Fun with RSS

I think I find the way NetNewsWire delivered up today’s Penny Arcade blog post to me far too amusing.

“If all the stories one heard about this venue were true, perpetually writhing teens must have been stacked like cordwood. I mostly played Gauntlet during …”

The venue in question is a roller rink, and there’s a paragraph break in the original post… but the very idea that “perpetually writing teens” and “I mostly played Gauntlet” could be in the same paragraph just hits my funny bone with radioactive ammunition.

(Via Penny Arcade.)

Just when I was starting to get underwhelmed by Mass Effect 2

They go and put this up:

Yeah. I’m in. I’m in big time.

King Kirby: Tinseltown’s Latest Legacy

When Jack “King” Kirby’s heir put the new Disney/Marvel team-up on legal notice this month a lot of the fair-weather LA ComiCon goers stared into their iPhones at the Nikki Finke story and scratched their heads.

Who the hell is Jacob Kurtzberg anyway? The L.A. Times’ Geoff Boucher provides the answer.

Jack Kirby, the abandoned hero of Marvel’s grand Hollywood adventure, and his family’s quest [updated]: “
‘My favorite thing about Kirby’s artwork was his storytelling,’ Lee said. ‘He was really a film director doing comics.’
In that, Kirby was certainly ahead of his time. Comics are a huge part of Hollywood now, thanks to the modern era of computer-generated special effects that, finally, can match the galactic visions and super-powered mayhem that Kirby put to paper in the 1960s. Kirby’s influence is nothing less than massive on several generations of artists and filmmakers.

‘There was power in the work of Jack Kirby that changed the way I looked at things,’ said Guillermo del Toro, writer-director of ‘Pan’s Labyrinth.’ ‘There was no one else like him and there never will be.’”

(Via The Hero Complex.)

If this works…

I just might weep azure tears of joy.

Of course, that could be the sugar talking.

Crimebusters R Us

You’re out of it for a while and everyone gets delusions of granduer…

Its been so long since I used this thing that I missed all the good GOP V.P. jokes. I refuse to type her name, since I know that like Voldemort, it just feeds her power.

Now I won’t make any promises, since I’ve got a pretty good thing going these days in terms of keeping the promises I make to myself, but I did have the IDEA of using this here space to provide a little context for the twittering I do on a fairly regular basis. That and the FBook status updatery. I mean one way or another I have a lot of people plugged in these days, far and wide, and not nearly enough time to talk to all of them. So there. This one’s for my homies.

I caught the Sound of Young America live at Sketchfest last night. A year ago I was working there and now I’m just a punter like anyone else. The show was so-so, not really the host’s fault. Jesse Thorn is a solid interviewer… it was for that reason that I went to see the show, I’m launching a podcast initiative at my current place of employment and I wanted to see on eof the masters of the form in action.

Unfortunately for Jesse one of his guests was Jello Biafra of the Dead Kennedy’s. Jello likes to talk, which is good for a radio show. Jello lkes to talk about what he wants to talk about and could give a fuck about what the host is interested. I empathize. Danny Glover did the same shit to me when I was 17 years old and pretty much put me off the path of becoming Ira Glass. Thanks Danny Glover, you crazy old leftist fuck you. Read that with an equal amount of love and scorn, since I too one day will be a crazy old leftist fuck and if the universe has any sense of irony (which we know it does) I’ll hijack some poor kid’s 4D Lifecast Talk Show with tall tales about how I was in D.C. for Obama’s inauguration… just like everyone else in my generation.

Speaking of Ira GLass, Kasper Hauser- the greatest sketch comedy group you’ve never heard of- pulled off a pitch perfect paraody of This American Life. Eerie good. I’ve loathed Ira Glass’ voice nearly my entire adult life, and the slow going structure of TAL drives me up the wall. My radio passion is the BBC News. So you can be certain I laughed my ass off at KH’s killer take-down of public radio’s #1 show.

Jesse closed the show with a live performance by Bay Area Underground Hip-Hop superstars Zion-I. They’re very big where I work, and my wingman for the show last night is both fan and friend of the duo. I hadn’t heard them yet because I am an aging white geek who only recently discovered indie rock and indie rock girls.

However I will note that my favorite way to get introduced to new music is with a live show, often too pricey to take a chance on. Jesse fixed that problem for me last year by introducing me to Rogue Wave, and raised the stakes this year with Zion-I. I woke up and bought their first album off iTunes when my friend told me there were trip-hop influences in it. I love that shit. Takes me back. Haven’t listened to it yet, but I’m lickin’ my chops.

Till then, I’m the one over there, scribblin’ away on the legal pad.

Thanks, Sarah Palin

You could have played it smart, played yourself off as just a “regular Jane”. Instead you delivered the most partisan speech in years, like a good little drone.

Now we don’t have to be nice. Now we know why they called you “Sarah Barracuda” back in High School… oh and we know a hell of a lot more:

During her mayoral administration most of the actual work of running
this small city was turned over to an administrator. She had been
pushed to hire this administrator by party power-brokers after she had
gotten herself into some trouble over precipitous firings which had
given rise to a recall campaign.

Sarah campaigned in Wasilla as a “fiscal conservative”. During her 6
years as Mayor, she increased general government expenditures by over
33%. During those same 6 years the amount of taxes collected by the
City increased by 38%. This was during a period of low inflation
(1996-2002). She reduced progressive property taxes and increased a
regressive sales tax which taxed even food. The tax cuts that she
promoted benefited large corporate property owners way more than they
benefited residents.

All this from somone who went to every City Council meeting Sarah was a part of.

That’s your claim to executive experience? Okay.

It’s on.

Low content mode

I’m going to step away from regular blog posting for the rest ifthe week while I do my damndest to make up for the lost time from the past 15 days.

With full time work at MVFF and the side project at YR starting up I know I’m going to loose momentum if I’m not careful.

See you next week, or when WWIII starts, whichever comes first.

Olympic Infamy

I’m not watching the Olympics this year. Not becuase I don’t care- it’s one of the few things in sports I still pay attention to- but because with each iteration of the games the Olympic ideals become more be more a joke- a kind of sarcastic afterthought for the IOC.

I was with a group of people I don’t know last night, some of who were waxing poetic about how beautiful the opening ceremonies were. I could care less. Bejing is on lockdown. People are getting beaten in public, and China doesn’t deserve the games in the first place.

My only hope here is that with the planet’s attention on Bejing for these two weeks people will finally begin to see the physical impact were having on the world. That smog wafting begins our NBC anchors is all of our responsibility. And by “our” I mean anyone who cab read this, becuase no matter who you are or where you are, Chinese manufactured goods are involved in delivering this message to you.

The gods seemed to have doubled down on the badness this games- can anyone recall an invasion starting on the day of the Opening Ceremonies before? That’s completely against the Olympic Spirit, but I bet the IOC won’t have the stones to ask- even ASK not ORDER- Russia to leave the games.

This one’s for Ben

Who probably won’t see it anyway, but it’s the thought that counts.