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.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: batman coke dark knight movies

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.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: amusement parks batman coke dark knight six flags

Remember last month when I mentioned that I consumed a considerable amount of Coca-Cola? Well, I don't. (I don't remember it, that is. I still do drink a lot of Coke.)

Perusing the latest Reader's Digest, I was stunned to learn that a researcher for the University of Alabama at Birmingham has completed studies that indicate that excessive consumption of sugary soda beverages may lead to the development of Alzheimer's Disease later in life. Uh-oh. Of course, this caused me to panic.

A couple of minutes later when I had forgotten why I was panicking, I looked more deeply into the details of this study on my friend The Internet. Surprisingly, Reader's Digest had given me only part of the story. (Who would have guessed?) I discovered that the studied mice were from stock bred to develop Alzheimer's-like symptoms, and the announcement was made based on the soda-swilling meese's slightly increased "brain plaque" deposits, which may be an Alzheimer's indicator. But what really settled me down was that it turns out that this frightening study used only 8 mice in the control group and 7 mice in the experiment for a grand total of 15 mice in all! Talk about your small sample size. That's like finding a single test audience that enjoyed Catwoman before advertising the movie as a "Summer Blockbuster!"

On a semi-related note, is it just me, or are Reader's Digest "It Pays To Enrich Your Word Power" vocabulary words getting easier?

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: coke internet science

Last month, I received a signed book from a friend's employer, one of the world's foremost authorities on Superhero Mego figures. This month, I'm working for another friend's employer, one of the world's foremost authorities on Coca-Cola bottles.

This week's moral is "learn more about something than anyone else, and someday maybe you, too, can meet me." (Sorry, no autographs.)

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: coke friends morals otto randy toys

The New World of Coca-Cola® is set to open in Atlanta on Thursday. My mother is very excited about the opportunity to pay $15 to enter a glorified gift shop, but I am considerably more skeptical. Note the following entertainment possibilities that Coke advertises on their website:

• Thrilling 4-D Theater
• World's largest collection of Coke memorabilia
• Fully functioning bottling line that produces commemorative 8-ounce bottles of Coca­Cola®
• Tasting experience with over 70 different products to sample
• Pop Culture Gallery featuring works by artists such as Andy Warhol, Norman Rockwell, and Steve Penley
• World-famous Coca­Cola® Polar Bear
• And so much more!

So, the place is a museum where you can taste and buy Coke products, meet its advertising icons, buy its advertising icons, and then..., um, "so much more," whatever that may be. Wheee! I sure hope that they don't spray Coke on you inside the 4D theater. (There can be too much of a good thing, you know.)

I mean, didn't Coke learn a long time ago to keep the words "New" and "Coke" as far away from each other as possible? I think if you blindfold me, I might not be able to tell the difference from the original (and in all likelihood superior) World of Coca-Cola®. And I'm certainly not interested in paying $15 (plus an additional $10 for the privilege of parking in the adjoining Pemberton Place® Parking Deck) for more Coca-Cola® advertising than I can see during 9 hours of televised football. This is not a wave that I'm in any hurry to catch.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've worked up a thirst.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: atlanta coke georgia museums

So, in addition to dog sitting, house sitting, attending weddings, applying for jobs and working on graphic and web design jobs, I've also been constructing a dollhouse. I like to stay busy.

The box proudly proclaims this kit to be from the "Mansions in Minutes" series. And sure enough, I completed it in minutes. Nearly 1,000 of them spread over three weeks of waiting for glue and paint to dry. Who says there's no truth in advertising?

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: art coke dolls work

This weekend I learned how to put snow chains on my car tires. I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I had to pay someone else to put them on my rental car. I'm so cheap, I avoid valet parking because I don't want to tip the valets a dollar, so paying thirty bucks for someone to put chains on my tires was like willingly participating in state-enforced highway robbery. But I watched the guy like a hawk, and should the ridiculously unlikely events of The Day After Tomorrow ever come to pass, I'll be ready!

The drive into Tahoe was easily accomplished. There wasn't any snow on the ground then. No, California likes to make sure it has you in its mitts before it tries to screw you over. The whole reason that I was in South Lake Tahoe in the first place was for the wedding of one of my oldest friends. I once swore that I would never again A) return to California or B) drive in the snow, both of which I violated for the wedding. If I've never mentioned it before, let me stress my disapproval of snow here now: it sucks. It's cold, it's wet, and it makes travel impossible. Sure, it looks pretty, but like most pretty things, it's just not worth the hassle. Some way, some how, I'll get Jason back for this.

Despite eating my own words (which, unfortunately, I've done more times than I can count), it was an otherwise eventful weekend for me. I gambled in a casino for the first time (and lost my seed money, all 50¢). I had a Coca-Cola Slurpee made from fresh, real snow (better than you can imagine). I attended an informal bachelor party with a table full of lawyers and teachers (but no strippers. It was commented that no stripper was hired because one couldn't be found who knew how to play chess). And, of course, I got to play in the deep, powdery snow with Chere. (Who goes to a wedding without a date?)

That's two weddings I've attended in three months on opposite sides of the country (Panama City, Florida and Lake Tahoe, Nevada), with another one coming up in May in New York City. Even though I don't care for the outdated and unnecessary concept of marriage, I do like free food and road trips. So it all works out in the end. Also I'm pretty sure it won't be snowing come May.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: chere coke dogs friends gambling jason marriage poodles reno

Apparently I'm not paying enough attention to pornography. I just found out that Hustler released a movie last month called the Da Vinci Load. Promotional material for the film describes it thus:

The truth cums out! Operatives of the Priory of Semen discover that Leonardo da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa using his own sperm.

That sounds waaay better than any film starring Tom Hanks. (Don't let the titles fool you, Bosom Buddies was actually much tamer than Bachelor Party, though neither one is really all that good. The closest that Hanks has ever gotten to being in a porn film is when he portrayed the character Woody in the movie Toy Story.)

Also of note is that the Da Vinci Load is a High-Defintion porno (which says nothing about the quality of the film itself). I had a debate with a friend a few weeks back about whether HD porn was a good idea. My argument was that I didn't really want to be able to easily count the ingrown hairs on a coked-out pornstar's butt. My friend said that everything looks better in HD, including ass pimples. He's right, of course: everything on HDTV is actually much better looking than anything in real life. (But I'm still not sure that the world is ready for HD pustules.)

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: movies sex tom hanks

Coca-Cola sent me an email 15 minutes ago warning me that they were "running low" on the t-shirts that I had on my wish list in their Coke Rewards program. So I logged on to try to redeem my stored points for a t-shirt. But alas, I was too late. Coke now says that they are all out. It must have been a very busy 15 minutes. At 2AM. On a Tuesday morning.

First they ran out of the glasses that I wanted before I could get enough points for them. Then they ran out of t-shirts. They're even out of coupons for 2-liter Cokes. (What a bullshit promotion, Coke. You can't even stock enough coupons for discount Cokes?) Sure, they still have crap like the 40000 points Kyle Petty racing costume and the 56000 points American Idol couch. However, the promotion only lasts 335 days and since you can only enter a maximum of 100 points per day, the most points that you can have by the end of the "redemption period" is 33500. That makes it kind of hard to get the tope end rewards, Coke.

When this Coke Rewards loyalty program started up a few months back, I told my mother and brother that I wasn't planning on participating because of the way that Coke had screwed me out of anything in previous rewards promotions. After a few weeks, I finally broke down and started collecting, figuring, "what the hell, I do drink a lot of Coke." What the hell, indeed.

All right, Coke, you got me again. I bought into your dumb-ass promotion and again I got nothing for it. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fuck you, Coca-Cola.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: coke rant

Last month I ran a series of cartoons depicting an incident with my dear, dear friend Brian Cooper when he "accidently" tossed a full glass of Coke on my notes during a gaming session. Well, last week I got him back. His character, Balgren, was consumed by a Bag of Devouring. (He dove in to try to recover a companion. Sure, Balgren tried to take a Bottle of Air into the Devourer's maw, but that didn't help him much.) Needless to say, we all had a good laugh at Brian's expense.

Turns out Brian had a birthday this week. As a present, a mutual friend of ours (Ken Harrison) drew a birthday card for him:

From now on, all of my Bags of Devouring will be called Bob.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: bob the bag of devouring brian comic strip dnd friends ken rpg