Mandy Moore is trying to make me jealous by not wearing my favorite color any longer

I think I'll forgive her, for some reason.



(And actually, if you look closely at her eyelids...)

Wow.

Please click here to find the full-size pictures, the work of an artist named Louise who signs her work "artandghosts."

Please do not follow that link if you haven't got more than a couple of minutes to spare, if you're anything like me, you'll end up spending at least half an hour...

...THAT'S Jennifer Garner?

This was going to be another one of those "I don't know who this is, but, wow!" posts.


But then I took a look at who it is.

I'm gaining new respect for Ben Affleck all over the place these days.

Golden Venice

(found at this site)

My favorite color has a threeway

Lisa Edelstein about to make my favorite color burst into flame...



...and Lake Bell making it go weak in the knees.

Animal frolics

1: The wiley Cujo had outsmarted the foolish humans.

2:



When I become wealthy, I'm going to train this bird to act as my doorman.



3: From the fringe hit, Though April showers may come in May, a one-puppy salute to Al Jolson.

Stop me before I bitch again

Ladies and gentlemen, the world's most redundant title.

(Sorry, Corey)

Sometimes I wonder at what point Madonna was replaced by a puppet

And I still don't know how she got to there from here...

Fucking Hannah Montana makes 52 million and this movie was ignored?

Gone Baby Gone is a good fucking movie. How good? I'm starting to wish Project Greenlight hadn't been such an unredeemable failure so maybe there was a chance I could get one of my scripts to Ben Affleck to direct.

That's how good.

I'd call it better than both Mystic River and especially The Departed, two films to which it can easily be compared. Yes, I'm saying Ben Affleck made a better movie than Clint Eastwood or Martin Scorsese.

I'll stand by that. And I thought Mystic River was choice ; deserved its awards. Although that Scorsese "finally" won the Academy Award for the film he did is, I think, going to turn out to be one of the greater ironies of film history. But there's irony to go all around here.

Affleck won an Oscar for co-writing Good Will Hunting, but deserves at least two nominations (directing and-co-writing, with Aaron Stockard from Dennis Lehane's novel) for this. Amy Ryan is a nominee for best supporting actress-but I have to believe voters just spread out 8x10's of the film's stars, closed their eyes and pointed to decide who among the uniformly impressive cast they should honor.

I mean look at this cast: Morgan Freeman, Ed Harris, John Ashton...with Casey Affleck and Michelle Monaghan holding their own with them. That's how good.

First-season-of-Veronica Mars good (that's for you, Corey).

The story is a very literal moral nightmare. And there's a line at the end which-well I don't want to tell you what it is, because there's no way of doing that without spoiling it for you. This is a film that stayed at least half a jump ahead of me at nearly every turn, and you should experience it the same way. So I'll be vague.

But there's a line at the end which, just within the context of the film, is heartbreaking. But for me, personally, it's one of those "Ben Affleck hacked into my computer!" moments...and I mean that in a good way.

As with Shoot 'Em Up--a film it otherwise resembles in virtually no way whatsoever--I'm inclined to view the fact that this movie was ignored at the box office as an indictment of the public.

I'm saying this is a great film.

That's how good.

All these places have their moments With lovers and friends i still can recall

I don't have a girlfriend (again), this Valentine's Day. Considering that, I feel pretty good about it. For all my depression, I never quite feel that I'm never going to have a girlfriend again...just that I haven't had one for a while. But enough about that- I don't want to be maudlin.

What I want to do is post a few memories. Not so much to massage my ego--though who doesn't love a spot of self-ego massage, now and then?--but just as a reminder (to me). These women and girls cared about me once, and some will again.

(And he doesn't want to be maudlin?)

Anyway.

(for the record, this is a non-all inclusive list)

I remember my first girl reaching out to undo my belt. A quick moment, but one of those which takes an instant photograph in your head.

I remember Kahni (that's how she spelled it), to me Constance, as to her I was Benjamin, and I'm not sure now how all that started, but I smile to think of it.

I remember an ex saying "Ben, there are a lot positive words to be used to describe you. Nice...is not one of them."

I remember arriving home from a date with Christina to find a message on my machine. "I just wanted to say goodnight...and I love you." Part of me wishes I'd kept that tape, another part knows that would be deeply, deeply sad.

I remember Andrea saying "Of course I think you're cute."

I remember Amy's tearful voice late one night (or probably early one morning) saying she just wanted to talk to the nicest guy she knew.

I remember Erica saying she liked me when I was quiet.

I remember my cat, Donovan, burrowing his way in-between me and Sue Couret when we slept spoon-style.

I remember A'mee's essential goodness.

In the future, all groups will look like this.

For the Anonymous Alan

I want this song played when I'm dead

And I like this new version better than the original. I think it's great.

This one's for you, Roy Scheider, or: Things you don't want to see when surfing

What Christina Applegate likes about my favorite color is its sense of humor

What my favorite color likes about Christina Applegate is that it's holding up her breasts.

(This may be another one of those jokes that only seems funny to me right now because it is almost 3 AM. Should this prove to be the case, I apologize.)

i KNEW Mike Myers ripped that off...

Asked one day if a dog had Buddha nature, Chinese master Chao-chou (Japanese, Joshu) heretically retorted: "Wu!" ("Not!")

Come on, everybody! Let's all do the Obama...cha-cha-cha! UPDATED

Sometimes The Universe Gives You Gifts. According to this analysis by Beth Fouhy of the Associated Press...

Even white women were beginning to move toward the Illinois senator — Clinton won sixty percent of their votes, a much lower percentage than in contests past. Clinton has based her candidacy in large part on her appeal to white women.

"The Clinton campaign can't have it be about states won or lost or delegates won," said Democratic strategist Jenny Backus. "It needs to be about electability in the fall, strength against John McCain, and the key issues voters are facing."

Original post:

Obama rolled to decisive victories in Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia, running his hot streak to eight consecutive wins and expanding his lead in pledged convention delegates who select the party's nominee.

"Tonight, we're on our way. But we know how much further we have to go," Obama told supporters in Madison, Wisconsin, where the next showdown occurs in a week. "We know our road will not be easy. But we also know that at this moment the cynics can no longer say our hope is false."

So this is what it feels like to have a candidate who actually moves you. I'm agog.

...then again, he tempered, I suddenly find myself remembering Dennis Miller's line (back when he was still funny) about why Bill Clinton's saxophone-playing appearance on Arsenio Hall had gone so well.

"We can't believe we actually have a president who can do something. Look! He can actually play that thing!"

Mr. Bush has set the bar so low when it comes to speaking, that someone who even just uses sentences and paragraphs correctly would end up sounding like a silver-tongued balladeer.

In Obama's case, since he actually has a gift for rhetoric that threatens to rival both Reagan and Bill Clinton...

"You ski?...Well, you will some day if a girl wants you to. We all will. We hurtle down that mountain..."

How to make Scarlett Johansson appear unattractive

I wouldn't have thought it was possible either, but here we are.

Kraftwerk wrote the gospel of "rock" as I like it

And here they are live in Paris in 2004.



You don't have to move to be moving.

"The kid died...a butterfly."

(click to enlarge)

"Plants are like people. Writers are like plants. Therefore, and this may come as a surprise, writers are like people. Give them light, water, nourishment, a comfortable pot and an encouraging world and they'll grow." -- Howard the Duck No. 16

Steve Gerber 1947-2008

I'm thankful now that I once had a chance to meet him, briefly, at a comics convention, and later to trade a few messages on computer boards. I'm glad I told him how much I had enjoyed his work and what it had meant to me.

I once wrote an essay on Howard the Duck for the Comic Effect 'zine. In it, I talked about how when the famously money-losing Howard film was released...I had actually kind of liked it-I was 16 at the time (in my case, the fact it had songs written by Thomas Dolby didn't hurt).

Nowadays, I see a lot more of its many flaws (its many, many flaws), but I will always have a certain amount of warmth in my heart for it. It wasn't great, but it led me to the comic book, and that was wonderful.

As you'll see if you scroll down to the bottom of this site, I've decided to make Howard a permanent part of the ecology around here (I chose the picture I did because it looks like Howard hitting bottom...and bouncing back).

Which is appropriate, because this blog is a reflection of at least part of how I think, and Gerber and his duck are a part of that. Gerber is one of those writers, like Douglas Adams, whose lines (and more, whose ideas) pepper my thoughts and sometimes my speech so often that I don't think I'm always aware of it.

How many other Marvel comic books from the '70s would have had their title character walk away from, rather than engage in a fight with, a costumed would-be nemesis? The Candadian nationalist Beaver, no less...and then suffer a nervous breakdown as a result?

As Heidi MacDonald wrote in her blog

In a country made cynical by a failed war in a rotting jungle and a president who thought nothing of personally authorizing thugs to win an election it was time to question heroes.

He had an influence on my life. Given the state of my life, who knows whether he would've liked that, but...


As you can read by following the link at the top (and the others provided there, all of which are recommended), Gerber was also a key figure in comics for reasons other than creating and writing that character.

His willingness to make a stand against Marvel Comics to try to establish his ownership of Howard started a ball rolling in the industry that changed it into the more creator-centric business it is today.

Somewhere, I still have a Vote Howard! pin which I bought at a convention. I'll have to try to find, and wear it next time I'm out.

Damn it. I KNEW love was in a bottle.

(hugh macleod)

I can see it all now...

Slowly but surely, I'm putting together the cast for my non-sexist remake of Friday the 13th.






(Chicks with chopping tools. Gotta love it.)

Nelly Furtado is a bimbo

From The Columbus Dispatch, regarding Grammy highlights...

• Most dubious dip into the hip-hop dictionary: Nelly Furtado describing Andy Williams as an "O.G." Yes, Williams hosted the first seven Grammy Awards shows, so the idea is valid, but let's show some restraint. Is there a man any less "gangsta" than the 79-year-old Moon River crooner?

A completely gratuitous photo of Phoebe Cates

...for those of you who believe there can ever really be such a thing, of course.

Random Flickr-blogging 2414

Nothing funny to say about this picture, I just like it.

Source.



When the baby was born, Val's parents began to suspect she had not been completely straightforward with them regarding the nature of her relationship with Lawrence Talbot.

Credit.



Trying to make executions more colorful is just awkward for all concerned.

Credit.

I have heard it said that some writers have an ideal reader in their heads when they write

...and I think I just found mine.

How to get kids interested in going to the libraries again

Sometimes I wonder at what point Madonna was replaced by a salamander

How she got there from here, I'll never know.

That's good...I can use that..(a tribute to Roy Scheider, RIP)

Roy Scheider, who died today at the age of 75, may have been best known for playing Chief Brody in Jaws (and its first sequel).



That's one of my favorite movies, but I'll remember him even more for his magnificent performance in another, Bob Fosse's All That Jazz, as Joe Gideon, the director/choreographer largely based on Fosse himself.

In this sequence, Scheider might not seem to be the focus, as he mainly watches his daughter Michelle(Erzsebet Foldi)and girfriend Kate(Ann Reinking). They're performing a dance to try to boost Gideon's spirits after the opening of his new film.

But look at the way he's watching them. I believe how actors watch other actors is very important, and here Scheider gives a lesson in it.



A badly underrated film of his was Cohen and Tate, which in one line is a sort of high-octane updating of Ransom of Red Chief. Scheider (Cohen) and Adam Baldwin (Tate) play hit men who are transporting the young son of their last victims to their boss, and he plays them against each other.

I forget the reasons why they have to take the kid (it's almost 20 years after I saw it), but what I do remember is the intensity of the performances and a screenplay I never knew how would unfold.

Here's a short scene from it. This looks as though it was made by pointing a video camera at a TV screen, but it gives you a rough idea.



A greatly skilled actor. He will be missed.

Forests, profits Plastic High Streets. I am he, who is A B and Cee In easy option, Late twentieth century. Satisfaction guaranteed It's easy!

The Democratic party is about to implode. Again.

Well, we've all wondered how they'd do it, how they'd once again snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. And now we know.

Clinton Has Lead With Party Insiders

Hillary Rodham Clinton retains her lead among suddenly critical Democratic Party insiders even as Barack Obama builds up his delegate margin with primary and caucus victories across the country, according to a survey by The Associated Press.

With Clinton and Obama trading wins and loses as the primary and caucus season unfolds, the role of the superdelegates has been magnified and is causing anxiety inside and outside the campaigns. If the current snapshot of the race holds, superdelegates could decide the nomination in favor of one candidate even if the other receives more votes in the party primaries and caucuses.

Can you imagine how Democratic voters are going to feel if it becomes clear that more of us wanted Obama, but get Hillary thrown at us anyway? And not because she makes a more convincing candidate, but because she has an inside track amongst the "elite"?

Four words: That's the other guys.

And by the way, if you want to know just how repellent this whole "superdelegate" idea should be...listen to where it came from, and what it got us:

The Democratic Party introduced superdelegates to the nominating process after the 1980 election with the idea of giving a voice to elected officials and party elders who had a stake in who became the party's standard bearer. In 1984, Walter Mondale relied on superdelegates to distance himself from rival Gary Hart and secure the Democratic nomination...

Emphasis mine. Walter Mondale, people. The patron saint of weak candidates. That's what "superdelegates" leads to.

That awkward moment when you can't remember which of you was supposed to pick up the brain

(Bitchery. One for the road.)