I caught one or two adventures of the 7th (Pex Lives!), but it wasn't until this year that my lovely wife got me back into the Whovian fandom with the 11th.  Now we're eagerly awaiting what will happen on the fields of Trenzelor -- and whether we'll see Oswin again at Christmas time!

There have been several Doctor Who board games and RPGs, and I'm currently having a look at an old one that is freely available for download.  The most modern one looks pretty interesting, too, but I don't know if I'll ever plunk down the cash for it.  I don't think I've ever actually played a "licensed-property RPG" -- other than Star Fleet Battles, which isn't an RPG -- but I have bought some supplements in the past, since they often contain so much extra world-immersing detail!  :-)

More picturey wicturey fun is below...

Artist: Bill Mudron

Artist: Misskari

 

Some Blendsday, girl, I don't know when...

I can't remember if I did a Muppets mashup already.  The other funny one I found was Star Trek themed (search for "Gorn in the USA").

Although I'm not the most devoted or knowledgeable fan of The Boss, I do love the earnestness and poetic detail in the dude's early (pre-1982-ish) songwriting.  I also feel somewhat obligated to know what he's all about, since he grew up about a half-dozen miles from where I grew up in central New Jersey.  7.3 miles, to be precise.  (Thanks, Google Maps!) The mother of one of my best friends went to high school with him in Freehold, NJ.

People who live in NJ are sometimes conflicted that a favorite son so often sung about GETTING OUT.  As someone who got out, I'm not that conflicted.  :-)

However, this weekend, I am taking the boy to the land of hemi-drones and giant Exxon signs.  To prepare myself for the mythic environment, I plopped a few virtual pushpins onto a map of the area where fans have realized that Bruce was singing about real, specific locations.  We will be exploring the inside of the following crooked pentagram, letting the ley line energy flow over us...

Click for bigger; this article will help you add even more points.

Someone's got a case of the Blendsdays

Words fail.  The following is editing perfection.

Apologies to those who aren't simultaneous fans of this and this.  Will I ruin it by adding mashed up quotes?  I'll risk it...

"There is no stapler."

"Unfortunately, no one can be told what pieces of flair to wear. You have to see it for yourself."

And... well... the phrase "Ne-O face" popped into my mind, but for the life of me I can't figure out how to embed it in a recognizable quote!  :-)

Because there's no post on Blendsdays

I knew I wanted a good Harry Potter themed image mashup, but it took a while to find one.  Due to a certain actor's crossover between franchises, a huge fraction of HP-themed fan-made pictures have to do with this -- shall we say sparkly? -- theme.  Not up my particular Knockturn Alley.  Thus:

Artist: Unknown

If you know who that is, then you know what this movie is called.  (The punch line was originally a caption on this image, but I thought it much funnier without it. If you don't get it, please ask.)  But I'll say that this one would be of great help if we began a Kevin Bacon type of chain game with these image mashups, since it would allow us to link Harry Potter to Star Wars, the Incredibles, a whole lot of Tarantino, and the new Marvel movie-verse!

In related news, my son turns 11 this week.  You know what that means...

I am the Eater of Worlds, and of Blendsdays

Summer is supposed to be a slow moving, laid back, kind of time, right?  Not for me right now.  The blog (and my other attempts at gaming-related writing) is unfortunately suffering as work is steadfastly refusing to acknowledge the nice weather outside.

I can dream, can't I?  I try to visualize walks on the beach... cookouts... long country drives... fun trips to Mickey D's.... Well, except for if you happen to be driving through the unlucky town of Derry, Maine:

Artist: Nik Holmes

If you've only read Stephen King's massive 1986 novel IT, it may take a minute for the above joke to sink in.  This one is really for viewers of the 1990 TV miniseries adaptation, which boasted Tim Curry as the über-creepy clown-form of the monster beyond space and time.  I actually liked the miniseries more than the book.  The latter plodded on for 1100 pages, and contained some scenes where beloved characters behaved so, well, out of character, that it completely plucked me out of immersion in the story.  We geeky types often rail against how movie makers ruin our beloved book-based franchises, but in this case I think the makers may have improved on King's material!

Don't look into it's dead-lights, Mayor McCheese!

Midwives to an Egg

So, you remember that time when Mr. Feeny from Boy Meets World, the narrator from the Tom Baker Doctor Who, and the White Shadow all got together to break away from Great Britain?

How's that not the best Blendsday concept ever?  It's even got Pepper Potts' mom, the governor from Benson, and Holling from Northern Exposure.  Seriously, you just can't go wrong celebrating July 4th on Wednesday by watching this classic musical.  (If you've never seen it, whet your appetite here with the first scene.)

Blendsday in Paradise

Sorry folks, no Blendsday today.  I'm away at a conference this week, but I'll be back in the mythopoetic mashup trenches soon enough...

On a Blendsday night, a comedian died in New York

"This city is afraid of me. I have seen its true face. The streets are extended gutters and the gutters are full of blood and when the drains finally scab over, all the vermin will drown. The accumulated filth of all their sex and murder will foam up about their waists and all the whores and politicians will look up and shout 'Save us!'... and I'll look down and whisper... GOOD GRIEF!"

Artist: Evan "Doc" Shaner

Apologies to Alan Moore.  Please don't sic Glycon on me, please.  :-)

Do-it-yourself Blendsday

I've posted two geektastic image mashups so far in this Blendsday series, and I've got a few more in the can and ready to go.  However, I thought I'd break things up a bit by highlighting a way that you can get into this game too... without having to be, you know, an actual talented artist!

When I was first searching for these juxtapositions, I came across a great artist named RabitTooth who not only created quite a few fun reimagined pieces, but also made a couple of "blank canvases" -- specifically the X-Files "I want to believe" poster (without the UFO) and the Beatles' Abbey Road album cover (without the Beatles) -- all ready for people to insert their own favorite items.  I couldn't resist, of course...

Sideways, and slantways, and longways, and backways...

It may not be the most artful composition, but at least you can't see the string!  :-)

Right now I can't find any other ready-made backgrounds for iconic scenes, but I'm sure they're out there, just waiting for me to think of the right search-phrases!  I'll edit this post if I come across something cool.  In the meantime, I assume you're all familiar with internet memes, as well as a certain 4-year-old poster that you can imitate with your own images and captions?  There may still be some fun to wring out of these things...

Blendsday: It's Calvinball time!

Another Wednesday, another weird visual mashup between two semi-geeky franchises...  This time it's a classic comic strip merged with a surreal modern animated TV show:

Artist: Kristine Thune

There are probably more than a hundred Calvin & Hobbes image mashups out there, but this one spoke to me because it seems to pose an answer to an ongoing question: What kind of world do the characters of Adventure Time really inhabit?  Is it post-apocalyptic?  Is it Lovecraftian?  This suggests that this phantasmagorical world could all be in the imaginations of these two kids...  After all, there often seem to be two distinct realms on the show: the wild and peril-fraught world of Finn & Jake, and the pastelly Candy Kingdom of Princess Bubblegum.  These worlds sometimes come together, but often it's either one or the other.  Much like when two very different kids play together and agree (or not!) on a shared adventure...

Blendsday: A New Feature?

I've made a couple of recent posts on "Glass Bead Pairings" (here and here): interesting comparisons, contrasts, and juxtapositions of little sets of cool ideas, reminiscent of individual "moves" of a Glass Bead Game.  I thought I'd try to formalize this into a weekly feature.  Bad punster that I am, Blendsday was born!  (I refuse to Google it to see how unoriginal that term probably is...)

Although I've got some vague ideas for other juxtapositions to talk about, I thought I'd just start by showing some cool/geeky "visual mashups" that I've found from across the webz.  Many of these can be clever, but lots of them verge on the mediocre.  I've found roughly a half dozen that I'd call the best.  My rock-solid selection criterion was that it HAD to elicit a real, audible laugh (or at least snort) when I first saw it!  After these are exhausted, we'll see about other directions in which this feature can go...

Without further ado, here's something from artist Dave Filoni (which was originally featured here):

You'd have to be a fan of both Avatar: The Last Airbender and Star Wars to get the brilliance of it, of course!  There's a bit of awkwardness in that Luke and his mother are portrayed by the main two romantic leads on A:TLA... but other than that, it's really quite on-the-nose.  Iroh/Yoda is what prompted my muffled snort!  :-)