…found the precise location where Takashi Okazaki (the creator of Afro Samurai) lived, changed into my favorite storm trooper costume (only because by now I’m sure my Afro Samurai costume will have reeked of sweat and other body fluids that I produce when I sleep…I always sleep when I fly), walked over to his place (because I would have spent all of my money on my plane ticket), snuck into his apartment during one of his super cool get togethers, took all of these pictures (mind you with everyone in attendance looking right at me), snuck back out, ran back to the airport (surely by now they would have figured out that I was not part of the Samurai “creative team”) and flew all the way back to Houston, unscathed…but if I did that, I think Danny Choo and his millions of fan’s would probably hunt me down and turn me into one of these things creepy things:

No unfortunately (for me), but FORTUNATELY for you, Danny Choo was the one that was able to meet with the very awesome Takashi Okazaki, who of course is the creator of Afro Samurai, and who invited Choo to a really ultra cool session of eating, drinking, and checking out all of his GEEK WARES

Takashi is really a living symbol of the adage “never giving up”!  Here is a bit from the Danny Choo piece as well as some interview footage with Okazaki: 

Okazaki went from having is work published in a doujinshi (self published Japanese works (manga) usually made by amateurs – G) that had a circulation of about 2000 to having his creation turned into a multi-million dollar series. A great example of how good things always happen around folks who focus on what they are passionate about.

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So Danny was extremely lucky to get a first hand look behind the scenes so to speak of Takashi and some of the Afro Samurai team.  Below are some of those pics.  You can find the complete piece on Choo’s site here.

From left to right are Fuminori Kizaki, the director of Afro Samurai, Eric Calderon, writer of Afro Samurai Season 2, Takashi, Danny Choo (seriously, it COULD be me…well it could!), and Hiroya lijima, Afro Samurai animation design and character creator.

And here is what they had for dinner.  Who cares…check out those awesome Space Ghost/Birdman/Hanna Barbera coasters!

Kuma is easily my favorite character from the first season.  I want that figure!  If you haven’t seen the original, first shame on you, second, check out his fight sequence with Afro below…too coool…(or just go and buy the DVD…you won’t be disappointed)

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Takashi’s droid collection…I love his Domo-kun on his desk.

And Target around Halloween this year, wasn’t the first place that turned me onto these little brown creatures…A few years back I received a message from none other than God, apparently it was a warning or something…of course I have yet to heed it (I’m not a big cat lover…sorry…)  Maybe if God killed George Lucas’s brain cells each time…then I MIGHT consider stopping…until then…bye bye kitties! (there goes another one)

Oh wow…try to find all of the ultimate cool shit in this picture…btw, time to move out of the closet Takashi…you deserve a bigger office bro…

Holy shit!  Is that a Space: 1999 toy??  The other ones are from another old t.v. series called UFO.  Unbelievable that he still has these…

Check this out!  Oh my god I can’t stop laughing…how the hell did we make it out of the 70′s?  Seriously…MST3K where are you??  You can really tell it was sometime around the mid to late 70′s that the aliens decided to share their technology with us or we would be in a world of shit right now…

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I wonder what that Darth Vader helmet is in front of his key board?  Voice changer? Man I think we have some pretty cool shit over here, but the Japanese just take it to the next level with cool stuff…no doubt…

Wow…Luke versus Vader…samurai style. How much do you think that’s worth?

It took me a second to figure out what this was…but look closely and you will see…very awesome…

“We’re on an express elevator to hell!…going down”.  Never a big fan of Aliens toys…until I see them on some other dudes shelf…then I want them…Aliens I think is bigger in Japan than here from a collectible stand point…could be wrong…

Speaking of aliens…I still love this vid.   God damn it’s funny…and nightmare scary…

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Aww man…I want a WD40 R2D2.  =(

There are some other cool Star Wars pics on the site as well as some other cool stuff.  Definitely check it out.  And if you haven’t seen the trailer for the next Afro Samurai: Resurrection…look here.

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I have a lot of vices in this world…I absolutely love peanut butter and chocolate…specifically any of the Reese’s brand (and yes any variation will tickle my taste buds…There were probably 15 that came out for Christmas, (peanut butter and chocolate trees, peanut butter and chocolate bells, ones with red and green colors, peanut butter and chocolate Santas, peanut butter and chocolate reindeer, they pretty much hit everything this year), and my last visit to Kroger this week found 15 more for Valentines Day…you gotta love Reese’s…keeping America nice, juicy, and fat…)

Speaking of good fat food, I also LOVE pepperoni pizza…lots of sauce, cheese, burnt pepperonis (the most successful advertising campaign EVER are those for ANY pizza commercial…seriously…I only need to see a big, greasy, giant ass pepperoni pizza on my T.V. and I’m making the call…so fucking delicious!)

I’m also a pretty big sports fan…I have played all kinds of sports in my life, but over the last 8 or so years, my vice has been “fantasy sports”…I play in 5 fantasy football leagues, 4 fantasy basketball leagues, 4 fantasy baseball leagues, all sorts of pick em’s and money games, a golf league, fantasy tennis and NASCAR, fantasy gymnastics, and I have in the past participated in fantasy Big Brother, the great reality cut your throat show on CBS (I’ll get more into to THAT type of vice in a moment), but bottom line is, as competitive as I am in playing sports, I’m just as competitive on the Fantasy side…there is nothing better than to purge my mind of all of those evil thoughts, after a long day of sitting around watching T.V. doing nothing, then to go over players stats with any of my fantasy leagues.

Sure I have more vices, I love good wine…there is nothing like a great tasting cigar to end a perfectly good day…I love any and all toys that remind me of my youth (Star Wars, GI Joe, Transformers…especially collecting all of that shit and worse, going to the dang conventions that sell them)…and it’s difficult to make it through the day without one of my trips to Best Buy, Target, and Toys R Us…you know, now that I think about it, it’s also pretty difficult not ending my day masturbating myself to sleep.  Is that a vice?  Was that weird to share?  Whatever…

I love reading a really GOOD book that I can finish in a few days (I’m on my third reading for both of Max Brook’s zombie books)…and I love to watch a great movie that I can’t stop thinking about, usually either ways to improve it or “what if? scenarios”, like “what if they finally did a sequel or prequel to the movie?” (this week it’s been Big Trouble in Little China.  I love that last fight sequence, but where is the rest?  Long over due)…and there is nothing in the world like taking one of those great big shits that when you are finished you are so exhausted and tired that you can do nothing more than fall asleep right where you are at…

I love listening to GREAT music…and I’m talking GREAT music…the kind that takes you to another place…another planet…another universe…and then when you travel all that great distance across the galaxy you open your eyes in your mind and realize you are right where you were all along…but somehow everything is better…that “kind of music”…

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Yeah, sure the list goes on and on…but one of my biggest vices is something that I hold very true and dear to my heart.  I first got into it about 8 years ago, and I have watched, followed, obsessed over every incarnation, manifestation, and embodiment that has crossed my path…and you know what, I still want more!  VH1 as of late has been my “drug dealer”…peddling it’s wares nightly…force feeding me with  seemingly an endless supply of goodness…and as I sample each one…I get “hooked” and want even more.

Each one comes in, looking even more trashy and ridiculous than the previous one, yet I still gobble them up like Clay Aiken at a hot dog eating contest…because they just taste so incredibly delicious! (incidentally, I went to Las Vegas at the beginning of the year and was able to catch Spam-A-Lot at the Wynn and knowing that Clay did his “Sir Robin” stint on Broadway, I am still so fucking grateful that Harry Bouvy was Robin and not Clay.  No knock on Clay, because outside of completely creeping me out (god damn his pictures are hard to look at but once he has swallowed you whole with his gaze, they are impossible to look away from), he’s probably a pretty good guy…(uh…yeah right, but if I say something really bad about the guy, the last thing I want is to be looking out my window at night and see his crazy face staring back at me), but Harry just knocked that shit out of the park with his performance.

So yeah, VH1 my drug dealer has been funneling their orange cupcakes straight down my gullet…first it was the Surreal Life series, then the spin offs: Strange Love and My Fair Brady and then more spin offs:  Flavor of Love, Rock of Love, I Love New York, New York Goes to Hollywood, Charm School, Real Chance at Love, I Love Money, not to mention Hogan Knows Best, Beauty and the Geek, Celebrity Rehab, Scream Queens, Celebrity Fit Club, Breaking Bonaduce…and then there are more coming out…Rock of Love Bus, Tool Academy, For the Love of Ray J, Daisy of Love, AND none other than Love of Money 2.  Whew!  Holy shit, if that’s not enough to get your juices flowing I don’t know what will.

How can you not top this GOLD mine of mental instability!

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Well, although they all look good and I’ll surely at the end of the day watch every single one of them, there is only one right now that I really have my eyes on… and let me tell you, there is nothing dirtier than a bunch of hookers, cut throats, pimps, killers, losers, and retards being sent to a tropical paradise to fight over $250,000.  Yeah, I guess you can call it a combination of anything with Jerry Lewis and Survivor, except with these guys the whole purpose on this show is to make each and every one of them look like complete fucking idiots on the way to the prize…oh wait…forget about what I said about Jerry Lewis and Survivor…(incidentally do not stare at the Jerry Lewis picture for any length of time.  There is some really weird Clay Aiken shit going on with it.  I have inexplicably lost large chunks of time since yesterday…and every time I notice something missing, I’m staring blankly right at Jerry Lewis.  You’ve been forewarned)

So, at the beginning of the month, VH1 released the new cast for I Love Money 2, and “motley” would NOT be what I would call this circus of freaks…that honestly would be a compliment…so to whet your taste buds…and like I said, you’ll be crying by the end of it, because it doesn’t get much worse than this…here is the new cast!

First up…20 Pack

Eliminated in Episode 4 of I Love New York 2, he is best known for New York asking him to kiss her and him responding by saying, “You sure?”.  BTW he also runs a male revue and is a hair stylist.  “Hollah!” Expect him to use his good looks and charming demeanor with the men of the house to get to at least episode 3 then it’s back to Florida for this beauty queen…

Next up…Angelique…the french whore/stripper who is best known for having huge boobs (and for showing them all the time) and the brains of a dinosaur, as well as for not knowing a lick of English.  She’s way too dumb to make it to the end.  She’ll be early episode fodder.

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Third on the list…Bonez.  He was the “nice”, religious dude, that really had no place anywhere on reality T.V.  And I guarantee he won’t have much of a place here.  However, I completely expect him to ride someones coat tails til nearly the end but he’ll probably be eliminated in the top 5.  There will be a lot more crazy shit happening that will take precedent before his dumb ass hits someones radar.

And now for the white female rapper contingent, Buckwild, Ice, and Milf (god damn…just looking at their pictures is enough to make your mind think it’s smelling a fart).  Pretty much all three are known for looking like they walked straight out of Boys Town and sounding like they walked straight out of Vanilla Ice’s apartment…they are all dumb, beastly, and will either become super strong allies in the house or will hair pull and fist punch their way right into the Pacific.

Ice and Buckwild especially have hated each other shooting “yayee yayee’s” across each other’s bows…Here is Buckwild’s comments about Ice on one of her blogs:  “She needs to take her pasty, white butt back to her radio show and if I get the chance, I’m coming on the reunion and punching that girl in the face”  All three of them could use a sea donkey kick to the face.  Not sure which one, but I bet one will make it to the top 5.  Gut feeling says Buckwild…

Rounding out the hairstylist/male revue quota are Heat and Onix.  Heat is known for loving his grandmother and also falling in love with 12 pack during I Love New York (god damn).  Onix is known for accusing Sister Paterson of being fake and for falling in love with Boston in his thong (oh yeah, he also refused to kiss New York…hmm…).  Heat will upgrade to a 20 pack no doubt…and the Entertainer will wake up with a mild case of Onix in his butt…these guys are fodder…

And here comes the possible resident dumb asses Tamara and Tailor Made.  Tamara didn’t do much on Rock of Love except look like a complete dolt when she got kicked off.

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Tailor Made is known for winning I Love New York 2, for having lot’s of money (or at least that’s what he says), for being married while on the show (to a beast of a woman), oh yeah and for his feud with Buddha over New York

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Tamara will have an early exit.  Tailor Made is a wild card.  He’ll definitely stir a lot of shit up in the house…but if he can survive Buddha’s initial punch, he has a good chance of winning the whole thing.

Oh and wouldn’t you know it…as I mentioned of course Buddha is also on the cast this year…pretty much known for being a big giant bad ass, for being kicked off the show and returning later on, and for being the runner up to New York, I completely expect his feud with Tailor Made to carry over to ILM2.  He’s a smart player and is also a contender for the $250,000.  But I think with him being so intimidating and such a strong player, he’ll probably be eliminated somewhere before the final 5.

We’ve seen some hookers, some dumb asses, a bunch of men that love other men, and some white female rappers…so now, let’s take a look at a couple of crazee’s

The Entertainer returns after a first season of I Love Money where he became the house pariah and loony toon.  He is known for still living at home, licking New York’s nasty toes, and for one of the craziest border line psycho path tempers on the planet.  On the other side, is “It”…known for claiming Tailor Made’s flowers to “New York” as his own, licking his lips and…and well just check his ass out below.  “It” won’t make it to the end.  The Entertainer is a favorite to win it all.  He’s been in the house, and knows where he fucked up before.  He has a really good chance for the $250,000.

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I Love Money’s Resident liar T-Weed will also be on the show.

Pretty much known for lying to Sister Patterson and NY that he made millions…until they checked his credit…dumb ass.  This coat tail rider…will go home before the final 5.

And rounding out the cast is your requisite assortment of ghetto, skanky, women that will attempt to fight, scratch, and whore their bodies all the way to the $250,000.

Cali is currently on Real Chance of Love and this only tells me that Risque win’s Chance’s heart (if you ever hear me say that again, please just punch me in the face and balls and get it over with).  She is also known for having gigantic ti ti’s.  She is a wild card…just depends on who’s cock she snuggles up to early on.

Prancer was best known for having the “Prancer face”, loving reindeers, and being ghetto, but in a really good and nice way.  Nice girl…she’ll piss off one of the other hags and get eliminated.  Doesn’t have a chance.

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And here is the opposite of her on the ghetto spectrum, Saaphyri.  She’s known for her fight on day 1 with H-Town on Flavor,

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and this classic showdown with New York.  They both are fucking scary.  She is another wild card.  She’s smarter than she looks (that’s not saying much with this crew) and if she plays her cards right, could get to the top 5 easily.

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And then last but not least, these two beauty queens…Myammee and Leilene.  Myammee is known for not wanting to get her weave wet (and having giant cans…I just know there is some mother fucker sitting in his executive VH1 office scanning over those audition tapes with a Santa’s list of women with big cans…Look for more of these in the “new shows” coming out later this year and my addiction to continue) and Leilene who is known for having a picture of her dead mother stolen from her, for getting runner up in Charm School, and for being a stripper (who isn’t, on reality T.V. anymore??).  Once again, depending on who they latch on to, will dictate how far they go in the game.

There you have it.  This bunch is a hell of a lot worse than the first one.  And all of this may not make you watch the show, which I completely understand…but I’m just gonna say, give it a try (VH1 Feb 2nd is the premiere episode).  I promise you…in some sick, crazy way…you will not be disappointed!

The Houston Texans Cheerleaders (all of them)

So this brings me back to my main point with Jeffrey Reiner.  They have chosen this guy because this series will not be action packed and CGI moving like the current BSG.  Nope, this series is going for the drama.  So I guess what we can all hope for is some really cool Cylon shit (doubt it) or some really cool human on Cylon gratuitous sex scenes (please).

Here is the trailer.  Not much to look at, but you get the jist into the drama that I am talking about.

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Now I have one worry.

He has cleansed his sins.

Will he live to enjoy his freedom.

Does not matter.  He will always be the greatest cop of all time.  Shawn Ryan my friend, you created a GOD that will always remain in a special little place in my heart.

There has been an ongoing feud for decades between George Takei and William Shatner that came to a head when George refused to invite the Shat to his recent wedding to Brad Altman, his man-partner of 21 years.

Takei has a number of issues with Shatner, primarily because he was a camera hog and full of himself (which is why we all love him) and Bill is firing back saying that Takei all along wanted his own starship and that you couldn’t have two Star Trek cast members with their own star ships (wtf ???)

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First, I like George Takei.  Sure he likes to frolic naked on uninhabited islands running with herds of goat and sheep (and yes he also likes to occasionally have sex with men in showers and in their butts) . . . and I have to ask . . . who doesn’t??

He rocks on the Howard Stern Show.  He rocked on Heroes.  I fucking like the guy.

Same with the Shat.  Boston Legal is great.  He is another guy that is completely charismatic and has over the years poked fun at himself along with everyone else.  He (along with Takei) have made careers out of Star Trek and more power to them and to be honest neither one of them have to work a day in their lives as a result.

Both should just make friends and start doing shit together (e.g. how about a fucking buddy cop flick?  Or a pirate movie?  Or maybe an Indiana Jones type flick?) before they both die and lose a great opportunity to do something great (again) together.

Anyways, if you get a chance on Dec 2nd on the Bio Channel check out Shatner’s new talk show “Raw Nerve”.

Also, J J Abrams is a tool for including Lenard Nemoy in the new Star Trek movie and not including Shatner.  Yeah, I heard the rumors that Abrams asked Shat and he said no, but I believe Mr. Shatner.  Sorry Abrams.  You are making an amazing flick . . . but at the end of the day Shatner made Star Trek.

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As I lay there in a half awake and half asleep trance I could slowly feel myself nodding off and on as I changed the channel.  All of the sudden the terror began to hit my ears with a tremor that would have risen the Kraken.  IT WAS THAT GOD FORSAKEN COMMERCIAL with Sarah McLaughlin.  That fucking bitch with those damn gimped dogs and one eyed pirate cats.  What the fuck man.  Why?  Why would they choose to freakin play that shit at 3 am.  I’ll tell you why.  They know that the only people that are up at 3 am are people that just got home from the bar or some idiot that is still trippin on X.  They are sitting in front of their tv in the middle of an eating frenzy and all the sudden a commercial pops up that shows a fucking dog using the wheels off of a big wheel for hind legs.  So what the hell do you do?  Not using your right mind (because you are still fucked up) you feel sorry for this helpless creature and you call the damn 800 number and unload you bank account.  But I was not sober.  I was almost asleep.  But after seeing ”Crusty” the one eyed wonder cat I could not help but play with my own emotions.  I felt so compelled to keep watching this commercial that I actually felt guilty for trying to change the channel.  Soon I felt a tear come down my cheek.  What the FUCK was wrong with me?  I don’t cry.

The next morning I went out and adopted 14 cats, 7 dogs, 2 hamsters and a damn iguana.  So now that Sarah McLaughlin fucked my whole life up with that EVIL commercial, I would like to unleash it on the rest of the world.  Please watch at your own risk…

Click here to view the embedded video.