Superman trailer.

Brian emailed me the link to the Quicktime Superman trailer for the forthcoming Singer film. Looks pretty good, although my first thought is that it’s another retelling - updated no doubt. Thing is they couldn’t improve on the score or Brando’s take on Kal El. See for yourself, click here.

Not to be outdone.

Anna feeling somewhat neglected by all the attention lavished on Shauna through Cat Story took the moment to remind me I should be paying more attention to her when it comes to Friday Cat Blogging.

I didn’t know it was today...

• Tired of huddling outside, smoking in the cold?

• Tired of burning away money on cigarettes?

If you’re a smoker it’s never too late to make the decision to quit today.

The Great American Smokeout.

Happy Birthday...

To cat story auteur Brian!



Always a good scout (from way back) and a good guy!

A question:

So, you have a person, someone who intends to blow themselves up. A person who is willing to take their own life at the expense of others. The purpose being to extract the highest possible cost they can, meaning to inflict as much pain and suffering on the largest number of people they can. Deliberately putting pieces of metal into an explosive device so there is the additional result of non lethal shrapnel injuring those not already injured by the blast. Planning on staggering the timing of multiple explosions so as to not only injure innocents but, also the people who dedicate their lives to aiding others.

How do you punish someone like this?

When we discover a bomb before it goes off, we take it out somewhere where it will do little damage and we detonate it so it will not do any harm. It will never get a chance to hurt someone again. We don’t take the bomb and keep it somewhere, leaving it armed and dangerous because it would be foolish and we know one day it might in fact detonate hurting innocent people.

So, when someone decides to give themselves over to becoming a human bomb, a bomb directed by the intelligence and malice a person has to offer should we do any different? I keep seeing these instances of suicide bombers (or homicide bomber depending on your spin delivery source) and I can’t help but think when they capture one of these idiots before they have a chance to do what they are intending to do, well they should take them out somewhere and blow them up.

Better still, film that... and broadcast it.

You’re probably thinking about how harsh that is right about now, aren’t you?

But, think about it this way, if you show the world what a violent, painful and abrupt act it is to blow oneself up - if you make sure people can see what a horrible way to die it is - maybe the next time some group of terrorists, some ideologs try to recruit some idiot to do this, it will be all the more difficult for them to manage it. The instinct of self-preservation will set in, the fear of pain we all have will prevent someone from being so easily convinced they are doing something noble to further their cause.

No, they are doing something which is a violent, senseless act and even if they are not successful in their endeavor, they will suffer the ignominy of dying in a horrible painful fashion nonetheless.

Just something to think about regarding this person:

“We went into the hotel. He [my husband] took a corner and I took another. There was a wedding in the hotel. There were women and children. My husband executed the attack.”

“I tried to detonate and it failed. People fled running and I left running with them.”

...Mr Muasher said the bomb strapped to the man was packed with the powerful explosive RDX and ball bearings, and was designed to kill as many people as possible. “It is clear from the way she was dressed and the explosive belts with ball bearings that they wanted to target innocent civilians, and also wanted to inflict the biggest number of casualties and victims.”

There’s been a further news story, attempting to reason out the behavior by pointing out that the women had three brothers and a brother-in-law killed in the fighting in Iraq. Of course the blame being laid at the hands of US forces but, the rub of all this is there wasn’t much in the way of Americans as casualties as a result of this act - no, they just managed to kill mainly Jordanian and Palestinians. Got to appreciate the logic in that (not).

Where the day takes you...

Down to Chinatown for some nice Dim Sum with Brian (author of Cat Story) and Ed.

On the way back to the car, looking down at the Brooklyn Bridge, South Street Seaport and Wall Street on the day they’re moving the Fulton FIsh Market.


Brian and Ed pose for a quick picture.


The sun hits the buildings over in Brooklyn Heights.


Ed makes a point.


Unh-oh! Looks like the FDR is sagging from to much use!


There’s always traffic in New York!

Zip!



And just like that another week goes by. Every week I wonder what I'll get accomplished and then I look up and I’m cruising into Saturday. Today was running errands and getting some paperwork in order - you’d be surprised how much time needs to be spent in the whole paper tornado.

I was going to start taking pictures around here - at least I’d have some proof of just how bad the mess is and something to compare to when everything gets done. Thanksgiving is less than two weeks away!?! How did that happen? Somehow I have the feeling I’ll look up and it’ll be January before I know it.

Tonight I did the big cook off thing. Every once in awhile, I try to keep the expenses down by making a slew of food and then freezing things to come back to later in the week. Two things result from this. First, I usually eat a lot better than I normally do. Second, I wind up saving a lot of money because I’m not existing on take out.

So, tonight’s cook off menu was Chicken Sorrentino and a big pot of soup.

The Chicken Sorrentino is a bit of a chore but, I’ve found a couple of ways to keep the mess down. These involve ziploc bags which I find one of the greatest and most convenient things to use in the kitchen, saves me a lot of dish washing after the fact. I went online and searched far and wide for a recipe which I found some time back. Surprisingly, enough it’s not a hard recipe, there’s just a lot of prep. I was procrastinating about it all week but, I got some important things out of the way today and thought it would be a nice way to top the day off (the cooking).

The soup is an experiment. I made a big batch a few weeks ago and I’m still trying to fine tune the recipe there. Ever since the Soup Nazi closed up shop and started franchising (I hear he’s got a place down on forty deuce), I’ve been jonesing for some good soup when the weather begins to turn.

I took the recipe off the Goya 16 bean soup pack and made some modifications to it. The last batch came out good but, since I was experimenting, I didn’t have the foresight to write down the recipe amounts. Tonight after soaking the beans for the last two days (the last batch were a little tough), it was time to make the soup. I wound up with about 10 small chinese soup containers full of the stuff! Most of it goes into the freezer but, I did promise Ed some. It has a bit of a bite to it (underlying spiciness) and I’ll probably pull back a little on one of the ingredients in the next batch but I guarantee it’s something that would hit the spot on a chilly day!

You can’t be serious?

From the Monster Blog.

Ever get the feeling your commute is sucking the life out of you? According to the US Census Bureau, Americans spend more than 100 hours commuting to work each year — 20 hours more than most workers take for vacation. My commute is only 25 minutes, which isn’t too bad, but sometimes I wish I could just be beamed to work.

As I get older I find the whole commuting thing to be very draining. Often, the commute can be somewhere between three and four hours total. It wouldn’t be so bad if there it were simple but, it’s a three legged monster usually (drive, commuter train, subway) any segment of which can throw the whole experience out of kilter.

On the flip side, I only know of one person who actually lived in the building where he worked (and that was Brian). I wouldn’t do it. There has to be a separation between work and home. Sure, four hours roundtrip is way too much but, being in the building leads to a whole breaking down of boundaries that can’t be good in the long run. I think you need time away from the job. As a matter of fact, I think there is a dangerous trend in the country today to confuse work with life, the two are and should be two very separate entities.

One of the things I’ll be looking to change is the whole commute dynamic in the coming months. When I’ve worked third shift, the commute home has been a very palatable 35 to 40 minutes but that’s been around 3 in the morning when no one is on the road and I can drive to and from work. If I’m working the 9 to 5 thing, that (driving - no train) just doesn’t work.

Don Rumsfeld also known as Fonzie!



Aaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyy! Or maybe we should call him Rummy?

From Nat Hentoff’s column:

“I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position on the floor with no chair, food, or water. Most times they had urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left there for 18 to 24 hours or more.” This, of course, was on Donald Rumsfeld's watch.

The American Civil Liberties Union has released copies of e-mails to FBI director Robert Mueller from appalled FBI agents protesting the unlawful, inhumane interrogations they had witnessed. Director Mueller himself has never joined their protests nor acknowledged any acts of torture at Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo, or any of our other “detention” facilities.

The truth about cat people and dog people.

There are cat people and then there are dog people, we are all of us aware of this. So, today when I was doing another one of those aimless internet drives - it was emphasized yet again the differences between the two.

I am, unapologetically, a cat person. Always have been for as long as I can remember.

Even as I write this now, my furry little friend has found her way ontp my stomach in an attempt to get between me and the keyboard so some much needed attention can be lavished on her yet again. She’s warm, she’s purring and she looks up at me with a gaze that says, “You really want to scratch my neck and back now, don’t you?”

Today I was wandering around the electronic corridors of the internet, I came across an address book entry of one of the exes friends and lo and behold I just pasted it into a search and though I would see what appeared.

Now, the person in question is a real spark plug. plainly put this is a person who would be be pictured under the definition of human dynamo. Lots of energy, lots of people constantly around her, many social functions, lots of exercise, it‘s always just go, go, go.

Clearly, dog person.

Now, yesterday an old friend came to town. He hunts, fishes, golfs, very gregarious, outgoing, travels quite a bit for his job, truly a good guy.

Another dog person.

Then there‘s this other friend of mine, a former co-worker. He’s a busy guy as well, there always seems to be a slew of people up at his house, he’s loud, somewhat intimidating (not to me but, I have known a few others whose nerves he got on).

Yep. Dog person too - and with a dog the size of a small pony to boot.

Are we seeing a trend here?

This afternoon, after doing the days errands for the morning, I found myself at one point quite tired. I sat down in my TV chair (without the garish seat cushion, please) and shortly found myself awake a few hours later with my little furry pal nestled atop my chest like a living hot water bottle. She was quite happy, and I was quite comfortable.

I am sooooo, a cat person.

So, indulge me if you will - use the comments section. Cat or Dog. Why?

Just finished reading this:



Suburban Seattle, the mid-1970s. We learn from the out-set that a strange plague has descended upon the area’s teenagers, transmitted by sexual contact. The disease is manifested in any number of ways - from the hideously grotesque to the subtle (and concealable) - but once you've got it, that's it. There's not turning back.

It took Charles Burns 10 years to finish this book - each year there would be an issue that would come out and although I would pick them up, the lag between issues would make it hard to remember where you were in the story. Plus I think I missed one years’ issue so, it was even difficult to figure what I had missed. It’s great to be able to sit down and read the whole tale though and worth it for both comics and non comics fans alike.

A prolific and highly-sought magazine illustrator, Burns has done covers for such magazines as Time and The New Yorker, and is the regular cover artist for The Believer. He’s designed the sets for a New York production of The Nutcracker called The Hard Nut and produced album covers, including the spectacular fold-out that graced Iggy Pop’s “Brick by Brick.” His advertising gigs include the ill-fated O.K. Cola brand (alongside fellow Fantagraphics cartoonist Daniel Clowes) and a huge campaign for Altoids in 2003 which included several comics pages.

Every once in awhile...

I read a story like this and it gives me hope for our species.



The parents of a Palestinian boy killed by Israeli soldiers in the West Bank have donated his organs for use in Israel, in the hope of promoting peace. Twelve-year-old Ahmed Ismail Khatib was shot in the town of Jenin by troops who mistook his toy gun for a real one. His organs were transplanted into five Israeli children and a woman aged 58.

The sad thing is that a story like this one doesn’t get the kind of coverage all the really horrid stories do.

Bad actor?

This morning, flipping channels I passed something that caught my attention. There was Steve Phillips with a big Yankee backdrop, holding a press conference.

Over on ESPN, fans who watched “SportsCenter” Sunday and Monday may have done a double-take: There was Phillips, a former New York Mets general manager, sitting behind a bank of microphones and before a background with the Red Sox insignia, answering questions from ESPN reporters.

Was he the replacement for Theo Epstein, who quit last week?

No, Phillips was just playing one on television.

As much contempt as I may have for the Yankees (and it’s not so much directed at the team or players, as much as it is Steinbrenner and a select group of the more obnoxious and rabid Yankee fans), even I wouldn’t wish such a thing on them - Phillips becoming Yankee GM that is.

After watching Phillips as Mets GM for several years, I can honestly say he is no better as a pretend GM on these SportsCenter segments than he was when he was a real GM. Yes, Steve blamed Bobby Valentine for the shortcomings of the Mets but since then, Bobby has gone on to win the Japanese World Series, only the second time a foreign manager has done so in that country. In the meantime with all the GM openings since his firing, nobody seems to be altogether anxious to give Stevie P another shot at GM.

Pretend or not, Steve Phillips can’t cut it is a GM and as a TV announcer he’s not a star either.

That’s where the trouble began...

There are about two or three comic books I remember vividly from the recesses of my childhood. This is one:



I remember the two or three individual issues vividly, because those are the issues where I first became aware of comics.

I know I remember the day I got this comic, we were out visiting a distant relative in Hastings. Some cousin or other I don’t think I’ve seen since. I had to be around 7 at the time and I also remember it was a sunny, pleasant day when I also had my very first chocolate egg cream. I can recall being very apprehensive when my father suggested to me I have one (eggs! in a drink! ewwwwwwww!).

The day was a real two-fer, I still like egg creams and still have a fondness for comics.

While we’re talking about these things, check out the Spiderfan site which is where the cover image resides - lots of cool Spider Man stuff. Oh, and that happens to be a great cover too!

Where the day takes you.

Life has taken on a surreal flavor these days. Ever since the EYOC wound up in the hospital back in early September, any semblance of a regular day has gone out the window. It’s not that it’s bad, it isn’t. I don’t mind the kind of free form structure the day takes on, as a matter of fact, it’s more akin to the way I like to live.

So, since the day doesn’t really have structure, there’s more a running list of things needing to get done. Sure, you have the ordinary, sundry things that are just part of life maintenance, the cleaning, the laundry, the things which must be fit in each week but, there’s also the “fireman” aspect of getting a call in the middle of the night alerting you to the fact the EYOC has been moved to a hospital ER or even worse to a hospital ICU.

It’s happened twice in the last two weeks, the trips to the hospital.

Just when it looked like he was getting better and I was beginning to think he’d be coming home sometime soon, I went to bring him something at the rehab (read nursing home) facility and arrived to see a fire truck sitting in front of the facility with its lights going. Sure enough when I got back to his room he had quite the small audience in attendance as they were preparing to wheel him out to an ambulance for a trip to the ER.

There was a strange coincidence in my arrival. My timing couldn’t have been more opportune as I walked in and he was being treated - imagine the eye of a hurricane and you get a sense of the moment. A big storm is passing and there is the momentary lull, in this case the pause between the EYOC having a bad day and getting progressively worse and arriving at the ER itself.

The night in question, I was hemming and hawing over going up for a visit thinking I would put it off to the following morning when suddenly I just felt this overwhelming pull telling me I had to go that evening and immediately at that - strange how these things work.

Well, that was a two weeks ago and we‘ve since been to the hospital and back and then back to the hospital again. Last week was probably the worst of it since the whole ordeal began. There were moments when it looked like EYOC making it to the morning was a long shot.

Still, here we are a few days later and I’ll be damned if he hasn’t improved a bit. It’s amazing, really, to watch someone become so fragile that you sense their life could slip away with a strong breeze. I am not overstating things in this case either, there have been times in the last few days when I’ve walked out of the hospital wondering if I would get a phonecall.

So, back and forth we go. In the interim, in the gaps besides the life maintenance, there are the phone calls to make to family and friends, the benefits two step - a dance between insurance companies, Medicare, hospitals, doctors, the nursing home, billing departments, managing his finances (not pretty) and taking care of my own - sorting through the accumulation of clutter and crud which has built up over the years, it’s quite a bit to keep track of. Every time I start to think I have a handle on things, I get another curve thrown at me, his condition worsens and the focus shifts back to the crisis of his immediate state of health.

Now, I’m trying to explore funeral options. I don’t mean to be morbid and it certainly isn’t meant to convey some diabolical design on the situation as a whole, it’s just I had been warned by some family members to prepare, ‘just in case’ because it really is a lot harder to have to organize all these things after the fact and under the gun.

I’m doing laundry the other day, a nice sunny afternoon and while the clothes are in the dryer, I’ve walked up to the post office to pick up the mail, I decide to check out a funeral home to see if I can get some idea of what is involved with the funeral thing. I don’t dress up to do the laundry so, it’s not as if I’m at my level best when I walk up to the place to speak to one of the funeral directors standing out front having a smoke.

The meeting takes about 45 minutes and I’m presented with a list of options - it seems very similar to the experience of buying a new car. You get a sense there is the funeral equivalent of rust proofing being added but, you are damned to know exactly what and where that is.

Then, there’s the discussion of caskets, which strikes me as funny because hearing a funeral director try and sell you on the finer points of a box is interesting, “Well, imagine you’re buying a piece of furniture... something made out of mahogany is of better quality and will last longer than something say of particle board with veneer over it.”

Suffice to say I can’t see digging up a casket on a regular basis to show off to friends and to sit upon so, I’m a bit oblivious to the hard sell.

Strangely enough, I had been surfing awhile back and came across a category of ‘vessels’ up on the CostCo website. My first thought was there would be some catchy alliteration going on: CostCo/Kirkland/Caskets - lots of heavy ‘K’ sounds. It may be an option but, just seeing that CostCo is also in the casket business only adds to the whole bizarre nature of this experience.



Oh, and by the way, I’m not really sure if this will come across in bad taste or not but, like the song goes, ‘what a long strange trip its been.’ If I do wind up offending a reader (family that is), you’ll excuse me I hope.

All in all, another brick in the wall?

This little jewel caught my attention today:

Issued by the FBI without review by a judge, the letters are used to obtain electronic records from “electronic communications service providers.” Such providers include Internet service companies but also universities, public interest organizations and almost all libraries, because most provide access to the Internet...

...The Patriot Act provision involving national security letters was enacted permanently in 2001, so it was not part of Congress’ debate last summer over extending some Patriot Act provisions.

As the Dec. 31 deadline has approached for Congress to renew provisions of the act, the House and Senate have voted to make noncompliance with a national security letter a criminal offense.

Mmmm... last time I checked, weren’t we the ones supposed to be fighting for the cause of freedom? So, explain to me how giving up our own civil liberties fits into the battle?

Reminds me of the story I heard about the different ways to cook a lobster - throwing the beasty in a pot of boiling water is a tremendous shock but, putting the animal in luke warm water and slowly brining up the heat isn’t quite as noticeable.

Bit by bit, I think we are witnessing the days of personal privacy and civil liberty fade away.

Those crazy French!

In case you hadn’t noticed, it seems as if there’s been a bit of a problem going on in France these days:

Arsonists burned 1,295 vehicles nationwide overnight Saturday, national police spokesman Patrick Hamon said, adding that police made 349 arrests.

For a second night, a helicopter equipped with spotlights and video cameras to track bands of marauding youths combed Paris suburbs, and small teams of police chased rioters speeding from attack to attack in cars and on motorbikes.

“What we notice is that the bands of youths are, little by little, getting more organized,” arranging attacks through cell phone text messages and learning how to make gasoline bombs, Hamon said.

Police also found a gasoline bomb-making factory in a derelict building in Evry south of Paris. They confiscated 50 devices, fuel stocks and hoods for hiding rioters’ faces, senior Justice Ministry official Jean-Marie Huet told The Associated Press. Police arrested six people, all under 18.

I surpress a certain amount of glee over the current predicament of the French, it seems even though they are often at odds with our nation’s foreign policy decisions, they still have managed to find themselves beset by many of the same problems our society encounters. How’s that superior attitude working for you guys now?

The new breed.

Yeah, I have my moments. I haven’t been able to write much lately because of how hectic things have been so, I mainly find myself surfing, leaving comments on blogs I frequent and just sleeping when I can.

One of the places I regularly check out is Audacia Ray’s Waking Vixen blog. I discovered quite by accident. I think it was one of those instances where you click on a link, arrive someplace and click on another link and so on. An experience somehow akin to getting in the car and setting off on a drive with no particular destination in mind - something I have been known to do on occasion.

I like what ’Dacia has to say.

Well, maybe I should qualify that, I find what she has to say interesting. It fascinates me in a way difficult to convey. I can’t say I’ve ever been truly comfortable with sexuality. I like sex but, having had that hard-core, blue-collar, east-coast urban catholic upbringing there’s always the lurking guilt of enjoying sinful copulation, of indulging oneself completely in hedonistic pursuits. Usually it’s not during the act itself but, more of an after-the-fact kind of guilt. It’s the remnants of upbringing leading to the use of the words sinful and pleasure in the same sentence too often.

So, one of those guilty pleasures is Audacia’s blog as she fumbles around trying to come to grips with her own likes and dislikes. It makes for interesting reading, that and the fact I’m a sucker for a woman that looks good in frilly lingerie.

Fugue state.

The pace of life is such lately I find myself floating through it for lack of a better word. I don’t keep to any kind of regimented schedule, life has become an unstructured series of events - there are things to do, things that are done and that is pretty much about it.

It’s not a bad thing, certainly I’ve found myself in much worse straits through the years, it’s just I find myself drawing a blank when asked if I’ve been working lately or if I’ve been busy. I haven’t been working but, there seems to be an abundance of things to do.

A few things fall by the wayside (the blog for one), not because I lack things to write about but, because I find myself so easily distracted. I imagine putting together some kind of pie chart displaying where the day goes but, I can’t find it in myself to even exert the effort in that direction.

It makes me think about how people deal with crisis. What happens when a person is confronted with an event that is life altering, dangerous or both?

I’ve had a few of those through the course of my life - people putting guns to my head, seeing some violent things reminding me of how fragile we are, all kinds of myriad strangeness. Whenever this has happened, everything slows down. I don’t have the grasp of physics of an Einstein or Hawking but, I can’t ever remember seeing anyone touch on our own subjective view of time.

You’re a kid and each and every day crawls by, weeks take forever to pass and a month is an eternity. Of course, measured by your time on the planet, it truly is a bigger number, a bigger fractional value. You get older and time begins speeding up, days pass in an instant and you are amazed at how quickly the seasons change. The only time everything slows down is when something bad happens, and then we go into life’s equivalent of slo-mo replay.

I’m not in slo-mo replay but, that surreal aspect is there. Between the frantic journeys to hospital ERs, the other loose ends I find myself handling it is a somewhat unusual way to be living.

In the meantime, I came across this on the This American Life website which is an interesting listen:

In the hospital, we give up our normal schedule and sleep patterns; we give up our normal food and clothing; we’re in a place that has its own rules and its own language and its own customs. And in the midst of all this, there’s this complicated human interaction we have to negotiate: we have to deal with doctors and nurses to get the care we need. In this show we hear stories of those delicate and sometimes-not-so-delicate negotiations.

By the way, if you’ve ever listened to the FREE real audio feed of This American Life, you might want to consider making an online donation here. Imagine for just $15 you can get a cool piece by Chris Ware!

I can’t believe this picture of Scarlett Johansson naked!

I came across this amazing picture...

It’s of Scarlett Johansson’s sister actually. As much as I’ve had a thing for Scarlett Johansson since I saw her in Ghost World - I still thought of her as being that obscure object of desire - the age thing and all that. Then, I saw this picture of her older sister Vanessa and you can see that good looks just run in the family. So, I can pine away for another of the Johannson family ladies (another hopeless crush).



Anyway, the closest thing I ever did see to nude picture of the aforementioned Scarlett (letch that I am) was seeing A Love Song for Bobby Long. Never really got such a good view of her though. I did want to try a little experiment though and see how many hits I could generate with an entry titled like this one is. Just curious after looking through referral stats after I wrote a brief snyppet about Evangeline Lilly. I guess sex does drive the internet (or at least we’ll see).