Phantasmic Links 6.21.10

Happy Father's Day! I was glad to spend another one with my dad. Impatient that he still gets angina after having a heart bypass two months ago, he misses the larger picture that the pain is milder and subsides much faster, and all his vitals check out. Despite being 80, he wants to still be able to climb ladders or stairs or march in parades or carry heavy things, and can't understand why doing such things causes him some discomfort. Still, that stubbornness is also what keeps him going, and why we love him. He stayed on the sidelines while I played a strenuous parade on Saturday night, but he played on Sunday with one of our Italian bands, in a ragtag crew that includes another bypass patient, a guy with a bad back, a guy with lymph node problems, and more. Dads are a tough breed. I hope all the fathers out there had a great Sunday, and I hope we all have a great week ahead of us. Let's start with some PHANTASMIC LINKS:

(1) Batman: City of Scars is one of the best fan-films I've seen in a long time. Hope to see more from its creators, perhaps in an official capacity.

(2) ”Oh Sookie” is a slick love letter from one of True Blood's biggest fans, the hilariously “smooth” Snoop Dogg.

(3) You might find some surprise inclusions on this list of 5 Superheroes who used their powers for sex; I know I did.

(4) When a Jesus statue is destroyed by lightning, one questions whether or not rebuilding it would be a good idea. Potential wrath of God aside, there are a lot of power lines in the background that suggest this location is a little too ripe with electricity....
Hat Tip: B13.

(5) People used to use some dumb, dumb products with radioactive materials in them. Sure, hindsight is 20/20, but a guy using radium on his scrotum and later dying of bladder cancer seems like an obvious conclusion. These types of stories scare me because I wonder which stupid things we're all doing now will shock people 20-30 years in the future. ::Flash forward to a blogger typing about the link between cell phones and brain tumors::

(6) Premakes: What if the great sci-fi and adventure movies of the ‘80s had been made in the ‘40s or ‘50s?

(7) Beating Tetris has always been a challenge, and now we know the other side of the story...
H.T.: B13.

(8) A museum in upstate New York houses over 20,000 classic arcade games. Road trip, anyone?
H.T.: J-No.

(9) Wow, those Hostess Cup Cakes were really an epidemic in ‘70s comics, as evidenced by this previously unseen side of one of Spider-Man's most tragic battles...

(10) Tower of Doom is a nice little diversion in which you, as an evil mage, upgrade a variety of weapons within a specific time limit to protect your tower long enough to cast your spell. The regular levels are short enough to keep your gaming break from interfering with productivity, while the unlimited level unleashes the dangerously addictive quality of this defense challenge.

Have a link to a game, movie, article, or anything else you think might be “phantasmic”? E-mail me and it just might appear in an upcoming PHANTASMIC LINKS!