Friday, June 25, 2004

Okay, Leaguers. This is it. Last post for about a week. When you click here, but all you see is this picture yet again, you'll know I have not yet returned. Rest easy, Loyal Leaguers. You may feel content in the knowledge that while I am not blogging, I'm still looking out for you.



Couple of notes:

1) You can keep sending in Mellie nominations until I return. Send them to the e-mail address associated with this site.

2) If I die on my trip, this is the last, haunting entry I'll ever make.

3) In which case, we'll never know who won the Mellies. If this happens, Jim gets to just make some junk up.

4) In the meantime, check out my other links over there on the left. There's a blogroll and some other good stuff. See the place where I learned and embraced the phrase "abso-ludicrous".

5) It's summertime. Try and go out there and get some sunshine. Play a little frisbee. Meet a girl. Fall in love.

6) I doubt you've read everything. See what I said just before I said this. If that doesn't work, try the archives.

7) I'll be back well before July 4th. See you then.

And an Official Melbotis Medal of Commendation for Valor in the Face of Stupidity, goes to Maxwell, for raising the alarm and trying quite valiantly to get me a signed Geoff Johns comic.
Even if it didn't happen, it's the amazing thought that counts.
And I forgot to mention...

Ryan Valdez and Michael Scaljon have both submitted very good entries to the League's 2004 "So far, so what?" awards (AKA: The Mellies).

Thanks to Valdez and Scaljon for their participation. Thanks to Jim for actually pointing me to their sites so I was aware of the nominations.

No thanks to Randy for his utter failure to participate. Even on his 28th birthday, I don't know how he manages to muster the will to draw even a single breath.

And check out the pictures of Jim's movie in the making! It's funny. I read the screenplay in various drafts, and I know exactly which scene it is where "Wyatt" here is drinking his aqua.

Happy Birthday to Randy! Randy is 28 today.

I have written Randy this haiku

bright eyes wondering
so happy to eat jell-o
no nominations

Happy Birthday, Randolph!
the Lynda Carter 1970's television series Wonder Woman comes to DVD next week.

As Loyal Leaguers might imagine, The League is in no small way intrigued by Wonder Woman. Here's something that might probably get me beaten up over by the bike racks after school: I read Wonder Woman. I do. I really like Wonder Woman. She's got an invisible jet, she's into tying people up, and she wears next to nothing while saving the world. Seriously, given those qualifications, what's not to like?

Some of my earliest memories include Wonder Woman twirling her way into different outfits. I always wished she'd do the same on Superfriends, but it never happened. Superfriends Wonder Woman couldn't twirl, so great was the weight of the Aquanet. Not so with the beautiful Lynda Carter.


Lynda Carter suddenly makes me interested in computer technology of the late 70's...

The series isn't great by any standard, but dammit, I'm hard pressed to think of a better collection of videos than Lynda Carter solving crimes. Incidentally, Lynda Carter graduated from my employing university. Little trivia for you.

I don't recommend folks new to comics necessarily pick up Wonder Woman, but I do find it to be a good read. And if girls are looking for an action hero, my friends, here she is.



These days, Wonder Woman is more or less portrayed as a Warrior Princess sort of person... but not in the Xena mode, and almost never tongue-in-cheek. She's a bad-ass to be reckoned with, just about as tough as Superman, but with a worse temper. Anyway, it's always a fun read for me (Greg Rucka is currently writing...) and while I miss Phil Jiminez's Perez inspired take, this run ain't so bad.



Thursday, June 24, 2004

THanks to Jamie, Laura, Jason, Juan and numerous others who have all sent me this link.

Super strong baby.
Jim has, as promised, submitted his entries to the 2004 Mellies. Good for Jim. He's not the rat that the rest of you are who have not yet submiited a nomination of any kind. Some of you are rattier than others, especially people whose names rhyme with "dandy."

Thanks to Jim. I was wondering how long it would take before Fillmore showed up on the list of Presidents we just don't know enough about. I was disappointed to see Jim doesn't see the crystalline beauty in a democratic process where Al Sharpton can even manage to get his name on a ballot. I weep for Jim sometimes.

If Maxwell really loves me (and I know she does), she will rush down to Midtown Comics at Grand Central and get Geoff Johns, Greg Rucka and Judd Winick to sign me some comics. If you can only get one, get Geoff to sign an issue of "The Flash" for me. If two, then get Rucka to sign the newer issues of Adventures of Superman. I am aware that seems to run counterintuitive, but I really like Johns' work on Flash and JSA.

GEOFF JOHNS, GREG RUCKA & JUDD WINICK
Signing at Midtown Comics Grand Central
(very first signing at the new store!)
Thursday, June 24th from 5pm-7pm

Judd Winick, by the way, is the dorky cartoonist from the LA Season of The Real World (just before the show turned into 21 Year Old Hanky Panky Fest). It was the one with Pablo and Puck, I think. Judd now works for Marvel and DC. He's currently working on some Batman comics.
I forgot to mention my 1.2 seconds of fame.

Last Halloween, a household down the street from us participated in TLC's daily show about straightening up your junk entitled: Clean Sweep.

Clean Sweep basically has a host who is this blonde with a pretty bad eye-job (seriously, if she didn't have eye-work done, I'm Winston Churchill), a carpenter and a "professional organizer."

Embodying why the rest of the world hates the US, the people living in these houses have just accumulated too much stuff and delight in THAT being their biggest problem. Golf balls. Cabbage Patch kids. There's actually a common theme of too many toys for kids ages 1-4.

And, basically, these people dwell in heaps of items bought and never used. But they don't have the heart to toss away the stuff, nor the sense of mind to drive it to Salvation Army.

So they bring a lady in who basically throws away their stuff and gives them shelves. That's it. It's totally dumb.

Anyway, part of the show entails people having a garage sale in which they sell their used junk, and so Jamie and I wandered down the street to see the garage sale. I was pretty sure if I involved Mel we'd get some screen time, but even as I was signing the release papers so I could be on TV scrounging through these people's leftover plastic and moldy books, I got a sort of sinking feeling. I knew I was never going to buy enough of this useless crap to make it on TV for any length of time, and Mel was pretty much unwelcome.

At any rate, I bought what I think is a rare novelization fo the first Star Wars movie, and Jamie bought some lamp we threw away about a week after we brought it home. But we never did see the show. Until Tuesday night. I watched for forty minutes, and then, all too briefly, you can hear someone yell "Wanna buy a lamp?" And I turn and look at the lamp, as if to say "Are you serious?" Jamie is in the background of the shot looking on, and Mel is sort of waddling through the bottom of the shot. The total shot lasts about 1.5 seconds. If that.

So that's it. My brush with fame. C'est la vie.

It'll be interesting in a few years when they finally take me down, how Access Hollywood or somebody is going to locate that one second of footage and keep replaying it in slow motion to demonstrate my evil.

Wednesday, June 23, 2004

Who should be Superman in the next movie?

It's a question which plagues Super-nerds like myself. I, of course, open the floor and the comments section to any and all opinions. I liked Reeve and Reeves. Very different, but both great.

MSNBC asks the same question.

Tom Welling is probably my pick, if we can't get the greatest American alive, Dennis Haysbert.

So I ask Loyal Leaguers... who would look good in a blue unitard to you?
Apparently Lollapalooza 2004 has been cancelled.

I can't say I'm suprised.

I did have a very cool mother who let her two sons hop in their one son's barely functioning car and make an odd journey from Houston to Austin to Dallas, all in one day, so we could go to the first Lollapalooza. The line-up was pretty good, and a nice yardmarker for what was the music of the day.

Butthole Surfers
Rollins Band
Fishbone
Ice-T
Siouxsie and the Banshees
Jane's Addiction

And I'm sure I'm forgetting somebody. But this was before the festival had all the different stages and took up a land mass the size of Rhode Island. I went for the next few years, but became progressively less interested in the bands. I was never an Alice in Chains kind of guy, and by the time Metallica was headlining... I mean, please... Of course, I think that meant I missed Devo.

But I did get to see acts I would have otherwise missed. Front 242. Jesus and Mary Chain. Nick Cave. Other fun stuff.

And I most certainly would have gone to this year's show but for a few items.

1) It's insanely hot here in the summer, and I do not want to stand outside all day.
2) Jamie doesn't care about most of the acts, and wouldn't be that interested.
3) I couldn't figure out who from Phoenix would go with me, if not Jamie
4) I'm old

I am. I'm old. I have shit to do. I mean, I want to make time to go goof off for a day and see some great acts from my angry youth, but a whole day?

Anyway, I'm sorry to hear this got cancelled, but I do find it funny they basically said "yeah, once they're older than 23, they kind of don't like standing out in the heat all day."
If you're not watching Joe Schmo on Spike! TV, you're probably missing the most fun reality show on TV right now. They're only on episode 2 as of last night, so you have plenty of time to catch up. And believe me, it's not so complicated that you're not going to be able to follow.

Turns out my student worker, Scott "Scoot"/"Scotty", was once in a student improv group with "Eleanor" from the show. He didn't say much about her, except "it's weird, because she's not like that." Lord, I hope not.

Next week, The League is taking a much deserved rest and heading for Minnesota, land of 10 bajillion lakes. If you want to find us, we'll be here.

I don't really fish. I've only fished four or five times in my life. And I don't eat meat if I can help it, so I don't know that I'll be doing much fishing. But I do plan to bob around in a boat for a week watching the loons float over the lake.

Anyway, The League will be on hiatus, so I will redirect you all to my blogroll during that time.

Clinton's memoirs came out yesterday, but until it's in paperback and until I hear a decent review of the book, I'm not very inclined to pick it up. I voted for the man the one election in which I could, and I followed the misadventures of the Clintons with the rest of the country for the term of Bill's presidency. It's probably a worthwhile memoir to have. Just not yet, for me.

If anything, the interviews Clinton is giving on his book tour seem as interesting as any book is going to be. The left-leaning media is constantly fishing for him to bash the current administration, and the right-leaning folks are keeping quiet thus far, I guess. At least I haven't heard anything. But the whole thing is dredging up a lot of bad memories.

But it is nice to remember we had a President in the recent past who can form a complete sentence. And that's about as political as I feel like getting right now.

You know those commericals where somebody joins Bally's gym and in 30 days, they're suddenly sexy? I am getting none of that effect. But I also am overweight for real, not TV overweight. I'm the dude who would have been called "Tubs" or "Chubby" in an old 1940's western. People like me do not become sexy after joining a gym for a month.

And this should tell Randy why I would not dress as Superman for the annual Superman celebration, should I ever attend.

Tuesday, June 22, 2004

whoa. A real supervillain.
Two things

1) And so it begins... And now for the long, painful descent we all knew was coming.

2) Apparently MTV is now running a commercial (I did not know this until last night) of a cartoon history of "bling-bling". This commerical also pronounces the phrase dead (although they say it died in 2003...). The cartoon is hilarious, and if anyone knows where to download it from, I would greatly appreciate a link.

It is nice to know I am not alone in this.
Yesterday sucked like a mighty black hole.

Really. It was awful.

At 10:30 on Sunday night, my woes began. I didn't get to sleep until 2:00am, and getting up for work (which I was an hour late for) made me feel just plain crummy all day.

The work day was sort of nightmarish, and then about 9:00 last night I ate one of my new "Philly Cheesesteak" Gardenburgers to try and get some protein in my body. In general, I like Gardenburgers. THis one was terrible. I woke up this morning pretty much convinced I was going to heave. I didn't.

My work woes, which I was unsure had by-passed me, were no longer present when I showed up today, and by 9:00, the fake-Philly Cheesesteak Gardenburger nausea has passed.

I miss real meat sometimes.

The bottom line is: When your servers go down, people get really pissy.
Hey Everybuddy,

Nordstrom has posted his nominations for the 2004 Mellies. God bless the little tyke for participating.

It occurs to me that I'm probably going to lose track of these nominations if they just appear on your blog. So you might want to e-mail them to Mel as well.

You can use the address over yonder

<------------------------------------

or Write to Melbotis

Monday, June 21, 2004

most important .mov file ever...

I'm in negotiations with the wife to attend next year.

To dream the impossible dream.
The 2004 Mellies are stirring up no small amount of controversy. In order to clear up some of the questions/issues/whatever... The League offers the following:

1) The 2004 Mellies are not a contest anyone can win. We're looking for nominations, but unless you are, say, the most loathsome celebrity, you're not winning anything. We're just looking for nominations so everyone can vote.

2) It's not that NOBODY sent in any nominations thus far. It's that nobody good sent in any nominations thus far. Except for Jill. We LOVE Jill here at The League.

3) Randy has decided to get in a huff over being singled out. He has taken his proverbial ball and gone to his proverbial home.

4) The last day to submit nominations was supposed to be the 30th, but I think I'll be bobbing on a lake in Minnesota, trying to catch some fish on the 30th, so it'll be sometime after all that.

5) If you live in Japan and feel culturally our of touch with US Pop Culture, feel free to submit whatever you like. We got no hard and fast rules here at The League.


In other news... sometime Saturday evening the end of my nose began to feel a bbit tender. On Sunday, it was reddish. Sunday night it was really getting reddish.

During the course of the day on Sunday I tried Jamie's Biore strips twice in order to try to unclog pores, etc...

Alas, this morning my nose was way worse than it was. I tried another Biore strip, which appeared to just take a layer of skin off my nose. It being a workday, I've soldiered on. Within two minutes of arriving, my co-worker Tom announced, "Hey, you look like... Yeah! You look like Roger Rabbit!"

It is not going to be a high self-esteem kind of day.

Sunday, June 20, 2004

It doesn't look like the Squawkbox is working. Sorry, team. No idea what's going on there. In fact, squawkbox.tv didn't look like it was working, either, so who knows.

anyway, hope everyone had a good weekend. I noticed NOBODY has entered a nomination to the 2004 Mellies. You're all ungrateful bastards.