Well, my three day weekend passed in a blur of packing, watching VH-1 Celebreality programming (which is awesome if you want the TV on, but do not care at all what is on), occasional bouts of napping, dog rangling, Animaniacs viewing and generally being anti-social.

Last night I started the portion of my comics packing that means I really am drawing to a close here in PHX. I only partially organized the remaining comics left out in my room. I did not bag nor board them, and did not place them exactly where they need to go in the correct long box. That sort of sorting will need to take place in Austin. I put the comics in the Comicspriceguide.com database, and breathed a sigh of relief.

One nice thing: I located my Justice League of America #0 special edition cover in the process. I had been looking for it for a week, as it cost me $6.00. I was half convinced some kid had grabbed it for the shiny superheroes on the cover while his parents were looking at our house. The other part of me knew it was in there somewhere. I was also convinced a week ago that ruffians at the Austin-Bergstrom airport had stolen my work Blackberry. They had not. It was in Jason's guest room. So I need to quit assuming people are trying to steal from me or else I'm going to turn into the weird old guy who won't answer his door anymore because he thinks those Girl Scouts are up to no good.

In watching Flavor of Love, Season 2, I've decided that Jason needs a show on VH-1 where ladies compete for his affections. I really want to see 20 fame-hungry LA-dwelling club rats talking about what a great guy Jason is and how he's their "man". Mostly I want to see Jason wearing a crown and floating in a pool while girls try to impress him.

Also, I have decided I want my own show on Home and Garden network called "Man, I Have No Idea". It would star me, Mel and Lucy, but I'd wear a tool belt and some flannel. People would bring Mel, Lucy and myself into their home and point out some repair they'd like done or some other home improvement project. I would then pause awkwardly as I looked at what they wanted done. They would say "Do you know how to do that?", to which I would respond, "Man, I have no idea."

That's pretty much it. That's my big concept. Oh, and then Mel, Lucy and I would play fetch for the last five minutes of the show while contractors completed the work. Occasionally I would bring in Jeff the Cat and play with him using a laser pointer.

I could also have a spin-off show called "How Hard Could it Be?" in which I would attempt the repair myself, and THEN bring in the general contractor to repair the damage.

Tuesday night I am off to Austin for a job interview. The total trip will be less than 24 hours. Wish me luck.

RIP Steve Irwin
The League will really, really miss you, Crocodile Hunter

Monday morning, Australia time and late Sunday evening AZ time, I started seeing reports that Steve Irwin, better known as The Crocodile Hunter, had died.

You can read more here.

I guess it should come as no huge surprise to anyone familiar with Irwin's television program that he died in the field while taping a new program.

I remember first hearing about Irwin from college-pal Manzo, who tried desperately (despite having indulged in one too many cans of "Sportz") to explain that there was this new guy on cable who tackled live reptiles. A few months later I remember spending hours and hours on Jan. 1, 2000 watching a Crocodile Hunter marathon as I tried to get over Dec. 31, 1999. I was already hooked on the how.

Early on I lost track of how many hours of television I watched of Steve leaping into the water after man-eating crocodiles, wrestling them and then moving them either to safer environs or to the Australia Zoo.

Irwin wasn't just a thrill-seeking adventurer. His program was educational, and he was always most interested in ensuring his audience understood the complexities of the animal kingdom and the wonders of nature. His boyish awe in the face of everything from a walking stick to a brown bear was contagious, and I found myself tuning in week after week for years.

As much as I'd been a "Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom" fan as a kid, Steve was the logical extension of the school-book lectures, explaining the wilds to his viewership as he handled animals himself.

If you watched long enough, you knew Steve was the enthusiasm, but long-suffering wife, Terri, was the patience that balanced out the act. Terri became more and more integral to the show, narrating and stepping in from time to time (usually to handle cuddlier animals or remind Steve NOT to handle the deadly cobra, etc...). And, just when I moved to AZ, Steve's tiny daughter began making appearances in episodes taped at the zoo. And, of course, Jamie and I went to see "Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course".

The world didn't just lose a great TV personality when it lost Steve Irwin on Monday. We lost a terrific conservationist and a spokesman for a greater balance of man and the rest of the beings with whom he shares his planet.

So long, Steve. I'm going to miss you. Hopefully you can work out a deal with The Man Upstairs to corral animals up there.


From CNN: He is survived by his American-born wife Terri and their two children, Bindi Sue, born 1998, and Robert (Bob), born December 2003.

FOOTBALL IS UPON US

We've been busy enough around League HQ that I completely missed the entire WNBA season. I never paid attention to the WNBA before last year, so its not exactly killing me that I lost track of this season.

What IS bothering me is that I guess I didn't pay enough attention to the pre-season coverage of both NCAA football and the NFL pre-season hoo-hah. Why is it bothering me? Leaguers, that's a hell of a lot of reading and pre-season analysis that I will need to have at my fingertips should Reed and I sit down to watch a few games when I return to Austin.

I have no idea who the quarterback is at A&M or Oklahoma, let alone what the predictions are for the season. I even thought Snead was UT's starting quarterback. I feel so out of the loop.

I only watched half of the UT football game yesterday... the second half. And while I felt good about the dominating defeat of NTU, Game 2 of the season is the real test, isn't it? I mean, who didn't start seeing the possibility for greatness after UT's stunning victory at OSU last year? Well, maybe Randy, the Doubting Thomas of UT Football.

Sure, it helps that UT is playing OSU at home, but... Well, it's pretty much going to set the tone for the rest of the season. Here's to hoping The Horns do a little better than the Cotton Bowl this year. And then, after the usual stomping of Rice, UT faces Iowa State. My co-worker's nephew is their field goal kicker. I can't help but read something into that.

Turning to the NFL, I'm excited to see what TO brings to the Cowboys. I know, I know... but we're a Cowboys household.

I've actually been paying a little attention to the Cards this season. With Kurt looking healthy, Leinart already looking comfortable in pre-season play, Berry, Boldin and others looking sharp... dare I predict a winning season for the Cardinals?

So... how are your teams looking? How's Vince looking in Tennessee? What the #$%@ is going on in Minnesota? Is it worth tuning in to my once beloved Packers?

Anyone, football...? speak up...

Poll Position
Results: WWIII POLL

Howdy, Leaguers. It's the start of a new month. That means a few things around League HQ.
a) time to give the dogs their heartworm pills
b) time to post a new months worth of random comments
c) which means Jim or RHPT will post with a "first post!" post
d) time to put up a new poll
e) time to take down the old poll
f) time to review our results from last month's poll
g) time to call Steanso and remind him to take his monthly bath

Last month the poo was hitting the fan on the international scene. Well, not much has changed in that regard, but, hey... if we're about to turn the earth into a smoldering, lifeless sphere, we might as well do it with a giggle...

So what did Leaguers think? Only 15 of you voted...



2 of you will be happy to don your hockey mask, replace your shirt with bandoliers and don leather pants as you race your muscle car across the wastelands

2 of you plan to emerge from your subterranean layers to take advatange of the chaos and assert your rule over the lowlies, scrambling for the precious resources you may (or may not) distribute, based upon loyalty

Sadly, nobody seems to think that Kid Rock and Pam Anderson will find wedded bliss, tiptoeing through the fallout. Or that the Candaians stand a darn chance of finally letting the people decide the fate of their own nation.

Nor do any of you worry too much about the fate of your dear old grannies. You lousy jerks.

Rather, a surprising 1 in 3 of you crybabies were worried about finding drinking water after the initial atomic exchange.

1 in 5 of you have plainly had it with Lohan.

1 of you got my Star Trek reference. Thanks, Steanso. You may now hang your head in shame.

1 of you fears the mutants.

And only one of you is prepared for the coming age and to live under the banner of the Nefarious Perry. You shall all pay for your insolence.

TWO THINGS


One

Apparently some new BBC program is going to be a faux-documentay which takes place in the not-so-far future, detailing the (obviously) fictional 2007 assasination of President Bush and the aftermath.

Read here.

The CNN anchors put on their somber faces this morning when reporting about the program, reassuring the audience that it was a British film-maker and not an American who would dare have the audacity to even think of a world in which someone might touch a hair upon Fearless Leader's head.

Apparently, only a monster could imagine the president being assassinated. How many movies do we watch which use the assassination (or attempt at the assassination) of the president as the plot? Yes, yes... those presidents are fictional, but it IS still the President, is it not? One of the top rated shows on TV is 24 which regularly depicts conniving and murderous members of government and routine presidential assasination attempts. The BBC program happens to use Photoshopped images of Bush instead of Dennis Haysbert.

Never mind the other 10's of thousands of other murders depicted on television (not to mention movies) people are now supposed to see before they turn 18. Or the hundreds of thousands of acts of violence on television.

We don't really care about this.

I'm irritated that CNN (a Time/Warner subsidiary, and thus responsible for creating and broadcasting much of that programming) is playing this up as if the filmmaker has somehow performed a voodoo ritual which is dooming the President. The concerned, knitted eyebrows appeal to our dumbest jingoistic nature. Is the President no longer a mortal American citizen (of whom we don't think about twice as they're blown up nightly on television), but our own duly elected Sun God we can somehow murder with a TV show?

I don't want the President dead. Neither do you. Well, yes, you in the back in the army surplus coat with the scraggly beard and crazy eyes... but you also think your house cat is trying to take over your mind.

Of course it took a person in the UK to create the show. Since the 1960's it's been illegal to even think about killing the actual President in the US. A passing comment to a co-worker could be enough to have the Secret Service putting you in the cooler for a few weeks while they dug through all of your personal laundry. In a way, it's not worth the personal and financial risk.


Two

So apparently the MTV Video Music Awards sucked because they weren't "shocking enough" and the artists were boring.

Let's see if we can't run this down

1) MTV quit showing videos in 1993, choosing only five videos which it will show in repetition for months at a time between detailing teenager's cars and throwing them extravagant birthday parties
2) record sales are off by millions of copies not as much due to filesharing as because nobody seems to care enough about pop music to actually pay for it anymore
3) the FCC is suing CBS and its affiliates for millions after the Janet Jackson fiasco which was supposed to be "shocking". Really, CBS should have sued the pants off of Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson for actually executing that little stunt(not to mention MTV, who produced the infamous half-time show)
4) Your headliner was Justin Timberlake. I still have never met a human being who liked the guy's music
5) Basic cable and reality TV have so far blurred the lines about what's shocking and par for the course as to what appears on TV that you'd pretty much have to turn the show into a public execution in order to raise an eyebrow
6) Putting a microphone in front of most entertainers and asking them to speak in complete sentences is no longer possible
7) Xtina and a few other performers apparently had a moment of clarity and realized that being thought of us the town tramp for the entire country is no way to maintain a sustainable career
8) I'm only 31 and I have no idea who 80% of the people on the show were
9) And I'm going to get crucifed for saying this, but maybe Jack Black's rocker-schtick has run its course


The problem isn't the VMA's. The problem is the state of the assembly-line music industry and MTV's belief that the people they promote are actually interesting enough to warrant the reputations they foist upon their viewership.

random comments - August

Day Off:

In theory I took the day off to perform a task that I thought would be both monumental and expensive. It was neither.

When our house was inspected, the inspector wrote that the patch of burned out dirt on the west side of our house (between the house and the cinderblock wall) needed soil. Erosion had apparently taken its natural course and the inspector made a note that continued erosion could get water under the foundation, which, of course, would mean the house would float away. Or something.

We were to add soil, angled away from the house. Technically, a professional was to add the soil, but I figured I'm as professional as the next guy when it comes to moving dirt around with a shovel, so I dubbed myself a landscape architect for the day (and while I was at it, I was also a master geologist) and got to work.

So Wednesday night, after I sold my post-1998 Star Wars figure and vehicle collection to my LCS-owner, I headed to Lowe's where I bought 15 bags of "all-purpose top soil". At $2.43 a bag, I figured that if 15 bags wasn't enough, it wasn't a big deal to come back and purchse more soil, but I also had done no math before leaving the house, so I wasn't sure if the 15 cubic feet would be enough.

This morning I woke up at 6:00, ate a Power Bar, and, at the inspector's direction, laid soil at an angle in order to keep the water from flowing under the house. The entire job, plus time at Lowe's, took maybe an hour. So by 8:00, I was using the remaining five bags of dirt to add soil to my cactus garden, fill Mel's trench (Mel dug one hole in this yard. We do not know why it was a single hole, or why he dug it next to the porch. It's been there for three years. We filled it once and he dug it again), and generally put dirt in places that I thought maybe could use a little all-purpose top soil. Add water to settle the soil, and voila! I had the whole day ahead of me.

I spoke to my neighbor of six months for the first time. We're both moving out in mid-September. Go figure. Our new house has a front porch (two of them, but who's counting?), so I hope this means I might actually meet a neighbor or two if I go outside to read or whatever once we're settled in.

I also got to watch single-Mom across the street chase down her kid for day 2 (I had seen her do it on Wednesday, too) as he made a mad break for the park rather than get in the car for day-care. That is one kid who wants to go the jungle gym.

We did some packing and whatnot in the morning and, as we're a bit ahead of schedule (we have two more weeks and I think we'll be done packing by Monday night), we went to go see Little Miss Sunshine.

At the risk of being called Satan by all the folks who adored this movie, I thought it was okay, but it wasn't something I particularly want to own on DVD. It was funny. The actors were all very good (especially the titular star of the film, who I suspect was mostly playing herself). I more or less liked the flow of the script, but I thought the actors mostly overcame the directing more than they were guided by the directing.

I'd be curious to know what bits were cut from the movie. Toni Collette was good, but it seemed as if her storyline had mostly been excised from the film except as a few throw-away lines about a messy divorce (it's only insinuated but never stated that Kinnear's character is not Dwayne's father) and issues with personal finance.

MAJOR, MAJOR SPOILER

The story also makes an abrupt turn to the absurd in the Scottsdale/ Phoenix portion of the film that went from daffy family road trip into riffing on one of the "National Lampoon's Vacation" films. Not only did they lift the "let's drive with the dead relative" gimmick, but it happened in the same damn city as in "Vacation". The movie shows every weekend on some cable outlet, and its inevitable that the viewer would draw comparisons (or at least this viewer who has seen Vacation almost as many times as "Empire Strikes Back"). I'm not sure how that scene made it into the film, or why they felt it was necessary in an otherwise fairly grounded movie.

The family's inability to grieve what would be a considerable loss put the whole structure of the film in jeopardy, reminding this viewer that these are characters, and not people. Real (sane) people do not decide to continue on to a talent show when they're dealing with their dead father. Or at least they'd send part of the party along and leave one person behind to deal with the paperwork. It just felt unnecessary and inserted purely for the following scene with the police officer.

END MAJOR, MAJOR SPOILER

Is the movie worth seeing? Sure. Go nuts. Is it phenomenal..?
You know what? I liked Superman Returns a whole lot, so what the hell do I know?

I don't feel it's as fresh and new as everyone is claiming. For long stretches the movie felt like little bits lifted from other movies. But it also isn't bad. I don't want anybody to think that. I guess maybe I saw a lot of potential in the movie and it stopped frustratingly close to where I think it could have gone, and that's usually the kind of movie that elicits the longest posts from me. Again, I wonder how much of that wound up on the cutting room floor.


WWTBaS

We wrapped up the night by watching the conclusion of "Who Wants to be a Superhero?", and I mean conclusion and not climax. Anyone who didn't see that ending coming needs to take some remedial courses in "reality" television.

I more or less suspected Feedback or Major Victory had it in the bag from day one. If you pegged it from how these programs work and what they needed to be be able to do for the Sci-Fi original movie, I think everyone got what they needed out of the show. I will be picking up my Feedback comic as soon as it hits the shelf. I'm curious to see what they do with the character and if Matthew, the guy who dreamed up Feedback, will be involved in actually writing the comic in any way. After all, he dreamed up the character, but surely made the classic comic creator mistake of signing away the rights to a franchise when he signed the form to appear on the show at all.