Ahhhhhhh... politics.

I always love how the mere mention of the name "Clinton" gets conservatives all red-faced and sweaty. It's not unlike how the name "Bush" gets liberals to start gnashing their teeth. Regrettably, presidential election season is coming, and all of the nonsense and bad commericals are about to start.

For the past ten years Conservatives have pretty much been playing Dr. Doom to Clinton's Reed Richards. Dr. Doom launches an attack which CANNOT FAIL THIS TIME, and Reed pretty much invents a new device for saving his ass once again. In the end, Reed heads back to the Baxter building and Doom lumbers back to Latveria, and everyone just waits around for it too start all over again.

Basically, like a Tom and Jerry Labor Day marathon, it's getting pretty tired. We all know Clinton diddled his secretary, and we all know that Conservatives have an amazing urge to STOP HILARY (although we don't really know why. We suspect she turned them down for senior prom). And so I have decided to start voting on who annoys me less. 3rd party candidates are annoying, but with a low profile, could garner my vote!

This is not to say I am voting for whomever is least evil, because I think evil is great, and I expect it. This time around I am NOT voting for someone who is for something. Nope, I plan to vote for whomever doesn't do anything. To gain my vote, don't do any of the really, really annoying things below:

bombard me with repetitive commercials during Seinfeld reruns
cite an opponent's voting record more than 7 years old
hire licensed scienticians to back them up with "scientological facts"
roll up their sleeves to act as if they're changing a tire
scare old people
suggest that their opponent has no family values (and thereby must eat babies, like a Canadian)
dance publicly with their spouse
scare mommies
try to cut Medicare
have John Kerry's hair
split the Democratic vote in Florida
scare billionaires
cover up death of mistress after driving off bridge
play Lee Greenwood songs over public address systems
scare me
believe in "trickle-down economics"
even suggest you're going to help education, because you won't, you evil bastards
wear a cowboy hat
appear on Oprah
scare the French
promise workers jobs. Unless they're jobs in the white house, where you can actually hire someone.
keep 3rd parties out of the debate process
quote Abraham Lincoln


I think that the person most likely to get my vote will be the person i never heard of. I'm not suggesting I will even go to the polls, because my polling place is creepy and full of old people, but you could get my vote if you're an utter stranger. I don't expect to enjoy this election.

Okay. It has been brought to my attention that not much has been said about Melbotis in the past several postings. Well, I'm always here to deliver to my audience what they want. Before ratings start slipping off and I have to introduce a baby or new, wise-cracking cousin into the blog, I will return it to it's roots. I promise much more Melbotis reporting.

So what's Mel been up to?


photo taken just prior to Halloween. Mel's nifty Halloween costume courtesy of Jamie.

Mel has recently been traumatized by the two trips we took, but he is recovering nicely. There's nothing like a little separation anxiety to make you feel that much more appreciated when you get home. He's about due for his spring trip to the Petsmart groomers in which he will be bathed, trimmed, dipped and generally manhandled. He never seems to mind these trips as he believes he's just getting additional attention from strangers.

Mel has two favorite toys of choice. The primary toy for years has been tennis balls, which he likes to carry around two at a time. He plays a pretty good game of fetch. Since we've moved here, I've gone through about twenty tennis balls. I don't know where they go. They simply disappear. I hate to think of what is lining his little stomach, but it can't be good. For Christmas, the in-laws decided to get cute and bought Mel a stuffed white bear that has a little box inside. When Mel bites into it, it plays back a short recorded message of my choosing.

Deciding to be clever, the first message we tried was "The Proletariat has the right to rise up against the bourgeoisie!" I now know why the communist revolution failed. Mel's been protesting for workers rights lately, and the second he actually does some work, I will make some concessions.

The chip was then programmed to say, "Goodboy, Mel! Goodboy!" THis immediately replaced my function in the household as far as Mel was concerned as all he needed to do to achieve positive reinforcement was to violently shake his white bear (which had somehow taken on the name of Boo-Boo).

These days the chip's battery is dead, and all the bear says is "Chhk... chrk chk". It's actually kind of creepy. Mel still loves Boo-Boo, though. Whenever you try to read on the floor, he places Boo-Boo on your book or head, which is a pretty gross proposition since Boo-Boo has accumulated 4 months worth of dog spit.

best news in weeks:

Indiana Jones is coming to DVD

In response to yesterday's blog, Jim wrote:

Well, I think you miss the point, which is that a "comic book movie" has to cater to two audiences: the fans (like you and me) and the populace. If it is just to the fans, the film can't be made, as it will tank. If it is just for the populace, the fans will kill it with bad word of mouth. So how to do both?

Singer seems to get it . . .

I responded with:

I whole heartedly agree. I must have been unclear.

My point was not that movies should just follow the comics beat for beat, but that critics dismiss comic-based movies because the movie had a comic for a source. This is usually done loudly and unnecessarily before the reviewer ever gives the movie a chance. Critics are bringing in certain baggage, and as a result, end up repeating the same dumb 4 cliches in every review, every time a comic based movie is released. Sites like Aint It Cool have existed for so long because it's the one source from which you know the reviewer will most likely not be biased against a movie because it's a genre picture.

Clearly non-Superhero comic adaptations are free from this criticism, so it is not the panel to big screen translation which doesn't work. Ghost World, From Hell, Road to Perdition and Spirited Away escaped this kind redundant review, to name just a few.

Movies need to be directed as 90 minute stories, and there's nothing wrong with that. It's form equalling function. Reading a comic series is an investment of time and money and a different medium. A short trip to the movies is simply not the same investment. Yet, movies can finally deliver what super hero comics have promised us for so long, and bring that experience to millions more. I just hope they can keep the essence of what made the properties being adapted mean so much for so many years.

I hope to see X2 immediately, but it will probably wait until the weekend.

So Jim said:

Ah, but the opposite is true! Sites like that of Knowles are far more likely to slavishly worship and adore rather than use a critical eye. AICN is the fringe, as well, and probably a bad example anyway, since Knowles was bought long ago by the studios with ego-stroking, junkets and trinkets.

I think perhaps people just find the idea of superheros SILLY. Tights, powers, etc, truth, justice. They don't know superheros like the dark and brooding X-Men . . . . Their notions of superheros come not from claremont and miller but mostly from plastic man and the wonder twins, you know?

So I am inclined to say:

Well, at this point I don't know if Knowles counts as a critic at all anymore. You can glean what you need to from perusing his headlines. (I happened to see Harry this weekend entering Austin Books on Lamar. He was going in to get free comics for Free Comics Day.) But, yeah... I mean, the man liked Daredevil. He's lost all credibility. So I guess maybe he has the opposite of a knee-jerk anti-superhero reaction. BUT, folks looking for news about genre films can usually find that info there, if they know how to read around the insane ramblings of the site's proprietor.

I don't think there's any perhaps about folks finding Superheroes silly (or Knowles silly, either). That seems to be the common concensus. But lately, in the right hands, these characters are working on the big screen for the first time since Burton did Batman. For two hours, folks are able to suspend their disbelief and think it's okay for Spider-Man to be swinging around Manhattan. It's just fun to see these stories working on a mass level. I think that's the secret hope of every comic fan... mass appreciation for something we've enjoyed for years. We know that superheroes are thought of as silly, so when Spider-Man makes a Billion Dollars, and little kids will grow up thinking of Spider-Man as a great action hero, it doesn't matter if it's in comics or movies.

So if the typical critical reaction to superhero movies is pretty negative, I think i can live with that. You're not going to always appeal to everyone, and critics have a reputation to maintain. If they don't stay conservative, they could lose the easiest job in the world. Producers just need to take their material seriously, and generally the audience will follow their cue. The moment someone wants to talk about making something into a musical, or adding a wise-cracking sidekick, that director, writer, whatever... that person needs to be shown the door. Marvel's producers believe in their product, and find creatives who also believe in the product. They've managed to stay true to their subject mateiral, and they're making a lot of money doing it, masks, crazy-Wolverine-hair and all.

Yeah, superheroes are kind of silly, but so is watching an entire season of baseball, or voting Democrat in Texas, or wearing a cowboy hat, or reading this blog, for that matter.

With the Phoenix Suns now soundly out of contention and the Rockets nowhere in sight, my loyalties are no longer split.

Go SPURS.


If I've said it once, I've said it a million times... the Japanese just do things better.

And I guess it had to happen sooner or later. Unfortunately for me, it's just too hot in the summer here to wear a cape and mask. Maybe if I just fought crime indoors.

And, finally, in other caped news... Apparently somebody had the right idea. I just hope this same rule doesn't apply here when Jamie and I drop a litter.

worked on this last night and finally decided to publish...

X-Men 2.

No, I haven't seen it yet, but as a fan of the later Claremont-era (and if you know what that means, it's time to readjust the tape holding together your glasses), I will drop my $8 and go to the show.

My issue is not with the movie, but with how comic-book movies are reviewed. Every comic-book movie review now contains a couple of items:

1) this movie is NOT your typical comic book movie

There is no typical comic-book movie. One cannot say they are all low-budget, nor can one say that they draw only B-Level actors, or have substandard effects. From a plot perspective, comparing Spider-Man’s story to Batman’s works only as well as comparing X-Men to Donner’s Superman or Corman’s Fantastic Four or the upcoming Hulk and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (recently re-titled, The League). I’m not sure what golden era of comic-book film franchising that critics are referring to, but I think we’re in the middle of it.

2) the critic/ author has been shocked by the loyalty of their fanboy friends who come out of the closet with a "yay" or "nay" opinion

To draw an analogy that could explain the dismay the fanboys feel: Sex and the City is a widely enjoyed television program. Now, just imagine if a film were commissioned of Sex and the City, but the creators of the film refused to watch the television program or read a single script before actually releasing their own Sex and the City movie. Now imagine NOT wanting to compare and contrast the two.

There’s understandably precious little sympathy for fanboys, and I wouldn’t suggest that comic readers should get more respect than they deserve. What I would suggest is that most people who talk in generalities about comics are talking about a cover of a comic they saw on a spinner-rack at the Piggly Wiggly when they were in 5th grade. Sure, they know what a comic looks like, but they have no appreciation for the comic, anymore than the average layman can appreciate different performances of classical music, or the variations on a standard performed by various jazz musicians.

For about 20 years the sophistication of certain comics has been lauded in the mainstream press (invariably with the tagline that “comics aren’t for kids”. Sometimes the adult skewing readership stats are cited). Hell, at this point "V for Vendetta", one of the best comics of the 80's is pushing 20.
My basic understanding is this: most folks don’t realize how much comics changed in 1963 with Marvel’s first publications and base their ideas of comics on the Batman TV show. So, when someone in a cape and tights isn’t posturing for the police, it’s considered different.

The bottom line is that comics have been telling detailed stories for years, and film makers have treated the source material the same way they treat all source material (anyone remember the happy ending to Demi Moore's Scarlet Letter?). Sometimes the results work, and sometimes they do not. Punishing comics and comic readers because film makers routinely deal with the material irresponsibly is as silly as condemning anyone who ever fell into love because romantic comedies might be tepid and silly.

3) this movie is a metaphor for something or other

Science-Fiction has always been a reaction to the trends and fears of a particular time. I shouldn’t even have to address this, yet with every review, there it is... It’s insulting. Stories don’t need to just be tidy melodramas. Sometimes you have to disguise your political viewpoint in spandex and capes so you don’t get hauled in by the thought police.

Science-fiction makes a lot of people uncomfortable, perhaps because of the parallels. Perhaps they really do not want to bother to try to understand the fictional issues and explanations and internal logic of the implausible situation being discussed. And that’s fine. Or maybe they don't appreciate serious issues being played out by Mutant Masters of Magnetism because in their eyes that diminishes the real issue. Fine. I can accept that. But when you’re a fan of “Sex and the City,” you’ve already defaulted any ability to point to the stories you watch as “plausible”.

4) this time around, the character seem to have been given some emotional depth

Critics such as Entertainment Weekly’s Lisa Schwarzbaum rarely admit that they have enjoyed any film that contains anything resembling a fantasy element. Each time any iota of enjoyment begins to be derived, a feeling of guilt begins to creep in around the edges. (See how many times Schwarzbaum sites Harry Potter in the review whenever she gets close to praising it, extinguishing the fact that X-Men predates Potter by 30+ years, and the screen version debuted a full year earlier than the movie, while simultaneously re-establishing the idea that Harry Potter is for children, and so is this. Thus, if you enjoy this, you are, by default, childish. And childish wonder might result in.. well, we know it's probably bad. So we'll stick to lauding French films.).

Since Batman watched his parents get gunned down in an alleyway in 1939, the motives of comic characters have skewed toward the extreme. Perhaps critics are once again citing the 1960’s Batman TV show or some TV movies Marvel produced. It’s difficult to gauge exactly why characters whom have existed for 40+ years should be thought to have never developed any emotional depth. Still, since Christopher Reeve wore the cape in Superman The Motion Picture, the fact that these characters do more than stand around looking like a dentifrice commericial has been gawked at. Since then results have been admittedly mixed, but so what?

Comic fans, myself included, hyperventilate when comic-based movies are bad because we know it’s just one more nail in the coffin. During the recent Superman debacle, fans protested because we know that companies like Warner Bros. would rather not ever refer to the comics when exploiting a license like Superman and allow “creatives” to take license with characters they "own." The damage this can cause to the property in its original format can take years to get through, and we know it. We're the kids who have to deal with the divorce after mom and dad are off living their new lives.

So should movies be only a dreary parade which supposedly mirrors our own lives? Christ, i hope not. What fun are movies if you can’t go to see Spider-Man swing off the Empire State Building, anyway? Or the Hulk toss a tank? Or Batman hop in his Batmobile or Superman take to the sky? Where is this supposed to happen? Movies should be able to be fun for adults as well as children. Sometimes movies throw in a helpful bit of a message, too. (I am often able to apply how With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility). But fantasy should not be ridiculed for being fantasy. There can be far more truth hiding in those capes and cowls than in the usual Nora Ephron debacle.

I hope the trend continues and audiences can enjoy the comic-based movies, even if they do not look for the comics. The basic stories can be, and sometimes are, very good. And after a lifetime of enjoyment, we comic geeks can walk out of a theater and look at our shoes and smile and know that we were right when we said "if they'd just give the comic a chance..."

Returned from Austin, TX today after my first weekend there in about 11 months. I feel like 5 miles of bad road, but it was good to be back in the Capital City.

Anyway, the city looks good, and I have mixed feelings about the trip.

Today I am in mourning. Trenyce has been voted off of American Idol. I have no reason to go on.

You might recall I was mentioning the 80's nostalgia craze in comics a few entires ago. Well, next Wednesday, Voltron is making a return, but this time in comics.


why do robots need noses or mouths?

My head has been swimming since yesterday when Jim D. compared me to both Paul Lynde and John McCain in his pitch for my blog, which you're currently reading. This gave me a moment of pause as I don't follow politics all that closely, and my knowledge of Paul Lynde is mostly associated with a conversation i had in an elevator about how a Hanna Barbera character sounded just like him, but was it Snagglepuss or that fox guy? I always saw myself more as Yogi Bear, although I often fancied myself to be a bit like QuickDraw McGraw or Ted Kennedy.

Anyway, I was forced to ask myself, what do Paul Lynde and McCain have in common? And then it struck me... Both McCain and Lynde spent YEARS trapped in enclosed spaces (McCain in a tiger cage, Lynde in a Square). One had a horrifying experience which led him to decide to make a run at becoming the most powerful man on earth, and the other became a US Senator who did some finance reform thingie.

Like most folks, once I hear what people think of me personally, I obsess over the how's and why's of their opinion, read way too much into it, and then do nothing to actually change my more annoying habits. I now see my blog as the rantings of a near-broken Snagglepuss trapped in a tiger cage in Vietnam. Enjoy!

Jim D. Has been kind enough to advertise my blog. I think that was what he was doing, anyway. Either that or he's pointing me out to the NSA for immediate termination. It's hard to tell from the analogy.

In his honor, I point to this link.

Thank you, Jim.

Everyday between 7:55 and 8:10, my whole building rumbles once or twice with a low, rolling "boom." I work in a second floor office of what is essentially supposed to be retail space, just off Mill and University in Tempe. This rumbling has long been a mystery to me as it genuinely feels as if a bomb has gone off, but the sound never quite lives up to the catastrophic "boom" I thought an explosion should sound like. So I thought, well, maybe something explodes everyday across the street, and nobody has told me. Yet, I also assumed that if someone were detonating explosives beneath us everyday, sooner or later the property manager would let us know for our own safety.

Yesterday I found out it's just an enormous loading door on the side of the building slamming shut. What a let down.

Toys That Should Not Be

Here's the crackalackin' shiznizzle.

Wow, no sooner have we secured Iraq, than the toy guys are ON IT!!!

Went to a very strange place today for lunch. It's a new place in Tempe called eJoy. It's a freaking cybercafe. It felt so very 1996, and I felt old and unoptimistic. It was also dead empty and playing ambient techno. They're charging for computer usage by the minute. All in all, a weird scene, but my sandwhich was good, and I enjoyed my Berry Fruitea. I wish we were still in the bubble economy. That was a fun time, wasn't it?

Hurray for PBS. Last night was the premier of PBS's short-run reality series: Manor House. It's one in a series of PBS shows documenting modern folks trying to recreate a lifestyle of a bygone era. Manor House takes on the realities of the British Costume Drama and attempts to look at life in the world of Upstairs, Downstairs. A family has been selected to play the role of Lords of the Manor, and several others have been selected to act as chef, scullery maid, butler, footman, etc... in an authentic manor house somewhere in England. Resources are limited to items commonly found in 1906, or those less commonly found in 1906, such as phones, cars, etc...

It's not a show with winners and losers, but a social experiment to see how 21st century folks can deal with the very real details of existence of yesteryear. It makes for very interesting television.

They've done previous versions of the show, with Frontierhouse (the show which made me feel like I am but half-a-man), 1900 House, and they did one on being in London during the Blitz, but I can't find the name of the show nor the web-site. All were imminently fascinating.

When you're done watching American Idol tonight, flip over to Smallville (Hurray, Superman!), but when that's over, consider flipping over to PBS to watch some of Manor House. They're currently running it in 2 hour episodic chunks, which seems like a lot of TV, but it goes by very quickly.

Happy 3rd Wedding Anniversary to Jamie and me. It's been 3 magical, fun-filled years. No, that is not me. That is Melbotis. Note the attention payed to the tennis ball in the corner of the frame.

Ahhhh.... The Suburbs.

Jamie and I, in our eternal voyage to find something resembling entertainment in the Greater Chandler area, went to the Chandler Jazz Festival this weekend. The event kind of highlighted everything that's more or less wrong with Chandler.

The event was put on with the gusto of an elementary school carnival, complete with the little light up necklaces filled with carcinogens and radium. We arrived some time around 7:15, wandering down Arizona Avenue across from the City Municipal building. There were swarms of middle-aged white folk, and we heard not a note or lick of music, and for some reason, there was a hot-air balloon being set-up in the little park area. For a split second I feared we'd stumbled into some sort of AARP riot, but as we passed Razzleberry's, I finally heard some yokel singing.

We were assaulted by someone I assumed was a bum (although, honestly, i've yet to see any bums in Chandler) who then tried to get Jamie and I to buy a CD. For some reason he had decided i must be a musician (probably because I was under 45 and had no children with me.)

Chandler is to children as New York is to
a) Pidgeons
b) Roaches
c) Rats
d) Would-be-actors/ waiters
e) All of the Above

The answer is: A) Pidgeons. The only difference is kids can't fly out of the way when you really hit the gas. The answer is not E) because that would encompass answer d) and as we all know would-be-actors/ waiters have hope, and hope is not a commodity that springs forth freely in Chandler, AZ.

Anyway, I don't know much about Jazz, but I know it generally has little to do with hot-air balloons or children or the single worst faux-Mardi Gras parade knock-off ever. Baptist churches probably do a better job than this at emulating the genuine Mardi Gras experience. 10 Golf carts with fat suburbanites throwing beads at old women (whom I was PRAYING would not do the usual to collect their beads) somehow didn't make me wonder if I were lost on Bourbon street. Or maybe it did. It was like someone had once seen Mardi Gras on TV and had spent 10 years dreaming up how to make it worse.

At 8:00 we retired to the Kikko-something Winery/ Bistro where I tried to get drunk, but not so drunk I couldn't drive home. A trio was playing inside to little or no applause. Solos were met with round indifference, and eventually the drummer started purposely banging really hard just to annoy people. The desire to own my own drum swelled within my heart.

At 8:15 they knocked off, and, curiously, no one replaced the band. At 8:40 Jamie and I stepped out onto Arizona avenue and across the street once again to Razzleberry's where we had a rootbeer float to soak up the booze. We re-emerged onto the street, and at 9:00pm, I realized that not only had the Jazz festival already ended (with a whimper), but they were closing down all of downtown Chandler.

I don't know what I was expecting out of the Jazz festival, but like everything else in Arizona, there was a concept and absolutely no follow-through. And is it really that good of an idea to schedule against the New Orleans Jazz Festival? The concept of a desirable headline act clearly eluded the organizers as well as the concept of any actual venues or artists.

I'm not saying I didn't have fun, because I did. And I found out the San Marcos hotel is an historical landmark where luminaries such as Jimmy Stewart once golfed and vacationed. I just wish that just once, something in Arizona would appear to have been thought out with a little more strategy than a 3rd grade play.

Apparently we missed Queen Creek, Arizona's "Country Thunder", a two day musical event where lots and lots of white trash tends to get arrested. Next year I'm going to that.

News Item from Thursday:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Illegal immigrants could be held indefinitely without bond if their cases present national security concerns, under a decision by Attorney General John Ashcroft.

Well, as we all know, these sorts of rules are always applied fairly to everyone and are never abused by overzealous law-enforcement officials. God bless Ashcroft and his refusal to tell Congress or the press why the DOJ currently has still dozens, if not hundreds in the cooler who have not seen a judge since Fall of 2001. What, exactly, is the DOJ doing with them? And why has it taken two years? For a gov't that takes pot shots at other countriies for making off with people in the dead of night for them never to return, we're starting to do some odd things.

link here and here and here and for a timeline, click here

Just last week here at ASU. we had our own excitement.

From the Arizona Republic: Agents from a federal task force raided the homes of Muslim student leaders at Arizona State University early this week, searching for weapons and seizing computers and disks.

Oh.... shit.

Deputy Director General Li Gun, Pyongyang's representative to the talks, made a "blatant and bold" announcement that his country had nuclear weapons, and asked U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian Affairs James Kelly, "What are you going to do about it?" a source told CNN.

read the article here.

this is worth checking out.

He came to drop bombs.
Last night I came home to a powerful stink. Mel had dropped the P-Bomb in my office. The stench was unbearable, and I now I need to clean the carpets in a way they've never been cleaned before. Ahhhh... pet ownership. I will say, 3 years of partying down and this is the first serious accident.


The Mad Bomber himself.

Because of the location of the poo, I kind of believe that this was an act of revenge. I was gone all weekend, I left him with strange people, and then I didn't even have the courtesy to stay home with him for a day or two. We have many rooms in our home, and many less conspicuous places. I mean, how else is he going to voice his displeasure? I just hope this is an isolated incident.

Modern Angst:

The ATM machine ate my card. I have only $31.00 to last me from now until I can figure out how to deal with this debacle. I feel adrift.

How drunk was this guy?

and, oh yeah...

Go Spurs!

and sometimes you wish your birthday were just around the corner again...
There's an 80's nostalgia craze going on in the comic book world right now. Browsing Comics Infinity, I came across this little number. He-Man, Thundercats, GI Joe and Transformers have all seen life breathed back into long dormant franchises. But all of these things already had a certain appeal to comicfandom, lame as they all kind of are. Well, Transformers aren't lame. But He-Man, that idea only ever appealed to the skinny kids who thought D&D was too complicated.
And I remember playing with My Little Pony as a kid. Actually, I don't, because My Little Pony went beyond feminine and cutesy and all the things that make little boys wretch, and surely my brother would have kicked my ass if he's seen me even eyeing these little atrocities.
My Little Pony looked like food and wasn't, which was always the greatest crime of all (not that I ever choked on a My Little Pony trying to see if it had a creamy inside...). These things were maybe $0.15 worth of plasticized rubber and some leftover Barbie Hair, and had amazing adventures that included eating grass and pooping with impunity in a wild array of rainbow colors. I guess when you're all pastel and have names like Applesunshine and Flowernose, it's hard to reenact the classic struggle of good vs. evil (let this be a lesson to the UN Security Council). Maybe I lacked imagination, but between my eternal lust for the GI Joe Aircraft carrier and my unfulfilled desire to own my own Megatron, the appeal was lost on me.
Anyway, I guess I see what they're going for with the nostalgia thing, but. I mean, really... even assuming that comic fans have girlfriends who they might buy this for is a bit of a stretch...