Greatest American Hero on the Silver Screen?!?

Newsarama is reporting that a film version of The Greatest American Hero may be forthcoming. The short-lived 80s television program, about a guy who finds a super-suit and then promptly loses the instruction manual, is a big favorite amongst my extended family, and while I can barely remember any of it, except for the theme song ("Believe It or Not” by Joey Scarbury, which is a five-star song in my iTunes library), I am incredibly psyched to hear this news. I think the property could gain a whole new following if a movie came out. And I think it deserves a much larger following than it has now.

Stephen J. Cannell, the creator of the series, speaks about how a film version might work:

“It’s Ralph Hinckley and Pam Davidson and Bill Maxwell,” Cannell said, indicating that the original three characters from the TV show would still be the focus of the movie. “We rehung it slightly in the screenplay. And with most action movies, you’d try to get an MPAA rating on it of PG-13. But this movie script we’ve got is a PG. I want it to be something that kids can go and see. So it has a lot of humor in it; it’s got a lot of effects. But basically, it’s still Ralph with the suit destroying his life, and Maxwell’s the Fed he can’t control, and all those elements that were in the last story were rehung slightly. You don’t want to do just a cookie-cutter reproduction of the pilot. You want to bring it to life for a new audience and a new generation.”

I like that the creator is involved, that he still has a certain reverence for the source material, and that he wants to keep it (relatively) kid-friendly. Good for him.

In the meantime, while we wait for this piece of cinematic awesomeness to arrive, we can check out comic books and an animated series based on the misadventures of our favorite superhero named Ralph. More on that in the Newsarama piece.

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Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 to Focus on Wars Both Secret and Civil

I’ve never been very good at video games, and have therefore never been obsessed with owning any particular video game system. But, every once in a while, a game comes along that makes me wish my wife hadn’t put a ban on consoles in our home. Marvel Ultimate Alliance was one of those games when it came out in 2006. But, to this day, I’ve never had a chance to play it. Oh well, I say. Some day.

Now comes news that a 2009 sequel to the game will focus on Marvel’s recent history, from Secret War, which I haven’t read, to Civil War, which was one of my favorite stories in recent years.

If it comes out for Mac or PC (I can always use Boot Camp on my iMac, if I have to), I’m psyched. But we’ll see how that works out. Neither the Mac nor the Windows logo show up at the end of the E3 teaser.

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Where’s My Darn iPhone?!? (Video)

The world is out of iPhones, according to research conducted by Internet superstar iJustine. She called more than thirty-five Apple stores recently, and not a single one of them had an iPhone 3G in stock.

I ordered my iPhone at the AT&T Store in Manchester, NH last Wednesday, and I am still waiting. I was told that it would be 10-21 days, so I’m not really all that upset. But the people over on this AT&T message board are far less patient than me. They’re up to 516 pages worth of bitching over there, so far. I’m not even kidding.

According to Where’s My Damn iPhone, which I found on that AT&T thread, I am currently the 53rd person in the AT&T Manchester direct fulfillment line (which includes all phones, not just iPhones). I was the 48th about an hour ago, so I’m guessing the site’s not all that reliable. Still, it’s fun to poke around there and see what all the people on the AT&T thread are going nuts over.

In other iPhone news, The Unofficial Apple Weblog has interesting pieces on cluttered home screens and the applications one writer is actually still using, two weeks after the launch of the App Store.

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Clerks on Mustafar (Video, Explicit Language)

Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader plays the part of Dante and his wife Padme plays the part of Veronica in this video mash-up of Star Wars and Clerks. Remember that conversation about how many men Veronica had been with, the one that ends with the number “37”? Yeah, that’s the conversation that Anakin and Padme are having here. So, if you’re at work, unless you have headphones, you might want to wait until later to watch this. But, if you have a minute to spare, and want a good chuckle, please do check this out.

Thanks to our friends at News Askew for pointing us in the direction of this fantabulous clip.

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What Do You Use for E-mail?

Gmail seems to be the gold standard when it comes to e-mail, even if, as I believe I read recently, Yahoo’s Mail service has far more users. Trouble is, I’ve never been a big fan of Gmail. Their decision to use “labels” instead of “folders” apparently makes sense for a lot of people, but I’ve just never gotten it. Despite that, I still use Google’s Apps for Your Domain product. They offer a lot of space at a price-point that really can’t be beaten (free), and they offer IMAP access, which makes sure that e-mail I read away from home shows up as read when I get back to Mail.app on my iMac.

But the service I really want to be using is Apple’s MobileMe, which offers push or near-push e-mail access, as well as the “folder” approach to e-mail storage that I still prefer. That’s why the continued news of MobileMe outages is really depressing to me. I desperately want Apple to get this right.

Assuming they don’t get it right, does anyone out there have a suggestion for a Gmail alternative? Or is there a tutorial out there that will somehow help me learn how to use labels effectively? Geek Forcers, what do you use for e-mail?

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