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Meg - the Prehistoric Shark Author Steve Alten’s MEG series of books have been a guilty pleasure of mine. The first was a great and unique read. Imagine a prehistoric shark the size of a bus roaming the seas in the world today. It was Jaws (favorite movie), only dinosaur sized. That’s a combination that all boys are predisposed to like.

The book was a great success and it spawned to sequels (a third is due Summer of 2009). The first sequel The Trench was a great continuation of the story. but are still tremendous fun. The second sequel–Meg: Primal Waters–was an adrenaline filled, MTV style sequel that went for action over science. It was fun, but not as good as the first two books.

It’s a perfect idea for a movie and there have been many attempts. The most recent was a 2 year plus attempt by now defunct studio New Line. For a full history of the cinematic trials and tribulations of MEG you can read a great story recently posted by the LA Times. Hopefully, someone will get a the giant shark on film.

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Chewbacca, R2, and Howie Make a Deal 

This post is all about revelations. In one blog post I discovered three things relating to Star Wars I didn’t know.

  1. I had no idea there was an “official’ StarWars.com blog. It’s surprisingly good and filled with fun and quirky Star Wars/Lucas related content. RSS Added!
  2. While you’re at the Star Wars blog site, be sure to check their Flickr page as well. It’s full of great photos (over 1,200) and there are some gems hidden in there. This particular “Vader Project” entry cracks me up. 
  3. It’s sad how far Star Wars and Lucasfilm will go to promote their characters now. On Monday, April 28, many characters will appear on the NBC show Deal or No Deal. Darth Vader will be the banker, the models will wear Slave Leia costumes, and Chewbacca and R2-D2 will also appear. If you’re going to allow this, then it’s time to release the Star Wars Christmas Special on DVD.

I’ve always considered myself a Star Wars fan (even a fanatic). As I’ve grown older, I’ve grown out of it to an extent. The new movies didn’t fascinate me as much and I only occasionally read some of the novels. I think the lack of original content caused me to go elsewhere (comic books) and the lack of depth in the content cemented the passing of the torch to comics. With all the various publishers, writers and creators out there, the amount and variety (horror, sci-fi, heroes, real life, etc.) out there is hard to compete with.

Still, I’ll always be willing to sit and watch or read Star Wars if I’m in the mood. Carter and I will be in the theater opening weekend for the Clone Wars cartoon movie and I’m sure we’ll watch the cartoon and upcoming live action show and not miss an episode.

I just hope they’re good.

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Ben Walker- A Love That Transcends Time, Space and Manufacturer

Gallery 1988 has another great show going on this month. This time the nostalgic subject is toys. Tons of wonder images over at toys1988.blogspot.com for you to check out.

Desiree Fessler - My Little Stallion All of the artwork is great. The custom Hot Wheels are especially cool. What a great idea, to paint/customize such a small item. For some reason, I find Desiree Fessler’s “My Little Stallion” especially hilarious. Definitely worth checking out (or even purchasing) if you’re in the Los Angeles area between April 1 and April 25.

Be sure to check out the G1988 blog to see the photos of the actual gallery. The pieces of Hot Wheels track on the wall are insanely cool looking and really add to the feel of the show. Add this to the list of cool shows (Stan Lee, 8-Bit, etc) that Gallery 1988 has done.

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Doc Venture in Trouble?

Mark your calendars for June 1st. Venture Brothers’ co-creator Jackson Publick announced that Season 3 of the Venture Brothers will premier on June 1. In less than 2 months we’ll finally have more episodes of what I consider to be one of the greatest cartoons ever.

Publick also announced that work is already underway on a Season 3 DVD set and scripts are being written for Season 4. I would expect Season 3 to be slightly more ambitious plot wise, since the creators know that they have another season to follow up.

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Use Amazon's TextBuyIt

Amazon.com has just announced a new service that allows you to purchase items from them using SMS text messages. The service is called Amazon TextBuyIt.

Text an item to AMAZON (262966) and Amazon will send you a text message with the top 2 results. Reply with a 1 or 2 (indicating which item you want) and Amazon’s ordering system will call to confirm and complete the order.

You can also get more results (above the first 2) by replying with ‘m‘. Amazon will return up to 8 items. Get details on a specific item by replying with the item number, followed by a d. For example, ‘2d‘ would return details on the 2nd item.

You can search by item name, author, artists, or by ISBN/UPC code. Now, when you see a book that want you can order it from Amazon on the spot.

Very cool service.