Fat Discrimination

We're on Day 3 of an infinite number of days of Headline News returning to their favorite topic: obesity. The omnipresent spectre was discussed today in light of a Gallup Poll which determined whether folks felt they had been discriminated against because of their weight, and whether employers would be likely to discriminate against folks because of their girth. During the report, the weird, awkward Gallup guy pantomimed a gut and made sure to point out that more Americans are overweight (according to the AMA) than said felt they were overweight... he clearly felt ashamed of those Americans who did not admit they were overweight. It was very strange...

Stayed up too late watching The Rules of Attraction on cable. This movie probably isn't for everyone, but after endless cable reruns of Road Trip and American Pie 2, it was interesting to break from the mold and see a movie about quasi-sociopathic yet recognizable college kids. I know American Pie, et al, are always supposed to have "heart", but the cute and fuzzy bunny characters never appeal to me, and the stories always seem to downshift into sentimental glop about some randomly boring love interest when the beginnings of the movies always make it look like the characters are having much more fun NOT being in love. I'm not even sure I would say Rules of Attraction was a good movie, but it differed enough from the cute and fuzzy bunny formula that at times I knew that if I'd seen this in college, it would have made a boatload more sense to me than those movies mentioned above.

The other fun part of The Rules of Attraction was when, about forty minutes into the movie I suddenly put 2 and 2 together and realized the James VanDer Beek character was supposed to be Patrick Bateman's little brother from American Psycho. Suddenly everything became so very, very clear. (BTW, while the book of American Psycho is fairly disturbing and not for everyone, the movie version was pretty lame and ended up as a fairly tame slasher fliock... ). Anyway, realizing the connection also solidified the theme of adding "American" as part of your title to give it some sort of ubiquitous meaning and gave a different gravity to the end of the flick.

Am currently reading Jimmy Olsen: Adventures by Jack Kirby. Check it out, comic geeks. This is some great, great stuff.

Turns out I was wrong on some details on the Castillo case. For an interview with the Director of the CBLDF, read here. For an interview with the actual guy who got arrested, read here.

Never let it be said I won't point out where I am wrong. Except on this whole "Groundhog Day" thing. 6 more weeks of winter, my ass...

The Magic Genies at blogger.com who run the blogging service I utilize have now fixed my archives problem. If you'd liek to review my past posts, such as they are, you may now visit my little archives section. It's fast, it's free, it's fun and it may very well save your life.

Fat Kids in Crisis: A Nation Mourns

Headline News ran another story about childhood obesity. Today's topic was about stapling kids' stomachs to curb the fatness. THis was after they brought on two ugly teenagers to demonstrate how to properly wear a bicycle helmet.

Okay, look... this is the sort of thing I'm going to obsess about, so i just want to prepare everyone. I plan to now count the number of days in a row I have to hear about obesity on Headline News. We're on Day 2

And if your kid can't wear a helmet properly (and I know I've just doomed any future Steans progeny by saying this outloud), isn't there something called Natural Selection? If you're 15 and you're wearing your bike helmet, say... sideways... you're probably going to end up getting killed sooner or later doing something like chasing a shiny object into heavy traffic.

On the legal front, The Supreme Court refused to hear the Jesus Castillo case out of Dallas. Jesus sold a really nasty adult Japanese comic book to an undercover cop. The comic contained all kinds of stuff unfit for the pages of The League, but we think this is silly. Couple of things: the comic was in a marked off section clearly labeled "for adults only", and rumor had it that a rampaging PTA mom had threatened the shop because they would not sell her Pokemon cards wholesale. THis same woman then appeared at PTA meetings and began making a stink about the shop, and the idea is that she basically set them up. Also, the actual store was not the one which got in trouble, it was the hapless minimum wage clerk... poor guy. But, apparently, because of "community standards" rules, what the cop did was legal, as were all the proceedings. (Jim and I discussed this off-line. It's actually fairly interesting, You should ask him about the laws.)

The final argument prosecutors used basically defied considerable expert testimony, piles of evidence and sheer logic, but appealed emotionally to the selected jurists and their preconceived notions (leaving me to wonder how awful the Defense attorney really was). Basically she argued that comics are for kids (dismissing all evidence about sales, etc...), and that poor Jesus must be trying to corrupt kids. (BTW, no actual kids ever obtained illicit material from the store, but that wasn't the point). It's kind of a messed up story, and it has unleashed the usual anti-Texas sentiments upon the comic geek internet sites. I find this irritating, if nothing else.

I invite anyone drifting in from Jim's legal sites to review this decision and try to find out if the Castillo guy has to do anytime in the slammer.

I'm not sure Japanese tentacle porn is exactly what I think of when I dream of a free country, but something appears to be broken here. The legal action demonstrates how vulnerable any of us could be. The truth is, if this is the precedent, a cop could walk into any bookstore and start arresting the clerks. A cop could arrest librarians and convenience store owners. One wonders what this would mean for Internet Providers and importers. At any rate, it's kind of creepy. And they picked on the one guy who couldn't afford to fund himself for an attorney so the CBLDF ended up picking up the considerable tab. Point being, even if he HAD been exonerated, as well assume justice would prevail, he would still have ridiculous legal fees to worry about, and that's not something an attorney is going to just forget about, nor a court for fees.

CNN loves to talk about fat people. Seriously. They LOVE it. Every freaking morning on Headline News... but that kind of slowed down during the Iraq thingy as Dr. Gupta and company went to parts unknown.

But you can tell CNN is bored with world events again... this morning Headline News ran a lengthy "story" about how kids are getting fat. Curiously, Headline News suggested that the new solution is to get schools to teach kids how not to get fat. My favorite part is that CNN shows footage of fat kids' bodies while talking about how disgusting fat kids are, but they try to give anonymity by not showing the kid's face... THEN they show OTHER people to clearly contextualize and identify the kid and thus set the kid up for a lifetime of therapy. I know what a fat kid looks like, thanks. I don't need a visual and the guilt of knowing what psychic horrors CNN is building with each story about obesity.

Here's what your pudgy (but wise) Uncle Ry thinks: Maybe if you see your kid is playing videogames 5 hours a day while eating Cheese Doodles, the problem is not something a teacher is going to resolve, no matter how colorful her charts of the food pyramid. Kids already have to sit 8 hours a day in school. Recess and getting beat up is probably the only exercise they ARE getting. Instead of playing five hours of John Madden football, mayhaps the answer is to spend $15 on a real football and take away the Super Delicous Berry Toaster Treats and the Eat 'Em Ups. Maybe even send the kid outside? The outside, however, is a frightening place. I understand that every parent is concerned once outside, their precious angel will get abducted or turned onto drugs or that the sun will give their little swamp rat some skin cancer. Have we mutually agreed as a society that it's best just to let the kids widen as their pudgy little fingers squeeze out an afternoon of fun?

I throw stones, but, honestly, it was hot as hell growing up in Texas and we spent many afternoons camped inside, too. I'm just jealous that Atari sucked compared to the PS2. But really, as a kid my mom locked the door at 9:00am in the summer and we were only allowed in for lunch and for dinner. We were smelly little kids, so I don't blame her, and that is when "Uncle Steve" used to come visit, and the milkman and the air conditioner guy and... HEY! Waitaminnut....

Anyway, I like the fat kids of today. For every fat kid with low self-esteem playing videogames at home, that's one less kid I have to deal with when I'm trying to make my way through the grocery store. Or for every little brain-dead mongrel with a Game Boy at a public function, that's one less kid I have to pretend to be interested in. At least they're not rotting their brains with f**king comic books...

Maybe the 3 feet of reinforced concrete and the titanium shell was overkill...? Anyway, this is a few miles from my house (in the fastest growing city in the US, btw...)

TOYS THAT SHOULD NOT BE

One would expect that after the San Diego ComicCon, I would have more to add to TTSNB. But I think that the close ties to comic books have pretty much eliminated that problem at the SDCC. I'll have to wait for the New York TOy Fair to be truly disturbed, and that's not until winter.

I was talking with co-worker Rachel, and she mentioned how her three year old kid, Eddie, brought home a Michael Meyers doll. Apparently when you squeeze it, it plays the theme from Halloween. It's also armed with a pre-bloodied plastic knife. Yes, the doll was taken away. But, as I say, TTSNB.

In that mode, let's visit with this latest offering, and consider what this would do to your love life if you brought a girl home and THIS was on your shelf. That's 12" of toy enough to make any girl start looking for an alternate escape route. I am safely married and keep my toys to the Superhero genre, and I still think that this is doing nothing short of making the lovely Jamie fairly ashamed of me.

Had a little bit of weirdness at this site and over at Jim's site today. It appears that if one types in www.melbotis.blopsot.com, one gets a bible site. My Type-o's caused me to panic. ANyway, the weirdness has passed.

Watched most of three movies today, as well as doing yardwork.

1) Actually watched about 80% of The Lion in Winter. Very good film. "This movie is depressing" was Jamie's review. And then she slept through the last 1/2 of the movie. Just sort of passed out in the recliner with her mouth hanging open. Excelelnt cast (with a young ANthony Hopkins and Timothy Dalton). Looks like Picard is going to be in a version on TV sometime this year.

2) Watched all of Finding Nemo at the theater. Very cute movie about fish. I was desperate for Long John Silver's when we left. Settled for shrimp we picked up at the grocery. I think I liked Nemo, but like most kids movies, it kind of rolled off me. It didn't help that there were six kids behind us who were running a color commentary of the movie and how it related to them personally. Ah, I love children. So precious... anyway, I liked the trailer for The Incredibles.

3) Watched good chunk of Clash of the Titans on cable. Got very defensive when Jamie commented on the crappy FX. Not sure why I was so defensive. Must have thing for Harry Hamlin. Actually, I love Harryhausen's stuff. It's easy to trash, but have you ever tried to animate a mechanical owl? I'm sure it's difficult to see the return on investment.

Last night, faced with nothing else to do, we drank White Russians and watched Trading Spaces as this episode was taped somewhere in North Austin. I was all weepy and nostalgic as they showed the "Welcome to Austin" mural at the intersection of South 1st and Annie, which is about four blocks from my old house. I miss South Austin deeply. People, if you haven't been down that-a-way, you should go there. It's a good place and good people, but keep your eye on your car stereo. Go to La Reyna on S. 1st for lunch and go to Casa Garcias on SOuth Lamar for breakfast. It's good stuff, and I am grossly overweight in no small part becuase of their high quality and low prices. For dinner you ask? Guero's, of course.

I also miss Mariachi. Why the hell isn't there any Mariachi in Chandler? hmmm... Time to dust my trumpet and polish my boots...

But there was nothing like using that mural for directions, or the blue genie who used to sit atop the building... "Just go north down South 1st, and you're gonna see a Blue Genie... Yeah, you're not going to miss it, it's huge... yeah, go left there."

Mel misses having a great chainlink fence frontyard. He spent all day running back and forth barking at kids and folks with strollers. We had to introduce ourselves to our neighbors as "We live at Mel's house." Some folks came by and gave Mel treats over the fence. He was very popular. You know, nobody walks here in CHandler, AZ. I guess it's too hot. And Mel can't go in the front yard anyway...

Anyhoo, incentive to move back to South Austin, I suppose.

Over and Out

I wrapped things up over at Jim D's site. Things should be getting back to normal around here.

I'm getting close to the end of my run on Jim D's site. I posted regarding the Pop Culture Countdown at that site, so bounce over there for the usual nonsense.

How come Matthew Perry keeps getting movies and this hasn't received national release?

Those of you looking to earn the eternal gratitude of The League, may want to consider shoppping early for me for Christmas. If I receive this from a reader, it is guaranteed that I will print your name here in The League of Melbotis.

While I love my wife, the lovely and talented Jamie, I could have written a book on this. Thanks, science.

Today I am mad at my job. I would not go so far as to say I am sick of it, but stupid things keep happening, and I am going to have to sort them out. It's days like today I wish I had a job where all I had to do was dig a hole or something. Without going into it, I essentially messed up the TPS reports and am paying dearly.

BTW, I posted over at Jim D's site today, if anyone is curious.

If you've ever lived in Austin, this is just good comedy.

Before I forget, congrats to RHPT.com on a full year of rocking the Continental United States.

VIVA LA RANDY

I think we're on to you.

oh, for the love of God....

Dude... WHAT THE FUCK!!!?????

why I love television

actual quote from someone involved with the show: "Eric always brings enough passion as a producer that when he got excited about a 300-pound tumor, I got excited about a 300-pound tumor."

When we moved out to Arizona from the Great State of Texas, many of the transactions I was attempting to fulfill were meeting with some static. In our digital age, I found the confusion on the part of bankers somewhat odd. They both insisted we could keep our account listed as a Texas account and simultaneously gave me grief over the fact that we did not have our accounts in Arizona. So, choosing the path of least resistance, I opened an Arizona account, leaving the Texas account to wither and die.
Back in April we had a SNAFU with the Texas account, and without getting into too much detail, I'll say we closed the Texas account.
So about three weeks ago I tried paying my credit card bill online. I'm not a technophobe, but I am lazy. Well, apparently the Texas account was still the account I had listed with AT&T Universal Card (a provider I have used faithfully since college). As I mentioned, I am lazy, and not particularly detail oriented, and did not notice the lack of currency in the account number listed as our bank account.
This morning, on our walkies, I picked up the mail and was surprised to find a letter from AT&T Universal Card stating that my online payment had been rejected. Well, I think I deduced what the problem was... the credit card was associated in their database with our old account from Texas, which was gonzo.
So I went online to amend the situation. I put in new info., I even changed my alert status which was supposed to be e-mailed to me, and did several other things. It accepted all the new info., but then, after acknowledging the new account info., refused to accept the new account's payment. I called AT&T Universal Card.
"So I tried to pay my bill online, and you guys took 3 weeks to send me a notice saying it didn't go through."
"Yes sir."
"But you had my e-mail address and phone number, and even the mail isn't that slow."
"I don't know why it took so long, sir."
"Well, I'm getting a red error message when I try to pay using my new account info that I entered."
"Your account is frozen for 30 days. You can't pay online until we reconcile the new information."
"But the website already verified the account."
"We can't accept payment online. Your account is frozen for 30 days."
"Oh... Well..."
"We can accept payment on the phone."
"Okay. Great! I have my checkbook-"
"No, wait, we can't do that, either."
"Oh."
"Since your last payment didn't clear, we can't take any payment that way. For 30 days."
"You said-- The account has money in it. I'm looking at my statement right here."
"You're going to have to mail it in. When is it due?"
"In two days. On the 30th. It's not going to make it."
"No. No, it's not. Let me see if I can extend your payment deadline...."
"That would be good."
"Five days."
"Okay. I still don't know if it will make it. You know, by the time someone opens it and all..."
"Five days, sir. And, I noticed something else on your account. Do you want to consolidate your loans--?"
"No. I have no loans."
"We're also offering cash advances--"
It was at this point I desperately wanted to ask her to advance my account the cash so Peter may pay Paul, but I thought better of it and politely declined.
I did manage to drum up an envelope and stamps, and sent my check off to an address from the web-site, which, I have honestly never seen before.

Road to the Pearly Gates....

There but for the Grace of God Go I.

According to my Sitemeter readings, it appears that The League of Melbotis is THE hotspot if you're looking for nude photos of Ann Coulter. I fear to even mention this, because it means I am probably propogating the problem. But I think if you check, unique ID by unique ID, you'll see that more folks are looking for Ann Coulter nude than are not.

In honor of nude Ann Coulter, I hereby present a fully-clothed Don King.

I'm kind of living over at Jim's site for a while until he can get squared away and get up and running in Beaumont. Pop on in and take a gander.

Hey, kids,

Your Uncle Ryan is feeling a little bad that he may have freaked some people out with this morning's post.

It is true that I do not really like living in Arizona, but I think what I realized is that it's time I draw out a game plan for taking back control of my own destiny. I have several grievances with myself which, mayhaps, I should not have aired online, but the idea is that I am working to address those grievances.

So do not worry (thanks for the support, Leaguers!), I am just trying to figure out how to get out of the blasted heat of Southern Arizona.

After hearing about it all last year, Jamie and I rented Old School from our local retailer. Despite the talent in the movie, I didn't really think it was very funny. Or well written. Or clever. Or even particularly well edited. In fact, it seemed like one of the laziest jobs ever put onto film, but I imagine they knew they weren't exactly putting together Citizen Kane, or even Thomas the Tank Engine.

But the movie did remind me of how cosmically boring my life has become since I moved out to Arizona. The movie hints that marriage is what dooms you, and maybe that's so for many folks, but I think I can point more to our poorly planned move to Arizona. Granted, before we moved, I had lived in Austin for somewhere in the neighborhood of 16 of my 27 years, so a change of pace was welcome. But when "Frank the Tank" begins describing what he plans to do with his weekend (go to Home Depot, etc...), it struck a little too close to home to be funny.

I used to be a fun guy. I'm not necessarily equating my college boozing with fun (although it was), but I think I had even more fun once College was over, I was working a McJob and Jamie and I were cohabitating (so i have a hard time pointing to marriage. cohabitation as the source of the spectre). I was having a pretty good time right up until the time we got to the Valley of the Sun.

It's true that I am to blame for my boredom. I no longer really have the will to seek out art or festivals or even really to go to the movies (people talk here at the movies like it's the only safe place to have a conversation). I certainly never really "go out" on the weekends. 1) there's nowhere to "go out" to in Chandler except a bar AT THE MALL, and Scottsdale is pretty far away from my house. I leave it to your imagination to figure out all the permutations of drinking and driving which become problematic. 2) The only people I know are from work, and I am their boss, so going out and becoming buddies with them is problematic should I need to get serious with them in the office. 3) The greater Phoenix music/ art/ anything of interest scene is completely off my radar. I don't even know where things are, or when they are happening. 4) what I do know about is either insanely expensive or an hour+ away. Even tickets to go see the Diamondbacks are $45 for crappy seats, and I don't even like baseball. 5) whenever you ask what there is to do out here, everyone tells you to go to Sedona. You know what? Fuck Sedona. I refuse to go there on the basis that everyone tells me to go there, and if these people were so smart, they wouldn't be living in this boring desert. 6) I don't play golf. Nor do I want to play golf. I want to play golf the way other people want to spend their lives reading comic books. It just ain't going to happen, but with 400+ golf courses in the greater Phoenix area, you are expected to LEARN to like golf. No. I will not.

But the biggest problem I have is COMPLACENCY. I've let myself get stuck in an idiotic rut. Instead of trying to find something to do here, which would only be a band-aid on the problem, my goal is now to move somewhere else than Chandler, AZ. The highlight of my weekend does not need to be trips to Target and the grocery store. I don't need to spend all day stressing because I know it will be very hot out on Sunday when I have to scoop the dog crap and mow the yard. Quite honestly, I'm going a little batshit. If anyone knows of any work in a major metropolitan area, let me know.

they say apples are nature's toothbrush. And you know what? It's true.

I have a new hero.

Look out, RHPT...

It appears all of us working in the tech sector may soon be in for a replacement. Unfortunately, I've seen how this plays out, and it ain't pretty...

NERD ALERT!!!!

The Batman fanfilm which caused such a ruckus at the San Diego ComicCon can be found here. People have apparently been going batty over the thing. Batty... ha ha ha... ahhhhhh, me....

(update)

Well, I watched the Batman thing (it's a Quicktime download). The video looks really nice, and if you're an Alex Ross fan, Batman and Joker actually look really, really cool. The dialog is really terrible, and the "twists" they add in are... I don't know what they are...

Honestly, I don't know what this is. It reminds me of something I would have dreamt up in 8th grade, but I assume adults are behind it. Anyway, give it a shot, but don't break your arm trying to download the thing.

This afternoon I called the good folks at ADOT to figure out what I was supposed to do about my license plate. "What did you want on your plate?"
"Krypto. K-R-Y-P-T-O. Krypto."
"It's coming up as a drug reference."
"You computer has file of drug references?"
"Yes sir."
"And Krypto was one of them?"
"Yep. Ice, Special K, all this stuff I never heard of. All drugs."
"And Krypto?"
"You never know."
What was not clear was that anyone has ever actually called anything Krypto. But a quick web-search turns up that Krypto is a specific breed of marijuana. Who knew?!!

according to the DOJ: "Krypto," short for kryptonite, is hydroponically grown marijuana that is supplied by Philadelphia-based criminal groups who transport the drug to Atlantic City.

So because some idiot in Philly has decided to call his dope "Krypto," I may not get my license plate. I will find out after the "committee" reviews my request the 2nd Thursday in August. I am thrilled to know I get no rebuttal. Further, I wonder if DC comics knows the name of their beloved character has been co-opted for what sounds like some scientifically enhanced bud?

And can't the state of Arizona accept the fact I like to get groovy and just let the license plate slide? I suppose not. The ultimate irony being that this hydroponic weed is so potent, they named it after the stuff which takes down Superman. So the Superman connection comes full circle. I wonder if there's any "Ace the Bathound" wonder weed?

SUH-WEEEET!!!!

First teaser image of Doctor Octopus as played by Alfred Molina in the upcoming Spider-Man 2 (Amazing Spider-Man).

Part of my morning routine is checking the mail while Mel and I do our little lap around the neighborhood. This morning I received a letter from the Arizona Dept. of Transportation.

A few weeks ago it came time to renew the tags for my car, and like a good little netizen, I jumped online and took care of it immediately (I also took care of Jamie and registered her to vote). One of the options in renewing your tags was to get "vanity" plates for your auto. There's a lot more folks out in Arizona with vanity plates than what you see in Texas, and I discovered that these personalized plates are fairly inexpensive. So, without thinking clearly, I popped in my personalized info. and sat back to reap the benefits of high-speed bandwidth and a check card.

At 5:30 this morning, I got Saturday's mail. Despite the fact I filled in the little box on the form explaining what I had chosen for my plate to say, someone in the ADOT doesn't believe I had the best of intentions when putting "Krypto" on the back of my car. I don't know what they THINK it means, but it's pretty clear that "Krypto" was kind of freaking them out.

Instead of a performing a 30 second web-search to verify my claim, this government monkey sent my request to some review board. No time line has been given as to when I can expect to see whether or not "Krypto" has been approved, but the letter insinuated that the word or phrase had connotations which the state of Arizona did not like.

The thing which concerns me is that I have a tag which I must put on my car by the end of the month. This tag set me back no small amount of green, and I don't want to have to buy a new one if and when they do send me my plate. Lousy bastards.

I won't cry if the state won't allow me to put this on my car (although I think I will be vindicated). In fact, the decision to put Krypto on my car was one I kind of questioned about five minutes after I quit giggling as I sent off my request. This was the same sort of decision making which led me to wear a shirt in middle school which read: Vote LV-426 Planet-Con in '86! (if you can determine what that statement refers to, bonus points.) Nonetheless, it was a bad decision, but it was MY bad decision, and I am sticking with it.

I'll keep you posted as to how this pans out. I need to call ADOT tomorrow to see what I'm supposed to do about this tag +/- plate debacle.

Ann Coulter Nude

Well, I may have doomed myself to an endless hell of popularity with folks looking for nude photos of Ann Coulter.

8 of my last 20 hits came from folks looking for Ann Coulter pics or other... 24 of the last 100 hits.

Anyway, I promised to print results, but I have no idea what this means.

The truth is, right now I'm watching the new Teen Titans show on Cartoon Network, and it's not very good. Oh, well. I did like the first issue of the re-vamped comic by Geoff Johns, though. The cartoon is kind of anime style, a style which I have always not been very interested in because I assumed there was a lot lost in the translation from Japanese to English. I don't see the point of an American cartoon lifting the style, including goofy cultural shortcuts which are fairly meaningless to American viewers, and which are really kind of cutesy (even for a kid's cartoon). I guess the point is to use someone else's tools to fool kids into thinking this somehow fits in the Yu-Gi-Oh, Pokemon, etc... But here's the deal, Yu-Gi-Oh has toys and cards which go along with the show. It's all interconnected. As an intrepid comic fan, I know that no Teen Titans toys are en route (retailers feel there are too many girls on the team (2 of 5) and the toys would never sell.

The rumor turning on the Superman mill is that Cartoon Network will next be launching a cartoon based around Superman's Silver Age canine pal, Krypto the Superdog. It will be geared at very young kids. I look forward to it. BTW, Krypto doesn't talk in the comics. I don't know what's up with this issue.

Jamie and I joined Sam's Wholesale Club this weekend. Mostly, I just wanted one of those big barrels of pretzels because I was hungry. I'm not sure that the "wholesale" costs will help us. There are only two of us, we had to pay $30 to join, and we bought enough stuff that if we actually go back to Sam's before November, I'll be shocked.

Anyway, fairly boring weekend. Hope yours was better.

I hope to post my "In Defense of Megatron" think piece over at Jim's site this week. Hope you guys tune in. I posted there this evening. Go take a peek.

All the interests in my life are collapsing in upon themself into one colossal super project.

Howdy to all of you drifting in from www.jdedman.com. I'm going to be pretty busy today, so forgive me for being a bad host. Feel free to polk around and make yourselves at home. There's RC, water and orange juice in the fridge if you want some. Don't touch the cat, he bites.

Let me know if there are any questions.

Hey, Team,

Jim D. is moving to Beaumont (which reminds me, I owe him money), and he has asked me to Guest Blog over at www.jdedman.com. If you've been long associated with The League, you surely have flipped over to Jim's site at some point to see what the heck I was talking about. So, if my posts are shorter for a time, look for more Melbotis goodness to appear over yonder.

I am very busy today at work, but a couple of things:

1) I was thinking about the Japanese invention I mentioned yesterday which allows you to translate a dog or cat's noises into "speech" by analyzing the tone and then giving a pre-recorded verbal cue. Well, nice idea, but they need to reverse engineer the device so that I can talk back to my pets. Otherwise, the damn thing isn't going to really be of much use.

2) People looking for Ann Coulter nude continue to pour in. I'll do a final tally this weekend, but I think I had somewhere in the neighborhood of four or five people yesterday.

3) Sci-Fi Channel has been re-running episodes of an early 90's Discovery Channel program entitled Beyond Bizarre (not to be confused with "Beyond Belief", which is anything but...). Beyond Bizarre is a sort of Ripley's Believe it or Not! with an even slimmer budget.

Beyond Bizarre must not ever have had much popularity. I remember seeing the show in a drunken stupor when I was 18 and being mystified by some rocks which reportedly move on their own during the night, but I had kind of forgotten about the show the way the rest of the world must have. When you Google search for info on the show, you get bupkis, although you can buy the series on VHS.

Beyond Bizarre is done in quasi-documentary style and chronicles strange and unexplainable phenomena as well as people doing goofy stuff. Most of the strange phenomena are generally explainable with a little logic applied (although the producers of Beyond Bizarre give no siggestion that logic could ever play into these events). They explore strange monuments like Native American Mound Builder artifacts and pyramids. My favorite was an episode which explored "vampires," or bored goth kids who cut each other and drank one another's blood. Not only unsanitary, but generally a big sign that mommy didn't love you.

At any rate, I think at long last, I have found my calling. The show is hosted by this guy, Jay Robinson, whom I believe once played Dr. Shrinker on the Kroft Superstars. The early 90's delivered him to us as a man now clearly bent upon making himself into the prototype for Landau's Lugosi in Ed Wood. At any rate, Jay gets to wear all black, stand in a darkened studio with leftover Universal Monster Movie props and a fog machine while being only slightly creepy. He introduces the program and segues between segments with spooky aplomb. I am not yet old enough to have this job, nor am I likely to abuse enough drugs nor smoke enough cigarettes to have the sort of Crypty Keeper like countenance and vibrato which the job requires.

Ahhh... to dream the impossible dream.

4) A few years ago (circa 1996) some friends of friends shot and edited a movie entitled The Schedule. The film was not really received anywhere excpet for The Dobie off UT's campus. Nonetheless, it was a noble effort, and as I understand it, just never landed a distribution deal. Judging from the less than stellar 3 of 10 stars it has on IMDB, it must not have been a fan favorite.

But the premise is not dissimilar to Showtime's new program Dead Like Me. Both center around recently departed souls being recruited by the powers that be to act as agents of the Grim Reaper and collect dead folks' souls or something.

Anyway, aspiring attorneys may wish to contact the producers of The Schedule and see if they can't get a chunk of Showtime's coffers.

I need to go get lunch, but, my friends, this is what I am dealing with:

Home > Local Forecast for Tempe, AZ (85287)

112°F
Mostly Cloudy Feels Like
107°F (<---this is a damn lie. It feels like my eyes are boiling out of the sockets.)

UV Index: 9 High
Dew Point: 45°F
Humidity: 11%
Visibility: Unlimited
Pressure: 29.82 inches and falling
Wind: Variable at 6 mph

I may starve to death. Please send Ho-Ho's.

Cancer Free until 2083!

Normally I try not to drift toward potty humor, but...

Although I am not sure he'll want to be credited with this one, Randy sent me this link. Thank you, Australian Scientists, for giving me a reason to get that subscription which Jamie has so long denied me. Plain brown wrappers, I eagerly await your arrival.

Here's an interesting device.

You know, both Mel and Jeff are noisy animals. I think that they have deciphered that noise tends to get our attention, and thus, they make noise. The cat is especially bothersome when he decides at 6:30am on Saturdays that we have slept long enough and yowls at the bedroom door. But one has to wonder, what is my dog saying?

he's saying "Hey!" that's what dogs are saying when they bark. They may be saying "Hey, I'm at the door," or "Hey, there's a dog outside the window" or even "Hey, give me a treat," but all they are saying is "Hey!"

It's my assumption that this is also what the cat is saying, but it's hard to say. As chatty as Mel is, Jeff tends to just sit in the center of the room and yowl in existential despair. I like to think that if I invest in this little box, it will decipher's Jeff's great unease with the world and give me greater insight into what it is that troubles him so. Will he be proclaiming that "God is dead and all is a meaningless void!" or will he be whining for his fish kippers? All I know is that in order to find out, I have to drop $75.

I'm still getting hits trickling in from people looking for nude pics of Ann Coulter. I think I had one or two yesterday and one today. Well, done, America.

A LITTLE HUMPDAY PICK-ME UP

Here's something I wouldn't encourage people to do.

VIVA LANCE!!!!

As a former Austinite, I get excited about bicycles once a year during the Tour de France. Austin's own Lance Armstrong is going for victory number 5 in this most grueling of human tests. While I think riding a bicycle for a living is as silly as walking for a living, I still get really jazzed about this guy.

Whether he actually wins or not on this go-round, Lance is an amazing athlete, and he also, apparently drives a Subaru. But Lance is also the brains or at least the mouthpiece for the Lance Armstrong Foundation. Lance had a nasty bout with cancer many years ago and he came through it with flying colors, and he's always used his prominence as the World's foremost cyclist to promote awareness of cancer research and to promote the US Postal Service.

So hurrah, Lance, and best of luck.

Welcome back RHPT

Randy has blogged once more! He's returned to the world of navel gazing and spouting off of partially founded opinions. Welcome back, mi amigo. Es bueno.

I could not tell you why, but this post on JimD's blog is absolutely hysterical. Maybe you have to have been following Jim's blog for a while to find it funny, but I had to share.

I just got my paycheck, and immediately checked it to see how the tax cut was supposed to effect me. I was especially curious after the flap occuring around RHPT.com's post from a few weeks ago about his tax cut. Randy had noted a $20 increase.

I noted a loss of $1.20. C'est la vie.

My beautiful wife Jamie has taken it upon herself to learn the guitar. I am quite pleased with her choice as she has chosen a hobby which does not require me to lose any square footage in our house, nor does it require me to pay out for the feeding and maintenance of a hoofed mammal. Previously, Jamie has been a voracious reader, and avid taunter of the cat. Now she is cursing like a sailor while trying to learn how to tune her Alvarez.

I am not musically inclined. I played piano for a year when I was 7. For two years in middle school I played the Tuba, but found it was only adding to the malaise of being labeled "nerd boy" by much of my middle school. I have no ear for music, and it was all too late that I realized what a neat trick for picking up girls a guitar can be.

At any rate, I wish Jamie the best of luck in her new endeavor. We are truly rocking out to such hits as "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" and "Jingle Bells".

ANN COULTER NUDE!!!!

Well, I got my first hit from someone looking for pics of Ann Coulter in her birthday suit. On 7/14/2003 at 2:07:37 PM logged the first of what I hope to be many such inquiries. I posted at 1:13pm on Friday, so that'll give you an idea how long it took.

Congratulations America. You made it thru the weekend without anyone resorting to this.

He may have been dead for a century, but having watched this performance, I think Beyonce's dancing is something Grant would have firmly supported.

God speaks to each of us in different ways. TO some of us, He calms us in our moments of turmoil. Others He calls to duty. To Deion Sanders He has spoken and asked him to be really, really cheap and kind of bizarre.

I took an animation class in the final year that the University of Texas at Austin offered a non-digital animation selection. The course taught me quite a bit about film making beyond the boundaries of animation, but it also taught me a Zen-like patience that previously eluded me. You see, animation has traditionally been captured one frame at a time. There are, in traditional film, 24 frames in a single second of film. In order to create the illusion of motion on a large screen, in a single second, 24 images have ticked by. It's called Persistence of Vision.

This means that for every second of an animated film that you watch, 24 times a crew has replaced the image you are currently seeing with the next image in an exacted order. The next image is a minor and minute change, but absolutely essential to the illusion of "realistic" motion. In addition to this, these images must synchronize lip movements in a way that not only matches the audio track (usually of someone speaking), but also must match the shapes our lips create when pronoucning certain consonant noises and vowel sounds that we each intuitively recognize.

Also, timing must be determined for the length of a movement, a realistic bounce must be put into a walk cycle, and one must know exactly how many frames are funniest from an anvil entering a fram to crushing Elmer Fudd (13 frames). Each background must be drawn in detail for these animated characters to dance across. Each time an angle changes, a new background must also be produced. During filiming, each frame is documented as to which "cell" has been shot, how far the camera has been tilted, zoomed, panned, etc... and stored for later retrieval in case something goes wrong and you must do it all over again.

The process is meticulous, it is obsessive and the end results are all too infrequently the ones that the film makers were hoping for. But the two months I spent drawing each cell of a 2 minute animation (which had no beginning, middle or end to it) was possibly the most rewarding portion of my entire film school career. For two months, each night I had to draw the same characters over and over and over in slight changes in positioning, with the slightest alteration in form and movement. I cheated in the end and used photographs for my backgrounds, and I certainly had no desire to attempt dialogue. But i did it. Totally on my own, I created and drew two minutes of character animation. The beats flowed more or less how I wanted them to, and I forgave myself the sliding motion in the walk cycle, because it was STILL a walk cycle.

For two months, I was viewing the world at 24fps. I could see each move I made in the most minute detail. I counted parts of a second from a glass falling to it striking to the shards ceasing their bouncing. I watched not just how long my hands moved, but how they moved, and I watched people's eyes in detail, because how long was too long for one of my own two cartoon creations to look upon one another?

At the screening, no one knew what we had done in that class. Our animation was described as crude and unsubtle. Or it wasn't "funny." My classmates who had shown so little interest in the course from day one did lazy little projects with charcoal and paper. "I did mine all in one night!" one guy bragged to me. I just nodded. The audinece liked his charcoal smudge better than my "traditional" animations. Fair enough. "But you just dissolved between existing drawings..." "You could have done that." And I agreed.

The next year there was no animation course taught, and when it was reborn, it was a modern digital animation course, more interested on effects and generating titles for other folks' student films. And I'm sure they all worked really hard. But they didn't do anything. The computer did it.

I tried digital and couldn't get into it. It was too cold and the rules of engagement had changed. You plotted what you wanted and walked away from the computer to let it render. Gone were the mad evenings spent leaning over a light table tracing one frame from the previous, gone was the midnight to 4:00am slot on the Oxberry. Gone was the chance to try some new madness as your mind explored the mysteries of what makes up a second, and seeing what you could press yourself to do. They were creating new worlds without worrying about how the world they lived in worked. How does sand fall? You don't watch sand, you find a plug-in online. How does someone run? Don't watch them... find a walk cycle in a user-group and accelerate. If you're lucky, it'll add some jiggle to her breasts.

I miss the old tools. Those things used to work. They could be beautiful and wonderful, and nothing... not one shot for even one one moment was ever taken for granted. Everything was plotted and planned and dreamt of. Each hand which went into the projects found their own way to add something unique, something the artists could perform at especially well. They couldn't always improvise, but they could add touches, flourishes that only a mind at an easel will dream up after drawing the same face too many times.

This was supposed to be about why I wasn't a fan of the new MTV produced Spider-Man cartoon, but I think I'll save that for later, or I'll leave you to seek it out and draw your own inferences. I'm going to go track down my old film school reeel and have a good laugh. That cartoon is just god awful, but it's mine.

PIRATES!!!!

Arrgghh, mateys! I saw Pirates of the Caribbean just now! Shiver me timbers, it was worth me $5.50, says I.

Jerry

Thanks, Randy, for the link on Jerry Springer's Senate run. Please see the attached link in the sidebar to the left. Jerry is a man of the people. And is he really so different from Kay Bailey Hutchison?

Social Experiment:

How many hits will I get if I add the phrase: Ann Coulter nude naked ?

I'll keep you posted.

BTW, my job has now assigned me a Blackberry. I was already not too excited about the idea of being followed everywhere by an electronic leash, but I just realized... it's hissing at me. It's making weird little electronic hissing noises...

The Escapist

If you didn't read The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, you should have. It's written by Michael Chabon, and eventually won The Pulitzer Prize. It's the story of immigrant artist/ magician/ escape artist Joe Kavalier and his American cousin (Clay) who become comic artists in pre-WWII America.

It's about a hell of a lot more than that, and, as I found from watching the History Channel's documentary about Superhero comic books, quite a few of the story's plotpoints are lifted from actual events in the history of the comics biz. With Superman squarely at the forefront of the comics revolution, Kavalier and Clay create The Escapist. He's in the tradition of Doc Savage, or possibly The Shadow, but armed with a magical golden key, he's not just an amazing escape artist, he's there to help others escape tyrrany. I leave it to you to read the novel.

At any rate, this winter, Dark Horse comics is going to begin publishing comics based around The Escapist's exploits as described in the novel. The suggestion is that the comics will be done in classic Golden Age style. I very much look forward to seeing what Dark Horse is able to accomplish.

Spidey Cartoon

Hey, Leaguers...

The 3D animated Spider-Man cartoon is debuting tonight on MTV.

Some of the best animation of the past 10 years has appeared on MTV (the oddly plotless Aeon Flux and the equally challenging The Maxx), so look to see what Marvel studios has cooked up for this show. It's based equally on comics and the movie from what I can tell. I think tonight's villain is Electro.

As I will frequently complain, I live in the sticks. It's not just that the people of Arizona act like illiterate savages or Canadians from time to time, it's that I live less than a mile from two substantial dairy farms. It smells like cow flop and is generally really ugly. But you're always welcome to come visit.

Anyway, CNN posted this story on the ridiculous town of Gilbert, Arizona today. Apparently, it's the fastest gowing city in the US of A. While my mailing address is Chandler, and my work address is Tempe, I do live almost directly on the border of Chandler (which is listed as being #4 in the top 5 fastest growing cities, I am told) and Gilbert.

I was delighted to see Joe's Bar BQ as the pictured locale which is supposed to represent Gilbert's otherwise smalltown pastiche. This is horsehockey. Gilbert, like everywhere else in the Valley of the Sun, is nothing but a horribly ugly sprawl of cookie cutter houses and strip shopping centers which all feature one of three grocery chains (Basha's, Fry's or maybe an Albertson's), and has a place to do nails, and a Water & Ice store. There's no real industry in these communities. I think it's mostly people just selling stuff to one another.

It's funny, because this place is miserably hot, has no industry, no water or other natural resources, nor any real culture to speak of. I have no idea why I am here, but we're all coming here in the end, it appears.

Those of you who follow The League may have gleaned that I watch an unhealthy amount of television and read only children's books. In that vein, like the rest of you mindless cretins, I was locked into watching America Idol this Spring, a show that, in retrospect, is really pretty awful. Anyway, The Smoking Gun has a great post today about crazy letters people sent to the Federal Communications Commission regarding perceived tampering in the results of American Idol.

It's only in the cold light of hindsight that I realize that I hated all of the contestants on that show, but because it was always on in my livingroom, I HAD to pick who I liked best. And her name was Trenyce.

I really hate this show. It's really boring and lame, but because I love my wife and because of the layout of our suburban bungalow, I pretty much can't get away from it all three nights it's on every week. But it's good to see it's getting somebody all fired up.

One of my favorite parts of American Beauty is when Lester Burnham speechifies upon how great it was to be 18 and flip burgers and have random sex all summer long. Yep, life was easier before taxes, loans and house payments, and there's no small part of everyone who wishes they could go back to a point where straightening their room and keeping socks off the floor were life's biggest worries.

But let's be honest, it's great because it was a long time ago, and it's fun to remember that stuff, but it's not exactly a high benchmark for achievement. High school is a fairly stupid place where you get herded around and have to go see a "tardy lady" if you're late. You can't even just call in sick, you have to have a doctor or parent verify you were sick, and if you run in a hallway, you can wind up in something called "detention." It's a really stupid place to be and it has nothing to do with college, let alone an actual professional life. But not everyone seems to think so...

Last night I stumbled upon a new syndicated program utilizing the grim tools of Jenny Jones and BLind Date and possibly any stalker movie you might have seen. The show is called Classmates (sponsored by, apparently, Classmates.com), and it's a reality show wherein two people are asked to see one another for the first time since college or high school.

Sounds harmless enough, but the two reunions I witnessed last night reminded me of why I am foregoing the Klein Oak Class of '93 reunion which is to be held later this summer. Here's a hint, kids: If high school was THAT great that you MUST return to those golden years by way of rekindling a relationship (on television, no less) which has been petrifying for around 10 years, it's time to re-examine your current lifestyle. I don't really remember high school all that well anymore, and playing Memory with name tags and what could only be vaguely embarassing details could only end in tears.

When the show works, I guess as much as it's GOING to work, it kind of makes you sad. Last night's episode ended with two people who hadn't seen one another in 9 years GETTING ENGAGED within an hour of seeing each other. That's not sweet. That's creepy and wrong. It wasn't just one person who felt the need to go running back to a time when things were easier, it was two people desperately running from the lives they've created. Or it was really sweet. Ah, i dunno. I was hoping to see someone confront a bully, so maybe if I tune in tonight, i'll get to see that. Of course, I know if I ever get called, it's going to be some random person I don't remember wanting to get back at me for cutting in line at the snack machines, so I need to be prepared.

Here's hint #2 from your old Uncle Ry: If a syndicated television program calls you and tells you somebody wants to surprise you on television, do not go. Instead, alert the police. It's probably a better, safer alternative. I've watched my fair share Springer, and now with Classmates, I am fairly certain it can only end in disaster. Do you really want to know somebody has been thinking about you (and only you) for so long that they've recruited a TV show to track you down? That's not romantic. Kids, that's stalking. So, if you're thinking of using the show to finally tell Mary Sue or Todd or whomever about your crush, I implore you to reconsider. It's better to imagine what could be than to look like a jerk on syndicated television.

onto me

Are my parents on to me? Have they, indeed, found the League of Melbotis web log? It's not that there's confidential information on my site. There's a strange item in my sitemeter. Somebody found the site from rr.com looking only for "Melbotis."

My parents love my dog and my wife as much or more than they love me, so anything centering around Melbotis would have to be fairly attractive to them. I have to assume that when my traitorous brother vacationed with my folks in San Diego last week, he might have spilled the beans and given them a place to keep tabs on me and the dog.

Mom, Dad... I am on to you.

Jim has complained that I have not blogged today. I will ignore Jim's low frequency in blogging, and instead, turn you toward these wonderful pieces by Miguel Calderon. THese are the paintings which appeared in Eli's home in The Royal Tenenbaums.

Jim's brief mention on Andrew Sullivan's blog landed him with around 12,500 hits or something last time I checked (he totals in approaching 15,000 as of now). This will forever skew his Sitemeter averages, but it also brings up an interesting point about blogging.

Jim didn't say anything in his article that wasn't true, nor did he really say anything inflamatory or even pass judgement on Ann Coulter. So the reaction he got was pretty venemous.

This, folks, is why I don't have a "Comments" section on my page. I have an e-mail address, and everyone is entitled to their opinion, and you're free to contact me about anything at any time. But I also don't want The League to become a place where people get to publicly lambast me or my dog. Especially with the kind of juvenile rantings reserved for online "talkback" areas and E! television.

Anyway, the troubling part is wanting to lash back at people acting all crazy and irrational, but what are you really going to say to change their minds? I enjoy a little political debate; it keeps you honest and keeps the old gears freshly oiled. Hence, you may notice Jimbo and I will take potshots at one another from time to time, and occasionally there are e-mails which go back and forth for quite a while (he hates puppies and grandmas! I simply will not let it stand!). But if you can't try to be logical or at least reasonable about sentiment, then it's not worth it. Nobody ever changed anybody's mind by screaming at them.

On the other side of tall of this, with 12,000+ hits today, he only got, really, two or three really negative comments, which means he probably had a lot of readers who enjoyed what he had to say. Blogging. it's like MAGIC!

Mel and I have started doing walkies at 5:00am. It's the only time we can go. It's 111 degrees during the days here now. Stupid desert.

Today Jim D. es muy popular. Jim's review of Ann Coulter's Univ. of Michigan Law Review was cited on Andrew Sullivan's blog/ web site and overnight, Dedman's popularity has soared. It's my personal ambition to run Jim for office one day, as long as I get to be the man behind the man and enjoy the kickbacks and hookers which will inevitably fall into our laps, so I am personally delighted when Jim gets attention of this sort.

His hits are pushing around 9000, and I would bet he hits 10,000 in the foreseeable future. Jim didn't exactly eviscerate Ann Coulter (nor was that his goal), but reviewed her review of some SCOTUS hoo-hah. Most of Jim's post was over my head as I have a serious learning diasability which causes me to tune out anything not involving capes or robots. I think, from Jim's desc. that Coulter's review meant that you shouldn't share your porn collection with minors. Well, hellloooooo internet. Had only you been there for me at age 14. Stupid Circle K clerk.

Ann Coulter's cult of personality is a truly bizarre thing. She says things which are totally crazy, and there is a segment of the population which is buying into her brand of fascism. Note the Comments which follow Jim's posting and see what I mean.

Anyone can get a following no matter how ridiculous they are.

Coulter is the kind of boogeyman we ridicule in movies and television. These sort of folks are usually the source of a trememndous amount of comeuppance in fiction, but as history will detail, usually end holding office. The tough question is: how much do you just ignore Coluter and hope she goes away, and how much do you watch your own back? Her latest book, the one getting all the press, is called "Treason" which basically states that anyone not in line with Coulter's view of a hyper-conservative America is treasonous. Yo-kay. We're all entitled to our opinion and 1st Amendment rights. But Treason is an executable offense. Does Ann Coulter want anybody not agreeing with her to be executed? They have a name for that sort of arrangement.

I haven't read Treason or Slander, and I don't really plan to. I'm pretty sure I got the gist of what she's after in a few minutes on CNN and Fox News. Short of calling Coulter bat-shit crazy, one has to wonder... It's one thing to have a single nutjob running about quite literally lionizing Sen. McCarthy, it's quite another to be able to make a mint off of selling books in which this is a major topic of discussion. Clearly my gauge for what the book reading American public wants to believe in is horribly miscalibrated. What is living in the American zeitgeist that drives us at one another with such vitriol?

I would suggest you read up on Coulter as much as possible instead of assuming anyone that blonde and skinny couldn't be all bad. She's a creepy, creepy person.

eye see

well, my eye went back to normal, and within moments, I got me a migraine. Apparently the effect I was having in my left eye was the oft described pre-migraine lights folks sometimes see. The headache is mostly gone now. But I have to admit to being a little proud of myself for treating it with three Tylenol and crawling under my desk and falling asleep for nearly an hour. Thank you, George Constanza. You are truly a beacon of hope unto us all.

Oh, and thank you, Randy for forwarding this to me.

blind

I think i went blind in my left eye about half an hour ago. While I am looking forward to wearing an eye patch a la Nick Fury, the whole lack of depth perception thing is making me woozy.

sweeeet

T3 y mas

I went and saw Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines this weekend. I've seen almost every Arnie movie in the theater since the late-80's, and I was duped into heading off to this one as well. Jim D's review of the movie is very accurate, and I would turn you to his comments for further reading. My only additional comment is that I honestly felt, as I wandered out of the theater and into 110+ Arizona heat, that I had just spent two hours watching somebody else play a really cool video game. It looks great, it has lots of action, and between mammoth action sequences, they tie the story together with something passing for a narrative. Maybe the PS2 game for this is really, really good?

I love Arnie. I really do. If I were an "actor", i would hope that I could have the keen business sense Arnie has employed throughout his career. Foregoing art for commerce, Arnie has brought us some fabulous entertainment we'll be enjoying on TBS for the next 30-50 years.

But one thing distracted me throughout T3. Claire Danes. Ms. Danes isn't bad in this movie. No, what was really distracting is that despite the fact I haven't seen Ms. Danes in anything in going on four or five years... me likey me some Claire Danes. Instead of going nuts with adrenaline whenever bullets and plasma beams were whizzing around the screen, I was busily envisioning scenarios in which Ms. Danes and I were splitting a bottle of the bubbly, sitting upon a fur rug before a crackling fire. I was dashingly witty and she was gazing upon me adoringly, imploring me to leave Mrs. Steans. I was also wearing a great smoking jackets and very comfy slippers in this fantasy, and a pipe was employed as well. Look, you have your dreams, I'll have mine.

This weekend also saw the appearance of the first new batch of episodes of Cartoon Network's Justice League. For those of you who may have seen the first batch of episodes which debuted somewhere around over a year and half ago, "season 2" promises to be truer to the comic source material and just a better all-around TV show.

The new episodes featured Brainiac as a central villain, working in connection with Darkseid of Kirby's 4th World/ New Gods series. Yup. I was geeking out so hard, I think I was alarming Jamie. "Ooooohhh, the Forever People!" is not something you want to just blurt out after being totally silent for half an hour.

Now if they would just focus on Mr. Miracle, I'd be happy.

BTW, I read Enemy Ace: War in Heaven over the weekend. If you're not into superheroes and are looking for a great comic read, this may be for you. It follows WWI fighter pilot Hans Von Hammer as he is coerced into flying for the Luftwaffe. Great art and attention to detail, as well as being well written. Enemy Ace: War Idyll is also worth your time. It's beautifully painted and tells a great story about Von Hammer in his twilight years.

Tomorrow I return to work, God help me.

Happy 5th of July

Today we should celebrate the hangover our founding fathers surely were suffering thru in Philadelphia on July 5th, 1776. Today, I am fairly certain there are plenty of folks experiencing empathy pains.

We took Mel out to the fireworks last night, which entailed us driving about a mile and parking the Forester on the side of the road, popping the tailgate and watching the Chandler, AZ fireworks from across a few miles of open field/ reclaimed desert. While the Chandler fireworks are about what you'd expect from a bedroom community's low property tax, one cool thing about living in the middle of a horrible stinking desert is that you can see really, really far. So in addition to the Chandler fireworks, we could see those in Mesa, Queen Creek, Tempe, Gilbert and a few other places I couldn't quite place. Es bueno.

Jim D. sent me an absolutely ridiculously large poster celebrating Marvel Comics circa 1988. It's truly a great gift and everything I said in the post below is a lie and I never meant a word of any of it. I hope to take a picture of the poster, because mere words would not do it justice. Even a 1000 words.

Jim's attack on Randy today was worth reading. The point of Randy's post was that for all the money that will not be redistributed via government programs, people will have virtually nothing to show for it in their personal bank accounts and spending. The implied message in Randy's original post was that the addition of $20 means little to the individual when the point of taxation is that we can do more together than we can separately. Believing that you are investing an amount as small as $20.00 a month per person, when that amount ads up to millions every month, is not an irrational thing to believe.

The flummoxing 80's and the failure of Voodoo economics then was a trial run. We were supposed to know better now. Ignoring the last fifteen years of economic wisdom, the "fashionable" thing for conservatives to chime in with is that folks should be wisely investing their money in the stock market or be buying something to stimulate the economy. It's a nice idea, but most market watchers are suggesting people steer clear of the market right now. The trick is, most Americans don't earn enough that they can risk losing money in the stock maket given current trends. Turning $20 a month into $10 the next is not a winning proposition. You might as well suggest taking it down to the local casino and bet everything on black. I suppose that would stimulate the economy, too.

On top of this, a majority of economists are agreed that the tax cuts are not going to do much of anything to stimulate the economy (anyone remember their $300 from last year?).

Jim's stance seems to be that trusting the government to repurpose funding for anything from defense to child welfare does not occur. He seems to believe that "the government redistribut(es) income from one taxpayer to the next." This negates healthcare, medicare, roadworks, defense and all of those things voters care about at election time. It also covers such critical things as police sponsorship, federal and local prisons, FEMA, higher education, and the FDA. Jim also suggests that we are willing to pay taxes out of guilt. I'm not sure why we're not supposed to feel "lingering guilt about poverty and hunger" when we live in a wealthy nation, but clearly Dedman feels this is something to be ridiculed.

If taxes are so high that they are no longer needed to pay for worthy causes, why are there currently so many charities? Yes, there are options for donating to charities, which people occasionally do. In addition, Jim is suggesting Randy will not donate this money to a worthy cause, which he might well do. Jim never bothered to check Randy for a response on this, nor disclose what he, himself, gives every year before waving the finger of doubt. The point is being aware that most people do NOT actually give to private group charities. Not enough, anyway. Nor is there evidence that people would give more if they had more free cash to spend.

Anecdotally, The University of Texas sponsors the Hearts of Texas Campaign which draws money from your paycheck before taxes so that these funds may go to charities. Fully over a hundred people show up for the breakfast every year which kicks off the campaign, and generally fewer than a dozen participate. And this program asks that you not even write a check every month. I suppose everyone wants a free breakfast.

Believing in such institutions as public education, road works and basic healthcare are not sentimental fancies. But even these things are something we force ourselves to trim back by willfully reducing expenditures on them, and then refusing to find blame in ourselves. In fact, we set up our spending on schools to PUNISH poorly performing schools economically by dispersing funds to schools which are already excelling. So by removing resources, we're clearly enhancing the learning environment?

But going by the law of inverse proportions: If we can somehow reduce government to no taxation (which we did prior to Lincoln instituing a personal income tax) our government should be humming along nicely. Which would leave nothing but corporate income taxes. Which are being reduced now, too.

vacation

I'm in day 3 of my "vacation". I took off work this week and am trying to enjoy the simple pleasures of staying at home. In order to better celebrate this, I am going to take a shower and go to work for a few hours today. HURRAY!

1000 hits sell-a-bration!

Hey. I hit 1000 hits today. WHOO-HOO!!!

imagine fireworks in this space ----> <-----

Quite a few months ago, Jamie and I decided we would be getting Melbotis a little friend so that his hours wherein Jamie and I are not at home would not just be spent with Jeff the Cat. Dogs are a social animal, and we were doing our best to appreciate that.

So, we’d done our reading and considered our options, and we decided to explore two options this weekend. PetsMart hosts adoption fairs every weekend in our area, and we have a fairly standard animal shelter up near campus in Tempe.

Our first stop was at PetsMart where we noticed, right off the bat, that there were no dogs to adopt. Apparently their current MO is to put photos online, and you select your dog based on a picture and an interview with the Adoption staff. Less than a minute into the interview, it became abundantly clear that being a dual income family with no children is, apparently, no place for a dog. I wasn’t really sure what went wrong, but the adoption agent got the same look on her face my high school guidance counselor got when I told her I was planning to major in communications. Short of saying, “fuck this,” I let it slide and we decided we would have better luck at the animal shelter.

If you are considering going to an animal shelter to adopt a pet, keep one thing in mind: It is going to be one of the most sentimentally heart-breaking things you can do short of having to select a child. There are rows and rows of animals in small cement cages, and they have nothing better to do than to stare at you through chain link.

We saw three dogs and settled on a little black and white border collie who had a very sweet disposition and warmed up to us immediately without jumping or biting. We had picked a winner. She was to be spayed and receive a battery of shots on Monday morning, and in the afternoon, I was picking her up.

Sunday we voyaged to PetsMart and picked up a “crate” for potty training and easy animal storage for the first few weeks of night time sleeping arrangements. I took a few days off work to be here for adjustments, etc… We even ran into the animal shelter volunteer while we were in the store, and we double checked with her that we were doing the right things and that we weren’t going to scar the little dog right out of the gate.

Monday morning I received a phone call from the animal shelter telling me that our dog had green mucus coming out of her nose, which would indicate either kennel cough or distemper. I was told that they could not diagnose which one it was, and that distemper was a neurological disease which is fatal and highly contagious. And, by the way, it’s your dog, so what do you want to do? The options did not include the shelter keeping her for observation.

So before I ever even got her home, I had to tell some anonymous lady over the phone to put my dog down.

Next, I was told I could get a refund or exchange, which seemed callous, but I wanted a shot at saving some little dog, even if not the one we had selected. And I had to call jamie and tell her what happened.

So yesterday afternoon Jamie and I were wandering through the kennels again, but it just wasn’t working. It’s tough picking out a dog when you’re not even sure if the dog you thought you were spending the next ten years or so with has been put down.

We returned home from the animal shelter, utterly exhausted over this stupid little dog, and the answering machine was blinking. It was the PetsMart based animal rescue group. They left a message telling us that they didn’t feel we were home enough and they didn’t really have any dogs right now which matched our schedule.

I tried again at the animal shelter this morning, and it wasn’t any better. I also found out that distemper gets pretty bad out here during the summer, and many, many dogs at the shelter contract the disease. No matter which dog we might select, we run a risk of exposing Mel and Jeff to Parvo or distemper.

I would never suggest that people not visit their animal shelter to select a dog, especially when puppy farms are selling dogs for hundreds of dollars. Those dogs at the shelter need a home as much or more than any thoroughbred. Right now, I’m just not sure I can give a home to one of those other dogs. And I am not posting any of this to keep anyone reading from adopting a dog from a shelter. That is not what this is about, and I think that's the worst thing you could take away from all of this. You run risks in losing anyone you want to get attached to, and I don't think Jamie and I really knew how much we wanted this little dog until we couldn't have her anymore.

Mel is sweetly oblivious to all of this. All he knows is that there is an empty metal kennel in the living room and a couple of bowls sitting empty inside. And I know I’m really, really lucky to have a great dog who I hope I treat better than people who let their dogs wind up in tiny cement cells.

We’ll fold up the kennel tomorrow, and we’ll try the shelter again in the future, but right now, we’re still saying good-bye to the dog who never got the chance to come home with us.

Bye-bye, little doggy. Bye-bye.

message in a bottle

The past few days have seemed longer than an ordinary weekend, and I hope to be able to blog tomorrow evening and fill you in a little more on the hows and whys. Nothing traumatic has happened, and nothing particularly crazy has happened.

Over the weekend I received two packages. One package broke down all sense of the digital and physical realm for me as RHPT.com sent me, completely unannounced, a comic book from the Death of Superman series in very, very good condition. gracias, Randy! Which book? I cannot say! This book is wrapped in a white, mylar collector's sleeve. Breaking the sleeve would render the comic suddenly worthless. So for now, I must speculate. I plan to track down the number and cover of this comic in the next few days and weeks.



I have most certainly READ this comic as I have Trade Paperbacks of the whole life and death of Superman run, but there's no cover to clue me in to what is what.

Patrotism met consumerism met my mother's strange gift-giving habits on Friday. I returned home from work and some friendly co-worker oriented boozing to find a white box on my stoop. Please understand that my mum is a good person. She's really terrific, and as much as she loves me, puppies and this grand Republic, sometimes her excitememnt gets the best of her. And so, this weekend, I received two beach towels.





Now the point here is, look... I love my country, and I love my mother. And I love puppies and kitties, too. And I even like going to the beach. But the upswell in patriotic grandiosity does not necessarily mean I want to mix all of these things together. Is this kind of tacky, or is it an act against our nation? Would such a scene cause Ann Coulter to point to me, my mother, or these packs of whiskers and noses as treasonous? What effect would this have upon mi mum if they passed an amendment saying you could not deface the flag? Could we both get in trouble for shipping tasteless towels interstate? Only the future will tell.

Oh, by the way, this is the most fun this country has had since the Jim Crow laws were removed... An AMENDMENT!!!! Not a law, not a writ, not Pat Robertson barking to himself on the 700 Club... A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT forbidding two people from openly acknowledging their love. I love my country, but some days I am amazed at what we do.

guilt

I have nothing to write about today. Sorry. I do suggest you take part of the most important legislation ever devised and go on over to the Federal Trade Commission's web-site. They've instituted the government's plan to create "do not call" list for telemarketers.

I suggest that if you're looking for a good read today, you try your local paper.

In the meantime, here is a poem:

Like a graceful porpoise
I FLY!

Blogging article

RHPT.com sent me this link: All that is said herein is true. Except for having lots of readers. Randy, Jamie, Jim... your attention is appreciated.

www.hotchubbyboy.com

UPDATE!!!!

You can now link to this blog by clicking on www.hotchubbyboy.com

RHPT.com was nice enough (either that or he has evil, evil plans in the works) to assign this link to The League. What will this mean for The League? I don't know. Keep tuning in to watch the slow dissolution of my site into one celebrating my nakedness.

Toys That Should Not Be

Just when you think there's nothing to navel gaze about...

Toys That Should Not Be is a segment dedicated to toys which I find on an Action Figure website. I don't just collect comics ad infinitum, I also likes me the Superman and Batman toys. And I like to make fun of other people for having similar interests.

What you may not know is that there are a LOT of toys produced for the adult collector these days. In other words, I ASSUME that these are going to adults, and that they are being collected and not played with. But I may be wrong. But TTSNB is more of a Zen thing which requires an example more than an explanation. And so, ladies and gentlemen, I present you with Perfect Body Figures from a company called, I think, Cy-Girls.

You know, I have often fantasized about women with 8 points of articulation and weird, poofy hair. Karate chop fingers and grotesquely hinged knee joints are a big turn on. I think it should have been a clue to these doll makers that something was hooribly wrong when these figures were unable to stand upright due to their curiously oversized heads and bosoms. It should have also been a clue to these doll makers that something was wrong when they started making dolls to have sexual fantasies about. But I digress and pass judgement.

In addition to these anonymous, mis-shapen lovelies, there are more than one line of figures portraying Adult Superstars (I think one is called Adult Superstars) which portrays porn stars as tiny six inch figures. Freud would be going apeshit over all of this, to be sure. For example, here is Jenna Jameson. Word on the street is that laser scan of the actual porn star is done to get these figures "accurate".

The article about 6 inch Jenna is tucked into the main page right between an article on a Friday the 13th Jason Doll and a Harry Potter Dueling Malfoy toy. A little something for everyone.

I feel compelled to also point out that Batman and Superman, themselves, have some kinky new toys out. Here's Peeping Tom Batman and Sex Dungeon Superman.

Facism is bad.

Happy Birthday RHPT

Happy Birthday, Randy. And don't worry so much about the endless futility of existence. Unless you plan to have 100s of children to begin to disseminate your chromosomes throughout the gene pool, your legacy will probably be that of most people. My suggestion: donate sperm and donate often. The more you donate sperm, the more offspring you will have and the more likelihood you will have of the RHPT genome determining the course of human evolution.

This option may be cold comfort as you turn 27, but it does give you plenty of exposure to pornography and will ensure that in 100 generations, we'll all have a little Randy in us.

Some interesting links

A look at the comic convention scene (something I haven't seen since I was but a wee lad going to hotel ballrooms all over Austin, Texas. My mother is a saint for driving me. She never complained, not once.)


A site recommended to me by Jeff C. Shoemaker. It's a fairly good read, I think, but the usual insanity inherent in sites dedicated to comics froths over. When I read reviews of Superman which slip into personal anecdotes about Superman replacing one's estranged Dad, I decide that some objectivity has been lost and I'm not sure I want to add this into the links section of The League.

And Jim sent me this link for a job at Los Alamos. If you read between the lines it becomes pretty clear that the job is to be a spin doctor at a nuclear laboratory. "Uh... Dr. Banner is recovering just fine... just fine..."

Tinman and The Falcon

During my late-college/ post-college years I was pretty good friends with some guys in a band in Austin. Wow. Who isn't? Well, summer of 2000 these guys picked up and decided to move to Seattle so the band could slowly disintegrate in a more hospitable climate. I doubt anyone from Austin would remember the band, but they got good notices while it lasted and they did some seriously overly-indulgent space/ prog rock under the name Maximum Coherence During Flying.



We were all kind of into sci-fi and pulp and comics and whatnot, and so it was a year or two after their flight to the Pacific Northwest that I got a call from Bryan Manzo, guitarist/ saxophonist/ composer for MaxCo who had come upon an idea. He was going to work with Michael (My) Young to write a rock opera, and I was going to draw a series of comic books that would illustrate the story.

You kids who don't follow comics don't know this, but getting into the comics industry is about as easy and much fun as getting your head out from the bannister rails. Even compared to film and television, comics is cut-throat crazy competitive. Virtually every 20+ who reads comics wants to get into the field, and I am no different. But drawing comics is really, really time intensive. Let alone also inking the pages. Especially when you've doodled a lot but never really done anything that formal before.

But the problem was, there was no music and no story, just some characters and a title: A Spy Named Lonely.

So I had four characters who were supposed to be pulpy as pulp can get: The Tin-Man (a robot), the Falcon (a private eye), Lonely (a beautiful spy), and Dr. Archibald Nemesis (a despotic tyrant). I drew some pre-lims and sent them up to Seattle where I pretty much got the thumbs-up, and was told to do some more pre-lims based on a paragraph of notes, and wait for the music. So I waited. And waited. And waited. And about a year later, Bryan caught me with some weird, weird information.

Bryan's girlfriend somehow knew someone who knew Karen Berger. Karen Berger is the editor supreme of Vertigo comics. She's the woman who launched 10 years of mind-altering insanity within the prickly confines of DC Comics, a feat thought almost unimaginable until Hellblazer, Shade, Sandman and Swamp Thing proved comics could do a lot more than leap over tall buildings is a single bound. We had until August to get a package together.

And so suddenly I was drawing. I had an MP3 Bryan and My had sent me and it was February and everything was cool. I would do ten or twelve pages, we would show them penciled and inked and be able to say "AND THERE'S A FULL ALBUM THAT GOES WITH THIS!!!"

So in March, after six or seven months of experiencing the post dot.bomb blues, Jamie landed a job in Phoenix. And then I got the call from Bryan. "Oh, my God, dude. My girlfriend's friend is flying down to Australia to meet the guys who did the Matrix and she wants to bring a portfolio and pitch them Tinman and Falcon."

"The Wachowskis?"

"Yeah. She thinks they'd love it."

"This is dumb. You guys need a better artist."

"No way. We have to have it in two weeks."

"I still haven't heard the music or read a real synopsis."

"Oh."

So, I drew what I could. And in this same time, my wife was packing her belongings and moving to Phoenix where I was to be joining her June 1, 2002. Needless to say, I was distracted. That, and I did have a job. And a house to pack. But I drew. And I kissed Jamie good-bye.

And then the record showed up as a couple of burned CDs that were only partially mixed, and alone in my cardboard enclosed house, I listened to it, and I realized I had somewhere in the neighborhood of 17 drawings to do, ink, scan and send in within a few days. Plus a job. But at least I liked the music. So I sat down and finished I can't remember how many drawings in a much shorter span than I was comfortable with. But I scanned the drawings and sent them to Seattle.



And then Yoko stepped in. Bryan's girlfriend called me at work and told me that she didn't like the look of the Tin-Man, that she wanted something more like Robocop and could I redo everything, please? In three days. I said there was no way (and this wasn't just pride, there were serious time issues involved). She refused to relent, and then it occurred to me that neither Bryan nor My had requested the changes, and I didn't know this chick, and she had called me five times in two days. So I quit.

Well, several frantic phone calls later and I was back on board and the girlfriend was booted, but it was made clear she was glad I was far, far away. But we got what we needed, and off went the package and we never heard from anyone about it ever again.

The Karen Berger thing fizzled too, as Bryan and girl started having difficulties.

And one day the Tinman and Falcon web-site surfaced using almost none of the new art, and just the prelim sketches I knocked out in about two hours. I complained loudly, but the damage was done. My had spent several days on the animated intro, and he was not going to redo it. I could empathize.

But then, one night at 2:30am, My popped up on my AIM. "Hey dude. Brad Pitt digs T&F."

Apparently Bryan's newest lady friend was a former assistant to Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston, and they had remained chummy. So she sent them the Tinman and Falcon web-site.

But that was it. I did a handful of drawings, totaling around 11 or 12 for the series. None of them were ever posted, even after I sent some nice scans and forwarded them on to Seattle. But maybe it's just as well. As much as I loved working on the drawings, the rock opera was running around 80 minutes and WAS ONLY THE FIRST ACT. God knows how long this could have gone on.

But, the site is still up! So, I invite all of you to visit the site, listen to some of the tunes, and read the back story on the site. It was a lot of fun and would probably still be going on if Bryan and My hadn't joined an 80's electro-pop quartet that eats up most of their time. But, ah, fame is so fleeting. Brad, why didn't you call us? We could have made millions, bro! At least I didn't get a second mortgage on my house to make a documentary nobody is ever going to want to see. It just cost time and money for markers and pencils.

I ask that you understand that these were never intended to be final versions of the drawings on the T&F site, but I guess My liked them... these were rough, rough prelims. Hopefully one of you will convince them to post the finished works they do have in their possession. But I encourage everyone to click on "Music" and listen to the album. It's free and it's easy to do. And, yes, it is supposed to be this cheesy.

Ladies and Gentlemen... I give you Tinman and The Falcon. Be afraid. be very afraid.