Wow, this is like a bad movie.

Translation: If someone with more money than you wants to build an autoplex where you live (in order to make yet more money), you have to take whatever they are offering and get out before they bulldoze your house. If you refuse, I guess they can toss you in jail.

Thanks, Supreme Court!

If only we had those little robots from *batteries not included to go and scare off Scalia.

***update***

The League has the reading skills of a 5 year old.

Scalia, while looking jolly in this picture, did not vote to toss people out onto the street. He probably just had a Whopper and is enjoying the after-effects.

Please read comments section below.

After my moody and irrational rant over the past 48 hours or so, The League appears to have lost all readership.

You'd think I had been writing a celebration of the achievements of Stalin or something.

Ah, well.

Scaljon has a Meme on his site, and there's nothing like a good Meme to get the blood flowing.

1. What is the earliest movie you remember watching in the theater?

It might have been Grease at a drive in with my family (which led to me being confused in my memories years later as to whether or not the drive in had a swingset. I think my popcorn addled brain led me to believe that the swing set Danny rests his weary bones on when at the movies with Sandy was actually at my drive-in theater).

Or else it was Star Wars. I do not recall which came first. I imagine it was Star Wars.

2. If you could strike one word from the English language, which word would you choose and why?

I think I would strike unAmerican. I'm sick of hearing that because I won't endorse jack-ass schemes by chuckleheads I didn't vote for that I am unAmerican.

That's the magic of it. I was born here. Whatever I think is automatically American.

And I happen to think we should all bow down before Peer-Wun, God of Wicker.

3. If you were a superhero, what would be your kryptonite?

Jamie. Or cookies. I can't say "no" to either of them.

Or maybe those glowing green rocks created from the debris of my exploded homeworld. Those certainly don't do me any good.

4. Would you rather win an Emmy, Grammy, Tony, Golden Globe, Oscar, Pulitzer, or Nobel Prize? What work would you win it for?

Nobel prize. Can one win a Nobel Prize for blogging? I would actually like to win it for my imaginary work in medicine. And as long as we're imagining, also for my Mid-East Peace Plan which everyone can agree on. And for burying Tom Cruise in a vault two miles below the Earth's crust.

Or I'd like to win a Daytime Emmy for my work on General Hospital where I play Dr. Luke Strongheart.

5. What is your catch phrase? Don't have one? Then make one up!

I am sure Jamie THINKS I have a catch phrase, but I do not consciously employ a catchphrase.

I do say, "Oh, for the love of Mike..." sometimes. And I have consciously tried to work "Sweet Christmas!" into my repertoire, but I'm not sure it's really taken off.

"Sweet Christmas!" was the catchphrase of Marvel's street-level action star, Luke Cage (aka Power Man... But nobody calls him Power Man any more). Who knows where the catchphrase came from, but it's roundly considered one of the best/worst catch phrases of any superhero.

Read more about Luke Cage here.

The League throws in with Comic Candy

Big, big news.

The League has posted his first comic review for another publication.

Jenn over at Comic Candy has posted The League's review of the Dark Detective series from DC Comics.

Jenn has gone beyond the usual comic-blog and has built a pretty darn cool website where she's trying to build a community of comic fans. I'm not sure where the site is going, but I do think Jenn has got it off to a great start.

Anyway, check out the review. Criticize my criticism. But also make sure you go to Comic Candy and look around, and maybe even sign up.

My guess is, I will post straightforward reviews there, while keeping Suggestions for Further Reading as a separate sort of column here, focusing on comic movies, comic info, comic trivia, and other items casual or non-comic readers might find amusing.

I do assume you all find it amusing or you wouldn't be here.

Okay.

So, it's getting really, really hot here in Arizona. It's 111 degrees today.

And I think that, coupled with some work issues, has made The League grouchier than normal.

The League admits that The League should not have asked for Loyal Leaguers to apologize.

Years ago, The League wasn't going to add a comments section as we anticipated bad behavior cropping up. But you know what? Loyal Leaguers have made The League of Melbotis a lot of fun to work on. As much as The League enjoys shooting his mouth off, he enjoys the comments, jokes and snarky remarks which he can find mere hours after posting.

So we hope everyone will continue to participate and keep making this a fun endeavor. But remember, keep it fun. And keep in mind that while all you Loyal Leaguers have thrown your hat into the same ring of justice, we may not all know each other as well as we'd like to. And sometimes that can lead to misunderstanding.

Two Major items

1) The Spurs lost, sending the series to a nail-biting game seven. Which they will surely lose. At home.

Duncan looks like he needs to take a nice, long nap and listen to some self-affirmation tapes. Ginobili is rattled, but keeps pouring it on. And I'm seeing a lot of Barry, and I'm not sure why. Mohammad has been his reliable self, if not stellar. Big-Shot Bob was sort of shut down tonight as well.

The Spurs' 3-point percentage has been pretty poor, but they keep firing away. In addition, they seem hell bent on driving into the lane. Which is kind of nuts, because the Pistons' defense gets a turn-over (without a foul, I might add) each time they try this. Spurs need to learn to shoot from the perimeter, play more solid D, and... for God's sake, REBOUND. I know those ankles are killing you, Tim, but your job is to hop up and grab the ball, not let some dude named "Chauncey" take the ball away from you.

2) For those of you involved in the kerfuffle going on in the comments section, knock it off.

I will seriously turn this car around and we'll all go home. Or at least shut down comments.

I want an apology out of everybody.

Now.

Superman Celebration 2005 with Mo Rocca.

Man, I wish this had been Triumph.

THE REAL WORLD: AUSTIN


"It'll be really weird to see myself drunk. But I guess we'll all learn something about ourselves."

So it's time for another season of MTV's hit "reality" show, The Real World (a name which has lost all meaning since the show's original, much more idealistic inception). As The League recalls, The Real World was originally created to fill the heads of cotton-headed MTV viewers with a glimpse of life in NYC, but, more specifically, to showcase the trials and tribulations of leaving home and trying to make it in the big city.

This was an era of the show in which the cast memebers were defined by what they did, not whom they did. Someone could, in this early stage, be "the actor guy" or "the musician guy". Cast members were pulled in from all points of the country with big city aspirations, and, I THINK the point was to show folks getting away from their comfort zone and sort of dealing with the mish-mash of personalities and ideas that one faces in "The Real World". Only 24/7 and in a swank loft.

I'm not sure they actually succeeded, but the show did prove Americans love to voyeuristically watch other people doing the exact same stuff they could do if they weren't watching the program at that same moment.

Well, it's God-knows how many seasons later, and The Real World is now subtitled Pretty Drunk Exhibitionist Mental Midgets You Might See "Doin' It". No longer are the cast members asked to, or even really encouraged to, leave the house. Instead, the program fills a house with booze, adds a hot tub, and casts people who are nuts for the sex and insist they "don't want nobody gittin' all up in (their) face". It's a beautiful, beautiful level of simplicity that has taken full advantage of the Gen Y belief in self-entitlement and instant celebrity. After all, there is absolutely nothing special about the cast members. Seriously. Not a damn thing aside from an over extended ego and lack of foresight regarding covering camera lenses when having sex.

So the new season of The Real World takes place in The League's professed hometown of Austin, TX.

Being Austin, apparently not everyone took kindly to folks making a scene and invading their turf.

To add insult to injury, and fueling my dislike of UT's Paul Stekler (which began when he told me to my face he didn't care if I could graduate), Stekler offered the Real World cast a job.

To keep the cast from slacking, "The Real World" puts the kids to work . . . sort of.

In Austin, filmmaker and University of Texas film professor Paul Stekler ("Last Man Standing") was recruited to help the kids make a mini-documentary during the South by Southwest Music Festival in March.

Initially Stekler thought it was "a pretty weird offer." But then he decided it could be good publicity for UT. The graduate students who trained the cast — P.J. Raval, Jenn Garrison and David Hartstein — were paid. Stekler's time was covered by a contribution (undisclosed amount) to the UT film department.

You know, it's reasons like this that UT RTF calls me and calls me and I won't give them any money. I remember how much I had to bust my ass to even get into a class where I could have done a project like this. Apparently I should have been greasing Steckler's palm.

I might watch an episode or two of the Austin-based series, but it's going to be tough to take the mouth-breathers of the show's cast seeing Austin as nothing more than a huge bar while the producers angle to make the show hip enough for their soulless LA-based bosses.

Ah, well. The League is getting old and grumpy.