Initially I had something else picked out for this edition of Random Panels, however as I was catching up on my comics reading this week I stumbled across this bit of brilliance from Wonder Woman #27. While I am not as big a fan of sound effects as some, I absolutely LOVE it when they are incorporated into the art in interesting or innovative ways and this certainly qualifies.
I also thought this would be an excellent opportunity to point out just how much I like Donna Troy's costume:
There is something about the stars being incorporated into the fabric that I really like.
This installment is brought to you by: Gail Simone, writer Aaron Lopresti, penciler Matt Ryan, inker
Thanks to Katy C and VH1 I have a couple of updates to my Animated Videos post from the 19th!
First up is Paula Abdul's "Opposites Attract" which topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart for three weeks back in February of 1990 and then went on to win a Grammy. Featuring an animated cat, MC Skat Kat, who was voiced by Bruce DeShazer and Marv Gunn, the song is about how despite their differences Paula and Mr. Kat are perfect for each other:
I have to admit that hearing this song brings back some memories as I was in high school at the time. For some reason I STRONGLY associate the first Paula Abdul song I can recall hearing, "Straight Up," with riding the bus to school in the mornings. Boy isn't that a pleasant memory? And even though the video is not animated, I thought I would go ahead and share it here just because I can and lets face it, if you were a teenage boy at the time odds are you had a thing for Paula:
Of course I was more of a Samantha Fox boy myself. I mean how could you be in the throes of puberty and NOT find this inspiring:
After all we have chains, dodgy dance moves, a lingerie clad female, suit pants that are too short; what's not to like?
Okay, back to the subject at hand: animated videos!
Katy C also reminded me of Dire Straits' immortal song "Money for Nothing." This is the one that I could not believe I forgot about! I do not really think anything else needs to be said about this classic:
This brings us to the video I only saw this past week when I made it in to the gym and was able to workout during the five minutes a day when VH1 is playing music videos rather than crapping up the universe with more quasi-reality TV shows. The video for Kanye West's "Heartless":
The rotoscoped character animation calls to mind Ralph Bakshi's work, in particular American Pop:
Of course whenever I think of Ralph Bakshi I think of his 1978 adaptation of the first half of The Lord of the Rings. One of the earliest memories I have is of my dad taking me to see that movie when we lived in Lincoln, Nebraska.
Oh well, I hope you enjoyed this rather meandering trip through some music videos. Let me know if you think of any other animated videos which are worth sharing.
While she makes the segment a little more about the stimulus package, which I think is very important, however I found her discussion about the security issue interesting. We HAVE been told that we need to worry about terrorist strikes against our infrastructure and yet there is no mass panic because, even though some people are going to be without electricity for a few weeks, this was expected. It reminded me of the Joker's speech from The Dark Knight where he talks about plans and how when things go to plan, no matter how grotesque the plan is, people don't panic. I think the example of weather-related utility failures is an even more interesting example than the ones offered up by the Joker in light of how we have been told we need to fear utility outages as a result of terrorist action.
One of my favorite parts of the inauguration ceremonies this past week was the performance of "Air and Simple Gifts" by the quartet of Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman, who are two of my favorite musicians, Anthony McGill, and Gabriela Montero.
I missed the introduction of the piece and for several days thought it was just a very inventive redux of Aaron Copland'sAppalachian Spring, which is one of my favorite pieces of classical music and arguably Copland's most recognizable composition after Rodeo: Hoe-down which was popularized by the National Cattleman's Beef Association "Beef: it's what's for dinner" commercials from several years back.
I just thought I would use this as an excuse to share one of my favorite performances of Appalachian Spring since I have not been able to get it out of my head since the inauguration. Performed by the Garfield Cadets, now just The Cadets, in 1987, the show below garnered the Garfield Cadets their fourth DCI championship in five years. I love how this arrangement states the major theme in a bold, brassy, in your face way about a minute in to the performance and then returns to that theme in a similar manner with a crescendo which begins at about 3:14 of the second video and then pays off in spades when the corps hits the power formation at 3:36. It blows me away EVERY time I listen.
For those of you who are interested this performance is available from the DCI shop on DVD. Sadly the DCI does not seem to still have their Collector's Series of CDs in print at the moment, however I found a "Cadets of the 80s" CD on Bandgeek.com which should have this performance.
If you just want some straight Aaron Copland, I think you would be challenged to find a better recording than Copland: The Music of America which was recorded by the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra. This CD is available via Amazon or, I am certain, your online music vendor of choice, or for those of you in the Houston area I encourage you to go and hit Joel's Classical Shop on Shepherd. It is one of those local gems which we should all be supporting.
Looks like I am in for a busy week both at the office and at the casa so here are some links to keep you occupied until I can get back to writing something of substance:
Now I have heard of mash-ups in the music scene (speaking of which the Best of Bootie 2008 CD is available for download here) and with movie trailers and the like, however I have NEVER heard of taking, oh, for example, a classic video game and a classic rock band, throwing them in the proverbial blender and seeing what comes out the other side but that is EXACTLY what the kids over at Shitbagz.com did. Taking the awesome that is Asteroids, a video game which I can still spend hours sucking at, and the awesome that is Van Halen, and I mean Dave "I'm Just a Gigolo" Lee Roth Van Halen and not the crap fest that was Sammy Hagar Van Halen, they have come up with Assteroidz - The Diamond Dave edition. There is really nothing else to say except go forth and play before, as Wil says, some asshat with no sense of humor serves the creators with a cease and desist.
While we are on the comics tip, check out this promotional clip for the soon to be taking over the world Watchmen:
I will cop to being far more excited about this movie than I should be considering I only JUST got around to reading the comics last year. So far everything I have seen and heard coming from the production crew on this movie does nothing but make me more excited to see this movie. As for it being THE unfilmable comic book? Well personally I do not buy the idea of a work being unfilmable since the very act of adapting a novel/comic/doodle in to a movie transforms the work in to something completely different. Of course there are going to be people who think Zack Snyder has failed or has done something wrong, however I am looking forward to seeing this movie and my desire to see it is divorced from whether I like the comic or not.
This installment of Random Panels comes from Birds of Prey issue #124 "Smile for the Birdie." Written by Tony Bedard Pencilled by Claude St. Aubin Inked by John Floyd
So I have spent most of the evening catching up on my watching of the television, knocking out episodes of Chuck, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and Smallville while doing some LONG overdue maintenance on my inline skates. (ABEC-9s BITCHES!) I wanted to jot down a quick note on a moment from the 11th episode of the season, "Legion" which I believe may be a contender for F*@% YEAH status. (For more on what may constitute a F*@% YEAH moment, please consult this link and this link.) The moment starts at about the 4:15 minute mark of this clip:
Now I have to admit that I am enough of a fanboy to think that there have been a lot of cool moments in the Smallville series. I think my two favorites are the line in 5th episode of season 4, "Run," where Bart Allen says, "See if there is anyone else out there like us, maybe start, like, a club or a league or something," and the moment in the 17th episode of the 2nd season, "Rosetta," when they introduced Christopher Reeve as Dr. Virgil Swann.
For those of you who are not familiar with DC comics, Bart Allen is a kid from the 30th century who was sent back in time to Wally West who, at the time, was The Flash. Bart eventually became The Flash after Wally West disappeared with his family during the events of Infinite Crisis and is then killed by the Rogues in the final issue of The Flash: The Fastest Man Alive miniseries. Now that I have over explained that, the reason Bart, or in this case the person who we can assume one day becomes the Flash, saying something about forming a club or a league to Clark is because both Superman and The Flash are founding members of the Justice League of America. (The other original members were Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Aquaman, and the Martian Manhunter.)
Now if I really have to explain why the introduction of Christopher Reeve was a F*@% YEAH moment, then you are clearly an idiot. I feel it is safe to say that for my generation Christopher Reeve IS Superman. In addition to Christopher Reeve's mere presence, the music in the scene starts to incorporate the theme penned by John Williams for the Superman movie. Through the scene the theme appears in the background, mostly on woodwinds if I am not mistaken, and then, just before the commercial break, it builds to a trumpet fanfare of that theme. Again I feel safe in saying that John Williams' theme for the movie helped define Superman for my generation.
Now I have a much harder time explaining, even to myself, why I think the reveal of the members of the Legion of Superheroes in "Legion" was so cool. I have never read a lot of the Legion books, although I am trying to complete my run of the Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning run which began with the Legion Lost miniseries in 2000. The Legion is something I have always thought was an EXCELLENT concept however the execution often lacked the cool factor one would want from a legion of superheroes. Originally introduced in 1958's Adventure Comics #247 when Legion memebers Saturn Girl, Lightning Boy, and Cosmic Boy travelled back in time to recruit Superboy, who was the initial inspiration for the Legion. The Legion proved to be so popular that rather than just being a one-off encounter, they started to appear in more and more stories. They became a regular feature in Adventure Comics #300 sharing space with solo Superboy stories until they displaced him entirely some years later. Of course in time the Legion was replaced, relegated to the D-list for some time until 1973 when they started receiving front cover billing once again when Superboy became Superboy starring the Legion of Super-Heroes and then, in 1980, Superboy was dropped from the title and theLegion finally had their own, self-titled book.
As I said, I really can not point to one reason why I like the reveal so much. Part of it is because I am a HUGE geek and I appreciate that the first three Legionnaires we get to meet are the original three from Adventure Comics #247. Another part of it is that as much as I will complain about how interconnected comics have become, something which can make it challenging for new readers to jump in to the mix, I do like that these things take place in a larger universe. One final reason is that for some inexplicable reason I really like the Legion's flight ring and totally want one of my own.
You can currently watch the entire "Legion" episode here on the CW's website, however since this is the only full episode they have up for Smallville, I expect that it may not be up for long.
And one final note, which is apropos of nothing, Kristen Kreuk as Lana Lang is H-O-T in this episode. As much as I love Allison Mack, I might have cheated on her a little in my mind during this episode. Sorry Allison!
Despite being slightly more obscure, for some reason the video for Matthew Sweet's 1991 hit "Girlfriend," from the album by the same name, was the first song to occur to me when I thought up this little project.
I suspect this has to do with the animation used for the video itself; that is to say due to my love for anime, this video's use of animation from Space Adventure Cobra is more significant to me and thus more memorable. We were still four years away from the domestic release of Sailor Moon, which I consider the watershed moment for anime in the United States, and while one could find anime if one knew where to look in 1991, it was still very unusual to see anime or anime-influenced materials out in the wild that were not already familiar shows such as Robotech, Speed Racer, Battle of the Planets, and so on. On top of that, it is around this time period that I started to pay more attention to popular music, having been forbidden to listen to "the Devil's music," a restriction that seems kind of strange considering how big a fan of ABBA my mother happens to be, and Matthew Sweet's sound was distinctive enough to stand out from the other crap being played on the Top 40 radio stations to which I was listening. Hell, I still love that album almost twenty years later.
I do not know what to say about the A-ha video that has not already been said by people far more knowledgable than I. The amalgation of animation and live-action was groundbreaking in 1985 and, aside from the TRAGIC style choices, is still a very cool video today.
After ruminating on this for a couple of hours, the only other animated video I could think of is the video for "Fell In Love With a Girl" by the White Stripes. I do not know why this did not occur to me sooner as it combines a pretty decent song, which is now stuck in my head, with Lego and I LOVE Lego.
And that is it, kids. I am SURE there are some animated music videos out there that I am missing. Probably some REALLY obvious ones. If you guys can think of videos I missed, leave 'em in the comments and I will do a follow-up post here in a week or two.
I am guessing that the combination of having my sex, male, and relationship status, single, is what drives the almost constant parade of "score dates now!!!" ads with pictures of rather well endowed young women on the right side of the Facebook display. I am willing to suffer through this as they eye-candy is about as good as it gets during the work day, although I have always been a little suspicious of whether the hotties advertised are actually available through the various sites which pimp "Hot Christian Girls," which lets face it EVERY guy reads as "Yummy Catholic School Girls-R-Us" (or is that just me?). They are a little TOO pretty and a little TOO busty for me to believe.
Now I finally have proof that my suspicious were not completely unfounded as this series of pictures appeared on my Facebook page just an hour ago:
Take a look at the girl in the center photograph. Before anything else I have to say that I would LOVE to date a chick who could pull off a form-fitting garment with such, well, curvaliciousness, and I do like the short hair, but she might look familiar to a few of you out there. No? Perhaps this picture will help you out:
Still drawing a blank? Fine, hows about this picture:
Yeah, according to the Facebook advert, the H-O-T-N-E-S-S that is Jolene Blalock, who played the Vulcan T'Pol in Enterprise, is single and Christian. I can't speak to the Christian bit; however I am pretty sure she is still married to her music exec husband, Michael Rapino. (If not, she is welcome to give me a call. I am youngish, available, willing to be a happy house-husband and I TOTALLY make her look even hotter by comparison.
I was thinking of writing something about the attractiveness of dating a Vulcan here, but when I had it done it just made me sound kind of pathetic so I think I will just leave well enough alone; although there is something attractive about dating a girl who isn't going to get all emotional on your ass.
Here is some random stuff I have stumbled across in the past week that I thought you kids might find interesting.
Wil pointed us all to the FLICKR group Growing Up Star Wars where one can add their pictures of Star Wars related shenanigans. Original triology only, please. The person who posts the first Jar Jar Binks will be summarily executed.
One of the cats over at the Star Trek Phase 2 forum pointed out these Trek motivational posters. While on the whole they are not as amusing as these motivational posters and a bit flatulence-centric even for my tastes (and that is saying something), this one, this one, and this one had me laughing till I cried. Of course here is my entry in to the realm of Star Trek motivational posters:
Then there is this bit of genius from Terry over at Bent Objects. I keep meaning to write about how much I LOVE his art but thing like YouTube and the Google machine keep distracting me. Bastards! Personally I am looking forward to his forthcoming book and have a no longer secret desire to commission the topper for my wedding cake from this guy.
Nikki shared this bit from YouTube which, I feel, truly demonstrates how I approach humor. About two minutes in this thing gets old but then by the end of the clip I found myself laughing so hard I almost peed myself:
And then, courtesy of Kevin, there is this video from Rex The Dog:
I really like the low tech approach to what a song which is some where on the borderlands of electronica. This also reminded me of what a friend once told me when I was pitching a stop-motion animation idea his way: "Stop-motion is something you do when your girlfriend has dropped your ass and all you can do is lock yourself in a room for six months. Normal people can't do it."
An item which is completely unrelated to anything else here. It just came to my attention that South Korea has a Ministry of Knowledge Economy. I cannot decide whether this sounds deliciously Orwellian or deliciously Stalinist, however I love the name and this it is tasty either way.
Someone should buy me this to go with my little Takeda Shingen helmet I bought when I was in Japan. Ever since I read The Samurai's Tale by Erik Christian Haugaard I have been fascinated by Japan, samurai culture, and specifically the rise and fall of Takeda Shingen. Heck, my favorite Kurosawa film, Kagemusha, deals with the aftermath of Takeda Shingen's death. If you have even the tiniest of desires to check out either the book or the movie, I can unreservedly recommend both of them and I'll let you in on a little secret; they both make me cry.
A couple of weeks ago Danny Choo of Tokyo Dance Trooper fame made a post titled "Tokyo Photo Walk 3" to his blog however since his blog is blocked by the Websense firewall at work, I only just got around to reading this post. While I love the pictures and am jealous of his mad night-photog skillz, it is the text which really spoke to me. In the text he talks about fear and not letting fear limit you, something that I struggle with every day. You ought to bop on over there and check it out. Of course clearly the guy who can do this has no fear:
Okay, I have watched this more than once since it popped up on the net and I just noticed something. After the Shibuya 109 title, right at the 1:10 mark of the video, watch the couple entering from the right of the screen. On one foot the guy has a normal shoe and but WTF is on his right foot? Also I have totally been to Hachiko crossing!
Thanks for the encouraging words and dance moves Danny!
Since I am going to spend this evening at Murder By the Book checking out the talk and signing by Tim Maleeny, whose debut novel Stealing the Dragon I HIGHLY recommend, I thought I would leave you kids with this:
I do not know how in the Hell I have not posted this before now, however for the one person who reads the Opiate who might not have seen this (Hi Mom!) here it is in all of its nerd-tastic glory.
My original plan for today was to write about my plans for the year, specifically my writing plans, however I just had a phone interview for a job I *REALLY* want and I think I seriously tanked it so I am going to write about that instead.
First let me say that I HATE HATE HATE phone interviews. I like to think of myself as a pretty good interviewer, however over the phone it is very difficult to get a read on the interviewer. In this specific case every time I would finish an answer there was, what seemed to me, a long pause before the guy asked his next question. If we were in the same room I would be able to tell if he actually expected more of an answer from me or was using the time to formulate his next question. In addition I cannot tell how I am playing to the crowd, as it were.
The long pauses after my responses to his questions were not the worst part. At one point he asked what I saw as the greatest risk involved in producing electronic documents, or ESI in the parlance of the courts, and my answer was perhaps the worst answer I could have given. Part of me just watched in horror as I totally went off the rails and gave three mostly contradictory answers. There were words coming out of my mouth and I just couldn't get them to stop. Fuck, I couldn't get them to stop. It was like I had never considered the question before but I have. The risks involved in producing ESI, actually minimizing those risks, is one of the central things I do in my current job. I was so horrified at my answer that I wanted to call him back, apologize for freezing under pressure and give him my real answer. Now it is all I can think about. GAH!
My real answer, for the curious, is that in my view the largest risk with producing electronic documents in native format is that you will end up producing metadata which will be harmful to your case but somehow slipped through the review process without being noticed. This metadata would most likely take the form of tracked changes in a document. When the reviewer reviewed the document the tracked changes were not marked as being on and therefore the reviewer just viewed the final version of the document. When the document arrives at opposing counsel they notice that the tracked changes are available to view and, wisely, take a look at them. There is actually a recent case, White v. Gaceland Coll. Ctr. for Prof'l Dev. & Lifelong Learning Inc., where this very instance could have taken place. The plaintiff claimed that she was terminated in violation of the Family Medical Leave Act and, if I recall properly as I do not have my notes on the case in front of me as I write this, that there was a change made in a job description, or something like that, and that the timing of this change was important to the case. In this case it is very easy for me to envision an instance where her allegations are true however the paralegal who is reviewing the job description documents, which are kept in Microsoft Word for sake of argument, is reviewing them in Summation. The paralegal can either opt to view the document via the Summation edoc viewer (which in my opinion is a pretty piss-poor tool for native review) or via the CTRL+L option which will launch the document in its native application, in this case Microsoft Word. In the case of Summation's edoc review tool, as far as I know, there is no indication that the document has tracked changes embedded in the document therefore should the paralegal review here, and I know plenty that do, the document would be marked as relevant and as it is most likely not subject to any sort of privilege, it would eventually be produced with the metadata intact and NEVER reviewed. When it comes to trial the plaintiff's counsel, if they have caught the tracked changes, can then take apart a witness on the stand or, if the tracked changes are that central to the case, perhaps force a settlement.
Oh well, now that I have said what I really think, I think I am going to go eat my salad and sack out. No real update from me tomorrow evening as I will be at a book signing, however on Saturday I think I will post my plans for 2009.
One of the Christmas "traditions" that has cropped up in my family over the past decade is that books make up the VAST majority of the gifts my father gives me. This year the haul included My Boring Ass Life* by Kevin Smith, Homemade Hollywood by Clive Young, Her Majesty's Spymaster by Stephen Budiansky, How Fiction Works by yours truly**, and, finally, Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman. Despite having plowed through, and enjoyed, the first three books on the list, as well as Rivals by Bill Emmott which I HIGHLY recommend, it is the final book in this list which has really grabbed my attention.
Amusing Ourselves to Death, whose subtitle is "Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business," was originally published back in 1985. Initially when I put the book on my Amazon wish list, from whence my dad did his Christmas shopping this year about two days before I cleaned it up and added a bunch of stuff, I had no idea it had been written over two decades ago. As I read the forward to the book, which I have reproduced below, I was chilled:
We were keeping our eye on 1984. When the year came and the prophecy didn't, thoughtful Americans sang softly in praise of themselves. The roots of liberal democracy had held. Wherever else the terror had happened, we, at least, had not been visited by Orwellian nightmares.
But we had forgotten that alongside Orwell's dark vision, there was another - slightly older, slightly less well known, equally chilling: Aldus Huxley's Brave New World. Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.
What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions." In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.
This book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right.
As a consumer of HUGE quantities of media from books to movies to television, in fact Countdown with Keith Olbermann is on in the background as I write this, I find this line of reasoning rather chilling even if it goes along with something I have been thinking for some time. In essence I have felt, and may have complained about it on this blog, that for some time the public discourse in America had become painfully shrill, quite frankly was no longer civil. Of course as an alpha consumer of media I am complicit in the very thing which I decry, however I think the need to feed the 24 hour news cycle combined with the blurring of the lines between news and entertainment and the fact that the media treats consumers as though they have the attention span of a gnat has had a very negative effect on our public discourse. I am interested to see what Mister Postman has to say about this and even more interested to see what his take on it was while CNN and Headline News, then called CNN2, were still in their infancy.
Just thought I would let you guys know where my head is at in case there is a rash of meditations on modern media that end up being posted here over the next little while. I would also encourage EVERYONE out there to check this book out, despite only being about 20 pages in. I think Mr. Postman's voice and ideas are important for those of us living in the media circus world in which we live.
* This book continues my habit of buying books which consist of little more than blog posts dressed up to go to the Prom. Part of this stems from the slim hope that karmic payback might be in the offing and I can score a publishing deal at some point for all these random rantings of mine (I know I won't, but I can dream, can't I?) however the majority of the reason I continue to buy books which contain things I have already read for free on the internet is because these guys can just plain WRITE. Of particular interest in this volume is the nine-part series "Me and My Shadow" which, in the space of around 70 pages, chronicles Kevin's experiences with Jason Mewes' drug addiction. Check it out.
I can not remember which one of the multitude of role-playing games had the concept of instant karma. I believe it was the first edition of Shadowrun, however please do not hold me to that. In the game karma points are used to reward players for completing the adventure, good role-playing, and the like. These karma points could then be spent to improve the character or, in the case of instant karma, they could be spent during the course of the adventure to affect outcomes by either adding to the result of a die-roll or allowing the player to re-roll the attempt.
Sunday I got to see what I can only classify as instant karma in action.
I was hauling my butt over to Best Buy in order to engage in a little retail therapy. They were having a sale on a couple of DVD sets I wanted to buy (the 7th season of Smallville and the 1st season of Chuck) and, after thoroughly enjoying my weekend at Oni-con and finding myself laughing out loud at the first episode of Ouran High School Host Club (which can be viewed for free on the Funimation website), I decided it was time to delve back into anime and with the demise of Planet Anime, Best Buy seemed like the best place to go. It was with these thoughts of commerce in mind that I headed out. I generally do not use the freeways unless I am under a serious time constraint or my objective is truly the other side of town. This is not done out of a desire to avoid traffic or anything but rather because I really enjoy driving through the neighborhoods and shopping districts that are around my house. On this particular day I decided to take Binz/Bissonnet down to Buffalo Speedway before cutting over to Richmond. As I was heading up Buffalo Speedway and crossing the south-bound feeder for 59 some douche bag in a jacked-up pickup truck turned from the feeder onto Buffalo Speedway, cutting across two or three lanes of traffic and cutting me off, causing me to have to hop on the brakes.
At about the same time I hopped on the brakes, I hopped on the horn and gave the aforementioned douche bag The Bird.
Douchebaggins, as we shall now call this person, stomped on the gas and accelerated away from me, only to get caught at the light at Richmond where, as fate would have it, we were both turning left. My favorite cock-hobbit once again swung across all the lanes of traffic in order to beat everyone (read: no one) in to the far right lane. As we approached the light at Edloe, El SkiDouche was pulling the douchiest of maneuvers and riding in two lanes. Apparently unsatisfied with just the far right lane he felt the need to ride MOSTLY in his lane and a little in the lane to his left. There was a little swerving involved here as well which, had the vehicle in question NOT been a lifted-to-the-heavens truck, might have indicated the driver was trying to decide whether to stay in the right lane and get stuck in the line of traffic which was waiting at the red light or get in the left lane and skip around said traffic.
I could only watch in amusement as Herr Doktor Douche (of the Long Island Douches, I believe) started to slow just an INSTANT before he slammed in to the rear end of a car waiting at the red light. As I drove past, three lanes to the left, I saw bits and pieces of lights and bumpers spread across the ground and the douche shaking his head after it bounced off the airbag which had, I can only think, violently deployed and pimp slapped him into wakefulness/sobriety.
Now I can not tell you the number of times I have been driving, seen some no talent ass clown driving like this and wished that I was some sort of undercover or off-duty cop so I could drop a little bit of F-U into their lives for being a bad person and in my impotent rage I often think of how nice it would be to see this person get theirs, as it were but this is the only time I can think of where I have had the honor AND privilege to see karma in action*. Only later did two very important things occur to me. First, while karma might have gotten El Douche, the person/s in the other car may have just been innocent bystanders AND odds are that the truck did FAR more damage to the car than the car did to the truck. Second, by relishing the moment I am just tempting fate and that cannot be a good thing. Oh well.
* I have heard a couple of very good stories about karmic payback being a bitch, one of which involves this guy, V, his tent, a friend of mine who shall remain nameless and a WILDLY inappropriate menage a trios.
So the other night I was watching An Evening with Kevin Smith 2: Evening Harder and then the guy pictured with the mic asked, "If you were half man, half sausage which way 'round would you have it and why?"
The only reason I wanted to post this, besides being a BRILLIANT fucking question which I am going to have to unleash on someone at a Q&A (I suspect it might be Barry Eisler on his next book tour), is because of the look on this guy's face:
It struck me as being some where between "I can't believe he asked that" and "fucker stole my question." This thought amused me and I thought I would share with the world.
Some months ago it was announced that the next episode of Star Trek Phase 2 to go before the camera was going to be John Meredyth Lucas' "Kitumba" which is a Klingon-centric script which centers around the Enterprise travelling to the Klingon home system on a secret mission. You can read a very brief synopsis of the script at Memory Alpha and a much longer one in the now out-of-print Star Trek: Phase II - The Making of the Lost Series, a book which is a fascinating read even without the episode synopsis'. The production team has released the teaser poster created by Jeff Hayes of PlasmaFire Graphics and I thought I would share with you:
You can d/l an approximately 8.5X11 version of the poster here.
Initially I had something else picked out for this edition of Random Panels, however as I was catching up on my comics reading this week I stumbled across this bit of brilliance from Wonder Woman #27. While I am not as big a fan of sound effects as some, I absolutely LOVE it when they are incorporated into the art in interesting or innovative ways and this certainly qualifies.
