I had such high hopes for this book.
It’s a good premise: a bitter white supremacist working with a Muslim sleeper cell to launch a bioterror attack on US soil. A CDC agent with a spotty past and one last chance to prove himself. A mysterious operative known only as Mr. Smith. It’s the backbone of a good book or action movie, but White Sleeper
Recent and blatant toying with the time stream has spun off other reality-bending side effects. These are revealed in phenomena that are reaching out far beyond the control of the Department of Corrections threatening to crush our world under the weight of replicating paradoxes. Paradox Poisoning, like most infectious diseases, strikes the very young, very old and those with pre-existing enfeeblements the hardest so, as always, it is wise to pay close attention to Chris Matthews as you would a canary in a coal mine. It is well for our own safety that we do not have to get too close. Modern crowd-sourcing techniques, like those arrayed against the tundra monster Palin allow us to keep a safe distance, crucial, as when the collapse comes the vortex will first whirl out of Matthews well-snugged cravat, engorged on his voluminous but empty melon. The latest evidence is a nationally transmitted spasm of erupting nonsequiturs and self-contradictions that seemed to indicate the Big Crunch was underway but Matthews survived this crisis, clearly due to a diet rich in riboflavin and gin. I provide the link for documentary reasons but no need to endanger your own existence as we will examine this specimen through the safe filter of text. [Read more →]
Last month, a writer at Moviefone unleashed upon the internet a definitive list of the top 25 comic book movies. The piece candidly acknowledges the difficulties in undertaking such a task:
The trouble with making a Top 25 list is how you judge the entries. Do you do it by box office receipts? Or critical consensus? What about the quality of the script, or how well a movie has aged? We took all of these factors into account while making our list, with one more criteria [sic]: how significant is the movie? Where does it stand in the history of comic book movies? These twenty-five entries are the 25 most significant comic movies, with a few entries you’ll recognize and a few that you should seek out immediately.
Box office receipts, which I assume here is intended to mean the number of tickets sold, is something that can be quantified. Calling his list the “top 25″ rather than the “25 best” suggests that he should probably just have gone by the amount of money each film has earned. Of course then you get into the problems of rising ticket prices, DVD and blu-ray sales, rentals, the amount of money the films earn on pay-per-view, pay cable, basic cable, networks, and syndication. That’s pretty complicated, and movie studios are notoriously creative in their accounting practices. [Read more →]
The summer is almost in full swing – and likewise, my skin looks like a barely cooked roast beef, and my barbecue grill is sweating from all the use I am giving it. After our trip last week to Lancaster, it was great to get back down to the shore and take a deep breath of salt air and a deep sip of a cold beer. This past weekend, Jack and I – as usual, were “party rocking” at many different locations at the Jersey shore. We played in the waves, rode a rollercoaster, and took a walk through a giant elephant. [Read more →]
There is something about sports fandom that makes us feel like kids. After all, childhood is when few things meant more than the results of one game or another. When we become adults, we are expected to focus on more grown-up matters, like jobs and money. In our hearts, though, the true sports fan knows that the games mean more than any of that. That’s why we get so worked up about a bunch of men chasing a ball. I am all for hanging on to that child-like focus, but there are limits. One area about which I struggle to know how I feel is college football recruiting. I follow it and read about it regularly, but I often feel like I should spend a lot less time on it. [Read more →]
10. The ‘corsage’ he pins to your dress his handmade from Bounty paper towels
9. He takes you to the prom in the basket of his Schwinn
8. Every time he starts dancing, concerned chaperones place a wrapped spoon in his mouth to prevent him from biting his tongue
7. He wants to be home by 9:00 so he can catch the rerun of Fringe
6. He claims he’s suffering from ‘Bieber Fever’
5. He’s wearing a cardboard Burger King crown
4. His tux was ‘borrowed’ from his dad’s funeral home business
3. When he asks you if you want to catch a bite somewhere, he displays his collection of coupons
2. He keeps calling you “Mommy”
1. You’re both wearing the same dress
Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.
Gimme your cash, bitch so we can shoot up da screet!
Gimme your cash, bitch so we can buy some more heat!
Gimme your cash, ho so we can get out da pen!
Gimme some cash, ho cuz we back in again!
As rap songs go, that’s pretty tame by existing standards, as is the video. The artists call themselves Splack Pack, and the hook is a straight sample from their breakout hit Shake That Ass, Bitch from their album, Big Booty Hits. And there is a bit of controversy. So, is it Phyllis Schlafly and Tipper Gore complaining about the exploitation/glorification of gang culture with its violence and misogyny? That would be a no. This infectious jam is actually a political ad aimed at one Janice Hahn running in a presumably safe Democratic district in Los Angeles. [Read more →]
They say two thousand and thirteen party over, oops!
Fucked ourselves!
So for now we oughta party like its two thousand and twelve!
Since licensing and copyrights are as doomed to imminent collapse as the rest of civilization I will appropriate my soundtrack from Prince and he can come collect if he wants. That’s not just me talking, with the collapse stuff. Not anymore. Ben Bernanke publicly declares mystification that his voodoo economics have come a-cropper. Bill Clinton and Al Gore are driven to public denunciations by their disappointments with the President, each of which are cataclysmic one way or the other. The most damning news comes from the Great Man’s own mouth in his brief (for a change) address of last night. Obama arrives to disclaim the actions and events of the last two years excepting only the Abbottobad triumph. You remember that, when the President headbutted Osama and snapped his neck like so much celery? But no fear, he’s now on the job; rested, ready, with a four handicap and prepared to tackle the crapulent legacy that is America. [Read more →]
What would you do if you caught someone reading your diary? If you caught your spouse snooping in your inner-most thoughts, how angry would you be? In Louise Erdrich’s Shadow Tag
A half-baked clone of Snagglepuss by the name of Huntsman has announced his enthusiastic intent to join the scrum of the Republican Primaries. He commandeers the best view of the Statue of Liberty to do so. One would think that schmaltz like this would be in heavy demand, but no. Only twice before has a Presidential candidate made their debut here. One was Pete Wilson, modestly competent Governor of California. The other was Ronald Wilson Reagan. Old Pete hoped to trade on his commonality of office and, hilariously, of name, to ladle some sweet Reaganny goodness over his own head which would be punctuated by the familiar location. This seems to have failed but Huntsman is up to give it another go. [Read more →]
