The End of Humanity a Good Idea?

As much as The League wants to put on a happy face and love all of humanity, there often seems to be someone out there who wants to make me sort of think the inevitable rise of our robot masters is going to be for the best.

Or, you know, if LA did just fall off into the ocean. That would be a good start.

Because I love doggies and aardvarks, I don't wish for the doom of all life on Earth, but if there were to be a comet coming which was only going to smush humans, I just might think this clip informs my opinion of why this would be a good thing...

Thanks to Randy for both links.

Mother's Day, Baseball, bad pants

Hey, Leaguers!

Happy late Mother's Day to all you Ladies of the League who have some kid depending on you for shelter and food.



My mother is in Italy. Or headed there. Anyhow, I didn't get to see her today, but I did see her yesterday. We were both at the Astros/ Daimondbacks game, but we'd separately bought tickets, so we didn't sit together. It wasn't intentional.

Jamie and I had decided to see a game or two this year, so I'd called up Josh some time back and we got some tickets. And not two days later my mom called and asked if we wanted to go with she and my dad to the game.

Anyhow, this weekend we went to the 'Stros game and watched them defeat the Diamondbacks, which is okay. We sort of turned on the Diamondbacks last season and I sort of knew I would throw in with the Astros once we were in Texas. After all, We were going to be getting a lot more Astros games here, so it was sort of a practical thing. Plus, I don't care for Eric Byrnes. I don't know why, but the man bugs me.

I was impressed with the Astros' new guy, Hunter Pence, which is a terrible name for a pretty good player. he had a good hit last night and caught one of Byrnes' flyballs this afternoon in that game (which I watched part of on TV).

Anyhoo, it's baseball season, plus NBA playoffs, so I've been watching a lot of sports.

Friday night we had dinner with Joanne P, in from Florida, and her lovely sister nancy, in from Michigan. They were here to surprise their mother for Mother's Day, which is pretty nice, I think. Nancy has a cottage in Lower Michigan if anyone is interested in renting a cottage for a week or so in the summer.

It was great to see Joanne, who I hadn't seen in the flesh in five years or so. She looks eerily the same, even as I progress in my role as "the guy who is aging badly".

Saturday we jumped in the car and left Wagner here to take care of the dogs (and see her brother and nephew) while we headed to Houston.

We grabbed lunch then headed to the game where we caught up with Sarah H, as well as my folks.

So I was all sqaured away with my new Astros cap and was ready to settle in for the game when I got a little too excited about the beer guy. I was seated fifth down the row and decided to expedite the transaction so I leaped over the empty row of chairs in front of us. I was mid-air when I heard a horrible shredding sound. My pants had split along the interior seam from the bottom of the shorts up to the crotchal region, thus exposing my red and blue striped boxer/briefs to the world.

The annoying bit was that the shorts were literally brand new. I bought them last week as I own only two or three pair of shorts for some reason, but I also paused for a moment upon realizing what had happened to my pants to recall the scenario in which I'd purchased the shorts.

"Oh, these are $8.00 less. I'll get these," I said to Jamie, a little too proud of the bargain I'd found.

You get what you pay for, Leaguers.

So, yeah, I wasn't so much standing up for the good plays, but I did spend a lot of time sitting with Jamie's sweater in my lap. Jamie's pink sweater.

Anyway, I managed to make it from the top section of the stadium all the way to our car without getting arrested, nor anyone catching much of a flash of my translucent white thigh.

Next time I will just pass the money to the beer guy like a normal person.

Small Items

Spider-Shame

For your dog.

Thanks to Randy for the link.

More Spinal Tap


New Spinal Tap Video

from JimD

Stok Caffeinated Coffee Creamer

A caffeinated coffee creamer? Seem redundant? That's because you don't know how to ride the Pony Espresso, Leaguers. WHOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Yup. I put this in my 7-11 coffee this morning. Sure, some extra jolt of caffeine was entirely possible, but I couldn't really tell. Perhaps tomorrow. Anyway, adding caffeine to your coffee is a novel concept. I'm no longer the caffeine junky I once was (Vivarin is a cruel mistress), but I still like the idea. Why be just a little peppy when you could be vibrating your way to Earth-2?

I'm just a little sad I never found a can of this little marketing error.

Steve Nash's Nose

I don't really care who wins the Spurs/Suns series. But I also think it's a fun series, and it may be one of the best in this year's play-offs. Sure, I'm pulling for the Suns as the Suns have been my team for the past few years. But I've always enjoyed the Suns/Spurs/Rockets tri-fecta.

And the Suns might have pulled it out had Steve Nash not been a bleeder. Poor fella.

Paris Goes to Jail

Is there any greater feeling that the one you get when you hear Paris Hilton's prosecutor sent her to jail? No.

And I'm not sure that hoping someone hits her with a lunch tray makes me a bad person.


Lost to End

Apparently ABC has decided that running a show into the ground may not be a great policy. Looks like Lost will actually build to a conclusion.


Mellies '07

Someone asked about the '07 Mellies.

Sigh.

Every time I sit down to think about The Mellies, I really can't think of any good questions. I've had a lot less time for pondering the imponderables of pop culture and the human heart this year, and usually I ask questions that somehow reflect topics that are on my mind. I also sort of have a "been there, done that" feel about a lot of the media/ pop culture questions, but I think those questions are a sort of necessary evil.

I dunno.

Steven's also been working very hard on the application which will collate the responses into a usable format. And then he got busy with work and school. So probably sometime after Steven finishes the semester and after I come up with some questions.

It IS a Small World After All

So yesterday I was making a mention of some of our Saturday Free Comic Book Book day adventures, and I used some unfortunate grammar that made it sound as if Austin Books had not provided some of the free Steve Rude's Nexus comics. Let me assure you, Austin Books had a really nice FCBD set-up which included the comic in question.

At any rate, today I received an e-mail from Brad, the proprietor of Austin Books, who was very concerned that I hadn't found the Nexus comic, and who promised to place a copy aside for me for my next visit. THAT, Leaguers, is customer service.

Realizing that I had, in fact, made a grammatical error which not only confused my message but might lead folks astray, I quickly rewrote the offending sentence. I hope that set things square.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Austin Books does a heck of a job, and it was kind of cool to see the owner doing his due diligence to see how their event did in the public's eye. And when he found waht looked like a dissatisfied customer, working to resolve the problem. I assure you, Leaguers, this is not the industry norm for comic shops.

After the recent adventures on this site and Saturday night's beer-fueled conversation about the Clambake Jake incident from recent posts, I've been thinking a bit about how the world is a shrinking place. And, sure, Google's relationship with Blogger is most likely shoving LoM posts closer to the top of the Google search results. A bit of blogging now seems to lead to contact with businessmen in a manner which I would never consider communicating in a face-to-face. After all, unless I have a question, I don't usually start telling shop owners what I'm thinking. How business owners will learn to engage bloggers is probably an open question, but I look forward to seeing how it plays out here at the League.

I'd be curious to see what the algorithm might be for size of city, likely number of customers/ attendees, readership of a blog, content of the blog in question, etc... for how likely a business owner is to actually contact the blogger.

Is this a new mode for a more democratic mode of consumer awareness? Or is the ability for any jerk with an internet connection merely the new nightmare for any business smaller than a Big Box Store?

I dunno. But it's a trend to watch. After all, this isn't the first time we've been found by the very subjects we've mentioned in a blog post. Which is why The League will be name dropping Lynda Carter a lot more in the future.

Anyway, thanks to Austin Books for caring about a Nexus-less comic geek!

New Job = Light Posting

I started my new job this week. Please forgive me for lighter blogging than usual.

This unfortunate photo was posted to the company's intraoffice blog welcoming me.



My hair was not doing well today.

Anyway, the company seems super cool, and I am very excited.

MONO E AND CRACK: ONE NIGHT ONLY

From my brother:

Just a reminder that two of Austin's most legendary garage bands will be hitting the stage at Bella Blue art boutique on Wednesday afternoon (Bella Blue is an art shop, but they have an entertainment area behind the shop that has a stage and plenty of room for our rock and roll audience). Crack will kick off the festivities at 3:00 with our unique take on savante garde melody making (or noise rock, depending on your point of view). The Mono Ensemble will follow at 4:00 with their own brand of folk-prog-western-jazz-funk-rock, and Kosmodrome will round out the day at 5:00 with experimental electronic fanfare smuggled deep out of the heart of mother Russia. The whole thing is part of the garage band showcase portion of SXS1st (the South 1st Street part of SXSW).

Here's a link to the Bella Blue flyer. Bella Blue is at 2213 South First Street, on the east side of the street, about a block north of Oltorf (next to End of An Ear Records, who I believe may be co-sponsoring the event).

So take part of the day off and come see some local, live music the way SXSW was originally intended!!!!!

Hope to see you all there!!!!!!

hugs,

jason steans



And, yes... I sit in on bass for one of the Crack tunes.

When Good Sentiments Go Wrong

This dude had this hair as late as September 12th, 2001.



I'm probably mistaken, but is that the same beach from the end of "Planet of the Apes"?

Found at this blog.

Along with this Captain America/ Team America video.

editor's note: Mom, Dad... do not watch. This has naughty, naughty words.



Scenes are from the little-seen 1990 Captain America feature film starring the son of JD Salinger. Yes, I have seen it. And it rulz.

space love

Coming up, find out how Lisa Nowak went from operating a robot arm in space to driving 900 miles in a diaper. - what I woke up to this morning on CNN.

Ah, love.

This is just one more reason we should consider using more robots for space exploration.

Robots do not know the pain of love. Or do they? Do they, indeed?