Mrs. League again.

"FRODO...of the NINE fingers!"

(Shiny gold star if you get this reference)

Mrs. League here.

This will make the League very happy. After two years of annoyed avoidance of my unhealthy addiction to 'American Idol', the League has taken to actually following this season's offering of young hopefuls. In fact, last week after the men performed in the semi-finals, he picked up the phone and dialed with the explanation, "I gotta vote for my dudes."

The League's 'dudes' include Anwar Robinson and Nikko Smith.

In a sad turn of events, dude Nikko was voted off last week and did not make the final 12 (Incidentally, for you baseball fans, Nikko is the son of MLB player Ozzie Smith). However, in true American Idol style, one of the final 12 contestants (Mario) decided to leave the competition due to personal reasons. To fill Mario's place, the powers that be have invited Nikko BACK to be part of the final 12.

YAY NIKKO!

In other news, savetoby.com is both brilliant and disturbing.

TOYS THAT SHOULD NOT BE
or
An Action Figure for Jim

It's hard to imagine film enthusiast/ lawyer Jim D. getting super excited about a toy. But I think I finally found one suitable for the sort of miniature-scale role-playing Jim could really enjoy.

From Sideshow Collectibles' Fife and Drum line of toys comes General George Washington.


Unable to tell a lie, George admits to 30 points of articulation.

Yes, it warms the cockles of my withered heart to imagine Jim splashing in the tub, re-enacting the crossing of the Delaware with a bottle of shampoo and his General Washington doll.

For full details, more photos and some ordering information, you can go here.

VOTE FOR PEDRO

Not much to report other than my total resentment of Jim's mischaracterization of me as one who would "vote for Summer." If anyone would ever vote for Pedro, surely, it was The League. Alas, KOHS didn't offer much in the way of Pedro's to vote for. But, as I noted to Jim, in high school I mostly voted for Laura Palmer.

I moved high schools and cities between 9th and 10th grade and fell into a position in high school in which I knew absolutely nobody for about a year. In fact, it seems that the only people I knew were in my biology class, of which contained one Madi Q. Hinojosa.

Nonetheless, mere weeks after school began, we were asked to vote on our homecoming court and numerous other items I had neither the knowledge nor the wherewithal to answer. And unlike the school I'd come from, people at this new school seemed to be taking all of this deadly seriously. The election was pretty traditional, and was NOT for President (as that took place in the Spring). But it all seemed to serious. They actually took us out of class for the election. I won't even get into the attempt at a "recall vote" for our Homecoming Court my senior year.

So I voted for Laura Palmer.

I voted for Laura Palmer as often as I could for the next few years, any time there was a fill-in the blank, or nominate your choice of candidates. Sure, Laura was dead. Sure, she was wrapped in plastic. But at least I knew who she was, and I had an inkling of what I could expect from her.


It's always important to vote for the candidate who has the most to offer...

I don't really remember much about elections except that a fellow drama-kid, Abby, ran. And she was more or less a Summer. Abby asked me to help out with her campaign in exchnage for her dad's roller-skates. As I couldn't apparently avoid being part of the process, I was very excited to be part of the problem.

I agreed to run about during her speech and hand-out "Abby Dollars". This was our high concept. False bribery. So, during the speech I attempted a back flip, which turns out to be a lot more difficult than you'd think, even if you really, really believe in yourself.

Abby won, but I couldn't tell you why. She gave exactly the same speech as the girl who came after her. She made the same irresponsible pledges and the same asinine observations as Candidate B. Maybe Abby was taller. I don't know. I don't think the Abby Dollars did it, and The League's failed acrobatics mostly just illicted a collective empathetic inhalation as The League struck the gym floor.

I didn't vote for Abby, but I didn't vote for Laura Palmer, either. The election was performed on scantron sheets. I don't recall voting at all.

I never did get those roller-skates.

Here is the official KOHS web-page for my class. It is a list of people who got elected for things. I think, you know, in another twenty years, we're all going to be so proud we took time to think, I mean... really, really think about who had the best hair.

Enough.

Anyway, we didn't do much this weekend as we needed to clean the house, get oil changes, take Jamie to the eye doctor, blah, blah, blah. Ryan and Trisha came over and brought young Isaac, who is mostly a set of eyes and 19 pounds of rock and roll. That kid is going places. I can already tell.

Meanwhile, Lucy continues to grow at an alarming rate. She's getting bigger, and she's getting used to our routine, to some extent. I am trying to teach her to "sit." It started today. I press down on her butt until she sits, then I say "Sit!", I give her a treat, and then I give her a tiny hug. Then we do it all over again. I strongly suspect she has no idea what is happening.

Mel and Lucy's relationship continues to evolve. Today I watched her run up to him while he was lying in the grass. About two feet before she reached him, she went airborne and planted herself flatly in his face. Shortly afterward, Mel rolled on his side, picked her up in his paws, flipped her all the way over and body slammed her. I need a chart to demonstrate how this happened, but I assure you, it did happen.

Our place here at the end of civilization is now becoming suburbia.

The cows moved sometime in the last week. Our cows are gone, vanished without so much as an adios. While I will miss being able to see a herd of dairy cows at any time, I will not miss the stench of cows becoming so powerful that I think I am going to throw up if I want to walk the dog in the morning. I do not know what became of our cows. They have moved on to greener pastures.

This, and in what was a sprawl of desert between us and Tucson now has a Target, a Subway and a Dress Barn. While all of these things are assuredly depressing to be surrounded by and to get excited by, it's no longer bleak nothingness as far as the eye can see. And that's got to count for something.

So, quick informal discussion question.

Magneto: Republican, Democrat, Green Party, LaRouche Democrat, Bull Moose or Libertarian?


So Ally McBeal WAS underrated...!

FRIENDS OF THE LEAGUE AT SXSW

The League isn't going to be in Austin next week, but some of his chums are.

Here's a League checklist of events:

1) Phoenix based "Asleep in the Sea"

This is the band of my employee, Tom. Tom will be rocking the house.

Wednesday, March 16th at 10:00pm at THE HIDEOUT


2) Austin based "Milton Mapes".

One of the guys in Milton mapes married Mel's mother, Jenny. Anyways, it's a chance to see Jenny Perkins, right? Milton Mapes is actually very good. Go see them.

BIGSBY'S, Thursday March 17th.

3) on Sunday March 13th (4:00) and Tuesday March 15th (9:00) at The Hideout, some films Juan Diaz worked on will be shown.

"Playdate" and "Engineering Diversity". Go support Juan, you bastards.

Arden is already on his way to rock star status.