28
Nov
28
Nov
27
Nov
I am totally stealing Scott Keith’s old bit there, but it’s thematic. Bear with me.
So Rob Brown sent me this email after reading this statement by Chris Kanyon, professional wrestler (and, having had the opportunity to meet him at a fan weekend once, let me say that like most professional wrestlers, a genuinely nice person) about the death of Chris Benoit and the WWE’s denial of knowledge about his cranial health:
27
Nov
THINGS YOU CAN SAY WHILE WALKING AROUND IN A STORE WITH A SLEDGEHAMMER YOU JUST PURCHASED ELSEWHERE WHEN PEOPLE ASK YOU ABOUT THE SLEDGEHAMMER
“I like my pancakes to be really, really flat.”
“I’m a big Peter Gabriel fan.”
“This? Oh, you know. Sledging. Various sledge-related activities. That sort of thing.”
“Ballet. Why do you ask?”
“My wife just left me, but she didn’t take her garden gnome collection with her, and I really want to get the most out of the experience, you know?”
“They’re the latest fashion accessory. Where’s yours?”
“Well, I’ve been using a broomstick for my pretend guitar when I rock out to Aerosmith, but it didn’t have enough heft, so I thought I’d try this.”
“I’m a reviewer for Outdoor Tools Quarterly. No, really, I’m not kidding, it really exists.”
SOMETHING YOU SHOULD PROBABLY NOT SAY, TRUST ME ON THIS
“Well, I was thinking about becoming a serial murderer, and I’m weighing my options. It was this or the axe.”
AND DON’T FOLLOW IT UP WITH
“Oh, come on. I could probably only murder one, two people tops if I went on a hammering rampage right now, and that would only be if I had the element of surprise, so don’t worry about it.”
(As to why I had bought a sledgehammer, click here.)
27
Nov
An interesting photoessay: one week’s worth of food, around the planet.
26
Nov
…and another edition of my weekly TV column over at Torontoist.
26
Nov
The Canadian judicial system is held in high esteem for its fairness and dedication to good justice. Other countries often look to our judiciary, particularly our Supreme Court, and wonder what the secret of good Canadian jurisprudence is.
It is really quite simple. One of the strictest requirements for membership in the Supreme Court of Canada is that you must be a direct blood descendant of Santa Claus.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. “But isn’t this a horribly elitist standard? How many direct descendants of Santa Claus can there be?” However, you would be greatly surprised. Much as eleven percent of the world’s population can claim blood descent from Genghis Khan, about five and three-quarters percent can claim blood descent from Santa Claus. You see, on Christmas Eve, Santa Claus does not just visit every house in the world, eating milk and cookies, and leaving toys. He also has a great deal of sex.
Now, one might reasonably ask why Genghis Khan has nearly double the number of blood descendants that Santa Claus does, considering that Santa Claus is immortal and Genghis Khan died the better part of a millennium ago. The answer is simple: with the exception of certain Northern countries, Santa only gets his freak with anonymous lady strangers one night per year. Furthermore, Genghis Khan received a bit of an advantage in the genetic-spread competition by committing a lot of rape, whereas Santa, being an embodiment of good things upon this earth, only has sex with consenting partners.
Now, the five-and-three-quarters percentage is much higher in Canada (and also Alaska, Iceland, the Nordic countries, and the Baltics – but, strangely, not Russia) because its proximity to the North Pole makes it easier for randy old Saint Nick to go out and get some action on nights other than Christmas Eve. Indeed, almost eighty percent of Canada’s population can trace blood lineage back to Santa at some point in their genealogy, so the requirement of a blood tie to him is not horribly onerous to achieve membership upon the Supreme Court, and it is because of this that Canada has the holliest-jolliest high court in the entire world.
26
Nov
Having been ably helped by my readers over the weekend in identifying a Rammstein song which apparently everybody but me already knew about, I am giving back. If you were not previously aware of the Magic Numbers, here now are two of my favorite songs of theirs. It’s driving power-pop, fast and melodic and just plain good.
But wait! I am nothing if not one who likes being introduced to new things, and the last time I did this sort of thing I learned about DJ Format, Kinky and the Greenskeepers, all of which now lurk upon my iPod. And I can always use new tunes, and I am sure all of you can use new tunes as well. So link to songs you think people will like in the comments.
When they get around to making a Scott Pilgrim movie, they should use “Happy Boys and Girls” by Aqua for the trailer music.
You know I’m not wrong about this.
(It would also work for a live-action Ranma 1/2 movie.)
24
Nov
Normally when I hear a bit of a song and I want to download it, I do a lyrics search on Google and get the song title in seconds.
But here’s the problem: the song I want to download is by Rammstein. So the lyrics are in German. So I can’t really Google it accurately. All I can really say about the song is that it’s got more of a rock flavour to it than I traditionally associate with Rammstein’s techno/black-metal sound, and that it’s probably something they released as a single.
Help?
EDIT TO ADD: “Tier,” suggested by an able reader in email who, upon being told that the song was “operatic in tone but with a driving beat and a deedly-thingy going “ah-ah-ah” in the chorus”, named four possibilities. Although it turns out I rather like “Engel,” too. God, I love the Internet!
23
Nov
If you want to read one of the most startlingly bullshit interviews I have seen in ages, go here and read Marvel publisher Dan Buckley’s comments on their new online initiative and illegal downloading.
It’s almost infuriating. The level at which Buckley flatly refuses to engage perfectly valid questions and concerns about Marvel’s digital model is just insane. A perfectly fair comparison to Rhapsody is mentioned, and Buckley says “no, it’s not like that” without even bothering to explain why. (The answer, incidentally, as to why Marvel’s online comic movement isn’t quite like Rhapsody is that culturally we’re used to paying to listen to music we don’t own, but we’re not used to paying for books we don’t own and want to read. Of course, that particular difference is one that actually makes Marvel’s digital position worse rather than better.)
And, of course, Marvel’s strategy towards illegal downloading is kept deliberately vague. Questions as to how the torrent model that exists – which is blatantly superior to Marvel’s in a large variety of ways for the consumer – will be dealt with are left unanswered, except to say that Marvel is going to be taking its cues from how the music industry has handled illegal downloading, which is like taking tips from a caveman on how to beat Gary Kasparov in a game of chess.
But it gets worse! Explaining the choice of initial selection and how new comics will be added each week, Buckley says: “This will include providing marketing support for our publishing and entertainment initiatives…”
No shit. Here is the list of comics currently available via Marvel’s digital delivery system. The majority of these comics can be summed up as follows:
1.) Failed miniseries and ongoings which didn’t particularly impact the market and which have no serious sales value (Gambit, District X, Jubilee, Doc Samson, et cetera), including whole runs of series that you can now get at remaindered bookstores (Spider-Man’s Tangled Web).
2.) One-shots not easily collected in trade format or elsewhere (Civil War: Choosing Sides, for example).
3.) …and first issues of things Marvel wants you to buy in trade or single issues (Moon Knight, Civil War, Runaways, Captain America, Immortal Iron Fist, Annihilation, et cetera). For longer-running titles, Marvel’s pretty blatant about this, giving you the chance to read the first issue in each trade.
There is a name for small teaser portions. It is called advertising. This is what Marvel’s entire digital initiative amounts to: you are encouraged to pay money to buy the real comics. They’re not even particularly shy about it, because when you read the first issue of any given comic that you’ve paid to read, they remind you to buy the collection.
Granted, Marvel’s strategy is to use the digital model to encourage new readers. That’s fine. I am down with encouraging new readers. But last I checked, not many people were horribly encouraged by the prospect of paying to read the same fucking comic twice.
And of course there’s a model they could have used. Amazon’s putting it out there right now with their Kindle reader: “you buy the book for a very low price, and anytime you need to download it from us, we let you.” It’s a fantastic model for a publisher to adopt, because it essentially lends control of a person’s library to the publisher. (I’m of two minds about it, personally, but there’s no question that it would be good for Marvel.) Use some proprietary software to keep illegal trading of the comics to a minimum and Marvel could be raking in bucketloads.
Sweet Jesus, how is it possible for a company to fuck up this badly?
23
Nov
23
Nov
Very quietly, just before Thanksgiving so nobody would notice, Marvel and DC sent cease-and-desist letters to zcultfm.com. For those of you who do not know, zcultfm is – or, rather, was – the comic book torrents site, with an immense library of torrents, many of which even worked.
It is also how I have first read most of the new comics published over the last three years. Every single comic parody I’ve done had its origins in DCP scans. (I have a scanner, but it’s not a very good one.) For those wondering, I generally delete most of my downloaded comics after a single read. With the exception of Legion of Super-Heroes, I have not purchased a single issue of a comic book since about 2002 or so.
So I must be a downloading leech, only costing DC and Marvel money. Right?
Well, let me put it this way. This is most of my collection of trade paperbacks and comic hardcovers.
DC? It’s responsible for me buying All Star Superman and Seven Soldiers of Victory and Fables (all of it) and Y The Last Man (all of it) and The Losers (all of it) and Pride of Baghdad and War Stories (which I never would have even known existed were it not for a Garth Ennis megatorrent I downloaded mostly to reread the issues of Hitman I sold in anticipation of collecting the trade paperbacks which were halted mid-run – and incidentally, DC, fuck you very much for that) and Light Brigade and Formerly Known As The Justice League and Gotham Central.
Oh, and if any smaller/indie publisher feels like getting in a snit, I’ll tack on Queen and Country and .303 and the Busiek Conan and The Five Fists Of Science and… well, I could go on.
Comic downloads transformed me from being a guy who bought one comic book per month and the very occasional graphic novel or trade collection, and into a guy who buys two to four trades a month (and sometimes more). I wasn’t going to go back to investing in single issues, because single issues are a terrible value for money and a horrible pain in the ass to store and I can’t lend them out easily when I tell somebody “hey, you should totally read this.” And if you go to zcult and read the postings from the fanboys there, it’s quite obvious that I represent the norm for comic downloaders, despite the fact that our doing so irritates Dan Slott terribly. (PS: Dan Slott, She-Hulk is on my trade to-buy list, although right now I’m steadily working my way through the Bendis/Maleev Daredevil books.)
And the important thing to note here is that DC and Marvel, unlike the incredibly backward music companies they’re trying to imitate here with their painfully stupid legal action, do not have a realistic competing model to offer. Marvel’s pay-for-comic service, despite my kind words previously, has a clunky interface, is slow, doesn’t display the comic work as well as a basic .cbr or .cbz file, doesn’t have a good selection… with a lot of improvements it could be a realistic model, but since I wrote my approving post, everything I’ve heard indicates that Marvel considers their currently mediocre-at-best offering to be a finished, final-stage product, which only earns them a “what the fuck?”
I mean, at least the record companies, when they shut down Oink, could point to iTunes and say “look, we offer mp3s for sale for money, please use that.” And despite the fact that iTunes is kind of a ripoff, at least it’s an option. DC and Marvel don’t even have that. If I want to read the old Roy Thomas Infinity, Inc. run, or the original Speedball ongoing, I have three options: 1.) Wait around for them to collect it in trade, 2.) Spend a small fortune on back issues I don’t want to store in the first place, or 3.) Download the comics torrents. Quick, which one do you think I’m going to pick?
How sad is this?
What’s worse is that they’re just antagonizing people to no good end, because everybody knows how torrent filesharing works now. Here’s the short version:
MAJOR MEDIA COMPANY: Hey, you! You’re downloading the product I made without paying money! Stop that at once!
INDIVIDUAL DOWNLOADERS: Uh, no.
COMPANY: Oh, that’s how it is, is it? Well, I’m going to shut down your torrent-sharing website!
DOWNLOADERS: Fine. We’ll just go over to a different site which will take you three to six months to find out about and shut down.
(Repeat until heat-death of universe or The Rapture, whichever comes first.)
I simply can’t stress enough how shortsighted, how ignorant, how goddamned lunkheaded DC and Marvel are being right now. They aren’t just shooting themselves in the foot like other media companies; they’re shooting themselves in the head. Internet downloading and the word-of-mouth generated by it has been quietly driving their business for the last couple of years now and they want to kill it. It’s just staggering.
22
Nov
Ben Goldacre writes a long, long and extremely pointed post on homeopathy and its practitioners.
Short version: he does not like it greatly!
22
Nov
MOVIE August Rush
PLOT SUMMARY Fairytale scenario about kid whose parents never even knew he was born and who sets out to find them via twin powers of music and hope
WAIT, YOU ACTUALLY SAW THIS? Blow me
MOVIE EQUALS Amadeus times The Journey Of Natty Gann
DIRECTED BY Kirsten Sheridan
WHO LAST DIRECTED A bunch of Irish films you have probably never seen, but more importantly, she co-wrote In America with her dad Jim
WAS THAT ANY GOOD? Fucking right it was
STARRING Freddy Highmore as idealistic musical prodigy, Keri Russell as mourning cellist mother, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers as depressed and lost rocker father, Terrance Howard as sad-eyed social worker, and Robin Williams –
WAIT, ROBIN WILLIAMS? YOU ARE SERIOUSLY TELLING ME YOU PAID TO SEE A MOVIE WITH ROBIN WILLIAMS IN IT? – ahem, let me finish – Robin Williams as a pretty creepy guy who thinks he’s charming and funny, which is some of the best casting of all time in my opinion
…OKAY, I CAN SEE THAT Naturally
ARE THEY ANY GOOD? Yes, from Robin Williams being actually quite tolerable all the way to Terrance Howard just being fucking masterful
SO I TAKE IT YOU LIKED THIS MOVIE Oh hell yes; it manages the very, very, very rare feat of being actually magical – a word so many movies want to be called, but which generally gets applied to crap like, I dunno, The Santa Clause 2 or something like that, where “magical” somehow gets redefined as “showy, over-the-top hi-glam effects” instead of “mysterious in small but precise and exact amounts”
THE TRAILER MADE IT SEEM LIKE YOUR STANDARD FEEL-GOOD FLICK Well, it’s certainly a feel-good flick – I mean, come on, it’s about a kid trying to find his parents while they try to find him and (BIG SPOILERS) they of course do so by the end, but it manages to be sentimental and warm and hopeful without ever becoming tedious or preachy or mawkish; I haven’t seen a movie achieve that since Millions, which I loved unreservedly
BEST PERFORMANCE Everybody in this movie is very good (yes, even Robin fucking Williams), and Freddy Highmore deserves note as one of the best child actors to come along in a very long time, and he’s only progressing ever-faster since his debut in James and the Giant Peach, but Terrance Howard executes his role just perfectly – subtle tics you’re vaguely wondering at the origin of early on finally become apparent as the film progresses and it’s never overdone
AWARDS? I can see this getting passed over quite easily, but I hold out hope for a few acting nods and maybe a shot at original screenplay, since the writing is so wonderfully restrained given the subject matter
IF THIS MOVIE WERE AN ICE CREAM FLAVOR IT WOULD BE Mint chocolate fudge
WORTH Full price
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