Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Monday, November 23, 2009
Turtles Forever
I actually am watching the "Turtles Forever" movie from CW Kids. And its a really weird take-off on DC "Crisis on Multiple Earths" storylines/ "Crisis on Infinite Earths" in almost any way which counts.
Its also oddly meta for a kid's Saturday morning cartoon. I mean, they just arrived in "Turtle Earth Prime", which is the first issue of the classic Eastman and Laird run on TMNT from the mid-80's.
Eastman and Laird's TMNT was part of why I got into comics as a kid, and its part of why I started wanting to draw. I'm not a huge TMNT nut, but...
I'm kind of freaking out a little bit, because it looks exactly like the comics. And that is real, yo.
Classic TMNT from the 1980's (first issue)
Also, at commercial breaks, the networks keeps advertising "Christmas Buddies", which...
the part of me which loves horrible movies and the part of me that likes cute golden retriever puppies are sort of conspiring to make me watch this thing at some point.
Its also oddly meta for a kid's Saturday morning cartoon. I mean, they just arrived in "Turtle Earth Prime", which is the first issue of the classic Eastman and Laird run on TMNT from the mid-80's.
Eastman and Laird's TMNT was part of why I got into comics as a kid, and its part of why I started wanting to draw. I'm not a huge TMNT nut, but...
I'm kind of freaking out a little bit, because it looks exactly like the comics. And that is real, yo.
Classic TMNT from the 1980's (first issue)
Also, at commercial breaks, the networks keeps advertising "Christmas Buddies", which...
the part of me which loves horrible movies and the part of me that likes cute golden retriever puppies are sort of conspiring to make me watch this thing at some point.
Scout's Amazing Misadventure
Around 2:45, Jamie called me at my desk.
"Scout got out. She found a hole in the fence and pushed her way out. She's running around the neighborhood."
A month ago or so I took Scout to the park and was astounded when she was off her leash. "If she ever runs, we are never going to catch her," I said. And, sure enough, given the opportunity, she ran.
Jamie did a great job trying to track her down, but no dice. A few people had seen her, but we have a creek which runs the length of our subdivision and the adjoining subdivision, and many people who back up to it do not have fences. Which means, really, Scout could be anywhere in about a mile radius in about twenty minutes.
I got home about 3:20 or so, and began looking at the park. I looked high and low, tromping around the weeds, to no avail.
Jamie was circling, and kept coming back to the house to see if any messages were left. Her folks also zipped up to Austin and helped look around the neighborhood.
Jamie came home to find some strangers who had found poor Scout. Unfortunately, she'd been clipped by a car out on Manchaca.
Don't worry, Scout is okay, we think.
I can't really thank enough the complete strangers who corralled her and brought her home. That people would pull over and help out like that? Anyway, it gives me a moment of pause and a little something to be grateful for this week. Thanks, South Austin people. You're the best.
I was still wandering around a creek when Jamie gave me a call, and I sent her on ahead to the vet. As I realized the one spot where I'd crossed the creek, I couldn't recross, and spent about ten minutes trying to figure out how to get back across.
The good folks at Century Animal Clinic gave Scout a thorough looking over, and we're feeling pretty good about how Scout is doing. She's resting, tired, and she had a big day. I'm keeping an eye on her to make sure we didn't miss anything. But at least she's home.
I can say: Scout did have a collar with a tag stating our address and home number. We're going to need to replace that with our cell number as it would have been a lot easier to reach us while we were searching for Scout. We also have Scout chipped, which I guess a lot of the Black Helicopter folks think is just one step away from chipping all us humans (too late for me, I got my flu shot). But as stressed as I was, I knew that between tags and chipping, we'd find Scout sooner or later. I just would have preferred to find her before she got hit by a car.
She's home and sleeping, and we're very happy to have her here.
"Scout got out. She found a hole in the fence and pushed her way out. She's running around the neighborhood."
A month ago or so I took Scout to the park and was astounded when she was off her leash. "If she ever runs, we are never going to catch her," I said. And, sure enough, given the opportunity, she ran.
Jamie did a great job trying to track her down, but no dice. A few people had seen her, but we have a creek which runs the length of our subdivision and the adjoining subdivision, and many people who back up to it do not have fences. Which means, really, Scout could be anywhere in about a mile radius in about twenty minutes.
I got home about 3:20 or so, and began looking at the park. I looked high and low, tromping around the weeds, to no avail.
Jamie was circling, and kept coming back to the house to see if any messages were left. Her folks also zipped up to Austin and helped look around the neighborhood.
Jamie came home to find some strangers who had found poor Scout. Unfortunately, she'd been clipped by a car out on Manchaca.
Don't worry, Scout is okay, we think.
I can't really thank enough the complete strangers who corralled her and brought her home. That people would pull over and help out like that? Anyway, it gives me a moment of pause and a little something to be grateful for this week. Thanks, South Austin people. You're the best.
I was still wandering around a creek when Jamie gave me a call, and I sent her on ahead to the vet. As I realized the one spot where I'd crossed the creek, I couldn't recross, and spent about ten minutes trying to figure out how to get back across.
The good folks at Century Animal Clinic gave Scout a thorough looking over, and we're feeling pretty good about how Scout is doing. She's resting, tired, and she had a big day. I'm keeping an eye on her to make sure we didn't miss anything. But at least she's home.
I can say: Scout did have a collar with a tag stating our address and home number. We're going to need to replace that with our cell number as it would have been a lot easier to reach us while we were searching for Scout. We also have Scout chipped, which I guess a lot of the Black Helicopter folks think is just one step away from chipping all us humans (too late for me, I got my flu shot). But as stressed as I was, I knew that between tags and chipping, we'd find Scout sooner or later. I just would have preferred to find her before she got hit by a car.
She's home and sleeping, and we're very happy to have her here.
V Update
So, last night I finally got around to watching the most recent episode (week 3) of "V" (featuring Elizabeth Mitchell).
At the end of the episode, I proclaimed "I think that's my last episode of 'V'".
Jamie informed me that there's only one more filmed episode of the show, or something. She sort of tends to know these things thanks to her handy subscription of Entertainment Weekly.
So for anyone who believed it is a mini-series, you were dealing with better info than what I had. But if it is a 4-episode series, its got one of the least impressive trajectories of any mini I've had the pleasure of seeing.
I will review episode 4, just to round it out. Also, Elizabeth Mitchell.
At the end of the episode, I proclaimed "I think that's my last episode of 'V'".
Jamie informed me that there's only one more filmed episode of the show, or something. She sort of tends to know these things thanks to her handy subscription of Entertainment Weekly.
So for anyone who believed it is a mini-series, you were dealing with better info than what I had. But if it is a 4-episode series, its got one of the least impressive trajectories of any mini I've had the pleasure of seeing.
I will review episode 4, just to round it out. Also, Elizabeth Mitchell.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Twilight/ New Moon/ Sparkle Vampires
The work of Stephenie Meyer is a hot button issue at League HQ. I am not supposed to tell you that Jamie has read the entire series.
Or that she owns the Blu-Ray of the first movie. Or that she will see New Moon in the theater at least once, if not twice.
Anyway, as you can imagine, the Sparkle Vampire franchise is a pretty small sliver of Jamie's media intake in comparison with how I've said "I ain't reading anything but stuff about people in tights fighting colorfully-dressed, albeit ineffective criminals. Often on the moon.", which Jamie is very good about not nitpicking to death.
But.
It's my official stance that Twilight is sort of stupefying in how it embraces and endorses behavior that seems abusive.
Look, I get that teen-age girls (and adults, in many cases) get all excited about broody, mysterious guys. But when they take you into the woods and talk about how they've killed people and how they can't help themselves when it comes to violent acts, saying "that's okay, we're in it together" is how women end up in half-way homes five years on.
That's not to say that Superman comics weren't (from about 1950-1977) almost entirely about Superman being an emotionally manipulative jack-ass to Lois. Those Silver Age and early Bronze Age comics are often a bit iffy (including the assumption that if Lois and Clark ever did marry, she'd quit working immediately. WTF? Earning potential, people.).
Now, I should qualify my statements around Twilight. I've only seen the movie, never read any of the books, and the version of the movie I saw was RiffTrax. And I may have had a few glasses of wine. I do not know Edward and Bella the way many of you will. I do not have the Barbie dolls of Edward and Bella that I saw at Target today, for example.
I just sort of wonder how something like Twilight doesn't just slip through the cracks, but that nobody really talks about the messages of the franchise to its target audience of young women when its become such a massive phenomenon. Reviewers like Lisa Schwartzbaum of EW.com, who normally take movies to task for stepping anywhere off the line from an ERA-era take on gender politics, seem to shrug off the ick-factor of a 108 year old dude getting hot and bothered by a 17 year old girl (who, I might add, has the personality of a mopey house cat), and who alternately threatens and baits her.
My theory is as follows: The Sparkle Vampire phenomenon taps into some of being a teen-age girl that The League so completely does not get that its loosely the equivalent of why guys don't blink at the absurdity of beer commercials (ie: If you drink Natty Light, you will meet women), at which women tend to roll their eyes.
Anyway, with the release of New Moon (which I mentioned on our Facebook account that I'd go see under certain conditions), I can't help but ponder the phenomenon afresh.
It's probably also worth pondering the emasculation of vampires in the post-Anne Rice era.
The physiology and habits of vampires as described in Stoker's "Dracula" are obviously far different. Its worth noting: in the book, Dracula did not burst into flames when exposed to sunlight. I now have no idea where that came from. Instead, he simply loses his powers and is often seen sleeping. He does not sparkle. Nor is he seen as being of particular romantic interest (and it seems that the appeal of Dracula's brides hits a bit differently than Edward's appeal).
But since Anne Rice took the romantic cues of the Frank Langella-starring Dracula and spun them out to historical fiction, and authors started pondering the "what-ifs" of vampirehood, removing the limitations and peculiarities of vampires seems to be a method of humanizing the characters while simultaneously doing exactly what's happened on shows like True Blood, and that's turn the very nature of the beast on its head.
As discussed after reading "Dracula", becoming one of the Un-Dead means a dissolution of the victim's personality. The nature of vampirism is seen through a very different filter if the taking of life becomes a choice (one that we know Dracula's victims are denied). Even Dracula himself has an expression of peace after our heroes drive a stake through his heart, and so there's the tortured nobility of the Twilight vampires if they have the option to just, basically, be super-anemic. But it certainly removes the whole "eternally damned" aspect of vampirism, and just makes it an inconvenience with nifty benefits.
Its an inadvertent side-effect that the lust for blood in Edward which is read as just plain lust can be read as a lust to do violence and winnow away the personality of Bella Swan as she gives up on friends and family to be with her man.
I don't think the movies or franchise are "dangerous", per se. But it is a reminder that for all the messages we get in health class about violent, co-dependent relationships, and what we can agree are things we wouldn't normally say were okay to see in a movie as an overt message, we're happy to put aside those stances when it comes to the right story. Buried under sparkly, handsome Edward, any suggestion of abuse or violence becomes coded or muddled, and its not hard to dismiss possible readings to that point as "not getting it". After all, nothing is more powerful than the lunch-table conversations with our peers who egg us on or who feel wrong when they suggest we're making a romantic mistake, and who is the better lunch-table buddy than Bella? Heck, the first movie tells us she's the dream lunch-table pal.
Anyhow, its an interesting phenomenon. Meyer is becoming as wealthy as Rowling as the sort of pop-culture juggernaut that seems self-perpetuating builds around her. The kids who grew up with Harry Potter can add sex to the mix, and a dozen or so imitators can pop up in books, one CW TV show, and a grittier take on the concept on "True Blood" (I've never seen either show).
Why vampires and why now? Man, I have no idea. Certainly it helps fulfill that angle that pop-culture critics kept insisting we needed out of the modern superhero any time a superhero wasn't "conflicted" enough. By jettisoning the concept of vampire as monster, and reinstating them into the equation as nothing but a tortured paramour, Dracula goes from hellspawn to unique-fixer-upper opportunity. Its not enough that with power comes responsibility, but the powerful pay for their "abilities" in obvious and direct ways, sort of how Singer's X-Men seemed to in the first outing (and which was melodramatically forgotten by the time Wolverine rolled around).
Or that she owns the Blu-Ray of the first movie. Or that she will see New Moon in the theater at least once, if not twice.
Anyway, as you can imagine, the Sparkle Vampire franchise is a pretty small sliver of Jamie's media intake in comparison with how I've said "I ain't reading anything but stuff about people in tights fighting colorfully-dressed, albeit ineffective criminals. Often on the moon.", which Jamie is very good about not nitpicking to death.
But.
It's my official stance that Twilight is sort of stupefying in how it embraces and endorses behavior that seems abusive.
Look, I get that teen-age girls (and adults, in many cases) get all excited about broody, mysterious guys. But when they take you into the woods and talk about how they've killed people and how they can't help themselves when it comes to violent acts, saying "that's okay, we're in it together" is how women end up in half-way homes five years on.
That's not to say that Superman comics weren't (from about 1950-1977) almost entirely about Superman being an emotionally manipulative jack-ass to Lois. Those Silver Age and early Bronze Age comics are often a bit iffy (including the assumption that if Lois and Clark ever did marry, she'd quit working immediately. WTF? Earning potential, people.).
Now, I should qualify my statements around Twilight. I've only seen the movie, never read any of the books, and the version of the movie I saw was RiffTrax. And I may have had a few glasses of wine. I do not know Edward and Bella the way many of you will. I do not have the Barbie dolls of Edward and Bella that I saw at Target today, for example.
I just sort of wonder how something like Twilight doesn't just slip through the cracks, but that nobody really talks about the messages of the franchise to its target audience of young women when its become such a massive phenomenon. Reviewers like Lisa Schwartzbaum of EW.com, who normally take movies to task for stepping anywhere off the line from an ERA-era take on gender politics, seem to shrug off the ick-factor of a 108 year old dude getting hot and bothered by a 17 year old girl (who, I might add, has the personality of a mopey house cat), and who alternately threatens and baits her.
My theory is as follows: The Sparkle Vampire phenomenon taps into some of being a teen-age girl that The League so completely does not get that its loosely the equivalent of why guys don't blink at the absurdity of beer commercials (ie: If you drink Natty Light, you will meet women), at which women tend to roll their eyes.
Anyway, with the release of New Moon (which I mentioned on our Facebook account that I'd go see under certain conditions), I can't help but ponder the phenomenon afresh.
It's probably also worth pondering the emasculation of vampires in the post-Anne Rice era.
The physiology and habits of vampires as described in Stoker's "Dracula" are obviously far different. Its worth noting: in the book, Dracula did not burst into flames when exposed to sunlight. I now have no idea where that came from. Instead, he simply loses his powers and is often seen sleeping. He does not sparkle. Nor is he seen as being of particular romantic interest (and it seems that the appeal of Dracula's brides hits a bit differently than Edward's appeal).
But since Anne Rice took the romantic cues of the Frank Langella-starring Dracula and spun them out to historical fiction, and authors started pondering the "what-ifs" of vampirehood, removing the limitations and peculiarities of vampires seems to be a method of humanizing the characters while simultaneously doing exactly what's happened on shows like True Blood, and that's turn the very nature of the beast on its head.
As discussed after reading "Dracula", becoming one of the Un-Dead means a dissolution of the victim's personality. The nature of vampirism is seen through a very different filter if the taking of life becomes a choice (one that we know Dracula's victims are denied). Even Dracula himself has an expression of peace after our heroes drive a stake through his heart, and so there's the tortured nobility of the Twilight vampires if they have the option to just, basically, be super-anemic. But it certainly removes the whole "eternally damned" aspect of vampirism, and just makes it an inconvenience with nifty benefits.
Its an inadvertent side-effect that the lust for blood in Edward which is read as just plain lust can be read as a lust to do violence and winnow away the personality of Bella Swan as she gives up on friends and family to be with her man.
I don't think the movies or franchise are "dangerous", per se. But it is a reminder that for all the messages we get in health class about violent, co-dependent relationships, and what we can agree are things we wouldn't normally say were okay to see in a movie as an overt message, we're happy to put aside those stances when it comes to the right story. Buried under sparkly, handsome Edward, any suggestion of abuse or violence becomes coded or muddled, and its not hard to dismiss possible readings to that point as "not getting it". After all, nothing is more powerful than the lunch-table conversations with our peers who egg us on or who feel wrong when they suggest we're making a romantic mistake, and who is the better lunch-table buddy than Bella? Heck, the first movie tells us she's the dream lunch-table pal.
Anyhow, its an interesting phenomenon. Meyer is becoming as wealthy as Rowling as the sort of pop-culture juggernaut that seems self-perpetuating builds around her. The kids who grew up with Harry Potter can add sex to the mix, and a dozen or so imitators can pop up in books, one CW TV show, and a grittier take on the concept on "True Blood" (I've never seen either show).
Why vampires and why now? Man, I have no idea. Certainly it helps fulfill that angle that pop-culture critics kept insisting we needed out of the modern superhero any time a superhero wasn't "conflicted" enough. By jettisoning the concept of vampire as monster, and reinstating them into the equation as nothing but a tortured paramour, Dracula goes from hellspawn to unique-fixer-upper opportunity. Its not enough that with power comes responsibility, but the powerful pay for their "abilities" in obvious and direct ways, sort of how Singer's X-Men seemed to in the first outing (and which was melodramatically forgotten by the time Wolverine rolled around).
WKRP Thanksgiving
In middle school, around 5:00 every day WGN showed re-runs of "WKRP in Cincinatti". I think I wound up watching it as a default rather than local news or Wheel of Fortune, and probably because Loni Anderson seemed like a living cartoon (but a young League found Jan Smithers as Bailey Quarters had her own, and just as interesting thing, going on.).
But the show has not just one of my favorite Holiday scenes, but my favorite scenes in television. Ever.
The WKRP Thanksgiving Promotion.
But the show has not just one of my favorite Holiday scenes, but my favorite scenes in television. Ever.
The WKRP Thanksgiving Promotion.
Happy Thanksgiving - WKRP Turkey Drop - kewego
http://www.sharkhost.com Happy Thanksgiving from Sharkhost.com! This is a blast from the past, WKRP in Cincinnati Famous Turkey Drop. Sharkhost does not own any copyright to this material. Web host, web design, marketing and promotion.
http://www.sharkhost.com Happy Thanksgiving from Sharkhost.com! This is a blast from the past, WKRP in Cincinnati Famous Turkey Drop. Sharkhost does not own any copyright to this material. Web host, web design, marketing and promotion.
Senior Day at UT Football
after yelling so much at the game, I am a little hoarse.
Well, I was expecting UT to spank Kansas. And had they not given up a ridiculous kick return, UT would have had an even better game.
Anyhow, hopefully we'll still be voted in the top 3 or four this week, given the decisive 50-21 win.
Jamie, Jason, The Admiral and I attended this evening's contest on the University of Texas campus. I yelled. A lot. Its what I do.
It was Senior Day, which meant the final home game for players like McCoy, Shipley, Muckleroy and Houston. No doubt 2010 will be another building year as QB Gilbert figures out if he can fill the shoes of his predecessors (speaking of, James Brown was at the game! That's some mid-90's UT flashback material.).
But it was also Senior Day for dozens of members of the UT marching band, sideline crew, cheerleaders, dance squad, and limitless drunk kids in the stands. Colt and his crew were gracious, and a huge number of fans remained in the stands to salute the seniors and give them one last Texas cheer.
Anyway, a lot of fun.
It was also the first game Jamie and I have attended together, which seems odd, given that we've been together since '95. But there you have it. I think she had a good time, even if she disappeared for 30 minutes in pursuit of a hot cocoa. I'm chivalrous, but not "30 minutes standing in line for cocoa during the 3rd and 4th quarter" chivalrous.
We cheer a lot together at home, but its more fun to cheer with 103,000 of your closest friends.
And, hey, Fantomenos, saw that Oregon score and highlights. Holy smokes.
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