From a bill for legal services:
“Messenger Delivery Fees UPS – CALL TAG – THE RETURN OF RECS FORM DR COLEMAN’S LOST GATOS CA”
UPS? Those poor kitties.
Category: Entertainment
Just saw “Orpheus.” On tape.
Okay, no Slayer army yet, but I have yet to see what happens on the Buffy that showed while we were elsewhere. And Willow under a different writer is sort of like Willow on speed.
And where the hell is Cordy getting her clothes? Evil Pregnant Sluts ‘R’ Us?
Only 306 Days Left!
Today I got a renewal notice from Network Solutions:
Your domain name registrations will begin expiring on
Jan 14, 2004. Act now.
Snrglt…
The woman across the cubicle keeps talking about someplace in Wildomar, and every time she says it, I hear Voldemort….
Super-Hero Weddings
Over the past few weeks I’ve been going through the Silver Age Flash series, cataloging character appearances. I’m almost done – only 25 issues left – but it reminded me of something:
Why is it that super-hero weddings are almost always interrupted by super-villains – even when the hero’s identity is secret?
Is it just that readers expect a story with some sort of fight in it, and if it’s just a wedding they’ll be disappointed?
Consider these examples:
- Flash II (Barry Allen) and Iris West: the wedding is interrupted when Professor Zoom disguises himself as the groom, and the Flash has to get rid of him and then make it to the wedding himself.
- Flash II (Barry Allen) and Fiona Webb (after Iris’ death): Zoom returns, Flash spends the whole day chasing him around the globe, and eventually Fiona gives up and runs out of the chapel, just in time for Zoom to try to kill her. (Flash stops him with a last-second choke-hold which breaks his neck, leading to a manslaughter trial, the disappearance of Barry Allen, and finally the cancellation of the series.)
- Flash III (Wally West) and Linda Park: at the moment the rings are exchanged, Abra Kadabra kidnaps Linda, sends everyone home, and casts a massive forget spell, erasing all memory and records of her back to the point she met Wally. Eventually she escapes, Kadabra is tricked into reversing the spell, and they hold a new wedding – 18 issues later.
And it’s not just the main characters who get this treatment: Continue reading
Audio-video evil
When I lived with my family, we used to have just the right type of TV/cable box connection for a really neat trick. My sister and I discovered by accident that, by leaving the TV on channel 4 instead of 3 when switching to cable, we could get the picture from whatever channel was on the cable box (fuzzy, but identifiable) with the audio from channel 4. Combining a dignified-looking lawyer’s speech on the predecessor of Court TV with the audio from a commercial for Pull-Ups was truly quality television. Unfortunately, now my parents have a Dish, which isn’t cooperative.
Meanwhile, our current TV/stereo system is intertwined. The TV audio comes through the stereo speakers, and the DVD and VCR are hooked up to the TV. At the Presidents’ Day BBQ with the usual gang of suspects, we put Star Wars in the VCR for some background entertainment. Enter Jakob Luebke, age 17 months. Displaying remarkable electronics aptitude, he hit the TUNER button and switched the radio from classical to Star, thereby turning the movie into one long music video. It was the strangest way any of us have ever watched A New Hope. Highlights include a Robbins Brothers commercial saying “Dial 1-800-555-RING” just as a ring of debris explodes from Alderaan, Macy Gray performing in the Mos Eisley Cantina, and a used car commercial warning against lemons (“You’ll regret it!”) as a Y-wing blows up. There’s also a bunch of stuff I can’t remember. (Guys?)
So now I’m thinking about other ways to mess with audio and video. We have a large collection of stage-musical soundtracks that include chunks of libretto for better pacing. But darn it, Fellowship still isn’t fast enough to work with Rent……
Lines that didn’t make the cut
PRINCIPAL WOOD: Nice coat. Where’d you get it?
SPIKE: Your mama.