Smokedog Blog

Best Sports Weekend. Ever.

2008-12-31T10:04:00.001-08:00

It's kind of a low point for Bay Area sports right now (for the last several years, actually), but last weekend had to be the most perfect football weekend I could ever ask for:

Cal beat Miami in the Emerald Bowl, 24-17.
The 49ers beat the Washington Redskins, 27-24
The Raiders crushed the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 31-24. Tampa is out of the playoffs! This makes up for Super Bowl XXXVII in 2003. Almost.
Dallas gets crushed by the Eagles, 44-6. Tony Romo also gets defeated by soap, and collapses in the shower after the game.
New England wins their final game in Buffalo, 13-0, but the Patriots still don't make the playoffs. Ha ha! Suck it, Belichick!
The Broncos choke and get spanked by the Chargers, 21-52... and Jay Cutler is still a punk!
In a shocking move, Mike Shanahan gets fired as the Broncos coach after 14 years.

We're hoping for a Manning vs. Manning Super Bowl, but who knows?

Go Bears!

Favorite Music of 2008

2008-12-30T20:17:00.000-08:00

The year's almost over, so let's make a list!

In no particular order, here are my favorite albums and EP's from 2008:

Bloc Party - Intimacy: Sounds a lot like the previous two albums from this group, and that's a good thing.

Frightened Rabbit - The Midnight Organ Fight: Great folksy-indie rock from a Scottish band with the least intimidating name ever.

Girl Talk - Feed The Animals: An album full of mash-ups of raps over melodies from other songs. It's kind of fun to hear someone rapping over a tune you recognize, but before you know it, the song has moved on to something else.

The Kills - Midnight Boom: I love this record; it totally rocks. More cool than the White Stripes.

Los Campesinos! - We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed - This group is like a more whimsical Arcade Fire.

Sharleen Spiteri - Melody - I love the Scottish group Texas, and I love this solo album by the lead singer. The most pop thing I have on my list.

She Wants Revenge - Save Your Soul: I enjoy a good male falsetto, but I also love music with deep, monotone vocals.

Tonight - Modern Romance: Kind of new wave-ish, kind of spacey. I listened to this EP continously when I first downloaded it.

Most of this music can be found for cheap at eMusic, which is where I find most of my new music nowadays. Give it a try if you get tired of listening to Fall Out Boy or Nickelback.

Better Him Than Me

2008-12-15T20:51:00.000-08:00

My parents taught me never to laugh at someone else's misfortune. Sorry Mom and Dad, but whenever I need a pick-me-up during the day, this picture never, ever fails to amuse me:

Great. Now some bird is probably going to poop on me. Better keep some wet wipes and an extra shirt nearby.

Sleepy Friday

2008-12-13T17:25:00.000-08:00

For many years, we've gone out and braved the Black Friday crowds, the day commonly known as the start of the holiday shopping season. We've traditionally got up super early, endured freezing cold weather and waited in long lines for stores to open. We executed shopping plans like a well-oiled machine. This year, however, I wasn't into it.

How can that be? Was I not feeling well? (No) Was I tired from a long work week? (No way, man) Am I getting old? (No... well, maybe)

I think I reached a point in my life where my personal comfort is more important than getting a good deal. I love a sale as much as the next guy, but if pushing, shoving, and the risk of bodily injury is involved, then forget about it.

Anyway, we ended pretty much buying everything we wanted online for the same prices that were available in the stores. All from the comfort of our own home. Thank God for the internet. On future Black Fridays, we may venture out again, but really... what looks better:

This?

Or this?

Kids Have It So Easy

2008-11-09T20:45:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite pastimes nowadays is to muse over how good the kids have it today, compared to what my generation had to go through when we were young. Computers? Radio Shack TRS-80! Energy drinks? Moutain Dew! Cell phones? Payphones!

In junior high we had to read George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm, as I imagine almost every student has read at one point or another. Back in my day, we were each assigned a used, beat-up copy of these books with covers just like this:

Dig that crazy 1984 font! Groovy! Actually, the Animal Farm cover is pretty cool, now that I think about it. I just didn't know it back then. I don't know who designed this cover, but its actually very well done.

Incidentally, here are a couple of other covers of different editions of 1984:

Why didn't schools give out these versions of 1984? I'm sure we would have all paid attention more closely. Oh-la-la!

The reason for my old age jealously is that Penguin is coming out with new editions for both of these books with all new covers by Shepard Fairey:

I'm sure some school is going to get brand-spanking-new copies of these Penguin editions for their students. I'm also sure that those students are going to deface the covers by writing awful things about the other kids they don't like. Little punks.

Shepard Fairey, by the way, is the same artist who designed the Barack Obama poster that you may have seen once or twice during the presidential campaign:

Go Obama!

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - The Warfield

2008-09-27T18:36:00.000-07:00

After not seeing any concerts for what feels like a couple of years, we went to go see Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds at The Warfield the other week. I've seen Nick Cave eight or nine times now, and for a guy who's over 51, he can still rock. I would think that all of the Bad Seeds are in their forties or pushing 50, and they can still whoop ass over bands half their age. What an inspiration.

The concert was to promote their latest CD, Dig!! Lazarus, Dig!!! The concert easily made a good album a whole lot better. It's not their best collection of songs, but Nick Cave is really showing no signs of slowing down or mellowing out.

My favorite Bad Seed used to be guitarist Blixa Bargeld, who was part of the band since the beginning. All through his tenure, he split his time between the Bad Seeds and his own band, Einstürzend e Neubauten. He sang backup. He played guitar. He had funny haircuts, and he looked kind of weird. He was really cool, but then he left the band in 2003.

Who would become my new favorite Bad Seed? After this concert, it's got to be multi-instrumentalist Warren Ellis. First of all, he's got the most excellent beard in the world:

Secondly, he has really come into his own with the band. When he first joined in 1997, he was simply the violin player in an eight-man band. He would always have his back to the audience when he played. In between his violin parts, he would squat down and slowly rock on his heels, always facing away. I don't believe it ever was any kind of stage fright, since he already fronted his own band (The Dirty Three, which plays some of the most excellent instrument-only music ever); this just seemed to be his way to interact with the band and the music.

Now with Blixa's departure, Warren his moved to the front of the stage next to Nick Cave. In addition to the violin, he also plays guitar, keyboards, mandolin, flute, and some other instruments I can't even name. He even gets down on his hands and knees to play screeching electronic noises. All through the concert, he whips himself around the stage like a bearded crazy man. It's hard to describe, but it's really entertaining.

In a nutshell, it was a great concert with some excellent music and a fantastic beard. Thumbs up!

Gas Shoe

2008-09-03T22:15:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure what I was thinking of, but as I was refueling my rental car outside of Bradley International Airport, the gas suddenly poured out of the car, onto the ground, and onto my shoe. I never believe that the first "click" of the gas pump means that the tank is truly full, so I always go a couple of clicks beyond the first one. On this day, I went one click too far.

I return my rental car, and catch the bus back to the terminal. All through the bus ride, I keep smelling the odor of gas. I take off my shoe and take a big whiff - yep, that's gas all right.

Now I'm faced with a dilemma: how am I going to get through airport security with a shoe soaked in gasoline? Didn't some terrorist try to blow up a plane by lighting his shoes on fire? (Yes, this guy tried it in 2001)

Before I go through security, I stop by the men's room to try to clean off my shoe. Not surprisingly, cheap airport paper towels get shredded as I scrub them on my shoe. I consider setting my shoe on fire to burn away the gas. Unfortunately, I have no matches.

You know how there seem to be cops everywhere when you know you've done something wrong? It's all true... I've never seen so many police officers patrolling a airport. Who would ever want to do harm to Hartford, Connecticut, the insurance capital of the world??!

I decide to take my chances and go through security. I show my boarding pass and ID, and make it pass the first hurdle. The security area has one of those special detectors that see if you have any explosive materials on your body. Luckily, I am not diverted to that line. By now, I'm starting to break out into a cold sweat. At the other side of the security checkpoint, a cop and a police dog are waiting. I suspect that the dog has been specially trained to sniff out and attack anything that explodes or is remotely flammable.

I get to the conveyor belt, and take off my shoes and belt, and put it into a gray plastic bin. I remove my laptop from my bag, and put it into another bin. I push everything along the conveyor towards the x-ray machine...

A TSA officer comes by and takes my shoes out of my bin. Oh shit!!!

********

It turns out that the TSA person just wanted to put my shoes directly on the conveyor belt. She didn't even flinch at the gas smell that was coming from my shoe. Maybe it wasn't that bad at all. The attack dog didn't even look my way; I think it was someone's family dog that they bring to the airport so the kids can pet it.

Thank goodness for the TSA. I feel so safe.

Olympic Withdrawal

2008-08-25T20:47:00.000-07:00

Now that the Beijing Olympics are finally over, I find myself missing the around-the-clock coverage that NBC provided this year. NBC, MSNBC, USA and CNBC - there didn't seem to be a moment when you couldn't get some Olympic action.

Here are some random observations on this year's Olympics:

- Basketball, football, water polo, handball, field hockey... all variations of the same "put the ball in your opponent's goal" game.

- That being said, handball rocks. We watched a women's match between Norway and Romania, and it was absolutely gripping. We rooted for Norway, simply because we were more likely to visit Norway than Romania someday. Norway ended up beating Russia for the gold medal. Go Norway!

- What was up with the Australian women basketball team uniforms? It was strange seeing bodysuits on the basketball court versus the usual baggy shorts. They looked like they should have been wrestling.

- There's an event in the Equestrian competition where the rider and the horse just clip clop around the field and spin around. It's not very compelling, and the most exciting thing we saw was when a horse take a poo during its routine.

- I found it surprising how little we saw of the Olympic mascots - Beibei, Yingying, ....and um, Totem Pole, Hothead, and Panda. It's not too late to get your commemorative wallpapers and screensavers here!

- Now that all the athletes and press have gone home, China can let all the air pollution back in again.

Ah, well. Only two more years until the winter games in Vancouver!

Foamheads

2008-08-24T07:17:00.000-07:00

Now that the NFL pre-season is winding down and meaningful football games are going to be played soon, I think its time for everyone to start gearing up for watching the games. Behold: Foamheads! Conveniently available from the NFL Shop. Here are some of my favorites:

Oh, if only I could have them all. (Except the Patriots, of course. Boo! Hiss!)

Being a Raider fan, I especially love the Oakland Raiders foamhead. When you think of the typical Raiders fan, you think of this:

But look at the lovable smiling pirate. He looks like a big, happy foam Smurf.

Go Raiders!

It's All Ruined!

2008-08-23T18:33:00.000-07:00

The other day at work I was ~~surfing~~ doing research on Amazon, and I came across the DVD for Idle Hands, a movie probably best known for having a young Jessica Alba. I don't remember much about the movie, except that it was kind of a black comedy about dead guys coming back to life. What caught my attention was how crappy the DVD cover was to the original poster. I remember back when the movie came out in 1999 they advertised it on the back of comic books, and the distinctive poster design really caught my eye and stuck with me all these years.

I imagine there are legal issues of usage involved, but they sure went from good to crappy real fast:

DVD Cover

Movie Poster

Speaking of other downhill slides, the movie poster for the 2008 Day of the Dead remake (which I never saw, and did it even come out in theaters, or was it straight to video?) is kind of cool. But for some reason they traded cool for a big pile of turd with the DVD cover:

DVD Cover

Movie Poster

Sure, the DVD cover was a lenticular image of a vomiting zombie (which may be a real bonus for some people), but it really didn't improve on the original poster. Look at that drooling zombie. That's quality.

One last one - Dead Man's Shoes was a movie that came out in the UK in 2004, but from what I gather was only released on DVD in the US. It was a surprisingly good revenge movie, but I think they made a mistake with the DVD cover:

DVD Cover

Movie Poster

The DVD cover isn't that bad, but I really wish they could have reused the movie poster design since its got a lot more of a graphic punch. Incidentally, I like the horizontal format that they use for movie posters in the UK and Europe. Why can't we do that more over here?

Poor Lily Allen

2008-08-20T21:49:00.000-07:00

I don't know really know anything about Lily Allen...I know she's a British singer, but I don't know any of her songs. However, I find this picture hilarious:

She was outside of a nightclub one evening, and the following allegedly ensued:

Allen was filmed walking along the street when a female passer-by called her a "f**king a**ehole."

Lily then retaliated, and shouted: "Yeah, come and say that to my face you f**king c**t. "Where is that b**ch man? I'll f***ing batter her."

Allen then approached the woman, punching her several times in the back of the head, before adding: "Violence is bad."

Yes, Lily. Violence is bad. What makes this picture so funny is the "ha ha, Lily Allen is trying to punch me" look on the lady's face, as she and her friend try to leave the scene. Poor Lily didn't even connect...she just hit hair. Ow! Lily, stop it!

The Dark Knight

2008-08-17T08:33:00.000-07:00

It's been out over a month already, but we finally saw The Dark Knight the other day (the IMAX version, of course), and it blew my mind.

Excuse me while I pick up the pieces of my blown mind. It was so good, it absolutely rocked. It just jumped to the top of my list as the best comic-based movie ever. It was gripping from start to finish, and there really wasn't a slow moment in between. Even in the quieter moments, there was still a dire urgency to it all.

Christian Bale was his usual menacing, gravelly-voiced Batman. Aaron Eckhart was good (wouldn't his left eye dry out if he didn't blink?); Maggie Gyllenhaal was good (way better than Katie Holmes). Heath Ledger was great - they should give the guy the posthumous Oscar. I'm glad Gary Oldman got a more substantial role this time out; its always nice to see him as the good guy rather than the nutcase bad guy. My only question is, why did they need Cillian Murphy?

I'm not sure if they should make another one after this - how can they possibly top it? One thing for sure: they should never do another version of the Joker. Let's call the Heath Ledger version the definitive onscreen one, and leave it at that.

Hatch Show Print

2008-08-15T22:17:00.000-07:00

I was in Nashville, Tennessee this week for work, and I took a couple of hours to venture over to Hatch Show Print, a famous printing company known for their distinctive style of concert and advertising posters.

Hatch Show Print can be found in downtown Nashville, a block away from Sommet Center, where the Nashville Predators hockey team plays. The shop is nestled among a stretch of country music clubs and cowboy boot stores.

The shop has an area in front where you can buy posters and souvenirs, but otherwise its totally open to the rest of the printing facilities. I'd feel kind of weird if someone was always watching me work, but I guess the workers here are used to the tourists coming and going.

Hatch Show Print has always used the old-school letterpress printing method which is so instrumental in their posters' unique look. Everything is still done by hand, and there are no fancy modern printing presses to be found.

I wasn't really in the market for buying posters, but it was neat to be able to them up close. If I had a wad of cash, I would have bought a stack. Instead, I just got a coffee mug (to go with my South Carolina Michelin Man mug).

For a much better history than I could ever give, there's a great book available from Chronicle Books.

A New Member of the Family

2008-08-09T20:52:00.000-07:00

Our video game, family that is. After collecting a myriad of gift cards, reward zone certificates, coupons, and all the loose change I could find, we went to our local Best Buy and picked an Xbox 360 Elite! At last!

Oddly enough, it was much easier than getting a PS3. I guess it really helps to wait three years after it was initially released.

Don't worry, PS3... I still love you.

Play nice, PS3. Don't knock your little brother off the shelf.

San Diego!

2008-07-22T17:54:00.000-07:00

What's that smell? Do I detect the unmistakable odor of the great unwashed?

Yes folks, it's time for the 2008 San Diego Comic-Con International! Also simply known as "Comic-Con", to those in the know. I prefer to call it "San Diego", because this is pretty much the only place we ever go whenever we are in San Diego. (No offense intended to the million plus people that live there).

We had lots of fun last year as we do every year, and I'm expecting more of the same this time around: overwhelming crowds of people, freebies, endless wandering, and all the A to Z-list celebrities you can shake a stick at. Of course, let's not forget the putrid smell of the lunatic fringe letting their freak flag fly. Like cutting into a onion, it makes my eyes water just thinking about it.

So if you're ready, strap on your elbow pads and let's go!

Celebrity Sighting

2008-07-13T09:20:00.001-07:00

We were walking down the street in Montclair Village the other weekend, and who did we see?

Delroy Lindo.

Who's Delroy Lindo? Silly rabbit, you've seen him before. He's been in a lot of movies, but to me he will always be Issak O'Day, Aaliyah's father in Romeo Must Die.

At least we though it was him. I don't know what he was doing in our neck of the woods, but apparently he lives in San Francisco, so it isn't so far-fetched. He was just walking down the street, whistling to himself, and when we passed him we both had that "hey, wasn't that.." look on our faces. He's shorter than I thought he would be, but I guess the camera adds 4 to 6 inches to your height.

Well, That's Just Great

2008-05-17T19:15:00.000-07:00

There's a saying that goes, "If you love someone, set them free. If they come back they're yours; if they don't they never were". In other words, say you have a new-found love for something, like O-Ke-Doke Cheese Popcorn. If you search the internet for place to buy this popcorn, but you come up empty, was it never meant to be?

Here's the whole, sordid story: while traveling to Michigan on business, I discovered O-Ke-Doke Cheese Popcorn. It had a name that aspired to mediocrity, and it came in an awful orange package, but boy, did it taste good.

Since then, I looked for places online to buy it. Amazon has a listing for it, but it simply teases that it may become available sometime soon. The company that make the popcorn, Jay's Foods, has a website that merely states "come back soon". There don't seem to be any other online stores that sell it.

I've finally called the search off. I found this news article from January of this year: after 80 years, Jay's Foods has closed its doors and auctioned off its manufacturing equipment. It turns out that by the time I had discovered it in March, it was already dead.

Oh, the humanity!

R.I.P., sweet O-Ke-Doke - we hardly knew ye

Nozza Whirl

Detroit, Again

2008-05-04T18:15:00.000-07:00

Somehow, I ended up in Detroit again. Clinton Township, to be more precise; about 30 miles northeast from Detroit. The strange thing about this area was that there weren't any freeways. All you have to get from one place to another are these long, straight stretches of road, with not a whole lot to see other than trees, powerlines, or one or two-story buildings. Here, take a look:

This is what you see for miles and miles. As you make a turn, you hope that the scenery will change a little bit...

Nope, still the same. Except now the sun is in your eyes.

Overall, a disappointing trip. I didn't even get a chance to pick up some more of that delicious cheese popcorn.

The one interesting nugget from my trip: my rental car had a pull string inside the trunk if somehow find yourself trapped inside:

I love how the diagram at the end of the ripcord advises you to run once you get out. I guess nine times out of ten, it isn't a very positive situation to be trapped in someone's trunk. It's also made out of glow-in-the-dark material, so you can find it easily while you struggle in the dark. What will they think of next?

South Carolina: Dum Spiro Spero

2008-04-19T22:23:00.000-07:00

The other week I had the opportunity to visit Greenville, South Carolina. I had never been to this state before and really knew absolutely nothing about it. When my co-workers asked me where I was going, I said "Greenville, South Carolina" in a fake country accent, and occasionally punctuated it with a "yeehaw". Shows you what I knew.

You know what? Greenville was a surprisingly nice place to visit. After my construction punchlist was done, I had a few hours to see what there was to see. Here's what I saw:

There's a BMW plant in Spartanburg a town right next to Greenville. The plant has a museum called BMW Zentrum, the only museum of its kind in the US. They have all kinds of vintage cars, motorcycles and engines on displays. It was an interesting to look at the inner workings of car I'll probably never own (I'm primarily a Honda kind of guy).

Greenville has a nice little downtown area that contains a nice park and a bridge called the Liberty Bridge. It's a curved pedestrian bridge that is supported by two large posts mounted at a angle. Its a little derivative of a Santiago Calatrava-style bridge, but it's a nice structure in a pleasant setting.

The crown jewel of the city is without a doubt the Michelin on Main store, the only store in the US devoted entirely to Michelin Man merchandise! If you know me, then you know I love a good advertising mascot, and the Michelin Man is one of my favorites (heck, one of my first blog entries was about the Michelin Man).

The store was kind of like the M&M's store in Las Vegas - it was a two-story monument to their mascot. As I looked around, I felt a tear welling up in my eye. Maybe it was because Bibendum was getting the respect he deserves. Maybe it was because of the prices on some of the merchandise. I ended up buying some t-shirts and other assorted knicknacks. I'm especially pleased with my new Michelin Man coffee mug.

Detroit, Land of Cheese Popcorn

2008-03-25T20:36:00.000-07:00

I was in Detroit the other week for work (Novi, Michigan to be precise), and it was cold. Bloody cold. Here's how I remember Detroit:

It's good to be home. On the plus side, in my never-ending quest for snacks, I found this gem during my trip:

I love the slogan: "When it's more than OK, it's O-Ke-Doke!" In other words, "we're not the best, but certainly better than average!" I love the see-through yellow bag, which enhances the cheesiness of the popcorn, as if it wasn't cheesy enough. It's almost too good to be true.

I packed this treasure of a snack and brought it home for us to try. You know what? It was delicious! This was some of the best cheese popcorn we've ever had! I'm going back to Detroit in a couple of weeks, and I'm getting some more.

Mmmmm.... cheese popcorn.

Dave Stevens

2008-03-24T21:32:00.000-07:00

I'm way late on this, but Dave Stevens, one of my favorite comic book artists of the eighties, passed away at the age of 52 due to leukemia.

This makes me sad. He was a talented artist.

Al, What Happened To Your Head?

2008-03-14T21:07:00.000-07:00

...And the winner of "the worst job of splicing Al Pacino's head on a body that is clearly not his own" is....

...And Justice For All! Hooah!

Crab Crawl

2008-03-02T17:22:00.000-08:00

We went to the 2nd annual Crab Crawl at Jack London Square this weekend. I had this event marked on my calendar weeks ago. We hadn't been to it before, but it was advertised to have fresh crab for sale right off the boats, crab cooking demonstrations, crab dishes from local restaurant, live music, and everybody's favorite, face painting.

Unfortunately, we saw only one fishing boat, but there was no crab on it. There were no cooking demonstrations to be found. There were only four booths serving crab (actually three, the fourth booth only had BBQ oysters). If it hadn't been for the live music and the face painting, the day would have been a total disappoinment. Crab Crawl 2008 was a little underwhelming, to say the least.

On the positive side, we did have a tasty crab & artichoke dip from Kincaid's. We also had some very tasty crab enchiladas with some kickass rice from Cocina Poblana, a new restaurant in the area. Add a couple of cups of strawberry and watermelon agua frescas, and we were stuffed. I think we'll be checking out this restaurant sometime in the near future.

Overall, Crab Crawl wasn't the crustacean wonderland that I was hoping for. I was hoping to revel in all things crab, and it just didn't turn out that way. However, we had a great lunch and got a little fresh air, so I've got nothing to complain about.

Sucker!

If I Rode A Motorcycle... Part 2

2008-02-17T10:56:00.001-08:00

...this wouldn't be a bad helmet choice:

Now if they only had one with a flaming skull...

If I Were A Welder...

2008-02-06T20:46:00.000-08:00

....I would totally wear a helmet like this:

Heavy metal! Rad!

Sorry, Skunk

2008-01-10T20:20:00.000-08:00

As I was driving to work this morning, I saw something on the road in front of me. It first looked like a kitten, but then I realized it was a skunk. I had less than a second to react, so I swerved to the left. Unfortunately, the skunk was also heading in the same direction crossing from the right side of the road to the left.

I heard and felt a bump. It was what I would describe as a soft bump.

I immediately felt a little queasy. It had to be the largest thing I've ever killed. It was definitely the first mammal I ever squashed.

The skunk got the last laugh on me, as it probably managed to eject every bit of stink out of its body. The noxious skunk odor filled the inside of my car, and I think a little of it probably stuck to me for most of the day.

Sorry Mr. Skunk, it was an accident.

If I Rode A Motorcycle...

2007-12-12T20:46:00.000-08:00

....I would totally wear a helmet like this:

Badass! Woot!

Sun + Fog = Sog

2007-12-02T20:46:00.000-08:00

I took this picture from my desk last month. The fog was really thick that morning, but the sun was quickly burning through.

My eyes kind of hurt after I took this picture. It was worth it, though. I think.

Black Friday, Black Saturday

2007-12-01T19:59:00.000-08:00

We love Black Friday. It’s like Christmas, except we buy our own gifts. It’s a shame that it only comes once a year.

After last year’s nuthouse at our local Best Buy, we decided to try our luck at another Best Buy in a less populated area. All we had to do was to get up in the middle of the night and drive to a far away town. Did it work? Not really. There was quite a crowd already there. It didn’t wrap around the building and beyond like our experience from the previous year, but there were several hundred people in line ahead of us, already shivering in the cold winter air.

But they all deserved it, for showing up earlier than us. Ha ha! Freeze suckers, freeze!

Once we got inside the Best Buy, it was a feeding frenzy as usual. We got what we were looking for, although there actually weren’t that many great deals this year. I told myself that if there was a pile of PS3’s sitting in front of me, then I would treat it like a litter of puppies and find the cutest one to take home with me. However, I saw no such litter. All the PS3’s were caged away, already all adopted. Hopefully they all found good homes.

We wrapped up our Black Friday at McDonalds, which was a huge disappointment. We wanted sausage and egg McMuffins, but ended up with bacon and egg McGriddles. If you’ve never had a McGriddle, avoid it at all costs. This miserable excuse for a breakfast sandwich uses two pancakes as the bread instead of an English muffin. Pancakes! It’s an awful, awful combination of maple syrup pancakes, weak bacon, and bad eggs. I don’t know why anybody would willingly eat this stuff.

Disgusting.

Happy with our purchases, but disappointed with our breakfast, we trekked back home. Later that day, my fiancé says to me:

“Babe?”

“What?”

“I don’t want you to fall out of your chair, but Wal-Mart is having a “secret sale” on PS3’s. You get an 80 GB PS3 with 10 free Blu-Ray movies for $499.”

I picked myself off the floor, and the new hunt was on. Black Saturday, here we come!

**************************************************

I usually wake up pretty early for work every morning, but to wake up around 2 to 3 in the morning two days in a row is pretty brutal. You just hope that it’s going to be all worth it.

Duplicating our Best Buy strategy, we picked a non-local Wal-Mart and made the journey over. When we got there, there was no one there. Victory! We’re first!

We sat in our car and staked out the front of the store, not wanting to stand outside in the cold. A few moments later, a guy drove up and got out of his car. You could tell by the way the hair on the back of his head was awkwardly sticking out that he was there for a PS3. A few minutes later a second guy shows up and gets in line.

Now, it’s kind of a goal in my life not to look like a dork. If you are first in line at a Wal-Mart waiting for the doors to open to buy a PS3, then you are a dork. If you are the second guy in line, then you are also a dork, although a few degrees less dorky than the first guy. If you’re the third guy in line, you may be still a dork, but you are not so desperate that you didn’t have to be the first or second in line.

We were third in line in a group of three. When the Wal-Mart finally opened, a store employee told us that they only had two PS3’s available. Arrgh! Disappointment!

I was ready to pack it in and wallow in my despair. However, my lovely fiancé, the ying to my yang, the sweet to my sour, encouraged me not to give up and find another Wal-Mart.

We located the next nearest Wal-Mart and drove over. When we got there, we sprinted to the electronics department. Did they have any PS3’s? No! They only had two, and they were both sold!

Noooooo!

Giving it one last try, we drove to the next nearest Wal-Mart, where we found a group of four people waiting in line. Did they have any PS3?

Yes! Success!! Sweet Jesus, we’ve found the elusive PS3!

All hail the PS3!

With our new PS3 and ten free Blu-Ray movies in hand, we made our way home. On the way back, we found a McDonalds, and had some delicious sausage McMuffin sandwiches for breakfast. Life is good.

All hail the sausage McMuffin! With egg!

The Great Debaters

2007-10-14T12:44:00.000-07:00

Since we are massive insiders in the movie industry (ahem), this week we went to an advance screening of The Great Debaters, a new movie with Denzel Washington and Forest Whitaker coming out in December this year.

The funny thing about the whole event was how tight the security was. The big rule was NO CAMERA PHONES. If you had a camera phone, you would NOT BE ALLOWED IN THE THEATER. If you were caught with a camera phone, THEY WILL TAKE YOU DOWN. I guess you can take short videos with camera phones nowadays, but how good could the images be? This was simply a period drama, for pete's sake. It wasn't like Denzel and Forest were going to be dressed like Batman and Robin in the movie.

So how was the movie? It was pretty good. I've seen football movies, quiz show movies, cheerleading movies, but I must say this was the first debate movie I've ever seen. It takes place in the 1930's and tells the story of the debating team from Wiley College, an all-black university in Texas. The movie depicts how the team comes together and defeats all the other schools in the area, until the climatic showdown with the Harvard debate team.

Besides Denzel and Forest, this movie features a young actor named Denzel Whitaker, who oddly enough is not the love child of Denzel and Forest Whitaker.

At the end of the movie we had to fill out a two-page questionnaire on the movie. I couldn't find any flaws in the movie (other than not enough guns and explosions), and I really enjoyed it overall, so I gave it an "excellent" rating, and said, "yes, I would recommend this movie". So here's my recommendation - when The Great Debaters comes you, go see it.

By the way, there are absolutely no pictures available for this movie, so here's an entirely made up scene from the movie:

"Coffee is best with two lumps of sugar!"

"I disagree - coffee tastes better with only one lump!"

Only Mountain Dew and Crab Juice

2007-09-26T20:35:00.000-07:00

To continue the crab theme...

Last week I was in Annapolis, MD for work, and I had accidentally dropped my toothbrush in the toilet. No matter how long you run it under hot water afterwards, you will never wash out the stigma that your toothbrush went into a giant bowl a pee.

So I drove myself to a nearby CVS Pharmacy to get a new toothbrush. Walking by the snack aisle, lo and behold, I saw it:

Go ahead, say it out aloud to yourself: "Utz... The Crab Chip". I think its sheer genius to name your brand "Utz". What does it mean? Where did it come from? "Utz" is something you say if you almost trip on something.

Utz had other chip flavors, but the Crab Chip simply cannot be beat. I'm assuming this is something that's only available on the east coast. That's so unfair; why don't we have Utz Crab Chips out here?

Now That's A Crab

2007-09-20T18:20:00.000-07:00

I saw this link on Boing Boing the other day, which lead to this picture:

Not to simply repeat what's already been said, but CHEEZUS, THAT'S THE BIGGEST CRAB I'VE EVER SEEN. Please don't move, and especially don't make eye contact with the beast. I'm sure glad I'm not the poor sap who took that picture.

Luckily, after a great deal of diligent reasearch (mainly looking at Wikipedia), the coconut crab cand only be found "in areas throughout the Indian and western Pacific ocean". In other words, nowhere near where we live, and especially not in our recycling bin.

Bumbershoot & Flatstock 14

2007-09-11T22:13:00.000-07:00

We had a great time at Bumbershoot and Flatstock in Seattle over Labor Day weekend. It was good - really good. It was the best. It was fantastic.

Flatstock was what we expected it to be - a lot of poster artists hawking their wares. It's funny, because we're used to Comic-Con sized exhibit halls that stretch as far as the eye can see. Flatstock was the size of a basketball court (okay, maybe two basketball courts). But it was more than enough, since by the end of the day we spent pretty much all the cash we had.

In terms of poster artists, I like Frank Kozik, and I like Coop, but neither one was there. However, my fiance does like Patent Pending and the Bird Machine, and they both had tables that we passed by again and again, and a few more times again, just in case we missed something the previous time.

Most of the other artists we didn't really know, but we know what we like, so we figured out right away which ones had the graphic style that fit our tastes. Here's just a sample of some of the posters we got:

Hey, we went outside too. The weather was great for an outdoor festival, and the place was packed. There was a lot of tasty food, and we helped ourselves to the free shots of Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Lattes and Balance Bars. We sure do love free stuff.

There was a lot of live music being played all over the Seattle Center, but we didn't really bother seeing any of the bands. We did hear the Shins playing some of their popular songs. The festival was for three days, so we weren't there on the right day to see Fergie and her humps. Oh well.

We did manage to see one artist that I was somewhat familiar with named St. Vincent for a couple of songs. She's not really well known, so it was easy to get right up to the edge of the stage to take pictures like this:

All in all, we had a lot of fun and spent a lot of money. A most successful weekend.

Off To Seattle!

2007-08-30T20:07:00.000-07:00

It's Labor Day weekend, the weather has been unbearably hot, and the Bay Bridge is closed all weekend. What do you do? You go to Seattle!

We're headed north, folks. Off to one of our favorite getaway cities...we're going to see the sights, eat a little crab, but mostly we're going to the Flatstock concert poster show at the Bumbershoot Festival! Wahoo!

Armed with a brand new portfolio, we hope to come back with a whole stack of cool posters. If they're all too expensive, then maybe we'll blow our whole budget on one poster. Who knows?

Simpsonized!

2007-08-26T06:41:00.000-07:00

OK, we just couldn't resist it... we had to Simpsonize ourselves:What are you waiting for? Hurry! Simpsonize Me

Dries Twice As Fast

2007-08-24T22:54:00.000-07:00

I had just got off a flight from Oakland to Dallas-Fort Worth, and as usual, I made a beeline for the men's room. When I entered the restroom, lo and behold, there it was:

The Dyson Airblade.

It's supposed to be the next big thing in hand dryers from Dyson, the maker of the vacuum cleaner. We have the "animal" model vacuum, and by golly, the thing really does work without losing suction. It's really neat to see all the dust, clumps of hair, and general scurf collected in the clear plastic container.

Anyways, the Dyson Airblade at the airport restroom was mounted on a floor-mounted stand, and it kind of looked like a trouser press. It's got that kind of smooth plastic construction just like the vacuum cleaners. It looks pretty cool, but its seemed a little out of place.

I saw several guys give it a strange look as they walked by. But I knew what this thing was as soon as I saw it. I had read about the Airblade, and was eager to try it. If the vacuums sucked so well, the Airblade had to do a great job of blowing. As I did my business at the urinal, I couldn't wait to wash my hands. That doesn't happen too often.

I washed up and approached the Airblade with my wet hands. You're supposed to put your hands in the openings at the top of the machine, and slowly draw them out. The Airblade is supposed to "squeegee" the water off your skin with a continuous jet of air. I put my hands in, and slowly raised them up. A blast of cold air hit me, which was kind of a surprise. I pulled my hands completely out, and...

...they were still kind of wet. I probably didn't move slowly enough, but I really hoped the thing would work more quickly then it did. I ended up wiping off my hands on my jeans. There was a man in a shirt and tie who was watching me use the Airblade; thinking he shared the same curiosity that I did, I looked at him and kind of shrugged my shoulders. He looked back at me like I was crazy.

Maybe I need to give it a second try, but I didn't see the big leap ahead in hand-drying technology. I guess we'll need to wait a little longer before we can really live like the Jetsons.

SDCC 2007 Report, Part 3

2007-08-21T21:01:00.000-07:00

OK, after a brief interruption with the King, here's my big San Diego finale. We've seen stars, we've seen a lot of freaky things, and finally we get to buy stuff. I love the Comic-Con... it's the one of the few times during the year that I actually buy stuff from real flesh & blood people. Otherwise, its all online for all my comic-related needs.

So what did I get? Good question.

The latest volume of Mark Schultz: Various Drawings, signed especially for me!

Tripwire, a British comics magazine that's come back to life in a new annual format...

Matchbox Labels, a neat book I got from Bud Plant depicting matchbox cover art from around the world...

A hardcover edition of The Professor's Daughter, a graphic novel about a romance between a woman and a mummy in Victorian London...

Belle du Jour, a collection of cheesecake drawings by Bill Presing...

Uptight number 1 and 2, both signed with a sketch by Jordan Crane...

The Comics Journal number 284, with a Roger Langridge interview...

Captain America: Winter Soldier TPB - because you can never have too much Captain America...

Fleet Street Scandal: A Collection, with some really cool art by Kevin Dart and Chris Turnham...

Plus much, much more! Too bad Comic-Con comes only once a year.

The King & I

2007-08-19T20:42:00.000-07:00

Last week I was in Memphis for work, and by sheer coincidence it was Elvis Week. I'm no Elvis fan, but I felt obligated to go to Graceland since I was in the neighborhood.

First of all, it was hot in Memphis. Hot as in 103 degrees hot and plenty humid. It wasn't pleasant. Elvis would have thought it was really hot and flew his jet to somewhere cooler. If I was feeling truly unmotivated (which isn't a stretch for me), I would have just stayed in my air-conditioned rental car and did a drive-by of the place. However, I miraculously decided to get out of my car and check out the visitor center.

Apparently, a lot of people still love Elvis. The place was packed. There were a lot of Elvis fans waiting in line to take the guided tour of the mansion. There were a lot of fans trying to stay out of the sun. There were a lot of fans just milling about, buying anything with Elvis' picture on it. That was enough to convince me that that I really didn't want to see Graceland. I decided to save $25 and see what I could from the street for free. Here's what I saw:

The wall in front of Graceland where everyone writes, "we love you, Elvis"

The sign in front that told me I had the right house

Look! Past the trees...Graceland!

Mission accomplished!

SDCC 2007 Report, Part 2

2007-08-09T20:14:00.000-07:00

Let's have a look around the exhibit hall, shall we? If you concentrate hard enough, you can just smell the enticing odor of the unwashed hordes...

Hey, its Sgt. Slaughter!

Original Tim Sale Heroes artwork

Clever...

DC Booth

Carmen Mirandarth

Hey, its Danny Trejo - badass of the silver screen!

Who's that guy behind Captain America? Get out of the way, fool!

Warner Bros. booth

Lionsgate had a real amputee (no Rose McGowan, though)

Look at that guy in the headband! Ha ha ha!

The original version of the Iron Man armor...sweet!

Once you reach one end of the hall, you turn around and walk back. That's just the way it is.

Get it? Pea standing up! Ha ha ha!

Next time: A cornucopia of riches!
(Or...what I bought)

SDCC 2007 Report, Part 1

2007-08-08T19:48:00.000-07:00

Now that over a week has passed since the San Diego Comic-Con ended and no one cares anymore, it's time to tell everyone how the trip was for us. By the way, how do other bloggers blog so quickly? Sure, it's great to get information right after it happens, but where do these people find the time? Don't they have other stuff to do? Don't they watch TV?

But back to San Diego. Whenever someone asks me, "So how was Comic-Con?", I never say, "Well, I saw a guy in a Spider-Man suit. He was a lot shorter than I thought Spider-Man would be, and not nearly as muscular."

No, the thing that impresses people the most is the celebrities. We sat through hours of panels to see the stars, and we weren't disappointed. This year we saw Steve Carrell, The Rock, Ed Burns, Shannyn Sossamon, Kate Beckinsale, Clive Owen, and many others.

I could just list them all out, but this year, I have blurry photos to share:

Edward Norton!

Liv Tyler!

Milla Jovovich!

Josh Hartnett!

Gwyneth Paltrow! Robert Downey Jr.!

Captain America! Wait...Captain America?

Next time: The Wild & the Woolly from the Exhibit Hall...

Off To San Diego!

2007-07-26T07:05:00.000-07:00

It's that time of the year, folks. We're headed off to the annual San Diego Comic-Con for another four days of celebrity sightings and crowd surfing. Here are my goals for us this year:

1. Take more pictures

2. Walk around aimlessly until our feet hurt

3. Buy lots of books I probably won't get around to reading for a really long time

3. Get super close to Robert Downey Jr. and scream, "Iron Man rules!"

4. Belittle and mock as many people as possible. OK, maybe only those that deserve it.

Let's get to work!

Crossing the street from the convention center is always a highlight of the convention

Dios Mio

2007-07-21T22:39:00.000-07:00

I received a piece of mail from Mexico the other day, and their postage stamps are rather colorful. However, the stamp with the mask kind of gives me the willies.

Whatever it is, the eyes are creeping me out. Yeesh.

Wall Map

2007-06-24T00:30:00.000-07:00

From the Skymall catalog, its the 9 foot high by 13 foot long wall map mural!

Little Esmerelda knew much about the southern parts of South America, Africa and Australia. Sadly, she did not know where the US and Europe were located.

"When I grow up, I'm going to be the president of Antarctica!"

Peaceful Warrior

2007-04-07T00:22:00.000-07:00

Last week we saw Peaceful Warrior on opening day. Why? Because we had free tickets. We like free. Who doesn't like free?

The movie is about the story of a young, arrogant UC Berkeley gymnast who learns a lot of life-changing lessons from a mysterious old man he calls Socrates. He suffers what should have been a career-ending accident, but with the help of the old man's teachings, he pulls himself out of it and becomes all he can be. It's a semi-true story based on a book of the same name.

Nick Nolte plays the wise old man. That's right, this guy:

There are little bits in the story about being able to jump really high or having super reflexes, but the heart of the movie is about the old man's ideology. Here's what I learned: Live in the moment. Do what you love. It's not the destination, it's the journey. Measure twice, cut once. The movie provides many more of these nuggets, but these are the only ones I remember. For a short while, I was semi-inspired by this new age, spacey movie, but as time has passed, it's ultimately kind of forgettable. Thank goodness it was free.

"Socrates, what is the meaning of life?"

"If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen!"

300

2007-03-24T23:03:00.000-07:00

Being the comic book geek that I am, I have a built-in love for Frank Miller's 300. So I was really looking forward to the movie adaptation. We finally saw it on an IMAX screen last week.

So how was it? It's awesome. I think they made this movie with me in mind. However, I think it really has something for everyone.

Go Spartans!

For the guys: 300 is a big, bold, loud, violent movie. The story is pretty straightforward, so it's not too taxing on the brain. It's got plenty of cool slow-motion battles with buckets of CGI blood splashing all of the place. The testosterone level is so high in this movie, you'll want to to whoop someone's ass after you leave the theater. Did I mention it was violent?

For the ladies: This movie has a lot of half-naked Spartans, and every single one of them has a six-pack. Let me tell you, Greeks love to do stomach crunches. They also love to stand in heroic poses, all greased up with muscles glistening. It wouldn't surprise me if a Chippendale's-type show opens in Vegas soon called "Spartans".

For the kids: Why would you want to bring your kids to this movie? It's rated "R", for pete's sake. What kind of parents are you? Didn't I just say it was a violent movie? Let your kids sneak in this movie on their own.

If you need a piece of quality blockbuster entertainment, look no further than 300. Don't forget to bring your spear, shield, & codpiece.

"Hey, stop pushing. Aieeeeee!"

It's Good To Be Prepared

2007-02-28T16:54:00.000-08:00

If you are the type to go up and down the aisles of the internet, you've probably seen this many times. If not, then a zoo in Tokyo recently conducted an "animal escape drill", where some lucky employee got to dress up in an orangutan suit and pretend to shot with a tranquilizer dart.
If I were the orangutan, I would totally depart from the script, lower my furry orange shoulder and bust through the line. Hopefully I would be lucky enough to escape from the zoo and make it to the subway.

Freedom!

Not The Jam

2007-02-21T21:31:00.000-08:00

I saw an article the other day that The Jam was reforming and going on tour in the UK. Gasp! The Jam is back? That would be something I would pay money to see. I would eat a bug to see The Jam live.

However, it turns out it is just two out of the three members, minus Paul Weller. They are calling the act "From the Jam: Bruce Foxton and Rick Buckler". Sounds very Vegas to me.

The Jam without Paul Weller? That's so wrong - he wrote and sang most of their songs, for pete's sake. That's like The Police without Sting (get your tickets now, folks). It's like Hüsker Dü without Bob Mould. It's like The Chipmunks without Alvin.

You get the idea. Why can't they leave well enough alone? Sigh.

Mmmmmm....Lobster?

2007-02-20T21:50:00.000-08:00

I love lobster, I love crab, I love shrimp. God help me, I could eat crustacean until I'm sick (and I've come close to doing it, believe you me). However, eating and cooking these kinds of shellfish usually takes a little work, mainly the separation of the meat from the shell. We've spent many an evening in the kitchen removing the shells off of shrimp tails (and sometimes the little vein of poo in the tail).

When it comes to lobster, my parents usually take a live ones and drop it into a pot of boiling water, where it makes an "eeeeeeee!" noise as it hits the water. I remember being told that it's not the sound of the lobster screaming in agony, but something to do with the air being forced out of the lobster's body. Right.

Well, according to The Lobster Blog, there's a new method of getting lobster meat: the Avure Technologies Hydrostatic Pressure Processing System!

All you do is drop your live lobsters into the machine's large metal tube, flip the switch, and a huge amount of compressed water pressure is shot at the the lobsters, blowing off their shells and leaving the meat behind. What you get is this:

Disturbingly efficient? Yes! Creepy & nauseating? To be honest, a little. I'm sure the lobster in the picture was arranged like that after it came out of the machine, or then I'd really be freaked out. The whole process is supposed to be a more humane way of killing lobsters - death is supposed to come much more quickly in the machine versus a slower death in boiling water.

What does it all mean? You got me. But I'm sure we'll have a bunch of naked lobsters coming to our supermarket freezer section real soon.

Vengeance will be mine!

Nap Time

2007-02-08T23:16:00.000-08:00

From my daily dog calendar:

"When you can't figure out what to do, it's time for a nap" - Mason Cooley

Autobots, Transform!

2007-02-02T01:36:00.000-08:00

This is the coolest thing I've seen today: Transformers that change from Nike tennis shoes to robots!

Awesome! Why didn't they have these when I was growing up? If you've got the disposable income, you can get these bad boys here.

Squids 'n Sharks

2007-01-28T00:29:00.000-08:00

Last month, Japanese marine researchers caught a giant squid and hauled the poor bastard up to the surface. Reportedly, it was the first time a live giant squid was captured on film. The video actually isn't that great, but you can see it here. Better yet, here's a picture of the squid.

Great Googly Moogly! It's the beast from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea! Pulled up from about 2,000 feet below the ocean surface, the squid died shortly afterwards. Duh.

Well, move over squid. Check out this video of the frilled shark:

Cheezus! What a monster! Oddly enough, this video was taken by more Japanese researchers. The frilled shark usually is found at depths of 2,000 feet, but this particular one was found near the surface. It probably was on its last legs (so to speak), like a dying beached whale. The Japanese researchers captured the shark, and not surprisingly, it died a short time later.

Gah! Flee! Frilled Shark!

My Favorite Gift

2007-01-10T00:41:00.000-08:00

Even though the warm fuzzy glow of Christmas is a couple of weeks past us, let me just say that I love all the gifts I get to read, to play, to wear, to listen to, and to spend. But the one gift I'm having the most fun with right now is the Skull Horror Ball!

My sister and her family gave me this small rubber skull - when you squeeze it, all sort of gross things come oozing out of it's eyes.

The one I have has rats and blood coming out of it's eyes. It's delightful. I call him "Skully". I'm considering buying a whole case of these to give away as party favors, or just to give to anyone who needs cheering up.

This is my favorite gift from Christmas... right after our new 32" LCD HD TV, that is! Hoo hah!

Movie Poster Motifs

2006-12-28T01:49:00.000-08:00

I was looking at some current and upcoming movie posters, and I noticed a reoccurring layout used by several of them. See if you can spot it among these three posters... it's pretty easy to see:

Yes folks, it's the silhouette of a character centered against the background of the movie's primary location. I shall call this motif: "center silhouette". This is the second reoccurring movie poster layout I've identified, the first being what I call, "big heads in the sky". This is exactly what it sounds like: the poster depicts some smaller characters or location at the bottom, and above it you have a huge disembodied head floating above it all. Here's a recent example from a Turkish movie called Ice Cream, I Scream:

Here's another one from the new movie Freedom Writers:

See? Little people at the bottom, big Swank head above them. Yikes!

As a bonus, here's one the combines both the Center Silhouette and the Big Head in the Sky:

Score! Two Points!

Football Fugly

2006-12-23T00:32:00.000-08:00

Remember the kid in School of Rock that designed the fruity costumes that he wanted the band to wear? I think that kid grew up and went to the University of Oregon.

I was flipping channels the other night, and I came across the Las Vegas Bowl, which matched up Brigham Young University against the University of Oregon. At first I didn't recognize Oregon, because they were wearing these new uniforms which can only be summed up in three words:

Hid. Dee. Us.

They weren't wearing their classic green helmets with the yellow "O". Instead, they were wearing these bright, metallic yellow helmets which had kind of a sickly green tint to them. They also wore these dark green and black uniforms, which maybe weren't that bad, except for what look liked some kind of raised diamond plate pattern on the shoulder pads and knees.

Holy cow, they looked awful. What purpose could the diamond plate pattern possibly have? Wouldn't it give the opposing team a better grip on your uniform? Did Oregon lose a bet and were forced to wear these uniforms?

When you combine the bright yellow helmets with the non-slip uniforms, it makes for a pretty embarrassing combination. No wonder the Ducks got blown out 38-8.

Stand proud, boys

Archie, Say It Ain't So

2006-12-18T18:49:00.000-08:00

I haven't read an Archie comic book since I was little, but it pains me a little that Archie and the gang will be undergoing a makeover to achieve a more "realistic" look. Here's the way I remember Archie and friends:

You remember these guys, right? Archie... his arch-nemesis Reggie... look, there's that grouchy principal, Mr. Weatherbee, screaming into Archie's ear. Well, throw that all out the window, because pretty soon they're going to look like this:

Betty? Veronica? Is that you?

Oh for Pete's sake. What really concerns me though, is what the new Jughead is going to look like. How can you improve a mug like this?

All hail Jughead!

Hotel Hell

2006-12-14T23:04:00.000-08:00

If you happen to be traveling through Amsterdam and you're low on euro, you might want to check out the Hans Brinker Budget Hotel. Their whole shtick is how bad their facility is - sort of a "bad is good" marketing scheme. Either that, the hotel is really, really bad.

I've never been to Amsterdam myself, so I don't really know the truth of the matter. In the meantime, check out their intentionally jacked-up website...it's pretty amusing.

Look At The Pretty Colors

2006-11-29T01:08:00.000-08:00

Here's the poster for an upcoming movie called Smokin' Aces. All I know about it is that it's got Jeremy Piven, Ben Affleck, and Alicia Keys in it. It looks like it has a lot of people shooting guns at each other. Swell - I'll probably want to see this when it comes out.

Doesn't the design of this poster kind of remind you of the poster from Rent?

Coincidence, homage, or swipe? You decide...

Black Days

2006-11-27T16:34:00.000-08:00

Black Friday, the opening of the holiday shopping season, has come and gone. This year we had a Black Weekend, because from Thursday to Sunday, there are deals to be had, and we didn't have time to fool around. Here's the breakdown of what went on:

Black Thursday (or as some call it, Thanksgiving)
Objective: Buy an Xbox 360 from Amazon

At 11 am on Thursday, Amazon was selling 1000 Xbox 360's for $100 each. For most people, there wasn't a prayer of getting a PS3 or Wii anytime soon, so this was the next best opportunity. Millions of people waited with white-knuckled anticipation for this moment to arrive.

The problem was that millions of people were waiting for this moment to arrive. Amazon's servers promptly got bogged down, which meant that 99.9% of people weren't going to get their greedy hands on the Xbox 360. About five minutes before 11 am, it was taking my computer about 45 seconds to refresh. Not a good sign. At 11 am, I refreshed my page once more, and twenty minutes later the page reloaded with the "sold out" message. Phooey!

Not me with not my Xbox 360

It was pretty funny to see the angry posts from people who didn't get an Xbox 360. Some said it was just a big scam, some cursed Amazon and swore never to come back, some called out for everyone to report Amazon to the Better Business Bureau for such treachery. A lot of people seemed to feel entitled to get a cheap Xbox 360, and didn't to the math about how slim their chances really were. Kind of sad, really.

Mission Result: TOTAL FAILURE, BUT I STILL LOVE YOU AMAZON

Black Friday
Objective: Get deals at Best Buy, Circuit City, and Home Depot

We woke about at 3 am on Friday morning, and got to our local Best Buy at 4 am. There were about 500 - 600 people already there, and the lined wrapped around the entire building. When they finally opened at 5 am, it was not unlike a cattle stampede inside the store. The store staff did their best to keep the checkout lines orderly, but there were too many frenzied people inside the store.

My fiance had to catch a $20 printer with her face. I got disgusted trying to find the stuff I was looking for, and wanted to leave. We ended up getting most of the items we wanted, but this was the most unpleasant Best Buy Black Friday I've ever been to.

Mission Result: PARTIAL SUCCESS, BUT NO FREE KRISPY KREMES OR COFFEE. PAH!

Plasma flatscreens on sale? Run, fellow buffalo, run!

The Circuit City in our area is kind of like the snot-nosed little brother to Best Buy: dirtier and an unappealing & unorganized mess. The store was filled to the brim with the same variety of delirious bargain-hunters. It didn't help that the store was uncomfortably warm. We got most of what we were looking for, but we're glad we only go to Circuit City only once a year.

Mission Result: SUCCESSFUL FOR THE MOST PART, BUT BLECH

I managed to take a little side trip to Home Depot to get a cheap wet/dry vacuum and to check out a deal for a flatscreen tv. When I got to the store, I parked right in front and was greeted by a friendly and helpful store employee. He told me where to find the vacuum and the tv. I walked right up to the flatscreen tv's, picked one up and put in on my cart. I got a vacuum, paid for both items, and waltzed back to my car. It was a breath of fresh air. No fighting with other people, no crowds, no catching tv's with my face. Ha!

Mission Result: COMPLETE DOMINATION. YOU ROCK MY WORLD, HOME DEPOT

Black Saturday
Objective: Sleep

Mission Result: ZZZZZ

Black Sunday
Objective: Get deals at Costco

I love Costco. I love to walk up and down the aisles, and we love buying things that we really don't need. Did you know Costco sells a five-gallon bucket of food and supplies, just in case there's an emergency? We really wanted to buy one, but I'd probably open it and start eating the food, disaster or not.

We got the deals we were looking for, and found some new ones along the way. It was a fitting end to our Black Weekend; we got a great start on our Christmas shopping.

Now we just need to buy some stuff that's not just for us! Ha ha ha ha!

Mission Result: TOTAL SUCCESS - PLUS, WE GOT A COPY OF THE FREE COSTCO COOKBOOK, WHICH IS ALL WE REALLY WANTED IN THE FIRST PLACE

The Colonel Gets A Makeover

2006-11-22T02:02:00.000-08:00

Aw geez, I haven't posted anything in over two weeks. I wish I could be more prolific and write something every day, but that's not going to happen. Nope, not unless someone throws a handful of change at me and pays me to do this. Anyways...

KFC recently changed their logo, and it isn't that bad. This is what they had about twenty years ago:

Colonel Sanders eyes and lips looked kind of funny back then. He also looked a lot like a disembodied head with a little stick figure body. The more I look at it, the more his whole head seems kind of misshapen. I didn't eat a whole lot of fried chicken back then.

Some time in the eighties (I think), they changed their logo and made the Colonel into a more realistic jolly old man:

The expression on his face and the angle of his body makes him look like he's always chuckling about something. He's just a grandpa kicking back in his rocking chair. You have a problem? Don't worry about it, sonny. Here - have some chicken.

Just this month, they unveiled the new logo:

Pretty snazzy, huh? It's interesting to see that by just removing some of the detail from the Colonel's face and thickening up the line weights, he looks much more youthful. He even looks like he lost some weight.

I like the fact that the Colonel now stands up straight and wears an apron. I know he created the secret eleven herb & spice chicken recipe, but I could never imagine him actually cooking. Before he just looked like an old southern guy in a white suit who probably had his kitchen staff whip him up a bucket of fried chicken whenever he wanted.

But the new KFC Colonel isn't afraid to get his hands dirty. He's going to roll up his sleeves, skin some chickens, and be splattered with hot oil from the fryer. Go Colonel, go!

The Departed

2006-11-06T17:30:00.000-08:00

We finally went to see The Departed the other day. I had some trepidation about this movie for two reasons:

1. We had to sit in the third row of theater. Sure, it was a Saturday night showing, but the theater was surprisingly packed considering the movie had been out for almost a month already (I guess Borat must have been sold out). If there was going to be a lot of shaky handheld camera work, then it would probably make me nauseous and I wouldn't make it through the movie.

2. The movie was a remake of the Hong Kong movie Infernal Affairs. Usually, these kinds of movies tend to stick in my craw because I don't believe they are completely necessary. Why do you need to remake a perfectly good movie? Does westernizing a story with bigger movie stars really improve on the original? Why can't the movie studios just come up with their own new stories?

I could just go on and on about this; but I won't. The Departed was a really, really good movie. We don't watch a ton of them, but this was probably the best movie we've seen this year besides V for Vendetta. The story moved along at a nice pace and all the actors did a good job.

I used to have little respect for Leonardo DiCaprio. To me, he was always the scrawny little kid with the squeaky voice from "Growing Pains". In The Departed, it seems he's filled out a little and matured into a real actor. He was really convincing as the undercover cop infiltrating Jack Nicholson's Irish mob. His voice still squeaks sometimes, but he was perfect for this role.

Besides a gripping story with a lot of tension, you've got guys from Boston cussing at each other. You've got Jed Bartlett/Martin Sheen speaking with a Boston accent. You've got Jack Nicholson doing his crazy Jack Nicholson thing. You've got Alec Baldwin doing his nutty boss character from "30 Rock". What more can you ask for? This movie deserves some kind of award. It's definitely worth seeing more than once.

A New Case Of Crabs

2006-11-01T13:27:00.000-08:00

No, not those type of crabs. Real crabs. I get a kick out of hearing about new species of things being discovered, and here's the latest: there was a big expedition that took place in the waters outside of Hawaiian, where they found over one hundred potentially new species of crabs, corals, sea cucumbers, sea stars, snails, clams, and the like.

The new Hawaiian pom-pom crab. Go team!

Not quite as sexy as the furry lobster, but pretty cool nonetheless.

New sea cucumber. Delicious with a little salt.

Scary Pictures

2006-10-28T16:00:00.000-07:00

Now that Halloween is rapidly approaching, I'd better post something Halloweenish. I always like this time of year - not for the costumes and the trick or treating, but rather for all the horror movies they show on TV. It's like Christmas in October.

Here are some scary pictures for today: over at a blog called The Knight Shift (courtesy of Neatorama), they list their 10 Best Ghost Photographs Ever Taken.

All the stories behind the pictures are pretty interesting, but if you think skeptically about all of them, you can say that they are either faked, just someone who walked into the exposure, or incorrectly dated. Too bad they didn't have digital time stamps in the early 1900's.

Still, if you buy into what they are selling, then they're pretty neat. Woooo!

Xbox RIP

2006-10-27T15:04:00.000-07:00

After over six years of service, my faithful Xbox has breathed its last breath (the thing just won't turn on anymore). As a tribute to my dearly departed console, let's reminisce about the best of times (and worst) with the Xbox:

My Top 5 Favorite Games I've Played On The Xb0x:

Halo - One of my all-time favorites of any system, period. Usually, first-person shooters make me nauseous and queasy if they zoom around too much, but this game doesn't do that. Add in some massive environments and a top-notch story, and you've got a winner. This is one of the games that you can play through multiple times, and it's always a lot of fun. I've played Halo 2, but the original remains my favorite. Hopefully Halo 3 will be a huge step forward.

Burnout 3: Takedown - If you like racing games and nothing pleases you more than side-swiping your opponent off a cliff or into a wall, look no further. If you like to cause multi-car collisions, fiery explosions, and lots of property damage, this is the game for you. Nothing is more satisfying that causing a major pile-up at an intersection, then watch the replay in slow motion as you pile up the rewards. I have the sequel Burnout: Revenge for Xbox, but now I can't play it. Aaarrggh!

Black - My other favorite first-person shooter, besides Halo. It's great to look at and even more fun to play, with it's numerous weapons and destructible environments. Sure it didn't have much of a story, but who cares? The only thing it was missing was online play. However, this is one of those rare games that I can just load up at any time, jump into any level and have lots of fun shooting things up. I guess I just like shooting things.

Fatal Frame - This is got to be the creepiest game I've ever played. Snooping around an old Japanese house as a little Japanese girl taking pictures of ghosts with your magic camera can be a fun but chilling experience. As you get deeper into the story, things get more twisted and the ghosts get a lot meaner. Someday, I'll play Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly and Fatal Frame 3: The Tormented...after I've fully recovered from the first one.

Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy - I'm not really a big Star Wars (or Lego) fan, but when the reviews I read said this game was "short" and "easy", I knew this game was right up my alley. The game turned out to be a lot of fun. The game mimics the violence of the movies, but on the other hand it's really cute to see a Lego figure bust apart into a lot piece when they've been shot. Unfortunately, this was the last game I played before my Xbox went kaput, and now the disc is stuck in its lifeless jaws.

The Thing I Disliked Most About Xbox

Xbox Live - I had a trial subscription for a year, and I probably only used it for a few days out of the year. I liked playing games like Rainbow Six 3 with people I knew. However, I hated playing with little foul-mouthed kids. I once was waiting for a game of Crimson Skies, and this kid literally spazzed out because the game didn't start fast enough. Hopefully his voice will change soon and he'll learn to like girls.

I also didn't like playing with people who were too good at the games, which really spoiled it for people like me who generally suck and are just playing for fun. For a beginner at Halo 2, I got tired really fast of getting killed by players who knew the maps by heart, knew where all the weapons were, and knew exactly where I would respawn after just getting killed. I hope their voices change soon and girls avoid them because they smell bad.

You might think that this is the perfect opportunity to get a Xbox 360, but you'd be wrong. Sorry man, not in my budget. However, if someone would like to take pity on me and give me one, hey- let me know.

Comic Art Issue 8

2006-10-24T17:39:00.000-07:00

Here's my plug for today: Comic Art was a magazine that published seven issues from around 2002 to 2005. Each issue was nicely put together - nice production values, full-color layouts, and deep intellectual analysis of the comics medium. No other comics-related magazine really matched its style or quality.

However, after seven issues, it vanished. It was disappointing to see something so good go away.

But just a few months ago, Comic Art number 8 was released! Back from the dead, the magazine is bigger and better than ever. It's now published by Buenaventura Press on an annual basis, which is great since it will take me about a year to make my way through this sucker.

There's articles on Richard McGuire, Drew Friedman, Jim Starlin, and much more. There's even a long essay on the historical origins of the speech balloon.

As a bonus, there's even a small booklet that comes with the magazine called Forty Cartoon Books of Interest, written and drawn by Seth. It's a revealing look at Seth's favorite books that he's collected over the years from thrift stores and rummage sales.

Comic Art number 8 is available from Amazon. Try it, you'll like it.

So Long, Tower Records

2006-10-11T14:42:00.000-07:00

Tower Records is shutting down, and its assets have been sold to a liquidation company (story here) . This bums me out a little bit. When I was in school, I spent a lot of time going to the Tower Records on Durant Avenue in Berkeley and scouring the aisles for records, tapes, and CD's. In those days, I found a lot of great new music beyond whatever was being played on the radio.

I must admit that I am one of the many that contributed to Tower's demise. I haven't stepped inside a record store and bought something for ages, since I buy all my music online. Hey, it's hard to beat cheaper prices, and you get to listen to samples of the albums from the comfort of your own computer. Plus, you never have to wait for the guy who's slowly browsing through the CD's that you want to look at to get out of your way.

However, I still kind of miss going to the store and seeing what's new. Ah well... in Berkeley, at least we still have Rasputin and Amoeba (for now).

Penguin By Design

2006-10-02T19:18:00.000-07:00

I never realized how cool Penguin Books were until I read Penguin By Design by Phil Baines. It's a fascinating look at the evolution of the Penguin Book covers from the 1930's to the present.

In the early days, the goal was to establish the brand by maintaining consistency across the company's various imprints and subject matter. The approach was very systematic: Penguin for fiction, Puffin for children's books, and Pelican for original works on current topics. They also had color coding for their covers, with orange for fiction, green for crime, and blue for biography. The early covers had set guidelines and used restrained fonts.

Eventually, Penguin saw the need to compete with other paperback publishers and allowed various forms of photography and illustration onto their covers. However, their covers always maintained some form of consistency in their design format that was part of the brand's identity.

The thing about these covers is that individually, they may not always be the most eye-catching design, but put a series of them together in context with their history, then the graphic impact really comes through. Someone should put out a book showing the entire Penguin catalog - I'd buy it.

M & M's Movie Quiz

2006-09-23T21:55:00.000-07:00

Here's a fun time-waster: the M&M's Dark movie quiz. Click on the visual clues, and type in your guess of the "dark"-themed movie. The answers are the more popular horror, science fiction, and thriller movies. It took a little bit of work, but we managed to get all 50 movies!

Go ahead, try it. If you get stumped, scroll down a little for the answers...

Give up? Starting at the top & middle, and working around mostly clockwise...

Twin Peaks
War of the Worlds
The Fly
Friday the 13^th
Rear Window
Children of the Corn
A Nightmare on Elm Street
The Howling
Alien
The Crow
Seven
The Butterfly Effect
Scream
Piranha
The Omen
Rosemary’s Baby
Candyman
The Wicker Man
Pitch Black
Eraserhead
The Invisible Man
A Clockwork Orange
Psycho
The Shining
The Lost Boys
The Ring
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Halloween
The Grudge
Jaws
Blue Velvet
The 39 Steps
The Mummy
Dark Water
Child’s Play
Beetlejuice
Creature from the Black Lagoon
Leprechan
Saw
12 Monkeys
The Sixth Sense
Blade
Silence of the Lambs
The Dead Zone
House of Wax
The Birds
The Village
The Hills Have Eyes
Pumpkinhead
Signs

The Camera Takes Away Ten Pounds

2006-09-19T13:19:00.000-07:00

There's a new feature on HP digital cameras which allows people to appear slimmer in pictures. Just snap the picture and use the convenient sliding scale to determine how wide or svelte you want to be.

I am both appalled, yet fascinated. Photo manipulation is nothing new. Heck, when I was in high school you could pay extra to have the acne removed from your yearbook portraits. However, something seems wrong when anyone can alter a photo so easily. It's just another sign that you simply can't believe everything you see anymore.

Hollywoodland

2006-09-18T18:50:00.000-07:00

Hollywoodland bummed me out. George Reeves' death may have been murder instead of suicide, but he had plenty to be depressed about: he was an aging actor who was hopelessly typecast into the Superman role. He had a gold-digging harpy for a fiance. He was an alcoholic. According to his Wikipedia entry, he ended up doing wrestling matches in his costume. He also was in negotiations to reprise his Superman role for another television series.

It's easy to see how a guy can get down about these things. On the other hand, he could do a lot worse. He had a house, he had Diane Lane for a sugar mommy, and he was worshipped by kids all over the country. A lot of people don't even get half that far.

All the actors in this movie did a good job (although Ben Affleck should stop singing and put down the guitar). The 50's costumes & sets looked good. I always like the way men dressed in those days. Suits & ties everywhere. You can't go wrong with a good suit.

There's a scene in the movie where they reveal the face of Diane Lane's character, who's been mourning the death of George Reeves nonstop. It was the makeup and the lighting, but yikes - she looked really old. Luckily, they showed Under the Tuscan Sun on TV last night, and my Diane Lane palate was clean again. Ah!

I Pity The Fool!

2006-09-16T20:47:00.000-07:00

I took Professor T's Culture Fool Test over at Comcast, and I have a Culture IQ of 137. I even have a diploma to prove it:

Does that mean I can join Mensa now? Bring it on, suckahs!

Final Destination 3

2006-09-11T14:43:00.000-07:00

I'm a sucker for packaging. If you put something totally ordinary into a uniquely designed box, I'll probably buy it. The Final Destination 3 2-Disc Thrill Ride Edition DVD is not one of those things, but it kind of comes close.

I bought this DVD for two reasons: 1) the lenticular 3-D cover (I'm also a sucker for anything lenticular) and 2) the "Choose Your Fate" interactive feature. This feature is supposed to let you decide the fates of the characters in the movie. Supposedly, your decisions would alter the storyline of the movie.

This really intrigued me - I was planning to have all the teenagers survive and have a big clambake at the end of the movie.

Unfortunately, "Choose Your Fate" doesn't really work like that. In most circumstances, the teens in this movie are going to die a grisly death, one way or another. For example, there's a scene where a character is about to be crushed by a large object from above; you have to choose whether he jumps left or right. Either way, he gets squashed - but if you jump right, he gets completely smashed; if you jump left, he only gets halfway squashed. Bogus.

Final Destination 3? Noooooooo!

There are actually some slight differences in the overall storyline that are determined by your choices. I would have never realized this, if not for the movie's Wikipedia entry. The problem with this DVD is that in order to truly appreciate the nuances of the Choose Your Fate feature, you have to watch the movie a few times. It's not the worse movie in the world, but it's not a movie I would want to watch again and again. Heck, I haven't even seen the first two Final Destination movies.

So if you really are looking for a good interactive story, I'd stick to the Choose Your Own Adventure books.

Pee-Wee Herman

2006-09-03T21:21:00.000-07:00

Back in the day, I never watched Pee-Wee's Playhouse, but I did see Pee-Wee's Big Adventure when it originally came out in 1985. We all pretty much know what happened to Paul "Pee-Wee" Reubens in the early 90's. Poor Pee-Wee.

It looks like he's making a comeback: today Boing Boing showed a pair of sneakers that Nike is putting out based on the Pee-Wee Herman gray suit and red bowtie. The colors actually look pretty good.

The best thing about the shoes are the insoles, which depict Pee-Wee sitting by himself in a movie theatre:

This is the best idea I've seen today. Who knew Nike could be so clever?

The Warriors

2006-08-30T11:18:00.000-07:00

The Warriors originally came out in 1979, and I was a too young to see it in the theaters. However, I totally remember the movie because the concept was so cool: a story about battling New York gangs, all with their own names and distinctive looks - it was like a comic book come to life.

Since then, I've always had a soft spot for the The Warriors. I've seen it many times on TV, and it never fails to disappoint. When a video game based on the movie was released late last year, I knew I would play it...eventually.

I've finally played the game, and holy cow, this game was a lot of fun. Usually, video games tied into movies suck because the developers rush to release the game at the same time as the movie. With The Warriors, they clearly took their time to make a great game.

75% of the game is a prequel to the movie, where you learn the origin of the Warriors, and spend a lot of time establishing your turf and your rep. It's a lot like Grand Theft Auto, where you and your gang go around different parts of New York, beating up on other gangs, mugging people, and spraypainting a lot of walls. By the time you get to the actual story in the movie, the game is almost done. It actually works well, because you pretty much know what's going to happen, as long as you can make it to the end.

Baseball Furies! Ack!

This is the kind of game that I want to keep playing until I can't anymore. Usually my vision gets really blurry because I've been staring at the screen too long. You can pick up this game for a measly twenty bucks (in both Xbox and PS2 versions), so it's a great value for some 70's style fun.

Waaaarrrrrriiiorsss, come out to pla-ay!

Turnbull AC's! Aiieeeeeee!

Snakes On A Plane

2006-08-24T19:42:00.000-07:00

There were only four movies I really, really wanted to see this summer. We already saw three of them (X-Men: The Last Stand, Nacho Libre, and Clerks 2), and finally, we saw the last one: Snakes on a Plane. I was not disappointed. Ah, life is good.

Unless you've been living under a rock, it was hard to escape the hype of this movie. The title alone had the internet buzzing at the beginning of the year, because it perfectly captured the gist of the movie. Actually, Bad Motherf**cker Samuel Jackson Fighting Snakes On A Plane would more really capture it.

This obviously is not a movie for the highbrow crowd. It's a big, dumb movie, and it isn't ashamed of it. The key is to have low expectations before you see this movie, and just be swept away by the sheer spectacle of it.

You get Samuel Jackson yelling in his uniquely Samuel Jackson way. You get CGI snakes moving a whole lot faster than real snakes could. You get Nurse Hathaway from ER (Julianna Margulies, who I personally haven't seen since another "classic" movie, Ghost Ship). You get a snake biting a poor guy's johnson. What more could possibly ask for?

Actually, I would ask for a slightly better ending. I thought the whole surfing thing was pretty lame. Also, what was the deal with the music video during the credits? Who were these people? Why did they have to suck so bad?

Beyond that, thumbs up! Bring on the sequel! Ssssssssss!

Jeepers! Let's get out of here, it's Samuel Jackson!

Reach Cleanpaste Blows

2006-08-18T13:34:00.000-07:00

So I'm going about my day, humming a happy tune, when I realize that I haven't posted anything in over a week! Great googly moogly!

Here's my advice for today: don't use Reach Cleanpaste, it totally blows.

Reach Cleanpaste is the latest innovation in dental floss, which claims to be like "brushing between your teeth". You may have seen the ads for it, which look something like this:

What a load of crap. I really don't know what came over me, but I wanted to try it. So I bought recently bought one to give it a shot.

Cleanpaste is basically a blue & teal-colored floss with a toothpaste substance embedded into the fibers. Its thick, soft, and colorful, like a piece of yarn. It was fine when I flossed my front teeth, but the floss shredded in my back teeth, leaving these blue & teal-colored threads stuck between my teeth. I had to use my regular floss to get it out, and I ended up flipping out a filling from one of my back teeth.

It turns out that I can't get a new filling for this tooth, and I need a partial gold crown, which will cost me a pile of money. I lay blame for all of this on Reach Cleanpaste.

I found out later that they have two versions of Cleanpaste, one for "regular" teeth and one for "tight" teeth. So I'm supposed to use two types of floss for my teeth? No way, man. I'm sticking to my old floss, and so should you.

Sucks.

Coke Black

2006-08-09T17:01:00.000-07:00

I finally got my hands on Coca-Cola Black (or "Blāk", as the bottle says). I heard about it several months ago, but it apparently took a while to reach our neck of the woods. According to Coke, it's the "fusion of Coke effervescence with coffee essence". Tempting, huh?

So how does it taste? It's essentially Coke with a coffee-candy flavor. It's OK. It wasn't a party in my mouth. Would I have it again? Maybe, considering this: one 8 ounce serving of regular Coke has 23 mg of caffeine. Coke Black has 46 mg in an 8 ounce serving (there's about 100 mg in an 8 ounce serving of regular coffee). So if you need a quick pick-me-up during the day, and you want to mix your soda and coffee together, now you have Blāk.

In this age or Red Bull and other high-octane energy drinks, there might be a place for this new twist on Coke. There's no way I'm going to give up drinking Coke or coffee, but if you offered me Coke Black, I wouldn't refuse it. How's that for a ringing endorsement?

Sea Spiders

2006-08-07T20:47:00.000-07:00

In general, insects don't really bug me ("bug" me - ha ha ha!); but when I read this article, it kind of creeped me out. Naturally, I must share it with you: sea spiders are tiny multi-legged creatures that live on the bottom of the sea. They are in the arthropod family, so they are more or less related to insects, arachnids, and crustaceans. They don't spin webs, but they do prowl around the ocean floor, feeding on other smaller creatures.

The freakiest and largest varieties of sea spiders live in the Antartica region. Here are a few tasty examples:

Luckily, we have no plans to vacation there anytime soon.

Jury Duty Not!

2006-08-03T20:58:00.000-07:00

Hopefully I won't jinx myself for the next time, but today I was scheduled for jury duty. When I called to check in, no jurors were needed today. Hah! Civic duty done! In honor of all the brave jurors who have served, here's a comic strip courtesy of This Modern World:

Actually, California now pays $15 a day starting on the second day of service. That blows.

Jet Li's Fearless

2006-08-01T23:10:00.000-07:00

I just watched an imported DVD of Jet Li's latest movie called Fearless, and all I have to say is: this is one of the best Jet Li movies ever.

The film is based on the true story of Hou Yuanjia, a martial artist in China during the early 1900's. Hou is an arrogant, headstrong, and misguided young man who only wants the glory of being the top fighter in his region. After a string of victorious matches, he accidentally kills another martial arts master. The retaliation against him results in the tragic loss of his family, and he abandons everything to wander the countryside.

Hou ends up in a small village in the country, where he learns the true meaning of life & martial arts and comes to understand the errors of his ways. Upon returning to his home, he enters a tournament to fight against a series of foreigners to defend the honor of his country.

In my opinion, Fearless has got to be one of the best martial arts movies ever made: the camera work is top notch, the pacing of the story is perfect, and even the music score is great. Everything really comes together for this movie.

The fight scenes in this movie are something to behold. They use a little wirework and CGI, but it's not overdone. Even though the story has its share of quiet moments, there are more than enough fight scenes to satisfy everyone. Although Jet Li is in his forties now, he is still in top form, and he kicks ass like no other.

This movie is coming to US theaters in September; it's being billed as Jet Li's final martial arts epic, and I don't know what that really means. He's Jet Li - what else is he going to do in movies except martial arts? Is he going to sing and dance? Someone please explain this to me.

Clerks 2

2006-07-31T14:57:00.000-07:00

If you look at the sidebar to the right under "movies I like", then you know that I like Clerks. So when we went to go see Clerks 2, did I have high hopes for this movie? Of course not, silly rabbit. Sequels rarely exceed the quality of the original.

(If you know of a sequel that is better than the original, then let me know. This is a topic in itself. For example, I wouldn't say that Lethal Weapon 2 is better than Lethal Weapon, but it's just as enjoyable. Once they resolved Mel Gibson's mental state and suicidal tendencies in the first movie, it was all fun and games and buddy movie yuks in the second movie.)

So how was Clerks 2? Pretty good. I kind of think that the story got in the way of the clever dialogue that made the first movie so good. There are some great moments in this movie though, such as Randall talking about Lord of the Rings or Jay's "Silence of the Lambs" dance. I thought the new Elias character was hilarious with his Transformers and "pillow pants". But overall I wasn't really swept away by the love triangle aspect of the story.

While I like the dick & fart jokes as much as the next guy, I haven't seen a movie this vulgar in a while. I don't remember the original movie being like this; maybe I need to go watch it again. If you see Clerks 2 with a girl, make sure they know what they are getting into, or you might not make it through the whole date.

As with most of Kevin Smith's movies, I think this movie will be a whole lot better on DVD when you get the audio commentary. His commentaries never fail to entertain and give lots of insights into his filmmaking process.

One last note to Kevin Smith: please stop casting your wife in your movies. Just stop. Please.

Still Back From San Diego!

2006-07-29T13:17:00.000-07:00

You know, the Comic-Con isn't all about seeing famous people. It's also about crap. Crap as in, "boy, that movie sure looks like crap", or "what sort of crap are they giving away at that booth?", or even, "crap, my feet sure hurt".

However, here are some of the non-crap things that we saw at Comic-Con:

Flapjack Toys is a new company started by the founder of Funko. Although Funko is still going strong with it's Wacky Wobblers, the owner decided to move on and start a new brand. Their Symptoms and Spooky Kooky toys made their debut at Comic-Con. While bulging eyeballs and little monsters won't appeal to everyone, the design showed a lot of promise for the future.

We were there in 2003 when the Uglydolls first showed up in San Diego, and it's nice to see how they have grown since then. The Uglydolls have moved into vinyl figures, t-shirts, and have shrunk down into little keychains; can a cartoon show be far behind? This year we picked up the newest Uglydoll, Chuckanucka.

Steve Rude is one of the most talented artists in the business today, although he isn't as prolific as he was in the eighties. It's a shame that he and Mike Baron aren't producing the Nexus comic anymore, but I eagerly wait for the next Mothman series to come out. His latest sketchbook, Steve Rude Sketches & Commissions 2006, is available from his website.

As I have wrote earlier, I love Phil Hale's artwork. Mockingbirds/Relaxeder is a pair of small, hardcover books commemorating a 2005 Phil Hale exhibit in London. Mockingbirds features the artist's more recent oil paintings, while Relaxeder showcases his pencil drawings. I also picked this set of books up from Bud Plant.

Fantagraphics is currently putting out a series of internationally-produced comics called the Ignatz Series. These comics feature a rotating group of artists with stories done in a more European style. I really hadn't heard much about these comics, but once I picked some of them up and flipped through them, I was hooked. It's always good to have a balanced diet of comics, and the Ignatz imprint is a great way to offset too many superhero comics. Each comic comes in an 8-1/2 x 11 two-color format printed on nice quality paper.

I had to do a little research on them first, but I finally figured out that Dumbrella is a group of web comic artists. Each artist has his own website that features their own individual comics. It seems that one of their main sources of income is t-shirts. At the convention they had their own booth with mostly t-shirts with clever drawings and witty statements. The shirts were apparently selling very well, because they never seemed to have the sizes we were looking for. It's always nice to see that both the big companies and the little guys can both thrive at the Comic-Con. Ah, there's nothing like a level playing field.

Back From San Diego!

2006-07-26T13:24:00.000-07:00

Another Comic-Con has come and gone. How was this one? Pretty good. As usual, we saw some famous people, scored some pretty neat free stuff, and walked until our feet begged us not to walk any more.

As usual, there were too many people. Way too many people. I've seen an estimate that about 125,000 people attended, and that doesn't seem too far off. Some of these people should have stayed home: the smelly ones, the annoying ones, and the ones who blocked our way for no good reason when we were trying to walk by. You know who you are, stinky.

Keep it moving, people! Nothing to see here!

So who did we see this year? We saw Jason Statham, the guy who was Pedro in Napoleon Dynamite, some of the cast of The 4400, Stephan Bonnar and Kenny Florian from the UFC, Henry Rollins, and the cast of the Blade TV show. We also saw Robert Smigel do Triumph the Insult Comic Dog. The highlight had to be Jorge Garcia, who plays Hurley on Lost. Not only did he walk by us two times in the dealer room, but we also rode with him in our hotel elevator. Try to top that.

Hurley: our new best friend.

There were a lot of celebrities that we didn't see who appeared at the convention, including Rosario Dawson, David Arquette, Hilary Swank, Snoop Dogg, Samuel Jackson, the Wayans brothers, Kevin Smith, Tobey Maguire, Topher Grace, and Kirsten Dunst. I'm sure there were more that we didn't know about. We tried to get in to a couple of these panels, but there were just too many freakin' people and not enough seats. See what I mean? Way too many people.

Next time: Some cool companies, some stuff I bought, and some stuff I wanted to buy...

The cast of Blade: The Series (picture taken right before the security guy hit me with his stun gun)

Off To San Diego!

2006-07-19T10:48:00.000-07:00

Hoo hah! We're off to wade through impossibly large crowds, see some bona fide (& many borderline) celebrities, get some cool stuff, and soak up some San Diego sun! It will be tough to top last year, but I'm hoping to be pleasantly surprised by what's in store for this week.

Unless I get hopelessly lost in the dealer room, I'll tell you all about it when we get back. Yippee-ki-yay!

Comic-Con Fans

2006-07-18T18:26:00.000-07:00

As the San Diego Comic-Con (or SDCC for short) rapidly approaches, let's take a minute to reacquaint ourselves with the numerous species of Comic-Con Fans, courtesy of Skribbl at the Story Boredom Blog. This will be my 12th year of attending the convention, and believe you me, all the species described exist. For example:

"The Ravenous Reader: Look out for this one near any bathroom entrance or waste receptacle. Instead of waiting to get home to read their latest purchase, they plop themselves down at the highest traffic walkway intersection and begin reading.

By the way, I am not any of these, thank you very much.

The Heat Is Getting To Me

2006-07-18T00:24:00.000-07:00

Holy cow, it's hot. This heat is keeping me awake, so let's think about something else instead.

There's a genuine Wolverine mask prop replica available for pre-order that you can buy and display proudly in your home. It's made of stretchable leather, and comes with its own "museum-quality" display case and certificate of authenticity. There are only going to be 1000 of these beauties made, so you better pony up your $89.99 right away.

Now, I like the X-Men as much as any comic book geek, but you have to be a little off your rocker to want this. Even though it has its own case and a little name plaque, the "stretchable" leather almost begs someone to try it on. You know whoever buys this thing will want to put on the mask and run around pretending they're Wolverine.

The problem is that you're never going to look like the comic book Wolverine. You're just going to look like a guy in a silly $90 mask. Why do you think the movie Wolverine doesn't wear a mask? At best, you're going to look like this guy:

He's available for parties and public appearances. No kidding. Just look here. Actually, there's quite a selection of Marvel Super-Heroes you can book for your next Christmas party. Here are a few of my favorites:

Daredevil, looking a little tipsy (you can get Ben Affleck for an extra fifty bucks)

Spider-Girl?

The Thing, with a stylin' pair of board shorts

Someone's parents must be very proud. See? Comic books are good for you.

Loituma

2006-07-12T10:05:00.000-07:00

I've seen a few different versions of this video - it features a song called "Leva's Polka" by a Finnish group called Loituma. It's just a animated girl twirling a green onion around and singing the song. Endlessly. Forever. Personally, I don't get it, but it's apparently been sweeping across the internet, as these sort of things do.

The song is kind of catchy the first couple of times through, but if you watch it too many times it will slowly drive you nuts. Go ahead, give it a try!

Tintin and I

2006-07-10T14:37:00.000-07:00

There's not enough Tintin in the US. He's popular all over the world, but unfortunately, not nearly enough in this country. If you don't know who I'm talking about, then you should bow your head in shame. Blistering barnacles!

Tintin is the boy reporter who has adventures all over the world with his dog, Snowy. His adventures have been chronicled in twenty-three graphic novels (see Amazon link here). This is some of the most well-crafted comics you'll ever read - plus it's kid-friendly to boot.

So get your act together and first go check out the official Tintin website. Next, watch the PBS documentary on P.O.V. called "Tintin and I", which is all about Tintin's creator Herge, and the impact of his work. It's showing on Tuesday, 7/11 at 11 pm. Just Tivo it, you won't regret it.

Road House, Yeah!

2006-07-07T22:53:00.000-07:00

In less than two weeks, the special edition of Road House will be released on DVD. I would argue that this is one of the modern classics of "guy" movies. Every red-blood American male who was around for its heyday in the early nineties must have some measure of respect for this film.

If you don't know the magic of Road House, then here's a quick overview: Patrick Swayze plays Dalton, a professional bouncer hired to clean up an unruly southern bar. Along the way he defends the locals from the evil crime lord who wants to take over the town. I don't remember exactly why he wanted to take over the town, but he was just plain bad, and only Patrick Swayze could stand up to him.

In my humble opinion, this 1989 movie captures Swayze in the absolute height of his Swayze-ness. Dirty Dancing put him on the map, but Road House took him straight to the top of the heap. Sure, he would star in Ghost in 1990 with Demi Moore, but he didn't kick ass in that movie like he did in Road House. Not only does he beat up drunks and bad guys in this movie, but he also was a kind, spiritual soul with a "no one ever wins a fight" philosophy. So true.

So what does this new special edition DVD have? Deleted scenes? An alternate ending? You got me. All I know is that there is a Kevin Smith audio commentary included, which is well worth the price of the disc.

If that wasn't enough for you, then check this out: Road House 2 will be released on the same day. That's right, they finally made a sequel to the classic. You have to wonder why that waited so long. I guess the public demanded it, so they had to deliver.

When I first saw the preview ad for this DVD, this was the cover art:

First of all, who is this shmuck? Jonathan Schaech? Why does he look like such a dork? Most importantly, what's up with those jeans that he's wearing? My fiance has been getting me to wear more appropriately-colored jeans for going out, and brother, what this guy is wearing ain't it. Road House or not, those are not jeans that you should wear out in the evening.

I saw another preview of the cover art today, and I think the producers saw the same things I was seeing and made some changes. Here's the second version:

Oh yeah, that's much better. Those acid-washed jeans are a huge improvement.

World Cup Fevah

2006-07-05T21:22:00.000-07:00

For my 100th post, I will not wax nostalgically on my previous 99 posts. No, there's plenty of time for waxing later. Instead, let's talk about the World Cup. For the first time I've actually kept up with the tournament this year, and while I haven't fallen in love with the sport, it's actually proved to be pretty interesting:

As everyone knows by now, the US had a pretty dismal showing in the World Cup group matches. I watched them get crushed by the Czech Republic, and I watched them squeak out a tie with Italy (in which the only US goal was scored by a player on the Italian team). I didn't watch their last match against Ghana, but they lost that too. Oh well, there's always 2010.

The flop knows no language barrier. It seems like a once every few minutes a player gets tripped or bumped, and then he proceeds to roll around on the ground for a while, clutching his ankle in agony. A minute later, he's up and running again. It's nice to see that the phantom injury is part of our universal language. Sure, it really hurts if someone steps on the back of your leg with a cleat, but I think a lot of these guys just want to lie on the ground so they can catch their breath from running around all over the place.
This is Goleo VI, the official mascot of the 2006 World Cup. Pille, the talking football, is Goleo's constant companion who is always by his side. Goleo kicks Pille in the face and in the head all the time, but that lovable football just doesn't seem to mind. I've got nothing against mascots, and I actually love seeing people in animals suits. However, when I look at Pille, his mouth looks like someone took a soccer ball and slashed it with a knife. It kind of makes me queasy. Take a look at this, you can see his soccer ball guts inside his mouth:

I could be wrong about this, but it seemed like both the teams from Japan and Korea had one guy with bleached blonde hair. Only one - all the other members of the team had regular dark hair. It was if they had a contest, and only one guy got to change his hair color.

Whenever I see the World Cup Trophy, it always reminds me of the poster from the War of the Worlds remake. Creepy.

As of today, Germany and Portugal have been eliminated and France and Italy will meet in the final. Who will win? I have no idea. I've been to both France and Italy, but overall I've spent more time in France, so there you have it. Go France!

IDEA 06 Winners

2006-06-29T14:34:00.000-07:00

I was looking through the winning entries from the 2006 Industrial Design Excellence Awards, and here are the ones that caught my eye:

2 Seconds Quechua - This is a tent that you throw up into the air, the thing expands and unfolds, and it turns into a two person tent. Pretty neat. They say that it disassembled and folded back into it's original form in fifteen seconds. I kind of have a hard time believing this; I bet it's just like trying to fold a map back together.

The Hover Creeper - Believe or not, back in the day I used to change my own motor oil, so I know what it's like to crawl underneath a car to get to the oil pan. However, I never had the luxury of having a board with wheels to lie on. The Hover Creeper replaces the traditional rolling board with a board the floats on air. Presumably, this thing never touches the ground. It sounds pretty futuristic, I would want one just to ride around the house.

SanDisk Ultra II SD PLUS - I guess this might be old news for most digital photography enthusiasts, but it's new for me: this memory card has its own USB connector. All you do is fold the card along its hinge and plug it into your computer's USB hub, eliminating the need for any card readers. I can just hear the memory card read industry just crashing down right now.

Water Tile - Have you ever been in a shower, maybe in some strange hotel, your face and hair are all soaped and shampoo'ed up, and then you go and bonk your head on a low hanging shower head? Don't lie - I know you've done it before. I certainly have. Kohler make this handy shower tile which is flush with the other wall tiles. The only problem now is, where will you hang the shower caddy?

Nutty Buddy - The pleas of the desperate have been answered: the Nutty Buddy is a new kind of athletic protection device that "provides never-before-seen levels of comfort while being able to withstand a baseball traveling at more than 100 mph." Oh, bravo I say! Bravo! It also has an extra "tail" that goes between your legs, which is meant to provide you with an extra measure of protection for your frank 'n beans. Best of all, it's just fun to say "nutty buddy".

Nacho Libre

2006-06-27T11:27:00.000-07:00

Jack Black is one of the funniest guys around today. Everything he does is a guaranteed laugh, or at least a giggle or guffaw. Maybe I like the guy a little too much, but look at this picture:

See? Funny. When I first heard about Nacho Libre, it sounded like a sure thing: Jack Black and Mexican wrestlers? This can't fail!

We went to see Nacho Libre, and was it funny? Yep, sure was. Was it a good movie? Well, I think it will be a good movie for the people who like Jack Black, Luchador wrestling, or enjoy Napolean Dynamite-style weirdness. If not, then this maybe you should go see The Lake House. Or Cars. You know, something that everyone will enjoy.

There isn't much of a story in this movie, and very little character development. However, the point of this movie was to let Jack Black do his thing: he gets to take his shirt off, he gets to sing and he gets to fart (this movie was produced by Nickelodean, so that's as far as it goes kids). All in all, not a great movie, but a worthy addition to the Jack Black film library.

Fly! Fly like the eagle!

Countdown to PSP

2006-06-24T16:40:00.000-07:00

I lasted about 1 year and 3 months, but I've finally broken down and bought myself a Sony PSP. Hopefully it's on a plane somewhere on its way to me right now. Godspeed, my new little electronic friend.

In the beginning, the PSP reportedly had its share of problems: dead pixels, slow loading times, short battery life, just to name a few. Worst of all, the games they had at the launch weren't really that great. I'm hoping the hardware bugs have been fixed by now; we'll have to see about that. What pushed me into finally getting the PSP is that the games seem to be getting better. Here's a few that have caught my eye:

In September LocoRoco is coming out, a game where you have to steer a little blob of goo through successive levels by tilting the ground and changing the size of your blob by splitting him into little blobs. I've watched some video clips, and this kind of quirky game is right up my alley. What's not to love about a yellow smiling piece of goo?

Metal Gear Solid Digital Graphic Novel just came out this month - it's a virtual comic that you read on your PSP, with a lot of animation, music, and sound effects worked into the story. The artwork is by one of my favorite artists, Ashley Wood, whose style meshes perfectly with the look of Metal Gear Solid. It's a cool application for the PSP that hopefully will do justice to both the artwork and story.

Late last year, Sega released Virtua Tennis World Tour for the PSP, which is an updated version of their Virtua Tennis game originally made for the Dreamcast. If you've played this game before, then you will know that Virtua Tennis is simply the best tennis video game ever, on any system. The quick "pick up and play" aspect of this game should translate nicely to the PSP.

Finally, here's a part of a British student project that's been making the rounds on the internet: It's a scarf that can be converted to a hood for using the PSP:

Great if you want some privacy or its too bright to see the screen; not so good for seeing all the people laughing at you, or the guy who's stealing all your stuff.

Something For The Kitchen

2006-06-23T22:29:00.000-07:00

This handy little knife block caught my eye today, and I asked my fiance how it would look in our kitchen. She made a face and said "nooooo" in a slow drawn out kind of way, meaning "not in my house". She also said something else about not wanting to give our future children a bad impression.

Oh, alright then. Maybe some other time. If you're interested, Overstock has it on sale. Mark my words, one of these days this fine piece of work is going to be sitting on an Antiques Roadshow table.

Judging A Book By Its Cover

2006-06-19T17:44:00.000-07:00

Earlier this year, Penguin Books put out a series called Graphic Classics, a group of well-known works of literature packaged in a snazzy new paperback format. The cover illustrations are by leading comic book artists, including Chris Ware and Seth. I was roaming the aisles at Costco the other day, and I bought Upton Sinclair's The Jungle (with a cover by Charles Burns) and Paul Auster's The New York Trilogy (with a cover by Art Spiegelman).

Before I took this trip to Costco, I felt the need to read some my books that I never got around to reading. By sheer coincidence, I dug out a copy of The Jungle that I had purchased many years ago. I was never required to read this book in school, and its one of the books that I've always been curious about. A book about the poor working conditions and the unsanitary practices of the meat industry at the turn of the century? Sign me up!

Call me shallow, but I'm actually pretty excited to read this book now because the cover is so cool. Take a look - which book would you rather read? This one:

Or this one:

Go ahead and admit it... you would pick that delicious animal head too.

X-Men: The Last Stand

2006-06-06T00:04:00.000-07:00

We finally saw the latest X-Men movie this past weekend, and I was really looking forward to it. So how was it? Well, it was just ok. It was a decent summer blockbuster, and holds up reasonably well with the first two movies, but it didn't top them by any stretch of the imagination.

As I watched the movie, I generated a list of questions and observations in my head. Before I dive into my list, if you haven't seen X-Men: The Last Stand, then what I'm going to say may spoil some things for you. So when you have a moment, go out and see the movie. I'll wait.

...

Oh, you're back. I hope you went to see a matinee and didn't pay full price. Anyways, here goes:

Cyclops got the shaft in this movie. The guy barely appears in a few scenes, and that's it. He's supposed to be the leader of the X-Men, for pete's sake.
Where's Nightcrawler? He would have been handy for all the jumping around that went on in this movie. I guess one blue, furry mutant is all that's allowed.
OK, Xavier's school is in upstate New York, right? Magneto gathers his Brotherhood and goes to attack Alcatraz island in San Francisco. There's a sequence where Wolverine leaves the mansion to go find Jean Grey, who has joined the Brotherhood. When he finds them in a forest, are they on the west coast or the east coast? If they were on the west coast, how did Wolverine get there? He might have taken the X-Men's Blackbird plane, but it seems that he just ran out the front door & hopped on his silly motorcycle. If they were on the east coast, then how did Magneto transport the Brotherhood over 3000 miles to San Francisco? Did he steal a plane? A bus? Did he recruit a mutant with unlimited frequent flier miles?
I must say that Magneto's Brotherhood of Evil Mutants were pretty useless. We saw a guy who could grow daggers out of his wrists and throw them and a guy with super-hearing in the forest. All I remember seeing during the fight on Alcatraz was a guy who could stick to walls like a tree frog. When mutants fight, I expect a lot of flying around with laser beams shooting out of people's hands. We didn't really get that in this movie. Color me disappointed.
I can't wait to see Nacho Libre.
This movie had the most comic book-like climax ever with Wolverine desperately trying to reach Jean Grey with her energy flying all around him, shredding him to bits. I could find a panel or two out of the X-Men comic, but I'm too lazy to do that.
Cyclops totally got the shaft in this movie. If you really want to stick with the comic book version, it should have been him with Jean Grey at the end, not Wolverine.
So when Magneto takes over the Golden Gate Bridge, it's daytime right? Most of the people abandon their cars to get off the bridge. At the end of the movie, it's nighttime and there's a shot of the Golden Gate Bridge with all the cars on the bridge with their headlights on. I'm surprised that everyone driving around in the daytime turns their headlights on. Bay Area drivers are so responsible.
It's amazing how quickly they started rebuilding the Golden Gate Bridge. Where did they get the money from? I bet they diverted all the money from the new Bay Bridge span. The East Bay gets the shaft in this movie too.

Bat News

2006-06-01T10:30:00.000-07:00

I saw on the tv news this morning that the Batwoman character is going to be resurrected in the Batman comic (see story here). The big kicker is that she's going to be a lesbian! Oh my goodness!

Now, I'm all for diversity in super-hero, but why is this news? Gay and lesbian characters in comics are nothing new. I've never really been a big Batman reader, so maybe I've missed something along the way, but Batwoman was originally a character from the super-cheesy Batman comics of the late fifties and early sixties. She wore a yellow & red outfit and was part of the wacky Batman family that included Bat-Mite, Bat-Hound, Bat-Ape and Bat-Baby. I thought the character was killed off sometime in the sixties, but I could be wrong.

New characters come and go all the time in the comic book world, so it perplexes me that this is a news-worthy story. I would wager that very few people know that a Batwoman even existed. Most people know Batgirl, but I don't think the common man on the street knows Batwoman. Sure, it's great publicity for DC Comics, but why does anyone care? Oh yeah - she's a lesbian in a slinky Batman outfit.

Alex Toth

2006-05-27T22:08:00.000-07:00

I just read that Alex Toth passed away today. He was a legend in comics and animation, and he possessed a style which can never be duplicated. He will be greatly missed.

Slot Machines and Furry Animals

2006-05-26T15:06:00.000-07:00

We just got back from a short vacation in Las Vegas, and although we didn't win a boatload of money, we had a good time nonetheless. It's been a year since we've been there, and the place is still booming. There's still plenty of room for more hotels, casinos and shopping centers. This town has a long way to go before it hits the saturation point for all this decadence.

Here's my one gripe: people, leave the kids at home. If you have to bring the kids to Las Vegas, at least get them to bed at a decent hour. Nothing is more appalling than seeing a mother walking around a casino at 1:00 in the morning with a drink in one hand and a small child in the other.

While we were Vegas, we saw Over the Hedge. This was a movie that I've been waiting to see, and I wasn't disappointed. The kids will be entertained, and there are plenty of jokes only the adults will understand. What's not to like? This is good, clean family fun.

It's amazing how good they can make CGI animals look nowadays. Furry animals look really furry. These computers - I bet they'll become really useful one of these days.

Caves and Caverns

2006-05-19T13:02:00.000-07:00

I was looking through the upcoming DVD releases the other day, and there was a movie coming out called The Cavern. It's about a bunch of explorers who discover a deadly secret in an underground cave system and find themselves in a desperate fight for their lives.

Hey, wait a minute - wasn't there already a movie about that? Oh yeah, it was called The Cave. It was about a bunch of explorers who discover a deadly secret in an underground cave system and find themselves in a desperate fight for their lives.

Maybe it was just a coincidence that these two movies have similar stories. Maybe underground monster movies are really big right now. Maybe these movies are metaphors that you can't run and hide from the rigors and responsibilities of daily life. Who knows?

At least The Cavern could have come up with a different poster design that didn't remind me so much of The Cave. If you line them up, you can pretend the hapless explorers are descending down from one movie into another:

So what have we learned? Not much. All I know is that X-Men: The Last Stand opens in a week. Wahoo!

It's A Baby!

2006-05-17T15:51:00.000-07:00

Our friend mochablue had a bouncing baby boy on Monday! Congratulations...you so rock!

Actual baby not pictured.