See You In Hell, Krypton

It should come as no surprise that I haven't done much of anything today apart from some grocery shopping and taking a nap.
In any case, I was randomly surfing around and found a Photoshop tutorial for creating an explosing planet. It looked easy, so I figured I'd give it a shot. Once I did, it seemed obvious to me that I should make the planet green and throw a red sun in the background to make the image in question the Death of Krypton.
So there you go.

The Week That Wasn't...No, Wait. Was.

Okay, so it’s been a while since I made a proper post. I guess I’ll do a day-by-day breakdown on what you’ve missed. Or rather, what you’ve “missed.”

Tuesday:
Not much of anything. I worked, I came home, I sat around, I watched Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.

Wednesday:
I worked, and didn’t stop at the comic shop on the way home, as I had an eye appointment scheduled for Thursday evening and decided that rather than go home, sit around, then go to the eye doctor, I would stop at the comic shop, get something to eat, then go to the eye doctor.
When I got home, though, I had a voicemail from the eye doctor’s office telling me that my appointment – which had already been rescheduled from Tuesday – had to be rescheduled yet again.
Later, Scott came over for Riff Trax night. Before watching the movies – Star Wars Episode 2 and Spider-Man 3 – we went to the IHOP to get dinner. The place was filled to overflowing with old people.
Scott was wearing his “I’m Not Dead Yet” Spamalot T-shirt, and some lady said to him, “I like your shirt.” We concluded that, given her advanced age, she simply liked the sentiment expressed, and was not a Monty Python or Broadway fan.
Anyone who knows me knows that I love bacon. A lot. I love pretty much everything about bacon, to the extent that even if I had no other objections to doing so, I could never, ever, become a Jew, Muslim, or Rastafarian, simply because of the proscriptions against the eating of it. If eating bacon in and of itself will keep me out of Heaven, it’s worth it.
That being said, the bacon that I had with my meal at IHOP made my soul sad. What they gave me wasn’t bacon. It wasn’t even a pale imitation of bacon. I think the bacon that IHOP served me was what was really being described as an abomination in Leviticus.

Thursday:
I had a dentist appointment in the morning. All of the cute girls who used to work at my dentist’s office are apparently gone, though the hygienist who cleaned my teeth was kind of cute. She was also tiny, which added to her cuteness.
Naturally she was married – she made a reference to her father-in-law – though it’s hardly as though that matters, as someone who has to spend a significant amount of time looking into the horror show that is my mouth is probably the last person on earth I’d be likely to hook up with.
She seemed to be a very shy person who was desperately trying to overcome her shyness, presumably in order to be more effective in dealing with patients, and finding that her natural inclinations were winning out over her efforts to counter them. There was hesitancy to every attempt she made at friendly small talk – with most efforts to do so taking place when I was incapable of responding – and she was incredibly soft-spoken.
It was noon by the time I got out of there, so I stopped at a nearby McDonald’s to pick up lunch, where I had the following conversation with the drive-through menu board:

Menu Board: Hey there, fat fatty fat fat. Why don’t you order the Double Quarter-Pounder meal? You know you want to. Come on; it’s a half a pound of meat. That should almost be enough for your fat ass. Do it! I dare you!
Me: I accept your challenge.

In fairness, I was really damned hungry, as I hadn’t eaten much that morning as a courtesy to the person who would have to clean any food remnants out from my teeth.
For the first time in I have no idea how long, I actually ate all of my fries. I almost never do that. Like I said, I was really damned hungry.

Friday:
Though I’m not sure who did the naming, as I never saw any mention of the source in any of the e-mails about it, my company was named the 2008 Cable Operator of the Year.
In celebration of this achievement, a “block party” was held this afternoon at work.
(As of the time I’m writing this it’s still Friday)
The party was kind of like the “beer bashes” we used to have at AOL, although it was a bit more elaborate, with actual food as opposed to snacks, live music, and various events, like a sack race and a tug-of-war.
I suppose I’m just used to it from my time at AOL, but a lot of people at work were surprised by the fact that alcohol was going to be provided.
For my part, I stuck to water, as the soft drink selection consisted entirely of things that I don’t like.
It wasn’t a great day for an outdoor party, as it was overcast, windy, and a bit chilly.
Almost as soon as I stepped outside I was accosted by someone trying to recruit me for the sack race. Because, just as there is no “I” in “Team,” there is no “Jon” in “Participation,” I declined the request (and even the offer of five bucks). The person attempting to recruit me asked if I was participating in any of the other competitions, and when I said no, she asked, “How’d you manage that?” I said, “By saying no.” Evidently it’s a revolutionary concept.
A little while later I was hit up again, but remained firm in my resistance. After all, when I’m doing something as basic as merely walking or even just standing there’s a better than average chance that I’ll fall on my face. As the level of complexity of an activity increases, the odds rapidly approach 100%, and today just didn’t feel like the sort of day on which I wanted to fall on my face on wet grass in front of pretty much all of my co-workers.
After I got home I took a nap – this time waking up before it was dark out – and then ate the second half of the foot-long sub I bought yesterday.
I spent some time doing nothing in particular, then watched that show Numb3rs, and then set about writing this.

So there you have it.
There are a couple of other items of note that I should mention. On Wednesday it was two years since my dad died. I hadn’t realized that until some point late in the day when I looked at the calendar and actually noticed what day it was. It doesn’t suck any less than it did two years ago, and I actually miss him even more.
Thursday marked the one-year anniversary of my getting laid off from AOL. Not a happy memory, exactly, but ultimately things worked out better for me, so it’s not an occasion that even comes close to approaching the sadness of the day preceding it.
It’s also been two years since my friend Jon Betts went missing and/or committed suicide.
So, yeah. Not exactly a week overflowing with happy memories.
But anyway, that fills in any gaps you may have had in your knowledge of Jon’s daily life for this week.
I just recently finished reading Volume 2 of Showcase Presents: Superman Family, which reprints issues of Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane comics from the fifties, so if I can build up enough motivation to write them, over the next few days you might be seeing some posts detailing some of the Silver Age bat-shittery I encountered in the process of reading those stories. Just a head’s up to those of you who will likely be uninterested in such posts.

A Useful Guide

For those of you who are often baffled by the comic book references I sometimes make and aren't interested enough to either read up on the comics mentioned via Wikipedia or some other resource, or to actually read the comics themselves, I present this handy reference:

Single-Sentence Synopses of Popular Comics

Most of them are spot-on, but some not so much. I'm not going to tell you which are which; you can do a little research on your own if you're that interested.

Oh, Like You're Really Missing Out On Anything

I know I haven't been posting for most of the week, and today isn't going to be much of an exception, as tiredness and a bunch of TV shows piled up on my DVR are standing in the way between me and any sort of significant blog post.
I'll try to post something substantial tomorrow, but in the meantime I'm sure you'll find a way to get on with your lives.

The Real Issue

According to a news article, Ringo Starr will no longer answer his fan mail.
The real issue here is this: Ringo Starr gets fan mail?
Weird.
The whole thing - as most things do - reminds me of an episode of The Simpsons, in particular the one in which it's revealed that a young Marge gave up her dream of being an artist after writing a letter to Ringo Starr asking him if she should bother continuing to pursue her dream (which mostly consisted of painting portraits of Ringo Starr) and failing to get a response from him.
It was later revealed that he had so many piles of fan mail that it took him 20+ years to get around to answering it, and his eventual response inspired Marge to pick up the brush once again.
Of course now the result would be that Marge's dream would remain crushed due to a lack of response.
For shame, Ringo. For shame.
(Updated to add: I didn't actually read the full article before posting, but I see that it also mentions that episode of The Simpsons)

How Bizarre Indeed

Annoyingly, and for reasons that are beyond me, I’ve had the song How Bizarre stuck in my head all day.
Years ago when I first heard the song, I wasn’t paying much attention, so I misunderstood what he said when he got to the line “lions, snakes, monkeys.”
In honor of that misheard lyric, I give you the Flying Snake-Monkey:

This "Porn" Is Safe For Work (Plus: Shipwrecked!)

Nailing Your Wife Girls SPIKE.com

There used to be a dating show called Shipmates which was, essentially, Blind Date on a cruise ship.
The premise was simple: take two single people who have not previously met and put them on a cruise together and watch events unfold.
As with most dating shows, the real fun happened when the two singles proved incompatible and the audience would get a train wreck – or rather, a shipwreck – of a date to laugh at. And of course there would be more awkward and uncomfortable moments to watch because the “date” went on for multiple days and the daters were unable to simply go home, as they were out to sea.
To spice things up every so often the producers would pair an unsuspecting guy with a Penthouse Pet, and generally wackiness would ensue.
Aria Giovanni, the lonely housewife in the video clip posted above, was one such Penthouse Pet to appear on Shipmates.
The episodes featuring Pets were among the most entertaining, simply because of the way that most of the guys paired with the Pets would react.
Typically, at the start of the cruise when the introductions were made, the guy would have no idea that his date had posed for Penthouse, but eventually the Pet would reveal this information to her date.
Almost invariably after the revelation, the guy would turn into a total douchebag.
I never really understood why this was the case, though I suppose there are any number of possible reasons.
For example, maybe the guy found himself feeling threatened in some fashion. After all, I’m sure I’d feel at least a little bit awkward being on a date with a woman whose most intimate of intimates has been drooled over (or worse) by millions of other guys.
(This feeling of awkwardness, however, would not lead me to act like a douchebag.)
The “threat” aspect, I suppose, could be an assumption of sexual inadequacy (“How would I compare to other guys she’s been with who probably have monster cocks?”), or maybe a shock to some latent puritanical sensibilities.
Or maybe the fact that his date had posed nude for a magazine made the guy feel that any obligation to be nice and respectful was tossed out the window, because clearly she must be a slut, and is therefore not worthy of any sort of consideration.
(Note: this sort of thinking automatically marks you as a douchebag.)
Sometimes it seemed that the problem was one of frustration, as the Pet was not prepared to automatically get on her back, which goes back to the slut assumption (“She’ll spread her legs for anyone, but not for me?” It brings to mind an old joke: What’s the difference between a slut and a bitch? A slut will sleep with anyone; a bitch will sleep with anyone except you.).
(Again, a way of thinking that marks you as a douchebag.)
Of course, it could also be the whole “chicks dig assholes/douchebags” idea, so they assumed that the douchier they were, the better their chances of scoring with a Penthouse Pet.
And of course the question of the extent to which the “reality” of the show was scripted arises.
Whatever the cause, the effect was always the same: the guy acted like a total douche and as a result didn’t get any, which made him act like even more of a douche.
For the record, in most cases the Pets proved to be affable, friendly, and down-to-earth…until they (understandably) got disgusted with the douchiness.
Generally the douchiness took the form of digs about the Pets’ appearance, with comments like, “Wow, they must have had to do a lot of airbrushing to make you look good.”
I don’t recall the specifics of the episode featuring Aria, but I do remember that her date was of the douchey persuasion.
There were a couple of notable exceptions to this pattern. One poor bastard, who didn’t give in to douchiness, was saddled with a Pet who was, for lack of a better term, fucking goofy. And not in a cute, quirky, endearing way. Bitch was crazy.
The guy, however, remained a good sport throughout it all.
(He didn’t get any, though.)
On another occasion, the guy was a perfect gentleman throughout the cruise. Nice, respectful, courteous, and complimentary. As a result, at dinner on the second night of the cruise, the Pet he was paired with dragged him into the bathroom and fucked his brains out.
The whole thing reminds me of some words of wisdom my friend Eric once gave me for success in dealing with a particular kind of woman: Treat strippers the way you’d treat a regular woman.
In my various trips to strip clubs, I found this advice invaluable and had a lot of fun just hanging out and talking to incredibly hot naked women.
It would seem that the same idea works when applied to Penthouse Pets as well.
Of course, there was a second part to what Eric told me: Treat regular women the way you’d treat a stripper.
I’ve never been sure about that second part, even though I have seen, in life and on dating shows, the “women love assholes” effect proven true many, many times*. Hideously, soul-crushingly true.
Still, even though trying to assiduously avoid being a douchebag or an asshole, or a douchebag asshole, has yet to lead to me getting shagged rotten in a public restroom in the middle of a date, I can’t quite bring myself to give in to douchiness, or forget the lessons I’ve learned from Shipmates.
I actually found Shipmates to be a very entertaining show for the following reasons:

The dates were often catastrophically bad, and what bitter, lonely person could fail to enjoy watching people fail to connect?
The show often featured hot chicks in bikinis.
The host, Chris Hardwick, former host of MTV’s Singled Out, was a pretty funny guy.

One especially painful (and, as a result, entertaining) episode featured a couple that hit it off really well and hooked up on their first night. The next day the guy – who was several years younger than the woman – was acting like a lovesick puppy, whereas the woman had turned quite cool. During her confessional, she revealed that the previous night’s bedroom activities had not been good. She said that she didn’t want to embarrass the guy, but he was lousy in the sack and his penis was tiny. Yeah, way to not embarrass the guy by telling millions of TV viewers that he has a tiny unit. You stay classy.

*In particular, on an episode of Blind Date, the guy stated at the start that his approach to women was to be as much of an asshole as possible. On his date – with a lingerie model – it worked, as the expression goes, like a charm. He treated his date like absolute garbage, and she ate it up and asked for more, and was all over him. At the end of the date she practically begged him to come into her apartment so that she could fuck his brains out. Meanwhile, I contemplated buying a gun and blowing my brains out.

Pinder PInned To The Wall

Because Scott mentioned her the other day, I give you Lucy Pinder:



Well, I give you a picture of her. Obviously I can't actually give you Lucy Pinder. I mean, even if I could, it seems unlikely that I would. If I had Lucy Pinder to give, I'd probably keep her for myself.
Anyway, it's a picture.