Saturday, August 25, 2007

Just some stuff

Wagner is in town, but she's headed for the Flugtag (sp?). I was not terribly tempted to show up. Anything before the 1st week in September is always dicey as per heat index.

In the meantime, here's some stuff.

The Top 10 Poor Man's Versions

Goth's Invade Disneyland.

From the "Bats Day at Disneyland" slideshow at LA Weekly: When the Happiest Place on Earth plays host to the saddest people on Earth ­ and the line for the Haunted Mansion is longer than ever



I'm ditching MySpace as soon as I can bother to find a way to alert folks. I'm moving to Facebook. Hopefully I'll get less spam and fewer ads featuring girls giving me a come-hither glance.

Eric Trautmann, the co-writer on last week's issue of Checkmate, showed up to in the comments section at Comic Fodder and was incredibly gracious. Of course, I heart Checkmate, so it was a lot nicer than had many other writers shown up.

You should read Checkmate, btw. And Blue Beetle.

Josh sends along this:



Nothing better than Finn-language YMCA. Some Leaguers may know, the Steans boys are of 1/2 Finn stock. Watching this video, so much becomes clear.

And the following video is exactly like dinner time at JimD's house.

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY, ADMIRAL



Happy Birthday to the greatest Dad. Ever.

Sorry I posted on it so late.
Thanks to Steven and Lauren for joining us this evening for dinner. I still need a mint.

Anyway, looks like we may be teaming up to watch the first game of the UT season. Any and all Leaguers are welcome to join us at League HQ for kick-off on September 1st at 6:00 PM. Well, come before that.

We won't provide dinner, but we will provide TV, chips and a maybe a six-pack of beer.

I shall wax rhapsodic upon the arrival of football season soon.

What else?

Oh, I watched this really depressing episode of Nova about Typhoid Mary.

It was an interesting look at the social conditions, class warfare, living conditions and emergence of science in America as a force which could now touch and greatly change people's lives in ways we're still struggling with today. In short, how much liberty DO you have to give up when suddenly confronted with the knowledge that you're a carrier for a disease? Is getting a disease a crime?

Anyhow, there were some re-enactments, which were brief enough that they didn't seem to repaint the picture, and which did a bit more for illustrating the points than a graying talking head re-telling the events. Plus, for some reason, they had Anthony Bourdain as one of the experts. Very odd.

Also did some comic blogging, but most of you guys arent dorky enough to read that, anyway.

Monday, August 20, 2007

If the League were super...





from the Caption Contest currently running at the Superman Homepage

Sleestak Art

Probably because I hit Lady, That's My Skull every day, I had the image of Sleestaks on the brain.

Anyway, hopefully this is something we can all enjoy. Especially candidate Sleestak.

Sunday, August 19, 2007

A nice, slow weekend.

I needed a slow, quiet weekend this weekend, though. Having a job, I find, does that to me.

Friday night we never made it out of the house except for an early dinner. I'd managed to leave work at a reasonable time, so it was a nice change of pace, given how the rest of my week had gone. We watched "Batman Begins", and after Jamie went to bed, I watched "When Worlds Collide". I think it's an interesting movie, but I somewhat question some basic premises of the film.

"When Worlds Collide" is a 1950's movie about what happens when astronomers figure out a huge planetoid is headed towards Earth, and when it hits, we're all gonna die. The gameplan is to put people on a giant rocket and shoot them out into space to find a habitable planet.

Now, there's some talk of the financing that would need to occur to make this work, and that strikes me as something sort of odd. I suspect that with the world about to blow up, somehow money really wouldn't be a huge focus. I suspect some folks would try to do the right thing and do everything they could to assist the space ark to give humanity one tiny chance at survival, and a whole lotta other people would go berserk and do a lot of really despicable junk. Because the movie takes place in the 1950's, everyone stands around in suits and talks things through with a lot of product in their hair.

Saturday Jamie went with Carla to a dance class somewhere. I believe they did a lot of arm swinging and hopping, but I'm not sure. All I know is that Jason and I headed to Gus Frugh and floated with Mel and Cassidy (Lucy has an ear infection, so no swimming for her). It was really nice out, and the $10 floating fisherman's hat I recently picked up at Academy worked like a charm. Plus, I could throw it and Mel would retrieve it out of the water.

Late Saturday we saw "Superbad", which was better than I expected. I don't recommend it for the parents, but I thought it was funny, and the story was a good "one night in the life of high schoolers" first spawned with American Graffiti. While as raunchy in its way was "American Pie", the characters feel far more believable than the Tommy Hilfiger models of American Pie (that Apatow touch of casting believable looking actors) as well as not dumping too many over the top stereotypes on the audience (ie: No Stifler, no sexy foreign exchange students).

Today I was worthless. We ran some errands and ate lunch at the charming French stereotype, La Madeline over in Brodie. I don't really get la Madeline. It's incredibly complicated just ordering your food, and then it's kind of expensive for what you get. And, of course, where there was a field a few weeks ago, you're now in a rustic French cafe. Manned by surly high schoolers who take an insane amount of time putting together a cup of French Onion soup. Seriously. Speed it up.

I came home from errands and promptly fell asllep on the couch for over an hour, got up and FINALLY got to the task at hand (which I had planned to do all weekend), and began sorting comics from my downstairs bins in order to bag and board them for entry into Comicpriceguide.com and then filing in a long box.

This, sadly, was the task which was why I asked Steven and Lauren to meet us for dinner Tuesday rather than this evening. I'm a sad, sad dorky man.

Speaking of:

Thursday at work we were working on a course which features a "wizard" who guides learners through a lesson. A media developer, who is a long-time acquaintance of mine, said, "Ryan, you know the difference between a wizard and a sorcerer, right?"
"Man, I don't know." I paused and considered the question. "Why," I finally asked, "do you think I know that?"
"Because you're the dorkmeister."

I am the dorkmeister. Even at work.

I actually brought it up again Friday, and Pat was able to explain that my dorkiness falls into very specific areas, and that my dorkiness doesn't spread to area involving wizards and warlocks. Actually, it kinda/sorta does, but Dungeons and Dragons was long, long ago.

I then found myself talking about how cool Nova is in front of this guy later, and I realized that my reputation is all too well earned.