Not Fit For Polite Company

So this morning I headed down to Scott and Stacy's for Christmas brunch, where I received my gift: a figurine of Princess Leia as Jabba's slave in Return of the Jedi.
It's very cool, but the fact that she was packaged in a disassembled state was just creepy. It was like getting a gift from the Ice Truck Killer from the first season of Dexter:


Of course, the figure is from Japan, so I suppose I should consider myself fortunate that she wasn't being raped by tentacles as well.


The Princess fully-assembled, which I suppose some people might consider just as creepy in its own way as the disassembled version, what with her being chained up in a skimpy outfit for the pleasture of a big, fat slob (and I'm not talking about the Star Wars fanbase) ,but for geeks of my generation....okay, maybe we're no better than Jabba, but damn, Carrie Fisher looked hot in that outfit. Assembling the figure resulted in a lot of swearing, as her "Snap-Fit" arm steadfastly refused to do either of those things.


They opted to get me the Leia figure to complement this poster on my wall.

There were more people - and especially kids - at Scott and Stacy's than I was expecting, so it was a bit of an overload for me.
It didn't help that I'm not really fit for polite company, and had to keep restraining myself from responding to things like this:

Stacy (on the phone): Scott gave me a pearl necklace!
Me (thinking): Must...hold...it...in.
(Scott looks at me, waiting for me to say something inappropriate.)
Stacy: He made it himself!
Me (thinking): Oh my god.
Scott: That hurt, didn't it?
Me: Yes. I'm not fit for polite company.

Of course, earlier in the day I'd shown a bit less restraint. I was told that I had to try this cake that Jamie had made, so I went to the table to get a piece of it and was greeted by two nursing mothers, one of whom said, "Jon, have you tried this?"
She was pointing to the cake, of course, which was on the table between where the two of them were sitting while nursing, but given the context I couldn't help but burst out laughing.
At some point I walked over to my car to put the disassembled Leia away and to call Kim's so that I could wish everyone a Merry Christmas. A bit after 2 a bunch of us headed off to the theater to see Avatar in IMAX 3D, about which more later.
After the movie was over we were greeted with a downpour that's doing a number on the snow, but which, combined with fog, made it nearly impossible to see the lanes.
Everyone was invited over to another person's house for dinner, but between the people overload and wanting to get home before it cooled off and the rain became more dangerous, I declined.
As for the gifts I gave, usually I just get a gift card for Papa John's for Scott and Stacy and the kids, but there was this hardcover collection of all of the Rocketeer stories - which have been recolored and are absolutely gorgeous - so I wanted to get that for Scott (I picked one up for myself as well), and so I opted to give the girls a bunch of kids' comics and some ginormous Hershey bars, and Stacy a Target gift card. Tristram, the baby, got hosed, because, seriously, what do you buy a baby for Christmas? He's not going to know he got hosed.
As for my family, I gave my sister Kristy and her husband a digital photo frame, and went with gift cards for everyone else. I'd been undecided as to whether or not I was going to just send a big check for everyone like I usually do, or buy individual gifts, and then the next thing I knew it was like six days until Christmas, so...gift cards.
In any case, I hope everyone out there in Threshold land had a good, safe Christmas and that you all made it onto Santa's "nice" list.

Keyword Kraziness: Boxing Day Edition

It’s time once again to review some of the search strings that have brought people here only to discover that it’s not the place to find what they’re looking for.

my apartment complex let me renew my lease even though i did not qualify
Is that a question?

jessica alba’s ass is distracting
We’ll see just how true that remains as her pregnancy progresses (or if it remains distracting in a good way).

brandie malay pics
brandie malay breasts
brandie malay bra
Here are all of the pictures of her that I was able to find via Google and Ask.com image searches and on the HGTV Web site:







There were no pictures (not even fake nudes) of her anywhere on Usenet. I didn’t try any of the torrent searches, but I would bet that you wouldn’t find anything if you were to try that yourself (try searching here if you don’t believe me)
I don’t suspect that there will ever be many more of them, and, as she is the host of a relatively obscure TV show on HGTV of all places and not a young pop star/spoiled heiress/coked-up actress, it seems unlikely that there are any photos of her standing around in her underwear (or less) available for public consumption. After all, when you consider how obsessively the paparazzi stalk people like Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton, it’s frankly amazing that we don’t see even more shots of their genitals and naked breasts than we already do. Given that someone like Brandie Malay is never going to get that level of stalkery attention, I doubt that anyone apart from her husband will get to see her wearing anything less than she wears on her show. To put it another way, I don’t think we’ll ever see the “ hidden potential” of her breasts. I will say that I agree that this is a damn shame.

my little pony jerk
What?

i have conversations with the tv
Are they with my TV? Because if they are, that two-timing bitch is going to get a serious talking to.

maddox crappy pictures
I assume you’re talking about these.

And that’s all for this edition, there were also, of course, the usual suspects, but there’s not point in including those.
In terms of your regularly scheduled Threshold entry, today was pretty low-key.
I got up when some old lady dialed a wrong number. My number is very close to the number of a local pharmacy, so I occasionally find myself answering the phone and letting people know that, no, in fact, I can’t fill their prescriptions for Viagra or Valtrex.
After that I did the usual sitting around doing nothing before taking a shower and heading out to pick up some groceries, at which time I was thrilled to discover that the grocery store was a virtual ghost town. It was such a rare treat to be able to move about so freely.
The drawback, of course, was that only one actual register was open and was jam-packed with the handful of competing shoppers, so I had to go through the self-checkout. This is what I would normally do, but I had a fair amount of stuff, and I usually prefer a real live cashier when I’m buying more than a few things.
Why? Well, on the self-checkout the bagging area only has room for about three full bags, and it’s sort of hit-or-miss as to whether or not the register will freak out when you put one bag in your cart to make room for another. Sometimes it will only freak out and demand that you return the bag for a few seconds before giving you the option of telling it that you have, in fact, removed the bag. Other times it will just stay freaked out until an employee comes along and tells it that it’s okay and that you aren’t trying to abscond with the items you’ve already scanned and will be paying for shortly, and that you’ve moved them out of the way.
It did a lot of the latter today.
When I got home I sat on the couch to take my shoes off and then struggled to come up with a reason to not go to bed. I couldn’t come up with one, but decided to defer making a decision about that until after I’d had lunch. By the time I’d finished lunch I’d gotten caught up in some show on National Geographic Channel HD, so I watched that, and then another show, but then, at around 2, decided that being awake just wasn’t for me, so I ended up taking a nap until a bit after 4.
Oh, and sometime before 2 I hung the framed Marvel super heroes stamps that Kathleen gave me in my office. See?





And that’s pretty much all there was to my day.

Batman Night (Plus: Fishnets!)

So apparently I started a new tradition last night and henceforth Christmas Eve shall be known as Batman Night in the Heimdall household.
It started out with me deciding that I should get kind of into the spirit of things and watching the Christmas With The Joker episode of Batman: The Animated Series.
That episode has one of the greatest Batman lines ever. Robin, convinced that it’ll be a slow night in Gotham on Christmas Eve, makes a deal with Batman that if they go on patrol and nothing is happening, they’ll head back to Wayne Manor, enjoy a delicious Alfred-prepared meal, and watch It’s a Wonderful Life.
Batman says, “You know, I’ve never actually seen that. I could never get past the title.”
(One of my other favorite animated Batman line comes from an episode of Justice League Unlimited adapting Alan Moore’s excellent Superman story For The Man Who Has Everything. He and Wonder Woman are on their way to a private celebration of Superman’s birthday. Wonder Woman comments on how difficult it was to find an appropriate gift. Batman says, “Yes, it’s a difficult question: what do you get for the man who has everything?” There’s a pause, and then, horrified, Wonder Woman says, “Bruce…you didn’t get him a gift certificate, did you?” Batman responds in an offended tone, “Of course not!” Then, a little more weakly, adds “I’m giving him cash.”)
After that I decided to watch Holiday Knights, another holiday-themed episode from later in the series’ run. Watching that made me want to watch Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, the animated movie. That actually maintained the Christmas connection, as while the move itself doesn’t have a holiday theme, it did open in theaters on Christmas day back in 1993.
Watching that made me want to watch Batman Begins, which I did.
So it was an all-Batman night for me.
I don’t think I have anything else Chrismas-y to watch, unless you count the video of the photoshoot from which I pulled the reference image for my Christmas Eve picture, which, all things considered, probably isn’t the most appropriate Christmas video.
(I will just say that there are several other girls besides Eve in the photoshoot/video, so make of that what you will. I had been thinking about drawing a picture that featured Eve with her arms around two of the other similarly-clad girls and titling it Ho Ho Ho, but it would have been too much work and the other girls aren’t nearly as hot as Eve.)
Though all of the anticipation that accompanied the prospect of Christmas morning in my youth is long gone, I still traditionally have a difficult time getting to sleep on Christmas Eve, so I actually ended up being up until sometime after 2 with all of my Batman watching.
This morning I was off to Scott and Stacy’s for Christmas brunch, where I finally got to open a gift.
Scott had gotten me an Adam Hughes-designed Black Canary statuette (seen in the midst of unleashing her “Canary Cry”) from the same Women of the DC Universe series as the Power Girl statuette I got him when he got his new job. So now once I have my cubicle at my new job I’ll have some geek bling for it:


“I said, ‘MERRY CHRISTMAS AND STOP STARING AT MY BREASTS!’”


“No, I don’t know how my waist can possibly support my upper body.”


The Benes’ Eye View.


From this angle she looks like she’s preparing to catch Ollie’s “trick arrow,” if you know what I’m saying. (Hint: I’m talking about oral sex.) Coincidentally, it also looks a lot like the majority of the thumbnail previews of many of the video files on my hard drive.

He was torn between getting me the Black Canary statuette and getting me the Zatanna statuette, but the Canary won out due to the odd expression on Zatanna’s face, what with her tongue sticking out and all. Either way, fishnets, so I’m happy.
Of course, if they’d had it, he would have gotten me the Catwoman statuette, which would have been very cool.
Still, I have no complaints. I’ve always liked the Black Canary – except when she was presented as a strident, feminist cliché during the Giffen-Dematteis run of Justice League – and I really came to like her when she was handled by Gail Simone. Of course, Gail’s deft handling of the character worked against her, as she made Black Canary so popular that DC editorial took the character away from her to make her the current head of the Justice League and to give her a title of her own (shared with new hubby the Green Arrow).
I’m actually still waiting on a couple more presents, as my sister Kim got my address wrong, and presumably at some point today I’ll be getting one from Kathleen (and giving her one).
For some reason I’ve been getting flooded with MySpace friend requests today. I usually get a few a week, which I pretty much always ignore, as they are invariably just spammers, and I don’t actually spend any time on MySpace anyway, but they’ve been coming in non-stop.
Oh well, it gives me the illusion of popularity, which is important when you’re a jerk that no one likes. I think I’m going to make a T-shirt that says, “I’m the jerk that no one likes,” and include the text of the Emily Deschanel fan forum rant on it.
What can I say, apart from once having a commenter here call me a “whiny, pathetic buttwad,” I’ve never really been flamed – that I know of – on an Internet message board, so it feels kind of like an honor, albeit a dubious one.
Once I got home from brunch (I left just as they were preparing their marshmallow guns for battle and the grim specter of all-out marshmallow war was looming over everything. As a conscientious marshmallow objector, I could not in good conscience stay to watch the puffy, sugary mutually assured stickiness of their insane war. Marshmallow war is, after all, hell.) I called my sister and talked to her and her brood, then gave my mom a call. It’s a good thing I punked out and just gave money, as I was going to buy my mom a DVD player, but the grandkids got her one.
My plan to buy my nephew Jeremy a PSP for his graduation got shot down, too, as he got one today. His response: Get me a DS.
Because, you know, an X-Box, a Wii, a PS3, a PSP, and who knows what all else simply are not enough gaming systems.

So Long And Thanks For Not Giving Me Any Fish

So today was my first day back to having the freedom that comes with not having to show up for work. I have to say, those six days of actually having a job seriously cut into my sitting around time.
I did actually venture out into the world briefly, as I had yet to get Kathleen anything for Christmas and I wanted to pick up the Stardust and The Simpsons Movie DVDs.
I figured that any and all stores would be in a state of bedlam, but that it would only be worse over the next three days, so today was my best bet for venturing out, and honestly, it wasn’t as bad as I’d anticipated.
When I got home there was a package from my sister Kristy waiting for me. It was considerably heavier than I was prepared for when I reached down to pick it up.
I’d intended to wait until Christmas to open it, but decided to at least take it out of the box it had been shipped in. However, in transit the wrapping paper got shredded, so I figured I might as well finish the job.
The package was heavy because it contained two weighty tomes : The DC Comics Encyclopedia and The Marvel Encyclopedia.
I’ve actually meant to pick up copies of both for a while now, so I was very pleased to have gotten them.
I also got an e-mail informing me that my brother Brad bought me a six month Netflix gift subscription.
The new job is now officially official, and I’m just waiting for an e-mail – which should come by Wednesday – to get started on the “onboarding” process.
This morning I called my point of contact for the contracting company to say “So long and thanks for all the fish.”
Okay, I didn’t actually put it that way – I’d never thank anyone for fish (just ask Kathleen) – but I did let them know that I’m no longer working for them.
As for the dolphins’ final message to humanity, I’ve been forgetting to mention that last weekend I finally got around to watching The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
I hadn’t been missing anything.
Even the parts that were lifted directly from the book managed to fall flat somehow, and the parts that weren’t from the book were often head-scratchingly odd, and not in a good way.
The one bright spot in it all – which is kind of ironic, if you think about it – was Alan Rickman’s performance as the voice of Marvin.
I really wasn’t impressed by the performance of Zooey Deschanel as Trillian. She just never really sold it. It was kind of like watching Jimmy Fallon in a sketch on Saturday Night Live, as she always seemed like she was trying to keep from laughing. Maybe she just wasn’t really invested in the role or the movie.
Also, even though they have very similar features, I think her sister (the chick from that show Bones) is much prettier. I don’t say that to be mean, it’s just an observation.
Having seen the movie, and knowing that the author of the source material had considerable input prior to his untimely demise, increases my level of trepidation about a Watchmen movie, and reaffirms my belief that not every work can – or should – be adapted to the screen. Watchmen already exists in its perfect form – there’s no need to create some pale imitation of it.
(But, as Scott noted, I probably will go see it when it comes out.)

Oh I Wish...

If you look over to the right and scroll down past the archives you'll see a link to my Amazon Wish List.
Much of it consists of things that no one would ever buy for me, but some items are affordable.
Just in case you feel inclined to give a gift to the humble blogger who gives you the gift of joy so often...
Oh, and just because Danielle Panabaker, Scarlett Johansson, RLC, Carla Gugino, and a host of other lovely ladies aren't on the list, that doesn't mean I won't accept them as gifts, should you be in the position to provide them (Universe, I'm looking at you), or actually be them.

Was It A Belated Gift Or A Really Early One?

The other day Kathleen informed me that she’d gotten something in the mail for me and that we should meet for lunch sometime this week. I mentioned that there are a lot of places to eat around the comic shop, so we agreed to meet in that area today, giving me the opportunity to have lunch, get my belated Christmas/birthday present from her, and hit the comic shop for this week’s new books.
So that’s what we did.
The belated gift was a copy of the Chicago Manual of Style, something that I’d suggested a while back.
Yes, I am enough of a nerd that I would suggest a writing reference book as a potential gift for me.
Anyway, it makes perfect sense; it’s something I’ve wanted for a while but was unlikely to ever get around to buying for myself.
So I am legitimately thankful for it, and have to say that as gifts go it’s several orders of magnitude better than a fish.
At 5 someone representing the new owners will be at the office to discuss the leasing options, so I’ll be heading down there to let them know that I’ll be opting for the month to month option.
On Monday I’m going to be checking out some houses with David. There’s one in particular that looks really promising, so I hope it looks good when I’m actually there.Not much else is going on, and Kathleen and I sat around talking so long after eating lunch that I actually started to get hungry again, so I think I’ll tend to that