Again, apologies for my extended absence. My only consolation is that everyone else in my Sphere of Influence over there seems to be busy too.
Rest assured I’m hard at work on That Thing I Can’t Talk About Yet.
In the meantime, enjoy one of my favorite websites: funny emergency signs.
NOTE: Originally published under the name “Poe Ghostal” on OAFE on 8/5/02.
He-Man and the Heroic Masters of the Universe must save Eternia from the clutches of the sinister Skeletor and his Evil Horde…
A headstrong teenager with a nose for trouble stumbles upon an ancient stone castle deep in the Eternia Forest. There he meets a beautiful sorceress who gives him a magical weapon, the Power Sword, and tells him that only he can save Eternia from the Evil Skeletor. By raising the sword above his head, he transforms into He-Man, the Most Powerful Man in the Universe! Together with his heroic companions, the Masters of the Universe, He-Man takes on Skeletor and the Evil Horde in the battle for all Eternia!
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NOTE: Originally published under the name “Poe Ghostal” on OAFE on 10/5/04.
I can trace my awareness of the X-Men comics—and by extension, the mutant superhero called Wolverine—to its original source: an advertisement in the back of a comic book. The ad featured a “cool” kid—you knew he was cool because he was wearing a denim jacket and sunglasses—holding some X-Men trading cards, I believe. Far more effective than the kid himself was the tagline above him: “It’s a good bet the kid’s favorite MUTANTS ain’t TURTLES.”
Now, at the time, I was a hardcore acolyte of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fad. However, I was also dimly aware that the Turtles—with their cartoony, anthropomorphic toy line and surfer-lite catchphrases—were perhaps targeted toward an audience that was a bit younger than I was at the time.
Thus, this sunglasses-wearing kid threatened me. The ad tapped the core of my adolescent insecurity—dear God, was I worshipping the wrong mutants? While I would say advertisements have never worked particularly well on me (the only thing ads have ever done for me is made me aware of when things I might want, such as new action figures or films, will be available), this one, I have to admit, succeeded in spectacular fashion.
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I’ll be going a little light on entries this month. Fear not—there’s a very good reason for this, which will be revealed when the time comes. In the meantime, I’ll be recycling some old content, including transferring some of my more memoir-heavy reviews from OAFE, and maybe some other old stuff I can dig up.
By now I’m sure everyone’s heard about Steve Irwin. Very sad, and a tough way to go. The man was brave and maybe a little crazy, but he did a lot for wildlife education and conservation and he will be missed. I offer my heartfelt condolences to his wife and children.
In all the recent discussions of superheroes (both here and on the blogs of Sean and Ed), I clean forgot that I’d written a review of Batman Begins last year. Originally posted on an earlier incarnation of my friend Andy Whitacre’s website Fungible Convictions, I’ve now added it to my review archive. You can read it here: Batman Begins
DG mentioned last night that she had trouble trying to find an old post on Biggerboat. She didn’t know that the categories at the bottom of each post—i.e., “Blog” or “Reviews”—were links to category archives, and she said she didn’t notice the search box. While I don’t feel as if the site is that difficult to navigate, it did have me wondering whether anyone else was having trouble accessing any of the archived entries.
I’ve upgraded the search function to a Google site search and added links to the “Blog” and “Asides” archives (all along the left navigation bar). I could add links to category archives or even a monthly archive if people would prefer. Choose your own adventure! and let me know what you’d like to see with a well-considered comment below.
Note: I wrote this review on spec for a local newspaper, but to my knowledge it wasn’t published, so I thought I’d just toss it up here. Enjoy…
The television ad campaign for The Descent claim the film is “from the people who brought you Saw and Hostel,” two sadistic horror films that focus on human torture. The ads do an injustice both to fans of those films (who may not enjoy this one) and people who don’t like those films (and just might like The Descent).
The Descent is an old-fashioned monster movie with a modern horror film sensibility. It was released in Great Britain over a year ago (and is already out on DVD over there), but did so well in the UK that “the people who brought you Saw and Hostel” decided to buy the North American distribution rights and give it a theatrical release here–an honor not accorded to Marshall’s previous film, Dog Soldiers (2002), one of the better werewolf movies out there.
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Though on occasion I’ve gone through a period of interest in comic books, I wouldn’t classify myself as a superhero fan. I do love Hellboy, but I don’t really consider him a superhero per se. At times I’ve enjoyed reading the X-Men and whatnot, but if there’s a superhero I really appreciate, it’s Batman.
There are countless Batman stories out there, and toy company DC Direct (DCD) has worked hard to give us a figure from each one of them. But one of my favorite Batman stories is Gotham by Gaslight (1989), the first Elseworlds story (the brand was applied retroactively). Gaslight places the Batman story in the late Victorian era, with Batman tracking Jack the Ripper, who’s now running loose in Gotham.
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I have a question for everyone: when using Wikipedia, who among you simply types “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/” into the address bar with a word or two after the backslash to go directly to an article (for example, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Red_Sox), rather than going to the main Wikipedia page and doing a search (or using Google)?
I’ve been doing the former for ages and am wondering if anyone else does.
Dan Shaughnessy has some advice for Red Sox fans.
Some might look at all of the above and have negative thoughts. Not me. I have seen the light. I am buying the plan. This isn’t about this year. Never was. The Sox are planning on being great in 2007 and even better in 2008. Let those foolish New Yorkers delude themselves into thinking that the future is now. We know better. We watch the Red Sox.
I can’t understand how such a relentlessly negative person has been able to profit so much from said attitude. Is his “popularity” (assuming it exists) due to some sort of latent masochism on the part of Red Sox fans? The man created the so-called “Curse of the Bambino” and profited from it for twenty years. His columns come fast and furious when the Sox are having trouble—more than a dozen so far in August—whereas in July he wrote two pieces on the Sox, from what I could find (both were warnings that the Sox weren’t really doing that well and that, regular as death and taxes, the Yankees would soon reassert their dominance). Maybe he was on vacation in July, I don’t know. But he sure made himself available when the Sox started having trouble. He’s like one of those guys in Harvard Square with “The End is Near” boards depicting a fiery apocalypse.
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