For just $3.99, the entire issue focuses on a ridiculous battle scene where the X-Men, Namor and Magneto fight four Predator X creatures. Oh, my, remember them from Messiah CompleX? Ho hum. The X-Men have beat these guys plenty of times before, and, of course, the X-Men obliterate them, again, in #517. Plus, they’ve “got freakin’ Magneto,” so says Cyclops. (Yes, he actually says that.)

About two noteworthy things actually happened in this entire issue, I think: something about the Phoenix Force leaving the Cuckoos — hey, remember that utterly embarrassing series called “Phoenix: Warsong” written by Greg Pak? Yeah, I guess Matt Fraction wants to follow up on that. Anyways, Scott notices that the Cuckoos have suddenly fallen to the ground and is worried that he has no psychic connection anymore – nevermind the fact that three helpless girls are lying unconscious on the ground while Predator X is out and about.

Oh, and Scalphunter is in the “X-Brig” with Danger. The X-Men are now taking prisoners? Yeah, this isn’t a surprise.

As for the art, my eyes immediately bled as I looked at the first page of Uncanny X-Men #517. I don’t even need to check the front page to see who drew this – no. It’s Greg Land, the porntastic artist, again. Pornface. Pornface. Pornface. Seriously, when will Marvel fire this guy? Oh, wait, Joey Q said Land is a good man because he supports his family and likes to draw. (I would provide a link to this interview, but I cannot find it.)

Of course, I have to talk about Emma Frost, my precious character gone completely wrong, thanks to Matt Fraction. So, she is still stuck in diamond form with The Void stuck in her forehead – no, literally. It’s literally stuck in there. You can even see it.

So, overall, this issue sucked, although it really isn’t a surprise. I’m having much more fun writing this review than I had reading the issue. Horrible, terrible, awful issue that I wish it could be erased from my memory. Marvel sucks and so do Matt Fraction and Greg Land.

Please don’t tell me that’s Iron Man’s or – hell – Captain America’s voice.

Anyways, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 is based off the popular Civil War storyline from the comics. So many characters but so few females. Ugh.

Wrong.

Insane.

Godwin’s Law!

Uh…

Blaming us for September 11th.

Islamaphobia.

Photos taken by the Huffington Post and Associated Press.

Hey, at least they aren’t calling it the “teabag party” anymore.

Fraction indeed gives Emma original but ghastly dialogue, but he also snags lines from the wonderful Morrison’s New X-Men run.

Remember when Emma Frost was awesome and spoke oh-so-elegantly?

Not only does Matt Fraction write Hellion, Emma’s ex-student from a few years back, as using the same line in Uncanny X-Men #513 as shown here:

But he also gives the same line to Emma Frost in the current issue of Uncanny X-Men #514:

No, no, I’m really not being too harsh. As a professional writer and someone who is writing Emma Frost, Matt Fraction should know better.

Bonus: Emma Frost is suddenly a humanitarian who cares about a random crowd of homo sapiens!

Yeah, you cry those emo tears, you White Queen.

Anyways, by all means, avoid spending $3.99 for repeat dialogue and horrible characterization.

» Affordable Prices

EZPZ Hosting is a small company located in the United Kingdom that offers shared, dedicated, shoutcast, and resellers hosting.  They have affordable and “realistic prices,” meaning you get what you pay for. In my case, I chose the Master Plan and receive about 100GB bandwidth a month, plus 30GB storage for roughly $10.99/year.

Better yet, they offer excellent specials for customers. In June, I was able to axe off 50% of my annual payment using the ‘50annual’ code. You can also add credit to your account and with promotional offers, they’ll add 50% more to whatever you deposit.

» Excellent Customer Service

Exceptional customer service is futile to a hosting company.  With 24/7 support, Dan at EZPZ Hosting is always helpful and usually gets back to me within 3 hours of submitting a support ticket. He seamlessly transferred my entire site from LunarPages to EZPZ Hosting for free and was there to answer any questions I had during the propagation.

» US and UK Based Servers – Fast!

Worried about server speed if you’re a US customer? Don’t worry about that. I was, too, but they now have US based servers in Dallas, Texas, an excellent midpoint location. Initially, I had my site hosted on a server in the UK, but I asked Dan to transfer me to a US server. The process took about 30 minutes and the speed of my sites increased significantly.

» Backups 4 times daily

EZPZ Hosting also includes continuous backsup via R1Soft (for free!) in their plans. They backup my site about 4 times daily, and it provides a lot of security on my end.

And let me tell you – this saved my entire site once. One time, I was adding an extra FTP account but gave the permissions to the wrong folder. Instead of giving permission to public_html/emmafrostfiles/, I gave permission to the entire public_html folder. So, I deleted the FTP account as well as everything under the account’s folder! Alas, my entire site was gone, and I freaked out until I realized that EZPZ Hosting provides backups 4 times daily.

In less than 20 minutes, I was able to get my entire site up and running again.

» Green Hosting – Carbon Negative

EZPZ Hosting goes green by being “carbon negative,” meaning they remove carbon from the atmosphere with the help of their servers and IT equipment. Furthermore, they support projects such as the Window Power Project in India and Solar Panels for Schools in Phakama, South Africa.

So long you host your sites with EZPZ Hosting, you’ll know you’ll be doing a good deed for the world, too.

» In Conclusion

No bullcrap am I posting here. This is a review from an actual customer who has firsthand experience with EZPZ Hosting. They’re an excellent, reputable company with at least 99% uptime and amazing customer service.

I went out of the WordPress realm and searched for a code that includes a crossbrowser dropshadow for Thickbox. Then, I manually implemented the dropshadow into the WordPress thickbox. Alas, I found pradeepsathyan.com’s jQuery Thickbox with Shadows. Check out the demo provided on his post, then download sample.

Get out your WordPress files in /wp-includes/js/thickbox. Take out thickbox.css and thickbox.js because those are the two files we’re going to edit. Make sure to save a backup.

Unzip the “jQuery Thickbox with Shadows” files that you just downloaded, and in thickbox.css, find these lines of code:

div.fancy_bg {
    position: absolute;
    display: block;
    z-index: 70;
    border: 0;
    padding: 0;
    margin: 0;
}

div.fancy_bg_n {
    top: -18px;
    width: 100%;
    height: 18px;
    background: transparent url(images/fancy_shadow_n.png) repeat-x;
}

div.fancy_bg_ne {
    top: -18px;
    right: -13px;
    width: 13px;
    height: 18px;
    background: transparent url(images/fancy_shadow_ne.png) no-repeat;
}

div.fancy_bg_e {
    right: -13px;
    height: 100%;
    width: 13px;
    background: transparent url(images/fancy_shadow_e.png) repeat-y;
}

div.fancy_bg_se {
    bottom: -18px;
    right: -13px;
    width: 13px;
    height: 18px;
    background: transparent url(images/fancy_shadow_se.png) no-repeat;
}

div.fancy_bg_s {
    bottom: -18px;
    width: 100%;
    height: 18px;
    background: transparent url(images/fancy_shadow_s.png) repeat-x;
}

div.fancy_bg_sw {
    bottom: -18px;
    left: -13px;
    width: 13px;
    height: 18px;
    background: transparent url(images/fancy_shadow_sw.png) no-repeat;
}

div.fancy_bg_w {
    left: -13px;
    height: 100%;
    width: 13px;
   background: transparent url(images/fancy_shadow_w.png) repeat-y;
}
*html div.fancy_bg_w{
    height:100%;
}

div.fancy_bg_nw {
    top: -18px;
    left: -13px;
    width: 13px;
    height: 18px;
    background: transparent url(images/fancy_shadow_nw.png) no-repeat;
}

Copy and paste the above code into your original WordPress file .  Place it after #TB_window. Save your edited WordPress thickbox.css file and close.

Remember that the variable sign in solo jQuery is $, and the variable in WordPress jQuery is jQuery. So, we’ll need to do a little editing. Open the non-WordPress thickbox.js file you just downloaded and find these lines of codes:

$('<div id="fancy_bg"><div class="fancy_bg fancy_bg_n"></div>
<div class="fancy_bg fancy_bg_ne"></div><div class="fancy_bg fancy_bg_e"></div>
<div class="fancy_bg fancy_bg_se"></div><div class="fancy_bg fancy_bg_s"></div>
<div class="fancy_bg fancy_bg_sw"></div><div class="fancy_bg fancy_bg_w"></div>
<div class="fancy_bg fancy_bg_nw"></div></div>').prependTo("#TB_window");

We’re going to change the $ to jQuery and the ” “ to ‘ ‘:

jQuery("<div id='fancy_bg'><div class='fancy_bg fancy_bg_n'></div>
<div class='fancy_bg fancy_bg_ne'>
</div><div class='fancy_bg fancy_bg_e'>
</div>
<div class='fancy_bg fancy_bg_se'></div>
<div class='fancy_bg fancy_bg_s'></div>
<div class='fancy_bg fancy_bg_sw'>
</div><div class='fancy_bg fancy_bg_w'></div>
<div class='fancy_bg fancy_bg_nw'>
</div></div>").prependTo("#TB_window");

Take your newly edited code and add it to these lines on your WordPress thickbox.js file (it’s around Line 125 for me):

// End Resizing

TB_WIDTH = imageWidth + 30;
TB_HEIGHT = imageHeight + 60;
jQuery("#TB_window").append("<a href='' id='TB_ImageOff' title='Close'>
<img id='TB_Image' src='"+url+"' width='"+imageWidth+"' height='"+imageHeight+"' alt='"+caption+"'/></a>"
+
"<div id='TB_caption'>"+caption+"<div id='TB_secondLine'>" + TB_imageCount + TB_PrevHTML + TB_NextHTML + "
<a href='"+url+"' id='TB_FullSize' title='Full Size' target='_blank'>Full Size</a>
</div></div><div id='TB_closeWindow'> <a href='#' id='TB_closeWindowButton' title='Close'>Close</a></div>");
ADD THE EDITED CODE HERE:
jQuery("<div id='fancy_bg'><div class='fancy_bg fancy_bg_n'>
</div><div class='fancy_bg fancy_bg_ne'>
</div><div class='fancy_bg fancy_bg_e'></div>
<div class='fancy_bg fancy_bg_se'>
</div><div class='fancy_bg fancy_bg_s'>
</div><div class='fancy_bg fancy_bg_sw'></div><div class='fancy_bg fancy_bg_w'></div>
<div class='fancy_bg fancy_bg_nw'></div></div>").prependTo("#TB_window");

Last and final stop, you’ll need to upload the shadow images you downloaded from the jQuery with Thickbox for Shadows. If you haven’t already, make a directory in /wp-includes/js/thickbox/ titled images, then upload the shadow images into there.

And there you have it, a very nice WordPress Thickbox with dropshadows for all browsers, except for Internet Explorer 6 (it won’t show the transparent .png’s). Quite frankly, I don’t care about IE6 compatibility anymore.

Special thanks to pradeepsathyan.com’s jQuery Thickbox with Shadows.

Just remember to save your new Thickbox files before you upgrade WordPress anytime soon.

I don’t use Thickbox on this site, but to see a working demo of the WordPress Thickbox with Shadows, check out my other site: EmmaFrostFiles.com.

After the nuclear holocaust that occurred in “Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines,” very few survivors are left on Earth. Led by John Connor (Christian Bale), they struggle to survive and keep their hope alive, yet again. Skynet, the A.I. that rebelled against humanity many years ago, is determined to exterminate every human with the use of terminators.

Unlike the last three “Terminator” movies, this movie introduces a robot-human hybrid named Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington). A couple decades ago, the murderer donated his life to a government experiment that would supposedly help humanity. He felt guilty of what he had done and believed he wasn’t worth anything.

Years later, Marcus wakes up and finds the world void of life, save for Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin), John’s father in the first “Terminator” movie, and Star (Jadagrace), a child who happens to have every weapon available to this ragtag team. After a half hour of wondering where this movie is going, they hear a radio broadcast from John Connor. He requests help from anyone alive and ready to fight the machines for round four.

Marcus may seem like the one who can save humanity, but John has a problem with him: he’s  made of the same material that killed the Connor family. Nevertheless, Marcus wants to prove that he’s not just a robot, which is odd considering that he felt like a nothing when he signed up for the robotic transformation. He sides with John and becomes his endearing lapdog by going into the center of Skynet.

Though it’s fun to watch humans come up with new ways to destroy the very things they created, the battles are often frustrating because the robots just won’t die.

Launch two grenades into their systems, they’ll reattach themselves. Light them up with gasoline and matches, they’ll cool themselves. Nuke them — well, maybe that will do something to them. But the movie isn’t entirely tedious. The special effects are definitely top of the line, and they help when scenes get boring.

Indeed, “Terminator Salvation” does not fail to show that humans will split up and also unite in times of crisis, there is still no need to prove this bout the fourth time around while it juggles the savior title among three different characters.

Twenty years ago, the “Terminator” movie was fun and an interesting concept with the computers versus humans. The low budget movie was received well by viewers and made a whopping $78 million. The producers should have let the legend live and ended the series with the second movie in 1991.

The same magic does not work again in 2009. Nobody really cares who the savior is anymore, especially when the future gets reset after each new movie.

“Terminator” may say “I’ll be back” in every movie — oh, no. Please don’t come back.

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With 8 different colors to choose from, Meta-Morphosis is absolutely gorgeous, and I am surprised that it’s free. The typography is especially nice, and the jQuery slider is a nicely added function.

Meta-Morphosis by WooThemes

And, yes, this is my first post.