I’m sort of starting to buy into the formula of the new Transformers cartoon.  The formula in which X-treme action scenes and truly bastard-like Decepticons mitigate the lameness of cheese-laden jokes and a less-than-stately Optimus Prime.

Of course, I also briefly considered taking the advice of Dr. Phil at some point in the past year, so my judgment can’t be trusted.  At all.

Oh, and now that we’re admitting things… I once watched an episode of the The View without any sense of irony.

To sign up to win a copy of Transformers Animated: Season Two on DVD:

1. If you haven’t already, get an e-mail subscription to Great White Snark. It won’t cost you nuthin’.
2. Leave a comment on this post. In the “Mail (will not be published)” field, enter the same e-mail address of your subscription, so I know who you are.
3. In the comment, cite your favorite awful line from the Michael Bay Transformers movie.

I’ll select the winner at random and announce them in an update to this post next Tuesday, January 13.

One entry per person. And remember, cheaters never prosper, because I’ve got your IP address, people: duplicate entries are dopey entries. Winners outside the forty-eight contiguous U.S. states pay shipping. Because this ain’t a money tree, it’s just a plain ol’ blog.

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Now this is how it should always be when someone sends me a picture of their Batman symbol tattoo: with flirtatious adornment by a leather bustier thingie, a plaid mini-skirt, and stockings.

Hell, it might even make some of the Batman tattoo pics I get from sketchy shirtless dudes a bit more tolerable.  In terms of their hilarity, of course.  Not in terms of their appropriateness for the password-protected “Special Me Time” folder on my computer.  Obviously.

Vicki Vale (real name withheld by request) tells us a bit about her work:

I have a classic Bat logo one. I had always wanted one since I was 17, but the time never felt right. I had it done on November 26th, the day R.I.P. finished (I will not comment on that storyline). It sits on my left hip, as you can see. A plain one, looking at the rest of this site. I’m still damn proud of it.

Oh, Vicki, don’t mistakenly compare your ink to the other colorful, artistic, massive and otherwise eye-popping Batman tattoos here on GWS.  Instead, judge it against my woeful little Battoo.

As in most cases where you might compare yourself against me, I guarantee you’ll come out feeling like the fresh-scented winner of life.

Except for building blog machinery out of LEGOs, cake fondant, costume fabric, and tattoo ink.  I’m the undisputed master of that (tiny, tiny) domain.

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Here’s a smattering of the geeky curiosities from around the Web that I posted to my Twitter profile this week.  Follow me on Twitter for full basket of potpourri.  Mmm… fragrant.

• In the new year, I’m thankful for the powers of Photoshop. (Favorite: Iron Man as The Nutcracker.) http://twurl.nl/nd37uz
• It’s tough not to respect a NERF chaingun that’s been hacked to shoot 500 rounds per minute. http://twurl.nl/g4ktvj
• My inner 13-year-old wannabe ninja NEEDS a pair of lightsaber nunchucks. http://twurl.nl/obnfao
• Orko + My Little Pony = http://twurl.nl/inm0hk
• Oh, China. This is totally something Japan would do. World of Warcraft theme restaurant. http://tinyurl.com/63vdfb

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Way to conform to stereotypes, Japan. As soon as you get a hold of Batman, you stick him in some manga and have him battle giant insects, robots, dinosaurs, and villains like “Go-Go The Magician.”  (Cousin to the less-well-known “Ray-Ray The Pawn Shop Dealer.”)

I guess I should just count my lucky six-pointed Hebrew stars that that you didn’t add further insult to the character by pitting him against one of your other manga staples, the sexually-aggressive evil octopus (NSFW link, kiddies).

Anyway.  If you’d like to see what happens when Batman meets the insanity of giant-monster-laden Japanese manga, you might want to check out Bat-Manga!: The Secret History of Batman in Japan.  It’s available in paperback and also in a limited hardcover edition, for when a volume of translated Batman manga–heretofor unknown even to DC Comics–from a single year in the 1960s just isn’t quite obscure enough.

In 1966, during the height of the first Batman craze, a weekly Japanese manga anthology for boys, Shonen King, licensed the rights to commission its own Batman and Robin stories. A year later, the stories stopped. They were never collected in Japan, and never translated into English. Now, in this gorgeously produced book, hundreds of pages of Batman-manga comics more than four decades old are translated for the first time, appearing alongside stunning photographs of the world’s most comprehensive collection of vintage Japanese Batman toys.

Vintage Japanese Batman toys? Count me in for a fully-articulated Go-Go The Magician figure.

Find more geeky collectibles on my Lootist profile. Natch.

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I kind of like the whimsical interpretation of the Death Star in this Star Wars groom’s cake.  It’s very “death machine sits on a fluffy cloud at the end of a Skittles rainbow.”

‘Cause you know there’s no better place for a death machine to sit than on a fluffy cloud.  Or a pair of cybernetic legs.  Or a motion-tracking tripod.  But mostly a fluffy cloud.

Judy shares details on this mechanical Pangaea-looking confection, featuring four layers of chocolate chip cookies, white chocolate mousse filling, butter cream frosting, a garnish of Skittles and Sweet Tarts, and the dimples of forest pixies:

The cake was done for my friend’s brother’s wedding.  The Death Star idea came from him being such an avid Star Wars fan…It took about 3 hours baking time between the cookies, round ball cake and mixing up the mousse and frostings. Then about 1 1/2 hours to decorate…no time at all for the bottom round part, mostly that time was just ate up with covering the ball and gluing on the exterior pieces.

Once placed out for service, it cut and served exactly like any other cake would—-because the chocolate chip cookies making up the “cake” part were soft and chewy.

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Amazon wants you to know that the season of holiday spending isn’t quite over.  You might think it is.  But it’s not.

Amazon has the DVDs of the first 11 seasons of The Simpsons on sale for $14.99 each in their The Simpsons Sale. That’s 63-70% off per season.

Plus, the sale includes discounts on a bunch of The Simpsons specials and on The Simpsons Movie (DVD and Blu-ray).  That’s a lot of yellow people for your money.

Check out Amazon’s The Simpsons Sale.

Thanks to Pete at /Film for the tip.

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