Spleeny

spleeny — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 04:22:38 GMT

So, I've read Knights of the Old Republic #48 and 49. 50 will be the final issue, so these two really go out of their way to answer some of the lingering questions from the series. But the most intriguing thing to come out of it is the explanation for how exactly Zayne's relationship with the Force works.

I've thought about it A LOT thanks to Fandom High. I didn't even want to app him until I had a pretty good understanding of it and, I have to say, I came pretty close to nailing it. I was too focused on him, though. I took the line about "The Force does not want me dead. It does not want me happy, but it does not want me dead" a little too literally. Clearly it caused his wild extremes of good luck and bad, but I thought it was because he was special.

But no. As it's explained, he has a "learning disability" that where he just can't quite grasp how to use the Force to affect an outcome. When he tries - even passively - he's going to accidentally push it too far one way, leaving the Force to influence events to balance things out. If he's trying to use it to survive a fall, he's going to end up in a vat of waste or at his Masters' feet. If he's going to use it to aid in a deception to capture a criminal, that criminal is going to escape by deception. If he's using it in a duel and loses, somebody will save him. If he helps pull someone back into the Light from the Dark Side, they're going to get blown up. If someone gets possessed by the spirit of an ancient Sith, he will deliver them to the only person who can save them even if it's across millennia. And if his teachers get together and murder their own students, framing him for the deed, every single one of them will die, except for the one Master whose student survived.

Everything he does creates the need for a balance in the Force.

In other words, THIS WHOLE SERIES HAS BEEN ABOUT THE WAY MY LIFE WORKS. Fuck it. No longer am I blaming The Universe for the ludicrous series of events that my life so often ends up being. It's officially The Force.

spleeny — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 06:42:28 GMT

*The office manager at work is completely awesome. This is a 50-60-ish year old woman who once told me that my sense of humor reminds her of John Hodgman (which is pretty much the highest sense of humor anyone could pay me right now), told me to watch Tosh.0, and once recommended This American Life to me when I was actually listening to that week's TAL podcast. The other day when I was listening to War Rocket Ajax, she asked me what I had on. I told her a it was a comic book podcast. Her immediate reaction?

"SPOON."

That's right. She straight up dropped a Tick reference on me. You just don't expect that kind of thing from older ladies.

Honestly, between her geeky tendencies, her sense of humor, and the fact that she does math for a living, she reminds me of tarzanic in about 30 years. It's kind of weird to see.

*Gmail just gave me this ad: "Unemployed Toddlers? - babylab.uchicago.edu - Put them to work at the Center for Early Childhood Research!"

That may be the greatest ad ever. GET TO WORK, YOU DAMN TODDLERS. DON'T CRY! WHAT ARE YOU, BABIES?

*I'm trying to decide what I thought of last week's Office clip show. On one hand, clear jump the shark moment. On the other, if there's one show that COULD theoretically get away with a clip show, the mockumentary format makes The Office that show. And it actually fit in both thematically (looking back on the time with Dunder Mifflin) and emotionally (the Jim-Pam retrospective alone was awww). But when you get right down to it, I was grateful that tonight was a rerun instead of another freaking clip show.

spleeny — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 06:38:48 GMT

As I try to fall asleep tonight, I was going to write a post about my day today (began with my alarm somehow being set an hour later than usual and swollen eyes, ended with stomach problems) or maybe the saga of my annual review (which is an interesting story, the key point being that it was supposed to be last Friday at 3:30, but has now been officially rescheduled for tomorrow at 3:30 in what has been kind of a clusterfuck that at least suggests I'm not fired) or maybe even 24.

But no. There's only one topic that I really need to mention right now. So. I went to OKCupid to finish rewriting my profile (which I do almost completely every six months or so) and I glanced at the "recently viewed" icons and what do I see? Cute comic artist girl changed her profile pic to a Halloween picture where she's a zombie. Fake blood all over her face and everything.

For the record, she hadn't responded to my previous message and so this was, in fact, the very next thing I learned about her.

Clearly, I know the way my life works. Thanks, Universe, for making a stupid joke look prophetic.

The Only On LJ Files #1

spleeny — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 07:14:56 GMT

As I become more and more accustomed to other forms of social media besides LiveJournal, I find that certain information suits different audiences better than others. My parents and extended family can read my Facebook, so I am unlikely to talk about girls there. My real life friends can read my twitter, so I am unlikely to talk about my internet circles there. So there are some things that I can feel safe sharing only with my LJ flist. And so I now open the Only on LJ Files.

Holy crap, I'm talking to a cute girl on OKCupid... about comic books. Because she draws them. And she is actually replying to my messages.

I mean, that last thing is, of course, high on my list of things I might like about a girl, but when you add that to somebody who both likes and draws comics and lives a reasonably close distance? I don't get that kind of luck with online dating sites. Something karmically bad is coming soon. I fully expect that the next thing I might learn about her is that she kills men and eats their spleens, not to absorb their power, but because she thinks they taste great with some seasoning.* Which would be thematically appropriate of course, but would possibly end with my death and the loss of my spleen.

On the other hand, I can't prove that spleens don't taste great with some seasoning, so can I really fault a cute girl for that? At this point, I think I'd have to take my chances.

Okay, more realistically, she stops replying. But still. I have had an actual conversation with a cute girl who draws comic books on OKCupid. And that's pretty cool.

*Yes, eating spleens for taste is the issue. Eating them for power is different because ambition is kinda hot.

spleeny — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 06:21:09 GMT

Hi there, LJ. We haven't talked in a while since LiveJournal decided that giving me a Best Buy video on my window every time I came by during the holidays was a good idea. I disagreed and completely got out of the habit of using LJ. But I'm checking in now.

How are you?

Four things on my mind right now:

1) My head hurts.

2) I'm playing Batman at FH now. That was a long time coming.

3) I'm with CoCo.

4) 24 is starting pretty awesome thing year.

4a) I always feel weird saying something like this since my flist is almost entirely female, but there are sections of the internet where Renee Walker on 24 is known as Agent Hotness and holy crap she's just killing Barney Stinson's Hot/Crazy graph right now. Yes, I felt the need to bring this up on LJ. Mainly because I'm never going to refer to her as The Hotness on twitter (I don't need the RL friends I have on there asking questions) or Facebook (same thing, only with my mom reading, too) and it needed to be said.

Anyway, I plan on getting back into the groove with the Eljay again, provided they've cut it out with the damn commercials.

That is all.

Vacation in Review

spleeny — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 19:25:07 GMT

THURSDAY:

*Flew to LA after dealing with security and everything in record time.

*Had dinner with comedownstairs at her former roommate's future-parents-in-laws' house with a bunch of people. It was good.

FRIDAY:

*Happy Birthday to Me!

*Spent the day hanging out while Natalie went to work. Watched lots of Seinfeld and cartoons.

*Had dinner at Islands.

SATURDAY:

*Went to breakfast at IHOP, per tradition.

*Hit up the LA Science Center, which is pretty awesome and free. It's like a way scaled down Museum of Science and Industry. This was during the tailgating for the USC/UCLA football game, so we had some entertainment going to and from the parking lot.

*Went to Islands AGAIN.

*Watched Star Wars with the RiffTrax going. It was funny.

SUNDAY:

*Saw 2012 with Natalie and it's still ridiculous the second time around. Maybe moreso. Still fun, though.

*Picked up new Discworld and Bill Simmons' The Book of Basketball at Barnes & Noble. They had the Pratchett book for CHEAP. Must now find time to read books without pictures of Spider-Man.

*Watched ROTS with the RiffTrax going. Also funny. Then watched Greek, which is a very good show.

TODAY:

*Got dropped off at airport at 7:00 for an 11:45 flight since Natalie has something called "work" today. The security line was out the door and nearly to the next building.

*Have been sitting around for a while.

*Saw departure time moved to 12:10.

*Heard that flight MIGHT BE overbooked at 11:10. I feel like they should have known that earlier than this.

*Am curious how late I'll be getting into Chicago. Not until after 6 as it currently stands. We'll see.

OVERALL:

*Lots of fun with some stumbles at the finish line. LET'S GO, SOUTHWEST. GET ME IN THE AIR.

spleeny — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 05:28:50 GMT

I haven't had much to say recently, obviously. But let's see if I can summarize:

*Community is probably my favorite show on TV right now.

*Work is running the gamut recently. Pretty much any opinion I could have of it, I have. But I think I'm kind of rocking it at the moment, but that really doesn't mean anything.

*We had our Thanksgiving potluck at work on Friday, followed by the annual touch football game. My team got killed, but I didn't embarrass myself at any point. AND I didn't feel like death for three days after this time!

*My mom recently bought herself a Wii with my help. Due to a combination of poor planning on her part and not realizing how much strain some of those games can cause her body, I am now the owner of a Wii because I couldn't convince her to just return it. Sigh.

*I'm heading to California on Thursday for the return of the annual birthday trip to Natalie's! She's working on Friday (my birthday) but still. It should be awesome.

*I've renewed my subscription to Coast to Coast AM. The George Noory shows still kind of bug me from time to time (well, at least once a week, really), but the Ian Punnett shows more than make up for it. A couple weeks ago he had a whole show on Scientology from an author who used to work in the main compound and is now big in the Anonymous movement. Then he did a show on DARPA, which was pretty amazing. This weekend he had an author who has done a ton of research into the informant system in law enforcement and how screwed up it is. And last month, apparently, he had a show with the author of the Zombie Survival Guide where it was a two-hour War of the Worlds-type broadcast about the war with the zombies. I still need to listen to that one.

But seriously, Ian Punnett makes for good radio.

Also, I'm absolutely uploading that show to share with people when I get to it.

*From Punnett's show on Saturday, I found this: Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking sing a duet thanks to autotune.

*Allergies have been killing me the past couple weeks. Dry eyes, headaches, sneezing... It's like it's not November at all. BUT IT TOTALLY IS.

That's about it.

Nerd rage.

spleeny — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 17:10:15 GMT

... I just read a comics opinion piece that suggested the writer would be okay with Spider-Man killing Norman Osborn at some point of Osborn ever went after his family again.

That is a website I will never read again. Spider-Man can WANT to kill someone. He can even TRY to kill someone in the heat of the moment, or ALMOST kill someone. I'll even go on record as accepting either somebody inadvertently dying because of his actions or even the very flimsy Batman Begins "I won't kill you, but I don't have to save you" argument if it's written well enough.

But for him to just go nuts on Norman, punch him to death, have it be successful, and have that be okay? No. That suggests a fundamental misunderstanding of the character and it means that you're wrong and I hate you and I'm not reading your site anymore.

That site might as well suggest that Batman should murder Joker with a gun....

spleeny — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 05:20:50 GMT

*I've been working a lot of overtime recently for various reasons. I've been getting a lot of headaches recently, too. I suspect these facts are related.

*I'm getting a group together to see 2012 on Friday. It's a movie in which the apocalypse chases John Cusack as he tries to escape in a car and, later, a plane. It's going to be a glorious pile of crap. I can't wait.

*The word is that Spider-Man 4 casting is getting rolling and with that, the rumors of who the villains are going to be is starting to gear up. It kind of sounds like The Lizard is a lock - which is a really good thing since he's easily the most filmable of Spidey's remaining rogues (way ahead of Sandman, for the record), with some Black Cat fun thrown in there. But the best part of the Black Cat rumor is that they're talking to Rachel McAdams to play her, and she's awesome. Also? Adorable.

*I loved yesterday's HIMYM. The bit in the car was one of the greatest scenes ever on the show and I will defend that opinion to the death.

*I'm trying to get into the Hockey Hall of Fame. I started a petition and everything! Go ahead and sign it!

*From the wiki entry on famed one-handed baseball pitcher Jim Abbott: New York Yankees teammate Mariano Rivera said Abbott could hit home runs into the bleachers during batting practice.

If YouTube were around during Abbott's career, he would have been a frickin' superstar.

spleeny — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 06:22:38 GMT

So, I just watched GI Joe: Rise of Cobra.

Damn. That was a surprisingly fun movie. Really, I should have expected nothing less from Stephen Sommers (anyone who wasn't entertained by Van Helsing doesn't enjoy fun... or works for Universal and took a beating on that one).

"*Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow were done really well. They're freaking commando ninjas and you don't need to spend much time setting up what commando ninjas can do. Just show them kicking all kinds of ass.

*That said, the flashbacks showing Kid Snake Eyes and Kid Storm Shadow kicking the living hell out of each other were really awesome. I never knew that I wanted to see two children beat each other up like that, but apparently that's exactly what I was looking for in an action movie.

*Okay, I don't normally go down this route because I always find it kind of creepy to do when the vast majority of my flist is women, but it needs to be said: Sienna Miller was really, really hot as the Baroness. I mean, I know that the character is kind of a lightning rod for nerd lust to begin with since she combines glasses with a catsuit and ass kicking, but I generally stayed away from that, probably because I was never that big into GI Joe. But holy crap. She completely overshadows Scarlett. I mean, it's not even close. Damn.

Okay, I'm going to stop now.

*On a related note, she kept an American accent better than I thought she would. The fact that she isn't American was only painfully obvious a few times.

*This didn't make sense to me when I first heard it and it still doesn't make sense to me now that I've seen the movie. JOSEPH GORDON-LEVITT AS COBRA COMMANDER? REALLY? I mean, he's a great actor and all, but... I mean, really. Joseph. Gordon-. Levitt. I also wasn't a fan of the Vaderization of CC. But whatever.

*Speaking of Star Wars, that sub battle was way too blatantly a Return of the Jedi knockoff. Did we REALLY need the superlaser in there?

*I kind of think it's weird that I really liked Marlon Wayans in something. I think I'm giving Sommers some credit for this, though. The dude knows how to use comic relief sidekicks. It's one of the cliches Sommers always plays like a fiddle.

*Channing Tatum is not a good actor, but he could be a very good action star if he plays his cards right.

*Ray Park is a horrible actor, but he's a FANTASTIC character actor, assuming the character type in question is somebody who doesn't speak and who kicks people. It worked for him in SW and it worked for him here. The lips on the mask were weird, though.

*I can't figure out how people didn't recognize that Cobra Commander and Rex were the same person. The breathing apparatus didn't cover enough of JGL's face to really use that. And his wig looks just like slightly longer JGL hair. That part was really, really weak.

*The final note I have, I guess, is that it's just kind of weird to have characters from an 80's cartoon 1) say "shit" repeatedly and 2) actually hit things they're shooting at.

But yeah, really fun movie.

spleeny — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:51:36 GMT

Stealing this from liminalliz:

1) Post a list of up to 20 books/movies/anime/TV shows/video games/bands [fannish etc.] that you've had an obsessive fannish love or interest in at some time in your life.
2) Have your f-list guess your favourite character/member from each item.
3) When someone guesses correctly, strikethrough the item and put the name of your favorite character next to it.

1) Buffy
2) Angel
3) Community
4) The Office (US)
5) Justice League Unlimited
6) Homicide: Life on the Street
7) ~~NewsRadio~~ Dave Nelson (icepixie)
8) The Simpsons
9) Questionable Content
10) Star Wars Original Trilogy
11) Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
12) ~~Star Wars Expanded Universe~~ Kyle. Mother Kriffing. Katarn. (freedomfry)
13) X-Men
14) ~~Farscape~~ John Crichton (which is, admittedly, a change from my classic answer of D'Argo) (icepixie)
15) ~~Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy~~ Ford Prefect (icepixie)
16) ~~Discworld~~ Death (icepixie)
17) Spider-Man (Not including Spider-Man himself because, come on, that one's too easy)
18) ~~Peanuts~~ Linus (icepixie)
19) Gilmore Girls
20) ~~Arrested Development~~ Gob Bluth (kdec90)

For the fandoms that I've RPed characters from, the answer is not always the character I've played.

Not always. Just frequently.

spleeny — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 04:19:42 GMT

*Watched Tron and Phantom Menace with RiffTrax commentary with Wes on Saturday. Twas good. I gave him a lift home afterwards and then drove around for around 40 minutes looking for a parking space. Twas bad.

*We're crazy busy at work. I went in on Saturday to work on a project I haven't touched in months. I stayed 2 hours late today to get a construction set out. Next week we have a 50% and a 90% set due. This is kind of nuts. And I am tired.

*I've been listening to this one podcast called Tom vs the JLA (which eventually becomes Tom vs The Flash). Basically, this guy spends 10 minutes each day giving a synopsis of 30 year old copies of the Justice League, adding commentary where needed. I have to say, it's a quick, free, and entertaining look at a comic I've never actually read. Good stuff.

spleeny — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 04:32:28 GMT

One of my best documented nervous tics is that my feet are constantly moving. In college I was the guy who shook the entire row of seats in the lecture halls because my legs were bouncing. If I'm at a concert, my feet are grooving even while the rest of me is perfectly still. When I'm at my mom's, my feet start playing with her gazelle exerciser thingy while I'm watching a movie on the couch.

And when I'm just sitting there at my desk for hours at work, my feet are constantly moving inside my shoes. This leads to my wearing shoes out in a fairly unique way. First, the fabric cover to the insole gets pulled back. Then my big toe starts to wear through the insole until that's pretty much destroyed. Then slowly but surely holes start to open up between the rubber sole and the... err... non-rubber part of the shoe, whatever that's called, because my feet have been SO busy in there, the shoe's structural integrity is compromised. But you know the shoe is dead when, eventually, even the rubber fails against the onslaught of my jittery big toe.

My last pair of gym shoes lasted several years, but were eventually worn out almost completely. I didn't QUITE make it through the sole, but I would have given another month, tops.

My current shoes, though, have failed at a remarkable pace. My big toe has already worn straight through the right sole after maybe six months of use. It's possible that I worked these shoes pretty hard - I spent an extended period of time hurrying around trying to catch buses and trains since I got them, and I've had a few solid hikes in them, not to mention a fierce basketball competition at Matt's house - but it's nothing compared to what I put my last pair through. Jobs and joblessness, construction sites, countless zoos, half the island of Manhattan, Pennsylvania, Mount Rushmore, at least three major multi-day road trips, the entire city of Denver a couple times over, and several long tours of Downtown Chicago.

There are two key things that come from this. First, I'm never buying Sketchers again. Second, I have a chair on my shoe in the kitchen, providing pressure to help Gorilla Glue bond a couple chunks of rubber from my old shoes to mostly cover the hole in the current shoe in the hopes that this will make it slightly more watertight until I can get some new shoes. This is very possibly the most bizarre thing I've ever done with a piece of clothing.

(Actually, that's a lie. The most bizarre thing I've ever done was using my poor but halfway serviceable sewing skills to keep an old pair of jeans together last December while I spent everyday coating them in glue and paint during work. The jeans had a hole in the crotch that kept getting worse because I was moving around in them and climbing on things and cutting cork on the floor and so on, so I ended up creating a patch from another old pair of jeans and sewing that into the work jeans. It took a week or so to figure out how to sew it in most successfully, but I ended up doing a decent job with it.)

spleeny — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 12:40:27 GMT

Long time, no talk, LJ! A quick rundown:

*Work: I was actually given a tiny bit of responsibility last Friday! Huzzah!

*Sick: I seem to have picked up some kind of stomach bug, so I took the last couple days off work. Bleh. I'm still not feeling super, but I'll make it through the day today.

*Fun: Got together with friends for dinner on Friday. I hadn't seen a couple of the people there since college. It was pretty cool. Then on Saturday, Wes, Stan, and I went to the Jonathan Coulton/Paul & Storm show. They Might Be Giants was across town playing a Flood show (wherein they play their seminal album Flood the whole way through) and since there's a lot of overlap between TMBG and JoCo's audience, Coulton decided that he was going to play a Flood show, too, in addition to a slightly truncated P&S set and an almost full set of his own. And I have to say, it was pretty amazing to see three guys who aren't TMBG manage to play the entire album with less than two weeks of preparation, no accordion, and poor Paul having to play at least five different instruments throughout the set, not including using his voice to mimic some stuff.

*Sick II: I've spent the past few minutes hacking like crazy. Still going in. Bleh.

spleeny — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 02:54:24 GMT

You know what's better than Spider-Man and some girl in a dance competition? Someone putting that on YouTube.

That is all.

spleeny — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 05:36:00 GMT

Since my Coast to Coast AM subscription ran out a while ago, I've been kind of vaguely looking for new podcasts to listen to during work. NPR's This American Life (stories about ordinary people blah blah blah) and Wait Wait Don't Tell Me (a news/comedy game show) are both great (both of those are iTunes links, btw), and Times Online's The Bugle (featuring Andy Zaltzman and John Oliver of The Daily Show, Community, and The Love Guru fame) is seriously the best way to start every week. Those Brits are funny.

For sports I have the podcast version of Pardon the Interruption and The BS Report (which is good background noise, but is probably a bit too middle-aged fratboy immature for me to listen to all the time).

For straight up comedy, I have The Onion's Radio News (which is made up BRILLIANCE more times than not... the Elmo assassination report still ranks as one of the funniest things I've EVER heard) and Hatecast (which actually isn't that funny or clever or well-performed, but at least it clues me in on some wacky pop culture stuff I might not have heard about otherwise). Or there's my recent MVP, Paul and Storm Talk About Some Stuff for Five to Ten Minutes (On Average), which is always interesting and/or/but especially and hilarious. They're a musical comedy duo (formerly of Da Vinci's Notebook) who now tour with Coulton all the time. They are very funny.

And finally, I get some comic stuff from War Rocket Ajax, brought to you in part by the guy behind The Invincible Super-Blog. They talk about comics, pop culture, have interviews with people in and around the comic industry, talk about monkeys (they introduced listeners to the classic character Six Gun Gorilla, which is exactly what it sounds like), and other various things. And they mark section breaks with Flash's Theme by Queen, which is awesome.

SO! With all of that in mind, I need some more. Most of those update over the weekend, so I can fill up my iPod completely for about a day and a half before I'm into repeats of something. Anyone have any podcast suggestions?

spleeny — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 03:57:42 GMT

So, Agents of Atlas is one of the best comics on the stands. As I've mentioned before, their initial miniseries is the story of a bunch of Marvel (or, as they were known then, Atlas) characters from the 50's banding together to fight a great evil from their heyday. Their FANTASTIC ongoing series has the Agents - which includes, lest we forget, GORILLA-MAN, THE MAN CURSED TO BE BOTH A GORILLA WITH THE MIND OF A MAN - running a criminal empire in the name of good (because it IS the Dark Reign of Norman Osborn, so it's the perfect cover).

But this week's issue (which is kind of the finale for now, except that it's going to have two issues of X-Men vs Agents of Atlas and then be a backup feature in Hercules for a while) features the single best thing ever in the series: M-11 (a killer robot) had been taken down a few times by M-21 (an even killier robot). So how does he fight back against M-21?

He gets programmed with the personality of "The Greatest." What follows is pages of a killer robot kicking all sorts of ass while spouting off nonsensical but energetic rhymes about how much ass he is has kicked, is kicking, and will kick shortly.

Seriously, this series is love. You also have a princess of Atlantis (who is basically Namor with breasts and that is in no way a slight because more characters should be more like Namor), a completely adorable love goddess, a freaky Earthman who turned Uranian, a deaged superspy, a modern superspy, the son of Iron Man's greatest villain, and, of course, GORILLA-MAN.

Also great this week? Amazing Spider-Man (I loved the MJ story, but the second story about Pete and Harry tooling around and trying to get Peter into online dating was just great) and Nova (which I really need to gush about more sometime).

Quick thoughts on NBC's Thursday Night Lineup

spleeny — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 05:27:55 GMT

*SNL Thursdays or whatever they call it: You're not on Saturday, it's not a Weekend Update, what the hell? Still, the Joe Wilson sketch was really funny, in that way that something can be funny when the punchline is made obvious after three minutes but the sketch goes on for another three. That is, "Kinda funny, but not that funny because it went on way too long."

*P&R: They still haven't had their Dundies, but the last three episodes have been solid. I mean, it still feels like The Office's Little Sister and I'm not convinced it'll ever break out of that right now. But it does have two things hugely in its favor: 1) PENGUINS. 2) The fact that Leslie and Ann STILL could just make out at any given moment. Seriously, the not-really-sub text is the most compelling part of the show. And the writers have made it blatantly obvious that they're well aware of this fact.

You know, it's kind of like The Tick sitcom, where the heart of the show really resided in the blatant homoeroticism between the two leads that never went farther than just below direct acknowledgement. Actually, when I'm more awake, I bet I could draw a large number of parallels between the two shows.

*The Office: Is love. The whole episode in general, but especially the first Jim & Pam talking head, and then the last few minutes of the episode. It's still my favorite show.

*Community: That was a seriously great pilot. Joel McHale? Awesome. Britta? ADORABLE. Seriously, I may have a new TV crush. Everyone else? Awesome. John Oliver? Well, it's always great to see one half of The Bugle doing something great. He's now 1-for-2 with this acting thing! This could help ease the pain of him having been in The Love Guru!

spleeny — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 00:52:13 GMT

Four FANTASTIC things in this week's comics:

1) Cyclops' masterstroke against Norman Osborn (Dark Avengers/Uncanny X-Men: Exodus). I love it when Marvel plays up the fact that Cyclops is the greatest strategic mind in the Marvel U when Steve Rogers isn't around. Bendis nailed that in House of M when the heroes turned to Scott for leadership. Fraction nailed it here, after five issues of glorious setup. And that in an event that sets up a new and exciting status quo for the X-Men, shows us the Dark Avengers' first big defeat (and, really, kicking off the next act of the wonderful Dark Reign era), firmly establishes Scott as a leader not to be messed with, and, well, sets up an intriguing turn of events for Emma. Seriously, great conclusion to a really good story.

2) Peter finding out how the Chameleon "improved" his life (Amazing Spider-Man #604). It gives us a few nice status quo shifts for Harry and Michelle, and gives more concrete answers about Mary Jane, and it's all very nice. But almost more importantly, it's all part of a GREAT shift for Chameleon, who was basically ruined back in the 90s. Van Lente did a great job revamping Spidey's first villain, and it's long overdue.

3) The Incredible Hercules #134. The whole thing. But ESPECIALLY the last page. OMFG, Thor. Poor, poor Thor.

4)G-Man: Cape Crisis #2. I love Chris Giarusso from Mini-Marvels, but his G-Man stuff is even better. He basically writes Superhero Peanuts, and it's great. There needs to be a G-Man ongoing.

spleeny — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 01:01:10 GMT

Huh. A week after Disney bought Marvel, Warners is massively restructuring DC. The current president of the company is even stepping down into a writer/contributing editor role. This is HUGE. And I have to assume that this is largely because of Disney/Marvel.

These are weird times in the comic industry.

spleeny — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 07:19:57 GMT

Today was fun:

*Spent some time by my mom's and we're going to go get her a new computer tomorrow because her computer is ancient and doesn't really work that well anymore.

*Went to Brian's for a BBQ. Met up with a guy I haven't seen since Brian's wedding, Bob, Wes, Brian's brother, and various signficant others. Also met the tiny baby girl who will one day take over America by force because she couldn't be bothered to wait to become President. She's adorable. And she's actually normal baby size and everything, so "tiny baby" is relative to, say, me and not other babies. All babies are tiny, really, or they end up on Maury Povich.

*May possibly be starting a fairly stupid business venture with Wes, Brian, and his brother. In theory we could make a little bit of money off of frat boys. It could possibly be bigger than that, or it could never actually happen. Whatver, I came up with the name of the company. More information may come in the future.

*Came home, wrote FH radio as Yakko Warner of Animaniacs. This involved rewriting the Animaniacs theme song and then writing two songs for the broadcast based on information from the linkdrops. This, in addition to working in two running jokes, more horrible puns than I wish to count, many needless unrelated links, a bunch of pop culture references, and a Michael Buffer impression, means that while the whole thing was a ton of fun to write, I was right in making this a one-time only thing. Because if it wasn't for the extra links, the songs, and the extended Buffer reference, I probably would have been asleep at least an hour ago.

And, really, when you're playing a Warner Brother, EVERY broadcast should be like that.

spleeny — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 06:38:55 GMT

Quick thoughts on Disney buying Marvel:

*In theory, this could give Marvel the backing to keep critically acclaimed but low selling titles running for a while longer like DC has been able to do for years.

*Also in theory, and I'm getting this from Marv Wolfman's comments somewhere on the internet, but if Marvel wanted, they could probably distribute their comics without going through Diamond, which would break their total monopoly over the direct market and help out both companies and shops in the long run. Disney would give them that opportunity.

*I'm not worried about corporate interference with 95% of the books. I wouldn't be shocked if there was less done with the MAX adult imprint, but that's barely used for anything other than Punisher anyway. And that doesn't necessarily disappoint me. Aside from Punisher, Alias, and up to a point, Supreme Power, MAX has always been pretty useless. I think it's generally accepted that Disney picked up Marvel more for the licensing than the actual comics, so they'll be more focused on the properties in general rather than nitpicking the individual books. Which, really, that's kind of been Marvel's mindset for years anyway. Do whatever you want as long as it doesn't really hurt the property long-term.

*In general, Marvel's proven that it knows how to make money over the last few years. It's the dominant comic book company in the industry and its movies tend to do decent at the box office at WORST. At best, they break records. That should buy it a pretty decent amount of control over itself for quite a while.

In other words, I pretty much like the deal from what I've seen so far. It gives my favorite comic company more money to play with, more exposure for its properties in various media, and maybe some rides at an amusement park I'll probably go to within the next few years.

spleeny — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 04:34:50 GMT

So, my electric razor that I've had for about 9 years is pretty much dead. For one, I've lost the plug so I can't recharge it and the blades just don't have power behind them anymore. For two, the blades are kind of old and beat up so even when the battery is charged it does more with yanking the hair out than cutting it and that kind of gets old.

So I put off shaving for about two weeks which, terrifyingly enough, gave me a decent beard-mustache combo (not a great one and the transition between the beard and mustache is WEAK since I still don't grow any hair at that junction), but it looked decent. But it was at the point where I needed either a shave or a trim and god help me I'm not trimming a beard.

Looking at money, the cheaper electric razors (which are only $10-$20 at Walgreens) need AA batteries, which would get annoying quickly and probably wouldn't have THAT much power. So I did something I've never done before. I picked up shaving foam and non-electric razors. And I just gave that a shot.

I got a decent shave out of it but it took me longer (because of the learning curve, I imagine, as well as the sheer amount of facial hair I was attacking relative to what I normally have). But hey, I shaved like a real guy. Go me.

spleeny — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 06:31:28 GMT

So, I've been kind of fascinated by the concept behind Captain Marvel (the Shazam! one, not the Marvel Comics one... or five, actually) for a while. An orphaned kid on his own, gets the power to transform into a Superman-like character by saying a magic word, finds a long-lost sister with the same ability, somehow anthropomorphic tigers and rabbits factor into it...

I think my fascination started with the "Clash" episode of JLU, where Captain Marvel (voiced by Jerry O'Connell) ends up fighting Superman in what is EASILY one of the best three fights ever on that show (1. Superman vs Doomsday in "The Doomsday Sanction," 2. Original Seven vs Luthor/Braniac in "Divided We Fall," 3. Supes vs Captain Marvel, and for posterity, 4. Superman/Batman/Luthor vs Darkseid in"Destroyer." Your list may differ, but it is wrong.) and managed to show the League just how dark they had become through the whole of the masterful Cadmus arc.

This was a guy who SUPERMAN whined about being such a boy scout and who Batman admitted that he liked because "he's sunny." It's just such an appealing hook.

I think the first comics I actually read featuring the Marvel Family were the SuperBuddies comics (Formerly Known as the Justice League and I Can't Believe It's Not the Justice League), where Mary Marvel joined the team and was basically played WAAAAAAAY over the top as wholesome (with great results)

And then, of course, DC Comics was in the midst of their "KILLING PEOPLE IS DARK AND DARK IS AWESOME!" (which happened before Marvel started calling everything "Dark" and making a good amount of it actually awesome). Seemingly half of the SuperBuddies cast was killed or turned evil (usually in ways that made NO SENSE) in the leadup to Infinite Crisis. Then when Countdown to Final Crisis came along, it was made clear that one of the main storyarcs was going to be a darkening of Mary Marvel.

Again, I had BARELY read any Marvel Family stuff, so I couldn't really comment except that 1) it seemed kind of like a bad idea, 2) Mary's new costume was totally hot (yeah, I'm a nerd), and 3) it could have been interesting. Anyway, I was intrigued, so I read a couple issues of Countdown and quickly decided that it was pure crap. I still followed the plot through message boards and columns because I was intrigued in where a few of the plots were going to go, and it was made clear that Mary's was just "Inch closer to evil. Inch closer to evil. Inch closer to evil. GO EVIL! EVIL! EVIL! EVIL! Annnnnnnd.... redemption."

And then she went back to evil for absolutely no reason at the very end. And then all of that ended up being entirely unnecessary for Final Crisis (just like the entire Countdown series was, as it turned out). And despite the fact that I HADN'T READ ANYTHING with these characters, I felt kind of offended. Mary's character was trashed. Captain Marvel himself was turned into the mentor figure and also a TOTAL DICK. Captain Marvel Junior took over Captain Marvel's former role and... Well, I know there was a 12 issue series about that stuff, but I'll be damned if I know what happened with him. And I was kind of pissed at DC about this.

All of which is a long-winded way of leading up to me saying that I've started reading the Power of SHAZAM! series from the mid-90's (through Completely Legal Means) and wow. I was absolutely right all this time. This stuff is EXACTLY the kind of stuff I really want to see in a comic book. While I totally have fun with stuff like Ultimates where people who are kind of dicks do completely awesome things, that has nothing on good people trying to do good but sometimes screwing up badly. (If I may remind you, I am a massive Spider-Man dork.)

But Power of SHAZAM! takes that to a greater level by reintroducing insane ideas from the original CM books back in the Golden Age and making them work. For example, there's a character - as mentioned earlier - called CAPTAIN MARVEL JUNIOR. SERIOUSLY. THAT'S HIS SUPERHERO NAME. And he's the same age as CM. And his archnemesis? CAPTAIN NAZI.

Let me repeat that. CAPTAIN. NAZI. And the dude's just a superpowered Nazi who wants to kill people and is really racist. And then he gets repeatedly punched in the face. It's beautiful.

But even Captain Nazi has nothing on Mr Mind. Mr Mind is a tiny worm from Venus who has vast mental powers and wants to take over the Earth. At the end of Mr Mind's first arc in PoS!, Cap and Mary defeat him with the power of rock.

No, really. Mr Mind is inside the old guy's ear, and the old guy put the headphones on to SHOOT LOUD MUSIC at him.

And if that doesn't already make Mr Mind the best villain ever, he creates a superteam of a bunch of Cap's villains called THE MONSTER SOCIETY OF EVIL.

Seriously, when Brubaker and Fraction pull this kind of crap today, I love it, I absolutely love it. But Jerry Ordway was doing it 15 years ago in PoS! and he was riffing off of stuff from 50 years before that.

It's fun comics done awesome with Good but Flawed leads and my only regret is that it's taken me this long to check it out. I've missed out on so much genuine outrage over the past few years because I hadn't actually read this stuff.

For the record, here's the fight from JLU. Luthor was totally playing everyone, of course.

Now I know why his mother named him "Tor"

spleeny — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 06:49:37 GMT

It's been a social couple days.

*Did Rifftrax Live Thursday night. Two people didn't show. It was hilarious. There was so much greatness, but the line I reference in my subject was probably the best.

*Did Elvis Night at the Sox Friday night. Two people didn't show. But after last year was weeeeeaaaaaaaak, this year featured one of the best fireworks displays I've ever seen. Also, the same decent Elvis singer who's been at Elvis Night for years. He was better this time. Also, FLYING ELVII ARE NEVER NOT AWESOME.