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Auto Assembly 2009
Last week was my birthday! Was I going to have a big party? No, I was in fact off to the biggest ever European Transformer convention, Auto Assembly. Go me!
In my defense, I’d been super excited about this for months. I’d been to conventions before, but not a Transformers one on this scale – a record attendance (over 500 people) and for a full weekend, it would at least be unique. There was also a load of people I knew that were attending, being the perfect chance to catch up with them. And for those that didn’t go, shame on you.
Friday night was mostly a ‘getting to know you’ event, with various people milling about. I met up with various people as planned, and took a look at all the wares on the various stalls. They were all set up on Friday night, but couldn’t start trading till Saturday morning. And given some of the rather insane deals, predictions of a rush to get in were well founded.
Who likes Pretenders? Me! Me!
Foolishly I volunteered for the ‘fan dub’ event. This was a good idea in theory – namely get some people on stage to do voiceovers for an episode. Unfortunately the episode in question was ‘The Rebirth’ with its six million characters, and no-one really knew what was going on. I shall never look at that episode ever again (and for some reason, all Nebulons go ‘MIMIMIMIMIMIMI’ instead of talking normally, who knew!). Most people then left for a trip to see Revenge Of The Fallen at the cinema again, but I didn’t. Because I don’t hate myself that much. › Continue reading
The Eastenders Death-Fest
When I was told that for the second year in a row, the BBC’s soap Eastenders would have as its Easter plot a man being buried alive, I scoffed. “Of course not!” I said. “That would be ridiculous.”
Last year housewife Tanya was bored, and so decided to bury her husband Max (Kill-Crazy from Red Dwarf) alive in the woods in a coffin. Max then dug his way out and rose from the dead, and now a year later they are living together as a happy loving family and I haven’t a clue why (apart from the fact that the writers seem to think middle aged balding men are irresistible).
But last night, Phil Mitchell (another irresistible middle aged balding man) had the villainous Archie Mitchell in a pit whilst he stood above him with a cement mixer laughing away evilly. Archie is a classic soap villain in that his sole motivation is ‘he’s evil’. Of course we don’t get a cementy death in a pre-watershed popular drama, so instead Archie just gets water hilariously poured on his head. Then Phil’s mum (played by Barbara Windsor of Carry-On fame) throws him out of the house for not being a murderer. I wish I could make this stuff up.
The sheer amount of deaths and attempted murders in Eastenders recently has made me cast my mind back to those we have lost. Come with me on my journey through Eastenders-Land and my favourite horrible deaths! › Continue reading
The Millennium Doom
I had a rather heated argument with my housemate the other day. Not on politics, religion or Masterchef, but about the Millennium Dome of all things. Nine years later it continues to rear its ugly head over the British consciousness. Will it ever let us go so that we can be free and skip gaily through the fields of freedom?
For those of you not familiar with this, the Millennium Dome was pretty much all the newspapers talked about from 1998 to 2000 (once Princess Diana had finished being dead). For some dumb reason (culture apparently) the government decided to build a giant dome costing 600 million pounds. Of course in this day and age of ‘yeah failing bank, have a million trillion quid’ this doesn’t seem as bad, but at the time it was unprecedented.
For the millennium then, the citizens of this fine country got a big dome. Unfortunately the government hadn’t a clue what to do with it – Peter Mandelson the minister in charge, even suggested leaving it empty. Part of me hopes it was a joke, of course the other part knows how inept governments can be. Really, to celebrate the millennium the government could have used the money to give everyone in the country a tenner and we’d have been far happier. Better that than some awful tourist attraction.
This was where the argument with my housemate comes in. He tried to tell me that it was the biggest attraction in Britain that year thus it was a success. But really, you’re always going to get people gaggling at a train wreck. At the end of the day it didn’t pull in nearly half the visitors it wanted, and ended up using 600 million of public money. On an awful tourist attraction!
And I know this, because I went there! › Continue reading
Transformers Animated Fruit Snacks
So that I could concentrate on important matters such as completing Lego Batman, I asked a good friend Andrew Osmond, who plays my fake internet robot brother to help me out. “Okay Matt!” he said. “When my wife is out the house, I will whip out my camera and take photos of jelly sweets.” Luckily he was not caught taking photographs of inanimate objects as feared, and his relationship remains intact!
So behold reader, as Andrew shows you all about Transformer sweets! Now I’m going back to chasing Two-Face in the lego Batmobile!
Ever wanted to eat your Transformer toy, but always choked on the delicious but unchewable plastic? Now, your dreams have come true with ‘limited edition’ Transformers Animated Fruit Snacks by Betty Crocker!
Today you’re in for a real treat! Oh you lucky people, I’ve stuffed Matt in a box and have taken over his site to bring you news of delicious likenesses of your favourite Transformers Animated characters. Don’t worry, I put an air hole in the box, he’ll probably chew his way out by the time you’re done reading this article.
So, here we have the insidiously brightly-coloured box you may have seen in your local supermarket next to the boring, non-transformers themed fruit snacks. See how it taunts us with it’s amazing picture of Optimus Prime reaching out, as is to grab your mother and strangle her until she buys you a cart FULL of these amazing fruit snacks? › Continue reading
TransPORNers
The world is a wonderful place, right? The sun shines, the flowers glow… but wait, what’s that dark cloud on the horizon? Yes – it’s the dark cloud… of porn. Filthy old men in dirty overcoats, peddling their wares on street corners… but there is an even more… sinister side. More fiendish than weird Japanese tentacle fetishes, more insidious than German… TV. No, today the lid shall be blown wide open on…
Transformers Porn
(Don’t worry, this article is strictly PG rated. No, wait, don’t go!)
The internet was once a pure medium, a repository for those interested in films, games and bomb-making to pool their knowledge. But no more! My first inkling of a sickening, twisted underworld came when my good friend (no longer!) Neal, found, via portalofevil.com, a weird, strange site. Sadly he was in a very public place when he did this, and so shouting “Hey Matt, come look at what I’ve found” probably wasn’t the best course of action. But what had he found? Two robots – Transformers – doing… stuff.
Yeah, I know
What I really want to know is who would spend valuable seconds of their life drawing stuff like that, as opposed to infinitely more constructive activities, such as sleeping, or typing pathetically unfunny articles on some third-rate website. There was only one person to investigate – only one hard-nosed reporter with the courage and bravery to pull through!
Sadly he was busy, so it had to be me. › Continue reading
You’ve Played The Game…
…Now watch the film? For ages Hollywood has turned it’s nose up at such foolish concepts as “original screenplays” and instead has been systematically raiding everywhere for ideas. I dare you to name a recent major film that isn’t a sequel or ripped off of – sorry, a homage to – an old TV series or comic book. Or one that doesn’t suck (and no, the Matrix doesn’t count). But Hollywood were faced with a dilemma – they had run out of things to steal. Should they go down the road of Police Adacemy, and create many hilarious films.. well, films anyway. Or just find more weird and obscure shows, such as a film version of Knightmare, or Bagpuss – The Movie.
No, today is the day of computer games. Remember watching your friends play their computer games and sharing in the excitement as you leaned over their shoulder? Well now you can get the same effect at the cinema, as film producers have hired 12 year old kids to play games with a film camera pointed at them. Okay, that’s a lie, it just sounds more exciting than adapting a game.
But why would anyone want to see the film of a game? For the amazing plots taken faithfully from such entertainment (collect all the coins. Woo)? Or just as a filthy, corrupt trick? Today I shall be looking at ten different films based on computer games, and deciding whether they are any good or not.
Super Mario Brothers
Based on: Super Mario. Surprisingly. Although you kinda guessed that, no?
Super Mario Bros is a film that is mocked by many, citing the… well I’m not sure really, since I am actually a fan of this film – I have it on video, and for me, buying something that doesn’t have either time travellers or giant robots in is a big step › Continue reading
Transform-A-Snack
“Don’t play with your food, Matty Boy”, my mum would scream as I moulded my bangers and mash into intricate scale models of World War II jet planes. Of course, my fascination with food instead of toys came to a head that dark day in Mcdonalds where a police swat team had to take me down after I modelled a working glock out of a Happy Meal bag and a few Chicken McNuggets.
Of course, spending every dinner time chomping down on MASK and Thundercats figures didn’t do much to help.
Living life in a crazy upside-down fashion is now something I have grown out of. But food company Red Mill have driven dump trucks into my malformed childhood brain and seemingly shovelled out bucket loads of gooey insane ideas › Continue reading
Decepticon Dominion!
As I have previously waxed lyrical about, the internet is full of terrible things, such as bomb-plans, insect porn and Transformers Roleplay games. The log I will present today has been kicking about the internet for a while, but here I am nailing it to the wall as if some sort of futuristic Martin Luthor.
One of the most… infamous Transformer fans is ‘Raksha’. She whose site was mentioned on somethingawful.com for its content which included essays such as “Why the Decepticons are the good guys”; “Why Soundwave is AMAZING”; and of course, “Why it would be good if the Decepticons invaded Earth and annihilated the human scum”. But I’m not here to cast doubts as to the sanity of this individual, since that would be mean. Well, and I’d get insane threats via e-mail. › Continue reading
Dem Demons
You’re a young adult, full and free with a spring in your step. You have a few laughs, a few innocent beers. All is well as you skip down the street, minding your own business whilst getting insanely drunk, smashing a few windows and mugging a couple of old ladies – but beware! Lurking in the darkness are evilly evil demons, wanting to use you as their puppet / slaves / novelty fruit bowls (delete as appropriate).
So how to avoid having apples stored in your nether-regions for all eternity? Well, simply take a glance at my handy guide expertly researched from five minutes of thought, to learn the best way to fight the darkness! W00t!
Doctor Who – The Daemons
Who? Azal, last of the Daemons. And considering that a Daemon is a skinny gay hobo covered in fake chest hair (can’t quite see the medallion) and wearing a party-mask, this isn’t surprising. Perhaps the rest of the Daemons fell over and broke their masks, and couldn’t be bothered to tramp over to Poundland to pick up a replacement? › Continue reading
The Ten Worst Ideas in Doctor Who
So Matt Smith is the eleventh Doctor, and already the internet has not only exploded, but imploded with bitching about how he is too young, too pretty / ugly, not David Tennant, etc etc. People who have kids have reported them running upstairs crying, nerds on the internet have proclaimed Doctor Who is ruined forever, and Satan has popped out of hell, said “Cor, its a bit hot up here luv” and vanished again.
But lets get this into perspective. We’ve not seen Matt as the Doctor and that will be the deal breaker. Heck, I thought exactly the same about David Tennant when he got the role, that he was a nobody who wouldn’t be able to hold up to the greatness of Eccleston, and now he’s become my favourite Doctor ever. I’m sure there was even worse grousing when Sylvester McCoy was cast, and he turned out fantastic! Doctor Who is pretty hard to ruin forever. Sydney Newman, the creator said that he didn’t want any ‘bug eyed monsters’ in the show since that would ruin it, and the very second story featured the Daleks. We all know how that turned out!
So the jury’s still out. As I always say, the proof is in the pudding, and I am waiting with my bib and spoon out. As long as Matt gets a scarf to cover his freakishly long neck, I’ll be happy. And it could so easily be worse. The night before he was cast I had a dream that it was him playing the next Doctor, but that his companions would be four robot children! Below are the ten worst things that has ever happened in Doctor Who that still failed to ‘ruin the programme forever’. › Continue reading
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