It has just been brought to my attention that my telephone service provider, Sprint, is part of an industry-wide conspiracy to charge me to access my own voicemail. ("But everyone else does it," is pretty much their response, which really goes a long way towards explaining why a stimulus package aimed at businesses is doomed to failure in the modern corporateocracy.) This, of course, has led to a recent overage charge on my cell-phone bill. While this charge is minimal, I understandably have no desire to pay it again. Therefore, from now on, I will now be turning my phone off until 7PM on weekdays. If you need me, don't call me and don't text me (that's even more expensive for me than checking voicemails!). Email me.

So if I don't answer your call, don't take it personally. (Or do. I don't really care.) I'm just ignoring you for profit.

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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!)

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Supervillain henchmen are status symbols like trophy wives or pocketbook chihuahuas. Anonymous behind their theme masks, colorful matching costumes, and ridiculous pun-inspired monikers, henchmen stand around reinforcing their egomaniacal bosses' deranged leitmotifs for any uninitiated observers. ("Who's that?" "I don't know, but since he's surrounded by 3 guys wearing matching lederhosen, he must mean business!") All for the thrill of being involved in something bigger than themselves. In that way, they're not too far removed from subscribers to People magazine.

What does it take to make someone think that robbing a bank while dressed as a pumpkin-headed scarecrow or Grecian god alongside several other like-minded individuals is a good idea? It can't be the pay. (Crime doesn't pay, as comics always remind us.) It can't be the shortened life expectancy. (Has the Joker ever even had a henchman he didn't kill for kicks?) It must be the thrill of appearing in public in a garish costume. Just ask your average Star Trek convention attendee. (Yes, I have a Trek shirt hanging in my closet, but you don't see me wearing it out in public, do you? It might get dirty.)

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Statistics indicate that once every two minutes, someone in America is sexually assaulted. While that sounds bad, it's tempered by the fact that most of those victims are probably in a relationship with Charles Bronson.

In Death Wish, Charles Bronson is a New York City architect whose wife is murdered and whose daughter is raped by a band of hoodlums that includes The Fly's Jeff Goldblum. In Death Wish 2, Bronson's family relocates to Los Angeles, but his daughter is again raped and this time killed by a different band of hoodlums that includes The Matrix's Laurence Fishburne. In Death Wish 3, Bronson returns to New York City where his new neighbor's wife is raped and killed by a gang of hoodlums including Bill & Ted's Alex Winters. In Death Wish 4, Bronson's back in Los Angeles, where his girlfriend and her daughter are killed by drug dealers who include Star Trek Voyager's Tim Russ among their numbers. In Death Wish 5, Bronson is again in New York and he again has a fiance who is killed by mobsters including Medium's Miguel Sandoval.

No doubt, there are several lessons here, not the least of which is that New York and Los Angeles are both dangerous cities. If you want to keep your family safe from muggers and rapists (and drug dealers and mafioso), move somewhere else. Another moral here is that if you see a face you recognize in a crowd of thugs, that person is probably going to rape and/or kill you. (The real message may be that you shouldn't have a love affair with Charles Bronson, but seeing as how he's been dead for half a decade, I figure that one's just common sense.)

Why do I mention this now? Because I just heard that Sylvester Stallone, fresh off his zombie movies Rocky Balboa and Rambo, is looking to remake the first Death Wish. (Can Stop Or My Mom Will Shoot Again or Over the Top 2: WAY Over the Top be far behind?) Running out of his own material to re-tread, Stallone is moving on to others' franchises. Watch your back, Schwarzenegger.

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I'm not sure exactly when it happened, but somewhere in time the Nobel Peace Prize lost its way. How, exactly, have Al Gore and the IPCC "done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses"?

Sure, maybe Global Warming, the boogeyman-under-the-bed of the 21st century, is a potentially dangerous thing threatening the world, but what has Al Gore done to foster peace and prevent future war over it? Thrown a concert? Started a cable television channel? Made a very profitable movie? Invented the Internet?

If Global Warming existed before Gore championed it's opponents, then he is more similar to AIDS activist Ryan White than Polio vaccinator Jonas Salk. Should you give someone an award for suffering from a medical condition? Especially a condition that that someone is profiting heavily from?

Seems to me that the much-lauded Peace Prize has become about as relevant as Britney Spears' panties (or lack thereof) when all it does is promote the current cause celebrite. What's next? Awarding terrorists?

Oh, wait. Nevermind.

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I often wonder what it must be like to believe in something so fervently that it controls your life, like for religious fanatics or gossip junkies. It's really those people who drive society, especially in the political arena. I seriously think that if I could fake enthusiasm for some idiocy, any idiocy, I could rule the world. But I'm positive that it's not worth the effort.

Despotism is a fickle business. One day you're on top of the world, the next you're dangling from the end of a rope. Or if you're really lucky, your decaying corpse gets to lie in state for a week while people who never met you wander by your casket. (If you're really, really lucky, you get to lie in state forever in a glass coffin. Now that's effective despotism!) In either case, both government and people's lives go on without you.

Take, for example, Skeletor. He's got the chops for world domination. He's got a wicked blue and violet armored motif. He's got a yellow skull for a head. He wears a sinister hood. He's got spectacularly complex plans that always seem to work, at least for a moment or two at a time. And he's got passion for world domination in spades.

Skeletor spent years opposing He-Man, for no apparent reason other than the fact that He-Man likes to fight things. (I mean, he REALLY likes to fight things. Seriously, He-Man. Look into some anger management classes.) If it wasn't for the relentless assault of He-Man, the pro-establishment supporting alter-ego of a cowardly prince, Skeletor would have likely taken over the realm of Eternia with little effort. Beast-Man, Evil-Lyn, and Tri-Klops certainly weren't going to tell someone with a bad ass skull for a face "no."

But where has all that sadomasochistic combat in fetish gear gotten him? Where is Skeletor now? Has Snake Mountain been repossessed for lack of property tax payments? Do people still circulate the money with his face on it? Are giant pro-Skeletor propaganda posters of Skeletor with his skeleton staff on his skeleton throne circulated on eBay? Did Skeletor make any mark on the world worth mentioning?

No, Skeletor has returned to the toy box from whence he sprang, a discarded and forgotten piece of history from a time now passed. And we didn't even get to watch 19 continuous hours of his departure on CNN. Sorry, Skeletor.

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I know that in some situations you have little choice but to turn to crime. For example, there's Jean Valjean from Les Misérables who is forced to steal bread or starve to death. But I'm pretty sure that color-blindness isn't a very good reason to go stealing from people.

This here is the Rainbow Raider. His birth name, as you can see, is Roy G. Bivolo. And yes, he's been colorblind since birth, so he has no idea how bad his costume looks. A reason to be bitter? Sure. A reason to dress like a gay flag and steal paintings? No, probably not.

Comic books have always supported the "nurture over nature" theory of psychological development. I mean, giving your colorblind child a name like Roy G. Bivolo, you have to know that he's going to end up in a nuthouse. (Why can't you name him Dave? You probably need to stay away from Robert, though, because Bobby Bivolo is not a huge improvement.) If villains were intrinsically genetically bad and couldn't be cured, then heroes would have to come up with a better solution than catching them and locking them in cages, now wouldn't they? Comic book heroes love to give villains second, third, even fourth or more chances in order to learn their lesson. I mean, I've lost count of the number of times that Harvey Dent has had plastic surgery and yet he ALWAYS returns to a life of split personalities and Evil with a capital "E." It's never really his fault, of course. He wants to be good. But comic book writers are just conspiring against him.

There are dozens of characters like poor old Roy who feel they got a short end of the stick. I think most of them are probably Flash villains. (Captain Cold, Gorilla Grodd, Mirror Master, Pied Piper, Weather Wizard... and those are just the ones with the alliterative names! For a man who claims to be the fastest man alive, he sure has a lot of crap hanging on to him.) And they all just want revenge on the world for having their ridiculous theories, names, physical appearance, or whatever laughed at. What they really need is a hug.

In hindsight, I suppose that makes comics much superior to the real world, where those same people climb clock towers with rifles or run for political office.

Why do I mention this now? I don't need a reason, that's why.

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A friend of mine calls me and tells me that he's adding me to his cell phone favorites list. "Hey," he says, "do you want to be the skull-and-crossbones icon? It's the only thing in here that's even kind of Evil." Now THAT should be one of those sappy Peanuts "Friendship Is..." strips.

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I recently read that Pope Benedict XVI's chief exorcist Father Gabriele Amorth believes that Hitler was possessed by the Devil. First of all, I would like to point out that this, taken literally, would make a GREAT movie. Secondly, why does the Pope have a chief exorcist?

To quote Father Amorth from a Vatican Radio broadcast:

One of the key requirements for an exorcism is to be present in front of the possessed person and that person also has to be consenting and willing. Therefore trying to carry out an exorcism on someone who is not present, or consenting and willing would prove very difficult.

If the possessee has to be present, consenting and willing, isn't an exorcism more like an intervention? The language used in the above quote seems very... less than supernatural. Couldn't any behavior that is clearly contrary to the tenants of the Roman Catholic Church be considered satanic in nature? Therefore do Catholics see exorcists instead of psychologists? Exorcisms don't seem nearly as exciting as Dr. Strange would have had me believe.

Note, please, that Father Amorth is also the founder of the International Association of Exorcists, an elite band of professional, church appointed exorcists. (Priests can now take exorcism classes at the Vatican's Pontifical Academy. I hear that the exorcism classes fill up fast, behind only "Why You Can't Put Holes In Holy Water And Other Confusing Catechisms Explained," and "Holy Eucharist, Altar-Boy!".) He has said that "behind Harry Potter hides the signature of the king of the darkness, the devil." And who would know better than Vatican City's official exorcist?

By the way, Father Amorth considers The Exorcist his favorite movie. Go figure.

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Good: pressure washers, Spider-Man vitamins, and Smackdown vs Raw 2006 for the PS2.

Bad: female Jeep owners, Coca-Cola Blak, and Cargo magazine.

Don't ask me why. They just are.

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