The D.C. Universe

Black Friday Part 4

2009-11-27T13:09:00.015Z

Black Friday sucked this year. I mean, I don't think there's ever been a year where it's met expectations, but this was really bad. I actually had money to burn, but couldn't find anything worth burning it on.

But, such as it is, here's the annual recap of my Black Friday.

Best Buy

I got to the Potomac Yards Best Buy about 4 AM. I was surprised by how relatively short the line was. I mean, it was one thing at Circuit City last year, but Best Buy generally draws monster crowds. And indeed, shortly after I arrived, it started to grow rapidly. It took hours of people waiting overnight for the part of the line in front of me to get to the length it was. It only took about 20 minutes for the part of the line behind me to match it. So for future reference, 3:45 AM seems to be the ideal arrival time for where you can still get the good deals, but not have to wait there all night long.

The line was pretty orderly. There were security guards, and Best Buy employees were walking up and down the line, handing out item tickets to ensure that no one got trampled in a mad rush to get a cheap laptop. There was a large Ethiopian family ahead of me who seemed to speak no English, and didn't really understand what was going on, as they took one of pretty much every ticket that was being offered. Who knows, maybe they needed three TVs, but I doubt it. I'm guessing most of those tickets went unused. So if you didn't get the item you wanted this morning, blame Ethiopia.

Once inside, it was a madhouse. People were running around, and all the local TV stations were there interviewing whatever shoppers they could get to stand still for two minutes. I just grabbed Resident Evil 5, Fallout 3, and the first season of Eastbound & Down, all for $50. Then I got the fuck out.

Target

Walked over to Target. Nothing much going on there aside from more easily excitable people. I was on my way out when I passed a display of DVDs, offering the second season of 30 Rock for $13. Since the lines were short, I figured, why not?

When I went to pay, the woman in front of me was having some sort of dispute with the cashier. Apparently, she'd asked for a certain toy, and the one she'd been given wasn't the same as the one in the ad circular. It was Bumblebee from Transformers 2, and the one in the circular was an actual action figure. The one she'd been given was for much younger kids. It was a pretty obvious difference, but neither she nor the cashier seemed to be able to tell they were two different items.

The real problem was, she seemed to have no idea what she wanted. Did she want the toy featured in the ad? Did she want the toy she'd been handed for the sale price in the ad? She was trying to explain the problem to the cashier for the hundredth time, and said, "This is what I was handed and told it was the right one. By a Target employee," she added pointedly, as if the cashier didn't understand. The cashier looked like she wanted to slug the woman.

Instead, she just told her that she'd call someone over to take care of it. At first, the woman seemed about to object, as if she wanted the cashier to walk over and handle it herself. But then she noticed the looks on both the cashier's face and mine, stepped aside, and I was finally able to get rung up.

Pentagon City

This is why malls are dying. The sales pretty much sucked across the board. I've had a Banana Republic gift card I've been trying to use for a year now, and when I went there, their big Black Friday sale was...cashmere sweaters! Other stores had similar duds going on.

Also, for some reason there was a line to get into the Apple Store, even though all their sales were online.

Walmart

Against my better judgment, I drove over to Walmart. Shockingly, the place was a madhouse. I didn't even try to park there. I parked across the street and walked over. Other drivers weren't so lucky. Plenty of people seemed to have the bright idea to just randomly stop their cars to wait for a parking space or for their friends or family to come out of the store, and didn't understand why this pissed off other drivers. It was just a chorus of honking horns.

Inside, it actually wasn't that bad...until I got to the electronics department. There were two huge lines of people waiting to pick up their TVs. A woman walked over to a Walmart employee and asked where she could get her TV. He pointed to the huge lines.

"No, I just need to pick up my TV," she explained.

"Right. That line right there."

"No, no, no. I'm just picking up my TV. I already have the ticket for it."

"Right. That line right there."

She started to argue again, but then seemed to realize that he probably knew what he was talking about, and that no matter what, she was going to wait in that line.

I was tempted to get Grand Theft Auto 4 for only $10, but then I looked at the lines at the registers, and did the math, figuring that it would require a 20 minute wait to save $20 off the regular price, and that it wasn't worth it. So basically, I've decided my time is worth $1 a minute. I'm going to present this theory to my boss on Monday.

Toys R Us

I always go to Toys R Us on Black Friday, more out of nostalgia more than anything else. I was looking at the action figures, when I saw something that shocked the hell out of me. You know the chick in Nightmare on Elm Street 4, who Freddy turns into a cockroach and crushes? Probably the best kill in the entire series?

They made an action figure out of her! Complete with attachable cockroach arms!

That took a real visionary to think of. I'd like to shake his hand.

Anyway, considering I was running on less than two hours of sleep and a couple of Monster energy drinks, I knew it was time to get home, lest I end up killing some innocent driver--or worse, myself!--on 395. And that's the genius of Black Friday: I got in an entire day's worth of shopping, and was back home by 8:30 AM. Went back to sleep for a couple of hours. Now I'm ready to go again.

Hopefully, I can find something good at Tysons Corner. If not, maybe I really will burn money.

Panel of the Week

2009-11-27T12:25:00.000Z

From Superman: Secret Origin #3:

Week Twelve NFL Picks

2009-11-26T12:03:00.000Z

10-6 last week; 82-78 for the season

Green Bay at Detroit (+11.5): Detroit

Oakland at Dallas (-13.5): Dallas

New York Giants at Denver (+6): Denver

Tampa Bay at Atlanta (-12.5): Atlanta

Miami at Buffalo (+3): Miami

Indianapolis at Houston (+3.5): Indianapolis

Carolina at New York Jets (-3): Carolina

Cleveland at Cincinnati (-14): Cincinnati

Washington at Philadelphia (-9): Washington

Seattle at St. Louis (-3): Seattle

Kansas City at San Diego (-13.5): San Diego

Jacksonville at San Francisco (-3): San Francisco

Chicago at Minnesota (-11): Minnesota

Arizona at Tennessee (-3): Tennessee

Pittsburgh at Baltimore (-2.5): Pittsburgh

New England at New Orleans (-2.5): New England

Dating for D.C. Dummies

2009-11-25T11:32:00.003Z

You know, this is far from the best Date Lab ever. But these days, when all the participants seem to get along so amazingly, and apparently go on to be great friends after their date, if not something more, I guess it's the best we can reasonably hope for.

Sangeeta: He told me he didn't finish college. I don't think I'm that person to judge, but we live in a society today where you need a degree. It's a preference of mine.

Uh, the dude has a job, you know. A supervisor job, no less.

I kind of get the whole "I'm only going to date college graduates" attitude when you're in your early 20s and fresh out of school yourself. But when you're in your 30s and dealing with someone who's gainfully employed, thus disproving your entire thesis about the importance of a degree, it's dumb (and snobbish) to sit there and still insist otherwise.

Also, it's worth noting that A) She's an event planner, hardly a job that requires a PhD, and B) If you sign up for Date Lab, you really don't get to complain if he's a high school drop-out. Beggars and choosers and all that.

He did wear an Obama "Hope" pin, which is fine because I am an Obama supporter, but I thought it was ballsy of him to display that on a first date. For all he knew, I could have been a staunch Republican.

I don't care about the whole "I could have been a Republican" bit so much. But a year later, who's still walking around with an Obama pin on his lapel? Even if Obama was doing a kick-ass job as president, it'd be a little weird. And he's not doing a kick-ass job as president.

Put the pin away until 2012, dude.

Sangeeta: When I moved back to D.C., I lived with my sister and her husband, and they ended up splitting up. Later on, [Dana and I] were talking about which parent we resemble, and I said, "I am just like my mom." He asked me if I had a picture and I pulled up [one on] my cellphone. He said something like the expression on her face looked like she just found out about my sister getting a divorce. I thought, Where did that come from? And why was that necessary?

Eh. It was a funny line. Wholly inappropriate for a first date, but a funny line. To his credit, at least he freely admitted that he had a habit of putting his foot in his mouth, as opposed to saying something like how she "just didn't get his sense of humor" or something stupid, as past would-be Date Lab comedians have.

Dana: I told her to text me when she got home. She kind of looked at me funny.

Yes, that would be because it's a fucking bizarre and uncomfortable thing to ask a woman.

She's a grown-up. Presumably, she's successfully navigated her way home hundreds of times before. At best, his asking her to let him know she made it home safely was somewhat condescending. At worst, it's a red flag for all kinds of unpleasant personality quirks.

And at the risk of sounding callous, this was a woman who he'd just met and knew he probably wasn't going to see again. Obviously, you want her to get home safely and all. But do you really lose sleep over it?

My First Blog (Part 4)

2009-11-24T11:36:00.002Z

Almost finished. Thanks for indulging me these past few weeks.

Dec. 14, 1987

I still don't know which day we're leaving for my grandmothers. Im also trying to convince my mom that the 21st is a good day.

Ah, yes. The grand childhood tradition of visiting your extended family for Christmas. Back when it was a fun road trip in the backseat of the minivan, getting lots of presents, and having fun. Now it's all about paying to get there out of your own money, hearing about everyone's various medical and substance abuse issues, and getting presents you most likely don't have any use for.

I go back and forth on whether or not I want to have kids, but the one compelling reason I keep coming back to is that it would be nice to see Christmas through their eyes. I'm sure it makes the holidays considerably more fun. And then once they become bitter, cynical, teenage money pits, I can just dispose of them and make more kids!

Jan. 4, 1988

Well, it's here. 1988. It's hard to ajust to the new year. 1987 wisked by faster than any year I've ever known. Well I didn't get any thing for Christmas worth bragging about.

I seem to have been oddly excited by it being 1988. Not really sure why. Maybe I misunderstood the Prince song, and thought that was the year we were all going to party.

It is kind of interesting to see that I thought '87 went by so quickly. As I've always remembered it, time went by excruciatingly slowly when I was a kid, and it wasn't until I turned 20 or so that I started to notice how much faster everything seemed. But apparently, that was always the case. Maybe time flew because I was having fun. Or maybe I became conscious of my own mortality at a really early age. Nothing happier than a young child thinking about death.

Jan. 8, 1988

On Fri. I saw it was snowing and got up quickly. It was lucky it snowed for my dog because she was supposed to have surgery that day. I got in a few snowball fights and had a good time.

It actually wasn't lucky for my dog, because the day she was scheduled to have surgery, the experienced vet who ran the practice was going to do it. But because it snowed, we had to postpone. When she did go in, the doctor who ended up doing the surgery made some kind of rookie mistake, and my dog died during what was supposed to be a routine procedure.

I cried for days.

Hey, no, I made all that up. The dog was fine. She lived another ten years. But wouldn't that have been the saddest thing in the world if it did happen? I wouldn't be able to look at snow the same way ever again.

April 11, 1988

Its be along time since I wrote in here. It's the first day of school since Spring Break. I went to

For some reason, I just stopped writing that entry mid-sentence. Maybe I was distracted by something shiny. Since the school assignment had apparently ended long before, maybe I realized how stupid it was to keep a journal when I didn't have to. In the very least, I wish I could tell you were I went for Spring Break, since I'm sure not knowing will keep you up tonight, but I can't. Maybe that was the year we went to Disney World? I don't know. Sorry.

Anyway, that was the last entry. The rest of the composition book is mostly empty, aside from the following:

1) A few math problems. Mostly fractions. The sad thing is, since I haven't had to worry about fractions in years, I can't even tell if they're right. I also used to know all the state capitals. And who wrote the Bunnicula books. You know, all the important stuff. To quote Quiz Kid Donnie Smith in Magnolia, "I used to be smart, but now I'm just stupid."

2) This weird, random drawing of what appear to be a couple of satellite dishes, one of which seems to be transmitting a signal. Or maybe they're death rays. I like to think they were death rays. (Yes, rays can too look like Os.)

3) Some sort of...I don't know. I honestly have no idea what the hell this is. They seem to be just a lot of unrelated words, but given how they're arranged, I can only assume that it was at least an attempt at poetry. I'm not going to claim it's great, but there is a certain flow to to it that I kind of like.

Bubbles in pond
Eggs
Wood chips scattered
Droppings
Leaf bent down
Feathers
Animal itself

I appear to be describing something. In retrospect, I wish I'd left out "droppings." Even in free form, hippie poetry, you probably shouldn't bring up animal shit.

Survivor Series

2009-11-23T16:25:00.002Z

In a somewhat unexpected turn of events, I ended up going to Survivor Series at the Verizon Center last night. I didn't even know it was being held in D.C. until Friday. But given my fondness for niche sports, I figured what the hell? Plus, the seats were in the front row of the upper section, so I was at least guaranteed a good view.

One thing before I get into last night, though: I won't go so far as to call wrestling gay. But if you're a wrestling fan, you have absolutely no business being anti-gay rights. None. Whatsoever. If you can watch two muscular, shaved-down, sweaty dudes wearing tiny briefs grope and rub up against each other, and actually cheer them on as they're doing so, you can't really be that uncomfortable with the concept of two men having sex. So what's the big deal? Let them get married, already.

Anyway, I used to be a big wrestling fan when I was a kid, but I kind of grew out of it, and I've never gotten back into it. I'll occasionally stick with Monday Night Raw if there's nothing else on, or if Donald Trump shows up, or they have a good guest host, but it's never something I'd go out of my way to watch. The fact that every episode of Raw seems to end with the same small pool of wrestlers fighting one another, doesn't help. How many times can America watch John Cena fight Randy Orton, or Randy Orton fight Triple H, or Triple H fight John Cena? Back when I was a regular viewer, the big feuds changed every few months.

Here are the highlights of last night:

-- We got to the Verizon Center around 6:30. The line snaked around half the building, because for some reason, they didn't let anyone in until about 45 minutes before it started. This meant standing outside for quite a while. It also meant lots of people walking by, curious to know what was going on that would draw such a--to borrow a phrase from Happy Gilmore--large and economically diverse crowd.

The typical exchange between people in line and passersby on the street went something like this:

Passerby: "Hey, what are you guys in line for?"
Person in line: "WWE! Pay-Per-View! It's the Survivor Series!"
Passerby: "...Ah." (Turns and walks away.)

I'm not going to lie. I was a little self-conscious being there. All the people around me were perfectly nice, but it really wasn't my crowd. For some reason, I had even dressed somewhat preppy, which made me stick out even more. I spent most of my time hoping no one I knew from work would walk by.

I was lucky the first few times someone asked what the line was for. All the passerby questions were directed at the people in front or behind me. Then one guy walking by stopped and asked me directly. I stared at the back of the person in front of me and pretended I didn't hear. He repeated it. I turned to him and said, "Hmm? What? I'm sorry?" Thankfully, someone behind me saved me by answering his question.

I wasn't so lucky next time. This girl--and of course, she was cute--actually tapped me on the shoulder and asked what was going on. Seeing no way out, I just said, "Wrestling." She didn't even respond with an "Ah." She just turned and walked away.

-- There were an alarmingly high number of grown men who brought replica WWE belts with them to the event. But I only saw one guy actually wearing his. And you know what the really fucked up thing is? He had a smoking hot girlfriend. HOW? WHY?!? HOW?!?!? I mean, obviously, I have my own fair share of geeky interests. But I don't wear them on my sleeve. Or around my waist.

-- I will say this for wrestling fans: They're a friendly bunch. Having been to sporting events where people seem to revel in acting like dicks for no good reason, I was expecting the worst. But everyone around us was in pretty good spirits. A guy behind me kept muttering about how the refs needed to do a better job when it came to three counts, but other than that, people seemed to get the joke and were just there to have fun. Even in the final match, the people rooting for Triple H got along famously with the people rooting for John Cena. (No one seemed to be rooting for Shawn Michaels. Don't worry, Shawn. You'll always have your days in the Rockers.)

-- Before the official show started, the ring announcer introduced the TV commentator team for the event. I knew Jerry Lawler, but had no idea who the other two were. For some reason, one of them was heavily booed while walking to the ring. The NFL should do this. Imagine how great it would be to see Joe Buck walk through a whole stadium of booing fans on his way to the Fox booth.

-- A lot of the seats by the ring were reserved for active duty military, and before the show started, they ran a video of the WWE people visiting Iraq and Andrews Air Force Base. John Cena gave his shirt to one of the soldiers. So that was all nice. I, of course, would already have it up on eBay. I'll bet John Cena's sweat goes for a lot of money.

-- I had no idea who any of the wrestlers were in the first match. I guess they were from Smackdown? I don't know. It was a five-member tag team match, where each person got eliminated by pinfall until a whole team was defeated. At the end, there was one "good guy" wrestler and three "bad guy" wrestlers. I thought they'd go the predictable route of having the good wrestler somehow defeat the other three against all odds, but they actually kept it somewhat realistic and had the one guy get the crap beaten out of him, and then pinned.

-- Batista vs. Rey Mysterio was kind of cool, just because of how the latter was flying all over the ring. I was rooting for him, until someone mentioned that Batista was from D.C., at which point I switched allegiances and hoped he would kill the tiny masked man. I had to settle for Mysterio being carried off on a stretcher after being body slammed onto a metal folding chair. Yeah! D.C. represents!

-- The one time I totally and unapologetically geeked out is when the Undertaker came out. He's one of the very few WWE holdovers from when I was a kid, and it was awesome getting to see him in wrestle in person. His entrance and exit were really well done, too, what with all the smoke machines, the dark music, and a really cool light show. Good stuff.

-- I don't really understand why the WWE has female wrestlers. I mean, I'm sure there's a lot of money in swimsuit calendars and other Diva merchandise, and certainly, having women groping and rubbing up against each other makes the WWE at least 10% less gay. But when it came to the actual wrestling, most of them didn't seem that good at it. One Diva's high kick missed her opponent's face by a foot, but of course, the one being "kicked" still had to act like it had connected, and jerked back unconvincingly. Another Diva tried to flip someone over, but screwed up the move, resulting in the other woman basically having to flip herself over in order to help her opponent out. Whatever. In my day, we had Miss Elizabeth perched on Macho Man's shoulder, and that's all we really needed.

-- How many belts are there in the WWE now? (According to Wikipedia, a lot.) The Undertaker had the Heavyweight Championship belt, and John Cena had the WWE Championship belt. In theory, shouldn't those be the same thing? Again, when I was a kid, it was so much better. There was the WWF Championship belt, there was the Intercontinental Championship belt (which always seemed like a stupid name, but it was the only belt that was constantly up for grabs, so it seemed like a big deal when someone won it), and the Tag Team Championship belts. John Cena kept his belt, but even if he'd lost it, it seems likely he'd have it back within a couple of weeks. Seriously, doesn't the WWE see any benefit to having more than just the same few people win the belt over and over?

So, did I have a great time? No, not really. This was my first time seeing wrestling live since I was a kid and went to the Capital Centre to see Hulk Hogan fight Mr. Perfect. I had a blast then. My parents absolutely did not. 20 years later, I kind of empathize with them.

Don't get me wrong, for the most part, I had fun. A lot of the moves I saw--regardless of how scripted and choreographed they might have been--were incredible, and the crowd wasn't anything close to the freak show I'd expected. But I think I'm set for the next 20 years. In the very least, it would take another big event like the Royal Rumble or Wrestlemania to get me back there. I don't really have any interest in just seeing Raw or Smackdown or some house show.

Well, maybe if the Undertaker is on the card. Or Tugboat. I always liked Tugboat.

Panel of the Week

2009-11-20T19:12:00.001Z

From Dr. Horrible #1:

Tales From the Netflix Crypt

2009-11-19T22:18:00.002Z

This month's reviews: Hollywood Kills, Late Fee, and Train.

Hollywood Kills (2006)
Directed by Sven Pape

Plot: An aspiring actress, an aspiring screenwriter, and the latter's brother and cousin, end up in the home of a demented filmmaker who's a big fan of the ol' snuff film.

Comments: Oddly enough, this film is better before all the torture and killing and maiming begins. I kind of dug the brief bit in the beginning involving Chantelle and Sarah (the two aspirings) struggling to break into their respective fields, and the reaction of the brother and cousin who are visiting from Small Town, USA, and think Los Angles is absurd and that Sarah should move back home. This actually would have made a great movie all on its own.

But since this is a horror movie, before too long, all four of them are drugged and tied up and facing certain death at the hands of an insane film producer, played by Dominic Keating, who was the weak link in Enterprise and is the weak link here, as well. Fortunately, it's not a bad horror movie. Sure, one could accuse it of being a Hostel rip-off, but then, a lot of horror films that have come out in the past few years could be accused of being a Hostel rip-off even if they're not.

One of the things I really dug about Hollywood Kills is that it's really not afraid to put its characters through the wringer. Unlike a lot of films of this type, there's a very real sense of danger for all involved. (Having said that, there is a...slight differential in how the characters are treated. Both women get physically brutalized, while one of the guys is just locked up in a room for a while and then released, and the other one is forced into a death trap that involves having sex with a beautiful woman. So I guess read into that what you will.)

It's not a great movie, and you'll feel like you've seen it a few dozen times before, but for a low-budget film the gore is well-done, and the story takes a couple of twists I didn't see coming. The last 30 seconds alone bumped the film up a half-grade.

Script: C+
Acting: C-
Gore: B+
Overall: C+

Late Fee (2009)
Directed by John Carchietta and Carl Morano

Plot: A couple rents two horror movies on Halloween from a man dressed up as Satan, with the understanding that they need to be returned to the store by midnight.

Comments: Are two segments and a wrap-around enough to count as an anthology? If so, I guess this is an anthology. Which is a shame, because the wrap-around, featuring the couple and the video store, is both a more original and better executed idea than either of the two movies-within-the-movie.

The first segment is easily the weakest part of a film. A guy picks up a weird prostitute. They go to a motel room. She turns into a monster and kills him. Yawn.

The second one is slightly more interesting. A woman is pulled over and arrested by a crazy chick pretending to be a cop, and taken before a crazy man pretending to be a judge, and locked up to await torture at the hands of a crazy man pretending to be a doctor. It really never goes anywhere, but it's entertaining, and it does feature one of the all time sickest scenes I've ever seen in my life: A pregnant woman is strapped to a table, at which point a crazy cannibal woman enters and pulls the baby out of her and eats it. I like to think I have a pretty high tolerance for this shit, but Jesus.

But really, the story of the couple who disregard the warning to have the films back by midnight is the most interesting part of the film, and it's a shame it gets the short shrift. Horror anthologies typically suck because the filmmakers only have one great idea, and a few lousy ones. If they'd just concentrate on the great one and forget the anthology idea, horror cinema would be better off for it.

Script: C+
Acting: C-
Gore: A+
Overall: C+

Train (2009)
Directed by Gideon Raff

Plot: A college wrestling team competing in Eastern Europe hop on the wrong train. A terror train, if you will.

Comments: Do American college wrestling teams actually compete in Eastern Europe? Seems unrealistic somehow. Anyway, speaking of Hostel rip-offs, as we were a few minutes ago, remember Turistas? One of the few Hostel rip-offs to get a theatrical release? Someone apparently came up with the idea to rip-off both Hostel and Turistas, and Train is the result.

It's actually not a bad film. Certainly better than Turistas. For a bunch of wrestlers, all the kids go down surprisingly easily. Which is fine, because it wouldn't be much of a film if they were able to pin their captors, who--like in Turistas--want to harvest their body parts for medical purposes, but also--like in Hostel--want to torture them for the hell of it. At one point, this torture involves a man eating the wrestling coach's intestines out of his stomach while he's still alive. Also, one of the wrestlers gets castrated for no particular reason. Another gets her leg cut off below the knee. Fun stuff like that.

It is weird seeing Thora Birch in this kind of role. She's actually not that much younger than me, but the first thing I ever saw her in was All I Want for Christmas, where she played an impossibly adorable little girl who tries to get her two estranged parents to get back together on Christmas, and then went on to be the impossibly adorable little girl in Hocus Pocus and the Jack Ryan films. Now she's wrestling and having sex with her boyfriend and getting into fistfights with European organ smugglers. Not quite so adorable, but a lot more interesting.

Script: C+
Acting: B
Gore: A
Overall: B

Week Eleven NFL Picks

2009-11-19T20:10:00.000Z

8-7 last week; 72-72 for the season

Miami at Carolina (-3.5): Miami

Indianapolis at Baltimore (+1): Indianapolis

Washington at Dallas (-11): Washington

Cleveland at Detroit (-3.5): Detroit

San Francisco at Green Bay (-6.5): San Francisco

Buffalo at Jacksonville (-9): Buffalo

Pittsburgh at Kansas City (+10): Pittsburgh

Seattle at Minnesota (-11): Minnesota

Atlanta at New York Giants (-6.5): Atlanta

New Orleans at Tampa Bay (+11.5): Tampa Bay

Arizona at St. Louis (+9): Arizona

San Diego at Denver (+3): San Diego

New York Jets at New England (-10.5): New England

Cincinnati at Oakland (+9.5): Cincinnati

Philadelphia at Chicago (+3): Chicago

Tennessee at Houston (-4.5): Tennessee

Ninjas!

2009-11-18T16:01:00.002Z

Do me a favor. Say "ninja."

No, no, don't just think it. Come on. Actually say it out loud: "Ninja."

Felt good, huh? Now pretend you're an 8 year-old boy and say it again. "Ninja!" Wasn't that, like, a hundred times cooler?

When I was an 8 year-old boy, there was nothing...and I mean nothing...better than ninjas. My friends and I were obsessed with them. We talked about ninjas. We went as ninjas for Halloween. We considered how we might go about becoming ninjas ourselves. My then-best friend thought we should take Hapkido classes to help accomplish this goal. Not really wild about that sort of time and physical commitment, I explained that I just wanted to be the kind of ninja who killed people with throwing stars from a distance, or maybe snuck up behind them and cut their throats, not the hitting/kicking/back-flipping sort of ninja. So we didn't.

Of course, the first ninjas my friends and I were exposed to were Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow. Who had about as much in common with real ninjas as G.I. Joes did to real soldiers, but we didn't care. It's not like real ninjas had awesome code names and got into fights on a moving subway.

Over the next few years, I watched many of the ninja movies that were released in the 80s. And there were a lot of ninja movies released in the 80s: American Ninja and American Ninja 2. (There was a time I considered Michael Dudikoff the world's greatest actor.) Enter the Ninja. Revenge of the Ninja. Big Trouble in Little China. (Not technically a ninja film, but it had tons of guys in costumes doing wild martial arts shit, so close enough.) The Octagon. Ninja Hunter. And several more, long since forgotten.

There was also no shortage of ninja-related video games, like Bruce Lee, Shinobi, Mortal Kombat, and Ninja Gaiden. This was even better than being the throwing star-type of ninja, as you got all the thrills of being a ninja, with none of the physical training involved.

Then, fairly suddenly, I grew out of ninjas. Which was good for two reasons: First, teenagers and grown-ups who are obsessed with ninjas are weird. A lot of them are the kind of guys who have replica swords mounted on their wall. Or this idiot. Second, and more importantly, ninjas became really, really lame in this country.

After all, since 1990, this has been the image of the ninja in American pop culture.

So, yeah, today's ninjas suck. But a few weeks ago, I saw the trailer for this:

On the surface, it seems to have everything the old school ninja fan could possibly want: Ninjas, assassins, ninja assassins, punching, kicking, back-flipping, blades flying everywhere, little kids with lots of scars beating the shit out of each other... It even has a title with such a remarkable 80s vibe to it, that I'm shocked no one used it until now.

And my reaction to it? Nothing. Zip. Nada.

Everyone else seems jazzed for it. I've seen more than a few tweets from people who have similar interests as me, who announce their sexual arousal whenever a Ninja Assassin commercial comes on. But I have absolutely no desire whatsoever to see it. I suspect my reaction to this film is what it feels like to be a gay dude when a hot woman walks by. Sure, I can look at it and find things to admire. But in no way am I interested in tapping that ass, and frankly, even the thought of doing so is a little off-putting.

There's still a chance I'll go see it. Thanksgiving Day is always a good time to see a movie, and it's not like the football games will be worth staying home for. And who knows, maybe it'll change my mind on ninja films. But I kind of doubt it. Once you've seen Chris Farley make a complete mockery of your childhood passion in one of the unfunniest films of the past century, there's really no going back.

My First Blog (Part 3)

2009-11-17T14:00:00.001Z

More insightful thoughts and/or inane ramblings from the 1987 version of me! (And even though you can't see it, they're all written in really bad cursive, which I probably haven't used since 1987. It's a worthless thing to teach kids.)

October 19, 1987

Yesterday I went to the Museum of Natural History. I especelly liked the Gem and mineral display. I bought a rock since I have a rock collection. The rock I bought is called, "Iceland Spar." As soon as I get home I will label it.

Yeah, I collected rocks as a kid. Want to make something of it?

For what it's worth, though, when I say "rock collection," I really just meant that if I saw a rock that intrigued me for whatever reason, I would pick it up and drop it in a box or something until I either lost it or got bored with it and threw it away. I know for goddamn sure I never actually "labeled" any of them, whatever the hell that even means. Knowing myself as I do, I'm going to say that was just a blatant attempt to sound vaguely scientific for the purpose of sucking up to my teacher.

Oct. 30, 1987

Am I mad! Today while I was talking Chris came up and hit me in the shoulder. I don't know if I should turn him in.

Dude, what the hell did you think you were doing by writing a journal entry about it, knowing full well your teacher would read it? Listen to Carmelo Anthony. No one likes a snitch.

I'm trying my best to remember Chris, and drawing a blank. Given that I'm one of those people who holds onto grudges forever, and I have no idea who he was, it was probably just some kid I knew who caught me off-guard with a playful slug, and embarrassed me a bit in front of the other kids. As both a child and adult, when I'm really upset about something, I just brood quietly. So the fact that I was all melodramatic about it ("Am I mad!" God, that's embarrassing...) and put it in the journal, means I couldn't have been too bothered by it.

Nov. 1, 1987

On Haloween I was a mummy. Some people thought I was a wounded person. I got a lot of candy, and a few fake spiders. After I got home I wached Search For Houdinni. Unfortionitly, their Seaence was a failure.

Ah, 80s television. Remember that time Geraldo Rivera opened Al Capone's vault on live TV, and it was empty? Good times.

In case you're wondering, Search for Houdini was a special on Halloween hosted by William Shatner in which they tried to contact Houdini's ghost on the anniversary of his death. I was going through this phase where I was really into reading about ghosts and monsters and supernatural stuff, so I made a point to watch it. It was terrible, but you want to see Shatner at his absolute hammiest, you can see it here, here, and here.

Semi-related story: While going through this phase, I was reading a book on witchcraft or voodoo or something one day in the school library. One of the elderly librarians came by, saw what I was reading, and asked me if I believed in that stuff. I thought she meant it as in, did I believe it existed? So I said yeah. She actually gasped, and took two steps backward in fear. It was a few years later before I realized that she thought I was declaring my loyalty to Satan.

Nov. 9, 1987

Yesterday I played soccer with a few friends. My team won with the score of 20 to 17.

20 to 17! Holy shit! Either we were the greatest bunch of kid soccer phenoms this side of Freddy Adu, or none of us cared about playing defense. I tend to suspect it was the latter, but you never know.

Nov. 11, 1987

Today I got a surprise when I looked out the window. When I saw it was snowing, I got dressed and threw snowballs at my dad. I hit him in the face most of the time. If the snow is still there, I will go sledding after school.

Nov. 16, 1987

On the eleventh, we got a dissmisel at 1:15 but most of us didnt get home till 3:15. I am sort of glad that the snow is melting first because I don't want to be snowed in. Second, Im tired of my socks getting wet all the time.

Sigh. Heavy snow in November. We're never going to see that again around here. But hey, keep making snide comments about global warming, Matt Drudge, you dick.

Anyway, I'm not entirely sure why they made us go into school on the 11th since it was evidently already snowing that morning. But by the time they did decide to close school, it was too late, and there were several inches on the ground. The buses couldn't even get to the school, so they eventually just moved all of us into the cafeteria until our parents could come and get us.

Nov. 30, 1987

I enjoyed my vacation immensly. We went to varrious locations in the area. I also went to the Bullets game on Saturday. The bullets won. I also added a nutcracker to my collection.

Yeah, I collected nutcrackers as a kid. Want to make something...okay, fine, that's pretty lame. But again, just like with the rocks, I'm using the word "collection" in the loosest possible sense. I think I only had about three or four of them, and they're currently in the same landfill as that printer from last week.

I'm not sure why I was being so mysterious in this entry. I mean, "We went to varrious locations"? Although, now that I think about it, I have these faint recollections of my parents deciding that Thanksgiving would be a great day to drive around Virginia sightseeing for hours on end. So maybe it's not that I was trying to be vague, it's just that I'd been bored out of my fucking mind, and honestly couldn't even remember where all I'd been dragged to that day.

On a different topic, it was fun to type "went to the Bullets game" just now. (I used to be pro-Wizards, but now that D.C. is no longer a demilitarized zone, they should change it back to the Bullets.) This would have been at the Capital Centre, so going to see a game back then was a pain. Nowadays, you can just hop on the Metro to go see the team get its ass kicked. In 1987, you actually had to work for it.

Next week: The final few entries, as well as a page of what's either random gibberish, or my first attempt at free form poetry.

Panel of the Week

2009-11-13T18:00:00.000Z

From R.E.B.E.L.S. #10:

Broken Lizard Live at Lisner

2009-11-12T23:15:00.004Z

I'll get to the Broken Lizard show in a moment. But first...I was in a room (technically an auditorium) with Lynda Carter!

Lynda Carter! From the Wonder Woman reruns that conveniently came on TV just when I got home from kindergarten! Lynda Carter! Who confirmed that I was straight long before I even knew there was an alternative! Lynda Carter! Who, according to the IMDB, turned 58 this year, but still looks awesome. Sigh. It's not often you get to see your childhood TV crush in person. Now I just need to run into Dana Plato, and my life will be complete!

Hmm? What's that? Oh.

Anyway, Broken Lizard. I would say I'm a fan, but not a huge one. In regards to their films, I always thought Roger Ebert summed it up best in his review of Super Troopers: "There is a plot, which somehow arrives at a conclusion, but the movie doesn't tell a story so much as move from one skit to another..." The same can pretty much be said of Club Dread and Beerfest, and just like with Super Troopers, some of those skits are better than others.

And that's essentially what their live show is. The format goes like this: Sketch, stand-up routine by one of the guys, sketch, stand-up routine by one of the guys, etc.

Steve Lemme was by far the best at stand-up. His routine was entirely--and I mean entirely--about masturbation. Reflections on it, and details of his own habits, as well as those of his fellow Broken Lizard members. In fact, this is how we found out Lynda Carter was in the audience, as Lemme pointed her out, and then told everyone what Jay Chandrasekhar used to do to her Wonder Woman poster as a teenager.

Kevin Heffernan was also really good, discussing the ramifications of doing his full-frontal nude scene in Super Troopers. Paul Soter and Jay Chandrasekhar were okay, but not great. Erik Stolhanske...well, any time a comedian brings a guitar with him on stage, you should expect the worst.

The sketches fared a bit better. They proved Susan Boyle jokes can still be funny, told a great story about meeting Patrick Swayze, and did a pretty decent twist on the old "Who's on First?" routine. They also trotted out their Super Troopers and Beerfest characters. The former worked well. The latter, not so much, until they had a drinking contest with three of the audience members.

And then, kind of abruptly, it was over. They said goodnight, and walked off-stage in their Beerfest jumpsuits, taking Lynda Carter with them. Which might be for the best, because God only knows how many psycho obsessed fans were planning on making a beeline straight towards her. (Answer: At least one.)

All in all, the show's something of a mixed bag, but if you get the chance to catch Broken Lizard Live, take it. I can't say it's quite as good as I'd hoped it would be, but considering tickets are only around $30, it's well worth it. Even if your performance doesn't come with a Lynda Carter cameo.

Week Ten NFL Picks

2009-11-12T18:10:00.001Z

5-8 last week; 64-65 for the season

Chicago at San Francisco (-3): San Francisco

Atlanta at Carolina (+1.5): Atlanta

Tampa Bay at Miami (-10): Tampa Bay

Detroit at Minnesota (-17): Minnesota

Cincinnati at Pittsburgh (-7): Pittsburgh

Buffalo at Tennessee (-6.5): Tennessee

Denver at Washington (+3.5): Washington

New Orleans at St. Louis (+13.5): New Orleans

Jacksonville at New York Jets (-6.5): Jacksonville

Kansas City at Oakland (-2): Oakland

Seattle at Arizona (-1.5): Arizona

Philadelphia at San Diego (-2): San Diego

Dallas at Green Bay (+3): Dallas

New England at Indianapolis (-3): Indianapolis

Baltimore at Cleveland (+10.5): Baltimore

My First Blog (Part 2)

2009-11-10T11:00:00.003Z

Last week, I posted some entries from the teacher-mandated journal I kept in elementary school. Here are a few more.

Sept. 28, 1987

On the 25, I went to a restraunt named Cauldwells. I got a whole lobster for only $10.00. It was educational. I got to see the brain of the lobster.

I'm not sure why I cared about the price tag so much. After all, it's not like I was reaching for the check or anything. Even in 1987, I somehow doubt $10 got you much of a lobster, but it was my first one, so I was probably just easily impressed. Also, this might have been the first time I realized that you could make almost anything better by dipping it in butter. That was fucking educational!

Sept. 29, '87

One day when I went to my friends house In the window I saw a reflection of a man. I ignored him. Later two police men came. They asked me if If I had seen anyone.

I must have been in desperate need of a journal entry that day and had nothing to write about, hence why I decided to drop in this random anecdote that really had no bearing on anything that was currently going on in my life. Not entirely unlike how I write this blog, now that I think about it.

Since I'm guessing you can't make heads or tails of the above entry, I'll translate: About a year before I moved to D.C., I went over to a friend's house, rang his doorbell, and got no answer. It was one of those houses with small windows right by the door, so like the rude little kid I was, I tried peering through them to see if anyone was home. As I did so, in the reflection of the glass, I saw a man walking into the woods behind me, carrying a large bag.

It turned out to be a burglar who had just hit a nearby home. When the cops came by to question people in the neighborhood, I told them what I'd seen, and partially based on my description, they were able to catch him. I got a framed certificate with a picture of McGruff on it, signed by the chief of police. This was the high point of my life until I kissed a girl.

Sept. 30, 1987

Yesterday my mom and I went to Cameron Station and Sears. We got cloths and a catalog. When we got home, I had a lot of trouble with the printer.

That fucking printer. I guess it's at the bottom of a landfill somewhere, and we're all better off for it. Being 1987, it was one of those incredibly slow dot matrix things we had for our Apple IIc, and it was always jamming up. I hated it, and had Office Space come out when I was a kid, I probably would have reenacted that scene with the baseball bats.

The Sears in question was the one at Landmark Mall, which, defying all understanding, is still open. There was a great City Paper article about Landmark a few years ago, and it seemed to hint that there were plans to revitalize it, but so far, nothing. It's maybe the worst place in the world. That includes prison and Iraq.

Oct. 6, 1987

Over the last few days my sinuses have been very annoying. I have been sneezing and coughing all week, and I must have used a hundred tissues. I hope all the pills I am taking works soon.

And...we're back to me being sick again. I doubt I even knew what sinuses were. I probably just wanted to use a big word.

I am somewhat alarmed at the "all the pills" part. My parents weren't the overmedicating types, so it's possible I might have raided their medicine cabinet looking for something that would make me feel better. Where the hell was G.I. Joe when I needed them?

I guess we're not supposed to wonder why Doc was lurking outside that family's bathroom.

Oct. 9, 1987

Yesterday we had lobster tails for dinner. They were horrible. From now on I'm going to stick to fresh lobster.

Oh, well, la-de-dah. Look at the fucking little prince.

Look, I don't want you to think my family dined on lobster on a regular basis or anything. It's just a testament to how dull my childhood was that this was about as exciting as my life got, and I had to write about something. And now that I think about it, it's hard to imagine that lobster tails weren't good. I probably just missed being able to eat the claw meat. Or maybe I wanted to see more brains.

Oct. 13, 1987

Over the weekend my parents got ready for a garage sale. There was some stuff I didnt want to part with so I bought them

Yes, my parents made their own son pay for things at their own garage sale out of his own allowance. This may sound harsh, but it actually worked well on two levels.

First, it officially made their property my property. Had they just agreed not to sell the stuff, it still would have been theirs, and they probably would have found some way to get rid of it when I wasn't looking. Second, at our next garage sale a couple of years later, I sold a lot of that stuff for more than I'd paid for it, and turned a decent profit. (That was also the garage sale where I sold most of my Transformers and Super Powers figures, a decision that still haunts me to this day.)

Oct. 14, 1987

Nothing happened today or yesterday. But over the weekend I played a lot of soccer with my dad.

I have nothing to add. I just figured I'd go out with a nice one.

Come back next week, when the Blizzard of '87 hits! Also, I get sick again.

Week Nine NFL Picks

2009-11-08T09:59:00.002Z

8-5 last week; 59-57 for the season

Washington at Atlanta (-9): Washington

Arizona at Chicago (-3): Chicago

Baltimore at Cincinnati (+3): Cincinnati

Houston at Indianapolis (-8.5): Indianapolis

Kansas City at Jacksonville (-6.5): Jacksonville

Miami at New England (-10.5): New England

Green Bay at Tampa Bay (+9.5): Green Bay

Carolina at New Orleans (-13): New Orleans

Detroit at Seattle (-10): Seattle

San Diego at New York Giants (-5): New York

Tennessee at San Francisco (-4): Tennessee

Dallas at Philadelphia (-3): Dallas

Pittsburgh at Denver (+3): Pittsburgh

Panel of the Week

2009-11-06T17:11:00.000Z

From Batman: The Widening Gyre #3:

More fights I'd like to see at the Washington Post

2009-11-05T16:03:00.002Z

Details are sketchy, but numerous witnesses report that veteran feature editor Henry Allen punched out feature writer Manuel Roig-Franzia on Friday. The fracas took place in sight of Post executive editor Marcus Brauchli's office. Brauchli rushed to separate the two.

It should be noted that Allen is nearly seventy, but he served in the Marines in Vietnam. He also won a Pulitzer prize in 2000 for criticism. Both apparently came into play when Allen jumped Roig-Franzia. (Washingtonian)

Three lessons to take away from this incident.

1) Don't call a co-worker a cocksucker to his face.
2) Especially don't call a former Marine co-worker a cocksucker to his face.
3) The Washington Post Style section is probably the greatest place in the world to work.

But frankly, as entertaining as the story is, it's not an especially sexy one. Even though it involves a fistfight in one of America's most famous newsrooms, I can't imagine that many people know or care who Henry Allen or Manuel Roig-Franzia are. It's similar to how The Huffington Post will occasionally run a front page headline like, Actress Found Dead, and you click on it wondering which famous movie or TV star it could be, only it turns out to be someone whose biggest role was Woman #2 in a Brett Ratner film, who'd ODed in a motel room.

So I'd like to see some of the better-known Post staffers go at it. Not only to settle grudges, both real and imagined (by me), but to give all of us a more interesting story to obsess over. Here are my suggestions.

Michael Wilbon vs. Michael Leahy

Why: In the introduction to When Nothing Else Matters, a wonderfully entertaining and compelling account of Michael Jordan's disastrous time with the Wizards, Leahy mentions an unnamed sportswriter as being upset with his reporting on Jordan: "Someone at my own paper, a sportswriter friend of Jordan, let it be known that he wouldn't talk to me, wouldn't read me." Given that Wilbon is a noted Jordan friend, confidant, and on occasion, apologist, you don't need to be Encyclopedia Brown to figure out who Leahy's referring to.

Fight! Fight! Fight!: Wilbon looks like a scrapper, and based on the photo on the back of the book...well, Leahy does not. But apparently, all Leahy would have to do is talk trash about Jordan, and Wilbon would start to get huffy and tear up, giving Leahy the opening to land a knock-out punch.

Winner: Leahy

Tom Shales vs. Lisa de Moraes

Why: At any major metropolitan newspaper, there's only room for one sarcastic television writer who often seems to hate television.

Fight! Fight! Fight!: I've enjoyed both writers for years, but for different reasons. On one hand, you have Shales, with his more cerebral analysis of TV, while still maintaining a biting wit. I loved it when he used to eviscerate Kathie Lee Gifford's annual Christmas special each year. On the other hand, de Moraes, also witty as hell, seems more in tune with modern pop culture, and possesses a populist affinity for shows that Shales would likely turn his nose up at.

Neither one strikes me as being especially good in a fight, and honestly, they seem to have a great deal of respect for each other, and likely wouldn't be interested in beating each other up in the first place. But if they were to fight, I think you have to give the edge to Shales, as given his age, he's more likely to be familiar with Andy Kaufman's inter-gender wrestling days.

Winner: Shales

George Will vs. Charles Krauthammer

Why: When it comes to foreign policy, Will is a smart, insightful conservative, capable of acknowledging--and indeed, criticizing--neoconservative ideology when he thinks it's gone too far astray. Krauthammer is just a neoconservative. They may get along on the surface, but I'll bet each has a seething undercurrent of disrespect for the other.

Fight! Fight! Fight!: As both men circle one another, fists raised, Krauthammer stops, holds up his hands, and says he's open to a diplomatic resolution. Will lets his guard down for a moment, at which point Krauthammer goes all shock and awe on him. He then spends the next several years occupying Will's office, saying he can't leave until all ground objectives have been achieved. No one at the Post knows what this means, but they don't want to be added to Krauthammer's axis of evil, so they let it go.

Winner: Krauthammer

Emily Yoffe vs. Monica Hesse

Why: Surely, Emily "Dear Prudence" Yoffe and Monica "The Web Hostess" Hesse constantly snipe at each other about who has the worst nickname. Or if they don't, they should.

Fight! Fight! Fight!: Yoffe is older, and has probably been around the block a few times. Hesse is more web-savvy, and could probably find some kind of online jujitsu class or Krav Maga Facebook group or something. But frankly, you don't need to look good to be an advice columnist (although for 54, Yoffe is smoking hot), whereas to be a hostess, web or otherwise, you sort of do. So when Hesse makes a point to protect her face, Yoffe just lands a series of body blows until she goes down.

Winner: Yoffe

Bob Woodward vs. Dana Milbank

Why: Both are Yale grads, and both could be said to be the face of the Post's political desk during their respective tenures. But the similarities pretty much end there. Woodward helped uncover the most infamous conspiracy in American political history, and brought down a corrupt president. Milbank called Nico Pitney a dick for being a good journalist, then called Hillary Clinton a bitch for being a good politician, which resulted in the cancellation of his Post web feature and him being forced to sheepishly apologize.

Fight! Fight! Fight!: Deciding to avoid the fight altogether, Milbank cowers under his desk until Woodward is gone. Just to be safe, he stays there until everyone else, including the nighttime cleaning staff, have also left.

Winner: Woodward.

My First Blog (Part 1)

2009-11-03T16:34:00.007Z

While going through a box of childhood crap recently, I found this old composition book. At first, I thought it was maybe the comic book I'd created as a kid, The Adventures of Rabbit Man. See, he was a rabbit who was also a superhero. You might be thinking that Rabbit Man sounds an awful lot like Captain Carrot, but you'd be wrong, as Rabbit Man worked alone, didn't wear a cape, and he carried nunchucks. If anyone with DC or Marvel or Hollywood would like to get in touch with me about acquiring the rights to Rabbit Man, my email address is on the right.

But instead, it turned out to be a journal that I was assigned to keep back in 1987, when I was in elementary school. I'd forgotten all about it, and until this week, it hadn't been opened in over 20 years.

Anyway, I figured that since these were sort of my earliest blog posts, why not republish them here over the next few weeks? Everything is reprinted verbatim, including any and all spelling and grammatical errors, followed a few comments from the adult me.

Sept. 9, '87

Today in my rush downstairs, I slipped an hurt my leg. I now have a limp which I hope won't last long.

When I read this, I suddenly had a flashback to the day that happened. I was running to make the bus, slid on the carpet, fell about eight steps, and landed directly on my knee. It hurt like hell. I can't recall if I at least made an attempt to stay home from school because of it, but if I did, my mom obviously wasn't buying it.

Sept. 10, '87

Yesterday I had to do my homework in pen because there was no pencil in the house.

Evidently, when my teacher assigned us these journals, "Be interesting" wasn't part of the assignment. I can't even imagine what a living hell it must have been for her to have to read through this crap every week when we turned them in.

I am nostalgic for the days when my biggest problem in life was not being able to find a pencil, though.

Sept. 11, '87

A gain I have aquierd a limp. This time by falling off two chairs which were to be a couch.

Two chairs which were to be...I have no idea what the fuck this kid is talking about. I guess I was probably messing around with chairs and sofa cushions, but to what end, I couldn't tell you. Possibly to build a fort. Or some kind of modern art piece. I don't know. All things being equal, I think I made a valiant effort at spelling "acquired," but I can't defend turning "again" into two words. Also, if I'd known what was going to happen exactly 14 years later, I probably wouldn't have thought a stupid limp was such a big deal.

Actually, yeah, I probably would have. As you can see, I was a really whiny kid. The loss of 3,000 lives in a terrorist attack couldn't possibly compare to my having a slight limp.

Sept. 14, '87

Today is not my day. I'm in a bad mood my feet hurt and I'm not feeling good.

I'm growing increasingly depressed reading these. Did I have anything good going on in my life as a kid? I mean, I do have happy childhood memories. Like the time my family and I went to Universal Studios out in Los Angeles, and I met David Hasselhoff! See, my step-brother Dudley and I snuck onto the set of Knight Rider, and...

Oh, wait. That was an episode of Diff'rent Strokes. Never mind. Maybe my childhood really was all hurt feet and not being able to find pencils.

Sept. 16, '87

Last night I went to see the constitution and waited in line for 4 hours.

September 17, 1987 was the bicentennial of the signing of the Constitution, and naturally, the National Archives made a big deal about it that whole week. This was not long after my family moved to the area, and my parents were still all, "Yay, D.C.! Educational opportunities abound!", so they thought it would be a good idea to take me there. The problem was, half of D.C. had the same idea. It's possible the "4 hours" part was a slight exaggeration on my part, but it was a really long line, and a completely miserable experience, and once we finally got inside, the guards were rushing everyone through so quickly, I barely even got to see the Constitution.

Of course, now I can go down to the Archives and be in and out in three minutes. Suck on that, mom and dad.

Sept. 17, '87

The Constitution is an important part of our history. And even though thanks to the Constitution, I had to stand in line for four and a half hours, I guess it is an important document. And I also suppose if it wasen't for the Constitution, we wouldn't be the country we are.

Odd. I start off by saying the Constitution is an important part of our history, but I seem to waver on whether or not it's even an important document. Also, note how I attempt to sum everything up at the end in an effort to sound as if I put some real thought into this.

I do like how even while I was praising the Constitution, I still found a way to work in some passive aggressive bitching about having to stand in line. This is the first time I actually recognize a bit of myself in these entries.

Sept. 22, 1987

Yesterday Beth inflicted a lot of pain on my little finger. Today it feels worse because I woke up sleeping on it. I hope it feels better tomorrow.

Beth was my then-best friend's older sister. The last time I'd had a friend with an older sister before moving to D.C., she thought it was fun to hold me down and try and kiss me. Beth just liked bending back my fingers and giving me Indian burns. So that was kind of an unpleasant change of pace. She was actually pretty cool for the most part, especially given how much her brother and I used to pester her, but occasionally she'd physically take out her teenage angst on us. She had a lot of angst, too.

Well, that's it for this installment of My First Blog. Come back next week for what will undoubtedly be more scintillating thoughts from a dull, hypochondriac child. (Ow, I just hurt my leg. Actually, I guess very little's changed in 22 years.)

The emotional lows and highs of the Target toy aisle

2009-11-02T12:02:00.004Z

I don't buy or collect action figures, but I do enjoy keeping up with what's going on with them, both to maintain my geek cred and be able to look at them and smugly think, "Action figures were so much better back in the day. Kids today suck."

Given that you can no longer just stroll into a KB Toys or K&K Toys at the mall, the only chance I really get to look at action figures these days is the toy section at Target. Oddly enough, I very rarely actually see kids there. It's usually me and some guy who looks like he's waiting for the chance to lure some unsuspecting child out to his van.

Over the weekend, I was at Target. I checked out the Avatar figures, looked at the awful G.I. Joe figures left over from the summer and smugly thought how much better action figures were when back in the day, and that kids today suck. And then, to my horror, I saw this:

I can't say for certain this will be the worst-selling toy pack in the history of the world, but it damn well should be.

Back in the 70s, I guess someone at Hanna-Barbera noticed that everyone on Super Friends was white, and decided to do something about that. I'm not sure if this realization took the form of, "Hey, let's try and make the show more multicultural because it's the right thing to do!" or "Hey, I'll bet if we added a few token minority superheroes, we can trick more black and Asian kids into watching!" Probably the latter, but you never know.

Regardless, the theretofore lily-white line-up of Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, Robin, and Aquaman, was soon augmented by the arrival of such heavy hitters as...Apache Chief! Samurai! Black Vulcan! El Dorado!

Who? Exactly.

No one had ever heard of them before, as they were created specifically for the TV show. I'm pretty sure the only one who ever actually contributed anything to the team was Apache Chief. Everyone else was just there to ease the Super Friends' liberal guilt. They got to tell their families and friends they were in the Super Friends, and the Super Friends avoided a discrimination lawsuit from the ACLU. So it worked out well for everyone.

According to Wikipedia, Samurai appeared in 16 episodes of the show, and only had lines in six of them. I guarantee most of those lines were something like, "Superman's right!" or "I'm trapped! Help!"

Also from Wikipedia: "In the final incarnation of the series, The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians, [Black Vulcan] was replaced with Cyborg, another black superhero..." I guess the Super Friends charter said the team could only have one at a time.

The less said about their costumes, the better. Forget having to fight alongside them if you were a fellow Super Friend; try to imagine even just having a conversation with those guys, as they stand there with no pants, like it's perfectly normal. Fucking pervs. El Dorado wore pants, but no shirt. There was something wrong with people who designed superhero costumes back then.

So, yeah, terrible choice of characters to be made into toys. But all was not lost! Because right below those plastic abominations, was this:

An Amanda Waller action figure?!?! There's just something so good and decent and awesome about that, it made my entire weekend. Mattel can release all the pantsless superhero action figures they want, and they're still aces in my book. I didn't buy it, but if I do ever buy an action figure again, this will be the one.

As an added bonus, the fact that it comes packaged with a Batman figure, means people can have fun recreating this classic story:

Week Eight NFL Picks

2009-11-01T08:54:00.000Z

7-6 last week; 51-52 for the season

Denver at Baltimore (-3.5): Baltimore

Houston at Buffalo (+3.5): Houston

Cleveland at Chicago (-13.5): Chicago

Seattle at Dallas (-9.5): Dallas

Miami at New York Jets (-3.5): New York

San Francisco at Indianapolis (-13): Indianapolis

New York Giants at Philadelphia (+1): Philadelphia

St. Louis at Detroit (-4): Detroit

Oakland at San Diego (-16.5): San Diego

Jacksonville at Tennessee (-3): Tennessee

Minnesota at Green Bay (-3): Minnesota

Carolina at Arizona (-10): Arizona

Atlanta at New Orleans (-11): New Orleans

Rocking with Rockwell

2009-10-31T23:51:00.003Z

It's still Halloween for a few more minutes, so I got this in on time.

The video for Somebody's Watching Me scared the shit out of me when I was about 8 or 9. Earlier tonight, I was telling someone about it, and how the song is the one used in those annoying Geico ads with the stack of money with the googly eyes, and I just got a blank look. So for anyone else culturally unaware--or, er, under the age of 25, who have never heard of Rockwell, or possibly even music videos--here is a true classic.

Fun fact: Back when VH1 would not only run videos, but videos aimed primarily at people in their 30s and 40s--Phil Collins, Michael Bolton, and Rod Stewart used to be in heavy rotation--they'd air a "Scariest Videos of All Time" special each Halloween. I want to say this was the number two video, right behind Thriller, but I can't be sure. The only other ones I recall from the list were Ray Parker Jr.'s Ghostbusters (which wasn't scary) and The Jackson's Torture (which was even scarier than Somebody's Watching Me, but the song sucked).

Panel of the Week

2009-10-30T19:14:00.000Z

From Blackest Night #4:

Best Horror Films of the 21st Century

2009-10-29T16:04:00.004Z

This year wraps up the first decade of the 21st century. And given that it's almost Halloween, and given how discussion of horror films has pretty much dominated the blog this month, and given my OCD-fueled love of making lists, I figured now would be as good a time as any to come up with my list of the ten best horror films of the past decade.

A couple of caveats: As much as I would love to have seen every horror film that's come out in the past ten years, that would only be possible if I were to quit my job and become a shut-in. (Well, more of a shut-in.) But with no job, I couldn't afford to go to movies, or my Netflix subscription, or even an outlet for my DVD player. So a more accurate title might be "Best Horror Films of the 21st Century That I've Seen." Also, try as I might, I've never been able to get into J-Horror. Sorry, Takashi Miike. So an even more accurate title might be "Best American Horror Films of the 21st Century That I've Seen." Except, I guess there are a couple of British films on the list. Maybe "Best Horror Films of the 21st Century Made in English-Speaking Countries That I've Seen"?

But "Best Horror Films of the 21st Century" just sounds better, so no matter how inaccurate it might be, let's go with that.

10) Jeepers Creepers (2001)
A refreshingly simple, straight-forward horror flick (with a disarmingly stupid title), starring a pre-"I'm a Mac" Justin Long, this sort of feels like a throwback to the 70s/80s golden age of horror. Great creature design, great ending, and it somehow manages to turn a peppy 1930s song into an ominous harbinger of doom.

9) Dead Silence (2007)

The plot is a bit on the absurd side, even for a horror film: If you scream, the ghost of Mary Shaw, a ventriloquist who was killed by an angry mob years before, murders you by ripping your tongue out. Which raises all kinds of questions, like, what happens if she shows up and you don't scream? Do the two of you just glare angrily at one another until someone gets bored and leaves?

But the film's visuals are outstanding, and there's this feeling of dread in the small, cursed town that's present throughout the film, making the whole thing a fairly intense experience. You should probably see the twist ending coming a mile away, but if you're dumb like me, you didn't, and it turned out to be a really nifty surprise.

8) The Grudge (2004)
While I won't watch Japanese horror films, I guess I will watch their allegedly inferior American remakes. Seriously, I don't know why more horror fans didn't warm to this. I thought it was a pretty flawless ghost story that did an excellent job of conveying the terror of its characters, who are hopelessly fucked the moment they set foot in the cursed house. When KaDee Strickland gets so scared that she jumps into her bed and hides under the covers like a child (which obviously didn't turn out to be the smartest move), there was actual, palpable fear, something sorely missing from most horror films these days.

7) 2001 Maniacs (2005)
When a bunch of college students on their way to Spring Break end up stranded in a small, oddly old-fashioned Southern town that's celebrating its "Guts and Glory Jubilee," they're picked off one by one via some truly disgusting, depraved--albeit, darkly hilarious--methods, and added to the menu. Plus, the film has Robert Englund as the evil mayor, which obviously makes it at least ten times more awesome than it would have been otherwise.

6) 28 Weeks Later (2007)
I thought 28 Days Later was vastly overrated and not really even that great of a film in general, but the sequel more than makes up for it. You never get to see the aftermath of a zombie attack once it's been contained (probably because the zombies always seem to win, and yes, I know this isn't technically a zombie film, but it's close enough), so this was an interesting take on the story, even if the intentional Iraq War parallels are mildly uncomfortable.

5) The Descent (2005)
As a claustrophobic, I found the first half of the film, where the characters crawl and shimmy their way through incredibly tight passages--for fun, no less--infinitely more disturbing than when the creatures finally appear and start attacking everyone. But that's also when it really kicks into high gear, and Juno taking a pickaxe to the leg is one of my favorite "Oh, shit!" film moments in recent memory.

4) Dance of the Dead (2008)
You don't hear many horror films described as "charming," but that's really the word that comes to mind. Imagine if zombies attacked a John Hughes film. That's what Dance of the Dead is. Of all the films on this list, this is also the one most in need of a sequel, but so far, nothing seems to be on the horizon. I mean, you can't end a movie with a bus full of high school kids and their gym coach riding off to fight more zombies, and not tell us what happens next.

3) Drag Me to Hell (2009)
This is my favorite film of the year so far, marking Sam Raimi's triumphant return to the horror genre after wasting a decade on Spider-Man. The whole film is creepy as hell (after seeing it, I'm never going to even give a gypsy a dirty look), but still manages to work in the trademark Raimi humor. Months later, the ending still kind of freaks me out.

2) Hostel (2005)
Those who hate this film often refer to it as "torture porn." I also refer to it as that, but as a term of endearment. I mean...a girl gets half her face blowtorched off, and has one of her eyeballs dangling from its socket! How super awesome is that?

No matter how you feel about gore, this is one of the more unsettling movies I've seen, not because it's an especially plausible plot (though having said that, whenever someone I know travels to Eastern Europe, I do now tend to assume I'm never going to see them again), but because Eli Roth does such an amazing job of sucking you into this twisted world, where the wealthy get their kicks by torturing innocent kids, and the locals go along with it because A) They're getting paid, and B) What else is there to do in Slovakia? The sequel didn't really work, and the upcoming Eli Roth-less third installment is probably going to suck, but this is a true masterpiece of the genre.

1) Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (2006)
Regardless of whether it's making jokes about horror films, deconstructing horror films, or just being a horror film, there isn't a moment of this that isn't absolute genius.

A mocumentary about an aspiring killer as he prepares to join the upper echelon of movie slashers, right up there with Freddy, Jason, etc., there is literally nothing I don't like about this film, other than maybe that one of the deleted scenes on the DVD, which explains exactly how killers in horror films always manage to catch up to their victims, even though they're usually sprinting while the killers just sort of leisurely stroll after them, should have been in the final print.

That's how good this movie is: Even its deleted scenes are better than most whole films.

How not to say goodbye to your girlfriend

2009-10-28T14:29:00.002Z

This morning at Metro Center, I was waiting for a train on the lower platform. Standing a few feet away was one of those somewhat overly-affectionate couples. Not making-out in public or anything, but all clingy and whispering to each other and occasionally giggling hysterically at something the other one said.

After a few minutes, the train to Largo arrived, they kissed each other goodbye, and the girl boarded the train. She sat down in a window seat, and looked out with a big smile on her face. She then gave her boyfriend a wave...only he didn't see it because he was looking down at his phone, reading a text or an email or something.

The train held there for about 30 seconds, and the whole time, the girl was just staring out the window like a puppy, trying to get him to make eye contact with her. A couple of times, her hand started to tentatively come up again, as if she was thinking about just waving frantically in the hopes that he'd notice the motion in his peripheral vision and glance up. But he was completely oblivious, focusing entirely on his phone, totally unaware that just twenty feet away, his girlfriend--or, hey, I don't know, casual acquaintance or one night stand or whatever--was looking as if her entire future happiness depended on him just noticing her and giving her a smile or a wave or just some sort of acknowledgement of her existence.

Then the doors closed, and the train pulled away, and the whole time, she never broke eye contact with the guy, and the guy never broke eye contact with his phone.

I don't know if these two crazy, mixed-up kids are going to make it or not, but I do know that you should probably give your girlfriend the courtesy of waiting until she's out of sight before putting her out of mind. Unless he was reading, like, an email relaying a really intriguing fantasy football trade offer. Then it's totally understandable.

Even if that wasn't the case in this instance, if she complains about what happened the next time they see each other, that's the excuse I'd use if I were him. If she's worth hanging onto, she'll understand. And if she's one of those women who doesn't get the importance of fantasy football...especially now, with bye weeks and trade deadlines approaching and getting squared away for the playoffs...well, why be with her in the first place?