I am probably forgetting something. I keep forgetting to do things. Things like posting funny, funny links sent in by Leaguers. Responding to e-mails from Jill. Reporting to my parole officer. Things like that.

Yesterday was interesting, sort of. I had breakfast with a sort-of former co-worker at the Austin Java on Barton Springs. She wanted to meet at 8:30, which meant I had to get up at the crack of seven. Mid-Day was trying to clean things up for this weekend's impending familial visit. We've got Unky B and Tia Linda coming in from the DC area for a day or so. I am not really sure as to our agenda.

I was supposed to have an interview in the afternoon, and so I drove all the way up to the Arboretum area for a 4;30 interview (which was supposed to take place in a hotel lobby) hung out for half an hour, couldn't find the guys, and then went home in Austin 5:00 traffic on MoPac. Good times.

Ah, well. C'est la vie.

The flip side of all this was that I got to Jason's bands' show at the Ben White Florist (you play Ben White Florist, and you're, like, a week away from getting signed). Mono E sounded good. Actually, they sounded much, much better than I recall them sounding prior to my departure, which was probably due to the fact that they played songs (both covers and originals, including, I was told, a tune penned by Jason) rather than exploring the outer limits of the musical universe in an hour-and-a-half jam-odyssey.

I do not like bar bands. I do not like jam bands. I am sorry. Call it a weakness or a musical blindspot. But these guys are all quality musicians, so it was great to hear them showing their chops and having fun.

However, the show was outside, and despite the fire log (which almost turned Mandy's purse into a fireball) it was pretty nippy out. Reed's family was in attendance, including Jen, Meredith, Sharon and Heather, Mandy came and brought Susan, and the usual Mono E friends and family were all there.

We hit Hill's Cafe for dinner, and just as we received our salads, an extremely tardy Steven Harms and lauren made an appearance. The tenacious SGH had used his detective skills to track us from the florist (thanks, Reed!) to the restaurant. So, yeah..! A surprise visit from SGH and Lauren is always welcome.

Anyhoo, all is well. And, in case you missed my note about this below... Nathan C. is gonna have another kid.

JUSTICE LEAGUE RE-MIX

Leaguers, first and foremost, Turner Classic Movies will be representing the original 1948 Superman Movie Serial starring Kirk Alyn.

You've seen Kirk, but do not know it. Kirk played Lois Lane's father in the Richard Donner film "Superman: The Movie" during the Smallville/train-race sequence. Noel Neill played, what else?, Lois' mother.

here's some data on the TCM Superman showings.

Thanks to Nathan C. for that tidbit.

Ah, YOUTUBE...

When I do not know what to post, or I know I will be away, you are there for me... at least until people starting suing you for copyright violation.

So, let's let your legal folly be this weekend's content, shall we?

Presented here are a handful of short videos re-mixing Justice League and Justice League Unlimited footage. The craft that went into the show is unbelievable, especially in this era of low-rent cartoons designed to make mid-career Hanna Barbera cartoons look like full-blown Disney productions.

If you ever questioned the animation, action, character and storylines for Justice League, mayhaps some of these videos will change your mind.

Keep in mind: Justice League Unlimited Season 1 is out NOW on DVD.


A somewhat long tribute to Justice League:


Where have all the good men gone?



In her satin tights...


...and I feel fine (this one is not great, but at least it doesn't feature some really bad nu-metal, which is enough to make it stand out from 80% of the fan videos)


...and going classic on you...



...and this one is spoiler laden if you have never seen the finale episode of Justice League Unlimited

NATHAN C.: MOST VIRILE OF LEAGUERS

Nathan C. has included The League of Melbotis in an e-mail blast announcing that he and Renata are going to have another kid in May. This means Samantha will now have a younger sibling whom she can torment for the next sixteen years or so.

Well done, Nathan. I don't see any of the other male-Leaguers ensuring their DNA is passed along in quite the same enthusiastic manner as you and the Mrs., what with them all maxing out at 1 kid.

I wish you a strong child. Like freakish, Bam-Bam Rubble or Superbaby strong. Picking-up-the-Ford-truck-off-the-jack strong.

Congratulations on the successful recombination of your DNA with Mrs. C's. Soon your kind will cover the earth in their millions.

HALLOWEEN is OVER

POLL POSITION

Well, another month has come and gone. And that means (a) its time to review the results of a poll, and (b) its time for Randy to harass me about not having up a new poll less than 12 hours into the new month.

Thanks, Randy. You do know there's no prize for reminding me about the polls, right?

Anyway, let's take a look at the poll question and results:


Halloween is coming up. What should I give the kiddies who come to my door on the night of the 31st?

-a penny: 10% / 2 votes

-popcorn balls: 0% / 0 votes

-a bowl of cereal: 5% / 1 vote

-a good talking to about what trick 'o treating was like when I was a kid: 5% / 1 vote

-coupons clipped from the Sunday paper: 0% / 0 votes

-a jury summons: 15% / 3 votes

-a shot of Windex, right in the eye: 15% / 3 votes

-a scathing critique of their choice of costume: 15% / 3 votes

-Jamie's old shoes: 0% / 0 votes

-extra candy if Mommy is good looking: 35% / 7 votes

20 votes total

It appears that a large plurality agrees that when Mommy is a cutie, it is time to start bribing the kids. Sadly, I was only in charge of comic book distribution. Jamie handled the candy hand-outs, so no extra candy was dispersed.

Some kids certainly deserved a scathing critique of their LACK of costume, and I think we had two or three of this year's Power Ranger get-up before I identified what I was looking at. With a pleated cape and intricate design, it looked a bit more like a refugee from the reject pile of the Lil' Liberace collection.

Also, one of our Supermans was wearing vampire teeth.

I asked around, and apparently I am not licensed by Travis County and may not select kiddies for a Jury pool. Too bad, because those kids seemed qualified to handle the intricacies of our judicial system. Especially the little boy from down the street who was dressed as a turtle, and, despite the fact he was holding his Dad's hand, kept pointing at me and shouting "Daddy!"

That kid can't prove anything until he subpoenas me for a DNA sample.

The Windex in the eye? You get one shot at that, and then the police come. I really wanted a far more relaxing Halloween than what that was going to afford me.

I don't actually keep pennies. Pennies are for pitching. Especially from the window of the car when you drive past old people on their scooters. So no pennies were handed out. And Jamie is too stingy to share her Boo-Berry, so we kept that to ourselves.

Anyhoo, good poll. See you again next month.

random comments: October 2006

HOW WAS YOURS?

My Halloween was nice, thanks.

I did not forget it was Halloween today, but for some reason it was an hour later, well after leaving the post office, that I realized why the one guy was wearing a pink, spaghetti strap top under an off-the-shoulder gray sweat shirt. At least, I am using Halloween to reconcile the fact that outfit with anything I know about post-Flashdance fashion.

Later, I saw a gentleman in full 70's-era Elvis regalia (complete with wig) at Matthews and Manchaca rocking out with his acoustic guitar. Again, its Austin, so you sort of have to hope that he was doing something for Halloween.

We had a veritable boat-load of trick-or-treaters swing by League HQ this evening. Seriously. We ran out of candy and the tiny little comics I handed out. And this was after I laughed at Jamie for buying some additional candy "just in case" at HEB this afternoon.

The comics were a Marvel Comics teaser do-hickey and a Donald Duck comic. Each trick-o-treater got one of each, so I did my little part to improve the general welfare of America's youth.

Costumes varied from ninja to some sort of death mask to princess to flying, furry dragon. We had a few Batmans and two Supermans, some Ninja Turtles, a handful of Spider-Mans and a Hulk. All in all, costumes were pretty good.

A lot of folks didn't mention to their kids that costumes are important, and that it's not all about coming to someone's house, shoving a wrinkly Target bag in their face and saying "gimme". yes, yes... costumes can be expensive and not everyone can afford four $50 costumes for their kids, but, c'mon... the lack of costume, to me, displays a startling lack of imagination in today's youth. Where's the "crazy spoon head" costumes? Where's the paperplate Batman symbol and towel? You'd think Mom and Dad would, if Junior can't bother to tear his eyes off the playstation for five minutes, try to dream SOMETHING up so their kid doesn't walk around in costumeless shame...

We also got some Moms trick-o-treating. I think I counted a minimum of two or three moms who not only had a costume of their own, but who were getting their own candy. The teenagers were actually a lot more polite about their candy-grabbing here than in Phoenix, where they all but tried to tell you "You suck" even as you handed them a "fun sized" Snickers.

A lot of the neighbors participated in candy distribution, and I think a lot of cars were coming in from outside of our neighborhood to bring in little trick-o-treaters.

Was it spooky? Not so much. But that's okay. The spooky stuff is good for the older kids, and I was very happy to note that no kids were dissuaded from coming up the stairs to our porch just because of Jim DeadMan. Also, lots of neighbors told us how much they liked the big spider. So, you know, that's staying up 'til March.

My two jack-o-lanterns were not my finest effort. By the time I got around to carving pumpkins today, it was much later in the afternoon than I'd meant to get started, and I was trying to beat the clock.

But, dizzam... my Kilowog Green Lantern costume was wicked cool. Lots of folks were quite excited to see a Green Lantern handing out the treats.



In other news...

Bob Barker has announced his plans to retire.

here

The League loves "The Price is Right". Bob is exactly the kind of host The league imagines he could be, given his own program. Or at least the kind we would want to be. Smooth, friendly, and using your powers for the greater good (don't forget to spay or neuter your pets!). Plus, I want an army of anonymous spokesmodels known as "The League's Lovelies". (Only "The League's Lovelies" would only be spokesmodels by day... by night they would be an elite, international anti-terrorism super squad, specifically chartered to fight the forced of the mad dictator "The Serpent's Hand" and his army of soldiers, known as "The Snake's Fingers".)

I actually had posted a few days ago about how I wanted to take over "The Price is Right" some day, but found it distracted from whatever the hell I was posting on that night and took the paragraph or two down after a short while.

Short of my personal apirations, its worth mentioning Barkers insanely long television career, going back something like 50 years. 50 YEARS. And he is on his game each and every day. Man. As much as I think I can put in a decent day's work... you gotta admire that.

Other stuff:

-I was going to post on the whole Kerry's flubbed joke/"furious"-delighted GOP/irritated Dems thing... but the whole thing is so stupid, and the whole brouhaha leads me to believe that everyone involved thinks that I, as a voter, am a complete idiot.

I am now fully prepared to just roll over when we're invaded by our Canadian liberators.

-We are now something like 52 days from Christmas. 20+ days from Thanksgiving.

-I need a job.

-For some reason, though it took me almost a week to pack to my office in PHX, I thought I could unpack in two or three hours. I have a lot of stuff.

-Jason and his band (not called Jason and His Band) are playing First Thursdays on South Congress early Thursday. I plan to at least stop by. You should, too. He says:

Also, apparently The Mono E will be playing a First Thursday gig at Ben White Florist, a flower shop which is actually located at 3200 South Congress Avenue, just south of Amy's Ice Cream, and on the same side of the street (not on Ben white). We're supposed to be playing from 5:30 p.m. until around 7:30 or 8:00 p.m., I believe, and we'll probably be playing below our usual volume level, so if you've been looking for an opportunity to bring your grandma to see The Mono E, this might be your best shot. The gig is part of the monthly South Congress First Thursday event (although the venue is outside of the Soco area which typically hosts a lot of the First thursday events), so we'll probably be pretty family friendly. Mostly.