I’ve found a new blog that belongs to Tom Richmond, an artist for MAD magazine. Like most young boys, I used to be infatuated with slapstick, grossness, and the general disrespect of one’s elders, so naturally I mis-spent a lot of my youth reading that silly rag; not surprisingly the movie parodies were always my favorite “articles,” and I find I can still remember punchlines from many of them.
A new meme, courtesy of Roberson’s Interminable Ramble (Roberson being the author of Paragaea, that wonderful fantasy adventure novel I mentioned recently ). The gimmick is to bold the titles of television series of which you’ve seen at least three episodes, and bold and italicize those for which I’ve seen every episode. This should be enlightening… or frightening…
For any who may be interested, I’m continuing to add titles to my LibraryThing catalog, a few at a time as I have the opportunity and whenever the damn thing is working. The site frequently seems to be overwhelmed by server requests; I’m guessing the owners were unprepared for a flood of new memberships resulting from a mention on Boing Boing. I’ve got 200 books up there now. At the rate I’m going, I should have the entire Bennion Library up for your perusal by this same time next summer…
In the meantime, I’ve found something rather interesting (and somewhat related), a vast collection of statistics about books and the book industry. Here are some items that grabbed my attention:
Assuming that you’re not all sick to death of thinking about Superman and ready to move on to other topics — like pirates, for instance — I’ve found a trio of articles that should give you adequate distraction from work on this Friday morning.
Ah, the wonders of the Internet… here is the complete MTV Cribs segment I mentioned in the previous entry:
I’ve recently discovered the highly entertaining Secret Fun Blog, an offshoot of a Web site called the Secret Fun Spot; both are dedicated to all the weird and wacky toys, ephemera, and retro crap that strange, overgrown kids like me love.
Yesterday’s entry on the Fun Blog is particularly interesting: It features a number of screen grabs from an episode of MTV Cribs that showcased the enviable home of heavy metal/industrial musician Rob Zombie. Why is that interesting to me? Well, Zombie is an afficianado of old horror films, you see, and his house is a treasure trove of collectibles; while my own collecting tastes run more toward science fiction, I definitely identify with his general aesthetic. I especially liked the pirate bar, the built-in, floor-to-ceiling curio cabinets full of toys, and the walk-in video library. Ah, yes, some day I will have a walk-in video library…
One last thought on Superman Returns, which will no doubt brand me once and for all as a nitpicker on the level of The Simpsons‘ Comic Book Guy:
I hated the new supersuit. The colors were too muted, especially the cape, the textured fabric was weird (reminded me of Aquaman’s outfit, actually) and the big plastic S-shield on the chest just looked, well, like a big plastic shield.
I understand that it’s hard to make something like tights and a cape look cool, or like something that someone would actually wear in the real world (reference the very funny line in X-Men about “yellow spandex”), but is a dingy wetsuit the best they could do?
Yes, I am a dork…
Forgive me for continuing to blather on about the same subject, but I started thinking on the train home from work tonight and I realized that I’ve still got a lot to say about this particular movie. I hope you’ll bear with me…
First things first: Brandon Routh does not look like Christopher Reeve to me. For the past several weeks, I’ve heard all kinds of breathless gushing about how much the new kid looks like the late, great Superman of my youth, but I gotta tell you, I just don’t see it. Yeah, he’s tall and muscular like Chris was in his prime, and they share similar coloring… but aren’t those prerequisites for the role? If anything, Routh reminds me of a young Timothy Dalton.
