Friday, May 28, 2004

Apparently my ex-roommate, Kevin Bankston (pictured here looking quite chipper), is now the kind of person who CNN goes to for quotes.

Apparently Kevin has been on CNN before (a rumor I can neither confirm nor deny) as a pundit for his position as some sort of Electronic Rights advocacy. I am unsure of whether or not he's actually representing this guy who is on trial, but this article actually asks Kevin for his opinion on huge matters of import.

Which is funny, because I lived with the guy for a year, and the biggest question I could dream up for him was "So do you want to go to Jack-In-the-Box or not?" Sure, we batted around issues of personal liberty, justice, our collective freedoms as Americans, but who knew?

Hurray for Kevin! He is not only a really good guy (and one of the most irritatingly intelligent people I ever met), but he is also a bit of an encyclopedia of pop-culture from Robert Anton Wilson to Galactus.

Kevin's one fatal flaw? He thinks Superman is a bozo.
Kudos goes out to San Antonio DJ and Loyal Leaguer, Nathan Cone.

nathan's radio station recently obtained a copy of an album which had somehow escaped by telescopic gaze.

It's The Metropolis Symphony, a collection of tunes based upon your friend and mine, Superman (the Ace of Action!)!

I will, no doubt, be suckered into adding this to my collection.

"One thing I learned when I WAS IN THE NAVY", Kerry droaned on, "was that when you're headed for the shoals, you need to move the rudder." presumably so you don't hit the shoals. Or something like that. I don't remember exactly what he said, but it wasn't very inspiring. Nothing this guy does is inspiring (at least not as inspiring as Al and Tipper breaking all their own PMRC rules right there at the convention. Whoo-hoo! That was HOT!!!!).

With The League's official choice for President now sadly off the campaign trail, we have begun to seek a new candidate (or perhaps a new ticket as we dream starrily over a veep with all the charisma of Dan Quayle or Walter Mondale)...

And I think I found my man. If I watched more Fox Network, he'd have been staring me in the face all along. But it's so painfully obvious. The League now officially endorses the candidacy of Dennis Haysbert solely on the strength of his Allstate commercials.

Yes, Dennis Haysbert, of whom I know so little (as I've never actually seen 24) has guided me through many trials already. Did you see me bar-B-Qing too close to the house? Or accidentally turning my fried turkey into a bonfire? No. You didn't. Why? Because for some reason, I am willing to listen to Dennis Haysbert in a way that I simply cannot listen to the two mooks currently running for position of Leader of the Free World.

Shouldn't I be able to listen, rapt, to a 30 second sound bite without worrying about the President saying "Uhhhh....." for the entire length. I want somebody who isn't just some Skull and Bones dud Yaley. I want some guy who is going to make me want to leap into the belly of the beast with his oration. And who is that man? He's Dennis Haysbert and his Allstate ads.

I am told Mr. Haysbert is a good president on this 24 show. So, hell. If he's over 35 and a US citizen, let's vote the man in.

Dennis Haysbert in 2004!!!!

Thursday, May 27, 2004

Super Chopper!!!

Check out these pics of a motorcycle which just won awards at Daytona Beach Bike Week.

Full view

Seat Detail

rear wheel and other detail

Super Shield Handle bar detail

these links are from www.Supermanhomepage.com

Finished watching Colonial House (which still kicks the pants off of Survivor any day), and enjoyed it. It wasn't as good as Frontier House, but it was still top notch. I need to go back and watch some earlier episodes I recorded but didn't watch yet. I don't know what happened to at least two cast members as they disappeared during episodes I recorded while Jamie was in the hospital.

I also watched the final performance of American Idol yesterday. I didn't watch the show much this season, but I can say that I thought that the winner (Fantasia?) had one of the strongest performances I'd seen since Tamyra Gray was unjustly voted off Season 1. (Kelly "Pie-Faced Geek" Clarkson? Please.) Anyway, who knows if she'll actually become a legitimate recording artist on her own (I am slowly counting down Clay Aiken's 15 minutes... and the memory of Ruben Studdard already seems so dim...), but it'd be cool if she did.

Got the new stereo. Hurray. It has many buttons and features I do not understand, which is making it difficult for me to equalize the stereo's output. And I don't like sitting in an idle car sucking in Carbon Monoxide while I adjust the stereo settings until the stereo sounds at least as good as stereos which do not provide any options.

Mel is fat and happy, although he dropped a P-Bomb on the carpet Tuesday night. Bad dog. Poor Jamie gets home much earlier than me, so she always has to clean up after him when he seeks revenge for being neglected.

Terrified of my wrath when I found out what that smell was as I entered the house, Mel once again cowered in the bathtub. I guess that's his "safe place".

Superman 205 by Azzarello and Lee was released yesterday. I now know this is going to be a sllloooowww series. But that's okay. Action Comics is moving almost too fast for my taste, and Adventures of Superman is at a more traditional Superman pace. There's got to be room for many styles, I think.

My guess is that most comic readers who seek non-stop violence in comics are going to either not pick up on (or roundly dismiss as being too heavy handed) the sort of nuanced writing Azzarello is shooting for. Very little fighting here, but the story is saying something unique about Superman's place in the world that DC just doesn't usually touch on, although it often skirts around the issue. Really, not since the amazing Paul Dini/ Alex Ross oversized holiday graphic novel "Peace on Earth", has it been so clear how Superman can be used as both character and metaphor to demonstrate how any person of power struggles on a daily basis as they impose their will upon others.

Due to the story, Superman is definitely being portrayed as an alien, and as we learn more about the circumstances of the story, we see why he is losing touch with his humanity (or perhaps becoming all the closer to it as he experiences abject failure...). There are some legitimate theoretical issues tossed around about how Superman must view himself, others and the world as a whole that are usually glossed over in most 22 page Superman comics.

I will be curious to see how this storyline progresses. I know other Superman fans who want nothing but action, action, action (he came out of Action Comics, after all) will find the story preachy and too boring. But they're not keeping their eyes on the long-term possibilities for the series, and I, for one, am enjoying seeing how this unfolds.
Thanks to Jim for this link.

PC Boombox.

Wednesday, May 26, 2004

THANKS, SCIENCE!!!

Just when I thought Face/Off was a kind of silly movie with a bizarre premise, some doctors in Kentucky are trying to make the Woo feature a grim, grim reality.

One wonders, with cloning technology ever increasing and now the ability to transplant your face, a world full of walking Darkman sequels can't be far behind.

Here's the article from CNN.com

***Special thanks to Randy for pointing out I never added the link***
HURRAY!!!

Tom is back from Poland!
Something goofy happened yesterday at The League. Something went weird with blogger.com and it resulted in a lack of access to this URL with a www prefix. Anyway, they fixed it and all should be right with the world.

Last night Jamie went to the gym with me, albeit in a largely observational capacity. On the way home, she was quiet for a minute, and then she said: I think you're using your machine backwards.
"Backwards?," I replied.
"Everyone else is going the other direction."
By this she means that I may well be back-pedaling on the elliptical machine which I spent, last night, 35 minutes on. Which was a few miles.
"What do you mean?"
"You know how you're going around in little ellipses? Everyone else's machine is going the other way."
THis made me pause. "Sometimes my knees lock up on the thing. Like my leg is popping backward."
"I'm just saying," she shrugged.
So it may be that I am BACKPEDALING for up to 45 minutes at a time. Which is kind of awesome when you think about it. It means if I went to the track, I'd be huffing it backward around the track, or walking backward down block after block. And while the idea appeals to me, I probably should be running forward since the elliptical machine is my machine of choice.

In other news: Get the warranty.

Yesterday I went to Best Buy to get a new stereo to replace my old stereo which had gone kablooey and tried to eat my copy of the Walkmen's "Bows + Arrows".

It turns out that the prices on car stereos have dropped through the floor in the two years between purchase and total chaos of the Jensen. The high dollar item for cars is now an in-dash DVD player with Liquid Crystal Display (which slides out). As ludicrous (and, if I may say, DANGEROUS) as this sounds, it is, in fact, what Best Buy is now pushing. I assume the CD players are some sort of loss-leader for speakers, installation, etc... at this point.

The bottom line is that (for NOTHING) I got a really nice Panasonic (the second most expensive model I saw) and it was STILL $20 cheaper than the crapular Jensen I bought two years ago. It doesn't get installed until tonight, but I was so giddy while I was checking out that I think I spooked the girl at the register. I guess they're more used to angry people in the returns department.

Today I am truly an Even Steven. But since I trust nothing, I also bought the 4-year Warranty on this new stereo, just in case.

Tuesday, May 25, 2004

And this shall put Reed into a tailspin from which he may not recover...

But will all 500 of their albums, bootlegs, official concert albums and recordings of them sleeping, snoring, washing their cars, etc... be enough for the Phish legions?

No. No, it will not.
From the FBI:

"Behind the clown nose, however, this man appears to have been supporting an industry that trades in the exploitation of children."

Further negating my desire to go to the circus, and reinforcing every desire I ever had to punch clowns in the head, this article appeared on CNN.com this afternoon.

Next we're going to find out the elephants are running a meth lab out of their trailer. Or the human cannonball is going to get lodged in the barrel to diastrous results. I just can't bear it.
I was recording Colonial House on the DVR last night and something went horribly wrong.

The DVR didn't stop recording. it just kept going and going and going.

THis morning it was recording Body Electric, a workout show I used to watch when I only had three channels and just wasn't up for the morning news while eating my Grape Nuts. Body ELectric was followed immediately by The Boobah Zone. Having seen the Boobah Zone before, this viewing confirmed one thing: THe purpose of Boobah Zone is to get kids interested in the wonders of psychedelics at an early age.

If you thought Tinki Winki and Co. were kind of trippy, these guys are like Cheech and Chong to the Boobah Zone's Timothy Leary. Holy frijoles, my friends. This is one show to melt your gourd.

Nonetheless, I could NOT stop the Boobah Zone from recording. I couldn't call up the menu to stop it from recording. And pressing stop didn't work. "Hey," said Jamie. "The menu said the thing is almost out of space."

Which meant the DVR had been recording since 8:00pm last night.

I eventually just pulled the plug on the thing, and it seemed to right itself after a reboot. Sadly, there was no sign of the recorded 11 hours of PBS. And if there's one thing I know from college, PBS shows some really interesting junk at about 3:00am. I once watched a whole documentary about Cicadas and an episode of Reading Rainbow in the wee, wee hours.

Sadly, I lost my recorded Colonial House, but that was okay. I ended up watching most of it, anyway, while it recorded.

On another electronics note: My car stereo went on the fritz once again two weeks ago. My warranty still in effect, the Best Buy guy called me yesterday and told me the cost of repairs was greater than a new setereo, so he invited me in to select a new stereo.

It appears all stereos for cars are now XM ready and are cheaper than when I bought one a CD player just two years ago. I am lookign forward to getting a car stereo, because with my commute, I've had to develop a second personality to entertain me while I'm on the road.

Monday, May 24, 2004

Oh, yeah...

Looks like a civilian space port is being considered in California.
I am tired today.

I had to get up early to go get blood taken at the lab near the hospital so they can measure both the purines in my blood and to measure my cholesterol. Last time I had my cholesterol checked, I didn't know I wasn't supposed to eat before the test. Consequently, my blood indicated I was fine on two of my cholesterols and on my third, I was pretty much a goner. This may yet be the case, but you never know. In my defense, since that test I've been eating less Crisco straight out of the tub.

No doubt, I will report a Lipitor prescription in the near future.

I also found out on Friday (yes, even with Jamie in the hospital I went to my own doctor's appointment) that I have been taking my medication incorrectly and have been taking painkillers for the past several months believeing they were a necessary anti-inflammatory. Which they kind of are, but it's a "take as needed" kind of medication, not "twice a day with the other pill," as I believed (and how the bottle read).

As Denby would put it, I've essentially been "hopped up on goofballs." But not really.

I did wake up feeling achey this morning and was trying to figure out what that was all about, and near as I can figure, all my neurons and what not are properly firing again and telling me about every little ache I have for the first time since August. That went away within an hour, but now I just feel tired. Which is probably more to do with my exciting weekend. I also need better coffee.

I need to get a PMA (positive mental attitude) or today is going to stink.
I kind of want to go to the circus when it arrives in town in a few weeks, but I'm torn. I am aware that some circuses do not treat their animals terribly well, but Ringling Bros. goes way out of their way to make it clear that their animals are not trained through abuse, etc...

I have no idea if either side is actually correct. I assume the truth is somewhere in between, and Ringling Bros. isn't exactly some tent set up in Wal-Mart parking lot. They have a serious reputation to maintain.

But another strike against the circus is that I kind of don't like clowns. There's always that. I mean, I HATE mimes, but I just kind of dislike clowns. I think the mean clowns in Dumbo must have had a profound effect upon me as a child or something.

And then you read something like this, and all those death-defying stunts don't seem so death defying.

But I haven't been to the circus since I was in 7th grade, and I don't count Cirque du Soliel as a real circus. Until i see an elephant wearing a pink hat, it just ain't a circus. And let's face it, thanks to our entertainment-saturated society, the circus is a disappearing art form here in the US. I'd liek to go and see the circus again just to get a good idea of what it's all about again.

What to do... what to do...

Sunday, May 23, 2004

I am happy to say Jamie is home from the hospital and feeling fairly well. We had a little scare there. She was supposed to go in for a minor sort of thing (in our medical universe) and ended up spending the weekend fighting a nasty infection which she had prior to arriving but had gone under the radar. The initial prognosis was not a good one, but after a few tests we got all squared away and were able to get Jamie treated with some antibiotics and whatnot.

Anyway, we're home now and only slightly worse for wear. Thanks to those who sent e-mails and positive vibes.

Upon our arrival home, we got to watch our DVR'd copy of Smallville's Season Finale. Hurray! That ruled. I think they just introduced the Phantom Zone. If you don't know what that is, well, it's a sort of...zone... kind of on a phantom plane... that, uh... well, it's a good place to put dudes like Zod when they get out of hand.

Make sure your TiVo's etc... are ready. Next week is the finale of Justice League on Cartoon Network before it is relaunched as Justice League Unlimited. Look for it around 7:00 next Saturday evening. Given my hip lifestyle, no doubt I'll be home to watch it.