Television

At one point, I could turn to TLC and find a good documentary on UFOs, or Sasquatch, or Sideshows. It became something I could rely on when I wanted a doc about one of my fringe tastes.

And then...no more. The channel seemed to be taken over by home improvement reality shows. Sad, really. I've come to accept the 'botched medical procedure' shows as a semi-replacement, but it can never fill me with joy like TLC could in the 'before times'.

Well, crap, it looks like A&E is also taking that turn. I could watch City Confidential followed by American Justice back-to-back every day and night just a few months ago. Now, it seems, they have been relegated to a single showing in the afternoon, and Investigative Reports is MIA. Now it's The Sopranos, CSI, that ludicrous Dog: The Bounty Hunter, and whatever new 'watch-me-while-I-work!' shows they have this season every night, depriving me of extra true crime documentaries. It's a sad time to be a TV-watching Matt.

MO TIME!

Late...don't have any time to post anything useful...

Watch this instead!

Fastest Thing Still Alive for some Reason

Two particularly shameful nights in a row. I really need some sort of inspiration walk.

Reading some of my Grade 6 comic books, the single funniest 'kid-ism' I could find was when I told the readers the camera angle in a caption ("This is an overhead shot"). Apparently, at age 12, I did not believe my audience knew the difference between shots. Or I just wanted to make my shitty pen art more clear. It still seemed pretty funny.

Looking back at those, it really showed that reading Archie's Sonic the Hedgehog comic series taught me nothing of the form. I could definitely see the inspiration that Sonic had, especially in the faux advertising and editorials I had to include in every single comic. But I really don't think I came to really 'understand' comics until much later. Still, Sonic at least got me interested in the medium.

What a perfect time to talk about Sonic comics themselves, huh? I've been meaning to get to that eventually.

Sonic and it's spin-offs were an odd bunch. Surprisingly, the original title is still going at it, after almost 15 years of being published. I do believe that makes it the longest licensed comic ever produced? I could be wrong.

If I didn't know it as a fact, I'd find it hard to believe that anyone could get that much mileage out of the concept of a blue anthropomorphic hedgehog with super speed fighting a fat man's army of robots. It takes a certain kind of talent to be able to come up with new plots every month, let alone take them as seriously as those writers did. Yep, they took those stories seriously.

Or they did later on. From my understanding, the earlier issues invoked a more cartoony style, with simplistic Super Friends-style plots. As to be expected, because honestly, it's Sonic the Hedgehog.

I started reading long after that period, though. My first issue (#35, I do believe) was dealing with other dimensions and that kind of Kirby-lite funky junk. It's downright surreal that someone thought a story like that fit in the established concept of Sonic the Hedgehog.

They were able to fit a number of seemingly out there mythology into that series, and especially into the Knuckles the Echidna comics that spun off from it. I always favored those comics to the Sonic ones; I guess I thought the mythology and characters in them were far superior, despite the fact that the titular character looked nothing like the titular animal. They had tons of crazy ongoing plots, like Knuckles constantly being monitored by a gathering of his ancestors (who all had fantastical names like "Steppenwolf", "Athair", "Locke"...and then there was "Knuckles"), the conflict with militaristic dingoes(!), and some sort of cult led by a guy with a can-opener for an arm. The greatest of all, however, was the sadly short-lived villain Enerjak, who wore an awesome Aztec-inspired suit and tried to dissolve Knuckles' molecules. Pretty impressive for a kiddy comic villain.

Long after I stopped reading, they introduced a new girlfriend character for Sonic (What? Another one?), and she was an annoying bitch. I do believe she was shot later. As I have been informed by my colleague, she was shot in the heart. And lived. Like Duke, only being far more annoying.

Thus teaching children an important lesson: Being shot in the heart is far from fatal.

Candy Candy Candy

I apologize again for last night. I promise, it will never happen again.

Today, I have some Easter candy to talk about. Yes, they started selling Easter candy earlier this month, but I have waited until now to get a massive bag of Mini-Eggs, easily the most addictive of all chocolate Easter candies.

As you may have noticed, there is a new variety of mini-egg being produced...ones with pop rocks in them. I'm certain I've had something like those in July, but were they mini-eggs, or something else? Not sure.

The commercial for the pop rock eggs is pretty bizarre. It has the ever-loving Cadbury squawking bunny, leaving candy-filled baskets in front of people's houses. But soon after, these baskets explode (with colorful smoke)! We all know what that means...the bunny has resorted to terrorism.

Terrible Movie Ideas

From the people who thought it would be a good idea to greenlight Date Movie and Epic Movies, comes another comedy with little to no value...

Theoretic Movie!

Basically, the entire movie consists of whatever number of writers from Scary Movie throwing ideas for their next movie. It's a sure-fire box office hit.



This has been brought to you by the 'Got Nuthin' files.

End of the week Panic

This morning I work up with a chest pain. I was worried that it was some sort of heart problem. Went to the doctor, doctor said it was minor inflammation of the lungs. Took some Advil and felt much better. It pretty much wasted the day I had off of everything, but dems da breaks.

I also got a tiny souvenir glass from Jamaica. It features a Rastafarian man smoking a blunt sticking out from the front of it. Or maybe he just had a burrito. I can't tell completely from the sculpt.

End of a book

Last night I finished Douglas Adams' Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. It was all I could expect from Adams' work, and I quite enjoyed it. Not nearly as much as the Hitch Hiker's Guide series, but that honestly changed my whole view on everything. You can't expect an enjoyable novel to outdo a literary experience.

Ah, research. I've been delving into the drug culture for this, looking up names like Hunter S. Thompson, William Burroughs, and Timothy Leary. All to help produce a comic 'concept' (as I've mentioned before, they will remain 'concepts' until we can actually get someone to illustrate them and get them published) with a very Grant Morrison-y idea. My co-creator has never read any Grant Morrison comics, so I guess that's my field.

End of a thing

Civil War #7 came out today, so this is going to spoilerific.



Ready?



Are you sure want to read the rest?


Okay, this is the last warning.




So, Cap decides to turn himself in after the citizens of NYC pull him off of Iron Man and show the damage the war's done. Hercules breaks Clor. Reed and Sue decide to get back together. The gubberment wins, and drafts all the heroes into the army. Iron Man becomes director of SHIELD.

I agree with the sentiment that it should end with the Pro side winning, as it actually has an impact on the line as a whole, with certain heroes now soldiers and others now fugitives. It's an interesting dynamic and can prove to produce some interesting stories over the next few months. Not that in the scheme of things I am for the Registration concept...I still have my suspension of belief when it comes to superhero universes.

Of course, it is to be realized that the new status quo will fizzle by next year, possibly in a grand spectacle. Possibly Soldier heroes are sent to invade an alien planet/place on Earth and come to question the government. Or the Red Skull becomes President. I wouldn't put the latter out of the realm of possibility considering the track record the Marvel U public has, as they have in the past supported mini-Hitlers and large death-dealing robots that have the extremely likely chance of rebelling at any point. Call that a prediction, and also a rip-off of DC.

Quality-wise, Civil War has generally been considered hackery (although initial reactions seemed a bit more enthusiastic). This is not surprising, considering that Mark Millar has never been praised for his use of politics in comics (see: his run of The Authority). I will praise him for balancing the two sides by giving them both moments of utter stupidity (Pro-Reg has Clor and hiring serial killers as law enforcers; Anti-Reg has "let's let the Punisher shoot people at random intervals!"). But the concept was at least intriguing.

Next, World War Hulk and Silent War, which I am curious to see. I don't know how well they'll turn out, but they are shorter than the current batch of crossovers, so they don't rape your wallet entirely. Could be fun, could be not.

****

In other comics news, my collaborator/friend might be going to people he knows who can actually draw and see what they can do with our comic concept, which we have been discussing at length over the last few days. Not to say we're going to get something published over the next year, but it's a step in the direction of actually taking it seriously. Once we've gone over everything (art and story-wise), later on I could try producing scripts.

StrangeFate indeed

While browsing the local dollar store, I came upon some odd packages: a number of old TMNT storybooks bagged with a random comic. Among them: Amalgm titles like JLX and Dr.Strangefate, and even an issue of Impulse. I just found that odd.

I delved into the second Promethea trade, and when they said it got stranger later on, they were far from kidding. The whole 'magic sex' stuff was...errrr, a little outside my jurisdiction. Right now, I'm in the issue where Mike and Mack the talking staff snakes explain how the tarot cards represent time and the evolution of the universe. It's kinda exited 'story fun' territory. It's still interesting but, when it is basically an article about tarot cards, it gets kinda dull. The visuals are still very nice, though.

In other news DC Countdown.

I like the idea of rotating creative teams and 'anything goes' stories. It means I can just pick up the issues that interest me. Even so, the 'shocking death' thing is kind of off-putting. I mean, it's not like those things aren't a dime-a-dozen these days.

I bought Grandaddy's Just like the Fambly Cat today. I'm liking it.

Lubook Ubarubound Yubou

Okay, so say I end up in the Wiki article about Ubbi Dubbi. In that article, it mentions the word 'infix', a word I may not know. 'Infix' has an article link, so if you don't know what the word means, you would most likely click the link in order to find out the meaning of the word.

The first line of the 'infix' article:

An infix is an affix inserted inside another morpheme. This is common in Austronesian and Austroasiatic languages.

Not helping.

Anyways, essential viewing:











There's more.

Ha ha! Dangly parts

That Ghost Rider thing didn't happen. I guess I'll save my money for a good movie.

Behold! The power of 'scrotum'.

“Scrotum sounded to Lucky like something green that comes up when you have the flu and cough too much,” the book continues. “It sounded medical and secret, but also important.”

Your scrotum is very secret. Very secret indeed. Secret Scrotum.

But, I digress.

This book included what I call a Howard Stern-type shock treatment just to see how far they could push the envelope, but they didn’t have the children in mind,” Dana Nilsson, a teacher and librarian in Durango, Colo., wrote on LM_Net, a mailing list that reaches more than 16,000 school librarians. “How very sad.”

I don't see how this is the case, unless the passage was followed immediately by a sonnet describing the many uses of the scrotum. There's more than you think!

“The word is just so delicious,” Ms. Patron said.

I know I salivate whenever I hear the word 'scrotum'. Mmmmm...scrotum.

I think it’s a good case of an author not realizing her audience,” said Frederick Muller, a librarian at Halsted Middle School in Newton, N.J. “If I were a third- or fourth-grade teacher, I wouldn’t want to have to explain that.”

Who said you had to? Leave it a mystery to the little children. They will await the day they will learn the true meaning of 'scrotum'!

Booksellers, too, are watchful for racy content in books they endorse to customers. Carol Chittenden, the owner of Eight Cousins, a bookstore in Falmouth, Mass., said she once horrified a customer with “The Adventures of Blue Avenger” by Norma Howe, a novel aimed at junior high school students. “I remember one time showing the book to a grandmother and enthusing about it,” she said. “There’s a chapter in there that’s very funny and the word ‘condom’ comes up. And of course, she opens the book right to the page that said ‘condom.’ ”

CONDOM!!!! THAT'S DEVILRY!

Ms. Nilsson, reached at Sunnyside Elementary School in Durango, Colo., said she had heard from dozens of librarians who agreed with her stance. “I don’t want to start an issue about censorship,” she said. “But you won’t find men’s genitalia in quality literature.”

That's just discrimination. Discrimination against SCROTUMS.

Bad comedy aside, book banning is bad. Book banning because of the scientific word for balls that isn't even elaborated on in any fashion is downright stupid. BOOO to these people. Yay for scrotums.

A quick bit of Visuals

Nothing big here, just a few select sculpts from the new Dc Heroclix set that I like. These came from a poster, and I found them on HCRealms. Have a gander:



Yay! Doom Patrol!



STELLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!



The Question is freaking awesome. This sculpt is freaking awesome, even if it wasn't attached to The Question. But since it is, it is doubly awesome.



Holy fug, it's Mr. Mind! I never thought I'd see the day. I hope he just ruins people's shit in the game, because if there's anything in the world more satisfying than beating someone with a tiny bug, I've never heard of it. Or maybe I have, and I'm just using hyperbole for this particular write-up.



It's hard not to like Gentleman Ghost. He's a ghost...who's also a gentleman. Plus he has a top hat. Pretty damn awesome.

End of the week Barleynade

Tonight, I realized that I suck at watching movies. I am so behind on cinema, it could be a crime. I may be able to make reference to great/cult classic movies, but it's likely I have ever seen them.

so, I've decided to take the initiative when it comes to movie viewing. I will lead the charge to 300, join the group in Grindhouse, and maybe even get along to Hot Fuzz if our theatre decides not to suck and get it.

Later on, I hope to even get a Terry Gilliam marathon going. Time Bandits, Brazil, Fear and Loathing, Twelve Monkeys, the Fisher King, and Baron Munchausen. I'm sure you'll all be fine if I just skip over The Brothers Grimm and Tideland, right? Sure you will. Oh, I guess I'll throw in Lost in La Mancha too.

Well, my year is set.

Mayo

The night was spent remembering favorite phrases from the past, playing Wario Ware multiplayer (which never gets old) and Mario Strikers. We also watched My Name is Earl and The Office, all of which have become staples of Thursday. At least it gives us a reason to get together when we could be lazing about.

On the way home, the city of Bismarck, North Dakota was mentioned. I have been to Bismarck twice in my life, and it is probably the furthest I've ever penetrated into the US of A (I don't travel much), both times for soccer tournaments. One of those two I actually took part in.

Bismarck is probably one of the least interesting places to visit in America. North Dakota is not all that different from Canada, and Bismarck is not all that different from my city. But still, when you're 10, it's the little things that count.

Among those little things: Bismarck had an alien-themed Bar & Grill. The inside glowed purple, the walls were adorned with toys and Weekly World News articles, and all the items on the menus had wonderfully lame themed names. How can you not love it? I'm not saying you can't, I'm just asking how. Because I think that would be interesting.

Secondly, Bismarck had a MUSEUM. Like the ones I saw on TV, with FOSSILS. Not just any fossils, MAMMOTH fossils. And an ancient spear. That's waaaaaay cooler than anything I've seen here.

Thirdly, the hotel we stayed at both times had access to Nickelodeon. This was a BIG DEAL back in those days. It didn't matter that I could watch Rugrats and Doug at home, this time they were on their home turf. And that was cool, I guess. Now, I could care less. Seeing the bumpers might be interesting, even though they're bumpers, the least interesting part of a channel. But I'm weird that way.

The only other observation I can make about Bismarck involves it seemingly having a overtly large amount of Taco Johns. TJ only became cool when they used a monkey cowboy riding a dog in their TV ads. Oh Whiplash, how great a being you are.

I've always been to Bismarck's sister city of Minot. Which has nothing of interest. Or nothing I can remember.

In conclusion: I must get out more.

Hey! Lookee Here!

I have heard local mindless generic rock radio station play 'Disarm' by the Smashing Pumpkins twice now. I just never expect that kinda stuff to come from them. But then again, they played 'E-Pro' at one point, too. And I guess I can't complain when it's a few minutes that they aren't playing Nickleback.

I might go see Ghost Rider this weekend with a friend. I don't expect to like it, especially since the commercials show the movie hamming it up as much as possible. And not in the good, Vincent Price way, either. More along the lines of "we got nothing, so let's just make it as lame as possible!". I'm completely neutral on the subject matter, by the way. I'm sure in the right hands, Ghost Rider can be more than just a relic of the 70s (Luke Cage kinda did).

Visuals: Marvel Team-Up

Wow, I missed a day. No worry, I've got something extra special tonight...Visuals! Featuring your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man! So worth it.



Good sweet God. Not a great way to start the whole thing off...



Now exclusively hunting Blaculas.



The Exorcist would've been much better with a bazooka. Yep.



Hey look! Now I can finally have a Giant-Sized Man-Thing!



"...They belong to AOL Time-Warner!"



She's got pretty good...stats.



Dude, I love Hulk Hands!



Kitty!



Okay, so Cosmic Aunt May was a 'dream' story.

But Spidey eating hot dogs with Loki? 100% canon.

What a world.



Now we have an excuse to listen to some Presidents of the United States while playing cards!

Little Dune Buggy...in the sand/Little Blue Dune Buggy...in my hand...



Maybe flying by itself was more useful when you were an X-Man, when you were the only one had it. Atleast carry around that pole you had back when you were a kid!



She ated the purple berries.

Okay, even if there were 1000 different words that meant 'awesome', it wouldn't be enough for this.



Simply put: awesome.



What's with big green guys and birds today?



Nighthawk is Gumby?



I think this is the first utterance of 'chillax' on a gaming card.

Hopefully, it will be the last.

I'm so gellin'.



What exactly are they defending? A back wall? Pudding?



Wow, what a great name.









By the way I tried to say I'd be there waiting for!

This is the most musical Visuals ever.



Don't be fooled! Albert Malik is not the original Skull! He's a communist, not a Nazi!

Oh well, we're just going to have to wait a bit longer for the real deal, won't we?



"I love you Cameron Diaz!"



For you see, he has razors...for fists.



(Insert reference to Dalmatians)

Too easy. Let's just leave it at: Spot is a loser. Loveable loser, but a loser nonetheless.



The Skull may have not been a Nazi, but Swarm is! Not only that, but he's a Nazi made of bees.



Green Goblin sure loves his own head.



Hahaha, why didn't we get the Kangaroo in this set?



Eventually, an old man will extract their DNA, clone them, and put those clones in a theme park that goes awry.





They look like they're in amber, you see.



What a silly picture.



"You're invited...to a sweet sixteen party!"



Apparently, when they were handing out names that are not lame, this guy missed the bus.



Chug! Chug! Chug!



Well, I guess Rock 'N Roll has conquered Hell.

/\_/\

Sorry, can't remember how to e-symbolize the horns ;_;



"I'm not touching you!"



Thanos: Titan of Street-Crossing Safety!



There's a funny story behind this pic, there really is...I suggest you look up the Giffen/DeMatteis/Maguire Defenders miniseries.



Electro and Kraven are too cool for mugshots.



I love the grainy look of this card.

What, no joke for this one? I'll make it up...errr...

How do fruit get to the hospital?

In the Jambulance!

I'm so sorry.



Errr....that's different.



What a sillier picture.



Here's another card whose source material might be worth looking up.

Well, look it up!



Okay, ew.



Hulk playing pool...what a country!

(Insert quote from The Hustler)



Huh, I wonder what lives there...

Oh, the Infinity Watch.

Oh.