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Click here to read how She Who Must Be Obeyed responds to the Secret Spider-Man Movie people. Just put on some goggles first.

Via Fark, some news from the "No Shit" section of the paper:

Finding your way around Boston can drive you crazy. It's the most challenging city to navigate in America, according to Avis, which based it decision on driving factors such as street layouts, congested freeways, days of rain and snow and complexity of directions needed to get from the airport to the city center.

Oddly, the story makes no mention of the Boston drivers, who must get points shaved off of their licenses for every out-of-state car they hit or cause to get into an accident; Boston drivers are far and away the worst drivers in the country.

Some thoughts on the weekend's TV:

• The words "Best of" and "Superfriends" should really never, ever appear together. I say this after watching too much of Friday and Saturday's marathon on Boomerang. Good Lord, it's amazing that show didn't warp my brain even more than it did. The scripts made Bob Haney look like a master of logic, the voice actors didn't seem to want to be there, the villains plans never made any sense, and the animation seemed to exist to find new ways to destroy Alex Toth's elegant character designs and storyboards. Were kids in the 1970s as mental defective as this show thought they were?
  
  I do have to single out the last iteration of the various Superfriends series as being merely dumb, rather than insulting, and having animation several orders of magnitude better than the other series. Although the whole "Darkseid wants to marry Wonder Woman" schtick was kind of creepy. One thing this series did right was replacing the execrable kid sidekicks of the previous versions with two young heroes, Firestorm and Cyborg. I never understood why, if the creators of the show wanted "young characters the young people could relate to," they didn't just use, say, Robin and Wonder Girl instead of creating Marvin and Wendy (whose presence can only be explained if one assumes Marvin is dying of brain cancer, Wendy is his nurse, and the whole thing has been arranged by the Make-A-Wish foundation) and then the Wonder Twins (who I think are supposed to be Donnie and Marie, because, you know, that's what the young people are into).
  
  
• Friday's Monk was a weak entry in the series. Each episode's mystery can be solved by asking which guest star you recognize (in this case, Emma Caulfied), and the real reason to watch is the characterization of Monk in different situations that cause him stress. This week, though, that situation was a new nurse who improbably had not been notified of Monk's obsessive compulsive disorder, his job as a detective, or really anything at all about him. The unlikely situation, combined with a too-far-over-the-top performance by Nicey Johnson of Reno 911, was unbelievable and just plain boring.
  
  
• The new Justice League Unlimited series was terrific. The creators of the series have expanded the roster, cut the episodes down to 30-minute one-parters, and turned the volume up to 11. Here's hoping subsequent episodes continue the background cameos by practically everyone in the DC Universe.
  
  
• Six Feet Under continues to improve this season, as we watch Nate become an irredeemable asshole, Rico screw up everything, and David deal with the aftermath of his abduction. That last plotline was especially chilling this week; they're really bringing the audience inside the character's head at a time where that's not a fun place to be.
  
  
• George Eads was, like, everywhere this weekend: Spike TV's Friday night CSI rerun, voicing Captain Atom on Justice League, and, of course, starring as Evel Knievel on TNT. Hey, who names their kid "Evel," anyway? That's even worse than Sinestro...
  

Political Wire reports that Alan Keyes may be the Republican candidate for the Senate in Illinois. This is great news since a) it almost certainly means Barak Obama will get elected, b) Keyes is one of the most reliably entertaining political figures around (and there's something to be said for people who are unapologetically passionate [albeit crazy] about their views), and c) this would be, I think, the first ever Senate race in which both major party candidates are African-American, which will probably produce some nice research topics for my colleagues who concentrate on elections.

E.J. Dionne on the Democratic Convention:

Kerry does not shrink from being cast as a 1960s figure. He welcomes it. But note also that Kerry's 1960s are defined not by the despair that took hold at the end of the decade, as the Vietnam War was grinding on to its dispiriting end, but by the optimism of early and mid-decade. This was the 1960s of John F. Kennedy -- and, yes, of Lyndon B. Johnson before his presidency was ensnared in Southeast Asia. It was an era in which idealism forged genuine achievements that the nation does not wish to roll back. Kerry is insisting that in so many ways, the 1960s were good for our nation.

It is not surprising that the man who would be the first Vietnam veteran in the White House has taken on the task of binding the wounds inflicted by that war. Kerry, a product of the 1960s, insists on an understanding of that era that would allow the nation to pick up on the best of the decade's legacy while leaving aside the rancor with which it closed.

Is there a political purpose to all this? Of course. In the short run, Kerry's Vietnam service allows him to stand apart not only from the incumbent he is trying to defeat but also from Bill Clinton, whose decision to avoid the draft gave conservatives ample opportunity to keep alive the divisions created during the '60s. And, yes, the military testimonials will make it hard for Republicans to label Kerry a wimp whenever the terror alerts are sounded.

For the longer haul, Kerry is sending a signal that he is tired of seeing his party walk away from the best parts of its inheritance. Conservatives revere their own tradition, and good for them. It's about time that liberals did the same.

Emphasis added, for, well, emphasis.

Even Alex Ross' young Superman action figure looks old. His Flash figure, oddly enough, reminds me of Darwyn Cooke's rendition of Flash in New Frontier. I say "oddly enough" because it's hard to imagine two more dissimilar artists in comics -- Ross is on the far edge of photorealism (most of the time, anyway; his cover of Marvel's 9/11 benefit book HEROES was much looser than most of his other work), while Cooke is, if possible, even more stylized and stripped down than Bruce Timm's "animated" style of drawing.

Mineapolis' new light rail, much to the chagrin of those who whine about the wires, is looking to be a hell of a success:

Restaurants along the Hiawatha corridor are getting a boost from downtown Minneapolis workers riding the rails, with many reporting their lunch business is up 20 to 30 percent since light-rail trains began running in June.

"I didn't think it would affect me one way or the other -- but, boy, was I wrong," said Don Mattson, owner of Cap's Grille, which sits alongside the rail station at E. 50th Street.

The first day the trains ran a regular weekday schedule, Mattson said, he had 50 rail-borne diners at his barbecue joint. A month later, that number has settled at about 25 to 30 a day.
[...]
Some restaurants are seeing a baseball boost, as well. Mattson and others said they're getting a fair amount of business from Twins fans who park their cars, eat dinner and then ride the train to the Metrodome for the game.

Restaurateur Dave Koch renovated an existing restaurant with the train in mind. The Rail Station Bar & Grill, formerly Jimmy's, opened three weeks ago at 3675 Minnehaha Av. S.

"I have noticed a lot of men in suits," Koch said. "People have really accepted the train, compared to a few years ago when they were strapping themselves to trees" to protest development of the line.

Since we bought a house a mile from the 50th Street rail stop in January, I say to you: Ride! Ride that light rail! It's good for my property values!

Among other things I missed at San Diego was these guys:

Comics are under attack and the future of comics is at great risk. Every month the Hollywood studios get us excited with a new comic release and every month they disappoint us by taking the stories we love, paying no respect to the original creation, and making unnecessary and arbitrary alterations to dumb them down. Why do they do this? Because they believe that dumbing down equates to box office. As true comic fans, how much longer can we just stand aside and watch our beloved stories be exploited? Who is going to stand up and defend our stories against these injustices?

Compatriots of the comic book community, there is a time for change and that time is now. We need to show the studios how much better these movies would be if they would just follow the original comic stories. We are going pick up where Spider-Man 2 leaves off and make a version of Spider-Man 3 that is completely loyal to the original Spider-Man series before Sony Pictures goes into production next summer. We are then going to take this 20 minute film to Marvel and show them how compelling even a limited budget film can be when that film stays true to the original story. Once they see that they can fulfill their duty to protect the sanctity of comics and make money at the same time, they will force Sony to also stay true to the comic and save the franchise before its too late. If Spider-Man changes its ways, so will the rest.

We know this is no easy task, but with your help we can do it!

(Via [I think] Progressive Ruin).

I haven't blogged anything about the Democratic Convention this week, mainly, I think, because I've been watching most of it slack-jawed in amazement: The message, it seems, is that the grown-ups are finally back in charge of the party, and I couldn't be happier. As much as I disliked the prospect of George W. Bush's election -- I managed to vote against him twice in 2000, in Virginia's open Republican primary and then in the general election -- and the circumstances under which he took office, the antics of Bush's critics for the past three and a half years have, on the whole, been downright embarassing. It seemed for all that time that liberals had ratcheted up their outrage to 11 before Bush was even nominated and proceeded to scream like Steve Carell's character in Anchorman that anything Bush did was The Worst Thing Ever Done By The Worst Person Who Ever Lived: Bush's selection of Cheney was unconstitutional because Cheney switched his residency from Texas to Wyoming! Bush is arguing over the debate schedule because he can't read! The recount made it even worse: his brother is governor of Florida and his cousin works at Fox! His father appointed the Supreme Court! (Which is true, if by "Supreme Court" one means "two Justices, one of whom voted with the majority in favor of Bush and one of whom did not.")

That fever pitch of hysteria had the unfortunate effect of making most criticism of Bush, even the more serious brand of if, seem less serious and worth bothering with. Legitimate criticisms of policy got drowned out by insanity like the assertion that Bush wears an earpiece through which he's given his "instructions."

Thankfully, little of that was on display in Boston this week; instead of Moorian lunacy, we got measured, serious, sober criticisms of Bush's record, strong declarations of the need to win the war on terror, and a willingness to reach out to undecided, everyday Americans instead of party activists and elites.

And, dear God, how ling until Barak Obama can run? That was beautiful, especially his demolition of the "red state, blue state" nonsense we've been subjected to since 2000.

I realize this is all painfully vague and rambling. William Saletan at Slate has more in the way of details and a beautiful meditation on last night's presentation of Kerry himself and his war record. Bottom line: I'm no longer embarassed to be a Democrat, and I hope I can continue to say that as this campaign continues.

Remember the new Robin's parents from The Dark Knight Returns? How they never did anything but sit around, smoke a lot of drugs, and whine about how everything was all, like, fascist and stuff, man? You can read about six pages of Alan Moore and some interviewer from Salon doing the exact same thing.

God bless Grant Morrison:

My DCU is a day-glo, non-stop funhouse, where the world is threatened every five minutes and godlike beings clash in the skies like fireworks.

The threat is multi-fold in “Island of the Mighty,” using the supercompressed Western manga style I’m trying to develop - mad flesh-eating Gorilla Grodd has hijacked Superbia, the floating city of the Ultramarine corps and plans on using the captured heroes as unstoppable terror weapons in a war against civilization. To do this he enlists the aid of a cosmic monster - a killer of superheroes named Neh-Buh-Loh the Hunter, who ties directly into the upcoming Seven Soldiers stuff...and finally there's Black Hand, the old Green Lantern villain, who's invaded an experimental micro universe very much like our own, where superheroes don't exist and he's the only supervillain. It all happens very fast and very hard and leaves lots of damage.

There are robots, liquid men and jet apes and we get to see the Batman's “science fiction closet.” I wanted this book to taste like rocket fuel and make the reader feel like a beam of coherent light fired from the barrel of a laser gun. Don’t expect slow-paced character build-up in this one...

BATMAN'S SCIENCE FICTION CLOSET, people! That's good comics. Somewhere, Bob Haney is smiling.

Ye gods, comics journalism sucks.

Unbelievers can learn the origin of Kryptonian headbands here. This story depicts both men and women wearing headbands, but I'm still pretty sure that by the time just before Krypton exploded, headbands had become a traditionally male item of clothing.

I called it. Or at least half of it:

Jorja Fox, the "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" star who was fired for skipping work in a salary dispute, is returning to the hit CBS drama.

Fox reached an agreement with the network and will be back on the set next week, a source close to the production said Thursday, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Co-star George Eads also lost his job when he also failed to report last week for the start of production on the fifth season.

Eads' situation remained unchanged Thursday. But a public apology -- in which the actor said he merely overslept and wasn't angling for more money -- may have opened the door to talks, the source said.

Is it wrong that I love Supergirl's 80s headband costume? I ask you: Is it so wrong?

CSI Files has more on the Eads (no relation) and Fox situation:

Fans lamenting the firing of Jorja Fox (Sara Sidle) and George Eads may have reason to hope, as reports leak out that Fox is in talks with CBS to return to CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.

According to Variety (via Yahoo! News), representitives for Fox are claiming she did indeed sign CBS's letter promising to come to work during salary negotiations, but because the letter was mailed and not faxed CBS may have assumed the actress never signed the letter.

Eads has also said that he'd like to return and hopes it can all work out. Am I the only one thinking that this is more than likely going to wind up being much ado about very little?

US News took advantage of the long summer news drought to devote pretty much all of last week's issue to a long, in-depth, and fascinating account of the Democratic primary campaign, particularly the fall of Howard Dean and the unlikely rise of John Kerry.  It's too damn long to excerpt with any justice; just read the whole thing.

So of course, it's the year I don't got to San Diego that Mattel unveils an incredible line of animated Justice League figures.  Go here for pictures.  This is amazing -- Aquaman isn't that odd of a choice, but I can't quite believe we're getting figures of Elongated Man, Green Arrow, the Levitz/Ditko Starman (I suspect Ditko will get more of a royalty from this one figure than he has for all of the ToyBiz Spider-Man toys over the years), Amazo, Red Tornado, Doctor Fate, the Atom -- looks like I'll have a lot fewer characters to customize for this line after all.

I'm really glad this didn't happen to a show I'd want to buy:

shows are subject to that's called "time compression"? Anyone? Anyone? Okay, for those of you with your hands down, here's what it is: When a television show is in first-run broadcast, it runs a particular length of time and fits in just so many commercials. When the show is syndicated into re-runs, they are usually edited down a bit, in order to shave off a few minutes of running time and squeeze in an extra commercial or two.
A different, more modern way of making room for extra commercials in syndication is "time compression". Simply put, the footage is sped up a bit, played at a slight faster speed, to achieve the same end result. It's like speeding up a vinyl record (you remember those, right?) from 33 1/3 RPM speed to, say, around 35 or 36 RPM (or thereabouts...I'm being metaphorical, not scientific). Not enough to notice, except for the very most discriminating ears (who claim that the actor voices sound more high-pitched and whiny, but it would take a sensitive person indeed to discern that).
Combat! on DVD seems to have been subject to that process, and die-hard fans talking on the internet are upset that distributor Image Entertainment didn't go back to the original film elements on this project.

As well they should be.  Most TV series, I imagine, will only get one shot at being released on DVD; it's not like there will be umpteen releases in the future the way there are with movies like Terminator 2, for instance.  If it's screwed up the first time, you're pretty much going to be stuck with it...

This is pretty darn cool:

"While legislators in Washington work to outlaw peer-to-peer networks, one website is turning the peer-to-peer technology back on Washington to expose its inner, secretive workings." According to Wired, the site "has aggregated more than 600 government and court documents to make them available for download through the Kazaa, LimeWire and Soulseek P2P networks."
Although all of the documents are available elsewhere, "they are buried deep in government and court sites or scattered among the sites of various government watchdog groups and media outlets."

De thinks I like my humor "slightly wicked."  Slightly?  I think I'm hurt.  At any rate, follow the link to read his friend Wes' hilarious convention write-up.  Kate and I are sitting out the convention circuit this year, alas, but on the other hand, last year at San Diego I shared special moments with Quentin Tarantino and Seth Myers and Pia Guerra drew me a monkey.  Could it GET better than that?  I think not.

Houseguests and blogging do not mix.  Fortunately, the houseguests were my parents, on their first trip here since we bought the house, and a terrific time was had by all.  Unlike previous visits (both to D.C. and to here), the fact that we have an actual house to hang out in meant that we could relax and visit and chat with one another, instead of trying to think of ways to keep us all occupied and out of whatever apartment we were living in at the time (last year, for instance, it was so hot in our un-air-conditioned apartment that we went to see American Wedding together just to get out of the house.  You haven't seen awkward until you're watching an American Pie sequel with your mom.)

She Who Must Be Obeyed sends along a report of the bizarre firings of George (no relation) Eads and Jorja Fox from CSI:

Danica Smith, publicist for both Fox and Eads, told The Associated Press that Fox was fired Wednesday but did not have details. Smith could not confirm whether Eads was fired.
A CBS spokesman said the network had no comment.
Eads didn't show up for work Thursday, the first day of production for the next season, according to the news station and Variety, which posted a story on its Web site Thursday.
The actors were in the fifth of their seven-year contracts.
Though a search was under way for their replacements, it's unclear whether show creators will recast the characters or develop new ones, the reports said.

CSI Files has more news:

fellow supporting actors Gary Dourdan (Warrick Brown) and Paul Guilfoyle (Jim Brass) were "all offered minor raises in exchange for more airtime in a take-it-or-leave-it scenario". The actors were reportedly earning approximately $100,000 per episode but were negotiating for larger salaries.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, CBS asked all cast members to write a letter confirming that they would report to the set on Thursday, the scheduled first day of filming for the season premiere, "Viva Las Vegas". In the past the network has had problems with actors calling in sick in order to give themselves leverage in pay disputes, as several Everybody Loves Raymond cast members did last year.
Fox, despite earlier reports claiming she turned up to the set on Thursday (story), was sacked on Wednesday night after reportedly failing to send in her letter. Eads, who is also said not to have turned in his letter, reportedly turned up to work late on Thursday only to be fired. However, according to Variety sources, Fox did return her letter and "was surprised and mystified when she was fired". Sources close to Eads told the Hollywood Reporter that he too had sent his letter into CBS.
Marg Helgenberger (Catherine Willows) and William Petersen (Gil Grissom) are also looking for bigger paychecks, according to Variety. Both actors failed to report to the CSI set yesterday, "but for health reasons industry insiders said were legit", the trade paper said.

Is it just me, or is firing 2/5 of the main cast of what is, for all intents and purposes, an ensemble drama something of a drastic step?  I can't help but wonder how fired Eads and Fox actually are.

Dick Grayson is running for Congress.

The Smallville folks have cast their Lois Lane: She'll be played by Erica Durance, a young actress whose photo appears to not be anywhere on the Internet. This quote from a producer made me snort:

When the producers saw a tape of Durance, they were "blown away by her presence and charisma," Gough said. "She has a completely different energy than Kristin, which is what we were looking for. She felt like she can really hold her own with our cast and give the show the spark it needs going into its fourth season."

Isn't possessing ANY energy at all enough to have "a completely different energy than Kristin?" Lana is the weakest half of a TV romance since that guy Maddie married on the train from Chicago to LA in the death throes of Moonlighting.

UPDATED: Comics Continuum has posted a picture of Ms. Durance, who looks the part.

DC Direct's line of Alex Ross Justice League figures could be promising, but, boy, is his Flash beefier than he should be (both the sense of a Platonic ideal of the Flash and Ross' own previous depictions of him). Still, I'll probably buy it, since DC will probably never re-release its Silver Age Flash figure...

Judd Apatow reports that Undeclared may be on DVD soon. Which is great news, since I missed some episodes when it first aired (no surprise given how Fox yanked it around the schedule) and I think there were some episodes completed but never aired.

Speaking of Apatow, at least two Freaks and Geeks alumni were in Anchorman: Seth Rogen played Christina Applegate's camreaman, and Dave (Gruber) Allen, aka Mr. Rosso, aka Jeff, was in the background of a restaurant scene. I'm just sayin', is all.

Marc Singer elegantly addresses the annoying phenomnenon of the fanboy awards-entitlement disorder:

It happens like clockwork: every time an even halfway decent science fiction/fantasy/superhero movie comes out, the movie's fans (most frequently, fans of whatever preexisting property the movie animates) start claiming Oscars for it. Worse yet, the historic number of awards accorded to the bombastic Lord of the Rings: Just Get Up the Goddamn Volcano Already means we fanboys now expect to snag a couple as a matter of course.
[...]
When I read a good book I don't immediately demand that it receive a Pulitzer; when I watch a good TV show I don't instantly clamor for an Emmy. That we automatically associate any halfway good movie or performance with Oscar's approval is probably more indicative of the Academy's successful marketing of itself than it is of any honor that still clings, like some obstinate but degraded radioactive isotope, to the golden statuette. Who cares how many awards Spider-Man 2 gets? I wouldn't want it to join any club that'd have American Beauty as a member anyway.

And don't forget, Roman Polanski and Michael Moore belong to that club now, too.

What I find mystifying about this is that I can think of few years where a better movie didn't lose to a lesser one for Best Picture: This year, Lost in Translation and Master and Commander were far, far better than LOTR (I never did get around to seeing it, but unless it was radically different from the first two, by which I mean they fired everyone but Sean Astin and Ian McKellen and didn't think dramatic pauses equalled drama, I can't imagine that this wasn't the case; anyway, having suffered through the first two oleaginous LOTR films I feel quite safe in my belief that the third was more of the same); LA Confidential was better than Titanic, Pulp Fiction was better than Forrest Gump, Goodfellas was better than Dances with Wolves, and on and on. So I don't put much stock in the pronouncements of the Academy. And yet, that damnable Oscar still has a totemic power of validation, even over the likes of me; I cursed when I saw, after the ceremony I didn't watch, that Bill Murray had lost for Best Actor to Sean Penn...

The Tour de France and the running of the bulls in Pamplona, Spain are both happening as we speak. Why not combine the two? I'd watch THAT.

One of the books I picked up at Free Comic Book Day was IDW's sampler featuring excerpts from their adaptations of CSI, The Shield, and 24, as well as a fourth feature I don't remember. I've never gotten around to watching The Shield, and adapting CSI seems a straightforward enough task, but the treatment of 24 is what intrigued me. The adaptation, which I understand is being released as a one-shot "graphic novella," tries to replicate the series' real-time aspect by making 2 pages equal to one hour of elapsed time.

And, well, it doesn't work very well. The creators of this adaptation picked the wrong aspect of the series -- its real-time gimmick -- to replicate; that gimmick (a term I use lovingly, mind you) simply cannot be done in comics. Instead, they should have focused on the gimmick comics CAN do: Serialization. I often describe 24 as TV heroin, because it's not very good for you and after your first hit it's really hard to wait for your next one. Instead of compressing the day into 48 pages, why not expand it out to, say, 12 double-sized weekly issues, with each issue representing two hours and ending on a "Dear God, I MUST know what happens next!" cliffhanger? Sure, there would be issues of doing the art consistently across 12 weekly issues, but wouldn't that be worth it to capturing more of the spirit of the show? I, and I suspect many other 24 fans, am willing to forgive implausibilities of time and distance if they occur in the service of a great ride, and it's the ride, more than any particular plot, that appeals to me when it comes to 24.

This line from the increasingly strange Monitor Duty's review of Spider-Man 2 would have made me chuckle even if I hadn't just been to New York:

Forget that amazing loft that he shared with rich kid Harry Osborne; he now lives alone in the typical hellish NYC overpriced closet.

I get the feeling the author has some conception of New York as a Gomorrah-on-the-Hudson that's still stuck in the mid-70s, and you can't step outside without walking into a gang war and stepping over bodies and drug addicts. And thus misses the point that Peter's crapshack apartment shows what a fragile existence he's living because he can't bring any of the parts of his life into balance. Hell, I just spend almost a week sleeping on the futon in the living room of friends, one of whom is in a dues-paying job in the arts and the other is are a public school math teacher. And yet they have their own bathroom, the apartment is clean, well-lit, and freshly painted, and it's basically a heck of a place. The point of Peter's apartment is that it's atypical...

Who says history doesn't repeat itself? Cinescape's asticle on an animated feature called Big Bug Man mentions that

BIG BUG MAN will also feature the voice of Marlon Brando, the legendary screen actor that recently passed away. Brando recorded a supporting part for the film before his death last week.

Those of us who are From The 80s will, of course, recall that Orson Welles' final film role was as the voice of Unicron in Transformers: The Movie.

Like many Democrats, I was thrilled by Kerry's selection of John Edwards to be his running mate. William Saletan explains why:

Edwards was the best salesman, but Kerry was the best product. If you had to choose one or the other, I thought it was more important to pick the salesman, since the consequences of losing the election were far more serious than the consequences of electing the less qualified Democrat. The logic made sense, but the premise was mistaken. Democrats didn't have to choose. They could get the best product along with the best salesman, if Kerry had the wisdom to pick Edwards.

By wisdom, I don't mean short-term calculation or even long-term prudence. While Edwards offered the most obvious electoral boost, Kerry's associates made clear that the nominee was looking beyond the election for the running mate who would be most ready to step in as president. That train of thought led to Dick Gephardt, not to Edwards. Personal chemistry pointed in the same direction: By all accounts, Kerry feels far more comfortable with Gephardt than with Edwards. I think Kerry is uneasy around Edwards because Edwards reminds him of the young Kerry, and the old Kerry knows that the young Kerry was a showboating upstart. Gephardt was the guy Kerry wanted.

That's where wisdom had to intervene. Kerry had to recognize that the decision wasn't strictly his to make. Look again at those exit polls. Most Democrats who voted for Kerry weren't in love with him. They saw him as a vehicle to get rid of Bush. Some initially preferred the candidate who vowed to stand up to Bush, or the candidate who preached optimism, or the candidate who accused Republicans of a war against working people, or the candidate who promised to take back our government from the special interests. Kerry absorbed all the votes by absorbing all the messages. He became the optimistic guy who would stand up against Bush's war on work and fight the special interests. More clearly than any Democratic presidential nominee in 20 years, Kerry was chosen not to represent himself but to represent his party. And what Democrats wanted, as polls and crowds made clear, was Edwards—because they like him, and because they want to win.

That's the most important thing Kerry revealed today: He understands that the election is about more than what he wants. Sometimes the biggest thing you can do is to accept what's bigger than you.

The word "girthy" should never, ever, ever describe what's for dinner:

This word is a dirty word.

Especially when it gets put in a hot dog commercial. Repeated over and over, in a lascivious tone. Followed by satisfied grunting. We have to face it: Hot dogs—sometimes called "wieners"—are a little bit phallic. So, wouldn't you try to avoid using words that bring this to the fore?

I've no doubt that many hot dog consumers also perform fellatio. And more power to them. But do they really wish to contemplate this act while noshing on a frank at a barbecue? Also, are they Ball Park's target demographic? In a corporate press release, spokesman "Frank" is described as a "straight-talking, All-American" guy who "believes in red meat, cold beer, [and] spectator sports …" I hate labels, but this sounds like your classic straight dude. Not so much a fellatiator.

In the end, we're left with two possibilities. The first is that Ball Park, and their ad agency, were unaware of the connotation. I can imagine how this might happen. Were I at the planning meeting where this ad was first pitched, as, like, a junior executive or something, I would not want to be the guy who brought up penises. So, maybe no one brought it up.

The other possibility is that Ball Park knows exactly what it's doing. That somehow consumer research has proven that folks like the hot dog/penis connection. It must have been a doozy of a focus group.

I'm glad She Who Must Be Obeyed and I weren't the only people to react poorly to that ad...

Not only is the legendarily insane anti-Spider-Man movie website www.no-organic-webshooters.com no longer running, but the site isn't available through the Internet Wayback Machine because access "has been blocked by the site owner via robots.txt" and it doesn't seem to be cached by Google, either. Somebody must have discovered girls.

Peter Carlson reads magazines so you don't have to. Here, for instance, he recounts a Men's Health article on bar fights:

After a brief history of the barroom brawl -- "the original bar fight surely happened within hours or days of the appearance of the first bar" -- Miles reveals the results of his unscientific survey of bartenders, bouncers and barflies about the main causes of these battles.

"Women, property lines and dogs," said one of those experts.

"Drunks, women and drunk women," said another.

Other causes include arguments over politics, sports and the songs played on the bar's jukebox. They may sound like dumb reasons for a fight but, as Miles points out, there's frequently more to the story.

"To the unschooled observer, a fight that breaks out in a bar because one guy took offense at the song another guy played on the jukebox might seem random and ridiculous," he writes. "If you'd known that the guy who played that song had stolen the other guy's girlfriend a half-decade before, and that the song he played was the Aerosmith ballad that had been on the radio when the poor fella first unsnapped her bra that night by the lake, it might make more sense."

Do you want to learn more than you thought it was possible to learn about the Fantastic Four's costumes over the years? Of course you do.

Cowbell! A Saturday Night Live: The Best of Christopher Walken DVD is coming out in September. Which is very, very cool. Now, when will we see a Best of Alec Baldwin collection?

Slate is on a roll with blistering snark this week. Here's an article on GOP hypocrisy in the Illinois Senate campaign:

Six years ago, Republicans demanded that Bill Clinton be investigated and impeached for having sex with an intern and covering it up. Now their nominee for the U.S. Senate in Illinois, Jack Ryan, is brushing off his then-wife's allegations that he repeatedly pressured her, despite her protestations, to have sex with him in front of other people. Instead of denouncing Ryan, many Republicans are defending him.
[...]
Now we know why Bill Clinton got impeached. He was in the wrong club.

That pales in comparison, however, to Christopher Hitchens' evisceration of Fahrenheit 9/11:

Here we glimpse a possible fusion between the turgid routines of MoveOn.org and the filmic standards, if not exactly the filmic skills, of Sergei Eisenstein or Leni Riefenstahl.

To describe this film as dishonest and demagogic would almost be to promote those terms to the level of respectability. To describe this film as a piece of crap would be to run the risk of a discourse that would never again rise above the excremental. To describe it as an exercise in facile crowd-pleasing would be too obvious. Fahrenheit 9/11 is a sinister exercise in moral frivolity, crudely disguised as an exercise in seriousness. It is also a spectacle of abject political cowardice masking itself as a demonstration of "dissenting" bravery.
[...]
If Michael Moore had had his way, Slobodan Milosevic would still be the big man in a starved and tyrannical Serbia. Bosnia and Kosovo would have been cleansed and annexed. If Michael Moore had been listened to, Afghanistan would still be under Taliban rule, and Kuwait would have remained part of Iraq. And Iraq itself would still be the personal property of a psychopathic crime family, bargaining covertly with the slave state of North Korea for WMD. You might hope that a retrospective awareness of this kind would induce a little modesty. To the contrary, it is employed to pump air into one of the great sagging blimps of our sorry, mediocre, celeb-rotten culture. Rock the vote, indeed.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Big Lebowski convention:

Achievers pay $1 a chance (proceeds going to Big Brothers/Big Sisters) to try their hand at Lebowski-inspired games such as the Marmot Toss, the Malibu Sheriff Mug Toss and the Ringer Toss. In the latter, contestants sit in an approximation of the Dude's big, battered, rusty green car and try to toss the ringer (a bag full of dirty undies) at a make-shift target. (In the movie the Dude and Walter are supposed to toss a bag with $1 million to the kidnappers, but they toss the ringer, instead.) The prize is either a whoopee cushion or a cheeseburger yo-yo. I take the yo-yo.

Thanks to She Who Must Be Obeyed for the link.

How come HBO letterboxes its original programming, but not the movies it shows?

Priceline.com's Shatner & Nimoy ads make Priest wax nostalgic, and it's hard not to agree:

Every time I see the two of them, still fairly vital and mobile, I think how much it must annoy Berman that he has tanked the Trek franchise ("Nemesis" grossed the least of any Trek film, including Shatner's still-born "Final Frontier") and yet these two guys, whom he gave the boot to 13 years too soon, are still walking around.
[...]
Not sure if Shatner and Nimoy are indeed having the last laugh, but surely, I hope they are laughing. As old and fat as everybody is, if Paramount (Berman) has the guts to cast them in a new feature and bring back Bennett and (the guy whose name I can't remember), I guarantee lines around the block for it. Corny? Past it's prime? You bet. But, after 5 years of lame movies and TV shows, what I wouldn't give for Shatner to have one more ride in the captain;'s chair.

For those of you, like me, who didn't see the season finale of 24 until last night, Teevee.org has posted its 24Misogyny Watch, Day 3, which covers major characters, minor characters, and people you've no doubt forgotten about. I'm kind of suprised that Gael's wife was left off the list, actually, but what can you do?

This post from Peter David entitled "Left Scratching My Head" has me doing the same thing. In it, he laments, "I had just about managed to grasp the notion that DC didn't believe in the return of Kara Zor-El in "Supergirl" as remotely marketable until I did it, whereupon they canceled the comic and then did it again in a new series..."

This seems to be missing the point rather grandly; David's Kara Zor-El story involved the actual, honest-to-Rao Silver Age Supergirl arriving in the modern-day DC Universe through a Hypertime MacGuffin. And when I say actual, honest-to-Rao, I mean it -- she arrived, basically, between panels of 1959's Action Comics #259. That's not a criticism of David's story, but it does seem rather more complex an origin than DC might want for such a recognizable character. Isn't it more likely that the sales success of David's Kara Zor-El story led DC to decide to bring an updated version of the character into its current continuity?

Ain't It Cool News has a lengthy interview with Brian Vaughan about, well, all of his current, recent and upcoming projects.

Jeff Jarvis gives praise to Ikea:

I have a strange thing for Ikea; have since I first walked into its pine-sawdust-scented space. It's the perfect store for the unhandy handyman, that's me. It's a store that makes a social statement: Poor young people need to sit, too. I bragged for years that I got an entire dining room set in the back of my Honda Civic hatchback; it's a damned engineering marvel. And the meatballs are good.

It's so crazed that my wife and I actually went to vacation in Sweden because we (I) liked Ikea so much: Any country that can create this must be worth visiting, I said. And it was worth visiting: A country with the culture of Europe and the convenience of America with beautiful women (they really) where everyone speaks better English than anyone in America.

Ikea finally opens up here in Minnesota in just under a month, and it's about damn time; we've got an empty house to furnish, dammit.

Lileks climbs on Gnat's hobby horse and puts on his asshat hat:

I ask my Democrat friends what they’d rather see happen – Bush reelected and bin Laden caught, or Bush defeated and bin Laden still in the wind. They’re all honest: they’d rather see Bush defeated. (They’re quick to insist that they’d want Kerry to get bin Laden ASAP. Although the details are sketchy.)

Uh-huh. Sure. All of your honest anonymous Democrat friends say this. Leaving aside the questionable provenance of this blistering insight into the hearts and minds of the honest nameless ones, maybe they just figure, fuck, Bush hasn't been able to catch him for almost three years and doesn't seem to be in any hurry to; what could be the harm in waiting another couple months? And I notice that Lileks doesn't say what he'd rather see happen -- Kerry elected and bin Laden caught, or Kerry defeated and bin Laden still in the wind.

I seem to remember from some philosophy class that there's a formal name for the logical fallacy of linking two possibilities that have nothing intrinsically to do with each other. What was the name? Oh, right: Stupid.

Here's a lengthy look at Adult Swim and the recurring tendency for good stuff

to come when nobody's looking--created by those on the fringes of the studio system, occupying marginal creative real estate with minimal supervision. In the natural world, punctuated evolution occurs when small groups find themselves geographically isolated and free from natural predators, allowing creatures with rare mutations to thrive and develop into entirely new species. So it is in entertainment: The best material has often come from the back alleys of the studio system.

Read the whole thing.

And there shall come...STILT-MAN!

Heh:

Ray Bradbury is demanding an apology from filmmaker Michael Moore for lifting the title from his classic science-fiction novel "Fahrenheit 451" without permission and wants the new documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11" to be renamed.

"He didn't ask my permission," Bradbury, 83, told The Associated Press on Friday. "That's not his novel, that's not his title, so he shouldn't have done it."

[...]

Bradbury, who hadn't seen the movie, said he called Moore's company six months ago to protest and was promised Moore would call back.

He finally got that call last Saturday, Bradbury said, adding Moore told him he was "embarrassed."

Again, I say to you: Heh.

The invaluable Snopes presents the true story on which The Terminal was based. Among this week's new movie releases, though, I'm more excited about Dodgeball, personally: Stephen Root, the kid who played Warren Cheswick, and Ben Stiller in batshit mode headlining -- what's not to love?

Slate continues providing rather strange content you might not expect from the former brainchild of Michael Kinsley with this report from David Amsden, a 20-something writer who went to the prom this year.

Taegan Goddard reports that

The effort to replace Alexander Hamilton's image on the $10 bill with that of Ronald Reagan is being opposed by Hamilton's two most prominent biographers, according to Heard on the Hill.

Here's my suggestion: Put Reagan on a dollar coin -- which would displace either no one or Sacagewea, depending on whether the government is still minting those things that look like video game tokens from Top Dog -- and let the market decide if Reagan or Washington is the better currency.

The above should be read with a grain of snark, of course.

Whoa.

This fellow created an interesting amp design for an iTrip. Boing Boing reader Ian Meyer says, " He said that it would probably be capable of overpowering broadcast stations for a small radium (ie: enough to blast some Queen in place of the hippity-hoppity music that the guy in the car next to me is listening to loud enough to be heard for half a mile)."

Spike TV has a Joe Schmoe 2 blog up and running. Sweeet.

DC Comics wants me to give them all of my money in September, and, dammit, it might work:

BATMAN IN THE EIGHTIES TP
Written by Len Wein, Doug Moench, Mike W. Barr,
Gerry Conway, Marv Wolfman, Barbara J. Randall, and Alan Brennert
Art by Michael Golden, Alan Davis, Paul Neary, Gene Colan, Klaus Janson, George Pérez, Romeo Tanghal, Don Newton, Alfredo Alcala, Walter Simonson, Dick Giordano, Trevor Von Eeden, Rodin Rodriguez, Jim Aparo, and Mike DeCarlo
Cover by Aparo

Nine of the best Batman stories of the 1980s are presented in BATMAN IN THE EIGHTIES, a new collection of thrilling stories of the Dark Knight Detective featuring Robin, Nightwing, Batgirl, The Joker, Penguin, and the Scarecrow!

I'm an incredibly easy mark for these decade collections, even though I'm behind on the Batman ones (which is only fair since DC hasn't gotten around to doing SUPERMAN IN THE FORTIES before this volume). Plus it's got a cover by the horribly underrated Jim Aparo.

TEEN TITANS/LEGION SPECIAL
Written by Mark Waid & Geoff Johns
Art by Ivan Reis & Marc Campos
Cover by Phil Jimenez and Andy Lanning

Don’t miss this 48-page Special by acclaimed writers Geoff Johns (TEEN TITANS) & Mark Waid (SUPERMAN: BIRTHRIGHT, EMPIRE) and the hot new art team behind ACTION COMICS: Ivan Reis & Marc Campos!

In a story that continues from this month’s TEEN TITANS#16, the Titans find themselves in the 31st century teamed with the Legion against a threat that even their combined might not be able to handle. Win or lose, the future is about to change!

This Special features a 6-page prelude to the new LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES by Mark Waid and Barry Kitson coming in December!

Mark Waid + Barry Kitson + the Legion of Super-Heroes = me buying it. Here's hoping Waid and Kitson can restore the ineffeable whatever it is that's been missing since Waid left the rebooted book all those years ago.

WONDER WOMAN: CHALLENGE OF THE GODS TP
Written by George Pérez & Len Wein
Art by Pérez & Bruce Patterson
Cover by Pérez

This second volume reprinting Pérez's remarkable run on WONDER WOMAN collects WONDER WOMAN #7-14, featuring the debut of the deadly Cheetah! CHALLENGE OF THE GODS also features a new cover by Pérez and a gallery section of rare art!

Well, DUH. And is it considered sexist to say that Perez's rendition of Wonder Woman is quite simply a knockout?

DOOM PATROL VOL. 2: THE PAINTING THAT ATE PARIS TP
Written by Grant Morrison
Art by Richard Case & John Nyberg
Cover by Brian Bolland

The long-awaited second collection of superstar writer Grant Morrison's groundbreaking run on DOOM PATROL, this new trade paperback reprints issues #26-34.

This collection includes the rise of the legendary Brotherhood of Dada — the only team of super-foes ever strange enough to rival the Doom Patrol itself — as well as the menace of the Decreator and the return of Monsieur Mallah and the Brain from the original Brotherhood of Evil. In addition, THE PAINTING THAT ATE PARIS features never-before-seen character conceptual sketches drawn by Morrison and a new cover by Brian Bolland.

Of course this collection is "long-awaited." I bought the first one before I went to college. In 1992. I'm just saying, here, is all. This will leave 29 issues of the book uncollected, plus the Doom Force special, so if DC sticks to a schedule of 8 issues every 12.25 years on this series, it will probably outlive me.

THE LITTLE ENDLESS STORYBOOK HC
Written by Jill Thompson
Art and cover by Thompson

For years fans have demanded to see more of Jill Thompson’s Little Endless, the diminutive versions of the characters from Neil Gaiman’s award-winning series THE SANDMAN. Now those dreams are fulfilled with a new printing of the sold-out Prestige Format one-shot THE LITTLE ENDLESS STORYBOOK in a deluxe hardcover format.

The story begins once upon a time when Little Delirium was lost. Her protector and favorite puppy Barnabas searched the waking world for his tiny princess to no avail. Now, Barnabas must travel to the strange and unlikely realms of each of the Endless to see if Delirium’s siblings have seen their missing sister. Cameos by the Sandman, Desire and the other members of the Endless family make this a must-have for any Sandman enthusiast.

This 56-page hardcover is written and exquisitely painted by Eisner-Award winner and fan-favorite SANDMAN artist Jill Thompson. New material will include a special sketchbook section and an advance look at Thompson’s latest Manga project, THE DEADBOY DETECTIVES, scheduled for a summer 2005 release.

I should probably buy this simply out of guilt, since Jill Thompson drew me a sketch of Little Destruction at San Diego last summer, with her left hand since her right was injured. And what she did with her left hand is worlds beyond what I could do with my right.

JLA ALEX ROSS OVERSIZED POSTER
Art by Alex Ross

The World’s Greatest Super-Heroes come together in this beautifully illustrated, oversized, horizontal, full-color poster painted by fan-favorite painter Alex Ross! Don’t miss your opportunity to adorn your walls with this stunning image by one of comics’ most popular artists!

That's very nice, but can no one at DC sit Alex Ross down and explain that Captain Marvel and Plastic Man were not members of the JLA during the Bronze Age? It's not like he can go to some other company and sell them paintings of his friends dressed like Superman and Batman or something.

The ending to WB Superstar USA wound up being rather anti-climactic; looking at the final three, it was pretty easy to figure out that, when choosing someone to humiliate on national television, they were much more likely to go with the pretty blonde girl than the guy-who-looks-like-a-cancer-survivor-but-just-barely or the woman who's incomprehensible singing was based at least in part on the fact that English is a second...or maybe third, or fourth...language. But everyone got a big fat novelty check at the end and seemed to be fine with things, so I guess I won't be going to hell for watching this show after all.

Kevin Drum on the Court's Pledge punt:

If they had any guts they would have approved the wording of the pledge but insisted on a firm rotation of "under God," "under Allah," "under Jehovah," and a few other choices that escape me at the moment. That would liven up the campaign season, wouldn't it?

Some of the "others" I'd add would be Rao, Brocktoon, Vext, Jeebus, and Gamblor. Any I'm missing?

She Who Must Be Obeyed and I caught part of the 1989 Batman movie on TV this weekend. It was very much more not good than I remembered it.

"We're not touching this one with a fifty-foot pole."

The Supreme Court ruled today that a California atheist did not have the legal standing to challenge the constitutionality of the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, dismissing on procedural grounds a lower court's ruling in his favor but sidestepping the broader question of whether the pledge itself is constitutional.

The ruling effectively preserved the phrase "one nation under God" that is recited daily as part of the pledge by millions of schoolchildren across the country.

But by basing the decision on a procedural issue, the Supreme Court left open the prospect that a challenge to the constitutionality of the Pledge of Allegiance could come up again.

From the start, I've thought this entire case reeked of stupid. It's stupid to have "under God" in the pledge, it was added for stupid reasons, requiring kids to say it is stupid, getting worked up over kids saying it is stupid, and suing to have it changed it stupid. Perhaps the most stupid came from people who, never having given the matter much thought, decided after the original decision that this was one of the most important issues ever and anyone on the other side of it was the devil. Stupid stupid stupid stupid.

The season premiere of Six Feet Under was a pleasant surprise; after the meandering aimlessness of much of the last season, I had lost a lot of interest in the series. That interest has been renewed; the characters seem like themselves again and the whole premiere had a sort of morning after/pick up the pieces. Where a ton of major character developments and incidents took place off-camera between the second and third seasons -- Nate and Lisa's marriage, Keith's change of career, etc. -- this time around we pick up right where we left off, and the show's the better for it. I don't think we'll ever see the show hit the delerious heights of its first season, but the show's once again one of the best things on TV. And I'm not saying that just because it's summer.

I blame gay marriage:

Conservative radio commentator Rush Limbaugh announced Friday that he and his wife, Marta, are divorcing.

The Limbaughs "mutually decided to end their marriage of 10 years" and have "separated pending an amicable resolution," according to a statement released by Limbaugh's publicist.

It was the third marriage for both Limbaugh, 53, and his wife, who were wed in May 1994 at the Virginia home of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Thomas officiated the ceremony.

Resolved: "Him" was the last truly great episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

But will there still be pudding in the movie? Because all those independent movies are just about a bunch of gay cowboys eating pudding.

A new film about two cowboys who fall in love while herding sheep will have a minimal amount of sexual content.

Filming is already underway on the gay-themed Brokeback Mountain, which stars Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger as the ranch hand and rodeo performer who become lovers.

Even though the book on which the movie is based includes pretty explicit scenes including "rough" lovemaking, the big screen version will only have a "modest" amount of sexual scenes.

Whoo-hoo!

Ralph Garman is an American but the host of "The Joe Schmo Show" has spent the last few months thinking of England.

The first season of "Joe Schmo" spoofed survival shows but, this time, the duped contestants -- a Joe and a Jane Schmo -- believe they are on a dating show, "Last Chance For Love."

To prevent being recognized by potential contestants, Garman is hosting as "Derek Newcastle," and has died his hair yellow to go along with his fake Limey accent.

Garman -- who describes Newcastle as "... a failed Shakespearean actor" admits the character is the main reason he chose to come back because "I never thought we'd pull it off a second time."

Am I a bad person for thinking this is one of the most unintentionally hilarious headlines ever?

Parents Unaware of Danger of Fat Children-Studies

John Kerry was in town for a rally yesterday, and I took advantage of my summer vacation to attend. You can read a substantive account of the event here; my impressionistic account follows.

The odd thing about seeing John Kerry in person is that he looks exactly like he does on television, which in my experience is usually not the case. Bill Clinton, for instance, is a much more commanding presence in person; he looks doughy on TV but big in a good way up close. This isn't, by any means, a slam on Kerry, but it's sufficiently odd as to be noteworthy. I stuck around after the event and got a handshake; unlike Hank Hill in 2000, I won't be having a crisis of conscience over the strength of my preferred candidate's handshake. It was better than Mondale's, weaker than Clinton's, and a shade stronger than Gore's.

The event itself was held at the U of M's Sports Pavillion, and outside the venue there was a healthy and annoying air of political entrepreneurship going on: People with flyers, people with petitions, people selling buttons ($5 each, 3 for $10; I saw no instances of people pooling their money to get better deals, which suggests that Democrats are not rational economic actors), that sort of thing. These buttons weren't official campaign ones, as far as I could tell, but rather the home-grown desktop publishing variety. I couldn't help but wonder if the people selling them were partisans or had a slate of Bush buttons ready to go for any appearances he might make here.

Doors opened at 10, but nothing happened until around noon, when local politicians began an interminable series of speeches setting up the audience. This is the part of these things you never see on television; fortunately, the sound system was so bad it was difficult to make much of these speeches out. Things finally got rolling (painful pun not intended) when Max Cleland and one of Kerry's Navy buddies introduced him. As a speaker, Kerry's sort of an odd duck; he's not one to rile the audience into a frenzy so much as make you nod your head and think, "Senator Kerry is certainly very knowledgable and thoughtful and I think I'll vote for him!" Except that this audience, at least, got itself into a frenzy anyway, which I think is indicative of how deeply displeasure with Bush runs among the Democratic base. That's good as far as it goes, I just hope the more nutty wing of the party doesn't trip things up for the Kerry campaign.

One interesting thing that I noticed about Kerry's talk came when he was citing past Presidential accomplishments as examples of what the Presidency can accomplish: Washington setting the course of the nation, Jefferson expanding the country, Lincoln holding it together, FDR leading it out of the Depression and to victory in WW II, and then what caught my attention: Truman establishing a policy for the Cold War that "every President on to Ronald Reagan" (or words to that effect) followed to defeat Communism. I wonder if this has been a standard line in Kerry's appearances, or if it was included because news of Reagan's failing health was starting to leak out?

Trio, home of bizarrely repurposed TV programming, is devoting this month to flops. Last night, She Who Must Be Obeyed and I subjected ourselves to the car-wreck horrors of My Mother The Car and Pink Lady and Jeff. MMTC wasn't so much bad as it was perfectly and relentlessly mediocre and unremarkable; if someone were going to make a pastiche of a wacky, high-concept late-60s living-in-denial sitcom, they'd probably come up with something exactly like this. Like reruns of Match Game from the 70s, MMTC captures its era so completely and perfectly that it's hard to believe it's actually OF that era. And there's some weird casting going on, too: one of the episodes last night guest-starred Charles Grodin (billed as "Chuck," and has he ever not worn a bad toupee?) and -- wait for it -- Lee Van Cleef as an evil lawyer. Yes, that Lee Van Cleef.

Pink Lady and Jeff, meanwhile, was simply one of the most hideous things I've ever seen. Words cannot describe its awfulness; I think I was able to keep watching only because my brain repressed the fact that it was watching it as I watched it, so I was continually amazed by its unmitigated awfulness. Suffice it to say that, if you think you have seen bad television, but have never seen two Japanese pop stars who don't speak English performing phoenetically-memorized comedy routines with the likes of Bert Parks and Sherman Hemsley, then you have not seen bad television.

Finally, I don't know what's worse: The fact that Pink Lady and Jeffis available on DVD, or that I added it to my wish list. If you don't get Trio, use the link below if you want to take the plunge.

This story (via Fark) will fascinate anyone who enjoyed Cryptonomicon.

Colossus Mk2, a wartime code-breaker hailed as one of the first electronic computers, has been rebuilt and reunited with Bletchley Park veterans.

At Bletchley, the hub of British code operations, it crucially found the keys to break the Lorenz code used by Hitler to encrypt messages to his generals.

Colossus Mk2 has been painstakingly put back together over a decade by computer conservationists for Bletchley museums.

No mention of anyone named Waterhouse being involved with the project, alas.

One of my nagging problems with what we've seen thus far of the Star Wars prequel trilogy is that George Lucas seems to forget that he's making movies, essentially, that could be subtitled "The Adventures of Hitler When He Was a Boy!" Which is a roundabout way of introducing this link to a very strange comic book. Weird.

Where, I ask you, but Minnesota can you be the fastest-moving person in a store while you're carrying a grill? Sometimes I'm tempted to declare war on the whole state, Cotton Hill-style.

I want the original Star Trek on DVD in season sets as much as the next guy -- there was no way in HELL I was going to spend $800 bucks on 40 separate disks -- but could this box art be any stranger? What the hell is that, a chubby communicator?

Ah, I'll still buy it. There's something about the goofy charm of the original series that none of the later series quite captured. And I'm not just saying that because I spent an insomniac hour Monday night (or more accurately, Tuesday morning) watching "Court Martial" on the Sci-Fi Channel.

People who have been following this discussion should be aware that the woman formerly known as "Matter-Eater Wife" will henceforth be referred to in this blog as "She Who Must Be Obeyed."

Matter-Eater Wife and I have, to our chagrin, been enjoying the hell out of WB's Superstar USA, the mean-spirited version of American Idol in which the judges sought out the worst singers they could possibly find. Part of the appeal is the contestants' sheer willful ignorance of their own suckiness; these people are simply convinced that, while they've been living (to borrow a phrase from another fake-out reality show) their sad existences working for the man, deep down they're the most talented, good-looking, sex symbols ever born. And some of the contestants are instantly recognizable types: The busty blond girl who was told she could sing in first grade, the bizarrosexual teenage guy who announces to the judges that he's really controversial (which is true, if bu "controversial" you mean "sucks"), the white rapper, and so on. It may not be good clean fun, exactly, but the contestants make it hard to feel too guilty enjoying yourself at their expense.

Matter-Eater Wife also noticed that, while the male contestants came in all shapes and sizes, the women were pretty much all of the standard, socially-designated attractive size and shape. My guess is that that's because, when they were younger, people were willing to tell the women who deviated from the attractiveness mean that they weren't very good at singing or dancing and should maybe try painting a picture of a pony or something else, while people were more gentle with (or flat out lied to) the more conventionally attractive girls. An alternate hypothesis would be that pretty people are simply less talented, of course.

Two TV notes:

1. Due to a VCR FUBAR, I managed not to tape the season finale of 24 tonight. Anyone with a copy they'd like to share can e-mail me and win my eternal gratitude, as well as the people's ovation and fame forever. And a beer next time I see you.
   
2. BBC America's Design Rules is one of the flat-out most fascinating things I've ever watched. It's like someone turned Alton Brown into a metrosexual Briton and gave him a show about interior design -- it's just that good. The first episode alone delved into the use of color to alter perceptions of room size, furniture placement theory, maximizing light in a room, and other strategies for getting the most out of your housing buck. I can't wait to see the rest of the series, especially after/during our recent adventures in home remodeling.
   

There's something incongruous about seeing Jimmy Buffett play at a downtown arena show (as oppose to the sort of outdoor pavillion I got used to seeing him at when I lived in D.C.). There, we'd build time into the schedule to drive down to Bristow, eat in the parking lot, and take in the tailgating scene before heading to our seats. Afterward we'd sit in the parking lot for three hours while people slowly snaked their way out of it. Here, we took the bus to and from the show and hung out in Barnes & Noble for half an hour before the show because we were so far ahead of schedule.

We were also spoiled by the incredible ticket-buying luck we had in D.C.; most of the time we got center section pavillion seats, and one year we were seated third row center. This time we were in nosebleed territory, way the hell up in the second tier of the Target Center. It was disappointing, not being almost close enough to touch the band, but after a few numbers we got over it and really started enjoying the concert. Jimmy was terrific, as usual, and I can't wait to buy the concert CD once it's available at Amazon. Jimmy, ever the businessman, has been making CDs of each concert available through Amazon. It's a brilliant move; it's probably pretty cheap to produce for him and better quality than any bootleg for his fans.

And the view from the top has its advantages; it's fun to see a stadium full of white people with no rythym and too many drinks in them dancing to "Fins."

Weird.

"The office of straight-laced Ohio Sen. Mike DeWine (R) became the epicenter of salacious Capitol Hill gossip Wednesday, when it surfaced that an entry-level DeWine staffer apparently had been chronicling her steamy sex life on an Internet weblog," the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports.

"The blog was removed from public view after another Washington blog, known as Wonkette.com, linked to some of the racier passages from the DeWine employee's online diary. The passages detailed the woman's affairs with several men, purporting to include a married (but unnamed) chief-of-staff in a federal agency, and discussed being paid for sex."

Leaving aside the terminal stupidity of the WB network, I've got to admit that last night's Angel finale was just about as perfect as I could have imagined it, from the spotlights on the individual characters to the series of fight sequences to the apperances by guest stars and cast members past...I'm not happy the show has ended, but what a way to go out. Bravo!

It's the end of the Whedonverse as we know it

In about nine hours, the final episode of Angel will have aired and Joss Whedon's remarkable series, which reinvented itself from the original Buffy movie and spanned two TV series, three networks, and innumerable books, comics, and toys, will effectively have come to an end for the forseeable future. The early reports that there would be a series of Angel TV movies on WB have proved to be premature exaggerations, alas. But I blog this day not to bury Angel but to praise it.

Angel always had a rougher time of it than Buffy did; it lacked the genius high concept of its parent series, which was summed up in one of the best titles ever conceived. Putting the words "Buffy," "the," "vampire," and "slayer" together in that order tells you a great deal about what's to come, whereas Angel could have turned into your standard good-vampire-fights-bad-vampires show. It never enjoyed the breakout pop awareness that Buffy did, either, and yet that lack of attention often worked to Angel's creative benefit; last season, for instance, wound up being structured as a series of escalating cliffhangers that was exhilarating to follow from week to week but that a higher-profile series probably could not have gotten away with.

And this (regrettably) final season was a pleasant surprise; the loss of Charisma Carpenter from the cast, and the addition of James Marsters as Spike, along with the new status quo of Angel and his compatriots taking over the evil law firm of Wolfram and Hart, all seemed like the kinds of shark-jumping shakeups that aging series tend to do when they're out of creative juice. Instead, though, we got what was arguably the show's strongest season ever; the law firm setup opened the door to the sort of done-in-one episode stories that both Buffy and Angel's writers and producers seemed to have forgotten how to do for a few seasons there. And in the midst of these episodes, larger plot and character threads weaved their way subtly throughout the season, until in last week's penultimate episode we stepped back and got to see what the larger storyline was about.

So whatever the resolution of tonight's final episode, I hope it's the sort of ending after which we can imagine Angel, Spike, Wesley, Gunn, Illyria, and Lorne still out there fighting the good fight.

And this seems as good a time as any to tell the David Boreanaz story. In the summer of 1998, I was nearing the end of my ill-fated escapade as a writer for Mania.com. One of my jobs was to cover the San Diego Comic Convention in August; this was the summer after the second season of Buffy, when the show was at its peak, creatively and popularly, and there was a panel featuring Joss Whedon and every cast member whose character was not named in the title. It was a huge, hot, sweatly ballroom packed to the gills with fans, many of whom were of the preteen female type.

Joss and the cast were great - funny, friendly, everything you'd hope they'd be. But the real treat came during the question and answer session. After a few of the standard questions ("Are Willow and Xander going to get together?" "Is Buffy coming back to Sunnydale?") a woman and her daughter, who was probably not older than 13 or 14 and who was literally shaking, came up to the microphone. The mom said she had two questions for David Boreanaz for her daughter, who was too scared to ask. Question one: "Are you married?" And Boreanaz said that he was, and you could hear 5,000 12-to-16-year-old hearts breaking. Question two: "Can she have a hug?"

You have to understand just how easy it would have been to say no: If I give one, I have to give one to everybody; security won't let us; etc. But instead he simply said, "Of course," and hopped down off the stage and made his way toward this girl, who was now flat-out crying with delight and heading toward the stage for her hug. I'm not exagerating when I say that this was one of the two or three most incredible things I've ever witnessed. Think about when you were the age that girl was, and just how much the stuff -- whatever it was -- that you cared about really meant to you. Imagine how much of herself she must have invested in her conception of Angel and the man who played him to get that worked up just being in the same room with him. And imagine her finding out that, at least for that one moment, he lived up to every hope, dream, and wish she had about him.

All of this happened right in front of the press area for the Buffy panel, and I managed to take three photos of The Hug; they're now framed and ready to go on the office wall as soon as I make some progress tackling the rest of our unpacking. If I ever run into David Boreanaz, I'd like to buy him a beer; and as for his vampiric alter ego, I'm hoping he gets a happy and triumphant ending.

This post by Augie de Blieck echoes something I've been thinking about myself for the last few years:

But where’s the science fiction on television now? It’s all gone. The once lucrative syndication market that used to be packed to the gills with sci fi show is now dead. The networks don’t have any shows anymore, and the cable networks don’t want to take the chances.

Part of the problem is that science fiction tends to happen on the margins of TV. The X-Files survived only because it was on the then-fledgling Fox network, which was thrilled at the time to have a well-reviewed show with a dedicated core audience. ST: TNG paved the way for Hercules and Xena in first-run syndication. At WB, Buffy essentially went the X-Files route: It debuted when the network was young and needed press, it was an excellent series, and it reliably brought in viewers who could be drawn to other new shows. Remember how relentlessly Dawson's Creek was promoted during Season 2 of Buffy? It was excruciating for those of us who weren't the typical WB target audience. But today a show like Buffy would probably never make it on the air; WB doesn't need the rabid fan audience the way it did eight years ago, just as Fox didn't need the kind of audience Firefly or Wonderfalls could bring. I'm not sure there are any margins left. Augie notes that Alias is an exception, and he's right, but that's largely because Alias is on a major network that simply doesn't have any new shows and can't afford to lose a show that brings in a reliable audience, even if that audience is smaller than the network would like.

This is a pretty hysterical take on the problem with the Kerry-McCain fantasy:

Hey, I’m all for injecting some life into Kerry’s candidacy. As it stands now I think their campaign slogan is: “John Kerry: Well ...oh, alright.” But if George Bush has taught us anything about campaigning it’s that it’s a lot easier to beat low expectations. As long as George Bush doesn’t drool on himself during a debate, he wins.

All this McCain talk sets too high a standard for a running mate. If I were the Kerry people I’d be out floating names like The Rock or Gary Condit. Then when you pick Evan Bayh Americans will be saying, “Oh, thank Christ it’s Evan Bayh!” and not “Who’s Evan Bayh?” and “How much time did he spend in the Hanoi Hilton?” In that sense I think it was wise for Kerry to steer the conversation to McCain for Secretary of Defense, which is an infinitely greater possibility. But how long did that last? A day?

The Post's indispensible Peter Carlson takes a look at Vanity Fair's profile of the strange ex-Presidency of Bill Clinton:

After leaving office in 2001, Anson says, Clinton was so bored sitting in Chappaqua, N.Y., while his wife worked in the Senate that he showed up at a local elementary school one morning to watch a school play. Another time, he invited a couple of local 12-year-olds into his living room to chat about the impact of technology on everyday life.

"He was," Anson theorizes, "desperate for company."

[...]

Clinton is full of energy but much of it is squandered, Anson writes. He can't sit still, flitting from place to place around the globe to make speeches and hobnob with celebrities. He thinks nothing of flying to Qatar and back in 24 hours. Paid $12 million to write his memoir, he dawdles, says Anson, wasting time on dubious projects like his lame "debates" with Bob Dole on "60 Minutes."

That's the comedy part; now the tragic part:

For a while, Clinton focused his ample talents on one issue -- AIDS -- and he made a difference. In 2002, Anson writes, Clinton used his connections and his charisma to line up sources of discount AIDS drugs for poor countries in Africa and the Caribbean, saving countless lives. Then he got restless and moved on to other things.

I guess in that regard Clinton's ex-presidency is a lot like his presidency: Well-intentioned, capable of the occasional success, but in the final analysis never about any damn thing except Clinton himself. What a waste.

Wow. Kitty Pride has never had a good costume.

I'm not one to bandy about the phrase "worst episode ever" lightly, but I used it with good cause twice last night. The Simpsons produced a tedious, subtle as a sledgehammer episode that consisted entirely of lame jokes dressed up as political satire that was pretty much painful to watch.

And then The Sopranos spent just about an entire episode on Tony's extended dream sequence. And it wasn't a cool dream sequence like the one on Angel a few months ago (stupid, stupid WB...), it was pointless and stupid and meanwhile, the only things that actually happened did so off screen. The only possible defense I can imagine for this episode is that it shows how Tony's being wrapped up in his own personal issues is distracting him from his duties as a boss and the events going on around him. But does it have to distract us, too? Especially in the third-to-last episode of the last full season of the series?

At least we got to see Khan lt himself turn into a redneck on King of the Hill. If not for that, I would have been better off reading a book or something instead of watching TV last night.

My college pal Phil Catelinet has written a marvelous post about going through family artifacts on a recent trip home.

I've had a Tuesday evening class all semester, but the end of classes and the onset of exams has finally freed that night up for me. Last night Kate and I actually watched Frasier for the first time in years, since it was on before 24. And while I tend to devote my TV viewing time to shows that are serial in nature (the aforementioned 24, the Whedonverse, Alias, Sopranos) or have more subtle continuing character through-lines (like CSI), there's a lot to be said for a well-done comedy that you can ease right back into after years away. The Frasier finale isn't getting anywhere near the hoopla that the far inferior Friends did, but I might have to find someone to tape it for me...

Political threads at Peter David's blog are a never-ending source of amusement, as they tend to devolve (from a pretty low point to begin with) into an orgy of generally ill-informed reactionaries and partisans (with a few notable exceptions) screaming at each other in increasingly shrill voices. This gem from PAD himself, though, strikes me as downright perverse:

Part of me is really hoping Bush is reelected.

Why? Because, without exception, every second term presidency in the past fifty years has become overwhelmed by scandal, misdeeds and wrongdoing on every level. Right now Bush still has defenders. If history holds--and considering the multiple debacles already in progress--a second term would be a fiasco of such epic proportions that even his most devoted apologists would have to throw in the towel. Granted, there won't be much left of the country, but hopefully the Democrats following him can rebuild.

Second term of Bush: Bring it on.

So let's get this straight: In PADland, George W. Bush is absolutely positively the worst person who ever lived and is snookering the nation into following him into the mouths of Mammon, madness, and misery...and PAD wants him to get re-elected just for yucks.

Peter David: WHAT THE FUCK?

Slate's Monday-afternoon mob-expert analyses of each episode of the Sopranos is a weekly must-read. I usually find myself nodding as I read, agreeing with points raised and gaining new insights into the show. But this line from Jeffrey Goldberg:

James Gandolfini was over-the-top compelling, taking Tony right to the precipice of permanent unlikableness. In fact, maybe he took Tony off the cliff. I felt pity for Janice, who is without a doubt the least pleasant character in a stable of unpleasant characters.

made me realize that, frankly, I didn't feel all that much pity for Janice when Tony went thermonuclear on her. Partly that's because Janice makes my skin crawl in a way no other character on the show, and maybe ANY show, for that matter, can; her evil is SO banal and SO petty it's far more likely to destroy directly innocent bystanders than a good deal of the actual crime we see on the show. Over and above that, however, I couldn't help but think we were simply seeing Janice at the start of one of her infatuation hobbies, which she seems to acquire at a clip unmatched by any fictional character this side of Bender. Of course she was being good; of course she'd taken what was said in her anger management classes to heart; it was her new thing, and she was going to stick with it until she got bored with it.

Last night I thought to myself, going out in your slippers to put something in the trash outside is about the most suburban, homeowner-y thing you can do.

I was wrong. The most suburban, homeowner-y thing you can do is, having gotten a note scolding you because one of your trash receptacles was too heavy, to be ELATED to go out after pickup and find that your redistribution of garbage between trash receptacles was a success, and the garbagemen took ALL your trash away this week.

This right here, THIS is what I imagined adulthood would be all about...

David Poland on Michael Moore's latest cry of "'elp, 'elp, I'm bein' oppressed!":

Moore finally started his inevitably endless whine with a reporter on Tuesday, though it is unclear in the article whether that interview was the genesis of the story. In a classic act of Moore-ish onanism, the Oscar-winning documentarian took $6 million from Miramax, making Fahrenheit 911 one of the most expensive documentaries ever made. After feasting on this capital from the "independent" division of a multinational, he brays to the Times, "At some point the question has to be asked, `Should this be happening in a free and open society where the monied interests essentially call the shots regarding the information that the public is allowed to see?"

Well, if ya don't want those "monied interests" to make decisions, Mike… Don't Take Their Friggin' Six Million Dollars!!!!! Adding to the pathetic nature of this scam, please be aware that Moore probably has $6 million himself and could have self-financed or sold select foreign markets to get enough money to get well within range of his production budget. What was his salary on this $6 million doc? And how much of the budget was based on the speed of completion of the film so that Moore could feel he might influence this year's election. Perhaps he feels the federal government should give him matching funds.

[...]

I have to say, it is odd to find myself defending Michael Eisner and Disney for the second time in just a few short weeks. But demagoguery is not attractive, regardless of what your role in the industry or your personal politics. And neither Michael Moore nor Harvey Weinstein, who has remained silent so far, has any position from which to claim status as a victim.

There is a huge difference between Michael Moore's six million polemic and some documentarian having his or her film bought and squashed by the distributor for political reasons. In fact, Oliver Stone has a much more reasonable beef with Time-Warner for forcing him to rethink his HBO-financed point-of-view doc about Castro than Moore has with Disney. I didn't like the shallow perception of Castro in Stone's original doc, but HBO didn't tell him that he had to make a balanced film… until the political heat revved up after people saw it. On the other hand, Disney made it clear to Miramax and Moore that this film would never see the light of day under any Disney banner back before the Miramax financing deal closed.

Dear Friends,

Just GO AWAY AND DIE ALREADY!

Yours,

CJG

Ahem. I've always been befuddled by the success of this lame, endlessly soap-operatic, and terminally annoying sitcom, and its departure from the airwaves is, to me, about 9 years overdue. Always found Lisa Kudrow about as funny as falling through plate-glass. Thought Matt The White's character should have been sent to live on a farm. Never understood the sex appeal of bad haircuts and eating disorders. Basically, I wanted all of the Friends to get shot.

But I do like this bit of counter-programming:

Fox, meanwhile, offers a very special two-hour "Cops: Crimes of Passion," featuring "15 heart-wrenching segments" of cops responding to domestic violence calls. More must-see TV.

UPDATE: And it's heartening to read this:

Most writers vastly overestimate the size of the Friends audience. (Sitcom declinists make no claims about the quality or critical reception of Friends, only its popularity.) Sure, it's been a Top 10 show from its inception, and it was the most-watched show on television as recently as the 2001-2002 season. But although Friends' eighth and ninth seasons were its highest-ranked seasons ever (No. 1 and No. 2 overall), the show isn't nearly as highly rated as it once was. It's just that its ratings remain higher than the still-lower ratings of other shows.

Only 21 million viewers tuned in last year, compared to the nearly 30 million viewers who watched during the Ross-and-Rachel heyday of Season Two. And fans haven't been coming back for the show's final episodes, either. During last week's time slot, more viewers watched CSI than the penultimate episode of Friends. As the South Florida Sun-Sentinel TV writer Tom Jicha pointed out this week, seven out of eight American homes don't watch Friends, and this season's ratings wouldn't have cracked the Top 20 for any show only a decade ago, in 1995. This is mass appeal?

Slate has a helpful guide to today's crop of teen actresses. On a related note, every man who watched last week's Saturday Night Live, hosted by Lindsay Lohan, is going to a very bad part of Hell.

Kurt Busiek smacks down Micah Wright:

You've already confessed to being a liar after years of insisting that you were telling the truth. Every time you insist that people take your word for something now, whether it's that you got death threats so they shouldn't judge you or that you came forward first and the Post is therefore lying or that all your friends told you to post self-serving shit about how Big Media should have checked up on you, all you're doing is making another claim with no credibility behind it. Could be so, could be no -- but you have no standing to say, "trust me, it happened the way I say it did." You burned that platform yourself, and got attention and money in the process.

[...]

You didn't "make it all better" by admitting the truth. That it was the right thing to do doesn't mean that it balances out doing the wrong thing, or that it erases the damage other people have and will endure due to your actions.

Just shut up for a while and let people throw bricks at you for your stupid behavior. You earned them.

I always did like that Busiek fella.

Jim Treacher has posted a pretty comprehensive review of the revelation that Micah Wright is a big fat lying liar who lies. So go read him for all the details.

I think the funniest part of the whole thing is not Wright's pathetic attempt to change the subject to media credulity and George W. Bush, nor his straight-faced declaration that he chose to come clean on the eve of a Washington Post article about his being a lying liar who lies out of the goodness of his heart, nor even Newsarama's toady-like willingness to run one of Wright's lame "remixed" war propaganda posters in its article about his announcement, but the fact that Wright was caught not by the likes of Bob Woodward or Carl Bernstein or even Joel Achenbach, but by the Post's frickin' gossip columnist. That's like being busted by the ex-hippie art teacher instead of the vice-principal; your lameness is exposed by the lameness of he who busted you.

I'll also be curious to see how the Pulse, which featured a credulous, head-shaking, "we're so much smarter than everyone who disagrees with us" intervew with Wright last year covers the story.