Action Comics #309 is noteworthy among Silver Age Superman comics. The story is nothing particularly out-of-the-ordinary - your usual “Superman is being celebrated by the public and Lois/Lana use the opportunity to try and prove that he is also Clark Kent but he comes up with a clever method of fooling them” story. (The fact that a trope this complex is a stock Superman plot is one of the many things that is gloriously weird about the Silver Age.) Lois and Lana are prepared for all of Superman’s previous tricks and eliminate Superman Robots, Batman posing as Clark Kent, Chameleon Boy of the Legion of Super-Heroes shapeshifting into Superman, etc., by process of elimination.

But despite all of this, Superman and Clark Kent manage to appear in the same room, and naturally the secret is revealed in the final page of the story:

However, what is not generally known is that Edmond Hamilton wrote additional pages of the story, which were edited out. Although Curt Swan’s pencilled pages have, according to all reputable sources, been destroyed, I recently had the opportunity to see the original final pages of Hamilton’s script. Although I wasn’t able to get them to a scanner - the person in possession of the pages wasn’t willing to trust me with them - he did allow me to photograph them, and they are still mostly legible.

This is an important part of comics history, and I feel privileged to share it with you. It is worth remembering that the Silver Age was as often subversive as it was wacky.

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SCENE: A STUDIO BIGWIG and his three JUNIOR EXECUTIVES sit at a table.

BIGWIG: We have had a very good run of late, haven’t we? I was amazed, One, that you managed to pull back the entire cast of the original The Fast and the Furious to make a sequel to The Fast And The Furious despite the fact that we’ve already made at least two sequels to that movie, one of which had none of them in it.
FIRST JUNIOR EXECUTIVE: Vin Diesel asked if I had any spare change!
BIGWIG: And Two, remaking The Women as a “Sex In The City” clone? Outstanding.
SECOND JUNIOR EXECUTIVE: Some girl I was trying to nail made me watch the original, and I thought “why aren’t they talking about men more?” And I ran with it.
BIGWIG: And Three… well, I’m not sure how you tricked me into making Hamlet 2, but it seems to have been a success for us, so I can’t blame you for that.
THIRD JUNIOR EXECUTIVE: I misrepresented it to you as an actual sequel to Hamlet, and disingenuously suggested that we might possibly cast Jason Statham as Fortinbras.
BIGWIG: You’re learning to play the game, Three. This pleases me. But now, gentlement, to business. We have Dane Cook under contract for several more movies, and I plan to maximize our use of this investment before his career collapses into a black hole from whence nothing can escape.
FIRST: Batman fights Popeye! Batman fights Popeye!
BIGWIG: One, we have been over this: so long as we have no means of blackmailing Christopher Nolan, your concept of Batman and Popeye fighting each other in outer space has to remain on the backburner.
FIRST: Aw.
SECOND: I have an idea. Let’s cast Dane Cook as a suave, romantic leading man type. Let’s make him classy.
BIGWIG: And then…
SECOND: And then he fucks Eva Longoria, but leaves her for a hooker with a heart of gold.
THIRD: She wouldn’t go out with you?
SECOND: I was going to buy her lobster and everything!
BIGWIG: I do not like your idea, Two. Three, hit me.
THIRD: I say we cut our losses. Dane Cook is an unlikable asshole, and the public is rapidly realizing that. He can get by as a standup, because you don’t have to like a standup, but as a leading man he’s worthless.
BIGWIG: Interesting. You have said something of merit.
THIRD: So we’re going to cancel the project?
BIGWIG: Don’t be stupid, Three. We are going to use your observation to our advantage. Gentlemen, we are going to make a romantic comedy which stars Dane Cook as an unlikable asshole.
FIRST: Fantastic!
SECOND: Brilliant!
THIRD: Oh sweet Jesus.
BIGWIG: We will do this by making use of the canard that hot girls secretly want to be with assholes. Dane Cook’s character will be an asshole, but all the other guys in the movie will be enormous wimpy baby-men, thus making Dane Cook look attractive in comparison.
SECOND: Wait, wait, and when Dane Cook has doubts that being an asshole is the right thing to do, we can have Alex Baldwin give him a speech about how being an asshole is the best thing in the whole world!
FIRST: Why Alec Baldwin?
SECOND: Because he’s an asshole who essentially gets paid to play an asshole in movies and on TV.
BIGWIG: I like this idea, Two. We shall use it.
FIRST: Can we call Dane Cook’s character “Tank”? I knew a guy in high school who beat up nerds, and he was called “Tank.”
BIGWIG: Excellent idea, One.
THIRD: Look, seriously - I don’t think this movie can work. You’d need the world’s most emasculated, most non-aggressive, most - oh, hell, you’re going to cast Jason Biggs as the lead whiny man, aren’t you?
BIGWIG: Precisely, Three. As I said, you learn quickly, and this pleases me. We will also find a variety of other nerdy, non-manly actors that Tank will “help” by treating their ladies like total crap, convincing these women that whiny, clingy passive-aggressive schmucks are the absolute best they can manage.
THIRD: …but that’s not a story, that’s a plot setup. For there to be a plot you need to introduce conflict. That means Tank actually has to fall for Jason Biggs’ girlfriend for real…
BIGWIG: Impressive. Most impressive.
SECOND: Can we get Kate Hudson to play Tank’s girlfriend?
THIRD: Are you over Eva Longoria already?
SECOND: I’ve moved on. There are plenty of whores on the street, my friend.
THIRD: Don’t you mean “fish in the sea”?
SECOND: I know what I said.
FIRST: Ooh, ooh, ooh, I have an idea!
BIGWIG: Do tell.
FIRST: Let’s shave off Jason Biggs’ eyebrows!
BIGWIG: In the movie, you mean?
FIRST: …that works too.
BIGWIG: Good. And yes, Two, I believe we can get Kate Hudson to star as our romantic interest in this film. We will tell her she is the new Meg Ryan, and that appearing in a string of romantic comedies is the only way for her to achieve film immortality and a successful career. When we contact her, be sure to use the phrase “just like Bogie and Bacall.”
SECOND: Who the fuck are they?
BIGWIG: Just do as I say. Trust me, she’ll flip if you say that.
SECOND: ….reeeeeeeallly…
THIRD: Not like that, dumbass.
BIGWIG: Actually, I understand that’s how Chris Robinson got her to marry him. Well, gentlemen, I believe we’ve worked out the kinks here. Send the notes down to the script monkeys and have them hammer out something PG-13ish, flirting with a light R.
THIRD: Let me guess: a scene in a strip club, but no actual nudity? Daring without being daring?
BIGWIG: Precisely.
FIRST: Wait! I think a movie like this needs a prestige director. Like that guy who directed King Kong.
THIRD: There is no possible way we will get Peter Jackson to touch this.
FIRST: No, I mean the one about the video game.
THIRD: …you mean The King of Kong? The documentary? I don’t think this is his kind of -
BIGWIG: It is if we pay him a lot of money. Right: let’s get this movie made, people. Somebody has to finance the big blockbusters with a chain of solid C-level money-generators this week, and that somebody is us. Three, why are you shuddering?
THIRD: …no reason.

(SCENE: a nondescript hotel room, covered with paper, the television tuned to CNN. JOSH, TOBY, SAM, DONNA, and CJ are sitting around the room in various states of concentration.)

SAM: (reading aloud) “This election is important, not because it is about change but because it is about choice. As a politician, I choose to present you with facts. My opponent chooses to lie to you. Your job is to choose as well - but the other guy doesn’t want your job to be easy.”
TOBY: Shift from formal speech to informal conversation. Wait, did I say informal? I meant “folksy.”
SAM: Folksy?
TOBY: From my lips to L’il Abner’s ears, yes.
SAM: What’s wrong with folksy? People like folksy.
TOBY: How about he’s not folksy? How about it comes across as inauthentic? Like he’s trying to get people to like him?
CJ: But we are trying to get people to like him.
TOBY: There’s a fine line between charismatic and pathetic. You are jumping, you are vaulting over that line.
SAM: I’ll rewrite it.

Silence. Then:

JOSH: When did people stop doing math?
DONNA: For me, that would be grade eleven.
JOSH: I don’t mean - look. He’s promising to increase military spending and cut taxes, and his entire plan for not making the country go broke is cutting earmarks. That’s like you trying to pay off your credit card by saving your change when you buy gum.
DONNA: I don’t have that much on my credit card.
JOSH: Yes you do.
(Pause.)
DONNA: There was a sale on widescreen televisions.
JOSH: You watch the news and “Grey’s Anatomy.”
DONNA: And I can see every last one of their pores in glorious high definition.
JOSH: But you watch the news. Donna, how is the fiscal outlook of the United States right now?
DONNA: Are you asking me or are you asking the campaign’s press secretary?
JOSH: I’m asking you.
DONNA: Then it’s pretty bad.
JOSH: Then why does he think he can just yell out “tax cuts” and everything will work?
CJ: Because both parties spent years convincing the American electorate that we were on the wrong side of the Laffer curve and we needed to cut taxes in order to make the government more efficient and put more money in voters’ pockets.
JOSH: I know, but wouldn’t you think they’d have figured out we were all full of crap yet?
CJ: You’d think.

Silence for a while, then:

TOBY: I can’t take this any more!
JOSH: (checking watch) Who had eight-thirty to nine o’clock in the pool?
SAM and DONNA and CJ: (in unison) Charlie.
JOSH: Why do I ever let that kid gamble?
TOBY: How do I do this job? He just lies and lies and lies and nobody gives a damn!
JOSH: We do.
TOBY: You don’t count.
SAM: Black voters do. Hispanics do. Younger -
TOBY: Yes, Sam, thank you, I needed a description of the Democratic Party’s traditional base, now how about independent voters? You know, the stupid ones? I mean, I knew they were stupid, we spend most of every other year catering to their stupidity, but I thought until now they were just dense and uninterested, not actively handicapped!
JOSH: Look, we knew we’d have to grind this one out.
TOBY: This isn’t “grinding it out,” Josh. Every day they lie. Phyllis Schafly’s hot daughter is on the campaign trail every day lying - not shading the truth, not trying to make a bad thing look better, she’s just lying every time she opens her goddamn mouth about things that are in the public record for anybody to see!
CJ: Toby, the press -
TOBY: The press! The press! The press is useless, CJ! Worse than useless! Never mind that this year the choice comes down to a gifted young leader and the Cryptkeeper and they want “balance” - you know what they call them? “Distortions.” Not lies. “Distortions.”
DONNA: “Distortions” doesn’t sound that good.
TOBY: It sounds better than “lies” and that’s all that matters. People who don’t follow politics know what “distortions” are - they’re what you get when a politician tries to make something average sound good. But this - I don’t know to fight this. We call them lies, everybody will get caught up in a big round of “everybody does it” and nobody cares. Worse, we destroy what we’ve got - a guy who people think doesn’t like it because he doesn’t like it. We’re walking a razor here and I’m out of ideas.
(Pause.)
JOSH: I vote for beer.
TOBY: Is that your answer to this?
JOSH: It’s my answer to needing beer. Come on, Toby, let’s go get a drink and then come back and tackle it fresh.
(All rise and proceed to exit. From out in the hallway…)
SAM: You know, he jumps from formal speech to folksy all the time when he writes his own stuff.
TOBY: Great. Let’s get him a straw hat and have him hum the tune to “Hee Haw.” I bet that puts Alabama in play.

ME: Hey, whose “Equality” brand lemonade is this?
ERIC: It’s mine.
ME: Can I have some of your off-brand pre-made lemonade?
ERIC: Take as much as you want. Please.
ME: …is it bad?
ERIC: It’s really, really sweet. As lemonade it’s terrible. As a mixer, it’s tolerable.
ADAM: I find it goes well with gin.
KAREN ((Adam’s girlfriend): Honey, you don’t like gin.
ADAM: Yes I do.
KAREN: When we started going out, I remember one time we were at your place and your roommate offered us gin and tonics and you said you don’t like gin.
ADAM: That’s right.
KAREN: What happened?
ADAM: I drank some of it later on.
ME: That’s how you can tell he’s a professional chef. He’ll try anything to sample flavours.
ADAM: Actually, I wanted to get drunk, but that works too.
ME: Incidentally, this lemonade does go rather well with the gin, but…
ERIC: But?
ME: Now that I am drinking it, I find that I have my mind on my money and my money on my mind.

This time around, congratulations are due to mightybaldking, Matt Morrison, James Farley, Reylance, Pedro e Silva and Michael McGee, as well as myself (who edited their ideas and added a few originals of my own). So yay for them! They are nerds too.

FYI: All those appealing to me for a “more [ideologically] balanced” set of cards probably should have thought about who they were asking for a second.

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Yes, it’s real.

Yes, I applied.

Back before I gave up on the filmmaking career (or at least set it aside indefinitely), I was a student filmmaker. I tried several times to upload this to Youtube, but their time limit always screwed me over (and desynced the sound with the picture). However, thanks to Vimeo, I can now SHARE IT WITH THE WORLD.

Warning: 2008 me just sees this and thinks “god that could be so much better.” The moral of the story is that if you pursue a creative career at any time, your CV will only end up making you wince regardless of how good you think it is when you make it.

(This is why so many artists do drugs.)

Also, for those who previously missed it, another student piece of work what I did, which I think has aged better.

Those of us who are TV critics are getting the press advance copy for the fall season right now, and I just thought I’d warn everybody in advance:

From the copy:

Get ready to laugh… like you’re crazy! Reba McEntire (Reba) stars as Harleen Quinzel, a single mom and psychiatrist working in Gotham City. Sparks fly when she meets a “mysterious, funny fellow” on a mission of destruction, and starts her own mission… of hilarity! But can this free spirit cope with her new boss, uptight Thomas Arkham (Patrick Warburton, Rules of Engagement)? Fun for the whole family.

Dammit, Jim Starlin! Why did you have to write Hawkman Special #1? WHYYYYYYYYY?

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FLAPJACKS: I didn’t know Brendan Fraser competed at the Olympic level of killing mummies. Things you learn!
ME: Killing mummy. He only killed one mummy. Didn’t you watch the trailer?
FLAPJACKS: Yes, but he killed the same mummy twice. Like, once in 1928 in Amsterdam, and then he killed the mummy again in 1936 in Berlin. It was a major victory for Canada at the time, as we did not win many gold medals in those days.
ME: Of course people gave all the credit to John Hannah and chalked it up as a British medal by proxy, but we know now that John Hannah is a coward and that Brendan Fraser did all the real work.
FLAPJACKS: Still, we can’t ignore the fact that John Hannah was an early hero for gay athletics, as his lover Garath would attest.
ME: Interestingly, Brendan Fraser’s 1936 victories caused a major international rift because Hitler was determined to see Germany walk away with the gold medal for mummy-killing that year.
FLAPJACKS: He later claimed that Brendan Fraser was the crux of an insidious Jewish plot against the German people.
ME: Is Brendan Fraser Jewish?
FLAPJACKS: He was in School Ties. And what’s more, in that he was secretly Jewish.
ME: I never would have dreamt that Brendan Fraser would be part of the international Zionist conspiracy.
FLAPJACKS: They’re sneaky.
ME: All that having been said, I’m glad to see that the Beijing Olympics will reintroduce amateur mummy-killing to the highest level of competition.
FLAPJACKS: The five-hundred metre stealing of the canopic jars!
ME: Freestyle zombie decapitation!
FLAPJACKS: And of course the mummathlon, featuring shooting uselessly at the undead, flying a plane through a dust storm, driving through a crowded street without running anybody over, quipping, ancient-style swordfighting, and having your child age more rapidly than they should.
ME: The official motto of the International Mummathlete’s Association is “If you compete in any other sport, you’re a pussy.”
FLAPJACKS: Although it appears a lot of this year’s athletes are cross-training with mummathletes this year.
ME: Given how they’re exploding out of sand, I think they’re actually cross-training with mummies.
FLAPJACKS: Oooooh, the IOCC isn’t going to like that at all!
ME: Why not?
FLAPJACKS: Remember how hard they came down on steroids?
ME: …you mean pretending that steroids didn’t exist for decades, then doing an abrupt about-face and deciding they were the worst thing ever once their use became too prevalent to ignore?
FLAPJACKS: Exactly! The mummies have been behind the scenes since the 2000 Olympics in Sydney.
ME: You know, I thought it looked suspicious when Alonzo Mourning opened his mouth crazy-wide and vomited a torrent of bugs at the Angolan centre in that basketball game, but the commentators said it was perfectly normal, and I don’t watch basketball regularly, so I figured it was just a normal sort of a basketball thing.
FLAPJACKS: Right. Anyway, this is all part of the Chinese Olympic mummy conspiracy -
ME: Wait, another conspiracy?
FLAPJACKS: Yes.
ME: This is different from the Jewish conspiracy, then.
FLAPJACKS: Don’t be silly, there aren’t any such things as Jewish mummies. Remember, mummies regard Jews as only fit to be slave fodder. Didn’t you watch the first movie?
ME: I see. Please continue.
FLAPJACKS: As I was saying, since Brendan Fraser killed all the Egyptian mummies, that leaves the Chinese mummies as the only mummies left to influence international Olympic competition. So the Chinese mummies have been “helping” athletes all along, either for money or, more nefariously, for patriotic reasons.
ME: So you’re saying that the Chinese mummies will stop helping athletes from other countries, and only assist Chinese athletes in the 2008 Olympics, thus leading to an unprecedented show of Chinese athletic superiority, which the Central Committee will then use for a propaganda coup?
FLAPJACKS: Exactly! Unless midway through the IOCC decides to crack down on mummy use finally.
ME: But how does the IOCC stop the mummies from, like, eating them and stuff?
FLAPJACKS: That’s what Brendan Fraser is for.
ME: And that, in turn, gives the Jewish people their long-awaited revenge on the mummies for enslaving them!
FLAPJACKS: There are so many levels to this thing it is scary.

A LAWYER: (noticing my nametag) Hey, are you the Christopher Bird who writes for thecourt.ca?
ME: Yes, I am.
A LAWYER: Yeah, I was reading your analysis of… uh… damn, what was the case?
ME: Hydro-Quebec?
A LAWYER: No, it was about crown liability issues? Policy versus operational?
ME: Right, I was talking about the Just test, that would make it… damn…
A LAWYER: Saskatchewan?
ME: Yes, that was it. So you read it?
A LAWYER: Yeah. Great analysis. You’re completely wrong, of course, but great analysis.
ME: Thanks?
A LAWYER: Well, you know, I just think negligence immunity from policy considerations is necessary for government to function. How do you respond to that?
ME: Well, I actually wish I had written the article a little better. You remember how I said that some level of tort immunity for policy consideration is necessary?
A LAWYER: Yeah.
ME: The problem is that in Saskatchewan, the policy was effectively to be deliberately negligent. Saying “well it’s policy so you can’t sue” in that instance just strikes me as giving government a license to behave in bad faith whenever they want. I should have made that clearer when I wrote it.
A LAWYER: I think it came through. I still don’t agree with you, but I get where you’re coming from. It was a great analysis, that’s all I wanted to say.
ME: Well, thanks again.
(turning back to KAREN, a friend/fellow law student at the session)
ME: That was so fucking awesome.
KAREN: You know, they have really good food here.

Step 1:

Step 2:

ME: So apparently the trailer for Watchmen will run in front of The Dark Knight.
FLAPJACKS: Because they are both comic book movies. I get that!
ME: Yes.
FLAPJACKS: Maybe they could run a trailer for the new Terminator in front of it as well, because they both have Christian Bale in the movie. And then maybe a trailer for Traveling because they both have Aaron Eckhart in it. And then - no, wait, Heath Ledger is dead, that one doesn’t work.
ME: It’s also available online.
FLAPJACKS: So we should watch it then.
ME: Aren’t we going to go see it this weekend? On a big screen?
FLAPJACKS: That would mean, like, waiting and shit.
ME: A cogent point.
FLAPJACKS: So let’s watch it now.
ME: All right.
We start watching the trailer.
ME: “In 2009, everything will change.”
FLAPJACKS: Previously, in 2008, the first thirty seconds of the trailer are watching the hairs on Billy Crudup’s arms stand up.
ME: Owlship looks cool.
FLAPJACKS: Yes. Hey, when did Silk Spectre plunge through a burning building and land with great agility on her feet in the comic book?
ME: I believe that did not happen.
FLAPJACKS: Oh.
ME: Adaptation!
FLAPJACKS: Originality!
ME: …wow, the “fling the Comedian through the window” scene seems… familiar.
FLAPJACKS: “THIS! IS! WAAAATCHMEN!”
ME: I thought we’d declared that joke dead.
FLAPJACKS: It’s relevant, because he also made 300. So it can be used this time.
ME: Can’t you come up with something better?
FLAPJACKS: “THIS! IS! AN OVERLY PRECIOUS SOULESS PASTIIIIIICHE!”
ME: Never mind.
FLAPJACKS: Ozymandias looks… what is it, when something is exactly the opposite of “intimidating”?
ME: Not intimidating?
FLAPJACKS: More than that.
ME: I just think he looks like a little kid playing dressup.
FLAPJACKS: Maybe that’s sharp, purposeful cultural commentary.
ME: It is a brief look at Rorshach! Does his mask go oogy with the moving blots? Rewind it! I want to see if his mask goes oogy.
FLAPJACKS: I don’t think it goes oogy.
ME: Crap.
FLAPJACKS: Maybe it’ll go oogy later.
ME: Okay, fair is fair: Dr. Manhattan looks exactly as creepy as he should look.
FLAPJACKS: I concur.
ME: …I think Vietnam is entirely greenscreened.
FLAPJACKS: I think your mom is entirely greenscreened.
ME: Shut up.
FLAPJACKS: Oh, quit whining. We’re supposed to be surprised that there’s greenscreening in a Zach Snyder movie? Did you even see 300? I think that title actually referred to the number of animators they had rendering CGI cliff faces.
ME: The Comedian also looks badass.
FLAPJACKS: Well, if you can’t make the Comedian look badass, you shouldn’t even bother making the movie in the first place. Making the Comedian look badass is easy. Making Nite Owl look badass, on the other hand, is hard.
ME: Nite Owl looks like a cheap Batman ripoff.
FLAPJACKS: Cultural commentary! He’s playing with our preconceptions! And stuff.
ME: Hey, can you see Dr. Manhattan’s dick in the trailer?
FLAPJACKS: …okay, why do you care?
ME: Look, we get an extended shot of full-frontal Manhattan in this trailer, I want to know if Zach Snyder is out to pervert the minds of nerd America.
FLAPJACKS: He could make it worse?
ME: Rewind, I wanna see.
FLAPJACKS: …I think they made his groinal area glow so brightly you cannot make out individual parts.
ME: Zach Snyder, you wuss.
FLAPJACKS: Well, I don’t think Billy Crudup wants to… well, maybe he does want to expose himself to teenagers. How would I know?
ME: “The most celebrated graphic novel of all time.” Wait, nobody told me this was Maus.
FLAPJACKS: That’s not fair and you know it. Come on, it’s Watchmen. It’s entirely fair to give it those props.
ME: All right, I guess - NO! NOT CGI PADDY HAT SOLDIER!
FLAPJACKS: He had four CGI kids and a fifth one being rendered!
ME: What will we tell his wife?
FLAPJACKS: Something in binary. Do you speak binary?
ME: Fuck no.
FLAPJACKS: Well, let’s not tell her anything then.
ME: Agreed.
FLAPJACKS: Okay, there is Rorshach’s mask going oogy for you. Are you satisfied?
ME: On that level, at least.
FLAPJACKS: And there’s the Mars jewel ship.
ME: Pretty cool.
FLAPJACKS: So, how do we rate this trailer?
ME: In terms of being a good trailer, A. In terms of making me think the movie will not be dogshit… I dunno, B minus.
FLAPJACKS: I’m closer to B plus.
ME: Yeah, but you like all that stylized compu-fighty stuff Snyder does.
FLAPJACKS: We will have to agree to disagree. Except about Nite Owl looking lame. We agree there.
ME: But do you think it was on purpose?
FLAPJACKS: …probably not.
ME: A ha.

Clearly the American airline industry is in an even bigger mess than usual. They’ve been scrambling for the past few months, trying to find new ways to squeeze some extra money out of their customers and stretch their weak yankee dollars a little bit further. We’ve seen them require customers to pay for checked luggage, charge for water and juice aboard flights, ask a premium for selecting a window or aisle seat, add a surcharge on free flights obtained with frequent flier miles… And still they continue to hunt for ways to cut costs.

I loathe air travel (it’s hard to enjoy it when you’re busy gripping the armrest in white-knuckle terror while the crash sequence from the first season of lost plays an endless loop in your head), but I understand its necessity. I don’t wish to see the airlines fail, and I thought I might offer a few modest suggestions to help them raise a little bit of extra dough and try to drag that bottom line into the black for the first time in many a moon.

Allow customers to pay a surcharge that would prevent the person in front of them from reclining his or her seat. It just seems like common sense, really. Especially on those tiny planes the budget lines throw up into the sky, there are few things that make a flight more aggravating than some selfish jerk in front of you going back as far as they can and claiming the four inches of legroom that you had so your knees now rest firmly on your tray-table, even in its locked and upright position. Even if they weren’t struggling for cash, they should offer this. But since money is tight, why not turn it into a bidding war? You and the guy in front of you can each try to top one another, in five dollar increments, for the right to recline or not to recline. On long-haul flights especially, they could make a fortune.

Remove the seats in the back and add a "standing room" class. You can fit a hell of a lot more people in a space if they’re standing up than if they’re sitting, you know. And those seats have to weigh something- if they spin this right, it becomes a way for them to get greener. Getting rid of unnecessary weight reduces the amount of fuel consumed, like the excuses they offered when they started charging for luggage, and it’s hard to argue with the math behind the fuller flights you’d get if you increased the capacity of each plane. The relative carbon footprint of each passenger goes down the more people who are aboard the flight, assuming fuel consumption and emissions remain a constant. This is a solid PR move, and an extra dozen tickets for sale per flight, especially if those people are paying to check bags, would add up quickly. Fast-track this one, airlines, you won’t regret it.

Call the part where they instruct passengers on what to do in the event of an emergency landing a "flight safety class", and ask a $25 tuition fee. I know this would be unpopular at first, but they always insist that the information has changed, so clearly it must be vital. These are dangerous times, and preparedness is everyone’s responsibility.

Coin-operated oxygen masks. You know what else causes emissions? CO2. You know what puts CO2 into the atmosphere? People exhaling. At the altitude at which planes fly, any extra carbon is especially dangerous. Yet in the event of an emergency, what do the airlines do? They allow customers to pump as much CO2 into the atmosphere as they want, without requiring them to take any responsibility, fiscal or otherwise, for the repercussions of their actions. But at twenty-five cents for every fifteen seconds of air you breathe, you’d really consider just how much carbon dioxide you wanted to let flow from your lungs into the atmosphere. Again, it’s money and the environment. Who can argue with that?

Hire a precocious twelve year old named Kevin to walk up and down the aisles and hit passengers in the back of the head. Many economists* agree that one of the best ways to keep a looming recession at bay is to put more money in the hands of young people. Part of the reason that the US "stimulus package" was panned by critics was that the people who got their checks were likely to save it or use it to pay down their debt, rather than pump it right back into the economy. Kids, who hate saving and have no debt, blow their cash on video games and cigarettes that they get their cool older siblings to purchase for them. It only makes sense to employ more of them. This is another win-win. The airlines have been steadily working to get their passengers to accept all manner of indignities as par for the course, so why not hire Kevin? He’ll go up and down the aisles and slap passengers in the back of the head- unless they pay a surcharge. For just ten bucks in fees, you can enjoy a flight free of head-slaps and as peaceful as you’re used to, with only the constant interruptions of the pilot and flight attendants, crying babies, aisle-mate with the bladder of a five year old who keeps getting up to use the bathroom, and low, guttural whimpering from me to disturb you. What’s more, you can safely feel superior to those passengers who failed to pony up the surcharge to keep Kevin at bay, which has been part of the point of the airlines’ price plans for decades. 

In just a few simple steps, I’ve saved an entire industry from bankruptcy. Someone hire me to be a CEO of something.

*who I just made up

(cross-posted to dansolomon.com)

At least according to British courts.

Just imagine the potential for future rulings!

Twinkies are not snack cakes. They are baked flavour pods.

Mike N’ Ikes are not jellybeans. They are fruitesque capsules.

Cookie Crisp is not cereal, nor is it cookies. It is unprepared mulch product.

Captain Highliner is not a captain. He is a unionized boat pilot.

Bell is not a telecommunications company. It is a giant dildo.

Discuss.

Such as this “found script” of Michael Bay writing The Dark Knight.

3D-rendered pictures of “sexy girls.” No. They are not sexy. They are not even interesting; every single one is the same long legs and the same balloon tits and the same dead expression. Anybody calling this “art” sexy needs to be held down by an actual real woman and slapped repeatedly, because it is just fucking creepy and you’re not doing yourself any favours by asserting that it’s hot or in any way creatively non-bankrupt. There are myriad uses to which your computer could be put to productive use, and there are myriad things that are better to jerk off to than computer-rendered sexy girls. Pick one of them and move on.

(3D-rendered pictures of “sexy guys” are likewise creepy as all hell, but, go figure, they’re a lot rarer. Gay nerds have better things to do with their time.)

The wankers complaining that Wall-E is “anti-fat.” No, seriously, whether it’s pro-fat-activists complaining that Pixar hates fat people or right-wing movie critics complaining that Pixar depicted mindless gluttony and consumerism as, you know, bad and stuff, apparently there are always going to be people happy to find an insult where one wasn’t intended. HEY GUESS WHAT: the fat people in Wall-E are fat because they live in low gravity, which is a situation not exactly applicable to everyday life. Also offended: non-cute robots, who insist that people now expect that they “act in a cute manner.”

(SPECIAL NO-PRIZE: This comment from late 2007. “I think that Pixar may actually be having a large portion of Wall-E rewritten, so the offensive parts may not actually be in there when it hits theatres.” Yes, that was going to happen possibly.)

Zwinkies. If you do not know, a Zwinkie is a computer-generated avatar which lets you create a somewhat customized figure (you pick the hairstyle, you pick the clothing, you’re stuck with the same disturbing faux-anime body type, et cetera). There are approximately seven billion of these things around the intertubes, and I use “Zwinkie” as the name for all of them for two reasons: firstly, because I see tons of ads for the Zwinkie generator everywhere I go, with its “what if My Little Ponies looked like humans” sort of aesthetic, and secondly because “Zwinkie” sounds disturbing, like a hideous monster wearing a baby-doll mask and cooing at you.

Zwinkie avatars are uniformly unattractive and make me hate you a little bit for using them. Do not use them. Just put up a picture of yourself. If you don’t want to do that for safety reasons, put up a picture of a celebrity people say you look like. I realize that, since this is the internet, everybody will have an avatar of Paul Giamatti or Kathy Najimy, but I’ve made my peace with that in advance.

Jesse Helms. Okay, he’s dead, so do I have to hate him less? Answer: no. Fuck Jesse Helms. Fuck Jesse Helms’ corpse. I want that bastard eaten by rats. Presumably at that point he will have done something useful with his pox-ridden shovel-fuck waste of a life. Actually, come to think, I wish he could have lived another six months to see Barack Obama win the Presidency so his fucking head could have exploded.

People who make the “science will fix things” argument when environmental problems are pointed out. Friends of mine made this argument yesterday, so clearly this is not a irredeemable flaw, but it still drives me absolutely bugshit every time I hear it. The human race has been trying to invent fusion energy for fifty years now, folks, and we’re not getting any closer despite what those Russians claim. There is no guarantee of somebody genetically engineering the algae that will eat carbon dioxide and shit oil, and more likely than not if somebody does it will be horrible and also eat trees and people and stuff. Or it will be intelligent and insist that if it’s going to eat all that carbon dioxide for us, that we have to have a TV channel that plays The Simple Life 24/7 because it loves Paris Hilton thaaaat much. Of course, that won’t happen, because we’re not going to see that algae in our lifetimes, not on any practical level.

This argument is exactly equal to somebody saying “I don’t have to worry about my mortgage payments, because I’m gonna win the lottery and move to Aruba.” What would you tell that guy? You’d tell him he’s a dumbass. Except in this case, the “mortgage payments” are actually “preserving all life on Earth.”

(Close second: “the market will take care of it.” No, it won’t. We’re already seeing a preview of what “the market” will do: create an unstable situation where people take risks rather than abandon their familiar lifestyle as fear of the unknown trumps other fears, gradually leading to massive societal unrest and eventual collapse. Worse, if you want to ignore the whole “death of the human race” bit, the most economical solution to the energy crisis from a dollars-and-cents perspective is coal (and shale oil) which is even worse than petroleum.)

People who get into flamewars over video game consoles. You’re all losers. End of story.

The assorted people who, on a weekly basis, find those old posts where I said a given storyline of PVP was bullshit, and send me flame mail. You know, I understand Scott Kurtz is capable of fighting his own battles (god knows he’s been in enough VIOLENT NET CONFLICTS in his lifetime). He mostly ignored me and I mostly ignore him. How is that not enough for you? Can’t you go find a thread about “Secret Invasion kicks Final Crisis’ ASS hehehehehe” or “fourth edition totally ruins the game” and pick a side like a good nerd? That way, everybody will know what big internet balls you have when you express your opinion in public. You know, like a non-chickenshit.

(PS: PVP is still shit and getting worse. This concludes your update of what I think about PVP. I eagerly await more spamflame.)

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to get me some ribs. Happy Canada Day.