In the original Marvel Comics' Tales to Astonish stories featuring Ant-Man, bio-chemist Henry "Hank" Pym discovers a way to shrink himself to the size of an ant. In an attempt to keep real ants from killing him, Pym next invents a helmet that allows him to communicate telepathically with ants. What does he do with these two amazing bits of technology? He becomes a superhero, of course! Pym knows that shrinking to the size of an insect is a technology "far too dangerous to ever be used by a human again," so he keeps it to himself and immediately launches a crusade against Soviet spies.

I'd never really realized it before, but most of the signature characters of the Marvel Age were all grounded in the Cold War struggle against the U.S.S.R. The Fantastic Four had to beat the Soviets into space. A Soviet spy triggered the bomb test that birthed the Hulk. Iron Man was a casualty of the escalating "limited conflict" in southeast Asia that would become the Vietnam War. Spider-Man and Thor are notable exceptions: their careers triggered respectively by an accidental spider-bite and an alien invasion -- another common Marvel adventure even to this day. (In hindsight, it's probably not much of a coincidence that I lost interest in Marvel Comics about the time the Soviet Union collapsed.) For Pym, the battle against the Reds was personal: they killed his wife, an Hungarian freedom fighter. Sure, she'd given up fighting for freedom when well-to-do American biochemist Hank Pym came along, but she was really serious about it in college.

However, don't expect to see any of this lunacy in the long-rumored Ant-Man movie. If the thing is even made, they'll no doubt ignore the fact that Pym changes his superhero moniker from Ant-Man to Giant-Man mid-conversation if he changes his size. (Freud would have a field day with that.) Or the fact that he grafted biological wings and antenna into his female partner, the Wasp, but neglected to give her the ability to change her size without the aid of his size-changing gas or pills. (Pym kept for himself the cybernetic helmet that allowed him to change size at will. Dick.) Not to mention the fact that when Pym is ant-sized, he inexplicably maintains his full-size strength while growing stronger when he gets larger-than-life size. Or that his rogues' gallery consists primarily of such forgettable nutcases as Egghead, Human Top, Magician, Porcupine, or the scientist Garrett, who mixes eagle blood with horse blood to create a flying horse in order to exact revenge on Giant-Man. (They market these books to children and they wonder why Americans lag behind in science.)

No, they'll put Ant-Man in a black costume and pit him against the evil robot Ultron. Because mark my words, nothing ruins a computer like a bug. (Don't blame the messenger: it's just how Hollywood thinks.)

Christmas has passed, which means that everyone can go back to being the curmudgeonly malcontent and general all-around asshole that I usually am. Hooray! (Though, I'm sure that if you asked my family, they'd say that I was pretty malcontent and an asshole all day yesterday. And I was on my good behavior! Not my best, just better than usual.)

Look out, 2009, here I come.

It's the holidays, which of course means that I'm dog sitting. (Better than chicken sitting, I tell you.) Meet Ruby, the English Bulldog.

Once you get past her hideous appearance, breed-defining stubbornness, and unchecked jealousy, she's actually quite sweet. Although at this moment, she's yelling at me because I won't let her play near the computer power cords. Did I mention the stubbornness?

I had painted a picture of a younger Ruby last year for her owner. (Sorry that the camera flash above doesn't quite do it justice.) Now that I'm keeping her for a week, I'm rather impressed that I captured her "what you gonna do about it?" demeanor.

Now if you'll excuse me, Ruby says she has to go outside. Loudly.

I just spent the better part of 5 hours in a bowling alley not bowling followed by an hour in a parking lot not parking and an hour in a Waffle House not eating. I'm such a rebel. (It's worth noting that of the three, the only one I was kicked out of was the only one that was free: the parking lot.) I have to admit, it felt a lot like being in high school again, which is somewhat ironic.

I always think of bowling as a middle-aged man's game. Yet the alley, Fun Time Bowl -- named by a 12-year-old Japanese schoolgirl -- was packed with young people, participating in "cosmic bowling." "Cosmic," it seems, is a euphemism for "black lights." While I was previously aware of this particular "cosmic bowling" phenomenon, I've just never previously quite understood how fog machines and ceiling-mounted Lasek machines is supposed to make bowling more fun. And I still don't.

I certainly shouldn't be surprised by the age of the bowlers, as when I was in high school (which is likely the last time I actually bowled unless you count Wii Sports) the lanes were packed with people my own age. But that's the sort of thing that age does to you: it makes you misremember your youth. I suspect that this is nature's way to help you win arguments with your own children. (My father frequently told me, "when I was your age, I had to walk 20 miles uphill in the snow to school." I have always been suspicious of that claim, namely because he grew up in Miami, FL.)

I'm sure that at some point down the road, I'll misremember tonight. So as a friendly reminder to Future Me, let me just say: you bowled a 241 and were the highlight of the evening for everyone present. Need proof? Just read this blog. I wouldn't lie to myself, would I?

New York Governor David Paterson has proposed an 18% "obesity tax" on soft drink sales in New York state. The American Beverage Association objects ('natch), claiming that this tax will put the squeeze on the middle class. ("In an economy like this, the last thing we should do is raise taxes on hardworking families." -ameribev.org )

Let's say I consume a single 2-liter Coca-Cola every 2 days. That's 180 2-liters per year. (Don't judge me.) At $1.50 per 2-liter, that's $270 I spend on Coke per year. I already pay 7% sales tax for Coke, meaning that $270 of Coke costs me $288.90. If I were forced to pay an additional 18% tax on top of that, those 180 Cokes cost $337.50, a nearly $50 increase over the course of a year. (That's a lot more than I spend on comic books these days.)

Even in these hardscrabble times, that's not really a lot of money. And I drink a LOT of Coke. (Don't judge me.) How many families in New York consume as much soft drink per person as I do? Turns out that according to the National Soft Drink Association, the national average is somewhere near 105 2-liters per American per year. For the average New Yorker (at, say 1700 Broadway in Manhattan, the home of DC Comics) paying a sales tax of 8.375% on that same $1.50 Coke, they'll be paying $199.04 instead of $170.69, an annual difference of about $30.

Needless to say, ABA, I don't think this will break the back of New Yorkers. And the number is so low, that it is unlikely to really discourage that many obese middle class buyers. (Though I do think of my dad, who won't buy any 2-liter soft drink at a cost greater than $1.00, because "the price was never that high when I was a kid!")

But don't take this article as me supporting the government involving itself in my buying habits on the grounds that it knows better than I do what's good for me. I'm the guy that opposes seat belt laws, remember? If I want to get too fat from sipping sugary beverages to be thrown to my death from my car in an accident, I think that's my right!. And I'll let the ABA use that argument if they think it will help them.

Now if you'll excuse me, I think I'll go to work saving my life by pouring another Coke.

I keep hearing NFL commentators calling football plays "unbelievable." Are all these football commentators atheists? I'm pretty sure that nothing that could happen during a football game qualifies as unbelievable. San Francisco and Moscow instantaneously switching locations is unbelievable. Suddenly growing a third arm would be unbelievable. World peace is unbelievable. Catching a football one-handed or scoring 14 points in 2 minutes, however, while impressive, is quite believable.

At long last, I've seen it.

As promised, the producers didn't get a cent out of me, as I watched The Dark Knight when my brother rented it to watch with his girl.

And as much as I'd like to say that it was the worst movie I've ever seen, I can't. Which is not the same as saying that it was good. It wasn't. I won't ever watch it again unless I'm in traction and have weeks of laying immobile in bed to kill. In fact, it was only made watchable the first time through by the magnetic performances of Heath Ledger ("if you've got to go, go with a smile") and Aaron Echkart. (Two-Face was fucking awesome! Two thumbs up, so to speak.)

But Batman sucked. Regarding the disparity of respect shown by director/screenwriter/all-around-terrible-filmmaker Christopher Nolan for the principle three characters, note specifically that in the scene following the energetic and dangerous Joker's dramatic first meeting with Gotham's hoods, Batman appears as a short, stiff midget in his first group meeting with the more heroic Harvey Dent and Captain Gordon. >sigh<. Couldn't someone have at least gotten Bale a box to stand on? One of the first rules of cinema is that heroes are tall, not hunchbacks wearing Phantom-of-the-Opera cloaks with the mobility of Frankenstein.

Once again, Batman is squeezed into a suit that makes his chin look like toothpaste oozing from the mouth of an extraterrestrial. He is involved in choppy fight scenes where the action is merely suggested between camera blurs. And, capital of sins, he performs with almost no moral responsibility. Refusing to unmask and letting someone else take the fall in an attempt to continue the mission is one thing, but firing missiles into the cars of civilians with no concern for property damage or the possibility of collateral damage -- such as the two children specifically shown witnessing the event -- is another thing altogether. For all of Hollywood's attempts to place superheroes in a "gritty," real-world scenario, I'm quite sure that the citizens of a real-world city would would not tolerate a vigilante who spread such a wide-swath of destruction as Batman has in two films. (And no, "but the Joker was doing it, too" is NOT a valid argument against this complaint.)

And that doesn't even begin to cover the terrible technology Batman uses. I'm just going to gloss over the suit here other than to mention that a Bat-Suit with no Bat-Symbol is pretty darn pointless, if you ask me. Sure, it was there, but a matte black symbol on a matte-black suit is about the worst branding ever. If I were a crook, I'd aim for the mouth, as it's the most visible target on his entire suit. That's good costume design.

In addition, he's got a motorcycle hidden in a murderous ATV (don't think I'm going to let the assassination of that garbage truck driver pass without a mention) that requires a 60-second mechanical release reconfiguration in the event of a "damage catastrophic" situation. (It may be stupid, but at least it's slow!) And then his little motorcycle-thing doesn't have any equipment to deal with the scenario of a human standing in the street in front of it. Really? Batman, if you're inclined to play high-speed games of chicken with pedestrians, I recommend that in addition to engineering for such commonplace events as flipping tractor trailers or driving up walls, you spend some time on what to do in the far-fetched scenario of children crossing the street.

But the secret failure of this movie is that its two principle characters don't follow their own stated principle philosophies. The Joker, who claims to the world to be an agent of Chaos, doesn't just opportunistically out-think, but seriously out-plans every other character in the film, including the stupidest police force outside of Keystone (which is coincidentally the home city of the Flash who is actually capable of being everywhere at once: Batman's most grievous limitation in this film). And don't think for a minute that I didn't notice that the film borrows heavily from Alan Moore's brilliant The Killing Joke comic while managing to twist events to provide exactly the opposite philosophy with which the comic concluded. In comics, the Joker loses, failing to corrupt James Gordon. In the movies he succeeds in throwing the city into chaos, turning the citizens against themselves and their heroes, corrupting the police force, corrupting Harvey Dent, corrupting Batman, and proving that in the end, it does take just one bad day. I'd call that a win. (But I guess he still doesn't get Gordon, who fakes his death to save his family only to have his family come into jeopardy anyway. Now that's irony! And a pointless way to add another 10 minutes to an already too-long film.)

Meanwhile, the Batman, who vows never to break his "one rule" of never taking a human life, kills Two-Face. Although, in his defense, Newtonian physics don't seem to consistantly apply to Gotham City, where it's demonstrated that a human body falling 3-stories will generate only enough force to sprain the ankle of an adult human, and no fall from any height apparently harms Batman or damsels in distress, as he clearly follows the advice presented in The Batman Handbook, "Chapter 3: How to Jump Out of a Tall Building" [ISBN1-59474-023-2]. So maybe Batman didn't realize that a six-story fall would be fatal to most people when he throws Two-Face off that building. And heck, taking credit for killing a few guys only gives you better street cred, right? I swear, the ending is just plain retarded: make the world a better place by letting well-funded vigilante DA killers loose on the streets? Only in Hollywood does that make sense.

Lest you think that these two were the only culprits of idiocy in a movie filled with ugly bullshit (and I'm not specifically referring to Maggie Gyllenhaal, who, while being a decent-enough actress trapped in the part of a whining, hypocritical bitch, is about as attractive as Eleanor Roosevelt -- I swear the only actual joke that the Joker tells in the movie is when he calls her character "truly beautiful"), I refer you to the blackmail scene in which a Wayne-employed accountant tries to squeeze Lucious Fox for $10 million under threat of revealing Wayne Enterprises association with the Batman. Having uncovered only a direct link between Wayne Enterprises technology and the Batman, the blackmailer doesn't have any evidence to suggest that Bruce Wayne is the Batman until Fox directly tells him so. Damn, Lucious, for a guy who has a problem with Batman using your technology for what you designed your technology to be used for, you sure don't have a problem with spilling his secrets, do you?

As our DVD drew to a close after nearly 3 long hours, we were treated to a disclaimer note that proclaimed that Warner Brothers does not support cigarette use. Since no major character in the film smokes (even Gordon, long presented as a pipe smoker in the comics, goes without), we could only assume that the filmmakers were warning us not to take up a 10-pack a day habit in hopes of emulating the Batman's voice. (To say that the voice is gravelly would be to do a grave disservice to rock quarries everywhere.) Well, Warner Brothers, I accept your disclaimer, and you have my word that I will never intentionally emulate anything I've seen in this movie.

Ah, Christmas, a time of year to put aside my daily troubles, spend time with family and friends, and beg for phat loot from Santa.

I was always kind of pissed that Santa never gave me a 7-1/2 feet long G.I.Joe U.S.S. Flagg Aircraft Carrier, but maybe he was doing me a favor. I'm not sure that I've ever been "ready for action" with a navy's worth of sailors. (Look, kid, you better be careful what you Wishbook for.)

I know the Hulk is a few cucumbers short of a salad, but I'd certainly expect the Leader to know better.

"Without limit"? The speed of light is 186,000 miles per second. The speed at which electrical impulses travel along the brain's neurons tops out at .075 miles per second when you're drinking Red Bull. Therefore it would take a month for a thought to travel as far as light does in one second.

But what should I expect from two fellows who think that bathing in highly-lethal gamma radition is a sure path to fun and profit? No doubt, the Leader also thinks he uses the "unused" 90% of his brain that the averge human doesn't and that if he sneezed with his eyes open, they would pop out of his head.

As the year end approaches, brace yourself for the deluge of retrospective lists for 2008. For example, it's only the second day of December, but the dam is already bursting:

• Yahoo has announced that "Britney Spears" was their most-searched subject for the fourth consecutive year (which may say more about the remaining users of Yahoo than Britney Spears' popularity).
• Ask.com announced that their top question in 2008 was "how do I get pregnant?" (pushing "what is the meaning of life?" to fall to lowly 7th place).
• Merriam-Webster has announced that the word of the year for 2008, based on online web searches, is "bailout," not "change." (Always a bridesmaid, "misogyny" barely cracks the top 10.)
• iTunes announced that Coldplay sold more digital album downloads than anyone else in 2008. (I suspect that no one even keeps track of cd sales anymore, but I'm sure that there is a list in the works that will prove me wrong.)

The stadium game clock wasn't the only thing broken during today's season-ending game against Georgia Tech. So was our defense.

I arrived in time to applaud the graduating eligibility-expiring senior players. I joined in standing ovations for both Larry Munson and Vince Dooley. I celebrated our 28-12 lead at halftime. I listened to the seated band -- they weren't allowed on the field because of the cold, continuously drizzling rain -- rehash Led Zeppelin tunes. (Our marching band played pop music all season, making sitting through halftime shows seem like listening to Muzak in an elevator with 90,000 other occupants. Ugh.) Then, at the start of the third quarter, I went to the men's room. By the time I returned to my seat, Tech had scored a 60-yard touchdown, beginning a third quarter best forgotten. (Tech scored 26 points in the third. Georgia answered with what seemed like 26 penalties. Double ugh.)

Yes, it's true, the Dawgs were beaten by the option offense. The option, an offense that few in the SEC dare run because of the ease with which a speedy, disciplined defense can stop it. Unfortunately for UGA, it's been some time since we were very disciplined on defense. We lost by 3 points, not because our offense was lacking or Tech's defense achieved any significant gains, but because we simply could not prevent the Yellow Jackets from pitching the ball to the outside and running for 20 yard gains. Ye gods, what a miserable half of football we played.

So ends our 2008 regular season, in which the Georgia Bulldogs entered ranked number 1 in the country, and ended ranked number 3 in the SEC. Next year, let's work it in reverse: start low and end high. How 'bout it, Dawgs?

"Some other time"? You do know what day it is today, don't you, Superman? A whole lot of pilgrims died to give Lois the right to say "thank you" today. But maybe I judge too hastily. Maybe you've got some other pressing business to get to, hmm?

Not so coincidentally, both images above are from the same year: 1940. Superman debuted in Action Comics in spring 1938, and by Thanksgiving 1939, he was floating above New York in the annual Macy's parade. Up, up, and away, indeed. (If your'e in the mood, find more historical Superman balloon pictures here and here.)

And while I'm bitching about black football jerseys, I may as well complain about black uniforms in general. (Let's just chalk it up to Bitch Inertia. "A complaint in motion tends to stay in motion.") Though I could be talking about the home uniforms of the New Orleans Saints, in this case, I'm referring to Spider-Man's black costume. Hell, let's go ahead and include every black super-hero costume. (Villains are excluded. They're supposed to be evil, remember? So Black Manta, you're excused from this conversation. Go rob a sandbank or something.)

See, once upon a time in 1973, Marvel got it in their heads to give Namor, the Sub-Mariner a black costume. Sure, it seemed innocuous enough at the time, especially since Namor didn't have much of a costume other than a green Speedo and some little wings on his ankles. However, the new costume failed the first test of superheroic costume design; namely, a good superhero costume design should identify the hero and his powers at first sight. The new costume was terribly ugly and seemed to say little more than "I, Prince Namor, King of the Sea, am ready to disco!" Not surprisingly, Namor's comic was cancelled soon afterwards. Though this swift cancellation would seem to have serve something of a mandate that the black costume was unwelcome, the damage had been done: at least one fan thought, "hey, a costume in all black would be great!"

By 1984, that poor, misguided child had grown up into a poor, misguided man, and Spider-Man was given a new costume. Replacing the famously creepy red and blue costume with a black unitard may be the greatest error in comic book history. Between issues, Spider-Man went from friendly neighborhood wall-crawler to mopey, self-indulgent anti-hero. It turns out that the black costume was really a semi-sentient alien symbiote seeking to devour Spider-Man. (I told you that black costumes were no good, Spidey. But did you listen...?) Yet the fans seemed to enjoy seeing a classic design, perhaps the most clever costume in comics history, carelessly discarded for a shapeless, colorless travesty.

This, of course, started a trend of new heroes dressed in all black. Soon every movie with a superhero in it featured a black costume. Batman and the X-Men cashed in their leotards for black leather. And the sickness spread. When Superman briefly "died" in 1993, we mourned his resurrection in a suit notable for it's lack of color. Gone was the traditional blue, red, and yellow. In the garishly decorated world of the 4-color funny pages, "black costume" equals "death" or worse, "cancellation." Still the fans cried for more.

A decade later, we should have seen it coming. Poor Superboy, once a rebel wearing a *gasp* black leather jacket (what a clever nod at the time: a super-hero who wore his tights underneath the mandated black leather!), was suddenly wearing a black t-shirt and blue jeans by 2002. Not just black, but also not even a super costume! Horrors! Is this the logical conclusion for "realism" in superhero comics? If I were to suddenly gain super powers, would I be limited to what was already hanging in my closet? (Smallville, I'm looking at you!)

Fortunately, there may be a happy end in sight to this terrible trend. Shortly after Superboy turned his back on spandex, he was killed in a battle with an alternate-universe Superboy. And the murderous mirror universe twin still wore his classic red, blue, and yellow tights! It's pretty hard to cheer for the "hero" when the "villain" is meeting out the cosmic justice for blatant uniform violation. I guess when the good guys wear black, the bad guys have to change with the times. (Maybe you should still be paying attention after all, Black Manta.)

Since I'm already on the subject of football, let me say something here: I hate black uniforms. I know I've mentioned this in regards to UGA before. But last week, Oregon wore all black uniforms for their game vs Arizona. (Oregon's uniforms had silver wings on the shoulders. I shit you not.) And FSU wore black jerseys in their game against Boston College. "Maybe this all-black thing is getting a little out if hand," I think to myself.

Then I read that FSU was wearing their all black jerseys as a favor to Nike. (Thank you for your honesty, Bobby Bowden.) It's not uncommon to hear athletic programs espouse such PR bullshit as, "we're doing it for the fans," or "black helps us recruit." Clearly, that's not true. They're doing it for Nike. (Nike has uniform contracts with all 3 colorblind schools mentioned above.) So that Nike can sell more jerseys.

While I'd like to call Nike the devil here, I'm not quite that naive. In a capitalist economy, the ultimate power is in the hands of the consumer: if you don't like something, don't buy it and they'll stop selling it. If Nike keeps making black jerseys, it's probably because many someones somewhere are buying them. So my gripe ultimately ends with those fools who would like to wear the jersey of their favorite player, but only if that player's team colors are black. That totally says just about everything about America's obsession of the individual over the team, doesn't it.

And if the people speak, the salesmen listen. I got the new NFL Holiday 2008 catalog in the mail today. Now, in addition to the abysmal pink jerseys ("with sugar glitter on front and back" -- I blame this sort of crap for my perpetual bachelorhood), you can now order "black & white jerseys." Sorry, Nike, but these jerseys are manufactured by Reebok. Which just goes to show you that for every bad idea, there's someone waiting to steal it.

After watching waaay too much football this past weekend, I got to thinking about how football is under-represented in superhero comic books. That led me to thinking about who I'd recruit for my team if I I were to organize a football team from the DC Universe. (What do you mean you've never thought about super heroes playing football? Maybe you need to get a life.)

Of course, while introducing super powers to the game of football, I'd have to have a couple of ground rules in addition to standard American Football conventions. Rule 1: no flying. Flying with the ball would totally negate the passing game and eliminate the quarterback position. Rule 2: I'd also disallow any ranged tackling, either by sound waves, seismic assault, increased gravity, or whatnot. If you don't bring the ball carrier down with your body, it's just plain unsportsmanlike. Rule 3: all powers must be natural. No technological or biochemical enhancements, as that's an unfair advantage over the competition. Miraclo is the DCU equivalent to steroids, and Steel's power suit would be the equivalent of, well, a really nice set of pads with a lot of Stickum. (While organized football teams in the DC Universe do disqualify anyone with an active metagene, I'm not going to be that much of a stickler!) Unfortunately, Rule 3 means that Booster Gold, star quarterback of the 25th Century, is disqualified from my team.

I've also elected to eliminate aliens, gods (including Superman), New Gods, and time travelers from consideration for team membership, as aliens probably wouldn't know much about football, deities would never deign to play simple games, and I wouldn't trust time-travelers not to bet on the outcome of the game. (Sorry, Legion of Super-Heroes.) So I present to you my DCU football squad:

• Quarterback: Nightwing. In addition to being an accomplished team leader, he's also an acrobat who throws batarangs all night. He's the younger, likeable Batman.
• Running Back: Flash (Wally West). It'd be a mistake to have a running game without the World's Fastest Man on the field. And with his quick foot speed, he can double as kicker, if necessary.
• Full Back: Mister Terrific. Though Terrific may lack the strength of a traditional fullback, he's won Olympic gold as a decathlete and should be a fine backfield receiver. Besides, it's simply impossible to build a football team without the man whose motto is "Fair Play."
• Center: Beast Boy can change shape into powerful animals and still snap the ball with his tail.
• Guards: Blue Devil is an ex-stuntman with demonically enhanced super strength. The Tasmanian Devil's strength coupled with his aggressive nature makes him a natural.
• Tackles:Sandman's silicon-based shapeshifting powers grant size and strength and teammate Citizen Steel is covered in an organic metal skin which grants super strength and invulnerability. (Steel represents the slot vacated by another athlete who lost his original limbs to injury, Cyborg, who was kept off the team by Rule 3.)
• Wide Receivers: Plastic Man (anywhere on the field, it's a catch) and Atom Smasher. Atom Smasher's natural height and strength give him an edge even when he's not using his power to grow to towering heights.
• Tight End: Animal Man. Strong as an ox, agile as a fly, resilient as a roach: Animal Man is perfect for the jack-of-all trades position of blocker/receiver. (My original choice for this position was Captain Comet, but I fear that he's growing a bit long in the tooth.)

It's really a shame that I couldn't squeeze Aquaman on the team, but his inability to be out of water for more than 60 minutes really limits his usefulness as anything other than team water boy.

The natural opposition for the offensive team is a defense comprised of the vilest villains. While there are many more villains than heroes, I've selected the following for a scrimmage taking into account their powers and demonstrated willingness to work with other villains on teams (such as the Suicide Squad or Injustice Gang):

• Defensive Ends: General Eiling (aka the Shaggy Man) and Clayface. Both are sufficiently strong, agile, and quick enough to present a real threat to a quarterback.
• Defensive Tackles: Gorilla Grodd and Monsieur Mallah, two giant, genius apes that will take up most of the field with size alone.
• Outside Linebackers: Ibac and Killer Croc. Two huge, quick, strong men who enjoy the chase.
• Middle Linebacker: Bane. Once a steroid addict, even off the sauce Bane is as powerful and smart as the Batman. A great field captain.
• Cornerbacks: Parasite and Sportsmaster. Sure, Parasite would steal powers and cheat, but what do you expect from a team of villains. And Sportsmaster is as necessary on this defense as Mr. Terrific is on the offense; he's a master of sports!
• Free Safety: the new Captain Boomerang. (I'd've loved to have either Professor Zoom, but they're both time-travelers.) While Boomerang 2 isn't as villainous as his father, he still picks and chooses his sides too carelessly to be called a hero.
• Strong Safety: Major Force. He really does love hitting people. And then squeezing them into refrigerators. He was created to play safety.

There, that's enough for a full 11-on-11 scrimmage. Play ball!

Tonight was the final episode of MTV's TRL (aka Total Request Live), a show that, I must admit, I was already too old for when it debuted a decade ago. While I wasted a lot of time on shows like Ken Ober's Remote Control, Alex Winter's The Idiot Box, and Mike Judge's Beavis and Butt-Head, for years whenever I thought of MTV, I thought of the personality-challenged Carson Daly-hosted TRL. Now it seems that I'll be thinking of The Real World and The Hills instead.

Funny, isn't it, that in a world where each cable channel has a shot at success if it can grab even a tiny sliver of a niche market, a channel named Music Television is abandoning it's once genre-defining successful music format (less than 20 hours of music per week on MTV these days -- and that's before the cancellation of TRL!) for the same sort of scripted "reality" programming found on E!, VH1, Spike, and dozens of others? Perhaps it's time to simply rechristen the network "More of the Same" Television.

If you didn't come in through the front door, here's an FYI for you: there's a new wreath out. I figured what with the server migration and all, now was as good a time as any to change the default index page from the 2-year old movie (still viewable in its new home here) to a new video game based on comic book collecting. Yes, I'm sure you're very excited to try it out, though I recommend that you pace yourself, as it'll probably be another 2 years before I change it again.

I've also taken care of some lingering technical issues (such as the malfunctioning "secret Wriphe" button you told me about waaaay back in June, Mike). So if you thought something about the site sucked last time you visited, maybe I fixed it. Although we both doubt that, don't we?

Warning: it appears that Wriphe.com will be migrating to a new server sometime this week, and as a result, there may be some unexpected downtime. Don't panic.

While I'm sure that I must have read a Superman comic book before the one above, this is definitely the first one that I really remember. This book was a 1980 Radio Shack giveaway that advertised the Tandy TRS-80 computer. As part of the story, some school kids had to use the computing power of the TRS-80 (which had 16 KB of RAM and a 2 MHz processor) to think for Superman after Major Disaster has used small Kryptonite particles to dull Superman's super-intelligence. They really, really don't write them like this one anymore.

Foiled! I had intended to make today's post a reference to the fact that when America has a black President in movies or on television, disaster is always imminent. However, The Colbert Report beat me to it.

So that's all the post that you'll bet getting today. Disappointed? Go take it up with Stephen Colbert and his Peabody Award-winning writing staff. Bah!

(On a related note, Colbert unexpectedly did NOT win the race for the Presidency in the Marvel Universe. Despite earlier teases to the contrary, Marvel Comics Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada decided otherwise. "We completely forgot," said Joe, "the Marvel Universe reflects what happens in the real world.... Ooops, our bad." So that means that Scarlet Witch can delete decades of mutant subplots, Mephisto can negate a lifetime of Spider-Man's continuity, and Skrulls can sabotage thirty years of character development for the entire Marvel Universe, but Stephen Colbert can't be elected the President of a fictional America? Proving, yet again, that Marvel is a pile of dogshit.)

Paraphrased from the Georgia Secretary of State website:

Q: How do I cast a write-in vote?

A: Just as with older systems, the new electronic voting units allow voters to cast votes for write in candidates. Voters should note, however, that, under Georgia law, write in votes are only counted and compiled for those candidates who have filed an official notice of their write in candidacy. 

Up until a little over a half-century ago, it was considered bad form to campaign for yourself as a political candidate, especially for the Presidency. Funny how times change; even "write-in" candidates have to declare that they want to be candidates now.

If you're not voting Democrat, Republican, or Libertarian, your options are pretty limited. The complete list of approved write-in candidates in Georgia includes Constitution Party candidate Chuck Baldwin, former Constitution Party candidate-who-is-not-seeking-office-but-is-on-the-ballot-anyway Michael A. Peroutka, Socialist Workers candidate James Harris, Green Party candidate (and ex-Representative bitch) Cynthia McKinney, former Green Party candidate and former consumer activist-turned-perrenial also-ran independent candidate Ralph Nader, Independent "People's President" Jonathan Allen, performance artist Frank Moore, and two other guys who just wanted to be on the ballot (Brian Russell Brown and David C. Byrne). But no superheroes.

See, all nine of those people I just listed above have notified the Secretary of State in writing that they wanted to be a write-in candidate and published their intention in their local newspaper. Not really so hard, is it? However, it's certainly more than any superhero can be expected to do between catching purse-snatchers and exposing crooked cops.

Sure, despite the fact that Superman is technically ineligible for the office (he was born on foreign soil, you know), he's still way over-qualified for the position (fighting the "never ending battle for truth, justice, and the American Way" nonstop for 80 years!) but can't accept your protest write-in vote without publicly begging for it.

Way to go, America. Once you start to eliminate the candidates of value, you end up with a turd sandwich or a giant douche in the White House. Or worse.

The annual ass-whipping that UGA takes from Florida is still on, but it's so terrible this year that I've actually stopped watching it. I really couldn't be more disappointed in the outcome of this debacle. I could say a lot of terrible things about Florida (I really, really hate them, and I hate the fact that every year this game is played in a "neutral" site less than an hour from Gainesville), but the fact of the matter is that we didn't play well enough to win. Georgia has a lot of young talent, but when the opponent catches a few breaks (the refs called every early important play against us and our kicker is completely shitty -- his name is Blair Walsh; let's see how many more games before we forget his name entirely) they simply give up. I hate to say it, but that's your fault, Richt.

I also appreciate that Urban Meyer has pulled his starting quarterback early in the fourth quarter. After the bitching he's done for the past year over our celebration penalty in the previous meeting, he could have left Tebow in to run up the score and his stats. But he didn't. That's something that Spurrier would never have done and a show of good sportsmanship.

Congratulations, Florida. I hate you.

Someone somewhere is going to have to explain to me why people have been standing in lines for hours in order to vote early. I've asked everyone I know, and no one can plausibly explain it. Some people must have too much time on their hands. The line here in Coweta County has been around the block downtown all day. For over two weeks! How can there be more people voting in my county than can even read?

Though Georgia state law mandates businesses to allow a 2-hour window for their employees to vote on election day, I've never heard of anyone exceeding that time. But now I'm frequently hearing news reports quote a waiting time in some counties exceeding 4 hours for early voting lines! So by choosing to go early, these voters are wasting their free time to do something that they law shelters them to take off from work to do. If I was to wait in any line for more than even 15 minutes, there'd have to be a pretty kick-ass roller coaster at the end of that line.

Clearly, this Presidential election will have record-breaking voter turnout. And to think: our next President will likely be chosen by people who are willing to stand in long lines in order to do something that they could just as easily have done via mail-in ballot from the comfort of their living rooms.

I'm busy dogsitting for 8 dogs, one of which is an escape artist beagle. I'll get back to you when my hands aren't quite so full. Enjoy your day.

A friend of mine opened a new toy store in "Historic Downtown" Newnan, GA. Of course, I was asked to design the logo for the Full Circle storefront.

I'm rather pleased with the way it turned out. Even if it wasn't my first choice for the design, it fit his needs and looks plenty dapper enough, if I do say so myself. (What's that you say about the London Underground roundel? You'll have to speak up, I can't hear you.)

And while the name "Full Circle" isn't quite as... um, powerful as the name used by a certain frame shop in nearby "Historic Downtown" Carrollton, GA, at least Full Circle doesn't have to put out any redundant banners to supplement it's signage. And no, I don't know why all the nearby downtown areas -- including Griffin, LaGrange, and Warm Springs -- are all "historic," it's just something I've learned to live with.

"Picture Framing" at a "frame shop"? I'm glad that they explained that, otherwise I might have embarrassed myself trying to purchase a false accusation. Will those silly Oans never learn?

One week until Halloween, kids. I used to enjoy Halloween, but then I got old and crotchety. However, that doesn't mean that I've lost an appreciation for people dressing up in outlandish costumes. Oh, no. If you've got to dress up, there's really only one option. Fortunately, the good people at DC have licensed a ready-made in whatever size you need:

All of these costumes are available from a site called, appropriately enough, costumehub.com. Amidst the dozens of options for Batman (in addition to the ones pictured above, there were also costumes with sculpted muscles, rendered features, and latex codpieces -- seriously, check out the $800 Adult Premium Collector's Batman Costume) there was one costume that made me question things a bit.

Maybe it's just me, but licensing a costume of a sociopathic mass-murderer to children between the ages of 3-10 seems a little distasteful, DC. Note that the movie this costume was based on was rated PG-13: you're marketing to an age group too young to have even seen the movie!

Turns out that the Joker isn't the only super-villain marketed to youngsters. The same age category has licensed costumes for Freddy, Jason, and Leatherface! Whatever happened to the generic monsters and bogeymen of yesteryear, the ghost, werewolf, mummy, and vampire? I guess their body-count wasn't high enough for kids anymore.

Well, if that's what you want, you can keep your Hollywood-licensed horrors, kids. Meanwhile, Ace and I will stick to the good stuff.

I really enjoy Homecoming each year. Everyone is generally more pleasant and less drunk than at a typical game. And of course, the game is usually a laugher as well.

While this year Vanderbilt was a little more competitive than in years past, as my brother said on the ride home, "the game wasn't as close as it seemed to be." If not for a handful of missed field goals and phantom pass interference calls, this game would have been a typical Homecoming blowout rather than the deceptively close 27-17 final score indicated.

Once again, Michael Adams (receiving fewer "boos" and catcalls than in years past) presided over the Homecoming Court, the highlight of which was the Homecoming King dropping his crown and tripping over his fallen sash. I'd report his name here, but I couldn't tell you who it was if you gave me a lineup. I didn't make a note of Homecoming Court winners while I was in school, and I don't plan on starting now. I may enjoy the spectacle, but that doesn't mean that I really care about it, you know.

I'd like to take the opportunity to congratulate myself for receiving the Monthly Project Fanboy Fansite Award for September 2008 for all of my hard work and dedication to Boosterrific.com before and during September 2008. I deserve it, really I do. Clearly, all my hard work is paying off, and it's about time someone recognized and rewarded my greatness. I'd just like to thank all of the little people without whose acknowledgment of my genius and vision none of this could have happened. Thank you, everyone!

I've been defending Tennessee Head Coach Phillip Fulmer this year. I figured that he's won a lot of games and doesn't deserve to be fired for one bad season. But after Tennessee's dismal performance against Georgia yesterday in a 26-14 loss, I'm not so sure anymore.

Tennessee looked completely listless. Georgia Southern had more fight in them than the Volunteers showed against Georgia. Tennessee's two scores came only after great defensive plays fired the team up briefly. Otherwise, Georgia appeared to dominate, and Tennessee didn't seem to care about their own fate. Even their typically boisterous fans didn't seem to care. I mean, the Tennessee Band only played "Rocky Top" 7 times during the entire game! That's like 50 times less than their average.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not cheering for the Vols. But I do lament the sudden disappearance of a former rival. Where's the satisfaction in kicking a wounded puppy? Get well soon, Tennessee. I hope to savour our victory against you next year.

P.S. Sorry, but I forgot to take a camera to the game! I've got no excuse. I dropped the ball. I promise to try harder next week against Vandy.

Today was supposed to be the end of the world. So if you're reading this, we must all be dead.

A lot of furor was made this summer over the activation of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Switzerland. The LHC is a $6 billion chemistry set designed to replicate the natural collision between sub-atomic particles at near the speed of light in order to substantiate the existence of theoretical particles of matter. Try doing that in your garage!

However, some grizzled curmudgeons have complained that the replication of the natural collision of particles could result in black holes that will rend the Earth atwain! But who ever listens to the town drunk who warns us not to go down to the lake? At least these complainers are smart enough not to make the more logical complaint that Switzerland has built something the size of a city to explore a purely academic scientific pursuit instead of throwing that $6 billion at something more practical, such as clean coal, hydrogen fuel cells, or growing hamburgers on trees. It's the more sensational fear of the apocalypse that grabs headlines, not simple whining about political boondoggles.

This morning, it turns out that sucking sound you hear is really just the implosion of the U.S. economy. Fortunately for all of mankind, the LHC sprung a leak (meaning that it could no longer contain those black-hole spawning particles) and was shut down last month, long before it could reach the tests scheduled for today that would end the world. Those Earth-destroying tests have been rescheduled for next year.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I for one am pleased that we have several more months until an artificial black hole births a rampaging energy being that threatens to destroy the Earth, as depicted in the Sci-Fi Channel documentary The Black Hole. Even though scientist Judd Nelson will no doubt arrive to save the day, I'm already constructing a rocket ship to blast my newborn son to a distant planet where, in comparison to the primitive men that populate that planet and aided by the world's white sun, he will have powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men.

The same day I discovered how much spam I was receiving (see previous post for details), I watched the 1973 Michael Crichton-written film Westworld in which the attractions in a lavish theme park inexplicably become murderous. (Really, it's exactly the same movie as the 1993 Michael Crichton-written film Jurassic Park but with less explanation for why the attractions are killing people.) Perhaps it's because I had already been looking at numbers that afternoon, but I became captivated by the economics of Westworld.

The park guests attending the theme park Delos (of which Westworld is just one part, like Frontierland or Adventureland at Walt Disney World Resort) each pay $1,000 per day for a week-long visit to the theme park of their imagination. So for a mere $7,000, these guests spend a week surrounded mostly by robots who simulate the lifestyles, behaviors, and mores of inhabitants of the mythical American West. While that may seem expensive for simple park admission, think about it this way: for $7,000 they get to abuse, kill, or sexually molest machines, who for all practical purposes, are human beings. Says one fellow in a promotional video at the beginning of the movie, "I shot six people!" When you look at it that way, the price of admission becomes a bargain when you consider that the costs of the same actions outside of theme parks is likely life in prison or worse.

It's worth noting here that the Grecian island of Delos was once sacred to the ancient Athenian civilization. Besides being the birthplace of Apollo and Artemis -- god and goddess of arts and the hunt, respectively -- Delos was also famed as a location upon which people were forbidden to be born or die. Quite fitting for a theme park populated by robots. And a way better name than Six Flags.

But more to the point, there are approximately 20 guests seen delivered to Delos by hovercraft for their weekly stay. (Apparently, even in 1973, monorails were artifacts. And to be fair, an actual count appears to be 18 people, but I'm rounding up, figuring in Delos' favor that this was an off-week as they appear to have a slightly greater capacity than they are using.) That means that the gross weekly income at Delos was $140,000, or over $7 million per year generated by 1040 guests, assuming there is no "off" season.

Delos is a very large enterprise, consisting of three "worlds," each populated by dozens of unique and technologically-advanced robots, period-accurate buildings and an underground central command and control complex coordinating the entire site's operations. Weekly expenditures for power and maintenance of such amazing facilities and mechanical marvels would have to be staggering, well exceeding $140,000! (Walt Disney World doesn't release operating costs, but they recently bragged that an energy overhaul saved them 100 million kilowatt hours of electricity per year. At the average Florida commercial price of 10 cents per kwh, that's a monthly savings of well over $800,000!)

To compare, Walt Disney World, opened in 1971, is a huge operation maintained not by expensive robots but by teenagers dressed as "cast members." Well more than 10 millions visitors pass through the Walt Disney World gates every year, 10,000 times greater attendance than Delos achieves! A well-to-do modern day visitor to Walt Disney World could pay well over $5,000 for park admission, room, and food for a week, all of which are included in the admission price to Delos. Transform that $5,000 in modern cash to 1973 dollars, and you find that it's roughly equivalent to... $1,000. Just think about how much red ink there must be on Delos' books!

While having your rides assassinate all of your guests and staff is certainly bad for business, it's probably a better option than actually letting your guests shoot holes in your rides. I'm certainly no business major, but I'm pretty sure that Business 101 includes the maxim that if you construct one-of-a-kind replicas of famed Western actor Yul Brenner, don't let your customers destroy them for a mere $1,000 a day. After all, also in 1973, the United States Government spent six million dollars upgrading just one man! And that was only 2 legs and an arm!

While performing some routine maintenance on Wriphe.com last week, I counted that in the past 60 days my email address had received 17,776 junk emails. That's an average of 8,888 per month, more than 296 per day, more than 12 per hour, or more than 1 spam email every five minutes.

That made me a little curious, so I did some research. In the same 5 minute span between my spam emails, 24 Americans died, 40 Americans were born, 62 Americans were in car accidents, the average American heart beat 350 times, the Earth moved 5,584 miles around the Sun, Americans consumed 1,045,624 servings of Coca-Cola, and the United States Federal Government spent approximately $25,655,864 (before any bailouts).

Now, every time I receive a spam email, I have the urge to spend $25 on a glass of Coke.

The American economy is in shambles, banks are closing, the housing market has crashed, gasoline shortages have strangled travel, and none of the Presidential candidates or their seconds appear appropriately qualified for the job. Making matters worse, actors are on the verge of the second crippling strike on entertainment in as many years, potentially destroying the one industry that traditionally performs well during economic recessions.

The good news? Newnan, Georgia is in the headlines: "Rough Economy Felt at Redneck Gourmet," reports CNN. When a place named Redneck Gourmet is suffering, you know times are tough.

Everyone wears black to funerals.

I've made it no secret that I hate the black Georgia jerseys. I hope that the memory of this week's debacle, a 41-30 loss to Alabama will keep them in the closet for a long time. The final score isn't even close to describing the 31-0 beating that we were taking by halftime.

Even the fans got on my nerve at the game. Though I was quite surprised that the crowd kept trying to rally the Dogs (we're usually so quick to throw in the towel when the chips are down), there seemed to be more jerks around than usual. Within reach or me were the drunk Georgia Tech chick who kept reminding us that she had seen more lopsided defeats at Tech, the asshole behind me who took a break from talking on his cell phone to insist that I sit down because he didn't want to have to stand to see the mess on the field, and the Bama fan dressed like Bear Bryant who kept chanting "overrated" and "blackout." Fun, fun, fun. I travel for hours each way to see UGA play this poorly while surrounded by these strangers? Something must be seriously wrong with me.

Still, I'm not too down on the loss. We started the season with a lot of hype, and if there's anything for which hype prepares me, it's disappointment. There's a long way to go yet this season, and if the Dogs can learn from this fiasco, we might earn a rematch in the SEC Championship game come December.

There's a new Batman video game on the market, and I don't own it. There's not much new about that. The last Batman video game that I bought was Batman Vengeance for the PS2. (In fact, that's the ONLY Batman video game I've ever bought. I was given a copies of the late 1980s Batman: The Caped Crusader for PC and 1989 Batman: The Video Game for the SNES. I played the atrocious Batman: Dark Tomorrow briefly on the Xbox, but when I discovered that Batman couldn't overcome a simple chain-link fence, that was the end of that.)

It's kind of surprising that a character as fantastically popular as the Batman has appeared in so many video games (at least a dozen) that have all been so poorly received. It is even more perplexing when you take into account how forgiving the public has been about the personality of the Batman. The character has been reinvented more times than the wheel and continues to be among the world's most popular fictional characters.

I'm pretty sure that making the perfect Batman game wouldn't be that hard. Design a fun game, then make the lead character Batman. Don't work it the other way around. That's how you get Tom Cruise movies.

Some days, you know that the world is passing you by. Take Monday Night Football, for example. I used to really enjoy watching football on Monday night. I used to sit in a bar with a bunch of friends, each of us sacrificing our voices in order to talk over the excessive decibel levels of 30 television sets with their volume turned to "Deafen." And we enjoyed the hell out of watching a football game. But lately, football on Monday has turned into a chore.

Ever since ESPN, "the Worldwide Leader in Suck," has taken over Monday Night Football from ABC (both stations are owned by the Evil Empire: Walt Disney Co.), they've stocked the press booth with in-house announcers from other shows in their line-up, making watching Monday Night Football more like watching a spin-off of Sportscenter than a live football game. It has become the sports-world equivalent of Baywatch Nights, an unsuccessful attempt to cash in on the name recognition of characters from other popular shows who aren't quite suited for their new roles.

Worse still, desperate to reach the lowest common denominator of sports fans, MNF encourages Tony Kornheiser, once a respected sportswriter for the Washington Post, to act the part of beer-swilling, amateur buffoon and armchair quarterback for three hours every week. While Kornheiser's role as devil's advocate is perfectly suited to his op-ed show Pardon the Interruption, it is a grating distraction from the action during a football game. Like all other original programming on ESPN, MNF's producers hope that by creating stories and generating ungrounded controversy, the legion of bottom-feeding members of society incapable of forming opinions by way of anything other than emotion will be drawn to their programming. Unfortunately, their strategy has proven highly successful.

Sure, MNF has always been a program obsessed with the celebrity and popular culture that surrounds an NFL game, but they used to be focused on celebrating the game, not disparaging it. The best example of the change in the show's culture is Dennis Miller. After years of populating the press booth with former players (with such notables as Don Meredith, Frank Gifford, and Dan Dierdorf among others), Miller was brought in to give the "average" fan a voice on the show. Miller was rehearsed and focused on the game, but his obscure researched and rehearsed cultural references proved unpopular in the role of MNF color-commentator. Just a few short years later, Kornheiser's selfishly crass and unprofessional on-air cheers for players on his fantasy football roster and complaints about blowouts -- even going so far as to encourage the television audience to turn off their sets, no doubt to the anguish of his advertisers -- has changed the perception of what exactly the "average" fan is as it has steered intellectual discourse of the game to a new low.

I can't help but recall that once, now seeming so long ago, the broadcasts were not about grabbing a market of people interested in the personalities in the booth or how they felt about football, but what was happening on the field. I suppose that the real shame is that all those years of bar room televisions didn't completely destroy my hearing, sparing me from Kornheiser's irreverent and irrelevant blather.

It's International Talk Like a Pirate Day again. Seems to be about this time every year. It keeps interrupting Batman and Football Month. Sooner or later, I will run out of pictures of Batman with pirates, you know.

It's not that I want to be a stick in the mud, but what's with modern America's love affair with the pirate? I've studied enough history to know that pirates were the terrorists of their day. In two hundred years, will we celebrate Talk Like an Islamic Fundamentalist Day or Talk Like the Unabomber Day?

But nevermind me. I'm just a stick in the mud. Go, enjoy your day, lovers of terrorism.

First the "Goddamn Batman," now the "Fucking Batgirl"? There's not much mystery to what she's saying when you can actually READ THE WORD, now is there?

DC Comics was in the news briefly last week because it shipped a comic book containing inappropriate "printing gaffes" revealing that Batgirl has a mouth like a sailor. The book, of course, was All-Star Batman and Robin, one of the worst things to ever happen to the Batman mythos, and that includes the movie Batman and Robin.

I know I've complained about All-Star Batman and Robin before: Jim Lee's truly sublime art is completely wasted on Frank Miller's willfully libelous interpretation of the inhabitants of Gotham City as sociopathic characters in a pornographic snuff film.

Personally, I'm much more offended that people are still buying this title rather than by any fucking foul language.

If I told you that I had NOT been carrying these in my wallet since 1989, would you believe me?

No, I didn't think so.

Card number 2 up there guarantees a ride in the "Batcar" to the scene of a crime in progress. I'm sure that's some bait-and-switch for those poor rubes who show up expecting a trip in the Batmoblie only to find themselves seated in an aging Citroen driven by some descendent of John Batman. (Historical note: in the mid-19th Century, Mr. Batman, self-proclaimed "greatest landowner in the world," attempted to found a settlement that would eventually became known as Melbourne, Australia. Only he had planned to call it "Batmania." Seriously.) Knowing the unscrupulous nature of Mr. Batman, the advertised crime scene would probably be your own mugging. Just like with real credit cards, membership privileges only extend so far.

I think Jack Webb would have made a good Batman. While he may not have Bruce Wayne's playboy good looks, he certainly describes the Dark Knight's lust for Justice. The two famous crime fighters have more in common than may at first be assumed. The facts:

	Joe Friday	vs	Batman
"The story you are about to see is true."	True		False
"Names have been changed to protect the innocent."	Victims of crime		Bruce who?
"This is the city."	LA		Gotham
"I have a badge."	Sergeant 714		Honorary Deputy
"My partner is..."	Gannon et al		Robin I - IV

Notably, Friday's solid detective work solved hundreds of crimes, all without portable crime labs, super-computers, or ninja training. And Joe Friday was as hard as stone. He wouldn't hesitate for a second before disarming perps of live hand grenades, scaling buildings to save suicidal jumpers, or launching into a gravel-voiced lecture to anyone (store owner, senile senior citizen, drug-addled child, disillusioned police officer) about their misunderstanding of the LAW.

The only thing missing from Dragnet? Giant props.

Football season is now fully underway.

The Bulldogs ran up their record to 2-0 against a surprisingly competent Central Michigan yesterday. It appears that they worked out all of the lingering kinks from week one: the "B" was painted the right color, the flag was fixed, and they even moved the "SEC" logos to the 25 yard lines -- someone must have worked overtime this week!

CMU played well in a 56-17 defeat, but were clearly overmatched for size, strength, and depth of talent. Besides, the Dogs played like they had a chip on their shoulder following last week's drop in the polls. Knowshon Moreno in particular looked fantastic, punctuating the day with a Superman-sized leap over a standing CMU defender during a long run in the third. (See for yourself here.) It certainly justifies all the fans wearing the "He Is (the) Man" (as in "Heisman Trophy") shirts featuring the letter "K" in the familiar Superman diamond.

Note: Before the game, I lamented to my brother that unlike our previous opponent, the Georgia Southern Eagles, the Central Michigan Chippewas did not parade a live version of their mascot around the field on a leash before the game.

Unfortunately, the start of NFL play found the Dolphins participating in more of the same from last year. I'm pretty sure that right now, in a head-to-head matchup, the Dawgs would win. You'll be pleased to note, loyal readers, that the downfall of the Dolphins was Chad Pennington's weak arm. As disappointed as I was by the loss, I'm always filled with a warm happiness when my predictions of doom and gloom turn out to be right on the money.

I've spent a lot of time this week wondering how I'm going to space out blog entries this month. Hopefully you've noticed that for the past year I've been trying to post every three days. But because I always post the results of home UGA games that I attend, this will throw me off a bit for the next few months. And I don't know why, but it always seems that I have more to say during Batman and Football Month than in other months. (After all, Batman and Football Month was founded because I couldn't decide which I liked more: Batman or Football.)

Then I had an epiphany: it's my blog and I'll post when I want too. So take that, Calendar Man!

A man's got to do what a man's got to do. But I still promise at least one post every three days through the end of the year because that just the sort of guy I am. (I do try to keep all 14 of my readers happy.)

As I mentioned, Georgia won their season opener and the pollsters responded... by dropping us to #2 in the national rankings. In fact, USC leapt from #3 in both polls to #1, overtaking UGA and Ohio State.

The conventional wisdom at work here was that Georgia and Ohio State toyed with easy cupcake Division I-AA (also known as the Division I Football Championship Subdivision) teams, Georgia Southern and Youngstown State respectively, while USC overcame a legitimate contender in Virginia. This makes sense if you don't think about it, and most coaches won't and most sportswriters can't.

Virginia plays in the ACC, which as a football conference has been collapsing under the weight of their own expectations for a few years. The four teams in the ACC that opened their 2008 season against Division I-A (also known as the Division I Football Bowl Subdivision) opponents all lost. The two ACC teams that had the misfortune of opening against SEC schools, NC State and Clemson, both looked like they were playing the game for the first time in lopsided beatings by South Carolina and Alabama, respectively. (Worse, Clemson is expected to be the best team in the conference and was beaten embarassingly by Alabama, an expected also-ran in the SEC.) Last year's Virginia squad struggled to finish 9-4, defeating only three teams (hapless 1-11 Duke, Dave Wannstedt's inexplicably overrated 5-7 Pitt, and the worst 5-7 Miami, Florida team in decades) by more than a single touchdown. Or to put it another way, the team was 18 points away from a 3-10 season and isn't expected to win more than 4 games this season.

Meanwhile, Youngstown State has won 4 national titles in Division I-AA competition, second only to the 6 won by... Georgia Southern. While these two programs haven't played at their peak in recent years, they're proud programs with a better history of winning than Virginia. (Virigina has never even won an outright ACC Championship, merely sharing the title twice with two other teams, including Duke, in the past 55 years.).

After Appalachian State University, a three time Division I-AA Champion, rocked the football world by defeating Michigan in last season's opening weekend, should we really be insulting these championship caliber "second tier" schools by considering them as "cupcake" opponents for Division I-A programs?

Oh, but what do I know? I'm neither a coach or a sportwriter. I just watch a lot of football.

Yes, I know that I should have posted yesterday in order to maintain my "every 3 days" posting rule, but I omitted the post on purpose so that I could prepare for today's post, the early kickoff to my Annual Batman and Football Month!

Today was the kickoff for the 2009 University of Georgia Bulldogs, who start the season ranked #1 in both the coaches and sportswriters national polls for the first time in school history. It was also the first game for Loran's Best, newly baptized as Uga VII, the latest in a distinguished line of Georgia mascots.

Uga VII was introduced to the fans exactly 10 minutes before kickoff of today's season opener against Georgia Southern. And he remained pretty much the focus of the fans and the cameras for the remainder of the game. Even a brief appearance by Georgia Southern's live eagle mascot, Freedom, couldn't steal Uga VII's spotlight.

Like all season openers, the presentation had it's rough spots. The boosters failed to properly support the Georgia "G" flag that the player's typically run through following pre-game introductions (as seen on recent ESPN promotions), and as a result the flag tore in two long before the players ever reached it. The GSU Band apparently got lost on the way to the game, failing to arrive until mere minutes before their scheduled halftime performance. [Update 09/02/08: From my source in Statesboro: "It pains me to say that I have to correct the information I gave you a bit.  YES, the bus was broke down for an hour and a half and that was the main reason they were late... however, the mother fuckers did get lost. I found that out last night. So you guys guessed correctly. Still, the MAIN reason was the flat."] Even the grounds crew needs some extra practice this year. Note the drop shadow error on the "B" in the endzone "Bulldogs" below.

Despite the snags and the the melting heat of the early afternoon sun, we beat GSU 45-21. It was a foregone conclusion that we would win easily, and we did. As a result, Uga VII started his reign as mascot with a 1-0 record. That's the sort of tradition that I can get behind.

Info-tainment: the following is a lesson in how I learn things.

As I am prone to doing when I get depressed or bored (which I equate to pretty much the same thing), I was looking at pictures of the dilapidated and mostly abandoned urban settings. In this particular case, I was investigating the United States Pavillion at Canada's Expo 67. (World's Fairs are great examples of amazing structures designed for temporary use and then abandoned.) The US pavilion -- a giant geodesic dome designed by Buckminster Fuller and containing the "world's longest escalator" simultaneously promoted American progress in the two most important endeavors in world history, the space race and the movie industry -- was gutted by a fire in 1976. It turns out that by the end of the 70s, the entire remainder of the Expo was in such terrible condition, that it was used as the backdrop for an episode of a Battlestar Galactica set on a post-apocalyptic world ("Greetings from Earth").

Searching the internet for scenes of the Galactica episode in question, I found a flickr page that had jumbled a bunch of vintage Expo 64 and Expo 67 pictures. There I saw a Tyrannosaurus Rex statue that had been displayed at the Sinclair Dinoland exhibit. (Amusing, I think, that an oil company would have an exhibit consisting of life-sized audio-animatronic dinosaurs. That's like a glue factory showcasing an exhibit of horses, isn't it?) Following the history of that T-Rex, I discovered, and here I quote the website of Dinosaur World, a dinosaur attraction with parks in Florida, Kentucky, and Texas:

Of the many movies in which T. rex (the all-time movie star among dinosaurs) has appeared, old T has been brought down only by Superman in The Arctic Giant (1942) and by a Spinosaurus in Jurassic Park III (2001).

So in the end, what have we learned? That's right: the only person to beat a Tyrannosaurus Rex on film was Superman! (Funny, I thought, that I should start with the movie-centric contents of the US Pavillion from Expo 67 and end with movie trivia. But that's how life works, isn't it? I mean, when it's not giving you bone cancer and killing you in house fires, that is. And, let's face it, America is pretty obsessed with Hollywood culture.)

Moving fluidly from point to point through the sea of information that is the internet. That's why we call it "web surfing," James. And that's how you win on Jeopardy!.

P.S. That T. Rex statue in question now resides at Dinosaur Valley State Park in Glen Rose, TX, alongside the Sinclair Dinoland Brontosaurus. And yes, they do know that there was no such thing as a Brontosaurus, but they don't care. That's just how how Dinosaur Valley rolls.

As a UGA alum, I've received these University of Georgia bookstore catalogs for years. This year, however, in the so-called "'08 Playbook," something seemed not quite right. Sure, there was the obligatory image of Mark Richt sporting his official Nike sideline gear, but the rest of the images seemed a little extra... generic. In addition to all of the models being WAY too old to be college kids, the backgrounds were all wrong. I'm very familiar with UGA's campus, and none of the buildings visible are in Athens. But what really spoiled the charade was on page 7:

Clearly, the people at Follett Higher Educational Group who produced and photographed this year's catalog have never even been to Athens. It's one thing to have a guy showcasing polo shirts and swim shorts featuring Uga produced in Martha's Vineyard (catalog numbers 0950807F $68.00 "Piqué Polo" and 0950807G $75.00 "Surfside Swim Trunks" from Vineyard Vines®), it's another altogether to have him pulling a surfboard out of his 2004 Scion xB in the presumed campus setting of glorious landlocked Athens, GA. Even worse, it's a Surftech Roxy soft top surfboard. Roxy is Quicksilver's line for girls. Good choice, brah.

I can't help but wonder how many other college and university bookstore catalogs feature a similar image with different apparel. You know, we can do amazing things with computers these days.

Just when I thought it was safe to go back into the water: Michael Phelps is the new spokesman for Kellogg's Corn Flakes and Frosted Flakes cereals, and the media wants you to be very upset about it.

Apparently -- and this was news to me -- everyone in the world (except the clever bastards at Kellogg's) wanted Phelps to endorse General Mills' Wheaties, a cereal with much less sugar content and the iconic real estate to which Americans look for their annual re-definition of their sports role-model. (Olympic decathlete Bob Richards was the first athlete to appear on the front of a Wheaties box in 1958, and it's pretty much been a who's who of sport stars-of-the-moment for the 50 years since.) It seems that the Wheaties cover means something to people, and failing to appear on Wheaties must represent some sort of failing on the part of Phelps. (Nevermind that Kellogg's has already paid well over $70 million this summer alone to sponsor the Olympics and Team USA while Wheaties has spent nothing.) Worse still, Phelps' endorsement of Frosted Flakes (once called Sugar Frosted Flakes) is by many considered an endorsement of shoveling cane sugar into America's already obese children. How dare you make America more fat, Mr. Phelps?

I say America, make up your mind. Do you want Phelps as hero (world-conquering, invulnerable super-athlete) or Phelps as angel (life-affirming, affable boy-next-door)? Kellogg's wisely will take what they can get. After all, they have some experience with the original dual-identity sponsor, Superman, who proudly promoted their product during the televised Adventures of Superman starting in 1952, years before Wheaties began promoting athletes on the front of their box.

If Frosted Flakes is good enough for Superman, then it damn well ought to be good enough for Michael Phelps. If you need an orange Wheaties box to tell you who your heroes are, I think you've got bigger problems than even Michael Phelps can fix.

Urgent announcement: I've found religion! And his name is Michael Phelps.

In the past week, I've heard how Phelps has overcome a childhood broken home and a crippling illness (ADHD) to become the greatest swimmer Olympian human being in the history of mankind. Did I say history of mankind? I meant ever. Anywhere. In the Universe. Who needs to walk on water when you can swim through it so fast? He even wins events despite his water-tight goggles filling with water. It must be a miracle.

On NBC, the anchors have coined such phrases as "an achievement of Phelpsian proportions" (in regards to the women's diving competition) while praising Phelps in a manner reminiscent of some religion based in Rome, including asking whether we weren't "underestimating Phelps amid all the hype." The most devoted of Phelps' Phollowers (I believe they call themselves Phelps Phans) is Chris Collinsworth, who moments after the completion of the 400 medley relay told gold medal-winner Jason Lezak that his greatest claim to fame would be helping Phelps win the relay events. Meanwhile, ESPN says that Phelps is the savior of the Olympic Games. ESPN wouldn't lie to me, would it?

All right, fine. Sign me up. If Michael Phelps is the greatest thing since Jesus, I want on board. I'll watch him as The Bachelor. I'll buy the products that the first mom, Debbie Phelps, the Official Mother of the Olympic Games, pitches for Johnson's. Heck, I'll even dash out and buy a pair of tighter-than-skin Speedos to wear while talking on my AT&T Wireless Phone on historic Ellis Island. That's what the Olympics are all about, right?

By the way, I just heard that Phelps' urine cures cancer. Maybe that's why everyone seems to have his dick in their mouth.

Found on the internet: a blog about confectionery fiascos. I especially appreciated the Grand Theft Auto San Andreas birthday cake for the 4 year old.

And if you're in that sort of mood, you may also appreciate the "blog" devoted to "unnecessary" quotation marks. I did.

Football season is almost here, and I'm struggling to decide whether I'll be able to cheer for the Miami Dolphins this year or not. I supported the team throughout last year's one-win debacle, but this weekend may have been the last straw: Bill Parcels signed Chad Pennington. That's right, THE Chad "I Can't Throw 20 Yards" Pennington who was CUT by the Dolphins' arch-rival New York Jets when they agreed to solve the Green Bay Packers' problem by taking Brett Favre off their hands.

It's not that I hate Pennington, I just don't see him as the answer to any of our many questions. He's old, his naturally weak arm is practically nonexistent after several operations, and he was unable to provide enough leadership in New York last year. The entire move smacks of cronyism. Who drafted Pennington for the Jets? That's right - Bill Parcels! (Again proving the old adage that it's not what you throw, but who you know!)

So now the Dolphins, who have started 12 different players at quarterback since Marino retired in 2000, will likely have a 13th. (Oh, Great Marino, why have you forsaken us?) And having a weak-armed, aging quarterback is unlikely to help the Dolphins' running game. When every player on defense knows that the ball can't go more than 20 yards downfield, they're unlikely to provide much room for the running-backs to maneuver.

With an unproven rookie, there was at least the illusion of hope. Pennington comes already loaded with the stench of loser. Phew!

Great news! The Olympics are now underway in China. Why is that great news? Because that means that in 3 weeks they'll be over, and I won't be bothered by them anymore.

Maybe I'm a cynic ("maybe"?), but it seems to me that a giant competition feverishly promoted and sponsored by multi-national corporate conglomerates where competitors are aligned by arbitrary political entities isn't really going to give me the best product in regards to quality. It's not that I mind that the games are driven by the odd coupling of capitalism and jingoism, I just wish they'd be more honest about it. I don't think it's possible to build a better world through bullshit.

Perhaps you've heard this by now, but there's a death row inmate in Ohio who is suing the state to prevent his execution. The essence of his argument is that since all approved methods of execution would result in cruelty as a result of his obesity, he cannot be executed by the state.

You've got to admit that's pretty clever using the system against itself. "You can't kill me because I'm too fat, and you can't make me lose weight because then you'd just kill me." Check and Mate! What this really proves is that you can have your cake and eat it, too.

This fellow sounds like a true Kingpin of Crime at work to me.

Damn, that's one fat criminal.

NASA has recently announced that they finally have definitive proof of water on Mars. (It melts at 0° Celsius, releasing twice as much hydrogen as oxygen. And added to noodles, it makes a mean soup. It must be water!) Though finding water isn't exactly the same as finding life, this is an indication that life may be much more common throughout the universe than previously assumed.

Despite this assurance that "we are (probably) not alone," America's general reaction to this news seems to be a collective, "so what?" I keep hearing the repeated complaints that our endeavors should be limited to correcting the social and economic inequalities on Earth rather than waste time looking to the stars. At first, I found this lack of curiosity appalling until I realized that they have a point: since the root cause of humanity's problems are generated by the greed and insecurities of humanity, should we really be excited about discovering more like us among the heavens?

Would we be comforted to discover a distant planet of humanoid creatures who had learned to tap into their own minds for power, allowing them to create a civilization free from physical limitations? Only, that civilization, like ours, had failed to account for its own subconscious self-destructive tendencies, and their newfound powers led directly to the unintentional division and destruction of their own race?

Wait, wait. That was the story of Forbidden Planet, wasn't it? Sorry. I must still be a little worked up over the whole Keanu/Klaatu thing from the other day. I'll try to contain myself in the future.

It's the end of the world as we know it: Keanu Reeves is starring in the upcoming remake of The Day The Earth Stood Still as -- you probably guessed it -- Klaatu. As if having Neo, "the wooden one," playing the intergalactic harbinger of alien distrust with strong Christian parallels isn't bad enough, this time around instead of warning us about nuclear proliferation he'll be lecturing about how we mistreat the environment. That's right: Al Gore is an alien.

Where did we go so wrong? How did a B-movie warning about the evils of the Cold War become translated into a modern political statement against our own carbon footprints? More importantly, where was I when nuclear weapons became less of a danger to the continuation of the human race than automobile exhaust? To quote the director, Scott Derrickson, "the original being a Cold War film was addressing what was clearly the greatest threat for the human race at that time, mutual nuclear destruction, and that's not the most pressing threat that we face now." Hmm: the gradual warming of the Earth versus instantaneous incineration by terrorists. They don't teach you much about the real world in film school, do they, Scott? Remember the Doomsday Clock? It's still ticking.

What's next, a remake of On The Beach where the Earth's last survivors huddle on Mt. Everest as the rising ocean levels guarantee an unavoidable death by drowning? How about a new Dr. Strangelove (or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Greenhouse Effect) in which Slim Pickens determinedly sprays CFC-laden aerosols in the upper levels of the stratosphere? Will the modern version of Failsafe detail the intentional extermination of the endangered American Bald Eagle in exchange for the accidental destruction of the Siberian Tiger? No doubt the perennially invading Body Snatchers will be reborn as Earth plants striking back at the human race that has focused on dooming them.

You know what the kicker in all of this is? Since Hollywood can't leave well enough alone, Gort will not be a robot this time around. (Heck, he won't even be real! Just a CGI cartoon.) Though this is ostensibly because the aliens are "green" -- read: "hippies who prefer biological engineering (good?) to manufacturing ( bad!)" -- I suspect that it's actually because they didn't want any unfavorable comparisons between the acting of Reeves and an immobile piece of metal.

Sigh. Klaatu Barada Nikto, indeed.

I love Jeopardy!, but I'm becoming a bit disenchanted by host Alex Trebek's attitude. Each episode, in my least favorite part of each show, Alex responds to almost every contestant's story with what amounts to a pissing contest about how much bigger, better, stronger Alex's life is than the contestant's.

Yes, Alex, you're no doubt much more learned than all but the most hardcore trivia buffs. Yes, Alex, your status as the television icon of the trivia elite has no doubt provided you with many great experiences. And yes, Alex, your family and lifestyle have created many enriching moments to fulfil your grandest hopes.

But, Alex, when a contestant tells you that she prefers Batman comic books, there's simply no need to respond with, "that's too bad, I like Sub-Mariner."

And just like that, Alex found a way to insult the contestant, Batman, and Aquaman in a single snide comment. You'll pay for this, Trebek.

Actual overheard conversation at the grocery store:

Bag Boy 1: "Have you heard that new song by New Kids on the Block?"

Bag Boy 2: "Who?"

Bag Boy 1: "You've never heard of New Kids on the Block?"

Bag Boy 2: "Uh, yeah. Of course I have."

Bag Boy 1: "Oh really? Can you name any of them?"

Bag Boy 2: "No. Can you?"

Bag Boy 1: "Hell no. They were born before I was! I just know that they have a new song and it's great!"

Some days you just feel old. There's something amiss in the world when Michael Jackson has become a hounded recluse and Guns N' Roses remains in perpetual self-exiled limbo while the New Kids return to corrupt a whole new generation of children. What's next? A Color Me Badd reunion? Can the Funky Bunch be far behind?

For the record: it's Jonathan and Jordan Knight, Joey McIntyre, Donnie Wahlberg, and some other guy.

My friend Mike tells me that I would enjoy The Dark Knight. And if Mike says so, maybe it's true. He's usually right about what I will and will not enjoy. I don't know how he does it, but he knows. I guess our shared obsession with the minutia of DC Comics mythology and continuity makes us something of kindred spirits. (And may go a long way towards explaining why we're both single.)

He was absolutely right about Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. I'd never previously cared for Joss Wheden's work. Mike insists that I've just never gotten on-board his series at accessible points. (I swear I tried to watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but it seems that I always caught the same episodes.) But Dr. Horrible is right in ALL the right ways. Ahhh, the sweet-sweet goodness of the singing super-villain and the Evil League of Evil.

So if Mike says see The Dark Knight, I think I might have to. How can a man who proudly carries his own superhuman registration card in his wallet (for two decades!) be wrong?

As I type this, though it is still technically "Opening Day" for the The Dark Knight, the film has already grossed over 18.5 million dollars and is steamrolling its way to the record books. [Update 07/19: It's now officially made $66.4 million, an opening day record. Update 07/20: The weekened still isn't quite over, and it's up to $155.4 million, breaking the all-time opening weekend record set... last year. Who says the economy is in the toilet?] And I still haven't seen it.

There was a time when I would have been first in line for this sort of thing. In fact, I stood in line for Batman in '89 in the opening day crowd while wearing Batman Chucks, a Batman T-shirt, and a Batman baseball cap studded with Batman pins. While I still have all of that stuff, I'm not about to trot it out for a movie anymore.

Am I getting old? Probably. But it's not the years, it's the mileage. More often than not, movies simply aren't providing me with anything worth watching. Should I pay $12 to be bored for two-and-a-half hours? And if experience is defined as "practical knowledge derived through observation" (which it is), I'm sure I picked up a thing or two while suffering through the utterly wretched Batman Begins three years ago.

The many favorable reviews of this latest Batman film laud the moral and philosophical aspects of the story's representation of the Joker and Two-Face as warped reflections of Batman's driven dual-identity. Been there, done that. I distinctly recall having this conversation with friends in high school. And that was most of a decade following the publication of Miller's The Dark Knight Returns, which covered this territory while, unlike Christopher Nolan's movies, actually showing us Batman landing punches on his enemies as he managed NOT to kill cops or any other good guys for that matter.

Since I'm on the subject, a few more movie-related gripes:

• You want to explore someone's psyche? The Joker smiles not because he is physically deformed, but be cause he's just crazy enough to think that the sick things he does are funny.
• How can anyone fight crime while squeezed inside a suit like toothpaste in a tube? If Bale is method acting, apparently he's trying to portray a sardine.
• Can we please just stop calling him "Harvey Two-Face"? They're not called "Edward Riddler," "Oswald Penguin," or "Selina Catwoman" (you win this round, Victor Fries!), so let's just let Batman Forever fade away already, okay?
• Scarecrow, Joker, Two-Face all in one movie? Is Batman even in this thing? I guess that's why it's nearly 3 hours long: no direction.
• Batpod? Seriously? If you're just going to feature stupid vehicles, let's see some Whirly Bats.

But even I have to admit that there is good news. There is no Katie Holmes in this movie.

I was discussing Wonder Woman with my companions over dinner last night (I was promoting Wonder Woman as a movie franchise possibility), and none of us could figure out why she had an invisible plane. So I looked into it. The answer: She needed to fly a wounded Steve Trevor back to Washington D.C. from Paradise Island in Sensation Comics #1, so she took a propeller-driven plane. It just so happend to be invisible.

Why was the plane invisible? Probably so that it couldn't be seen. After all, it was 1942 and there was a war on. Internationally, soldiers and civilians alike were armed with silhouette cards and told to stare skyward to identify incoming enemy fighters. A plane flying over America's capital would no doubt cause an alarm, yet perhaps a flying woman and her comatose patient would be harder to spot. (But would no doubt also raise quite an alarm if spotted.) When she stayed in America (presumably suffering from the hideous Nightingale Effect), Wonder Woman simply kept the plane. And the rest is pop culture history.

Now, why, you ask, would the immortal Amazons of Grecian myth inhabiting Paradise Island have an invisible plane handy? Well, loyal reader, that's exactly the sort of question that you aren't supposed to ask about the "physics-optional" environment of super hero comic books (where men can vibrate their molecules to penetrate the fabric of space-time, shrink themselves with material found in white dwarf stars, and drink cola that gives them the ability to deform their body like Silly-Putty). If the "why"s are the sort of questions that keeps your mind occupied while reading these stories, may I recommend romance comics? They tend to be much more straightforward.

See? Nothing inexplicable there. (For the whole story, rush to your local newsstand in 1952 and pick up a copy of Glamorous Romances for one shiny dime. No time machine? Already spent your dime on .025 gallons of gas or .0000025 grams of Plutonium?Then visit here. Your mileage per gigawatt may vary.)

Whoops. Another missed entry. That's the second time this year. (Sorry, I've spent 3 days working on tiling my den -- removing carpet and wood parquet and replacing with ceramic tile. I just lost track of time, I guess.) Dammit, Walter, pay attention!

The Dark Knight opens next week, and not a minute too soon. The light at the end of the tunnel is finally visible: in the near future, I'll no longer be bombarded by The Dark Knight advertising. Maybe not tomorrow, and maybe not next week, but soon. Mercifully soon.

No, I will not be watching the movie. (In case you are one of the 6 people who read this blog and were somehow unaware: Batman Begins sucked. I will be giving no more money to Christopher Nolan.) Yet I have to wonder how all this advertising and branded product placement (peanut butter cups, microwave popcorn, breakfast cereal, pizza, race cars, cable television, etc.) is supposed to encourage my desire. I remember that Batman advertising was a hysteria back in the late-80s/early-90s as well. But even then: did commercials of Alfred drinking Diet Coke actually help sales of either product?

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to head over to eBay to grab a pair of those limited edition Nike Marty McFly Hyperdunks.

Eddie Murphy's giant head has been touring America promoting the star's latest flop movie, Meet Dave. It's a pretty good looking sculpture of the star of The Adventures of Pluto Nash and The Haunted Mansion, as it lacks any pores or blemishes, unlike the real Murphy. Lemuel Gulliver pointed out that from his diminutive point of view, the Brobdingnagians had terrible skin with seemingly gigantic pores, and the microscopic vermin that lived on them were plainly visible to him. No doubt Eddie Murphy, one of the highest grossing stars in the world thanks to such films as Metro and Holy Man, would never suffer the indignity of appearing as something other than perfect.

Unfortunately, this reproduction lacks the animation of an audio-animatronic Jason Taylor or a marionette of the Royal de Luxe. You'd think an actor animated enough to play every role possible in each movie in which he appears would be a perfect opportunity to create a larger-than-life animated prop. But then Hollywood never does anything all-the-way when half-assed will do just as well. In fact, this statue of Life and I Spy star Eddie Murphy has more in common with the statue of the Jolly Green Giant in Blue Earth, Minnesota, than anything else: they're both big, colorful, and created just to sell me something.

(All kidding aside, the sculpture was created by a fellow named Jim McPherson at Gentle Giant Studios. He's posted more pictures similar to the one above here. Fantastic.)

Another Independence Day come and gone. July 4th is without a doubt my favorite holiday, though I don't care for picnics, fireworks, or parades. Ironic? I don't think so. If others enjoy their crowded public places, I'll stay in my own suddenly quiet neighborhood. Everybody wins.

My brother and his girl were disgusted by my favorite Independence Day activity: watching the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest. Sure, it's gross, but it's much more entertaining than, say, Easter Sunrise Mass or a Christmas Day NBA double-header. (While it's not quite Thanksgiving Day NFL football, the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Competition only takes 10 minutes, barring overtime, and I'm not forced to watch this with the very same extended family that I try to avoid for the rest of the year.) How can you not love a competition that was cancelled by promoters in 1971 to protest "the reign of free love"? And I'm not alone in my appreciation of this grand event: it's estimated that nearly as many people showed up just to watch this year's contest as ran in Atlanta's Peachtree Road Race earlier the same day.

Maybe all of this success is because of the unique nature of the competition as a quintessentially American event complete with hot dogs, gluttony, and red, white, and blue bunting. When asked why he competes annually in this contest, 2007-08 champion Joey Chestnut summed it all up, "I love to eat. I love the competition. And... it's Fourth of July, and you can get away with it on this day, push your body this hard over something silly like this." Damn straight, Joey. It sure beats running a 10K.

Just in time for the July release of the latest sure-to-be-schlock Batman movie, The Dark Knight, Batman has killed again. But it wasn't some policeman or stunt driver this time. This past Saturday, the Batman: The Ride roller coaster at Six Flags Over Georgia decapitated a 17-year old boy.

Sure, the boy had jumped some fences to enter an unauthorized area around the coaster, but isn't that what Batman would do? The boy was only trying to protect his property, after all, and Batman is all about defending one's territory and goods. And what was the boy in search of? That's right: his cap, which as we all know is the key to any teenaged Southern boy's identity.

Six Flags, you've done it again. Like every great super villain, you attack your heroic nemesis where it hurts the most: their reputation. Last year you rip the feet off of a girl on a Superman: Tower of Power ride, this year, you tear the head off a boy with a Batman ride. (This is actually the second reported fatality for this ride. In 2002, it killed a ride operator.) And these aren't the only instances. Six Flags Darien Lake's Superman: Ride of Steel nearly killed a rider in 1999, a manslaughter successfully perpetrated five years later by the identical ride at another park when Superman: Ride of Steel at Six Flag New England killed a rider in 2004.

So be careful out there, people. If a dancing centenarian or screaming Asian arrives on your doorstep with a can of Coke offering a Six Flags admission discount, it's probably a trap.

I swear, after super heroes, the internet is the best thing to EVER happen to mankind.

Through complete happenstance while searching modern history for a cartoon as stupid as Marvel's truly wretched animated Iron Man series from 1994, today I discovered a cartoon from 1967 about a super-powered President of the United States straight-forwardly titled Super President. The premise of this cartoon was that President James Norcross was bombarded by cosmic radiation and granted the fantastic ability to modify his body chemistry. Like all good public servants granted amazing powers, President Norcross donned a costume and fought super-villains as Super President. (Calling himself "Super President" may seem like a really bad way to maintain his secret identity, but what would you expect from someone whose job prerequisite depended on name recognition?)

You can't tell it from the clip above, but Super President was voiced by Paul Frees. You may recognize his voice as the narrator of the animated Disney educational film Donald in Mathmagic Land. Or maybe as the voice of the immoral K.A.R.R. on television's Knight Rider. Or maybe as the voice of the sentient supercomputer in the sci-fi feature film Colossus, the Forbin Project. (I think those pretty much sum up my personal stages of development via popular entertainment.) For those of you who prefer your entertainment less math/science oriented, maybe you know Mr. Frees' voice as that of Boris Badenov, the nemesis of Rocky and Bullwinkle.

Anyway, what got me most about Super President is that an acting, elected head-of-state is acting as costumed crime-fighter. Presumably, he can authorize himself to do this, but who's running the country while he's battling space aliens? I would think his term would suffer from a lot of pocket vetoes. And fund-raising would be especially difficult, as, in true comic book fashion, villains would always be stealing from the donated funds, requiring an embarrassing unexplained absence while the candidate looks for an empty bathroom stall to don his tights.

I always figured that despite his moral perfection and unerring ability to make the right choice, Superman could do more good as a freelance policeman rather than a politician because of his unique abilities. Surely, I figured, all that bureaucratic red tape could keep Superman's hands tied. Being a politician means negotiations and diplomacy, two things that I had previously seen as obstacles to getting a job done the Kryptonian way: with super speed. Just being elected requires the super ability to compromise your own beliefs to appease the electorate and the political machines. How can Superman, who is always right and honest, make the necessary campaign promises that will enable his own election? (I don't think the phrase, "never mind that now, Jimmy," is going to work in those confrontational televised debates.)

But maybe I'm wrong; maybe he could do both. If Super President Norcross can pull it off, it should be a walk in the park for Clark "doesn't he look a lot like Superman with glasses" Kent.

(And just in case you're wondering, while Super President may be a bad cartoon, it's still better than Iron Man.)

Last year I was pretty rough on Superman rides at theme parks, especially Six Flags. (Especially after they made a girl a paraplegic, as noted a year ago yesterday.) However, I do have to give them credit for being some of the only places on Earth where you can see statues devoted to Earth's greatest hero.

To be fair, the ride above right is not a Six Flags park but Movie World, a former Time Warner venture, now divested, in Australia. Maybe not so coincidentally, it's also my favorite concept, with the Superman figure attached to the rear car, pushing the cars around the track. That's inspired!

Though they have more of a life-sized cardboard cutout than a statue, I think that some credit should go to the all-but-defunct Six Flags New Orleans for including Superman aside the JLA Fountain, where he's much more approachable than his brethren pictured above.

These are pre- and post-Katrina pics, obviously. (Note the wall, visible clearly in the photo on the left, appears as barely a curb in the picture on the right. That's quite a leaky fountain.)

While I'm about the last person that you would expect to hear spouting theology or philosophy (I'm too damned secularly cynical to spend much time with intangibles such as hypothetical situations or metaphysical postulations), but sometimes things happen which make even me wonder "why?" In this particular case, that thing was the discovery of this cover:

But it's not quite the "why" you think it is. I understand the obvious "why." This is Action Comics #456, cover dated February 1976, so it was released around December 1975. It just so happens that the biggest grossing movie of 1975 was, as you can probably guess, Jaws. No big surprise there. Superman never misses a chance to get in on the action. He's dealt with all of the great political and social events of the 20th century, from nuclear proliferation to illegal aliens (from space, 'natch) to women's liberation to the Olympics (of space, 'natch). Why just a few short years after this issue, Superman will enter the ring with World Heavyweight Boxing Champion Muhammad Ali (in space, 'natch).

Now the odd part of this all, and what makes me wonder "why," is that I decided that I liked that Action cover so much, I was going to use it in today's blog post. And then a brief research turned up the fact that Jaws was originally released on June 20, 1975, exactly 33 years ago today. Great Caesar's Ghost!

Now, was this a happy cosmic coincidence? Did I know, perhaps subconsciously, that Jaws was released on June 20 before I started prepping this blog entry? In any event, I'm sure I'll never know because I'm not going to investigate. No one has ever said, "I'll solve the fundamental workings of the entire universe, and then I'll understand aliens, ghosts, and Celene Dion," without rounding the bend. It's the investigation of situations like these that lead to mad scientists and super villains, I tell you.

Oh, and don't worry about Superman. He's been effortlessly beating up sharks since 1939. His boat is already plenty big enough, so to speak.

Update on the quest for Metropolis, Illinois' assault on the Guinness World Record for “Largest Gathering of People Dressed as Superman” at Superman Celebration 2008: They set the record with 127 people, all of whom wore costumes satisfying Guinness' strict standards for Superman costumes complete with "cape, boots and the iconic 'S' on the chest."

Congratulations, all. Let the world domination begin.

Great Krypton! I just read online that today marks the 70th anniversary of the publication of Action Comics #1, Superman's first appearance. Even though a quick perusal of the internet finds many sites that agree or list the date simply as "June," I find this unlikely.

Action Comics #1 is indeed cover dated "June 1938." (See for yourself here.) Since comic books, like other periodicals, have always -- at least for over a century -- been cover dated two to three months in advance in order for newsstand vendors to tell when to switch their inventory, it seems to me much more likely that Action Comics #1 was published in April.

In fact, Superman Homepage, a pretty darn authoritative source for all things Super, reports that 200,000 published copies of Action Comics #1 were released to vendors on April 18, 1938. (By comparison, these days only the five or so top-selling comic books each month sell as many as 100,000 copies of each issue.)

So is the reporting of the date "June 14" as the release date of Action Comics #1 just lazy reporting, especially considering that other sites dedicated to Superman say otherwise? Or is there a legitimate question over this seminal American event? Mistake or mischief? Ah, the internet: proving once again that with great power must come great responsibility.

In case you were unaware, the year 2008 marks the 70th anniversary of Superman. And this year's birthday celebration will coincide with the 30th annual Superman Celebration in Metropolis, Illinois, which starts tomorrow and runs through the weekend. (It also happens to be the 30th anniversary of the release of Richard Donner's Superman, the Movie.) In tribute, event organizers hope to qualify for the Guinness Word Record of largest assembly of people dressed as Superman on June 15. Is it just me, or does that seem a little fishy to anyone else?

It's an established fact that once an evil mastermind has discovered that he cannot hope to best his arch nemesis in direct combat, the evil genius eventually plans to pit his foe against an equal but opposite force in order to wear the hero down either physically or mentally. And since no hero has proven more indomitable than Superman, it's an inevitability that the foes of the Last Son of Krypton would turn to duplicates of the Superman himself in order to further their twisted schemes.

Clearly, this tactic has been tried before (Lex Luthor's Bizarro naturally springs to mind), but perhaps event organizer Steven Kirk has something new up his sleeve. Like all great comic book origins, a professional impersonator such as Mr. Kirk would seek to best his foe through his superior acting ability as in the classic Adventures of Superman episode "The Face and the Voice." Notably, Mr. Kirk's resume, in addition to his selected acting credits, lists both "Firearms" and "Wax Figure Sculpting" among his Special Talents. Nefarious, indeed!

Shame on the Guinness World Record people for assisting in this mad plot. I checked their website. Not surprisingly, there doesn't appear to be any previous record for "Largest Gathering of People Dressed as Superman." Has everyone already forgotten the lesson from Superman III? Richard Prior, disguised as an Army General, usurps a Smallville celebration for Superman in order to present the Man of Steel with synthetic Kryptonite which ends up splitting Superman into his own impersonator. If there's anything to learn from that disaster (other than to keep your ticket stub so that you can demand a refund), it's to remember that you have to check the credentials of these people before you can allow them to crash your party, Metropolis!

I, for one, know that I'm not fit (either heroically or physically) to wear the familiar red and blue tights of Superman. So I'll just be sticking stick to my Underoos, thank you.

While the 1992 movie Noises Off was critically panned, it's not for the lack of effort from the name-brand cast. With an ensemble like this, it's more fun to see the stars inter/overact than it is to watch the finished film: Oscar winner Michael Caine; Oscar nominee Denholme Elliott; Emmy winners Carol Burnett and John Ritter; Screen Actors Guild Award winner Nicolette Sheridan; Julie Hagerty (Airplane!), Marilu Henner (Taxi), Mark Linn-Baker (Perfect Strangers), and Superman himself, Christopher Reeve. Here Reeve provides his best Clark Kent, constantly bleeding from the nose at the mere suggestion of violence. Fantastic!

It always bothers me when people say that they prefer Batman over Superman because "I could be Batman." It's just not a very good argument. Even though I'm a Batman fan first and foremost (mostly because I love detective stories and cars with bat motifs), I'm pretty sure that I'll never be born with a silver spoon in my mouth only to have my parents killed by a petty thug motivating me so that I will spend the next 20 years honing my mind and body to simultaneously be among the smartest, deadliest, and richest people in the world. Genetics play no small part in that, you know. I'd say that I have a much better shot of traveling to another planet where the native star would endow me with amazing powers than I do of becoming the smartest man alive.

This year, ABC broadcast the annual Scripps National Spelling Bee with such innovations as pre-produced informational segments, competitor interviews, running commentary, and television time-outs. It was like watching a televised football game without any actual football. I recall watching once as some Fox announcers tried to spell the name of Green Bay Packer defensive end Kabeer Gbaja-Biamila before some organized football broke out and shut them up. No such luck at Scripps. The ABC commentators frequently stepped all over the children's frequently amusing banter with the official pronouncer (which, by the way, is one of the best job titles ever).

I can proudly say that I was able to spell two of the words on the program: "basenji" and "Rorschach." The first is an African breed of dog renowned for its lack of bark. And while the second is the name of the familiar ink-blot psychological test, it is also the name of a super hero. I'll admit that I failed to correctly spell "empyrean," despite the fact that it was the name of my High School's yearbook, so you can see where my interests lie.

I'd rather watch than participate in a spelling bee, mainly because my spelling has historically been so terrible. "You're a phonetic speller," my mom would always explain to me whenever I failed yet another spelling test in elementary school. When I would ask what that word meant, she'd tell me to "look it up." Parents can be so cruel to their children.

I just played the most recent version of Milton Bradley's Life board game, and I was a little disappointed about how, despite it's recent "updating," it was still so unaligned with anything resembling my life. So I present the Game of Wriphe (your mileage may vary):

No, there are no Payday spaces. I don't even know what that word means anymore.

I don't comment on politics often, mainly because I figure it's a mug's game: anyone running for President probably isn't worth electing President. However, yesterday the Hon. Hillary Clinton defended her refusal to withdraw from the all-but-over race for the Democratic Party nomination by explaining that she was still in the running just in case something should happen to her opponent:

"We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California."

Now, just for a second, let's assume that she wasn't hinting that her opponent, the Hon. Barrack Obama, will be assassinated on the way to the nomination. What is the chance that if Obama is removed from the race she wouldn't be the party nominee even if she willingly stepped aside? Hmm? (Historical note: RFK was in second place in his party's delegate counts when he was slain, and it is unlikely that he would have received the party nomination should he have survived.)

While it is too much to hope that the Clintons will be learning a lesson from this (depending on what your definition of the word "is" is), it's not too late for you, the reader of this blog, to take away a little something. As Aesop might say, the stubborn donkey that stays late in the field is likely to contract hoof-in-mouth disease.

(On a tangentially related aside, what's the chance that Ted Kennedy's recently revealed malignant brain tumor is the result of a conspiracy? I'd hate to see Teddy left out of the family legacy, after all. Poor guy might actually die from >shudder< natural causes.)

Bad news for the latest season of the new American Gladiators series: terrible ratings. While this could be due to a myriad of tangled reasons, something has to be done soon to salvage the show or NBC may pull it from the lineup. My solution? Mt. T.

Mr. T turns 56 today, and a trip to the American Gladiators set would do us all some good, I think. We'll prove to the world that T can still be physical in his old age. We'll reunite T with his one-time WrestleMania partner, Hulk Hogan, restoring both to the spotlight they deserve. And we'll reclaim Monday nights for MMA combatants and steroid users everywhere!

But why stop there? Once we've got T in our pocket, so-to-speak, we can tweak the show to take full advantage of T's talents. Combine montages of engineering, gymnastics, and detective work with extraneous explosions. Top it all off with empty threats and inspirational rapping. It's a formula that's historically proven, I tell you. "Not TV. Mr. TV."

I've just cut off my facial hair that I was growing out in an effort to determine if I looked good with facial hair. I didn't. I just looked like a poser with an itchy face. Besides, everyone knows that goatees are the indicator of alternate universe versions of oneself. Since I'm typically a prick, I'd have to be a nice guy if I had a goatee. That's simple logic.

Case in point: Superman never wears facial hair. A mullet, maybe, but not a mustache or muttonchops. Facial hair is for villains. (See Superman II for details.) So of course Christopher Reeve never had any, even after he was no longer able to shave himself. Although, once he shaved his entire head, he looked more like he was auditioning to play his own arch-nemesis, Lex Luthor.

Hmm. Facial hair = bad. Bald = bad. So clearly someone who is bald with facial hair must be a terrible person. That's simple logic. (I'm looking at you, Samuel L. Jacksonified Nick Fury!)

Say, Robin, is that a snake in your bed, or... oh, nevermind. (By the way, that's a harmonica in Robin's mouth, not a gag.) See, Robin had just charmed the "monster rattlesnake" that was preparing to kill Batman by playing the harmonica, as he had "once read how Hindus blow music on reeds and charm cobras!" The rattlesnake must have read the same book, I guess.

This all makes perfect sense in context, of course.

At the start of this story, "The Ghost Gang Goes West," Batman and Robin are on vacation aboard a train -- the "Crack Express" -- in the "old wild west." They soon steal -- er, "borrow" -- some horses while failing to apprehend a gang of bank robbers. Batman knocks Robin out so that an angry mob of citizens would lynch Batman and not Robin for the theft. Fortunately, Batman was able to trick the mob into not lynching him by spilling a glass of water on the ground. (Nothing stops a lynch mob faster than a puddle. Nothing.) A member of the mob offers to let Batman stay at his ranch, an offer that Batman accepts despite nearly being lynched moments ago by the same fellow. (I guess the old saying is true; "if you can't lynch 'em, let 'em stay at your house.") At this point, cue the rattlesnake that is dropped into Batman's bed. (Batman's bunk must have been easy to find, he sleeps in his mask, after all.)

A few panels later, Robin would warn Batman not to trip over a rock, but of course, world-class athlete Batman trips over the rock. However, this turns out to be a good thing because by falling down, Batman has dodged a bullet fired from an unseen sniper. (Hooray rock!) It's a good thing that Batman isn't killed, because he soon finds himself riding a bucking bronco in order to prevent the bronco from killing Robin. (An undisclosed culprit warns us that the bronco has "killed three men already," so Robin must have been in real danger! Though why anyone would keep a saddled killer horse around is beyond me.)

This story does have a happy ending. Batman does catch the bank robbers that everyone else believes to be ghosts because they ride white horses and travel very quickly. How does he do it? By removing their horses' shoes and calling the cops on them. Because everyone knows that you can't run from the cops without shoes.

And that, boys and girls, is why the vaunted Golden Age of comics was fucked up.

Yes, I was supposed to post a blog entry today. I'll post one tomorrow. I promise.

The world is a fascinating place. Earlier this week, it was reported that an 11-year old boy from Kentucky sold off his worldly possessions (which at his age amounts to what? A skateboard and some video games?) to raise $400 for the Clinton campaign. The story here is not that the child was willing to raise money, but that he was willing to raise money for the Clintons.

Think about it. A child (too young even to see Iron Man without adult supervision) has pledged all of his assets to invest in the political campaign of a candidate that has already passed the point of mathematical elimination from the race (unless the Democratic party loses its senses and ignores the popular vote). He's pledging towards a campaign that has simultaneously decried excessive government spending and unbalanced budgets while running up more than $20 million in campaign debt in the past year (does anyone remember Brewster's Millions?). And, here's the kicker, he's pledging the efforts of his closet-clearing fundraising, all $400, to the campaign for a multi-millionaire.

Who are the parents that would let their child do this? When I was 11, I worked odd jobs to earn enough to buy Optimus Prime. I wasn't concerned with helping Michael Dukakis overcome stupid tank photo-ops.

The boy was quoted by the Associated Press: "I think she can do just like Bill Clinton did in the '90s and we can have a good economy,'' he says. "I think the majority of people around here are struggling due to the economy. And she can get us out of the war.'' When the 1990s ended, this boy was no more than 4 years old. The only war he's familiar with is a card game.

I've long feared that American politics was a play put on for the naive. What's more naive than an 11-year old boy who thinks that Hillary Clinton can end a war? I sure hope that this story is fiction. I'd hate to "think of the children" and be faced with such distressing facts.

Believe it or not, I almost forgot to post a blog entry today. I know that would have made some of you very happy, and for that I apologize.

It can be hard to think up new and exciting things to post here in my blog that no one ever reads. Last week, I was thinking of quitting posting altogether. But then I read an article in my local newspaper comprised of a series of bad puns about Jimmy Carter's complaints of hemorrhoids to Walter Cronkite and Barbara Walters in 1978. I decided then and there that if "professional" columnists can run columns comprising a series of Presidential ass jokes from 1978 in a "real" newspaper that no one ever reads, I can keep posting my inconsequential blog entries. Again, my apologies.