David's Amazing Adventures

A few bullets for you today:

• Against my better judgment, a friend has convinced me to give Men In Black a try. The first one. I've never gotten on board Men In Black--seeing a few minutes of the second installment made me take a pass on it. If I weren't such a Tommy Lee Jones fan, I probably wouldn't consider trying to get into it.
  
  
• There are times when I think the entertainment equipment we buy gives us too many options. HDMI-ready receivers and players were supposed to take care of most of that. Yet there are additional hoops to jump through with some equipment. My receiver, for instance, has to be correctly calibrated to the room for optimal performance--which is a nice option to have, and you only have to do it once. But then it has all sorts of settings for sound, depending on what you're listening to. Sci-fi. Music. Action. Drama. Yes, there is a sound setting for drama. I don't know what technos could possibly use in a lab to determine that. Maybe they record several Thanksgiving family dinners and average the results.
  
  So I just basically did the room calibration, and let the source communicate to the receiver its optimal sound, and leave it at that. I was watching Captain America last night with said friend, and noticing her reaction as the Red Skull tested his new power source. The HMMMMMMMMM--VROLLLLLLMMMM sound in that scene reverberated around the entire room, thanks to the receiver, and I think she actually gripped the couch more firmly. So I'm not arguing with results like that.
  
  
• I don't know how many times I've heard the conservative argument that gay marriage threatens "traditional" marriage. I always get stuck on the word "threatens," and how Inigo Montoya's classic reponse to Vizzini on his use of the word "inconceivable" would be apropos here. I can only assume that "threaten" is being used in lieu of some other word in order to anger and rally the troops--a way to make gay marriage the "threat" that it isn't. You can dismantle the "threat" of gay marriage by using the same argument I always give in support of such marriages--that gays and lesbians should have the same rights of divorce and alimony that heterosexual couples enjoy. Come on, even the staunchest evangelical would get a chuckle out of that. But as to how gay marriage threatens to--what, stamp out heterosexual marriage? Is that really the absurd point that's being made? I'm not seeing it. I need the case to be made to me, not having my buttons tweaked with inflammatory words that accomplish nothing.
  
  
• Facebook's IPO implosion may end up becoming the catalyst for making investors finally take a good hard look at the stock market and consider walking away from this high-tech crap shoot with their money. I consider that no small blunder.
  
  
• It probably goes without saying that I'm waiting for the Blu-ray release of The Avengers before seeing it. That, according to reports, is going to be late September. FYI, there will be 30 minutes of additional footage, some of which I'm hoping will result in a "director's cut" rather than a string of deleted scenes. Unfortunately, seeing "deleted scenes" on a box cover seems to market better than "director's cut," since there are still camps that prefer seeing the original theater release rather than an entirely new extended cut--and individual scenes you can pick and choose from can be taken out of context.
  
  
• It's become that time of year when the heat on the pool deck is such that my feet are in danger of becoming as black as the MIB suits before I can make it to the pool. Picture the look of relief on Wile E. Coyote's face as he finds a puddle to stand in to put out the flames on his feet.

Finally, because I haven't done a poll in awhile, I'm going to ask you to decide on one of the most controversial questions we can never seem to agree on:

Poll #1842773 Over/Under
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 5

A fresh roll of toilet paper should have the tissue unrolling from which side--over or under?

(The answer, obviously, is "under." And you treat paper towels the same way. What's wrong with you?)

 

"It's one deputy, so what?"

-- Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona's Maricopa County, currently under investigation by the Justice Department on civil rights violations, responding to articles in both the Arizona Republic and the Honolulu Star Advertiser that he's sent a taxpayer-funded deputy to Hawaii to investigate President Obama's birth certificate

 

A Showcase of the Screen's Finest Scenes

 



An episode of Battlestar Galactica, "Dirty Hands," deals with the working class struggles of the various populations of the colonial worlds, a conflict which unfortunately continues even while those remaining alive after the Cylon attack fight to escape their oppressors. With resources so limited, it seems imperative to the functioning government to keep everyone restricted to their assigned jobs; so when Diana Seelix, a deckhand aboard the Galactica, aspires to be more than she is and applies to be a viper pilot, her application is denied even though she meets the qualifications for the job.

But when Seelix's supervisor, Chief Tyrol, later proves instrumental in resolving the growing problem, baby steps toward change of the status quo are taken, with new shift rotations being implemented in tandem with people from a variety of other positions being trained in different jobs. And as the optimistic atmosphere begins to make its way through the fleet, Seelix receives a surprise visit from a pissed-off Capt. Starbuck--who, to Seelix's utter astonishment, rips her a new one for reasons which make Seelix one very happy former deckhand.

Tap the clapperboard to download and watch this scene.


 

I can't be sure--but assuming that billionaires amuse themselves in twisted ways that the rest of us wouldn't consider, I get the feeling that Facebook's IPO and subsequent implosion was really just a fun way for Mark Zuckerberg to play investors so that he could have the expenses of his wedding and honeymoon comped.

Go on. Take one look at any picture of Mark Zuckerberg smiling, and tell me you'd trust him as far as you could throw him.

 

Gosh, what a voice on this guy.
 

As long as we're talking about failed experiments in comics, this one was a doozy:



The late 1970s seemed to be Marvel's hit-and-miss years, as far as establishing new series and new characters. The reboot of Uncanny X-Men was inarguably the company's most high-profile "hit"; and of course Peter Parker The Spectacular Spider-Man, in part made possible by Spider-Man's successful anchoring of Marvel Team-Up, enjoyed a long run of over twenty years. But many of Marvel's concepts of that period didn't bear fruit. The Man Called Nova, despite having a pretty inspired costume, came across visually as merely a flying super-speedster. Its last issue, pulling out all the stops, proclaimed:



To which readers, those who were left, responded at this point with: "So?"

And despite her endurance to this day, Ms. Marvel didn't have an easy go of it either, her first comic series ending after 23 issues--the last few including redesigns of the book's masthead as well as her costume. The Champions, which grouped Iceman, Angel, Hercules, the Ghost Rider, and the Black Widow into a super-team based in Los Angeles, failed after just 17 issues.

Then there was Omega, the Unknown--featuring a character who, after over a year and a half of (bi-monthly) publication, still remained "unknown" to even his readers. That's a little long to tell an origin story and still be no closer to the title character's origin. Issue #9, its next-to-last issue, then tried to coax new readers with this cover blurb:



Which was really the only lifeline available to it, unfortunately. Writer Steve Gerber, despite stints on scripting The Defenders and Daredevil, didn't approach the calibre of comics writers like Roy Thomas, Steve Englehart, et al., in part because he was sort of the Tim Burton of comics--delivering respectable product, but more imaginative in the short term sense. Howard The Duck fared better than most late '70s start-ups (with 31 issues), getting its boost from the uniqueness of its title character as well as from artist Gene Colan's contribution to it--so this sort of plug by this point in Omega's run couldn't do any harm, though it was probably more of a "hail Mary" pass as far as expectations for increased sales.

So what exactly was the deal with this character? As it turns out, the cover of the book's first issue gives you just about every piece of the puzzle concerning the character's makeup:



Yet from there, the story drags on, throwing its readers bones. We learn that there's a strange link between this mysterious costumed figure a newspaper has dubbed "Omega," and a boy, James-Michael Starling, who survived a car crash that killed his parents. Unfortunately, the book's final issue leaves us not only that unsolved mystery, but a new storyline involving a woman and a strange creature, which results in Omega's death by the police:



The story of Omega--the very dead Omega, by the way--then gets lobbed over to The Defenders for its resolution. And it only takes just a few pages in a two-issue story in that title to wrap things up and reveal everything.

( Which I've put behind a cut, in case you'd rather hunt down the story instead. )

In retrospect, I think Omega the Unknown would have done better in sales had it been produced and marketed as a 10-issue "limited series," trimming it down and getting rid of a lot of pointless exposition in favor of more informative segments of Omega's origin. Much of James-Michael's awkwardness and difficulty in fitting in with his peers could have been accomplished in far less space than was taken during the run of the book. And as for Omega himself, we could have done away with panels like this one, which seems to serve no purpose other than giving the writer something to do:



If a limited series featuring the character had been successful and the character of "Omega" was in demand, it could have been a good jumping-off point for a regular monthly series. In reality, it seems Omega's real-world fate was as doomed as the purpose given to him by his fictional creators.
 

(Relax, this isn't a Facebook rant--but you'll need to bear with my preamble to understand where I'm going with this.)

I was reading an article today about the "resisters" of Facebook--people who still haven't started an account at Facebook and have no plans to. No use for it. And this comment from one of those people made me pause:

"I'm absolutely in touch with everyone in my life that I want to be in touch with. I don't need to share triviality with someone that I might have known for six months 12 years ago."

And it gave me food for thought because, if you take Facebook out of the discussion, this person has described in a nutshell how our social perspectives change as we grow older. Or, to put it another way: How many people did you once promise you'd keep in touch with (and they with you)? Or how many people did you feel you'd always have a bond with, no matter the circumstances or distance? Yet what percentage of those people have you long since left behind as you've grown older?

It reminded me of when people I knew years ago have crossed my path (unknown to them), and me feeling weird about walking up and saying hello to. How the urge to let the past remain in the past overrides the "how have you been?" factor. And some of these were people I knew well. But the fact is we've all grown apart over the years, and for some reason that feels as it should be. I'm sure we'd be courteous and friendly toward each other if we surprised each other with a hello--but, then what? Picking up where we left off? How uncomfortable that would feel. People don't just lose touch--we acquiesce to losing touch. It's with our unspoken consent.

Our lives take different paths. You meet new people, develop different perspectives. You find yourself letting go of the past, and the people in that past, without a backward glance.

I remember a few years ago getting a call from a very dear friend, out of the blue. He'd come across some letters we'd written each other, and it just spurred him to make the call. And we laughed, and had a good talk with each other. And that was that. I think for both of us it probably felt as if it should have meant more. Still friends, but there was nothing anymore to grab hold of. I suppose that quote above made me realize today how transient our lives are. There's past, and present. And never the two shall meet. For some reason I don't fully understand, that feels--I almost hesitate to use the word--normal.
 

I might as well come out and say it: I've decided to purchase shares of Facebook on Friday. Lots of them.

Yes, I still loathe Facebook and how pointless it is.

I cannot explain this discrepancy. Well, maybe I can. Greed.

In other news, I've found that sometimes there's no better way to unclog a kitchen sink drain than to roll up your sleeves and disassemble the piping. I previously attempted two separate acidic gel applications, to no avail. So there was no other choice but to take the direct route.

Sludge. A major amount of sludge was the culprit. Accompanied by the most ungodly stench imaginable, this side of a Republican. I've cleaned out the sludge, disposed of it in the trash, disposed of the trash bag in the trash pickup container outside--and I can still smell the sludge in my head. Perhaps you've had that sensation before, yourself--you no doubt wince from it, as I do.

I poured white vinegar down the drain to help disperse any remnants of the stench. Maybe I'll give it a bleach chaser in the morning.

I watched Die, Mommie, Die! during dinner tonight, which I must have seen a dozen times by now.

I've decided to pick up watching Battlestar: Galactica again, which I dropped in mid-Season 3 because its convoluted storylines were twisting around themselves like a pretzel.

Why is that guy building another Titanic? Is he seriously going to make it run by using sweaty workers down below shoveling coal into boilers?
 

A year ago today, I gave you the shocking figure of the country's total outstanding debt, down to the penny:

$14,307,799,341,563.81

 
Today, I can report that our debt is now:

15,674,182,767,474.36

 
An increase (you weren't seriously expecting me to say decrease, were you?) of:

1,366,383,425,910.55

On the bright side, China has now broadened its purchasing of U.S. properties and assets to U.S. banks.

Conclusion:

Eventually, China will own enough of the U.S. so that we'll instead be talking about their outstanding debt.

In other words, it would appear China is investing in one big money pit.