An Injustice To The Young

After its initial premiere in 2010, I wasn’t terribly impressed by Cartoon Network’s Young Justice.
At least, not when compared to such other classic animated adaptations of DC Comics material such as Batman:  The Animated Series, or Justice League Unlimited.
Still, as a pastiche of the long-canceled comic from which it takes its name, and some of the teen hero comics that preceded and succeeded YJ, such as The New Teen Titans, and the pre-New 52 Teen Titans, it had potential, and there was much about it that I liked, so, when episodes began to air on a regularly-scheduled basis, I set the DVR to catch them.
Over time, the show grew on me, and while it’s still no Justice League Unlimited – which managed to actually overtake B:  TAS as my favorite animated DCU series – in the second half of the first season, and now in its second season, I’ve come to enjoy the show a great deal.
Certainly I enjoy it more than its “DC Nation” programming block companion, Green Lantern:  The Animated Series, which is watchable, but largely uninspiring.
One aspect that really surprised me was the bold move the producers made with the launch of the second season, which involved jumping forward five years in time – which is actually a nod to the One Year Later approach that DC took with all of its comics in the wake of Infinite Crisis, and to the Five Years Later era of the Legion of Super-Heroes.
Indeed, many of the new characters introduced in the second season were characters who first appeared in OYL issues of Teen Titans.
Jumping ahead in time actually provides a lot of narrative potential for the season-long Invasion storyline, as we slowly learn how the changes to the status quo came about, discovering the origins of the new characters, how the existing characters have become the people they are now, and where some of the characters from the first season who have so far been missing in action have gotten to (there was a very interesting development in the most recent episode on that latter point).
All along there have been some very nice touches, such as an exchange between Wonder Woman and Batman in which – a, quite frankly, rather bitchy – WW finds fault with Batman for putting a child – Robin – in harm’s way:

Batman:  Robin needed to bring the man who murdered his parents to justice.
Wonder Woman:  So that he could turn out like you?
Batman:  So that he wouldn’t.

Five years later, with the Season 2 introduction of Wonder Girl, we see that WW has changed her thinking on the subject of teen sidekicks, which actually led to an entertaining scene in the most recent episode, as WG gushes over her mentor’s badassery.

Wonder Woman:  Let’s have less fangirl, and more Wonder Girl.

What really sells the scene is the quiet, sly smile of pride that crosses Wonder Woman’s lips as her protégé proceeds to engage in some badassery of her own.
Still, despite the many things I do enjoy about the show – including the fact that there have been episodes written by Peter David, who wrote the original Young Justice comic – there are some elements that keep me from enjoying it as much as I could.
My primary complaint is with the voice casting.  Overall, I’m largely unimpressed by the voice work.  Not that any of them are particularly bad voice actors, but some of the voices are just…annoying.  The nerdy lisp of Robin/Nightwing is extremely off-putting.  The actress providing the voice of Artemis – who has so far been absent this season – is grating and painful to listen to; it’s as though she starts out her day by gargling broken glass.
Beyond that, with the exception of Bruce Greenwood, who, while no Kevin Conroy, provides a solid voice for Batman, most of the voices are sort of generic, the kind of voices you hear in pretty much every animated series.
Bear in mind that it’s not my intent to disparage the work of voice actors in general, or even these voice actors specifically, but the point is that none of the voices stand out in any way except in those instances in which they stand out in a negative fashion.
The other thing that has been something of a sticking point for me – and for a lot of others, based on comments I’ve seen on the Internet – is the use of catchphrases and character quirks that the show insists on sticking with, despite the fact that no one watching actually enjoys them.
The people behind the show are clearly aware of the issue, as they have made some attempts at downplaying these aspects as the show has progressed, but they haven’t eliminated them entirely.
One example that bothered me a lot in Season 1 was the way – presumably in some attempt to psych out his opponents – Robin would let out this odd little giggle while remaining out of his enemy’s field of view.  I don’t think anyone has ever been intimidated by someone hiding and giggling.
The other Robin quirk that proved annoying was the way he would engage in wordplay using words that had prefixes such as “over” or “non.”  “Are you feeling whelmed?  You definitely look whelmed.”  “Are people ever chalant?”
The biggest offender, though, is Miss Martian, who, in her alter ego, goes by the human name Megan.  Her catchphrase of “Hello Megan!” whenever she remembers something, or realizes that she’s made a mistake, got really annoying, really fast, and while there was a very solid payoff in the episode that revealed the origin of that character tick, it remains a point of irritation for me.
That they’re continuing with the catchphrases this season – Beast Boy’s continual use of “Noted” is already starting to make my blood boil – has done a lot to mar what has otherwise been an entertaining and engaging half hour of television.
Still, those complaints aside – which seem like minor nitpicks, but in the aggregate add up to a great deal of annoyance – I do, clearly, enjoy the show, and I’m looking forward to watching the Invasion unfold throughout the course of this season.

Stray Observations

Not Feeling It...Oh, Wait:
I watched the latest episode of Young Justice tonight, a show that has been kind of uneven so far. Overall, I like it, but there are a lot of little things that bother me about it. With tonight's episode, right off the bat I wasn't feeling it, mostly because I really didn't like the show's interpretation of Madame Xanadu.
But then it almost immediately won me over with the fantastic interpretaion of Kent Nelson (wonderfully voiced by Ed Asner).
Favorite episode so far.

That Was Really Good:
A couple of weeks ago the latest Dark Horse collection of Savage Sword of Conan (Volume 9, to be precise) appeared in my stack of comics when I went to the comic shop. I just finished reading it and found that there were a lot of great stories in it (and, as is always the case, some so-so stories and just plain bad stories), some of which I'd read back in the days when I was buying the original magazine on an irregular basis, but most of which were new to me.
In particular, the last story in the collection, from issue 102, was really, really good.
So good that I was even able to overlook the whole "The real magic was inside you the whole time!" cliché that served as the story's denouement.
The story was set, as many of the SSoC stories were, during a period in Conan's life in which he was the chieftain of a tribe of Zuagirs, roving bands of desert bandits. Ever the rebel, Conan's band had been ignoring the informal rules that exist amongst the various tribes, often performing raids on other tribes.
The story starts out with one such tribe raiding a village, rounding up all of the valuables - and the women - preparing to execute all of the survivors - except the women, of course - and setting the whole place ablaze.
In rides Conan and his tribe to lay waste to the raiders and send its chieftain and his lieutenants fleeing for their lives. On Conan's orders, his bandits then get to work on putting out the fires, freeing the women, providing medical care to the survivors, and returning most of the stolen property to its rightful owners, claiming only half of what the first tribe would have taken from only the wealthiest of merchants. Sure, Conan's got a big heart, but he still needs to make some profit.
Naturally - as is often the case during the Zuagir periods - Conan's second-in-command is eager to displace Conan and take over the tribe for himself. And to also take over the woman who's been keeping Conan company in his tent at night.
Meanwhile, the chieftains of the other tribes are meeting with the "Chieftain of Chieftains" to demand that something be done about this bronze-skinned, iron-thewed outlander who's been causing so much trouble and has been farting in their general direction. The Big Kahuna agrees that something must be done, but that they can't just outright kill Conan, they have to destroy his reputation, since many of the villages in the area have come to regard him as something of a hero.
(Meanwhile, Conan's second-in-command has been unsuccessfully putting the moves on the lovely Katia, Conan's tentmate)
The Big Boss and his retinue ride off to some sort of ancient temple, which only he may enter - along with a young slave girl who knows that this isn't a place she wants to be - and makes an appeal to the priestess who dwells there. In exchange for the girl, she agrees to help him with the Conan problem, with the aid of her Iron Lions - big guys wearing masks that make them look like lions. As the Boss Man hurries out, he thinks about all of the depraved and cruel things he's done in his life and how they pale in comparison to what's going to happen to the girl he left behind...
Later that night, as Conan and Katia have the tent a-rockin', the Iron Lions come a-knockin', and manage to subdue Conan and haul him to the temple. The priestess then casts some sort of spell on Conan and tells him that he "shall never wield a sword again!" as an odd symbol is burned directly into his brain.
Sometime later, a weary, bedraggled Conan makes his way back to his camp, where his second-in-command has decided that he's now first-in-command. Liking the taste of power - and the notion of having Katia at his beck-and-call - he challenges Conan to a fight for leadership. Conan is unarmed, so one of his men tosses him a sword - which Conan shrinks away from in terror.
The spell has, as it's later put, "unmanned" him, filling him with complete terror at the mere thought of picking up a weapon, or even putting up a fight.
He's driven away as a coward.
Weeks pass and we find Conan living on the streets of a city as a beggar. A terribly unsuccessful beggar, given that as soon as he gets some money he is promptly mugged and, being a coward, is unable to defend himself. Even at his hungriest, he's afraid to fight with a mangy dog over a scrap of meat.
Eventually, he passes out from starvation, but is found in the nick of time by a kindly young widow and her son, who takes him in and gives him a good meal and a warm bed. She soon learns that this was a mistake, however, as in the dim light she sees the Mark of the Lion God on his forehead. It seems that the Iron Lions will kill anyone who provides aid to someone who, like Conan, wears the Mark. She even mentions that they once nearly killed her father.
Like clockwork, the Lions appear, toss Conan aside, and set to their grisly work on mother and son. Conan tries to overcome his fear and take up a sword against them, but he is overwhelmed by pain as soon as he touches the sword and is rendered unconscious.
Upon regaining consciousness, Conan declares, "May the gods forever hold me in loathing."
Back at the camp, Katia has settled in with her new man, and the tribe is happy with the results being delivered by their new chieftain, and throughout the land, it's known that Conan is nothing more than a coward.
Conan sets out from the city towards the remote home of a reclusive priest, said priest being the father and grandfather of the kind woman and her son. Conan has brought their remains to him for a proper burial, and to express his regrets over what his cowardice has wrought.
The priest doesn't blame him, as he understands the nature of what has happened to Conan. He himself has been at war with the Iron Lions for decades, and he offers to help Conan overcome the spell that he's under.
To assist him in his quest, he offers Conan a magic bow that is capable of overcoming the magic that prevents Conan from wielding a weapon, and sends him off on a quest to recover a specific flower, which will be used as part of the process for removing the Mark. Upon arriving at the required location, Conan is attacked by a giant flying serpent. After managing to evade the serpent, he comes up with a plan to trap it. Succeeding in that, he manages to shoot out both of the serpent's eyes before being separated from his bow, but the serpent's enraged flailing still poses a danger to him, and Conan takes up a rock and, with all of the barbarian savagery he can muster, finishes the job.
Upon his return, with the flower in tow, Conan and the priest are confronted by the Iron Lions, who have come to kill the priest for daring to provide aid to Conan. Conan insists that he will fight them with his magic bow, which gets a laugh out of the Lions, who take the bow away from him, tell him it's just a normal bow, break it in half, and turn to finish off the priest.
Conan says not just no, but hell no to that, and springs into action, coldcocking one of the Lions, taking his sword, and proceeding to hack them into the kind of pieces they'd intended to hack the priest into.
That's when the priest admits that the Lions weren't lyin' - it really was just a regular old bow. (The aforementioned cliché about magic, and how it's inside of you), and that Conan will note that the Mark is now gone.
A re-manned Conan then makes his way back to the camp, heads for his old tent, is greeted by Katia, who talks about being so glad that her "beloved" has returned. Conan kicks her to the curb, beats the living shit out of his former second-in-command - or, as Conan called him, the "Sniveling son of a jackal bitch!" - and then, when praised by his former tribe, he tells them that they're all scum, and rides off.
The only unsatisfying aspect of the story is that he never gets around to dealing with the priestess who marked him, but given the rest of the story, I'm willing to give that a pass. After all, it may be that it's something that writer Michael Fleisher dealt with in a later story, or at least intended to deal with, as the non-serial nature of SSoC meant that some extended story arcs took years to complete, and in many cases, for many reasons, never actually did get completed.
The tl;dr version: Conan gets cursed to be a coward, then overcomes the curse and kicks ass.
But anyway, I really liked that story.

These Are A Few Of My Favorite Things:
Among the many things I like about the stories in SSoC are some of the epithets Conan hurls at his enemies - such as the aforementioned "Sniveling son of a jackal bitch!" - and the various oaths and curses he throws around.
Really, I suppose you could call it The Savage Wit of Conan:

"By Morrigan and Macha!"
"Curse me for a Brythunian!"
"As sure as I'm not a Kushite."
"Crom flay me alive!"
"Some day, by Crom, some wise man is going to condescend to tell me why it is that women always have such a hard time taking no for an answer!"
"The Lords of Arallu should have warned you: never stand between a Cimmerian and booty."
"Lying dung-heap! I'll hang you by your silken locks and strop my sword on your belly if you don't tell me the whereabouts of the treasure!"
"Did you defeat them with your oaken staff, dog, or did you mearely bore them all to death?"

!!!!!!!!!!!

Edit: Apparently no browser actually likes that embed code. If it's not working, go here to see the trailer for the new season of The Venture Bros.

NSFL

This video clip of an animated version of the Garth Ennis and Amanda Conner comic The Pro - a comic I just recently learned about and bought - is really, really not safe for work, and, depending on your perspective, is probably also NSFL (Not Safe For Life).
However, like the comic it's based on, it's really funny.
(Note for Scott: It was done by the same company that does Metalocalypse)
Among the NSFW/L elements:

Really, really naughty language (consider that it was written by someone from the UK, where words that are a little more taboo here get flung about rather freely)
A depiction of oral sex
Extreme acts of violence
Peeing
More oral sex
Did I mention the language?

Embedding is disabled, but you can, if you so choose, watch it here.

Living In The Shadow Of Adam West

I woke up sometime early this morning – it was still dark out – and thought that I should roll over and look at the time, figuring that it was, as had been the case all week when I found myself in the same situation, probably five to eight minutes before my alarm was going to go off. Then I remembered that it was Saturday and promptly went back to sleep.
I ended up getting up sometime around 9:30, at which point I sat around and did nothing in particular for about 45 minutes before deciding that I should shower, dress, and head out into the world. I ended up sitting around doing nothing in particular for an additional 45 minutes.
The new cell phone I’m planning to buy was released on Tuesday, so I decided I was going to head to an AT&T store to see if it was available. In particular, I decided to go to the one at the Dulles Town Center, as I had a yen for the bourbon chicken they sell at the food court and I wanted to swing by Wal-Mart as well.
I decided that I wasn’t going to take 7 to get there, deciding instead to take the reverse of the route I usually take home from work, which meant driving through Ashburn. Once I got to Ashburn I noticed that I was low on gas, so I went to the Safeway, as with the Safeway Club Card discount gas is usually cheaper there. While I was filling up the car, the Universe decided that it wasn’t going to be stymied in its efforts to drench me with rain by the fact that I was covered overhead, so the wind whipped up and the rain went horizontal.
However, I noticed that there was an AT&T store in that plaza, so I decided I would just go there and forego the trip to the Town Center and Wal-Mart.
The AT&T store was closed when I got to it, though, and I’m assuming that it’s permanently closed, as it looked pretty abandoned.
So it was back in the car and off to the Town Center, which was positively teeming with people. They’re already doing the whole picture with Santa thing.
Making quick work of my lunch so as to get away from the filled to overflowing food court as soon as possible, I headed to the AT&T store, which, despite actually being open, looked just as abandoned as the one in Ashburn.
They didn’t have the phone, and, having no other reason to linger, I left the Town Center and headed to Best Buy to see if they had the phone or some other shiny piece of gadgetry that I could waste money on. They didn’t have either, so I went to Wal-Mart, which was even more congested than it was last Sunday.
I thought the whole economy thing meant that people don’t have any money and as a result wouldn’t be out shopping. Other peoples’ loss is supposed to be my gain in this regard, so what’s the deal?
I suppose that’s what I get for living in one of the wealthiest counties in the country.
Deciding I couldn’t take it any longer, I took off, planning to head to Super Target in Leesburg to do my grocery shopping, figuring that it probably wouldn’t be as crowded.
Along the way, though, I decided that I just wanted to go home. Still, I did need some groceries just to get through the night, so I stopped at the Shoppers in Ashburn and bought milk and bread, deciding that I really didn’t absolutely need anything else.
At different points during this overcast but fairly warm day it’s been slightly rainy, very rainy, almost sunny, and positively nasty. It decided to go the positively nasty route as I walked back to my car, and remained so for the duration of my drive home.
Once I got home, I couldn’t think of anything finer to do with my time than to take a nap, so that’s what I did.
My real world aggravation and agitation decided to follow me into the dream world, so while I slept I had a bunch of stressful dreams in which really irritating things happened. As an example, at one point I dreamed that I was driving somewhere, though I had no idea where I was headed. Deciding that wherever it was I wanted to go was in the opposite direction, I made a sharp turn into a parking lot so that I could turn around. As I tried to get back on the road, though, I found that I couldn’t shift gears and was stuck partway on the road, unable to move.
But now I’m awake – though I still feel like I’m stuck in neutral – writing this, and trying to figure out how I’m going to feed myself with just bread and milk.
Last night was largely spent dozing on the couch and watching a bunch of TV – both recorded and live.
Among the shows I watched was the new Batman cartoon on Cartoon Network, Batman: The Brave and the Bold.
The basic premise of the show is that each week Batman will team up with some other hero – or maybe even villain – from the DC Universe’s stable of characters.
Like the current Brave and the Bold comic series, the cartoon takes its name from an long-running comic.
In its earliest days B&B was simply an anthology series, featuring stories about characters like The Silent Knight, The Viking Prince, and the Suicide Squad. In fact, the Justice League of America had its debut in the pages of B&B.
However, somewhere along the line it became a team-up book, that, like the cartoon, featured Batman paired with other – usually lesser-known – DC characters.
When I was a kid, team-up books were fairly popular. In addition to B&B, DC published DC Comics Presents, which featured Superman teaming up with a different guest star every month.
On the Marvel side, there was Marvel Team-Up, which paired Spider-Man with a rotating stable of guest stars, and Marvel Two-In-One, which did the same with The Thing.
(Marvel can be forgiven for calling a book Marvel Two-In-One, as in those days porn was not nearly so ingrained into our culture.)
The current B&B comic doesn’t limit itself to Batman and..., but has an ever-changing lne-up, with pairings such as Superman and Catwoman, or Green Arrow and Deadman.
Anyway, to get back to the cartoon, as has been the trend in recent animated series based on comics, the target audience is very young children, so it’s much goofier and more light-hearted than, say, Batman: The Animated Series, or Justice League Unlimited.
However, it was not as cutesy and insultingly goofy as that abominable Teen Titans series from a few years back.
Overall the episode, despite being geared towards such a young audience, was entertaining, and at least it doesn’t go the anime route in terms of style, which is always a plus.
I was also intrigued by some of the familiar faces displayed in the opening title sequence, as it seems likely that at some point they’ll be appearing on the show to team up with Batman. I can’t help but think that, no matter the circumstances, it would be cool to see an animated version of Kamandi, the Last Boy, for example.
I’ll probably watch a few more episodes to see if it hooks me, so clearly it wasn’t as utterly off-putting as the aforementioned Teen Titans, the recently-canceled Legion cartoon, or - *sigh* - Krypto the Super-Dog.
While I’m not bothered by the light-hearted approach, I can’t help but wonder why that’s such a trend lately. I mean, what would be so wrong with doing a more straightforward and serious approach geared toward a slightly older audience?
Also, as I watched it I couldn’t help but think that despite the success of The Dark Knight, the character of Batman will never be able to get out from under the campy shadow of Adam West. The campy, pudgy shadow of Adam West.
(I will concede that he is awesome on Family Guy, though.)
Anyway, I suppose that’s more than enough to write about a kids’ cartoon.
I’m not sure what I’m going to do with what remains of my evening. I still need to eat something, but that probably won’t take long.
Maybe I’ll watch some of the R-rated Riff Trax movies that Scott can’t watch.

What's Not To Like?

Last night I went to see Hancock with Scott and – eventually; he showed up after the movie had started – Casey.
Despite how well it’s done at the box office, most of the reviews I’ve seen of the movie have been negative.
I don’t get it; the movie was extremely entertaining, and Will Smith was his usual likeable self (as was Jason Bateman), and, also as usual, Charlize Theron was hot. So what is there to bitch about?
I mean, yeah, it wasn’t some dense existential exploration of the nature of heroism and the human condition, but it had a solid plot, a lot of humor, and some great effects.
(And some amount of existential exploration of the nature of heroism and human nature thrown in for good measure.)
The high concept aspect of the movie was, I think, brilliant, and was executed much more effectively than the equally brilliant high concept behind My Super Ex-Girlfriend (which I also liked).
As a comic book geek, I’m probably biased, as I’m frankly thrilled to see Hollywood coming out with original material that puts a new twist on elements that, while not directly adapted from the comics, are at least drawn from them, without resorting to the tired old clichés that have been the hallmark of Hollywood’s treatment of comics for decades.
So, yeah, I liked it, and I don’t know what’s up with the people who panned it.
Other than seeing the movie last night, things have been pretty uneventful since my last entry.
I’ve been doing some thinking about designs for a new version of the Heroic Portraits site that can serve as an improvement in quality over what’s in place now, and as something of a placeholder until I either miraculously become skilled in Flash, or hire somehow who has the skills that I’m unlikely to miraculously develop to build a new site.
Tonight looks to involve more of the same.
Tomorrow evening I’ll be seeing Hellboy II with Scott and several other people. All I can say is “It’s about damn time!” We’ve only been waiting four damn years for a sequel.
(I will say that the direct to DVD movies that have come out in the interim have been excellent. But then I’ll add, “More of those, too, please!”)
I neglected to mention that on Saturday, after watching the awfulness that was Tribulation Force, Scott and I watched a few episodes of The Venture Bros. as sort of a tonic, or as a kind of palliative.
It did the trick.
I watched a couple more episodes after Scott left, and found my mood much improved and found myself feeling much better about the collective worth of humanity after watching Tribulation Force – which is supposed to be hopeful and inspiring – had left me with a feeling of soul-crushing hopelessness and despair for the state of the world.
My point? Despite the extreme, over-the-top, casual violence, and the deplorable, but intensely human, behavior that can be found in every episode, The Venture Bros. is better for your soul than anything related to Left Behind and the nihilistic, death-obsessed, utterly inhuman, culture that produces and consumes it.
Or, to put it another way, Go Team Venture!
Of course, now that I think about The Venture Bros. and Left Behind, I can’t help but think about how awesome it would be to see Brock Sampson beating the crap out of Buck Williams and Rayford Steele (most likely beating one with the other).
(Note to Christopher McCulloch and Doc Hammer: make it happen! Also, seriously, you need to get Bruce Campbell to guest star as Ash on an episode.)
Still, here’s the next best thing: a collection of the 10 Best Brock Beatdowns.

Why Don't Somebody TELL ME Dese T'ings?!!!

Since I've started the whole five day work week thing I haven't been up on Sunday nights watching Adult Swim, so I'm a bit out of the loop on the current programming schedule.
Earlier today when checking out Scott's fancy new "Blog Roll" gadget, I followed the link over to Polite Dissent and learned that the new season of The Venture Bros. has already started.
In fact, it's already two(!) episodes in.
Since learning that I've downloaded both episodes and enjoyed the hell out of them, and set my DVR to record.
Anyway, I was annoyed about not knowing this, but excited to learn about it, and am now mightily pleased to announce that so far the show continues to deliver.

Rain Delay

We had some snow and freezing rain overnight and into this morning, so when I got up I called the “Inclement Weather Hotline” for work and learned that we would be opening two hours late.
I thought about going back to bed, but decided instead to just take a more leisurely approach to getting ready and to take the opportunity to start my car and let it thaw out completely before heading in to work.
By the time I left the roads were merely wet, and thus easily traversable, and I was pleased to note that there was considerably less traffic than normal, so, overall, I’d have to say “Yay snow and freezing rain!”
I ended up pulling in about 45 minutes later than usual, but given that I typically get there 45 minutes early, this meant that, technically, I was on time.
Most everyone else took full advantage of the delay, and more besides, rolling in somewhere around 11, and a lot of other people clearly opted to work from home, so the place was pretty quiet all day.
I had considered working from home – opting to bring my laptop home with me yesterday rather than simply locking it up in my cabinet in my cube – but there was a meeting I was scheduled to attend at 9. I figured it wouldn’t actually happen then, given the delay, but assumed that my boss would probably reschedule it for later in the day, which he did.
Of course, after the meeting started my boss turned to me and said that I could leave, as it turned out that my involvement wasn’t required.
(He’d thought that one of the results of this meeting was going to be a document that I would have to produce, but it turned out that someone else was producing the document, which was fine by me.)
It was a pretty boring day for the most part, as I didn’t have much to do. I have a lot of projects on my plate, but for pretty much all of them I’m waiting on information from other people, and am unable to really do much until I get the information.
On Tuesday, the latest in DC Comics’ direct-to-DVD animated adaptations of classic comic storylines, Justice League: The New Frontier, will hit the shelves.
I decided I couldn’t wait that long and did a search of the newsgroups to see if an advance copy had made its way out to the public. I found several copies and downloaded one to watch last night.
(I don’t feel guilty about this in the slightest, as I’m still going to buy the DVD come Tuesday, if for no other reason than that I’m hoping that, just as Superman: Doomsday had a sneak preview of New Frontier, New Frontier will have a sneak preview of The Judas Contract, which is the one I’m really waiting for.)
I won’t post a review – I already did a write up, via e-mail, for the only regular reader who cares – but I will discuss some of the troubles I encountered in watching it.
(Okay, mini-review: it was awesome. The too-short running time meant that a lot – and I mean a lot – of the story from the comic it was based on didn’t make the cut, but the essentials were there, and the animators absolutely nailed Darwyn Cooke’s style, producing something absolutely stunning to behold. The voice work was top-notch, with only a few minor exceptions, none of which were anything close to being deal-breakers.)
I’d started to watch it on my computer, but decided that while my new monitor is big and bright, it would still look better on the HDTV.
When streaming to my Media Lounge there are some issues with audio quality, so I decided to copy the file onto my USB drive and play it back from there, as the Media Lounge has a USB input for just that purpose.
However, there were still some audio glitches, so I decided to burn a DVD.
The encoding of the DVD took forever, and then, during the actual burning process, it crapped out at 92.9%.
Finally, two and a half hours later, I was back to where I had startedand decided to just watch it on the computer, though even that wasn’t without complications, as some encoding issues with the file caused it to randomly switch from color to black and white and back again at odd intervals.
Still, it was ultimately well worth all of the trouble, and I eagerly anticipate picking up the DVD on Tuesday.

Keyword Kraziness: Kup Size Edition

I know it’s a little soon to be looking at these again, but there were a couple of search strings that I wanted to mention before my log resets itself and I lose them.

archie a racist superdickery
I’m not sure they actually cover much in the way of Archie-related stuff, but you might want to just go to Superdickery directly and take a look around.

lucy liu futurama says his name with a non robotic forum
Uh huh.

harley sings: i never knew that you and i were finished
I’ve mentioned this scene from Batman: The Animated Series in the past, and included the lyrics to the song (Say That We’re Sweethearts Again), but here’s a clip of the actual scene:


giada (bra size or cup size)
Yes, an oldie, but a goodie. I mention it only because in following the link to the search results displayed with my site stats I discovered that there is a Wiki site devoted entirely to big boobs. The site – Boobpedia (NSFW) – is a user-editable encyclopedia just like Wikipedia, except that it has a more specific purpose. Sadly, Giada is categorized under the heading “Cup Size Needed,” and her entry is simply a rehash of her Wikipedia entry, so no help there.

kirsten kemp babe
She certainly is.

threshold conpany pary
Uhh…? I’m guessing you meant Threshold Company Party. This Threshold is a blog, not a company (or conpany, for that matter), and isn’t so big on the parties, so no help for you here.

what is gia
I’m not sure what you’re asking. There’s a movie called Gia that features a young and very nude Angelina Jolie playing the role of model Gia Carangi, which rather famously includes a lesbian scene. Other than that, there are various porn stars who call themselves (or are actually named) Gia. Is it an acronym you’re looking for? If so, there is the Gemological Institute of America.

And that’s it for this edition of Keyword Kraziness.

New Frontier Trailer

'Justice League: The New Frontier' Trailer

We're Boned

I've been getting a lot of traffic from When Fangirls Attack! again, as there was a link posted to my Batman Night post, mostly, I'm assuming, due to my pictures (and accompanying captions) of my Black Canary statuette.
This inspired me to watch one of my favorite episodes of Justice League Unlimited, a Black Canary-centric episode entitled Grudge Match.
The basic premise of the episode is that Lex Luthor's team of villains, the Secret Society, has found a way to use Justice League comm links as mind control devices and is using them to make various female League members fight each other in an arena, making a tidy profit off of bets placed on the outcome of the matches.
The Huntress tumbles onto the scheme, and manages to free Black Canary from their control. The two heroines are promplty caught and thrown into the arena. Not to fight each other, but to instead fight two other powerful female Leaguers, Hawkgirl and Vixen. They manage to shake Vixen and Hawkgirl free of the control, but they're not out of the woods yet, as Roulette, the villainess behind the arena scheme, has an ace up her sleeve:



Vixen appears to be a woman after my own heart - I would say the exact same thing to Hawkgirl ("Keep her busy so I can take her from behind!").
My perviness aside, what I love most about this episode is when the four Leaguers see who they're up against and shrink back in the realization that they're boned.
(I also love an earlier scene in which Huntress is watching Canary, who is off her game due to the fact that, unbeknownst to her, when she's supposed to be sleeping she's actually off wailing on her teammates in the arena, is getting creamed by some thug she's trying to take down. Huntress steps in and takes him out with a garbage can lid. As Canary is securing him, Huntress asks, "What did he do, anyway?" Canary quietly replies, "He stole a wallet." Huntress' response is perfect. "Shut up! You got creamed by a pickpocket?")
The more observant among you may note the number of voices provided by actresses who appeared in some of Joss Whedon's projects, such as Angel's Amy Acker, who provides the voice of the Huntress.
You'll also note that Black Canary is lacking her trademark - and difficult to animate - fishnets.

Leave Me Alone. Send.

I got contacted by several more recruiters over the past couple of days, which, given my situation of having to try to choose between a definite offer for a job I don't especially want and a slightly less definite offer for a job that I do want wasn't exactly helping.
It made me want to respond to them in the way that Satan responds to Lucy in this clip from Lucy The Daughter of The Devil:

Contacting Jen: Addendum

The notion of looking up Jen and contacting her brought to mind this scene from Aqua Teen Hunger Force:

Now, admittedly, I think that Carl is awesome, but I don't view him as someone whose behavior I should emulate.

Family Guy Deleted Scene

Caught this on Adult Swim last night:

Odd Dreams, Killing Time, And A Good Start

This morning found me getting up much earlier than I wanted to in order to get to an 8 AM appointment with my insurance agent.
After signing the papers and writing a check (from next year on the insurance payment will be taken out of my escrow account), I swung by McDonald’s to get some breakfast.
For some reason the McDonalds around here have been having someone actually sitting outside to take your order in the drive through, which is odd enough, but today this one also had someone outside to take your money, though you still got your change at the window.
Anyway, I got home and ate it, finding that the hotcakes on the McGriddle weren’t fully-cooked and seemed to be lacking the dollop of maple syrup that’s ordinarily mixed into the batter.
After that disappointing breakfast I said, “Screw this,” and went back to bed, where I dreamed that, in the interim between now and moving into my new apartment, I was living in an attic apartment in the home of the doctor who doesn’t grasp the concept of sleeves and his emaciated plastic wife from E!’s Dr. 90210 (I watch it every once in a while to see the before shots of the already decent-looking chicks as they stand around in their underwear to be examined before their surgeries). Some creepy old racist conspiracy nut – a friend of the family, apparently – had invaded my space while visiting my landlords. He was convinced that I was unemployed because I was home during the day, ignored my claims to the contrary, and kept suggesting places that I should apply to, ranking them based on how committed the proprietors’ were to resisting the worldwide Zionist conspiracy.
(I’ve been visiting way too many fundamentalist/conspiracy nut Web sites lately. But they’re just so good for a laugh that they’re hard to resist.)
I woke up, briefly, at one point and saw that it was 10 and decided I should get up, but then I fell asleep and went back to the same weird dream until my mother called and woke me up.
After that I did the usual sitting around until about noon, at which point I started getting hungry.
I had to go to a meeting in Dulles at 3, and I didn’t want to go somewhere for lunch (I haven’t been grocery shopping this week because I don’t see the point of loading up the fridge just to have to relocate the food), come home, and then go out again a couple of hours later, but I knew that it would be near-impossible for me to find a way to kill nearly three hours out in the world.
Still, I resolved to try.
I went to the Dulles Town Center first and had lunch in the food court (A foot-long bacon dog – take that, family history of heart disease!), and then tried to kill time walking around.
I went into the Borders Express and shook my head sadly at the ever-increasing amount of shelf-space devoted to Manga and the ever-decreasing amount of space devoted to American comics.
Of course, the first thing I’d noticed was a big book titled Human Anatomy for Artists, which I decided to grab. I browsed for a while longer, but couldn’t find anything else of interest and went to the register, where I was, eventually, greeted by a cute-ish Asian girl who asked if the book was for me or was a gift. I don’t think she actually caught my answer before moving on to asking me if I had the rewards card or whatever they call it. She then asked me if I wanted a bag, and then if I wanted her to double-bag it, as it’s a pretty weighty tome (as well-suited for whomping kids and little people as my Absolute Watchmen), and then talked about how bags always end up ripping on her, which prompted me to say that yes, in my case, double-bagging was definitely a good idea.
Now here’s where we run into one of the (innumerable) Problems of Being Jon ™.
As I said, the girl was kind of cute, and she was considerably friendlier than most service industry people I deal with, to the extent that she may have been flirting with me.
One of the Problems of Being Jon ™ is the inability to believe that someone flirting with me is something that can occur in nature. Yet another is that, if I get past that first one, I can’t tell if it’s just generic, pointless flirting that doesn’t actually mean anything or if it serves a sign of genuine interest.
For the record, I am able to easily determine when someone is flirting with me because she wants something. In fact, if I ever do decide that someone is flirting with me, and that it is not harmless, meaningless fun, that’s usually the assumption that I make.
Anyway, getting back to the girl at the bookstore, I couldn’t really tell if she was just naturally friendly and bubbly, or if it was something more, and if it was something more, if it meant anything beyond the standard, “I’m stuck here for eight hours; I might as well make the time more enjoyable by flirting with guys – even spastic dorks like this one.”
But whatever. It’s not like any of it matters anyway.
From the Town Center I went on to Wal-Mart, and then to Best Buy, where, after finding the well-hidden display where they were located, I picked up two copies of Superman: Doomsday.
After that I swung by Scott’s pod to give him his copy and kill some time before my meeting.

Excuse Me While I Geek Out Department:
I watched my Superman: Doomsday DVD shortly after I got home and I have to say it was pretty damned cool. Honestly, it’s the movie that Superman Returns should have been. Good story, some actual action, good performances by the voice actors (Adam Baldwin made a good Superman, but made an excellent twisted Superman, delivering his lines in that role with a creepy flatness and quiet menace that made you appreciate just how utterly terrifying a Superman who isn’t safely guided by his unerring moral compass could really be).
Anne Heche did not initially wow me as Lois, and I’m not entirely sure that she ever won me over, as I think that it was the overall portrayal of Lois – her dialogue, her behavior, and her skillfully animated mannerisms – that I warmed up to, making the voice almost irrelevant. Still, I do think Heche put forth a decent effort.
Speaking of creepy, James Marsters really laid on the creepiness as Lex Luthor, particularly in the unapologetically homoerotic sequence that added an interesting layer of complexity to the Superman/Luthor dynamic without being too cliché or tacked on. I don’t necessarily buy into that interpretation in general, but in this instance, it worked, in a skeevy sort of way.
And peaking of skeevy, John “Bender” Dimaggio made the Toyman into one of the skeeviest, most disturbing villains I’ve seen in a while. In the early 90’s Toyman in the comics was reinvented as a psychopathic child-killer. It was a disturbing interpretation of a classic, albeit mostly harmless, villain, but it had nothing on the interpretation of Toyman in this movie.
Toyman provided just one of the many “Holy Shit!” moments in the movie.
(There were even a couple “No Fucking Way!” moments as well.)
I really liked the style of the animation (though I question the wisdom of the whole cheekbones thing on Supes), as it had elements of some of the animated versions that have preceded it while still creating a look that was unique to this production.
The story presented in Superman: Doomsday, while following the basic plot, differed wildly from the comic storyline on which it was based, but honestly, there was no way to take that story, which had so much going on and so many intricate webs of continuity, and which was able to run for upwards of half a year, and actually fit it into a 70 minute movie without making radical changes.
So it’s not so much a question of if it would be changed, but whether or not the changes worked. And I think they did.
Overall, I think this effort bodes well for DC’s line of direct to DVD animated features and servers as an excellent start, and based on the sneak peek at Justice League: The New Frontier, the next movie in the queue, things are only looking up as we move toward the third project, The Judas Contract.
I hope that DC has many more in the pipe, and if they don’t, I would humbly suggest that they consider adapting the oft-mentioned Great Darkness Saga, Selina’s Big Score (like Frontier, a wonderful story by Darwyn Cooke, and is the story that godawful Catwoman movie should have been based on), Batman: Hush (I am so fucking kidding about that; please, please, PLEASE don’t make a Hush DVD), pretty much any one of Gail Simone’s Birds of Prey story arcs (though the one in which Black Canary trades places with Lady Shiva would be a good choice), a JSA story (maybe the relatively recent one, the name of which escapes me, in which they square off against Per Degaton as he attempts to destroy the JSA in the past), and something focusing squarely on Kirby’s Fourth World (seeing as how you’re going to be killing The New Gods off it could serve as a fitting obituary). Oh, and the first Generations story that Byrne did (the two follow-ups were okay, but that one was the best of the lot, and the one that I see as most adaptable).
But seriously; you’ve got plenty of great stories, new and old, to choose from, so keep them coming.

Two Words: Dildo Factory

So far today has been incredibly uneventful. I got up, I sat around, I made breakfast, I sat around some more, took a shower, took out the garbage, and then sat around some more.
Tomorrow I have to get up early and meet with my insurance guy, then I have a meeting in the afternoon, and of course on Wednesday I close on the house, though I’m still not sure on when I’ll be able to move in.
Taking advantage of the over the air HDTV capabilities granted me by my new antenna, I watched Anchorman last night on the HD ABC station, which probably comes in the clearest of all the stations I get, which is to say, really, really clear. I’m really impressed by the clarity, though, unrelated to that, I have to wonder about the decisions that ABC made when editing the movie for broadcast.
If you haven’t seen the movie, the following spoilery bits won’t really mean much to you because they require context to be understood, but even so, they are spoilery, so consider yourself warned.
The first odd bit was cutting out the scene of Jack Black punting the dog off the bridge. We see him pick it up, hear a splash, and then see Jack walking away from the railing after the punting had been accomplished. Later, the direct reference to the dog having been punted is left in. So mentioning the punting is okay, but actually showing it wasn’t. Probably trying to avoid pissing off PETA.
Another odd bit is that they edit out the shot of Tim Robbins cutting off Luke Wilson’s arm, but they leave in the later scene in which a bear rips off his remaining arm.
And instead of just leaving the line in and muting the “fuck,” as in “Go .... yourself, San Diego,” they actually spliced in different dialogue and had Ron, awkwardly, say “You’re a dirty bitch, San Diego.”

Good (Un)Clean Blasphemous Fun Department:
One new show on Adult Swim that has yet to disappoint has been Lucy The Daughter of The Devil, a blasphemously hilarious show focusing on a rather ambivalent young Anti-Christ, her loving, and generally befuddled father, who just happens to be the Devil, her boyfriend, a DJ who just may be the Messiah, and the crack (or rather, cracked)Vatican black ops team out to kill her.
Last night’s episode featured one of the best parodies of the “Pure Imagination” scene from Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory that I’ve seen in a long time. What made it so funny? Two words: dildo factory.
While the show would be funny enough on its own, what puts it over the top is the fact that the voice of the Devil is provided by none other than H. Jon Benjamin. It’s not a name you’re likely to know, but if you’ve ever watched an animated sit come within the last 12 years or so, you’ve probably heard him. He’s got a great voice and perfect delivery and comedic timing that ramp up the humor of pretty much any project he’s involved in; I honestly think he could read the phone book aloud and make it funnier than a good 80% of the comedy out there.
I’ll say no more, and simply link to the episode itself, but be warned, while it’s extremely funny, and sometimes strangely heartwarming, it’s also really, really offensive, even if you aren’t easily offended. But if you can get past that you’ll be in for a laugh. (My favorite scene: the Devil, tired of her constant suggestions for new dildo designs, sends Lucy an e-mail saying, simply, “Leave me alone.”)

Brock F***in' Samson

This clip from The Venture Bros. season 2 clearly demonstrates the awesomeness that is Brock Samson, the Swedish Murder Machine:

Happy Birthday, Jack!

First and foremost, happy birthday to the one and only Jack T. Chick, creator of those ubiquitous pieces of evangelical Christian fire and brimstone sermons condensed into sequential art, the world famous Chick Tract.
A Chick Tract is like an old-fashioned tent revival that you can carry in your pocket and pass on to some disgusting hobo or misguided liberal and set him on the path to righteousness.
Jack is 83 years young today and has been spreading intolerance and bigotry in the guise of “old-fashioned values” via his tracts for more than 40 years.
So here’s hoping you have a good one, Jack, and I hope that as you blow out the candles on your cake you’ll remember that there’s no amount of wishing or a breeze strong enough that can but out the flames of the Lake of Fire where Catholics, Mormons, Masons, Wiccans, Homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, fans of Harry Potter, D&D enthusiast, rock musicians, and just about everyone who doesn’t adhere to your narrow, retarded view of how life should be lived will be spending their respective eternities.
After all, isn’t that vision the best birthday present of all?
Short of the Rapture, I mean.
Oh, and Jack? You say it’s your birthday? It’s my birthday, too!
Yes, that’s right, today, as most of you know, is my birthday.
What? No, you flatter me! I’m not 20, I’m 35, though I could see how you could easily make the mistake.
…
Okay, screw you; my hair started going gray when I was 21, all right?
So far to celebrate the anniversary of my birth I’ve had breakfast with Kathleen (still trying to figure out if the 20 minutes I spent in the parking lot waiting for her to arrive were meant to be my present), talking to my mother, and taking in a matinee of Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theaters.
Apparently school is out today, because, you know, why wouldn’t it be, so I had a bunch of noisy teens to keep me company. Fortunately they weren’t too disruptive.
Not that it mattered because it’s not like the movie had any sort of plot to follow. I mean, it was Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Who expects a plot?
Still, the opening “homage” to the whole “Let’s go out to the lobby” thing was easily worth the price of admission.
From there I headed towards home trying to decide whether I wanted to stop somewhere for lunch or just go home. I picked the latter, and the Universe decide to make up for yesterday’s largesse with the green arrow by trapping me behind a dump truck for much of the drive. And not just any dump truck, a dump truck that was behind a cement truck.
It is my birthday, after all, so just an ordinary old dump truck would never do.
Thanks, Universe!
In any case, there are some things I should attend to, but I thought I’d just extend my birthday wishes to Jack, and let you know that so far I’ve spent the first day of my 35th year having a platonic breakfast with someone else’s wife and watching a cartoon with a bunch of teenagers.
Oh, and finding out that I’m probably going to be moving, but I’ll talk more about that later.

Wow

Two weeks ago Cartoon Network annoyed the (ahem) hell out of me by airing the second Hellboy Animated movie, Blood and Iron, without having advertised it sufficiently to let me (or Scott) know that it was going to be on.
I only inadvertently discovered it while flipping through the channels and finding it already well underway.
A quick search of the Media Center guide showed that there were to be no future airings within the next couple of weeks.
Fortunately, thanks to the wonders of Usenet, I didn't have to wait for the DVD release in May, and I just managed to watch a copy I downloaded.
Wow.
I was duly impressed by the first movie, Sword of Storms, thanks in no small part to the involvement of Hellboy creator, the supremely talented Mike Mignola, and the director of 2004's live-action Hellboy movie, Guillermo Del Toro, and to the fact that many of the live-action movie's cast members reprised their roles to provide voice for the characters.
Sword of Storms was a fun, action-packed romp, that brought several classic scenes from the comic to (animated) life.
It was great stuff.
Blood and Iron, however, while retaining the action and the appropriate sense of humor, really ratcheted up the intensity and the horror, delivering a movie that was genuinely creepy and disturbing (but still fun). I'll admit it: I had to turn the lights on while I was watching it.
So yeah. Hellboy Animated: Blood and Iron. Check it out when it comes out on DVD.
And people behind Hellboy Animated? Keep the movies coming. They're just what I need to tide me over until we finally get the live-action sequel in 2008.

Crazy Money-Spending Fool

I got a call this morning telling me that my taxes were ready to be sent out and that I had to stop in to pay for them and sign some stuff, so I sat around for a bit, showered, dressed, drove over to H&R Block, paid for them ($161…yikes. Good thing I’m getting a lot of money in my refund.), then headed off to Wal-Mart.
While there I randomly saw the DVD for one of my all-time favorite movies, Night of the Comet, for like $10, so I grabbed it.
For those unfamiliar, Comet tells the story of the night the greater part of humanity is whipped out by some substance contained inside the tail of a passing comet. There are a few survivors who came through unscathed, while some others have turned into flesh-eating zombies.
It’s a low-budget, totally 80s cheesefest, but that’s pretty much its charm. It doesn’t take itself too seriously and honestly has some great gags.
(FYI, I just noticed in its IMDb entry that it will be airing on The Movie Channel tomorrow morning at 7:30)
Back when the movie came out I was completely in love with its star, Canadian actress Catherine Mary Stewart.
My love for her, which started with her role in The Last Starfighter – another one of those favorite movies that I ought to own but don’t – has led me to sit through a lot of painfully bad movies just because she was in them, but Comet is not one of those. Not only is CMS hot, the movie is actually enjoyable, so bonus.
Speaking of movies I love but don’t own, while I was there I saw The Princess Bride on DVD for $7.50, so I picked that one up as well, and now it no longer falls into the love but don’t own category.
(Along with the aforementioned Last Starfighter, that category pretty much consists of The Crow – which I once owned – though maybe I should consider adding some of those “powerless to do anything but watch” movies I’ve mentioned, like Strange Days or Real Genius.)
From Wal-Mart I went on to Best Buy, where I was going to pick up Season 1 of Justice League Unlimited. I grabbed it, but then realized that I’d grabbed Season 1 of Justice League, which is different, and which I’ve been reluctant to buy because I thought that buying Justice League would be a big, multi-season purchase, as opposed to JLU, which was just two seasons. In any case, they didn’t have Season 1 of JLU, so I took my leave and headed to the comic books store in Herndon.
Where I dropped $86.
On comic books.
And that’s just comic books. No boxes or bags. No hardcover collections or trades. Just a stack of regular comics.
In fact, it was only 25 comic books.
I remember the first time I ever went to a comic book store, probably like 21 years ago. I spent $20 and bought way more comics than I did today, plus a couple of posters.
For the record, that first trip to a comic book store was a magical experience for young Jon. I mean, I knew that such places existed, but for me they were still sort of semi-mythical, places that only existed in stories.
Atlantis. Avalon. Hy-Brasil. Stores that just sell comic books.
It’s been a long time since I was last in a proper comic book store (or sine I viewed them as being magical places). One thing that struck me as I walked into this one today was the smell. I’d forgotten about the smell.
No, I’m not talking about the sweaty goatlike smell of the overweight and virginal staff and customers, I’m talking about the smell of comics.
For me, it’s a familiar, comforting smell, like the smell of a new car, or the inside of a leather store (I frequently go into Wilsons at the Dulles Town Center to just breathe in the smell of leather, then get out before I become too tempted to spend a lot of money on jackets and coats that I don’t need.).
In a month the store will actually be moving closer to Leesburg, which is excellent timing considering that it coincides with my plans to get back into regular comic book purchasing.
(Sucks for Scott, though. Still, that’s what you get for living in Manassas.)
For any of you wondering what I bought, here’s the list:

The Authority 1-2
Birds of Prey 102-104
The Brave & The Bold 1 -2
Daredevil 92-94
JSA 1-4
The Eternals 1-7
Welcome to Tranquility 1-4

There are some books that I plan to get caught up on by picking up the trades and then I might start buying the monthly books. Books like Fables.
I might also pick my Superman habit back up, but I haven’t been terribly impressed by anything I’ve seen there. I might buy the trade of Grant Morrison’s All-Star Superman, and then start picking up the regular books as they come out. We’ll see.
Not looking to add much from Marvel. I really can’t see myself getting back into buying X-Men, even with Ed Brubaker writing.
(Note that there were two Gail Simone titles in what I picked up today: Birds of Prey and Welcome to Tranquility. )
After that bit of splurging I stopped at the Best Buy in Leesburg on my way home to see if they had Season one of JLU. They did, and were selling Season 1 and 2 of JL for the same price, so I just said, “Screw it,” and bought those, too.
(Turns out there were only two seasons of JL, so I have the complete JL and JLU now.)
All told, not counting what I paid for getting my taxes done, I dropped around $200 today.
(Of course, that includes non-comics or DVD-related stuff like toilet paper and various other sundries.)
Anyway, that was my big day of spending money. There’s not likely to be a repeat of it anytime soon, as the refund is going straight into my savings account.
That’s too funny; just as I wrote that I got an e-mail from my bank telling me that I should put my refund into my savings account.
In any case, I’ve got some comic reading and DVD watching to do before getting ready for my workweek.