There’s not much that gets me to turn on my Xbox 360 these days. A new Halo game is usually a guaranteed buy, but I find myself wanting to play newer video games less and less for some reason. I’m also usually pretty excited about new consoles, but this year I haven’t even gotten excited about the Xbox One or the Playstation 4.

However, Disney Infinity caught my eye a long time ago. The combination of a video game and cool little collectible figures as well as the ability to mix Disney characters from different properties sounded like a lot of fun, despite the high price tag. It’s obvious that Disney wanted a slice of the Skylanders billion dollars a year business model, but they created a game that is a lot of fun and (in my opinion) has a ton of potential.

Taking advantage of some launch-week sales and deals, I snagged the Xbox 360 Starter Kit as well as a few extra figures and gave the game a spin. Usually I leave game reviews to the experts, like my buddies over at Horrible Night, but I’m sure a lot of you are wondering if this game is any good, and hopefully I can help you out. Now, on to the game.
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I’ll get right to the point; Monsters University is a good Pixar film. It’s not a near perfect film, like Toy Story 3, but it is definitely a step up from both Cars 2 and Brave (both of which were enjoyable, but not quite up to Pixar snuff).

The movie tells the tale of Monsters Inc. stars Mike Wazowski (voiced by Billy Crystal), and James P. Sullivan (John Goodman, in a role his voice was born to play), as they enter college and try to become the scarers that we all know and love from the first film. As is expected in a prequel, when Mike and Sulley first meet, they instantly despise each other, and later have to learn to work together to achieve a common goal (I don’t want to give too much away, for risk of spoiling anything). The film does a nice job introducing us to characters that we already know, but in a way that makes them seem almost like completely new characters (the best example of this is the villain from the 1st film, Randall Boggs, whom we meet in this film as a shy nerd, and we get to see grow into the character we know and love to hate.)

Monsters University thrives on its extensive cast of supporting players, ranging from wild man Art (voiced by Charlie Day) and the rest of the members of Oozma Kappa to Nathan Fillion’s stuck up jock Johnny (think of Stan Gable from Revenge of the Nerds). My personal favorite character was Don, a self described “mature student” who was recently downsized from his company, and has come back to school to “learn the computers”. Rounding out the cast is Dean Hardscrabble, voiced with frightening intensity by Helen Mirren, who acts as an adversary to our heroes.
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The Top Hat Sasquatch team reads a lot of blog posts every day, and some slip through the crack or just don’t warrant their own post. That’s where Missing Links comes in. Every few days we collect the best links we’ve come across and pass them on to you.

Duff Pint Glass
How do I not have any geeky beer glasses? I need to fix that, and I think a Duff Beer glass would be a perfect start. Then I can move on to TMNT beer glasses.

Nickelodeon Confirms 3rd Season for TMNT Series
Booyakasha indeed!

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Chia Pet! | Dinosaur Dracula!
As if you needed any more proof that Turtlemania is upon us again, Matt at Dinosaur Dracula found a freaking TMNT Chia Pet.

Scientifically Accurate Spider-Man on Devour.com
This is hilarious and disturbing, as a 'Scientifically Accurate Spider-Man' should be.

The Muppets… Again Will Have Gold « Muppet Fans Who Grew Up – ToughPigs
Whoa, a classic Muppet performer is coming back for the new movie. Now if they could only get Frank Oz back.

‘Planes’ Trailer: Disney Does Pixar | /Film
I can't believe this is actually getting released in theaters now. Come on, Disney.

Chris Cooper to Play Norman Osborne in ‘The Amazing Spider-Man 2,’ Will He Suit Up as the Green Goblin? | /Film
Awesome casting. I'd been trying to think of someone cool to play Osborne in TASM 2 but I would never have picked someone as high-caliber as Chris Cooper. I agree with /Film that we probably won't see him in costume, but regardless he'll be a very intense Norman Osborne.

The Crooked Ninja Turtle Gang: Lego TMNT Stop Motion Shorts
These are so cool. I'm a sucker for anything TMNT, LEGO, or stop motion, so these are right up my alley.

The Top Hat Sasquatch team reads a lot of blog posts every day, and some slip through the crack or just don’t warrant their own post. That’s where Missing Links comes in. Every few days we collect the best links we’ve come across and pass them on to you.

Jim Henson & Frank Oz Talking In 1989 With Kermit & More | The Mary Sue
This is a great find, I love looking up Jim Henson stuff on YouTube.

A month with the iPad mini — Minimally Minimal
A great write-up of what an iPad Mini is like. I've had mine for less than a month and I love it.

10 Tips to Avoid Getting Burned by Kickstarter | ShezCrafti
Jaime over at ShezCrafti wrote an excellent guide to using Kickstarter (as a consumer). Some great tips here.

The Walt Disney Image Problem
Interesting article about Walt Disney. I always roll my eyes at people when they say something about Disney being a Nazi, but it’s hard to blame them when the company doesn’t do much to educate people about what he was really like.

HAL 9000 | Uncrate
Is this awesome? Yes. Is this practical? I don't think so, Dave.

Song of the South: Disney’s Most Notorious Film by Jason Sperb, reviewed. – Slate Magazine
I can't wait to read this book. Song of the South is one of the most interesting pieces of Disney history.

Steve Jobs Promotes “Toy Story” | Cartoon Brew
A very cool little piece of animation history. Great find.

The other Pixar Blu-ray out this week besides Brave is Volume 2 of Pixar’s Short Film Collection. The last volume came out five years ago and contained a lot of the studio’s early shorts. Since then, it’s become tradition to include shorts on their major Blu-ray releases, so I was wondering if this release would offer anything new or if it would be more shorts we already have.

Well, it’s a lot of stuff we already have and a few other things that make it worth it.

I’ve got a folder on my media center full of Pixar shorts that I’ve ripped, and so I was eager to see which shorts were on this volume that I didn’t already have from one of Pixar’s other Blu-rays. Unfortunately, the 12 main shorts are (mainly) available on other Pixar Blu-rays, but there are a few new additions. Combined with some awesome bonus features, this disc is worth it if you can find it at a good price.
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