Oh, Leaguers

Quick notes time:

1) See the 2005 Halloween Contest below.

2) Jim and Reed never sent back responses to my incredibly insightful interview questions.

3) The Smurf's throw in with the anti-war movement. Click here for more.

Thanks to RHPT for the link

4) Dr. Doom's Top 10 Euphemisms for sex (funny only to us nerds...) Click here.

5) Apparently a disaster has hit Pakistan and India which is making Katrina and Rita look like a day at the park. Keep giving to the Red Cross, people.

6) Speaking of Rita, Jim D. is back in Beaumont, but it's been quiet on his end since his return. Sounds like the press has done a typically half-assed job of covering what's going on in East Texas in favor of the Katrina story. Apparently Beaumont and the surrounding areas are not "okay".

7) In more East Texas news: Is the East Texas Bigfoot okay in the wake of Hurricane Rita?

find out more here

8) Folks in Austin will want to attend an upcoming show at the Hideout Theater on Congress. Sample the comedy stylings of Hurricane Katrina refugee, Tami Q. Nelson (formerly of Spring, formerly of Austin, and now formerly of New Orleans) as she re-teams with her New Orleans based comedy troupe in the relative safety of Central Texas.

Check out the show

9) And because he's cool, here's Mr. Terrific

2005 League of Melbotis Official Spooktacular Halloween Contest:

I, MONSTER...!


I felt bad about not having any ideas for a Halloween Contest, so here we go:

We all watch monster movies and horror movies. We all have a favorite monster or horror character or two.

a) if you could be any antagonist from any monster, horror or spooky movie, who (or what) would you wish to be?

b) what sort of havoc would you wish to wreak?


c) why?

d) what would you do better than that fraud in the original film?

e) what would you find challenging?

f) how would you prevent the protagonist from defeating you?

g) how long do you think you could wreak your particular brand of havoc before it got dull?

h) which other spooky, horror character or monster would you take to task for not living up to the monster credo?



Send all responses to Melbotis's e-mail address over there on the upper left

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CHRISTMAS TIME IS HERE!!!! FA LA LA LA LA LA LA!!!!!

Yes, the Yuletide is upon us! It's the merriest time of the year.

Today I was talking to my boss, and over his shoulder I noticed the City of Tempe employees stringing the palm trees around my office with Christmas lights. 'Tis the Season!



On the way home I popped into the grocery, and in the floral section were several "Santa" bears tucked in between the Halloween bouquets. Later, Jamie and I went off to Walgreens, and it's a wonderfully merry/ spooky mix of Halloween and Christmas paraphernelia scattered about the store.

And, Jamie shouted out MARK IT!!!! at 7:40pm on October 10th when we saw our very first Christmas commercial. Yeah, sure, they were pitching taking a cruise for Christmas, but it was the first commercial of the year including Christmas decorations and fake snow and wrapping paper.

Sigh.

Wow, are we close to Halloween. Normally by now I'd have forced Jamie through a Frankenstein movie marathon and be walking around the house with a Dracula cape. But this year, not so much.

I can't think up a good Halloween contest, so we're not having one at The League. No hard feelings, I just can't think of anything.

It may also be that there's almost no transition from summer to the other season we have here, which isn't really fall, because it's more or less the same season until it gets hot again in May. The good news is that the heat actually broke, and the other season began today. The closest thing we have to a fall blew in and temperatures dropped below 90 for the first time in months.

The dogs are going nuts, not sure what to do with themselves when being outside for five minutes doesn't suck the life out of them. We took Lucy to the park for the first time today, and she had a blast. We walked on the leash and then let her run for a while. She's quite a runner, that little ball of energy. Mel was, as always, delighted to stretch his legs and go for a trot.

Anyhoo, we also got into the Halloween spirit by going to see "Curse of the Were-Rabbit", which, if you haven't seen it, it's pretty darn good.

So hopefully I'll be getting more into the Halloween spirit here shortly. We've got the decorations up at home, so Karloff, Lugosi and Chaney are all looking down upon me from atop the entertainment center, instructing me to crack open my monster movie collections for another year of Halloween mayhem.

It's sure to be SPOOKTACULAR.

Football Update

Dear OU fans,

Suck it.

Love,

The League

PS: HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA (breathe) HA HA HA HA HA HA HA


Man, it's about time. Sadly, the game was turning into such a blow-out that for week #2, ABC cut over to the UofM v. UofM game and I had to tune into ESPN to find out what the score was.

And don't you feel bad for A&M fans? No? Well, I don't either.

In a few years the cosmic balance will shift and UT will suck once again while A&M once again rules as a football juggernaut... but for this year, it's the year of the Longhorns.

Until, of course, they choke.

SERENITY NOW!!!

The League and Mrs. League toddled off to the local theater to check out sci-fi extravaganza, Serenity.

Jim D. had recommended the movie, Steanso and The Admiral had given the flick a thumbs-up, and the League's brother-in-law, Sneaky Frog, is a big "Firefly" nerd, and had thrown his support behind the movie.

For some reason, mid-summer, my theater quit carrying Hot Tamales. The League is a simple League with simple League wishes. When we go to the theater, we want a medium Diet Coke and we want a box of Hot Tamales. We’ve complained loudly to the people behind the counter that Hot Tamales are no longer to be had, but we’re coming to peace with the fact that Hot Tamales are gone, and, most, likely, will never return.

Today we decided we wanted Sweet Tarts, truly a staple of the movie candy industry, and we noticed that there were no Sweet Tarts as well.

“Well, what do you want?” asked Mrs. League.
“I want Sweet Tarts,” we replied.
“They don’t have them.”
“What? Everyone has Sweet Tarts.”
“Well, they don’t. Do you want Sour Patch Kids? Or Sour Wiggly Worms? Or Sour Straws?”
“My GOD!!! They’re all the same damn candy! Why do they have three kinds of sour candies and no Sweet Tarts?”
The kid behind the counter was starting to look a little concerned.
“They sort of are. Well…” Mrs. League tried.
“This is absurd! I don’t want anything sour and I don’t want chocolate,” I went on. “I want Sweet Tarts and Hot Tamales. Every other theater has these, but here I have to have Sour Wiggly Worms. It’s the Bizarro Theater. Nothing here is right!”
The kid behind the counter just sort of stood there, blinking.

When we went to see “Roll Bounce” at this same theater a week ago, I’d confronted the grouchy alt-rock girl behind the counter regarding the lack of Hot Tamales. “Nobody wanted them,” she explained. “Bullshit!” I’d declared. “I want them. I can’t be the only one!”

The League understands the laws of supply and demand, but believes that Hot Tamales fall safely within the Laffer Curve on this one. And who cares if they don’t move as fast as Wiggly Sour Worms? You know who eats those? Stupid little kids. Stupid little kids who don’t know that for fifty cents less they could get the exact same thing under the name “Sour Punch Straws”, but they’re too wrapped up in having the stupid worm on the package that they can’t see in the dark that they’ve bumped the Hot Tamales off of the shelf.

“It’s an outrage,” The League continued. “And when the hell is Zorro coming out? That poster has been up since May. I don’t even know if I want to see it anymore.”
“What do you want?” asked Mrs. League.
“I want Sweet Tarts.”
“They don’t have those.”
“Fine. I’ll have a Diet Coke.”
How hard is it to have Hot Tamales in stock? They’re not even food. They keep forever and a day. A man seeking non-Chocolate at a theater shouldn’t have to resort to eating sour candies or Skittles (which are gross and taste like fake fun).

You know how movie theaters make money? It’s not off of ticket sales, Leaguers. It’s by selling candy. They buy candy for the same prices you’d pay at the grocery and then mark it up 400%. You accept that the inflated price is part of the deal, pay $3.75 for a pack of M&M’s, and move on with life.

I COULD buy a box of Hot Tamales at the Walgreen’s or AM/PM on the way to the theater, but I don’t. I want my theater to stay in business. But I also have deep pockets. Not financially, but as a big man, I wear some big pants, and I can get a pack of Hot Tamales in the pocket with a minimum of fuss.

I don’t want to become the lady who turned around to me in the 10:00 show of Dennis the Menance I went to in 1993 who turned around mid-screening and said, “Do ya’ll want a plum?”
“Ma’am?”
“Do ya’ll want a plum?”
"Like... a plum?"
"Uh-huh. I don't need it."
Plums aren’t movie food. I don’t know if she’d brought in a small lunch, or a bag of plums, or just found a plum in the bottom of her purse. But she wasn’t a Hot Tamale lady, she was a plum lady, and the Greens Crossing AMC had failed to meet her half-way. Thus, she was bringing in her plum. Which, it turned out, she didn’t want anyway.

Only plum I ever ate in a movie.

In the end I got up before the trailers started and got a box of Milk Duds, because, honestly, I’m a bitch for sugar. But should I ever learn to show some foresight, the Gilbert WTC Theater is going to start losing my $3.75 every week.

And as I stood there at the counter, begrudgingly handing over my money, the little kid behind me was turning to his dad and saying, “Where are the Hot Tamales?”

So, how was Serenity? Pretty darn good. Now I need to seek out the Firefly DVDs.

I was a little skeptical for the first few scenes, but the movie did win me over. For those of you who have seen the commercial and think the movie looks sort of lame? The commercials pretty much show the first scene of the movie. It gets a lot more interesting from there.

Former Buffy-verse mastermind Joss Whedon is responsible for this movie, and that’s good news. He’s signed to write and direct an upcoming Wonder Woman feature. If this movie is any indication, Wonder Woman will probably be a pretty darn good flick, too.

So long and thanks for all the fish

--Mrs. League