Things of note:

1) Jim is still under the impression I sent him the Dilbert cartoon. I do not know why. I guess it's like most conspiracy theories... I can't prove I DIDN'T send him the cartoon, so he is fairly certain that i must have purchased and sent the cartoon. If only Mystery, Incorporated would resolve the situation.

2) Randy has sent me a disk of Teen Titan episodes ripped from his TIVO. I have notyet watched the cartoons, but given it's American Idol Results show tonight, I may well get my chance.

3) I suppose as a bizarre thank-you for the cartoon I did not send him, Jim located and sent me a copy of the 1989 album by They Eat Their Own, a short-lived college rock act I once enjoyed in high school. Thanks to Jim for locating and sending this rare item of college-rock's crippled past.

4) My parents actually sent a present this year for my birthday. It's not that they don't usually send a present... it's that they usually send a shirt and pants which I then exchange. This year my parents sent the Season 3 box-set of Futurama and the new David Byrne album. I am in no small way shocked. Also, I now have seasons 1 and 3 of Futurama, but I do not have Season 2. My life is now a meaningless void.

5) Daylight savings time is for suckers. Viva la Arizona! We don't need no stinking Daylight Savings Time.

6) I mentioned to my co-workers yesterday over a causal lunch that I was a little down on myself because I used to work to live, not live to work, and I feel like that's no longer true. For some reason this seemed to anger one of my co-workers. Which is weird in a state job. Anyway, it's not that I don't try to do a good job, but it's that this isn't exactly my life's passion, you know?

7) People continue to believe Jamie is 18 or 19. I must look liek a dirty old man, because people here think I'm somewhere in my mid to late 30's. I personally think that's awesome.

8) I am in a campaign to convince my pregnant pal that she should name her kid "Ryan 2". I think I am slowly wearing her down. it's a good name, though, isn't it?

9) I am thinking, once again, of a new dog. I have been campaigning for a thoroughbred, possibly a Great Dane. I do not know if that will happen. I am also fond of dogs intended for hunting, like labradors. Mel needs a buddy.

Oh my God. Comic fans... read into the first paragraph...

they're going to try to do Watchmen...

Disney news regarding the company's plans for animation on CNN.com

I spent yesterday at home. I woke up at 6:00 feeling a bit as if zombies had, in fact, eaten my brain. I suspect I am developing an allergy to something out here in the desert, but I don't know if that was what caused me to feel so abysmal. At any rate, I fell asleep again with a pair of socks in my hand and didn't bother going into work (since I think I've only taken one or two previous sick days since I arrived).

Last night I caught the second half of a Justice League episode I had somehow missed before. It ws entitled "The Secret Society", and was really pretty darn good. I can't believe I had missed it before. Anyway, if you see this episode running on TV, it's worth tuning in for (of course, if you are a luddite without digital cable, I can only pity you... for you shall probably not know that epsiode is coming on).

Jerry Seinfeld took the couch on The Daily Show discussing his webisodes on the Amex site. How cool is it that Jerry is still popular enough he gets invited on talk shows to discuss commericals he's made. During the Superman related discussion, I was impressed that John Stewart did drop a mention of the nefarious General Zod (a villain we at League HQ boo and hiss quite frequently).

Anyway, today I feel fine and I'm back in the saddle. Up, up and away.

***update***

I couldn't sleep last night and was watching the Leonard Maltin show, Hot Ticket (sort of a poor man's Ebert and Roper).

I actually stopped to watch because the co-host, Joyce Kulhawik, was screeching about Hellboy (and was kind of a cow about Maltin giving it a "Hot" rating). Anyway, I've long believed Joyce was an idiot, and Maltin isn't much better. Nonetheless, due to Joyce's cow-bearing, I stopped to watch her meltdown.

So I shouldn't have been too shocked when Joyce practically wet herself when given an opportunity to discuss "Home on the Range". What surprised me was that Maltin, who is a recognized authority on the history of animation, was just as bubbly about the movie. Apparently, none of what bothered me registered with these two. So, apparently, Leaguers... Jamie and I are alone in our disdain for "Home on the Range."

So I did nothing I planned to do this weekend. I did a lot of stuff I wasn't really interested in, and took care of some household chores. This is all peachy. The brother comes to town next weekend. That should be a virtual festival of fun.

At any rate, I had planned to go to the Phoenix Comic Convention which was being held in Glendale this weekend. Friday night, I realized teh convention only ran on Sunday, and on Saturday night I found out the convention only ran from 9-3, and it would take at least an hour to get there. That, and the web-site was pretty spotty as to what one could expect. So I just didn't go. I remember the comic conventions Austin had when I was a kid, where they rented a ballroom at the Holiday Inn and Comic Book John gave away comics and the Star Trek geeks showed up in full regalia... which is fine... but I just didn't have the energy for it today. I think one day I'll try the San Diego ComicCon, but until that time...

With little else to do (except for homework, which I am continuing to avoid), and realizing I had only left the house in search of burritos this weekend, I decided I wanted to see a movie. And there's a lot out. I could have seen the movie which has all the film geeks salivating (Spotless Mind), or the new horror/ thriller (Dawn of the Dead), or even a white-trash remake of a white-trash classic (Walking Tall). No, not me. I decided I was going to see Disney's final 2-D animated film "Home on the Range", starring the voices of Rosanne Barr and Judi Dench.

Whatever the trailers would leave you to believe, Disney's final foray into traditionally animated splendor was a formulaic, nigh-unwatchable reminder of why Roy Disney would like to see Eisner's head on a pike. In a scene which just SHOULD NOT happen after a Disney movie, while walking out of the theater, Jamie mentioned that about five to ten minutes into the movie, she had an overwhelming desire to leave. She said she just couldn't take it anymore. And I knew EXACLTY what she was talking about. (Keep in mind, Jamie usually forgives a lot in an animated feature).

I think it does say something for the rest of the movie that follows the initial, horrendous opening sequence, that we stuck it out, and actually laughed a bit in the last half of the movie.

Home on the Range follows the adventure of three cows who might lose their supposedly vegan farm due to unpaid loans, and so the cows go off to catch a cattle rustler for the posted bounty (the sum of which is exactly what is owed to the bank). After many challenges, they catch the rustler and the farm is saved. Hurray.

Now, no one is complaining that the children's cartoon had a happy ending. Being cynical about happy endings in a Disney movie is more than a little redundant, and a little disingenuous. The problems go beyond the typically harmless script, and resonate more from the weird Modern Quirks of Disney films.

Since Aladdin, Disney has tried to do two things: 1) cast voice talent who can be recognized as stars 2) quick cut to match the "wacky" name voice talent. Now, this worked in Aladdin because 1) the star was Robin Williams, and not, say... Roseanne Barr, who was top of the A-List when he recorded Aladdin, and 2) William's rapid-fire delivery REQUIRED the quick cutting in order to match his reportedly unscripted comedic freestyling. Now the quick cutting ALSO worked because it went against the grain of the rest of the movie and was very much a magical genie breaking the fourth wall.

Ever since Aladdin, the Modern Quirks of Disney Films have assailed audiences. We've all suffered through name actor after name actor hamming it up. Which... come on... was never necessary for a successful Disney film. Nobody wondered why Mickey Rooney didn't voice Bambi when that film was released.

The insertion, post-Genie, of non-stop wisecracks voiced by big name talent (the Eddie-Murphy dragon in Mulan, anyone?)has also led to the continuation of the Genie's fourth-wall breaking talent. Today, we are left with cows in 19th century America referring to other barn-yard animals as "the frozen food section." Yeah, nobody laughed in the theater, either.

The animation on this film was good, if not exceptional, and I would even say the music was passable, sung by some big-name country stars. The tunes were very much by Alan Menken. The film's songs were extraneous, and, frankly, didn't move the story too much (except for one cute Yodel, which made me miss Don Walser). Also, the songs didn't quite screech the movie to a halt the way they did when Pocahontas shook the rafters with her Broadway ready voice, or, even the half-assed songs from Mulan (although those movies look to be twice as expensive and certainly were both much more visually impressive).

Simply put, the movie has an almost jarring uneven-ness to it, exemplified by a patch toward the end which almost seemed to indicate that we had lost some vital character development points on the cutting room floor (you know, those little quirks and lessons we learn about characters which seem so extraneous at the time...). One cannot shake the feeling the executives at Disney were in this movie up their eyeballs. Further examples of Modern Quirks for a Disney Movie:

1) When Roseanne Barr cow makes an entrance... the wailing metal guitar to show she not only will not fit in, she's BRASSY

2) Baby animals that say "awesome" in a stretched out way kids never really do... like "awwwwesome!"

3) Lots of Kung-Fu. I'm not sure why the farm animal movie had so much Kung-Fu, but it did. The horse was constantly (and some might say, annoyingly) breaking out into karate stances intended to be cute. Ultimately and incongruously, one of the cows pulls a sort of Matrix at the end.

4) Farm animals saying things like "this town rocks!" while sort of shoving their fist in the air.

Kids, it's the effect we call Poochie-ization. And I think you know what I'm talking about. Just imagine Cinderella with EXTREME mice skateboarding all over the castle, or Snow White with the EXTREME dwarf. Something is up at Disney, and I think it's called Lowest-Common Denominator.

That said, one of the great things about modern Disney movies is that writers, artists and sound technicians get bored. I spoke with one Disney artist who spent 6 months on a 12 second sequence in Mulan that I had to admit to him I didn't remember. 6 months of looking at the same 12 seconds of footage will drive you insane, and this has led to some great moments, from a panti-less Jessica Rabbit, to the Little Mermaid's Priest getting excited to see her, to Aladdin suggesting Jasmine take off her clothes (I can confirm having seen and/ or heard all of these).

This movie had at least two key moments, and a few more I wish I could now remember, in which inspired genius was allowed to shine ever so briefly. 1) in a barnyard scene where the animals are kind of dancing, the duck is reportedly doing "the Elaine dance". I will admit, the duck's dance only pinged on my radar as "what is the duck doing?" Jamie was the one who was able to identify the actual dance. 2) One of the characters, Rico, is able to spout the line "Is this how Rico ends?" just before getting his comeuppance. I was rolling. Nobody else even chuckled. (I just remembered one more... there's a new age cow, see... and, anyway, the pig mentions how she is going to make all of them "winners". I thought it was really funny in a Tony Robbins sort of way).

All in all, "Home on the Range" is an indication of the strife going on within the studio gates at Disney. It is not often a company abandons that which made them great to begin with, and this movie leaves little mystery as to why Roy Disney is heartbroken to see his family legacy being gutted. I can only imagine what it must be like to know Uncle Walt left you with the company, and then seeing the company turning to countless hours of "The Bachelor" and neglecting the animated tradition, while whoring the past in dozens of straight-to-video knock-offs of the movies which the company once held dear. When Disney decided a new feature would be released each summer, and cheap video sequels were acceptable, one could tell that it had gone beyond a profit model and had moved into plundering (Disney once had strict rules and regulations protecting each film as a property, which the video market and "sequel" franchise has fairly much followed the letter of the law while stomping on the spirit.).

All the more painful for Roy, after suffering through the doldrums of the post-60's animation era, Disney re-conquered family entertainment with The Little Mermaid and set a new mark for what was possible in an animated feature, going well beyond just the technical (do not forget Beauty and the Beast was nominated for Best Picture). As a last gasp of the traditional animation department, Home on the Range feels less like a movie, and more like a series of safe business decisions strung together in order to pick up rentals and video sales.

At some point Eisner will either retire, be let go, or drop dead in the Disney offices. At this point, new leadership will take over. And one has a hard time imagining new leadership who can't remember why Disney was special to them as a child. Not because they grossed the most, or were fastest at turning out straight-to-video sequels... but because Disney films used to be an event. Since November alone we've witnessed the release of two Disney animated features. I bet dollars to doughnuts, you're hard-pressed to name the non-cow related film.

And they wonder why some folks just don't want to go back for high school reunions.

It's remarkable how fast you can turn from America's Missing Angel into "that psycho who kidnapped herself."

I know you don't care, but it's raining here. That's a big deal. I can even hear the unusual sound of wet tires on wet pavement. Again... unusual here.

My two successful April Fool's pranks:

1) convinced Jamie my mom was coming out here for three weeks to recuperate from her back surgery.
2) convinced co-worker Juli I was moving to Houston, and the 8th was my last day.

all in all, hollow victories, but for a brief moment, I felt like a genius.

Anyway, I woke up at 4:15 this morning and couldn't get back to sleep, so at 5:00, I decided just to go to work. I got here, even with a stop-off at Starbuck's (fuck you, we don't have any independent coffee shops here) before 6:30. I will probably do my usual thing and be here until 6:00. I miss comp time. My job, by definition, does not receive comp time. Just a load of vacation I can never use.

I would actually like to go to Monument Valley this year. I may take a few days off and go see the blasted thing. It's only a day's drive away, and I can probably see the Grand Canyon on my return trip. jamie seems to like rocks, and I want to see where The Searchers and Stagecoach were shot. I'd also like to see where Claudia Cardinale once stood (making the valley SEXY) during filming of Once Upon a Time in the West, but I suppose she isn't still there hanging about.

Anyway, Monument Valley is at least partially in Arizona, so I'd be a sucker not to go.

Most people know that Superman's one true vulnerability is Kryptonite. But many people may not know that Kryptonite does not just come in your standard green. Kryptonite comes in all sorts of diffferent colors, each having a profoundly different effect upon the Man of Steel.

For a quick recap of the various types of Kryptonite and a brief description of their effect, you can click here.

Thanks to Randy who forwarded me this updated list.

10> Burgundy Kryptonite: Goes really well with Kryptonian beef.

9> Barry White Kryptonite: Changes Supes' voice to a deep,
sultry, seductive tone.

8> Titanium Kryptonite: Drops three strokes off your golf game!

7> Elevated Orange Kryptonite: Makes Superman panicky and
paranoid even though there's nothing remotely dangerous going
on around him.

6> Magenta Kryptonite: Turns Superman into a sweet transvestite.

5> Burnt Sienna Kryptonite: No effect, just a chance for the
colorist to *finally* use that crayon.

4> Red, White and Blue Kryptonite: Causes Superman to violate
essential civil liberties in well-meaning but misguided
attempt to fight terrorism.

3> Ecru Kryptonite: Just like White Kryptonite, but only
Supergirl and Lois Lane can tell the difference.

2> Chartreuse Kryptonite: Turns Superman into the only male on
the planet who knows what the color "chartreuse" looks like.


1> Chromium Kryptonite: Seals the victim in a polyurethane bag
along with a limited edition collector's card. May also cause
unexpected hair growth, new costumes, multiple spin-offs
and/or temporary death.

Okay. Here's the deal. The post below was meant as my April Fool's misdirect, but it's not funny. I just don't have time to be funny today.

BTW, Jim still thinks I sent him the Dilbert cartoon (which i did not). Someone should fess up, because Jim's calling me now and trying to get me to take responsibility for it.

I know I should post today, but something I would rather not talk about has occurred, and I don't really have time nor the patience.

It turns out I just really do not like Bleu Cheese. I just was unable to eat my lunch which had bleu cheese on it. Then the waiter never came back so I could find a peaceful resolution. All in all, a bad lunchtime experience.

New case for my brother?

THis shall launch my new feature: Thanks, Science!

New study about Man's Best Friend.

So, if you want a good idea of what your blogger here looks like when seen with the wife:

Oh, and in case you missed it here... Warner Bros. is making a new Batman movie. And, as such... here's the new Batmobile. The guys from ELF are gonna hate it, but it's a cool movie prop at any rate.

I had heard that part of the idea behind the new movie was that Batman was using technology that looked like usable technology... not suspending his plane from the top of the cave and driving around with cars with huge, pointless fins. While I was secretly hoping for the classic 1940'-50's era Batmobile in one form or another, this Batmobile gets the League of Melbotis seal of approval.

REEVES STARS IN SCANNER
BY DF NEWS

Keanu Reeves will star in A Scanner Darkly, based on a Philip K. Dick novel, for Warner Independent Pictures, Variety reported. Richard Linklater (School of Rock) is in talks to direct, the trade paper reported. George Clooney and Steven Soderbergh's Section 8 will produce.

A Scanner Darkly will employ the same technology Linklater used in Waking Life: It will be shot live-action, then animated, the trade paper reported.

The story takes place in the future, where undercover agents change their faces along with their identities. Reeves plays one such officer, and his liberal ingestion of the drug Substance D causes him to develop a split personality, the trade paper reported.

Now the news source is not one I know to be reliable or unreliable as it's really a comics collectibles outlet. However, they have no real reason to make this up, so I'll take it that this idea is, at least, being batted around. Now I dug this book big time. Very good book. And I don't think too many bad thoughts about Kneau. I'm much more concerned about Linklater who is not my favorite director (although he is also the only director I ever met, and he's done more for Austin film than any herd of bespectacled film nerds could ever hope to achieve). Well, you know what? Life is full of surprises. Maybe this will turn out great.

Note to my brother who seems to mostly keep up with me these days by reading this blog.

1) Star Trek 1 rules. God bless AMC for running it continually for the past week.

2) We are going to see Hellboy when you are here in a week. Keep your shorts on. Tell Wilson he can take Mandy or something. We are going to see Hellboy. That's your penance for the XXX debacle of Auguts 2002.

Now back to you other Leaguers.

1) jamie doesn't like the Stooges. Not the band. The three guys who poke each other in the eye. How can you not find that funny?

2) People now want to take my albums off my hands. I am plan to begin describing things in my house I no longer want and turn The League into a sort of virtual garage sale without turning this into e-bay.

3) I have this old lawnmower rusting behind the house. It probably still works, but I bought an electric mower. Boy... it sure would be great if I could get rid of it...

4) Hellboy. This critic on CNN freaking loved this movie. Wow. The trailers look like MIB III, so I was skeptical, but now I want to see this movie.

Truthfully, I never read the Mignola written/ drawn comic despite my enjoyment of some of his work for DC (hurray Cosmic Odyssey!) I have, I think, one or two issues, but I just never really picked it up. But, holy moley... this is a good review. I am in.

I guess I could have guessed. I like ROn Perlman, and the director (del Toro) did Blade II, which I enjoyed. In fact, I remember turning to Jason, my brother, after Blade II and saying "wow. That was the most like a comic turned to screen as I've ever seen!" And here we are. So I will be seeing Hellboy. Maybe they'll get that del Toro chap to direct Superman.

I can dream, can't I?

check out Superman, Seinfeld and Lauer over at the NBC site.

Click here for video

Check it out. My Jimmy Olsen like photographic skills landed my work in Wired.com.

Actually, I took these while working on a video for the School. And I only took the two of the guy in the wheelchair (who is freaking hilarious, i might add).

So go check out Wired and see what research we're up to at my employing university. And I'm glad they showed Panch. Panch kicks ass, even if he does introduce me as my boss from time to time.

I never buy new albums. By that, I mean, I rarely buy albums from new bands with which I have heard very little, but, based upon the strength of their single, I will try the whole album.

Twice in the past three weeks I have done this. And twice, I have been f**ked.

After reading Maxwell's post on the Yeah Yeah Yeah's (which in no way really endorsed the Yeah Yeah Yeahs), and after having had heard the single a few times, and after having noticed the album was $8.99 at Target last time I was there, I decided to pick up the record.

Not good. While it does do what I kept telling Jamie (this sounds like something I would have listend to in high school!), it does not necessarily do it in a good way. I was actually reminded of the "They Eat Their Own" debacle of 1989/ 1990. I purchased it on the strength of the song "Like a Drug", which was catchy. The rest of the album... not so much. And I am sure I had paid at least $8.99 for that album as well. At any rate, just download that single you keep hearing from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. it's still a good tune. It just happens to not sound too much like anything else on the record.

(And let me stop here and now and ask how many folks returned the Smash Mouth album in 1996? I know you did, because I was the one at the record store who had to explain to you that we are not responsible for your musical choices, so if you bought it and didn't like it, that's your problem. Yes, i know the entire rest of the album in pretty much stupid LA-metal, but I hoped you knew that before dropping $16.99.)

I can't really tell you what to do if you had high hopes for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Really, most of the record sounds like the kind of stuff you used to occasionally hear coming out of clubs on 6th street that you would wisely pass on by.

The other album I bought because Amazon.com kept telling me to. "Buy the Strokes, fool!" Amazon.com challenged. "Okay," I answered, "That single is okay. But I'm buying it at Best Buy and cutting you out of the deal!" "Bastard!" Amazon replied.

The Strokes is really pretty boring. I listend to it once at home, once on my way into work, and then lost it under the seat of my car where it will remain collecting dust and car lint until I clean my car again.

THis happens about once every year, and it puts me off buying any new music for a while. The worst part is, I normally wouldn't have picked up either record, assuming their approval by major retailers was enough of a warning sign. But sometimes you ignore that little voice in your head and say "hey, this could be fun!" And then you get f**ked. So, you know, listen to the voices in your head, I guess.

I can say I've enjoyed both of The Walkmen's records. They might be worth checking out. I notice on their website they seem to be opening for The Strokes in a few US cities. Interesting choice since my feeling was that both the Strokes and The Walkmen had a similar vibe, only The Walkmen do it so much better.

Fuck it. I'm going to go buy some Engelbert Humperdink and Chuck Mangione.

Sadly, I have denied myself Jim's TIVO clarion call and so I will miss Superman v. Lauer tomorrow morning.

From Newsarama.com

The day after the shorts went live at www.americanexpress.com/jerry , the Jerry Seinfeld/Superman friendship is slated to get a boost thanks to NBC’s Today show.

According to the show’s website, excerpts from the two Internet shorts are due to be shown, while NBC is currently airing promos for tomorrow’s show featuring Superman himself as an on-air guest.

Reportedly, the Superman/Seinfeld segment will be shown in the 8:00 – 8:30 am half hour slot.

If anyone sees this, let me know how Superman does as a guest.

All new web-isodes of Jerry Seinfeld and Superman! Sure, it's an American Express ad, but it's still pretty good.

Click to view. And get Flash if you don't have it. Flash the media tool, not the super-fast super hero.

I am in no way snickering at this story or these people. The story just has such a shadow of Andrea Yates, also a Texas mother/ murderer, it's very odd.

Jamie asked me yesterday "is it just me, or is the whole fo'shizzle thing already going away?"

I suggested that, perhaps, we were late on this one to begin with, and like with most trends, since we are no longer 19-24, we will be the last to hear about it. Most likely, we agreed, we had caught the fo'shizzle on it's way out.

I seem to remember the Fo'Shizzle a few years ago, but it's a vague memory, and I can't really tie it to anything. That, and the folks in our respective offices are unlikely to employ the shizzle in casual conversation, so the shizzle has not received a lot of reinforcement.

Like any fad, it's going to have a life cycle. You do not hear people dropping "jive turkey" or "turkey" anymore (a phrase my parents outlawed in my house when I was young, which I found confusing). I still pepper my own speech with the phraseology of my upbringing. "Dude" and "man" still punctuate about half my sentences. "Totally", "rad", "schweeet!", "whoa" and a few choice others pop up. But around the office, my speech pattern is significantly different than what it was when I began here. Upon my arrival, I was used to the casual atmosphere prevelant at UT. The F-Bomb is certainly not welcome. Unless I really, really need to make a point.

In other news, Jamie's birthday went more or less as planned. I felt bad that Wagner had so little to do here, but there is so little to do here. Or, at least, we're in such a rut, we don't really seek out a lot of what there is to do, and are therefore ignorant of what Phoenix has to offer.

All in all, it was nice, and it was good to see Wagner. She went Vegan some time back, and that made some of our dining choices more challenging than others, but all in all, not too difficult to deal with.

I bought two pictures at the Tempe art fair this weekend. Both pics were camp/retro stuff by this California artist. Anyway, I saw the guy's stuff on Friday when I was out and about looking for Churros at the art fair, and I picked up a print of a painting he had done of Siegel-era Superman. I thought Jamie would love the stuff, and so I was insistent on bringing her back on Saturday.

Jamie is a tough one to figure out. THe only two pictures she's ever gotten excited over were 1) a print of an orange squid, and 2) a map of Middle-Earth. I'm not really clear on what, exactly, Jamie is looking for, but it wasn't what De la Nuez had to offer. She kind of nodded and said "that's nice." And then started looking around for almonds.

We aren't always going to jive, but we've been together for 8.5 years, and I still have trouble figuring out what makes her tick. Then again, it could have something to do with Jamie's seeming desire to undecorate, or, rather, to keep more of a spartan look to things. I've often written that off to laziness, but the reality is, Jamie prefers an ascetic sort of thing, and I prefer more of a jumble of stuff on my walls, floors, ceiling, etc... She's patient, she is.

I just saw myself on video, and, somehow, I am even fatter.

ewwwwwwwww

By the way, the factors which will almost draw me out to the theater are as follows. The likelihood of the named factor influencing my attendance is listed in descending order:

1) Robots
2) Superheroes
3) Gorillas
4) Giant Monsters
5) Spaceships
6) Nudity

And just as an addition, the three laws of robotics are not the nice little taglines given in the trailer.

Asimov wrote:

The three laws of Robotics:
1) A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm
2) A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3) A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

I just saw part of a trailer for "I, Robot", the new Will Smith movie for this summer.

As a middle-schooler, I read a few Asimov books, and I re-read "I, Robot" at least once. It's actually a collection of short stories, more or less, following the evolution of robots in human society. It's incredibly dry science fiction with virtually nothing in the way of action. It's almost all people and robots standing around talking.

So I was kind of wondering what the new movie was about when they cast Will Smith, because if the book has a main character, it's really a woman who is an expert in Robo-Psychology (which is a complicated thing, and I would read the book if I were you...) But I saw a few seconds from the trailer and it is not exactly what I remember.

While the movie does look exciting, and I seem to vaguely remember a scene somewhat like the robot interrogation sequence, it's not I, Robot. I think. it's been a decade or so since I read the book. At best, it looks as if they took a very short story and expanded it into the world's biggest class action law suit. I know they were trying to avoid remaking Bicentennial Man, and that should be applauded. If nothing else, the new movie inspires me to re-read I, Robot AND to see the movie for comparison (because robots will always get me into the theaters. I saw Lost in Space twice, even though I hated it the first time).

You can view the trailer for I, Robot here.

You can buy the book here.

I wonder if the producers read Caves of Steel, because that would actually make a cool movie.

There was actually a great story (and maybe it was in I, Robot) about a robot telling his robopsychologist about a dream he had in which he was wearing sungod robes and telling somebody "let my people go!"

It's probably hip not to like Dilbert because he reached such levels of popularity a few years ago, but I like Dilbert, even if I am not an avid follower.

I also like Dedman, and I DO read Dedman everyday.

But I am not the one who sent Jim the very expensive Dilbert print from New York. I considered saying it was me so Jim would feel I am spontaneous and generous, but, Leaguers, that's not very truthful.

Jim and I put on our detective caps and tried to figure out who sent him the gift. I rattled off a list of names who i thought it might be, and Jim was surprised I knew any of his friends. Apparently he was unaware that I follow his exploits everyday.

It is very mysterious. Does Jim have a secret admirer?

Meanwhile, at the Phoenix airport....

Who knew so much excitement happened mere miles from the office...

Superman and Batman try to enjoy the birthday get-together at League HQ.

Today is Jamie's 29th birthday. Today Jamie has flung around Sol 29 times and is gathering momentum to try the ride once more.

We both slept in a little bit today, we opened presents and that was it. Doesn't seem like very fair compensation for doing the whole damn thing 29 times.

Her buddy Heather is going to arrive from Austin via aeroplane tomorrow. Should be fun. We saw Heather at Christmas, but folks very infrequently visit Mr. House due to its inconvenient location. (actually, a mad shout out to Jill H-W for her recent foray into the desert).

So I hope Jamie has a good birthday. It's hard to give good birthdays, but you have to try. I would hate for Jamie to think back next year while passing "Go!" and think, "What DID I do last year...?" But I am certain that will be the case.

I have added yet another person to the blogroll. Welcome http://northstream.blogspot.com/ to the blogroll. I am losing track, but I believe the author is another pal of Jim's. This one, in particular, I think may be nothing more than a figment of Jim's imagination as I first encountered him as a character in Jim's screenplay.

These things happen. My cat sprang from a bad dream I had after eating a box of Girl Scout cookies before bedtime. (They were Samoas, and it was worth it).

James Bond fans, rejoice.

Sorry for the lack of posting today. I was involved with a presentation all day.

Now I am tired. I kind of want to lay down. It's been a while since I had to be around an all day presentation like this, and as exhausting as they are to sit thru, they are even less fun to set up and try to keep everyone happy.

I also absolutely cannot take credit for this link. I'm swiping it off Molly's page.

Just in time for Passover, it's Bag o' Plagues! (you know... for kids!)

Molly joins us from her current locale of Osaka, Japan to join in on the fun with latex faces. I don't know if this is better or worse.

You know, I'm a hip, open minded guy. I may not play ball the way you do, but I'm not going to criticize your game. Still, this gives me the willies. It seriously does seem like something out of a Vincent Price movie.

But, speaking of creepy, dead-looking, latex faces.... Randy sends this bit of disturbing infotainment.

dude looks like a lady. Like a dead, plasticized lady.

I'm not sure I want to know how Randy learned of this particular little corner of the blackest pits of the human psyche... but he seemed to know about it somehow. Of course, I always have a hard time explaining that I know what furries are without somehow implicating myself (I like to dress up as Ollie the Octopus).

But take a look here and feel a chill in the darkest reaches of your soul. You cannot tell me these guys aren't out realizing a Vincent Price movie in their spare time.

The new Wayans brother movie is a whole separate issue, and may spawn it's own Jim and Randy review here on this site.

Finally located where and when I linked to Beer Bong image.

I hope my July 28th, 2003 posting held no special place in anybody's heart. It's going to be altered and/ or erased.

Here is the URL for the image which apparently links to THe League, which is mucking me up.

http://www.beerisgoodforyou.com/store/images/bong.jpg

Now it's been at least five years since I even thought about writing a line of html. My last web page involved spinning lava lamps and other fun stuff. So, yeah. Anyway, if anybody has any idea what to do, let me know.

My big fear is that the image is buried deep in the bowels of the archives of this site, and after a year of blatherings, it's going to be a bear to find the image and try to eradicate it.

Your help will be rewarded with a Melly Award.

Hey, is anyone reading The League?

Sitemeter is now utterly useless due to this tool who is somehow swiping my badwidth. Somehow he's linked this image to The League or something. I'm not really clear on how that works, honestly. I'm kind of hands-off in the world of the internet. I make content, I don't administer it.

I contacted blogger.com who hosts The LEague. I said "Hey, this dillweed is somehow using my site to post pictures or something." And they said "Tough nuts. We don't resolve problems like this." Which makes me feel the money I put down for this site was probably not worth it.

Further, nobody responds to my requests anymore (maybe three or four of you) which leads me to believe readership is WAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYY down. So, this is my SOS.

I repeat: ss anyone reading The League? If you are, just shoot me an e-mail from the link over there to let me know.

<---------------------------- look for E-mail Melbotis

I'd like to know who the audience is and if everyone has abandoned ship. I'm also curious to hear what you'd like to see detailed within these pages. I'm running dry, man.

I want for nothing more than to read Jim D's review of Garfield, the Movie.

There's something about the movie, the trailers, the casting... the very... I don't know. I can't put it into words, but my brain is locked in morbid fascination with Garfield the Movie. It's the same fascination which drove me to the same theater twice in the same day to see two awful movies: Dungeons & Dragons and Dracula 2000. It's how I saw "Cats & Dogs", "Pokemon: The Movie", "Man's Best Friend", "Power Rangers: The Movie", "Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course", "Street Fighter: The Movie", "Mortal Kombat: The Movie", "Cutthroat Island", "Underworld", virtually every Arnie movie, and "American Cyborg: Steel Warrior" all in the theater.

There's something about horrid, horrid movies which fires the imagination. There's something about the half-assed lack of artistry which drives me to the theater to see exactly how little the creators have done. We all have a little Ignatius J. Reilly in us, I suppose.

Randy has volunteered, and so Randy will be heard within these pages. But there's something about Jim that leads me to believe, Jim simply does not dwell in a plane of existence where Garfield, the Movie is seen by the likes of his eyes.

I am offering Jim the cost of a ticket, a soda and a tub of popcorn. I will even offer up the cost of gas for his vehicle.

I just want 500 words on Garfield the Movie. Is that too much to ask for? Is it?

I fear it is.

A foretaste of the feast to come.

As mentioned here several weeks ago, DC Editor Julie Schwartz passed away at the age of 88.

Harlan Ellison has written a great tribute to his friend, and I thought it fitting to at least link to it here.

Item # 1: Batman Begins is currently filming. It will star Christian Bale as Batman. There are also many, many other name actors among the cast (Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman, Sir Michael Caine). I've heard some basics about the script, and it sounds like it's much closer to the comics than any previous incarnations. (I like the Burton version, too, but it's similarity to anything in the comics is debatable).

Anyway, view the promo image here. It's basically the new Batsymbol, I guess. I've heard some folks say it's new, but it looks pretty much like a few different versions I've seen.

Item #2: Robert Rodriguez has shown an unprecedented dedication to his new project, Sin City. Yes, yes... I probably wouldn't be mentioning it if it weren't based upon a comic book. It's based upon Frank Miller's creator owned series Sin City, a ruthlessly aggressive noir/ crime series set in a fictional town where the lives of various crooks, thieves, assassins and crack-pots intertwine.

Rodriguez is filming in his home-base of Austin, and it sounds like he's pulling in an all-star cast here as well. Goody for him.

The big news is that he's including Frank Miller, creator of Sin City, as a Co-Director (and possibly Tarantino). Let me re-emphasize that. Frank Miller. Co-Director.

For anyone who ever read a comic, Miller is a seminal figurehead in the industry. I'd say he was the Beatles, but I think Alan Moore gets that title. He's more of the... Hendrix? I dunno. Give me a good analogy and you could win a Melly Award.

Now, in order to do this, Rodriguez has had to quit the DGA. Which is HUGE, and has very real ramifications for the rest of the union aspects of the production. Union issues are a whole separate political topic I won't bog you down with here, but suffice it to say, the unions stick together, and this whole movie could wind up being a non-Union indie. Fortunately (and most likely, by design), Rodriguez is filming in a town regularly abused for it's cheap, non-Union labor. In addition, most of the film dorks in Austin would give their left arm to work on a Rodriguez movie with the sort of talent he's bringing in (let alone, work on a movie at all), so it's not an issue of making it happen.

Read about Rodriguez's decision here.

But why go to all the trouble because of some comic guy? Why is Miller this important?

If you read comics in the 80's, 90's or now, Miller's work has been the fulcrum that moved comics from the world of kiddy entertainment to being an aggressively adult medium. Miller wrote and drew some of the most groundbreaking works in comics, and when his work is brought to the big screen, invariably, it gets turned to mush. Case in point: Last year's Daredevil took a perfectly good story and made it really, really stupid.

However, one can credit Miller with stories like Item #1 above for even occuring. Batman was still considered to be the Adam West version in the public's mind (despite the 70's work by Neal Adams), until Miller gave Batman the story he needed in the comics again with Year One and DKR. In fact, originally, the movie you see mentioned above was supposed to be an adaptation of Year One (and may yet contain elements of) written by JSA and Hawkman scribe David Goyer.

It may be you LIKE Frank Miller already... you just don't know it's Frank you like.

So it sounds like Rodriguez wants to bring in Miller's perspective for fear he might accidentally muck up the material. I, for one, am amazed and excited. The Sin City comics always had the potential to be a storyboard for the best modern crime movie never made. For folks who STILL, for whatever reason, think comics are all kiddy fare... I encourage you to check out the many, many collections of Sin City available at your local comic shop as well as at Borders and Barnes & Noble, depending on their selection.

Other Frank Miller works of note include:

Ronin - published by DC Comics
Batman: Year One - DC Comics
The Dark Knight Returns (perhaps the most important super hero comics ever) - published by DC Comics
The Dark Knight Strikes Again - DC Comics
Daredevil: Man Without Fear - Marvel
Daredevil Visionaries Vol. 1 -3 - Marvel
Daredevil: Born Again - Marvel
Sin City (there are several volumes, but each story is collected in a single volume) - Dark Horse
Elektra: Assassin - Marvel
Frank Miller's Robocop - Avatar (Frank wrote the orginal screenplay to Robocop 2, which was turned into mush by the rewrites. Steven Grant and the team at Avatar Press are turning the original script into a comic. It is decidedly more violent and paints a significantly different picture than the film of Robocop 2)
300 - Dark Horse

There are also a lot of other works I won't spotlight here. Suffice it to say, Frank's influence and reach has been vast.

If anyone knows anyone working on this movie in Austin, I will give my left nut if you can get my beat-up copy of Dark Knight Returns from 1988 signed. Seriously. Left nut.


Complete works
Fan Page
An Onion AV Club article with Miller is here.

Here's a bit of cheery news.

bad ass

Jamie, we can put one INSIDE the house, can't we?

I thought I posted this yesterday, but it must have flubbed up in the ftp.

Anyway, for the single WORST movie trailer I've seen in years, check out Garfield. One can assume the movie will suck based solely upon the fact that the PR folks insisted on putting Ray-Bans on the cartoon cat, a gag last employed with success in 1984. And how many more homages do we really need to Risky Business? Was it that much of a cultural milestone for us as a nation? I'll admit Rebecca Demornay was permananently etched in the back of my mind's eye for at least 6 weeks after seeing the movie, but was the "dancin' in my undies cause the folks are gone" scene really that seminal? To Oprah fans, I suppose it was.

Apparently the producers decided to avoid actually reading any of the strips from the past 30 years in order to make something lousier than Cats and Dogs. In the 90 seconds or so of footage, there's nothing to indicate this movie has anything to do with the actual comic strip, which, lets face it, isn't all that complicated.

I can almost pick out the folks from my office who will go see the movie and LOVE it. When I ask if it was like the newspaper strip, they will look at me quizzically, as if to say "What is this.... newspaper... of which you speak?"

Anyway, the annoyance level of the trailer far surpasses any dissonance with the strip. It just looks like an absolutely stupid movie. My apologies to the CGI folks who had to slave away over this nonsense for the past few years.

And wouldn't it have made more sense and been cuter if Odie were a cartoon, too? I can only imagine the production meeting which spawned that brain drizzle:

"Well, uh, the cat is a cartoon."
"So why does the dog have to be a cartoon?"
"Because it looks stupid having an obviously cartoon cat with a real dog looking off camera at it's trainer all the time."
"I don't see your point."
"It's going to not make sense. THe cat is a cartoon, but the dog is real."
"Right."
"Which looks... weird."
"Well, if we make the dog a cartoon, it's going to double the budget of the movie and we can't afford all the cocaine and hookers we've already put in the budget."
"Ah, screw the dog. Let's go do a speedball and green light another Hillary Duff project."
"Genius!"
"Let's go get some hookers."

Leaguers, I have to express my hearfelt disappointment in each and every one of you.

Not a single e-mail reached League HQ to wish my brother a happy birthday.

Well, you know what? He hopes all of you have TERRIBLE birthdays. Seriously. He's vindictive like that.

i gotta be honest, this is the most excited I've been about a movie's release in about a year.

This looks like the kind of stuff Justin Lincoln and I were trying to make in film school that nobody but us thought was funny.

Hurray!

It looks like the real Supergirl is going to be back in the DC Universe of Comics. As any true comic geek knows, Kara (Supergirl) was killed at the conclusion of Crisis on Infinite Earths back in 1986. For those who don't know, Crisis wiped out all previous stories of DC Comics so the company could start fresh and not worry about 50 years of history. Since then, Supergirl has enjoyed at least two major reincarnations which had little or nothing to do with the character launched in the 1950's.

Now, superstar Jeph Loeb has written Supergirl back into the comics as Kara Zor-El, Superman's cousin.

This being the world of comics, she could be a plant by a nefarious villain, but i have high-hopes that she is the real deal as existed in the comics for thirty years or so.

Hurray for the Maid of Might!

And today is not just St. Patrick's Day, it's also the 31st Birthday of my big brother, Jason. Jason Steans was born in 1973 to Rick and Karen Steans.

He's now a practicing attorney in the Austin/ Travis County area. His specialty is making sure criminals, like Martha, are put back on the street.


Jason reflects upon being 31.

I have no idea what suprises are in store for the big galoot, but I sent him a card and a present in the mail. Hopefully they will reach him before week's end.

If you wish to e-mail my brother a birthday greeting, send it here to The League, and we will happily post all birthday greetings.

E-mail address is over there
<---------------------------------------------------

Oh, yes, by all means...

Proving that Alexis will learn and grow from her mother's mistakes, and proving she understands the fragile infrastructure which is our stock market and the ramifications of the continued abuse of the kind Ms. Stewart has been convicted of, Alexis Stewart says: Everything she did is ignored over something ... trivial

Not something important, like, say, folding napkins or making tasteful wreaths for that Holiday open house.

In my post from last evening I forgot a crucial event. I am sure Jamie will bring up several more major incidents. Anyway, i forgot about Jamie's amazing transformation via jaw surgery. Jamie looks nothing like how she looked as a child, which is weird, and (when viewing old photos or videos) gives the illusion that the McBride's once had a very pretty daughter who is no longer with us.

While Jamie is even more beautiful today than she was even yesterday, nonetheless, she might, at best, pass for a cousin of herself. It makes returning to Oklahoma fun as nobody has a clue as to who the heck she is.

So, yes, i need to insert that surgery.

Randy is struggling to find a theme to his blog of late, but I think it's abundantly clear that the theme of Randy's blog is his own insecurities about blogging.

So it's my recommendation that Randy just accept that the official theme of his blog is self-destruction on a blogoscopic level.

At any rate, I find it interesting that Randy is fairly certain getting married and finding stability in his life will lead to the demise of his blog (and Jim echoed this same sentiment). Having been married long enough, and cohabitated with before that, I have ONLY the context of being married, etc... fresh in my mind. Indeed, The League more or less represents the lack-of-adventures of Jamie and R. Steans.

One wonders what Dedman and Randy foresee marriage doing to them. Because for me, it's like living with somebody, only you can make them do most of the work on your taxes.

Hey, Kids!

If one allows their eyes to drift down the left hand side of the blog here, one will see links to other people's blogs. I have linked to a handful of them now. My newest addition is a fellow named Daniel Loyd who is apparently a former Longhorn out in LA. Well, really, he's Jim's old roommate from college. But Daniel has been kind enough to link to The LEague, completely without any pleadings from me, so we're tossing back the favor.

Take a look and see what he's up to and get some appreciation for the hard work which goes into video and film production. All that stuff you watch for free comes from somewhere, and that somewhere is this Loyd guy. So show some respect, you miscreants.

So, admittedly, I flipped out today.

I had planned to take the day off from work as my employing university is currently enjoying Spring Break. So, Monday I sat and stared at my hands all day, cleaned my desk and desk area, ate some lunch, blogged some and kind of spaced out.

By 4:00 I didn;t think I'd be coming into work, so I kept saying "Shhheeeeeyooot, I do not think I'm coming in tomorrow."

See, I have a school project to do which I haven't done either jack or shit on, and I really need to get rolling. So I was to stay home today and work on it, and maybe run out and do some stuff I can't usually do when Jamie tags along. I had a full day of nuthin' planned.

At 7:00-something, Jamie, ignorant of my plan, shook me and asked if I was going to work. "Nope!" I barked and fell back asleep. A moment later she shook me again.
"I'm going to drive myself to the ER."
roughly translated that means: Hey, chubby, I'm about to spew chunks from my migraine. Get your lazy ass out of bed and get me to the ER.

Jamie's medical history, in brief:

1992: bops head on ice while skating
1992: diagnosed with FSGS, a nasty kidney disease
1993: has jaw surgery, changes identities
1993: begins college, sleeps most of time, avoids drunken League at party as he tries to pick up future Mrs. League
1994: kidney transplant
1995: League bags future Mrs. League
1996: first trip to hospital with Jamie. Much confusion. Delighted to discover chairs fold out into beds. With free food from hospital, League doesn't get up for two days.
1997: Jamie in hospital repeatedly, goofy Christmas in San Antonio, Plasma pheseris is weird and reminds League of reel to reel player
1998: cohabitation, Jamie sick with alarming frequency from migraines
1999: Jamie being sick old hat for League.
1999: DIALYSIS. Jamie gets up at 4:30 am to go. Must never drink too much soda. Perplexes League.
1999: Heart attack? When the hell did she have a heart attack? Weird...
2000: Wedding. Spend good deal of time of honeymoon reading National Geographic in waiting room of Dialysis clinic in Orlando. Jamie is trooper and allows multiple rides on Space Mountain.
2001: New kidney for Jamie. Transplant is exciting. Forced three weeks off work. Get opportunity to read all of Kavalier and Clay while at home. Grow to resent Montel Williams.
2001: Jamie loses job. God bless Medicare.
2002: Arizona?

In between the major events, we've just had her migraines to deal with, which hasn't been much fun. I suspect the heart attack occured during 1998 when she was getting sick from them a lot. It's called a "silent heart attack" when you never knew you had one. A Dr. McMinn just mentioned it in passing after an EKG.
"So, you know, because of the previous heart attack, you're going to want to be careful..."
"Previous what attack?"
But there was a time we were doing this so often, I got kind of casual about it and the one time I left Jamie at the ER so I could (look, you can't hate me for this) go home and get some shut eye, she came home in a cab, bright pink like an easter egg.
"What happened to you?"
"They gave me something new. I'm allergic. I itch inside my skin."
"Well I'll be dipped."

So this morning was trip number 40 or so to the ER for this business. And we were in and out in a few hours and Jamie is fine.

But I left her to sleep and went and ran my preplanned errands and wound up at Best Buy. Where I bought a ton of CDs, because I realized that I had been telling myself for ten years I was going to replace some of these from tape, or others were albums which disappeared, or just records friends used to have.

So screw it. I am now the proud owner of Public Enemy's Greatest Hits.

Hey, Supernerds!!!!

DC Comics is having a big to-do about changes in the Superman titles beginning in April.

For those of you keeping track, that's:

Adventures of Superman
Superman
Action Comics

other titles include JLA, Superman/ Batman, Superman: Birthright, Smallville, Justice League Adventures, and a scad of others...

You can download a Superman screensaver for free at this site, and while you're there, read up on the upcoming art and stories in the core Superman titles.

So if you drift past your local comic shop, now's the the best time in a few years to be taking a peek at the Superman comics.

Thanks to Jamie who had to be the bearer of horrific news. Yes, the true cause of democracy is dead in the eyes of The League of Melbotis.

Somehow, we will soldier on. But don't be surprised if a disaffected League decides to become a monarchist so that the League will never face this sort of disappointment again.

BTW, I noticed that the high school on the WB's new season of "High School Reunion" is not only my year (1993), Round Rock was also the rival school for the brief year I was a Westwood Warrior. I looked at the website. I don't know any of those people.

I'm a little disappointed, but, it was 13 years ago or something the last time I saw anyone from that school. I'm actually more curious about if they tried to get any of the people I did know. My buddy from that school eneded up going to MIT and does financial modelling for a big international bank. Apparently being smart enough to go to MIT also tells you to be smart enough to not volunteer for a show like High School Reunion.

and this, my friends, is why The League did not pursue a career in the sciences

If The League ever needed a reminder that The League lives in bum-fuck Arizona, it is surely The Chandler Ostrich Festival.

The dirty little secret of Chandler is this: just because all the trolls in their SUVs (myself included) moved into Chandler, does not mean the indigenous lifeforms moved out. And the even uglier secret is: really, despite the $40K cars and the golf clubs, you get the feeling there is a very thin line separating the newbies from the local yokels. It takes something like a State Fair or Community Festival with $3.00 admission to make folks put down the crytal meth for long enough to locate their kids and force them into a family bonding experience such as The Ostrich Festival (an event even the organizers now seem fairly embarassed of).

I like to think that events like this which used to happen in rural communities were the glue which held these places together. But I'm a suburban kid, and this isn't the 1930's dustbowl, so when I'm not worrying about whether the carnies are stealing the hubcaps off the Forester, or why the technicolor movies like "State Fair" always star people much more attractive than what I ever see at the actual State Fair, I'm usually thinking about how obvious it must have been to dream up Something Wicked This Way Comes after a trip to the carnival.

Anyway, I'm a sucker for staring at people, mostly because it provides an ego boost like none other. And there's no better place to feel good about yourself while looking down your nose at your fellow man than at any place with a portable Ferris wheel. So Saturday, after we'd been out doing yardwork all morning, Jamie and The League took our showers (a futile gesture, considering where we were headed), patted Melbotis on the head and took off for the Ostrich Festival.

Held once a year, the festival must have been founded in the 90's when some mastermind behind a pyramid scheme convinced struggling farmers and ranchers to invest in Ostriches. Surely, they would be the next white meat, and we could look forward to a golden future of an Ostrich in every pot. Or something. But those plans went awry (which I could have predicted given the demeanor of the "Ostrich Lobby" I sat with when visiting the Texas State Capitol in the Spring of 1995). And, alas, Ostriches have not yet taken off as the meal of choice in American households (of course, if Atkins said it was good for you....).

At any rate, I've lived in Arizona for roughly two years, and The League had not yet borne witness to a single Ostrich roaming about. I hear one can see them between Phoenix and Tucson, but so far, not a single one has reared his tiny head in the greater Chandler area. Cows standing knee deep in their own filth? Certainly. Tens of thousands of them (screw you, EPA!). But, no. No ostriches.

Last year when we attended the festival, there simply were no Ostriches. Newcastle Disease had caused such a ruckus that nether man nor beast wanted to be near a huge, snotty bird, and so the Ostriches were conspicuously absent. (Jamie still has a t-shirt bearing the Silhouette of an Ostrich with the "no" circle around it.) So, this year, with dozens of the grotesque monstrosities on display, the motto of the show was "The Birds are Back".

Perhaps because the birds were back (ho ho!), or because Chandler is, I am told, a town on the move, the Festival seemed much bigger this year. I found it odd that neither Jamie nor myself could recall if last year's festival had the midway and carnival rides. All either of could remember were a half dozen or so demonstrations by local karate schools. This year, those demonstrations were conspicuously absent, but what the festival lacked in Kee-Yopping 7-year-olds, it made up for in inflatable Hulk dolls. Everywhere one looked, there was another booth hawking inflatable Hulks, Spider-Mans and cartoon mallets.

We first made our way down food alley, and Jamie selected a gyro and water and I got a churro (a food suspiciously absent in any environment outside of a carnival) and some tea. And I think that was about as much carnival as Jamie wanted to take in.

"You want to ride on the rides?"
"How long have we been together?"
"Well..."
"Have I ever wanted to ride the rides?"
I looked about at the sort of activities made available to us. Carnival rides, check. Midway games, check. Inflatable Hulk, check. Stare at freaks, check. Eat questionably prepared foods, check. Avoid Jim Belushi's band, check.
"So, uh, wanna go on a ride?"
"NO! I could get hurt."
Looking at the rides, I could not deny Jamie could well get hurt. In fact, I suddenly wondered what minimum safe distance was myself.
"Wanna play a midway game?"
"If you want to..."
"Do you want to?"
"No."
"Oh."
"But I wanna see the ostriches."
So we trudged through an inordinate number of chubby people and headed for the rodeo staging area, complete with metal bleachers and a corral fence and all that. And we parked ourselves on the bleachers in some kick ass seats and proceeded to watch a guy drive a tractor in slow circles around the corral while pulling a log or something.
"What is he doing?" I asked.
"It's like a rodeo zamboni," Jamie answered.
Another guy followed behind him with a hose, and sprayed down the corral where the rodeo zamboni had circled.
"Any idea...?"
"it's dusty."
And dry and getting hotter.
"How long have we been watching this guy?" I asked Jamie.
"Maybe twenty minutes."
"Do we know when the race starts?"
"No."
So I turned to the girl sitting nearby.
"Hey, any idea when the race starts?" she shook her head politely. There was a moment of silence and then the girl and her friends became speaking to one another excitedly in what was not English, nor did it appear that this girl spoke any English whatsoever. Which made me wonder how she had found the festival, but it was not a mystery to dwell upon. At any rate, I let is slide and returned my attention to the rodeo zamboni.
Slowly fat people began drifting in. Seriously. I don't know what the story was, but as I looked around, the morbidly obese community of Chandler, Arizona was slowly trickling in to the bleachers, sweating badly and groaning with relief as they placed themselves on the straining aluminum seating.
A matching set of a fat family sat down in front of us, the only non-obese member a small baby, destined (as DNA is a cruel bitch) to be just one more of this amazing team before me.
And, morbidly obese teen-agers, a little advice from Uncle Ry: Just because the trend of the day says to wear skin-tight belly shirts, save yourself a lot of aggravation. Be your own person and forego the Christina look.
But it wasn't just the family in front of us. There was a family who (one hoped) had participated in a karate demo who were all busting the seems of their uniforms. And, of course, many, many other variations.
I kind of wished I had beer. In fact, I wished I had a lot of beer, because it was hot out and the churro was certain not to absorb up as much beer as I thought was going to make my wait better. But this is Chandler, and not Texas, and so no beer was to be seen.
Music began playing from a crappy tape player over an even crappier sound system. The first song was from Bonanza.
"Hey," I said to Jamie. "What's the name of the ranch on Bonanza?"
"Bonanza."
"No. It's not. It's something else."
"I have no idea."
"Lorne Greene was in it. Michael Landon was Little Joe."
"Have you ever seen Bonanza?"
"Well, no."
"Okay."
For the next fifteen minutes or so I stared into space and tried to remember the name of the ranch. It's Ponderosa (not that I remembered that then). So we can all thank Bonanza for being the show which launched two family steakhouses with groovy salad bars.
Eventually a guy dressed roughly like a 1950's movie cowboy (think retired Roy Rogers) wanders out and reveals that the "animal amusements" in this show (and already I was hoping nobody from PETA was around) are from Kansas. Except maybe the Ostriches. He never clarified.
And I wasn't really sure who this guy was, because, despite the printed program in his hand, the show seemed to be a complete mystery to him. At least four times before the animal races, he failed to press "play" on the tape deck to play the crappy rendition of a bugle tooting out the start of the race. He also improperly identified his wranglers, called a llama a camel once or twice, botched several other musical cues and didn't turn off his mic (nor take it away from his mouth) when making asides to his staff.
Maybe he was old and confused. Maybe he was drunk. Maybe the sun was getting to him. I don't know, but, people... rehearsal, rehearsal, rehearsal... it's the key to success.
Ostriches raced, chickens raced, we saw a trained Zebra sort of do about half of the tricks he was supposed to and a trained Palamino refused to play ball on a few tricks as well.
Someone made the curious decision to strap the ostriches to chariots made of barrels (which made more sense than you'd think), but didn't strap the ostriches down very hard, because only 1 in 3 chariots ever remained attached to the birds.
The cowboy MC also dropped a few questionable comments of a sexist and racist slant, but sometimes you got to let things slide with dudes in their 70's wearing a silk scarf and a cowboy hat.
Inexplicably, the family in front of me suddenly rose to their feet and wandered off. It seemed the heat was overcoming them. And so, like a Russian doll collapsing back into itself, the family disappeared from view, no doubt, to find a less sunny and less dusty place to rest their bones.
But these folks missed the part where our erstwhile/ anglophile jockeys donned Arab head scarves, renamed themselves "Ali", "Mohammad" and something else, sported some classy accents and proceeded to narrowly miss an international incident by repeatedly referring to themselves as Camel Jockeys (which was a literal minded interpretation in this case, but nonetheless...). The camels raced, we all cheered, and I guess we all learned an important lesson about what is and is not funny in Chandler, Arizona.
By this time the sun was getting to me, but the show ended somewhat anti-climatically.
Jamie and I went and fed some goats, stared at a kangaroo, tried to figure out what a gnu was if that thing was a yak, and then walked down the row of booths where you could get an air-brushed T-shirt. I wanted to get one that said "Jamie's Man" in baby-blue, but Jamie was holding all of our money, so I didn't even ask.
I tried again to get Jamie to agree to go on the rides, but she showed no interest.
Alas, with no inflatable Hulk or Spider-Man, but with a bag of cinnamon glazed almonds secured, Jamie and I bid the Ostrich Festival a teary-eyed adieu. Until next year, Ostrich Fest.
Man, I can't wait for Chandler Jazz Fest 2004.

The system does work!

thanks to Randy for sending this link. Let us hope he is not having to join in the class action suit.

Curse you, Kylie!

Luckily, I carry full insurance.

Comics are an odd thing. People tend to think of them as being just stories about people in brightly clad costumes punching the daylights out of one another. And the past fifteen to twenty five years, that's mostly what you could expect from DC or Marvel comics.

But the fact is, there was a time when Superheroes knew how to get their groove on. Even at the expense of the safety of others.

God as my witness, I will learn the Krypton Crawl.

this will make Jamie chitter with delight, much like a chipmunk.

I do not have any big stories to tell today. Most of what's been going on has been work related, and that's not terribly interesting.

I must find a birthday present for my brother, Jason. It is Jason's birthday on March 17th. He will be 31.

Jason has many interests:
a) playing the guitar
b) playing the guitar while I am trying to watch TV
c) listening to his stereo as loudly as possible so he can hear it over the shower while I am trying to sleep
d) breaking my X-Wing fighter and refusing any restitution or apology
e) insisting that Batman is better than Superman
f) watching movies NO ONE ELSE IN THEIR RIGHT MIND WOULD RENT, AND THEN INSISTING "it wadn't that bad..."
g) adopting three legged dogs
h) taking three-legged dogs on slooooowwww walks
i) practicing the law
j) freeing crooks from jail
k) calling me alternately "fatty" or "bitch"
l) insisting my job entails little more than running a VCR
m) insisting his job is soooooooo difficult
n) going to eat enchiladas
o) refusing to get a haircut despite all contrary opinions and common sense
p) keeping Thundercloud Subs afloat
q) swimming
r) reading books about digruntled spies/ cops
s) keeping me abreast of the progress of the Mono Music Ensemble
t) wrestling wild boar

All in all, he has many interests. But what shall I do for him for his birthday? He has requested a hand-drawn cartoon from the League, but the League has a lot of work to do before his birthday.

This will take some sorting out. I might just send an organ grinder and a well-dressed monkey to his office on his birthday.

Like Icarus, we have flown too close to the sun.

Because I have not posted much lately, here's something to entertain.

With all due respect to people who must wear flak jackets for a living.

Seems that Randy is willing to give up the reigns on his own blog. It appears that, due to a minimum of content of late, Randy has decided others could fill in for him. And that's just fine. If you're interested in posting to RHPT.com, Randy is apparently willing to publish whatever reader's send, provided it meets his minimum safe standards.

You can see him playing with the idea here.

And him giving in to Jim D's peer pressure here.

I'm going to do this again, because it's fun.

It's already hot as a bastard out here in Phoenix. Last week I was still wearing a coat in the morning, but I left for three days, and now it's offically 90 degrees (my car thermometer said 92, for the record). Doesn't sound that hot, especially as it will be 120 degrees at some point this summer, but nobody really got time to adapt. I was told that my pal, Al, saw a girl suffer heatstroke during a soccer tournament this weekend.

Yeah, it's hot. Seems like just yesterday we were wearing sweaters in the office to keep warm, and it WAS on Thursday night when hail fell and coated the ground like snow, and it was okay to wear a coat out the door when I left work. But not now. Now it begins.

I hate you Phoenix summertime. I hate you like gum on my shoe.

Why the League refuses to travel outside these blessed United States.

two minor things:

1) Blogger.com, who hosts The League, is going to have some presence at the upcoming SXSW multimedia monkey-fest in Austin, Texas. Sounds like they're going to be at one of The League's former default destinations, Club DeVille, down on Red River.

they say: Mess with Texas Some of us Blogger folks are going to SXSW and to kick things up a notch we're serving up free drinks and t-shirts Monday evening from 6:30-8:00 on March 15th over at Club De Ville in Austin, TX. We provide beer and schwag to our users because we care.

So if you're in town, go get some free shit for The League.

2) The League just saw it's candidate of choice on cable. No, not on CNBC or Fox News or even on Nickelodeon. The Reverend Al Sharpton apparently makes a cameo in the Ryder/ Sandler vehicle, Mr. Deeds.

Home again, home again, jiggity jog.

Kudos to Continental Airlines for not losing my luggage and being relatively on time for both flights over the weekend.

All in all, the weekend was very nice. Kicked it old school on Saturday with the main family unit plus Cousin Sue and "Hopalong" Cassidy.

Sunday, it was down to me and Mum and Pop. Pop and I went and saw Hidalgo at the Woodlands megaplex theater. I'm not really sure what to say about the movie except that it was pretty much you'd expect, and my instructors from film school would have had a field day dissecting the movie. From a non-narrative strategies point of view, I liked how the movie insisted on inserting an evil "Brad"-type character with a better horse. You know, in the end, Sheik Brad will certainly get his comeuppance. We Americans are EXPERTS at doling out comeuppances. But, if you're willing to overlook some questionable thematic issues, and you want to watch a guy ride from screen left to screen right for an hour or so, have I got the movie for you.

I make it sound like I hate the movie. I really didn't. It was kind of a half-baked adventure movie, and after Club Dread, it seemed ingenious.

Anyway, me am home. Melbotis was only half-way happy to see me. It's very warm out all of a sudden, and Mel was revelling in the sun.

I'm still at Mom and Dad's. All is well. Dad thought he lost his wallet at the convenience store where we each bought a soda. Those nice people still had it.

I need to buy batteries before I get to the airport. I didn't have any in my walkman when I got on the plane. Luckily, everyone was very quiet for the duration.

Nathan Cone is an amazing human being, radio personality and musician. He's also a major film nerd.

Nathan has posted the League's review of Comic Book: The Movie to the TPR website. Look for the film icon when you scroll down the site. The link is in the middle of the page, and the review is in there.

I fly out shortly, but I am watching Sesame Street right now. And Cookie Monster has declared "Me am glutton, not liar!"

Cookie Monster, me know the feeling.

Because there's a special tidbit for Jamie if reads through to the end.

I'm not sure if Maxwell took my post of yesterday to mean that I believed she was navel gazing. On the contrary.

I am in awe, truthfully. Maxwell may be two, three years younger than myself (what is it Laura? I'm fuzzy on the details.), but she's in NYC, making a go of it as actor/ director/ creative professional. And she appears to be in a stable marriage as well.

There's a narrow window, even for the stout hearted, in these professions. Narrow windows of opportunity, of time between college and realizing the temp job is now your real job, of getting knocked up and having kids and going back out to the suburbs. Narrow windows in which we look back and say "How did I get here?" (Thanks, David Byrne).

But she's out there. She's actually walking the streets of NYC and trying to get from being the little blonde girl in the black sweater who used to bum rides home after Drama Club meetings, to being a name that passes on the lips of folks talking about putting shows on Broadway. She's somewhere between halfway there and a million miles from the passing fancy of most high school drama kids. And she's working at it, too. She's not some producer's daughter, and she's not some indie actor's model girlfriend in a walk on role. Step by step. Bit by bit.

I wonder how that happened? We were in the same program. I remember the folks around her age from that group (anyone else remember Trucker?). Something in that dusty, yawning maw of a stage made her want to try it in college. And even those bastards in UT drama didn't break her or make her throw up her hands and give Psychology 301 a shot (and from what I hear, it's the goal of the program to shatter the undergrads, but not to build them back up again).

So yesterday I catalogued a little. And I tried to pinpoint, because there was a point at which we were all churning out screenplays, and we all had ideas for stories, and we could see them in our mind's eye from beginning to end. Some of us went so far as to cast the projects, dreamed of composers and the gracious things we'd say when they mentioned our genius in print. But that's not how it works. Not most of the time.

Maxwell's right. Read her posting. She is electric. She has to be, or she'd be back in Spring, Texas wondering whether it was Chili's or Arby's tonight for dinner. Or maybe she'd still hanging out in Austin, wondering why that Third Coast thing hasn't taken off quite yet (but maybe next year...!).

So i get to do something. I get to lean on Maxwell and I get to tell her: Hey, Maxwell. A lot of us didn't even start to give ourselves a chance to be stars of stage and screen, or rock gods or poets or writers or whatever the hell we were supposed to be. So it's up to you, kid. We don't even care if you ever get your name in lights, but you don't get to quit. Not yet. You just remember that as things come to pass, and those lights start to lose their luster, you got all of us pulling for you. Go out there and do it. We all know you're electric.

Jamie's in good company.

Jamie had a transplant from her dad in 1994 and another transplant in 2001. Four kidneys the girl to toting around (no, they do not take out your old kidneys when you get a new one. That surprised me as well).

So, folks, fill out your organ donor card. When you're six feet under and pushing up daisies, I guarantee you, you are not going to need either of your kidneys anymore. Those are two kidneys which could save the lives of two people, not just one.

But you know what's gross? They transport the kidneys in something which looks like a beer cooler, more or less packed in ice. I still remember them pointing out the cooler and asking us if we wanted to see the kidney before they put it in. I had to take a pass.

Today i am the jerk who spread the virus. Thank you. Thank you very much.

there are no details yet, but NASA says they founs water on Mars. Good news, I think.

Stemming from a brief conversation I had with Randy via IM, I think a little clarification is in order. You may have noticed that there was no real hiatus in blogging. Goody for me.

The new editorial policy is that in order to get to your location, you must know how to get there. In order to know how to get where you are going, you must have a place you are trying to reach. The League has neither goal nor path in site, and, consequently, is not trying to bulldoze forward all willy-nilly.

I was struck by a certain quality in Maxwell's recent post. We roll on and on and get rolled over by the next wave and the next. And time goes on.

It's now been 21 months since I moved to Arizona. It's been almost 6 years since I graduated a year late from college. This summer, 11 years since high school. 14 years since I moved back to Houston to finish High School. 20 years since I moved to Austin the first time. 25 years since I moved to Texas the first time. Eight and a half years with Jamie. April 28th is our 4th anniversary. Almost two years since I left my favorite job. Three years since I received rejection letters from every grad school I wanted to attend. Two years, eleven months, three weeks and a handful of hours since I consciously gave up on all that film stuff. 17 months since I started working here. Seven months since I started grad school. Two months since I've been to Texas. Seven months since I've been back to Austin.

Perhaps subconsciously, the League forms a discernable pattern. For example, if one looks at the patterns in the tile long enough, your primordial brain will begin to make faces out of the shapes in the tile. But of course, those are really just geologically produced little blobs and bits. Or, at least, you know it's not really a real face and it's not going to wink at you.

Oh, and I can't believe I didn't mention this before.

Congratulations to Michael "The My" Young. He's been a pal since I got to college, and though he moved to the wilds of Seattle, we keep in touch. Not long after My moved up there, some girl I hear a lot about in Austin but never met, Brandi, moved up to Seattle, too. Well, seems old My and Brandi are going to go ahead and make it legal.

Congrats to My and Brandi.

Here's the link to his band's website.

In addition to the other horrors and atrocities plaguing our world, this one is particularly bizarre.

Apparently Leap Year Day was Superman's birthday. According to The Supermanhomepage.com:

February 29, 2004: Happy Birthday Superman!
Traditionally February 29th has been celebrated as Superman's birthday.
In Action Comics #655 (July 1990) a Smallville newspaper clipping shows Jonathan and Martha Kent had a child "on or about February 28th".

DC Comics did this as a comical way of giving a reason for Superman's slow aging in the comic books. Afterall, he only has a birthday every four years. :)



Happy Birthday, Superman!!!

I promise to pay more attention as Miracle Monday approaches.

Pointless story #452

Normally I wear sunglasses when outside, but I lost my sunglasses a few weeks ago. So last week I'm walking down the street and it's middle of the afternoon and kind of warm out, and I've been in meetings for hours. And I'm walking past this bar called Dos Gringos, and I kind of look at this guy. Not stare, but look over as one always does to ensure a person heading toward you is not weilding a meat cleaver or about to kick you in the nards. And the dude looks me in the face and I involuntarily give the "what's up?" head nod. it's about half an inch up and then back again, indicating, "I see you buddy," but that's nonverbal communication usually used for folks you know, or have even seen before.

But not for this guy, because he says "Hey, what's up?" and I'm still walking. And he's not a hipster. And he doesn't look like a guy who usually casually hi-fives people on the street. Not having sunglasses on, he can clearly see I was, in fact, looking at him.

Sidenote story: A while back i was telling my co-workers how cool it was to be in Houston in the summer of 1994 when the Houston Rockets won the NBA Championship. As part of my story, I described how folks were high-fiving total strangers out on the street, and how great the feeling of community spirit was. Apparently, my co-workers mistook that I thought in civilized society, people should be high-fiving everywhere. Anyhow, it's now an office joke that my vision of utopia would involve a lot of high-fiving. Which, upon reflection, if there's no high-fiving in heaven, I don't want to go.

So anyhow, this guy stops and turns as if to talk to me, and I stop, because I suddenly think maybe I know this guy (he is wearing sunglasses and I might not have recognized him at first.) So I stop and do the head bob again.

"So what's up?" he says again. And not threateningly, but rather with a high degree of familiarity. At this moment I realize with absolute certainty that while he looks a bit like the guy who runs my local comic shop, I do not know this guy. No clue at all who he might be. And I wonder who he thinks I am.

"Not much." I shrug.

And then he looks at me for a second, and I think he begins to realize I am NOT the guy he thought I was. Or not. I do not know. But he's not going to let this go. "So what's been going on?"

"Not much," I say, and then, looking down the street in the direction I was headed, I add: "Gotta run."

"Later."

And for some reason it left me completely flustered. I do remember talking to a girl I couldn't identify for half an hour one day when i worked at the Disney Store. I knew I SHOULD know who the girl was, and she clearly knew me, but the hangover which was screaming in my head, and the taste of stale cigar in my mouth was kind of making me miserable. She was also fairly good looking, so I WANTED to remember who she was, but it wasn't helping. I talked to her for a long while and I laughed and I kidded with her. Eventually she had to go, and I had to go back to making it look like I was working. Later, I thought maybe she was a girl I knew from a neighboring high school, but my dim memories of her from high-school had involved a lot of stage make-up, and my new memories were clouded by how very, very hungover I was.

But this wasn't even like my chance encounter with (possibly) Jenny S. This was just... some guy. Anyway, I wondered if he wondered who the hell I was, or if he was even aware I was the wrong guy. I mean, I'm always willing to pretend to be someone I'm not, but I need a little prep work and a few key details. And then i wondered how far that conversation could have gone before he realized I was not, in fact, the guy he thought I was. Especially if I insisted I WAS the person he was looking for.

Of course there is always the possibility I DID know this guy. I do that a lot. I think i haven't met somebody, but I have, in fact, spent hours with them. This happens a lot with faculty. I think I've never met them and then they get angry, insisting we met a year and a half ago. Or, even better, when I go to a meeting and realize in hour two that this is a different meeting than the one I thought I was attending. That used to happen a lot.

Anyway, wherever that dude is, I hope he's not soliciting the head bob from folks and then stopping them all over town. Moreover, i hope to god I didn't actually know that guy.

It's March 1st!

Watched the Oscars on and off last night. Billy Crystal still annoys me, and he had nothing to say about Seabiscuit except how Pete Rose likes to gamble? Given, i never saw Seabiscuit (movies about horses running in circles tend not to draw me out), but it WAS up for Best Picture. Surely he could admit he never saw the movie, too.

Was absolutely stunned Lord of the Rings made the sweep it did. At one point Star Wars was up for Best Picture. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

I never saw most the movies nominated. I never saw:

House of Sand and Fog
Mystic River
Seabiscuit
Cold Mountain
The Cooler
21 Grams
Thirteen
Pieces of April
Whale Rider
In America
City of God
The Barbarian Invasions

You know what? I did see "Broken Lizard's Club Dread" this weekend. And I'm sorry I did. Wow. Was that not good.

I could blame Tempe/ Chandler for not carrying the Oscar contenders at the megaplex, but they do carry them at the Madstone theater out by Jamie's office. I guess I just have a hard time telling what's worth seeing and what's not anymore.

I COULD go to see every movie ever produced so i could up my hip factor and have good cocktail party conversations. And I'm not suggesting that the movies on my list of "didn't see's" are bad movies. I'm just saying, when I walk into a store, I don't buy every towel they have so I can find the fluffiest towel. Nor do I go to the expensive linen store to find the "best" towel. I just buy a towel that's the right size, shape and color. Occasionally i realize this towel isn't absorbent enough, or it chafes, so i need to try another one.

Anyway, that's a crummy analogy, but hopefully it gets the point across. I used to be a 2 movie a week guy. In the theater. With a box of candy and a coke everytime. Now it's once every month, maybe less. Funny how things change.

Speaking of movies, Jim D. is fretting over the latest draft of his screenplay. He's sent it into Project Greenlight, but it looks like Project Greenlight is targeting a horror/ thriller this go-round. Best of luck to Jim. I've read the screenplay. It's very good. It is not, however, a horror movie nor an Ashley Judd vehicle.

Jim has suggested his pal Alistair might direct this film. If this is true, I foresee Jim becoming Hollywood's next Joe Eszterhas, only without all the cocaine and hookers.

I wrote a screenplay once. It was in the neighborhood of 120 pages and the characters said the "F-Word" a lot. other than that, it's best redeeming quality was that it was also recyclable.

I've been watching a LOT of Spongebob Squarepants lately. If you haven't seen this show yet, give it a shot. I am getting on the gravy train very, very late as it is, but I like me the Spongebob.

Anyhoo, going to Houston for 4 days. It's Mummsy's birthday and she's still recuperating from her surgery. So I will be flying out Friday and returning Monday. It's going to be a hot time in Spring, Texas.