Southside! RIP

Yesterday I went to my comic shop and saw the manager, Ty, standing in the doorway.

"What's up?" I asked. During most of my previous trips to Southside, Ty was stationed at the counter, balancing on the stool or sort of pacing behind the display cases.

"We're closing," he said, looking a bit nervous.

"Oh, I'll just grab my stuff and get out of your hair, then," I nodded, looking at my watch and seeing it was 5 til 7. I didn't want to keep him around if he was ready to go home...

And then I put one foot inside the door and realized... Ty was not closing for the night, he and the folks dismantling a few bookshelves were closing the doors of the shop for good.

I guess my expression said it all. "You didn't think we were actually closing," he said.

It was kind of weird. Southside doesn't even really have all that many fixtures. It had shelves on the walls and some folding tables for gaming in the back room, but that was about it. At some point Ty had made the decision to run the shop sort of lean and mean, so it was never littered with the usual unsold action figures and other comic-related merchandise madness that begins to fill a lot of shops.

I have no idea what was to become of the back issues I'd raided on FCBD, nor the comics lining the walls of the shop. I guess Ty is being transferred to the store way, way up North, so that's about the last I'll see of him.

He's transferring my subscription to Funny Papers, which is the same shop I used from Freshman orientation at UT in Fall of '93 until I moved in '02. It's actually about a block and a half from my office, so in some ways, it's more convenient than going to Southside, which was literally on the road on my way home. But, you know, Jamie wasn't too crazy about those hour-long delays I'd have on my way home when I'd address the issues of the DC Comics day with Ty and other comic geeks.

I think the shop I frequented in Tempe, Pop Culture Paradise, has also shut its doors.

The comic game is a tough one, from working as a creator down to keeping the doors open on your shop. And I can't blame folks for closing their doors when the rent goes up. Unfortunately, all those geeks who hang about all day don't actually spend all that much money to keep the place open.

At this point, I think the only comic shop left in South Austin may be Juniors Comics, and that's kind of sad.

The End of Humanity a Good Idea?

As much as The League wants to put on a happy face and love all of humanity, there often seems to be someone out there who wants to make me sort of think the inevitable rise of our robot masters is going to be for the best.

Or, you know, if LA did just fall off into the ocean. That would be a good start.

Because I love doggies and aardvarks, I don't wish for the doom of all life on Earth, but if there were to be a comet coming which was only going to smush humans, I just might think this clip informs my opinion of why this would be a good thing...

Thanks to Randy for both links.

The Lameness Continues...

Hey, all. Welcome back to the lamest blog, ever.

Last night was surprisingly quiet. I caught up on some much needed Comic Fodder work (I mean, needed for me... not the general populace). With no Matt nor Doug and Kristen, the house was stunningly quiet. I think the dogs were just flat-out tired as they just weren't interested in harassing me at any point during the evening.

Really, not much to mention, which is why this is the lamest blog ever.

DC Rehabilitates the Supergirl Re-launch

The 2004 re-appearance of Supergirl wound up looking like this.

She will now look like:



here's the article.

In other words, Supergirl's flailing re-launch is going to make Supergirl into a girl once again and not a bratty LA party rat. Writer Tony Bedard is also a name writer with some good stuff behind him, so I'm looking forward to the new artistic and story direction. Not enough of a change to have to write a whole story around it, but also DC isn't insisting that they're giving the readers a version of the character we want, when, clearly it is NOT the Supergirl readers want. More than anything, it's a Supergirl that fits into 70 years of Superman comics and more than fifty years of Supergirl without seeming to alter the character so radically that it's no longer recognizably Supergirl.



the Astros' slide continues...



Blogging Countdown.

In addition to my usual Comic Fodder duties, I'm partnering with a gentleman from my office named Jason (no relation to my brother of the same name) to write a series of columns discussing DC's new weekly comic, "Countdown" and how it relates to DC, Comics in general, etc...

Check it out if you have the time. Hopefully the discussion will be entertaining.



I think I'm supposed to blog on some Jack in the Box commercials, but since I never saw them except on You Tube, I've not really developed an opinion of them. Sorry, team.



Lauren posted this, but it's so good, I must repost. Rejected Wii games.



Whenever I feel like comic geeks are weird, there's always Star Wars fans.



This weekend was the 30th Anniversary of Star Wars, which meant a massive Star Wars Celebration in San Diego, where they finally answered the question: No, you cannot have too many Princess Leia's.

More pics here.

A Memorial Weekend to Remember

Doug and Kristen have been here this weekend. Doug is, of course, Jamie's brother, and Kristen, Doug's ladyfriend.

It's been a really fun weekend, and I think we've done a good job of playing tour guide. I also have come to realize, in driving around town, how I have an anecdote for almost every 200 yards of vast stretches across town.

Saturday we took Doug and Kristen to the Alamo Drafthouse to see Pirates III. (Eh.) On Saturday night we took them out to "Esther's Follies", which I assume is an experience replicated somewhere in the Bay Area from which they hail, but, anyhow... it was fun and I think they liked it.

Sunday we rolled to Green Pastures for the Sunday brunch, which was amazing. Including the "Milk Punch", which should really be called "Satan's Secret Sledgehammer". Smooth, delicious, sweet, and then all of a sudden-like, you realize you'd best hand over the keys and let Jamie drive. Much like a pirate, I like my rum.

We tidied the house, hit the grocery, and by 5:00 we had a few people trickling in for a cook-out that wound up lasting until 12:00. Lots of folks came and went. A good time was had. Unfortunately, I also got a Wii this week, which meant Doug and I stayed up very, very late making disturbing Mii's and talking comics.

Got up today and Doug and Kristen suffered through Ryan's unofficial tour of Austin (which involved pointing out places that had caught on fire, and one place where I had caught on fire).

We wound up passing my old neighborhood where I grew up, so I decided to detour and pass my old house. The current owner was out in the yard, so I jumped out of the car to say "Hi". The guy happily welcomed us in to the house to see what became of the house where a young league had once spent many an hour pouring over his X-Men and Batman comics.

It was really, really weird going back in. (a) whomever lived in the house since we moved out in 89 has put in really nice fixtures, redone the kitchen, put down nice tile and put in wood floors in the foyer and all through the upstairs. (b) Hello flashback city. There was the corner Jason used to hide behind to leap out and terrify me. Here were the windows I totally forgot were at the top of the living room. And as much as had changed, it wasn't hard at all to see it as it was in my mind's eye. Except for the expansive backyard which now is filled with a pool.

Oh, and that damn hill in the front yard? That you had to mow at an angle? It's been cut up into tiers and turned into nice planters. However, the tree in the front yard, that was struck by lightning? I think it's gone. Or else it wasn't ever where I remember it sitting.

We also toured the Capitol, ran down by Lake Travis, zipped past the re-born Oasis restaurant (it's going to be pretty cool when they finish), and ate dinner/lunch at Hoover's off Manor. At Hoover's we saw a wheelchair bound Harry Knowles and at the Capitol we saw Rick Perry wandering out of the front doors and headed toward the governor's mansion. If he weren't on his cell phone, I totally would have flagged him down and made him welcome Doug and Kristen to the state.

I don't know how much Doug and Kristen got out of it, but we saw Austin from Slaughter Lane to Windy Point, and that's kind of cool. Austin's a small town, even when it's not, and even when it's growing.

SUPERMAN AT THE PARAMOUNT

hey, Leaguers!

I was just checking the summer movie schedule at The Paramount (and, seriously, it's like someone asked me exactly what movies I might want to see on the big screen...)

July 14th and 15th "Superman: The Movie" will be showing at the Paramount!

I'm thinking I'll take in the July 14th, 3:00 PM showing. Anyone who wants to come, we should form some sort of expedition! (This means you, JimD).

For the totally great summer line up, click here.

Oh, and next Sunday I will try to see "The Big Sleep". Because (a) it's a great movie, and (b) because it's Lauren Bacall at her foxiest.

Then, on the 12th and 13th I'm heading down to see the two Thin Man movies, schedules permitting.

Ghost Chimp MD

I can only point you to this... and you're either going to like it or not.

STAR WARS ANNIVERSARY

There's been some buzz about Star Wars' 30th anniversary lately. So now's as good a time to talk about it as any.

Like probably millions of other American kids, my childhood is intrinsically mixed up with the Star Wars franchise. There's no beginning of my memory of childhood that is really separated from my first memories of Star Wars. My earliest memories include falling down some carpeted stairs at an apartment complex where we briefly lived and a matinee showing if Star Wars that The Admiral took me to when I was two (during which the @#$%ing Tusken Raiders scared the living @#$% out of me). I have a fragment of a memory of staring wide-eyed as the Death Star exploded into a million, billion sparks (back before that odd pressure wave was added to the effect). Others have suggested that, no, I did not see the movie in the theater until some re-release. I confirm that I saw the movie during it's initial release.

By the time i was three, the bedroom I shared with Jason had one wall covered in wallpaper featuring photos of the Star Wars characters, as did bedspreads and books scattered around. Every Christmas and birthday meant the arrival of a landspeeder, or X-Wing or one of those little 12"x18" playsets for the Star Wars gang to hang out.


@#$% YEAH!!!

The kids will be amazed to hear this, but we couldn't go and rent a movie six months after its release, and so you didn't sit down and watch the movie whenever you liked. We had the kid's Star Wars storybook that we'd page through and look at the pictures and figure out the words, and wonder why this scene featuring this guy "Biggs" telling Luke to leave Tatooine was in the book, but nobody remembered seeing it in the movie. So Star Wars was there while I was learning to read.

When we played outside, we had Han's blaster, and a Stormtrooper blaster (they weren't "guns" when you were playing Star Wars. They had to be "blasters".) And one Halloween I was Han Solo, Jason a Jawa, the kid down the street was Luke, and his little sister... an adorable panda bear.

It was unlikely you hadn't seen Star Wars, but if you hadn't, then you were either not born in the US or were, literally, a girl. Usually it meant you were a girl whose mom didn't think girls needed to see movies about space cowboys and samurai in order to be a proper young lady. And whose dad had probably gone to go see the damn movie, himself, anyway.

But Star Wars also gave us ideas about girls, or at least Princess Leia made us believe that girls were supposed to carry blasters, and that their whiplash insults were really just a prelude to smooches we'd get in the engineering bay of the star cruiser we'd eventually win in a hand of cards.

And, poor Carrie Fischer, will always be seen in the mind's eye of a generation of Americans as the girl who launched a thousand hormones when Lucas put her in a metal bikini and made her sit next to Salacious Crumb. (Of course we just as quickly learned that sexiness doesn't equate to helplessness when Leia took Jabba out with the very tools of her imprisonment. So there.)


Most certainly a dame in the media the league once dug

And was there anyone better to teach us that dads can make mistakes, too, than Darth Vader? or Palpatine to teach you that putting a bottomless pit in your living room in an architectural bit of hubris you might not want to consider?

And Yoda taught is it is not the size of the person who matters... not when you really want to move that X-Wing. For years The Admiral would quote to me from Yoda, either fancying himself to be a wizened Jedi Master or knowing that I was far, far more likely to buy the words of Yoda than whatever other advice he might give me. "There is no try..." was oft quoted in the halls of Steans Manor.

It's sad to dwell on the eventual limping fate of the series, but especially with the first two movies... We were kids who still grew up with fantasy lands full of dragons and giants. But we were also kids who had robots and slug gangsters and giant, mechanical quadrupedal death machines to fill our fantasy worlds. Mystic knights of virtue (as well as their brethren who'd gone wrong and needed redemption) populated our consciousness, and, hell... my 4th grade teacher used both Episode IV and Episodes IV-VI to illustrate the Aristotelian three-act structure as well as the various literary themes of Man vs. X.

I have no idea what kids today have latched on to. Power Rangers or Yu-Gi-Oh or something, I guess. But it was a smaller world, and pondering this other universe was something we all had in common.

That's it. I'm not editing this thing.

You guys chat about Star Wars amongst yourselves.

Batman is crazy

I confess...

I am still not sure I got Frank Miller's "All Star Batman and Robin, the Boy Wonder". At least not until issue 5, which came out last week. And I'm still not sure I get it.

But Miller's decision between "Batman: Year One" and "Dark Knight Strikes Again" to portray the Justice League as a bunch of maniacs is sort of interesting, even when you feel like the comic is mostly out of control. And, no, I don't think Jim Lee is the right choice to draw the book. Except when he is. But I still sort of wish Miller had drawn this page himself.


Click on the pic to see the page full sized.

Anyway, for some reason I went from "?" to "...really?" on this book last week.

Because somehow the Justice League all being a bunch of nutjobs is a good idea, even if it doesn't work in Earth-1 continuity. It's sort of like getting in a car with a bunch of guys you don't really know very well and driving around at 100 mph on dirt roads. It's probably a terrible idea, and you start out kind of freaked out, but after a while, you either start laughing with everyone else or just make yourself miserable.

Like it or not, comics needs Frank Miller's Batman.

update

It's been an odd couple of days.

Today Doug and Kristen will be here to visit Jamie and me. I think we're also soft-selling them on Austin, but I'm not sure that's still the plan.

For the past two days Matt Mangum has been staying with us. He's waiting for his new condo to be finished, and is trying not to wear out his welcome with his girlfriend's roommate/ landlord. It's nice to have Matty around, but it also puts a huge, glaring spotlight on the odd behavior Jamie and I have come to expect as normal. Example: Last night I had to complete bagging, board, sorting and inventorying five months worth of comics, plus back issues.

This was in order to get the house "tidied" for Doug and Kristen who probably don't care, but I wanted to do it, anyway. Anyhow, that sort of procedure is usually something that I do on Saturday and Sunday afternoons, or when nobody is looking. So it was an odd feeling to let my creepy, obsessive side out in the open.

I have no idea what Matt is going to do with himself while Doug and Kristen are here. We do have an inflatable mattress, so it might involve that.

Also, my Uncle had some health issues over the weekend, so I've been worrying about him a lot. Especially as the folks are out of the country (they're touring Italy). So for about 24 hours I thought that maybe I'd be flying into Dulles to go see him in the hospital. The good news is that he's out of the hospital, doing okay and has a plan for treatment. He just managed to give us and Aunt Linda a nasty scare.

We're pullin' for you, Bobbo. Stay healthy.

Anyhow, that's about it.

Harvey Dent and Answering Questions

Hey, Leaguers.

Would you vote for Harvey Dent for DA? If this means anything to you, I'd click on the link and then let the image roll over.

The weekend was very busy as weekends tend to be when one is employed. Friday was dinner and margaritas with Matt and Nicole. Saturday was Spider-Man 3 with the Shaws. And Saturday night I began Wii Quest '07. There are no Wii's for sale in South Austin.

Sunday we did some serious yard work, I hung my flag for Memorial Day, and then crashed for a bit. We wound up at Nicole's house for dinner with the Garcia's. It seems Letty is now sporting dual French/US citzenship. So Letty is now one of us Amerikaners. God help her.

And that was it. Busy weekend. I ot four months worth of comics bagged and boarded, but not sorted and entered into the database (that has top happen sooner or later this week). Matt might be staying at our house in the evenings as he sorts out his condo/living situation.

And that's about it.

I am amazed at all of the traffic from my short post asking for questions.

1) Que tegusta hacer cuando jugar con unicornes?

I like to take them in the tub.

2) What's wrong with your stats? An average of 244 visitors/day not enough for you?

The high number is deceptive. It's literally a 95+% looking for pictures. Mostly of naked Supergirl. (Hello Google pre-verts!)

3) Why do you worry so much about how many people are reading your site?

I don't worry about how many people are reading. I worry about people returning. And participating. Or just saying "hi".

4) It all comes down to: do you enjoy it?

Sometimes. Most of the time. But sometimes not.

5) I look forward to hearing your thoughts on the new CBS show, Kid Nation.

I think it's a concept that should have been explored with Survivor, but instead they turned Survivor into Double Dare.

6) The bit about the girl who I couldn't date because she was really into mountain biking....

I know it was confusing, but Jamie + mountain biking = unlikely.

No, that was a my analogy for my former, short lived job. We had very different ideas regarding what I would be doing for a living.

7) I think the RSS stuff has worked itself out.

8) If the only people that read are your Loyal Leaguers and a few randoms that stumble across it, does that make it less fun?

I guess I would compare hosting this blog to, oh, say... dinner theater. It's kind of hacky and dumb, but people show up, if just for the spaghetti. But I'm sort of flying solo up here on the creaky stage, trying to put on a performance every evening. I don't know how many of you have been in a play, but when you're in a show, you can't see the audience. All you can see are the lights. And that's sort of what it's like running this joint. I have no idea who is out there, if I know the people, what sort of people they are. Sure, a few friends said they'd show up, but I can't see them and I don't know where they are.

And every once in a while there's a stretch where the audience doesn't give you so much as a polite cough to let you know they're out there. You think you can kind of see the outline of a few heads, but you finish a big show-stopper, and all you can hear is yourself breathing a bit too hard. Or else you can hear someone in the audience arguing with the wait staff.

That's not to say I'm seeking applause, but as I often say, it's the Leaguers who make it all worthwhile. And sometimes when you've gone for a stretch and you have no idea if anyone is even showing up (or else the place is being flooded with senior citizens for the Tuesday Night $2.00 special, who aren't going to watch the show, anyway), you sort of want to say, "Okay, let's not run the show tonight."

And, anyway... Blogging takes time. And it's work, even when it's fun.

So, yeah, sometimes you want to take a look out form behind the curtain to see how many are in the house before you bother to get into costume.


9) Maybe you should have guest host, like they do occasionally on the Late Show or Tonight Show. So you start to feel burned out...turn it over to Stephen Harms for a week. Or Randy or Jim D.

I dunno. It's sort of a personal journal. That's a bit like letting your borther fill in your diary because you're out of town for a few days.


So, anyway, I hope this answers some questions.

Hope everyone is doing well.

From All Star Superman, which you should be reading...

Sorry for no Monday post. It's late and I had Comic Fodder work to do.

Hope your weekend was good.

Too Close to Home

Sometimes you see something on TV that makes you sort of do a bit of soul-searching, even when it was never intended to cause that bit of soul-searching. Or not.

As I mention here upon occasion, I am well aware of my low-level, basic social dysfunction, but part of that awareness is also the awareness that there is absolutely nothing you can do about it.

And so I was watching VH-1's Acceptable TV a while back, and saw this sketch. And as funny as I find it, when I mentioned to Jamie that maybe I identified a bit too much with Gar, she certainly didn't argue.

So, as it turns out, I'm "Gar the Unbearable".

Questions Para El League

Okay. I don't feel much like blogging for the next few days. Such is the fate of checking your Sitemeter statistics.

So I open the floor to you, the readership, to ask any and all questions of The League of Melbotis. I will answer them when I return.

Go nuts.

Also, this show will be on in the Fall. I think it looks pretty cool.

10 REASONS I'D MAKE A GOOD ZOMBIE

I just saw 28 Weeks Later, and it got me thinking. There are many reasons I might make a good Zombie.

1) Team Player. Let's face it, one zombie on his or her own isn't usually that scary. That's why you have to work as a team. I'm no complainer, so I think that if all the other Zombies want to drift toward some boarded up house and I didn't want to, I'd probably still help the team terrorize the victims within just to let my fellow Zombies know I'm there for them at such a challenging time.

2) Not a picky eater. It's no secret that the Bros. Steans like their food, and part of that means enjoying trying new things. Most Zombies enjoy brains, but I'd be willing to try an ear or leg so everyone could have a shot at our victim.

3) Not a stickler for staying super clean. Part of being a Zombie is drooling your own blood down the front of your shirt, as well as getting splattered with the blood of your victims. This might bug some Zombies, but not me.

4) Not much of a runner. The League likes to walk at a brisk pace, but we think we've already got the ambling pace of a zombie down pretty well. Now, I guess if we were one of "the infected" as per "28 Weeks Later", we'd have to work out some sort of undead workout regimen to keep up

5) Able to use a claw on a hammer. Many Zombies burst through boarded up windows using their body mass and either shoving or getting a mass of like-minded Zombies pushing with them. I would use the claw side of a hammer to safely remove nails so as to avoid injury to my rotting flesh

6) Can walk off injuries. Zombies are famous for wandering about with bits of their bodies missing, from limbs to eyes to gaping chest cavities. One nice thing about playing sports as a kid is that when the team needs you, you can sort of shake it off and keep moving. I think i can bring that to Team Zombie when someone puts a machete into my sternum.

7) Lots of mass, big guy. I'm a sizable fellow, and every crowd of Zombies needs a hulking Zombie that looks really menacing in the establishing shot. Sure, my natural good looks might keep me from appearing too menacing, but I'm sure after a few days of flesh sloughing off in sheets, I'd make a swell Zombie to really demand attention when our troupe first appears.

8) Well manicured teeth and strong jaws. Sure, I've had a few cavities here and there, and I suffer from a small under bite, but I think that when I'd go into a Blood Frenzy, other Zombies might really admire the way I can rend flesh and bone with my well cared for choppers and powerful jaw muscles.

9) Can take criticism. Everyone was new at being a Zombie at some point. And, heck, most Zombies that appear are only on the job a short while before they recruited you. But that doesn't mean that I can't hear what they have to say about my technique and form as a Zombie. No one is such a good Zombie that they can't learn a little from some constructive criticism.

10) Long term strategy. Look, you can go ahead and invade the shopping mall or try to overtake London, but what then? Zombies owe it to themselves to think long-term and really organize. Otherwise it becomes embarrassing after a while when you're just drifting around the streets saying "More brains..." when you know darn well there are no more brains. If the vampires know how to keep their food supply going, so should we.


I guess what I'm saying is that I'd be a goal oriented Zombie. Some are going to say that Zombie's are misunderstood and that the undead are a wide and diverse bunch who defy stereotyping. That may be true, but I'm not afraid to recognize that a Zombie's primary functions are to:

a) terrorize the living
b) eat brains
c) make more zombies

So with the 10 factors above, I think I could really make a bang-up Zombie.


Bonus Feature:

Also, I asked Jason tonight if he were armed only with an umbrella and had his choice of facing down a Zombie from 28 Weeks Later or a Gorn from the Star Trek episode "The Arena", which he might pick... Can you guess which creature he thought he could take?

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Mother-In-Law Day

Hey, Leaguers!

I gave my own Ma some props for Mother's Day, but I failed to give a shout out to Jamie's mom, Judy.

Judy's had a rough Spring as she had a weird scare with what appeared on her CAT Scan as a sort of Brain Cloud. We were all pretty nervous as they had to perform some surgery on Judy's noodle in order to figure out what was going on. Well, the surgery went pretty well and Judy is recovering nicely. And now she has a metal plate in her skull and the ability to bend spoons with her mind.

Judy has gone above and beyond in her mothering duties, and not just because she didn't run me off with a pitchfork (though I am sure she was and continues to be sorely tempted). Judy's always really helped us out with managing Jamie's complicated health paperwork, come up with creative ideas for our unique lifestyle situation and never hesitated to run to wherever we are when Jamie's been under the weather.

We're glad Judy's recovering. We just hope she's following orders and not lifting anything heavier than one pound.

So, today we salute you Judy! It's just really creepy now when you get mad and all the metal in the house starts flying out of the drawers and off the shelves.

Mother's Day, Baseball, bad pants

Hey, Leaguers!

Happy late Mother's Day to all you Ladies of the League who have some kid depending on you for shelter and food.



My mother is in Italy. Or headed there. Anyhow, I didn't get to see her today, but I did see her yesterday. We were both at the Astros/ Daimondbacks game, but we'd separately bought tickets, so we didn't sit together. It wasn't intentional.

Jamie and I had decided to see a game or two this year, so I'd called up Josh some time back and we got some tickets. And not two days later my mom called and asked if we wanted to go with she and my dad to the game.

Anyhow, this weekend we went to the 'Stros game and watched them defeat the Diamondbacks, which is okay. We sort of turned on the Diamondbacks last season and I sort of knew I would throw in with the Astros once we were in Texas. After all, We were going to be getting a lot more Astros games here, so it was sort of a practical thing. Plus, I don't care for Eric Byrnes. I don't know why, but the man bugs me.

I was impressed with the Astros' new guy, Hunter Pence, which is a terrible name for a pretty good player. he had a good hit last night and caught one of Byrnes' flyballs this afternoon in that game (which I watched part of on TV).

Anyhoo, it's baseball season, plus NBA playoffs, so I've been watching a lot of sports.

Friday night we had dinner with Joanne P, in from Florida, and her lovely sister nancy, in from Michigan. They were here to surprise their mother for Mother's Day, which is pretty nice, I think. Nancy has a cottage in Lower Michigan if anyone is interested in renting a cottage for a week or so in the summer.

It was great to see Joanne, who I hadn't seen in the flesh in five years or so. She looks eerily the same, even as I progress in my role as "the guy who is aging badly".

Saturday we jumped in the car and left Wagner here to take care of the dogs (and see her brother and nephew) while we headed to Houston.

We grabbed lunch then headed to the game where we caught up with Sarah H, as well as my folks.

So I was all sqaured away with my new Astros cap and was ready to settle in for the game when I got a little too excited about the beer guy. I was seated fifth down the row and decided to expedite the transaction so I leaped over the empty row of chairs in front of us. I was mid-air when I heard a horrible shredding sound. My pants had split along the interior seam from the bottom of the shorts up to the crotchal region, thus exposing my red and blue striped boxer/briefs to the world.

The annoying bit was that the shorts were literally brand new. I bought them last week as I own only two or three pair of shorts for some reason, but I also paused for a moment upon realizing what had happened to my pants to recall the scenario in which I'd purchased the shorts.

"Oh, these are $8.00 less. I'll get these," I said to Jamie, a little too proud of the bargain I'd found.

You get what you pay for, Leaguers.

So, yeah, I wasn't so much standing up for the good plays, but I did spend a lot of time sitting with Jamie's sweater in my lap. Jamie's pink sweater.

Anyway, I managed to make it from the top section of the stadium all the way to our car without getting arrested, nor anyone catching much of a flash of my translucent white thigh.

Next time I will just pass the money to the beer guy like a normal person.

Crisis with Multiple Dogs!

Randy sent me this link. This physicist has a series on his blog in which he discusses physics with his dog.

And discusses how we live in a multiverse.

DC was right all along...

Reporting in

Our pal Heather is off from her studies at Texas Tech, and so she's using League HQ as a sort of base of operations for the week she'll be here. She's studying speech therapy, which sounds incredibly complicated. Perhaps unduly complicated.

Tomorrow I am scheduled to catch up with a blast from my screenwriting class past as Joanne P. is dropping into town. Joanne was in my screen writing classes with Jim D. She's a swell dame, a nifty writer, and she helped us find our realtor in PHX. So we like Joanne.

Then Saturday we're leaving the house and dogs in the capable hands of Heather as we head off to Houston to see the Astros defeat the Arizona Diamondbacks. We should be back early Sunday afternoon, and then back to work.

I'm still adjusting to this whole "weekend" idea again. It was so much easier to stretch out fun over several days when you're kicking it unemployed style. Now they expect for me to work a few days a week, and that interrupts my flow.

Anyhow, hope Leaguers are doing well. All FOUR of you with babies are probably spending the weekend changing diapers. To which The League enjoys a hearty chuckle. Until one of the animals throws up on the carpet.

Oh, and I finally may have turned a corner on ABC's "Lost". Not only did the network promise a conclusion this week, but someone finally (FINALLY) took action in figuring out what the hell is going on.

That said, and this is sort of a spoiler so...

SPOILER

I sort of hoped Jacob would be the cute little white bunny from the flashback sequence. But that's just how I roll.

END SPOILER

Add in some background fill ins, tie some scenes together that didn't need to be tied together (but they are, so it's kind of cool). Anyway, Lost is back in my good graces.

Sam and Max!

Here's a look at Nathan C's kids, Samantha and Maximilian in their latest adventure!



Ah, I kid. Here's the real deal. Samantha and Maximilian share a moment.


Samantha plans out the next 16 years of psychological torture which she is duty bound to inflict upon Maximilian as the elder sibling.