Sunday, November 06, 2005

The next Spidey movie is supposed to feature 2 villains instead of just 1. We'll see how that works in practice.

The Batman movies did this for the last three installments, and Batman Begins did it as well. Prior to batman Begins I thought this was a fairly dumb idea as it burned through the characters twice as quickly without really providing much more than a lot of one-upmanship in the scenery chewing department (see Batman Forever... or, rather, don't...).

At any rate, looks like occasionally popular actor Thomas Hayden Church will be playing Spidey mainstay, The Sandman. he was signed a long time ago, but it was never made public which character he would take on.

Well, please see below:


Comic Sandman


Movie Sandman

Who is the other villain? Surprise, surprise... the rumor mill is saying "Venom" as played by Topher Grace.

No. Really.

Saturday, November 05, 2005

RATE YOUR COLLEGE "GAME" WITH PEABO and THE LEAGUE

In response to my post on ASU's Palm Walk, Peabo writes:

Steans,

Is there really that much bare-midriff walking around the ASU campus ? Was it like that when we were at UT ? I can't remember. I do know that everytime I go to a UT game I look around and think "Were there this many good looking girls when I was here ?"
Either way, it makes me think how incredibly sad my dating years were while at UT. And let's be honest, I was a pretty good looking guy. Which leads me to wonder......how poor was my game when I was on campus ?
On a scale of 1 to 10 I would have rated my college game as follows:

- Freshman year: 5 (I would rate it lower, but I refuse to believe I was ever below a 5. You either have to be unattractive, overweight, or have a personality of Tom Arnold to go below 5. And I'm talking 1980's Tom Arnold, not the more calm, sedated, non-cocaine using version we see today.

-Sophomore year: 5.5 (It picked up a little, but I still dressed like a gym rat to class, and the girlfriend dumping me totally ruined the confidence I had going and had me in the dark staring out the window listening to Air Supply and such. I was totally pussified for like a 9 month period. I'm sorry for the use of the word pussified, but seriously, there was no better descriptor.)

- Junior year: 7.5 I saw dramatic imporvement and dated so pretty good looking girls. Something had changed. I'll give credit to the fact that for the first time I really began drinking alcohol on a social level.

Senior year: 8.0 I maxed out my potential at this time in my life. My maturity level was only going to let me go so hi. And my appearance probably would not let me get much higher.

So, League, rate your college game. In fact, this would be a fun exercise for all your readers. And since a lot of them are aquaintence you can call b.s. on them if the imbellish or start making crap up.


The League thinks this is a fine idea! Rate your high school or college dating game!

Don't post to comments, though. E-mail me your reponses.

The League will kick this off describing his college game and using the 10.0 scale.

Freshman Year: Bitter towards women in general after getting shamefully dumped at the end of high school, and then having nothing but bad dating experiences before arriving at college, The League ranks a solid "4".

At age 18, The League sort of decided bathing was for suckers, wore the same hat every day for a year (a "Tire Station" baseball hat), shaved only sporadically, and mostly stunk of coffee and other people's cigarettes. Usually cranky due to too much caffeine and not enough sleep, The League went on a lot of first dates, but not a lot of second dates.

I mostly remember the girls I DID want to go out with (ie. Jamie) would not go out with me, and the girls I didn't like were the ones who would go out with me again.

Sophomore Year: I was slightly smarter sophomore year, and since I had a bathroom in my apartment, I was more likely to bathe on a regular basis. However, as there was not a barbershop in walking distance of my apartment, I was constantly in need of a haircut.

The truth is, I had started dating a girl over the summer I'd met in summer school back home, and I didn't think a lot about "my game". I give myself a "5" for the year.

Junior Year: I was full of idiot confidence beginning my first film production classes, but it had nothing at all to do with meeting girls. I started the year still dating the same girl from Sophomore year, but that was sort of on the skids before school even began.

This was the year I sort of went crazy. I was determined to look the part of a professional and was getting regular haircuts, shaving daily, eating well and spent each morning pressing my shirts before going to class.

I was completely uninterested in dating, and that meant my existing relationship melted down early on in the year. But, as they say, these things tend to fall in your lap when you aren't looking.

Shortly after my other relationship fizzled, I went to see David Bowie with Jamie, and we started dating after that. By dating, I mean, we never actually dated. She just sort of hung her hat and never left.

My game for that year? A "2.3".


Senior Year Numero Uno: Jamie was well planted in my life at this point. I was still in film school and double-majoring in history.

I was smoking cigars a lot and still pressing my shirts. We had a "Phat Beach" poster in my kitchen, and infrequently cleaned.

A solid "2.2".


Senior year Numero Dos: Could not be less impressive. Jamie had sort of lived with me all summer, and I was carrying 18 hours and working. Any hint of "professionalism" I used to try to keep up went out the window.

Also, living in an efficiency by myself, I decided bathing was optional once again. Was smoking a lot of cigarettes and drinking about two pots of coffee a night. I wasn't ever sleeping. Yeah, I got a lot of work done, but I also firmly believed 5 hours of sleep a night was A LOT of sleep.

Game "1.3"


Okay, Leaguers! Time to play! Send in your game...

Friday, November 04, 2005

The League heaps love on Congress

I normally don't take up space here with political mumbo-jumbo. But I want to take a moment to point out that I am really pleased with a recent move by the kids on The Hill.

Check this out.

Don't ask me why, but this issue really, really bothered me. So I'm glad to see it bothered Congress, too.

Thursday, November 03, 2005

Why should you watch Smallville tonight?

Because there's a terrific pair you don't want to miss.

Wait, that's not right.

Here's the pair!

Tom Wopat joins John Schneider for tonight's episode of Smallville.

And, yes, the writers have put Lois into a scene where she has to be a stripper for a day.

Sigh.

It seems not all that long ago the show was about a young Superman...

Wednesday, November 02, 2005

Hey all

There is a post today! It's just not here.

Go to nanostalgia.com to find it.

Also, according to HotorNot.com, I am now uglier than I was a few months ago when I posted my photo. Back then I was a 7. Now I am a 6. How sad. As winter comes, you would think a chubby man would look warmer and more desirable to the ladies.

Oh, and check this out. Palmwalk.com is a site like hotornot.com where you can rate the ladies of campus I work on. Apparently it's entirely legal to take photos of these girls as they're in public, and even more legal to rate them. SWEET.

According to the usual rules of engagement, the girls are supposed to retaliate with a site where guys get rated from, say, the Union. Hasn't happened.
Babies + Costumes = Content Gold

The League has been swamped lately with a bunch of stuff we'll not go into here. We more or less missed Halloween hanging out at Desert Banner Medical Center as the doctors tried to figure out what to do with Jamie.

My opinion (sell her to the gypsies) was roundly ignored. She had a short surgery on Saturday to fix her, well.. it's complicated. Anyway, she may have more surgery again in the future, but we'll cross that bridge when we ge to it, I guess.

Suffice it to say, Halloween was a bust, and we spent our 10 year anniversary eating Chik-Fil-A off the roll away table in her hospital room.

Football was a hoot this weekend. UT came back from an idiotic defecit to win by an idiotic margin. If I was in Stillwater, i'd be feeling a little bummed about the whole thing.

Fortunately, not everyone had a boring and antiseptic smelling Halloween.

And that's why babies are content gold here at The League.


Arden rocks the house as an elephant




Reed dresses Meredith in proud Vikings purple and gold. He's starting the indoctrination now.
Meredith wouldn't be smiling like that if she knew how the Vikings were doing! Ha ha!

Well, at least he's not dressing her as a Cardinals fan.




And Meredith and Jen among the pumpkins.

Tonight kicked off the official NBA season.

Spurs looked awful and STILL won by a significant margin. Suns looked good, but lost to the evil Dallas Mavs. And I hate Mark Cuban. Won't somebody please kick that moron in the crotch?

The TNT team gained a mime-quiet Reggie Miller, retaining the punch drunk Charles Barkley, affable Kenny Smith and that boring guy, Ernie. Hopefully Reggie will stpe up and talk, because they need as many leashes as possible on Charles. Don't get me wrong. I LOVE Sir Charles, but, like the Sunday morning Fox Football show, you need three guys to sort of corral Terry.

Anyway, the season begins! Huzzah for our Suns and Spurs.

Sunday, October 30, 2005

The League's Halloween Costume selections throughout the years!

In lieu of a Halloween contest (which not one of you entered. Judy, I'm looking at you!), a comprehensive look at what I recall dressing up as each year as far back as I can remember.


Pre-school: Clown, I think. I think this was the year it was hot and flooded, but my mom had made a clown costume. So I was a sweaty clown.

Kindergarten: Han Solo. Wore black pants, white shirt, black vest my mother had made. Carried a back toy gun which was not the official licensed Han Solo blaster. I also recall my mother had, in a panic, bought me a plastic Spider-Man costume as she was afraid she wouldn't finish the vest.

1st Grade: Chewbacca. Plastic costume out of a box. I was delighted to be Chewbacca because, unlike being a dude in a white shirt and church pants, nobody asked what I was.

2nd Grade: Hand-sewn ET costume. Thereby hangs a tale for another day, but thank God for my grandmother overcoming her painful arthritis and translating pages and pages of instructions from English to Finnish so she could make me this outfit. I still have it, btw. It's an amazing costume. My grandma was awesome.

3rd Grade: Was going to be "Dracula Jr." until it was pointed out my costume of a hand-made t-shirt reading "Dracula Jr." was, in fact, moronic, even with brylcreme in my hair. Instead, I Carried my sword and shield from the RenFest and wore my plastic spaceman helmet. I was a "space knight".

4th Grade: Tried to go traditional with a white sheet. I was a ghost. I also painted my face white. I remember sweating a lot.

5th grade: No recollection. I went out with this kid, Matt. He was a ninja and carried real throwing stars and I was convinced we'd get arrested.

6th grade: Tore up Dad's old shirt, covered it in fake blood, was an accident victim.

7th grade: same. I do recall we got into a fight with some older kids. I had knownt his might happen and put cans of soup in my "candy bag". I walloped one of the kids in the knee and took him down. Dad got pissed that I tore up another shirt. I remember that one very clearly.

8th grade: black and white face paint. Went to a haunted house somewhere.

9th grade: Nothing. I was doing homework for Mrs. Fort's English class.

10th grade: No costume. Dispersed candy. We'd just moved to Houston and I didn't know anybody.

11th grade: Pimp. Kind of. I wore a bowler and carried a cane and wore a long coat. I went to Jill's house with Mari Johnson who was dressed as a purple fairy.

12th grade: I was Alex from Clockwork Orange for the Drama Club party. Halloween night I was pretty much myself, I think. Sort of a spooky thing in 1992. Went and saw Dracula at the theater across the street from Willowbrook Mall.

Prior to Halloween I went and worked at the American Heart Association's haunted house in Downtown Houston down by Spaghetti Warehouse (this is a nice are now. It wasn't then.). It was a very expensive and cool haunted house. I worked in the "eletrocution room" where I wore a hockey mask and was repeatedly "electrocuted" all night.

Then Frank, the electrocutioner, and myself decided that we needed some drama in our scenario, so we added a fake fight. Unfortunately, as part of our fight, Frank and I slammed into a wall. And then went through the wall. I don't remember how we ended our little scene, but I do recall the very awkward minute as I stood and stared at Frank sort of just lying there on the other side and we were both sort of laughing and sort of horrified.

Well, that's 60 year old dry-wall for you, I guess. I hope we impressed the drunk Houstonians who paid $10 to get in.

Freshman in college: I was SUPPOSED to be a cyborg. But then I had a paper due and didn't go out until midnight. Went to a haunted house on 6th street.

The next day I found out a guy from my floor had used the stuff I was going to use to be a cyborg and applied the pieces with rubber cement, which had basically chemically burned his skin off. A near-miss, to be sure.

Sophomore year: Gangster. A very drunk 1930's era gangster. I went out with three other guys all in "gangster" clothes. It was actually kind of cool. Excpet some dude kept asking us if we'd seen "Big Eddie". He was just drunk enough to believe he was high-larious. He was wrong.

Junior year: recycled gangster, and Jamie was a nun.

Senior year Numero Uno: I had an exam in Roman History: The Republic. Studied my butt off and only got a "B"

Senior year Numero Dos: I'm ashamed to say I think I recycled the gangster costume again. Jamie was a flapper.

1998: I was a zombie! It was a great costume! My make-up rocked. Little kids who saw me thought I was a prop and I made someone cry. Jamie was Catwoman, and she was adorable.

1999: Mad scientist. Jamie had located a white lab coat for me.

However, the prize for that year was Steanso's innovative "The Blair Witch", which comprised of a pair of deely-bobbers. I think Jamie might have been a bee.

2000: I have no recollection. i recall I got home late from work and Jamie was handing out candy, and I had to run and get more. I guess I didn't have a costume. I think Jamie was a bee.

2001: Mad scientist. Mostly I remember we had no trick or treaters because everyone thought there would be anthrax in the candy. Jamie was a cat.

2002: Nothing. Dispersed candy.

2003: Nothing. I wore my Superman T-Shirt under my shirt while i handed out candy

2004: Green Lantern. I wanted to be John Stewart, but I'm a white guy, so I guess I was Hal Jordan. Handed out candy. Jamie was a bee.

2005: I'm looking for a "King" mask from Burger King. If that doesn't pan out, I'll just be Weird Neighbor #12.

All links courtesy the Retrocrush Costume archive.