Thursday, January 12, 2006

Ughh... I already know I will probably nerd-out over this show.

I was such a sucker for the first two Blade movies (although the 3rd one wasn't my favorite). I'm not even one of these guys who likes to dress in all black and thinks vampires are super cool. I just liked the Blade movies a heck of a lot. Well, again, maybe not the third one.

Blade TV series.


...had Steanso been bit by a radioactive spider...

Tuesday, January 10, 2006

Suns lose to Nuggets in triple overtime at Denver.

139-137.

Carmelo Anthony scored 43 points, I think. That guy can play, even after taking a boot to the head.

It's hard to be pissed about a loss when your team scores 137 points.
Sometimes real-life imitates comics

Such was the fate of Captain Jackson of Jackson, Michigan.

Read the article here.

I'm curious how much of the story was crafted to sound like a comic-read, and how much of it just naturally evolved in the research for the article. The whole thing sounds like a Daniel Clowes written superhero story.

But there's something so post-Watchmen about the whole thing, so very, very revealing about people through the events of the whole incident.

And do these not sound like a few panels from DKR?

Some locals said they were relieved to know Captain Jackson's true identity. Laurie Searing, 45, paused from her downtown shopping this week to question Captain Jackson's authority.
"I would like to be his nemesis," she said. "His clothes should be more loose-fitting. He's a self-appointed superhero. I don't think you should do that."


His nemesis? Although badly dressed, Cap was raising money for charities. He was helping grannies across the street. But his pants were too tight?

As odd a fixture as The League believes Captain Jackson might have been on the streets of Jackson, MI, The League is fairly sure there were worse things Captain Jackson could have been doing than trying to inspire people with acts of kindness and generosity.

We all talk a good game, but when it comes down to it, it drives us crazy to see someone actually try to do something unusual, even if its helping out others.

Of interest perhaps only to The League, this all has a familiar ring to it. Dark Knight Returns? Watchmen? JSA? Captain Carrot and his Zoo Crew? All contained heroes being disgraced and forced into retirement, usually because the heroes were eventually revealed to actually be human.

We at The League of Melbotis can can only sit idly by. Life imitates comics.

Also, it should be noted that Michigan is now down a superhero.

Ahem. Jill. Ahem.

Look, all I'm saying is "Captain Kalamazoo" has a certain ring to it.

See Captain Jackson's own website here.

Story originally found at The Beat.

For movies about folks who decide to become unlikely superheroes, see

George Washington

Blankman

Condorman

Mystery Men
No post tonight.

Here's a link to Nanostalgia.com, The League's joint-venture with Jim D., RHPT, Steanso and a host of other media-minded morons.

Also, what will surely be a future "Toys That Should Not Be", I have a special announcement that Denise will appreciate.

Someone is going to make Gwar action figures.

That's going to be a fun item for under the Christmas tree.

Monday, January 09, 2006

Vince Young opts out of public university education, decides to be rich

This should come as a surprise to approximately no one. Vince Young has announced his intention to submit his name for the NFL draft. Following in a long line of successful UT dropouts, including Michael Dell, Robert Rodriguez and Walter Cronkite, UT Football's own Vincent Young has decided to forego his senior year at The University of Texas at Austin to make some serious bank.

Read more about all of this here.

Speculation is running wild as to which team will grab Young and in what round. Of course, these guys are as reliable as a Central Texas seven day weather forecast, and most recently spent a week predicting USC would stomp UT at the Rose Bowl.

I'm open for speculation as long as everyone adds the caveat that they are pretty much making stuff up and have no idea what will happen in the several months before the draft.

Congrats to Vince. Those maroons didn't give you the Heisman, but you beat two Heisman winners, didn't you? There's gotta be a trophy for that, too.

Oh, yeah. It looks like this.

Sunday, January 08, 2006

SUNS BEAT SPURS (and The League was there!!!)

Last night The League abandoned League HQ to travel to the recently renamed "US Airways Center". The contest: Your Phoenix Suns v. The Mighty San Antonio Spurs.

Tickets were provided courtesy Judy and Dick McBride via Santa.

Look, I love the Spurs. I started watching them in earnest around 1996 or so after abandoing the post-Championship Houston Rockets. I used to enjoy pretty much everybody but Vinnie Del Negro. I was a fan of David Robinson and Avery Johnson, and with the rest of the rotating cast they were a fun team to watch. And then, all of a sudden, they started winning Championship games.

Jamie and I moved out here to the Valley of the Sun, and initially I wouldn't watch The Suns. I was always scrambling up and down the dial for Spurs and Rockets games, but despite the popularity of the Spurs, they just didn't show many Spurs games out here. I watched a few Suns games, but wasn't too engaged. However, I'd really gotten to miss watching basketball in the evening as had become my habit in Austin once they launched Fox Sports Southwest.

I wasn't a Mavs fan. I can't stand Dirk Nowitzki (whiny prima donna) but I liked Nash, so once The Suns got Nash, I tuned in. Now that's a committment as every single game played is shown on one channel or another out here. SOme games, like the game on Friday night, was shown on two channels.

This season has been weird as only Nash and the highly underrated Shawn Marion are left in this season's line-up (Stoudemire is returning from surgery in February). But Mike D'Antoni is a heck of a coach, and he took a bunch of second and third stringers from other teams this year and has made them #1 in the Pacific Division.

Anyway, when you have tickets to see the Suns v. Spurs, it's hard to go wrong.

We stopped off at Majerle's before the game, then headed over to US Airways Center a little early. I wanted to go see the Paseo where they do the local pre, mid and post-game broadacasts, as well as the new "Jungle", which is sort of a mini Chuck E. Cheese's for kids up on the second level.

I'm not sure if it's because they're the current reigning champs, or some sort of Southwestern solidarity, but there were a heck of a lot of Spurs fans in attendance. Including the couple sitting next to us. Who weren't very friendly and didn't take kindly to a snip I took at Fabricio Oberto (who shares a name with a delicious brand of beef jerky).

Anyhoo, it was good and bad. We had to be on our best behavior with so many in Spurs fans in attendance, and as I'm a Spurs fan, too, I wasn't as inclined to spend the game on my feet screaming obscenities at the opposing team. Early on, Spurs looked like they were coming out strong against the Suns, but the Suns quickly caught up, and the Spurs never took the lead again despite a 4th quarter surge.

Manu Ginobili is a great player, but he's very frustrating to watch play live. I don't think the Suns have really forgiven him for falling over on Leandro Barbosa and effectively taking him out for the season with a knee injury. Everytime he hit the court, he was boo'd by Suns fans. Not that it really seemed to distract him. Once you decide a guy is a shady player, you start to notice a lot of little things he does that are kind of, goofy. Apparently the refs noticed it too, and by the 4th quarter the refs quit calling fouls on anyone around Manu. Which, of course, drove him insane. Anyway, Pop took him out and it wasn't an issue.

It wasn't a great game for either team. Both teams were playing beyond what I would describe as "competitively", and seemed kind of like they were out to beat each other up a little as much as score points. Except for Duncan. Duncan was just being Duncan.

We had a great time, and I walked out with an official Phoenix Suns Gorilla (that's our mascot. A gorilla. I have no idea why.) Jamie got a nice cap.

Will the Suns make the play-offs? Absolutely. Once Grant, Barbosa and Stoudemire come back, we're going to be better than #1 in our division. We're going to be fighting for a top slot in our conference.

But the Spurs are going to be the team to beat as long as they retain their current line-up.

Oh, and the half-time entertainment was hip-hop violist Miri Ben-Ari. That was really odd, but still a lot of fun. Much more so than the "Showstoppers Live!" Casino Entertainment we saw last year.

Friday, January 06, 2006

Rosebowl Cont'd...


How can we cheer up the USC Trojans after their miserable defeat at the hands of the Mighty Longhorns of the University of Texas?

With SONG AND DANCE.

Thanks to RHPT for the link.

Also, from Reed-o...

Up is down, black is white...

Thursday, January 05, 2006

COMIC NERDS, AHOY!!!!

So, you may say to yourself: How does The League spend a week off from work?

Leaguers, the answer isn't pretty, but it is simple.

The League spent last week inventorying our vast and growing comic collection.

The reason for this are two-fold:

a) We can have a record for insurance purposes
b) We can also use the nifty database at ComicPriceGuide.com to SELL our comics.

Now, the key word here is, of course, SELL. The League swore once upon a star that we would never, ever sell our comics. And then one day, not so very long ago, The League sat back, took a breath and realized that the closet we use to store our comics is full. Now, when we put comics in their neat little nylon baggies with the acid free backing board, we get a good look at what's there. But we also only do this about once every 5-7 months. This means twice a year we get a harsh reminder that we have a lot of comics we really don't think we need anymore.

The Inventory:

Now here's the deal. I'm not done. I haven't yet got everything in the database, and I haven't got 95% of my trade collections in there.

I figure I'm 90-95% done with the actual comic books, at least knowing what I have, but I need to re-org some stuff. Why is Ultimates in with some fo my indie stuff? I don't know. I put it there a few years ago and it never moved.

Here's the numbers

long boxes: 14
short boxes: 9
long boxes, empty and waiting to be filled: 1
Uncanny X-Men: 172 issues (roughly 14 years worth)
Batman: 118 issues
JLA: 111 issues
Detective Comics: 109 issues
Action Comics: 82 issues
JSA: 80 issues
DC Comics: 3356
Marvel Comics: 1056
Total Number of comics: 4723


EVERYTHING MUST GO

The game plan now is three fold:

a) sell a lot of comics to my store so I can get "store credit". This would essentially enable me to trade old comics for new comics. Now, I've been told that with the volume of comics I'm talking about trading, these guys will probably only want to allow me to use credit on 1/2 of each purchase, but I figure that ain't all bad. They're still running a business, and I'm still trying milk that store credit as far as it will go.

b) What they don't want (I gave my store manager a spreadsheet of Marvel stuff I'm unloading. ComicPriceGuide.com exports to Excel, handily enough) I will try to sell on ComicPriceGuide.com

c) I will also talk to my insurance agent about adding my comic collection to my home insurance. If our house goes up in flames, I'm gonna be out a lot of comics/ a lot of money.

The nice aspect of all of this is that I can move into a bit more of a cyclical pattern with comics. I can still get new comics, but I can off-set the cost of the new stuff by unloading old stuff. Honestly, the way they collect everything into trades these days, I'd just as soon have the collections as the floppy comics. If I can get money enough from selling the comics to buy the collection, groovy.

Anyway, I'm getting rid of my Amazing Spider-Man stuff, I think. That feels like a major, major step. I really need to find that stuff in collections soon if I'm going to unload it. I've apparently got some odd, key issues that are worth a lot of dough to someone else. I just want the dough.

Some final thoughts on all this

The whole thing has a really strange feeling to it. I've had some of these comics since I was in middle or even elementary school. But I also know I only look at them when I open the boxes. There's no real good reason to hang onto them.

Comics pop out at me as being from certain phases in my life. Invisibles? Shade? First years of undergrad. My issues of X-men around 210? Early middle-school. JLA? End of undergrad. Spider-Man: Death of Kraven? Roadtrip across the U.S. when I was 11 or so.

One other funny thing I noticed... I'm a quitter. I would pick up a series, read it for a while, miss a single issues, buy another two issues, miss an issue, buy one more, and then quit reading the series. I see a rough pattern like this with a LOT of comics. I try to remember why I quit reading the series, and only some series can I remember making the conscious decision that I was DONE with that series (I can't even recall quitting reading Uncanny X-Men, but I did quit several year ago).

Anyhoo, that's what I've been up to.

Wednesday, January 04, 2006



UT WINS THE ROSE BOWL!!!!!

Shit. We just won the @#$%ing Rose Bowl. I can't @#$%ing believe it.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Eyes of Texas are upon you,
All the live long day.
The Eyes of Texas are upon you,
You can not get away.
Do not think you can escape them
At night or early in the morn-
The Eyes of Texas are upon you
'Till Gabriel blows his horn.


Wow. I will never, ever forget this one.

Oh, and one more time!

Texas Fight, Texas Fight, And it's goodbye to A&M.
Texas Fight, Texas Fight, And we'll put over one more win.
Texas Fight, Texas Fight, For it's Texas that we love best.
Hail, Hail, The gang's all here, And it's good-bye to all the rest!

Yea Orange! Yea White!
Yea Longhorns! Fight! Fight! Fight!
Texas Fight! Texas Fight, Yea Texas Fight!
Texas Fight! Texas Fight, Yea Texas Fight!

Screw you ESPN for spending all week talking like USC had this game in the bag. Wait, we're getting a Wheaties box! Heck, yeah!

Whoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Peabo.... Dan... I hate you bastards for having tickets and getting to be there.

Golly, what a game. I almost threw-up on that last drive.

Wuff.

GO HORNS!!!

Oh, and I am naming my first born child Vincent Young Steans. Yes, I am. Or maybe my dog.
You Are Pecan Pie Soda

Sweet, but totally nuts
Wow. After the coverage today... Wow.

***morning update****

My intitial inclination was just to remove my quick post from last night before bedtime.

Well, as we all know by now, it was NOT 12 miners who survived the mining accident in West Virginia. It was 1 miner of the 13 who survived.

I was, like everyone else, elated upon hearing that 12 of the miners had survived and were just awaiting evacuation.

There are a lot of dangerous jobs that we take for granted, people who crawl into holes miles into the planet to bring back the resources we need to make this planet run. When you work in an office with an elevator and the biggest problem in your day is that nobody started the coffee, it's hard to imagine that day-after-day, exactly these kinds of threats hang over so many people's heads. Each time these people head off to work, it's a risk, and you know these guys don't earn any CEO wages.

Anyway, The League's thoughts are in West Virginia this morning.

Tuesday, January 03, 2006

ROLLERGIRLS ROLLS AWAY WITH THE LEAGUE'S HEART

The League has a new favorite show. A&E's Rollergirls.

Remember when A&E was the channel that showed orchestras and Yo-Yo Ma talking about what sort of string he used? Yeah, I didn't watch that, either.

But I am going to watch Rollergirls.

Featuring a wide array of Austin slackers who have found their calling as the stars of Texas Roller Derby, the show follows the adventures of several women as they prepare for a week's match. (curiously, there's a completely different league under the name "Texas Rollergirls". Go figure.)

After suffering through "Real World: Austin" (aka Real World: two square blocks of downtown Austin) it was fun to see people actually walking around town near familiar landmarks and being the sort of 20 and 30-something slackers the town is crawling with (cough... STEANSO... cough).

One odd bit about Austin that you certainly don't find in Phoenix is that Austinites tend to find completely useless past-times in which they strive to overachieve. Be it the Spam toss at Spam-o-rama, or building a massive kite for kite fest or becoming champion of a disc golf league, folks in Austin tend to get easily distracted (The League was a black belt in TKD in Austin. Yeah, seriously.). This distraction may include forming two completely different all-girl roller derby leagues.

In Phoenix you pretty much play golf and put TV's in your SUV.




Anyhoo, I'm in for the next few episodes. I used to watch Rollerderby on cable in the 90's, so it's fun to see both the games and the goings-on behind the scenes.

You know, once again, this post seems most appropriate for Nanostalgia.com. Ah, well. Too late.

Monday, January 02, 2006

Retrocrush.com presents the 100 Most Annoying Things of 2005

The League is deeply jealous of Retrocrush's list.
Sitting through these movies must be torture...

Maybe this should be on Nanostalgia.com, but what's up with all the torture going on in movies, TV, etc... ?

Maybe I've seen too many commercials for films like Saw, Hostel and Wolf Creek lately, but the latest trend isn't crazy, unstoppable killing machines (Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger), serial killers (Hannibal Lecter, etc...), or even slightly sympanthetic killers (Norman Bates).

The latest trend, as near as I can tell, is for folks to end up getting tortured for 90-120 minutes.

After watching years of Fear Factor (now, apparently, in syndication) , Dog Eat Dog and Ally McBeal, maybe we're all used to torturing ourselves with movies and TV.

I dunno. I guess that's what the kids like these days, and maybe it's not too far of a cry from House on Haunted Hill or some of those other Price movies.

Opinions?
The League shouts "Bulls$%^!!!!" a great number of times.

Congratulations to the referees in tonight's Suns/ Knicks game. They really won that game for the Knicks.

I've only rarely seen such one-sided game calling. 3 Suns players were fouled out before the first of three OT's and 1 more fouled out in, I believe, the second OT (but that was Burke, so I'm not really sure how much of a conspiracy that one was).

Apparently, when in NY, putting your hands up when someone else shoots constitutes a foul. Also, there is no such thing as an offensive foul in NYC. Ever.

41 fouls on The Suns, 27 on the Knicks?

That was truly awful, awful reffing. The Knicks didn't deserve that win.

Sunday, January 01, 2006

2006: a Year in Review

I've only been awake for about thirty minutes, but I think we've had enough of 2006 to make some calls on how this year went.

Movie of the year: the few seconds of Narnia they showed in a clip on Headline News.

Song of the Year: Polyphonic Spree's "It's the Sun". For some reason that's what was in my head when I woke up.

Meal of the Year: "Muffin Tops Cereal"by Malt o' Meal and a cup of official Ruta Maya coffee sent by cousin Susan from Austin.

Cat of the Year: Jeff

Saturday, December 31, 2005

HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYBUDDY!!!

Wow, did 2005 suck. Hurricanes. Tsunami after-effects. Political scandal. War. No Hot Tamales at the Gilbert WTC. Multiple hospital stays for Jamie. Cancellation of Arrested Development.

Yeah, you know what... @#$% you, 2005.

Anyway, Happy New Year, Loyal Leaguers.

And now...

The League of Melbotis 2005 Person of the Year

We name this person Person of the Year with some trepidation as we recently learned that Jim D's own mother reads this site from time to time. Mrs. D, I gotta ask that you forgive me for this one, but it was already in the works.

Without further ado, The League of Melbotis presents our first Person of the Year.

Congratulations, Grandmaster Tu Jin-Sheng. You are 2005's selection for Person of the Year.

Grandmaster Tu Jin-Sheng, well... I feel really awkward with Mrs. D reading this, but... you know... Anyway, he pulled a truck across a parking lot using his penis as an anchor.

That makes him not just Person of the Year, but, in fact, MAN of the year.

Article 1 on the amazing feat.

Article 2.

Article 3.


Master Tu

Here is Tu Jin-Sheng's own website, ironcrotch.com

Special thanks to Loyal Leaguer Dan Peters for informing me of this amazing feat.

Friday, December 30, 2005

2005 Year End Awards: Part II
Continuing the previous entry on this free-form topic...


TV Shows I watched regularly in 2005:
The Daily Show
Colbert Report
Headline News (oh, Linda Stouffer, you dreamy eyed babe of the half-hour news..! )
Arrested Development
Family Guy
The Soup
Monster House
Justice League Unlimited
The Office (US Edition)
the aforementioned Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, which I'm not sure I care for
and
Suns Basketball


TV Shows of Note that I caught Only Occasionally:
Wonder Showzen
American Experience
City Confidential
My Name is Earl
Smallville
Comedians of Comedy
Boondocks


TV Shows I still will not watch for no other reason than because people keep telling me to watch them:
The Apprentice (both Donald and Martha)
West Wing
Battlestar Galactica
Entourage
Boston Legal
Sopranos (in fact, anything on HBO...)
Commander in Chief

Special Mention: Lost. I do watch Lost, but it's because I love my wife dearly and she asks me to sit with her each week to watch the show.


Movie I've watched more times on cable this year than I really want to admit:
Napolean Dynamite

Movies I meant to see, but I didn't, so I hope they come to cable:
Good Night and Good Luck
Syriana
Jesus is Magic
MirrorMask
Munich
The Producers
A History of Violence (funny story, that...)
2046

Movies I saw which I thought were okay, but not great:
March of the Penguins (do none of you people watch Discovery Channel? Actually, Discovery would have inserted some science in there somewhere, not just wide-eyed wonder)
Madagascar (what was the moral? Try not to eat your friends? Thanks.)
The Constant Gardner. It wasn't bad, it was just so relentlessly depressing, I wasn't really sure why I was sitting there after the first hour.

Movie I followed until literally the last scene:

Memoirs of a Geisha. I had to ask Jamie, who'd read the book, what just happened there in the last scene before the credits rolled.

Times I had to tell someone to shut up in a movie this year:

At least twice. Star Wars I had to tell someone to hang up their phone during the Kenobi/ Anakin duel. King Kong, where I walked all the way across the theater to ask some kids to shut up. It seems like it happened another time, but it's not coming to me.


Album Cover of the Year:
Kanye West: Late Registration


I've heard only part of one song off of this album, but I know one thing: George Bush doesn't care about teddy bears


Comic Cover of the Year:

All-Star Superman #1


Recommended Collection of 2005 (non-continuity/ affordable):

DC: The New Frontier Vol. 1 and Vol. 2


Recommended Collection of 2005 (non-continuity/ not-affordable)

Watchmen Absolute Edition (actually, the price I found here at Amazon is pretty darn good)


Recommended Series/ Collections of 2005 (continuity/ affordable)

Well, probably Infinite Crisis, but a special nod to Adventures of Superman by Greg Rucka. Includes collections Unconventional Warfare, That Healing Touch, and issues 640-648

Recommended Collection of 2005 (continuity/ not as affordable)

Identity Crisis

Absolutely heart-breaking. The controversy surrounding the scenes in issue #2 in a monthly format did this series a disservice that should have been foreseen and avoided. We can save the debate of that choice for later.

As a single read, the series works significantly better, and has the feel of a book rather than episodic, issue driven plot points. Definitely worth a review. And definitely not the comfort food provided by so many DC comics.

Well, that's it for Part II. I'm pooped. If anyone has any suggestions for additional categories, let me know and we may see a part III.

Wednesday, December 28, 2005

"Time to make the donuts" guy has merged with the great donut shop in the sky. May Michael Vale get to sleep as late as he likes for all eternity.