Right now Mars is closer to earth than it has been in 60,000 years. Pretty cool stuff, but I'm a little disappointed that we're not being invaded by three-eyed monsters.

BBC has some photos posted.

And here is a picture of my favorite Martian: J'onn J'onzz, Martian Manhunter of the JLA

Jamie was confused by my post about Batman saying "damn." I was in 2nd grade, she tells me, in 82-83. Haude Elementary, Spring, TX. (Haude sounds like "Howdy." I believe it is German.) All I remember is my 3rd grade teacher was trying to get us to read and she brought in comics for pleasure reading and I knew already from my traumatic prior experience that those comics had dirty words. I believe, safety nazi that I was, that I told the teacher about the bad words and all DC comics were removed from the class. Cursing was strictly forbidden in the Steans house at this time. Then, in 1986-87, my mom said "shit," and it's been downhill ever since.

Apparently this occured here in the Valley of the Sun.

Jim sent me two fantastic articles regarding the state of comics.

The only thing I would argue in the NY Times article is this excerpt: "The Sopranos" take on the world has spilled into comic books.

I guess the idea is that comics are reflective of a harsher trend in mass media. But this isn't news, kids. Comics got gritty in the 70's with the rise of stars like Neal Adams, etc... and guys like Moore and Miller cemented the necessity of "real" consequences in comics. It's a slow evolution, but it's safe to say that most comics are not aimed at children anymore, nor has it been so for a while. As a note, all that profanity, etc... has been in comics since I was in 2nd grade (1981?), at least. I remember picking up a Batman comic and being horrified to see Batman say "damn!" This wasn't something I thought I would be allowed to read, so I sought the safety of Marvel and it's bizarre use of colloquialisms native to the Marvel Universe. EVERYBODY in Marvel comics said "blazes" instead of "hell." As in "What in blazes?" or "Go to blazes!"

Superhero comics are struggling with maturity and keeping a balance of being escapism and fun. But they are also attuning themselves to an audience which skews ever older. Most comicstry to succeed as readable fiction for at LEAST teenagers, but many do not succeed to really work as readable fiction. I refuse to name names... everyone has their opinion. The problem is: writers, editors and artists do not always seem to have fundamental grasp of adulthood themselves. At other times, when genuinely adult relationships occur in comics, many readers do not know how to react. Sex must be tawdry, violence must have no consequences, and the very real presence of sex, religion and politics is usually treated with the delicacy of a blunt instrument.

Jim also included articles on the late, great Jack "King" Kirby. I say nice things from time to time about Kirby, but I rarely say too much as it can be difficult to understand Kirby's relevance on pop culture. But I think this article does a fine job of explaining it.

BIZZZEEEE

Work is kooky. We just started a new semester at the University, and I have been trying to get many a class up and online. I am not what I would consider to be a detail oriented guy. I like broad strokes when being told technical issues and whatnot. Any explanation longer than a minute, and I'm pretty much zoning out thinking about Superman. So all the issues that keep coming up are not entirely a surprise, because I heard OF the problem before. Now it's time to fix the problems. Luckily, I have assembled an amazing staff, and all I have to do is know of a problem, and usually it's 70% fixed before I even hear about it. I love these guys.

I am probably a software engineers' worst nightmare of a manager. I don't know anything about the specifics, and I could really give a damn. I just want to hear what the problem is, how it will affect faculty and students, and how long it will take to fix. If there is money involved, I like to know that, too. But, as I said... broad strokes. Luckily, all the tech guys around campus are aware that I am incompetent and know to call my staff instead of me. Life is sweet.

I also am taking a single grad class this fall. I am very skeptical of the course, instructor, and, indeed, the entire department, but it has relevancy to my job. We'll see how it goes.

Hey, kids!

As described previously herein, I recently made a mistake regarding Superman, the Arizona Department of Transportation and general good taste. The lesson, kids, is just because something seems funny at first, doesn't mean it's going to be funny later. And this, Leaguers, is why vanity plates and tattoos should be avoided. Both are permanent, and both may look a little stupid in the cold light of day.


what's Jamie standing next to?


the plate of shame itself


The World's Finest look over the Forester from the Garage of Solitude.

BLASPHEMY!!!!!

Thanks for the link, Randy! No one will enjoy this more than my own Hobbit lovin' wife.

I likeses the Hobbits, but Jamie loveses the Hobbits. It gives me license to give her noogies and call her "nerd."

I work at a fairly major University and the Fall semester begins on Monday. I am going insane. I apologize for there not being much here yesterday or today.

The Arizona gas crisis is already pretty much ending. No lines last night on the way home, though the price of gas has spiked to $2.15 or so (it was at $1.80+ last week). Not bad, all things considered. All in all, the fuel crisis was pretty much sound and fury, but it's going to leave me thinking for awhile about the power held at all ends of the petroleum industry.

I asked Jamie to go see "Freddy Vs. Jason" this weekend and she thought I was kidding. I think my chances of getting to see it are pretty slim.

Yesterday I received the much ballyhooed "vanity" license plate which I described about a month and half ago. I hope to update with pictures soon. I'm both embarassed for myself and totally ecstatic at how goofy it is to have plate reading "Krypto" on a grown man's car.

From the outside, it does not appear that people are taking the Phoenix fuel shortage terribly seriously. They should be. Seeing a key ingredient to the American lifestyle suddenly dry up is really, really spooky. You don't think of the all pervasive way into which cheap, accessible fuel is seamlessly integrated into the fabric of everyday American life

It's not that gas ISN'T available, because it is, in very small quantities. The small quantities provide a sense of unease instead of the throw-your-arms-in-despair sort of thing that would probably make people actually behave. There are lines for gas. Lines for freaking gas! I don't remember the shortages of the 70's , and I wasn't around during gas rationing in WWII, so the context of a very wealthy city, suddenly choked of it's fuel supply, is a little strange. But it's not a crisis, and it hasn't been painted in the stars and stripes yet, forcing folks to do their best to work with the situation.

In order to avoid the lines, I filled up last Friday. But the lines are still there, and by sometime on Friday or Saturday, I will need to fill up again. I can't wait until the light comes on, because I might run out of gas looking for a gas station which actually has gas. I can't run any errands because that would burn gas, and I can't even go out to eat, because then we'd be burning gas.

People talk about it in the halls at my office. THey've been getting up at 4:00am to find gas stations without lines and hot tempers.

But we all live too far apart to car pool, and we some of us live in neighborhoods which make it impossible to actually just walk to get to the store. There are no buses where I live. No alternative means of transportation.

And this is just from a minor burp in the usual supply.

This isn't a nice blackout in New York where everyone quits working and everybody stays home and finishes the tub of ice cream before it melts. You can go get ice cream, if you want to burn gas to get it, but be careful with that gauge, because you can't skip work or be late to work because of gas issues. Nothing has slowed down or really been checked by the gas situation. In fact, people are following gas trucks around town to see where they're going to deliver their tank loads.

An air of paranoia is becoming prevalent.

The ten second spot Phoenix is getting on headline News doesn't begin to do the situation justice, because it is not just long lines at the pumps. Everyday life has a cloud hanging over it uncertainty. There's an uncertainty of freedom, of a threat of immobility, and nobody really knows when the damn thing is going to be over.

I've heard anecdotal evidence of flared tempers, but it's a matter of time before something genuinely bad happens. Before a car stalls on the freeway and causes a disaster, before fights break out at a gas station, before something goes wrong with one of hundreds of fuel trucks working overtime to fill the pumps...

It's a spooky situation. In order to avoid burning extra gas sitting in traffic, every day this week I've left after 6:00pm. And they say they don't know when things will get better.

I've got half a tank left, maybe a little more.

Some things just seem so fantastically absoludicrous, it just seems like there's just no way you'd forget them. But yesterday when I got home from work, there was a commericial on TV for a DVD which collects nothing but nude scenes from standard Hollywood movies. I was immediately thrilled and excited, because for $19.99, you got both this DVD AND a DVD of sex scenes from regular Hollywood movies. These videos star your favorite actresses in the early days of their careers in scenes which just didn't seem that odd back in the 80's (you don't see that much nudity anymore in R movies. It used to be required.), and drifts into some stuff right up to Demi Moore's StripTease. How the creators got the rights to the footage, I will never know. I do know that they will probably get a decent return on their investment.

But by the time I woke up today, all I could remember was that I had been hopping up and down like a monkey and telling my beautiful wife Jamie that I had a blog topic for today. I couldn't remember the topic (only that it was sordid), and that it was a surprise to see it on TV. I had to e-mail Jamie and ask her what I had been so giddy about. She responded with no small amount of disappointment. I expet the annullment papers any day now.

Anyhoo, I'm trying to figure out why this was blocked from my memory, and why I can't remember the URL for the videos to save my life. Normally this is the kind of stuff that finds it's way into my brain and latches on for eternity. But I have a multi-part theory.

I've had to reduce my Purine intake in order to prevent further outbreaks of the Gout. Purine causes uric acid, which my kidneys aren't keeping up with, and then you get uric acid crystals which deposit in your joints and cause pain. Okay. So I need to reduce purines, which means I've had to change my diet. So, for a week, I've become a vegetarian. It will be a longlasting effect of my ailment and will prevent me form eventually getting kidney stones. It's okay. I am starting to hate eating, which is good, because I am fat. But, last night when the ad came on, I was making dinner, and last night's dinner for me was an Organic vegetarian pizza. I think I was, for once, so distracted by what I did not want to eat for dinner, that I failed to fully internalize the most awesomest commercial ever. The pizza was awful, discarded, and substituted with a Boca Pizza. The memory of the commerical was placed in my temp files instead of my RAM.

Sigh.

If anyone has the URL for these videos, please let me know so I can post it.

I have attached to Laura Maxwell's site. She is a little person I knew in high school who went to UT, where I never saw her (no matter how hard I peered between her shutters). She is a very talented person, they tell me, and so I want all of you to give a big League of Melbotis welcome to the little girl from Spring, Texas who is currently in New York. Where she fights crime. With Spider-Man. And Daredevil.

Most of you won't find this terribly funny, but I haven't checked my voicemail at work in 2 months. I just don't believe in voicemail in an era of e-mail. I mean, I know people are probably leaving me crucial messages all the time, but I think if the messages are really crucial, they should be clear enough that one can put feelings into words and send out a short e-mail to me.

Anyway, finally checked my voicemail and I had only 6 messages dating back about a week. Well, that let's me know that my system is working. Voicemail is magically dumping all my old messages which would have just sat there taking up digital space, and I am certain these folks have all e-mailed me by now if there was an emergency.

Okay, we passed 2012 hits with nary a pervert looking for Ann Coulter naked.

Someone hit the site looking for these two things jointly: "Iraqi freedom" and "foot problems"

it just goes to show you that from the macrocosmic to the microcosmic, The League of Melbotis is here to serve you.

I t was raining during the day here! You have no idea how crazy that is. It just doesn't happen.

Let me just wrap up the day by saying this: My new medication makes me feel funny, and not funny in a good way. We will be very careful with the whens and hows of this medication, because it makes work very difficult.

Also, in the next 24 hours I will pass 2000 hits on this site. To this, I can only say, thak you, Ann Coulter. Without people's insane desire to see your fascist ass naked, I never would have gotten here without you. You have become a media darling, and that means you have also become a depraved dominatrix sexual fantasy to so many of your loyal fans.

And, in the spirit of raising my hits, I can only say, "Ann Coulter Nude." Go, Google, go!!!!

First off, I'm not entirely certain what is going on with the Phoenix fuel shortage debacle I mentioned earlier. I drove past at least one roped off gas station this morning and two stations which had lines a block long. Obviously things are getting a little goofier than I expected. One also wonders what things are going to look like if we ever have an honest to God shortage. If this is any indication, it's going to be ugly, ugly Mad Max type stuff.

I am very angry with the pharmacist I spoke with last Tuesday who told me one of the meds I was prescribed was a painkiller. It is not. I would probably be totally fine if I had continued to take the med, but as I was told it was a painkiller, I quit taking it. I have to start all over again. That said, I am on the road to recovery and have to go back to the doctor in two weeks for a check up and stuff.

THanks to the gout, I am now on a semi-vegetarian diet and I think it's finally getting to me. I really haven't felt well all day. Bleah. It's difficult to focus on tasks at hand and I generally feel run down. Must find protein. Must find... protein... more brains.....

People like to freak out. Apparently an 8 inch gas line between El Paso and Tucson blew up about a week ago, so, end of last week gas started disappearing from local gas stations here in the greater Phoenix area. It's not that there is no gas, it's that there's less gas. This translates to higher gas prices and several pumps being out. So, I am to to understand that folks are making like the late 70's and lining up around the block for gas.

This is not really necessary as many gas stations do have gas at MOST of their pumps (I wouldn't say all), but with the recent spike in prices, a $0.03 cost difference has suddenly made all the difference. These are the gas stations getting the lines. People are going to be going Thunderdome by week's end if the situation isn't resolved. I'm not saying that people shouldn't be concerned, but a little restraint might be called for. Especially with as many Hummers and Suburbans as you see on Valley roads, suddenly gas doesn't seem like the endless resource it was.

I feel lucky that I happened to fill up Friday afternoon and haven't really driven since. Frankly, I kind of hope I run out of gas when I roll into my driveway so I have an excuse not to drive to work. I do wish the Subaru got better mileage per gallon, but not much I can do but limit driving until this goofiness has passed.

To take you into the weekend, I submit this site which details many, many truths I wish had been bestowed upon me upon entering Film School.

Film School was the best and most fun way i could have spent my parents' money for four years. For whatever reason, those silly people had faith in me not to wind up in a button down job. Unfortunately, I was 22 before I realized self-confidence and a knowledge of film may actually keep you from working in Hollywood. Anyway, it's a freaking ridiculous industry. If you don't believe me, tell me why the Olsen Twins are billionaires and Vin Diesel is marketable and why American Splendor plays nowhere and "Grind" is playing everywhere in Phoenix.

Anyhow, that's it for me, America. Have a good weekend and keep your hands to yourself.

And because I've been a might busy and may have left you kids hanging, Just remember: Knowing is Half the Battle.