Category: News

MICHAEL DAVIS: What about me? What about my needs?

michael-davis100-2721174I have no idea what this piece will be about. I really don’t. I’m sitting in a Chicago airport waiting to get a plane back to L.A. and my mind is a complete blank. I sent my last Straight No Chaser in last night (Wednesday) and I am determined to get a jump on my next one. The problem is I usually wait until something bugs me or interests me before I start my weekly rant. I would call this another random thought article but I have no thoughts random or otherwise.

Let’s see, lets see. Well I got another angry email. This one was about what I said about how my dogs are pets and not a member of my family. People are really passionate about their dogs, eh?

 

There is a TV show called Me or the Dog. I think it’s on Animal Planet. This show is about how dogs run the lives of people. There was a woman on one of these shows who actually said she preferred her dogs to her husband and son. She said if given a choice between her family and the dogs she would put the family out of the home before the dogs. I think she thinks she’s a dog. Well if she thinks she’s a dog then I will address this in a way she would understand.

That bitch is crazy.

Ah, I have found my rant for this week… ranting!! One of my absolute favorite TV shows is Cheaters. I love that show! Every week the show exposes someone who is cheating on his or her partner. Here’s what I don’t understand: when you find out your husband, wife, boyfriend, girlfriend, sheep etc. is cheating on you, why are you mad at the person they were cheating with? Shouldn’t you be mad at the person who cheated on you? Being mad at the other party is like being mad at the mailman for bringing you your phone bill.

Well, mark my words someday Joey (the host) is going to put that camera in the wrong person’s face and BLAM! Can you imagine what will happen if they run up against that guy or girl?

Fade in: The Cheaters crew prepares to jump out of their band. Joey turns to the client, Lewannabe.

Joey: Would you like a chance to confront Ray Ray?

Lewannabe: No, you go ahead Joey. I’m not crazy.

Joey jumps out of the van with his crew and confronts Ray Ray.

Joey: Ray Ray, I’m Joey Greco from Cheaters. Do you want to explain why you are cheating on your wife Lewannabe?

Ray Ray: I’m not.

Joey; We have you on tape.

Ray Ray: That’s not me.

Joey: Really, well let’s just look at the tape.

Ray Ray on tape: I like cheating on my wife, my name is Ray Ray.

Joey: Still say that’s not you?

Ray Ray: That’s not me; it’s my twin brother.

Ray Ray on tape: If Cheaters ever shows up I will say it’s my twin brother and not me.

Ray Ray has produced a handgun and is pointing it at Joey’s face.

Joey: You know that does not look like you at all Ray Ray. What were we thinking?

Joey: (Yelling) Lewannabe! Why did you waste our time?? (more…)

Silver Surfing lessons’

Let’s face it, until he hears that there’s going to be a sequel to the sequel, there just isn’t going to be much call for a silver guy in movies unless they make another Terminator film or they decide to start handing out runner-up awards at the Oscars.

So if you’re stranded on Earth, how else are you going to raise some cash?

Radd, dude. Totally Radd.

Your all-in-one convention report

He’s been Gaiman’ed, Beat’en, and now he’s ComicMix‘ed. Your must-read for today is Lee "Budgie" Barnett’s pre-Bristol all-purpose con report boilerplate. Like MadLibs for those of us more exhausted than mad. Hope Budgie gets his energy up in time to co-host his popular annual Hypotheticals panel!

By the way, the Bristol International Comic Expo, being held this coming weekend, is a wonderful socializing convention, particularly in the hotel pub, and it’s a short and inexpensive bus ride from the train station to the shopping plaza — but be forewarned, bring sunscreen, that caught us unawares last year…

JOHN OSTRANDER: The Secret Death of Bees

ostrander100-1072015Okay, I’m officially getting freaked out now.

It started with a small remark from the redoubtable Bill Moyers when he appeared on Bill Maher’s Real Time show on HBO. I started to do some research based on his remarks and it came to a head recently with an MSNBC report on their website. It’s a real life event called “Colony Collapse Syndrome.” What’s it about?

The sudden death of honeybees.

“And this affects me – how?” you might ask. “I don’t use honey. I’m strictly a Splenda man. (Or woman.)” The fact is, a lot of food crops need to be cross-pollinated to come to maturity and the principle way of doing it is with the honeybee. About one-third of the American diet depends on cross-pollination and the honeybees that do the job are dying out and nobody really knows why.

According to the MSNBC article, 80% of the cotton crop is pollinated by commercial honeybees. Same for 50% of the soybean crop. Use cotton or soybeans much? 60% of the alfalfa crop is pollinated the same way. Alfalfa hay is a staple for cows – low cost, good nutrition for the bovines. Drink milk? Having a Big Mac attack? Scarcity of an item increases its price and you can bet a jump in the price of alfalfa hay will be passed on to the consumer. Same for cotton or anything made with soybeans. How much do you feel like paying for your jeans? I haven’t even gotten into the fruit and nut cross-pollination done by bees – almonds, for example, are 100% dependent on bee pollination.

Cereal grains aren’t affected so we wouldn’t starve. We’d have to do without a number of items, though, or pay a heck of a lot more for them. Oranges, grapefruit, and tangerines, for example, are all 90% dependent on commercial honeybees for the cross-pollination. You could have your Cheerios in the morning but having milk to put on them or an OJ to go with it might be tougher to get or a lot more expensive to use.

As my Mary, a farmer’s daughter, also pointed out to me, alfalfa, soybean and clover crops (clover is also cross-pollinated) put nitrogen back into the soil. Very important in crop rotation. If you just plant corn all the time, you deplete the soil and – wham! – you’re headed for a dust bowl situation. There are indirect as well as direct effects from the death of honeybees.

What’s really weird is what’s happening with the hives. The onset is sudden. The beekeepers, after a few days, find that a hive suddenly is empty except for the queen and some very young workers. Bees don’t do that. They protect the hive at all costs. In the case of hives afflicted with CCD, the workers just disappeared. (more…)

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Braintrust Question: Spider-Man 3

Every so often I come across a question that even I cannot answer. It saddens me to admit this, but there are times when it happens.

But now, I have an invaluable resource that I never had before — ComicMix readers.

So every once in a while, when we come across a question here that even our crack staff can’t answer, we’re going to throw it out to the floor and ask you, as we know that collectively, you guys are smarter than we are and know many things that we don’t.

So here’s our first question. Take a look at this shot from Spider-Man 3, about four minutes into the film.

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See the girl at the far left? You see her on screen for just a few seconds, so it’s tough to tell, but– is that Paris Hilton?

I’m really hoping not, because I really don’t want to have to start covering Paris Hilton stories here…

Please post your answers in comments. Any documentable proof would be nice.

Spider-Man 3: woulda, shoulda

Ouch ouch ouch. A brutal recap of the film. Examples:

A huge crane swings around, very specifically knocking some floors out of the building where Gwen Stacey has a modeling job. She ends up hanging from something way up high. Down on the ground, Captain Stacey meets up with Eddie Brock, who is photographing the whole thing.

EDDIE: Hey, isn’t that your daughter in deadly danger?

CAPTAIN: *yawn*

EDDIE: Shouldn’t you be doing something?

CAPTAIN: Nah, these days we more or less just wait for Spider-Man. This is the best job ever!

EDDIE: By the way, I’m dating Gwen for some reason, although I too don’t seem especially concerned. Let me take pictures.

Spider-Man arrives and saves the day, despite nearly being thwarted by some errant CGI.

This, along with a brief discussion of ECMLS, is worth a read.

(Artwork copyright Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved. La de do da dey. Hat tip: Andrew Wheeler.)

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Playboy talks to Matt Groening

margesimpsoncleaning-9521276The cartoonist who created one of the world’s longest teevee series talks in depth to Playboy, and just in time for The Simpsons’ Movie.

Here’s the link for a small part of the interview, which is not safe for work if your boss will give you a hard time about going to the Playboy website.

Matt Groening discusses The Simpsons, the future of Futurama, and Life In Hell, as well as providing a lot of valuable child-rearing advice:

"I appalled some of my friends with how undisciplined I was as a parent. My kids talked back to me, and I laughed it off. Now they tell me I’m not funny anymore. My son said he wishes Seth MacFarlane were his father."

All this plus Woody Allen, Gahan Wilson, Don Rickles and Playboy Party Jokes.

(Artwork copyright Fox. All Rights Reserved. Tip of the hat to our own Glenn Hauman for making the call.)

Staying Lost for another three years

ABC is announcing a commitment to Lost for another three seasons, according to the New York Times. “We have always envisioned Lost as a show with a beginning, middle and end,” executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse said in a statement, which was released over the weekend to The Hollywood Reporter and to the rest of the news media on Monday. “By officially announcing exactly when that ending will be, the audience will now have the security of knowing that the story will play out as we’ve intended.”

This assumes, of course, that no cast member becomes suddenly unavailable due to death, contract disputes, or long-term incarceration.

After the current season the remainder of the series will play out in three 16-episode stretches, with each season’s episodes being broadcast over consecutive weeks without interruption. By spreading the remaining episodes over three seasons instead of two, however, the network and its ABC Television Studio unit, which produces the show, will ease the production requirements, which in the past have resulted in the show’s convoluted broadcast schedule. Think of it as a Sopranos thing.

Of course, with a shortened schedule, we have to ask: Does this mean Damon Lindelof will now have enough time to finish writing Ultimate Wolverine vs. Hulk?

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VINNIE BARTILUCCI: ComicFest from the inside

In the early 90’s I had made a fair to middling name for myself in comics fandom. I was a regular on the CompuServe forums, was running a comics APA of my own, THWACK!, and had started submitting to CAPA-Alpha. I had started writing articles for Wizard magazine, which is how I made friends with Pat O’Neill, their first Editor-in-Chief.

One night Pat contacted me to tell me that Gareb Shamus (Wizard‘s owner) was looking to do a comics con, and wondered if I was interested in running it. Well, he was close to being right — it was a friend of Gareb’s, David Greenhill, who had made a fortune in the sports card industry, and was looking to move to comics. Not as a speculator (there were soon to be plenty of them) but as the promoter of a comics show.

David’s idea was to bring a lot of the "business" of the card industry to comics. His ideas were good – too many comics shops were (and still are) run as if they were hobbies, and most comics shows didn’t make any attempt to market to the general public. He planned to change that. He planned to hire a major PR firm to push the show, get the publishers to invest in the show both financially and with publicity, a lot of big ideas. He just didn’t know how to actually run a show.

Well neither did I, but I wasn’t tellin’ him that…

(more…)

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