Thursday, April 08, 2004

A little something we can all enjoy...

Who is the subservient chicken? (hint: his name ends with "im edman")

Here's a helpful list to help the chicken do your bidding.
I am sorry to report the loss of Zak Serafin, Jack Russell pup and friend to Leaguer Nathan Cone. Zak was buddy to Nathan, his wife and, of course, their family. Zak passed away Tuesday after battling cancer.

We at The League send our condolences and extend our sincerest sympathy.


Superman in May...
You're on your own on this one.
Sounds like Jim is humming along with the upcoming production of his script. He's involved at a producer-type level which will be a tremendous responsibility, but he gets all the perks of getting to cast people. This means people will have to stand before him, quaking in their boots, hoping to win his approval. Damn. I should have been a casting agent.

I am working on a picture for my brother. That's what he said he wants for his birthday. Unfortunately, I draw very, very slowly, and not terribly well. I will try to scan the pic and post it here when I am done.

I think Jim has finally accepted the fact that I did not send him the Dilbert cartoon. I am not sure what the implications of this will be, but I am not certain why he thought I would maintain such a ruse, either.

The President of my university will be giving an hour and half speech today in which he will be detailing major changes to the university's infrastructure. Every single warm body on campus will be affected in some way, some of us more than others. I am sure only a sentence or two out of the speech will resonate at my office, but it's good to know what's going on across campus, and to know how things shake out for us as a distance learning unit.

Wednesday, April 07, 2004

Holy shit. Somehow I just remembered that a week ago was the one year anniversary of The League of Melbotis. Curiously, it was in reading that Friday marks the fall of the Hussein regime that I was reminded of my own special little anniversary.

Current readers may not be aware, but The League almost didn't make it past the first week. In fact, I deleted old posts and planned to just go the way of the Dodo. However, Jim D. saved the day, and he somehow had archived all my old junk. Yeah, he's a stalker.

For those of you who wish to visit my first post which was NOT just a test, I will cut and paste below:

Greetings and welcome to the League of Melbotis weblog. For those of you NOT in the know, Melbotis is my dog. He's a good boy and he knows absolutely no tricks. Melbotis was not always my dog, he used to live with Jenny Perkins, so if I ever track her down, I have to give credit to her diligence in bringing up such a fine dog.

This weekend I was told to create a blog by Jim Tiberius Dedman of www.jdedman.com I suggest you check out the link. Usually it's a really good site, unless he doesn't update it, but he does that very regularly.

Jim's a good guy, and against my better judgement, I've known him for several years. Anyway, I think his intention was that I blog to create some sort of dialogue about political matters. That's fine. I'm not sure how many people want to hear my side, but it seems better than generating e-mail or trying to keep up with Jimbo on AIM. It turns out that Jim types faster than me.

I'm currently living in Chandler, Arizona, which is a bedroom community about 30-40 minutes from the airport, but still considered to be in the Phoenix metroplex. I'm more or less from Austin, Texas, and I miss Guero's and Rudy's like some folks might miss an arm or foot.

In order to entertain myself out here in the desert, I read a lot of Superman comics, watch Monster Garage, and try to keep the pets entertained. Lately, I've been watching the war footage and shrieking in horror. Bombs make me nervous, even bombs far, far away, so I've decided that today I will not venture into man's inhumanity to man as a topic. Thus, I will keep my comments about Scottsdale brief.

This weekend Jamie and I attended the Tempe Arts Festival.

Scottsdale is North of Tempe, but apparently not far enough away. It's a place where really hideous rich people go to freak out and buy cars bigger than mine, leaving me insanely jealous. The citizens of Scottsdale descend on things like the Tempe Arts Festival in terrible pastels and with strollers full of kids named "Austin" and "Tyler" and "Britney". Their purchasing power has created an environment where its apparently impossible to sell or show anything resembling art at the arts fair. I'm not one who believes in high or low art, but I'm pretty sure that putting sequins on a denim skirt to look like a kitty does not qualify as even the dumbest of folkart. Nothing made with a machine bought from RonCo counts as art. Patrick Nagel fans take heed.

In investigating the tents set up along the way, I discovered that all you need to do to participate in the Tempe Arts fest is to have $400 to rent out a space, get a tent, and procure some crappy faux-Native American art, like a clay bowl or something. There are other objects'd'arte (sp?), like cuh-razy pictures of dogs and cats, and Henna art for mommies who are trying to remember when they were crazy, pissed-off undergrads. Anyway, it was a bit of a letdown. And too many pan flutes. Far too many pan flutes.

The art fair made me wonder what all the millions of art majors are doing once they graduate from college. Are they all at these fairs hawking rusted copper yard ornaments in the shapes of kitties? I don't know where the art majors go, but I suspect they end up doing tech support at Dell. That's what I think us failed film majors are up to.

In the end, I did get a bag of cinammon roasted almonds, which made the trip actually not seem completely wasted.

Jamie (the little lady) and I took Melbotis to the park on Saturday. It was a fine time and we flew the Justice League kite I bought at the gas station for $2.50. Given the price I paid to see XXX, I think the $2,50 was a much better investment. Typical of Chandler, Tumbleweed Park is a sprawling grass something or other watered by sewage, an investment of millions of dollars, and completely devoid of any actual patrons. Well, this week there was a children's birthday party going down, but instead of using the acres and acres of grass and park, the parents had rented a moonbounce. All the kids out here rent moonbounces on their birthdays. Every Saturday there's one of these atrocities sticking up over somebody's cinder-block fence, accompanied by the shrill partying of seven year olds.

I do occasionally enjoy the punch drunk feeling of thirty minutes in the Arizona sunshine. I miss Central Texas sunshine more, but Arizona does have a few good things. Anyway, the park is a good thing, and I secretly hope nobody ever finds it. Melbotis and I like it a lot. We hope to spend many more Saturdays there before people come in and ruin our public park. My goal now is to teach Mel to carry the ball all the way back to the car by himself.

No political commentary here, per se. Maybe next time. Anyway, I hope this is okay.


My, how far we have come. Okay, maybe not. But it's fun to look back and realize the past year of my life has been a stale, boring mess.

God bless the web.
My childhood may officially have an ending date.

Lucasfilm announced the release date for the final Star Wars movie. It is to be May 19th, 2005. 6 years from the release date for Episode 1, Episode 3 will complete the 6 film cycle, wrapping up a narrative which has implications well beyond the confines fo the screen.

Whether Lucas will continue with another trilogy seems unlikely, but it could happen. I am certain he has planned out the fates of Chewbacca and Salacious Crumb in minute detail.

After a lifetime of fanhood, I officially gave up on Star Wars with Episode II, so maybe May of 2002 was really when it all went downhill (which also corresponded with my move to Arizona, btw...). I will certainly go see Episode III so I can get some closure, but the likelihood of me attending the midnight show, waking up and returning for the 9:00am show seems fairly low. Yes, I did this for Episode II. No, it was not a good idea. Yes, the afternoon at work passed with no small amount of hilarity as I was working on 3 hours of sleep.

Things I will not do:

1) I will not buy the DVD set of Star Wars until it contains the original movies, and not the remade, goofier versions
2) I will not dress up, nor coerce my wife to dress up for the film's premier.
3) I will not buy any toys of vehicles from Star Wars III, no matter how sorely I am tempted.
4) I will never put the word Jar twice in a row again.

Anyway, we have a countdown to disappointment.