Friday, December 16, 2005

IT'S A VERY CHEWY CHRISTMAS

You know, somehow Christmas and Wookies keep intersecting here at The League.

Longtime Leaguer Peabo sends along this Christmas entertainment that's fun and safe for the whole family. No seriously. My co-workers enjoyed this, too.

Crank up your speakers, especially if you're at work.

Wednesday, December 14, 2005

Dear Iraq,

Best of luck on your upcoming elections.

I don't pretend to try to understand the vast social issues and religious/ ethnic issues that seem to make-up most news about Iraq. I am not sure how the whole thing is going to play out, but I'm also a glass-half-empty kind of guy.

Let me give you some friendly hints from your Ol' Uncle League on living in a quasi-democracy.

I've decided to make this a print out so you can clip and put in your pocket as a quick study guide while getting ready to vote.

----------------------cut here----------------------------------------------

THE LEAGUE'S GUIDE TO ENDURING THE JOYS OF DEMOCRACY

1) Your candidate will probably lose. Especially in a plural-party society, which is what I think you guys have. Yes, this is frustrating as hell, but as a registered Democrat in AZ and formerly in Texas, I can assure you that you soon learn that the feelings of despair will go away. Do not pick up a gun to remove all opposition. This will not lead to more elections which will go your way.

Try liquor instead.

2) You will stand in a curiously slow moving line for a great deal of time. Yes, old people in front of you will seem not to actually know what they are voting for and you will hear some lady brightly declare whom she is voting for and why, which will reveal the fact that she has completely misinterpted or confused what she heard on the radio during the Wacky Morning Wake-Up Show's 1 minute of news between the Brangelina update and a Paris Hilton fart joke. Yes, she still gets to vote. Do not get discouraged. Do not pick up a gun to try to shorten the line. This will not lead to a speedier voting process.

Try liquor instead.

3) The winning candidates will assume God wanted them to win and suggest that God does not like your candidate (ie: You). Do not pick up a gun to try ot convince them otherwise. This will not lead to God liking your candidate (ie: You) more.

Try liquor instead. Or prayer. Maybe they pray better than you. You call that piety? My grandma's more pious than your infidelic ass. Shit.

4) An oddity of the democratic process is that sometimes really stupid things which appeal to people but which aren't actually a good idea in the long term will win the ballot. Do not pick up a gun to try to change the situation. This will not lead to you getting light-rail in your area.

I would suggest liquor, but that won't get you to work any more efficiently. Perhaps coffee?

----------cut here------

That's my guide to democracy. I don't know what it's actually like to have your opinions carried by your representative or for a candidate you selected (unless you count the time I voted in the Blockbuster Movie Awards), but something like 1-in-5 of you will experience a shred of that joy. I'm heard it's joyous. I still don't really know.

Oh, and no matter how much it seems to make sense at the time, do not vote for Ralph Nader. You will spend years (yes, YEARS) wishing you hadn't decided that you'd chosen that particular moment in the booth as your chance to take a pot-shot at the two-party system.

Again, if you do vote for Nader, liquor helps. And maybe a gun. That's still up in the air.

Love,

Your Uncle League

PS: Pro-wrestlers and actors make suspiciously likable candidates but get mixed results in their actual jobs once elected.

Tuesday, December 13, 2005

The Leage of Melbotis 2005 Year in Review, Part 1

It's the end of 2005. Well, no, I mean, we've got a few weeks left, but we imagine we're going to be rather indisposed during those crucial weeks. And if VH1 can already have it's 2005 Year in Review show, The League can slap together our own little list.

Moment I Wish I Could Quash Forever From My Mind: Watching the news all day after Katrina hit the Gulf Coast and hearing the various local leaders pleading for assistance and knowing none was coming. The effect was doubled by FEMA's arrogant insistence that they had the situation under control when they very clearly did not, especially the interview in which FEMA learned of the folks holed up in the Convention Center.

And then bracing for Rita. Actually, just quash late-September thru Halloween. Thanks.

Best Addition to League HQ: Lucy "Goosey" Pumpkinpie. The little nipper has been nothing but a peeing, poop-eating bundle of joy. I'd feel worse about the terror Jeff the Cat now lives in, but he sort of deserves it.

Oddest Moment of the Year: Standing in the Post-Op room after Jamie had her Thanksgiving Friday surgery, listening to soft-rock Christmas songs with the nurses and recounting for Jamie's amusement the Suns game I'd watched while she was in surgery. I didn't get into too many specifics as I knew full well she was under so much anaesthesia, she wouldn't even know I'd talked to her. And then in the morning she didn't remember talking to me, but she knew the Suns had won.

Also, being woken up in the waiting room at 3:00AM by some person telling me "The cafeteria's open for another half hour!"

Greatest Personal Acheivement, 2005: None. I can't think of one useful thing I did in 2005. Did I do ANYTHING? I can't remember. It sure doesn't seem like it.

Greatest Personal Letdown: Realizing I did nothing in 2005 about ten seconds ago. Well, this year hasn't been a super amount of fun, so, you know, I guess it stands to reason. Still... Hmmm.

Ya'll excuse The League while he goes off to stick his head in the oven.

Okay, we're back! Electric oven.

Topic the League has been Far Too Obsessed With: Infinite Crisis. If you think The League talks too much about comics here, Jamie has to put up with it at home. I suspect her many trips to the hospital have been in order to escape my endless ranting on the genius of DC Comics this year.

Best Moment on TV: imoscar.com

Best Moment on JLU: The Flash taking out Brainiac. If you missed it, I pity you. Go, Wally.

Athlete of the Year: Vince Young. Wait... what was your answer? You are wrong. I have pie graphs and star charts which prove you are wrong. I, personally, want to pick Shawn Marion of The Suns, but this year, I gotta go with Vince.

League's Actor of the Year: Steve Carell, for The 40-Year Old Virgin and the under-rated American version of The Office. If you're one of the folks turning your nose up at the American version, get over yourself. You're missing one of the funniest shows on American TV. But we pick Steve mostly for not becoming an annoying celebrity.

Actress of the Year: That one red-headed actress who is in like half the commercials on TV. Way to go red-headed actress. Your agent is really working overtime!

Politician of the Year: Nobody won this category this year.

Greatest Injustice Which isn't Really an Injustice of the Year: Cancellation of Arrested Development. We knew they were pure evil at Fox for cancelling Andy Richter a few years ago, but then keeping The War at Home?

Best Comic Moment of the Year: Infinite Crisis #1. Batman tells Superman "The last time you really inspired anyone was when you were dead." Ouch. Immediately followed by the return of Superman from Earth 2.

Comic fans who didn't enjoy this issue are dead inside.

Worst Comic Moment of the Year: So many, many to choose from. I would have to say realizing that the 12-issue "City of Crime" story in Detecetive Comics wasn't going to get any better in issue #8, and knowing all too well I would still finish out the series anyway.

Best Comic Movie of the Year: Batman Begins. Yes, yes... Sin City was more daring, and A History of Violence was on all kinds of critics' lists. But Batman Begins was the Batman movie I'd been wanting to see since I was 12. Plus, it made me fall in love with the Batmobile all over again.

Most Unnecessarily Exciting Moment of the Year: Trailer for Superman Returns on Smallville.

Most Unnecessarily Depressing Moment of the Year: Aquaman on Smallville.

Loyal Leaguer of the Year: Jim D. for hosting the Superman screening in Beaumont, Texas. Yes, Jim, the projector broke and all the bars were closed, but none of that can be considered your fault. I blame Randy.

Thing I would Normally Never Admit, but I Shall Admit Here: Every week, without fail, I watch "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition". I don't even like it, but I watch it every damn week. Why is that?

This is sort of fun for me, even if it's not fun for you. I decided this was only Part 1 a while ago. I shall do a Part 2 later.

Keep your eyes peeled. And if you have any other ideas for categories, just put them in the comments section below. Thanks!

Monday, December 12, 2005

The League in other media!

Hey, Leaguers!

Nathan Cone of San Antonio based Texas Public Radio has asked The League to do a review of the recently released Adventures of Superman Season 1 DVD collection.

Nathan posted The League's $0.02 on the series. Click here to read The League's review.

Also, I've reposted the review on Nanostalgia.com, which I am sure nobody is visiting.

Saturday, December 10, 2005

IT'S CHRISTMASTIME AT LEAGUE HQ


Welcome to Christmas Time at League HQ!!!! It's our annual tour of the same crap you saw last year. Only different! Hey, if you look closely, you can see my Wonder Woman ornament showing some gam in this picture. HOO-AHHH!!!

You can click on any picture for a slightly larger version to REALLY get the detail.


Jamie has decided we're doing Nutcrackers. Lookitem. All the cute little nutcrackers. It's Pirate, Soldier/ Drummer, Weird Uncle Nic, and Drunk Bavarian. Plus 4 little people nutcrackers.


Fleurs.


Our Rudolph toys. Huzzah!


Stockings! 6 this year. From left to right:
Jason, Jamie, Ryan, Melbotis, Jeff and Lucy


My ma sent this last year. It's the magic bell from Polar Express.


Our table awaiting Christmas Cards. Oh, look. It's a card from a certain Loyal Leaguer!


The Nativity set. This is an awful picture. Sorry.


Our tree. The new fake tree, all adorned and merry. You can see Jeff walking off frame.


Great Rao! A red star for Christmas?




See if you can see Superman anywhere on my tree.


Any luck yet?


Jamie and Jeffer.


Outside our house.


The yard in the dark.


Judy brought this all the way from Oklahoma. It's the highlight of our yard. So very festive.


Jeff and I wish you a Merry Christmas. And I need to go back to the gym. Jesus, look at that.


Jeff plans a long winter nap.
Richard Pryor RIP

Thursday, December 08, 2005

A trailer for an all new family movie that will teach us about life, laughter and the power of love...

A trailer for the feature film "Shining".

THanks to Nathan for the trailer.
Christmas music for Randy...

Check out Bit Shifter's Christmas songs here.
Phoenix Suns win their 8th in a row against the Golden State Warriors (suck on that, all of California!).

read more here

One of the interesting bits commentators Tom Leander mentioned two games ago (I think it was Tom) was that when we lost Joe Johnson to Atlanta this summer, we picked up some of our finest players for under $10 million combined. That was Boris Diaw, Raja Bell, House, and, I think, Grant. I can't exactly recall. But a big part of the Phoenix Suns current line-up were considered second string scrubs on their previous teams, and with the Suns, this group combined appears to be one of the contenders for this year's play-offs.

Yes, yes... It's only December and I'm being very premature. BUT, we don't have Amare back yet, and Leandro should be coming back soon, too. Not to mention Grant.

By the way, I now publicly apologize for saying, back in November "I'm not sure I think much of this House guy." I take all of that back. Forgive me, Mr. House.

Wednesday, December 07, 2005

New Superman Returns Photos...



Superman and Lois get snuggly. That chest emblem isn't as small as I think people were thinking. It looks pretty good. I think I'll get one.



Maybe it's the season, but he looks like a Christmas tree. I've decided I like the suit. I really like what Alex Ross does with his paintings of the suit best, but this is a pretty darn cool movie version. Still digging the belt.


And here's Lois. You know, Lady Leaguers... as I often tell Jamie, glasses are not a bad thing.
Suns beat Trailblazers 130-85

read more here

Tuesday, December 06, 2005

And as if by magic...


The X-Men 3 trailer is up.

Actually, it looks pretty good. Is that Juggernaut wandering around behind Magneto?

If this doesn't make Randy as giddy as a school girl, what will?

I'm glad to see Jean Grey is around. We finally get Colossus and Shadowcat. But it looks like we also get a funeral. Someone is getting whacked. Ah, well.

Monday, December 05, 2005

Man or Beast?

With Bryan Singer departing the X-Men movie franchise in order to work on Superman Returns, Fox pictures decided to move ahead with X-Men 3 utilizing Brett "I'm an Idiot" Ratner at the helm. If the name sounds familiar, it's because Ratner is the same Brett Ratner who WB fired from Superman as mentioned in last week's post.

In the upcoming film, Cheers and Frasier star Kelsey Grammer is not just the voice of Dr. Henry "Hank" McCoy (a.k.a. Beast), but he's also, ACTUALLY Beast. Good call. Paunchy 50-year old dudes always make the best superheroes. Especially superheroes whose primary powerset includes Spider-Man like agility.

Here is The Beast as depicted in X-Men comics:



Here is Kelsey Grammer as Beast:



Here is Kelsey Grammer as Beast:



Oh, sorry... That's Kelsey Grammer as Scrooge in 2004's "A Christmas Carol". Still, you know... If blue mutton chops are all you need to be an X-Man, I need to inform some key folks from Guadalupe Street in Austin that they're laying down on the job as the foremost superheroes of our day.

And here's Grammer displaying his amazing agility which earned him the part of the super-agile Hank McCoy.

Discuss...

Sunday, December 04, 2005

Friday I was leading some visitors from Shanghai across campus (Robin, Kevin, and my man Pinocchio). We have a semi-annual art fair outside my office and I had to walk them through the art fair to get to campus.

"Uh..." said Robin.
"Yes?" I said.
"What is that?" He was pointing at someone dressed in a full-body Grinch costume.
"That's the Grinch. He, uh... he tries to steal Christmas."
There was some blinking going on. "He's from a children's story."
"Ohhhhhhh..." and they all ran off to take pictures of the Grinch.
"Uhhhhmmm..." they said as we walked along a little further.
"Yes?"
"Does nobody here work on Friday?"
"Uh..." I looked around. Who the heck ARE these people who aren't working on Friday afternoon? Sure, I saw a lot of retirees, but I also saw a lot of people who should have been at work. "I suppose maybe they... I'll be honest... I have no idea."
"What is...?"
"What is this for?"
"Yes."
"It's sort of an art fair. For Christmas."
They sort of stared at me.
"Christmas is a Holiday. It's, uhmm..." I looked at the 3-foot carved wooden rabbit statues for sale and tried to figure out how to tie the kernel corn, crappy street magic show and guy playing steel drums in a tent nearby to the birth of Christ.
"People exchange a lot of presents. It's a family holiday."
"Ah...."
"And, you know, the Grinch tries to steal all of that."
Anyway, I sort of miss Kevin, Robin and my man, Pinocchio. They were going to Vegas for the weekend, and all i could do to forewarn them was tell them to preset a spending limit. Hope they had fun.

Huzzah!

The Phoenix Suns are looking like they're going to be a lot of fun again this season. It's taken me a bit, but I feel like I know who the current roster is (only to be scrubbed during trades later in the season), and I think Mike D'Antoni has put together a pretty darn good squad.

Consider: Amare and Leandro haven't been able to play and we were still up by as much as 32 points during tonight's contest with the insanely bad Atlanta Hawks (for Atlanta Leaguers, you have my synpathies). Also, Grant is out for a bit. Your Phoenix Suns are as strong off the bench as they were off the bench last season, if not more so.

I was sad for Joe Johnson and the Hawks who seem like they need a great deal of team counseling. Good GOD, man, is that a team in disarray. Joe was one of our starters here last year, and he's still got a place in my heart. Sadly, the $70 million the Hawks offered Joe had a big place in HIS heart, so we lost him.

Anyhoo, Go SUNS.

Further, anyone watch the Big 12 Championship Game?

I'll be honest, The League is a bit of a "glass is half-empty" sort of guy. I dropped Judy off at the airport on Saturday and went shopping for Christmas decorations rather than watching the first half of the game. I just couldn't take it. I just want for UT to get to the Rose Bowl, but if we were going to blow the Big 12 Championship, I couldn't stand to bear witness.

Luckily, not so much a problem. What was the score? 70 to 3?

I don't care if you don't care about sports. 70 TO 3. And that was with NO points in the 4th quarter from UT.

Wow.

We did go and get some decorations and League HQ is now a Holiday Wonderland! Our tree is lovely and red. We have red glass ornaments, red bead garland and a big red star atop the tree (Jamie is a devout Maoist). Superman, Spidey and the gang have all found spots among the branches, and, heck, Leaguers, it's all pretty festive. And let me tell you, Jamie deserves some festiveness right now.

I think I'll take a few photos and see what ya'll think.

Thursday, December 01, 2005

Hi Leaguers - Mrs. League here, back from el hospital. Am typing one handed so this will be short - just wanted to thank everyone for their support and good wishes! It's good to be home and I hope this time I can stay home.

Looks like I got out of the GPS business too early:

"Turn left in 500 feet....fool!"
December 1st is World AIDS Day.

Read more here.

Wednesday, November 30, 2005

Good news and Bad News here at The League

Good news first:

Want to have the World's Greatest Superheroes deliver your mail for you?

Well, DC has teamed with the US Postal Service in order to create 20 stamps of 10 of DC's greatest superheroes (that's 2 stamps of 10 separate heroes for those of you unwilling to try the math).

Read up on this bold move by the US Postal Service here.

Now the BAD news:

Leaguers in the Central Texas area may be subjected to the incontinence-inducing tunes of Austin-based rock and roll combination: CRACK.

Crack features not one, but TWO Loyal Leaguers and Nanostalgia contributors: the aptly named CrackBass and the shame of the Family Steans, Cleveland Steanso. Unskilled attorneys by day, incompetent rock gods by night.

CrackBass writes:

crack (featuring special friend Gary Meyer) will be performing its annual spectacle this Friday, December 2, 2005 at Ruta Maya, 3601 South Congress (http://rutamaya.net/hours-location.html) crack comes on promptly at 9:00, off at 9:45, so arrive accordingly. Real bands to follow, so stick around!

Doug sent this along...

It seems to be a music video for a song about Superman.

Normally songs about Superman kind of wear me out (Jimmy Olsen's Blues, whatever that song is by Three Doors Down). In fact, aside from "I am Superman" performed by (but not originally by) REM, I try to ignore most Superman pop and rock songs.

But I kind of dig this. Just make sure you put on your headphones or watch this at home as it gets kind of loud.

Superman short film.
Normally I don't point to The Onion or The Onion AV Club as I assume you all know that The Onion is required reading for all Loyal Leaguers.

But this struck me as particularly funny. Follow the link. And make sure you go on thru to the MetLife website in question.

Poor ol' Charlie Brown.

Tuesday, November 29, 2005

I am happy to report that Jamie has returned home.

I am also happy to report that Judy gifted me this evening with a giant inflatable snow globe for the front yard. That thing is just HUMMING, man. It's pretty darn awesome.

What's even more awesome is that we don't have any other decorations up yet, so there's just the giant snowglobe in the front yard.

Jamie is very tired, but she's in really good spirits. Hopefully she'll continue to feel well. Right now she's going through some post-surgery stuff with surgical sites being sore, but aside from that, I think she's doing okay. Just sort of pokey and slow moving.

Also, I received two new CDs in the mail this week, completely unsolicited.

Ace of Base
and
Digital Underground's "Sex Packets"

Truly, the season of giving is upon us.