Its been in the news that Nicolas Cage has named his new baby boy Kal-El. Us comic geeks know that Kal-El happens to be Superman’s birth name. Not sure if this is better or worse than Harley Quinn Smith, Kevin Smith’s little girl. I’m thinking Kevin wins here.
In any case, this makes me feel less bad about how Sarah and I named our daughter.
Vacation2005/2005_07_24_18_59_58
We saw Serenity over the weekend. Being huge fans of the show, we’re probably biased, but we loved it.
There were some really surprising parts. I don’t want to say anymore due to dropping spoilers. However, Sarah is still pissed at Joss over one part of the movie. She love it, but she’s still pissed.
If you haven’t seen it, go see it now! Linky says in his post on the movie that he enjoyed it without seeing the series first. So go see it! (However, watching the series first helps and makes a few things resonate more, IMHO.)
We went to the mall over Labor Day weekend and passing through some of the department stores, I was disappointed to see they have their Christmas decorating displays out already. In September?
All I can say is: What the fuck? I love Christmas, don’t get me wrong, but September seems way early.
“Happy Valentines Day! Get your Christmas supplies early!”
Billy Goat will feel right at home in Washington
The joint is on the ground floor of the National Association of Realtors building, and when you walk outside you can see the Capitol dome.
The association’s headquarters is in Chicago, and the Goat has been sitting in the belly of its building at 430 N. Michigan since 1964.
“They were the first people we thought of when we put up this building,” said association spokesman Lucien Salvant. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) will cut the ribbon and speak at Monday’s grand opening, as will association executive vice president and CEO Terry McDermott and president Al Mansell.
Cheezborgers for all as Goat debuts in D.C.
One of the Chicago Goat’s employees, early morning grill man Spiro Sarivasilis, was flown in for the occasion and entertained Monday’s crowd by crowing the Goat’s legendary spiel: “Cheezborger, cheezborger! No fries … chips! No Pepsi … Coke.”
Well, that explains where Spiro has been. My fried egg, cheese (cheeze?), and ham just weren’t the same.
The Economist had an article on the social impact of video games titled Chasing the Dream. Its been posted elsewhere on the net before me, but I have to quote this one paragraph because its so good.
Another analogy can be made between games and music—specifically, with the emergence of rock and roll in the 1950s. Like games today, it was a new art form that was condemned for encouraging bad behaviour among young people. Some records were banned from the radio, and others had their lyrics changed. Politicians called for laws banning the sending of offending records by post. But now the post-war generation has grown up, rock and roll is considered to be harmless. Rap music, or gaming, is under attack instead. “There’s always this pattern,†says Mr Williams of the University of Illinois. “Old stuff is respected, and new stuff is junk.†Novels, he points out, were once considered too lowbrow to be studied at university. Eventually the professors who believed this retired. Novels are now regarded as literature. “Once a generation has its perception, it is pretty much set,†says Mr Williams. “What happens is that they die.â€
The article also goes on to mention the book Everything Bad Is Good For You and quotes the author Steven Berlin Johnson. My point in mentioning this is just to give a shout out to that book. It was an excellent read and made me look at a few things differently, including my television watching and how I interact with video games and the ones I really enjoy playing. Unfortunately, its been two months so I read it, so I can’t point out more specifics. GO READ IT!
Stephen Drone: right wing on politics, left wing on porn. What’s up with that?
In the Chicago Tribune‘s food section today was a recipie for bacon-fried corn. It actually sounds really good, but what doesn’t when made with bacon. I reprint it here for two reasons 1) so I don’t lose it and 2) so MARK NOTARUS, who has eaten bacon-wrapped bacon, can see it.
Bacon-fried corn
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Cooking time: 15 minutes
Yield: 4 servings
Nutrition information per serving:
Mr. Smacker of Internet Dumbness
Andrew Ho is today’s Real Man of Genius for his blog comment follow-up smackdown titled Real Woman of Genius. Which appeared on this blog attached to this post.
I’m on google talk as kgarner@gmail.com. You can find me there, or not.
Last month I turned 30, which I meant to post about, and now its almost too late to be worth it. I really don’t have much to say except 30 is a number that is BIG and ROUND.
Anyway, for my BIG and ROUND birthday, my lovely wife wanted to get me something special. So, she went and visited my local comics pusher, Keith of Keith’s Komix. (Not related to, nor to be confused with Keith of… um… this blog.) Anyway, Keith helped Sarah pick out this awesomely huge 65″ wide Justice League poster with artwork by Alex Ross. Keith apparently hangs out with Alex and Keith told Sarah he could help her get it signed. Which he did. Sarah get it really nicely framed, and its really a beautiful piece now. The picture I have insert blow doesn’t really do it justice, however, you can see where Alex signed signed it.
Anyway, we got that right before we went on vacation. On vacation, we visited some family in Metropolis, IL and took some pictures with the giant Superman statue they have there.
I wanted to get those pictures framed and hang them on the same well and do a wall of super hero stuff. I’m glad I’ve been lazy about that, because this morning in the Chicago Tribune‘s Tempo section was an article on the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity’s tourism posters that feature quirky attractions around Illinois. Most importantly they include the Superman statue poster and had a picture of the power in the paper.
You can see all the posters online at the Trib’s site.
Unfortunately, they are not selling the posters and didn’t foresee a demand for them. I’d really like to get one of the superman posters to frame together with the pictures we took at the statue. I just need to figure out how. The image the Trib has online is too small to be printed out and still look good, otherwise I’d go for straight copyright infringement.
Anyway, getting that poster is now a goal. I just gotta come up with how.