Archive for the ‘Shopping’ Category
Monday, May 17th, 2010
 Adapted from a Belgian comic strip, The Smurfs fell right at home with American youth for decades, with a cult following still pouring over it’s massive 256 episode run. The Smurfs involves a peaceful mushroom village community of little blue archetypes staying one step ahead of the malevolent wizard Gargamel, who seeks to either eat them, turn them into gold, or simply destroy them, depending on how dastardly he’s feeling. From there, it’s all history and The Smurfs would cover big ground as the series progressed, including traveling through time to confront Gargamel’s ancestors and even teaming up with Gargamel a few times to resist the even-more-dangerous Balthazar. They’ve even saved Mother Nature a few times! The Smurfs series, as unassuming as it may seem, is surprisingly so expansive that it could take a true Smurfs scholar to know all the history! They’ve been all over comics and cartoons, but they haven’t been in a feature film since 1983′s The Magic Flute! True Smurfs fans know that a world as vibrant, creative, and colorful as the Smurf world deserves to be recreated through the latest new technology, and in 2011 they’re about to get their wish! The upcoming Smurfs film has Gargamel chase the Smurfs from the
 Hank Azaria playing Gargamel during a film shoot in Manhatten village, who tumble from their magical realm into modern day Central Park. From there, it’s anyone’s guess how they’ll get back home, you’ll just have to stay tuned! The film features an all-star voice cast (including fellow 80s icon Paul Reubens, Neil Patrick Harris, Jeff Foxworthy, George Lopez, and many more), and is being filmed in 3D to fully bring the Smurfs world to life. It’s what we’ve been waiting for ever since we were kids! Projected for August 2011, there’s a long time to wait and a long time to speculate, so there’s never been a better time to get nostalgic and turn the dial to the Smurfs once again.
Tags: smurfs, the smurfs, the smurfs movie
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Friday, May 7th, 2010
Cowabunga, dudes! The one secret ninja sect any kid could be a part of, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are best known as wise-cracking heroes in a half shell with a burning craving for pizza and a vernacular of 80s surfer lingo. But did you know the TMNT go back further than that? Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was originally a comic book, all spawning from a joke drawing by Kevin Eastman of a masked turtle swinging nunchakus. Finding it too hilarious to throw aside, they added three turtles and gave each a specialty weapon, launching a test-run issue soon after that would become a huge collector’s item. From there, the comic would become a cult hit and would be published from 1984 all the way to the present day, still going strong alongside the animated series.
Written as a parody of popular comics of the time, the TMNT comic also had a crimson red headband for each turtle and more violent content with significantly darker themes. The comic predated the “cowabungas” and wisecracks, depicting the Ninja Turtles as the strong and silent ninjas of their namesake. Exploding in popularity, the company was quick to license their characters to a toy line, which demanded an accompanying tv series. That 1987 animated tv series reinvented the TMNT, giving them their different headbands and personalities and introducing many of the iconic characters for the first time, like Bebop and Rocksteady, as well as altering the comic villains into new forms. Shredder stayed fearsome but became lighter in tone, changing from a deadly and silent ninja warlord to a boisterous evil mastermind, the perfect thing for the new prankster Turtles to play off of. One crucial change was changing the Foot soldiers into robots, which made the Turtles free to destroy an unlimited number of them on television. Combined with the popular high-flying ninja acrobatics famous at the time from shows like Power Rangers, the public love affair with the TMNT began. From there it’s all history, spanning from a massive toy line to video games to multiple tv shows to movies and so much more.
Today, the latest animated series goes back to the darker tone of the comic series, paying homage to the Turtles’ roots. There was even a movie, Turtles Forever, that had the wisecracking Turtles and their darker incarnations fighting alongside each other! As the TMNT go a more extreme direction, there’s never been a better time to check out their past and get reacquainted with the long past of modern society’s most popular clan of ninjas. Call it “far-out,” “tubuloso,” “bodacious”, or simply “awesome”, no red-blooded child can deny the excitement of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Tags: donatello, leonardo, michael angelo, raphael, teenage mutant ninja turtles, TMNT
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Tuesday, May 4th, 2010
 The never-forgotten king of reggae and a permanent fixture on every dorm room wall, Bob Marley used music to preach a broad message of love and understanding that remains endearing to this day. Building up his musical chops with The Wailers, Bob would go on to join the Rastafari movement and become it’s unofficial spokesman, bringing the Jamaicia “Way of Life” into the mainstream in the midst of worldwide political strife. Scheduled to play “Smile Jamaica”, a free concert organized by the prime minister to ease political tensions between warring factions, Bob Marley was wounded by a still-unknown gunman. Not one to be scared into silence, Bob’s bravado and dedication became clear as he went onstage two days later still injured, performing as scheduled. “The people who are trying to make this world worse aren’t taking a day off. How can I?” he said. After recording the landmark Exodus and Kaya albums in England, he came back to Jamaica for a performance at the One Love Peace Concert, which climaxed with, at Marley’s insistence, the leaders of the violently opposing National Party and Labour Party shaking hands onstage as Marley told the world: “Just let me tell you something (yeah), to make everything come true, we gotta be together. (Yeah, yeah, yeah) and through the spirit of the Most High, His Imperial Majesty Emperor Haile Selassie I, we’re inviting a few leading people of the slaves to shake hands. To show the people that you love them right, to show the people that you gonna unite, show the people that you’re over bright, show the people that everything is all right. Watch, watch, watch, what you’re doing, because, I mean, I’m not so good at talking but I hope you understand what I’m trying to say. Well, I’m trying to say, could we have, could we have, up here onstage here the presence of Mr. Michael Manley and Mr. Edward Seaga. I just want to shake hands and show the people that we’re gonna make it right, we’re gonna unite, we’re gonna make it right, we’ve got to unite. The moon is high over my head, and I give my love instead. The moon is high over my head, and I give my love instead.”
With actions like this, Bob Marley proved an important fundamental point about the power of music to influence the world, and that nobody is above the ability to be inspired. Though respected musically, with a place in the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, fans know that Bob Marley’s power came from his live influence and ability to make every person in the audience feel like they have the power to change the real horrors of the world. Though cancer would claim his life at a tragically young age, four of his children would go on to continue his musical and political dreams and still play live shows today, keeping their father’s timeless message alive and ensuring love and equality never goes out of style.
Tags: bob marley, jamaica, reggae, the wailers
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Thursday, April 22nd, 2010
Summer is on it’s way and what better accessory to have then a new pair of flip flops to sport? These are the “must have” flip flops this season. Not only are they comfortable, they have a bottle opener right on the strap!
 Guiness Style
Beer bottle opener right on the strap!
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Tags: beer, flip flop, flip flops, sandals
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Tuesday, April 20th, 2010
 Have you heard? Toby Macguire has bowed out of filming the (Untitled) Spider Man 4 Re-Boot movie. Macguire, 34, was made famous from his breakthrough role as Peter Parker in the Spider Man series decided to hang up the webbed suit weeks before filming was due to start. Sony and Marvel have decided to take the billion dollar franchise in a new direction focusing on Peter Parker in high school dealing with human issues along with super-human predicaments.
Coincidentally, director Sam Raimi and actress Kirsten Dunst have also withdrawn from the new film. Speculations circle around Raimi not willing to accept the script or financial conditions. Raimi has been quoted “While we were looking forward to doing a fourth one together, the studio and Marvel have a unique opportunity to take the franchise in a new direction, and I know they will do a terrific job.”
Alas, the role of Peter Parker is up for grabs. Being that the film will take place amongst Peter Parker’s teen years, whoever gets the part will need to walk and talk the part of a high school student.
What do you think? Can you imagine Spider Man without Tobey Macguire? Sony being the power house that it is, is taking on a challenge and we’ll see, upon the release in 2012, if they can deliver a record breaking film like they have done in the previous years.
Tags: Marvel, spider man, toby macguire
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Friday, April 16th, 2010
Power Rangers was adapted directly from a Japanese superhero team show called Super Sentai, one of the most popular of it’s kind in Japan. Using the hit Super Sentai show as stock footage, and filming brand new scenes with American actors for the overseas market, the end result was Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. Featuring a team of costumed warriors chosen to destroy the evil sorceress Rita Repulsa, virtually every episode climaxed in a super sized Godzilla-style duel between one of Rita’s henchmen and the iconic Megazord, a giant robotic combination of prehistoric power animals that time and time again becomes humanity’s salvation and just about the coolest thing a child of the 90s had ever seen. No slouches on their feet though, Power Rangers also featured plenty of martial arts action and a memorable and wide variety of villains for the Power Rangers to tag-team kick in the face. Wearing it’s kung-fu film inspirations on it’s sleeve, Power Rangers offered a brand of action that the rest of children’s television just couldn’t keep up with. Perhaps this is why against all odds the show saw immediate overnight success and sixteen more Power Rangers series were soon to follow, switching up the outfits, members, and villains and sending the team around the world and into the furthest reaches of space. How’s that for epic in scope?
Proving that Japanese entertainment could have huge crossover appeal, one could even argue that Power Rangers was a crucial predecessor to the anime movement today. The use of stock footage kept production costs down and made the show easily distributable just as the anime style was designed to do, and when a robot pterodactyl is tackling a giant putty monster no red-blooded American child is going to notice. An appreciation for dinosaurs, matching jumpsuits, big robots, and flying drop kicks is practically encoded into our DNA, and this is apparent because Power Rangers became a tour-de-force that stretched on for over sixteen years.
They’ve been samurai, ninjas, space police, wizards, and more, but deep down we all have a soft spot for the original six; Jason, Zack, Trini, Kim, Billy, and Tommy. They were the team that got us hooked, and they were the team that every kid wanted to join. However, it’s not for the faint of heart; your enemies are merciless and frequently the size of buildings. Your friendly neighborhood Green Ranger was always off joining the competition and unearthing mystical swords of darkness, stomping around in his big metal dinosaur all the while. And in spite of everything, the Power Morpher comes with great responsibility. You must serve and protect, and only act in defense of the people (you can’t simply go stomping on little putty men in your giant Megazord all day long no matter how awesome that sounds to you). But the perks are nice! Kung fu, zords, and your choice of prehistoric beast to lead into battle. Are you a T-rex, or more of a triceratops? Is the ferocious saber toothed tiger more your speed? A Power Ranger costume is a big decision, but remember, it’s all for the greater good. A world ruled by a malicious skeletal space emperor with an exposed brain is no world that I’d want to live in!
Tags: costume t-shirt, mighty morphin power rangers, power rangers
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Thursday, April 8th, 2010
 The reigning kings of the jam band world, the Grateful Dead commands a devoted fan following like none other. Solidifying their place as hippie movement icons early, they played their first show as the Grateful Dead at a Ken Kesey Acid Test, using their inspiration from the rise of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones to drop their jug band act in favor of the irresistably attractive rock and roll. With electric guitar on it’s way to cultural-norm status, they embraced electric’s dirtier sound and slipped into their unmistakable sound, quickly gaining counterculture noteriety as a live tour-de-force. Rejecting the usual formula of constant setlists and city-to-city repetition, the Grateful Dead chose to focus on live improvisation, choosing at a whim from a pool of over one hundred songs and leaving room for ambient, spacey soundscapes as well as lengthy experimental jams that ensured that no Grateful Dead concert was the same. This would be the main draw of the Grateful Dead throughout their entire career; never playing the same thing twice, they were able to quickly amass a large fan following that would quite literally follow them to the ends of the earth to watch them play, knowing they’d be hearing something they’ve never heard before. The fan base, known as “Dead Heads”, is an unprecedented musical fan-base whose identity runs far deeper than  musical appreciation. The Dead Heads are a culture all their own. Many would follow the Grateful Dead from show to show all across the country, infatuated with the Grateful Dead’s “play no song the same way twice” approach to music. Also, with the agreement that it remain non-profit, the Grateful Dead was extraordinary cooperative towards fan recordings of their shows. In an era where grandmothers and eight year olds face million dollar lawsuits for mp3 downloads, it seems unbelievable that The Grateful Dead would allow fans official backstage access to record each and every live set, with the sound crew even allowing them to plug directly into the soundboard to ensure studio-quality recordings. Having played an approximate 2,350 shows, almost 2,200 were taped by fans and are now available online, all entirely band-encouraged. Their love for their fanbase and the developing hippie counter-culture was most apparent through their community contributions, making free food, shelter, entertainment, and health care available to any comers in the Haighty-Ashbury area in their early career, and ultimately performing more free concerts than any band in music history. The Grateful Dead would eventually feel the crushing blow of frontman Jerry Garcia’s death in 1995, going on to play shows but never in the same format again. Though refusing the accept the title of band leader, Garcia was nonetheless the face and voice of the Grateful Dead, his distinctive guitar playing becoming synonymous with the Grateful Dead’s identity. Though often jovial and charismatic publicly, his personal life was fraught with tragedy and self-destructive excess, an emerging byproduct of the times. His drug use would eventually come to destroy him, but due to the prolific nature of the Dead’s live recording, thankfully his musical impact and revolutionary approach to guitar will always live on. It was these personal tragedies that helped give the Dead’s music the deep emotional impact that allowed it a place in history, and it’s that impact that the remaining band mates have tried to live up to through reunions and brand-new bands. The Grateful Dead, though now taking many different forms, has still found a way to live on.
Innovators, record-breakers, and icons, the Grateful Dead will always be synonymous with sixties counterculture and the strive for social justice and equality that came from it. One of the rare musical outfits capable of transcending music to become something akin to a religious experience, the Grateful Dead’s impact on culture cannot be understated, and as a band they’re one of the most hard-working and unique bands to ever play. Just ask any former Dead Head!
Tags: dead head, deadhead, grateful dead, music, rock & roll, rock and roll
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Friday, April 2nd, 2010
Following the sitcom formula with a chemist’s determination, The Big Bang Theory features the straight man, the  wacky one, the love interest, the popular one, and the shy one; the time tested tropes of sitcom success. Each character falls in line with the sitcom tropes to a “T”, leaving everyone outside the laugh track wondering just what’s so different about this seemingly generic sitcom.
For starters, it’s main characters aren’t every men in the slightest. Named Leonard and Sheldon, they are two Cal-tech prodigies in the physics trade, with IQs over 170 and multiple Ph.D.s. Their friends are Howard and Rajesh, a master engineer and astrophysicist respectively. In this way, The Big Bang Theory turns the idea of the modern sitcom on it’s head by making it’s characters so smart as to be seemingly unrelatable. It’s “breakout character” Sheldon built a CAT scanner, a nuclear reactor, and received a Ph.D. all before he was sixteen. With all of Big Bang’s talk about twistor theory, darkmatter, and bosonic string theory, you’d think it’d go right over the heads of it’s audience, but that’s where the brilliance of Big Bang Theory comes into play.
See, despite their genius level IQs, they still have to share an apartment, awkwardly chase the girl next door, learn to drive a car, and deal with the anguish of a girlfriend who believes in psychics. As a collective of geniuses constantly hovering around one another at work and home, they are forced to deal with social situations that they are too smart to understand, rather than too dense. This way, Big Bang Theory turns sitcoms upside down, but still proves that geniuses still have to go through the same societal chores as the rest of us, creating a scenario where characters with nothing in common with a viewer could still be totally relatable. Want proof? This award-winning TV show is already renewed for a fourth season and is syndicated to over fifty countries worldwide, and you don’t need a particle physics degree to see why.
Filled with classic lines and characters, and projected to run well into the future, Big Bang Theory provides an advanced science-oriented comedy that everyone can relate to, and characters we can laugh both with and at. Big Bang Theory t-shirts have never been so in demand, with Bazinga t-shirt fever about to hit prime time by storm. An added bonus: All the show’s science is fact-checked by professionals, ensuring a scientifically accurate and fascinating experience for those who choose to dig deep into this hit show!
Tags: bazinga t shirt, big bang theory, t shirt, the big bang theory, tshirt
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Wednesday, March 24th, 2010
Though it was actually The Next Generation that served as the bulk of the series, it’s the original that gets Trekkies everywhere the most nostalgic. It’s where everything we love about Star Trek all started, and it was one of the main sci-fi programs to introduce the mainstream to the appeal of science fiction. Featuring bizarre alien races, imaginative and complex technology, and plot lines dealing with relevant, hard-hitting moral and sociological issues, Star Trek proved that sci-fi can be more than pew-pew laser blasting and UFOs, it can teach us something about the human race itself and it’s coming future. A classic episode like “City on The Edge of Forever” deals with the consequences of rewriting history, forcing the crew to deliberately let someone die in order to save the future. In an episode like “Friday’s Child”, the crew is forced into a planet’s tribal power struggle, forcing them to integrate into new social strata and accept strange new laws or lose their lives in the process. Far above any of it’s rivals, Star Trek had serious points to make, and was therefore nominated for a dozen Emmy awards, an amazing feat indeed for a show ironically facing cancellation.
That’s right. Amazingly enough, given it’s modern fan base of millions, dedicated like no others, the first Star Trek series only lasted three seasons and ended in cancellation. It only made it that far through the volume of fan demand, only making it to it’s last season through an extensive and unprecedented letter-writing campaign. Only after it’s cancellation did NBC realize the property they were dealing with, and the smash success of The Next Generation would solidify just how strong the impact of Star Trek on sci-fi culture was. By then, it was too late to fix their mistake and give Kirk a few more years on the Enterprise, with the smash success of The Next Generation the only consolation.
The old crew retired their uniforms years too soon, leaving Trekkies dying for a few new adventures with Kirk, Spock, Scotty, Sulu, and the rest of the first generation crew to this day. If they won’t fill their old uniforms again, why not fill it for them? You may not have a constitution class warp-drive spaceship at your disposal, but you no doubt have a burning desire to boldly go where no man has before, and that’s what counts. Whether it be Star Trek uniform t-shirts or baby onesies, running the spectrum from Captain Kirk, the scientific and mysterious Spock, and the engineering expertise of Scotty. These feature the classic colors and designs down to the Starfleet badge. The only question is which role you want to play.
Tags: captain kirk, spock, star trek, sulu, t shirt, t shirts, trekkies
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