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.