Tuesday, December 16, 2008

The "Command Center"

So I finally have finished my "Dream layout" for my Gaming PC.
I play a lot of WoW, and I play two accounts at once, so it was important to me to be able to be able to see both accounts and have a monitor for a browser as well. Please keep in mind that the follow is set up using a single PC.



So here we have a 3 monitor system. The first two monitors are instantly obvious. The Primary monitor is mounted on the far wall and is a 65 inch LCD Aquos Television. The Secondary monitor is the 21 inch ViewSonic on the table below the primary monitor. While this monitor isnt very good for reading websites or text due to its proximity from the desk, it is perfect for running a second WoW character (as pictured).



The third monitor is actually inside the desk. The desk is designed with a recessed mount for a monitor. This monitor is perfect for browsing websites while playing games on the other displays.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this little presentation, I'm pretty proud of my handiwork :-)

Thursday, December 11, 2008

My NYCC 09 Plans


Hey Gang,
I just confirmed all my NYCC plans! If you remember last years NYCC craziness of mine, you'll notice these plans are much less condensed and far less frantic.

Burbank Bob Hope (BUR) to New York John F Kennedy Intl (JFK)Departure (BUR): February 5, 8:45 AM PST (morning)Arrival (JFK): February 5, 4:58 PM EST (afternoon)

New York John F Kennedy Intl (JFK) to Burbank Bob Hope (BUR)Departure (JFK): February 8, 6:00 PM EST (evening)Arrival (BUR): February 8, 9:36 PM PST (evening)

Also, while I am there, I am going to go see Avenue Q:
Date: Sat, Feb 7, 2009
Option: 2:00PM Weekend Performance

If anyone is going to be attending, and would like to hang out (I will have plenty of time for you this time around), PM me for my cellphone number.Thanks!

Friday, December 5, 2008

California judge orders company to stop making Bratz dolls


The collective pout on the lips of Jade, Cloe, Yasmin and Sasha is about to become even more pronounced.

A judge in California ruled late on Wednesday that the makers of Bratz, the attitude-laden teenage dolls that exposed Barbie as a square, must immediately stop making the hit toy and recall its models from shop shelves in the new year.

The ruling sent shockwaves through toyland as the industry gears up for its busiest time of the year. In June, sales of Bratz in the US reached $3.1bn (£2.1bn) since their launch in 2001. Sales of Barbie, still America's most popular toy, fell by 15% in 2007.

The ruling comes three months after Mattel, the makers of Barbie, won a copyright case in which it argued that the Bratz concept had been developed by one of its designers. A jury agreed that Carter Bryant had come up with the original designs while at Mattel and had taken them to MGA, which launched the Bratz line in 2001. The jury awarded Mattel $10m for copyright infringement and $90m for breach of contract.

Judge Stephen Larson's ruling effectively places the Bratz brand under the control of Mattel.

"Mattel has established its exclusive rights to the Bratz drawings," Larson wrote, "and the court has found that hundreds of the MGA parties' products, including all the currently available core female fashion dolls Mattel was able to locate in the marketplace, infringe those rights."

Perhaps most troubling for fans of the Bratz extended family will be the fate of the Bratz Babyz, the Bratz Kidz, the Bratz Petz, the Bratz Boyz and the Bratz Ponyz. On her blog, Bratz girl Yasmin chose to ignore the legal fuss to focus on her busy life "with school and community stuff", and to tell her readers about her next door neighbour's new horse, Leo.

Yasmin's boss, MGA chief executive Isaac Larian, expressed surprise at the scope of the ruling and promised to appeal. "We believe ... that issuing such a broad injunction is inconsistent with the limited jury verdict and the law," he said. "MGA intends to immediately appeal the injunction."

The judge said the ruling, which could put MGA out of business, thus removing one of Mattel's chief rivals, would not take effect until February, when he rules on post-trial motions lodged by both sides.

Mattel chief executive, Robert Eckert, said in a statement: "We're extremely pleased that the court granted Mattel's motion for an injunction and ordered MGA to stop selling Bratz products that infringe on Mattel's rights."

The ruling, he added, "underscores what Mattel has said all along - that MGA should not be allowed to profit from its wrongdoing".

The ruling saw shares in Mattel rise by 5% on the New York stock exchange.

The two sides continued to argue about the scope of the ruling. MGA said that it applied to just the first four characters in the Bratz range; Mattel countered that all Bratz dolls infringe its copyright.

But even as one competitor seems set to leave the marketplace, Barbie faces other challenges to its dominance of the dollhouse. The new girls on the block, Hannah Montana and Mattel's own High School Musical range, are the second and third highest-selling dolls in the US this year.

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Radio Boy Update: Radio Boy Was At One Point, Stolen!

From Scott Hensey:

No, I never molded him. Playmates would sometimes cancel a figure and start a new one. I would invoice them for the percentage of the figure finished to date. That piece could not have been more than half done.
I can see where you might want to pursue this piece - it's a curiosity I suppose, but it's is far from a wonderful display piece.
I don't know how this thing got on the market anyway. I'm assuming one of my sculpture staff took it home when I closed the Los Angeles shop.

The Quest For Radio Boy



So chances are, if you're reading this blog, you've seen this clay sculpt on ebay. It has been up there for AWHILE...and frankly, I had always questioned it's authenticity. SO... I decided to do a little super sluething. First I hit up Steve Murphy at Mirage.

I Said:

Hey murph, You may have seen the wax sculpt in the link below on ebay before. The guy claims that it was an unproduced TMNT figure. The guy wants FAR too much for it obviously, but before I go through the trouble of haggling him down to something reasonable, I wanted to try to confirm that it was intended for the toy line…Do you remember this one ever coming across Mirage for approvals?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=220012759708&ssPageName=STRK:MEWA:IT&ih=012

Steve replied:

Hi Stephan,
Hmmm, it doesn't ring a bell but that doesn't necessarily mean anything. Let me forward it on to Ryan Brown: he has a much better memory for these things than I do. Back at ya...


Being the impatient guy I am, while I waited on Ryan's input, I shot an E-mail to Scott Hensey at Anaglyph Studios, who sculpted a large portion of the original line.

I said:

Hey Scott!

It's Stephan Reese, I have a question for you about one of your pieces.
It is definitely your style, so I'm not questioning that you sculpted it, but I do question that it was for TMNT and not for a different toy line. I asked Steve Murphy at Mirage about it, and he doesn't remember it coming through them for approvals, so I thought you might remember what you sculpted him for.

Thanks!
Stephan

Scott Replied:

Hello Stephan-
Thanks for the contact-
Yes, I remember that piece. It is clay by the way, not wax.
Yes, we sculpted it here at my studio. To tell the truth though - I can't say for sure it was for Turtles, it may have been for Toxie. It was one or the other for sure.
Good luck, let me know how it turns out.
scott


The plot thickened! It was definately either Toxic Crusaders or TMNT. Minutes later, Ryan got back to me.

Ryan said:

Yes. It was never approved though...I have the concept drawing for it somewhere.

So then I sent an e-mail to GML Enterprises, the person who has the Radio Boy Sculpt.

I said:

Dear gmlenterprises,

I was able to get absolute confirmation from Ryan Brown at Mirage Studios that radio boy did come through them for approvals. So, that means I am interested... Now, I would like to talk about price.

The current price you have set for the figure is frankly astronomical. And I have noticed that you've had him on the market for QUITE some time now. I am probably the foremost collector of ninja turtle prototypes and wax sculpts in the world. My collection includes such rarities as: *The HotSpot Wax Sculpt
*A Scratch resin Prototype
*A Pizzaface resin prototype (Unreleased version, hand painted by the sculptor)
*The wax sculpt for an unreleased version of Casey Jones.

I have never paid more than (Price Edited Out) for any of these items, some of which are much more historically relivant to the toy line than radio boy (as he was never approved). As such, I would like to offer you (Price Edited Out) for the radio boy sculpt. Let me know either way.

Thank You,
Stephan

So that is the saga so far. I will tell you more as the story unfolds!

Stories Like This Make My Heart Hurt




Originally Posted by Sage Ninja @ TheTechnodrome


I work in the toy department at Wal-Mart, and since the 2007 movie dubuted all we;ve had is variants on the movie toys. That is till this past summer, know all we have is left overs. This past Sunday I had two seprete kids in the 11/12 range come up to me asking if we had ninja turtle toys from the cartoon series instead of the movie. I assumed they ment the older ones from FF and the earlier seasons so I brought them to the clearance aisles where we had a few straglers that we can't get rid of thats been around forever and on both occassions each kid said no they wanted to know if we had toys from the most recent season Back to the Sewers! I was freakin shocked! I was like "uh no, we don't have any toys for the new season the cartoon series" And both wanted to know when we would carry them. I couldn't bring my self to tell them that wheren't going to be any because both kids seemed like they really wanted them.Gee, how idiotic of playmates to not make toys for Back to the Sewers, I'm surpised as heck that I actually had some one ask me about them instead of Bakugan or something.


*sigh* I fucking hate playmates...so...much. Thank You so much for single handedly ruining the Ninja Turtles for a new generation.

Monday, December 1, 2008

Sheesh!

I thought I was being ambitious when I threw in $100 for this lot...Someone wanted it a LOT more than me!

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=190269140099&ssPageName=STRK:MEDW:IT&ih=009