Check out this ad. I'm totally going to start growing kids of myself so I can harvest them for parts later.

Actually, the website is a fake-ad for the new movie Godsend starring DeNiro. Apparently a number of people who have actually lost their children have found the site while trying to work through their grief, and the site isn't doing them any favors. The web-site doesn't really indicate it's a plant and advertising gimmick for a movie. A strange, weird world we live in. I mean, we actually live in an era where science fiction is blurring with fact. (No, I do not know enough about cloning to know where we actually are right now with cloning a human, but the experiments in the Garage of Solitude are going well.)

It's always a little horrific to see Hollywood try to grapple with new technology or ideas. Anybody else remember the movies The Net or Hackers? A little knowledge is a very dangerous thing and usually makes for a very silly movie about seven years after the fact. Godsend, in particular, looks to be Pet Semetary meets The Sixth Day. And if that one-two combo doesn't do it for you, I can't imagine what would.

I'll be curious to see if the ad changes.

If I could browbeat all of the Leaguers into changing one behavior, it would be to get them to step into a comic shop just once this year. You don't even need to spend any money, but get an idea of the wacky world of comic nuttiness. Breath in the warm, stale air of the local comic shop and be amazed at the nonsense inherent therein.

Somehow, I finally broke Randy. I'm not sure if he ever actually bought anything, but he went back inside. From there, the infiltration begins.

Speaking of comics... (which I occasionally do...)

Superman has officially relaunched with new creative teams for the next year. To get an idea of what you might expect, I suggest you take a look at the website DC has created for those of you curious to see what is going on in Metropolis these days. They've provided very nice PDF sneak peeks.

Here is the preview for Superman #204 coming out in two weeks.

Just when i was feeling a little low about what kind of geek I've willingly become, some things brighten your day. This guy's enthusiasm is contagious.

thanks to Jamie for the link.

I should never go to Vegas.

My first trip to Vegas was, at that point, the furthest west I had ever travelled, my first time in a desert, and my first work related trip. I was travelling with Michael "The My" Young and Derek "G-rated fun" Lee, my co-workers from the multimedia shop we'd set up at the University of Texas.

It was strange enough seeing the hotels from the plane and then from the tarmac... like tiny little sets built out in the middle of nowhere for some post-apocolyptic envisioning of the world, or maybe Brainiac's playground after he's miniaturized city after city. But then you draw closer, and you realize that was just a trick of the light, a matter of perspective. Each hotel is a city unto itself. Your brain lied to you, simply because it had never seen anything like it, and couldn't process the insanity.

We checked into Circus-Circus (actually... funny story... somehow Circus Circus did not have us listed as guests despite the fact we were holding reservation confirmations in our hands. These were the early days of online hotel reservations, kids...). Jamie's family was in Vegas for some reason at the same time. So while we were sorting our mess out, there's Dick and Judy waving to me from across the very crowded lobby.

One's first view of The Strip is overwhelming, but inconsequential to my point here. My point here is that I should never go to Vegas.

Because after several days in Vegas of wandering the NAB showroom and sitting through hours of presentations and visiting the Coca-Cola museum and all that good stuff, one morning I woke up, took a shower, put on my socks and turned on the TV while Michael "The My" Young brushed his teeth.

"Jesus," I said. "Some kids just opened up with a bag of guns at their high school out in Colorado."
"Where?"
"Columbine?"
"Oh," said The My. "That's where I grew up."

We watched the TV for a while, not saying much. We went down to a cafe and got some eggs, and didn't really talk. And that was that. My hadn't gone to school at Columbine High School, and he didn't know the kids... but, still.

And if you've been reading here for a while, you may remember that my second trip to Vegas began on September 9th, 2001 and ended a few days later when planes started flying again, and everybody was painfully polite to one another.

So, yeah... I shouldn't ever go back to Vegas.

Jim informs me that the Hellmouth is not in Sunnyvale. It is in Sunnydale. Which would explain why there are so few vampires here in Sunnyvale. Instead, we're plagued by CHUDs.

It's been several years now since I watched Buffy, but as the Buffy-geek community often interbreeds with the comic geek community, I can't help but keep tabs.

Chandler is making an effort to be Sunnyvale for a day. I'm almost tempted to go down to the library and see what's going on.

Not much to report from Melbotis HQ. Slow weekend, not much happening. Beautiful weather. Etc...

I'm skipping the Punisher movie. For those of you who don't know, The Punisher is a Marvel character from the mid-70's who was originally a Spider-Man villain, and later became an anti-hero. He was cut from the same cloth as some Bronson movies (think the Death Wish series... in which you get to see Jeff Goldblum playing a "tough.) The Punisher's popularity soared in the mid-80's in the era of "kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out" action movies, and killing everyone in your path seemed like the most direct way to resolve a conflict.



Now, this may be surprising, but watching a dude in black pants kill every human being who crosses his path gets a bit stale after a while. So the Punisher's popularity waned in the early 90's.

Around 2000 The Punisher was relaunched as a dark, dark comedy about a guy out to kill everybody who ever committed a crime, and the very silly ways people try to stop him (not to mention a police force who secretly roots for him to take out the scumbags). It starred insane roid-infested Russian assassins, goofy nebbish cops and a slew of other characters trying to make sense of The Punisher's quest for vengeance.

My understanding is that the new movie uses these characters while refusing to be a comedy. Which is an odd choice, but I'm no genius of a producer. Furthermore, for reasons probably related to budgeting, the Punisher has moved from the "anything can happen" shadows of New York's underbelly to the tropical clime of Tampa, Florida, where one can, presumably, soak up the ocean air while acting as an unstoppable killing machine.

The truth is, we've all already seen this movie. There's no point to it if they weren't going to do something new (which is also why the black comedy series worked so well). After Commando, what the hell is there? Commando is the template for the video game action movie. You move up and up, collecting weapons until you fight the big boss. One could point to bruce Lee movies as pre-dating the concept, and I imagine they'd be right, but those movies had a certain grace and panache utterly lacking in testosterone bonanza's exemplified by Commando.

I don't really love Commando the way I did when I was 13, but it's brutal simplicity must have really struck a chord with people, because they've remade that movie a few hundred times over since it was released. As an interesting side-note, Jeph Loeb, one of my favorite comic writers, is also responsible for Commando.

Speaking of comics... Did anybody else see this week's epsidoe of Simpsons (entitled My Big Fat Geek Wedding)? Truly, a day of shame in the Steans household.