So many comics...so much fluff...

It's summer, so I'm reading comic books...and 'round noon I'll be watching the new X-Men movie...review to follow tomorrow...

I made a run on the X-Men TPB at the local library branch, grabbing a dozen or so trades. The first one on the top of the stack is Uncanny X-Men - The New Age: On Ice. The art style from Alan Davis is one that bugs me. He did some work for Justice League Europe back in the 90's, and it drove me nuts back then. Don't know exactly what it is about his style that drives me so nuts, but I just can't stand it.

The story's not too bad, though except for the absolutely attrocious pseudoscience (I know I shouldn't complain when a movie or comic book has bad science, but this one presented itself as being kinda scientific). X-Men end up kidnapped to the Savage Land (again) by a race of mutant dinos who have super powers. It's nothing great, but it's a decent little lark. The more interesting story here is the rebirth of Psylocke. There are hints that something bigger is coming with her story, and I don't follow the dozen X-titles regularly enough to know what's coming there. Overall judgement - interesting, quick read...far from essential.

Next up is the Black Panther/X-Men crossover Wild Kingdom. This collects four issues and contains an entire storyline which is always a bonus in any of these trades. There's a definite starts, middle, and end. And it's a pretty good tale with a credible villian (who I hadn't seen before), talking (arguing, joking) monkeys, and a decent selection of X-Men to follow along. This one's better than the Uncanny title.

I think I've finally figured out which series of the X-Men I actually enjoy. It's Astonishing X-Men by Wheedon and Cassaday - the second trade of their run Dangerous is another gorgeous run that mines some territory that's been mined before. Hopefully they'll keep Wheedon and Cassaday around for a while longer so I can get a couple more trades before they disappear.

Breaking form the X-Men saw me taking a quick run through Space Ghost by Kelly & Olivetti. It certainly wasn't what I expected from what's turned out to be a jokey character. This series wasn't played for laughs, though, which is a welcome improvement. We get a pretty dark backstory on the titular Ghost, and he's got some very dark motivation. The artwork's nicely pulpy, and the journey of the character from hero to martyr to vengeful angel to hero again makes for a decent little journey. I doubt there's much of a future here, but it's a good six-issue run that touches on all the key points of the character (introducing the necessary supporting characters) but giving the whole of the story a totally different feel from the comedic Space Ghost: Coast to Coast that most of us know him from. Good stuff and probably the best that I read through this review cycle.

Another non-Marvel story was the dual Wonder Woman trades of Gods and Mortals along with Beauty and the Beasts. These are the first and third volumes in George Perez's semi-legendary run restarting Wonder Woman after Crisis on Infinite Earths. Perez started the whole idea afresh, introducing Wonder Woman to the world for the first time. She doesn't know English, doesn't understand the chaos of the modern world, and she's a near-perfect woman that everyone either idolizes or envies. Perez's greatest step was the tight tie to Diana's Greek god(ess) heritage. The gods are the major movers and shakers in these stories as their machinations are the driving forces here.

This was a revolutionary change and one that's been improved upon only by Greg Rucka's run on the series. Perez's run is outstanding, and I'll be hunting down the other two collected volumes, but I'll admit that his art style (he both wrote and drew these issues) isn't quite for me. It's a little too clean at times, too classical, and I don't care for the sometimes cluttered with crosshatching and pencil shading on what could be shown more simply. He's a classic, but he's not quite my tastes as an artist. As a writer, he has almost no peer from the mainstream superhero runs. For anyone who wants to know the history of the Wonder Woman character, this run is an absolute must.

Spider-Man: Wild Blue Yonder sees Webhead as part of the Avengers initially having to deal with a bit of a rivalry with Wolverine who doesn't understand how a geek got the girl. It's a bit of a red herring as a cover subject, but the rest of the story does turn out to be pretty entertaining. There's not one storyline that maintains the entire time, so it's not a perfectly unified trade, but the two main stories are pretty entertaining - a Superman-esque farmboy from Kansas shows up in the newsroom and is assigned to Peter to show the ropes and Absorbing Man gets mixed up with a crime kingpin and gets a little hacked off at the Avengers. We also get three or four flashbacks in different art styles making this a trade worth flipping through. Fun stuff, good story, decent art.

The last of the X-stuff that I grabbed was the first three volumes of New X-Men: Academy X - Choosing Sides, Haunted, X-Posed, and House of M. I'm a little surprised that I enjoyed this series. It's written to a younger audience than most of the X-books with the main characters being teens just finding their way in the X-world. It's a fun run and one I can recommend for any Marvelites out there.

Finally was the second reboot of the Legion of Super-Heroes first two collected volumes Teenage Revoluion and Death of a Dream. The old idea of the LSH being a grouping of teens who have tapped into the heroic ideals of the heroes of the twentieth- and twenty-first centuries has always been a great one, and they managed to hold together in spite of so many characters with so many different powers and back stories. This rebooting of the series is outstanding. There's a major villian and thread to hold the storyline together, and the motivations of the main characters are nicely revealed a bit at a time.

I'm amazed and surprised at how good this series is. It's one that should be followed tightly, particlarly since they've recently introduced Supergirl into the timeline post Infinite Crisis.

Wow...lots of fluff crap into my brain today. Good to know summer isn't hitting me too hard...

Possible Score Indicator 97

It's a simple concept. You go to Criticker.com and you rate some movies (minimum of ten, I'm up to just over 400) on a scale of 0-100, and then your rankings are compared to other peoples' rankings creating a possible score indicator (PSI) for lots of movies you haven't seen yet.

So far, surprisingly, it's been pretty accurate as to what I would likely like and what I'd not like so much.

As an added bonus, it can occasionally lead you to freaky films like this one.

Sending you transbuddha's way...

I've mentioned them before, but the videos over at Transbuddha.com are great stuff. Today's gems are about extreme skipping, a beer can cannon, a revamped video of "It's the End of the World", and a great fusion Pachabel's Canon in D.

You really should be checking them our pretty much every day.

Gonna have a hot time tonight...

Ah well, the day of the beast is supposedly upon us...

Happy 6/6/06, everybody...

Try to celebrate in your own little way today. Perhaps you could go to Michigan. Maybe you could go see a movie. There's always the option of buying a new video game. You could vote in a poll to see if the end truly is nigh. There's always the option of reading a magazine. You can look for other signs. Ya might want to get a little light reading in before the apocalypse. Or you could just debate the philosophy.

Of course, we could still have another six or so years.

So, you know, take all of this with a grain of salt.

I'm not sure I understand what just happened...

Have you seen Momento?

If so, do you remember how confusing that film was throughout much of its run and how you probably watched it a couple of times (if you had it on video or DVD) before you could really figure out what was happenning?

Well, the same kind of feeling comes from the movie Primer, but I'm only one viewing in at this point.

I think I know what happened, but I'm not entirely sure I could explain each twist and turn to you.

The basic set-up is that four engineers are working on a project in one of their garages after work hours. It's nothing special - making and selling circuit boards or something. Two of the guys have a separate project in the same garage, however, that just might be the biggest invention/discovery that mankind has ever worked out. It allows them to alter the past and the future with all but absolute knowledge.

And if they could only trust the other to not use it alone, they'd be okay...which is, of course, where the idyllic plotline goes haywire.

It's a quick film - seventy-seven minutes according to the DVD back (with supposedly only eighty minutes of film actually shot for the movie - so you won't be investing too much even if it doesn't strike your fancy, and I'll warn you that the initial parts of the movie are a little hard to follow because of the filmmaker's style of recording the main characters, but don't sweat that. The opening stuff is just the character intro, and once the plot gets moving along in earnest, things are a little easier to follow.

The science is atrocious and glossed over, but that's cool because the movie is really about the extremes to which two friends would go to make sure that their world is as perfect as they want it to be. Not necessarily as perfect as the two want it to be, but each making decisions to make sure the world is their own, personal version of perfection.

And it takes some following to get what's being done through each cross and double cross, but Primer is well worth trying to figure it all out.

Perhaps this is better...

Perhaps a nice little link to an extreme version of Mentos in Diet Coke will be a little more appropriate for me to link to rather than the EatPES website to which I had linked earlier today.

Not that Mentos and Diet Coke is anything less than fun, you understand...

Thanks Trey...Matt...

I think that what we need today is a montage...

• montage categories and examples
• A (not the) classic Rocky montage
• a nice romantic montage
• Kelly Clarkson / Clay Aiken montage
• Ryan Adams's NYC montage
• Roy Samuelson's montage
• War images montage set to "Eve of Destruction"
• great sports moments montage
• penspinning montage (for Vlad, you know)
• Montage-a-google

Extreme houses...

As a dweller in the land of suburbia, I get to enjoy seeing the new developments popping up with bigger and bigger houses on smaller and smaller plots of land, complete with three-car garages, two-story foyers with giant chandeliers, and automatic sprinkler systems to grow back the sod that was peeled off in the first place. A term for these sorts of houses has come into being: McMansions, and there is a growing backlash against them.

Which is where the Tumbleweed Tiny House Company comes into the story.

Karlen found their site thanks to an NPR story about the houses being used as homes in the Katrina-devistated areas of the Gulf Coast.

The houses are from a designer who lives in one of his houses, all of which are between 100 and 500 square feet and - according to the company's website - can meet the fulltime living needs of anyone interested in providing a smaller environmental footprint. Or, as suggested, they could be artists studios, weekend retreats in the country or just about anything else that people could want from a smaller residence.

Karlen's talked a number of times about getting a retreat in the country with a little trailer on the land, something simple. In my mind, these would be much better than any trailer.

Honestly, I'm amazingly impressed and kind of tempted by the houses. It's probably an extreme that I won't be pursuing, but the mere presence of people working at these extremems remind the rest of us that we need to keep our footprint as small as we can manage.

Let's get a little graphic, folks...

As the school year draws toward a close, I've been reading a little more here and there. I'm not yet ready to review Stephen King's Insomnia as I'm only about 2/3 through that one - maybe the end of next week will see that. But I am ready to take a quick run through some of the Marvel comics that I picked up this past week. They're going back to the Sharonville branch this afternoon, so if you're interested, they'll be there for you...

I've never been a huge Hulk fan, and Prelude to Planet Hulk isn't going to draw me into the fold. So many writers have had so many different takes on the Hulk, trying to find some interesting take on the Jeckel & Hyde/Ego & Id combination that is the big green guy and weakling Banner. For a few issues, Hulk is mindless, rampaging across the world. Then, without warning, Hulk has some of Banner's intelect, and then the Hulk's a calm, reasonable killing machine who happens to enjoy smashing things a bit.

This run is nothing more than a brief scene in front of the traveler while the Hulk writers get set for the supposedly big event Planet Hulk - a Hulk as Gladiator/Spartacus story (you know, slave becomes gladiator becomes leader, blech). There isn't anything particularly revelatory or exciting happening in these issues, but it gets the Hulk from Alaska - where Banner has holed up to avoid the world - to Planet Hulk, wherever that is. Every story needs a set up, and this is it.

Skip this trade and just assume that the Hulk somehow got to his next stop. This isn't exactly a great road movie. Bing, Bob, where have you gone?

Then there was the Amazing Spider-Man: New Avengers. Don't know that I'm sold on the concept of Spider-Man being a member of a super team. It's an interesting idea - bringing a loner hero who's always been a bit of an outcast with the press into the fold of the greatest super hero team in the Marvel universe. it certainly cements the growing relationship between Peter and Tony Stark that is being painted as a major plot point in the Civil War storyline of this summer, but it seems to sap a little bit of the uniqueness of web head for me.

This trade isn't a bad one. It shows Peter and his crew joining Avengers' Tower when their house burns down, and the big guy gets to fight and defeat a repowered Hydra organization. Nothing awful, but nothing great either. One thing I've never understood is that there are a bunch of different Spider-Man titled (Amazing, Spectacular, Spider-Man, Uncanny) - admittedly I don't know which are being published still - but I don't know the differences. I've read a few things here and there that suggest that each has a different mission - to show the people side of the story, to show slightly more supernatural storylines, whatever. As an infrequent reader who pops in and out via trades, I don't get the commonr threads, but this and the other threads I've grasped kind of make me curious for the Civil War trades that I assume will eventually come out.

Oh, and in researching these reviews, I ran across a blog that looks pretty fun. It's called NoSheep.net and is one that's at least going to get a brief stop into the rotation. Might earn a permanent place, might not.

More reviews to come - another Spider-Man, new LSH, Wonder Woman. But it's off to start the last day of school. The students (for the most part) left yesterday, but I've paperwork to finish up.

Enjoy the day, everybody. Hope you got to sleep in...

Pat Robertson is full of safflower oil...

Pat Robertson can leg press a ton.

I don't mean that he can leg press a metaphorical ton, as in a whole lot.

No, I mean he can supposedly leg press a full ton. It's the magic of his miracle shake recipie (which I admittedly stole from his website - thank you for registering jjjjohnson). There's a bunch of bullpucky in there about flaxseed, whey, strawberries, glutamine, MSM (?), soy lecithin, vinegar, and some other stuff. It's pretty much a standard I'm a weightlifter with no neck crap, but according the Patty's 700 Club website (video of a significantly less impressive feat included, by the way).

Sure, there are a couple of websites that at least cast aspersions on the veracity of the stunt, possibly because there are real freaky feats of strength out there. But who cares?

This is a man who has said a number of totally crackpot things, absolutely kooky statements. The man is totally nuts, but of course I'm all ready to take nutrition advice from him.

Does anybody know where I can buy some biblically-aproved glutamine?

My icon plays depressed...

The beauty of Off the Map is hard to capture, to describe. It is an ephemeral, diaphanous, the sort of beauty that seems to stay just out of reach and slips between my fingers when I try to desribe it, to trap it, to nail it down. By the end of this gorgeous film, however, I found myself on the verge of tears, knowing that I would miss the off-kilter family on whom the film focuses.

Most of the reviews that I've read - Roger Ebert's in particular - give away too much of the story, warning you in advance of who would be coming into the film to stay and who would be drifting in for moments before moving onward, joining us only for a moment as their story intersects that of the main characters.

Don't let the vagueness disuade you, however, as the beauty of the film is in not knowing exactly where things are heading, whether feelings and events that pop up will be significant or simlpy will be subsumed into the undercurrents of the dynamics - never fully explained - between the beautifully crafted characters, each of whom is doing nothing more than finding their way through a simple life in the remote high plains outside of Taos, New Mexico - Land of Enchantment.

The film is marvelously acted by all involved - from the main character of Bo, played precociously by beautiful newcomer Valentina de Angelis, to Joan Allen, Sam Elliott, JK Simmons, and Jim True-Frost. Every part is a note-perfect character sketch, and the actors - under the guidance of Campbell Scott, whose work might require a look through if it's of this high a consistent quality - revel in the parts.

The story is far from linear, meandering through a summer and allowing us glimpses of the future that these characters would make for themselves in just the briefest of facts. We never get the whole story of either their pasts or of their futures, and in the end we know everything that we need to know about them, particularly through analogy with a beautifully done painting by Santa Fe artist Stan Berning.

A review from LA Weekly describes the film marvelously, and I will close by quoting it (as did an imdb.com reviewer from whom I get the quote):

From beginning to end, the movie achieves nearly complete originality of expression that makes it as anomalous a figure on today's independent film landscape as the film's characters are on theirs. Sequestered on a ranch deep in the recesses of rural New Mexico, a part-Hopi woman (Joan Allen), her catatonic depressed husband (Sam Elliot) & their precocious 11-year old daughter (Valentina de Angelis) live off the land...

The characters rarely do what we expect of them, while tragedy, absurdity and mordant humor are held in a precarious balance that recalls Sam Shepard at his best...

The ocean meets the sky in a cycloramic mural that, like the movie itself, is a small masterpiece of tone and form. To watch Off the Map is to be pulled into a private universe on the brink of civilization--from which, at the end of two hours, it is impossible to exit unaffected.

Read the picture definition IBBecky...g'head...

Nothing too fancy today (sorry for missing yesterday, folks)...

Fun little website complete with weekly updates and podcasts and the like - all about the simple science of etymology - Take Our Word For It. This week, for example, you can learn why the Klan-centric politician from O Brother, Where Art Thou? was run out of town on a rail.

There are, of course, lots of other etymology sites allowing you to find out what your name means or just what various word origins are without the cool stories associated. Have fun and improve your vocabulary.

It'll help you with all sorts of games.

A moment to remember...

The picture shows a Cub Scout placing flags at the gravestones in the New Albany National Cemetery, my home town. It's one of one-hundred twenty-three national cemeteries, but it's the one that's clearly closest to my heart.

It was across the street from my elementary school, diagonal from my junior high, and probably three blocks from my high school. I spent many a time walking along the walls of the cemetery or walking beside them instead of on the walls when, for a time, I would choose to express deference toward those fallen and intered there. I never remember playing through the cemetery as I remember some friends doing, and the rare cuts through the cemetery were always oddly solomn for me, even though it wasn't anything resembling a spooky cemetery. There were nice, huge, old trees here and there, but the world was just outside the low walls, and nothing every was scary there to me.

And in 1991 my grandfather, a veteran of two American wars, was intered there. It is ther first funeral that I'd been through, and it just might still be the only one I've been through. He lived to a ripe of age - seventy-two - and certainly didn't die as any result of his service time, but it was comforting for the few years after that when I still lived in New Albany to know that I could stop by and see his gravesite at any time, nestled there among the rows and rows of identical headstones marking the graves of so many veterans and their families.

Today is Memorial Day, a time - like Veterans Day - to remember how much has been given to us for what our country is today. No matter your feelings for the policies of the current administration - and mine are often negative - no matter whether you believe in the conflicts into which our current military men and women are being sent, remember to honor them for their sacrifice. Without those sacrifices, our country would not be what it is today.

Take a minute to thank a fallen veteran today. Visit his or her gravesite. Stop by a memorial - the Chris Dyer memorial. Or simply pause your assuredly hectic life for a moment and thank them silently.

To know more about the New Albany National Cemetery, see any of these links:

• Wikipedia's brief entry for it
• National Cemetery Administration's information page

Thanks, Grandpa...
Thanks, Chris...
Thanks each of you...

Games galore...

Ah, games, games, and more games over at the WeAreGame blog. Loads of time wasters for those of you out there who need one. Currently, I recommend Brainbots, the simple game, and Heel Over. And I didn't dig Van Jellies.

Have fun, Joseph.

Hey Mr. DJ, you stink!

The wife and I went to a little wedding soiree last night for one of her co-workers. The ceremony was at the church most local to our house, but the reception was a bit further away - at the Manchester Inn in Middletown.

The receiption wasn't anything too spectacular - good cake, pasta buffet, partially open bar, decent folks around to hang with - but the DJ was worth watching. His musical selection was solid, taking advantage of some of the standard reception songs - "Electric Slide", "Brown Eyed Girl", "I Will Survive", "Hot in Herre", "My Humps" - pretty much all of which I'm coming to hate because of their wedding recption schlock connotations. What stood out with the DJ's performance last night was the fact that his transitions were totally arbitrary and random. Two or three uptempo, modern songs would build the mood and be followed by a slow-dance standard to get the old folks out there and chase the partiers. Then he'd go with a techno "Rocky Top" followed by "Thank God I'm a Country Boy" and then "My Humps".

Random, unsequenced, unfaded crap.

Now, I do actually know of a pretty good disc jockey service, but I think I'm leaning toward the concept of the iPod Wedding.

It's simple enough. I know the music that I like. I'm smart enough to find a list of the best party songs, and I can certainly rent or buy a speaker system and amp. And all I have to do is get a microphone to plug in. It's all set. Easy peasy, Japaneasy.

There are a bunch of articles out there to offer advice on planning an iPod Wedding:

• From news.com
• From request.dj

In all honesty, though, I'm thinking I'd stick with the laptop. It's what most DJs use anymore anyway, and the iPod has enough limitations from pauses between songs to difficulties fading between songs.

But you can always get a matching cake if you go with the iPod wedding.

PS - Rafael Nadal is a beast.

G' mornin' t' ya...

Again and again I point toward an advertisement that happens to be fun. Come, join me in the celebration of corporate culture via the miracles of viral marketing.

Today's viral marketing link is from Inbox Games. I enjoyed binball wizard, diary defender, and viva la volley.

Have fun, folks...

Well, now we've missed it...

Friday night was (ok, I'm writing this Friday afternoon but posting in advance - trying to keep on top of things) Bird Flu Awareness Night at the Newark Bears' baseball game.

Anybody who brings in a chicken-related item (rubber chicken, chicken soup, crappy advice book) gets in free. All attendees get free masks. They've got a quarantined section for anybody from a local town that had the first local case of bird flu.

Good times...good times...and probably a lot less chaoitc than some other promotions.

J'aime la terre battue.

Wimbledon is amazing. The tradition, the gorgeously quick points, the beauty of the all-whites on the grass.

The US Open is ours. It is simply and perfectly American. The crowds are rolicking, the night matches energized, and the hard courts are as fair a surface as any in the world.

The Australian Open is the forgotten slam with the season having just begun, but the players have to work through phenomenal heat and sun to win there for two weeks.

But Roland Garros is my favorite grand slam tourney. The points are grueling, and the matches bordering on interminably long, but they can be absolutely gorgeous. Often the points are long enough that you can see players begin to build a point one way and get a chance to switch strategies within the very point turning a corner to corner backhand rally of a dozen strokes into an up the line battle on a whisker's bredth.

The smudges of clay on the shorts, the influence of the Spaniards, the coming of summer here in the States. All of it signals the start of grand slam season for me. With less than a month between finals, Roland Garros and Wimbledon create a near-perfect, whiplash-inducing change of surfaces with an entirely new cast of characters taking over on the quicker grass of the All-England Club.

But first they have to fight their way through to Court Philippe Chatrier, and I would enjoy nothing more than spending the next two weeks parked in front of my television watching a half dozen hours a day.

Sadly, my last week of school and the little lack-of-cable problem that I have will prevent that, but beware that I'm booked for the mornings of June 10th and 11th.

Please, help me keep an eye toward the heavens to get a replay of Federer-Nadal in the final, would ya?

Oh, and it's not the French Open. Friggin jingoistic francophobes.

Field Trip!

Seriously, the moment this place is open, Beaker's going. Who's with me?

If only they had mini-golf, it'd be perfect.

Sell rich women's behinds back to them...

Ah, the lure of celebrity culture. The desire to know what people who are judged as being more attractive than we are, who make and spend more money in a year than most of us will in a lifetime, and who are no more important or intelligent than are we.

This is why we have Us and People and even the National Enquirer. Luckily, we also have What Would Tyler Durden Do? - a celebrity-centric blog that is just snarky enough to make things enjoyable.

Rather than check that out, though, let me recommend that you get outside, spend some time making Vitamin D. Don't know what it's like where you are, but the weather's pretty much letter and note perfect here in the Ohio River valley.

Now there there's a What Would for Tyler Durden, I just need to get a WWDr.JD bracelet so I can always ask the guru and he can respond with a simple "finger roll, my son, finger roll."

Wook at the widdle baby animaws...

There are a number of websites that I keep links to just as reference because I know somebody's gonna ask me some sort of weird question that I'll wnat to find the answer to (or because I like to use them for extra credit)...

Today, you get a website that lists the proper terms for baby animals and groups of animals of various species. For example, there's the ever-popular murder of crows and pod of whales, but the less common dray of squirrels or parliment of owls. There's also the more famous hippo baby named a calf but also the less famous hawk eyas and oyster spat.

Who knew?

I also keep links to a word trivia website, a holiday origin website, a American secular holiday webpage, an authoritative Beatles site, and the greatest Simpsons reference I can find.

Blogs? About Science? I'm done...

How have I missed a bunch of science blogs - especially ones that are broken up by topic? Amazing...

And if you're not checking out TechnicallyOverboard, you're missing out on a ton since my recent pledge to not link to anything that I find there (since my blog risks becoming derivative). Seriously, check out the American Chestnut article, the interactive post, the t-qualizer, the bunnies, the Canyon skywalk, the world's greatest magician - and that's just in the past couple of days.

Seriously, unless you just have some or thing for me, I'd recommend checking that blog first. Rockinly cool...

For some reason, she reminds me of a seagull...

You really shouldn't try chugging a bunch of Pepsi and eating Mentos right after...bad things can happen...

It's time for the fancy fancy to begin, yeah?

Ah, the freakishness of advertising continues, and I'm playing into it.

Yup, I'm sending you today to Winterfresh gum's website to check out their use of flash to entertain you and keep you on their site longer. It's actually kinda a freaky little ride, but take some time to play around and find as many of the hidden places as you can manage. I especially like boo yah island...

Enjoy the fancy fancy...

Musical movie magic...

No theater time for me today...got lots of work done instead...and also picked up a few things from the library, including Munich which is about an hour and a half in but apparently too late for my wife, so there's been a pause...

Today's fully entertaining link is movie.com's list of the greatest movie soundtracks.

My quick hitters...

• #23 - Royal Tannenbaums - loved the movie, dug the soundtrack in context, haven't given it a chance as a disc...could be loads of fun, though
• #22 - Forest Gump - great selection of hits from a whole spread of eras...it's not one I'd love to have, but if I was teaching some sort of history class and using the music, this'd be the one choice...
• #21 - 8 Mile - first one I actually own...great soundtrack..."Lose Yourself" is phenomenal...a bunch of the rest of the songs are also high quality...
• #20 - Garden State - high, high rotation for me...I'd argue it's the best soundtrack at least of the last decade...picture perfect merging of the music and the story...Braf picked the songs personally...
• #19 - The Big Chill - I remember this one from my high school years...good selection of oldies...nice and not offensive to anybody...not that I want to own it, though...
• #18 - Melody - first one I've never heard of...Bee Gees and CSNY?...that's not a combo I'm thinking of pleasantly...
• #16 - Grosse Pointe Blank - great movie...the soundtrack actually left me a little flat when I checked it from the 'bary a while back...nice time capsule but not of an era that I'm thrilled with...
• #12 - The Crow - another period piece...I'll take Singles over it, though...it's good stuff...from a crappy movie...
• #11 - Kill Bill, Vol 1 - second soundtrack that I own on this list...another one that I have in heavy rotation...the blips and blobs at the end are a bit annoying, though...
• #8 - Pulp Fiction - third one I own...a total and absolute staple of college life...and a rockinly great soundtrack...we all love it...
• #7 - The Spongebob Squarepants Movie - absolute blast...highlights are the Wilco, Flaming Lips, Ween, and the Shins...but the rest of fun, too...I didn't buy it, but I've got a copy from a friend...well, Desmond...quality grownup kids music...
• #4 - I Am Sam - movie looked way too sappy for me to give it a try...the soundtrack was, I though, weak...I understand that the filmmaker had the whole movie cut together using the Beatles origins and had to scramble to find versions that were exactly the same length as the originals when the negotiations broke down, but the originals were better...
• #1 - Less Than Zero - I don't know this soundtrack, but I'm willing to give it a try based on its finish...I had Pulp Fiction down as my guess for #1, but apparently it's not to be...

Pimpin' and eatin' and enlargin'

I have a serious weakness for sweets. There are loads of great candy bars and cakes and cookies and candies and dough products and desserts in the world.

But, if those sweets were pimped (you know, made all big and stuff), I probably wouldn't be able to exert even the briefest modicum of self control.

I especially recommend the giant oreo, pimped creme egg, massive vanilla slice, giant gummy coke, and the huge double double decker. The only problem here is that a number of the candies are from down under - where the website is hosted.

So, the only problems are the unknown candies being pimped and the fact that I can't get my hands on any of the pimped candies.

So, the three main problems...

What to watch?

So, there's a window of opportunity to begin the summer a little early for me. We're looking at a quality summer of George (at least in my mind) with a movie a week (always good to have a goal). I'm thinking of Tuesdays at the cheap theater ($1 all shows) or down in Clifton ($5 all shows) or at least matinees.

So, the initial requirements for this weekend is something that's playing at 'round noon and that the wife doesn't want to see. Here's what I'm thinking about. Any advice would be appreciated...

• Mission Impossible III
• Inside Man

There were supposed to be a lot more, but I'm not seeing a lot that the wife doesn't also want to see...

But wait a minute, I went to check the Esquirer site and saw that coming this weekend are The Da Vinci Code and Poseidon and coming soon is X-Men: The Last Stand.

Um, what the heck is that? My localist art-house theater is showing mainstream movies? Seriously, this frickin' sucks...

Are you supposed to write there?

Ah, the simplicity of tagging...throwing your name or handle all over some prohibited space...

Sure, it's illegal...and you might get caught...and I've never done it myself...and you have to get the spray paint...and somebody might tag over your stuff...and you have to be creative...

Or, you could just use the Graffiti Creator to do all the digital work for you. There are four different styles and tons of options to customize the place.

My initial foray is shown to the left. Check it, homes...

Make something of yourself...

Today's task for you lucky blog lurkers, posters, and just plain ol' enjoyers is to make something, anything. For hints, head over to the Make blog. They've got a video for a sculptor that I blogged about a while ago, a disco bar that looks like a blast, and another very cool DNA model. It's a great little community of folks who have been able to improve on what's been presented to them.

And, in case you were curious, the people in Dubai still have more money than sense.

My literary radar...

House of M: Spider-Man really impressed me the first time. I'm enjoying the House of M collections that I've had a chance to read so far.

This one does a really nice job of showing all of a hero's dream come true in a very nice way under the auspices of a fantasy world. We get to see all of Peter's dreams come true - Uncle Ben his good friend, Gwen Stacey his wife and genius business partner, JJJ as his lackey and whipping boy. But something is rotten in the state of Denmark, and Peter's perfect world falls apart.

It's a nice, touching story of a man living a lie and having to fess up. It's not esential to the House of M storyline, and some of the reviews have pointed out a number of inconsistencies, but I enjoyed the artwork and the storyline. It's not perfect, but it's a good read.

Next up was the Ultimate Fantastic Four: Crossover TPB. Initially, I wasn't all that entertained by the Ultimate version of the FF. They were weak at first, but they've grown into one of my favorite Ultimate lines. Of course, I'll be honest that I'm really digging entirety of the Ultimate Marvel line.

The Ultimate FF goes through two storylines in this collection - one with Prince Namor and one that sees Reed crossing over into the Marvel Zombie world.

The artwork is stunning, and the plotlines are entertaining. This is definitiely one of the better ongoing major label series out there. If I were actually buying comics instead of reading whatever shows up on my library and local bookstore shelves, this is one I'd put in my buy pile.

Also read Saga of the Swamp Thing by Alan Moore. It's a landmark run for Moore, so I did my due diligence. Very nicely told, great interplay between artwork and story. Good stuff.

In a semi-related find, there's a Live Journal community where they scan in entire comic issues. Quality sutff abounds...

Odds on you enjoying this: 2-1

The pure wrongness of the Brits is almost always unrivaled. Their sense of humor is at once more literate and eruidite as well as more puerile than is ours. Take, for example, the advertisements from PaddyPower.com an Irish bookmaker. Then there's the ever trashy and gutter-minded Benny Hill.

Whither Michael Keaton

So, what happened to Michael Keaton?

There was a time when he was the absolute Mack Daddy of movie making - Batman, Batman Returns, Beetle Juice, Mr. Mom, Johnny Dangerously, Night Shift, Night Shift, even the phenomenally creepy Pacific Heights.

And that was it. He was at the heights of his powers right there in 1992 at Batman Returns. He had pulled off some of the highest comedy highlights of the 1980's and even begun to transition to some drama with the Batman movies and the (I think I've said it) creepy Pacific Heights. The movie world was his oyster. He had us all shucked.

And then he disappeared.

Well, technically he kept making movies like Jack Frost and Quicksand and My Life. Heck, his highest point since 1992 has been Multiplicity which isn't much of a highlight.

So, what happened to Michael Keaton, eh?

I did not know that...

There is clearly a lot of stuff that I don't know.

For example, I don't understand the whole thing about string theory.

I don't understand what anybdoy sees in Fox's Saturday morning cartoon lineup.

And I don't understand why people think 40-Year Old Virgin is so great.

And to quote from the candyblog:

The Pixy Stix started out as an accident really, with kids driving the development of the product. Originally it was a drink mix in the late 30s, sold as Frutola, but J. Fish Smith found that kids were eating the sweet & sour powder right from the package. He shifted the name to Fruzola and added a spoon. Later it was repackaged with a dipping candy stick as Lik-m-Aid and also sold in little straws ... Pixy Stix. It wasn’t until parents complained about the grainy, sticky powder that Sunline came up with a compressed tablet form, the SweeTart in 1963.

I did not know that...

All of those candies came from the same original source? Interesting...

I do know, however, that I will not be linking to things already posted at any of the following sources: trandbuddha.com, DanCentury.com, or TechnicallyOverboard.com. It just seems like a blogger (me) linking to things that other bloggers have already blogged about is kinda lame. Sorta plagairistic (if that's a word)...

So, start checking in to those pages regularly; I do.

And as a going away present for those blogs, check out the great short Tyger over at transbuddhe.

This is...oh, wait...gotta go poop...be right back...

Ah, memories of Jon Sfura...

Good ol' Jon graduated a year ahead of me at New Albany High School as the validictorian of the class of '91. Jon and I weren't close though we shared a few classes and some time - I think - on the High Q team. My memories of jon, however, were of a little incident where he ex-laxed the brownies for the Latin club's bake sale. Apparently he went overboard and mixed in a whole box of chocolate ex-lax into the single box of brownies and sent a student or two to the hospital with dehydration. There was the basketball game at Bedford North Lawrence HS that night - 'bout a two-hour drive from good ol' NAHS - the trip to which apparently entailed a half dozen restroom stops for some of the cheer block.

Jon ended up with five days in our in-school suspension, a dank, stinky, former locker room with very limited bathroom breaks and only sack lunches - sort of like a Breakfast School only as actual punishment instead of how some other schools treat it. He also got blackballed from the National Honor Society his junior year (and chose to decline it his senior year since they didn't offer it the first time and he didn't need it as he was already headed to Notre Dame).

All of these memories were brought back because of one lucky mother in Maine who apparently sent a teacher some special brownies.

Remember, kids, that giving someone a laxative without their knowledge is considered assault - even though Ex-Lax doesn't contain phenolphthalein any more.

Apparently James Woods is better than us...

From what I can read, it appears that James Woods is way smarter than the rest of us.

He's apparently some sort of genius poker player. And I don't mean just some normal ooh, look, I'm famous and play poker kinda guy, I mean actually talented and willing to work at the poker thing.

Plus, he was in the amazingly cool movie Northfork - available at the Sharonville branch library.

The interweb is making me stupid...

Either the interweb is doing it or transbuddha is. Or, there could be my total lack of self control when it comes to viewing stupid videos such as...

• "Stairway to Heaven" sung backwards
• The same stupid thing reversed to prove that he did it
• A simple exploration of humanity

You know...just checking your safety...

In the interest of keeping you folks safe, I want to point out there appears to be a bit of a snafu with a product that I've endorsed (with reservations) in my classes and via the blog. Seems the the Wolfgang Puck Self-Heating Lattes are having a few problems.

There are reports of the cans underheating, overheating, leaking, spoiling the coffee, and even exploding. The company that makes the can is feuding with the company the markets the can who is fighting with the namesake who licenses the Puck name.

I've used the cans in class to show the possibilities of exothermic reactions, and I've never had a problem. The instructions are, admittedly, not terribly intuitive, but they're printed clearly enough. The coffee tastes kind of icky, but that's not the fault of the can. They're overpriced for the amount of coffee you get, but again - that's not an engineering flaw.

All in all, I think they're a neat product, and I plan to keep using them in class - perhaps even buying up a bunch from Kroger before they disappear. The safety thing gives me a little pause, however...

All in all, hmmm...

• Another version of the story with different details
• The Puck Latte website

But why?

Why would any bunny do this? I fact, why would any bunny do any of those things? It seems like bunnies have a pretty good life. They are incredibly cute, after all.

Matt, Trey, and Ahmad...

Gotta love the cultural influence of South Park - even in the Mideast. It seems that a discount ariline from the UAE - AirArabia - is using South Park-style characters on its webpage. It's not something that I would expect, considering that South Park has been pretty blatantly offensive to just about every religion, creed, and color.

Peaches and stones?

I'm more than a little confused at exactly what's going on at this website. It appears to be a just barely short of obscene advertisement for some sort of fancy manboy shaver. The flashy site makes some dirty jokes, uses some only vaguely not-dirty innuendo. We get to see the animated guy do a bunch of things that probably tend more toward the Maxim-style of advertisement.

I highly suggest clicking around on the website as well as just letting the character ust hang out without any clicking - just sort of letting him do his thing. He's kind of entertaining.

And if anybody out there is bold enough to actually try the Bodygroom, give a shout out. It just seems freeky to me.

Half-pint heroes...

Nothing too fancy today - just some teeny, tiny graphical representations of comic book heroes from every imaginable universe - DC, Marvel, Dark Horse, Amalgam, and a bunch more. Apparently, there's some sort of internet community that makes these little guys. Don't know what use they could be to you, but any comic book geek will love flipping through them to find every possible iteration of Superman and Batman down to the most trivial of supporting characters in Kingdom Come.

Have fun playing around...

Paper your world...

If you're looking for some nice, free background photos for your desktop wallpaper, look no further than Interfacelift.com. Nice pictures...

Now, if I could only find a program that randomly picks a wallpaper from my files each time I turn my computer on. Anybody know of one?

Rockin' Best Buy's world...

Some people have way too much time on their hands...

Clearly, Improv Everywhere is one of those groups of people. They perform little (and sometimes decently large) improv stunts in and around the Manhatten area, and they were apparently freaking out Best Buy recently.

I recommend reading the stories of their missions on their website, and espeically enjoyed cell phone symphony...Even Better Than the Real Thing...synchronized swimming...megastore...the moebius...and the amazing hypnotist...

Looks like it'd be a blast to be around when these guys held an event...

The agony of dismemberment...

There is a horribly sick fascination that many of us have with seeing something bad happen to someone else. We watch America's Funniest Home Videos where the father gets hit in the crotch with a baseball bat, the kid runs through the plate glass door, and a cat falls forty feet into a bald man's head. Then we flip through the channels searching for Fox's Worst Sports Injuries of All Time.

I don't know whether to label these actions as sick and wrong - reveling in someone else's misfortune and pain - or to say that it is simply our way of thanking the gods for not doing it to us - putting out already-made human sacrifices up so that we don't have to have them happen to us.

Either way, here's a list of some that I found while doing a bit of researching for this topic...

Be warned, however, that none of these are for the squeemish...

• Soccer player gets leg slashed by cleat
• Clint Malarchuck's story and video
• Another broken leg in soccer
• Another broken leg in soccer (II)
• Another broken leg in soccer (III)
• An SI column on worst injuries
• Wrestler breaking his leg
• Napoleon McCallum's broken leg
• Tyrone Prothro of Alabama's broken leg
• Joe Theisman's injury
• Tim Krumrie's leg
• Rudy Tomjanovich's punch from Kermit Washington

Why are these so fascinating?

My wanderings through the front page...

While hunting down today's rockinly cool Enquirer story about Princeton High School, I wandered my way through the front page of the Enquirer, and here are my random musings...

Page A2 - Pearl Jam has a streamed performance coming up this Thursday at 5:55pm at the Late Night website.

Page A3 - Bird-flu draft plan predicts turmoil - I recently listened to a sports talk guy whose theory I beleived: the same 5% of the population gets panicked about the bird flu who got panicked about the millenium and the predicted earthquake fifteen years ago and killer bees and every other apocalyptic (sp?) event.

Page A4 - Dirty Politics Finds Its Way into Wikipedia - well, duh. Everybody can edit everything on Wikipedia, so some of the editing is going to be incorrect. Wikipedia still rocks, though.

Page A4 - Piece of Finger Served on Diner's Plate - in Bloomington, IN some kitchen manager hacked off a little piece of finger. While everybody went to help him out, nobody noticed that the finger had dropped onto a plate. Um, ick. And I think I've eaten at this exact restaurant.

Page A9 - Riverfront Goes Wireless - just frickin' cool. Now, I want it in West Chester.

Page A9 - Smell Like a Kid - to celebrate Play-Doh's 50th birthday, we get a chance to smell like Play-Doh from a cologne. How cool?

A little more important than my usual crap...

I really need to keep myself abreast of political changes that could very easily affect me and mine...

Here's today's issue (as we head toward tomorrow's Ohio primary - remember to get out and vote) is the Save the Internet movement to fight the proposal to allow internet carriers to form a "fast lane" in which companies and websites that pay extra fees to the carriers will be provided faster service to you and me while companies that don't pay will be routed to the slower lane.

Not cool. Learn about what's being done to fight against this movement over at savetheinternet.com. There has been some press coverage of the issue against it, but there are always people in favor of the two-lane system.

Learn a little on your own and make your voice heard...

Or, just waste your time with the pipe cleaner dance, Ship Shake, or C is for Cookie.

Your choice...