Well, I am tired. And I don't feel particularly great. Sure, I partially blame that on eating curry when I haven't had curry in a few months, but my internal clock, digestive track and sense of time and space is all pretty out of whack.

At least the jabbing feeling behind my left eye went away with some Tylenol.

We moved our stuff out of the house in AZ on Wednesday. One of the movers broke the nozzle seal on the hot water for the clothes washer, so we ended up turning off all the water to the house and then cleaning. We finished with the plumber at 8:30 PM and left our house for the final time.

KareBear arrived Thursday. We ran a few errands and then spent a nice hour by the pool, ate dinner and then got some shut eye.

We left Friday around 1:30 after picking up Doug from the airport and the pets from PetsHotel. Before even leaving PetsHotel we got a phone call from our realtor telling us that when they moved our refrigerator, they didn't properly close off the water to the fridge. This meant that when we turned the water main back on, water slowly dripped out of the wall and seeped into the carpet in the next room rather than pool in the kitchen. This, Leaguers, is why you hire the companies listed as "bonded and insured".

We drove out of town, passing through Tucson and Tombstone, and wound up staying in El Paso for the night. By this point Lucy was going berserk in the back seat, and I didn't really blame her.

We got up at 7:00 and walked the dogs, trying to convince them to go patty. By 8:00 we were in the car. There's honestly not a lot between El Paso and Junction, Texas. So KareBear and I mostly chatted and drove, occasionally yelling at the dogs to lay down. We had to stop about every three hours for gas, to let the dogs out and stretch our legs.

Last night we rolled in around 6:30. Steanso is, of course, partaking in ACL Fest and is, thusly, not around. That hasn't stopped us from setting up The Hop-a-Long Lounge as a center of operations.

Jamie dropped off Jeff the Cat at Matt Mangum's apartment, grabbed Matt, brought him back down to H-a-L Lounge. Literally just off the plane from Paris and then immediately on the road, The Admiral arrived shortly after we did. Cousin Sue appeared and we all went for dinner.

After dinner Jason showed up at 10:30, played me his new Doctor Octagon record and we chatted until fairly late as he came down from his day at ACL Fest.

This morning I had breakfast with JAL and CBG. I don't think all three of us have sat down together since the late 90's. It was fun. I really missed those guys.

Jamie and Doug came from the hotel and we all jumped in the car to see the new house. We couldn't get in today, but we're scheduled for a walk-through tomorrow.

So we're back. It's a new chapter, I suppose.

Despite the curry-related upset stomach and the stabbing pain behind my eye, I'm feeling good. I did some driving today while Jamie and Doug went to a movie, and I still know this town. It's like what they say about not seeing a good friend for years and when you run into each other, no time has passed.

But time has passed. They've torn old houses to build new ones in the neighborhood I used to live in just north of Hyde Park. It's new architecture. Fun architecture. I'm glad to see the neighborhood is a living, breathing, thing.

This morning at The Omlettery our granola waitress butted into our conversation to let us know Backstreet Boys was one of her favorite bands (yes, Backstreet Boys had come up).

This is why I missed you, Austin. I missed your trees and your ridiculous signs up and down Burnet. I missed the Frisco. I missed your hills and your twin devotions to live music and football. I missed the weather changing five times in 7 hours. I missed kids in shorts and cowboy boots and hats walking with their moms up to Central Market. I missed knowing that my loan officer was secretly an aspiring film-maker with a deep knowledge of kung-fu films and what makes Bruce Campbell just work, dammit. I missed knowing Thursday night is (was and always shall be) Mariachi night. I missed people lining up in the rain to show tribute to a one-term fire brand governor as she lays in state. I missed bats under bridges and overgrown oak trees. I missed getting right on 35 to get onto the ramp and knowing that turning onto 290 from Loop 1 is a left exit. I missed picking up the phone and asking a friend to watch my cat for a week and him saying to come by whenever and paying him back with an enchilada and a margarita. I missed rickety metal stairwells and wall-units. I missed an orange tower on Saturday nights and the hope of hundreds of thousands embodied in that edifice of an arena just off the freeway. I missed couples standing in the ice-cream aisle at 10:30 at night looking like they just rolled out of bed and knowing that they've looked like this all day. I missed your gentle hills and your white limestone faces where they cut you to make way for the roads. I missed a million, tiny little details that whisper to me and say "that was where you learned to drive," "That was where you learned to love learning," "That was where you kissed her for the first time," "that was where on that one Tuesday afternoon you cut out early and you and Justin tied one on because it was sunny out, but it was too early in the year to be hot," "That was where you jumped in the water and you thought your eyes would pop out," "that was where you decided you were coming back here to go to school", "that was where you figured out this was forever, and over there by the peacocks is where you made it official."

I missed you, Austin.

You change but you never do. For the third time you welcome me, and for the second time you treat me like we can pick up where we left off. Just put down your bag and grab a drink. And how's all that been going...?

I am glad I am home.

No limits.

No limits.

We made it. We're here.

It's raining. We will move into our house later this week, so in the meantime I'm at Steanso's Hopalong Lounge.

Uhhhh...

I guess we know how Marvel's Civil War event ends now.

Do not... I repeat, DO NOT... go to this link if you don't want to know how it ends. This isn't a joke. I accidentally stumbled on this today, and, uh... yeah.

Official League warning: You cannot unsee something. This is an image which gives a lot away.

Also, if you want to comment on the image, fine, but...

THE COMMENTS SECTION IS OPEN FOR DISCUSSION ABOUT THIS IMAGE. DO NOT GO TO THE COMMENTS SECTION UNLESS YOU WANT TO READ ABOUT THIS IMAGE.

here. But don't blame me.

Marvel needs to learn to be a spot more careful in how they release images. Of course, you know, this is probably a red herring (so Marvel can drop a FOOLED YOU! later). But, uh... yeah.

Schedule

Hi all... here's our current schedule.

Tuesday: Go sign house papers. Finish packing. Clean some.

Wednesday: Movers arrive around 8:00. Move stuff out. Check in to hotel. I think we're taking the pets to Petshotel on Wednesday.

Thursday: Pick up Mom. Sit in Phoenix. Stay at hotel.

Friday: Dialysis for Jamie. Go pick up Doug and pets. Leave Phoenix. Drive to El Paso.

Saturday: Drive to Austin. Try to find Matt Mangum. Go to Jason's house.

Sunday: Jason at ACL Fest. So, I dunno.

Monday: I think we're doing something house related.

Tuesday: I think we close on the house.

Wednesday: Movers arrive. Move in.

Thursday: Curse the poor job I did of marking boxes. Give up. Go to Taco Cabana and gorge on tortillas and queso.

Friday: The world is our oyster.

I assume that as of Wednesday we'll be on hiatus, internet permitting. I'll do what I can.

If you want to get ahold of me, feel free to e-mail me. If you want my cell number for any reason, e-mail me ASAP.

Thanks, ya'll.

Comics Comics Comics

Okay: here's the tally

18 long boxes and 10 short boxes.

Plus around 15 boxes of collections/ trade paperbacks/ graphic novels.

It is my sincere hope that Austin based Leaguers will feel free to check out certain volumes from the library at the House of El. What good are all those comics if I can't share them with you good people?

Now, all of that is going to take some organization and time, so bear with me.

Last week's comics were okay.

Some comics I liked:

Mystery in Space #1: Nice art. I love detailed sci-fi space faring comic art. I need to learn more about this Shane Davis guy. The name Jim Starlin should ring some bells as the writer.

52 Week 18: Dr. Fate. Ralph Dibny. Black Adam. The Question. Renee Montoya. Dead Booster. Live Clark Kent, reporter.
This little experiment is rapidly becoming one interesting title. But give me Steel. I was sold on the comic thanks to the promise of a lot of John Henry Irons.

All New Atom #3: Bang! Zap! Comics are for kids! Or maybe not.
Anyhoo, I'm three issues in to The All-New Atom, and it's still a fun comic with an affable hero. I understand that John Byrne won't be offering pencils anymore after this issue, but I think that the book is not so defined that someone else can't come in and have fun with it.

It's an odd thing to see some of Grant Morrison's ideas realized by Gail Simone. At least I have to assume that a Cancer God sounds like something Grant would have dreamed up, but Gail has spun the idea in a way which is probably a little more accessible.

Detective Comics 823: Pini manages to flesh out Poison Ivy in a way I haven't really seen since the animated cartoon. I don't think enough writers ever get past the cheesecake factor with Ivy, but Dini gives us a true villain. Joe benitez's artwork is well matched for the story, even if Robin was drawn four years younger than most artists are portraying him.


Anyway, that's that. I'm off to go seal up my long boxes with packing tape in preparation for the long haul.

Up, up and away.

5 Years On

Check the date.

I've already told my "where was I?" story. I leave it to you to dig through the archives. It's not a great one.

I'm not sure what else to say, but to point to the date and remind you that we all said we'd remember.

There have been a lot of documentaries since then. Some of them better than others. Some of them biased. Some of them based on some odd theories.

Two big-budget narrative films have been released (United 93 and World Trade Center).

We've had a flood and more or less lost a city and seen a region devastated.

We've got a war going in two countries and seem to be on the verge of drawing in a few more, depending on the day and the week.

I don't mind the secruity measures at the airport. But I seem to be the only person who has to look for a chair in order to put on his shoes after passing through security. How can that be?

The first responders and the people who cleaned up Ground Zero are developing chronic health problems.

I don't know what the point was supposed to be of this post.

We lost a lot of people on that day. And we've lost a lot more since then. We're probably going to lose more.

Juan was right.

We're now 5 years into the 21st Century.

Football on Sunday

Despite Peabo's warnings, I went ahead and checked out a few NFL games this Sunday.

As mentioned, I did not have time to read up on the NFL standings this year going into the season. I was a little more aware of what was happening with the Cardinals than in prior seasons, mostly due to the local fervor regarding the new stadium plus the addition of Leinart to the Card's line-up. And this may sound odd, but it was also the first home game I'd seen on TV. All prior games would take place in the open-air Sun Devil Stadium, which meant that you were asking joes like The League to shell out a minimum of $60 to go sit in the nosebleed seats and bake in the sun.

I like football and all, but, you know... No. The Cardinals are also one of the clever teams that erroneously believes that blacking out the game is a good way to sell seats. What the organization failed to understand was that nobody was interested in paying $200 to see a mediocre/bad team lose a game in 100+ degree heat. But we might sit through commercials which would generate revenue.

Anyway, The Cards have a stadium with a roof and HVAC system. It is sold out for the entire 2006 season. And the games are on the air. Everybody wins.

Including the Cards, who looked like a great team for 30 minutes. Not so much the second half, but the first half was stellar.

Looking at some scores around the NFL:

Philadelphia bests Houston 24 -10, proving that the good people of Houston may have been on to something when every single person in town suggested that they should dump their current QB and try for a new recruit in the draft, VY or otherwise. Plus, McNabb is back.

Seattle squeaks past Detroit 9-6, both teams looking pretty bad. And, man, this was a boring game. Seattle apparently forgot that they were ten times better than this last year.

A lot of commentators are going to have to retract early predictions regarding the Panthers this season if the 20-6 loss to the Falcons is any indication.

Frikkin' Jets. I really was hoping for something more from the Titans. Ah, well.

Dallas lost. I didn't see the game, so I have no idea what happened.

And, yeah, Tampa Bay lost. The NFL is taking a while to learn the lessons that any UT fan could have told them: This is Chris Simms, not Phil. Go find Major Applewhite to get someone who can finish a game for Chris.

Sweet mother of murgatroid, how I despise that interception throwing, clutch-choking hoser.

and....

Dear Mr. Favre,

How can I miss you if you won't go away?

Love,

The League

The other oddity of the NFL season: Getting used to the network shake-ups and commentators.

Where the @#$% is James Brown? How am I supposed to understand what Terry Bradshaw is saying if JB isn't there to decipher his hillbilly nonsense? I like Joe Buck. He's a top notch commentator. But Where is JB?

Oh, wait... wikipedia says:

He left Fox at the end of the 2005 NFL season to rejoin CBS Sports, and also to call NCAA basketball.

The NBC Sunday Night team was okay. I like the idea of bringing in everybody's favorite veteran/wacky neighbor with Jerome Bettis. Costas and Sharpe are great, but Collinsworth? Eh.

I guess I'll be curious to see what the Monday Night Football line-up is on ESPN.

Oh, and I confess that I was happy to see Bonnie Bernstein on the sidelines the other day at the Oklahoma game. I think she'll be at the Monday Night football game as well. Bonnie has been haunting the peripheray of the sports casting world for a long time (and haunting my dreams... Say, this just turned into a mini "DITHMTLOD"...) , never really becoming a Michelle Tafoya, while showing ten times the chops of, say, Melissa Stark.

That lady really knows how to nod earnestly while simultaneously holding up a microphone to a sweaty football player.

If you were around former League sister-site Nanostalgia.com a while back, you may have stumbled across a discussion about online comics that accidentally/ fortuitously drew in one of the foremost creatprs in the online comics, Lea Hernandez.

Well, a few days ago I read that Lea's house in the Central Texas area had been lost in a fire. In addition, she lost several pets. There is good news in that she, her two kids and her husband all made it out of the house (and I believe two cats survived as well). In addition to the loss of the pets, house and worldly possessions, Lea's artwork was also lost.

Anyway, as I've recently had luck with a house and relocating to Central Texas, I've been feeling lucky/ guilty about the story. I've been largely focused on League business (what with the move and all) and thusly I fell down on the job and didn't relate the story.

So, anyway, please read....

http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=83100

From the Gail Simone penned article:

Read what Lea had to post on a neighbor’s computer while wearing her pajamas at: Livejournal.com/users/divalea

Donate (PLEASE) to her paypal account at: divalea@gmail.com

Finally, if I understand the story correctly (as told to me by Lea’s good friend and current Girl-a-matic editor), it was Lea’s daughter hearing the smoke alarm that allowed the family to get out in time, so for God’s sake, do everyone you love a favor and CHECK YOUR SMOKE ALARMS.

Well, we lost our game to Ohio (by we, I mean the UT Football team). I am down about it, but not entirely surprised. I've been walking around for weeks saying "Yes, Limas Sweed is great, but why are we ranked number 2?" Well, today's game unfortunately may have people asking that same question.

Here's the good news: I think we can go otherwise undefeated.

And we're playing Rice next week. I don't think We've lost to Rice in forty years. In a way, I kind of feel sorry for Rice next Saturday. The Longhorns are going to be looking to rebuild their self-esteem, and they're going to be happy to use Rice's skulls for that self-affirmation.

Oklahoma woke up and looked like Oklahoma in the 2nd half. And, hey! A&M look like they're back to playing like A&M.

What else...?

Packing, packing, packing.

Silly dogs.

Sold sign in the front yard.

Do not (I repeat: do NOT) pick up the cat and swing him around and sing songs to him.

And I had a really, really nice send-off happy hour after work. Faculty, staff and all kinds of folks were there. Juli McG from my office put it together and we had a good turn out. You know, sometimes you think "I'm going to walk out of here after four years and that's going to be that." Well, sure a lot of people are always happy to show up just for the possibility that somebody is going to pay for a round, but, man, it was nice of so many people to come by and say a heart-felt adios.

So if any of you folks from my former-employing University are reading this: Thank you all. It's been great.

Take care of yourselves and stay out of the sun.

1 Hour Left

In an hour, I will be unemployed. I have nothing to do for the next hour. Perhaps I will go bother Eric.

Boy, I hope I get that job I interviewed for.

24 Hours

So after work on Tuesday I had Octavio drop me at the airport.
"What did you pack?" he asked, eyeing my suitcase.
"My suit. Underwear. A t-shirt."
"A suit?"
"Yeah, I figure short of a tux, you can't be overdressed. Especially in Texas."
"You know," he said, being very Octavio, "This week in eWeek, they had interview tips, and one of them was that companies will now not hire you if you overdress for the interview."
"The heck you say."
"Apparently they think that if you overdress, you don't understand their corporate culture and won't fit in."
I thought long and hard about my suit and decided I was going with the suit, anyway. After all, it was wear a suit and hope that was okay or buy all new clothes when I hit Austin. And these people might not have read the article in eWeek, nor bought into that particular philosophy.

Nonetheless, it was not exactly what I wanted to hear.

The flight went well. I read my Superman/Doomsday collection which literally had the lady sitting next to me looking at the pages and then looking up at me repeatedly. She was, I assume, trying to guess how a 12 year-old got so large.

I arrived at Jason's around 11:30 CST, ate my Wendy's value meal, chatted some and hit the hay. I couldn't sleep so I stayed up reading "Wasted", a true crime book based on a case Jason worked on years ago. There's something odd about a book that portrays real people in what I assumed are imagined conversations. I know it's not exactly journalism when one writes a sensationalistic crime book, but... I dunno. I'm more of a "stick to the facts" sort of guy.

I panicked at 1:45 am when I realized Jason didn't have an alarm clock. Well, he DOES have an alarm clock, he tells me, but I didn't see it. Anyway, I lay in bed desperately trying to pre-program my brain to wake me up as soon as the sun came up. This didn't happen.

I did get up at 9:10 AM Central, which is a repectable 7:10 AM Arizona time. I realized I had nothing to eat, no coffee or hairspray, jumped in my sweet rental car and saw a warning in the LCD display.

"Oil 0%: Oil Change"

I sort of freaked out. I was not willing to pay for an oil change for a rental car, but I also didn't want the engine block freezing up on MoPac. Nor did I want to miss my interview.

I ran to Target, got my goods, ate some breakfast bars, made some coffee, reviewed the company's website (which had been completely redesigned since I'd looked at it the week before), drank the coffee, showered, put on my SUIT and headed off.

I think the interview went well. Anyway, I do like their approach, and the job is almost exactly what I was looking for coming back to Austin. It's project management for a computer based training company that has solid clients. Really, it's probably a little too good to be true, which means if I don't get the job, I'm going to feel pretty blue.

I then called Kerry (our long suffering realtor) and was told to cool my jets for a while until she finished some appointments. I drank some coffee, read three sections of the Statesman, then headed to CVS to get a disposabel camera to take some shots of the house. Instead of a still camera, I found a disposable video camera.

DISPOSABLE.
VIDEO.
CAMERA.

For $29.99.

Do you know how @#$%ing crazy that is? I love technology. I love that in two years a disposable video camera will be something you get in a box of cereal. I already saw a still digital camera for sale for $4 at Walgreens.

So the camera holds only 20 minutes of video, and the lens is a cheap, fixed lens. But you can review the last "scene" you shot and you delete it if you don't want it. At the end of the process you bring the camera to CVS where they "develop" the video to DVD. That sort of irked me because the cost was $12, but in a way I feel like the $42 I spent today means that I'm supporting an industry that I think is a good idea and will drive the price down in the future (for those of us who constantly forget our cameras and won't pay out the money for a video camera in our phone).

Smaller, faster, better.

And Jamie now has a narrated DVD of the house we're going to get.

So, anyhoo, Kerry picked me up and we went and saw the future House of El (my choice) or Hall of Justice (Jamie's choice). I'm pretty excited. It's a cool house. Lots of space for us to spread out and do our own thing. A usable front porch and a balcony porch upstairs where I shall be placing a rocking chair for Jason to sit upon and play me country tunes while we all drink lemonade and throw rocks at passing cars.

All in all, a decent place. Come on over. We'll leave the porch light on.

Wound up my appointment with Kerry, drove to Austin books, picked up a few items and headed back to Jason's. I abandoned my suitcase and suit, put on a t-shirt, jammed a few items into my travellin' Man-Purse and headed for the airport.

My car still hadn't seized up on me with the 0% oil efficiency notice, and when I pulled in to refill my tank: I could not. The gas kept "splashing back". Luckily the good folks at Enterprise completely understood I was verging on being an unhappy customer and gave me a pass on the cost of gas, etc...

I checked in, changed my seat to a window seat, had nobody between me and the guy on the aisle, and settled in with a comic and my iPod for the duration.

A succesful 24 hours, I like to think.

We're scheduled to drive out of here next Friday. Wish us luck!

Dave's Long Box presents us with his point of view when it comes to Fandumentalism.

Whether you're a genre-geek or you want to understand a little bit more about how insane the genre-geeks truly are, I highly recommend his essay.

Because, honestly, as a comic-geek, and particularly as a Superman Fan who has believed he was looking at the end times based on WB casting rumors, this essay speaks volumes to me.

Read here.

Well, my three day weekend passed in a blur of packing, watching VH-1 Celebreality programming (which is awesome if you want the TV on, but do not care at all what is on), occasional bouts of napping, dog rangling, Animaniacs viewing and generally being anti-social.

Last night I started the portion of my comics packing that means I really am drawing to a close here in PHX. I only partially organized the remaining comics left out in my room. I did not bag nor board them, and did not place them exactly where they need to go in the correct long box. That sort of sorting will need to take place in Austin. I put the comics in the Comicspriceguide.com database, and breathed a sigh of relief.

One nice thing: I located my Justice League of America #0 special edition cover in the process. I had been looking for it for a week, as it cost me $6.00. I was half convinced some kid had grabbed it for the shiny superheroes on the cover while his parents were looking at our house. The other part of me knew it was in there somewhere. I was also convinced a week ago that ruffians at the Austin-Bergstrom airport had stolen my work Blackberry. They had not. It was in Jason's guest room. So I need to quit assuming people are trying to steal from me or else I'm going to turn into the weird old guy who won't answer his door anymore because he thinks those Girl Scouts are up to no good.

In watching Flavor of Love, Season 2, I've decided that Jason needs a show on VH-1 where ladies compete for his affections. I really want to see 20 fame-hungry LA-dwelling club rats talking about what a great guy Jason is and how he's their "man". Mostly I want to see Jason wearing a crown and floating in a pool while girls try to impress him.

Also, I have decided I want my own show on Home and Garden network called "Man, I Have No Idea". It would star me, Mel and Lucy, but I'd wear a tool belt and some flannel. People would bring Mel, Lucy and myself into their home and point out some repair they'd like done or some other home improvement project. I would then pause awkwardly as I looked at what they wanted done. They would say "Do you know how to do that?", to which I would respond, "Man, I have no idea."

That's pretty much it. That's my big concept. Oh, and then Mel, Lucy and I would play fetch for the last five minutes of the show while contractors completed the work. Occasionally I would bring in Jeff the Cat and play with him using a laser pointer.

I could also have a spin-off show called "How Hard Could it Be?" in which I would attempt the repair myself, and THEN bring in the general contractor to repair the damage.

Tuesday night I am off to Austin for a job interview. The total trip will be less than 24 hours. Wish me luck.

RIP Steve Irwin
The League will really, really miss you, Crocodile Hunter

Monday morning, Australia time and late Sunday evening AZ time, I started seeing reports that Steve Irwin, better known as The Crocodile Hunter, had died.

You can read more here.

I guess it should come as no huge surprise to anyone familiar with Irwin's television program that he died in the field while taping a new program.

I remember first hearing about Irwin from college-pal Manzo, who tried desperately (despite having indulged in one too many cans of "Sportz") to explain that there was this new guy on cable who tackled live reptiles. A few months later I remember spending hours and hours on Jan. 1, 2000 watching a Crocodile Hunter marathon as I tried to get over Dec. 31, 1999. I was already hooked on the how.

Early on I lost track of how many hours of television I watched of Steve leaping into the water after man-eating crocodiles, wrestling them and then moving them either to safer environs or to the Australia Zoo.

Irwin wasn't just a thrill-seeking adventurer. His program was educational, and he was always most interested in ensuring his audience understood the complexities of the animal kingdom and the wonders of nature. His boyish awe in the face of everything from a walking stick to a brown bear was contagious, and I found myself tuning in week after week for years.

As much as I'd been a "Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom" fan as a kid, Steve was the logical extension of the school-book lectures, explaining the wilds to his viewership as he handled animals himself.

If you watched long enough, you knew Steve was the enthusiasm, but long-suffering wife, Terri, was the patience that balanced out the act. Terri became more and more integral to the show, narrating and stepping in from time to time (usually to handle cuddlier animals or remind Steve NOT to handle the deadly cobra, etc...). And, just when I moved to AZ, Steve's tiny daughter began making appearances in episodes taped at the zoo. And, of course, Jamie and I went to see "Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course".

The world didn't just lose a great TV personality when it lost Steve Irwin on Monday. We lost a terrific conservationist and a spokesman for a greater balance of man and the rest of the beings with whom he shares his planet.

So long, Steve. I'm going to miss you. Hopefully you can work out a deal with The Man Upstairs to corral animals up there.


From CNN: He is survived by his American-born wife Terri and their two children, Bindi Sue, born 1998, and Robert (Bob), born December 2003.

FOOTBALL IS UPON US

We've been busy enough around League HQ that I completely missed the entire WNBA season. I never paid attention to the WNBA before last year, so its not exactly killing me that I lost track of this season.

What IS bothering me is that I guess I didn't pay enough attention to the pre-season coverage of both NCAA football and the NFL pre-season hoo-hah. Why is it bothering me? Leaguers, that's a hell of a lot of reading and pre-season analysis that I will need to have at my fingertips should Reed and I sit down to watch a few games when I return to Austin.

I have no idea who the quarterback is at A&M or Oklahoma, let alone what the predictions are for the season. I even thought Snead was UT's starting quarterback. I feel so out of the loop.

I only watched half of the UT football game yesterday... the second half. And while I felt good about the dominating defeat of NTU, Game 2 of the season is the real test, isn't it? I mean, who didn't start seeing the possibility for greatness after UT's stunning victory at OSU last year? Well, maybe Randy, the Doubting Thomas of UT Football.

Sure, it helps that UT is playing OSU at home, but... Well, it's pretty much going to set the tone for the rest of the season. Here's to hoping The Horns do a little better than the Cotton Bowl this year. And then, after the usual stomping of Rice, UT faces Iowa State. My co-worker's nephew is their field goal kicker. I can't help but read something into that.

Turning to the NFL, I'm excited to see what TO brings to the Cowboys. I know, I know... but we're a Cowboys household.

I've actually been paying a little attention to the Cards this season. With Kurt looking healthy, Leinart already looking comfortable in pre-season play, Berry, Boldin and others looking sharp... dare I predict a winning season for the Cardinals?

So... how are your teams looking? How's Vince looking in Tennessee? What the #$%@ is going on in Minnesota? Is it worth tuning in to my once beloved Packers?

Anyone, football...? speak up...

Poll Position
Results: WWIII POLL

Howdy, Leaguers. It's the start of a new month. That means a few things around League HQ.
a) time to give the dogs their heartworm pills
b) time to post a new months worth of random comments
c) which means Jim or RHPT will post with a "first post!" post
d) time to put up a new poll
e) time to take down the old poll
f) time to review our results from last month's poll
g) time to call Steanso and remind him to take his monthly bath

Last month the poo was hitting the fan on the international scene. Well, not much has changed in that regard, but, hey... if we're about to turn the earth into a smoldering, lifeless sphere, we might as well do it with a giggle...

So what did Leaguers think? Only 15 of you voted...



2 of you will be happy to don your hockey mask, replace your shirt with bandoliers and don leather pants as you race your muscle car across the wastelands

2 of you plan to emerge from your subterranean layers to take advatange of the chaos and assert your rule over the lowlies, scrambling for the precious resources you may (or may not) distribute, based upon loyalty

Sadly, nobody seems to think that Kid Rock and Pam Anderson will find wedded bliss, tiptoeing through the fallout. Or that the Candaians stand a darn chance of finally letting the people decide the fate of their own nation.

Nor do any of you worry too much about the fate of your dear old grannies. You lousy jerks.

Rather, a surprising 1 in 3 of you crybabies were worried about finding drinking water after the initial atomic exchange.

1 in 5 of you have plainly had it with Lohan.

1 of you got my Star Trek reference. Thanks, Steanso. You may now hang your head in shame.

1 of you fears the mutants.

And only one of you is prepared for the coming age and to live under the banner of the Nefarious Perry. You shall all pay for your insolence.

TWO THINGS


One

Apparently some new BBC program is going to be a faux-documentay which takes place in the not-so-far future, detailing the (obviously) fictional 2007 assasination of President Bush and the aftermath.

Read here.

The CNN anchors put on their somber faces this morning when reporting about the program, reassuring the audience that it was a British film-maker and not an American who would dare have the audacity to even think of a world in which someone might touch a hair upon Fearless Leader's head.

Apparently, only a monster could imagine the president being assassinated. How many movies do we watch which use the assassination (or attempt at the assassination) of the president as the plot? Yes, yes... those presidents are fictional, but it IS still the President, is it not? One of the top rated shows on TV is 24 which regularly depicts conniving and murderous members of government and routine presidential assasination attempts. The BBC program happens to use Photoshopped images of Bush instead of Dennis Haysbert.

Never mind the other 10's of thousands of other murders depicted on television (not to mention movies) people are now supposed to see before they turn 18. Or the hundreds of thousands of acts of violence on television.

We don't really care about this.

I'm irritated that CNN (a Time/Warner subsidiary, and thus responsible for creating and broadcasting much of that programming) is playing this up as if the filmmaker has somehow performed a voodoo ritual which is dooming the President. The concerned, knitted eyebrows appeal to our dumbest jingoistic nature. Is the President no longer a mortal American citizen (of whom we don't think about twice as they're blown up nightly on television), but our own duly elected Sun God we can somehow murder with a TV show?

I don't want the President dead. Neither do you. Well, yes, you in the back in the army surplus coat with the scraggly beard and crazy eyes... but you also think your house cat is trying to take over your mind.

Of course it took a person in the UK to create the show. Since the 1960's it's been illegal to even think about killing the actual President in the US. A passing comment to a co-worker could be enough to have the Secret Service putting you in the cooler for a few weeks while they dug through all of your personal laundry. In a way, it's not worth the personal and financial risk.


Two

So apparently the MTV Video Music Awards sucked because they weren't "shocking enough" and the artists were boring.

Let's see if we can't run this down

1) MTV quit showing videos in 1993, choosing only five videos which it will show in repetition for months at a time between detailing teenager's cars and throwing them extravagant birthday parties
2) record sales are off by millions of copies not as much due to filesharing as because nobody seems to care enough about pop music to actually pay for it anymore
3) the FCC is suing CBS and its affiliates for millions after the Janet Jackson fiasco which was supposed to be "shocking". Really, CBS should have sued the pants off of Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson for actually executing that little stunt(not to mention MTV, who produced the infamous half-time show)
4) Your headliner was Justin Timberlake. I still have never met a human being who liked the guy's music
5) Basic cable and reality TV have so far blurred the lines about what's shocking and par for the course as to what appears on TV that you'd pretty much have to turn the show into a public execution in order to raise an eyebrow
6) Putting a microphone in front of most entertainers and asking them to speak in complete sentences is no longer possible
7) Xtina and a few other performers apparently had a moment of clarity and realized that being thought of us the town tramp for the entire country is no way to maintain a sustainable career
8) I'm only 31 and I have no idea who 80% of the people on the show were
9) And I'm going to get crucifed for saying this, but maybe Jack Black's rocker-schtick has run its course


The problem isn't the VMA's. The problem is the state of the assembly-line music industry and MTV's belief that the people they promote are actually interesting enough to warrant the reputations they foist upon their viewership.

random comments - August

Day Off:

In theory I took the day off to perform a task that I thought would be both monumental and expensive. It was neither.

When our house was inspected, the inspector wrote that the patch of burned out dirt on the west side of our house (between the house and the cinderblock wall) needed soil. Erosion had apparently taken its natural course and the inspector made a note that continued erosion could get water under the foundation, which, of course, would mean the house would float away. Or something.

We were to add soil, angled away from the house. Technically, a professional was to add the soil, but I figured I'm as professional as the next guy when it comes to moving dirt around with a shovel, so I dubbed myself a landscape architect for the day (and while I was at it, I was also a master geologist) and got to work.

So Wednesday night, after I sold my post-1998 Star Wars figure and vehicle collection to my LCS-owner, I headed to Lowe's where I bought 15 bags of "all-purpose top soil". At $2.43 a bag, I figured that if 15 bags wasn't enough, it wasn't a big deal to come back and purchse more soil, but I also had done no math before leaving the house, so I wasn't sure if the 15 cubic feet would be enough.

This morning I woke up at 6:00, ate a Power Bar, and, at the inspector's direction, laid soil at an angle in order to keep the water from flowing under the house. The entire job, plus time at Lowe's, took maybe an hour. So by 8:00, I was using the remaining five bags of dirt to add soil to my cactus garden, fill Mel's trench (Mel dug one hole in this yard. We do not know why it was a single hole, or why he dug it next to the porch. It's been there for three years. We filled it once and he dug it again), and generally put dirt in places that I thought maybe could use a little all-purpose top soil. Add water to settle the soil, and voila! I had the whole day ahead of me.

I spoke to my neighbor of six months for the first time. We're both moving out in mid-September. Go figure. Our new house has a front porch (two of them, but who's counting?), so I hope this means I might actually meet a neighbor or two if I go outside to read or whatever once we're settled in.

I also got to watch single-Mom across the street chase down her kid for day 2 (I had seen her do it on Wednesday, too) as he made a mad break for the park rather than get in the car for day-care. That is one kid who wants to go the jungle gym.

We did some packing and whatnot in the morning and, as we're a bit ahead of schedule (we have two more weeks and I think we'll be done packing by Monday night), we went to go see Little Miss Sunshine.

At the risk of being called Satan by all the folks who adored this movie, I thought it was okay, but it wasn't something I particularly want to own on DVD. It was funny. The actors were all very good (especially the titular star of the film, who I suspect was mostly playing herself). I more or less liked the flow of the script, but I thought the actors mostly overcame the directing more than they were guided by the directing.

I'd be curious to know what bits were cut from the movie. Toni Collette was good, but it seemed as if her storyline had mostly been excised from the film except as a few throw-away lines about a messy divorce (it's only insinuated but never stated that Kinnear's character is not Dwayne's father) and issues with personal finance.

MAJOR, MAJOR SPOILER

The story also makes an abrupt turn to the absurd in the Scottsdale/ Phoenix portion of the film that went from daffy family road trip into riffing on one of the "National Lampoon's Vacation" films. Not only did they lift the "let's drive with the dead relative" gimmick, but it happened in the same damn city as in "Vacation". The movie shows every weekend on some cable outlet, and its inevitable that the viewer would draw comparisons (or at least this viewer who has seen Vacation almost as many times as "Empire Strikes Back"). I'm not sure how that scene made it into the film, or why they felt it was necessary in an otherwise fairly grounded movie.

The family's inability to grieve what would be a considerable loss put the whole structure of the film in jeopardy, reminding this viewer that these are characters, and not people. Real (sane) people do not decide to continue on to a talent show when they're dealing with their dead father. Or at least they'd send part of the party along and leave one person behind to deal with the paperwork. It just felt unnecessary and inserted purely for the following scene with the police officer.

END MAJOR, MAJOR SPOILER

Is the movie worth seeing? Sure. Go nuts. Is it phenomenal..?
You know what? I liked Superman Returns a whole lot, so what the hell do I know?

I don't feel it's as fresh and new as everyone is claiming. For long stretches the movie felt like little bits lifted from other movies. But it also isn't bad. I don't want anybody to think that. I guess maybe I saw a lot of potential in the movie and it stopped frustratingly close to where I think it could have gone, and that's usually the kind of movie that elicits the longest posts from me. Again, I wonder how much of that wound up on the cutting room floor.


WWTBaS

We wrapped up the night by watching the conclusion of "Who Wants to be a Superhero?", and I mean conclusion and not climax. Anyone who didn't see that ending coming needs to take some remedial courses in "reality" television.

I more or less suspected Feedback or Major Victory had it in the bag from day one. If you pegged it from how these programs work and what they needed to be be able to do for the Sci-Fi original movie, I think everyone got what they needed out of the show. I will be picking up my Feedback comic as soon as it hits the shelf. I'm curious to see what they do with the character and if Matthew, the guy who dreamed up Feedback, will be involved in actually writing the comic in any way. After all, he dreamed up the character, but surely made the classic comic creator mistake of signing away the rights to a franchise when he signed the form to appear on the show at all.

RIP Pa Kent

Actor Glenn Ford who portrayed Jonathan Kent in Superman: The Movie has passed away. The first Superman film was just one of dozens of movies the veteran actor had appeared in.

From the Superman Homepage.

From CNN.

Mr. Ford may only have been in a few scenes, but like Marlon Brando, Ford had a huge presence in the film, re-defining the portrayal of the Kents in the comics for the next thirty years as well as TV series Lois and Clark and Smallville.

Thank you, Mr. Ford. Godspeed.

BUFFET

So today was one of the most stressful days of my life. Steanso knows all about what's going on. The stress is (thankfully) not Jamie health related, but rather housing related. But we knew when we decided to split from AZ that moving would not be free of its obstacles and traps.

Mister Miracle, Leaguers.

So yesterday we realized that the folks we were two signatures away from buying a house from had decided they didn't want us in their house. The why's and what's will always remain a mystery, but as of 10:30 this morning, we had no place to live or drop our stuff at when we got to Austin.

We're now in a race against time trying to find a place to hang our hats when the truck arrives in Austin in mid-September. But we may have already found a place. Jamie is taking point and is heading to Austin this weekend, and with trusty realtor Kerry R. at her side, we may be doing better than ever when we put down our sorry-selves in A-Town once again.

So...

Last night I was exhausted when I got home, and Jamie declared she had a "mystery" destination in mind for dinner. I was very hungry and too tired to really care where we wound up. Jamie isn't usually so mysterious, but unfortunately for her, I was a bit too punchy to be intrigued so I just loaded myself in the car.

Even more unfortunately Jamie had remembered the wrong major street that our mystery destination was supposed to be, so as we wandered around the Gilbert/ 60 intersection, she revealed we were going to Golden Corral.

We all have our little dining quirks. Mine is that I love a good diner, hamburger stand, or anyplace where there's a lunch counter and hot coffee in clear view. Jason refers to this sort of place as being "Marge", a term coined in the 1990's defining tome "Generation X". I especially love independently owned and run diners, but that's a fast dying breed. So I usually settle for a Denny's when i'm out in the burbs.

Jamie has a secret love of the food-trough buffet. She probably won't even really cop to it, but she does enjoy the food-under-a-heat-lamp environs and the ability to be picky as she wants to be and just toss whatever food she selects but doesn't like. Or something. I also am partial to some buffets, mostly out of nostalgia for hanging in line with Grandma at The Bonanza on Sundays after church, and, of course, hitting the Luby's with the blue-hairs. But those places didn't really invite you back to the trough the way Golden Corral welcomes you, extending an open-armed invitation to gorge yourself until your eyes fall out of the sockets.

And so it was that we wound up at the Golden Corral last night after a twenty minute delay of circling the wrong intersection.

It was 7:40 by the time we parked the car and I saw a contingent of retirees hanging out by the front door.

"Oh, crap. The line is out the door!"
"No way."
"Yes!" I pointed. "The freakin' old people are swarming the Golden Corral!"
We got out of the car to check the situation. The old people were, in fact, swarming the front door, but they were fat and sated and just having some chit-chat before they went their separate ways for the evening... free to go home and watch Matlock or whatever.
But the line extended directly to the door, and it curved around a bit inside.
"The people are crazy for the Golden Corral!" Jamie excalimed. "It's 7:40. This isn't even the rush time."
Jamie knows my patience for waiting in lines is short, indeed. Especially for food. Her dream of a meal at the Golden Corral was over. No dessert bar for her, not when we had fifteen other resaurants to go to at the same intersection.
"Where do you want to go?" the dinner question which plagues any couple who has been together more than two weeks.
"I don't care," I sighed. I was really hungry. I'd had only a few minutes for lunch and had a pretty slim lunch between real estate issues and a meeting.
And then, like a beacon in the darkness, Jamie looked across the road and saw "The Old Country Buffet".

There is a law of nature that states that you can place two identical restaurants side-by-side and one will ahve a two-hour wait and one will have immediate seating and a bunch of staff hanging around looking bored. Locally, I often think of "The OG/ Pomodoro Paradox". In our neck of the woods, Olive Garden sits across the street from a fairly decent pasta place "Pasta Pomodoro". The food is similarly priced and probably a little better, and definitely better for you. Olive Garden seats probably four times as many people at once, and usually has an hour wait on weekends. Pasta Pomodoro usually has immediate seating.

Old Country Buffet was mostly empty. At the door I was greeted with multiple card board cut-outs of the not-quite-in-the-cultural-lexicon mascot of the Old Country Buffet, The Old Country Buffet Bee. I think it used to be the Hometown Buffet bee. I'm not sure why Hometown Buffet would change it's name and nothing else, but my mind whirled at the notion of the corporate shenanigans which no doubt took place to merge several similar family buffet-style resturants and keep the identity of the bee intact.

Go, bee.

There's not a lot of screwing around at The Old Country Buffet. There's no menu of specialty meat items for you to select from, or a Luby's-like line to pass through. You hand the dude at the door a surprising $11 a head, and after that: It's Thunderdome.

Oh, and they were playing "Do the Hustle" when we entered, so I started doing The Hustle, but Jamie asked me to stop. I love familiar dance tunes played completely out of context.

There was enough food to feed a battalion on the buffet, both healthy and deeply unhealthy choices. Rather thant describe what was available, I'll just state that it didn't seem like a good place to take a kid who'd recently been diagnosed as diabetic, so I hope nobody was there putting their little diabetic kid through torture.

But I guess the point is that, really, this was exactly the same place (more or less) as Golden Corral, located just across the street, and Old Country Buffet was clearly not going to make a profit this evening. Just in required staff alone to prepare the mountain of chow, I couldn't see how they were keeping the doors from being shuttered if this was their usual take on a weeknight. What is the allure of Golden Corral that Old Country Buffet was clearly lacking to the line of eager diners across the street?

Is the food actually better? Is the music selection more appropriate (this I doubt as my last voyage to Golden Corral in 2001 all the kids at the table behind us stopped mid-meal to listen to Celine Dion's "The Heart Will Go On" after a hushed exclamation of "Titanic!" "Titanic!" "Titanic!" rippled down the table)? Are the chairs more comfy? The lights appropriately dim?

I don't know. I may never know.

The folks at the OCB seemed happy enough, both staff and customer. A family was having a fairly anti-climatic birthday party for one of the women identified as "Mom", but I wasn't sure who she was. All in all, a fairly harmless place.

But God bless you, Old Country Buffet. I have never seen a finer array of fried and carb-heavy goods on display.

Warren Jeffs... BUSTED!

Not all supervillains wear a cape.

Those of you who do not live in Arizona probably saw a story on this a-hole on 48 Hours or 20/20, watched with some morbid fascination and then promptly forgot about it.

Warren Jeffs is leader of a cult in northern Arizona that makes the Branch Davidians look like a Sunday School picnic. The cult is an off-shoot of Mormonism and does not just fill a compound, but an entire town in the farthest reaches of the state. The town is mostly walled off and is a sort of black box as far as what's actually going on. The police, the school system, the city council and the whole operation are all part of the cult.

Warren Jeffs was finally picked up by the cops last night in Nevada.

What we know: The cult is centered around polygamy and, surprise, surprise... believes Jeffs to be some sort of messiah figure. The polygamy includes a lot of thirteen and fourteen year old girls who are barely literate being placed into marriage with guys in their 40's and 50's (as wife number five or so). Girls who were recently "rescued" from the town didn't know who the President was, where they were in the United States, or, in fact (if memory serves) that they were in the United States. To them, the world was Warren Jeffs and his teachings.


Cult Leading Jackhole

With just about as many boys as girls being born, in order to make the operation work the popular story is that the cult kicks a lot of boys out of town at a very young age.

In theory.

If I were the FBI I'd be looking for shallow graves around the town. I find it difficult to believe that dozens (or possibly hundreds) of boys could have been kicked out of town and only a handful would have gone public.

Traditionally, Arizona's culture has been to let people do as people do. It's a big state, and, culturally, it's had a very laid back atmosphere that boiled down to "if you don't bother me, you can do whatever you want on the other side of the hill." Resources have long been scarce, and nobody has had the political will to bother with things like kooky cults that don't effect the business of the two big cities which are both hours away. Add in one fiasco in Waco, mutiply that by a cult which dwarfs the Branch Davidians, and you've got a pretty handy stalemate.

Well, lately Jeffs has been on the run after being indicted for arranging a marriage between sixteen year old girl and married older man (one of many, many of these marriages). I heard that he'd bought some land near Alpine, TX and planned to move the whole shooting match to West Texas. Unfortunately for Jeffs, (and I heard this only fourth hand) the good folks of West Texas heard what these guys were up to and did their best to use that grand Texas gentle persuasion (ie: threatening to burn his compound down) to convince him that maybe he shouldn't think Texans were going to turn a blind eye to his activities. For once, I'm totally behind the pitchfork and torch wavers.

There are a lot of lessons to be learned from the stories you hear about the Jeffs cult. As citizens of a 1st World nation, we all like to think we're pretty clever and above falling for some line of malarkey. But, in a way, we're also in our own little fenced town where the cops are part of the operation. We hear what we hear growing up, and we assume that because we heard it growing up and we're comfortable with it, it must be The Truth. Anyway, it's always good to look at the folks trying to sell you The Truth with a healthy dose of skepticism. They could be your Governor or your Ultimate Frisbee captain, and they may even believe what they say, but that doesn't mean they don't want you sitting in your own little compund in the desert without the slightest notion there's a world outside.

Just Say No:

Leaguers, I admit I got a little squeamish this weekend when it came to another taste test and never pulled the product off the shelf.

Jamie and I went to get a sno-cone last night. I got a "Batman" flavored sno-cone. I queried why they had a Popeye and a Batman flavor, but no Superman or Wonder Woman flavor... the jughead teenager behind the counter responded with "Huh huh huh huh huh... I dunno."

How did Batman flavoring taste? I tell you Leaguers, it was the delicious taste of justice. And that is exactly what I told both Jamie and the kid behind the counter.

At the sno-cone shop they have candy, which is where last week's Mallow Dog was discovered. This week they also had Mallow Burgers and Mallow Fries. I was going to have another mallow meal, but I think I've already done my due diligence on mallow shaped into a form resembling foods which I enjoy in their natural state.


Move Update:

I think we're on a good pace for packing and being ready to go on the 14th. That's when the movers are showing up. We've now gotten to packing pots and pans and whatnot, so we can't easily cook anymore, so most of my meals will be sandwiches, cereal or out of the microwave.

I also think we've reached a point where we're just a day away from agreeing on our closing on a house in Austin.

Now... to find a job.


Animaniacs:

I've never made a secret of my love of the mid-90's cartoon Animaniacs. Most people remember Pinky and the Brain and the Warner Siblings, but the show was more or less a variety show with a rotating bunch of shorts. Rita and the Runt (a singing cat and a Rainman inspired dog), Mindy and Buttons (a play on the classic "baby in trouble" cartoons), Goodfeathers (a Goodfellas inspired pigeon cartoon), Slappy Squirrel (a retired cartoon star and her nephew), Mr. Skull Head, Katie Ka-Boom, the Hippos, Minerva Mink, Hello Nurse, Doctor Scratchnsniff, and, of course, Chicken Boo.

The show worked off the theory that if you tell a joke every ten seconds, it doesn't matter if 2/3rds of them are groaners or stinkers... it's all about keeping pace with the dialogue and visual gags.

Anyhoo, as Nathan pointed out in the post with video below, there's really nothing like it on TV today. Kids cartoons are mostly poorly animated, cheaply produced (and generally unfunny) stuff that relies on lots of screaming and gnashing of teeth in a diluted 3rd generation Ren & Stimpy fashion. Or, of course, the imported anime stuff. Some of which is okay. Other shows are inexplicably popular, like Yu-Gi-Oh, which is a cartoon about people playing a dungeons and dragons-like card game and doing a lot of smack talking.

Whatever the kids like, I guess.


Randy fails to step up

So, Randy had pitched the idea of a "Friends of The League" site. I asked last week what you guys might do with such a site as I wasn't clear on what Randy was getting at. I think the comments section pretty much covers the necessary territory. Also, honestly Leaguers... my life is not a TV show. I'd like to think I'm thick-skinned, but I'm also not sure I'm comfortable with the idea of a forum for people to critically analyze my life. That's creepy.

But, hey... what the heck... if it all went to heck I could tell you guys exactly where you could stick your @#$%ing website, right?

So, Friday night I went on to Blogger.com and spent the prerequisite ten minutes to establish a new blog, dubbed it "Hall of Melbotis", and invited a few Loyal Leaguers to join. I had no idea what would happen.

Well, nothing happened. Of the seven or so folks I asked to respond, only Steanso showed up, and that was more or less to insult me and then disappear. Which is sort of how he was involved in my life from 1991-1995. It was like old times.

Leaguers, thus ends the "We should set up a website for Friends of The League!" experiment. Randy, you really, really, really, really just disappointed all of us.


A Show for Peabo and JMD

There's a good documentary show that's been running on Sunday evenings on the History Channel. It's about the Revolutionary War, and is aptly titled "The Revolution."

You guys would dig it.

Here


Comics:

For the first time in weeks I actually got a chance to read all of the comics I picked up on Wednesday. Well, all of the new ones. It's been that kind of busy at League HQ.

I'm also busily putting comics in long boxes in the right place for the last time before I move. After the boxes get closed and taped up, that's it until we hit Austin and unpack fully. All new comics will go in a single longbox for a while until I can sort through them and re-organize.

I've come to the sorry realization that my genre/character/ publisher organization system is no longer realistic nor adequate. I may actually have to alphabetize. It doesn't probably seem like a big deal, but the genre/character/publisher system is how I've been sorting comics since I was 13 or 14 and got my first long box. (I still have that box. It says "Ryan's comics! Keep your mits off!" in fat black ink).

My weekend reading did give me a list of at least three titles I think I'm dumping:

Supergirl
Supergirl and the Legion of Superheroes
Hawkgirl

It's too bad, because I was looking forward to those series in the OYL jump. But I'm basically not enjoying any of the three series. I have pedged to pick up the NEXT issue of Supergirl as they appear to finally be getting down to brass tacks and establishing some sort of environment for her to operate in. I really, really don't understand how they've gotten 10 issues in (and something like 3 years since her debut) and nobody has noticed that there's no character established yet.

I'm iffy on:

The Creeper
Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters
anything written by Steve Englehart
Robin
Firestorm
Blue Beetle
Aquaman: Sword of Atlantis

I'm a little peeved about the Steve Englehart thing as I appreciate that the guy was important to DC 25 years ago, but his Batman story last year was mediocre and his runs on JLA: Classified and JSA: Classified were pointless, dull, and reminded me of why I didn't read DC in the 80's. And if he keeps popping up in comics I collect on a subscription basis, then I have to think about things like breaking a run on a series and cancelling and restarting a subscription.

Blue Beetle was on the chopping block until issue #6 when someone finally DID something. This book needs to have a better editor or else someone needs to explain to Keith Giffen how to establish a story before you drop your reader into the middle of the action.

I'm not sure why, but the insistence to get to the action without establishing why we're there seems to be a pretty common flaw in a lot of comics, even by veterans like Giffen.

Which brings us to Meltzer's Justice League of America #1 which I said nice things about last week and I'll say nice things about this week. I read one review which stated that the comic was already detouring into a "soap opera" with the Red Tornado storyline. I'm not sure when fleshing out characterization and giving characters motivations became a "soap opera", but I thought that was a pretty poor reading of what was a pretty darn good comic. Of anything done since the end of Infinite Crisis, this series is impressing me the most, and we've only had two issues (there was an issue #0... it's sort of tough to explain). The point being is that there's a conflict being presented before we come to fisticuffs.

It's a great big universe...

I keep forgetting to post this...

It's a link to some mock-ups and whatnot of what the Transformers will look like in the upcoming Michael Bay-directed live-action Transformers movie.

Here.

At some point I lost interest in Transformers. I'm not sure why. I always enjoyed fiddling with my Transformers toys as a kid (Optimus Prime was always my favorite), but as an adult I didn't have a particular nostalgia for the characters.

But, heck yeah... it's not like they don't have the CG down now to handle a cool transformation, so I'll pay $8 and see this movie. I wish they'd hire back the original voice actors from the cartoon for Optimus, Megatron, Starscream and Bumblebee.

RHPT loves the Transformers, so, by God, I'm going to post this for him.

And if you scroll down on this link, there's a pic of a guy with a Bumblebee prop.

Hey, Jim Parsons is in a new commercial for Stride gum.

Go Jim!

Go to Stride's website to see Jim here.

QUICK BITS

Aisde from pondering the imponderables of a universe comprised of multiple dimensions, all separated by a mere vibrational frequency discovered by The Flash, and which has upset comic fans in a way I've begun to find hilarious...

What else do I have for you?

Over at Cowgirl Funk, Maxwell has been considering the Haude Elementary Fifth Grade play. I didn't attend Haude in 5th grade, but Steanso did. And I remember him wandering around our house on Ella Blvd. humming the tunes to himself.


here

How It Should Have Ended: Superman the Movie



(found at Superman Homepage)

There may be a movie of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster's life in the works.


So You Want to be a Superhero? has spun wildly out of control. Apparently by casting fairly decent people who grow to care about one another over the course of a program rather than trying to destroy one another, every elimination round is now filled with tears and hugs. With people in tights and capes. Kind of odd. Nonetheless, I am really digging the show and, despite a sad lack of Monkey Woman, I think they narrowed it down to the best three.

Did you see Fat Momma with the kids? She was really good.


And while this comic strip is rated "R" for language, it kind of reminds me of college. So enjoy.

(Courtesy of Amy C.'s blog)



RHPT asked about setting up a Friends of the League site. I don't want to do it, but if you guys want to do, it go nuts. What would you want on such a site, anyway?

Okay Comic Geeks

Can someone tell me why some comic fans (mostly longtime Marvel fans) find the multiple Earths concept so mindboggling as to swear off DC Comics, but don't bat an eye when Marvel has the Ultimates Universe, the Exiles popping from one dimension to the next in each issue, the Zombie universe, the Negative Zone and wherever Squadron Supreme (both incarnations) is supposed to live?

1) How is this any different from the multiple Earths?
2) Is it the numbering system? Because I think that's the problem.


Okay, so sometimes comics are a little hard to jump right into...

Rambling evening update


I guess I've been on the quiet side the past few days. No new posts and whatnot since the weekend update (delayed to make room for The Admiral's B-Day) and the great Mallow Dog taste test (which actually occurred over the weekend).

I've been really busy with work as I wind up my current job and also start a new semester for the online kiddies. I tried to get Jamie to fill in for me yesterday, but she was also busy dealing with house-related work. Buying, selling and moving a house across the country is a full-time job. I do not understand how people are able to perform this particular hat-trick who do not have someone available to work on all the related tasks during the working day.

I also am getting old. These days when I have a long day at work, I'm ready to start wandering off to bed at 10:00. What happened to fun-time 26 year old Ryan who would stay up until 2:00AM playing The Sims and then get up at 6:30, have a gallon of coffee and still make it to Tae Kwon Do? Sure, most of my twenties is now a caffeine-riddled blur, but I squeezed a lot of hours out of my day. I haven't loved sleep this much since high school.

I also haven't been running. Sure, today I can use the pouring rain as an excuse, but yesterday...? The only day I've been running this week was Tuesday, and that's pathetic.

Last night I finally saw my LCS-owner. He's been AWOL for a while, allowing his lieutenants to run the shop. Apparently he's planning to close his doors in December.

I find it depressing, but it's also been fascinating to watch him take over the shop and make what I consider to be genuine improvements, only to get busy with the details of life, get hit with the ebb and flow of the student population shrinking over summer, and now the city is planning major construction outside his door which will basically prevent access to the shop for a year or two. I have some ideas for what I might have done to change the store up a bit more and make it like unto Austin Books (given size constraints), but fate has dealt the guy a pretty tough hand. Plus, one of his loyalist customers is pulling up stakes and leaving town, so that's money out of his pocket.

I love the idea of owning a comic shop, but it's a tough racket. I've always sort of felt that I couldn't handle the idea of having to deal with comic-dorks day in and day out. I think a lot of these guys sort of feel like a comic shop is their living room and want to treat the shop that way, but that's not good for anybody BUT those comic dorks. There's a reason Moms get uncomfortable taking their 12-year old into a lot of comic shops, and the trashed basement/ never-kissed-a-girl boys' club feel of comic shops is tough to mitigate, but its do-able. Atomic Comics at the Chandler Mall is making money hand over fist because the front of the store is filled with Yu-Gi-Oh, Godzilla and kid-friendly fare. It's clean and shiny. The employees wear a uniform black t-shirt with the store logo. It basically looks like a store and not like the dorky guy's dorm room.

Austin Books might still be a bit intimidating for the moms, but for the adult crowd, the store is wonderfully laid out with wall shelves displaying covers of new comics, areas for specific creators, toys and whatnot nicely displayed around the perimeter of the back, and a large, open area for long boxes full of back-issues in the back.

But, mostly, if an employee walks by and you're not already elbow deep in back issues of Action Comics, they ask you if they can help you. Not: "What are you looking for?" (which to me is sort of a tough question to ask people who are just wandering in off the street and might be a one-time buyer) Not: "Let me tell you about my favorite comic..." So, yeah... It's a little more approachable. And because there's not a gaggle of guys hanging out by the front door, you aren't breaking up a conversation just by walking by the counter. It doesn't feel like a big deal to ask to see one of the collector's item issues behind the glass.

I'm going to be going on a bit of a comic-shop odyssey when I get to Austin. Part of it will be trying to figure out if I want to buy near my house (there are at least two stores within three miles) or wherever I end up working. Obviously I'm pretty picky, but I'll be chasing that discount all the way, so if i end up half-way across town, I end up half-way across town. With the number of titles I follow, I can't afford not to get a discount.

Oh, and speaking of comics: Justice League #1 by Brad Meltzer and Ed Benes was really, really good. I'm hoping the Dr. Impossible character (I know, I already lost some of you with a character named Dr. Impossible) is a forshadowing of Mr. Miracle making the final cut for the new JLA. If not, he's still an interesting idea, so I look forward to seeing this all play out. And that's the key, isn't it?

Also, did anyone else read Batman 656? I wasn't sure what Morrison meant by ditching the somber, moody Batman, but this is the most excited I've been by a Batman comic in a long time. There's no mistaking that it's still Batman, but the spin is very good, and the story is already showing all the signs of Morrison-style madness. Plus, the art by Andy Kubert is top-notch, adding to the story in a way that really uses the medium. Sure, it harkens back to the giant type-writer days, but in a way that makes sense. If this is the Batman to come, I'm onboard.

I am going to be taking advantage of my change of comic shops to do a purge of comics that I'm currently picking up on a monthly basis. Some of them I've been reading out of some misplaced sense of loyalty. Some of these I've been collecting out of habit. I don't look forward to putting comics on the chopping block, but if I take it off my pull list and see that I really miss the title, well... Hopefully I can still pick it up off the shelf and eventually add it back to the list. However, a lot of the time when I drop a title, it stays dropped until the title is cancelled or there's a massive overhaul in the creative teams on the book.

We'll see.

Weekend in Review:

Not much to report about the weekend.

I don't honestly remember what we did Friday night. It couldn't have been too spectacular.

Jamie is still fighting a cold she got when we flew to Austin. This is reason # 281 that we need to be back in Texas. Every time we fly, Jamie picks up whatever is in the air. And with the Feds telling her she can't bring her Purell hand-sanitizer on the plane, they're pretty much committing their own little act of bio-terrorism on her immune system. Thanks, terrorists, and thanks, federal government.

Saturday we had the Home Inspector come through the house. He was a really nice guy, and he showed up on time. I am hoping that this translates into a favorable home inspection for us, especially as his biggest question was "who laid your tile?" Apparently our tile is laid poorly. I never noticed.

I've heard some reports that a Loyal Leaguer here and there did NOT like Superman Returns. Well, I'm sorry about that. I could only qualify my statements regarding my enjoyment of the movie so many ways. You're on your own after that.

After the home inspector left, we jumped in the car and drove down to the second-run IMAX theater at the massive mall off the I-10 and 60. We decided to forego "Snakes on a Plane" in favor of seeing Superman in IMAX in 3-D. I may actually go to a late viewing of SOAP on my own later this week. I'm not sure Jamie is interested.

Superman in 3-D was very, very cool. The scenes selected for 3-D conversion were well chosen, and the 3-D worked much better than any of the 3-D at the various Disney theme parks. I suspect a lot of the success had to do with the massive lenses on the glasses and the size of the screen. The 3-D definitely brought an immediacy to the action, but the moment a scene slowed down you did become a bit aware of the technical aspects. I'm not a fan of being pulled out of a narrative unless the story is structured as an examination of the narrative, so I'm glad I didn't see the movie in 3-D until the 3rd viewing.

I think they can pretty much do anything they want for a sequel. Seeds were definitely sown, and there were a lot of big old plot threads which need to be sewn up. Essentially, the Luthor plot really is the secondary story of the movie. Necessary for the "super" portion of the tale, but this is a small story in a lot of ways.

Anyhoo, after leaving the theater we headed into the big, frightening mall. I'm not exactly sure what the story is at Arizona Mills, but I say without exaggerating, roughly 20% of the square footage of the mall is comprised of athletic shoe stores. This, of course, is completley irritating to learn just before I leave town as I have always had a very hard time finding shoes since I moved here.

We really didn't do a whole lot after all that. Watched some TV, played with the dogs and counted sheep.

Sunday I tried to revive my Dell Inspiron 1100 as I will soon have to give up my shiny, lovely work laptop. It was my first experience in over a decade re-installing an OS. Boy, that process is just as much today as it was in 1995.

Also organized some comics in preparation for the move. All in all, not a bad day as far as getting stuff done, but nothing too exciting.

Hope all is well with you guys.

LEAGUE TASTE TEST
The regrettable "mallow" hot dog


What is mallow? We've all had a marshmallow at some point, either roasted on a stick over a campfire, buried in our Lucky Charms or tucked between chocolate and a graham cracker. But what is Mallow?

Friday night I was buying a sno-cone (bubble-gum flavored) and perusing the candy aisle when a certain something caught my eye. The Mallow Dog.



The MALLOW DOG

It looked like a hotdog, but was not. I'm always a fan of food that is meant to look like one type of food, but is not. Example: Swedish Fish. Also, Runts. Those little gummy hamburgers. Etc...

If a hot dog is a veritable cornucopia of animal by-product, what could a mallow dog possibly contain?



Only a buck forty-nine!

The packaging promised "All American 'Fun'". I'm an American. I like fun. Maybe not "fun", but I like fun. I suspect the copy writer for the package was all too-aware of what lay in store for the consumer.

I think "fun" is a pretty apropos term for most items that you can get at the "Water & Ice" store. It also applies to most forms of "fun" in Chandler, AZ.




The Mallow Dog experiences freedom, like a good American

The texture was sort of powdery and squishy, but still firm enough to hold it's shape. Firmer, indeed, than a Jet-Puffed marshmallow. And it smelled like cheap, cheap perfume.





All American?

The mallow dog's ingredients were listed in a way which seemed to indicate that the producer was listing them only grudgingly. Also, I noticed the mallow dog had been made in China and imported to San Diego. It truly was all American.

You can click on the picture for greater detail.




VS!

We tried a side-by-side comparison of mallow dog versus hot dog. Suddenly the mallow dog looked woefully unappetizing in a way it just hadn't before. It looked like some sort of muppet-inspired prop food which had escaped an acid-fueled nightmare. And it smelled really bad.



ehhhhhh

there's that smell. God. That's awful.





...ehhhh....

i briefly consider an abort. After all, this isn't technically food. It's a mix of organic and inorganic substances which will not necessarily kill me if it passes through my GI tract.





Who wants to live forever..?

There's a well-learned fear in my eyes here. Obviously my brain was trying to stop me from doing this, but me and Mr. Brain haven't been on speaking terms in two decades.





nummy

this photo was taken about four seconds before regret kicked in.





regret

Whoop. There's that regret.

Yeah, that thing tastes sort of like a big asprin, but with the texture of a foam pillow, or maybe packing materials.

In reviewing these photos I also realize I should have showered between mowing the lawn and the taste test. I think we're looking at about 30 hours without a shower here.




expulsion!

Jamie was not fast enough to get a photo of me expectorating the mallow dog into the trash (see how neatly we pile our recycling...?)





not real food

I don't know what the hell this thing was supposed to be. it wasn't good and it didn't taste like anything fit for human consumption. I am no ccloser to understanding what the hell mallow is, but I do know I'm not going to keep up this line of research.





False advertising

Can I sue for this? This wasn't a great tasting anything. This thing tasted like sugar and bad perfume.





never again

And thus ended the taste test.

On the whole, this sort of ruined my appreaciation for foods that look like other foods, but you kind of have to appreciate the fact that we live in a world where you can make a fake hot dog out of marshmallows in a factory in China, ship it to the US where it is finally sealed, and then send it out to be consumed by dudes like The League. That's what a free market economy is all about.

It's all about "fun".

ALL HAIL THE ADMIRAL
for today is his big birthday

Happy B-Day, Admiral! I hope they got you a cake or something at work to celebrate the glorious event.

The Admiral is a decent guy. Born in New Jersey, he quickly picked up stakes and left the Garden State to move to sunny Dade County, Florida. Raised in the southern sun and with entirely too much sea air, the Admiral mostly spent his days filling buckets with gasoline, throwing in handfuls of bullets and adding a lit match. Perhaps this was his way of trying to escape from the shadow of Uncle B (International Man of Mystery) who had made such an impression on most of southern Florida.

The Admiral up and joined the Air Force, where he found himself working on radios and a good tan out on the flight line. This was, of course, before he was deployed to a mysterious land we know today as Vietnam, where the admiral spent his evenings ducking for cover and his days trading cigarettes for Ho-Ho's.

From Vietnam The Admiral was then sent to the Mid-West where he was accidentally stationed at KI Sawyer AFB in the snowy wastelands of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. It was here, in a drunken stupor, that The Admiral first caught the eye of the KareBear. They're still beer-goggling it almost 40 years later, God bless 'em. Legend has it that the KareBear was a mean, mean dancer in her day. Word has it that the Admiral was four-sheets to the wind in order to gather up the courage to talk to my Ma. Well, he got in the first word, but she's still chatting on 40 years later.

We're a little hazy as to the next 25 years or so, but here's how we think it went.

The Admiral was more or less honorably dischared from the Air Force, got engaged to the KareBear at some point, and then headed back to Florida to make quick use of his GI Bill dough. So, some community college and a wedding later, The Admiral nabbed KareBear, removed her from her native habitat of igloos and polar bears and dropped her into South Florida.

At some point The Admiral was accepted to U of Florida, where he earned his bachelor's degree and rolled right into his MBA, which the Karebear was bankrolling on her fat public teacher's salary. Karebear got her Masters in Reading Ed, and this is pretty much where I start to feel uncomfortable about having not completed my post-secondary education. Anyway, The Admiral became an accountant of sorts and went to work at an aerospace company crunching numbers. Jason came along about that time, spawned from the swamps of Lake Okeechobee, and The Admiral decided that Ford might provide some opportunity. So, they loaded up the car and moved back to Michigan.

They were lucky enough to be blessed with what I like to believe was my completely planned-upon arrival about a year and a half-later.

I have two very early memories of my Dad: 1) Going to see Star Wars and 2) Going to see Superman. I have no idea why KareBear wasn't there, but The Admiral knew what a young mind needed to see to grow properly. I also remember him being there for Empire, Superman II, and taking us to a sneak preview of "The Last Starfighter." He is a sci-fi geek, The Admiral is.

Anyhoo, for some reason The Admiral skipped out on Ford, and when I was four we moved to Dallas where I have my first memories of The Admiral walking around in ill-fitting shorts. That was a lot of Saturdays. He was game and got involved in Indian Guides (the least PC, but most entertaining organization I've ever been involved with).

Shortly thereafter we wound up in Houston where the Admiral decided I needed to learn to mow the lawn. I've never really forgiven him for that. But he did give me one really good bit of advice: keep your fingers away from the blades. In Houston the Admiral became a linesman for my soccer matches, and I have very firm memories of seeing him zipping up and down the sidelines wearing a baseball hat and putting a lot of dramatic flair into letting folks know who last kicked the ball.

Also, the Admiral read the paper a lot. I have lots of memories of standing behind the paper while the Admiral tried to relax in his easy chair, while I tried to figure out how to get his attention without causing too much noise.

Always up for getting out of the house, he took me to see "Bambi" instead of "Delta Force" when I was 7 or 8. And he took me to see Footloose, The Black Stallion and a whole bunch of other movies that had nothing to do with being manly.

In 1984 we all picked up and moved to Austin for the first time. The Admiral accidentally selected an odd blue color for our house, believing he'd picked a slate-gray. I've never forgotten that particular family spat. However, it did make our house easy to find.

It was in Austin that The Admiral began to refer to The League as "Boy". As in "Boy, get out there and mow the lawn." A practice which continues to this day.

The Admiral worked a lot, and I recall spending some Saturdays up at his office playing with the photocopier and taking tours of the data center at Martin-Decker. Everybody knew The Admiral and seemed to like him, so that was always sort of fun.

He was both our Indian Guides "Chief" and a "Den Mother" for our Cub Scout Troop that year when Karebear was sick of gluing popsicle sticks together and handing out badges. We attended camps together with lame names like "Dad and Lad", but we had fun trying to fish, hiking about in the woods, and the cruel, cruel joke of sending myself and the other scouts on a snipe hunt. I was 17 before I realized there was no such thing as a snipe.

Wisely, The Admiral put a healthy fear of guns into Jason and I by taking us out with a .22 rifle and letting us shoot at a cliffside, only to hear the bullets ricocheting all around us. I've never been interested in handling a gun since.

We weren't nearly close to injured enough, so the Steans Men took up scuba diving and that made for some grand vacations. And nobody (I tell you, NOBODY) looks better in a wet suit than yours truly.

Later, the Admiral would teach me to drive in our neighborhood, constantly referring to other drivers as if they were enemy planes. I'm not sure what exciting WWII picture he had running in his head, but I was always shocked that he never asked me to wear a little leather flight-cap and goggles when we got in the car. To this day I wonder what The Admiral is seeing and hearing when the rest of us are just sitting in traffic.

We all moved to Houston (well, not Jason) in 1990ish. I mostly remember The Admiral pointing out that the garage needed a storage space, then pointing to some sheetwood, a power saw and a ladder and telling me not to cut anything off we couldn't reattach. Again, I was forced to mow the lawn. This time Jason was not there to edge and trim.

The Admiral was originally dubbed "The Captain" at some point around 1992. Why this occured has been lost to time. But I think it came after a lot of trial and error, including the names: Pops, Pumpkinhead (I have no idea where that came from either), Old Man and a host of others. Somehow, "The Captain" stuck.

At this point I recall The Admiral was around a lot, still reading the paper, obsessed with CNN during the first Gulf War, and always lending a hand during my goofy high school thespian days. And, honestly, I can't tell you what a relief it was when he completely didn't care that I quit the basketball team.

Luckily, the Admiral and KareBear's hard work and insistence that I do my homework paid off, and they footed the bill for college. Mostly. I mean, eating was out for whole days at a time when I moved out of the dorm, but you'd be surprised how long you can stretch a bag of beef jerky. I felt like a pirate on the high seas. But, like a pirate, I worried about scurvy.

Upon Graduation and after having had stretched his dollars as far as they would go, The Captain was promoted to "The Admiral", as leader of our fleet.

SInce that time The Admiral has been both a VP of finance for a really big company that makes valves (it's true!), as well as continuing to lead our tiny fleet.

Well done Admiral. Today, I hoist a flag in your honor.

At the risk of being a complete sissy: I am your son, and I love you.

Now go out and there and tie one on for the team.