Mark's Epic Blog of Randomness

 By Mark Rodriguez X-53 Studios have brought out some interesting stories with fun characters like Arachna, Goshawk and Falconet. Their latest series is The Vindicators, a story about a cowboy and a vampire and their adventures. I recently got my copy in the mail, so let's check it out! The story opens in 1865, Painted Desert, Arizona, as a cowboy with a glowing eye and a metal arm rides a horse pulling a coach tries to get away from people shooting at him. The cowboy shoots back, but one of the men shoots the gun out of his hand. With a gun pointed to his head, the cowboy gives up. The thieves check out his coach and find a casket, thinking he's some sort of undertaker.  The men find a woman inside and one of them is dumb enough to put his finger in her mouth. The woman bites his finger off and wakes up. She looks at the men and calls them breakfast. One of the men shoots her but with no avail. She leaps towards him and bites down on him. He drops the man and looks towards hi...

 By Mark Rodriguez Originally written on December 10, 2013. Keep in mind these reviews were done way back when the show first aired, so we had no idea what future events or movies would bring. Also, before it was retconned away, at least at the moment, the Agents of SHIELD show was in canon with the movies. This is an intense episode that not only brought back Mike Peterson from the first episode... but also Reyna and Centipede.. and anything related to that general story line. It was clever that they reran the episode with Reyna and Amador the week before since it keeps people who missed it up to date. This is also the first episode that starts with a 'previously on Agents of SHIELD' showing clips of the episodes with Mike Peterson and Reyna. Let's get this started! The episode officially opens in the Havenworth Federal Penitentiary with the mystery man in prison that Reyna was talking to in an earlier episode. Just then three soldiers bust in through the roof, and t...

 By Mark Rodriguez Back in 2014, Paige and I got into Loot Crate, possibly the most popular and biggest mystery subscription box to this day. I discovered their competitor, Nerd Block and decided to be 'the contrarian' and give them a try while everyone else was all over Loot Crate. Nerd Block would eventually get other boxes like Horror Block and Gamer Block which would eventually be renamed to Arcade Block.  Here's a quick rundown of some of the boxes I got back then and their items. I still own some of the items, mostly the mugs and the shirts. Let's check them out.  Nerd Block June 2014 My first ever block and overall mystery box. After seeing Paige gets her Loot Crates month after month I was excited to finally get something for myself. I took a gamble considering I wasn't that impressed by previous boxes shown in Youtube videos, but I was happy with my purchase. I got two cool shirts, one was related to Ghostbusters and the other was a mash up between The Iron...

 By Mark Rodriguez Back in 2012, Johnny and I used to live in Vegas and got our own place in downtown Fremont. Not only were we a near The Fremont Experience, we just so happened to move in a few days around the grand opening of the Insert Coins Arcade Bar. While I have run into several arcade bars by now, the concept was new to me at the time. When I first saw the place with the Atari controllers I thought it was just going to be a bar with an arcade motif, like artwork on the walls or something, but not actually having arcades you can play. Sure enough, it was a fun combination of a bar, an arcade and a dance floor. We went there on the grand opening, and one thing I will kinda regret is walking right past Stuttering Craig from ScrewAttack.com and not getting it on film or something. To be fair, I only heard his voice on all the Top Tens so I had no idea what the guy actually looked like. I'm not sure how popular he is nowadays, but I used to watch his videos back then. The pl...