Worth Your Consideration #028

• Speaking of red band trailers, here’s the international red band trailer for Kick Ass, a film that seems poised to imprint its boot heel upon the tuchus of every geek in the world come this April.
• The heroes of Kick Ass seem hell-bent on proving that you can be a superhero in real life if you try hard enough. Meanwhile, in the two-dimensional unreality of the Marvel Universe, there is word that a rather classic-looking team of Avengers will be debuting in the aftermath of that company’s ongoing Siege event. This is all part of the “Heroic Age” direction that the company is taking its characters, a promotion that is so interesting to this writing that I’m even salivating over a teaser featuring Gorilla Man. And I don’t even know who that is!
• I’d be salivating even more if Marvel—my favorite comics publisher—would get with the program and announce some sort of service for the upcoming iPad from Apple. According to Gizmodo, “comic books will look incredible on the iPad”.
• But anyway, in the interest of keeping things upbeat, how about the news from Ain’t It Cool that Red Skull will be the villain in the upcoming Captain America flick, and that the Invaders will feature heavily in the second half of the film? I’m personally thinking that we won’t get an Invaders team quite like the one highlighted over at AICN, but I think it’ll still be cool. What I think will happen is that the Invaders will be one hero from each of the allied powers, with Cap as their leaders. So, we’ll probably get Union Jack or Captain Britain. But, beyond that, I have no idea.
• Speaking of things from my childhood—did I ever mention that I first became acquainted with Captain America through a hardbound introductory book they had at the Chelmsford Children’s Library?—Sonic the Hedgehog is back! You know me: I’m a sucker for old school games. And, since I never owned a Genesis myself, I’m psyched to learn that I’ll be able to pick up a copy of this for my Wii and finally get a Sonic fix whenever I feel like it.
• While we’re talking childhood, how about this iPhone app that allows you to create your own Sesame Street monster? I’m buying that for my daughter as soon as I get home.
• A lollipop flavor you’d probably never catch Elmo eating: bacon maple, which now, coincidentally, comes laced with caffeine!
• My favorite Super Bowl ad: It’s a tie between the Leno and Letterman ad (which I didn’t see live), the Bette White Snickers commercial (which I did see live), and the LeBron vs. Dwight Howard dunk contest that we got courtesy of McDonalds, complete with a Larry Bird cameo (which took me too long to find online).
• Last, but not least: Kottke is talking up a new service called Chatroulette, which you can find at chatroulette.com (apparently it’s very NSFW). I haven’t had a chance to check it out yet, but have you? Is it as awful (and awfully good) as Kottke describes?

The Very Filthy and Very Funny Red Band Trailer for COP OUT

I’m on record as having hated the first trailer for Kevin Smith’s new flick Cop Out, but I gotta say that my once (and future?) favorite director has knocked it out of the park with the red band trailer for the film. The jokes are about one-thousand times better, and the interaction between Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan is working on all levels. Mr. Smith and company got their second chance to make a first impression, and they’ve got me craving another dose Cop Out as soon as possible.

Geek Force FiveCast 292: New Orleans

In which ECC geeks out about the Saints Super Bowl win.

Lots More LOST

Apparently, I’m not the only who’s excited about tonight’s sixth season premiere of Lost. Kirk from Moss Creek Media sent me a link to a hilarious set of Lost parodies done with action figures, sometime GF5-contributor Buj pointed me in the direction of this article on Slate, and the boys from Totally Lost take their island obsession to new levels of hilarity (and depravity) with an episode featuring cameos by Titus Welliver (the Man in Black) and Elizabeth Mitchell (Juliet).

Geek Force FiveCast 291: The Lengths To Which I’ll Go For BATTLESTAR

In which ECC explains how far he went to find an episode of Battlestar Galactica online.

Geek Force FiveCast 290: When Spoilers Attack

In which ECC freaks out about the leak of the season six Lost premiere and wishes his Generation Goat co-host a happy birthday.

Why I’m Sold on the iPad

There are many, many reasons I’ll be picking up one of Apple’s new iPad devices as soon as humanly possible, but the first and foremost among them is the iBooks software featured in the image above. The Kindle, the Nook, the Sony eReader—because these things are single-use devices, and because they are black and white, they have never appealed to me. Now, give me an eReader with a color display that can also do all of the things I normally need to do when I’m away from the house, and I’m sold.

Truth is, I don’t need a traditional laptop anymore. I hate carrying the weight of one around, I hate how long it takes to boot up and log into (especially compared to my iPhone), and I hate how unintuitive it is for getting simple tasks done when I’m away from my home base. This thing, the iPad, it solves all of those problems. Here’s how:

1. It’s a great Web browser. Sure, it doesn’t have Flash, but I don’t care! For nearly everything I need to read or do on the go, this is going to work perfectly.
2. Its screen is big enough to really handle email. Don’t get me wrong: I enjoy looking at and responding to email on my iPhone. For short messages, it works great. It’s even fine for long messages, in a pinch. But when I’m on the road, email is one of the things I like to catch up on, and this device looks like it’ll be a dream to answer email on.
3. Its screen is big enough to really show off my photos. Photos seem to load fast and look gorgeous. And I can totally see myself setting this down on a dock and using it as a digital photo frame when it’s not in use as something else.
4. Movies, TV shows, and podcasts look amazing. I love watching things on my iPhone, but the bigger screen on the iPad would be a dream for longer trips. And I feel like I could hand it to my (nearly) four year old and let her watch movies on a car trip without issue.
5. It’ll play music. Seriously, the only thing I need to be able to do multitasking-wise is listen to music while I’m working. And this can do that.
6. It runs existing iPhone apps. Yes, I realize that some of them will look unbearably pixelated early on (the iPad scales the apps 2x to fill the screen) but, as developers implement new versions of their apps that can support both resolutions (iPhone and iPad), this is going to be awesome. Buy once, and use in both places!
7. Its Notes, Calendar, and Contact apps look gorgeous and easy-to-use. And it can run Apple’s iWork suite of productivity apps if you choose to buy them (at $9.99 a pop).
8. And, last but not least, it can act as a virtual bookshelf! As I said above, I’ve never been attracted to the Kindle or the Nook or any of the countless other black & white eReading devices. But I’ve always been attracted to the idea that I could hold a whole library’s worth of books on one device. The fact that this thing can read books, in addition to everything else—that’s what sells me.

Oh, and I almost forgot—the thing that really sells me is the price. The base model starts at $499 ($629 for a version that supports 3G connectivity). It’s basically everything I need in the way of a portable computer, and it’s almost as cheap as those cheap-ass, ugly-ass netbooks I see people carrying around and going ga-ga about. Throw in the optional keyboard, the nifty carrying case that can also act as a stand, and I am totally there. As soon as this comes out, and as soon as I can get the money for it, I’m buying one.

How about you?

Geek Force FiveCast 289: Flash and Multitasking on the iPad

In which ECC freaks out about the bitching and moaning about the iPad not having Flash or multitasking capabilities.

Geek Force FiveCast 288: iPad Eve

In which ECC geeks out about the Apple tablet computer, which Steve Jobs is calling “the most important thing I’ve ever done”, which might be announced alongside iPhone availability to all networks, and which might cost $600-$1,000, and which might look like this.

The Crash of Oceanic 815 in Real Time (Just Like 24)

This video of the crash of Lost’s Oceanic 815 in real time (in the style of 24) is one of the coolest things this Lost fan has ever seen. And I’m not alone: all Damon Lindelof could say about it was, “Wow”.

Thanks to sl-LOST.com for linking this up.