The Critic Who Sometimes Exists - The Claremont Institute

6 Oct 2008 at 10:15am 

The Critic Who Sometimes Exists The Claremont Institute, CA - 7 hours ago The 19th-century English comic novelist Thomas Love Peacock, who lampooned the fashionable exorbitant ideas of his time, represents for Wilson a species of ...

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Masriadi Painting Fetches Record at Sotheby's Hong Kong Sale - Bloomberg

5 Oct 2008 at 10:44pm 

Masriadi Painting Fetches Record at Sotheby's Hong Kong Sale Bloomberg - 19 hours ago The three panels cover 2.5 meters by 4.35 meters, according to Sotheby's catalog. The painting beat the record for Southeast Asian art set on Oct. 4, ...

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Collective instinct - Financial Times

5 Oct 2008 at 7:08pm 

Collective instinct Financial Times, UK - 22 hours ago After the usual apprenticeship in childhood collecting (stamps, baseball cards, comics, etc), King graduated to "the first real collection" of his adult ...

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Rare and coveted T206 Honus Wagner card will be sold by Philip ... - PR-Insid...

3 Oct 2008 at 5:01pm 

Rare and coveted T206 Honus Wagner card will be sold by Philip ... PR-Inside.com (Pressemitteilung), Austria - Oct 3, 2008 In 1933, the card got its first assigned value ($50) in Jefferson Burdick's The American Card Catalog, making it the most expensive baseball card in the ...

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G1 Red Cross anime Ratchet

27 Sep 2008 at 12:27pm  G1 Red Cross anime Ratchet
seekerjet
8 min - Sep 27, 2008

This is my G1 Red Coss anime Ratchet. It's based on the TakaraTomy Encore reissue Ratchet. The changes from the standard Ratchet: - Red Cross symbols on the roof and side of the vehicle like the 1984 Ratchet figure. In robot mode, the crosses will be on his shoulders as seen in the TV-show - I bought the BestToys Ratchet & Ironhide set of heads A special thanks to jeditallica A.K.A. Mike/mikesgtrs. I was looking for custom Ratchet/Ironhide heads months ago but they were produced by an enthusiast in small numbers, thus the price of $100 on eBay. Mike found out BestToys began producing and selling them. They can produce these custom heads in huge quantities, thus the affordable price of $15 each set in consumer packaging. The toy figure's default looks differ a lot from the cartoon character. The toy figure has it's head behind the windshield with a tribal-like sticker to resemble his face. A lot of kids in the 80's, including myself, were quite surprised when they saw what the toy figure of Ratched looked like. Since they always posed him on his station in the catalogues and the early comics that I read (obviously, I didn't read all of them), I thought his body was stuck to the station. TakaraTomy is known for doing their best to reissue G1 figures with cartoon-accurate color schemes. They couldn't do anything about Ratchet's overall appearance though. To make it up to the fans, they made cut-out cardboard heads on the box. Even though it looks cheap, it does work a little bit. I wasn't satisfied and wanted to either buy custom heads or make my own. I'm glad that one of those 3rd party toy manufacturers, BestToys, decided to produce them. In order to make his arms not look like gorilla arms hanging on his hips, you need to turn them upside-down to mimic more proportioned arms. Since the original '84 figure had variations with the red crosses on the back of his hands, it turned out well because I can use that for his shoulders. One problem that remains is the huge blocks on his lower arms, but overall it's still better than the original mode of the figure. In the first lineup of the Ratchet toy release in 1984, the figure had a large Red Cross symbol on the roof of the vehicle. Some variations also had the symbols on the side. Only a couple of years ago, the Red Cross organisation didn't appreciate the use of their symbols in toys and computer games so the symbols weren't allowed anymore in the production of toys. For some reason, Hasbro stopped using the Red Cross symbol on Ratchet after the very first batch of the figure in 1984. I really like the design of huge logo on the vehicle and his shoulders. Therefore, I decided to paint them myself. There are still some red smudges on the inner edges of the roof cross. They're quite deep into the plastic so I can't sand them. I guess I'll paint away those stains using white paint. Sorry for my hands to be so rough in this video. I worked with quite some chemicals the past days and I washed them too often to get rid of the toxic stuff =) There are variations of the box art of Ratchet. There's box art in which Ratchet has the Red Cross symbol on the palm of his left hand. In my TakaraTomy Encore reissue version, it's been removed. This Encore version does have half of the Red Cross on the vehicle's roof on the box art because half of the symbol is still not the same as the cross itself. It's obvious that TakaraTomy did try to "save" what's left of the original artwork without getting into trouble. Ratchet's station wasn't seen often in the TV-show. The most memorable moment for me was when Ratchet and his station transformed in the very first episode of the series. The artists/animators did recreate the station to resemble the toy station. Ratchet was one of the most helpful characters in the series. After the 1986 movie, he disappeared and First Aid took his place. If you're going to buy this figure or if you already own him, I really recommend getting the custom heads by BestToys.

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Television: Gambling on comic, 'Office' hits jackpot - Salt Lake Tribune

26 Sep 2008 at 1:08am 

Television: Gambling on comic, 'Office' hits jackpot Salt Lake Tribune, United States - Sep 25, 2008 I don't see the value in quote-unquote brilliant things that people don't like, and I don't see the value in things that people like that I don't respect. ...

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Neon Forrest - Iggy Pop

25 Sep 2008 at 10:20pm  Neon Forrest - Iggy Pop
oinkysqueak
5 min - Sep 26, 2008

There seems to be a never-ending migration back to the bands three seminal LPs, starting with the classic self-titled debut of 1969, The Stooges, with 1969, I Wanna Be Your Dog (covered by everyone from Richard Hell and Joan Jett to Uncle Tupelo, and sampled by Snoop Dogg), and No Fun (done by the Sex Pistols). The second album released the following year, Fun House, contained Down On the Street (done by Rage Against the Machine), 1970 (the Damned), and T.V. Eye, most recently heard on the original soundtrack of Jack Blacks School Of Rock (along with Sick Of You). The Stooges final album, 1973s Raw Power, was the source for Search and Destroy (whose endless covers include Red Hot Chili Peppers, the Go-Gos, Dictators, Everclear, EMF, Cameron Crowes Almost Famous movie soundtrack, and Beavis & Butthead!), Gimme Danger (Monster Magnet and last years Dogtown And Z-Boys soundtrack), and Shake Appeal (a perennial VH1 and horror movie favorite), not to mention Guns N Roses cover of the title tune, Raw Power. Iggys first two solo albums (both 1977 releases) are equally turned-to for their riches. The Idiot is the place to find Nightclubbing (chosen for the Trainspotting movie soundtrack and memorably re-done by Grace Jones), China Girl (nicely rediscovered last year by Pete Yorn), and Fun Time (check out the versions by R.E.M., Boy George, and Peter Murphy). Iggys most-covered song (and most-requested, on a commercial basis year after year) is the title tune from the next album, Lust For Life, and space does not permit even a partial list of the songs appearances, from Trainspotting and tv cameos in Ally McBeal, Gilmore Girls, and NBCs 75th Anniversary Special, to commercials ranging from Kelloggs cereal to Royal Caribbean Lines, to covers ranging from the Replacements, the Smithereens, and the Damned, to Bruce Willis (on the Rugrats Go Wild movie soundtrack) and Tom Jones. The LP also contained The Passenger, a widely compiled and covered tune (as by R.E.M., Siouxsie & the Banshees, Lunachicks and more). After Iggys self-confessed drug and alcohol-fueled lost weekend of the 80s, which included seriously overlooked albums on Arista (New Values, Soldier, Party) and A&M (Blah-Blah-Blah with Real Wild Child, Instinct), he emerged in 1990 on Virgin with Brick By Brick. It spent 37 weeks on the Billboard chart, the longest of any Iggy Pop album, propelled by Candy (featuring singer Kate Pierson of the B-52s), the first and only top 30 single of his career to date. Years later, Candy would show up in the American Beauty soundtrack and compilations spanning from Australia and New Zealand to Greece and South America. Iggy has gone on to build an impressive album catalog at Virgin: American Caesar (1993, with its manic remake of Louie, Louie), Naughty Little Doggie (Mar. 1996), Nude & Rude: The Best Of Iggy Pop (Oct. 1996), Avenue B (1999, a change-up with some jazzy, soulful spoken word pieces and a cover of Shakin All Over that has appeared on many collections), and Beat em Up (2001, with the 13-minute closing stream of consciousness monologue, V.I.P.). The 90s also found Iggy embarking on a sideline film career that had begun almost by accident in the 80s with roles in Sid And Nancy and Paul Newmans The Color Of Money. Iggy could be seen in the post-apocalyptic Hardware (1990), John Waters ill-fated Cry-Baby with Johnny Depp (also 1990), the comic-based Tank Girl (1993), Jim Jarmuschs surrealistic Western Dead Man (1995, again with Depp), the Spanish sci-fi Spaghetti Western Atolladero (also 1995), the sequel to the comic-based The Crow, City Of Angels (1996), Johnny Depps American Indian thriller The Brave (1997, with Marlon Brando), the Chris Elliott comedy Snow Day (2000), and Jarmuschs all-star Coffee & Cigarettes (2003). Over the same period, Iggy became a ubiquitous presence in a handful of tv assignments, ranging from Nickelodeons The Adventures Of Pete & Pete and Accidentally On Purpose, to Star Trek Deep Space 9 and HBOs Tales From the Crypt. In the midst of all this action, as far back as the early 90s, observers were getting wind of guitarist Ron Asheton (when he was in the band Dark Carnival) setting clubs on fire with his versions of Stooges songs. This was nothing less than inspirational to Thurston Moore (of Sonic Youth) and A&R man Jim Dunbar. In 1998, they were able to create a group known as Wylde Ratttz around the core of Ron and Thurston on guitars, Scott Asheton on drums, bassist Mike Watt, and singer Mark Arm (of Mudhoney). They recorded T.V. Eye for the original soundtrack of the controversial glam-rock film Velvet Goldmine.

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