Worst. Super Power. Ever.

For years now I’ve maintained that I am in possession of a very particular* – if a bit erratic – super power.
As the title of the post implies, it’s not an especially good or useful super power.  As the title also implies, it’s related to The Simpsons.
…
Essentially, I have premonitions predicting what episode of the long-running series will be airing, either in syndications or as reruns during its regular timeslot.
These premonitions take the form of a scene or quote from a particular episode popping into my head at some random point.  I will then find that the next time I see a rerun or syndicated episode, it will, pretty much without fail, be the episode I had been thinking about.
Given how often scenes and quotes from the series run through my head, it’s not always immediately obvious which one is the premonition, so I can’t say, authoritatively, “That’s the episode that will be on when next I tune in.”
However, if I bothered to think about it a bit more, I would realize that elements of one episode in particular will be more prominent in some fashion – for example, it might be something from a mostly unremarkable or less-than memorable episode – or more repetitive and insistent.
I haven’t had many demonstrations of my power of late, simply because I haven’t been watching the syndicated episodes of the show very often, as I’m typically either watching or doing something else when they’re on.
Still, I did have a particularly uncanny instance of it earlier this evening.
A few years ago there was an episode in which the Smothers Brothers made a guest appearance as themselves (IMDb tells me it was Season 21, Episode 8, “O Brother, Where Bart Thou?”), and there’s an extended voiceover during the end credits featuring an exchange between the Brothers and Homer, and for the past week that bit has been stuck on repeat in my head.
Earlier tonight, after finishing watching some recorded programming on my DVR, I changed the channel and was greeted with That.  Fucking.  Credits.  Sequence.
Yes, I do understand that it’s not really a super power (useless or not), and that given the sheer amount of time my brain spends thinking about The Simpsons, the odds pretty much guarantee that I’ll think about an episode that will just happen to be on, but still…fucking uncanny.
I’d promise to only use my power for good, but what possible good could be performed with it?  Hell, I couldn’t even use it for evil if I wanted to.
So I guess my maxim can be, “With useless power comes…well, nothing, really.”

*I used to have another power that was even more specific, and actually even more useless.  When I still had my Kia Rio – actually, it was true for both of the Rios I used to have – I had the ability to make the “Check Engine” light come on by merely thinking, “Huh, the ‘Check Engine’ light hasn’t come back on in a while.”

An Off Day And A Day Off

Today, everything was just...off.
I was reminded of an episode of Dexter and one of the Treehouse of Horror episodes of The Simpsons.
In the Dexter episode, he's having an "off" period, and they illustrate this - to great effect - by running the usual opening title sequence, in which we see Dexter engaging in his morning routine, in the middle of the episode (complete with theme music), except that everything is just going wrong.
For example, the opening shot of the title sequences is a close-up of a mosquito biting his arm, which Dexter then swats before getting out of bed.
In the "off" version, we get that same shot, except that he misses the mosquito.  Similar mishaps ensue with the rest of his morning.
Similarly, The Simpsons episode runs the standard opening title sequence, but everything goes disastrously and fatally wrong.
In my case, I woke up with a headache.
Upon going into the bathroom to remove my Gentle Molding lenses, I found that the right lens hadn't properly adhered to my eye, and had lodged itself in the inside corner.  This had caused my eye to become irritated, made it a hassle to get the thing out, and had prevented me from getting the vision-improving benefits of wearing the lens.  So my vision in my right eye was a bit fuzzy.  The left eye, however, was just fine, which threw things out of whack, because normally, even when my vision is at its best, it's always better in my right eye than in my left.
I then proceeded to just completely bungle the rest of my morning routine, doing things out of sequence, or forgetting to do certain other things entirely.
Despite the headache, I decided to try working out.  The warm up on the elliptical went okay, though it wasn't terribly pleasant, and I soon got on with the rest of the workout with minimal discomfort...until I did some chin-ups, at which point my head started pulsating like something out of a science fiction movie.
So, okay, no workout.
I took a long hot shower, hoping that it would help with the headache - which seemed like a sinus problem - and to prevent myself from leaving too much earlier than usual, having shaved time off my usual routine by skipping most of the workout.
I got out to my car and found that my remote key wouldn't unlock the door.  Usually, I keep the key in my wallet, as I just need to have it near the car for it to work, so I took it out and tried unlocking it by actually using the button on the key itself.  The key didn't light up, so I figured the battery was dead.
I went inside, replaced the battery, and found that it still wouldn't work.  So it was back inside to find my spare key - in which the battery was not dead but dying, which caused problems later in the day, such as delays in locking/unlocking - and, eventually, was on my way later than I normally would be.
Naturally, it was raining, and naturally everyone on the road was in full panic mode.
The day wore on with nothing in particular going wrong, but even so, everything still felt off.  It was like walking through a dream, and not a particularly good one at that.  Still, given how irritating my dreams often are, that actually added to the dreamlike quality.
My boss, noting the redness of my eye, and my general malaise, asked me if I needed to go home, but I told her that I would stick it out.
After all, today was the day I was going to be recognized for being nominated for the MVP Award.
As I mentioned a while back, we recently had an All Hands meeting.  Normally, during the recognition portion of the meeting, they recognize not only the members of the organization who were winners of awards, but also the nominees.  They also, normally, recognize people who have achieved professional certifications.
Since the previous meeting, I had been nominated for two awards and achieved the PMP certification.
For the first time ever, in the interests of keeping things moving, they elected to not recognize award nominees or certifications.
I was pissed.
I mean, I try not to be paranoid, or take things personally, but when my name should be brought up several times, and they deliberately choose not to mention the things that would cause my name to be brought up...well, it felt personal.  (I don't think I'm entirely paranoid, either, and maybe someday I'll explain why I think that is the case.)
So, regardless of how off I felt, as I told my boss, given how much bitching I did about not getting recognized at our All Hands meeting, I was damn sure going to get today's recognition.
I did tell her, though, that I fully intended to leave after the recognition thing.
Afterwards, when we were discussing the little ceremony, she said, "Go home.  That's your MVP Award from me:  you can leave at 2:30."  I said, "I was going to do that anyway."
This got me a "Shut up and just let me pretend I'm doing something nice for you."
She then decided that she would give me one of those coupons that managers have been given to hand out to their employees, like the one I got a while back from my (former) Director for a half-day.
In this case, I got a full day.
In the "For" section of the coupon, she wrote "Losing the MVP Award."
Meh, it's still a day off, which is better than an off day...

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)

It's Probably Milhouse

Every so often I catch a glimpse of a large-ish animal in my backyard. It’s bigger than a cat, but smaller than most dogs.
When I see it, it’s typically running away from my house and hiding under my storage shed. Yesterday I got a slightly better look at it, and I think it may be a badger.
I know that they can apparently be vicious and dangerous, but this one doesn’t seem particularly aggressive, as it runs away as soon as I even start to open the back door. I’m not sure what it’s doing by my house, but, as they apparently eat insects, I suspect it’s munching on the crickets that keep making their way onto my patio and then lying around dying, as the amounts of insecticide I’ve sprayed around the area has made it extremely toxic.
I’m not sure that I need to do anything about it, as I can’t see that it’s causing any harm, and apparently they eat squirrels, which is a plus as far as I’m concerned, and, even better, they also eat snakes.
So unless it starts to prove to be a problem, I’m kind of thinking, “Go badger!” Or rather, don’t go, depending on how you want to look at it.
The title of this post, by the way, refers to an episode of The Simpsons in which Bart discovers that a badger has moved into their doghouse. When Bart informs Homer of this, Homer responds, “Badger my ass! It’s probably Milhouse.”
I tried to find a clip, but the only one I could find was posted by someone who decided to dub music over it and then speed it up to two times the playback speed.
When it comes to comments on YouTube, I’m generally in agreement with XKCD, but I’m pretty much supporting the one commenter on the video who said, “Why did you do this? It’s amazingly stupid.”
The whole badger thing has made me really miss my friend Betts, as that was one of his favorite episodes of The Simpsons, and I know that if I were to call him and say that I think there’s a badger in my backyard he would, without even pausing to think about it, respond with Homer’s line.
*Sigh*
Today I had to get up and talk to a bunch of new hires in the NOC who were going through the new hire training, explaining who I am, what I do, and how any of that relates to them.
I told them that my job is to goof off and eat candy, but in my free time I write process documentation and manage vendor relationships for the NOC.
I didn’t get any laughs, but I did at least get a free lunch out of it.
My mother is superstitious about the phrase “See you in the morning,” because when she was a kid she said that to her grandmother as she was going to bed, and sometime latert her grandmother fell and broke something (her collarbone, I think), so my mom actually didn’t see her in the morning.
In a similar vein, I’m kind of superstitious about having to explain what I do to people.
When I was working in a desktop publishing job in Red Wing, a local high school graphic design class came to tour the paper where I worked. The group came around to my area and the teacher began asking questions, questions that were specifically intended to demonstrate to the class just how important it is to get a degree in graphic design if they wanted to work in the field. He was kind of offended when I told him that my degree was in English, and essentially asked, “Well, what are you doing here then?”
Before I could answer, my boss came around and provided an explanation for why I’d been hired (my demonstrated ability to work fast and my experience in laying out large documents).
The next day I got fired.
I know that there’s no connection between explaining what I do/justifying my employment, but I can’t help but be a little wary when I’m asked to do so.
Anyway, I have no reason to suspect that I’ll no longer be among the ranks of the gainfully employed tomorrow, but
Even with the nap I ended up going to bed early last night and mostly sleeping through the night. This evening, for a change, I haven’t felt especially tired so far, so I’m hoping I can manage to stay awake until my preferred bedtime. We’ll see how that goes.
Earlier tonight I got a phone call from someone working for Dell looking for a “John Mack” who lives in “Leeburg.”
After correcting her, I decided to listen to her spiel rather than cutting her off, and I actually ended up accepting the offer. It’s basically a credit protection plan, which I would normally say “No thank you” to, but it’s fairly cheap and is only charged if you’re actually carrying a balance. Plus it comes with free replacement insurance for three years from the purchase date, even on existing purchases, so I didn’t really see the harm in accepting it.
And that’s pretty much been my day.

Too Crazy Or Not Crazy Enough?

Despite being tired, I went to bed fairly late last night, as I knew the extended nap I’d taken in the afternoon would prevent me from getting to sleep at a reasonable hour. About a half an hour after I’d fallen asleep, my phone rang, which baffled the hell out of me.
Naturally there was no response when I answered, as it was undoubtedly some drunken jackass misdialing.
It took another half an hour or so for me to fall asleep again.
I imagine the whole thing was just an example of The Universe being a dick:

“Hey Jon, are you asleep?”
“Zzzzzzzzz.”
“Are you sleeping?”
“Zzzzzzzzzz.”
“Seriously; I need to know if you’re asleep!”
“Zzzzzz.”
“Fine if you won’t wake up and tell me if you’re asleep…”
*Ring*
*Ring*
“Zzzzz-*snort* Huh? Whuzzat? Hello? Hello? *Sigh* Dammit!”
“Huh, I guess you really were asleep.”

When I got up this morning I tried to remember if there was anything that I needed to do out in the world. I couldn’t think of anything, as I’d done a proper job of grocery shopping on Monday, so I didn’t really need anything.
After sitting around doing nothing in particular, I remembered that I was supposed to finally get around to shipping my old 17” LCD monitor to my mom, along with the book Benighted, which my niece Jourdan wants to read.
So I showered, dressed, and went out to do that.
(I shipped them via UPS, and they should get there on Thursday.)
After that I stopped to pick up some lunch from a Chinese place. It wasn’t good, but that was my fault, as I’d forgotten that their version of what I ordered is different from the way other places make the same dish.
Once I finished that, I sat down to start working on a picture, but decided that it was too much of a pain in the ass, so I chose to write this instead.
I was going to write a more detailed review of the movie I watched last night, but I just don’t have the energy.
Ultimately the point that I was going to make was that while, overall, I’m glad that I have a better grip on reality than the titular Lars, I found that I was actually kind of jealous of him.
Well, I suppose I don’t have anything better to do, so I guess I’ll write at least some of what I was planning to write.
The premise of the movie is that this lonely, isolated and painfully shy guy named Lars, who lives in a very small town in what looked to be either northern Minnesota or North Dakota, buys a sex doll from the Internet, and then deludes himself into believing that she’s a real girl.
On the advice of a psychologist, his friends and family all choose to support him in this delusion in the hopes that eventually he’ll let go of it and rejoin the reality-based community, as there’s no way to convince him that he’s deluded.
What makes the movie so entertaining and touching – and this is mildly spoilery, I guess – is the zeal with which the members of the community throw themselves into supporting his delusion, doing everything they can to make his “girlfriend” feel welcome.
In fact, there comes a point at which Bianca – the doll – has a much more active social life than Lars does, which starts to create some tension in the “relationship.”
(She even gets elected to the school board.)
There’s a great scene in which Lars comes home to find that his sister-in-law, Karin, and a local woman named Mrs. Gruner, are dressing Bianca up for a night out. Lars is upset that Bianca is going out to an event being held for hospital volunteers – Bianca “reads” to children at the hospital – as he had plans for the two of them to stay in and play Scrabble.
After getting into a fight with Bianca about it, she leaves with Mrs. Gruner, and Lars goes outside to angrily chop firewood. Karin comes out to talk to him about it:

Lars: You don't care.
Karin: We don't care? We do care!
Lars: No you don't.
Karin: That is just not true! God! Every person in this town bends over backward to make Bianca feel at home. Why do you think she has so many places to go and so much to do? Huh? Huh? Because of you! Because - all these people - love you! We push her wheelchair. We drive her to work. We drive her home. We wash her. We dress her. We get her up, and put her to bed. We carry her. And she is not petite, Lars. Bianca is a big, big girl! None of this is easy - for any of us - but we do it... Oh! We do it for you! So don't you dare tell me how we don't care.

As much as I was moved by the way the community rallied around Lars to give him the support he needed, I couldn’t help but be jealous. Granted, I’ve had and do have people who care about me and are there for me when I need them, and I appreciate it, but there have also been a lot of people who have just turned their backs and walked away the very second some of my idiosyncrasies and eccentricities made being around me a challenge, and I have to say that whatever obstacles there are to being my friend pretty much pale in comparison to asking them to pretend that a sex toy is a real, living, breathing person.
So, yeah, I was actually a little jealous.
And of course, given that it’s a movie, there is, naturally, a cute co-worker who has a not-very secret crush on Lars, and watching him back rapidly away as she flung herself at him grated on my nerves as well.
There’s an episode of The Simpsons in which Marge gets mugged, and as a result develops agoraphobia, leaving her incapable of leaving the house. One morning, after getting Homer off to work and the kids off to school, she says, “Now what? Too crazy to go outside, not crazy enough to have an imaginary friend.”
That’s sort of how I felt after watching the movie; I’m quiet and isolated enough to be creepy and off-putting, but not quiet and isolated enough to be endearing and loveable.
By the way, it’s not my intention to whine or complain; I’m just bringing up some of the thoughts that occurred to me while watching what was a very thought-provoking movie.
Also, I’m jealous of the fact that Lars had enough money to pony up for a sex doll. Those things are expensive!
Umm…not that I’ve really checked into the pricing or anything…
Actually, it has occurred to me that it would be useful for me to have one (or more) to use as a reference for my art.
Seriously.
However, it’s never been anything I’ve really considered; it’s just been a thought.
So shut up! See? Nobody gives me any support…

Conversations With My TV

When I watched The Simpsons Movie DVD the other night I discovered that I’d inadvertently bought the full screen version rather than the widescreen. D’oh!
I also learned that the first post-cancellation Futurama feature-length DVD is out, so now I need to pick up a copy of that as well.
Apart from being called a jerk that no one likes, my weekend was largely uneventful. I did the laundry today. That’s about as exciting as it got.
I did complete a picture – which I’ll be posting tomorrow – and was going to start working on another, but I got distracted this afternoon when I sat down to eat a late lunch and discovered that TLC was running a marathon of Property Ladder, so that ate up the rest of my day.
Sure, I’ve seen all of them before, many of them multiple times, but how could I say no to hours and hours of Kirsten Kemp? I couldn’t, that’s how (Even though, technically, I probably got under an hour of actual Kirsten time, as she’s only in each episode for like ten minutes.). And if I’d tried, I’m sure Mistress Kirsten would have disciplined me severely.
Property Ladder is one of those shows that invariably leads me to engage in a “conversation” with my TV.
This often takes the form of me saying things like, “See? You should have listened to Kirsten.” when the house-flippers run into trouble for not taking her advice. Or saying, “That’s what she does” when a formerly optimistic flipper has met with Kirsten and is talking about how she came along and viciously slapped down their hopeful attitudes with a dose of reality. But more often I’m engaged in conversations with the announcer that invariably go something like this:

Announcer: Want to make more money in a couple of months than you did all last year?
Me: Not as much as I want to get it on with Kirsten.
Announcer: Try climbing the Property Ladder!
Me: I’d rather try climbing Kirsten.
Announcer: Let’s see what Kirsten thinks about their progress.
Me: Let’s see what Kirsten is wearing.
Announcer: Now it’s Kirsten’s turn to check out the results.
Me: Now it’s my turn to check out Kirsten.

…and so forth.
(And no, my TV does not talk back to me.)
Now that I’m once again between jobs I’m back to being uncertain as to what day it is. I was convinced it was Monday when I woke up. I actually had to check the clock on my computer before I would believe that it was Sunday, not that it actually mattered. Every day is the same as any other for the next two weeks or so, then it’s back to an entirely different kind of salt mine than the ones I’ve been in for the past six years or so.
The five day work week is going to take some serious getting used to, but I will appreciate the shorter work days and things like having holidays off.
And, you know, not having to be in a dark, cold cave listening to people talking endlessly about WoW.
In the short time I spent in the actual NOC at the job I didn’t want, I actually ended up hearing lots of talk about raids and mages and dwarves and whatnot, though that was all interspersed with just slightly more sports babble than was present at AOL.
Either way, I’m glad to be out of there.
One thing that really bothered me about the job I didn’t want – apart from the job itself – was the fact that nothing there was free. I don’t drink coffee, but it bothered me to note that coffee from the machine had to be paid for, as that seems really chintzy. Worse, they didn’t even have a water cooler (or a water fountain, for that matter), so I actually had to buy water.
Sure, it’s cool that they actually have a little convenience store and, for the coffee drinkers, an actual Starbucks right in the building, but come on, you can’t even provide water and cheap coffee for free?
The whole time I was in the class we were often interrupted by the sound of construction of their new fitness center – the use of which will also not be free for employees.
When I got the voicemail on Thursday from the recruiter for the job that I want and now have, I immediately recognized her voice before she identified herself and got to the point of asking that I call her back as soon as I had a chance because she had “great news.”
When I did call her and she gave me the news, she asked if I was at the contract job. I said that I was, and she asked how that was going. When I said, “Meh,” she laughed and confidently stated “We’re better.”
She’ll be absolutely correct if they simply have a water cooler, as I am, as Brian once put it, a crazy water drinkin’ fool, but I’m sure there will be plenty of other things that make them better.
My Christmas present from my mom arrived yesterday. I already knew what it was (Wal-Mart gift card) so I opened it. Still haven’t gotten anything from my sister Kim, but I’m sure it’ll arrive tomorrow.
Last night Stacy called to invite me over for Christmas brunch on Tuesday, and she informed me that Scott has gotten me something “awesome.” Sadly, what I got for them is considerably less than awesome.
As I said in an earlier post, I pretty much punked out on buying Christmas presents this year.
Oh well, there’s always next year.

I Don’t Come To Your House And Make You Watch Porn Department:
One day shortly before I started working at the job that I didn’t want, I spotted some Jehovah’s Witnesses prowling around the neighborhood, so I shut everything off downstairs and headed up to the office, where I totally ignored the inevitable knock on my door.
After they gave up and went away, it occurred to me that in the future I should put my Evangelist Emergency Plan into effect. It’s an idea I’ve half-seriously considered for a while which could be perfectly executed now that I have the 42” LCD TV up on the wall.
The “plan” would consist entirely of having a porn DVD handy at all times so that I could put it playing before inviting the door-to-door God salesmen in.
And not just any porn, German porn.
If they complained, I would simply say, “You’re the ones who wanted to come in to my house; now you have to face the consequences. Besides, I don’t go around to other people’s houses asking the to watch porn, so don’t come into mine asking me not to watch.”
Of course, this would be needlessly cruel – and I’ve probably engaged in enough needless cruelty already – even though it would be funny (to me), so I suppose that hiding out in my office until they go away is the best option.
Besides, my HD DVD player takes forever to boot up (it has an OS built in), so it wouldn’t be that easy to have it ready unless I had advance notice that they were coming, which I normally don’t (this last time being a notable exception).

Keyword Kraziness: Mind Kontrol Edition

It’s time once again to examine some of those Wacky World Wide Web searches that lead unsuspecting Web surfers to dash themselves against the pointy and pointless rocks of Threshold Beach.
Let’s see what we’ve got.

Watchmen Babies
This is rapidly becoming the new Bikini Cavegirl. Just to be clear for anyone who doesn’t know, it was just a quick (and hilarious) throw-away gag on the episode of The Simpsons featuring Alan Moore. Milhouse asked Alan, “Mr. Moore, will you sign my DVD of Watchmen Babies?” At which point we see a DVD featuring the primary characters from Watchmen, as babies, waterskiing in an adventure titled V For Vacation. This, of course, sets Alan off on a rant about having the marrow sucked from his bones by evil corporations. There is no such product, and given that the video was taken down from YouTube, there’s not much I can do to help you even find the image.

Variations on “demotivational poster jailbait”
This is just barely behind Watchmen Babies for the number of hits it’s generated. I would assume you’re looking for this (fairly NSFW). Perverts. (It is a funny poster, though. There’s also this one. And this one. And several others. Note: The links might not actually take you directly to the pictures that I had intended them to, but the jailbait ones are easy to find at the site.)

flight attendant mind control chip
If I’d ever been on a flight that had a flight attendant who looked anywhere near as hot as flight attendants do in movies, I might well be tempted to invest in such a product, should it exist. Nothing related to such a thing can be found here, though. But my question is, is the mind control chip really profession-specific? Could you, for example, get it to work on someone who works for a technical recruiting company?

automatic doorsanimation
Uh, okay.

kirsten kemp cleavage
Personally, I’m a fan of it, but sadly, I have no images of it available.

ginger alexander beautiful
I wouldn’t go so far as to say beautiful.

xenosexuality
Found yourself a hot alien and are now busy trying to figure out how to get it on, huh?

direcpath speeds
Interestingly enough, the spell checker in Word suggests “Dire Path” as a replacement for DirecPath. As for their speeds, well, “slow as hell” is a speed.

And that’s it for another round of Keyword Kraziness. Keep those zany searches coming.

Beowulf Thoughts Continued

I had intended to write a lot more about Beowulf in my previous post, but my writing was interrupted by an urgent need to go back to bed, as, for whatever reason, I was up half the night struggling to sleep.
So what was going to be a mildly spoilery post ended up not being spoilery at all.
I really don’t have too much more to say about the movie, but there were a few things I wanted to add.
Mostly just some of the quips I made to Scott in the course of the movie.
For example, the queen, as portrayed by Robin Wright Penn, was the most incredibly glum character I’ve ever seen. If even I think you’re too glum, then you definitely need to get on some anti-depressants. I said to Scott, “Would it kill her to smile?”
It reminded me of an episode of The Simpsons in which Homer, while reading the paper, has the following exchange with Lisa:

Homer: Sheesh, look at these refugees. How about a smile?
Lisa: Dad, they’re suffering under terrible conditions!
Homer: Well moping isn’t going to make it any better.

Of course, and here’s where some of the spoilers come into play, I guess you can’t blame the queen for being glum, given that both of her husbands saw fit to knock boots with some ancient pagan monster.
At one point the queen asks Beowulf, “Is she really so irresistible?”
I said to Scott, “Duh…she’s Angelina Jolie!”
When Beowulf is suiting up to fight the dragon, the queen says, “It looked better on you when you were a young man.”
My rejoinder on his behalf was “Well, your breasts used to be above your knees.”
As for Grendel, it was made clear that the reason he was launching his attacks on Heorot was that the noise of their revelries were painful to his overly sensitive tympanum. When the queen was singing a song the action shifted to Grendel’s lair, where the noise was sending him into a rage.
I said, “He’s not evil; he just hates musicals.”
There was enough singing in the movie that I turned to Scott and asked, “When did this movie turn into Spider-Man 3?”
In a strange way, the scenes in which Angelina Jolie – who you’re not actually seeing on-screen at the time – cradling her dying son and speaking in a mixture of Danish and English was actually kind of a turn-on. I know it’s weird, but it’s at least better than being turned on by her when she was a CGI fish in A Shark Tale.
(Seriously, that was one sexy fish.)
In any case, I’ll say once again that it’s a great movie and well worth seeing just for how amazing the technology behind it is, though that’s far from the only reason.
There were great performances captured from all of the cast members, particularly from Crispin Glover as Grendel. Of course, I can easily imagine Crispin Glover acting like in real life.
So yeah, that’s my slightly less in-depth than I’d intended take on Beowulf.
Not much else is going on, so I guess I’ll bring this entry to a close.

I Have To Admit, I'd Probably Buy "Watchmen Babies"

Here's Alan Moore (along with Art Spiegelman, and Dan Clowes) on The Simpsons:



If anyone could write an interesting story about a non-radioactive, heroin-addicted jazz critic, it'd be Alan.
It was an all-around good episode from a comic book geek perspective, even apart from the appearances by Alan and the others. Lots of geeky references.
This episode marked the second time in one day that Alan made me laugh, with the first being with this passage from The Black Dossier in a segment detailing the life of a transgendered immortal:

Male once more, I returned to Rome in 70 BC, my fling with its founders now forgotten. Embroiled in slave revolts, I escaped punishment by simply declaring "I'm Vito," everyone else apparently being named "Spartacus."

Fellow author and friend of Alan Neil Gaiman was offered the opportunity to also appear on an episode of The Simpsons by creator Matt Groening. Neil declined, stating that he'd much rather appear as a head in a jar on Futurama. Groening, who is bringing Futurama back for a series of direct-to-DVD movies (which will air as episodes on Comedy Central) told him, "That can be arranged."

Well THAT Perked Me Up!

Tonight's episode of The Simpsons is the one in which Alan Moore is guest-starring as himself!

Family Guy Deleted Scene

Caught this on Adult Swim last night:

UPdate (Get It? UP As In U.P., For Upper Peninsula? Oh, Forget It.)

After taking the heat as long as I could, I broke down and bought my mom a window unit A/C (which my brother-in-law installed; that her windows open sideways made it more of a challenge than it might otherwise have been), just in time for the cold front to move in and the temperature and humidity to drop.
Oh well; it's not yet August, and that tends to be the worst month of the summer around here, so she'll definitely get some use out of it.
This evening I took my nephew Jeremy to see The Simpsons Movie.
Short review: very funny.
I'll likely see it again, as my niece Jourdan had to work today for a period that precluded her from seeing any showing. We were going to hold off and see it tomorrow afternoon, as she would be free then, but then she got called in to work tomorrow as well. So if she's free Sunday, I'll probably take her.
On the topic of work, I got an e-mail from my boss telling me that I've been volunteered for something or other that he didn't get a chance to talk to me about before I left because it just came up this week, and that he'll explain to me when I get back.
I suspect I was selected simply because he knows I'm the only person who would be likely to actually show up for whatever meetings are involved.
I'm just hoping it will involve getting some regular OT.
I actually applied for another job a while back, but because I am qualified for it and am pretty much the perfect candidate I have naturally not been contacted about it, as that would make too much sense. Seriously, this is a job that has my name tattooed on it, and not with that new, easily removable ink that was just developed either.
You'd really have to be lacking some critical faculties to not at least consider me for the job.
But I'm not bitter.
I mean, it's not like I'm the only person of the people I started working with who hasn't gone on to something better, or like I've had to sit and watch other people with no discernible skills get promotions while I'm stuck in the same place I've been for nearly five years.
Oh, wait.
Still, I'm not bitter.
Tomorrow is the family reunion at which, apart from my immediate family, I will probably know a maximum of three people. Should be a blast.
I've actually got a very nice view out my window of the moon reflecting on the Portage Canal. I tried to take a picture, but I just can't get anything decent in the low light.
Not being quite as close to the middle of nowhere as I'd be if I were staying where I grew up rather than where my mom lives now, I'm not in a totally light pollution-free area, but it is possible to see at least some stars if I look up, which isn't really possible back in Leesburg.
I have to say that it's rather nice.
A Northern Lights sighting would be even better, but sadly it's not the right time of year for that.
In any case, that's about all that there is of note for right now.

D'oh! Matt Groening On The Daily Show