These are a few of my favorite things...

Thank you, anonymous YouTube poster with too much free time on your hands. You've made this chubby nerd very happy.

iPhone Nerd Challenge

The League does not have an iPhone, and won't (a) for about two years so he can get the most out of the Blackberry he just bought, and (b) if they have made the move to Verizon by that point.

But we are very interested in the reading experience on the iPhone.

At long-last, comics are moving to the iPhone, and hopefully soon they'll also move to the Sony Reader and other technologies.

Anyhow, I am willing to send a check to reimburse the costs of the first Leaguer who purchases the first two or three issues of Mark Waid's "Irredeemable" and writes a review of the experience for reprint here.

More on the "Irredeemable" comics for iPhone topic.

Offered without comment

Halloween List

It's October!

That means its time for one thing!



Wait, no...

Well, maybe. But that's not where I was headed with this.



RIGHT!!! Halloween.

The point is, it's almost Halloween, and our pal Caffeinated Joe (aka: Wings), has put together a more than complete list of Halloween STUFF.



I suggest you check it out. It's amazingly thorough.

Please do yourself a favor and click over.

But, you know, as long as we're already here, we may as well look around.



It IS the most magical time of the year!

Apologies to Nicole

and to a lesser extent, Matt. Who knows what he did, and deserves no apology.

Jamie informs me that my post bemoaning the aspect ratio issue with my TV was "a little mean" and "they're never going to house sit again, you jerk."

So. What was intended to be a little good-natured ribbing for Nicole and Matt didn't wind up that way, and for that, I am greatly sorry.


even this adorable puppy thinks I was sort of a @#$%

I am also to communicate how grateful we are for their assistance, etc...

Anyhow, I was in no way actually upset with either, and feel awful that the post suggested otherwise.

October Creepiness

hey, hey... the gang's all here!

In lieu of an actual post, I'm going to kick off October with something creepier than Michael Meyers in a tutu:

Vintage Halloween stuff

I don't know what it is that makes vintage Christmas classic and endearing but vintage Halloween stuff terrifying, but there you are.

I don't know.


yeah, there's a little kid in blackface in there. Classy.

All my life I've mostly lived in relatively new structures, but when I sleep in a place like, say, the Olema Inn and consider how old the place is, and how many generations have slept in that room, and you look at the vintage light fixture and molding and wonder how many people have stared at that... and then think about all the kids over all the years who trick'or'treated before you ever put on a Chewbacca mask... all those kids who are nowhere to be seen, and in masks that were seemingly made in Hell's Novelty Factory...

Anyway.


Broom. Bike. Whatever.

The League has very specific issues.






Maybe I get a little sad looking at all these pictures, thinking of all these people who lived and had Halloween and trick or treats, and now they're most likely gone, and does anyone know who these people are anymore?





Is it the outdated ideas of the costumes? That its not colorful princesses and ninjas and Buzz Lightyear?





I have no idea. But the sort of static faces of the masks, and a lifetime of horror movies certainly isn't helping.





dang, yo. even if a headless guy with a hatchet was standing at the foot of my bed (my recurring fear when I was in 3rd grade), it would not freak me out as much as if these kids were on my doorstep.



I'm going to go hide under a blanket with a flashlight now.

The League watches: Flash Forward

Meh.

I'm not sure I'm ready to commit to a humorless series in which 9/10ths of the characters have already shown us the bleak future they're headed towards in the next 6 months.

I was also very not impressed by the seeming "check off the boxes" that seemed to fill the episode.

Roguish, drinking law-enforcement guy with a marriage on the rocks? check
Idyllic morning scene to establish the characters, complete with them rising for the day in a massive suburban LA home? check
Doomed sidekick? check (only, we already know that ain't gonna happen)
Creepy kids? check
Overblown disaster scene trying to top pilot of Lost (I expect this will be a new prime-time series standard)? check

There's the mystery of "what happened" which can't be much of a mystery for long as there's a novel out there upon which the series is based. That said: I presume the "why" will be changed, just as the protagonist is no longer a physicist, but an FBI agent.

yeah.

Anyway, the show did have a good hook (everyone passed out for 2 minutes!), with a sort of awkwardly revealed twist (and saw their future. sort of!). But the producers saw to it that the characters started off as generic TV characters, and not particularly interesting ones at that. So knowing where they're headed doesn't actually add a whole lot of appeal.

And, while I'm sticking with ABC's Lost to the bitter end, Jason said it best when he rolled his eyes and began to complain about how common time-travel/ glimpses of the future/ etc... have become in TV these days. Which is interesting, considering what a pain time-travel is in any medium or genre, and how badly its usually executed.

I might also mention (and I'm a little ashamed I know this), but Smallville is basically doing the same thing this season by giving Lois a flashback/ flashforward for the season.