Miraclo Miles

Martyr Mouse A Palestinian TV program which has been criticized for using an obvious Mickey Mouse knock-off named Farfur to convey political messages to children has gotten rid of the character... though not in the way critics probably hoped. They had him beaten to death by an "Israeli agent" after refusing to sell his land. Well, there you go. Here's the text of the piece for the time when BBC reuses the cyberspace: Hamas 'Mickey Mouse' killed off Palestinian girl watches Farfur on al-Aqsa television Farfur is making way for new programmes, al-Aqsa said A Palestinian TV station has killed off a controversial Mickey Mouse lookalike that critics said was spreading anti-US and anti-Israeli messages to children. The Hamas-affiliated al-Aqsa channel aired the last episode on Friday, showing the character, Farfur, being beaten to death by an "Israeli agent". "Farfur was martyred defending his land," said the show's presenter Saraa. Israeli crit...

Mr. Mike & the Clockwork Peril$ It's going to be a week for packages. We're getting replacement phones today, the Samsungs we have having lasted longer than four years. I may get hit with a few dollars for shipping, but otherwise these are freebies in exchange for us re-signing for two years to the same plan we've been on anyway. If that goes well mine will be waiting for me tonight, when I can swap the SIM from the one in my pocket into the new one, and shouldn't have to re-enter any info. As the other three quarters of the household are both at leisure and anxious to get their hands on the new tech I should have the advantage of three experienced users to brief me on the new features tonight. Late yesterday I received email notice that the case of Avengers I'd pre-ordered back at the start of the month from a spot in Illinois had shipped, and that's scheduled for delivery tomorrow, the same day Mike T. will be bringing in the brick I'd pre-paid for w...

Wall Street Journal Declares Two-Face God Thanks to Abbygal for the pass-along on an unfortunately cut-off headline giving us 50:50 odds. (Click on image for larger view.) Reportedly the original article was "Half of world's population to live in cities," but I find the abridged version to be much less depressing.

Room Rage Sunday Nick and I hit a matinee of 1408 , a Stephen King adaptation starring John Cusack and Samuel L. Jackson. I don't believe I've hit any spoilers in the following review, but there's always a danger of being told more than what some would like to know. Most Stephen King adaptations develop engine and navigation problems on the way to the screen, and as this is one case where I didn't read the source short story I can't tell you whether or not this tale went astray. I can only tell you that it was one character's search for truth and belief in something beyond the palpable, wrapped within a modestly entertaining ghost story. Cusack's character, Mike Enslin, is a writer with an at least borderline alcohol problem, whose personal tragedy has driven him the direction of writing about hauntings. Like Houdini before him, he was seeking to combine a search for validation with one of income. Subsequently he found his belief in an afterlife dismantled ...

So, Cap. Where are you? Above is a shot from an early flier from GAMA back in April. A piece I was looking forward to, as it appeared to be a WWII-era, mainstream Captain America. Then we hit this weekend, with pics of pieces we're told were pulled from boosters, including this short bus, WWII-era, Ultimates Cap... ... which looks like a fan-made mod I'd be embarrassed to display were it my work. So... is the obviously better, earlier one a mistake -- something they decided to save for a later set? Is it - perhaps worst of all - part of a set of chase figures? The high quality of the sculpt up top would support it being a chase-level piece. ::sigh:: Chase figures in Avengers could be a breaker for me, especially ones such as this. I could conceivably drop the game after getting what I've already committed to for this set. As with everything else in clix, we'll see when we actually get to see. I know it's all a silly little hobby, but it's unfortunate to feel th...

Sunday Morning & Time For Other Things A quick statement of intent and then a post on other things going on this weekend. Mostly pedestrian events. While those who are interested can easily go to HCRealms and find a thread where photos of pieces from the upcoming Avengers set are being showcased, I've hit (and gone beyond) my list of spoilers for the set. Monday I'll be checking to see what the status of my main order is, but otherwise I'm going to wait until mid-week and the set's release and for my boosters to reach me. Beyond that I'm going to try giving the set a few days off. I've seen much more than I'd intended to prior to having them in my hands, and while I have plenty of comments to make based on what I've seen I'm going to attempt to hold those until I have pieces in hand and complete pictures. If there's some striking news on the clix front, good or bad, feel free to pass it on to me, but I'm going to try to steer clear of th...

The List -- A Second Pass Still too soon to really know what'll work and what won't (among the majority, which remains unseen) but that won't stop me from combing over the list again. I started doing this Friday night, but decided I'd already spent more than enough time on it with my previous post. Better to let it rest before wading into it again. The Bunnyman did a reaction post to it - in both the previous comment block and on his blog. Let's see... let's start just by splitting them into rarity levels and quick reactions where I haven't already given them. The commons: 1. Captain America (Ultimate)95 Is this the sculpt we saw with the smoke grenade effect at his feet, and the wings on his head so that we know... he's the Ultimates version in disguise as the 616 original..? No, as it turns out it is the Ultimates version, and it looks so fantastically crappy I will only link to the image. I'll hope for a decent dial and if it comes through I c...

The List? The List. A list of pieces, including point cost, for Avengers has begun to make the rounds. It's an odd assortment, with quite a few Ultimates pieces on it, thick on Young Avengers, and at least initially feeling thin on villains... if it's true (and the scan shown below looks reasonably legit) I'm having very mixed reactions. Well, if you want to know the seemingly likely truth, click below. Otherwise wait until next week. (Updated to include some reported dials and verifying pics.) As always, click on the image for a larger view. I'll be happy to finally see a Dragon Man, Guardsman (especially as a common, since the armor was used generically), and several of the Invaders/Invaders-era heroes. Will Yondu have a special power that's a built-in Trick Shot? A 29 pt Stingray is dismissive even for that character. He deserves much more than that. Iron Widow, or at least the front money is indicating it, may be an Ultimates version of the Black Widow with Sta...

Wasps! Today's sneak peeks from next week's Avengers set are the Wasps of two worlds . Starting with the lower numbered one, we have the Ultimates Wasp -- and so technically her first appearance in clix form. For my purposes it'll be just another 616 (mainstream universe) Wasp variant despite the killer bee shirt. An aggressive piece (as seems to be the Ultimates' trendy trend) with a stealth-busting TA, she could definitely be of use to a team- especially one with any wildcards - though her low Speeds and short range (4) combined with being a flier with no move and attack ability will mean she's going to be taking a while getting where the action is. She could end up being a good harassing piece, and someone to help tie up an ranged-hitting threat, but at 49 points - a hair under one sixth of a 300 pt team - she's enough of a target to warrant going after in her own right. The late-dial Stealth and ES/D could help her be an effective blocking element. As no...

Dyspeptic Duos? [Now completed.] On HCRealms someone spotted an ad on Newsarama that ran a week early, and captured this ad image, the lower part of which may show us the first of the Duo Character pieces we'll be seeing in the game. I'm disappointed because I'd hoped the mechanic would be held exclusively for characters who were physically linked or who simply don't operate more than a few feet from each other. Cap & Bucky, though? If it's true, then it's a shoo-in that we'll be seeing a Batman & Robin duo in a DC set. What is, is , so I'll roll with it and try to make the best of the combination as it's presented. Hopefully the combined dial will be both formidable and economical, as it allows two actions to be taken in the same turn... but any time I try fielding it I know I'm going to keep fighting the impulse to want Bucky to circle around back of the enemies while Cap waits a few moments and then rushes them head-on. Hopefully mos...

Some (Quick) Avengers Catch-up With just hours more than a week until the set releases, Wizkids did an afternoon update of their Avengers Gallery . Now we're officially up to 20 entries, 19 of which are going to emerge from boosters, and 11 of those are clix. The clix detail additions are for Moon Knight and an Ultimates version of the Falcon . For 38 points, the Moon Knight appears to be an economical piece with some options. The Avengers TA, three opening clicks of Super Strength, an opening and two closing clicks of Stealth, and three Pounceable clicks of Leap/Climb. An opening click of Energy Shield/Deflection (I'm expecting an errata on that, to whatever they really want to call it with respect to him being a moving target) to help keep him from being tagged from range if he's out in the open, then one of Combat Reflexes to let him evade damage from a target he's moved adjacent to. His special power, noted by the red dots I've placed on his final three cli...

Maybe a Touch More Yeast..? Plenty kicking around my head to write about this weekend, but I'm going to go with the most recent and very briefest of them as the weekend runs out. Spoilers will abound, so if you didn't yet see it and are looking forward to, then skip this piece. Nick was dealing with some problems that kept him inside and away from the heat, so Travis went with me this Father's Day - once I'd taken a good shot at catching up as much as reasonably possible on sleep - to see Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer . It was... a safe , predictable bit of entertainment. Things worked as they needed to and didn't when that was needed. A sacrifice (two, I suppose) made that no one over the age of 8 believed would truly stand as a sacrifice. Sue was petty and bitchy early in the film and then came to her senses by the end once matters were put into greater perspective for her. An end to the threat was arrived at with an ease and speed that was, more than...

Into the over-color-stuffed weekend... The work week kept me running and worn down, in part keeping me from posting anything here. I've had at least one of the worst nights of sleep of my life this week, and the rest haven't been much better. This morning I'm off to Wizard World East . An 8+ lb box of comics is due from Westfield tomorrow, and Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer debuts this weekend. While the trailers got the little kid in me excited, I'm not going to get my hopes up. The film's a bare 89 minutes long and has oh-so-many places to go awry. The latest issue of Legends (#123) arrived Friday, too, and as I made such a poor showing in it (a bare 7 pages of zine, one of them an ill-executed, last minute cover and most of the rest mailing comments) I numbered that zine 99.5, as it was in no way a proper 100th zine. The convention will be taking most of the attention at least Friday and Saturday -- I haven't decided about Sunday yet. And... I ...

Okay, Axis, Here They Come! Well, one of the Invaders, to start. Though we knew he was coming as part of the set, Wizkids spilled all the info on the clix version of Toro , the original Human Torch's sidekick. It's all pretty much there. Aside from the special power (and it's a fairly cool one, though it's yet another guarantee that no one will play him without Armor Piercing ) it's largely what we'd expect from a rookie version of a Human Torch, save for the clicks of Toughness. So, he's a bit easier to hit up front than we'd probably like, but he can take a little punishment. His special power makes him potentially useful for the final three click when his stats would otherwise suggest his role was reduced to taxi. At 64 points he's a bit pricier than I'd want - in part, I'm sure, the price of a special power that doesn't have a usage penalty - and it makes him a little less likely he'll find his way onto a 300 pt team, but it'...

Turn, Turn, Turn Another weekend zipping, slipping away. Yesterday I kept odd hours and didn't sleep much, but managed to knock out some things that needed to be done. Two days earlier I'd embarrassed myself by finding an envelope I'd thought I'd sent out long before. Fortunately it wasn't a bill, but still... It wasn't quite what I'd originally had in mind, and lacks even a shred of individuality, but something (even late) is better than nothing. Either it didn't arrive by Saturday or it was received worse than I'd expected -- almost without a doubt the former. A week from today Wizard World East will have fun its course. I'm trying to get my ducks in a row for it, because the work week could easily swallow me up and spit me out, and before I know it it'll be Thursday night and I'll be ready to drop. The daily programming for it has been posted -- there may be last minute changes, but what's up on the site now is what will be ...