SCREW YOU, GINOBILI!!!
and
The Gross Story

Normally I love Manu. He's a great player, and he's on the Spurs, which gets him extra points. But Saturday night Ginobili took one of his famously unnecessary flops, landing squarely on the ankle of Suns player Leandro Barbosa.

Leandro was Steve Nash's back-up last season, and he was good, but not amazing. This season, Leandro has really matured, and he's been doing a lot ot carry the team. Until, of course, Manu plopped down on his own butt once again, rolling back and hitting Leandro, thus taking Leandro out of the game and out of play for the next two-to-three weeks.

And so I say: Screw you, Ginobili!

I gotta stick with my Suns. Why you gotta be flopping on my guys like that?

Ok.

Want to hear a gross story?

My air conditioning in my car recently died. Could be worse. It's now fairly temnperate in the Valley of the Sun, but driving around all day with the windows down doesn't do much for your hair. So, I put on my Phoenix Suns cap around 2:00 on Saturday, finally taking it off at 9:00 when I decided it was time for a hop in the tub. I don't take baths often, but last night seemed like a good time to soak, so I put in some bubbles and hopped in the water.

I ran the hot water, poured some into a cup and rinsed my hair, and was enjoying the bubbles, when I started in with the shampoo. And then I noticed a clump of something in my hair. I scrubbed a bit and it came out in a single mass. I looked down into my hand, and there in my hand were the curled remains of a big, ol' desert spider.

I screamed like a little girl and tossed the body of the spider into the bubbles, which was probably not very smart. Anyhoo, Jamie lept to my rescue and suggested I drain the tub, which I did.

I washed my hair three times and tried not to think too hard about the poor spider suffocating to death between my head and the hat.

The hat, sadly, wound up in the trash as I would never be able to look at it the same way again.

The most curious part if the whole situation was that we went out and picked up some dinner around 7:30, and while we were out, my feet inexplicably began to itch. I'm not sure there's a connection, but... I dunno. I'm not dead, but I didn't gain amazing spider powers, so I'm calling the whole thing a wash.

I can tell you this: I'm going to be checking my hats a lot more before putting them on. Especially with all the prehistoric freaky bugs living in this town.

Toys That Should Not Be: Alarming Superman Returns Edition

BWAH HA HA HA HA HA

Here is the first licensed product from the upcoming Superman Returns

The League will NOT be getting this particular item.

The Ken Doll Superman

Home for the Holidays?

Well, Mrs. League is home once again.

Last Sunday Jamie went into the hospital with some weird breathing problems. We've had some interesting medical issues here at League HQ over the years, but breathing hadn't yet made the list.

At first I thought Jamie had some sort of upper-respiratory infection, but it went from "a little trouble breathing" to "horrendous wheezing and gasping" pretty quickly. Luckily, when we hit that point we were already in the ER. (And just a quick reiteration, the real world ER is nowhere as romantic or exciting as the one on TV. Mostly you repeat your medical history ten times to ten different people and they look at you sort of blankly. Also, answering lots of insurance questions).

Mad props go out to the doctor who prescribed the upper-throat breathing treatment, because that really, really helped.

Anyhoo, Jamie was moved upstairs into the hospital around 7:00pm, and from there, Jamie's usual doctors got to work. Her blood levels were all out of whack and they needed to keep an eye on her.

Jamie's mom flew in (again) and helped out this week, sleeping in the weird pleather chairs they provide for visitors.

The bottom line is that Jamie is going to go on dialysis (again) and will get on the list for kidney transplant (again). So while we may have taken a step backward from the pheresis treatments Jamie was getting, she's gonna get on the list for a new kidney.

Jamie came home Friday, and we've been trying to just enjoy a little peace and quiet. While the hospital is as nice as they can make it, it's still the hospital, and I think Jamie is happy not to be hanging out with an IV in her arm and electrodes stuck all over her body.

If you have a kidney you aren't currently using, or one which you think you could spare, please put it in an envelope and send to

Jamie's Kidney Bank
1234 Arizona Ave.
Chandler, AZ
85249

We'll be having Jamie's side of the family in this week for Turkey Day, so expect posts to remain infrequent until after the holiday. Lots of prep to do and not a lot of time to do it in.

Anyway, that's the scoop. Hope it explains why things have been so quiet on this end.

SUPERMAN RETURNS TEASER TRAILER NOW ONLINE

click here to check it out

It's all on the Superman Returns website.



Or else check out the link from the Superman Homepage

Up, up and away...

The League goes political

Recently the President of the United States has been partaking in a "counter-offensive" as both press and politicians have been raising questions about the reasoning and evidence produced to draw the US into the ongoing war in Iraq. President Bush has stated that those questioning the war at this point are "deeply irresponsible".

I would point you toward this evening's installment of "The Adventures of Steanso", in which former Marine Lee Thweatt reflects upon the situation.

Go here to read.

That creeping silence you've been hearing at The League has been a lot of unfortunate distraction.

We've got a lot of unfun stuff going on, but I'll let Jamie fill you in when she's home again.

Anyhoo, here's the good news: the teaser trailer for Superman Returns will air tomorrow night during Smallville.

I guarantee that it will knock your socks off. So go set your DVRs and TiVOs, Leaguers! It's SUPERMAN!!! (and we here at The League are quite fond of The Man of Steel...)

Anyway, look for it. it'll also be showing in some theaters with Harry Potter this weekend.

Up, up and away!

Suns off to a rocking 2-3 start!

Ugh.

Well, they've got 3 new guys on their starting line, Amare is out, and Steve is falling apart.

Ugh.

Luckily, this Bell guy is really good and Diaw seems to be working out. We're not getting killed out there, but, still... it's a 2-3 start.

Gotta stick with my boys. I know they'll turn it around.

Thanks, Moms

Word to our mothers.

The League and Mrs. League have been having a hard time of late, and due to some unforeseen difficulties, we were in need of some extra help around League HQ.

Special thanks to Judy and the KareBear for coming out to the miserable desert for a week each and offering a helping hand.

The League especially enjoyed the visits as The League got away without cooking for two weeks and only occasionally doing dishes.

Hooray for Moms!

Aquaman to get own TV series...
also
Sweet mother of crap! Has the whole world gone mad?

Look, THE LEAGUE LIKES AQUAMAN! Do not let it be said otherwise.

Based on the strength of the "Aquaman" episode of Smallville the WB is working on a Smallville spin-off for the King of the Seven Seas.

Aquadork is getting his own show.

The League has a theory. Here it is (hold on to your hats):

Good looking people in swimsuits sell ad-space.

Aquaman's comics do not even begin to lend themselves to being a good idea for TV. They mostly take place underwater and involve a complex monarchy system, losses of limbs and dead babies. And a sidekick named "Garth".

My guess is nobody but about a handful of comic nerds knows or cares about Aquaman's story, and we can expect for all of that to be scrapped for a beachside resort which constantly faces crooks and criminals of the supernatural variety.

Yes, Aquaman is being turned into Baywatch Nights. (And, yes, at the height of X-Files' popularity, Baywatch Nights became a show about supernatural menaces).

Oh, Leaguers...

The League supposes we will watch the pilot as we are often wrong, and we are always curious to see how mainstream supoerhero properties will be mangled in the wrong hands.

Famous DJ not only Rocks San Antonio's Face Off, Also Rates Game

Nathan C. writes in:

Game? What the heck...?

I don't even think I had any game at all while at TU. This is going to sound really nerdy, but while I was in school, I had little to no interest in a relationship. Therefore, I went on few dates. Make that almost NO dates. I had a girlfriend for a few months during my sophomore year, and decided I'd rather be playing music with the Stray Toasters and inventing new cocktails with Frank in my spare time than dating. It was only after I graduated that I took any interest in such things.

So, Game during college? I'd rate it a 2.3. I am pretty clueless, and so I didn't really know if someone was interested in me or not unless they hit me over the head. And then there was the time a good lady friend flat out told me, "Look, we can't take it any farther than friends," and that was that.

--Nathan

Come on, Leaguers! Write in with your tale of college-era dating woe!

With Aplogies to Doug...
from whom I am stealing a great idea.

We're not to Christmas yet, but I need to do some shopping soon. I don't want to shop in the middle of mark up season.

The big question this year is: What to get Jason?

Or, as I shall put it into song by pictograph...



+




_



=


?

Yesterday the doors of The League's past were flung wide open, and who should come popping out?

Denise!

It's been years since The League heard from Denise, but we were pleased as punch to hear from our old college and high school buddy. If not for Denise's excellent driving skills one fateful night in 1993, I would never have been in San Antonio and never met the future Mrs. League. For that contribution, we're all eternally grateful. Mad props to Denise for her part in crafting The League's future.

Denise also took me to see L7 in high school. There was an all day music fest at UofH, and one of the opening acts was early 90's Canadian rapper "Snow". Remember Snow? I do.

Folks at the show noticed Snow was lip synching and called him on it. I'm not sure how it happened, but it ended with Snow being pulled into the crowd and security needing to rescue him.

Sometimes I really miss Houston audiences. I ask you, where else are they going to beat you up for lip synching?

Anyway, Denise is apparently now kicking it old skool in Pearland, Texas with her husband where she's a pharmacist. I shall soon be hitting her up for my oxycontin.

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.

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...

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.

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...

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.

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.

this makes me think of Shoemaker...

At-At Halloween Costume

10 YEARS

The 28th of October is the semi-official dating anniversary of The League and Mrs. League.

Even after 10 years, I can still find new reasons to find her amazing. Every day is a new one, and every day I'm luckier than the one before for having her stick with me. She's the wonder of my life and she makes me a better person.

Happy anniversary, Jamie.

Hey, well, sorry there's no posting here.

I welcome you to hop over to the new site Nanostalgia. I posted an insane rant. You're welcome to read it.

Now, Steanso, Jim D., RHPT.com and Crackbass are contributors, so ya'll pop over and check it out.

I keep forgeting to mention that my cantankerous brother, known here as Steanso, done got himself a fancy job with Travis County.

He's now working for The Man.

To get an idea of what his current adventures look like, we turn to the world of comics.

Thank you, Ms. Parks.

Rosa Parks dead at the age of 92.

Read here.

Sunday Night Super Post:

1) Superman Homepage has posted images from Game Informer. These images are from the upcoming "Superman Returns" video game.

I'm not sure how spoilerish the images are as many, many video games tied to comic-based movies add in characters from the comics who don't appear in the movie. So is the villain depicted in this article in the flick? I have no idea. It would be really stunning if he were.

2) Not a damn one of you has submitted an entry to The League's Halloween Contest.

Look, you guys ASKED for a Halloween Contest. I delivered. Now make with the entries or this site turns into a Nancy Kulp fan-site.

3) This has been the Wide World of Sports Weekend. We started Friday night with the Suns battling the Sonics in pre-season play. Suns look good, even with Stoudemire on the injured list for the foreseeable future.

Woke up, ate breakfast, ran errands and watched the UT game on PPV. Go horns!

I'm not really sure why they're ranked 2nd at this point as they're undefeated and their margins of victory have been so decisive.

Then watched Game 1 of the World Series.

Today, more football and now Game 2.

4) Got my "Adventures of Superman" DVDs in. Good stuff, man. Good stuff. I really, really like the George Reeves/ kid-friendly take on Superman.

5) We made a stack of Halloween cookies. Jamie has an excellent recipe for cookies including orange zested into the cookie batter.

6) And THE GREAT BIG ANNOUNCEMENT

Jim D. and The League are re-launching Nanostalgia.com. It's going to be a collabortaive media review site. Some Loyal Leaguers and beyond shall be included in the roster of reviewers.

I welcome each of you to pop over to review our Manifesto.

Book mark it now: nanostalgia.com

AQUA-DUDE

Wow.

Did tonight's episode of Smallville suck.

I don't often pop up to denounce anything Superman, but tonight's episode was unforgivably awful.

That said, I want to be clear that in the first thirty seconds of the show, Lois presented us with two fabulous reasons to continue watching that I hadn't noticed previously.


There are three terrific boobs in this picture. Can you pick the one which ruined the episode?

Yeah... this was the Aquaman episode of Smallville.

Aquaman.

Look, I am going to go out on a comic fan limb and admit that I read Aquaman. There's something appealing about an irritable sea-King I find interesting, but I always thought Marvel's Namor was... well, sort of dippy.


Just not The League's cup o' tea

Oddly, in the past five years, it's become a staple of comedy to make fun of Aquaman, and I'm not really sure where that came from. It's not that Aquaman doesn't have some room to poke fun, but have you looked at the useless line-up of the Superfriends? Samurai? The Wonder Twins? Robin the Boy Hostage?

Anyhoo, last season on Smallville Clark met the future Flash, so this season he had to meet somebody else. I guess it was going to be least confusing if he met the Crown Prince of Atlantis. In, you know, Kansas... Kansas, with its towering green mountains and shimmering fjord-like lakes. Yes, Smallville is filmed in lush, mountainous Vancouver. Thus creating the effect of what I like to call Canadasas, the magical Kansas where Clark Kent grew up.

Re-writes were necessary to make Aquaman fit into the world of Smallville, and we learn that "AC" (Arthur Curry for those of you wondering if Aquaman has a real name) is a surfer dude from Miami. Sure, in the comics he's from somewhere under-populated and with actual light-houses like New Brunswick, Canada... but, oh, hell, it's Smallville.. he's a guy from Miami who is written to speak with the irritating lingo of Southern California, repeatedly referring to everyone as "Brah". As in "Ready to go, bro'?"

We learn young Arthur has travelled via water passage all the way from Miami to Canadasas in order to stop the scheming Lex Luthor from testing a new sonic weapon intended for use by the Navy. Why? The weapon kills not just submarines... it kills fish.

And fish, we all know, are Aquaman's finny friends. It isn't covered in the scope of this show, but I assume Aquaman can still talk to fish, and this is why he's upset.

Truthfully, it's sort of tough to tell how Aquaman is feeling at any given time. I hate to be the one to say it, but Aquaman isn't much of an actor. He's not much of an actor to the point where one wonders what the hell the casting agents were thinking beyond the fact that the actor physically looks built enough to be a swimmer. The "surfer dude" take on Aquaman (appearing her for the first time, I assure you), has the same ring of surfer dudes written by the 40-year olds writing "Saved by the Bell". It's awful and unwelcome, and apparently was a huge problem for the actor playing Aquaman.

I looked up actor Alan Ritchson on IMDB. Apparently, this is it. Aside from appearing on American Idol during auditions, Aquaman here hasn't ever been in front of the camera before. And if that wasn't painfully obvious to the poor folks working on the episode, they should all get two demerits.

In his two scenes with Lex Luthor actor Michael Rosenbaum, one can almost feel Rosenbaum flailing, trying to get something out of Aquaman other than hammy posturing and stilted line delivery. Actor Tom Welling is serviceable as Clark Kent, but, let's be honest, he's not exactly John Malkovich. So the scenes with Clark and AC have a sort of dead-weight/ marking time feel one doesn't particularly take a shine to in hour-long TV.

But what's an Aquaman to do? He ends his scene by declaring billionaire corporate tycoon Lex Luthor is "a tool", and storms out of Lex's office.

So very, very phoned in by all parties.

If the powers-that-be at DC decided that Aquaman needed some screen-time, they really couldn't have botched the job any worse. From confusing priorities for Aquaman to a pointless romantic subplot between Aquaman and Lois, to casting a guy who wouldn't have made it as an extra into a high-school play, what could have been an interesting episode turned into so much chum.

I had to work late, so I missed the game.

Congrats to the Houston Astros for finally, finally, finally making it into the World Series.

The Lastros/ Disastros have had a long and goofy history of never making it past a League Championship series.

Now, The League knows little to nothing about baseball, but we're still happy for what we consider to be our hometown team. After having endured the cheesiness of the D-Backs for the past three years, we're happy to see the hard-luck heroes of the Houston Astros finally going on to greater glory.

And congrats to the Astros fans out there among you Loyal Leaguers. I know some of you are long time fans, while some of you (like the tiniest of the Cone Family) have only been following the Astros for a while.

Disclaimer for Jamie's parents: LOOK AWAY

I don't usually take time out to read my junk mail, but something about this one caught my eye.

This is the junk mail, verbatim:


Are you feeling shy over your inability to get much more than a semi-hard-on in the sack??
Do you feel depressed because of your ED problem???
Now here's the perfect solution for you --- wiagra.
It is truly a "Wonder Drug of the 90s."
You'll get the best erection you can remember in many years for sure.it is 14.99 $.The cheapest pack of wiagra.
%LANDING_PAGE_URL

1) What is this "wiagra"?
2) It's been several years since the 90's.
3) They couldn't even take the time to correct their type-o's.

Truly the work of a disheartened spammer. They're not even trying any more. So dispirited and sad. What happened to the halcyon days of spamming where I had to actually read my e-mail to determine if it was spam or real mail?

We've really lost something, man. The age of innocence has finally passed.

Lucy has her Super-Initiation



We bought this costume some time ago for Mel. Unfortunately, Mel is somewhat stout of nature, and the costume didn't really fit.

Well, the super-costume fit Lucy, but in the ten minutes she wore the costume, she managed to more or less tear it to shreds. And thus her Krypto the Superdog costume-wearing days come to an end.

Ya'll enjoy the photo.

WATCHMEN on Time's 100-Best Novels List

No, really. Check it out.

read the Newsarama post here.

I want to start chanting the Maxwell chant...

One of us...
One of us...

Whenever I think of Watchmen, I think of Shoemaker. I think of how he and my copy of Watchmen had a pitiless and antagonistic relationship that ended in the destruction of a perfectly good copy of Watchmen. I also think about how much I would love to try to be Night-Owl for Halloween, but I don't think anybody would get it. Nor would Jamie dress as the Silk Spectre.

I am proud to say I own an entire run of the issues and a copy of the trade. I confess, I also will be receiving the DC Absolute Edition of Watchmen in fairly short order. Oversized pages, re-colored, hard-bound, extra materials from Moore and Gibbons.

What can you say about Moore? The man is a mad-genius. His run on Promethea managed to totally freak me out. His "Supreme" stories were the best Superman stories in years (and they weren't even Superman comics). V for Vendetta still makes my head ring.

It must be interesting to not yet be 60 and know "this is the one they'll remember me for". Still, one can hope that Watchmen can be a gateway to the rest of Moore's work for a generation of readers.

SUPERMAN ON DVD TODAY

Hey, everybuddy!

The Adventures of Superman arrives on DVD today!

I won't be getting my copy in the mail for a few days, but I thought I'd make an announcement, knowing full-well, nobody but The League will be excited about this release.

WB has really stepped up and put together a nice package for ol' Supes. Not only is all of Season 1 of the series included (that's 26 episodes to you and me), but they also included the Superman movie, "Superman and the Mole Men".

I've only seen a handful of episodes of the Superman series, and it is some really silly fun. George Reeves cuts a great Superman and Clark Kent, Noel Neill is a foxy Lois Lane, and the Daily Planet gang is the slackest, most standing-aroundest bunch of journalists to ever put out a paper on a daily basis.

Crooks might as well be twirling their mustaches, and the plots are the sort of rare imagination one usually only finds in low-budget programming.

Anyway, at least check out the Mini-Site.

On the topic of: Infrequency of Posts

Dear Loyal Leaguers,

You may have noticed that my posts are not posted daily, or five times a week as I usually attempt to maintain. Nor are the number of posts matching the sheer volume of posts of the salad days of The League when one could expect a new post about twice a day.

We've had a rough few months here at League HQ. If you're a regular reader of this site, or you know Jamie and myself, you probably know that to which I refer.

I'll continue to try my best for regular updates. I'm not slacking off for the sake of slacking off. Nor is The League abandoning the blog because The League finally discovered girls. The League is just a little worn down right now, and may not feel that his free moments are best spent pondering the imponderables of the comic book world.

It's this fear of disappointing my readership when I know I don't have time to maintain The League that has made me threaten blogicide in the past few months. Well, all you Loyal Leaguers seemed to want to stick it out, so I want to try, too. But I would be remiss if I didn't attempt to manage expectations.

Look for upodates regularly, but don't feel I'm trying a side-door exit just because I haven't posted in a day or three.

We hope you'll stick with us. These things tend to come in waves and cycles, and when things return to steady-state, I assume we'll be off and running once again. Unless I discover girls.


Up, up and away,

The League

So, mid-day today Apple changed the mode in which people will watch TV forever and ever.

Did you see that?

I mean, I'm impressed with the new iMac v. 40,000 or whatever. Great! No, really, it's very, very cool. I love it, just as I loved the last ten iMacs that I don't own. If there's no echo in their built-in video conferencing systems, I'm already a fan of the bonus features.

Unfortunately, Jobs upstaged his new iMAc about two minutes later with the reveal of the Video iPod.

Is the Video iPod something none of us saw coming? No. It was an obvious next step, and Wall Street believed that to be so much the case that they actually DOWNGRADED Apple stock after the announcement of the cool new Apple releases. (Wall Street also downgraded Apple stock earlier this year amongst speculation that Apple had already saturated the market with iPods, which, given unit sales, they had not, but were slightly cooling. Wall Street was apparently having a fit of amnesia and forgetting Apple's ability to top themselves/ plan for obsolescence/ get their Kool-Aid drinkers in line to spend money on whatever the hell Apple puts out there with every single update. IE: Now is a good time to buy Apple Stock [League stock tips are for entertainment purposes only and should not be considered valid or reasonable under any circumstances])

Up until recently, I wasn't a fan of the Apple Computer Corp.

My irritation with Apple has long stemmed not from any hardware or software issues (well, if you go back to 1997, it probably does), but from the cool-kid on the block mentality that's driven Apple's marketing, market presence and, honestly, their price-point. Up until Apple, I never saw a company actually sulk in the corner and complain that it was a misunderstood artist.

What baffled me was that Macs, while having the user interface of the everyman, have always been priced as the home computer of the wealthy. Not to mention the price of Apple-ready or aesthetically pleasing accessories. And the aforementioned drive to make whatever you just bought obsolete.

Example: I just bought my iPod about a month, month and a half ago. Now, for a few bucks extra, I could have the Video iPod. Had I bought the Mini at the time, I would have missed the announcement of the Nano by two days. Literally, two days.

Granted, I would have returned my Mini, but you get the idea.

So why am I a fan of Apple today? And why do I think Wall Street missed the point?

TV show episodes for $1.99.

Songs for $0.99

The newest Mac, cooler version? $1699. And this is one really nice Mac we're discussing.

Yes, the Video iPod can play back your $1.99 episodes of Lost. Super. I could care less. My phone can show me a shimmying Shakira any time I like, and that, to me, is VALUE. I don't watch video on a 320x240 window for long periods of time and I doubt I ever will.

What The League is enthusiastic about is the adoption of video into iTunes.

Apple has convinced Disney television that ad revenue isn't the be-all and end-all of funding programming. Steve Jobs and Co. have somehow gotten through to the Disney Corporation that they can sell programming directly to the consumer without having to buy a full season DVD set. So long shelf-loads of DVD's. Hello very large hard-drive.

And hello profit for Apple. Who is making money every time I download a video? Apple. If I want to locate a video and play it in a nice QT format, I know who's getting $1 of my $1.99. How Wall Street missed the implications of this sea-change is mind-boggling. Nobody else is set up to be THE place to get your online the video the way iTunes is. Well, maybe Microsoft, but just to stick it to The Man, I'm going with Video iTunes.

Has the technology been around for four years? Sure. The price point they've decided upon is the real break through. $1.99? I pay that for gum every two or three days. It's now officially 1/4 of the price of a movie ticket and I OWN it.

In two years I'll be able to download episodes of Smallville at 44 minutes a pop without having to watch a single commercial. (Perhaps the show will be cheaper with an ad for the new Le Baron on front, should I choose not to pay premium price). I will be able to download virtually any movie I like from Apple for a low cost (I'm guessing the cost of a movie ticket) and own it.

But the programming changes and changes to viewership habits?

1) Programs which have a rabid but small fanbase might continue to thrive at a premium cost to the cult audience. (I am still angry over the cancellation of Andy Richter Controls the Universe. Firefly fans could have kept the show going for another season or two.)

2) Networks will become a useless commodity. Viewers will pick whichever show they wish to watch from a production company's web-service or a location like iTunes. (I suspect there will be some consolidation of, say, shows along a theme).

3) Changes in formatting for non-narrative programs. The line between computer and information gathering/ instruction breaks down. And the format of the programming breaks down with it.

I could foresee a FoodNetwork location to download cooking shows that you can actually watch and match step for step as actual instruction.

Headline News could be nothing but a streaming medium or a downloadable segment of sections, skipping sports or weather if you don't care about those topics.

4) The Octavio option: My co-worker has long bitched about the fact that he has to buy cable "packages". The League doesn't watch the NASCAR channel, but I am paying for it out of my cable bill. Okay, so if I can pay for an episode at $1.99, can I pay $20 for a season pass? Or $75 for all the programming that network has to offer?

Or do I pay a monthly subscription rate to download X number of hours of programming?

You tell me, Michael Eisner.

I know I'm paying somewhere around $12/ a month for HBO now.

5) I don't have to worry about TV shows remaining beholden to the wildly arbitrary FCC standards simply because the material travels over airwaves. Once you're not using the broadcast spectrum, those rules no longer apply. Like HBO, adult TV can reflect adult life without constantly worrying about Pollyannas of all ages stumbling upon your show and becoming emotionally scarred.

6) Rated versions. So you DON'T want nudity in your TV (in which case, we have nothing to talk about)? Or you think "dammit" should be overlayed with "jeepers" at every opportunity? Production companies have an option of offering a "clean" version. I can do this with the latest offering from OutKast on iTunes. Why can't I do this with my TV shows?

7) Shows and networks will no longer worry about whole megacorps pulling sponsorship for a misstep, as advertisers will no longer dictate taste.

8) Television programs will no longer necessarily be written to have a break every 10 minutes so you can see another batch of ads. Who knows what the format would look like?

9) Live events like football. They lose their punch once you know the score. It's why I've never watched a single game which I've taped. Live events will need to be handled traditionally, I suspect, and will give advertisers some of the older model to play with.

10) Give me the same ability to move my DVDs to my iTunes that I did with hundreds of my CDs, and I will be your monkey boy for all time.

I worry about DVD format going obsolete. I worry about it all the time. I literally gave away hundreds of dollars of VHS tapes three years ago and spent hundreds picking up DVD replacements. Tell me I can copy my movies to iTunes, and I will never, ever look back. Tell me that $20 investment from last year in my director's cut DVD of "From Justin to Kelly" can stay with me until I die, following me from computer to computer, and I will tattoo whatever DRM clause you want me to onto my forehead.

Just don't tell me I have to start over completely when Toshiba figures out how to store movies on some solid-state block of crystal.

11) How will advertisers survive? I don't care. If this is bad news for them, tough. They feared TiVo, but they hadn't really seen anything like this yet.

Will more shows wind-up like "American Idol" where product tie-in's are a huge part of the programming (ie: the Coca-Cola Lounge)? No doubt. But that's a decision producers can make and set price-points accordingly.



Has all of this been around before? Yes! For years!

But so was downloadable music, and look at the raging success of iTunes. Apple does something RIGHT with the market for music. Maybe it's the exceedingly simple interface. Maybe it's the Apple name brand equating quality. Maybe it's the punchy commercials for the iPod (now being co-opted and lame-ified by the commercials of the kids dancing with their phones). I don't know. But I do know I trust them to deliver and to lead the pack for the next several years.

THis is going to take a while. $1.99 is still not cheap enough. The monthly cable bill is a fraction of what it would cost for me to download every hour of programming I currently watch at $1.99, and even at $1.99, I'm not sure how many new new shows I would try. I suppose pilots of shows would be free out of necessity. And that's a huge gamble for any network.

There's a huge audience who won't want the model to change, and so that'll go on for a generation or more, I guess. So advertisers can continue to subsidize programming.

But given the abject failure of cable television to really "break the mold" when it comes to programming, Im curious to see what happens. Cable has meant the proliferation fo what already existed rather than a mass movement to original programming. Julia Child and the Frugal GOurmet pre-date cable, let-alone FOod Network. NFL football was an early staple of TV, now it has ESPN, the NFL network and a million variations of pay-per view and deals with Direct TV.

Yes, this is all BS we covered in week 10 of RTF 101 when we discussed the impending world of digital convergence, but that was 11 years ago. I've been waiting so long, I'd sort of thought that it was some sort of blue-skying that Madison Avenue had somehow curb-stomped into submission.

I now open the floor for debate.

Oh, Leaguers

Quick notes time:

1) See the 2005 Halloween Contest below.

2) Jim and Reed never sent back responses to my incredibly insightful interview questions.

3) The Smurf's throw in with the anti-war movement. Click here for more.

Thanks to RHPT for the link

4) Dr. Doom's Top 10 Euphemisms for sex (funny only to us nerds...) Click here.

5) Apparently a disaster has hit Pakistan and India which is making Katrina and Rita look like a day at the park. Keep giving to the Red Cross, people.

6) Speaking of Rita, Jim D. is back in Beaumont, but it's been quiet on his end since his return. Sounds like the press has done a typically half-assed job of covering what's going on in East Texas in favor of the Katrina story. Apparently Beaumont and the surrounding areas are not "okay".

7) In more East Texas news: Is the East Texas Bigfoot okay in the wake of Hurricane Rita?

find out more here

8) Folks in Austin will want to attend an upcoming show at the Hideout Theater on Congress. Sample the comedy stylings of Hurricane Katrina refugee, Tami Q. Nelson (formerly of Spring, formerly of Austin, and now formerly of New Orleans) as she re-teams with her New Orleans based comedy troupe in the relative safety of Central Texas.

Check out the show

9) And because he's cool, here's Mr. Terrific

2005 League of Melbotis Official Spooktacular Halloween Contest:

I, MONSTER...!


I felt bad about not having any ideas for a Halloween Contest, so here we go:

We all watch monster movies and horror movies. We all have a favorite monster or horror character or two.

a) if you could be any antagonist from any monster, horror or spooky movie, who (or what) would you wish to be?

b) what sort of havoc would you wish to wreak?


c) why?

d) what would you do better than that fraud in the original film?

e) what would you find challenging?

f) how would you prevent the protagonist from defeating you?

g) how long do you think you could wreak your particular brand of havoc before it got dull?

h) which other spooky, horror character or monster would you take to task for not living up to the monster credo?



Send all responses to Melbotis's e-mail address over there on the upper left

<--------------------------------

CHRISTMAS TIME IS HERE!!!! FA LA LA LA LA LA LA!!!!!

Yes, the Yuletide is upon us! It's the merriest time of the year.

Today I was talking to my boss, and over his shoulder I noticed the City of Tempe employees stringing the palm trees around my office with Christmas lights. 'Tis the Season!



On the way home I popped into the grocery, and in the floral section were several "Santa" bears tucked in between the Halloween bouquets. Later, Jamie and I went off to Walgreens, and it's a wonderfully merry/ spooky mix of Halloween and Christmas paraphernelia scattered about the store.

And, Jamie shouted out MARK IT!!!! at 7:40pm on October 10th when we saw our very first Christmas commercial. Yeah, sure, they were pitching taking a cruise for Christmas, but it was the first commercial of the year including Christmas decorations and fake snow and wrapping paper.

Sigh.

Wow, are we close to Halloween. Normally by now I'd have forced Jamie through a Frankenstein movie marathon and be walking around the house with a Dracula cape. But this year, not so much.

I can't think up a good Halloween contest, so we're not having one at The League. No hard feelings, I just can't think of anything.

It may also be that there's almost no transition from summer to the other season we have here, which isn't really fall, because it's more or less the same season until it gets hot again in May. The good news is that the heat actually broke, and the other season began today. The closest thing we have to a fall blew in and temperatures dropped below 90 for the first time in months.

The dogs are going nuts, not sure what to do with themselves when being outside for five minutes doesn't suck the life out of them. We took Lucy to the park for the first time today, and she had a blast. We walked on the leash and then let her run for a while. She's quite a runner, that little ball of energy. Mel was, as always, delighted to stretch his legs and go for a trot.

Anyhoo, we also got into the Halloween spirit by going to see "Curse of the Were-Rabbit", which, if you haven't seen it, it's pretty darn good.

So hopefully I'll be getting more into the Halloween spirit here shortly. We've got the decorations up at home, so Karloff, Lugosi and Chaney are all looking down upon me from atop the entertainment center, instructing me to crack open my monster movie collections for another year of Halloween mayhem.

It's sure to be SPOOKTACULAR.

Football Update

Dear OU fans,

Suck it.

Love,

The League

PS: HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA (breathe) HA HA HA HA HA HA HA


Man, it's about time. Sadly, the game was turning into such a blow-out that for week #2, ABC cut over to the UofM v. UofM game and I had to tune into ESPN to find out what the score was.

And don't you feel bad for A&M fans? No? Well, I don't either.

In a few years the cosmic balance will shift and UT will suck once again while A&M once again rules as a football juggernaut... but for this year, it's the year of the Longhorns.

Until, of course, they choke.

SERENITY NOW!!!

The League and Mrs. League toddled off to the local theater to check out sci-fi extravaganza, Serenity.

Jim D. had recommended the movie, Steanso and The Admiral had given the flick a thumbs-up, and the League's brother-in-law, Sneaky Frog, is a big "Firefly" nerd, and had thrown his support behind the movie.

For some reason, mid-summer, my theater quit carrying Hot Tamales. The League is a simple League with simple League wishes. When we go to the theater, we want a medium Diet Coke and we want a box of Hot Tamales. We’ve complained loudly to the people behind the counter that Hot Tamales are no longer to be had, but we’re coming to peace with the fact that Hot Tamales are gone, and, most, likely, will never return.

Today we decided we wanted Sweet Tarts, truly a staple of the movie candy industry, and we noticed that there were no Sweet Tarts as well.

“Well, what do you want?” asked Mrs. League.
“I want Sweet Tarts,” we replied.
“They don’t have them.”
“What? Everyone has Sweet Tarts.”
“Well, they don’t. Do you want Sour Patch Kids? Or Sour Wiggly Worms? Or Sour Straws?”
“My GOD!!! They’re all the same damn candy! Why do they have three kinds of sour candies and no Sweet Tarts?”
The kid behind the counter was starting to look a little concerned.
“They sort of are. Well…” Mrs. League tried.
“This is absurd! I don’t want anything sour and I don’t want chocolate,” I went on. “I want Sweet Tarts and Hot Tamales. Every other theater has these, but here I have to have Sour Wiggly Worms. It’s the Bizarro Theater. Nothing here is right!”
The kid behind the counter just sort of stood there, blinking.

When we went to see “Roll Bounce” at this same theater a week ago, I’d confronted the grouchy alt-rock girl behind the counter regarding the lack of Hot Tamales. “Nobody wanted them,” she explained. “Bullshit!” I’d declared. “I want them. I can’t be the only one!”

The League understands the laws of supply and demand, but believes that Hot Tamales fall safely within the Laffer Curve on this one. And who cares if they don’t move as fast as Wiggly Sour Worms? You know who eats those? Stupid little kids. Stupid little kids who don’t know that for fifty cents less they could get the exact same thing under the name “Sour Punch Straws”, but they’re too wrapped up in having the stupid worm on the package that they can’t see in the dark that they’ve bumped the Hot Tamales off of the shelf.

“It’s an outrage,” The League continued. “And when the hell is Zorro coming out? That poster has been up since May. I don’t even know if I want to see it anymore.”
“What do you want?” asked Mrs. League.
“I want Sweet Tarts.”
“They don’t have those.”
“Fine. I’ll have a Diet Coke.”
How hard is it to have Hot Tamales in stock? They’re not even food. They keep forever and a day. A man seeking non-Chocolate at a theater shouldn’t have to resort to eating sour candies or Skittles (which are gross and taste like fake fun).

You know how movie theaters make money? It’s not off of ticket sales, Leaguers. It’s by selling candy. They buy candy for the same prices you’d pay at the grocery and then mark it up 400%. You accept that the inflated price is part of the deal, pay $3.75 for a pack of M&M’s, and move on with life.

I COULD buy a box of Hot Tamales at the Walgreen’s or AM/PM on the way to the theater, but I don’t. I want my theater to stay in business. But I also have deep pockets. Not financially, but as a big man, I wear some big pants, and I can get a pack of Hot Tamales in the pocket with a minimum of fuss.

I don’t want to become the lady who turned around to me in the 10:00 show of Dennis the Menance I went to in 1993 who turned around mid-screening and said, “Do ya’ll want a plum?”
“Ma’am?”
“Do ya’ll want a plum?”
"Like... a plum?"
"Uh-huh. I don't need it."
Plums aren’t movie food. I don’t know if she’d brought in a small lunch, or a bag of plums, or just found a plum in the bottom of her purse. But she wasn’t a Hot Tamale lady, she was a plum lady, and the Greens Crossing AMC had failed to meet her half-way. Thus, she was bringing in her plum. Which, it turned out, she didn’t want anyway.

Only plum I ever ate in a movie.

In the end I got up before the trailers started and got a box of Milk Duds, because, honestly, I’m a bitch for sugar. But should I ever learn to show some foresight, the Gilbert WTC Theater is going to start losing my $3.75 every week.

And as I stood there at the counter, begrudgingly handing over my money, the little kid behind me was turning to his dad and saying, “Where are the Hot Tamales?”

So, how was Serenity? Pretty darn good. Now I need to seek out the Firefly DVDs.

I was a little skeptical for the first few scenes, but the movie did win me over. For those of you who have seen the commercial and think the movie looks sort of lame? The commercials pretty much show the first scene of the movie. It gets a lot more interesting from there.

Former Buffy-verse mastermind Joss Whedon is responsible for this movie, and that’s good news. He’s signed to write and direct an upcoming Wonder Woman feature. If this movie is any indication, Wonder Woman will probably be a pretty darn good flick, too.

So long and thanks for all the fish

--Mrs. League

NIPSEY RUSSELL, R.I.P.



read more here

HALLOWEEN PETITION FOR JAMIE

Hello, all.

Everyone who thinks Jamie should buy the costume depicted below for Halloween, please put an "aye" in the comments section.

Special congratulations to my brother, Steanso. After a brief period of unemployment, he's now got himself a job. Sure, he's free-lanced a little, but you can only moonlinght at Chippendale's so many days a week.

He's going to switch to the side of the law, becoming a prosecutor or something for the county. I guess the county doesn't do criminal background checks anymore.

So, he's a total sell-out, but now he has insurance and vacation days and stuff. And, like The League, he's suckling from the government teat. Keeping paying taxes, suckers. You're keeping the Bros. Steans employed.

Greetings, Leaguers.

Well, I received several e-mails today from Loyal Leaguers wishing to share the good news regarding Nicholas Cage's new kid, Kal-El Coppola Cage. For more info, read here.

This, of course, gave The League a moment of pause. For The League has long harbored a secret desire to name his own kid either Kal-El or Kara. Now, it's more or less public knowledge that Jamie's insides are a rocky place where my seed can find no purchase. Thusly, there shall be no little Leagues to carry my DNA on beyond my passing (and for that, the human genome is safe once again!).

I received an e-mail from Jamie today poking fun at ol' Nic Cage, and I was a little sad. You see, I thought maybe, if a child were ever handed over to The League that Jamie would be so distracted, I'd slide Kal-El into the name slot on the adoption form before she knew what had happened. Now, Jamie has had time to think about what a completely crazy idea it is to name your kid "Kal-El". It shall never happen.

Just a bit of trivia. Nic Cage is a big comic fan. His real last name is Coppola, but in order to hide the fact that he bore any relation to Francis Ford Coppola, his took on the name of Luke Cage, Marvel's own Power Man. Nic Cage was to star in a 1995-ish Superman film, but things didn't pan out, and the film was never made. Not to be deterred, Cage is now associated with a different comic book property, Ghost Rider. I am a bit skeptical, as I'm not a huge GR fan, but at least I think Cage will take the comic seriously.

In other Superman news, Bryan Singer's latest video diary is posted, and shows the old Jimmy Olsen from "Adventures of Superman" meeting the Jimmy Olsen from the new movie. Check it out.

One of the great things about being a Superman fan isn't just constantly being told Superman sucks by pretty much anyone who can slip it into conversation... It's also the near 70 years of legacy the Superman comics, movies and radio. It's not just trivia, it's also the chance to see new generations working with the old and enjoying the legacy. Noel Neill will now have appeared in the original Superman films, the TV series, Superman: The Movie (as Lois's mother with Kirk Alyn as Lois's father), and now in the new film. To The League, that's pretty cool. So, of course, we're very excited to see Jack Larson welcomed back into the Superman family.

And... What else?

Ah, football.

Oh, did anyone else watch the butt-show in Mexico? The Cardinals won their game by kicking 6 succesful field goals. I NEVER watch the Cardinals, but the game was so funny, I was glued to the TV.

Oh, and UT continues to dominate. To the point where ABC decided the game was boring and cut over to another game out here in AZ. Next week is the big test, but I think Adrian Petersen is injured, isn't he? Ah, well. UT hasn't choked yet, so this could be our week!

Oh, and here's little Arden with little Jill. Arden is now residing in Kalamazoo, MI. Jill is teaching at Western Michigan University. I think she teaches, uh... look, I'll be honest. I don't understand Jill's expertise. I think she's an expert in, oh, say... herpetology.

ALL-STAR SUPERMAN PREVIEW

Greetings, Leaguers.

As you may have heard, writer Grant Morrison and artist Frank Quitely have teamed up to create an all-new Superman tale under a new banner for DC COmics "All-Star Superman". The All-Star refers to the creative team more than the actual cast of characters.

Originally the All-Star line was thought to compete directly with Marvel's Ultimate line, but this isn't really the case. Instead, DC is allowing top creators to write and draw the best possible DC stories without worrying about what's going on in the monthly titles.

All-Star Superman is coming soon, and Newsarama has a preview (which appeared already in Wizard this month, but what the heck...) which should give you a feel for what Quitely and Morrison will do with the Man of Steel.

Honestly, in issue 2 I'm sort of feeling as if All-Star Batman is going off the rails, but I think the five pages here more or less re-assure me that Morrison is going to make me happy with his crack at the Big Blue Boyscout.

Included in the Newsarama article is an interview from a while back on how Morrison became inspired in his take on The Man of Steel. Good stuff.

Read the article and check out the previews here.

Apparently, I'm some sort of communist.

Take the test and find out what kind of commie YOU are.

You are a Social Liberal (71% permissive) and an... Economic Liberal (21% permissive) You are best described as a: Strong Democrat

To Take the test yourself, click here.

I apologize for the previously posted broken links. You should all just know, it was Randy who broke them. Not me. I was totally innocent.

So The League sort of took the day off from work.

I had thought Jamie had an appointment today, but it wasn't today, so, you know... no harm, no foul.

We woke late, finally getting up around 9:30, and went to IHOP to try to see what it's like to eat breakfast out without a thousand screaming kids surrounding you as they do on Saturdays and Sundays.

For some bizarre reason I had it in my head that "Roll Bounce" looked like a fun movie, so we went to a mid-day show.

Look, Roll Bounce just wasn't a very good movie, and if I wanted to get all film school 101 on you, I had some serious questions regarding the portrayal of women in the film. The movie also suffered from the age old problem of trying to cast either really good roller-skaters or people who could act. They decided to fall in the middle and cast people who could sort of skate and sort of act, giving you the worst of both worlds.

Steanso has suggested that he might guest blog on the film sub-genre of roller skating movies. Let's all cross our fingers and hope he steps up.

Now, here was the interesting bit. The theater was totally empty. I haven't been in an empty theater since 1985 or so when we went one sunny day to see Adventures in Babysitting. At some point during today's movie I wanted to get up and start running up and down the stairs flapping my arms or doing the robot. It was a Thursday at lunchtime and school is in session. Freaking nobody was around. Just Jamie and me and a whole heck of a lot of empty theater.

It was nice. We got to boo the bad previews and talk badly about the products advertised before the movie. So very liberating. It must be how most other people in Chandler/ Gilbert feel even when the theater is completely sold out.

I'll tell you this much, I now want to build a movie theater in my front room just so I can do the robot during the trailers.

I also got to catch up on my comic reading (JLA, JLA: Classified, Batman, Adventures of Superman all good reads. Not to mention the sort of ending to OMAC.). And the season debut of Smallville bowed. Kryptonians, the Phantom Zone, Fortress of Solitude and Brainiac all made appearances. Not all bad.

Anyway, that's my post for tonight.

And I AM NOT picking on Randy. I just think he's a really good dancer.

I'm not at work today, so I thought I'd pop in with a mid-day report.

I ran some variables through the mainframe here at League HQ, and here are the results:

What if Randy took on the mantle of The Dark Knight Detective?

click here for the answer

(use speakers for full effect)

The upcoming Superman film (due in July or so) is going to mean a lot of Superman product hitting the shelf. In addition to an onslaught of t-shirts, toys and Dr. Pepper cans, Warner Bros. may be releasing a "Director's Cut" of Superman II.

Quick background: Superman I and II were shot simultaneously by Richard Donner. However, do to a lot of disagreements, the producers of the films (the Salkinds) fired Donner before production was entirely complete on Superman II. They brought in television director Richard Lester who reshot scenes and re-worked certain parts of the film.

What I don't know, and I'm not sure anybody but Richard Donner knows, is what the original film was supposed to look like. While most folks like Superman II due to the action elements, in The League's opinion, Superman I is just a much better realized film. One wonders what a cohesive Superman I and II would have looked like.

According to an interview I read a few years ago with Jack O'Halloran (Non from Superman I and II), Lester was brought in to do everything quickly, cheaply, and not to care too much if the actors were going nuts. Reportedly using TV set-ups (such as multi-camera set-ups) and other short-cuts, Lester did little to endear himself to the returning cast.

Anyway...

According to the e-mail from Nathan Cone today:

From www.thedigitalbits.com:

Also today, there are online reports from various Superman-themed websites(including Superman Cinema ) that Warner Bros. and producer Ilya Salkind have finally negotiated a deal for the release of director Richard Donner's original unused footage from Superman II. This would allow for the creation of a long-awaited Superman II: Director's Cut that would be closer to the film Donner was crafting before the film was taken away from him by the studio back in 1979 and given to replacement director Richard Lester. Donner, as many of you know, also directed the original Superman: The Movie (the two films were shot, for the most part, simultaneously). The idea behind all of this, of course, is that Warner wants to release new DVD special editions of Superman II, Superman III and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace in conjunction with the theatrical or DVD debut of Bryan Singer's currently in production Superman Returns. The new film is expected to hit theaters in June 2006.

Honestly, I always sort of assumed the Richard Donner cut was an urban myth. Like the guy who wakes up in the tub with his kidney missing, or Delaware.

You know The League will be watching closely as news develops.

I am now all iPod'd up and rolling. I still have twenty or so albums to put on iTunes, but the vast majority of what I wanted on the ol' iPod is now there. I also sold my crappy radio tuner and bought the far superior radio tuner from Monster. Not only does it work much better (no horrible 100K squealing), but it also has a nifty red light on it so my car looks much more future when I turn my car on.

Jim and Randy had each and separately suggested Arcade Fire's album "Funeral" to The League. The League is now in a mode where he has to have a minimum of three recommendations before he'll buy an album, and I think Randy's comments were number four, so I downloaded the album from iTunes. And, yeah, I know I'm totally late on this, but it's a darn skippy little record. Good recommendation, Leaguers. We're always open to suggestions on music. I may not actually buy what you recommend, but I will put the suggestion in the ol' Rolodex.

In the wake of Hurricane Rita, it sounds like Jim's place in Beaumont is okay. My folks are pretty much back to normal (for them) and Josh and Shannon's summer chateau, La Casa de Mil Monos Furiosos, survived largely intact. Sure, the hurricane may have been deflected by the oppressive heat wave currently resting on the Texas Coast, but people are still rejoicing that Galveston is not under four feet of water.

My comic reading is getting a little overwhelming in the swamp of excellent DC titles currently hitting the shelf. I am very far behind, and I have a Wonder Woman and Superman collection to dig into. Also, I sort of quit doing everything I normally do thanks to City of Heroes.

I more or less abandoned old StarSentry as he wasn't very much fun to play. I'm now playing a character by the name of "Commander Argos".

Commander Argos. Seriously.

I apologize. I just couldn't think up a good name to save my life.

Anyway, CA keeps getting killed, but it's all in good fun, I suppose. I "spoke" with a guy last night who had been playing for quite some time and kept trying to demonstrate to me how cool his character was. Apparently you CAN get a cape in this game, but you can't get it until you're on level 25. At level 30, you can be shiny. Which makes this game a cross between Dungeons & Dragons and Scientology. Upon review, the game is pretty Airwolf, and I'll probably play it for a while longer.

I think the League is officially no longer watching "Bones". We tried to watch last night, the first time I haven't watched the show in Closed Captions or while playing CoH, and, you know... I could probably spend a few paragraphs taking the show apart, but what's the point? I'm a big fan of the Deschanel sisters, but even I can take only so much poorly thought out characterization and forced tension. I understand that they're trying to mix both CSI-style procedural with soap in order to get people invested, but you need characters who are sort of interesting in order to pull that off. Two-dimensional walking cliches with poorly scripted banter don't really make me want to stick around.

After having wandered off in the middle of "Lost" last season, I have promised Jamie I will try to watch with her this year. As long as the show doesn't devolve into "the many problems of the tank-top model", I will try to stick around. Brother.

Tomorrow night Smallville Season 5 premiers, and while The League swore off the show at the end of last season, The League has heard that there is an entirely new writing team on-board. Well, let's see what happens. I think we have some Kryptonians or Daxamites in the season opener, Aquaman is making an appearance, and the Fortress of Solitude will play some role.

There's added pressure to make the show better with Superman Returns right around the corner, so we'll see. Also, I've heard that there's going to be lots of hot, teen sex this season, which, believe it or not, The League can do without. Perhaps one day The League shall write a lengthy post on why TV sex isn't a big draw for us, but today is not that day.

Anyway, this is a long enough post, right?

The End

MOST AIRWOLF POST EVER

Hey. You guys have probably long forgotten the idea of entering the word "Airwolf" into the lexicon as a synonym for "cool". As in "My new bike is totally Airwolf!"

Well, Dave over at Dave's Long Box is still fighting the good fight. Check out his detailed post on usage of "Airwolf".

read here

A list of many topics. Not all of them are comic related.

1. You know what's turning out to not be very good? The new Supergirl series from DC. I didn't have extraordinarily high expectations, but the series is now two issues in, and it's been pretty much nothing but screaming and punching for literally no reason. I have no idea where Jeph Loeb (whom I normally really like) is going with this, but so far, I'm not impressed.

2. Likewise with Allstar Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder by Frank Miller and Jim Lee. The art is good, and you can see some nice moments, but... Batman is oddly out of character and, again, in two issues, not a lot has happened. It's a leap of faith to ask people to keep reading a comic series. You can continue to read, hoping that there will be a nice payoff at the end of six or seven issues. I'm willing to give Miller a longer issue count than other people, but, c'mon...

3. The various Countdown to Infinite Crisis series are starting to wrap up, as well as the first few series of Grant Morrison's Seven Soldiers of Victory. Due to the nature of all of these series there's no conclusion or closure, and that's an odd feeling. The Countdown series are pouring into Infinite Crisis. Seven Soldiers is going to wrap up in a final, central issue, at which point I am sure I will have to reread everything so I will remember all the detail to figure out what the hell is going on.

That said, I've enjoyed all of the series thus far to varying degrees, but confess to a warm spot in my heart for OMAC, the Manhattan Guardian and possibly the new take on Mr. Miracle. I have an original printing of the 1970's-era Mr. Miracle #1, and it's a prized posession, so I sincerely hope the 2005 version is just as worthy in the end.

4. Well, my folks are okay. Here's a dispatch from my mom just a short while after the hurricane was scheduled to strike:

Well it is 7:40 and I pretended to be on Esther's Follies and danced for Dad outside the window while he is watching Sci Fi inside.

Huh. Well, it makes sense if you grew up there.

I talked to my folks just last night and they have power, water, cable TV and no damage. Where God has it in for me, He loves my folks.

I've suggested my dad try out some looting since all the neighbors are out, but he's concerned that the cops will catch him if he can't find the jewelry quickly enough after the silent alarm is triggered.

5. Loyal Leaguer Nathan Cone relied on the amazing web-surfing techniques of The League. Apparently he was stranded in St. Louis and scheduled to travel through Houston to get back to San Antonio. The League tried to help Nathan find an alternative flight, but no go. Don't worry, Leaguers, Nathan made it home. He left a message while I was out today and was on the tarmac back in the Alamo City.

6. Note to "creative" people writing scripts, books, etc... (and I say this after watching the trailer for Pride & Prejudice, so take this with a grain of salt as Jane Austen sells a lot of books and makes a lot of movies)

Opposites don't really attract.

People who hate each other at first rarely actually fall in love. Also, that's a really dumb thing to try to overcome. What frightens me is that I KNOW people who actually believe this message. They make life decisions based on cliches used in the titles of Paula Abdul/ MC Skat Cat songs.

The League's recommendation: you'll do a lot better trying to find someone you get along with from the beginning. This doesn't guarantee you won't get divorced, but, you know... Trying to make it with someone you initially loathed based upon what TV told you? It seems like it's probably a good sign things might get rocky again after you sober up.

7. There's a new movie by Rob Reiner starring Jennifer Aniston. Apparently, unable to get the Graduate 2 movie off the ground, Reiner decided that he was going to make a movie leeching off the goodwill The Graduate garners, but not including any of the original cast. The trailer seems to lend itself to that idiot cutesiness that so many romantic comedies have of which The Graduate was utterly devoid.

Something about the stunningly crass exploitation of The Graduate in the trailer made me want to start punching people. Sadly, Rob Reiner was not present.

Also, the entire trailer is people talking about multi-generational sex and sex in airplane bathrooms. They chose to show this before Corpse Bride, which was filled with about 65% children. I don't want to play thought-police, but, I mean, c'mon... Who wants to have to do the birds and the bees talk because Kevin Costner did Jennifer Aniston, her mom and her grandma?

Of course, I'd rather try to explain that than the logical inconsistencies in Waterworld.

8. Flightplan was pretty good. It's a nice, taut story without a lot of distraction. In short, if you liked Panic Room, you'll dig this one, too. The only downside to these movies, for The League, is that a second viewing rarely holds up. Once we know the ins-and-outs of the plot, well, it just doesn't have the same thrill. But, I did like this movie on first blush.

In related news, my crush on Jodie Foster enters year 15. And with those words, the Secret Service now has a file on me.

9. Corpse Bride is really cool to look at. I'm not sure if I liked it as much as A Nightmare Before Christmas, but it's pretty neat from a technical point of view.

10. Jim D is still stranded outside of Beaumont. Poor bastard. He's waiting it out in a hotel room until he's allowed to go home. Let's all send our best wishes to Jimbo.

11. An actor whom once played Jimmy Olsen in the Superman movies from the 1940's has died. RIP Tommy Bond.

read more here

12. Jim said he would "die" if I did not blog on this topic, so here it is. I didn't want to explain to Jim D. the third and Mrs. Dedman that I was responsible for their son's untimely demise.

I guess superheroes pretty much reflect the nature of their native culture. After all, Superman wasn't Truth, Justice and the Ugandan Way. It's always interesting to see what's being made in other lands, even if it doesn't make a lick of sense to you as an ugly American (and The League recognizes, that he probably is an ugly American). I've read up on some Brazilian superheroes, and you can't throw a rock without hitting Japanese comics.

As these superheroes are from the Arab world, the perspective of the heroes isn't what we'd all take for granted to see here in the US, without necessarily being propaganda. (And if you don't think Superman and Batman were used for propaganda...)

Anyway, check out the article.