Obligatory Avengers post

 By the time this post is going up everyone has said pretty much what needs to be said about The Avengers. It’s well written, the action is amazing, and it’s surprisingly hilarious. I have come to the Marvel films as someone who knows nothing about Superhero comics and I came to Avengers without seeing Captain America, which is one of the five movies that build up to the climactic battle. Even without that piece of the story, I didn’t have a problem following the characters or what was going on, which is just as it should have been.

Not to say that Avengers is completely standalone. I think if the audience hadn’t seen at the very least Iron Man and Thor they wouldn’t have quite understood the plot. Other than that, the other films simply filled in color to what is an amazing ensemble cast of broken, super powerful individuals.

The highlights is definitely the dialogue. Joss Whedon’s trademark banter works well among the bickering Avengers as they try to work together. Especially Tony Stark, who is more hilarious than he has ever been with his quick comebacks and pop culture references being served at an amazing speed. Stark is characterized as someone who pretends not to care, and thus insults and belittles people, but Whedon shows that when he flips that switch Stark can be bitter and terrifying. The line from the trailer, “If we can’t protect the earth, you can be damn sure we’ll avenge it,” holds a sincere menace and fear that I didn’t feel in the two Iron Man films. 

The action was stunning. The final scene features The Avengers battling against a massive army supported by giant floating snakes that looked like they were designed by the Final Fantasy 13 team. The action was kept fresh by having The Avengers face different type of foes, in different situations, and combining their powers and skills for maximum effect. Whedon is able to show, amid the chaos of a crumbling New York City, why this team was brought together and what each of them brings to make them work as a more powerful unit. I look forward to seeing the movie again, if for nothing more than that final scene. 

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What's Clogging my Tubes? #3

How to pretend you're aboard the Starship Enterprise

Anyone who loves Star Trek has at one point wished they could be on the Starship Enterprise exploring the galaxy. Well, IO9 found the next best thing: filling your room with the Enterprise idling sound. This youtube clip loops for 24 hours and will simulate what it's like to sleep on the Enterprise.

Beginnings: Nobody dies on the first goomba

SephirothX writes about his experience with attempting to beat the original Super Mario Brothers and how the first Gooma, used as a symbol for the first dangerous obstacle in a game, effects the player. It's a fun and surprisingly profound read for anyone who played Video Games as a child.

Preview: Brain busting goodness in Quantum Conundrum

Kim Swift, who helped create Valve's Portal and Left 4 Dead games left the powerhouse company to join Airtight Games where she would have more freedom. The result is Quantum Conundrum, a 3D physics puzzle game where the player has the ability to alter states of matter in order to solve complex puzzles. The mechanics sound interesting and the art style is more cartoonish and friendly than the Valve games. If it comes close to her previous two projects Quantum Conundrum is sure to be a winner.

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What's Clogging my Tubes? #2

While I was distracted by the announcement of the iPad 3 and a massive box of board games that came in I still managed to do plenty of internet surfing over the past week. Here are the highlights:

Pictures of people scanning QR codes

QR codes have been popping up everywhere in the last two or so years but have you ever seen anyone actually use them? Finally, a tumblr blog which aggregates all know photos of people taking advantage of this wonderful invention.

You Look Nice Today: Razzledazzle

You Look Nice Today has been my favorite Podcast for a long time. It opened the door to the world of comedy Podcasts and I have listened to the archived episodes over and over again. Unfortunately the release of new episodes were always inconsistent and the last episode was released on November 3rd, 2010. Until this week! The cast of You Look Nice Today is back to discuss inserting a 20 sided sidekick into famous movies. Listen to it!

Fix your iCal

MacOS 10.7 users have dealt with Apple's decision to change iCal and Address Book to faux leather designs that do more to distract the user than make the application more attractive. Luckily at the MacNix blog they have an easy installer that will change iCal back to the 10.6 design. It's a little change that goes a long way.

Original Darth Vader voice

Although Lucas never intended to use David Prowse's voice as Dark Vader, the actor still preformed the entire scrip during filming of the original Star Wars. This video gives fans a taste of what the production staff and actors heard when making the film, before James Earl Jone's terrifying voice over was applied.

Click below to watch the video

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What's Clogging My Tubes? #1

Starting this week I'm going to be doing a weekly round up of the best things I've found on the web. These are things I've shared in other places, maybe even on the My Tubes Are Clogged tumble log, but I want to talk a little about them and gather them in a place with some permanence and to give people one more chance to see some awesome stuff. So here is the first edition of "What's clogging my tubes?"

Nostalgia Critic reviews all the "bad" Star Trek films

There is a belief among Star Trek fans that the odd numbered Trek films are the "bad" ones. Well, the Nostalgia Critic puts that theory to the test by reviewing all five of them (excluding the 2009 J.J. Abrams edition to the series). The reviews are hilarious, as are most of Nostalgia Critic's work, and really break down the problems these films suffer while contrasting them with the "good" entires in the series. The five episodes will take you over two hours to watch but they are well worth it for any Star Trek fan.

• Star Trek: The Motion Picture review
• Star Trek 3: The Search for Spock review
• Star Trek 5: The Final Frontier review
• Star Trek 7: Generations review
• Star Trek 9: Insurrection review

Jesse Thorn gives advice on being successful online

Jesse Thron, the head of the Maximum Fun podcasting network, write a piece on Transom titled "Make Your Thing: 12 Point Program for Absolutely, Positively 1000% No-Fail Guaranteed Success." In the piece Jesse quickly goes over his rocky history and then gives twelve examples of creative people who made it big doing with they love on the Internet and what lesson is to be learned from their example. It becomes an inspirational blueprint from which one can begin building their own internet success story. I know I'm going to try and follow it.

Marc Maron interviews "Weird Al" Yankovic

Marc Maron's WTF Podcast has evolved from an outlet where the down-on-his-luck comedian vented about his problems into a highly successful interview show which featured some of the top comedians in the world, actors, musicians, and everything in between. His interview with the fantastic "Weird Al" Yankovic digs into Al's early start in music, his befuddlement at his sudden fame, and proves that Al is just an normal geek doing something he loves for the fun of it.

Check out the preview below

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Parody within a Parody

The Internet is perhaps the greatest creative force at has ever existed. Nothing proves that more than the energy behind fandom communities. People focus their dedication to a piece of art and use that energy to expand on the property in ways the original creators never dreamed.

Of course, this isn't new. Building on top of previous art has been a staple of the creative process for as long as humans have created art. Now, however, the process by which something is imitated, parodied, or built upon had been shrunk to almost zero.

So, of course, let's take a look at My Little Pony. As they have been doing since the show began they took an existing piece of art and parodied it for use on the show. This time they picked a famous song from the music man which had been famously parodied in the Simpsons. So while the source is the same for the secondary work created by two separate professional animation teams the Internet combined the parodies to create a third level of parody. A parody within a parody, if you will. Best yet this came out only hours after that episode of My Little Pony had aired.

"Ya Got Trouble" from "The Music Man" (Embed disabled)

"The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000" from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic

"Monorail" from The Simpsons

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