It’s really annoying that the writers and editors on The Flash didn’t see fit to actually tell us the names of Wally and Linda’s children during the final 6 issues of the series. All we know is that one is a boy and the other is a girl.
Even more annoying is the fan speculation that the twins will turn out to be one of two existing pairs of characters:
It looks like the media is still viewing Disney’s acquisition of Pixar in terms of 3-D computer animation vs. 2-D hand animation. I still think they’re missing the point.
Disney’s new golden age started with The Little Mermaid in 1989 and ran through The Lion King in 1994. Pixar’s unbroken string of hits started with Toy Story in 1995. Disney has continued to release at least one animated movie each year, but hasn’t had a hit on the same level. It’s tempting to say “Well, Disney’s doing 2-D animation and Pixar is doing 3-D animation, so that must be the reason.” But Disney’s own Chicken Little did only passably well at the box office.
I’ve maintained all along that the issue isn’t the animation style but the quality of the movie as a whole. Yes, Pixar is very good at 3-D animation, but they’re also very good at story. Let’s look at Disney’s recent films for a moment—just the films, not the competition, and not the box office take. Has anything from Pocahontas onward been as good as Beauty and the Beast or Aladdin? Or has the quality dropped off? I don’t mean just the animation—the animation is still top-quality in the ones I’ve seen. I mean, is the story compelling? The characters? The premise? Would the average moviegoer look at Home on the Range and say, “I have to see this!”
I think there’s plenty of life in both 2-D and 3-D animation. Disney’s in-house animated features didn’t “lose” to Pixar because they were 2-D. They lost because Disney got boring. Switching from hand animation to computer animation isn’t going to change that.
I found a 419 scam in the spamtraps that started, in typical fashion, with an all-caps name and address, then the line:
HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL REQUESTING
What made this funny (aside from the bad grammar) was the fact that the To: line contained over 1,200 addresses!
Ah, this is obviously some strange use of the word confidential that I wasn’t previously aware of!
I handle the abuse contact for an ISP’s domain name. Normally this doesn’t take up much of my inbox. Even the “Your users are spamming” messages (in response to forged senders) have dropped off.
Since last night, though, the abuse and tech support contacts that filter into my inbox have collected 42 44 spams advertising the “Body Bouncer,” which claims to “take the gravity out of sex.”* Distributed IPs, random content, 6 different subjects (so far). What they have in common are a sales pitch in an image, and a link to their website.
Ordinarily, that would be enough to tag it. Continue reading
I had a really strange experience with Internet Explorer earlier this week. I had a reason to check Windows Update (checking for driver updates), but no matter what I did, Microsoft Update opened itself in Firefox! Even if I typed the URL into IE, or chose it from the Tools menu. It became clear that the same was true of typing in any other URL, or trying to open a link in a new window.
As far as I can tell, IE had decided that it wasn’t capable of handling new HTTP connections and was sending the URL to the default browser. Continue reading
I have the Firefox extension for del.icio.us installed on several computers. Today I noticed that the Tag button, when hovered over with the mouse cursor and seen indirectly, looks like a ghost from Pac-Man.
Not only that, but it’s dark blue, like a ghost after you’ve eaten a power pellet and can reverse the food chain.
Now that sounds delicious!
DC Comics’ April releases have been announced, among them Crisis Aftermath: The Battle For Blüdhaven. (That’s the city Nightwing decided to protect when he went solo, downriver from Gotham and even more corrupt.) But the cover doesn’t make me think of Nightwing, or of Batman:
Let’s see, there’s American Maid/Captain Liberty, not sure about the guy in the middle, but the three ninjas on the right sure look like they’re forming a hedge.
Could it be true? Is The Tick coming to Blüdhaven?
OK, they’re actually the Force of July (thanks to the Comic Bloc forums for the ID), but wouldn’t the Tick have been funnier?
