SubscribeNew external 500GB Hard Drive
I stopped in to the Hagerstown Best Buy yesterday and ended up buying a new hard drive. It’s a Western Digital 500GB External Hard Drive.
I took it up to the register and the the total came out to be over $170. I knew the Maryland sales tax went up recently, but not that high. I told her that the tag said it was on sales for $129. She told me that she could go grab a weekly sales ad and take a look. She looked though the entire ad, but the hard drive could not be found. She then called the computer area and asked them to look for the posted price.
Luckily there wasn’t anyone else waiting in line. I hate holding things up.
The person called her back and informed her that that price was indeed $129. This is getting to be a definite pattern on the part of Best Buy. Other then a spindle of blank DVD +R discs, the last few items I have purchased there have scanned in at the register at a price different then what was posted in either the weekly ad or the sign displayed where the item was sitting.
I don’t mean to be bitching about Best Buy. I’m old enough to remember ordering peripherals for my Commodore 64 over the telephone when I was stationed on Guam. I was calling a 1-800 number, but to call anywhere in the United States was .99 a minute from Guam. The dork I was talking to on the phone was taking his sweet old time taking my order. If I didn’t want that second 1541 floppy drive so badly, I would have hung up.
The point is, I remember what it was like living in a world without Best Buy.
Deadspin: The Book
I woke up this morning at oh-dark-thirty to find a Borders Rewards 40% off coupon in my email. They routinely email coupons, none are higher then 40%. When I get one, I try to get over to Borders to use it.
I also learned today that Will Leitch, editor of the sports blog Deadspin wrote a book, God Save the Fan.
It came out last week, but I didn’t learn of it until today.
Deadspin is for people that enjoy sports, but despise the ESPNization of sports. People like me. I first learned of Deadspin from reading a blog post written by fellow Hagerstown blogger Jennifer Benningfield at Trapper Jenn DC.
The book retails for $25, but thanks to my coupon I got it for $15 and some change.
While standing in line at Borders, I flipped it open and on the the first page I went to had a photo of ESPN blow hard Chris Berman sitting on a sofa with a bunch of strippers.
I just know I’m going to love this book.
Bucky’s Got A Gun
The NY Daily News reported today that Bucky Barnes, the one time teenage Nazi killing sidekick of Captain America is taking on the persona of Captain America in this week’s issue of CAPTAIN AMERICA. From today’s NY Daily News:
Fans were devastated when Steve Rogers – a 1941 creation of artists Joe Simon and Jack Kirby – was gunned down on the steps of a courthouse last March. It was the industry’s biggest shocker since Superman temporarily went up, up and away to the great Fortress of Solitude in the sky in 1992.
Fans were devastated? That’s news to me. I remember people being pissed off that they had to read about it in the newspaper before they could get a chance to read it in the actual comic. For as long as Joe Quesada is the Editor-In-Chief of Marvel Comics, that’s just the way it will be. He is addicted to seeing his name in the newspaper. Joe Quesada just can’t keep a secret.
If Joe Quesada had his way, you would have found out that Darth Vader was Luke’s father a week before the The Empire Strikes Back came out in theaters.
The newspaper article not only tells us that Bucky will be the new Captain America, it says that Buck will be carrying a firearm. I almost wonder if this is paid product placement from the NRA. At least he won’t be all juiced up like the first Captain America. Steve Rogers was a scrawny kid before a took a shortcut to physical strength by turning to the needle.
62 weeks later and Wal-Mart is still selling Nazi t-shirts
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. I was reading The Consumerist when I noticed a post about Wal-Mart still selling t-shirts in their Men’s department with a Nazi SS Totnekopf or “Death’s Head” image on it.
Whoops.
I’ve lost track how many different times Wal-Mart claimed it was taking prompt action to removed these shirts. The U.S. Congress even got involved.
I was the one to discover this little bit of Wal-Mart goodness. It was back in November 2006 that I noticed it at my local Wal-Mart store here in Hagerstown. I took a picture of it with my cell phone and then compared it to reference images online. It was an exact match. I decided to blog about it and it kind of took off from there. I was interviewed on the telephone by someone from the AP which resulted in the story appearing in just about every newspaper in the country. I was interviewed on my local NBC TV news about the story. That interview then was carried on CNN and MSNBC.
I learned a lot about the whole news business. The reporter from the AP was extremely professional. When the article first ran on the AP newswire, it incorrectly said that I was a veteran of the U.S. Navy. I am a veteran of the U.S. Air Force. To me it wasn’t a big deal. The reporter must have realized his mistake, contacted me, confirmed that I was in the Air Force, and resubmitted a corrected article. The incorrect article stayed online only for about an hour. I was impressed.
I wasn’t impressed with my local hack newspaper, The Herald-Mail. Even though I only live a few miles from the newspaper, they didn’t even bother to ask me any questions before writing an article about me finding the shirt. Sometimes I forget they don’t bother to research their articles. My guess is they are too busy writing fake Mail Call comments. I think they just took information from my blog post and then added details from the AP story.
Speaking of hacks, Christina Hoag from the Miami-Herald wrote that I was a “World War Two buff”. If she had bothered to speak to before writing her article, I could have told her that I was not a World War Two buff and that I had no interest in becoming one. I even sent her a tongue-in-cheek email telling her that I wasn’t a buff of any sort and that I wanted her paper to publish a retraction. I was afraid that the World War Two buff community would become angry that I claiming to be one of them. I didn’t want to get on their bad side. She actually replied as though I was serious. She even attempted to argue the point that I was a World War Two buff.
I think I would know if I was a buff.
The funniest part about these t-shirts still being sold at Wal-Mart is the specific Wal-Mart where they were found. They were found in a Wal-Mart in Palmdale, California. Though I now live in Maryland, I am originally from the Palmdale area. It is the Land of My People. It’s where I grew up and lived until I was 19. I find it to be so ironic that these shirts are still hanging on the rack in Palmdale, or as I like to call it, Palmtucky. In Palmdale, the mullet isn’t just a hairstyle, it’s a way of life.
I will not be watching Lost
The ABC one-time hit show Lost will be premiering it’s forth season this week and I for one won’t be watching it. I’ve given up on this show. The start-stop schedule this show has been plagued with has finally completely soured me to it. I just don’t know why it took me this long to give up.
Stories are supposed to have a beginning, a middle, and an end. The story told on Lost has a beginning, a middle, more middle, a two month break, more middle, a six month break, more middle, and then an even longer break. I am sick and tired of it.
This show was supposed to tell a story with a finite end. It wasn’t your typical network television series that told never ending, ongoing stories centers on a specific group of people. This show started out of the gate telling only one story about a small group of people. Something happened along the way that changed that. The show became a huge hit for ABC. That meant everything had to be stretched. The story had to be lengthened not because the story required it, but because the network wanted to make it last longer.
More characters were added. No small feat when the series takes place on a deserted island featuring characters that survived a plane crash. The problem is that none of these extra characters did anything to propel the original story. The only thing they did was to help water down the original story and make it all last a little bit longer.
It would be like taking a 12-issue comic book miniseries and stretching it into 75 issues.
Compounding the inherit problems with Lost is that they are starting the fourth season without enough episodes. Because of the never ending writer’s strike, they only have 8 episodes of an already pathetically short 16-episode season. Don’t start something unless you can finish it.
Because of this that I won’t be watching any of the forth season of Lost. I am not going to start something that I know I won’t be able to finish.
Sacred religious figures and college football do not mix
ESPN has suspended one of it’s anchors for saying something rude and crude at a roast. Dana Jacobson was at a roast for ESPN Radio personalities Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic. Why these two knuckle heads were getting a roast is beyond me. I like Mike Golic, but Mike Greenberg gets on my nerves and I wish he would just go away.
Jacobson was suspended for making fun of Notre Dame’s Touchdown Jesus. Mike Golic is a former Notre Dame football player. Jacobson went to Michigan where they have a heated rivalry with Notre Dame. She is also Jewish.
This caught the attention of the Catholic League. Overreacting to every little thing is what the Catholic League does best. Bill Donahue, the blow hard in charge of the Catholic League makes sport of getting people fired that say or do anything negative concerning the Catholic church. It’s what he does.
I’m not trying to defend Dana Jacobson. I think what she did was incredibly stupid. Saying You know what else I think is stupid? To allow a religious icon that is cherished by over a billion people to be associated with the word “touchdown”. It was only a matter of time before something stupid like this happened. I’m only surprised it didn’t happen sooner.
I don’t think Bill Donahue would have had a problem if Dana Jacobson said something retarded or insulting about the Syracuse Orangeman mascot or the Maryland Turtle. That’s not to say that Jesus is the mascot for Notre Dame. I think they have a red headed boy dressed like a leprechaun. The thing is, they haven’t done anything to discourage people from referring to the mural as “Touchdown Jesus”.
Maybe they should.
The Notre Dame website even refers to the mural as Touchdown Jesus. It states that artist Millard Sheets was commissioned to create a work large enough to cover the southern face of the tower, visible from the football stadium. The artwork never made much sense to me. If Jesus isn’t signaling a touchdown, what is he doing?
I think it’s meant to look as though Jesus is signaling a touchdown, but it’s meant to be oh so subtle. Why else would they have required it to be seen from the stadium?
Money for nothing
To help stimulate the economy, Congress and the White House have struck a deal to begin “rushing” tax rebates of $600 to $1,200 to tax payers hoping we will quickly spend this free money on something stupid and in the process shock this ailing economy to life. If I remember correctly, Bush did this shortly after he took office. It seems so long ago that I can’t really remember.
I’m glad that the federal government has so much extra money that they can just dispense it in such a haphazard way.
Even if the Senate quickly approves this free money scheme, the checks will not start going out till May. It could then take months before everyone gets their free money.
The fear is that people will not take this money and spend it. They might just do something responsible with it and put it away for a rainy day. That wont stimulate the economy. If they really want to make sure people use the money for it’s intended purpose, they ought to issue Visa or Mastercard debit cards. Make them so they can’t be used for anything other then something that would stimulate the economy. That means you couldn’t squirrel it away for the proverbial rainy day. You would have to use it.
I wont believe we are getting this money until we actually get the check and the check clears. Until that happens, I’m not counting on getting it.
If you are going to quote someone, go ahead and actually quote them
There’s a write up in the Boston Herald’s blog section about things San Diego Chargers center Nick Hardwick supposedly said about England Patriots defensive lineman Richard Seymour. It’s written by Patriots beat writer John Tomase. It includes “quotes” attributed to Harwick. Things he supposedly said after the game about Seymour.
Even though it was written for the Boston Herald’s blog and not the actually newspaper, it’s content was heavily edited. It was so heavily edited, it’s hard to understand exactly what Hardwick said.
From Tomase’s post:
“There are 10 (bleeping) good players on that team,” Hardwick said. “But Richard Seymour is a dirty, cheap, little pompous (expletive).”
Hardwick was only getting started.
He’s cheap and dirty and the head man just let him get away with it the whole time,” Hardwick said. “They’ve got 10 great players on that team and when Jarvis Green comes on the field, they’ve got 11 great players who compete how you’re supposed to play. But Richard Seymour is the biggest (expletive) I’ve ever played.”
Hardwick said Seymour usually plays this way, but that he, “took it it to another level today.”
“Head slapping, foot stomping in the pile, running by and throwing punches in your back,” Hardwick said. “He’s a (expletive). … There were a lot of things he did. There’s a field goal where he was stomping feet. Who stomps feet? And the officials weren’t doing anything about it. He plays like a punk.”
OK. I’m fairly certain Hardwick didn’t say “bleeping” or “expletive”. Either quote the man or don’t. By editing the quote with words such as “bleeping” or “expletive“, it forces the reader to use their imagination to come up with the missing words.
It’s quite possible for the reader to actually come up with worse words then were used. For example, Tomase writes that Hardwick said that Seymour is a “dirty, cheap, little pompous (expletive).” The possibilities here are endless. For all I know he called him anything from a gnome to a racial slur. Without any context, there isn’t any way to actually tell.
Cold weather NFL football
I was reading about today’s NFC Championship game between the New York football Giants and the Green Bay Packers perhaps being the coldest game played in NFL history. They say the temperature in Green Bay will be a a balmy 3 degrees tonight at the 5:30 p.m. CST kickoff.
I’ve never been to Green Bay, but I did watch a football game in the brutal cold. On January 15, 1994 I went to Orchard Park, New York to watch my beloved Los Angeles Raiders lose to the Buffalo Bills 29-23. I was in the Air Force and stationed at Griffiss Air Force Base located in upstate New York. The four-letter network shows that it was the 3rd coldest game played in NFL history. They show that the temperature was 0 degrees with a wind chill of minus-32. I remember it being minus-40, but maybe it’s warmed up 8 degrees since then.
It wasn’t just cold, it was alien planet cold.
The worse part about watching a football game in the brutal cold is that you are sitting there in one spot for hours at a time. It’s not like you are moving around. You are just sitting there. No matter how much you bundle up, you are going to get cold. The number of layers of clothing you put on only helps to delay the inevitable. You will eventually get cold and once you do, it’s extremely difficult to get warm.
We had seats on the 2-yard line, 13 rows up from the field. I remember things sounding different in the cold. The Raiders moved the ball and scored a touchdown. They then attempted an extra point. When the kicker’s foot hit that ball, it made a really bizzare sound. It didn’t sound right. It didn’t sound like a foot making contact with a leather football. The ball failed to go through the uprights and instead bounced off the crossbar. It sounded like a cannon ball hitting the metal crossbar.
I remember a retarded Bills fan sitting in end zone seating taking off his clothing from the waist up leaving him exposed to the elements. Security grabbed him fairly quickly and took him off somewhere. I guess he wanted to get on TV.
I bundled up in multiple layers of clothing. I wore my Los Angeles Raiders coat under my Air Force extreme weather parka. I wore sweatpants and long underwear under my pants. I even brought my Air Force cold weather mummy sleeping bag to sit in while watching the game. I’m glad I did.
I remember it took me about 3 days to get fully warm.
The ironic thing about that game was how it contrasted from the last NFL game I had attended. I was at a Raiders game in the Los Angeles Colosseum where they lost to the visiting Browns. The temperature on the field was 100 degrees and I walked away with a nasty sunburn.
Even though the Raiders lost the game, I was glad that I went. It turned out to be Howie Long’s final game. He was always my favorite player.
PLAYBOY responds to the funny book feminist Wonder Woman uproar
I didn’t know that Playboy has a blog, but there are a lot of things I don’t know. This is just one of them. On their blog, Josh Robertson responds to some of the hullabaloo raised in some quarters over the fact that Tiffany Fallon was bodypainted to make it appear she was dressed in a Wonder Woman’s costume.
Josh Robertson writes:
It’s our cover, and while we don’t feel the need to explain in detail our thought process, perhaps a step back is warranted. The story is called “Sex in America.” Wonder Woman is sexy. Her costume is red, white and blue, and she has stars on her hot pants – it suggests the American flag almost as much as Captain America’s does. But we like to put women on our covers, so Steve Rogers is SOL in this case.
He’s exactly right. They don’t need to explain their thought process, but they did anyway. I’m certainly glad they did because it makes most of the criticism over the magazine cover look even more silly then it did because. I didn’t even know that was possible. For instance, comic book writer Greg Rucka theorizing that running a cover photo of Tiffany Fallon painted up to look like Wonder Woman was done to torpedo Hillary Clinton’s run for president.
I don’t know what more embarrassing: That he would come up with that goofy leap of logic that or that a lot of people actually agreed with him. Luckily it’s not my job to figure that out.
Josh Robertson continues:
Is Wonder Woman a feminist icon? If you say so. Is she a sex symbol? Without a doubt. Are the two mutually exclusive? Creator William Moulton Marston would have found the question laughable. The false dichotomy that separates female sex appeal from female intellect and strength of character hobbles feminism, and that’s been Playboy’s view for over 50 years.
It seems some people want to argue that sex appeal and intellect are an either-or type of thing. That a woman can be either physically attractive or she can be smart. She can’t be both. Why do some people think this? Is it because over the years woman have been portrayed this way in works of fiction? It’s as though we are supposed to actually believe a woman can only either be the ditzey bombshell or the homely nerd-girl.
Woman can be smart and sexy. The two are not mutually exclusive. People need to stop pretending that they are.
Even more fun with psoriasis
My psoriasis hasn’t gotten any better.
My dermatologist took me off the Soriatane. Monday I start taking a medication called Methotrexate. The cool people call it MTX. It’s a chemotherapy drug. It’s used to treat breast, head and neck, lung, stomach, and esophagus cancers. I didn’t even know you could get head cancer.
It’s been around for awhile, but only recently has it been used to treat severe psoriasis. I guess they noticed psoriasis sufferers who were taking it to treat their head cancer ended up killing two birds with one stone. I would not even think of taking it if the psoriasis wasn’t on my hands.
I has some nasty side effects. Chemotherapy has side effects? Who would have thought? One of the side effects actually made me laugh. No, it wasn’t diarrhea or mouth sores. It was something called poor appetite.
I’ve never had that.
I will take two pills Monday night, two more then following morning, and two more that night. I then wait till the following Monday to take them again.
I don’t think I can drink Guinness on Methotrexate either. Both drugs are extremely hard on the liver. That’s why I have to wait till Monday to start taking Methotrexate. To make sure the Soriatane has fully left my body. If I take the Methotrexate for a long period of time, I will have to have a liver biopsy.
Reaction to the Wonder Woman PLAYBOY cover
I’ve been trying to keep up with the online funny book feminist overreaction to Tiffany Fallon being painted up to look like Wonder Woman on the cover of Playboy. Even though Fallon is technically nude on the cover, it’s not the most titillating image to ever grace the cover of a magazine, especially a magazine such as Playboy. You have to look close to even realize that she is indeed even naked.
Some funny book feminists have been vocal with their disapproval of the cover. Ragnell writes over at Written World:
If they’re smart, they’ll put their foot down and try and reclaim that image. Pink Raygun (NSFW) asked if we’d see a model as Batman in the same sort of thing. The answer’s no. You won’t see Batman in paint on the cover of Playgirl because DC protects their copyright to Batman, and goes out of their way to stop sexualized images of Batman. The character is money to them, they want to control how the public receives him.
The “sexualized images of Batman“ she is referring to is the watercolor artwork of artist Mark Chamberlain. They are more then just sexualized images of Batman. They show Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder engaged in various sex acts. With each other.
Say what you want about the Playboy cover, but at least Wonder Woman isn’t engaged in sodomy with an under aged minor.
It’s true DC sent a “cease & desist” letter to the New York Chelsea art dealer that was selling the gay Batman and Robin watercolors. That was over two years ago. I don’t know what ever became of the case. Honestly, I don’t really care. I noticed today that at least some of the art is still up for sale at the artist’s website. That makes me think DC wasn’t too successful in getting the art removed.
Wonder Woman on the cover of Playboy is not the same thing as artwork featuring Batman and Robin engaged in sodomy. Then again, what if it was? I don’t remember anyone – male or female – getting angry over the Chamberlain artwork showing Batman engaged in gay sex. In fact, I remember the complete opposite. I remember most people reacting to the gay Batman and Robin art as though it was kind of funny.
Imagine that.
John Zogby is the reason I do not trust polls
While I was in the Air Force and stationed in upstate New York, I took a few college classes so I could finish an Associates degree that I started years earlier. One of the local colleges, Utica College of Syracuse University held night classes on the Air Force base. The classes met once a week for about four hours.
They were your typical community college night classes. One of the classes I took was European history. It was taught by a man named John Zogby. He’s the same John Zogby that owns and operates a successful political polling business called Zogby International. He’s frequently on cable TV news discussing how any given politician is doing in any given election. He and his polls are often mentioned by political pundits.
The class took place during the 1992 presidential elections. I guess it was a busy time for Zogby’s polling business. So busy that Zogby presented a somewhat “unusual” proposition to the class: anyone that came into his polling business and did eight hours of telephone polling would have their final grade for the class raised one whole level.
I have to admit the proposition sounded good. Our final grade for the class was based on two things – the midterm exam and the final exam. Both were predominantly essay type questions. Because each test made up 50% of the overall grade, if you tanked the midterm, the best you could hope for as a final grade was a “C”. You could only get that if you absolutely aced the final.
Most of us agreed to his offer. Before any of us could actually go to Zogby’s polling center and work the phones, we had our midterm exam. I got my exam back with an “A”. Getting such a high grade on the midterm guaranteed that I would finish the class with at least a “C” which also meant I didn’t need to worry about raising my final grade one whole grade level. I was getting my 3 credit hours no matter what I did or didn’t do on the side for Zogby.
I decided not to work eight hours at Zogby’s polling business.
It turned out I was not the only one. Two weeks after returning our exams, Zogby went around the room to ask each one of us when we could come in and work for him. Everyone he called upon replied that they had changed their mind and wouldn’t be working at his polling business after all.
He realized something was going on. He stopped asking us individually and instead asked for a show of hands of the people that were still planning on working for him. Nobody raised their hand. He asked us as a group why we had all changed our minds. At first no one said anything. The silence seemed to last for a very long time. Finely one student raised her hand and said, “I thought about it and it seemed wrong to get college credit in European history by working at your polling business. It seemed unethical”.
If I learned one thing in John Zogby’s European history class, it was that John Zogby doesn’t like to be called “unethical”.
The man freaked out. To say he lost his temper is downplaying it. He said that he had never been accused of doing anything unethical before and he resented the implication.
He finally calmed down and even apologized for his tirade. He went on to explain that no one would be required to work at his polling place and that he wanted to just forget the whole thing. He then proceeded with that night’s lesson. That lasted for all of three minutes. He suddenly stopped the lecture and gave in to his anger all over again. He said that he could not get over the fact that anyone could accuse him of being unethical. He claimed that he couldn’t get it out of his mind.
I just remember feeling extremely uncomfortable. Why did he ask the question if he was going to have such a hissy fit over the answer? The whole thing seemed strange, especially considering that his business is based on asking people questions.
He eventually calmed down again. The class continued on. Thankfully, nothing more was said about it.
I ended up finishing the class receiving a “C” for a final grade. This can only mean I received and “F” on my final. There’s no other way for my grade to have dropped so much. I never got my final exam back. The exam was taken the last evening the class met. I only found out my final grade from getting something in the mail a few weeks later.
I remember feeling that the final exam was no more difficult then the midterm. I remember feeling confident after taking it. To think that I was able to score an “A” on the midterm and an “F” on the final seemed a little ridiculous to me.
I think he gave my final exam a failing grade not because I didn’t know the material, but because I originally agreed to work at his business and then reneged on the deal. Being that both tests were predominantly essay questions, he had a lot of room to be subjective. I’m not even sure at this point which of the two grades I deserved the least. The “A”on the midterm or the “F” on the final. For all I know, I only got an “A” on the midterm because I originally agreed to work at his polling center. In my opinion, he was being dishonest with at least one of the grades.
I would have complained to the school, but I had to take one more class to earn enough credits for my Associates degree. Something that at the time I thought was important to have. I didn’t want to rock the boat. Plus, I didn’t really care. My goal for the class was to get my 3 credit hours in history and move on.
I don’t know if John Zogby is unethical. For all I know, it’s completely ethical for community college teachers to base grades on how much unpaid work their students do for them at their place of business. Maybe that’s just the way it’s done.
I just wouldn’t trust anything he says or does.
Hummer debuts Halo 3 Warthog looking vehicle
It’s called the Hummer HX Concept vehicle, but it looks remarkably like the Warthog vehicle in the Halo 3 game. Throw a chain gun on the back and it would be a dead ringer.
Wordplay
Director: Patrick Creadon
Writers: Patrick Creadon & Christine O’Malley
Runtime: 94 painfully boring minutes
What’s an 8-letter word for a movie that totally blows? The answer is a movie entitled Wordplay. It’s a documentary on the New York Times crossword puzzle and the people that do it. Not only the über crossword puzzle nerds that actually go to a crossword puzzle convention and competition every year in Stamford, Connecticut, but famous celebrities such as Jon Stewart and Bill Clinton.
I guess the reason they included celebrities in the documentary is to show that not all people that do the New York Times crossword puzzle are major dorks. Some are just regular people that do the crossword puzzle to unwind. I can’t help but remember what else President Clinton likes to do in his spare time to unwind. It involves a female intern and a cigar.
Forgive me if I don’t take anything Bill Clinton does as an example of normalcy.
These über crossword puzzle nerds don’t just do the New York Times crossword puzzle in pen, they do it while timing themselves. How do you make the New York Times crossword puzzle even more nerdy? By turning it into a speed event. Some of them keep logs documenting how long it takes them to complete the puzzle. The reason they do this is because the competition at the yearly convention at Stamford is timed.
The level of nerdiness displayed by these puzzles doers in comparison makes the Dungeon Master of my old Dungeons & Dragons group look like Fonzi.
Much of the movie takes place at the yearly convention in Stamford. The competition involves seven timed crossword puzzles with the final three people with the best scores moving on to the main event. They then do a puzzle up on stage using a large dry erase type white board while wearing sound-canceling headphones that look to have been invented in 1972.
Towards the end of the competition when the tension was at it’s highest level, I was thinking how funny it would be for someone to pull the fire alarm. If Stamford wasn’t a 7-hour drive, I’d probably seriously consider making the trip just so I could do it.
These people would freak out.
Wonder Woman on the cover of ‘Playboy’
What’s sure to enrage female comic book fans, Tiffany Fallon is on the cover of Playboy magazine sans clothing with her body painted to look like Wonder Woman. The costume is a little off, but it’s certainly a Wonder Woman costume. What does that say about me when I look at a photo of a nude woman and I notice that her red boots are a little off because they don’t have the gold trim normally seen on Wonder Woman’s boots?
Part of me is somewhat surprised that Playboy magazine is still in circulation. Not only because it’s a magazine and magazines are a lot less prevalent in the age of the Internet, but because it is a magazine dedicated to showing pretty females in the buff. I would have thought the Internet would have replaced the need of a magazine such as Playboy. Maybe Playboy is for men that like to look at naked woman, but don’t know how to find porn on the Internet.
In other words, really dumb men. Not being able to find pictures of nude women on the Internet is a lot like not being able to find water at the ocean.
I have to admit that this doesn’t bother me all that much. I’m not a fan of the sexualization of comic book characters, but I guess that’s when it’s done by the actual comic book publishers. For instance, when Marvel Comics authorized that ridiculous Mary Jane Watson statue. The one where she is doing the laundry. For some reason, this doesn’t bug me too much.
It wouldn’t bother me either if Superman or Batman received the same treatment. In fact, I would think it was pretty funny.
I’m not even sure if DC Comics or their parent company, Warner Brothers, authorized Playboy to do this or if it fell into the territory of fair use. It’s not an exact copy of the Wonder Woman costume, but she is referred to as Wonder Woman on the bottom left of the cover.
THE TWELVE #1
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Writer: J. MICHAEL STRACZYNSKI
Art: CHRIS WESTON
Colored By: CHRIS CHUCKRY
Lettered By: COMICRAFT
32 PAGES, $2.99
Golden Age heroes fighting for America during World War Two are captured in Germany by Nazis and put into Nazi deep freeze. The Nazis then get their ass kicked by the Russians. Nobody knows about these American heroes that have been placed into Nazi deep freeze. They remain in their state of Nazi deep freeze until 2008 when they are found by construction workers.
Evidently if there was one thing Nazis knew in 1945 was how to put superheroes into deep freeze. When they are frozen, they stay frozen.
This is when it gets a little kooky. For some reason, the U.S. Army is somehow able to take possession of the superheroes. Why exactly is beyond me. A general who had just recently watched the movie “The Untouchables” gets an idea. He quotes the “Sean Connery character” who says, “If you want to avoid getting a bad apple, don’t take it from the barrel. You take it from the tree.” He believes that these still Nazi deep frozen superheroes are the tree. They come from a time when the United States is beyond question the good guy and because of this will do anything the government tells them to do.
Maybe Kooky is too strong a word.
The heroes are then taken back to the United States where they are led to believe it’s still 1945. The belief is that the shock of finding out that it’s 2008 would just be too much for these superheroes to bare. Then again, if the idea is to get superheroes who are patriotic and believe everything their government tells them, maybe it’s not a good idea to start out lying to them.
Why blogs are important
From the Marvel.com forums:
This is a private forum, which you sign up and are allowed to post on if you can follow the guidelines, which by signing up you agree to do so and by posting on these forums you agree to do so.
Also, for those that want to claim “free speech”… there is absolutely no free speech in the world. The lives of people are given to defend countries across the world and give each country its way of life. So please, no standing on a soapbox claiming “free speech”.
No free speech in the world? What a repugnant thing to say. I understand there may not be any free speech over at Marvel.com, but that doesn’t mean the same is true everywhere else. If you have an opinion and you want to express it, you need to get a blog. Seriously, this is why forums are the worst place to try to get your point of view across.
When free fluorescent light bulbs are not free
A couple of weeks ago we got two free fluorescent light bulbs in the mail from our electric company, Allegheny Power. We made the switch to energy efficient fluorescent over a year ago. I took the box containing the two free bulbs and put them on a shelf in the laundry room and didn’t think about them again until I was reading the local newspaper, the Herald-Mail:
Allegheny Power’s efforts to supply its 220,000 residential Maryland customers with energy-efficient fluorescent light bulbs might have burned out some post office personnel.
And as it turns out, the package of two bulbs isn’t free — customers are being charged 96 cents on their monthly bills for one year — in all, $11.52 — under the category of energy surcharge.
“The charge became effective in October,” said Todd Meyers, spokesman for Allegheny Power.
He said the Maryland Public Service Commission on Sept. 26, 2007, gave the utility permission to add the surcharge to customers’ bills.
So the free light bulbs aren’t free after all. The electric company was given permission by some state agency I’ve never heard of before to send me something in the mail I didn’t ask for or even want.
I have to hand it to the Herald-Mail. They know how to research a story:
Contacted by telephone, a large Hagerstown supermarket chain store spokesman said a comparable light bulb made by General Electric sells for $7.99 for each bulb.
They want to know how much fluorescent light bulbs cost so they get on the phone and call a grocery store. It’s not like whoever answered the phone knew how much fluorescent light bulbs cost. They would have to put the phone down and go look. All because some reporter is too lazy to actual research a story.
The Herald-Mail is a joke.
WGA going after Jay Leno?
“Tonight Show” host Jay Leno may face discipline from the Writers Guild of America for writing his own monologue. Leno is a member of the WGA. What this discipline may be is unknown. Will they make him do push ups? A couple of months ago he passed out donuts to writers walking the picket line. As fate would have it, there happened to be reporters there who were able to capture the act on video. I’m sure Leno had no idea that reporters would be on the scene and that his good deed would be observed by so many.
Yeah, right.
I thought this strike was stupid two months ago. I haven’t see anything since that makes me think I was wrong. The writers want more money. I get that. The problem is that every day this strike goes on, they are losing money. They will reach a point in this strike where they will have lost more money during the strike then they can ever hope to make with any increase they get as a result of the strike.
That’s assuming they haven’t already reached that point.
Back to Jay Leno. He may face some sort of penalty from the WGA, but his show appears to be winning the late night battle. David Letterman returned to the “Late Show with David Letterman” with his WGA writers. The first night back, Leno’s show got a 5.3 rating and a 12 audience share in the 55 largest U.S. television markets. Letterman’s show scored a 4.3 rating and a 10 share.
Maybe Lettermen would have got better ratings if he went without WGA writers.
Somehow Lettermen was able to secure a private deal with the WGA. Why can’t the other shows do this too? There are only a few shows I actually care about ever seeing again. The rest can go rot as far as I’m concerned.
I’ve getting into English Premiere League football (soccer) and I read that CBS is bringing back Big Brother. Who needs scripted entertainment?
Comic Collector 4.0
There is a new version of the Comic Collector, the database software for keeping track of a comic book collection. I wrote a review of version 3. I like the software and can’t recommend it enough. I was about to pay for the $20 upgrade when I noticed the this blurb on the Comic Collector website:
If you purchased Comic Collector for Windows before November 14 2006, you are entitled to a free upgrade to version 4 (because of the EULA effective before that date). Please contact us to request your new license key:
I’m glad I read this before I sent them another $20. Not that I’m against the folks that make this software making as much money as they can. They have not only created a fantastic piece of software for managing a comic book collection, they have constantly worked on making it even better. I contacted them and quickly received my free upgrade key.
That’s something the makers of ComicBase seemingly haven’t been willing to do. I’m not a big fan of ComicBase. I believe my review of ComicBase Express reflects this.
I haven’t used the new version yet other then to upgrade it. I haven’t added any new issues to my collection. It looks quite spiffy.
Hulk vs Fin Fang Foom #1
Writer: PETER DAVID
Pencils: JORGE LUCAS
Inks: ROBERT CAMPANELLA
Colors: BRAD ANDERSON
Lettering: SIMON BOWLAND
48 PAGES, $3.99
It’s been a while since I’ve enjoyed a comic this much. It had everything I like to find in a comic. The writing was good, the art was good, and it told a complete and self contained story. I didn’t have to hunt down other books in a completely different series and read them first to find out what was going on. What’s to find out? The Hulk is tired of of dealing with puny humans and just wants to be left alone. He decides the only way he can be left alone is if he goes to Antarctica.
Peter David comes up with some really funny Hulk-esque dialog. Other then the part where the lead scientist incorrectly says that global warming is causing the hole in the ozone layer, the writing was good. It’s been a good while since I’ve gotten my science facts from a comic book, so the gaff on the causes of ozone depletion isn’t really all that important. At least to me it isn’t. It’s the Hulk. A super-human character wearing purple pants that derived his power from being exposed to massive amounts of Gamma radiation.
Argentinean Jorge Lucas does a fantastic job with the pencils. His art has a very Jack Kirby style to it. I like the look of it, especially in a Hulk book.
This comic also includes the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe entries for Hulk and Fin Fang Foom. It was fun to read. I didn’t know that Dr. Robert Bruce Banner was born in Dayton, Ohio. That certainly explains a lot.
It also includes a reprint of STRANGE TALES #89. It’s funny, goofy, and more then just a little racist.
If you haven’t already, check this book out. It’s well worth four bucks.
Now that Spider-Man is single he can work for the UN
The UN has announced that it is joining forces with comic book publisher Marvel Comics. Together, they will publish a special comic featuring Spider-Man fighting alongside UN aid workers and UN peacekeepers. Marvel creators are supposedly working on the book for free. They aim to publish one million copies to distribute to American school children. Something tells me that it might very well be the first comic book many of these children will read. Kids don’t read comics unless it’s Japanese manga.
Let’s hope it doesn’t suck.
Of course former US envoy to the UN and all around douche bag John Bolton called it an “act of desperation”. He said that the UN should concentrate on improving its overall performance and that putting Spider-Man in a special UN funny book wasn’t going to change anything. Did he know that Spider-Man had struck a deal with Mephisto (Satan) making him single? Maybe Bolton only thought the UN publishing a special Spider-Man comic was a waste of time when Spider-Man was in a loving and committed marriage.
Speaking of of which, has anyone ever seen John Bolton and Mephisto at the same time? I never noticed this before, but these two cats look and act an awful lot alike. If I didn’t know better, I would think perhaps that they are the same person. The only difference of course is that I’ve never seen Bolton wear a red cape and I’ve never seen Mephisto wear one of those retarded looking walrus mustaches. Every time I see John Bolton, I expect someone is about to toss him a raw fish as some time of reward. Then again, he’s never really done much of anything worth rewarding.
Other then that, they are dead ringers for one another.
More proof Thomas Edison was a dick
When Thomas Edison wasn’t running around stealing inventions that weren’t his own, he was publicly electrocuting defenseless animals. He was trying to make Nikola Tesla’s Alternating Current (AC) look somehow more dangerous than his own Direct Current (DC). He would normally electrocute stray dogs and cats, but one time he got to fry an elephant.
Boing Boing has a link to a YouTube video of Edison’s elephant electrocution. I’m not into animal cruelty so I’m not posting a link to the video.
Not only was Thomas Edison a major asshole, he was wrong. AC voltage is no more dangerous then DC. It’s the current that is deadly. High voltage normally means high current. It doesn’t matter what version of voltage it is.
The worst I’ve ever been shocked was not with AC, but good old DC. I once accidentally brushed up against high-current 28 volts and it felt like I was hit with a baseball bat. I’ve done the same with AC voltage as high as 460 volts and it didn’t hurt nearly as bad. Current kills, not voltage.
I think most people associate DC voltage as being safer then AC voltage because most of the DC they are familiar with is the low voltage, low current variety. For instance, the voltage found on a computer’s USB bus. It’s normally at around 5 volts with around 500 mA in current. Wall socket AC voltage on the other hand is around 120 volts with around 10 to 20 amps on each circuit.
J. Michael Straczynski sets the record straight
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN writer J. Michael Straczynski has responded to some of the comments made by Marvel Editor-In-Chief Joe Quesada in an ongoing, five-part interview with Comic Book Resources. Straczynski’s response says everything you need to know about the silliness presented in the “One More Day” arc. I think it explains why JMS wanted his named taken off the book. Newsarama received an e-mail from Straczynski explaining his position.
This is what he wrote:
Having seen Joe’s third interview on OMD, I think he raised a lot of fair issues. I think most of it represents accurately our conversations. It does, however, omit some of the main concerns I had with the resolution…concerns not mentioned therein, most probably as an oversight. As you know from my prior email, I was content not to respond to the prior interviews because I don’t need to have the last word. (Newsarama Note: this last was in reference to Straczynski’s earlier e-mail mentioned earlier in which he declined a “One More Day” post mortem conversation.)
But there are some vital omissions in the interview, including the primary reason I finally threw up my hands on the book, which had mainly to do with how the resolution was handled.
To explain, here’s the conversation I had with Marvel, in sum:
“So what does Mephisto do?” I ask.
“He makes everybody forget Peter’s Spider-Man.”
“Uh, huh. So Aunt May’s still in the hospital –”
“No, he saves Aunt May.”
“But if all he does is save her life and make everybody forget he’s Spidey, she still has a scar on her midsection.”
“No, he makes that go away too.”
“Okay…:
“Then he wakes up in her house.”
“The house that was burned down?”
“Right.”
“But how –”
“Mephisto undoes that as well.”
“Okay. And the guys who shot at Peter and May and were killed, they’re alive too? Mephisto can bring guys back from the dead?”
“It’s all part of the spell.”
“And Doc Strange can’t tell?”
“No,”
“And the newspaper articles? News footage?”
“Joe, it’s been forgotten.”
“I’m just asking is that stuff there or not there?”
“Not there. And Peter’s web shooters are back.”
“Is this the same spell or a different spell?”
“Same spell.”
“How does making people forget he’s Spidey bring back his web shooters?”
“It’s magic, okay?”
“I see. And Harry’s back.”
“Right.”
“And Mephisto does this too.”
“Yep.”
“So is Harry back from the dead, or has he been alive? If they ask him, hey Harry, what did you do last summer, will he remember? And the year before? And the year before? If he says they all went on a picnic two years ago, will they remember it?”
“It’s –”
“Because if he now has a life he remembers, if he’s not back from the dead, then you’ve changed the continuity you said you didn’t want to change. Those are your only options: he was brought back from the dead, and there’s a grave, and people remember him dying –”
“Mephisto changes THEIR memories too.”
“– or he’s effectively been alive as far as our characters know, so he’s been alive all along, so either way as far as our characters are concerned, continuity’s been violated going back to 1971.
How do you explain that?”
“It’s magic, we don’t have to explain it.”
And that’s the part I had a real problem with, maybe the single biggest problem. There’s this notion that magic fixes everything. It doesn’t. “It’s magic, we don’t have to explain it.” Well, actually, yes, you do. Magic has to have rules. And this is clearly not just a case of one spell making everybody forget he’s Spidey…suddenly you’re bringing back the dead, undoing wounds, erasing records, reinstating web shooters, on and on and on.
What I wanted to do was to make one small change to history, a tiny thing, whose ripples we could control to only touch what editorial wanted to touch, making changes we could explain logically. I worked for weeks to come up with a timeline that would leave every other bit of continuity in place. It was rigorous, and as logical as I could make it. In the end of OMD as published, Harry is alive and he’s always been alive as far as the characters know…so how is that different than he was alive the whole time?
It made no sense to me.
Still doesn’t. It’s sloppy. It violates every rule of writing fiction of the fantastic that I and every other SF/Fantasy writer knows you can’t violate. It’s fantasy 101.
It troubled me that it’s MJ and not Peter who is the one to actively make the decision.
I’d originally written the first issue of OMD to take place directly after May gets shot, and in fact turned in the first script directly after she gets nailed. Editorial decided to build in a block of issues for One More Day…meaning May would be in that bed for almost a *year* which I thought was just too long to make work.
And yes, I wanted to retcon the Gwen twins out of continuity, which was something I always assumed I could do at the end of my run. I wasn’t allowed to do this, and yes, it pissed me off. I felt I was left holding the bag for something I wanted to get rid of, and taking the rap for a writing lapse that I had never committed. Why this aspect was not brought up in the other interview, you’d have to ask Joe.
Mainly, the book was rewritten in the editorial offices to a degree that the words weren’t mine any longer, to a certain degree in three, and massively in four. If the work represents me, I leave the name there and take the rap; if it doesn’t, then that’s a different situation. There’s just not much of my work there, especially once you get to the last dong of midnight…everything after that was written by editorial.
Whether my work is good or it sucks, it’s mine. What came out of the end of OMD wasn’t, hence my desire to omit the writing credit. Joe graciously offered to share it on the last issue. I think that helped. Credit where credit is due.
What I don’t want is for this to turn into a public pissing match. Joe did what he did because he thought it was the right thing to do, and as EIC that’s his call, not mine. I respect and admire him. I hope this will be the end of the matter.
I just felt that there were some important bits not addressed, that needed to be.
What’s Joe Quesada’s problem with divorced people?
Comic Book Resources continues with part 3 of a 5-part interview with Marvel Editor-In-Chief Joe Quesada concerning the recent storyline involving Spider-Man. Quesada has long made it known that he believes having Peter Parker/Spider-Man married to Mary Jane Watson was a big mistake. He believes that it somehow curtails good story telling by having the character married. Or he thinks that kids can’t relate to a married character. It’s hard to keep track of the many reasons Quesada has for not wanting Spider-Man married.
Quesada’s reasons seem to change a lot.
If the belief that Spider-Man must be a single to craft interesting stories seems silly, the method Quesada uses to achieve this objective seems absolutely insane – Spider-Man makes a deal with the Devil that will save his elderly aunt from dying if he allows the Devil to not only magically undue his marriage, but to make everyone magically forget that they were even married. As though the marriage never happened. Oh, and the Devil also agrees to make everyone magically forget that Peter Parker is Spider-Man. A fact everyone knows ever since he removed his mask on national television and announced that he was Peter Parker (see CIVIL WAR #2).
Needless to say, fans have been critical of this magical storyline.
In the Comic Book Resources interview, Quesada is asked why he didn’t just have Peter and Mary Jane get a divorce. It’s a good question. Here is Quesada’s reply:
Sure, that would have been a very easy solution. However, how would a parent feel when they had to explain to their kid that Spider-Man just got divorced from his wife? How would that headline read across the AP or on USA today? The same can be said with an annulment. Sure, divorce is a reality of life, but Peter Parker and Spider-Man are not the types of characters that would do that. Spider-Man is a worldwide icon and is considered one of the good guys, like Superman.
Not the type of characters that would do that? What is that supposed to mean? I’m sure the people that have gone through a divorce would like to know. Speaking as just such a person, I certainly would like to know.
Someone can’t be considered a good guy if they have been divorced? This hits a nerve with me. Normally one only finds this type of ignorant bigotry at an evangelical church, not in a comic book.
So Peter Parker isn’t the type of character to get a divorce, but he is the type character to enter into a magical arraignment with the Devil? The inference is that it’s better to strike a deal with Satan then it is to get divorced. Either way Peter is breaking his marriage vows. One requires him to enter into an unholy pact with Satan, the other requires him to sign a bunch of paperwork and pay a lawyer.
Joe Quesada picks option number one evidently because it makes him a better person.
Quesada claims parents would have had a hard time explaining Spider-Man getting a divorce. Imagine how hard it will be for them to put a positive spin on Spider-Man entering into an agreement with Satan.
How is that preferable to getting a divorce?
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