Miraclo Miles

Sue her. Sue her out of existence. Well, that's what I'd be sorely tempted to do if I were John Mason, the (hopefully former) fiance of Jennifer "I was kidnapped!" Wilbanks and I thought it would do any good. Wilbanks went out jogging this past Tuesday night, leaving everything behind, and wasn't heard from until she called days later to say she'd been kidnapped. After police in Albequerque picked her up she admitted that she'd just made it up. She'd just gotten cold feet due to her impending, huge wedding (I figure 600 invitations should easily mean 1200 people, even if some are single they'll be more than balanced by relatives with kids) and needed time alone. I can certainly understand getting the cold feet, especially in the face of all that (I wouldn't put up with even a small family and friends ceremony, never mind something that smacks of Ringling Bros.) but aside from the distress she directly put her family and fiance through, her fia...

So, why am I reminded of New Coke? Tammy just forwarded me a link to the planned changes for Oreo cookies . The short version is they're aiming to dump the trans fat , so they've reformulated the cream in the middle. The new, healthier version is set to debut at the end of the year. Honestly, while I suspect they'll come out with a diet variety in the long run, the announcement sounds to me as if they're just looking to boost sales on the standard variety, and, as happened with New Coke in the 1908s, they're hoping to get consumers fearful and angry over losing a 93-year classic. Now, the shelf life of a sealed pack of Oreos probably isn't as long as that of Coke, but I can't help but suspect that this announcement is intended to cause some fringe-level consumers to hoard Oreos much as some Coke drinkers did in 1985 when thought they were facing the end of an old favorite. IMHO the fans didn't go far enough, as we never did get back the orig...

Saturday Gray Gray skies, drizzle to rain and back again. It's been slow-going and sticking to indoors today so far. There's no shortage of work to be done inside anyway, and with the price of gasoline these days it's just as well I'm not driving around on impulse. More laundry's rolling (a never-ending battle) and barely imaginable clutter is waiting to be cleared. If anyone's looking for schlock tv this weekend and has cable or a satellite system, might I suggest the premiere of Man-Thing on the SciFi channel tonight? Everything I've seen about this has been less than complimentary. Intended for theatrical release, it was done a year ago, I'm told. They looked at the end product and apparently found it wanting. They framed the decision in a way that said they thought the movie was good, but would require too large a promotional fund. It's so thickly cast from actors in Australian TV series that it would likely be star-filled from their perspectiv...

Heroclix (mostly) update Doubtless, this will be long and tedious for anyone not very interested in the subject. Hell, it's likely too long and tedious for anyone . I just wanted to collect some information and thoughts on the set at this juncture. The next set, Fantastic Forces , has now been given a set release date: June 29th. That's a tentative relief to me, as had it been the first week of July I'm sure the 4th falling on a Monday would have all but guaranteed my not seeing the cases (2) I've ordered until the 11th. As it is, I'm hoping that the same-week affair it happened to be with the previous set (Legacy) will hold true this time, so that they'll arrive on Friday, July 1st. If not, and they slip past that Friday, I could have been left waiting until the following Tuesday since UPS isn't going to bring them to me on Monday, July 4th. No, it's not so much a matter of having to wait a little longer as it was the idea that I'd be gettin...

Cutting us off at the knees The latest from the House of Lies last night included what was pitched as an attempt to save Social Security, complete with a magnanimous attempt to protect the lowest income workers, was disingenuous at best . When one examines the plan, one sees that it's in part an attempt to pit the middle class against the poor by lumping them in with the truly rich. For all the ostensible concern over people who would be retiring in poverty, nothing he is proposing will help any of that, and when taken with his budget's slashing of health, education grant and job training programs it's - at best - baffling. Either the man is both stupid and grossly misinformed by the people writing his policy for him (certainly well within the realm of possibility) , or he's a soulless liar. Most of the Social Security shortfall problem could be addressed by raising the Social Security wage cap, regardless of the agenda-driven folks at the Heritage Foundation ...

Something to chew on (or: Another liver recipe?) A new variety of rice has been developed that is not only effectively immune to 13 different herbicides, but is capable of breaking down not only pesticides but other industrial chemicals. The plants could, theoretically, be used to simultaneously grow food and clean up toxic sites. The catch? Well, one potential catch is that the modification is due to inserting a new gene into the rice plant. A gene from the human liver. Even if this blurring of the line between people and food isn't a concern - though it bids fair to drive Hindus and Vegans, at the very least, nuts - the history of genetically-modifed crops is that they don't stay put. It's also more likely a matter of when than if the modification skips to other types of plants.

Singer's Superman Reportedly at the direction of next year's Superman Returns director, Bryan Singer , the Superman costume Brandon Routh (who'd be wise to bury his nickname "BJ" ) will be wearing was changed from the traditional look. (Click on the image to see a fuller one - and click on that one in turn for a huge image. I opted for a tiny one here so as to not be forced to write a huge block of completely unecessary text.) Darker tones to the primary colors, the family crest/insignia (remember, it only looks like an S to us Earth people after all...) made smaller and set higher on the chest, and, somewhat nonsensically, duplicated on a belt buckle. The ex-X-Men director may have gotten too locked into the idea of team uniforms. Some have accurately noted that the darker hues used in the new costume look very much like the evil version of Superman (seen on the right) from Superman III - you remember, the Superman movie and the Richard Pryor movie that were ...

Dust Devils of Mars And that's just what NASA's Spirit rover captured back on tax day . Once you go to the link you'll have to click on another link there to see the animated gif. It's not a smooth animation - having captured the spin of martian soil in a couple images taken about 20 seconds apart - but it's cool nonetheless, especially against that vast, open expanse.

Almost like a light bulb about to burn out... Among the many things noted lightly in passing (and not remarked on, as I've done nothing with this place all week) , I saw that Paramount refused to accept the money Trek United had collected from fans, and that the money was being returned to the fans... minus the percentage taken by PayPal and whatever other financial institution managed to carve a slice out of the transaction. While they tried to keep a brave and foward-looking face on it, it amounted to an admission that Star Trek: Enterprise is done. So, this puts what's essentially a wrap on what was reported here and here . I'm bringing that up not only to close the loop, but because I happened to catch last night's episode, number 5 in the countdown of the final five. Even a casual watcher of this season, such as me, has noted that they've been going back to the original series for... inspirations. Still, that's not necessarily a bad thing, especia...

Hoard, Crack or Sell? Sure, it figures that I break nearly a week of morose and busy silence with something utterly trivial, but we take what we can get. Son Nick and I went out, acting on bad info concerning a game release (it's been put off until the middle of next week) and while in Game Stop I spotted two boosters of Heroclix Legacy hanging on a peg. Keep in mind this is the set that was apparently so under-produced that it sold out at Wizkids level and many of the secondary suppliers in less than a month. Special marquee events - standard operating procedure for a new set - were left with little product to run them, resulting in many either having to limit participation or cancel. (All pretty much as I belabored at the start of the month.) No one else around here has appeared to have any left, so I picked them up because the opportunity was there. Now, were I to open them up there's most likely nothing special in them, and even closer to certain is that there...

Something has to change Instead of getting to take my birthday off on Friday, as I'd loosely intended, I ended up in work and plugging away at work I don't care about. Granted, most people reading this could say much the same thing. I'm not claiming any special misery, but life's as subjective an experience as it gets and the contents of my own trick-or-treat bag are going to matter the most to me. While I've had worse weeks overall in all aspects of my life, this was a battering week. By the end I could barely think. Lacking the bruises and bone breaks, I nonetheless felt as if I'd taken strong blows to the head all week. By Friday night I felt as if I was having some 'Mountain' Rivera moments. The world shifted between dazed, fuzziness and flashes of crystal clarity, with discontinuities between in which for all that I was aware I may as well not have existed. A little scary that, considering that I was driving around for part of that. I...

Some people like them big and hairy Plans to begin breeding a renewed race of wooly mammoths have been kicked around for decades -- in fact, I was little disappointed to learn from this National Geographic article from April 8 that so far it's still all speculation. (Thanks for reminding me of this with a forwarded link, Tammy.) A revivified race of mammoths - as park/zoo attractions has popped up in pop culture here and there over the years, including a mention in one of the latter Alan Moore issues of Miracleman ("Marvelman" purists, fists twisted in anti-Marvel angst, be-damned, as by that point it was being written for and published by the US-based Eclipse and was now, simply, Miracleman.) as I recall. In that instance, though, additional genetic tampering had been done so that a group of "tame mammoths" had been released to live in Central Park. After all, it was supposed to be part of a new Golden Age for mankind. I see that mammoths must be wanderin...

People who've had a worse week than I It takes some ingenuity to run one's self over with her car . I can't decide if this was two different sides of a bad week or just a scam, but it's modestly entertaining... and at least so far it appears to be going more safely than this discovery of infidelity . Then here's a case where the phrase "possibility that poison gas may come out" has nothing to do with eating at Taco Bell. (Yeah, I'm being insensitive. But if one lives beside an active volcano...) It could have been a curse invoked by the Elks naming them "Teenager of the Month", or more likely being part of the Tampa police department, but either way it went decidedly downhill for these sisters . And, apparently the Bush administration is offering enough money to buy up the better henchmen, so Satan's left to scrape the bottom of the barrel . But, hey. It's still only Wednesday.

Another Sunday My body's turned on me again, and I've spent most of the weekend shut in and medicated, too irritated to be comfortably awake for long and doubly irritated by the need to incapacitate myself through another weekend. Monday and the work week come up too quickly as it is, and to make it worse I still have to get in there for a couple hours today just to give Monday a bare fighting chance. I don't want to do any of it, but chances are any of you could say the same thing. I could complain - and already have - but it's all stale and most of it's my fault, so what would be the point? I am weary of a life that's little more than endless obligations, mounting regrets and a general sense of failure. I'm not milking anyone for inspiration speeches or general emotional support, especially as no matter how well-intentioned neither is going to do anything to help. If I could turn off the comments for individual entries I'd turn it of...

Panic Okay, it doesn't rise to anything like that level, the header being an appropriate amendment of the "Don't Panic" cover notice for The Hithchiker's Guide to the Galaxy ... soon to be released as a major motion picture . There's a great deal in Douglas Adams' work to produce a fun, rapid-patter comedy adventure, so when I found out that we'd be getting a motion picture version of it this year I was looking forward to it. When I saw the first wave of previews, my reaction hadn't changed much -- one can't tell anything about the pacing of a film from a trailer, and the opening was recognizable. It had been presented as both radio and television productions for the BBC before, so one would think that most of the difficulties had been worked through. A big screen, 2005 production should have had as its central task bringing the scope and special effects to it that couldn't have been done earlier -- and certainly not on a BBC budget. ...

"Bush in 30 Years" Worried about what the administration plans to do to and with Social Security? Take a look at these Flash Animations , voting on a 5-pt scale for four different aspects and then moving on to the next one. There's some clever work in the mix, and some excellent information. (Okay, there's some crap, too -- the vocals are terrible in a couple of them so far.) I've only watched the first five or so -- "If it ain't broke, don't privatize it" being the standout favorite so far, being not only entertaining but informative and offering an easy solution to the shortfall set to begin in 2042 if no adjustments are made -- and would like to see several of these get around. Take a look, and tell others about it.

Picture This This rant by athenae speaks quite well for itself, so I'll just thank Tammy for pointing it out and leave you to it.

Post-Atomic Pals I generally don't just post pass-alongs as far as jokes and graphics, and I get the impression these have been making the email rounds alongside those hideous "Joke-A-Day" emails I've managed to keep myself out of for the past 5 years or so. However, I liked this lot enough to show them off here. These were sent to my wife from her sister as the current state of cats near Chernobyl, I believe. I especially liked "griffer", so he took the header spot. "Furby", on the left, is funny enough but very much what one tends to do within the first five minutes of using Kai's Goo or SuperGoo . "Troll" strikes me more as deserving to be called "weasel," but I didn't create these so it's not for me to rename them. (Troll has a "The storeroom" logo on it, which should at least be a clue as to where he came from. I don't have the time to track it down.) I'm swamped with work today, so thanks...

Whoah! No, really. I mean whoah. Stop. Perhaps I'm missing something, but it appears to me that Sony has just patented an idea that's been around in SF, comics and pop culture for years . (The article's poorly conceived and written, the writer either being nearly a moron or feeling he has to write for some, but that's the gist of what I'm getting from this.) This isn't some device they've created -- there aren't even any experiments behind it -- it's just a broad, vague lock on the idea of creating sensory experience in the brain without the use of implants. (Let's not even get into how unsettling the idea of doing it via targeted ultrasound is.) This is reminding me of the Selden patent that a handful of early automobile producers used to keep a lock on their market before it was effectively challenged and overturned. This move by Sony, if allowed to stand, is one of the many examples where intellectual property laws are compl...

Holding the Line I'd seen the piece in Variety concerning the Star Wars fans reportedly already in line to buy tickets for the May 19th premiere of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith , and doing so at a theatre not scheduled to show the film , but what that piece failed to make note of is that the line-sitters are not only organized they're also doing this, in part, for charity . (Thanks, Tammy , for sending me the link to the line-waiting group's site.) Seeing this story prompted me to check in on how the Star Trek fans are doing with their Trek United effort to raise money and secure a fifth season of Star Trek: Enterprise . (Which I brought up back on March 1st .) They've kept moving, but as I'd expected the march towards an independenty-raised fourth million (the other three were donated in one sweep, as mentioned in the earlier piece) is slow and uncertain work. Despite various promotional gimmicks including promotional merchandise ...

Don't Delay, Dump DeLay! via MoveOn PAC, earlier today: This morning, the Washington Post and the New York Times each broke new scandals involving Republican Majority Leader Rep. Tom DeLay. According to the Times , DeLay paid his wife and daughter more than $500,000 of his political donors' money over the last four years. And the Post article highlights a seedy 1997 trip DeLay took, underwritten by "a mysterious company located in the Bahamas" that was tied to Russian business interests. And that's not the only legal or ethical scandal DeLay is involved in. DeLay illegally used corporate funds in support of his plan to re-district Texas, and he went on golf trips with gambling lobbyist Jack Abramoff—two months before DeLay helped kill legislation opposed by the gambling companies. DeLay's grandstanding on the Terri Schiavo tragedy—which a great majority of the country feels is political opportunism—was the straw that broke the camel's ba...

I suppose the "special chastity pants" are just in case he's feeling frisky after his rebirth There are quite a few questions that come to mind as one reads about the imminent release of The Incredible Popeman . Setting aside the various items of power mentioned, including his "faith staff", and green "chastity pants", I'm sure that publishers in the United States have "expressed interest", seeing as the article cites the character meeting Superman and Batman. Licensing issues and that artist (and presumed creator) Rodolfo Leon has been working on it for a year... yeah, plenty of questions. Never mind that poor Karol's been reconstituted as a dwarf, judging by the illustration.

Two Fists & 18 Karats* ( * Hey, I'm certainly not implying Mr. T's cheap , but 24 k gold is so damned soft, the jewelry's not going to wear well unless there's something in there to toughen it up.) With so many comics companies putting out such a range of material, Marvel and DC continuing to take up the lion's share of the market so that even well-established companies such as Image and Dark Horse have to fight for attention, smaller, newer companies have a vastly difficult job letting comics fans know these alternatives are out there. One such company is operating out of the U.K.: AP Comics . I was completely unaware of the company's existence until I recieved some mail from Chris Bunting , who is, among other things, the writer of the Mr. T comics series set to debut this May. As I told Chris, much of the buzz surrounding Mr. T - the man & the image - missed me, or me it. My intense TV years were the '60s and much of the '70s...

Vatican Idol I've been kicking some of the likeliest papal candidates among the cardinals back and forth - briefly - with a friend. Last week I'd fished around and found a piece from Slate from 2003 that looked at the group of seeming frontrunners at the time (it was JPII's 25th anniversary and his health problems were known, so it was a natural enough line of thought at the time) , and we were largely batting the shortlist then with the shortlist now, looking at every element from age and nationality to affiliations, politics and how conservative or liberal they are with respect to the church's current stances. Without getting into any of the names, here's a piece that weighs most of the important factors that will be considered in the next choice, and then there's an attempt at the job description for the next pontiff. One element that's of almost comic interest, though, is that there are bookmakers' lines running on the top candidates ,...

Skin City No elaborate, structured review of Frank Miller 's creative leap to the big screen for his Sin City material from me, most likely. I'll make some random comments on it, though. Visually, it's engaging and - if nothing else - it's Frank Miller's illustration style brought to life. The shades of gray that define most elements (nearly all computer-generated, but well done) in the movie are punctuated by intense colors. A gown the color of fresh blood. A bright blue car. Golden hair. Some elements -- predominantly blood -- are not what you'd expect most of the time. With the exceptions of when someone's been superficially roughed up, and in one instance where there's a gout of blood from one character splashing onto the face of another, blood in Sin City isn't red. Generally, it's white, sometimes with a washed out yellow hue. Well, it's considerably more yellow in one case, but that's a special exception. In general, when peo...

Hey, What Time Is It? Okay, unlike two weeks ago when I misled people by overlaying the Daylight Saving Time jump with the change of seasons, it'll be time to set those clocks ahead an hour overnight tonight . While I rarely find items of actual value in The National Review , I did find this timely piece on Daylight Saving Time worthwhile. So, be sure that whatever electronic equipment you have that doesn't do it on its own is moved ahead an hour tonight, so if you go out tomorrow you can taunt tardy shop owners with confidence if you've a mind to Sunday morning. Lousy, lousy day today, btw, and I'm not talking about John Paul II 's day. My getting up early and starting to get things done resulted in one kick in the teeth after another, and I'm surprised I didn't just crawl back into bed and stay there. It really is one of those days where one looks around and sees that nearly everything is a pointless, wearing sham, and happiness is a ...

Ah, the vultures, the vultures... An email from I'm a Crypt Leak , alerted me to an aborted, satyrical eBay auction of a crucifix (sic -- a crucifix has a figure of Jesus on it, while this was simply a cross) made of two feedling tubes. It was put up under the banner "Terri Schiavo Feeding Tube Crucifix - Never Forget" . That it was a hasty photo-edit rotate and stamp operation using a shot of a feeding tube was a give-away that it was a joke, and the text of the ad drove it home, still... it led me to look for other people trying to make something off the event and Terri Schiavo's name. There's someone attempting to sell the domain name for TerriSchiavoFund.com to rally support (and contributions) for whichever side of the issue you're on. Like an arms dealer, he doesn't care which side uses it. I'm encouraged that there are no bids as yet. Then there are the "Justice for Terri" buttons and magnets . Then there's a clever attempt to ...

As far as April Fool's Day... I've never been big on observing it, so those who are looking for such holiday gags will be disappointed here. I'd considered just posting a shot of Dubya -- perhaps that shot from the deck of the aircraft carrier, where he has that "Mission Accomplished" banner in the background. That would be appropriate. Tragic, but appropriate. Really, have we had a government in place before that so regularly provided us with material we wished were pranks? Come to think of it, if they wanted to tell us it's all been one, elaborate prank since the elections of 2000, hey, I'll be happy to admit they fooled me and have a laugh at my gullibility. Can't you see how easily it would all flow? All the good-natured pokes at how we actually believed that this crowd not only got in but had enough pull to get a second term? Can you fathom how good it would feel to find out it was all a joke? Sadly, however, I fear the long national nightmare...

Legacy's legacy? (If you're not interested in Heroclix nor looking for a piece on business practices, skip this.) The official announcement came through Thursday that the latest DC Heroclix set, Legacy , has sold out. This confirmed various rumors surrounding the set over the past few weeks, including some online vendors jacking up the prices markedly. Regional shortages had been reported, and most recently the local marquee event for the game only had enough boosters for 8 players. This is for a set that first hit the streets March 2nd, so that was 29 days later. A Wizkids customer service note reported by one fan/customer yesterday, prior to the official announcement, effectively broke the news . That notice pointed to "low projections from our distributors" as the cause. Since distributors base their projections largely on early orders, it ultimately came down to a lower level of (at least early) orders from retailers and secondary wholesalers. A public noti...