September movies watched, part 2 of 2:

126. (1185.) Rattlers (1976)
Military-grade rattlesnakes go on a rampage! There are a lot of (unintentional?) chuckles to be had here.
[UPDATE 2018-02-14: Note to self — this movie was clearly the inspiration for The Incredible Hulk episode "Blind Rage" which was released three years later. Is this bit of trivia important? Only to me.]

127. (1186.) Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017)
Not as good as the first, but isn't the law of diminishing returns true for most sequels? Seriously, Colin Firth is much, much too good an actor to be in this kind of movie, but he looks like he's having a blast. So does Elton John. When the actors are having fun, it's fun to watch.
[UPDATE 2021-03-06: Note to self — Coke is it!]

Wait, it's the movie *villain* who's obsessed with Coke? Did Coca-Cola know that before signing off on this placement?

128. (1187.) The Book of Life (2014)
The charm of this animated movie is in the art design. The story, I'm sorry to say, isn't up to the same standard. I fast-forwarded through the third act just to get it over with.

129. (1188.) Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)
Wow. If Kingsman 2 suffers from entropy, this sequel is a black hole. It's charming when the principle actors are on screen interacting directly, as in the party at Stark's office. However, the plentiful action scenes — the whole reason something like this is made in the first place — are a muddled, artificial mess with bad pacing, randomly shifting character motivations, and weak, repetitive CGI. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

More to come.

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We interrupt your regularly scheduled year to remind you that today is Leap Day.

Trivia: February 29th was introduced to the Gregorian Calendar in 1582, but the need to insert an occasional extra day or two in the calendar year to keep the solar and seasonal cycles aligned has been recognized by astronomers for thousands of years.

World of Krypton #1, July 1979

Fact: February 29th is Superman's birthday. At least that's what happens when DC Comics translates the Kryptonian date, the 35th fanff in the zetyar of Eorx in the amzet 9998, into the Gregorian calendar. Who am I to doubt DC Comics' math?

We now return you to your regularly schedule year already in progress.

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"Authorities in Arkansas have arrested three men from Georgia in connection with a disturbing video involving a deer being beaten with a textbook."

That's the opening line of a news story Fox 5 Atlanta ran three weeks ago. I, too, find this video disturbing. I hate to see a good book ruined.

As the story goes, four young men — three of whom hailed from Carroll and Douglas counties here in Georgia — hit a deer with their car. Deciding to keep the deer as though they had shot it, they loaded it into their car. That was their first mistake.

Deer are not our friends. Deer are the Enemy. They destroy our crops and suicide bomb our cars. The last thing you want to do to a deer is give it a free ride.

After playing 'possum to get into the car, this duplicitous deer returned to life when its rescuers' backs were turned. It probably would have succeeded in stabbing the humans to death in their own car if not for the quick-thinking action of one of the young men, a native of Villa Rica, Georgia. This hero fought back with the only advantage mankind has over the dastardly deer: knowledge. He repeatedly hit the deer in the face with a college textbook.

At last we learn why textbooks cost so much. Not only are they full of boring trivia, in a pinch, they can also beat off wild animals. If I'd known that while attending college, I might have spent my student loans on books instead of pizza.

Eventually the deer was subdued and left in a ditch on the side of the road. The men, who filmed the encounter and put it on Facebook, are being charged with "wasting wildlife." That's a fancy name for littering.

While these four men should have known better, it's not too late for you to learn a couple of lessons from their misadventure. One, never pick up a hitchhiking deer, even if it's playing dead. And two, carry a textbook with you at all times. I recommend Art Through the Ages, but you can use whatever you like. Deer can't read.

I don't believe you.

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I stumbled upon this not-quite-as-informative-as-it-pretends-to-be image yesterday. For unknown reasons, it tells you how much Clark Kent would have paid for rent in 1938, but not what his power or grocery bills would have been or how much of his salary as a newspaper reporter would have been consumed by his listed expenses. (Hint: even adjusting for inflation, he'll do a better job saving for retirement in 2015. Assuming he could find a paper to work for.)

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I went to trivia last night and totally blew off the question "What did the 'u' stand for in the defunct UPN Network?" as too easy. I was certain the answer was "Universal." I was wrong.

I knew that it was Paramount's television network, but I incorrectly assumed that it had been a joint venture between Paramount and Universal. It wasn't. UPN was a solo Paramount project.

Perhaps I confused UPN with the Paramount/Universal joint venture UIP, formed in the 1970s to release their films internationally. Too bad for me, the 'u' in UIP doesn't stand for "Universal," either.

The correct answer, same for both UPN and UIP is "United." Thankfully, Friend Brian knew the correct answer. I applaud Brian for his trivia knowledge.

Brian, the next time I tell you that you are wrong about something, you can point to this post and say, "I was right about 'United'." Hopefully, the memory of this one time I was wrong and you were right will console you when I prove you are wrong about whatever we're talking about now.

APPENDIX 2014-09-17: Given that it is Batman and Football month, I should mention that one of the questions at trivia was "What Batman villain, according to one origin story, was originally known as The Red Hood?" That question really was too easy! Sadly, there were no questions about football.

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It is not uncommon for me to drive through Atlanta late Saturday night/early Sunday morning. When I do, I always listen to Handel on the Law on WSB AM 750 (or preferably on FM 95.5, which typically gives me a more widely-dispersed signal). Bill Handel spends three hours a week yelling at people for getting into legal predicaments that are generally pretty avoidable. It's a great show, and I give it my highest recommendation.

I've known a few lawyers in my life, some of them pretty well. From them I've learned several specific lessons which I will now share with you, dear reader.

1. Lawyers think they know more than you do about everything. This may or not be true, but that has no impact on whether the lawyer thinks it.
2. A lawyer's life is just as messed up as yours, but probably moreso. Therefore, never take advice from a lawyer about anything other than the law.
3. And most importantly, never, ever support a girlfriend/boyfriend through law school. They will eventually leave you. I personally know of no cases where this is not true.

Why am I not a lawyer? Sure, I'm argumentative, prone to obsessing over pedantic trivia, and I know more than everyone else about everything. But I'd really like to do something with my life other than be a total douchebag.

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The 2012 New Oxford American Dictionary Word of the Year is "gif." That's right, "gif," as in the acronym for Graphics Interchange Format, a digital image format introduced to the world by CompuServe in 1987 and largely replaced in the 21st century by the patent-free Portable Network Graphics ("png") format. "Gif," pronounced either as "gift" without the "g" or as the peanut butter brand Jif, depending largely on what side of the Atlantic Ocean you're on, has finally climbed to the top of the logophile heap, and all it took was changing into a verb.

I'm not one to doubt the wisdom of the editors of the New Oxford American Dictionary, but I can't say that I've heard the word "gif" used as a verb yet. The archaic gif, unloved and abandoned by digital imagery professionals, now survives thanks to amateurs who have found that it makes a handy universal format for animating and sharing brief clips of children being attacked by animals and adults earning Darwin Awards. If anything, it's not "gif" that should be awarded, but "ISP," for finally building the Internet's tubes large enough to support the ridiculously bloated size of animated gifs.

Ultimately, I have to guess that if a 25-year old word is the Word of the Year, it must have been a slow year for words. Seeing the hoopla that "gif" got, I thought I'd take a look back at past words honored by the New Oxford American Dictionary:

2012. gif
2013. squeezed middle
2014. refudiate
2015. unfriend
2016. hypermilling
2017. locavore
2018. carbon-neutral
2019. podcast

It's almost like looking into a time capsule! All of those are zeitgeist words. Who refudiates anymore? I guess that means that in a few years, we won't even remember that in 2012 we giffed.

Yep, just like it all never happened....

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I had a dream last night that I was working with Dick Schwartz and Jim Groff in the Comic Company again. The personalities were spot on: Dick seems affable but is really so deaf he has no idea what you're saying, and Jim is polite and professional but completely disinterested in comics. How did I end up enjoying a job so much where no one ever listened to me?

This dream isn't too uncommon for me. I dream quite frequently about old jobs. My co-workers are usually as I remember them. Or, more accurately, how I remember their personalities. (Although I have a mind for trivia, I was never good at remembering faces or names.) What always changes are the locations. Maybe it's my mind's way of preventing me from guessing what's coming next, just like how The Magnificent Seven is really the Seven Samurai but hopes you won't notice for all the sand.

While I dream occasionally about working at the comic book store, I more often dream about being a waiter again. That dream is always the same. I'll be enjoying palling around with my nameless co-workers for awhile before the dinner rush starts. For a time, I'll be on top of the game. But inevitably, too many people ask me to do too many things at once, and I become a stressed-out basket case. I got fired from every job I ever had as a waiter. If my dreams are any indication, I wasn't very good at it.

But my dreams of working at the comic book store are never negative. That should probably be expected. I loved that job. I never would have commuted 120 miles round-trip to work at a restaurant as I did when working at the Comic Company. Heck, these days you have to pay me $100 just to take the trash out to the curb.

Thanks for the opportunity at my dream job, Dick and Jim.

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We have some new across-the-street neighbors. Yesterday as I was walking the dogs, their toddler ignored her father's shouts and began stumbling her way across the lawn to reach my poodles. When daddy finally caught up to his little girl -- right by the street, I might add -- I jokingly asked if he needed to borrow one of my leashes. He didn't seem to think that was too funny. Some people can't take a joke.

While we're on the subject, I should mention that I used to think those child leashes were a modern invention. Maybe this is because they are surprisingly controversial. If you want to pick an argument in a room full of mothers, simply start a discussion about bottle feeding, vaccinations, or toddler leashes. Be sure to have an exit strategy planned first, because it's going to get ugly.

But watching Picnic earlier this month belied that belief. One brief shot lampoons the weary mother with two toddlers straining to run in opposite directions. The children are restrained only by, you guessed it, toddler leashes. That film was made in 1955, and the sight gag must have been already an established trope for it to be included as a bit of comic relief. After all, the film's setting is small-town Kansas, hardly the bleeding edge of society.

So just how long have people been tying rope to their children to keep them in tow? A quick Google search tells me that at least as early as the 18th century, children's fashion occasionally included "leading strings," or long cloth straps attached to the shoulders which served a similar purpose as today's toddler leash. Does that mean that a young George Washington was once led around by his father like a standard poodle? I cannot tell a lie: I like to think so.

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The fast food industry is under fire for marketing their delicious death-meat to children. Rather than actually ceasing the marketing of their gateway drug to kids, the industry has decided to discourage the purchase of kids' meals by making them boring.

Mom brought home a Happy Meal bag that had no games on it, just trivia about apples. Gee, not all apples are red? Well, no shit. McDonald's, even I'm not so old enough that I think apple trivia would be fun for kids.

Meanwhile, I just got this tray liner at Burger King in support of their new and unexciting "Crown Meal." Click on the dots below to connect them.

Disclaimer: It's not as much fun as you remember.

What I see is a really lame excuse for a connect-the-dots picture. I might as well be drawing a picture of the trash can.

Elsewhere on this same placemat is another fun game: "Give all of your family members nicknames!" Burger King's suggestion? "Hot Feet." If that Mad Lib doesn't keep you from enjoying your Whopper Jr., nothing will.

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