Don't forget: today is National Talk Like a Pirate Day. (I admit. I forgot. I went to a website where they had replaced every instance of the word "you" with the word "ye." Then I remembered.)

Despite the above evidence, I'm pretty sure that neither Batman nor Two-Face participates.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: batman holidays talk like a pirate day

Saturday's final score: UGA 45, Western Carolina 16. Western Carolina's mascot is a Catamount. That's a fancy word for "wildcat." If cartoons have taught me anything, it's that dogs trump cats.

Not much of a competition, as expected. Since the on-field action was sub-par, I became distracted by the use of hand-held fans in the crowd. In the afternoon heat, the cardboard fans used by attendees to keep their faces cool appeared like thousands of butterflies fluttering their wings throughout the crowd. It was just as fascinating as the flash-bulbs that you typically see on kickoffs in the night games.

Dogs, cats, and butterflies. Oh my.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: athens football georgia sanford western carolina

Re-reading the Batman storyline A Lonely Place of Dying, I found this panel:

The narrator means Dick Grayson, the first Robin. I swear.

The narrator in this case is Alfred Pennyworth, Batman's trusty manservant. If anyone would be privy to Batman's enjoyment of, um, Dick, Alfred would be the one to know.

By the way, what exactly is Batman supposed to be holding up that Robin is so happy about? It looks like, well, something someone who is happier with Dick would be holding, if you know what I mean.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: batman comic books seduction of the innocent

The Dolphins kickoff at 1:00 PM today. Maybe this season won't suck. (I won't get my hopes up.)

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: dolphins football nfl

My friend (who I usually call Chris, but for the sake of protecting his anonymity, for the rest of this blog posting, I'll refer to him as Otto, because, well, he calls himself Otto) has just completed a painting of Adam West as Batman and listed it on eBay. He's got an image of the painting as well as a "making of" video on his blog here.

(Don't worry. Robin throws a batarang through the canvas to prevent Batman from revealing his identity. Hey, that's what sidekicks are for, right? And that should definitely teach Batman not to host oil painting classes for the Associated Press again.)

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: art batman comic books friends otto

I'm back, and I have some catching up to do, don't I?

First game of the UGA season: victory! Dawgs win, 35-14, over the Oklahoma State University Cowboys. Word on the street was that the Cowboys sold out every seat that we offered them. Quite an impressive display of fan loyalty, there.

I know it was the first game and all, but I was surprised that the lady who owns the season tickets in the row in front of me didn't recognize me. She recognized my brother, and remembered my mother and father, but not me. I must have gained a lot of weight since last year.

Second game of the UGA season: defeat! Dawgs lose, 16-12, to the University of South Carolina Gamecocks. The Bulldogs performance was utterly uninspired, and the generally low expectations for this year's squad were proven uncannily appropriate awfully early in the season.

The crowd was barely involved in the game. I don't know if we were too shocked or if we had resigned ourselves to the loss early. In last year's SEC home losses, the fans were behind the team until the final second. But this time we seemed to be as stunned as the players on the field that South Carolina, who most of us had written off as beneath us, was having their way with us. Damn you, Spurrier! >shakes fist in rage<

Of course, the NFL season kicked off this weekend, and my team, the Miami Dolphins, lost. The teams of my couch-mates, my brother and his girlfriend, respectively cheering for the Philadelphia Eagles and the New York Giants, also lost.

So far, this does not have the makings of a very good Batman and Football Month.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: athens dad dolphins football georgia mom oklahoma state sanford south carolina steve spurrier trey

My beloved poodle, Chere, died today at approximately 2PM. Though the cause of death will never be known for sure, my father, Chere's caretaker and best friend, believes that Chere suffered a heart attack. [Updated Sept. 3] At least she avoided one of the most common fears of humanity: she died not alone, but in my father's arms.

She was a good dog, and I loved her.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: chere death dogs poodles

Today I celebrate the second annual Batman and Football Month with something that has nothing to do with Batman or Football! (It's exactly this sort of misdirection that both Batman and Football Offenses thrive on!)

I'll be unable to blog for the next week or so (busy, busy!), so let the following digital toy amuse you until I've had a chance to attend to the situation. Two notes:

1. The squares at the top, left, and bottom of the screen are buttons. Press them to turn them on/off. They do various things. For example, the one furthest down on the left is the reset button. You're smart; you can figure out the rest.
2. By holding the mouse down, you can drag the individual squares to new locations to change the design for your own pleasure.

Now go, play with yourself. I'm pretty sure you'll have fun.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: flash toys

Well, the finalists are in for the Heinz commercials, and I'm not one of them. >pout<

A brief review of the finalists (visible at TopThisTV.com) shows that Trey & I really didn't have a chance at all. A professional level of polish is visible on at least 10 of the 15. Only 5 of the 15 contain animation. Four of those are stop motion and the fifth is a very impressive dancing ketchup bottle that I couldn't have rendered on my home computer. Trey suspected that a commercial would have to feature children to win, but only 5 of the commercials have kids (and one of those has America's favorite slapstick comedic moment: a blow to the family jewels, so it's probably the winner).

The most notable thing about the commercials is that all but 2 or 3 spent some real time and money on either locations, sets, actors, animation, or ketchup bottles. Heinz must have made a fortune from the contestants alone last quarter. I guess you have to spend money to make commercials.

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: advertising heinz trey

As of late, I've been a little obsessed with the animatronic animals that performed as The Rockafire Explosion at Showbiz Pizza place throughout the 1980s. I think that adding robot performers to a pizza joint designed mainly to encourage children to play coin-operated video games is perhaps among the greatest restaurant concepts of the 20th century. Showbiz had lousy pizza but spectacular entertainment. I mean, who cares about your low-quality goat cheese pizzas when a robot bear is emceeing your birthday party celebration?

(Don't remember Showbiz? Thankfully, to the rescue comes YouTube! Someone has been uploading training videos from Showbiz Pizza to YouTube. I guess everyone has a hobby.)

Sadly, with the practical demise of arcade gaming thanks to the home console gaming revolution, the concept died a slow death, replaced by Chuck E. Cheeses using not stage robots but television sets. Though I'm sure that today's kids would prefer robot vaudevillians over televised variety shows led by an animated rat, they don't know that they used to have the option. To the kids of today, it's lost information, like how to build a pyramid. (That's right, I've just essentially compared the disappearance of Showbiz Pizza parlors with the fire that destroyed the Library of Alexandria.)

Comments (0) | Leave a Comment | Tags: robots rockafire explosion