Big Action!

Who watches the Watchmen? Me!

Wantwantwantwantwantwantwantwantwant.

When Will the Rick-Rolling End?

G-d, I hope it never does. (Thanks be to Peter for kicking this over to us).

Vampire Empire

Have I mentioned I am a closet Twilight quasi fan?  A friend of mine calls it "vampire abstinence porn."  But for you (hopefully) blessed ignorants, just imagine a star-crossed nerdy mortal and uber-hunky, stalkerish vampire falling into an utterly predictable ZOMG squee-worthy Interview With the Vampire meets Harry Potter meets Seventeen kinda romance.  With Christian undertones. 

Anyhow, 'tis a pop culture phenom, I'll be counting down til the 4th/final book, Breaking Dawn, is published next month and MTV releases the Twilight movie come December.  (Every week there's Twilight Tuesday @ MTV.com...you know, in case you're interested.)

I was super bummed to pick up my latest EW and have the icky pic above staring at me. Not only is it fugs - why could they not have used this loverly pic? - but the interwebs are atwitter with backlash over one partic detail, summed up nicely by Defamer: Twilight Star's Hairy Chest Frightens The Tweens. (I especially like the fangirl pout "He looks like a hairy powdered donut.") Given everyone and their Dad manscapes these days, the furriness is a little baffling.  I would say "December can't come fast enough," but I love watching fandom at work.    

Monday morning Muppets

Feist-irific

Skullcrusher Mountain

We were talking about Portal last night at Casa De Gaslin, and talk turned to the song at the end. I was unaware the songwriter also wrote this, an ode to the difficulty of being a supervillain in love.

So geeky, so wrong, so funny

(origin uncertain, found on Fark.com) As Chris points out in the comments, from Chris' Invicible Super Blog, the-isb.com, great stuff.

The Milk Run

Keeping with the Michael Mann theme, I took a trip down memory lane yesterday. One night in the early days of 1985, I watched an episode of "Miami Vice" in the den. I'm thinking I was on the floor, leaning against the coffee table, my preferred position, while my dad was sitting in his chair, reading a mystery novel. My dad never just watched TV.

The episode was about two young, naive guys who fly into Miami to do one deal, make it rich. Crockett and Tubbs bust them, then use them as bait to get the bigger dealers. Things go south, but the cops protect them. Then (spoiler alert), in the last minutes of the episode, the more innocent of the two kids ... gets shot and killed in the airport going home.

This blew me away. It's the first time I can remember that a story didn't end on a happy note. And that one of the most sympathetic characters is the one who pays, which is not only the opposite of the morals we're taught in most of our stories, it was very rare on television at the time. I was just sitting there trying to absorb it.

So I'm a couple weeks before my 12th birthday when this is on, slackjawed, and my dad has looked up from his mystery novel, realizing where this episode is going. And he lets it finish, but then he says, "I don't want you watching this show anymore." That it had a relentlessly depressing worldview. He's a man of his word, I think I miss most of the early part of the series, though by the time I'm a teenager, it's back on.

Hulu.com is a great site. I found the episode yesterday, it's called "The Milk Run." I'm amused to see it's Evan Handler (with hair!) playing one of the kids and even more hilariously, it's Eric Bogosian as one of the drug dealers. But it still holds up, at least in the sense that I still want the kid to get away. And he doesn't.

People: it's a Soft Drink.

The regional pop vs soda war, now mapped out.  What do YOU call it?  Are you a product of geography?

And in case you were wondering, some of the "others": drinky winky, enamelade, soda pop, cola, fizzy juice, Friggin' Sodee Pop, corn drink, liquid diabetes. 

Ethel, Ida, Beatrice, Lisa

This chart @ NameTrends demonstrates the historic popularity of the name Lisa.  Prior to the 50s it was nonexistent; right now less than .25% of 1000 girls are blessed with given that name.  I'm pretty sure that means young people are going to snicker at my name when I'm old.

Mayrav and Brill don't chart; John, Chris, Eric and Steve are about where you'd think.  Rick, oddly enough, is not that popular a name in the larger scheme of things...but Richard is, you know, kinda up there.  Lyn(n) and Leslie actually started out as men's names - go figure! - but are obvs more popular for the girlfolk these days. 

And, in other news (as Glenn and Mayrav could surely tell us), apparently every child on the playground is named Addison, Madison, Sophia, Emma, Jacob, Joshua, Daniel or Ethan.

Born to lose tattoo

This is pretty awesome. Michael Mann apparently did a TV pilot called "Takedown" that never got picked up, but liked the script so much he turned it into a movie: "Heat," which I love. Here's the same scene, played by two TV actors -- and Robert De Niro and Al Pacino. Poor TV guys.

Fixing what ain't broke

A few weeks ago I got a curious package in the mail. It was addressed to me as an employee of Zap2it, it was kind of heavy and it came from a return address I didn't recognize.

Intrigued, I opened the box. Inside were three cans of Mountain Dew -- or I guess I should say "Mountain Dew." They're three new flavors, which go by the names of Voltage, Supernova and Revolution, and I'm supposed to vote on which one is my favorite, so it can take up permanent residence in the soda aisle.

Except I'm not.

Your Wednesday Weird Al

How long have I got?

Let's see. Computer touch-screen table, Bolivian dictators, Felix Leiter in a dive bar, agent with a hairstyle based on Diana Rigg, car chase ...

Yes, I'm pretty sure this is gonna work.

Just When You Figured You'd Thought of Everything To Be Scared Shitless About

The most powerful atom-smasher ever built could make some bizarre discoveries, such as invisible matter or extra dimensions in space, after it is switched on in August.  But some critics fear the Large Hadron Collider could exceed physicists' wildest conjectures: Will it spawn a black hole that could swallow Earth?

Suck On That, Haters!

I was sorry to have missed KFS's arm on stage (yet again) last night, but I had a good excuse: I was busy converting someone to Righteous Babe-dom. Check it out for yourself. And no more making fun of me for liking 14-year-old girl music. (I'm looking at you, Steve.)

Oh, those wacky Gaslins...

First, Glenn gets the whole celeb-loving community in a tizzy with his ode to the bits of Angelina Jolie. Sample comment:

Yes, why are you worshoping her?? Even, Jon Bon Jovi wouldn't as he said it "if Angelina Jolie walked in I wouldn't trade (meaning his current and only wife)" And in my opinion he makes Pitt look like the pitts

This is why democracy doesn't work, people.

Next, Mayrav is apparently the subject of her own sex-tape rumor. With Verne Troyer. That's right, Mini-Me. We're told it's not true, but ... yeah, I'm gonna hurl anyway.

All those priggish bluenoses were right: the Internet is nothing but filth.

The Sinister Urge

From Defamer: File this under "films we didn't know existed": though minor details like the plot, cast, and shooting schedule are still under wraps, Rob Zombie has already released the teaser poster for his upcoming film Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Um.  Wow?  The poster had me at hello.

Tat's all, folks

I didn't realize it at first, but I married a biker chick (yes, that's real).

I hope I'll be safe at home

As a lover of language and student of its vagaries and foibles, George Carlin had no equal. For your consideration, the baseball-football bit.

Rest in peace, sir.

"As God as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly."

The writer of one of the funniest half-hours of television ever, Bill Dial, has passed away. Many thanks to Joal Ryan at E! Online for covering this, and putting a name with the laughs.

Chapter One

For those of us unlucky enough to miss Kevin's stage debut, here are the highlights. The kid's got talent. He could go places.

Clearly, I should be watching America's Got Talent

I pledge allegiance to the new Britney Spears.  Oh yeah, and he's a man (baby).

Good Charlotte

After two sad exits, a crappy summer TV season, and the cost of gas rising to a kidney and your firstborn, it's time for some really good news.

Bill Heisel and Jennifer Heiger have a new baby girl, Charlotte Ray. 8 pounds, 8 ounces, 20 inches long. Born 6/16/08. As anyone who knows the parents will attest, this is great for everyone, not just them. For anyone else, you'll have to believe me, Bill and Jennifer are the kind of people you want more of in the world.

What can I say? I'm 80

She was awesome.

Classy

It's going to be a long election.

(Original story here.)

On a related note, who wants to bet me that someone on Fox News will lose it altogether and use the n-word to describe Obama? Any takers?