How often do you get to revisit an old in-joke? Six years ago, Katie and I were driving past the Inn-N-Out by UCI and noticed the sign was only half-lit. Katie exclaimed:
It’s an inn! The out is out on In-N-Out!
Last Friday we went back to UCI for a play and had dinner at the Indian restaurant across the street. As we left the parking lot, we saw this:
Ah, nostalgia!
JMS’ new site is getting more interesting all the time. Or rather, what he’s selling through the site. It started out as a 15-volume set of all of JMS’ Babylon 5 scripts, but it’s turned into, in Straczynski’s words, the definitive “Making of B5,” complete with production notes, backstage photos, introductions to each episode, etc.
Unfortunately all the really cool stuff is going into volume 15, which is only going to be available to people who order all of the first 14 volumes. A treatment of the 5-year arc with Sinclair in it all the way, alternate episodes, etc.
I’ve ordered Volume 1. Apparently they underestimated demand—people always underestimate demand for B5—because CafePress sent out a notice that “due to overwhelming popularity, your order for the Babylon 5 Script has been delayed. Our production team is working diligently to ensure that the books are printed as quickly as possible.”
You know how some restaurants always give you a pickle with their sandwiches? Well, at Ruby’s today I finished, picked up the toothpick flag that had been stuck in the hamburger, turned the pickle over and planted the flag, declaring it to be a boat. Katie immediately took her pickle and a leftover onion slice and turned it into an outrigger. A bit more manipulation, plus a napkin for a sail, and it became a catamaran.
Our waiter did a double-take when he picked up the plate, then set it down on the counter. We like to think it was so the other waiters could see it.
Over the last few days, I’ve heard more than one reporter at NPR slip up and refer to Lewis Libby (is it just me, or have people stopped calling him “Scooter” since the indictment?) as Libby Lewis. (On a side note, that name always makes me think of Libby Lawrence.) Well, I think they can be excused given that they work with a reporter by that name! Add in the fact that she’s reporting on the Plame case, and you can see the confusion…
This morning I caught Morning Edition’s listener comments segment, and I’m not the only one who noticed. They signed off as “Edition Morning.”
I was thinking about a discussion on last month’s Flash #226 and got to thinking about the way religion figures into mainstream comic books. Not the way religious characters are portrayed, but the way the fictional world works. I’m not familiar enough with Marvel (though I can make some guesses based on the presence of Thor), but DC seems to have an “anything goes” cosmology: current scientific theory coexists with the Christian God, Heaven and Hell, with gods and other supernatural beings from various mythologies—some of them made up, like the Lords of Order and Chaos—occupying their own corners of the universe.
That’s probably what you want for a long-term, open-ended shared universe, because it gives you the most opportunities for stories. Want to write about an alien race that lived billions of years ago, or evolved from cats? Check. Have a fallen angel join the Justice League? Check. Tie Wonder Woman’s origin directly to the Greek gods? Check. Use made-up alien gods to explain the Greco-Roman split? Check. Power up half your villains and a handful of heroes as they sell their souls to a devil? Check. Pit the spirit of God’s wrath against a 50,000-year-old immortal ex-caveman? Check. Send some characters to Heaven or Hell, but have others destined to be reincarnated over and over again? Check. Observe the hand of God at the moment of the big bang? Check.
There are a couple of limits. DC seems to avoid ascribing a particular religion or denomination to any of their A-list characters, probably so that readers can just assume it’s their own (kind of like setting a story in “Anytown, USA”). And they avoid direct portrayals of God or Jesus, probably for the same reason. Continue reading
According to Marketplace, critics of President Bush’s flu pandemic preparedness proposal contend that it’s too focused on vaccines and antiviral drugs, and that the money would be more effectively used by monitoring outbreaks and trying to stamp out bird flu in the third world.
In other words, they say we should take the fight to the flu abroad so we don’t have to fight it at home. Why does that sound familiar? 😉
Over the past few months, DC Comics has attempted to straighten out the origins of two female characters who were left with screwed-up origins after Crisis on Infinite Earths: Donna Troy and Power Girl. The two origins, however, took opposite approaches. Continue reading
