Serial cereal blogging

I have not eaten cereal for breakfast in about a week. Frozen waffles, CoCo Wheats and IHOP have been my breakfasts of choice.

Statement from the Feller Family (from the Indians' Web site)

This may be of interest, especially since I have put so much Feller stuff up here since his death. Today I received this in an e-mail from Indians.com:

The Feller family would like to thank everyone for their warm wishes in the wake of Bob's passing. In addition to being a national baseball icon, Bob Feller was a husband, father, and grandfather. He will be remembered for his intelligence and charm, grit and seemingly limitless memory - and we all yearn to hear just one more of his larger than life tales. Baseball was his deepest love, and kept him remarkably active right to the end. As a father, he lovingly taught the game to his three sons. Most recently, he returned to the mound and threw his grandson batting practice at age ninety.

Bob's family was larger than us though, extending to Cleveland and well beyond. He loved the city and its people. We know we are not alone in our sadness, and look forward to celebrating his illustrious life with you in the coming months.

Lastly we would like to thank Cleveland Clinic and Hospice of the Western Reserve, for the care they afforded our entire family, and the members of the Cleveland media for respecting the family's privacy. Most importantly, we are indebted to the Cleveland Indians for supporting Bob and his family throughout the years.

Sincerely,
The Feller Family

Indians.com also has a Feller tribute page here.

Yo! M.C. turtle raps (on Jack's Big Music Show)

Easily my favorite bit of children's programming (since I have to watch hour after hour of it) is "Jack's Big Music Show." If this clip fails to amuse you, you don't deserve amusement.

MisterCelleneous Miscellany

Looking at the most popular blog posts, what does it say that my popular blog post is a post from two years ago about "She Hulk" being cancelled?
Does this mean if I did nothing but blog about She Hulk, my blog would be top-rated?
Maybe I ought to just add "She Hulk" into every blog title for a while, and see what happens.
Or maybe change the blog's name to MisterSheHulkCellaneous.
Or something.

Serial cereal blogging

Fruity Pebbles are always good. No matter where, no mater when.

NFL playoff scribbles

1. If the Cleveland Browns had scored 37 more points in their close games, they'd have seven more wins. That means, they have lost seven games by an average of less than a touchdown, but more than a field goal. That would make them 12-2, with losses only to Pittsburgh and Atlanta. (I know a loss is a loss, but I'm just sayin'.) If they even split those games 4-3, they'd be 9-5 and somewhere on the fringes of the AFC playoff conversation.
2. If the San Francisco 49ers make the playoffs with a record of 7-9, becoming the first NFL team to win a division with a losing record, I am going to root for them to win the Super Bowl.
3. If asked for a Super Bowl prediction today (and I am far, far worse a prognosticator than Mike Greenberg can ever dream to be), I'd say Steelers-Falcons. This means the actual Super Bowl teams will probably be the Bears and the Jets.
4. The underdog team that would scare me the most if my team was facing them in the playoffs is the San Diego Chargers, who have scored more points than any team in the AFC except the Patriots, and have allowed fewer than any, except the Ravens, Steelers and Jets.
5. I think it would be really cool if the Chiefs went really deep in the playoffs. Then I could start wearing all my Chiefs stuff again. Seriously, if they aren't coached by Dick Vermeil or Marty Schottenheimer, I don't have as much affection for my second favorite team. But, I'd still watch more closely if they made it into the post-season.

How I became a Bob Feller fan

Here’s my “I met Bob Feller” story:
I was maybe 12 or 13, I don’t really remember exactly how old I was, but Feller was holding an autograph session at the Findlay Village Mall. (I assume it was called that even then.)
It was before all the renovations that added the Elder-Beerman and the whole corridor to the rear if the mall leading to it. For those of you who remember these things, that whole area was still a K-Mart store with a little lunch counter.
The JC Penney store was still in the front of the mall (about where the Radio Shack is today) instead of in the back, and right across from it was a little craft store of some kind that sold baseball cards. I used to go in there and look at them in the glass counter. I may have bought a couple, but I remember looking at them a lot.
I have no idea if that store had anything to do with Feller coming to the mall that day, but that’s where he set up for the autograph session.
My dad took me. He had seen an advertisement for Feller’s appearance in one of the the papers.
I don’t think I really knew who Feller was then, only that he was a Hall-of-Fame pitcher for the Cleveland Indians.
I am pretty sure my dad knew who he was, because they were about the same age, and, even though my dad was not a big baseball fan until I came along, he probably remembered the name from when Feller was still pitching.
To be signed, I brought with me the book “Pitching” by Bob Shaw. It’s one of the better “How-To” books about its subject, and may have been among the first of its kind. It explained the proper form for pitching, how to throw various pitches and lots of other related things like exercises that would help strengthen the muscles needed for pitching.
(To that end, Shaw recommended staying away from weight training because it could leave you muscle bound and inflexible. Hey. it’s an old book.)
I pretty much knew the book backwards and forwards. It was dog-eared from reading it so many times.
I remember standing in line for a while. I couldn’t tell you if it was a long time. I was wearing my first, really beat up Cleveland Indians hat. It was one of the blue ones with the old block “C” in red on the front. Like many hats of the day, the back was made out of a mesh and it had plastic snaps to adjust the size.
Feller was seated at the table, chatting with everyone who came by. He was very friendly and talkative and engaging.
My dad said he seemed like an old farmer, which made for easy conversation with all the northwest Ohioans standing in line. (Later I learned he had, rather famously, grown up on a farm in Van Meter, Iowa.)
When I made it up to where Feller was sitting, I handed him my book.I remember him being very friendly, and smiling and greeting us plesantly.
One of the first things he said when I handed him my book was, “So, did you read this book?”
Which prompted me, I am sure, to give him the dumb look of all dumb looks. Of course I had! Couldn’t he see how beat up it was?
I told him I had read it lots of times.
He approved my answer and signed the front page “Best wishes, Bob Feller.”
As we stood there, someone handed him a baseball to sign. He told the crowd he was glad he had a short name so it fit on the baseball. He was glad he didn’t have a name like Connie Mack, the former Philadelphia Athletics manager.
Mack’s full name, Feller said, was “Cornelius Aloysius McGillicuddy” and he could never have fit that on one baseball. You’d need a basketball for that one, he said.
Feller added, however, Mack’s real middle name wasn’t Aloysious. He didn’t know what it was, but still would have been too long to fit on a baseball.
Naturally, I looked it up when I got home, and Mack’s full name really was Cornelius McGillicuddy.”
(Interestingly enough, Mack managed the A’s throughout most of Feller’s career, which lasted from 1936-1956. Mack was the owner/manager of the As from 1901-1954. He stopped managing in 1950 at age 87.)
My dad and I went home happy that we’d met Feller and found him to be a fine gentleman.
One post script: We saw Feller pitch in an old-timer’s game later that year.
Feller would have been in his early 60s at the time, and I remember my dad commenting about how spry and fit he still looked when he pitched.
Indians broadcaster Herb Score also threw a few pitches in that game, and I remember my dad noting, and me agreeing, that Feller seemed to have retained more of his youthful athleticism that Score, who was 15 years younger.
The game was all the more enjoyable because we could say we knew one of the players.
One more post script: I was moved to tears (quietly, though) this past opening day in Cleveland when Feller threw out the first pitch of the 2010 season to Sandy Alomar.
Feller left the mound to a thundering ovation and tipped his cap to the fans.
I think I could have skipped the rest of the game and gone home happy just to have seen that.
Feller strode out to the mound at age 92, wound up and delivered a pitch to home plate. Some guy sitting in front of me was amazed that, at Feller’s age, he still went to the mound and threw the pitch from the pitching rubber.
I thought to myself the guy who said that didn’t know Feller very well. Or course he could still pitch from the mound. If he couldn’t, I don’t think he’d have even gone out there.
If that’s to be his last big moment in Cleveland in front of the fans, he left on a good note, and I am very happy I was there to see it.
I thought at the time it was almost as though he was handing off the reigns of being the senior statesman to a younger generation of Indian stars.
I don’t suppose Feller thought of it that way. I’d imagine he was just the greatest Cleveland Indian ever throwing out another ceremonial first pitch to start the season and would do it again next year if asked.
But, even though Feller probably has thrown out more than a few first pitches with Alomar catching, now it seems even more like a de facto generational handoff.
Maybe someone on the Indians will get the symmetry, and let Alomar, one of the greatest and most popular Indians from recent memory, throw out the first pitch next year.
And, yes, before you ask, I still have the book Feller signed. And, yes I still pull it out and read it now and again.

Serial cereal blogging

I like "Corn Pops." I think they used to be called "Sugar Corn Pops," but they haven't changed much over the years.
They are still little yellow blobs of sweet, corn-based cereal. They still stay crunchy in milk for a little while and slowly soften until they are mooshy by the time you get to the end of bowl.
I don't mind them when they are mooshy. I like them better when they are in the in-between stages, actually.
I like them so much, I have been eating them as "snacks" since I opened the box.

Another Bob Feller post

Here's a really nice piece about Bob Feller, by John Sickles, who wrote "Bob Feller: Ace of the Greatest generation."
One of these days, I'll post my own "I met Bob Feller" story. I promise.

The 1987 Cleveland Browns on video

There's a commercial at the beginning, and the video is some 21 minutes long, but for those of you who want to remember how fun it used to be to be a Browns fan, this is a great video!
I still wish the Browns would hire Marty Schottenheimer as their head coach.

Nev Chandler interviews Bob Feller

From 1990.

Some Bob Feller footage

Bob Feller went into hospice care, the Plain Dealer reported yesterday. Here's some footage of him from his prime.

Bob Feller footage from OleMissCub on Vimeo.

A few funny Chuck Norris jokes

Chuck Norris, Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger walked into a bar. The bar was instantly destroyed, because no building can contain that much awesomeness.
Chuck Norris built a time machine and went back in time to stop the JFK assassination. As Oswald shot, Chuck Norris met all three bullets with his beard, deflecting them. JFK's head exploded out of sheer amazement.
Chuck Norris counted to infinity - twice.
When Chuck Norris is bitten by a vampire, the vampire turns into Chuck Norris.

Here's a place to find some more.

Harry Potter: Not mediocre, but still average

Why am I always underwhelmed by the “Harry Potter” movies?
In the middle of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows Part One,” I thought to myself I’d really love watching this movie if I stumbled onto it on HBO at 2:30 a.m. and knew nothing about it.
This is how I happened to watch the original “Planet of the Apes” movie, along with “It’s a Wonderful Life,” and “The Breakfast Club.”
I happened to be watching TV when they came on, I happened to settle on that channel and two hours later I had watched the whole thing.
My feeling about the latest “Harry Potter” installment is, while it was a very well-made movie, I just couldn’t get pulled into it. Like the book on which it was based, it didn’t assertively hold my interest throughout. I think reading the book colored my movie experience as well.
A good gauge for how well a movie holds my interest is how often you have the presence of mind of check your watch.
A really great movie is so engrossing, I never look. I stay focused on the screen.
The worse a movie is, the more I look.
I saw the 6 p.m. show, and checked my watch at 7:05, 7:20, 7:35, 7:50 and then at the end of the movie.
This isn’t a bad record, all told, but it’s not great.
I wish I could say something else really insightful about the movie itself, instead of just my reaction to it.
It was well-directed, the special effects were awesome. The book on which it was based was a huge hit. (I have to admit, I found myself skimming though huge sections of the book and stopping when the story got interesting, but since I am not a truly rabid "Harry Potter" fan, that's only natural with a book that doggone long.)
There were no dumb moments. And, the movie ended on a cliff hanger, not a crappy final twist ending like this summer’s “Inception.” (For what it's worth, I still don’t know why "Inception" was said to be so revolutionary. I thought it was so clever it out-thought itself.)
I should have really liked “Part One.”
Instead, I just liked it.

I take back what I said.

The Browns will be 3-13 if they keep pulling the crap they did today.

Why the Cleveland Browns will finish 8-8 this year

In his column in today's Plain Dealer, Terry Pluto tells us this:

1. The next five games are against Jacksonville, Carolina, Miami, Buffalo and Cincinnati. Only Sunday's opponent (5-4 Jacksonville) has a winning record. Carolina and Buffalo are 1-8, Cincinnati is 2-7. At 5-5, Miami has quarterback problems and is only 1-4 at home. Now is the time for the Browns to capitalize on the confidence from playing four of the NFL's best teams to a 2-2 record, along with the enthusiasm of the fans and the weaknesses in the schedule. The final two games are against the Steelers and Ravens, both in Cleveland.

So, notwithstanding today's game, if the Browns continue to play as hard and as well as they have been, and they play against worse competition, my guess is they will go 4-1 over the next five games. They probably won't beat both Baltimore and Pittsburgh. Even a split would be optimistic, but let's say it happens. This would have them finish at 8-8.
But, here's the interesting point: Even as bad as the Browns' record has been, if they happen to win five games in a row, then bear both the Ravens and the Steelers,they would host Pittsburgh at 8-6. This would mean they could finish at 10-6. The best case for such a finish would be if Pittsburgh and Baltimore are already resting key players for the playoffs. That would, however, mean that the entire AFC East would have to tank, and fall back to ward the Browns in the wild card standings, which doesn't seem likely.
Because there are so many good AFC teams, even at 10-6, the Browns would probably miss the playoffs, like in 2007.
If the Browns had won just a couple of their close losses at stood at, say, 5-4, they would probably have a legitimate shot at the post season.

Where are you all hiding?

I just added a counter to my blog, and somehow, I am getting 2,000 visitors a month. I had no idea! I am sure it because you are all on the edges of your seats to find out what I had for breakfast.
For what it's worth, my goal is to have about 15-16 posts a month, averaging something like every other day. I haven't always hit that, because I tend to post in bursts, but it's still a reasonable goal.

Another fall foliage picture

This was a leaf I found in my front yard.

One of I don't know how many fall foliage pictures ...

... from right around my yard.

Snoopy laughing

This should at least make you smile a little, if not laugh.

So, what do I think about the Browns win?

Belichick sucks.
Payton Hillis for President.
I hope Colt McCoy starts the rest of the games.
My official Super Bowl prediction for 2012: The Cleveland Browns play the Detroit Lions.

(As an unrelated side note: My fingers always want to type "Detriot Loins" for some reason.)

A minute or so of Snoopy fun

Why the Weird Al show was cancelled

Conan the Librarian

Remember this from UHF? \

Weird Al on Tom Snyder

What more could anyone want?

Economic thought of the day

If a billionaire gave everyone in America $1 million, that billionaire would still have $750 million.
Just a thought for all the billionaires who read this blog.

Another Paul and Storm video (with metaphor)

I cannot possibly add anything to your experience of watching this by way of smartass commentary.

Paul and Storm back again

It's been a while since I have linked to one of these, eh?

Here's "Nugget Man." (With Jonathan Coulton, too!)

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain (that Glenn Beck guy out in front is so much more amusing, anyway)

Here's a story from the New Yorker that is delicious in its irony: It tells us that Glenn Beck is part of a long-term battle of ideas.

Maybe one could use the term, oh, I don't know, conspiracy, like the conspiracy from the Fascist, Communist, Socialist Progressives Beck tells us about every night.

Joe McCarthy, anyone?

I am waiting for the night Beck tells us about the list on his table of 55 known Progressives in the American Congress. This movement that is about bringing down America! The pile of books on his desk, which his staff has just put nice sticky tabs in so it looks like he or they actually read them, shows us how dangerous this movement is. These 157 Progressives in Congress are clearly undermining everything America stands for! This book, for example, Mein Kampf, shows exactly how the Progressives will take control of the government. This list, of 579 known Progressives in our own Congress shows us what kind of trouble our country is in! Watch out! There's one behind your couch! By the way: Remember to keep watching me, so I can tell you more obscurely threatening things about your life that don't really make sense when you think about them! But if you want me to think about them for you, go out and buy all my books and DVDs and then spend even more of your hard-earned American money on my rallies and special one-night-only-in-theater movie events happening soon across the country and in your neighborhood! Be careful -- that person sitting next you just might be an undercover Communist, Progressive, Socialist, Nazi, LaRuche Democrat in disguise. Even if it's your grandmother! You'll never know how to spot them unless you listen to all three hours of my radio show and watch my hour TV show every single day, no matter what!

(Just for the record, if you could get all of Beck's Communists, Fascists, Progressives and Socialists in a room together, they have so little in common they'd spend too much time arguing to actually take over the world.)

Oh yeah. I had a link there to discuss, didn't I? Some points from the story:

Several times a week, Beck informs his audience that socialists (whom he also sometimes calls Fascists or Communists) led by Obama have seized power, and that patriotic Americans must take their country back.

OK, what next?

On September 22nd, amid a diatribe about House, Beck cited a passage from “Secrets of the Federal Reserve,” by Eustace Mullins. The book, commissioned in 1948 by Ezra Pound, is a startlingly anti-Semitic fantasy of how a Jewish-led conspiracy of all-powerful bankers established the Federal Reserve in service of their plot to dominate the world.

Huh?

Beck’s readings of Progressive-era politics are nearly as bizarre. Whatever can be said about Theodore Roosevelt, he was not a crypto-radical. It was Roosevelt who coined the term “lunatic fringe” to describe the extreme leftists of his day, and his concept of New Nationalism—in which an activist government built a vibrant capitalism, partly by regulating big business—looked back to Alexander Hamilton, not Karl Marx. Nor was (President Woodrow) Wilson a Bolshevik; in fact, in 1917 he sent American troops to Russia to support the anti-Bolshevik White Army. At home, his reforms sought to break up monopolies in order to restore competition among small companies. “If America is not to have free enterprise,” Wilson declared, “then she can have no freedom of any sort whatever.”

So Roosevelt was a radical? Wilson was a Socialist who was against free enterprise? Who's the revisionist historian now, Beck-o? Do these sound like credible sources and reasonable conclusions?

The story sites another classic example of Beck logic. Here it is:

Part of Beck’s allure is the promise that he will reveal secret information. In one segment last year, he produced a drawing of fasces—which he described, anachronistically, as “the Roman symbol of Fascism”—and then a picture of an old Mercury dime, with fasces on the reverse side. “Who brought this dime in? It happened in 1916—Woodrow Wilson was the President,” he said. “We’ve been on the road to Fascism for a while.” Benito Mussolini, of course, didn’t adopt the ancient symbol of authority as the Fascist emblem until the nineteen-twenties; the designer of the coin, the sculptor Adolph A. Weinman, intended it to signify the nation’s military preparedness, and paired it with an olive branch to illustrate the desire for peace.

Apologies to Jon Stewart (and boy, is that a great link), but this is connecting two unrelated things. It's kind of like saying, for example, Barack Obama has a pancreas. Adolf Hitler had a pancreas. Therefore, Obama is clearly a vegetarian Nazi suffering from extreme flatulence.

Beck could find a conspiracy in a coffee cup. Cream from Progressive cows, no doubt.

Here's another story that clearly and concisely sums up my feeling about Beck, from Dana Milbank, who just wrote a book about the popular television common-tater head.

Love him, or hate him, the man is brilliant. How can you not admire a guy who went from a horrible addiction to becoming perhaps the most dominant force in American culture and American politics. I have respect for the way he has been able to see where the country is going, where the discourse is going and get out in front of it. I just have serious questions about how genuine his beliefs are. I think Glenn Beck is a charlatan, but he's the best charlatan there is.

Along that line, and lest we all forget, in the late 1980‘s, Beck resigned from his job as a Phoenix morning drive time radio host (the most prestigious time slot for a radio personality) after calling up a competitors' wife on the air and making fun of her recent miscarriage.

On the air.

During his show.

Live.

I do not buy the he-was-stil-an-alcoholic-when-that-happened excuse.

This incident says everything there is to say about Glenn Beck. What won't he say or do on the air to get attention?

If you still think Beck's tired, alarmist act is anything more than that, you are getting the intellectual soylent green you deserve.

What I did when I was stuck in traffic

I was stuck in traffic for about an hour this morning while trying to pass through the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel.
I listened to all of disc one of the "The Essential Weird Al Yankovic, and concluded that Weird Al improves the songs he parodies.
I also saw the ugliest bubblegum-fuscia colored Volkswagen Beetle I have ever seen.
Further, I pondered something that has always caused me pause to consider:
When drivers pass an especially nasty crash, we tend to comment on how awful it looks, and keep on driving. A few seconds later, we have resumed our normal driving patterns, without considering what happens when we make a mistake behind the wheel.
Rarely does anyone really consider that, on another day, the mangled vehicles they passed could have been theirs.

Wisdom from different sources

From Bob Woodward's book, "Obama's Wars," page 153:

"One outspoken member of the team believed McChrystal should not base his strategy on 'what ifs' and 'if onlys' as the U.S. had appeared to be doing. What if we increase Afghan forces? If only we can reform Karzai ... If only we can improve agriculture ... What if we seize the ring road around the country?
"Such an approach was not reality-based. 'It was hope-based, which is to say, in wartime, illusion-based,' a team member explained to Josh, my assistant."

This, for me, kinda sums up the Cleveland Indians in 2011.

It makes you wonder how anything ever gets done

Having read about the first 100 or so pages of the new book, “Obama’s Wars,” by Bob Woodward, I am struck by one thing: How little actual raw information reaches the president of the United States.
This is to say, the president, this one or any other, makes decisions not on what he knows, but on what other people know, filter for him and present to him.
The staff -- or more probably the staff’s staff, or maybe even the staff’s staff’s staff -- gathers information, turns it into some kind of report and then report works its way back up to the president, from which he makes a decision.
There are two things to recognize about this:
1. With the complexity of the world today, it would be impossible for the president to understand every detail of every facet of his administration; and
2. Part of the reason we pick a president is the quality of the people we think he will put into those key positions.
However, it is disturbing how badly someone who seems to be irrelevant could derail an entire administration by providing bad, skewed or incomplete information to the chain of command. Or, for that matter, push an agenda simply by manipulating the information that reaches the people who reach the people who reach the president.
From John P. Burke’s "The Institutional Presidency," in The Presidency and the Political System:

The Executive Branch and the Office of the President have grown significantly since George Washington first took office in 1789. He purposely downplayed the status of the office, not wanting the people to revere him as anything but a patriotic man willing to serve his country. He dealt personally with the Congress and the Courts, not relying on intermediaries to carry his messages for him. Jefferson employed a staff of two--a messenger and a secretary. By 1900, the White House staff had grown to a dozen. The explosion of activity in the White House during Franklin Roosevelt's administration highlighted the need for additional staff and the number of people working for the President has steadily increased since that time. The Executive Office of the President now employs more than five hundred people.

And that article was in a book (How quaint -- books.) published in 1998. What’s happened since then?

This 500 is just the president’s staff, not the cabinet members and their departments, such as defense, state, etc.
And yet, we expect the president to have an eloquent, informed answer on anything that is happening in any part of the world, including places that many of us have never even heard of.
Just this past week, I learned about the island nations of Sao Tome and Principe, off the coat of Western Africa. But, if I was campaigning for president, I’d be expected to know about it, such as:

In 2001, São Tomé and Nigeria reached agreement on joint exploration for petroleum in waters claimed by the two countries of the Niger Delta geologic province. After a lengthy series of negotiations, in April 2003 the joint development zone (JDZ) was opened for bids by international oil firms. The JDZ was divided into 9 blocks; the winning bids for block one, ChevronTexaco, ExxonMobil, and the Norwegian firm, Equity Energy, were announced in April 2004, with São Tomé to take in 40% of the $123 million bid, and Nigeria the other 60%. Bids on other blocks were still under consideration in October 2004. São Tomé has received more than $2 million from the bank to develop its petroleum sector. São Tomé stands to gain significant revenue both from the bidding process and from follow-on production, should reserves in the area match expectations.

Oh, and in addition to knowing things like that, things that I can just cut and paste from Wikipedia, a president has to that kind of stuff about every country in the world. Even a presidential candidate has to know this stuff.
And, he has a staff to summarize and filter the information so he knows what the key points are and how they relate to his party’s platform.
Oh, and by the way, when questioned, he has to make sure he doesn’t accidentally say something in such a way that inadvertently insults anyone.
It seems a little silly, but maybe we as voters should find out before the president is elected who will be members of his staff and cabinet.
But, to make an informed decision at that level of detail, I’ll need a staff of my own.

P.S. Just for fun, next time you are invited to a town hall meeting with a presidential candidate, ask him about the oil deal between Nigeria and Sao Tome and see what he says.

The Browns won!

In an amazing twist of fate, the Cleveland Brows did something they have not done often and aren't expected to continue: They now have a winning streak of one game.
(In Cleveland Browns terms, since 1999, one win has come to constitute a streak.)
Expect this to end quickly next week, as order is restored to the universe.
But, we can all enjoy it while it lasts.
Anybody going to run out and buy a Peyton Hills jersey?

Not so happy meals?

This story tell us ...

A proposed city ordinance would ban McDonald's from putting toys in Happy Meals unless it adds fruit and vegetable portions and limits calories. The proposal would apply to all restaurants, but the focus has been on McDonald's and its iconic Happy Meals.

Some people don't want anybody to have any fun.
Can you imagine ordering a "Chef Salad" happy meal with a side of sunflower seeds and a pure mountain spring water to drink?
I don't think the product is at fault -- just the people who choose to over indulge. Or choose to let their children over indulge.

Today's pretty picture

I just thought we needed a picture of Groo today.
Enjoy!

(I'll also take this opportunity to note that you can now purchase the hardcover version of "MAD's Greatest Artists: Sergio Aragones: Five Decades of His Finest Works" from many places, including Amazon.com for a mere $21.56. I have it, and I am working my way through it. Since it's only $21.56, you can afford to buy it and you'll have some money left over for some cheese dip to eat while you read it.)

Breakfast poll

IHOP won the breakfast restaurant poll by a 2-1-1 margin over Cracker Barrel and Waffle House.
That surprises me.
I like IHOP OK, but after I eat there I always go into a sugar coma for the rest of the morning.
Maybe I should just lay off the syrup.

A cheesy family heirloom

Here's a story about 117-year-old piece of cheese.
I should not have to say anything further to entice you to go read this article.

One of my favorite album covers

From XTC's "Mayor of Simpleton" err .. uhh .. were these called "EPs?" I forget. I am getting old and stuff.

Al Williamson, remembered

Here's a nice remembrance of Al Williamson, courtesy of comicbookresources.com.
Here's how the site introduces the article:

With his passing, Al Williamson left behind a legacy that will continue to live on well into the future. We spoke with Mark Schultz, George Lucas and others about their personal and professional memories of the artist.

Always good when someone interviews the supremely-talented writer and artist Mark Schultz, of "Xenozoic Tales" fame, about anything.

There's lots of cool art to look at, too.

I'd like to write a whole bunch of stuff about Al Williamson, but I doubt I'd have much to add that this story doesn't already cover. He was a brilliant artist, who captured flowing anatomy along with perfect pacing and wonderful use of black and white spaces. Heavily influenced by Alex Raymond, his pages played out dramatically like no others.

I have read many things he drew, including his EC science fiction comics from the '50s, a few westerns, his work on Star Wars in the 1980s, as well as his inking of John Romita Jr. and others in the 1990s.

As an inker, almost nobody could create such fine, flowing brush lines. He always enhanced the pencil art he was given, no matter how different the penciller's style was from his.

Anytime I saw Willimason's name in a comic book's credits, I always gave it a look.

There are lots of "Art of Al Williamson" type books out there, including a beautiful volume that collects his "Flash Gordon" work, from across several decades. I'd recommend anything he did.

I went to Costco yesterday and didn't buy a thing!

How unusual is that?

Sure it's comedy, but is it funny?

Illegal immigrant farm worker hearings in Congress aren't funny ... or are they?

They might be funny, if the chairman invited Stephen Colbert, because of a segment from his show on the topic.
How strange.

The subcommittee chairman invited the Comedy Central personality to testify at the hearing, which addressed the possibility of offering illegal immigrant farm workers a path to citizenship. Colbert’s “expertise” in the arena of immigration and farm labor stems from a July 2010 episode of his TV show “The Colbert Report,” during which he joined subcommittee chairwoman Rep. Zoe Lofgren to spend a day doing the work of an agriculture laborer.

Maybe next, he'll get invited to speak at a Tea Party rally, because of his expertise as a no-comprimise conservative commentator!

James Rainey of he LA Times gives us a little more information:

It turns out that the real joke was not on Congress but by Congress, or at least some of its members. They and their fellow travelers in the punditocracy wouldn't or couldn't wrap their minds around the idea that satirists are citizens too. And that they are often the citizens with a way of cutting right to the guts of a matter.

Of course, Fox News thinks it was inappropriate. Does this surprise anyone?

If Democratic leaders were trying to bring national attention to migrant farm labor by inviting comedian Stephen Colbert to a House panel hearing on Friday, they appear to have succeeded, but Colbert's performance didn't leave many lawmakers laughing.

John Conyers was one, says Fox:

Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich, chairman of the committee, tried to kick Colbert out before he could testify.
"I'm asking you to leave the committee room completely, and submit your statement," he said.

Of course, Nancy Pelosi liked it, which explains further why Fox hated it:

... House Speaker Nancy Pelosi didn't think Colbert was out of line.
"Of course I think it's appropriate," she said. "He's an American. He can bring attention to an important issue. I think it's great."

As usual, Mark Evanier summed it up perfectly on his weblog:

I suppose that Colbert did some good in that he got some attention for an issue that many wish to demagogue but few wish to actually fix. But I don't see that he did anything that would get us closer to fixing it. Then again, probably nothing that happens these days before a Congressional subcommittee is going to get us any closer.

Personally, Congress hasn't been any fun since Jim Traficant was sent to jail. They should bring him back to testify about something.

Some good Usagi news

Here's a nice article from comicbookresources.com about some upcoming "Usagi Yojimbo" stuff.
In October, Fantagraphics - the first publisher to offer an ongoing "Usagi Yojimbo" series - will release "Usagi Yojimbo: The Special Edition," a two-hardcover slipcased collection of the original run, currently available as seven trade paperbacks. Meanwhile, Dark Horse, Usagi's current home, continues to publish the adventures of Sakai's anthropomorphic hero monthly, in what are mostly one or two-issue self-contained stories.
With this little post is a page from an upcoming issue of "Usagi," #132, in fact.
Let me be clear: Usagi is one of my favorite comics of all time. I have been reading it since 1995, and thanks to the Fantagraphics trades and back issue scouring, I have just about every issue ever published.
I probably won't buy the deluxe edition hardcover, because I already have all the material in it. But for anyone who has never seen this material, a giant hardcover collection would be a wonderful way to get started on the adventures of the rabbit bodyguard.
The character has changed in appearance a little bit since the early issues, and Sakai's skill as an artist has grown considerably, so what you'll get in the hardcover will be a little different that what you'd see in the current monthly comics.
Simply put: every month, we see that Sakai is one of the greatest cartoonists out there. He has a sense of storytelling that is simple, and at the same time perfectly expressive for his stories. You can pick up any issue at any time and not be lost in the backstory.
And, as this collection proves, there is plenty of Usagi out there for people who want more.

Bee very quiet

So, today, I was playing with the children in the back yard, when I saw a bee on the railing of the deck.
The bee wasn't moving hardly at all. It was only dragging itself along the wood, very slowly.
Thinking I'd never really have a chance to observe a bee at such close range, I watched him for a while. It kept moving along very slowly, and was using its antennae to feel the wood in front of it as it sat and looked at me.
Eventually, it dawned on me that I should take some pictures while I could get so close without fear of retribution or at least a nasty sting.
So, here for your viewing pleasure are the pictures of a very quiet bee in my back yard.

Water you talking about?

Why, I am talking about a new video from Paul and Storm!
"Because there just wasn’t enough going on at PAX already, we decided to make a video featuring ourselves, 68 last-minute volunteers, five geek superstars, and a bottle of water."

If it ain't broken, don't fix it. But, what if it is?

This is a very interesting article from the New Yorker a few weeks ago about the United States Senate.
It's really long, but very enlightening.
I think the most salient passage is this:

Encumbered with aides, prodded by hourly jolts from electronic media, racing from the hearing room to the caucus lunch to the Power Hour to the airport, senators no longer have the time, or perhaps the inclination, to get to know one another—least of all, members of the other party. Friendships across party lines are more likely among the few spouses who live in Washington. After Udall joined the Senate, last year, he was invited to dinner by Alexander, because Jill Cooper Udall and Honey Alexander had become friends through a women’s social club. It remains the only time Udall has set foot in the house of a Republican senator. (Vice-President Joe Biden, in his autobiography, recalls that, in the seventies, a bipartisan group of senators and their wives hosted a monthly dinner: “In those days Democrats and Republicans actually enjoyed each other’s company.”) When I asked Chris Dodd how well he knew, for example, Jim DeMint, Dodd said, “Not at all. Whereas Jesse Helms and I knew each other pretty well.” He repeated something that Jon Kyl, the Republican whip, from Arizona, had recently said to him: “There’s no trust.” Dodd, whose father was a senator, went on, “That’s really all there is—this place really operates on that. I don’t think anyone would argue with that conclusion. And if that’s missing . . . ”

I don't know that much about the Senate, but it sure seems like this sums up modern politics: Never agree with the other guy, never admit you are wrong and never, ever try to reach a middle ground with anyone. About anything. Did I mention never?
And, by extension, don't build alliances with anyone except people who think exactly like you do.
Try applying this philosophy to your everyday life for a month and see how well it works.
Probably about as well as it seems to be working in the Senate.

What was Google doing the other day?

By now, you may know already about Google Instant.
If not, you can click on that link and go see.

Vote early, vote often!

Over here at Spike TV, you can go vote for your favorite science fiction, fantasy and comic book related movies and other stuff from the past year in the "Scream 2010" contest.
One of the cool things is that you can vote for Jill Thompson for her art on Beasts of Burden.
I'd love to see all my readers stuff the ballot box.
(Or, is that "all of my reader stuff the ballot box?" Something like that, anyway.)
You can also go vote for Mike Mignola for best writer (even though I'd also think he could be a nominee for best artist) on "Hellboy," and other comics.
There's lots of other non-comic book material to vote on there too, mostly based around movies like "Avatar" and "Inception," and "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus."
When in doubt, I voted for a whole bunch of "True Blood" stuff for Hallie.
Anyway, go look. You'll probably have fun voting.

(A side note: the opening page of that Mike Mignola Web site is really cool. Go take a look even if you don't care about Hellboy or Spike TV's contests.)

Don an angus chapeau

Ok, this is silly, but it's a Web site I visited a long time ago but I always seem to think of when I think of silly Web sites: Hats of Meat.
I'd love to add some kind of silly comment, but there is nothing I could say that could possibly top the pathos you can find by simply clicking on that little link.
Have fun.

Well, fry mah hide!

Seems to be a theme here for the last few days, but the Internet also has brought us back daily "Lil Abner" strips. Modern newspapers lack this: a comic strip so strong in its appeal that people buy the paper just to read it. Remember "Steve Canyon," "Flash Gordon," and many others?
Daily newspaper strips and so small now that even being in color doesn't make them very enticing.
Ah well, here's a "Lil Abner" sample, as any fool can plainly see:
(An official tip of theIndians' cap to the person who knows and posts the correct punch line to " ... as any fool can plainly see.")

Serial cereal blogging (Or, breakfast at BK)

According to this, Burger King is trying to horn in on McDonald's breakfast business. The fast food giant is adding egg and breakfast meat platters and pancakes, sort of like McDonald's, and some other items.
According to the story:
"Burger King is introducing nine new breakfast items including blueberry biscuits and pancake platters and planning a major breakfast marketing blitz — all with an eye toward eating up some of McDonald's morning business."
According to the AP story:
"THE NEWS: Burger King is introducing nine new breakfast items and planning a major marketing blitz — all with an eye toward eating up some of McDonald's morning business.
THE PUSH: Chief Marketing Officer Mike Kappitt said the company has dabbled in breakfast for years since Burger King introduced breakfast in 1979 but is now making it a major focus with six new television ads.
THE NEW FOOD: The new offerings include platters of pancakes, eggs, sausage and other breakfast items ranging from $2.29 to $4.29 and a ciabatta sandwich with eggs, ham, bacon, tomatoes and cheese for $2.89."
Investorplace.com tells us something interesting about the money involved:
"It’s conspicuous that this menu reformulation comes amid a buyout. That’s because breakfast sales are a measly 12% of total BK revenue – compared to McDonald’s, which pulls in about 25% of its sales first thing in the morning. Clearly there is room to grow, and making a push for breakfast sales makes good business sense for Burger King."
While I have generally preferred BK's hamburgers to McDonald's, their breakfast has never appealed to me much. I like their french toast sticks and their little hash browns, but I am not a big fan of croissants, so many of their breakfast sandwiches just leave me cold.
I do, however, really like McDonald's in the morning. So, if BK can come up with something similar, but better, they can probably win over at least some of my fast-food breakfast business.
So, I'll probably give the new option a try one of these days.
More later, when there's more, later.

Why am I up so early? Googling!

Now, Google's logo is completely gray. And, there's no link yet to tell us why!
What's going on here?
Mashable.com tells us the following:
The Google homepage is sporting a new logo that changes color as you type, and it’s likely a big hint as to what the company will announce at its “can’t miss” search event on Wednesday.
When you arrive on the search giant homepage today, you’ll be greeted with a gray Google doodle. When you start typing a search query though, the color magically returns to Google’s iconic logo. This follows yesterday’s logo, a collection of animated particles that react to the movement of the cursor.

Google balls (Google, in this case, is a verb!)

If you were wondering what Google was doing Tuesday with those little balls in their logo that kept moving away from your mouse, so were a lot of people, including CBS News.
Earlier Tuesday we wrote about the Google homepage illustration (or "doodle," as Google calls these things) that's sparked so many Google searches it popped up in Google Trends. By late morning, variations of "Google balls," "Google logo" and "Google dots" took up five spots on Google Trends' top searches.
The search - about the floating, size-changing, swooping balls that make up the word "Google" on the search page - is still popular Tuesday evening, and Google itself is mostly mum on the doodle's meaning, but the following tweet appeared on Google's official Twitter page by mid-afternoon: "Boisterous doodle today. Maybe it's excited about the week ahead..."
And the Christian Science Monitor.
Says they: Changes to the traditional Google homepage logo are often an attempt to honor artists and important historical figures – or to draw attention to an event such as the Olympics. But today's Google logo – a mass of bright, bouncy colored balls – isn't obviously linked to a birthday or anniversary, and Google has remained mum on the inspiration for the change.
The New York Daily News was asking, too.
The popular search engine has unveiled its latest logo lunacy and Google-philes are getting their giggles playing with the colorful dots.
So was the Washington Post. They added: If merely for the amount of mystery surrounding it, today's "Google Doodle" is officially, already, Comic Riffs's Animation of the Day.
What about Entertainment Weekly?
Or, USA Today?
They were interested, too.
In fact, here's some links from Google News itself.
No word yet from the National Enquirer.
I will continue to monitor developments, as they occur.

Another interesting place for cartoons

Yesterday, I noted "comics.com" as a good place to find comics and editorial cartoons.
Another place is Yahoo News, which has it's own staple of comics, many of which overlap.
Yahoo has a few editorial cartoonists that comics.com doesn't, including Pat Oliphant, which is often featured in Newsweek. Regardless of your politics, the man can draw!
Yahoo also carries "Classic Bloom County," which is fun to see. It's one of my all-tme favorites, and re-running on the Internet, you can read it daily, but it doesn't take newsprint space away from new cartoons.
In fact, there are several re-run comics in Yahoo and elsewhere.

Did you know (TV edition)?

The longest running show on TV is "Meet the Press (NBC News)," which started November 6, 1947.

A lot of people remember that from when Tim Russert died. He hadn't ben on the show for the whole time, but it seemed like he was there for most of it.

The next two oldest shows still on probably would be harder to guess.
There are only two other shows with 60 plus years on TV. They are:
* "CBS Evening News (CBS News)," which started August 14, 1948; and
* "Music and the Spoken Word," a syndicated show that started in October 1949.

Has anyone ever watched "Music and the Spoken Word?"

Get Fuzzy; also some good puns

"Get Fuzzy" is one of those comic strips I don't read daily, but I do buy the big treasury-sized collections when they come out. The author, Darby Conley, often comes up with some clever puns that make me laugh. Here's a strip with a few of them.
By way of a plug, there's lots of newspaper comics and even editorial cartoons available on http://comics.com.

Serial cereal blogging

Today, I didn't feel like eating anything for breakfast. So, I had a little serving of apple sauce. It was the "natural" kind without sugar or cinnamon or anything. I like the kind with pears in it best, because it's usually green.

Why the Cleveland Indians will still be awful in 2011

In a recent article at fanhouse.com penned (or rather, typed) by Pat McManamon, formerly of the Akron Beacon Journal, Cleveland Indians general manager in waiting Chris Antonetti said he thinks the Indians will be better next year.
“Our expectations are that we'll be a better team next year. And hopefully appreciably better,” was exactly what Antonetti said.
It would be nice to think this will happen, but I doubt it. Here’s a series of reasons:
No matter what else happens, the Indians need a couple of power hitters. They need a couple of middle of the order hitters like Albert Belle, Manny Ramirez, Jim Thome, Juan Gonzales, Lou Boudreau, Rocky Colavito, Boog Powell, Andre Thornton, Joe Carter, Tris Speaker or someone like that. They don’t have a single player right now who fits that mold.
While Shinn Soo Choo is a really fun player to watch, he isn’t going to hit 40 home runs and drive in 120. He’s probably a number two hitter on a championship team, not a three place hitter or a cleanup guy.
They don’t have a middle of the order, and there are no sure-fire candidates.
There’s no way to know what the Indians will get from Grady Sizemore. Even if he comes back full throttle and hits third, that still only fills half of the bill. Besides, he usually hits leadoff.
Carlos Santana showed great promise, but he will lost a half season of development time. I hope he turns into Manny Ramirez, but right now, it’s an “if.”
Matt LaPorta has had stretches during which he has shown some power and overall hitting ability, but a quick glance at his numbers shows he hasn’t been really productive yet. More telling is that he usually hits sixth, behind (ahem) Shelley Duncan and Jayson Nix.
Side-note: One clue that says you are a pretty awful baseball team is that you have guys like Duncan and Nix hitting in the middle of your order.
Speaking of Nix, the infield defense has been awful.
Nix has been hitting since he got to Cleveland, but for some reason the Indians have insisted on playing him at third base where he has been clearly out of position.
Luis Valbuena and playing defense shouldn’t go in the same sentence. At second, he has shown awful hands, but tried to make up for it by being consistently out of position.
Many of the defensive ratings show Asdrubal Cabrera to have below-average range, Terry Pluto wrote recently. Oddly, Cabrera came to the major leagues as a great glove, no-hit guy. He effectively has reversed that at the major league level, being a great hitter but below average shortstop.
The sad thing is that both Cabrera and Nix and pretty good second basemen, but the Indians don’t seem to have a defensive whiz ready to go at shortstop.
It looks as though they don’t like Jason Donald’s bat or glove at short, as he has been the primary second baseman since Cabrera returned. To his credit, he always seems to hustle and play smart wherever he plays.
As for the pitchers, I could drag this out and go through the list, but here’s the short version: Other than Fausto Carmona, the Indians do not have a battle-tested pitcher. And, who knows what Carmona will be like next year?
Usually, in the season like this one, one or two guys that you never heard of become key players. This year, I don’t know if anyone has stepped up, and almost all the veterans have been traded.
Who are the Indians best three players going into next year? Probably Cabrera, Choo and Sizemore.
Compared with the Yankees, Red Sox, Phillies, Braves, Cardinals, Twins, White Sox, Rays or Rangers, and you’ll see the Indians are very far behind the pack.

The Harvey Awards winners for this year are ...

How many of this year's best comics have you read? I starred the ones I have.

Random notes:
Looks like "Asterios Polyp" was pretty well received. Justly so. But, how does David Mazzuchelli win the best letterer award? I always think Todd Klein deserves it every year.
How could a book about Harvey Kurtzman himself not win the award? It is a great book, and oddly enought I am in the process of reading it now.
I read one issue of "Chew," and while it's clever, I think "iZombie" is better.

Best Writer
Robert Kirkman, The Walking Dead (Image Comics)
Best Artist
Robert Crumb, Book of Genesis (W.W. Norton)
Best Cartoonist
Darwyn Cooke, Richard Stark’s Parker: The Hunter (IDW Publishing)*
Best Letterer
David Mazzucchelli, Asterios Polyp (Pantheon)*
Best Inker
Klaus Janson, The Amazing Spider-Man (Marvel)
Best Colorist
Laura Martin, The Rocketeer: The Complete Adventures (IDW Publishing)
Best Cover Artist
Mike Mignola, Hellboy: The Bride of Hell (Dark Horse)*
Best New Talent
Rob Guillory, Chew (Image Comics)*
Best New Series
Chew (Image Comics)*
Best Continuing or Limited Series
The Walking Dead (Image Comics)
Best Original Graphic Publication for Younger Readers
The Muppet Show Comic Book (BOOM! Studios)
Best Anthology
Wednesday Comics (DC Comics)
Best Original Graphic Album
Asterios Polyp, by David Mazucchelli (Pantheon)*
Best Previously Published Graphic Album
Mice Templar, Vol. 1, byzBryan J.L. Glass and Michael Avon Oeming (Image Comics)
Best Syndicated Strip or Panel
Mutts, by Patrick McDonnell (King Features Syndicate)*
Best Domestic Reprint Project
The Rocketeer: The Complete Adventures, by Dave Stevens; edited by Scott Dunbier (IDW Publishing)
Best American Edition of Foreign Material
The Art of Osamu Tezuka: God of Manga, by Helen McCarthy (Abrams ComicArts)
Best Online Comics Work
PvP, by Scott Kurtz
Special Award for Humor in Comics
Bryan Lee O’Malley, Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 5 (Oni Press)
Special Award for Excellence in Presentation
The Rocketeer: The Complete Adventures, by Dave Stevens; edited by Scott Dunbier (IDW Publishing)
Best Biographic, Historical or Journalistic Presentation
Art of Harvey Kurtzman: The Mad Genius of Comics, by Denis Kitchen and Paul Buhle (Abrams ComicArts)*
Best Single Issue or Story
Asterios Polyp, by David Mazucchelli (Pantheon)*

For what it's worth, here's how I might have voted, had I a vote. I left off some categories because either I hadn't read any of the entries, I didn't like any of the entries (true in the "best writer" and "Best inker" categories" or I didn't have a strong preference:

BEST ARTIST
____ Robert Crumb, "BOOK OF GENESIS", W.W. Norton
____ Guy Davis, "BPRD: BLACK GODDESS", Dark Horse Comics
____ Brian Fies, "WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE WORLD OF TOMORROW?", Abrams ComicArts
____ David Petersen, "MOUSE GUARD : WINTER 1152", Archaia Entertainment
____ Frank Quitely, "BATMAN AND ROBIN", DC Comics
__X_ JH Williams III, "DETECTIVE COMICS", DC Comics

BEST CARTOONIST
____ Darwyn Cooke, "RICHARD STARK’S PARKER: THE HUNTER", IDW
____ Jeff Kinney, "DIARY OF A WIMPY KID #3: THE LAST STRAW", Amulet Books
____ Roger Langridge, "THE MUPPET SHOW COMIC BOOK", BOOM! Studios
____ David Mazzucchelli, "ASTERIOS POLYP", Pantheon
__X_ Seth, "GEORGE SPROTT (1894-1975)", Drawn and Quarterly

BEST COLORIST
____ Brian Fies, "WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE WORLD OF TOMORROW?", Abrams ComicArts
____ Steve Hamaker, "BONE: CROWN OF HORNS”, Graphix
____ Laura Martin, "THE ROCKETEER: THE COMPLETE ADVENTURES", IDW
____ David Mazzucchelli, "ASTERIOS POLYP", Pantheon
__X_ Dave Stewart, "BPRD: BLACK GODDESS", Dark Horse Comics

BEST COVER ARTIST
____ Jenny Frison, "THE DREAMER", IDW
____ Mike Mignola, "HELLBOY: THE BRIDE OF HELL", Dark Horse Comics
____ Michael Avon Oeming, "MICE TEMPLAR: DESTINY, PART I", Image Comics
____ Frank Quitely, "BATMAN AND ROBIN", DC Comics
__X_ JH Williams III, "DETECTIVE COMICS", DC Comics

BEST CONTINUING OR LIMITED SERIES
__X_ "BEASTS OF BURDEN", Dark Horse Comics
____ "DIARY OF A WIMPY KID", Amulet Books
____ "GANGES",  Fantagraphics Books
____ "INVINCIBLE", Image Comics
____ "SCALPED", Vertigo/DC Comics
____ "THE WALKING DEAD", Image Comics

BEST ANTHOLOGY
____ "ACT-I-VATE PRIMER", IDW
____ "FLIGHT # 6", Villard
____ "POPGUN # 3", Image Comics
____ "STRANGE TALES", Marvel Comics
__X_ "WEDNESDAY COMICS", DC Comics

BEST SYNDICATED STRIP OR PANEL
____ "CUL-DE-SAC", by Richard Thompson, Universal Press Syndicate
____ "FOXTROT", by Bill Amend, Universal Press Syndicate
____ "GET FUZZY", by Darby Conley, United Feature Syndicate
__X_ "MUTTS", by Patrick McDonnell, King Features Syndicate
____ "PEARLS BEFORE SWINE", by Stephan Pastis, United Feature Syndicate

BEST DOMESTIC REPRINT PROJECT
____ "THE BEST OF SIMON AND KIRBY", by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby; edited by Steve Saffel, Titan Books
__X_ "HUMBUG", conceived and edited by Harvey Kurtzman and created by Harvey Kurtzman, Jack Davis, Will Elder, Al Jaffee and Arnold Roth; edited by Gary Groth, Fantagraphics Books
____ "RIP KIRBY", by Alex Raymond;  edited by Dean Mullaney, IDW
____ "THE ROCKETEER:  THE COMPLETE ADVENTURES”, by Dave Stevens; edited by Scott Dunbier, IDW
____ "THE TOON TREASURY OF CLASSIC CHILDREN'S COMICS", edited by Art Spiegelman and Francoise Mouly, Abrams ComicsArt

SPECIAL AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN PRESENTATION
____ "ART OF HARVEY KURTZMAN: THE MAD GENIUS OF COMICS", by Denis Kitchen and Paul Buhle, Abrams ComicArts
____ "THE BRINKLEY GIRLS: THE BEST OF NELL BRINKLEY’S CARTOONS FROM 1913-1940", edited by Trina Robbins, Fantagraphics Books
____ "GEORGE SPROTT (1894-1975)", by Seth, Drawn and Quarterly
____ "THE ROCKETEER: THE COMPLETE ADVENTURES", by Dave Stevens, edited by Scott Dunbier, IDW
____ "SECRET IDENTITY: THE FETISH ART OF SUPERMAN’S CO-CREATOR JOE SHUSTER",  edited by Craig Yoe, Abrams ComicArts
__X_ "WEDNESDAY COMICS", edited by Mark Chiarello, DC Comics

BEST BIOGRAPHICAL, HISTORICAL OR JOURNALISTIC PRESENTATION
____ "ALTER-EGO", edited by Roy Thomas, TwoMorrows
__X_ "ART OF HARVEY KURTZMAN: THE MAD GENIUS OF COMICS", by Denis Kitchen  and Paul Buhle, Abrams ComicArts
____ "THE BEST OF SIMON AND KIRBY", by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby edited by Steve Saffel, Titan Books
____ "THE COMICS JOURNAL", edited by Gary Groth, Michael Dean and Kristy Valenti, Fantagraphics Books
____ "UNDERGROUND CLASSICS", by James Danky and Denis Kitchen, Abrams ComicArts

Chiaroscuro video

This video runs about four minutes, but it is definitely worth spending the time to watch. I found it on Scott McCloud's Web site. (Which, if you have not seen you'd probably also like.)

A post you may have read in an e-mail

But, if you didn't, here's what I said:

Not that it went so far away, but I have horribly been neglecting my blog this summer.

To fix this, I have re-built the site with a somewhat new look, and I plan to be adding content regularly. In my best months, I was posting an average of once every couple of days and I think I can resume that pace.

Anyway, I am sending out an e-mail blast in the hopes of gaining some readers. Feel free to send the link out to anybody who might be interested.

I was once told all it is about is comic books and baseball, but it's also about lots of other things, including what I eat for breakfast, nun fights, bad experiences on airlines (especially United), commercials that really stink, interesting links I find and various other things I think up. I considered breaking it up into different blogs, but I decided I'd have a half-dozen little blogs that never got updated. I did not delete all the old stuff, so if you want to go read that, feel free.

If nothing else, come and vote on my poll. I try to keep them of general interest.

Opening band for a new era!

What better to help me re-start this thing but another song from Paul and Storm: "Opening Band?" If I could only find the original file of the upside-down picture of me over there, I'd register on their site as a "minion."

Not in honor of Paris Hilton

in light of Paris Hilton's recent arrest on allegations of cocaine possession, I present a link to a Paul and Storm song that called, "Anything But Paris."

It's been a month, hasn't it?

I guess I just haven't had a lot to say.
A few brief comments:
1. Stephen Strasburg should not be placed on the NL All-Star team. He hasn't pitched enough in the majors to enjoy that honor.
2. There is a new "Apples in Stereo" album available, and I have not purchased it yet.
3. My new favorite comics writer is Chris Roberson. He wrote the "Cinderella" limited series, and is working with Mike Allred on "i, zombie."
4. The Cleveland Indians are a sinking ship. but will probably be more fun to watch as they call up more and more prospects and trade the likes of Russell Branyan and Austin Kearns.
5. Today, for breakfast, I had a cupcake.
6. I am trying to think of something clever to send in to "Groo-Grams" so I can get a letter published in one of the last real letter columns in comics. But, I want to send in something worth being read by millions of Groo readers worldwide. On second thought, maybe I'll just dash off something quickly.
7. Otters are a lot of fun to watch.
8. I have a new bike. I don't have much other than that say. It's a "Raleigh." It's green.

One little Cleveland Indian

There are few bright spots to the Cleveland Indians' season so far, but one of the players I have the most fun watching is pitcher Mitch Talbot.
He has, quite possibly, been the Indians' best pitcher so far this year, despite entering the season with only three games of previous experience, with Tampa Bay in 2008.
He seems to know how to pitch, and even succeeds when he doesn't have his best stuff.

Another good song by XTC

This one actually got a little radio play. It got to #72 on the Billboard chart.

A good song by XTC

This was in a 12-inch LP I have around the house somewhere. When I got it, I played it over and over and over.
Note the train-ish rhythm and the lyrics that kinda of match up.
I can't understand why they didn't record this one and put on an album somewhere.

This about says it all

It was a perfect game

As a Cleveland Indians fan, i certainly did not want to see my team be the victim of a perfect game by Detroit's Armando Galarraga, however, the blown call that ended the game moments ago makes a great case for instant replay.
Jason Donald did not reach the first base before Galarraga's foot touched the bag. It was not a hit.
I wish there was some way to MLB to review that call and give Galarraga the perfect game he deserves.
Donald probably appreciates the extra hit, though ...
I wish I could find a photo of the blown call. If I find one, I'll post it later.

Serial cereal blogging

pineapple upside-cake.

Serial cereal blogging

Apple Jacks.

Another word I hate

How often is it that someone starts the answer to your question with the word, "basically," and proceeds to give you a complex, detail-laden description of what they want to tell you?

A phrase I hate

Lots of people like to fall back on saying, "At this time ..."
As in "At this time, we will all move to the bleachers for a musical number by Joan Jett."
You don't need it. Ever.
The meaning is always the same as if you didn't add "at this time."

Two words I hate

1. "Approximately." Just say "about."
2. "Utilize." Just say "use."

How I went to a Jonathan Coulton and Paul and Storm concert and got a really big t-shirt (Part three)

Part three of three:
After a break of about a half hour, Coulton came out, with no one, not even Paul and Storm, to introduce him.
He began with the first three songs in the same order as his live album, “Best. Concert. Ever,” which included, “The Future Soon,” “Ikea,” and “Shop Vac.”
Coulton noted onstage he had been to Richmond a few months earlier, as the opening act for They Might Be Giants. This was the first time he played in Richmond as the headliner. To be safe, he jokingly told the crowd, he was going to play nothing but TMBG songs, because that seemed to go over pretty well for them.
He played a lot of the music from “Best. Concert. Ever,” but substituted a few different songs, too. These included: “Big Bad World One,” and “Space Doggity.”
While Coulton sang “Mandelbrot Set,” a song about the mathematical formula developed by Benoit Mandlebrot, which has something to do with infinite complexity, two folks in the back held up a sign, lit with a flashlight, displaying the actual formula.
As he began singing the song, Coulton saw the sign and started to laugh, but kept going. I didn’t know he took a little creative license with the formula in his song.
At the end, he whispered the crowd he did not use the exact formula because he didn’t really understand it that well.
“Neither does Benoit Mandelbrot,” he joked.
Certainly, being arithmetically impaired, it made me feel good to know I wasn’t the only one who didn’t understand it.
As usual, Paul and Storm joined him on stage for a few songs.
Both acts are great on their own, but I really think Coulton gets better with Paul and Storm on stage. In addition to being great backing vocalists, they give him someone to joke and interact with while on stage.
They got into some really funny digressions between songs, some of which involved the “deuchebag pose,” and another that involved getting Coulton into a giant cybernetic suit so he get away from the microphone and move around the stage with no cords.
This kind of interplay is why I like going to concerts -- it really helps the audience get to know the people who are performing, and not just hear the songs.
I can listen to the songs better on my iPod or car stereo than at a concert -- I can rewind them and listen over and over -- but it’s the human touch of getting to see what these performers are like on stage that makes me want to go to a concert.
Coulton brought Paul and Storm back for the encore and ended with “First of May.” If you have never heard this one, it struck me as being just plain offensive the first time I heard it, but the more I listened to it, the more it made me laugh.
Before performing, he did say, “If anyone has any kids in here, get them out now.”
(Just for the record: Coulton did not perform “Big Dick Farts A Polka.)
So, the concert was over, and I left after buying a Paul and Storm t-shirt. Sadly I discovered too late it was not an XL, but was in fact an XXL. No way that’s ever gonna fit.
(If I was in college I could use it as a wall decoration, but I am too mature for that now. I have mature people things like Winslow Homer paintings. Never mind the Spirit poster autographed by Will Eisner and the photos of Brett Favre and Bon Feller. They’re in frames, you, know. That makes them “art” and not “decoration.”)
One other note: never trust a GPS. The darn things have a sense of humor.
I activated mine to get me from the Hat Factory to the highway to drive home. I blundered around underneath I-95 back and forth for probably 10 minutes as the GPS read, “Acquiring satellites.” Which is GPS language for “Nyahh, nyahh, nyahhh.”
Finally, using my own navigating skills, which mostly involved driving around aimlessly under the highway, I found a sign for I-95 and I-64 and followed it.
Wouldn’t you know, the second I merged on the highway, the GPS knew exactly where I was and had my trip home calculated?

Note: I provided links to the Paul and Storm and Jonathan Coulton Web sites. I did not embed links to every individual song, because that’s too much like work. Find ‘em yourself.

I was held prisoner by United Airlines (Or: Why I hate flying and really hate flying United.) A farce in three acts

Act three:
When I saw the video monitor, my connecting flight was due to leave in 10 minutes. From a different concourse. At the far end. And I was at the far end of the concourse where my flight from Indianapolis de-boarded.
So, I decided what the heck.
I ran down concourse C, ran down the escalator to the connecting tunnel, avoided the moving sidewalk because there were too many people on it, and only paused briefly on the up escalator, before sprinting down concourse B to my gate.
The scene at the end of “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” in which he was running through people’s back yards to beat his parents home, was running through my head. So was the music.
When I got there, the flight hadn’t left, but all the passengers were crowded around the gate ready to get on.
The woman working the gate was handing out boarding passes to people who were flying standby. Naturally, I assumed they were probably giving my seat away, since this was United and I was two hours late, anyway.
I went to the counter. This attendant was pretty efficient. She took care of the people in front of me effectively and quickly. She told me I still had my seat. Relieved, I went to get a drink of water somewhat happy I ran all the way there.
A few minuted later, we boarded that flight.
Guess what happened next.
We taxied out toward the runway. I saw our plane pull away from the runway procession and park in a holding area. Then the captain announced we’d have a brief delay while they recalculated our route because of bad weather.
That took another hour. During which we sat on the plane again. But, it was only an hour, and we took off, a two-hour flight from home.
So, to total this up: I spent five and a half hours on two planes for what should have been two and half hours.
The plane arrived in Norfolk and I went to baggage claim to get my luggage.
It dawned on me that my bag probably didn’t make the transfer in Chicago. I had hurried to get to the next flight, but the United baggage handlers probably didn’t. Heck, the way the clerk in Indianapolis reacted to me, I figured it was in Abu Dhabi by now.
I watched every bag come off the line, and none of them were mine.
So, I walked to the baggage office, which was empty for the night. Pretty soon, one employee came along and started rounding up the unclaimed suitcases. He said he was the person who would take care of tracing my bag.
This guy was the best customer service person I dealt with the whole day. He was patient with all the cranky people who didn’t get their suitcases.
One lady was asking questions as if she had never lost a bag before.
“This says local address. I live two-and-a-half hours from here. Is it OK to put my home address?” and “What time tomorrow will they deliver it?"
He handled all the questions like a pro, and helped everyone, including me, fill out their claim forms.
My bag was in Chicago, he said.
So, I went home.
The next day, late in the afternoon, after hearing nothing about my suitcase, I checked the United Web site, which told me they had no idea where the bag was. Did it even go to Chicago? Abu Dhabi it was, I guess.
So, I called customer service, and the person the phone assured me it was indeed still in Chicago. Why it hadn’t been put on the next flight to Norfolk, I have no idea.
United finally brought it to my house Sunday afternoon about 4:30 p.m.
(Interlude: When I lived in Ohio, sometimes the airlines lost my bags. However the Toledo airport had one guy, in the days before GPS, who always brought your bag back the next day. I know this because it happened three times over the course of several years, and it was always the same smiley, happy guy who brought my suitcase back. He always acted as if he really hurried to get it to me, too.
In fairness, I didn’t meet the delivery guy this time. He called just as we were leaving to go swimming for the afternoon and dropped off the bag.
So anyway, next time I fly United, they can make it up to me by getting me to my destination three hours early (even if that means, on a short flight, arriving before I left), not losing my bag and giving me candy bars.
Until then, I am going to avoid flying United and dread it if I have to.