Blast Shields Down

Sage Advice

2010-08-07T07:24:00.000-04:00

The Pension Grillparzer, OH

2010-08-04T13:32:00.001-04:00

I'm Not the Man They Think I Am at Home

2010-07-23T00:00:00.001-04:00

I've always been a fan of bizarro stuff. Matt and I even spent a year living as a bizarro version of our best friend. I like that, as far as Bizarro Superman is concerned, being bizarro is about not just being the evil version of the original, but also the reverse and opposite of it too. One of my favorite superhero characters is Zibarro, the bizarro version of Bizarro Superman. And he isn't Superman, but he is close.

Although I like bizarrity I don't think I could bring myself to read any bizarro fiction. I'm just not that kind of reader. Not that there is anything wrong with bizarro fiction, I'm just a little more somber, serious, and sterile I suppose in my reading selections. I always have to tell people, it isn't that I think comedic writing isn't good, it can be great, I'm just not a very funny reader.

But I have to admit that the new book Shatnerquake by bizarro fiction author Jeff Burk looks pretty amazing. Here's what Amazon has to say about it~

" William Shatner? William Shatner. WILLIAM SHATNER!!! It's the first ShatnerCon with William Shatner as the guest of honor! But after a failed terrorist attack by Campbellians, a crazy terrorist cult that worships Bruce Campbell, all of the characters ever played by William Shatner are suddenly sucked into our world. Their mission: hunt down and destroy the real William Shatner.

Featuring: Captain Kirk, TJ Hooker, Denny Crane, Rescue 911 Shatner, Singer Shatner, Shakespearean Shatner, Twilight Zone Shatner, Cartoon Kirk, Esperanto Shatner, Priceline Shatner, SNL Shatner, and - of course - William Shatner! "

I know right?! I'm not going to lie, I don't have much to say besides that, because really, what else can be said.

Destiny Hope is a Stripper's Name

2010-07-16T14:39:00.002-04:00

Left: Destiny, a stripper from the HBO series True Blood. Right: Destiny Hope Cyrus (A.K.A. Miley Cyrus.)

Summer Reading

2010-06-03T13:20:00.001-04:00

Categorically Opposed

2010-05-20T17:23:00.000-04:00

I used to be a fan of genres. Science fiction, fantasy, gothic... but not westerns, no definitely not westerns. I spent countless hours of my youth reading Star Wars novels. I just chewed through them. Some of them were good, some of them woefully mediocre, and some beyond bad. But, I read them because of the name on the front, not for any other reason. It was a trap, one I think far too many people fall into. For in the last few years, I've slowly come to realize the truth: genres suck.

Yes, they can be helpful. There are differences between genres and specifics to each that lead some to gravitate towards certain ones and others to shy away from them. I am a sci-fi fan, there is no doubt about it, but I don't like the vast majority of science fiction books. Several Hugo and Nebula winning books that I have read recently have disappointed me. Others are some of my favorites. What it comes down to is a sense of exploration and newness that science fiction has. It is that idea of a blank slate, of endless possibilities. Truly great sci-fi creates a sense of wonderment that is beyond compare. But, that doesn't mean other genres cannot do the same thing, or invoke different joys in a reader or viewer. Even, explaining why I love science fiction limits the genre, because not all, or even most sci-fi elicits that sort of feeling in me. Just some, and others of my favorite science fiction do no such thing.

So, genres are a nice indicator of certain themes that one might think to expect in a piece of art, but they are frighteningly problematic. When they confine us into little regions of fiction, they are only hindering our enjoyment. For far too long I avoided westerns for whatever reason, but No Country for Old Men was a great movie, and Deadwood is one of the best TV shows I have ever seen. And that only leads me to the question of what a western even is. Do they have to take place in the western United States during the 19th Century or is it specific themes which form a genre? What about The Gunslinger by Stephen King? Is it a western or fantasy? What genre is Firefly?

Even my esteemed colleague here at BSD has been mutilated by this stealthy succubus, claiming he dislikes anime. While, I cannot claim to be all that well-versed in the genre, Spirited Away and Kiki's Delivery Service were wonderful movies and if cinematic Japanese video games count, well... those are some of my favorites. While I may not delve into some genres enough, I have abandoned claiming not to like genres. Genre-ism simply is not helpful. Romance, Mystery, Alternate History, Slasher Films... I can name a book or movie I have enjoyed from most any genre that I can think of. Military? Saving Private Ryan. Romantic Comedy... Groundhog Day (or is that sci-fi too?). Alternate History... The Man in the High Castle. Mystery? Sherlock Holmes. The the only real criteria I have is whether or not it's any good. Isn't that what matters? Just take a step back, do yourself a favor, and do just a little delving. Find something that sounds interesting or is supposed to be great from a genre you thought you hated and let yourself experience something new. Because, really... aren't we all violating the true spirit of that old cliche... aren't we just judging books by their covers?

While these thoughts have been floating around in my head for a while now, what really inspired me to write this (though it has taken me far too long to actually get my thoughts down) was an article in The Guardian by Ursula K. Le Guin late last year. It is ostensibly a review of Margaret Atwood's latest book, The Year of the Flood, but to me read more like a critic of the publishing industry in general and genres in particular. I won't rehash it completely, but in short: Atwood argues she doesn't write science fiction, while Le Guin can't blame her for not wanting to be relegated to "genre fiction", but doesn't agree. Neither do I, to tell the truth and the whole ordeal is a sad state of affairs. I don't believe anything should be called "genre fiction", or maybe everything should be, but either way the title is meaningless. Everything fits into some genre or another, or two, or three or seventeen. You can fit it into some category that will help it reach it's audience, but ultimately it only restricts it. I understand that The Year of the Flood is much better than the average sci-fi novel out there (or would imagine it is, not having read it, but having thoroughly enjoyed Atwood's novels The Handmaid's Tale and Oryx and Crake), but it is also much better than the average novel period. Call it speculative fiction or future fiction or post-apocalyptic-dystopian-geneticism... just call it something that is helpful. Because, despite how much I am railing against genres, they are useful if used as descriptors. I like to know a little bit about what I am going to read before I read it. The problem is that genres are limiting us, not helping. Give me the genre and then tell me if it's any good or not and we are set. It's the latter that really matters.

Despite how much I love thrill of the hunt for used books, there are simply too many to sift through by myself. Which is why I rely on reviews and lists, word of mouth and advertisements on the back of milk cartons to decide what I should read. I search for used books all over the place, but I try not to allow myself to be biased by the genre in my searches. Library book sales are unmatched for book hunting, for the simple fact that you can load up on a bunch of books you didn't realize you needed or wanted for only a few bucks, but they are always so hectic. The internet is obviously the most convenient route, but it has it's drawbacks, too. First, you never really know what you're getting... condition, smell, delivery time, all unknowns and I dislike paying a cent for a book and $3.99 for shipping. Ultimately, though, it just feels like cheating. I would much rather have the thrill of finding the book somewhere than giving in and ordering it off of Amazon. So used book stores are without a doubt my favorite. You simply cannot beat the ambiance and smell of them. Recently, I was even a bit disappointed when my favorite store fixed the light over the sci-fi section... I preferred the dimness. Yet even there, in my sanctuary is the horror of genre. Sci-fi, fantasy... mysteries, westerns, romance.... and, worst of all "literature".

Yet, if I am going to be honest, the demarcation is helpful. I avoid the romance completely, not from an aversion to love, but with the the knowledge that anything in that section is going to be dreck. If I'm going to invest the hours it takes to read a book, it's not going to be for smut. That's what porn is for. The well-written love stories are in the normal fiction section anyway, because apparently a criteria for the romance genre is that it must be bad. Which, I don't get at all. If we're going to make these categories, shouldn't we stick with them? Shouldn't 1984 be in Science Fiction? Or All Quiet on the Western Front in historical novels? Or is that not historical because it was written only ten years after the war? I don't even know the rules on these things. But no, those two aren't even in normal fiction, no... they have been exalted to the "literature" section, not that I really know what that means.

Yet, again... I can't say this division doesn't help me. I am a book elitist and much of what I read comes from stuff that would be termed "literature", though from the narrow way the used book stores describe it, nothing written in the last half-century counts. But, literature is not a genre and is far greater than the two shelves worth of Dickens, Hardy, Austen and Sinclair Lewis in the corner of the store. Literature is no more and no less than the art of the written word. As impossible to define as I know that is.

So, I will continue reading literature, which really amounts to anything that is well-written enough to keep my attention, no matter the genre. If you'd like to keep reading uninspired, bland fiction, be my guest, just maybe think about trying a bad sci-fi book or a bad western once in a while. It might surprise you.

Sodom and Gomorrah

2010-05-13T13:41:00.003-04:00

"Now Lot went up out of Zoar and settled in the hills with his two daughters, for he was afraid to stay in Zoar; so he lived in a cave with his two daughters. And the firstborn said to the younger, "Our father is old, and there is not a man on earth to come in to use after the manner of all the world. Come, let us make out father drink wine, and we will lie with him, so that we may preserve offspring through our father. So they made their father drink wine that night; and the firstborn went in, and lay with her father; he did not know when she law down or when she rose. On the next day, the firstborn said to the younger, "Look, I lay last night with me father; let us make him drink wine tonight also; then you go in and lie with him, so that we may preserve offspring through our father." So they made their father drink wine that night also; and the younger rose, and law with him; and he did not know when she law down or when she rose. Thus both the daughters of Lot became pregnant by their father. The firstborn bore a son, and named him Moab; he is the ancestor of the Moabites to this day. The younger also bore a son and named him Ben-ammi; he is the ancestor of the Ammonites to this day"

I have never really understood the use of Sodom and Gomorrah as an argument against homosexuality, not that I truly understand using the Bible as an argument for or against much of anything. The entire story is pretty crazy... the town is full of rapists who want to fuck anything that moves, yet I'm supposed to believe that the problem God has with the place is homosexuality? I'm not arguing that the passage supports homosexuality, but it's clearly not the focus of the story. But, what I find really interesting are the other aspects of the story, because... well, things get pretty weird.

First, the supposedly righteous Lot is pretty quick (in a scene very reminiscent of Abraham's willingness to sacrifice Isaac) to offer up his daughters to the crazed mob as a substitute for the angels, yet is rewarded by being saved, while his wife is turned into a pillar of salt because she decides to look back at the destruction. Furthermore, and correct me if I'm wrong, Lot's daughter's don't seem to incur any divine retribution for raping their father. The usual argument I get when I bring this up to people is that they believed they were the only people left on earth and were trying to repopulate it. But, that doesn't make much sense. First, it is clear that God's wrath is against Sodom and Gomorrah (for, I would argue, being horrible, violent wretches, and having nothing to do with their sexuality) and he doesn't have plans to wipe out all of humanity. Secondly, God sends Lot's family to Zoar, which seems to be another city, and thus should be populated to some extent. This is a bit more tenuous, but only reinforces my point that the whole story is pretty nonsensical. I imagine the entire point was to poke fun at the Moabites and Ammonites rather than be some sort of moral story, but who knows. It seems to me like they both just had some serious Electra complexes. They couldn't even wait a day to get the guy drunk and have their way with him? That's pretty desperate, especially if you think you're the last people on earth.

So, the next time anyone tries to use Genesis as an argument against homosexuality, I'm just going to quote Genesis 19:30-38. You know what... forget that... It's a good passage to bring up in pretty much any old situation. Oh, and... someone get to writing a book from the perspectives of Lot's daughters. That'd be an interesting read.

Happy Cinco de Mayo

2010-05-05T00:00:00.000-04:00

A Green Lantern

2010-05-03T12:02:00.003-04:00

Earlier I saw some concept images for the upcoming (2011) Green Lantern movie and it got me thinking...

"Wouldn't this make a better science fiction movie than it would a super-hero movie?"

I know that people will argue that super-hero movies are science fiction movies. But that isn't true. Just the same way that there are horror movies that aren't science fiction. It can take place in space, it can defy physics, it can raise the dead or build a laser- but none of these things make it science fiction.

The problem is of course that Sci-Fi is both a genre and a topic. Because of this the distinction between what is science fiction and what is about an aspect of science fiction is sometimes difficult to tell. Stephen King has a book (Danse Macabre) all about how some movies, like Alien, might take place in space and have astro-miners and aliens but are inherently horror films. The astro-miners are the protagonists but the antagonist, the alien, is a monster. This is much the same way that Frankenstein (1931) is a horror or monster movie and not science fiction, even though it is full of text tubes and has a mad scientist. James Bond movies are full of lasers and space technology but it is pretty clear that these things are plot devices, MacGussins, furthering the plot but adding very little in terms of theme.

But that's what makes a movie science fiction. Theme rather than content is what makes it a genre. However, its common for the dichotomy in science fiction to be taken advantage of. Not jut works borrowing the look or style of science fiction but by the direct degeneration of genre based on its successes. As a prominent literary genre science fiction shares some themes with other genres, as they all do. But too often is a successful piece in this genre re-categorized as Literature, implying something about the nature of science fiction as a genre and the other books under that distinction. (But this, in itself, raises the issue of genres. There is a very strong argument against organizing art by genre. Non-stronger perhaps than walking through a book store and recognizing the complete incompetence of the aisles. Nevermind high and low art. Because Brave New World can be removed from 'Science Fiction' and put in it 'Literature' it should not be a surprise that Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man can be taken out of 'Literature' and put amongst the growing number of black romance novels that are beginning to define the 'African American Lit.' section. But it is a surprise.)

Science fiction is a very difficult to interpret type of story telling because it is a topic and a genre. But it shouldn't be this hard. the themes in science fiction, the true tropes of the genre, are abundant, giving, and clear. The morality, implications, intentions, behind these ideas and how they are used is what breathes life into true science fiction. Traveling through time or flying through space can mean more than just point A to point B. But often it doesn't, and that is why so much posing as science fiction sucks. And it really sucks.

If we are going to hold on to antiquated organizational means such as we have now than new distinctions need to be made. Maybe there is a difference between science fiction and sci-fi and maybe it is high and low. But even if there isn't, is it so much to ask that people at least start to think about it and make some better decisions.

There is a line in the sand. It the past few years I have only seen a handful of truly great and truly science fiction movies made. Moon, Sunshine, District 9. If movies like these want to compete than they need to avoid the Superhero Summers. I have pretty low hope for science fiction at the movies this year. I'd really hoped that the superhero trend would end and that movies like Avatar would start a new trend and like the 80s we could finally get some good science fiction back. But maybe next year or the year after that.

I don't really care about Green Lantern, at all. But, here is an opportunity, a real chance, to do something with the superhero movie as a type. Of all the comic book characters that have been offered the chance at film none of the big names has the clear option to be a science fiction movie more than Green Lantern. As far as a superhero story goes Green Lantern is soft science fiction bordering at times on fantasy. What more could they ask for? How much easier could it be to make this mainstream film science fiction and do it right- making it enjoyable but also provocative. Make a superhero movie sure, if you must, but make it explorative.

photo credit: io9

Mega Man Soccer

2010-04-26T15:12:00.001-04:00

Name: Mega Man’s Soccer
System: SNES
Developer: Capcom
Publisher: Capcom
Release Date: 1994
Genre: Sports

Whether this game is actually any good or not, I can’t really say for sure. I am not too familiar with soccer games as a whole, especially not those on the SNES, but I can tell you that, at the very least, the game is damn interesting.

The biggest problem is that it’s a pretty boring game. Yet, there are a whole host of other issues that I should probably enumerate before I go any further. It is far too easy to slide tackle the ball away from the opponent, passing is difficult, the game switches the player you are controlling automatically so often you end up running away from the ball at times, and your view of the field is so small that it is almost impossible to actually get anything resembling an offense going without looking at the map at the top of the screen, which causes you to take your eyes off the play for a precious second. Yeah… there are a lot of issues, yet for some reason I still really enjoy playing the game. Not for long periods of time, but picking it up every once in a while is a blast, especially if you have an opponent to play.

Scoring is difficult, but it’s soccer so that’s fairly realistic. There are power shots, which make scoring much easier, but you only get two a game. Other than these you can score often enough using one-timers and less often by shooting close to the goal but at an angle. You can compose your team of a variety of different characters and align them in a wide variety of different formations. And despite all of the flaws in the gameplay, there is something undeniably cool about the game. I remember the first time I ever played it was at the house of one of my classmates. I say classmate, because I never really liked him all that much, and the dick wouldn’t even tell me the controls, so I got slaughtered, but I remember coming away from the game thinking how cool it was… It was Mega Man, and while I had never played a Mega Man game before, I of course knew who the Blue Bomber was. And that is the real charm of the game, and perhaps it’s only redeeming quality. It’s a game full of Mega Mans, Cutmans, Woodmans, Toadmans and a whole slew of others who just ooze charm and nostalgia. It is the predecessor to Mario Tennis and all those other sports titles. There is quite simply something grand about a game that pits video games characters against one another in soccer.

The graphics are decent enough for a game of the era, but nothing special and the music is a bit repetitive and can get fairly annoying after a while. Each of the characters have different stats, affecting how well they play defense, kick the ball, and run, among other things. There are several different stadiums, all of which are built like indoor soccer arenas, with boards instead of sidelines, but none of which are any different except for their coat of paint. While a generic soccer game like this wouldn’t even be worth a look back, because it is Mega Man, I still have a special fondness for it. It’s frustrating, difficult and pretty bland, but you can’t tell me that it isn’t cool.

Score: 5/10

Common Sense

2010-04-18T14:35:00.001-04:00

"Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not yet sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favor; a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defence of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason."

Thomas Paine began his pamphlet Common Sense with the paragraph above. The essay was incredibly influential in Colonial America and helped to stir up revolutionary fervor against Britain that would be instrumental to starting the American Revolution. In it, Paine rails against monarchy in general and the British monarchy specifically, while espousing the virtues of the colonies and urging them to fight against the motherland.

Oddly enough, Paine was born in England and only arrived in the colonies in 1774, before promptly beginning to raise hell. He was a revolutionary through and through, and in the 1790s he found himself in France, you guessed it, to take part in yet another Revolution. He was elected to the National Convention, but managed to get on Robespierre's bad side and was arrested. This was no unusual event at the time (see: The Reign of Terror) and Paine only barely avoided painting, with the help of a little contraption called the guillotine, the Paris streets with his blood.

I was unaware of Paine's involvement in the French Revolution and it only increases my already high opinion of him. The man was an idealist and a rabble-rouser, pure and simple. You don't go around sticking your nose in other people's Revolutions unless you believe in them or are suicidal.

But, perhaps the most interesting nugget of information I discovered about his life, was that while in France, Paine developed a menage a trois with Nicholas Bonnevile and his wife. They slept together for several years and when Paine returned to America, Bonnevile sent his wife and children (who were Paine's godchildren) along with him. From what I was able to gather, this had something to do with Bonneville having been arrested by Napoleon, and though now free, he was still under heavy surveillance.

Throughout his life, Paine always followed his convictions, even if they were unpopular. He was a deist who opposed organized religion, a revolutionary who opposed monarchy and a great firebrand. I think it is overlooked just how radical these movements were in a European age of absolute monarchs. Men like Paine were anathema to the social and political order, because they were against everything that it stood for. Life, liberty and pursuit of happiness... liberty, equality, fraternity... sovereignty deriving from the people... these concepts were so fundamentally opposed to the established order that Revolutionary France was at war with every major power in Europe. To put it simply, Paine was a hero, who fought not for himself, but for the ideals that he so strongly believed in.

Note: Most of the information here is gleaned from years spent studying history as well as several classes I have taken. The information about Paine's personal life comes from a few short notes in Fire int he Minds of Men by James H. Billington, a wonderful study of revolutionary movements in Europe, but probably not a book for those not already well-versed in the history of 18th and 19th century Europe.

Umlaut Education

2010-04-14T13:23:00.000-04:00

Being a somewhat competent German speaker, I have wondered for many years why umlauts appear over some English words in some books... coöperate, reënact, naïve, etc. In German, umlauts indicate a different pronunciation and in actuality are treated as separate letters, or at least pseudo-letters, to begin with. So, it never made much sense to my why they were in the middle of these normal English words. Maybe it was a typo, I thought, or some publisher idiosyncrasy about repeating vowels, but I never really took the time to find out. Obviously, I was always in the middle of reading when it happened, so I would just move on and forget about them. But more and more a pattern started to develop... it was always in older works and always on the second of two consecutive vowels.

As it turns out, it is not an umlaut at all, but is called a diaeresis and is used to indicate that the vowel under it is pronounced differently or separately from the preceding one. I've always thought the words look sort of awkward with the diaeresis, but it is a nice aid for pronunciation. Of course, seeing as English words like to be as difficult as possible to pronounce, the diaeresis is hardly used today.

If you're interested, there is a bit more history of the diaeresis here.

Mittens

2010-04-11T11:56:00.000-04:00

Once again, a post about my map obsession and once again a link to Strange Maps. This time we have an interesting post about BSD's home state, complete with a little German lesson at the bottom. How could I resist? The only problem with the post, is that the handmap is so obviously wrong. The thumb is jutting way too far east, doing who knows what to Ontario.

But, it is actually quite a good way to show Michigan geography and while I have never actually used it to point out my hometown, I have explained the locations of other places on my hand. I have a feeling I'll wind up using it more if I ever leave.

I just hope that this post doesn't trigger a five minute ramble from Stef about the little man with the hat that I always seem to get whenever I try to bring up American geography to her.

Colonial Winter

2010-04-09T12:08:00.001-04:00

I have always liked the term Indian Summer, which is a fairly common term in the northern U.S. I have always taken it to mean unseasonably warm weather in Fall after the first cold spell. I always wondered where the term came from, but never did much research on it. Being a historian, I should probably actually delve into some books, but I took the easy way out. According to Wikipedia, the term has three potential origins, two of which are to the Amerindian population. Yet, if that is the case, the insult backfired, because Indian Summer may just be the most wonderful time of the year. For me the term always elicited a feeling of warmth and happiness, made me think of autumnal oranges and yellows. It is quite simply the last gasp of summer.

However, lately I have started thinking about what the opposite of Indian Summer would be. Every year it happens... the first burst of spring occurs and everyone is jubilant, it's sixty and sunny, not a cloud in the sky and I go to the park and play baseball. Yet, it never lasts and pretty soon it's hailing, the skies are grey and the wind is howling outside my window. But, it doesn't have a name, that I know of... so I've decided to call it Colonial Winter. I think it creates a nice verbal dichotomy and reminds me of the Revolutionary War at the same time... the little Ice Age, Valley Forge, the color blue. I wonder if it'll catch on. Unfortunately for us here at BSD, yesterday was back in the forties and rainy... not quite a full blown colonial winter, but not the nice spring I'd been getting used to.

When the Weather outside is ...

2010-04-07T13:00:00.000-04:00

A friend sent this my way. The designer has a delightfully fun website with a great collection of projects.

Put in a city anywhere in the world and this site will tell you the weather conditions there with a star wars planetary analogy. My favorite part about each forecast is that there is a little warning at the bottom pertaining particularly to the planet and it's involvement in the Star Wars movies.

Whatever you do though... don't search for somewhere that does not exist unless you're prepared to be very, very, sad.

MLB Suggestions

2010-04-05T12:27:00.002-04:00

Opening Day is almost upon us, which means my yearly opining about baseball. However, instead of rambling on nostalgically about how much I love the game, I'm going to complain about it for once. I love baseball for many reasons, but I do have several gripes with the MLB that I'd like to enumerate. I know many of these things are not going to happen anytime soon, if at all, but if I was given free reign over baseball for a year, these are the things I would see done.

Salary Cap
The biggest problem I have with the major leagues is the income disparity between the small-market clubs and the big. You can preach free-market capitalism at me all you want, but the truth is that the MLB is a monopoly, and one protected as such through congressional legislation. I don't want to change that, but I do think that it is vital to bring about a bit of equity in the system. Baseball needs a salary cap, it's as simple as that. It would level the playing field, create some parity in the league and allow teams to keep their stars instead of being forced to trade them off for prospects once they are approaching free agency. It gets tiring seeing the best young players traded off to New York, Boston, Chicago, L.A., and yes... even to a lesser extent my Tigers year after year.
I know this would be a hard sell for the players association and for the high payroll teams, but it is in baseball's best interest to see this happen. Just taking look at the 2009 team payrolls, shows a stark contrast between the teams who can spend and those who can't. First of all, the Yankees have a payroll of almost 70 million more than the next highest team (the Mets) and over five times that of the Florida Marlins. Yet, the payroll figures only give a snapshot view of the situation. Some of these clubs are keeping unsustainable payrolls in order to compete now, while others have very low ones because their teams are so young.

MLB Blackout Areas

What we really need to be looking at is regional populations or market sizes. Baseball Almanac has a nice article that lists the market sizes. There are some caveats to the data, however. The first is that it is a bit outdated, but population figures haven't changed enough to negate it's usefulness. Additionally, a city like New York, which has nine major sports teams (not counting MLS) to divide its fans among, probably won't have as high a percentage of its market viewing as a city like New Orleans (with only two teams) would. Yet, I don't believe it is realistic to divide the market by nine, since it is not as if residents of a city watch or attend only a finite number of games, and thus, the more teams available watch, the higher the total viewership will be, in general. I don't think anyone can argue with that. Besides, the baseball season is for the most part during the summer and without a major sports rival for much of the season. However, it is vital to split the markets of those cities with two teams in half. Still, the Yankees and Mets have a market size of over 10 million compared to the 1.6 million in Milwaukee. That is a massive gap to bridge and one that I only see two solutions to. The first is a salary cap, the second... add five or six professional teams to the New York market, and a few to L.A. and Chicago, too. Hell, we might as well give Philly, Detroit and Boston another team while we're at it. Okay, so that proposal is totally unreasonable for a variety of reasons that I won't get into. So, salary cap it is.

Furthermore, the salary cap should be coupled with some sort of revenue sharing deal (which the MLB already has) and a payroll floor, to prevent teams from just constantly tanking like the Florida Marlins have been apt to do over the years. Not only should this system allow small market teams to better compete and keep their players, it should create a more competitive league as a whole. Drafting, the farm system and roster management suddenly become a lot more important, especially for big market teams which can no longer just throw money at their problems.

Expansion
With some money freed up, baseball may even be able to expand. This desire is obviously biased, because I simply like seeing new teams spring up, but I think it would work well. While probably not realistic in the current economic climate, I think that a more fiscally responsible MLB could definitely expand to a few more cities. Going back to the list of biggest markets in the US and Canada for a moment... I think that bringing baseball back to Montreal would be a great idea. Charlotte, San Antonio or Portland might also make nice homes for new teams, or just place another team in New York. It would cut into the TV areas and the revenue of the other teams, but I think ultimately revenue would increase for the MLB as a whole. But, my primary motive is getting the leagues back to an equal number of teams. Having 14 teams in the AL and 16 in the NL always felt so unbalanced to me. Move Milwaukee back to the AL or add two AL teams, either way it would work. The divisions could be reworked into four of four teams or have two of five and one of six.

Steroids
The steroid issue may have diminished, but baseball is definitely not in the clear yet. It is painfully obvious that the MLB turned a blind eye to the use of steroids throughout the 90s. In doing so, they not only harmed the integrity of the game, but allowed the specter of the Faustian bargain of steroids to descend upon countless young baseball players. Even with the knowledge of the harm they can cause, steroids are a huge lure to players who dream of making the big leagues. While I like to think I would not give in if I were in that position, I cannot blame those who have. The MLB needs to simply come out and admit their mistake, acknowledge that the game was compromised and that there are fraudulent records on the books. While, I don't believe that the records achieved during the era should be erased, simply because it gives players an incentive not to come clean, the major leagues need to admit to their mistake. It was the Steroids Era, the stats are out of whack, they cannot be fixed now. We will never know who used steroids or who didn't, because there is no way that everyone will com clean, but there will always be a cloud hanging over the period. All that baseball can do now is admit their mistake, implement as stringent as steroid policy as possible and move on.

Hall of Fame
On a related note, I don't believe that known or suspected steroid users should be banned from the Hall of Fame. Again, I think this policy only serves as an incentive not to admit to using steroids. Bonds, McGwire, Sosa... put them all in the Hall. Put it on the plaque that they cheated, or that they achieved fame under suspicious circumstances, I don't care, and I don't like any of them, but they deserve to be there. Just like Joe Jackson and Pete Rose do. Especially in the case of Jackson, who was given a lifetime ban, and is now dead. Shouldn't the ban be over? And keep Rose away from baseball, that's fine, but both of them deserve to be there for being some of the greatest baseball players ever. You don't have to lie or exalt any of these guys, hell... put up an exhibit about cheating and gambling on baseball if you want, just let them in. If a horrible person like Ty Cobb gets to be there, anyone who was good enough at playing should be, too.

All-Star Game
I have several problems with the All-Star Game in its current format. The first and more egregious is that the winning league gets home field advantage in the World Series. It is beyond dumb that what amounts to an exhibition game has any effect upon the MLB championship and this has to be changed. Secondly, fan voting needs to be done away with. The average fan doesn't know enough about baseball to know who actually deserves to be in the game and most fans are too partisan to vote for anyone but their own team's players. The rosters should be decided upon by the players or managers. It is unfair to use all-star game appearance as a criteria to argue a player's merit if it is simply a popularity contest. Lastly, the rule that each team must have a representative in the game should be abolished. Once again, the only criteria that should decide who is on the all-star team is how well their season has been thus far.

Designated Hitter
Finally, I would at the very least consider implementing a DH in the National League. My only reluctance in doing so is historical and because I think it is rather quaint to have such a huge rule difference between the two leagues. Also, I know how biased I am about this rule having grown up a fan of an American League team. Nonetheless, I don't buy into any of the arguments in opposition to the DH other than those I have already listed. The additional strategy that it provides is negligible and the necessity of pinch hitting for a pitcher at the end of the game, in my mind, is an argument in favor of the DH and not against it. Furthermore, pitcher is an extremely specialized position and the most grueling in the sport, why force them to do something that they are almost universally poor at? Kickers don't catch passes, goalies rarely shoot on net, pitchers don't need to hit. In the end, what does inserting an extremely weak batter at the bottom of every lineup do to make the game better? Nothing, that I can see.

I have little hope of most of these things coming to pass anytime soon, but that's alright. For the most part I have just been musing and the lack of reform, while frustrating at times, pales in comparison to the joy I get from watching the game. Baseball has never been my favorite sport, but it is the one that I have always felt my identity as a Detroiter has been most tied to. Perhaps it is its position as the national pastime, perhaps the fact that it is so old, or maybe its the fact that I equate it with summer and freedom and joy, but being a Tigers fan was always about more than just the game. I always felt that you were born with a team and you would die with that team. Winning or losing, I was content with the sport, because it was my heritage as a Michigander. I may enjoy watching other teams, may even someday adopt another team as a secondary rooting interesting, but the Old English D will forever be baseball to me.

Cathulol

2010-04-04T17:48:00.001-04:00

via lolthulhu.com

Fantasy Movie Studios

2010-03-31T13:49:00.003-04:00

We've decided to start a friendly game for BSD readers and other bloggers we know. It will be a fantasy movie studio game, where you start with a budge of 100 Euros and purchase movies with it. The studios are ranked by the most total box office gross at the end of three months, the studio with the highest being the winner.

If you would like to play, just comment or send us an e-mail and I'll get you the sign-up information.

The site is here, if you'd like to check it out.

Here Be Dragons

2010-03-29T13:33:00.002-04:00

Another day another victory for Strange Maps. This time they bring us The International Square Earth Society, which I can only assume (and hope) is a spoof on the flat earth crazies.

It's quite an authoritative and well-argued (if not well-reasoned) construction of a square earth based on biblical evidence and a good dose of insanity. My favorite section is the FAQ, where Mr. Wilcox argues that airline pilots and Hollywood (obviously) are in league with the devil.

I suppose it is a bit confusing to distinguish between what is metaphorical or not, given all the insanity in the Bible. I'm still on Genesis, but so far it's been quite an interesting read.

Thundercats

2010-03-27T13:48:00.002-04:00

Today I have two odd and unrelated Thundercats topics to bring up. The first, and possibly the most awesome discovery in the history of the universe, is that James Lipton, host of BSD favorite Inside the Actor's Studio, wrote the theme song for Thundercats. Credit goes to Stef, and I believe Cracked, for discovering this. I had no idea that the Detroit native could get any cooler, but he just did.

Secondly, a while back we were watching the first episode of the series, which had some horrible inconsistencies (like why Lion-O aged so much more than WilyKit or WilyKat after they go into stasis), but the thing that bugged me most was why they are all naked (except for belts) at the beginning of the episode, but after they come out of the cold freeze they decide to put clothing on. Is it supposed to be some type of armor?

While the skin-tight jumpsuit isn't bad at all, I'd prefer seeing Cheetara slink around in the nude for 130 episodes*.

*I've only seen one episode of the show in the past fifteen years and don't plan on making it two anytime soon.

Asbestos

2010-03-25T13:15:00.005-04:00

I buy most of my textbooks online, not only because it's cheaper, but to stick it to the monopoly that is the university book store, so I get an email every once in a while from AbeBooks. They're really more newsletters than advertisements, and often have some interesting stuff. The other day, they had an article about one of our favorite authors: Ray Bradbury.

I'd love to get my hands on one of the fire-proof, asbestos-covered copies of Fahrenheit 451. I've never been one to seek out first editions, and while I do collect books, I usually like to try to find the cheapest used copy I can. But this.... this is just awesome. I wonder if anyone has ever tried to light a copy on fire?

I did a little bit of poking around and found a bit more information here. Apparently they only other book to have an asbestos cover was an edition of Stephen King's Firestarter.

I Want to Font

2010-03-20T00:18:00.001-04:00

Redrawing the US: 38 States

2010-03-13T17:29:00.000-05:00

I found the following map on one of my favorite blogs; Strange Maps, and did a bit of tweaking so that it no longer shows the current state borders. There is also some information about it here. It's cool to view the nation in a completely new way. Apparently this redrawing of the map is an attempt to center states around major population centers and thus coordinate state services better. Obviously a proposal like this has no chance to happen without some seismic movements in the governmental structure of the U.S., but it's an interesting exercise and a cool result. However, my main problem with the map is not it's impracticality (because I love that part), but the names of the new states.

While I do like some of the state names, most of them are just awful. Dakota and Carolina are nice because they hearken back to former states. Cumberland, Hudson and Appalachia have a nice ring to them and also. Piedmont reminds me of the old Italian kingdom, which seems a bit of an odd image to connect to the Deep South, but it was named for a present day region, so isn't too bad. But, by and large the names just seem far too random and I would I have guessed that Pearcy's only criteria was that they have some relation to the area, but had to be different from a current state. This leaves a lot to be desired. Apparently the names were actually chosen during some sort of survey in each state. This also creates problems. Things as important as naming fictional places on maps cannot be left up to the tyranny of the majority. While I do like some of these names, I think a lot of them could simply have old state names and the rest should be improved upon.

Alamo: If you're going to name it after a battle in the Texas Revolution, why not just call it Texas?
Bighorn: Naming a state after a sheep, no matter how big their horns are, is a mistake.
Bitterroot: Is this named after the flower, the river or the mountain range? I don't know, probably all three, but it sounds awful. Bitteroot would be a fine name for some be some backwater town, but not a whole state.
Bonneville: This may be ex post facto, but no states should be named after cars.
Dearborn: While I appreciate that Chicago was once called Fort Dearborn and I appreciate a state with the same name as BSD's hometown, this is just nonsensical. No states named after the founding fathers, but you give one to Henry Dearborn?
Kilauea: Cool name, but why can't this just be Hawaii? The borders are exactly the same!
Plymouth: This is just lazy... name the place after an American Indian tribe or something, but don't revert back to Plymouth. Plymouth Colony was absorbed by the Massachusetts Bay Colony, hence the name of the modern state.
Prairie: A tad bit generic.

Sonic the Hedgehog 3

2010-02-24T15:36:00.000-05:00

Name: Sonic the Hedgehog 3
System: Sega Genesis
Developer: Sonic Team
Publisher: Sega
Release Date: 1994
Genre: Platformer

While I think I have to give the crown of best Sonic title to Sonic 2, Sonic 3 is a spectacular game that outdoes the second game in several ways. Better graphics, more complex levels and the diversity of gameplay introduced by the ability to play as a flying Tails all help to make it a very refreshing take on the Sonic formula.

Sonic 3 was an anomaly for me as a kid, but I'm not exactly sure why. Perhaps it was the more complex level designs with diverging paths or the longer stages or even just the visual style, but I never felt as comfortable with its worlds. That not to say I didn't enjoy the game, but I never got very far into it. I don't recall ever beating Hydrocity Zone as a kid, and if I did it was only a few times and I never got much further. The Zone really is not that hard if you stay on the upper portion sans water, which I never managed to do. Those second zones (Marble, Chemical Plant, Hydrocity) always gave me fits, but Hydrocity was by far the hardest. Maybe because it was so long, but it always seemed like such an epic grind of drowning, skeletal fish and spikes. As far as Angel Island Zone goes, it was more difficult than the Green Hill Zones of the first two games, but still eased one into the game. The visual style was a nice change from the other Sonic first levels, though it stuck to the green pallete. I always enjoyed the colors and look of the stage, especially after the aerial bombing as the end of Act I. At the end, the Robotnik battle is interesting, but not real challenge compared to later bosses. All in all, I think I spent too much time exploring the levels and lallygagging about than truly trying to beat them. I guess as a kid it was not all that vital to achieve victory, not when there was sightseeing and cool new lightning and fire shields, and new bonus stages to explore.

The thing that really hits me when replaying it now is that this game is much easier than it used to be, definitely easier than Sonic 1. Angel Island is a cinch, and Hydrocity Zone isn't very difficult as long as you stay up on land, which isn't hard to do throughout most of it.

The graphics are just gorgeous, some of the best of any 16-bit title I have played. The levels are full of color and texture that completely blows away the first two games in the series. The music, like all the Sonic games of this era is simple and catchy.

The most startling aspect of the game is the sheer speed. While all the Sonic games are fast, 3 takes that sense of speed to a new level. The Zones are filled with slopes and accelerators (save Angel Island) that unleash Sonic upon the hapless robots around him. While this is a blast, in retrospect it gave me the feeling that I was breezing through the game, almost as if I was looking out a car window at scenery. I don't want to overstate this point, because it is minor, but spending last night playing through most of the game left me with little impression of the individuality of the zones because they are all filled with the ramps and slopes and the same sort of routes with a different color paint slapped on. The ice level is the most egregious offender in this, and while its design is cool and there are interesting enemies (penguins!), you spend most of the level just much falling down steep slopes and get little time to truly enjoy your surroundings. Perhaps it is just because I have not played through every level countless times like I have with Sonic 1 and 2, and anyway it only detracts slightly from the game, but I cannot help shaking that impression.

While I wouldn't rank it as good as its predecessors, this is an amazing game and one that perhaps suffers somewhat because it was split in half, with Sonic and Knuckles constituting the back 9. All in all, Sonic 3 is well worth picking back up, even now, as it is an absolute classic.

Score: 9.5

Cloned

2010-02-20T00:00:00.000-05:00

In 1996 when members of the Roslin Institute in Scotland cloned the first mammal I was in the sixth grade. The cloned animal was a sheep and her name was Dolly. I can remember hearing this story on the radio the day it happened, as my parents were getting ready for work. Later that day at school, on the playground during recess myself and others who had heard about Dolly that day couldn’t help but to talk about it.

At the time what was interesting about Dolly wasn’t that she was the first cloned mammal; we kids had been talking about clones and cloning ourselves for years. Things like nuclear power and molecular transportation were old hat for us. Gene splicing and faster than light travel seemed tedious even. I myself had spent much of that year flying to school on the back of a resurrected pterodactyl, which wasn’t convenient but did serve as a reasonably interesting way of diluting an otherwise boring 7 a.m. car ride to school.

The reason why Dolly held our attention that day was that this was the first time we had heard adults talk about the science with as much interest as we had been doing all along. At last it seemed like the real world was beginning to catch up with our demands and expectations. Though we still had to brush our teeth the old fashioned way, and drive in cars to get from one place to the next, and eat our meals sitting down bite by bite, now, maybe, we are finally going to start getting genuine copies of ourselves, ready to do what we said when we said it.

“If I had a clone,” Brandon’s sister said, “I’d make it do everything for me I didn’t want to do.”
Brandon’s sister was older than me by a year or two, but I knew her brother and could usually count on her not sending me away or talking down to me when I stumbled into a conversation she was having. And she was always having conversations, and they were always her conversation so you had to be careful.

“You’d treat yourself like a servant?” I asked her.

As we had it worked out cloning was a way of duplicating another living thing. Maybe you would put the thing or person in one end of a machine and then a little while later, maybe minutes or maybe days, two of it came out the other side of the machine. We’d all been sent to the copy room before to make copies for our teachers and so we knew how a Xerox machine worked. Some of us had even made rudimentary attempts at the cloning process ourselves; pressing our hands and faces against the cold glass of the machine as the white heat of the light scanned and reflected against the contours of our aspects. We'd blindly stumble out of the copy room with the light of God the Creator still in our eyes and an elongated, gray skinned mutant of ourselves folded up and tucked away in the pocket of our corduroys.

“No,” she said, “I’d treat my CLONE like a servant. Or maybe a slave.”

I didn’t know what to say to this. For one, I was a white kid and she was black. Playground rules dictated that in the area of race relations and conversation discourse I was predetermined wrong and/or racist on any conversations concerning the names of skin colors and the usage of certain words, like ‘negro’ or ‘black.’ Also, Brandon’s sister was bigger than me, and kind of bully. I knew that if she was okay with bullying her clone than it’d mean much less to her to bully me. I had to be careful what I said to her.

“But if you don’t want to do something, what makes you think your clone of yourself is going to be any happier doing that same thing than you would be?” I asked Brandon’s sister.

“Listen, she’s my clone and she’ll do what I tell her.”

It was clear to me that Brandon’s sister had taken an entirely adult perspective on the situation. Or rather, that she had taken an entirely parental perspective on the situation. She was prepared to treat a clone of herself as she might treat a daughter: as her own property, endowed with thought and movement only because she had so willed it to be.
“And then, when I was done with it, when it got home from school for me or finished cleaning my room and taking out the trash,” she said, “I’d just kill it. And make another one the next day.”

“That seems wasteful,” I said. I could tell I was starting to reach that point where Brandon’s sister would no longer be able to tolerate my presence in her conversation, but I didn’t really mind, I was far more concerned with the fact that she was beginning to advocate not only the wasteful and lazy use and disposal of genetic materials (something I myself would not become comfortable with until much later in puberty) but that she was also beginning to fantasize about third-person, singularly neutral homicide. “What would you do with the bodies?”

“I’d dig a hole.” Brandon’s sister said. “Wait, no, I’d make it dig the hole and then I’d kill it.”
Years later I would remember Brandon’s sister saying that when I read Elie Wiesel. I have to consider myself lucky that what Brandon’s sister said resounded with me as an empty and hypothetical threat, entirely unlike Wiesel's own experience.
Our conversation was degrading from innocent daydreaming. As Brandon’s sister continued she stopped using the pronouns "she" and "her" to refer to her imagined clone and instead relied completely on the title “It,” which she had given her clone, her slave and her victim.

By this time other people had begun to interject there own ideas into our conversation. Max, who was a beast of a child and who's own clone I was positive would resemble a homunculus even more than he did, had his own ideas on the matter which rivaled Brandon’s sister’s in insensitivity if not entirely in cruelty.

"It would be wasteful to kill them everyday," Max said. "It would be a lot easier to just train one and pay very close attention to it. That way you could keep it for a long time and only have to kill it if you caught it stealing stuff, or touching your things or getting too smart."

"Or you could beat it like a dog," someone else suggested. "That's what we had to do with our dog. It kept yelping at my little brother so my dad threw his shoe at it. He told us if it ever did that to do the same thing."

A few older kids had more debauched notions of their clones. A boy from one of the advanced biology classes, I think his name was Eddie, suggested changing one of his clone's Y-chromosomes to an X in order to make it a girl. This had to be explained to the group. Smirks grimaces passed over everyone’s faces to think of Eddie like this.

I didn't understand it; some of the kids were okay with the idea of beating and killing clones but were repulsed by the insinuation of developing incestuous relationships with them. Eddie had only one eye; the other had been removed when he was just a baby. It seemed to me that a better use of an Eddie clone would be to supply a replacement eye for Eddie. I considered that even that type of harvesting and transplantation of a clone’s body was self-aggrandizing. This, coupled with the fact that I had already embarrassed myself and Eddie earlier that year when I’d asked him to take out his glass eye and show me the inside of his head was enough to make me keep my mouth shut.

Anyways, Eddie didn’t want a new eye. What he wanted was a girlfriend, or at least something like one. Too bad it would also be something like him. I tried not to think of Eddie in this way but I could not help to. I could not help but envision Eddie as I am sure everyone had. But, unlike everyone else, when I imagined Eddie copulating with his female self the two Eddie’s passed back and forth a pink and squishy eye while they humped themselves.

The conversation we were having was at its base a conversation of ethics. Or, and maybe more correctly, it was a conversation about a lack of ethics. Though the language we used concerned the bioethics of cloning we were each of us talking about not how we would treat our clones but how we would treat others. Many of us were so selfish and fool hearted as to misunderstand that we were talking about how we would treat ourselves. The self-destruction that our conversation extolled upon was amazing to me. Hadn’t we heard it a million times before, play nice, be kind, and treat others, as you want them to treat you? This conversation was cruel because it could be. It was unchallenged and in being so it had turned against us. This was not the curiosity of the playground that prompts you to bury trash in the sandbox and call it a time capsule or draw dirty pictures in the back of your notebooks. No, this was the idiocy that caused people to be pushed off of swing sets and left out of kickball games. This was calling each other “gay” and teasing the smelly kid.
"That is disgusting," Brandon’s sister said. She had a damning look on her face as she tried to reclaim the conversation. "You're all a bunch of perverts" she said. The bell rang and everyone sprinted away in different directions but ending up, eventually, in the same place.

I began to trudge back into the school building. I was left thinking about everything that had been said by our collection of playground philosophers. It appalled me, being the moralist of the group. Never mind how we might treat our clones, if and when we ever met them. How were we going to treat our children, our parents our friends if this was the way we would treat ourselves?

When Dolly was only six years old her body showed degenerative symptoms of aging. Her life expectancy at birth had been 12 years but gene have their own age and the mammary gland materials which were used to create Dolly were already six years old they themselves had been placed within an egg and began mitosis. Her body had some catching up to do and it did in 2003. Dolly was euthanised by the men and woman who had helped to create her. When she died she was suffering from crippling arthritis and lung disease. She was twice as old as she had lived, a concept I wish we could have known about that day on the playground.

When Dolly died when I was in high school and I had far more important things to think about then her. New sciences interested me, like the aerodynamics of a Dodge Neon, the volume of its back seat and the long overworked hypothesis I had constructed concerning the female orgasm. This is because when Dolly did die I was also a clone and had been for many years, as are each of us of our younger selves. Although in memories I still share all of the same genetic makeup as my former self, in reality I know that I am not he.

Le Transi de René de Chalo

2010-02-14T00:15:00.000-05:00

"Prince of Orange René de Chalons died in battle in 1544, at age 25. His widow commissioned the sculptor Ligier Richier to represent him offering his heart to God, set against the painted splendour of his former worldly estate. Church of Saint-Étienne,Bar-le-Duc."

A Tiger Graveyard

2010-02-08T23:27:00.003-05:00

I don't remember the last time I was in Tiger Stadium, but considering the last game there was played in the summer of '99, I couldn't have been older than eleven. But, I don't know if I saw a game there that season, or even the one before that. Nor do I remember how many times I went there as a child, though it was certainly more than a dozen. None of those times really differentiate themselves from one another, not for a kid that young. I remember third baselines, green grass and white uniforms, but nothing all that concrete. Not wins and losses or opposing teams. The one memory which truly stands out is of the stadium's low-ceilinged tunnels that seemed to me then like some sort of primeval caves.

As a kid the ballpark itself was the important part, not the game itself. Sure, I enjoyed watching baseball, but my attention span wasn't long enough to really appreciate the game. But the hot dog vendors, the cheering masses, the wave, the peanuts, and my dad sitting next to me are what still stick out in my mind.

I know my dad was at the last game in Tiger Stadium, on September 27, 1999. I don't know for sure if I saw the game on television, but it seems like I did. I feel as if I watched Robert Fick hit that grand slam which would be the last hit the Stadium would ever see. But it could just be a pseudo-memory or a hope.

At the tail end of summer, Caleb, Stef and I headed into the city for Michigan and Trumbull and parked in a gravel lot right next to the stadium. I hadn't been there in years, but I still remembered the feeling of elation as the claustrophobic tunnel opened up to get a view of a bright green field and thousands upon thousands of people. This time was different, though it brought back all the same memories. Tiger Stadium was deserted as we approached the fence, the infield covered in piles of rubble ten feet high. The only part of the stadium left standing were the walls behind home plate, rising high above the refuse, gutted. It looked as if an earthquake had hit it, or a bomb. We slipped under the fence and wandered between the piles of debris towards the towering structures above. The field was covered with concrete, steel, dust and strewn among the debris were hundreds of broken seats... everywhere bright spots of blue and orange among the grey and rust-hued remains. Heading away from the rubble, the outfield was clear, clean... looking more like the field of a park than what once was an immaculately kept lawn.

Standing out there was an awe-inspiring moment, thinking about all the people who had filled the Stadium throughout the century, since before my grandparents were born. All the games it had seen, the joys, the sorrows, and simply the life that had happened.

Despite the utter destruction around me and the sadness that of what was left behind, the joy of the experience was unmistakable. I was at Tiger Stadium once more and on the field for the first time in my life. My only regret is that I hadn't brought a baseball and a bat or maybe a glove, so the field could experience baseball one last time. I'm not usually one to personify or believe in spirits or ghosts, but there is part of me that thinks it would have made a difference. Maybe some of that concrete had soaked up the experiences of the century or they had seeped into the soil I was standing upon, the ground that had been known as Bennet Park, Navin Field, Briggs Field and finally Tiger Stadium. At least, I would like to think so, because there is not much left otherwise.

Bananas

2010-02-03T00:28:00.000-05:00

When I first found out about this method for banana peeling I was a bit skeptical, but after trying it a few times, it really is a far simpler and more effective method. It takes a little bit of getting used to, but once you get the hang out it, it's great. I've found that it's best to pinch the smaller ends of the little nub at the bottom of the banana rather than the wider part as it splits in half this way rather than into three peels.

It really makes me wonder whether I could be doing a lot of other things more efficiently

Goobye, Seymour

2010-01-28T15:02:00.004-05:00

Of course I don't know what to say. J.D. Salinger is dead. He died today at 91 years old. Which, is of some if only little conciliation. I'm sad, but I think I would feel much sadder if the author hadn't been trying himself to be dead to the world for the past forty something years.

Salinger was the symbol of heartfelt cynicism as both an author and as a public figure of interest. In his work he represented the rebellion and upset of an age but still imbued it with a sense of moral right and wrong. His characters rejected society because they embraced ethics; because of their own highly sensitive moral codes and compasses.

So much of what Salinger became has been represented by so little. He is a pocket in american history and literary cannon, represented by only what he would allow out into the world. What Salinger accomplished rests on a very small library of books. His death solidifies this fact. His work is a very small pin in the hinge of a very large door. Now, it seems that many an rest assured that that pin has been forged to last and be unaltered. Anything which come now will not be Salinger's. He made his stand all that time ago and choose those parts of it he wanted preserved. I can not imagine a better way to rest in peace.

(Ray, you're really all I have left.)

Calvin and Hobbes

2010-01-25T12:22:00.002-05:00

(I still owe you one of our own Matt.)

Let's Talk About Sex

2010-01-22T20:18:00.003-05:00

I read a rather bothersome article earlier over at details.com the gist of which was that modern conventions like the internet and picture messaging in tandem with the over saturation and acceptance of pornography in youth society has fundamentally changed the sexual experience for young people. The article is called How Internet Porn is Changing Teen Sex and you can read it for yourself here. I don't really have much to say about it, but some of the things in it really got to me. In part because it is an exposition of how sad young people can be but also because it made me examine myself as a product of my own surroundings. I hesitate to say that what is examined in the article is the mistreatment of sex because, as a product of my environment, I'm torn between belief and disbelief in the conventions of taboo. One line that I found particularly striking was this one : "it's safe to say that the first purebred guinea pig to have grown up never knowing a world without fisting on demand is probably around 22 years old." By that estimation I am one of the cantankerous old men in the world, and reflecting on the article affirmed that for more.

The article looks at how both boys and girls are now approaching sex as a result of pornography. And while this can lead to many different conversations it reminded me distinctly of one of what I have found to be the more perverse couple pairing rituals I have seen in a few years. This summer a recent high school graduate who I was working with mentioned to me that her suntan tattoo was fading. After determining what a suntan tattoo was I asked her what hers was of. She told me it was of her new boyfriends name; that when she was on Spring Break in cancun she used stickers to spell out this boys name on her body (she did not mention where) and then got a tan so that once removed his name would show up in her lighter, untanned, skin. She told that then she took some pictures with her phone so that she could show him it and that later on that, when she was back home, they had started dating. The whole thing stuck me as incredibly odd but also something more than that. Something about the implication of ownership it makes and how regressive it seems feels inherently perverted to me. But then again, maybe thats just me being a cantankerous 20+ year old. But then again, maybe I only find it so perverted because of the perverted interest I in the practice I feel when ever I happen to think about it.

“It is not human nature we should accuse but the despicable conventions that pervert it.”

Happy Christmas Mornings, Again

2009-12-25T05:44:00.003-05:00

'67

2009-12-18T17:47:00.002-05:00

For years I have heard the story of my father working at the Detroit Edison Electric plant at 1 Energy Way, Detroit during the ’67 Detroit riot. I think the first time I was told about it was when I was doing a family history for a school project in the fifth grade. My dad and his grandfather both worked at the Electrical plant where as my grandfather, my father’s father, worked at the water treatment facilities. Though I’ve heard the story a few times I thought that I should try to gather a more comprehensive understanding of not only the riots but also how they affected my family. Although Mark, my dad, can tell a great story it is very rare that he tells anyone anything when they ask to be told it. Before talking to my dad about what he remembers of the ’67 riots it seemed a good idea that I talk to my mother first, as she often remembers the past far better than my father and would be able to supply me with some ideas of what to ask my dad. However, talking to my mom about the riots and then my dad proved to make my understanding of their lives in 1967 much more confusing than I thought it would be. Eventually what I had initially determined would be one interview about the past became three. As I attempted to find what was true and what was the result of misremembering in my parents stories I found it helpful to also speak to one of their best friends form their youth. The three stories together all contribute to one understanding I have now, not just of the riots but also of my father, Mark.

In talking to my mom about my father during the ’67 riots I was told a truly fascinating story. “What you have to understand first,” she told me “was that nearly all the police were white.” It had been a hot summer, and in the early hours of a Sunday morning at the end of July the police raided an after hours blind pig (a speak easy.) That same morning, as my mother tells it, Mark and her brother Rick were downtown at he Grande Ballroom. On their way home their car broke down and they had to call for a ride home from my mom’s mom, Jessie. While waiting to get picked up from their broken down car Mark and Rick were warned by a stranger to get out of the city as fast as they could because something terrible was about to happen if they stayed around. Although Mark and Rick got out of the city with out much trouble not everyone was so lucky. “Things got bad very quickly,” my mom, told me, “looting and property destruction would begin in one place and move out in wave to other neighborhoods.” What was shocking to most people at the time even today still resonates about the riot was that much of it was perpetrated by blacks in their own neighborhoods. There was a sense of desperation but also mindlessness about the riots that scared everyone. By Tuesday, July 25, the National Guard occupied and closed down the city. As my mom explains it my dad was issued a Civil Defense card in order to allow him to get to work and pass through the barricades that the National Guard had put in place all over the city. The aftermath of the riots was that the city had been irrevocably changed. Not only had the demographic been altered by white flight as many of the few remaining white families left the city but also the physical layout of the city was different. My mom described this to me by saying that “the city had changed at major destruction roads were the rioting had been especially concentrated.” Entire neighborhoods had been burned to the ground during the riots. White and black owners abandoned shops that had been looted. Living in Herman Gardens, the projects nearly outside of the city, my mom can remember the sudden influx of African-American families who moved into her building as a result of losing their home during the riots. She can remember the principal of her school remarking to her mother on the furniture that was being moved into the buildings with these families; how it was so extravagant, plush, and gilded; how it was all looted goods.

Mark’s story is far less intriguing. To hear it from my father the riot didn’t really happen; or at least, not to him. When I asked Mark about the Civil Defense card he was issued during the riots he just said, “I never had a Civil Defense card.” After a long pause I asked him about what working at the Detroit Edison Electrical Plant was like during the riot and he said that he worked there in ’68, not ’67. When I asked him about the story my mom told me about his car breaking down and him having to call my grandmother for a ride and he and my uncle being warned to get out of the city he had no recollection of it ever happening. More than that he denied that it had ever happened. Mark’s story about the summer of 1967 is incredibly banal, and not just by comparison of my mother’s. In 1967 Mark claims that he worked at a automotive factory constructing 8th inch sound deadening mats out of tar and felt for the floors of cars. The detail with which he remembers this job is astounding when considering everything else he told me. I asked Mark what downtown was like, in his memory, during the riot. He told me that on the first day of the riot, Sunday, July 23rd, that the busses were still running, and that he and his best friend Kenny went down to Wayne State’s campus to see a friend of theirs. After driving around for a little while in their friends car Mark claims that they saw little more than a few tanks and a truck full of soldiers. This is entirely impossible, but so too is much and many of my father’s stories. Sensing how anticlimactic his recollection had been for me Mark apologized, again denied everything my mother had said, and suggested that I go with her story anyways, whether it was true or not.

Between these two stories I found not a single iota of similarity. No resemblance what so ever exists in what my mom told me and what my father told me about the summer of 1967 in their lives or in a wider specter of the city’s history. In order to truly understand what my parents were talking about I would have to consult someone who knew both of them at the time and also lived in the city. I got the phone number of my parents’ best friend Shirley who now lives in Texas and gave her call.

The story Shirley told me far better conformed to what my mom had told me about the riot (and my father) and also what I had already thought I knew to be true. In 1967 Shirley was in school at Cass Technical High School. “Once the riots began things in the city heated up very quickly,” Shirley said. She continued by explaining to me that the fear outside of the city was that the looting and building burning that was going inside of the city was going to spread out into the suburbs. “People were shocked of course when that didn’t happen,” she went on, “and that instead the rioters just kept burning down their own neighborhoods.” Part of fear that everyone was feeling was due in part to the fact that, unlike today, there was limited news media available dispensing information about the riots. “Radio and T.V. were really all we had for finding out what was happening and where the danger was. No one knew how far or how fast the violence was going to or had escalated,” Shirley told me when I asked her about this. After the riots had for the most part been stopped the danger did not end. Fires continued long after the troops were deployed within the city to quell the violence. “It was like a war zone in the city. Whole neighborhoods were gone already and that’s when people began to get the idea of ‘hey, I’ve got some dead property I need to get off my hands; it wasn’t much good before all this it’ll be worth even less now; I can burn it,’” Shirley went on. She described this as a prevailing sense of ‘opportunism’ that grew out of the riots. This opportunism had nothing to do with the riots, race issues and civil unrest; it was just about property values and money. What is most interesting about this to me is that it speaks to another aspect of the riot which both my mother and Shirley agreed on: the majority of the destruction was done by people who would have more to be upset about and were left with less after the riots than they had had before them. The initial outbreak of the riot was caused by social unrest in the most racially challenged city in the country at the time but the strongest effects of the violence were caused by the numerous and literal flare up of fires afterwards.

After she had described all of this to me, spoken about the riots, I asked Shirley if she could tell me about where she was during them and if she had any idea about why my father’s story was so different form my mother’s and her own. Shirley described the riots as being a period of time longer than just the last week of July that summer. She told me that that year at Cass Tech. members of the Black Panthers would come into her school and pull the fire alarm, forcing all ten floors of the building to evacuate into the streets. Afterwards the Panthers would take up fire hoses and force anyone trying to come into the building out of it. She said that when the riots started at first she felt the way she did when the Black Panthers pulled the fire alarm; she was just wanted to get out of the way and get home.

Shirley thinks that something like this same sentiment must have effect my father and that for him the riots were not as big of deal as everything else going on in his personal life was. In 1967 Mark would have been in school at Wayne State and working at his job if not a full time than nearly. He had his own problems to worry about, even if the city he lived in was burning down around him. I figure that there must be some truth in this idea. I’d ask Mark but he is just as bad at talking about himself as he is at talking about everything else I am interested in hearing about. I think that in this situation, as with most, it is best that I trust the stories I have heard about my dad rather than those he has to tell.

In my mom’s story and even in Shirley’s my dad is kind of a hero, Mark is working hard and full of determination and doing his job at a scary time, and I like that. In Mark’s story he’s barely even a character; in my dad’s story he is just some guy getting by as he waits for the future to happen to him. I must say though, that Mark is the most sure person most people will ever met and that when he knows what he wants to do is does it. And that is why when I consider these stories and how Mark’s is so unlike my mom’s and Shirley’s I am unsure if it is because his memory is humble, or if he is just not impressed by the those things he does which everyone else finds to be so impressive.

Changing Fashions

2009-12-10T23:04:00.003-05:00

Well... I can't say I ever foresaw the day where I would be writing a BSD post about fashion, but here it is. The entire video is pretty cool in itself, but the real treat comes at the end. Just think of how much effort this will save strippers!

via Cracked.

Swiss Neutrality

2009-11-29T17:09:00.003-05:00

In a referendum, Switzerland has banned the construction of minarets in the country. I am not going to delve too deep into how ridiculous of a step this is or the illogical arguments of those advocating it, but I simply do not see how an architectural form can increase Muslim extremism, like those arguing for this ban suggest. In fact, I can only see this ban increasing that extremism. Persecuting a group is not usually a good way to make them less extreme.

But, what really bothers me is that Europe seems to be moving more towards restricting freedoms. I'm no expert on Swiss government, but this seems to go against everything that Europe always spouts about being a free and open society. I don't want to imply that it is only Switzerland, because other European nations, notably France and Germany, have recently instituted similar rulings that are mindlessly oppressive to a minority.

Were here at BSD are, and always will be supporters of any freedom with does not infringe upon the rights of others.

Happy Thanksgiving, 2009

2009-11-26T19:27:00.003-05:00

Not to Be Confused part 2

2009-11-25T00:00:00.005-05:00

Finagen's Wake, which we've mentioned here before, and Finegan's Week, a book that Matt found at some destitute and derelict counterfeiting publishing house.

Edger Rice Burroughs and William S. Burroughs. The former wrote such gems as Tarzan and A Princes of Mars. The latter wrote such gems as Junky and Naked Lunch. Of all things here these two should never be confused.

Guy Montag and Heidi Montag.

Correction, of all things here these two should never be confused.

Bad Romance

2009-11-21T15:09:00.015-05:00

I really like Lady Gaga's new song Bad Romance. There is a certian creepy, spooky, scary element to it. I've been so taken by it that I've been scouring the Google Images for spooky/scary pictures of the birdo, and I found just that.

This set of photos was done for Out magazine sometime this past summer by the superb Ellen von Unwerth.

EvU said that her intention was to tell a story about a sort of Frankenstein monster that is turned into a vampire after being endowed with life again.

Isn't that a story you'd love you would love to hear?

The images are very reminiscent to me of of both The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) and The Bride of Frankenstein(1935) staring Boris Karloff and Elsa Lanchester.

As far as the song bad Romance and its music video go, I recommend checking them out. The intro and outro each have a kind of harpsichord (?) in halloween sound and the dance in the video barrows elements of Michael Jackson's Thriller choreography with great success.

Italian Body Parts

2009-11-21T01:42:00.003-05:00

I'm not sure what it is about Italian and preserving the remains of historical figures, but two interesting articles about body parts showed up on BBC this week.

The first, is that Galileo's fingers and tooth have been found. That desiccated finger is without a doubt one of the most disgusting things I have ever seen in my life.

In addition to the remains of the great astronomer being found, Il Duce's brain has apparently been stolen. I think we all know where this is going: some sort of Franken-dictator is being fashioned in Switzerland. While this can't be good, I sort of have a feeling he'll just end up in a tree again.

Geography of DC Comics: Gotham City

2009-11-18T23:21:00.000-05:00

When trying to think up names for Sim City 4 cities or fantasy football team names or for any of many others reasons why someone like me might want to make up place names, Gotham has always been a thorn in my side. No matter how hard I try, I cannot think of a name as good as Gotham. Part of that is probably because it is so ingrained in pop culture and my mind that it actually feels like a real place and actual names always seem more realistic than fake ones. Moreover, the fact that Gotham is actually a nickname for New York probably gives some added weight to it.

Still, the name is simply perfect. It is short and catchy, yet manages to evoke so many images. Goth elicits memories of barbarian tribes, towering Gothic cathedrals and darkness, while ham is a simple English town ending. Thus, it manages to be a reference, but still sound like a real place.

But because Gotham is not a honest-to-goodness physical place, the most important part of its reality is in the mind. Gotham is darkness, it is madness, an art-deco nightmare. It is shadow, towering skyscrapers and muggings on street corners. When you think of Gotham City it brings to mind images of a real place, just as if you thought of New York, London or Hong Kong.

I haven't been able to find quite as much information the geography of the city itself, but I did find some interesting things. Strange Maps, which actually began this endeavor, has a post with some information on various places in the city, as does Gotham and Beyond. I'm not well versed enough with comics to comment further on those particulars, so let's just get to the maps.

The first image comes from Batman: The Animated Series, and honestly isn't all that helpful. Though it's a nice sepia tone and I just like the way it looks.

This next map is the original from Strange Maps and wonderful for city details, but not great for larger area names. As far as I can tell Gotham City is comprised of three main islands, two secondary islands and a few other islands here or there (including Blackgate Isle, #41 on the map). The islands I consider secondary are the two triangular ones, the northern containing Arkham Asylum, the southern the Tricorner Yards. These seem very integrated into the city and important, with an expressway going through the northern and the shipyards on the southern. The other islands are not given much detail, only showing a few bridges connecting them to the main islands and one road.

Here is a subway map of Gotham, which gives some nice detail on neighborhood names. It also gives us the areas of Uptown, Midtown and Downtown (obviously modeled after NYC), but no names for the actual islands which these areas of the city are on. A non-subway map similar to this can be found here. It has a zoom function, lists all sorts of street names and is without a doubt the best map of the city I have found. Oddly, both of these maps get rid of four of the five islands in the south of the city.

From these maps we get the following neighborhoods.
Uptown: Granton, Farrow, Harrow, Jerold.
Midtown: Gainsly, Reatton.
Downtown: Haysville, Stevensburgh, West Harlow.

Additionally, there is the Narrows between Midtown and Downtown, and the island in the southwest corner is South Hinkley.

I would appreciate any input those readers with more comic book knowledge than me have.

Wet Riffs

2009-11-13T22:21:00.004-05:00

If I'm not mistaken this is the first time we've mentioned XKCD on this blog, which is a travesty. It's an amazing webcomic, despite the fact that I don't understand math worth a lick. It's well worth at the very least a minutes of your time.

WetRiffs.com, is quite possibly the greatest site on the internet. I know our readers (especially those of the tentacle rape persuasion) will be surprised by that statement seeing as how amazing BSD is, but it's true. Water + nudity + guitars is simple too awesome for us to handle. And likely for all of you, they are still taking submissions.

Note: the other pictures on the site are much sexier than this.

Here is some bonus material for you all, which I also found through XKCD, of some hot, European chess action.

Capybara

2009-11-11T20:07:00.006-05:00

I'd like to preface this post with something that I think I'm going to be saying more in the next few years and will probably result in the continual shaping of this blog. Matt and I started Blast Shields Down during our freshman year of college. Our original intent was to have a place to work as a team and put the things we made and wanted to say down together. But more than that too we wanted a way to stay connected and close to one another. Its been a few years. And, if the summers of little substance here are any indication than I think we have at least some anecdotal evidence that BSD has been serving its purpose. Also, its helped to keep us in touch with other friends of ours and other bloggers who we might rarely see. It hasn't always been a strong dialogue but its been a dialogue none the less. I say this because it hit me a few weeks ago that in a rather short time the distance between Matt and myself is going to be even greater. Unlike him I'm not graduating this year. Unlike me, he is probably going to be out of state for the next couple of years for Grad School. Almost in anticipation of this seperation Matt and I have started emailing one another much more; keeping up an almost constant correspondence through the weeks. But, because of my realizattion that soon it'll be bon voyage to Matt, I decided to post here on BSD something I easily could have emailed to him. This way he can see, you can see it, and BSD might learn again to serve its purpose...

"During the Christian observation of Lent, capybara meat is especially popular as it is claimed that the Catholic church, in a special dispensation, classified the animal as a fish in the 16th century. (cf. Barnacle goose) There are differing accounts of how the dispensation arose. The most cited refers to a group of 16th Century missionaries who made a request which implied that the semi-aquatic capybara might be a "fish" and also hinted that there would be an issue with starvation if the animal weren't classified as suitable for Lent."

...and if thats not weird enough, just listen to this....

Super Mario Bros. 2

2009-11-06T01:34:00.004-05:00

I just beat Super Mario Bros. 2. I am so flipping mad. If you haven't beaten the game then this might come as a shock to you but ..... IT'S ALL A FUCKING DREAM! IT'S ALL IN MARIO'S HEAD! I feel so cheated. Worst deus ex machina ever.

Arrested Development Movie

2009-11-04T12:12:00.000-05:00

During the life of this blog we've seen the return of X-Files, Futurama and Star Trek. And while those returns had varying degrees of greatness, I have high hopes for our next resurrected franchise.

While this has been bounced around for a while now, I have a lot more confidence in the creation of an Arrested Development movie now that Jason Bateman confirmed it on Inside the Actor's Studio. It is also up on IMDb and looking pretty real.

Also, for bonus points, try watching the series backwards. It's really interesting to see how the plot unfolds that way.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2

2009-11-02T23:02:00.003-05:00

Name: Sonic the Hedgehog 2
System: Sega Genesis
Developer: Sonic Team
Publisher: Sega
Release Date: 1992
Genre: Platformer

Sonic Team’s magnum opus, arguably the greatest game ever made for the Sega Genesis, or by Sega period, Sonic 2 is the embodiment of the franchise and its pinnacle. It improves upon its predecessor with the introduction of the spin dash, the best level design of any Sonic game and the pin point precision of its platforming elements. But what sets Sonic apart from the plethora of platformers of the 16-bit era, like all the Sonic games, is its sense of overwhelming speed.

Even though I could never manage beat the game as a kid, I always got much further than any of the other Sonics… I think it has something to do with the levels being easier, on average shorter, but also because I played the game to death I managed to know the levels better than in any of the other games. I would beat Chemical Plant, Aquatic Ruin, Casino Night, Hill Top and all the way to Mystic Cave, where I would undoubtedly die many horrible deaths, wasting continue after continue until I got frustrated and quit. I must have played this game more than any other in my Genesis days, but somehow it never got old. I even played the crappy two player game quite often… which was basically just racing against someone else to see who could finish a level faster, except everything was squished pretty horribly.

This game is brilliant in every single way, but truly excels in the area of control. Sonic moves quickly, agilely, but without the sense of loss of control (maybe with the exception of the speed shoes) of many games. The level designs are, in my opinion, the cleverest of the series, with Chemical Plant, Casino Night and Hill Top Zones leading the way. Chemical Plant was the first major test to anyone playing the game and delivered splendidly with divergent paths and the toxic sludge atmosphere. Hill Top was perhaps my favorite, mostly because of the wonderful music and the Loch Ness lava monsters popping up all over the place. There can be little argument that Casino Night is the best, though… it is by far the most immersive level. The true joy of the zone is that you don’t want to leave, you just hang around gambling for coins, bouncing off the plethora of bumpers and glowing chili dogs and enjoying the atmosphere. Yet, it never seemed to lose the sense of speed that is essential to the game.

The graphics were wonderful, with everything having just a little more depth than in the first game and a little more vibrant look. While the visuals certainly were not as pretty as those of Sonic 3 or Sonic and Knuckles, they have a charm of their own. The music is outstanding and fitting in every zone.

The biggest addition to the game was the spin dash, which contributes majorly to the game’s sense of speed, but Tails can’t be forgotten. This is his first game and while he’s up there at the top of the pantheon of annoying sidekicks, I always had a soft spot for him and he is a help at times in the game. The player has the option of playing as either Sonic and Tails, with Tails either computer controlled or being controlled by the second player. I never found controlling Tails to be all that easy, but he can be helpful at times, Sonic alone or Tails alone. Unfortunately, Tails cannot fly when player controlled like in Sonic 3. The new bonus stage is interesting, if only for its 3-D, and has Sonic running along a halfpipe picking up rings and avoiding bombs. It always gave me a headache, but it was decent.

From the rehashed Green Hill Zone, which never felt like a cop out, but simply a homage, to Wing Fortress and Death Egg Zones, Sonic 2 is an amazing game and one that I simply cannot do justice. While not a long game (it can be finished in one sitting if you’re good enough), it will surely take most players many hours to complete it. It took me about fifteen years. During that time, I took years off from playing it, but every time I picked it up it was as enjoyable as the last. It is rare to find a platformer that is this perfect, but Sonic the Hedgehog 2 surely does everything it sets out to do perfectly.

Score: 10/10

Space Cowboys and Werewolves

2009-10-31T12:42:00.002-04:00

Happy Halloween everyone! While it seems our usual tradition of going to see movies at the Old Redford is skipping a year, I'm headed up to State tonight to reunite the BSD brain trust. I have no idea what we're doing, but it should be good.

The first clip is a nice homage to Firefly from Castle, which is a pretty good show. Nothing groundbreaking, but enjoyable none the less.

And, what is probably the greatest Halloween song ever.

Man's Best Friend

2009-10-25T22:34:00.005-04:00

This is late, but I don't think that matters much. The following comes from Iowa football blog Black Heart Gold Pants:

"Senior linebacker Pat Argerer tore ligaments in his right thumb early in the Arkansas State game, but he said it won't affect his status for this week or beyond. 'You don't need thumbs,' he said. 'My best friend is my brother's dog. He doesn't have any thumbs and he's doing fine.'"

That just might be the most epic quote ever.

"....more like a cemetary than an avenue...."

2009-10-21T20:52:00.003-04:00

Just as I finished the first book of Roberto Bolaño's posthumously published last work, 2666, my lending time form the library ran out and it was recalled. Someone else had placed a hold on the work and I will have to wait another month before I can enact my revenge, perpetrating the same grievous act against them.

I am left with a hauting feeling from the opening book of 2666, The Part About the Critics. It was a strangely interesting and obsessing read. Although for the most part while reading the book, carrying the massive 900 page slab from place to place with, trying to fit in a few minutes of reading and rumination whenever I could, I felt that the work was slow and retarding I could not keep myself from reading more. Unlike so many books that have presented themselves to me as being nearly plotless and void of direction of plot The Part About the Critics was strangely, and borderline upsettingly, obsessing. The story is about four German literature critics and scholars from all over Europe (England, France, Spain, and Italy.) Each is considered an expert in their field of study and on the work of the mysterious German author, held to be the greatest German author of the 20th century (with the exception of Franz Kafka), Benno von Archimboldi. As the four scholars become friends a love triangle develops within the group, Norton and English woman in her late 20s, and two of her male companions, Pelletier, a Parisian, and Espinoza, a Spaniard. As their private lives take over their work and daily tasks the critics find themselves suffer as a result of one another. The stroy windingly leads out of Europe and into a Mexican boarder town, Santa Teresa in Sonora, where, among a mystery concerning hundreds of young women's deaths, the critics hope to find the seemingly mythical figure of their mutual lives, Archimboldi.

The book reads like a Francisco Goya painting. Some figure like his Colossus or Saturn, devouring his son, hangs over the writing. The language is baroque and gothic but without the added weight of romanticism. So much of the story is interrupted by the dreams of the characters of their false memories of such that entire sections of the work feel surreal and unread after a time. As the characters slowly lose all connection to their own lives so does the reader and eventually you find yourself reading without purpose or direction or concern. The work is so disconcerting and unnerving that its easy to forget what you are reading and why. Some of its most stylish,stunning, memorable, and enjoyable lines and passages are constructed with such a dichotomy of grotesque beauty, of clarity juxtaposed with insanity that its hard to not feel upset reading them. Like when Norton, Pelletier and Espinoza, stopping their car along a Mexican highway leaving the city look out across the desert and into Arizona and "the sky at sunset looked like a carnivorous flower."

Middlesex

2009-10-18T15:39:00.003-04:00

A few weeks ago, Stef, Caleb and I went on an expedition down into the heart of Detroit and then out into Grosse Pointe. It was a journey of nostalgia as well as a literary pilgrimage. While we've never gone to find Salinger so he can hit on our girlfriends or sought out the wisdom of Ray Bradbury, we did find Middlesex.

But I'm getting ahead of myself, that's the end of the journey. The beginning was a drive down Michigan Avenue, the mainstreet of our hometown of Dearborn and one of the main spokes that radiate out from the center of Detroit. We drove into Detroit past beautiful old buildings, some shoddy, some painted gaudily, some in wonderful condition and housing Mexican restaurants. Soon enough Downtown was visible, but we took a bit of a detour as we past the wreck of old Tiger Stadium, one wall left emblazoned with two defiant tigers and headed up Trumbull towards Warren.

While I had been into the city plenty of times, never had I done so at such a leisurely pace. We weren't heading to a ball game or a concert or driving around in the middle of the night because we're stupid and eighteen, we were exploring. I was to come see what I would soon be leaving behind, coming to appreciate what I had always taken for granted as my home, but never truly stopped long enough to take it all in.

We took a turn down a lonely little street and looped past the Michigan Central Station, one of the most beautiful buildings I have ever seen, even though it is now only the deteriorating shell of an idea.

Michigan Central Station

We headed along Warren past Wayne State's campus and then hit Woodward and took that down into the heart of the city. We drove passed Grand Circus Park, Campus Maritus and to Hart Plaza, dwarfed by the skyscrapers above... the Penobscot Building and the Renaissance Center especially.

Downtown Detroit from Belle Isle

We headed northeast up Jefferson and crossed the river to Belle Isle, where we parked and wandered about the south end of the island. Avoiding goose poop, we walked down to the water's edge where huge rocks are piled up and looked at Downtown, then headed over to the beautiful statue before the pond. Eventually, we hopped back in the car and circled the island, stopping by the Aquarium to peek inside (it isn't open anymore) and the Conservatory. We drove past the Detroit Yacht Club (looking quite pompous) and the Detroit Boat Club (the burned out husk of a building) and then headed back to the mainland and up Jefferson once more. We drove around Indian Village, marveling at the beautiful old houses of the revived neighborhood and then into Grosse Pointe, which while beautiful and old, had a definite flavor of aristocracy.

It was there where we found Middlesex and on that street a house which seemed to us suspiciously like the house from Jeffery Eugenides' book by the same title. It looked smaller than I imaged it from the book, but it did seem to stretch back quite a ways and we didn't go traipsing about the backyard or anything, but it seemed to fit the image of that big-windowed monstrosity of modernism.

I'm not sure I can capture what I felt staring at that house, but I must have been part pilgrim, part detective, part wonder-struck child...

Middlesex

We spent a bit more time in Grosse Pointe, just soaking in what the city (or cities, I should say) felt like, before heading back into Detroit and then home. We stopped by a Mexican place to eat and then by a comic book store on our way back up Michigan Avenue and into Dearborn.

happy birthday edward

2009-10-14T14:45:00.000-04:00

love is a place
& through this place of
love move
(with brightness of peace)
all places

yes is a world
& in this world of
yes live
(skilfully curled)
all worlds

The Absurdist Triumvirate

2009-09-29T02:33:00.012-04:00

“Restraint! What possible restraint? Was it superstition, disgust, patience, fear -- or some kind of primitive honour? No fear can stand up to hunger, no patience can wear it out, disgust simply does not exist where hunger is; and as to superstition, beliefs, and what you may call principles, they are less than chaff in a breeze. Don't you know the devilry of lingering starvation, its exasperating torment, its black thoughts, its sombre and brooding ferocity? Well, I do. It takes a man all his inborn strength to fight hunger properly. It's really easier to face bereavement, dishonour, and the perdition of one's soul -- than this kind of prolonged hunger. Sad, but true. And these chaps, too, had no earthly reason for any kind of scruple. Restraint!” (71)

In consideration of the publication date of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, 1899 puts the work 34 years after Lewis Carroll’s initial publication of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. With no evidence as to whether or not Conrad was influenced in any way by Carroll’s earlier text the likenesses between the two stories are striking and surprising. From the Chief Accountant’ lingering smile (like that of the fading Cheshire Cat [“`All right,' said the Cat; and this time it vanished quite slowly, beginning with the end of the tail, and ending with the grin, which remained some time after the rest of it had gone.”]) to Kurtz’s writing “'Exterminate all the brutes” (characteristic of The Queen’s proclamation “Off with her head!”) each text experiences it’s characters slow lose of stability and sacredness for life as the characters, Alice and Marlow, become deeper entrenched in their respective rabbit holes.

One such examination of this slowly leaking sense of decency towards the mortality of others is found in the passage above where Marlow examines the power of self-restraint. If taboos exist to insure and keep peace then cannibalism must represent one of the most disruptive behaviors to the colonials. However, as Marlow observes the natives restraint in the face of hunger he comes face to face with his own weakening sense of peace and right or wrong. As Marlow recognizes that “disgust simply does not exist where hunger is” he too recognizes his own hunger and his own loss of disgust or morale sense of propriety. Throughout the text this same loss is represented in different characters but most strongly in the civilized characters who coming from an established community of morals become less and less adverse to barbarism as they travel deeper into the jungle. Marlow’s restraint is his disgust and his feelings of horror which keep him from giving in to the hunger of the jungle.

Taking all of this into consideration its also interesting to think about something that Matt first pointed out to, that Alice's Adventure's in Wonderland and Kafka's The Trial (1925). When taken together the three texts make for a perfect Absurdist Triumvirate, a series of parables bridging from one century into the next.

Metro Detroit High School Football Map

2009-09-26T23:35:00.003-04:00

After hearing about the demise of the Michigan Mega Conference I got curious as to what new conferences were formed and which schools went where. That, coupled with my obsession with maps has produced the map below. I marked all the public High School football teams in Metro Detroit by conference. Hopefully the quality is good enough that it can be blown up.

The schools themselves are not marked, because the map would be too crowded and while the dots which represent schools are not necessarily in the correct location, they should be in the correct cities.

Teams can be extrapolated by heading here.

Vampire Monkeys!

2009-08-29T02:10:00.002-04:00

Now we're really screwed.

courtesy zooborns.com

Super Karate Monkey Death Car

2009-08-18T17:53:00.003-04:00

TranslationParty.com is a great little inter-web toy that a friend turned me onto the other day. It does what electronic manuel writers have been doing for years- it translates english sentences to japanese and back again, and back again, and back again. It does this until it strikes an equilibrium and the translation stops changing from one step to the next.

I plugged in two sentences, both taken from Petrarch's Sonnet 190. The firs was a literal translation from the original Latin into english. The second was a poetical translation by Sir Thomas Wyatt from his work titled "Whoso List to Hunt." Hilarity ensued.

Here are the two results-

Sonnet 190

Original English sentence: "Let no one touch me, It has pleased my Caesar to make me free."

End Product: "I am a Please select one. Caesar, happiness, and free will. "

(although one particularly good good translation about halfway through read "I select one, then I'm free, please try to be happy Caesar." It kind of reads like a Dear John letter.)

"Whoso List to Hunt"

Original English sentence: "Let no one touch me, Caesar's I am, and wild for to hold, though I seem tame."

End Product: "However, please contact me I need to save the wild sheep."

Try it out with your own sentences and post your findings.

My Favorite Dinosaur

2009-08-11T22:06:00.005-04:00

My favorite dinosaur, and second favorite entrepreneur (second only to Lex Luthor,) George Soros is giving a shit ton of money to the children of Harlem. 35 million dollars to be exact. The purpose of this weighty donation is that the money be used in support of low income families all over the city to pay for school supplies for the new year.

George Soros being awesome

Geroge Soros said, "Even in the toughest of economic times, starting the school year right is key to a child's success. ... When I was a student after World War II, I had no money. I received financial help, and I remember how important that was to my education."

Your the reptilian with the most Mr. Soros. Heres to you!

Tyrannosaurs in F-14s!!

Panorama Cotton

2009-07-23T15:56:00.000-04:00

Name: Panorama Cotton
System: Sega Genesis
Developer: Success
Publisher: Sunsoft
Release Date: 1994
Genre: Shoot-‘em-up

I guess you could call this a shooter, not a FPS, but an old-school shooter where you fly forward as enemies come at you. Anyway, it’s weird… You’re a witch and the version I have was half in Japanese, so I have no idea what the storyline is, not that it really matters I suppose.

What a clusterfuck. The game begins with the main character flying through space with weird rock arms trying to kill her and floaty Kirby-like blimps coming at her from every direction. You shoot green blobs at things while she makes cute noises while and unleashes unspeakable horrors from beyond against her foes from atop a broomstick. Oh, and there are My Little Ponies jumping about, and I can only assume you are supposed to kill them… that’s pretty damn gruesome, honestly, but surely every boy’s dream.

Not Pictured: The Yellow Submarine

The levels are pretty straightforward. Your character is on rails, flying forward automatically like pretty much all games of the genre. You’re supposed to be a witch with a fairy friend or something… I don’t know, the storyline was in Japanese. You swerve about trying to shoot everything on screen and dodge anything left, all the while marveling at the weirdness of it all. The more things you destroy, the higher your life bar goes. There are also “levels” of some sort that seem to equate to getting special abilities and the life bar increase, but I’m not quite sure if this is tied strictly to points. There are also some off capsules that you can shoot at, which seem to give you new special abilities. Honestly, I’m not really too sure, but I don’t really feel like it matters much. You can choose between three different flying speeds, which is helpful.

The graphics are pretty good for a Genesis games, a little glossed over with pinks and purples for my taste, but it’s definitely colorful. And hell, it’s 3-D… kinda. Everything is just very trippy, with rainbow rivers and odd Dali-esque rock cropping. Unfortunately, there aren’t any melting clocks that I saw. The music is decent, nothing particularly catchy, but at the very least doesn’t get annoying, and that’s all I ask for in a game like this.

Wilford Totem Poles

It’s a fun game, but a challenging one, like most shooters are. This is the sort of game that cannot be made anymore, and it’s a little sad. It’s just too weird to make any sense. A game about a little girl witch who flies on a broomstick and shoots random things with green blobs? And do I ever mean random… There are Wilford Brimley Totem poles, flying fish, Buddha monsters, blue cats wearing top hats and bubbles, oh my are there a lot of bubbles. Maybe in Japan these things can still happen, but the game would never get sent here. The option to change your speed mid-flight is nice, as are the special powers. I’m still trying to figure out what is with the fairy lady who flies ahead of you all the time. Maybe she’s just eye candy, and if that’s the case, thank you, Success.

A fun game, but probably not one that I could play for long without getting bored. However, definitely something worth picking up every once in a while.

Score: 7/10

Pow!

Warning Volcano Eruption

2009-07-10T01:39:00.005-04:00

Driving home tonight I saw this. Nearly pooped myself.

Michigan and Outer Drive, Dearborn, MI, 48124

Moon Men

2009-07-01T07:21:00.003-04:00

Moon Men
Originally uploaded by zagreb911

I am pretty much just ripping this story straight from another blog, content and all. My purpose for this is that I'm a big fan of both Frank Frazetta and IRL. I wish I'd know about the contest mentioned in the BB story while it was still going on- c'est la vie.

This group did an amazing job at recreating Frazetta's work. It helps that, as many people have commented on the flickr page already, that the woman in the shot is not only beautiful and curvaceous, but is also strikingly Frazetta-esque figure and matches the obalisque in the original painting remarkably closely.

I recently read E.R. Burroughs' 1912 novel A Princess of Mars. Frazetta did cover art and insets for a number of these works years after their initial serialization and publication. I was lucky enough to find an illustrated copy of the book in a near-by library's Special Collections. Both the illustration of the princess mentioned in the title of the book, Dejah Thoris, as well as E.R.B's description of her came to mind when I saw Zagreb911's photo.

"And the sight which met my eyes was that of a slender, girlish figure, similar in every detail to the earthly women of my past life... Her face was oval and beautiful in the extreme, her every feature was finely chiseled and exquisite, her eyes large and lustrous and her head surmounted by a mass of coal black, waving hair, caught loosely into a strange yet becoming coiffure. Her skin was of a light reddish copper color, against which the crimson glow of her cheeks and the ruby of her beautifully molded lips shone with a strangely enhancing effect.

She was as destitute of clothes as the green Martians who accompanied her; indeed, save for her highly wrought ornaments she was entirely naked, nor could any apparel have enhanced the beauty of her perfect and symmetrical figure."

All of My Friends are Pokemon

2009-06-25T16:17:00.005-04:00

Sometime in my youth, after Pogs but maybe still before Yo-Mega yo-yos, during the Bennie Baby fad, Pokemon rained supreme. As a consumer product Pokemon covered all its bases, growing from a cartoon into backpacks, shirts and shoes, kids meal toys and even a few movies and many video games. The Gameboy games were so engrossing that on its initial run Nintendo was able to successfully market two different games, Pokemon Red and Pokemon Blue, much in the same way the Zelda series would do later. Arguably though the penultimate form of the Pokemon craze was the playing card game. Like Magic the Gathering before it and YuhGiOh after it the Pokemon franchise was able to do with playing cards what man had been doing with gold, metal and paper for thousands of years- they gave value (sometimes grossly exaggerated value) to something that was before valueless.

Call it childhood pragmatism but I never saw the point of the things. Probably the largest contributor to my lack of interest overall though can be contributed to the lack of interest any of my peers had to show in them. The card game required more than you to play it and that was one more person than I was able to find interested in it. As for the Gameboy games I knew a few neighborhood kids, mostly younger and better off than myself, who played them to the extent that made them brattier and more irritating than little rich kids normally are or ever need to be. Its most likely possible that I missed out on the Pokemon craze for one reason though: alternative education. That’s right, I was one of those weird kids that went to a weird alternative education school where you couldn’t wear shirts with graphics or bring candy on Halloween. And of course there was no room for something like Pokemon.

Though I didn’t participate in Pokemon at all in it heyday I do have a pretty good understanding about it now. (It’s about social Darwinism right?) Either way, what I do understand about Pokemon is the same thing I understand about friendship, and that is that as a child I had no idea what it was about, or how it was supposed to work. But I see now what’s been true all along- that all of my friends are Pokemon.

It sounds strange but when you consider the case its absolutely true. The Pokemon Trading Card Game, like elementary school, begins with a starter pack that offers a player way more cards than they know what to do with, often with doubles and pointless fillers. The more you play the better your deck gets and by trading or buying or by some other means drawing to their deck those cards that they most desired and found compatible with a playing strategy. The same with friendships- you sort through those cards that don’t know how to play with and you’re left with those that always come through and you know how to work well with.

I don’t know much about Pokemon. And I once knew just as much about friends. But know I now Matt, and he’s pretty much my Blastoise. And my friend Eli, well, Eli is Diglett. And along with a few other people (who can also easily be likened to Pokemon) these are the friends I’m going to have for the rest of my life. They are the core of my deck. But along with them is also a bunch of people who I know and appreciate knowing even if we aren’t especially good friends. I value these people because like the cards, sometimes we’re convinced to value things we probably shouldn’t just for the entertainment of a thing. Like the guy in my bio course I always talked about Lovecraft fiction with (Tangela,) or that girl who never shuts up from high school (Zubat) or the one I almost dated who was once cute and fun (like Shellder) but know is a little scary and sexy (like Cloyster,) or the blogger who sits around and writes about Michigan Football and the rise of socialism in America (Drowzee.) Trust me, I can do this for just about anyone- as long as they have a personality, though I know that that may be asking a lot from some people (Psyduck.)

All of my friends are Pokemon. And I value each of them- even if they are priceless.

Ooooh, you're my best friend

In a world we must defend

Pokemon!

Oh, and Paul, if you’re reading this I think you should know- you’ll always be my Slowpoke.

Geography of DC Comics: America

2009-06-19T12:55:00.001-04:00

This post is the bastard child of many of my loves... history, geography, comics, sports, and perhaps some other things which I don't even realize. Read at your own risk.

The past couple of weeks I've been roaming the internet, trying to find information on the geography of DC Comics cities. Most of the information I've found has been on Gotham City and Metropolis, which have truly taken on a life of their own, morphed and evolved as more and more writers have molded them. Of course, that is the main problem, so many people have written about them for decades and it's gotten pretty convoluted.

I've always felt that there was a strange dichotomy between the two cities, one light and one dark... one grimy and real, the other a shining white utopia. Certainly this is simplistic, but it is the impression that I always got.

But where are they?

Gotham is on the east coast, that much is for sure, but the same can't be said for Metropolis. While Metropolis fits on the east coast for a variety of reasons (not the least of which being that it's supposed to be near Gotham), it is also supposed to be close to Smallville (at least according to the TV show, which I haven't actually seen), which is in Kansas. That might better place Metropolis in southern Illinois or somewhere along those lines. A couple of maps I found even have Metropolis where New York City should be, which is odd considering that NYC is in the DC Universe and Metropolis doesn't really fit there geographically. But, I don't like putting Metropolis in the Midwest, just because it would seem too far from Gotham. So I'm just going to put them both on the east coast. There is no perfect place for them, as you can see if you visit the various links in the article, but I like the idea of the cities being on either side of Delaware Bay the best, Gotham in New Jersey and Metropolis in Delaware. Sure that gives us the problem of increasing Delaware's population over tenfold and both of these huge cities probably being too close to Philadelphia, but I like the idea of the cities being so close, yet separated by a fairly large body of water.

The other big question, is what actual city do they correspond to? If I had to choose, I would have to say Gotham City is definitely New York City, the name even comes from the nickname given to NYC by Washington Irving. But, Metropolis is New York, too. I think that each of them, in their own ways, fits that city more than any other, but I'm not going to get into that big argument, because it doesn't really matter. If you want, you can read all about it in the various links strewn through the post. In the end, they are almost real, at least in the conceptions in people's minds.

While Gotham and Metropolis get all the limelight, there are actually many other fictional cities in the US, though I don't really know how large these others are. I'm assuming fairly big if they have their own superheroes, which leads to the obvious problem of large cities being oddly close together. This is explained away by the DC Universe earth being larger than ours. Which is kind of cool actually. There a bunch of cities (Coast City, Fawcett City, Gateway City) which I had never heard of before starting this. DC Atlas, the DC Comics Database and Wikipedia are all good places to find more information.

Futurama Season 6

2009-06-10T15:15:00.004-04:00

Well, it's happening, Futurama has been picked up by Comedy Central for another season, this time with a whopping 26 episodes, which will make it the longest Futurama season to date. I'm ecstatic, though we'll have to wait until 2010 to see them and if I'm assuming correctly and they'll begin airing in the fall, I'll already have my Bachelor's Degree by then... that's a terrifying thought.

I guess you'd call this season six, though things are a little fuzzy considering Fox originally aired Futurama as five seasons, even though they were produced as if they were four. When you add the movies, which were cut up into episodes and aired on Comedy Central, you really have a mess on your hands. Whatever, Futurama is back.

"I want frogmen!"

2009-04-02T20:22:00.004-04:00

I was recently knocking about with the WaybackMachine and stumbled across this perfectly acceptable quote on Michael Chabon's homepage-

"Give me an underground laboratory, half a dozen atomsmashers, and a girl in a diaphanous veil waiting to be turned into a chimpanzee, and I care not who writes the nation's laws." -S.J. Perelman

Great Caesar's Ghost!

2009-03-15T21:09:00.002-04:00

Happy Ides of March everybody! And now without further ado I bring you The Death of Julius Caesar by youtube's Masharoony. It's pretty fantastic.

Tiger Stadium

2009-03-03T12:27:00.003-05:00

I wrote a post a long time ago about the situation of Tiger Stadium. I'm not sure that my opinion is the same as it was then, but I know that I would like to see something there. A park would be nice, or just some indication that baseball was played there for decades.

The point of writing this is mostly to call out the Detroit Free Press for misquoting someone, which led to me insulting him. I know your paper is mostly dying because of the internet, but it's this sort of ineptitude that has poisoned your name to so many people in the first place.

We here at BSD would just like to apologize for spreading the miss quote, because we know the Free Press won't.

The Oscars

2009-02-21T13:40:00.004-05:00

Every year I tell myself that I'm going to watch all the movies nominated for Best Picture, mostly because then I can complain more effectively. Not that I think most of the Best Picture winners aren't deserving, but I rarely feel they are most deserving. This year I managed to watch 2.5 of the movies nominated for Best Picture and I don't even see myself being able to finish The Reader before tomorrow night. Despite that, I am going to try to make a few observations.

Best Actor
The only two performances I have seen from these nominees are Sean Penn and Brad Pitt. Brad Pitt as Benjamin Button was nothing special in my mind. I really enjoyed the movie, but his performance wasn't especially moving or great in my mind. I though Sean Penn did a good job as Milk and would rather see him win it than Pitt, but I hope it goes to someone else.

Best Supporting Actor
Heath Ledger has this won hands down. It's not even a contest.

Best Actress
I've only seen half a role in this one, but so far Kate Winslet did a very good job with the character. Her acting was subtle and even stoic, but very effective. And there were a lot of sex scenes, that's always a plus. Couple all that with the fact that she has six nominations and zero wins, I think this one goes to her.

Best Supporting Actress
Taraji P. Henson was good in Benjamin Button, but I'm not sure it was Oscar worthy, then again i haven't seen any of the other nominees, so who knows.

Best Director
Honestly, I have no idea. Everyone says Danny Boyle is going to run away with this thing, and if what I've heard about Slumdog Millionaire is true, he should. Making that great of a movie with untrained actors? That is a feat.

Best Picture
The category I tried so hard to be able to actually give an educated opinion on. Unfortunately I failed. Is saying Dark Knight or Wall-E cheating? I think both of those were better pictures than Benjamin Button, Milk or half of The Reader. If I had to pick between Button and Milk, I would go with milk. While I enjoyed Benjamin Button more, I didn't find anyhting particularly moving or important about it, which I think is an important consideration for best picture. Milk was a great movie and was very touching. But, from what I've read Slumdog Millionaire has this category and I've heard it's great.

While I'm disappointed that Dark Knight didn't get nominated for Best Picture, I'm even more disappointed that Wall-E did not. While I find it hard to fathom an animated movie ever winning, I think that it deserved a nomination at least. It was an amazing movie and deserves more than to simply win Best Animated Feature.

Well... there you have it. My awful opinions. I highly doubt I will be watching tomorrow night, but I'm sure I'll be bugging my girlfriend about who won what throughout.

If you want some better opinions on the Oscars, go here:
Careful with that Blog, Eugene
Nate Silver

Blog News: Apologies and Words

2009-02-16T19:44:00.002-05:00

Wow... It's been way too long, for the blog and especially for me. We had been doing so good for a while there, but I sort of got out of the groove of posting and never got back in it. I can't promise anything, but after Spring Break where Stef and I will be heading to New York and New Jersey and once hockey season ends and I'm done broadcasting for the most part, things should really pick up. I'm not going to make any promises, but I'm going to try.

Not that BSD supports judging books by their covers, but this is a pretty cool list.

BSD on planning on saving a word, but the site doesn't seem to be working. Hopefully more will come of this later.

Tentacle Rape Roundup

2009-01-25T13:03:00.001-05:00

When I began this post months ago BSD was back on the front page of Google's Tentacle Rape results and clocking in at number 9. We're since gone again. With some of our former slimy glory gone here's my attempt to reclaim what's been lost. (As always my tentacle interaction is tainted with some Lovecraft lovin' so please forgive any variations in the follow.)

Before the future of BSDs Tentacle Rape is taken any further I'd like to give you a brief history of Tentacle Rape. In the 1820s Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai produced an erotic woodcut called The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife. In it a woman is sexually taken by two octopi, a larger and smaller. Not until years later would Tentacle Erotica reemerge in Japanese culture.

The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife

In 1987 in an attempt to dodge Japanese pornography laws which prohibited the depiction of animated phalluses Toshio Maeda created the tentacle rape monster. (Similar laws brought about the creation of Bukkake in Japanese porno as well.) No phalluses, just tentacles. This new incarnation of tentacle rape premiered in Urotsukidoji and quickly found a cult following.

In the 90s and 00s with the advent of the internet there was a dual flood of Anime among it and friendless teenagers alike. Two things Matt and I have spent a lot of time with. We were fated to come into contact with TR eventually, and reluctantly we did. Now with everything up to speed on tot he round-up!

Someone at Threadless Tees combined what BSD most likes (SciFi) with what it most hates (T-shirts?) to illustrate the danger of sending octopuses into space.

I was surprised and delighted when I saw that Jones Soda made a Barack Obama flavored pop. I was less delighted and much more shocked when I saw that Mnemosyne made a Tentacle Grape flavored pop.

SomethingAwful.com' Photoshop Phriday are working to make sure even Tentacle's are conscious and aware of safer sex habits. Introducing the Rape-Tentacle Strength Condom!

Artist Rune Olsen may have accidently created one of the most impressive and beautiful works of Tentacle Rape since The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife.

Some things should never exist. Like this, the complete works of HP. Lovcraft online. Truly a horror of unspeakable measure.

The Perry Bible Fellowship (one of the internets greatest webcomics) has a Cthulhu inspired strip that is just as scary and much more realistic than anything Lovecraft ever wrote. All hair Zuthulu!

Until next time have a happy tentacle~

Cthulhu's Day Out

E.A.P. at 200

2009-01-19T12:24:00.003-05:00

Today is Edgar Allen Poe's 200th birthday. I've not much to say about the man himself except that I respect him in the same regards as did jack Torrence: as America's greatest hack. Other than that, I love him.

For the sports fans among our readers here is a great Poe-centric projection of the Baltimore Ravens's season.

Earlier this morning if you felt a presence around you it wasn't Mr. Poe, he was busy elsewhere- at a seance in Richmond (or at least that's what some where hoping.)

For the creative types who like Poe could benefit from a friend maybe this will help you through those cold and unforgiving nights.

Or, if you'd rather just have a laugh, as always the people at Uncyclopedia have what can only be considered the definitive biography of Poe.~

"Edgar Allan Poe, being a 'preemie' man himself, wrote many essays containing explicit premature ejaculation references, one of which was naturally entitled The Premature Ejaculation. In addition, he wrote a self-help essay, Thou Art the Man to assist the community men in maintaining their pride. Edgar Allan Poe's face is still featured on many commercial condoms and is sometimes viewed as a thwart against prematurely spunkin' it. The catchphrase typically labled on the condom reads, 'How they tingle, tingle, tingle, In the icy air of night!'"

Finally a terrific cartoon from the 1950s adapted from Poe's classic The Tell Tale Heart narrated by Humbert Humbert.

If you're still interested in EAP after this little round up I suggest tonight that you open a bottle of wine and a good book while you settle in for a relax evening with all your friends a family who happen to be suffering from tuberculosis. Enjoy.

Also of special note today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day. I am entirely grateful to the man and his legacy- much more than I am to Edgar Allen Poe's. I hope you all have a great day and have a chance to watch the Inauguration tomorrow.

Googling: December

2009-01-17T14:14:00.000-05:00

Well... things have been slow lately. My excuse is that I've had the flu, I'm not sure what Caleb's is. This month was kinda slow as far as good search terms, but it seems mostly that people who searched for stuff actually found what they were looking for. Hopefully....

"tentacle rape" derivative of the month: "tentacle rape star trek"

"? more like gay" - Um... no?

"come battere i grox in spore per il pc" - What? Is that even English? The Grox are some weird gremlin-like cyborg race in the center of the galaxy in Spore. They're evil bastards.

"how much does a blast mat cost?" - I think the real question is what is a blast mat...

"song that says motherfucker the most" - This seems like a noble project to undertake, but one that would be very time consuming. Anyone up to it? I would start with The Carpenters if I were you.

Ackbar for Christmas

2009-01-03T20:42:00.006-05:00

Merry Christmas form my mom. The Amigurumi (or crocheted doll) below was made by her.

"We have no choice General Calrissian! Our cruisers can't repel cuteness of this magnitude!"

After she'd completed my Cthulhu, the pattern for which came from Creepy Cute Crochet, she asked me for a gift idea for my girlfriend. And of course I thought who is there better to immortalize in amigurumi than my second favorite aquatic killing machine, Admiral Ackbar, the true hero of the Rebellion. After some quick interwebing I found that an amigurumi of Ack already existed, however the pattern did not. Lucky my old lady's a wiz and whipped one up in no time herself.
She also had time to make Matt his own Cthulhu, who is slightly more menacing due to his longer and larger tentacles. I'm working on a pattern to make an even better Cthulhu so if anyone has any ideas of what might make a creature of unspeakable horrors like Cthulhu more unspeakably horrible please try and find someway to articulate it in the comments. Also, if you have any other ideas of who or what might make a nice Amigurumi let us know.

Here's a delightful little song that Matt's girlfriend Stef (of Snowden's Secret) wrote about his new Cthulhu-

"Who had a head that is full of fluff?

C'thul-lu, C'thul-lu!

Who has beans up in his butt?

C'thul-lu, C'thul-lu!"

Winter TV Preview

2009-01-01T16:43:00.002-05:00

The Definites or the shows I'll definitely be watching every week ASAP

New Seasons:

Battlestar Galactica, Friday 10:00, premieres 1/16 (Sci-Fi)
Finally! Finally... after way too long, BSG returns with the second half of the fourth, and final, season to finally resolve what the hell happens between the Colonials and those crazy toasters. I'm more excited about this than any other show this winter by a long shot. While I think the show was ended by Sci-Fi too soon, at least we get a logical ending on the series creator's terms, which is all I ever wanted.

Lost, Wednesday 9:00, premieres 1/21 (ABC)
Lost returns with more plot twists and confusion than any one person can handle, and I for one am extremely excited about it. If you haven't seen this show yet, I really wouldn't recommend coming into the middle of the series, but if you can handle the odd and often convoluted plot, go start watching this from the first episode, it's worth it.

Scrubs, Tuesday 9:00, premieres 1/6 (ABC)
Scrubs returns for its eighth season now on ABC, and supposedly in a more "family friendly" format. Whatever the hell that means, though I don't really like the sound of it. Courtney Cox will be on the show, at least for a while, which seems to be a slightly iffy move. While I think it hasn't been as funny the last few seasons, it is still a quality show and one that I need to see the end of if only to see what happens to some of my favorite characters on TV.

Returning Shows:

30 Rock, Thursday 9:30, returns 1/8 (NBC)
Tina Fey, Alec Baldwin and Tracy Morgan are all great in this show about a TV show. The humor is a nice mix of smart and outrageous and makes for a great comedy.

The Big Bang Theory, Monday 8:30, returns 1/12 (CBS)
Simply hilarious. I have no idea how they put together a show that is so smart, yet so accessible or how they avoid dumb blonde jokes. The show is dorky as hell, yet my grandmother and my sister's mom still really enjoy it. I'm constantly vacillating whether I like this or How I Met Your Mother more, but I can't really decide.

Chuck, Monday 8:00, returns 2/2 (NBC)
This show is on the borderline between a watch every week and catching it occasionally. It's not great, it's extremely formulaic, but the characters are interesting and likable. I really think that Chuck is getting too good at his job, which sort of does away with the bumbling secret agent aspect of the show, but oh well... I seem to turn it on every Monday night, so it must be doing something right.

Fringe, Tuesday 9;00, returns 1/20 (Fox)
It took me several months to actually watch the first episode of this show, but I was really awarded once I did. It reminds me of a cross between The X-Files and Law and Order (minus the court drama), which really makes for a fine show. The plots are weird and interesting, characters are great (especially John Noble as the insane scientist) and the show seems truly original. My only complaint is the way they superimpose the name of wherever the characters happen to be on the screen... it's kinda cool at first, but gets a bit annoying.

House, Monday 9:00, returns 1/19 (FOX)
Same old, same old... House really great character, show way too formulaic. I keep watching this show, because it is still pretty good, but I'm not sure how long I can keep going.

How I Met Your Mother, Monday 8:30, returns 1/12 (CBS)
As funny as every and now that CBS Mondays also have Big Bang Theory, it makes this an even more must-watch show. Besides, I really want to find out who the hell the mother is.

The Office, Thursday 9:00, returns 2/1 (NBC)
Great, just great. Somehow they keep bringing great episode after great episode. I really don't think there is anything else to say.

The Probables, or the shows that I'll be watching every week sometime, probably

Family Guy 9:00, returns TBD (Fox)
This show is funny at times, but also incredible stupid. I'll watch it if I have time, but I never look forever to it.

Sanctuary, Friday 10:00, returns 1/2 (Sci-Fi)
I can't claim this is a good show... Everything is done in front of a green screen and it shows, the acting is pretty bad, and the overarching plot about some sort of Illuminati pretty uninteresting. I put this on here because I usually watch it and there have been some really good episodes. It has a lot of potential, but it keeps wandering outside its wheelhouse. You are a show about monsters, stick with that... and please give me more than one per episode.

The Simpsons 8:00, returns TBD (Fox)
I wish this show would just end, I really do. It's still decent, but mostly I just miss how amazing this show used to be. The new episode are just too overdone and heavy handed. The MyPod episode? Come on...

The Newcomers or shows I have yet to see, but which look interesting

Castle, Monday 10:00, premieres 3/9 (ABC)
Nathan Fillion (Firefly) stars in this show about a mystery writer who has to help the NYPD solve a series of murders based on his books. While it's not that great a premise in my mind, it could be good, so I'll give the pilot a shot.

Dollhouse, Friday 9:00, premieres 2/13 (Fox)
I have a vague idea of the premise of this show: a group of people get memories implanted in their brains to make them believe they are any person a customer wishes them to be and once their assignment is over, their memories are wiped. You can imagine what could go wrong with this. It seems like a really weird and interesting premise. Fox has already been fucking with the show, and I doubt it will last all that long, but the only thing I really care about is that it's Joss Whedon's new show, and no matter what, I'm going to at least give it a shot.

Dropped or shows I will not be watching

My Name is Earl, Thursday 8:00, returns 1/9 (NBC)
It's not that I don't like this show, but the whole trailor-trash angle annoys me a little at times. Jason Lee is great, but I didn't watch a single episode of this during the year. It probably has something to do with me being behind, but if I really had a desire to see the show I would get caught up. I'm sure I'll end up watching re-runs of this eventually, but for now it's gone.

The No-Shows or shows that won't have new episodes this winter

Aqua Teen Hunger Force, returns March 2009 (Cartoon Network)

The Boondocks, return TBA (Cartoon Network)

Californication, return TBA (Showtime)

Venture Brothers, return TBA(Cartoon Network)

25 Best Songs that I First Heard in '08

2008-12-31T00:31:00.001-05:00

For New Year's I decided that I would have a countdown, and since I hardly ever write about music here, I figured that'd be as good a subject as any. However, since I have thousands of songs to slog through from the years 1960-2007, I never actually got around to listening to any new music. So, not one of these songs was actually released in 2008. But, most of them are fairly new... you know, except for the ones from 1966. I tried to list them in some sort of semblance of likability order, but it was damn hard, and I also limited it to one song by any given artist. I doubt these are in perfect order, but I'm not willing to agonize over the list for several more hours. So... Enjoy.

25. The Call - Reginia Spektor, from the 2008 album The Chronicles of Narnia Prince Caspian Soundtrack
I really hate that this is on the list, but it's so damn catchy. I must've heard this song two hundred times while working at the movie theater this summer, but it never got old. It probably brainwashed me, but whatever... I like it.

24. The World - The Starting Line, from the 2005 album Based on a True Story

23. Fable - Gatsby's American Dream from the 2005 album Volcano
A song about Lord of the Flies? Hell yes.

22. I'm on Fire - Bruce Springsteen from the 1985 album Born in the U.S.A.
Chalk this one up to my dad's habit of buying greatest hit's albums and the radio's inability to play lesser known songs, but somehow I never heard this song until this year.

21. When I Grow Up - Garbage, from the 1998 album Version 2.0

20. Take Cover - Acceptance, from the 2005 album Phantoms

19. Brighter - Paramore, from the 2005 album All We Know Is Falling

18. Live Forever - Oasis, from the 1994 album Definitely Maybe
Until this year I had only ever listened to What's the Story Morning Glory?, but this song is great. I really should check out more from this album.

17. Starlight - Muse, from the 2006 album Black Holes and Revelations

16. Banshee Song - Gob, from the 2007 album Muertos Vivos
The only song on this list that was also on the Best Halloween Song's list.

15. Do You Feel - The Rocket Summer, from the 2007 album Do You Feel?

14. The Underdog - Spoon, from the 2007 album Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
Obnoxious album title, but a great song. It has an extremely catchy beat and good melody.

13. Pictures of You - The Last Goodnight, from the 2007 album Poison Kiss
I first heard this song after driving home from Ann Arbor after having one of the most interesting nights of my life with a girl... It involved a raccoon, and probably warrants a post one of these days.

12. Anyone Else But You - The Moldy Peaches
While definitely not my favorite song in Juno I did really enjoy the simple melody and quirky lyrics. It's probably done better by Ellen Page and Michael Cera, but this is the full version. I also really have no friggin' clue what album this is from. Now, I realize that Juno came out last year, but I for the life of me can't remember when I went to see it. Anyway, I certainly never really started listening to the songs from the movie on any regular basis until 2008.

11. Sea of Love - Cat Power, from the 2007 album Music from the Motion Picture Juno
Also from Juno.

10. Shimmer - Fuel, from the 1998 album Sunburn

9. Only Women Bleed - Lita Ford, from the 1990 album Stiletto
This is a cover of an Alice Cooper song, but frankly as much as I like Cooper, I'm not all that into his music. I think it's much more fitting to have this song sung by a woman, anyway.

8. The Conversation - Motion City Soundtrack, from the 2007 album Even If It Kills Me
Sad as hell, but with a lot of enjoyable lyrics. I first heard this thanks to Julia Nunes.

7. Breathe Me - Sia, from the 2004 album Colour The Small One

6. A Well Respected Man - The Kinks
This song was released in 1966... I have no idea how it took me over fifty years to hear it. It's great and also from Juno.

5. Pieces - Sum 41, from the 2004 album Chuck

4. All the Young Dudes - Mott the Hoople, from the 1972 album All the Young Dudes
Juno again...

3. A Lifetime - Better Than Ezra, from the 2001 album Closer
A song about death... sad, sweet, gives you that bittersweet feeling of longing in your gut, just amazing.

2. Here I Dreamt I Was an Architect - The Decemberists, from the 2002 album Castaways and Cut-Outs
I don't really have any idea what this song is about, but someday I'm going to really sit down and study it. This song might have the best lyrics of any that I have ever heard, everything just fits perfectly. It's slow, melancholy and just beautiful.

1. New Slang - The Shins, from the 2001 album Oh, Inverted World
This might be my favorite song of all time. The lyrics are second only to the above mentioned and everything else about it is even better. Nothing has ever better captured the feeling I get in my gut late at night better, not even my countless attempts at writing about it.

Roger Clemens' MVP Baseball

2008-12-22T19:53:00.000-05:00

Name: Roger Clemens’ MVP baseball
System: Sega Genesis
Developer: Sculptured Software, Inc
Publisher: Flying Edge
Release Date: 1992
Genre: Sports

Roger Clemens’ Baseball is pretty unknown to the best of my knowledge and it is pretty clear why. It’s not a particularly good game, or a fun one for that matter. There are only four pitch options: fastball, changeup, pitch that curves to the right and one that curves to the left. Despite all that, there is a player named C. Burger. When I was little I always assumed his first name was Cheese. He was a pretty damn good hitter, too. Anyway, the game is sweet if only because it its own major leagues with made up teams with funny nicknames (The New York team is the “Rebels” for some reason). Oh, and Roger Clemens’ has a ridiculous ERA of 0.0321 or at least close to that. Seriously, even he never used that many steroids.

My girlfriend and I decided to play… okay, maybe “dragged her into it” is a better description, but she enjoyed it, I think, at least somewhat. At least as much as I did. I mean, it is a boring game, but it’s so bad that it is pretty amusing. Except after playing nine innings like we did… especially when the score was 29-2. But at least I got to shell Roger Clemens, though I was a bit frustrated I didn’t hit any homers. It was probably because the Minnesota Hounds suck ass.

Anyway, the mechanics are pretty bad. Pitching is easy because you can control the ball up to the point it hits the catchers glove, so it’s simple to fake out the batter. One nice thing is that the pitchers tire as they throw, so they lose some heat on their fastballs. The batting is okay, I guess, though it’s completely two dimensional. But the fielding, my god is the fielding awful. First off, the players are slow as molasses and can’t move diagonally. A thrown ball also moves about as slow as you’d expect it to if a tractor beam had it, luckily the base runners are almost as slow.

The graphics are below average, even for a genesis game. There just isn’t any character to them. The sound is annoying, though the “foul” call sort of amuses me for some reason. The music isn’t very good and there isn’t really much else as far as sounds go.

All in all, it’s a pretty crappy game, but fun for a few innings and the names are worth a chuckle or two. One of my players was named “S. Pitts.”

Here are the teams from the game:

American West
Seattle Pioneers
Kansas City Kings
Minnesota Hounds
Chicago Red Birds
Texas Cowboys
Oakland Cobras
California Waves

American East
Toronto Bears
Detroit Dawgs
New York Rebels
Baltimore Eagles
Cleveland Tomahawks
Milwaukee Marshalls
Boston Crabs

National West
Atlanta Condors
San Francisco Quakes
Houston Mustangs
Cincinnati Big Cats
Los Angeles Thrashers
San Diego Suns

National East
Philadelphia Generals
Montreal Lumberjacks
St. Louis Dragons
Chicago Swords
Pittsburgh Black Cats
New York Buffalos

Score: 4/10

From the Dust Returned: Blogging the Dead

2008-12-17T03:22:00.000-05:00

This post was originally conceived to continue and make a practice of Matt's Profile in Courage blog reports. Sadly though these blogs didn't last long enough to get there. So I introduce you to six of my favorite Blogs of the Dead.

To Hell and Back (or Hellback)

This is a blog I had a lot of hope for but like all in this list it seems that was not enough to sustain it. Matt and I went back and forth quite some bit about plugging this blog in our sidebar but ultimately it's inability to keep over time condemned it to only be plugged here, after its death. When once BSD ran a word search on the entire body of work Hellback produced the words "penis,""beowulf," and "jesus" appeared some fifty odd times each. With numbers like those it's a wonder what happened to this blog.

Things I Should Keep to Myself

This blog I found earlier in the year. I don't know if E. has totally abandoned it yet or not; I've seen others comeback from far further points of neglect. I hope they do because they have the beginnings of a nice rant-style blog with one or two promising posts. My favorite post of theirs (Give Yourself a Hand) ruminates on the inability of men in relation to the female sex organ and contains the kind lines "Seriously, guys, a clit is not a record and you are not a DJ. There is a method, and most of ya'll don't know it."

The Impression I Get (or Green)
is gone. Green was (is?) a regular reader and commenter on BSD and had a nice flavor for the creative. However, my favorite post on The Impression I Get was Speling!, an argument investigation into spelling reform and all it's fascist antecedents.

Tres Pretentieux

A master of linguistics, music, and humor, the author of this seemingly deceased blog, Karl, can also be found writing along side Paul (the original dead blogger) and myself at Sublime Noises. Karl has a slew of tremendously funny posts but none is funnier to me than his virgin voyage post, Robot Penis, Activate! Karl's lack of blogging can be excused by his new venture into hip-hop. He's quickly becoming my favorite new artist. Take a listen and become a fan on Facebook or Myspace.

The Misadventures of a Flannel Wearing Nerd
I take personal responsibility for the name of this blogger. Lumber Jackie is one of the tallest, coolest and sexiest nerds I know, which is one reason why the idea of her blogging has always appealed to me. She's the perfect type for it. The most personal of all the blogs here, TMFWN started off as a way of friends keeping in touch but lately it's been rather slow. Still in it's early days I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt and saying it's on a 'temporary hiatus' in hopes it will soon return. If it does I hope to bring you more form it in the future.

Heathcliff

A one hit wonder not to be confused with Paul's own quickly dying blog, Heathcliff Explained, Heathcliff the Blog was in the same vain as livejournal or regular journals. My favorite post was their first and only. My favorite line? "finals are in a week. sure i'm ready for them, but are they ready for me?" Why do the young and talented always have to be taken from us to early.

Some of you are friends of BSD, others complete strangers; but all are missed. To any Dead Bloggers who might be reading this I leave you with this final thought : It's not too late! As Scrooge learned from the Spirit of Christmas-yet-to-Come, these are not the visions of what is but only what might become.
CML

The Next Beowulf: Moby Dick

2008-12-13T12:18:00.000-05:00

While any movie hoping to surpass the utter craptastic excellence that is Beowulf has a lot of work ahead of it, the new Moby Dick flick might just do it. Yes... I said, the new Moby Dick, because there has been like seven other adaptations according to Wikipedia. Go ahead and check them out if you want. I'm just going to make the assumption that they suck and be done with it. However, they surely don't have the level of suck that this new movie could be capable of.

They're going to turn Ahab into a good guy! How is that even possible? While, I've never read the novel, I've read enough about literature to know the guy is a nut... BSD is NEVER for making a character saner... that just doesn't make any sense. I'm sure I'll see this thing eventually, just because it's guaranteed to be hilariously bad.

Links:
Rotten Tomatoes
Film School Rejects

Literary Roundup part 3

2008-12-08T01:32:00.005-05:00

Third verse same as the first-

In a hurry? Are Sparknotes just too time consuming for you? Than read all you need here at Book-A-Minute, the most condensed reading room on the net. Some greats are the entries for Dune, The Collected Works of H.P. Lovecraft , A Tale of Two Cities , The Collected Works of E.A. Poe and Finnegans Wake. Many of the synopses may seem cynical and overly critical of the works but it's Matt's belief and mine as well that there is no way that someone could be so precisely funny and pointed in their interpretations of these books without actually understanding and enjoying them. I guess it's all part of the fun of things.

Here's a poet I found rather interesting. His name is John Gillespie Magee, Jr. and his poem High Flight was quoted by Ronald Reagan in his speech commemorating the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. ~

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of—wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air....
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark nor even eagle flew—
And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

Recently I read The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Philip K. Dick. I very much enjoyed it. Of all the Dick I've read I found it the most enjoyable and the least scattering of his genius. I also recently mentioned Dick's sort story "The Electric Ant" in a post and dropped that soon in the new year Marvel will be putting out a comic based on the story- expect more on this as it develops. Further more, I'm become a real Dick head it would seem; I wrote to the PKDSociety but the P.O. Box no longer exists and my letter as returned to me stamped informing me so. If your interested in become a Dick head too look here at The Complete Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol. 5
and start using Dickian to describe things the same way others use Dickinsian.

The Ayn Rand Corner:
The new York magazine has collected some delightful excerpts from TheAtlasphere.com, an online Ayn Rand dating community. Some of my favorites are lostpainting, thustotyrants, and Lewis who says "Really, nothing is hotter than an accomplished girl in a suit, as long as she is willing to settle down and have my children."

Also on the menu is THE ABRIDGED ATLAS SHRUGGED from SpudWorks. The story succeeds as a web-lob where it failed as a novel.

Finaly for the Tolkienists and Ringers among our readers. This is a short a sweet little reading from what I can only assume was an early version The Hobbit about Bilbo's short short and sweet... well, you know. NSFW.

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

You can find the story in its entirety here.

And coming soon my review of Ezra Pound's posthumous and greatest work- Ezra Pound: Ezra Pound's Caged Wisdom.

Happy reading,
Caleb

Googling: November

2008-12-05T13:17:00.004-05:00

Another month, another group of people of came to BSD and were disappointed. Seeing as we here at BSD want to spread happiness and good cheer this holiday season, we have answered your prayers! Thank us by coming back to read our actual articles.

"Tentacle rape" derivative of the month: "lovecraftian tentacle monster". This rape necessarily, but too good to pass up.

1. "I hate ohio" - thirteen of these this month, I really wish we could help.

2. "bsd games grue" - I found this, but I can't find Zork.

3. "'all that listening to wagner' wilde" - According to Wikiquote, Wilde uses "Wagnerian" in The Important of Being Earnest. But, I believe you want the unofficial treatment.

4. "(pennywise) it" - So this is why people are afraid of clowns.

5. "aquarium filtration systems" - I'd recommend a basic hanging filter for most people. It's a good idea to get one rated for a bigger tank than the one you have just to be safe. You can get pretty good prices on them online if you search around.

6. "calb humbert" - I think this is one of Caleb's pseudonyms.

7. "chewing the fat I smell shite" - Um... moving on.

8. "fight between edward and james" - No, Twilight fans, you do not get to refer to these characters by their first name in a Google search. BSD will not allow it!

9. "greek mythology monster with six heads and ten tentacles" - I assume you're talking about Scylla or a hydra, but neither of them had tentacles, at least how they are usually portrayed. Krakens have tentacles, but those are Norse.

10. "growing up creepy" - I think you're talking about the X-Files episode "Home".

11. "hansel and gretel" - Two children get sent into the forest because their mother is evil and their father is an idiot. They put down bread crumbs to mark their trail, proving genetics, which birds eat. They find a gingerbeard house and begin eating it. The owner, a witch, invites them inside, planning to cook them. A woodsman comes along and throws her in the oven.

12. "ice castles theme" - This looks awful, but I'm just judging by the CD cover.

13. "introduction to objectivist epistemology pamphlet" - You know, good idea. Just read this instead of Atlas Shrugged. Or... you know what? Read a real philosopher. Pick up Locke's Second Treatise on Civil Government or Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations or better yet, go read something by John Kenneth Galbraith and discover that the only purpose in life isn't accumulating as much shit as you can. Who are you? Smaug?

14. "led zeppelin fish rape" - I swear I already talked about this, but here is the story via Snopes.

15. "mario villain reznor" - Yes! Reznor is awesome, though I'm not sure that's necessarily his name and I wouldn't call him a "villain" per se. A ferris wheel of triceratops spewing fireballs, sure, but a villain?

Reznor!

16. "ray price for the good times" - Ever heard of youtube?

17. "starwars shield robot" - That would be a Destroyer Droid, of "Where are those Droidekas?!" fame.

18. "vincent price hypnotizes" - Yes he does.

I could stare into those eyes forever

Caprica

2008-12-02T18:20:00.003-05:00

After months of waiting, Sci-Fi has finally decided it will pick up the Battlestar Galactica prequel series Caprica. While, I doubt the show will be as amazing as BSG is, it's good to see the universe continuing.

Unfortunately, it looks like we'll have to wait a while to see it.

Spore

2008-12-01T14:22:00.003-05:00

Name: Spore
System: PC
Developer: Maxis
Publisher: EA
Release Date: 2008
Genre: Strategy

I don't play new video games often, which explains my obsession with the SNES and Sega Genesis... and also Zork. Frankly, they're just too expensive for a college kid to afford, I don't really have all that much time to play them and the newfangled graphics scare me (this is a lie). If you really want a fun tirade about how new video games suck, go talk to Paul. The truth is that he just sucks at them.

Anyway... despite all this, I decided that I needed to play Spore. I had been excited about it for ages. It was by the creator of Sim City, Sim City 2000, Sim Ant, SimCopter, The Sims, Sim- er... you get the point. Will Wright is a genius, or at least he created two games that were great, and while I never played too much of The Sims and always found the incessant release of expansion packs annoying, Sim City 2000 is amazing. I wasted days of my youth building Mattopolis, Mattland, Matt City, St. Matthewsburg and destroying Egypt Falls.

Spore was supposed to be the greatest video game ever... the most diverse, the most interesting, the most fun... it was supposed to have everything, be everything as it spanned evolution from one-celled organisms to space-traveling civilization. But you know what? It kinda sucks.

Don't get me wrong, it's a good game, it really is, and I enjoyed it a lot, but it's not a great game because there is so much missing. Playing it I just felt so much potential had gone to waste. Is that the games fault? Probably not... but it is Will Wright's for trying to create the ultimate game and failing. The trouble is inherent in its design, it was made to be so much bigger than it could ever hope to be. It's five games in one, which necessitates stripping down each one far too much. Of course, I'm still playing the Space stage, which is fun enough, and making creatures, which is great, but there is something missing, and it's not a little problem. Because of this, I have a hard time truly ranking it. While it was fun to play, I feel as if I would be better served playing a game of flOw, then a game of E.V.O, then some Age of Mythology, followed by a game of Civ II and then some Galactic Civilizations II back-to-back-to-back... we'll you get the idea. All these stages in Spore are fun, but so incomplete. Besides, it has a ridiculous DRM.

Cell Stage

A fun and simple stage that is basically a rip off of flOw, a game that's free to download online. Despite the fact that flOw is superior from a strictly gameplay standpoint, the fact that you decide the look and evolution of your creature is nice. My only real gripe with the stage is that you do not have actual control over your character, but point it in a direction and it heads that way. This control method works well in later stages, but not so great here. This stage could be much better if you could control your character like you can in fl0w, turning on a dime, speeding up and slowing down at will, being able to use your different attacks by button presses. It would also be nice if the creatures in this stage didn't basically all look identical... just a little more customization would be great. I'm not asking for as many options as the creature stage, just a few more so that this stage could warrant a replay now and again.

Creature Stage
A decent stage, but again the control holds things back some. I really believe that things would be better with direct control of your character and his combat actions. This would lend more to an action game feel. As it is, you run around either killing things (carnivore) or dancing and singing or other creatures (herbivore) in order to gain parts and evolve your creature. However, the real meat of this stage is creature evolution, which it excels at. There are so many parts to collect that you could literally spend days messing with your character, adding parts, removing others and deciding just what you like. Despite this, the creature creation menu is the only real draw here, and that can be accessed from the main panel and with all the options right away, instead of having to find parts. While longer than the cell stage, this is always a pretty quick affair.

Tribal Stage
This might be my second favorite stage of the game. While there is really not much to it, wiping out other tribes is fun. The resource gathering aspect is shallow, and while there is no technological progress to speak of, it is still a fun, but quick stage. The goal is to expand your village so that you can either conquer or ally with neighboring villages. In order to do this, you need a higher population, and to get a higher population you need more food. You gain food either by hunting, fishing or stealing from other tribes. You can build a few different buildings. Units are divided into classes, your chief, soldiers (spear throwers, archers, axemen), fishermen and musicians (maracas, didgeridoos, drums). Like the entire game, it would benefit from being longer and deeper. More weapons, more technological development, the ability to control more than one village... all these things would help greatly.

Civilization Stage
Yawn. Perhaps the most bare-bones stage in the game when compared to the games that it was based off of and without a doubt the easiest. You rush to get as many resources as you can before other civilizations pop up, then you mass build units and just swarm them. Victory was never in doubt, and while the other stages are not difficult by any means, this was insanely easy. Like the creature stage and the tribal stage before it, this stage is only an obstacle to get to Space. You can remain in these stages as long as you wish, but there is no point... These stages need to become longer and deeper, so that they stand on their own merits rather than something that needs to be beaten to get to the real game.

Space Stage
The best part of the game, but there is still a lot to be desired here. It almost seems as if the game has developed schizophrenia. Am I controlling a space empire or just a single space craft? Either would be fine with me... I would enjoy a nice space strategy game with fleets of ships and planets to administer or a game in the vein of Star Trek, traveling through space, exploring, fighting enemies and everything else. However, the game designers try to make you do both and cripple either option in the process. You are forced to build all your colonies yourself, but you can't build transport ships to trade spice and are forced to transport it for yourself. Yet, you have to buy goods from your own planets, and they charge more than anywhere else. You cannot even recharge your ship for free at your own colonies... the colonies that you built. Worst of all, despite the fact that you seemingly control this empire, you cannot build any other spacecraft than the one you already have. This forces you to fight wars against other species with many ships with just your one and a few allied ships which are easily destroyed. My other major issue is that your relations with other species seem completely independent of each other. Countless times I broke an alliance to attack a species and ccompletely wipe them out, yet this had no effect upon how other species felt about me. This is just completely illogical. It is also extremely annoying to be forced to buy colony packs one at a time rather than buying in bulk and seems to dissuade expansion, which makes little sense considering just how many stars are in the stage.

Despite all of these problems, all of the stages are a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun creating a creature and attacking other things in the Cell and Creature stages, wiping out other tribes in the Tribal and just steamrolling schmucks in Civilization, not to mention how amazing fun the space stage really is. Flying around and discovering planets, terraforming, changing planet's colors and landforms, abducting animals and other species... it is all great. I really enjoyed building a nice little Empire, even though 95% of my planets are superfluous. The interfaces are all elegant and the graphics are beautiful. The game is just so diverse, the planets so numerous, the aliens so weird and attacking the Grox does seem like it will be a challenge. Moreover, the wide array of creatures, buildings and vehicles you can create is mind boggling. Perhaps the best part about this creation aspect is that Spore connects online and automatically downloads the creations of others into your universe. I've never played a game that lets you create such a vibrant and unique world. While I would prefer a deeper game, I understand why they made it so easily accessible. Am I disappointed? Yeah, but that doesn't stop me from enjoying this game a whole helluva lot.

Score: 7/10

Not to be Confused

2008-11-28T18:34:00.010-05:00

After a conversation with Matt the other day about Virginia Woolf I feel there are a few things I should make clear as a matter literacy and public record. Do not let these things confuse you in the future. Though many may seem the same to the untrained eye believe me, they are not.

This is Thomas Wolfe who, born at the turn of the century, is notable for writing Look Homeward, Angel and You Can't Go Home Again before dying of tuberculosis 1938.

Thomas Wolfe

This is Tom Wolfe who in the 1960s and 70s became famouse as part of the New Journalism movement. He wrote such classics as The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, The Right Stuff, and The Bonfire of the Vanities. He often wears white.

Tom Wolfe

This is Naked Lunch, it's a book by William S. Burroughs. This is a naked lunch. The differences are negligible.

This is The Electric Ant-

a short story by Philip K. Dick about a man who awakes from a car crash an organic robot (artwork from the upcoming Marvel Comic mini-series based on the story.) And these are electric ants.

Toni Morrison writes about African-Americans and is alive and well. Tony Hillerman wrote about Native Americans and died recently. As did Michael Crichton (died I mean) who wrote about dinosaurs and the such. But this is a Kraken-

...which should not be confused with Cthulhu-

Who was thought up of by this man-

H.P. Lovecraft

Who is not to be confused with Edgar Allen Poe.

"BYE!"

CML

Thanksgiving

2008-11-28T18:30:00.002-05:00

Advisory Committee

2008-11-25T23:23:00.000-05:00

Seeing Caleb and I don't believe that most of our friends should be in charge of their own lives (yes, I just realize I've alienated our only audience), and seeing as President-Elect Obama will soon be putting together his Cabinet, I decided it would be great to put together a group of advisors for BSD, to show people just how it's done. We've tried to select individuals from across the political spectrum (good, evil and morally ambiguous), in an attempt to support multi-partisanship. These men, women and creatures will lead BSD into a new era of peace and prosperity, one of increased readership, more frequent posting and conquest. It shall be our moment in the sun!

Foreign Minister: Thufir Hawat

He is a mentat and thus amazing. With computer-like intelligence and unwavering loyalty, Hawat is perfect for almost any role. He is used to court intrigue and should be right at home in this position.

Minister of Defense: Admiral Ackbar

It's not hyperbole to say that Ackbar is one of the greateest military leaders ever to live. He overcame a lot of prejudice (being a squid-thing and all) to get where he is and has truly excelled in his position. Leading the Rebel Navy against the Empire with a million times the resources and winning? I'm not sure anyone has done more with less. Ackbar is a brilliant strategist and besides he has a cool chair. Also, no one is better at spotting traps.

Minister of Information: Lex Luthor

While, this may seem a controversial pick and somewhat at odds with BSD's own pro-Superman position, you cannot argue with the success that Luthor has had in his life. The man got himself elected President even though he was a super villain, and one time on Super Friends he convinced the country that Superman, Batman and crew were stealing priceless artifacts. He could sell swampland in Florida, ice to an Eskimo, condoms to... oh, hell, nevermind.... Anyway, he's a genius and his purple jumpsuit is simply kickass.

Minister of the Interior: Rick Deckard

In a future where robots are trying to kill us, Deckard will be irreplaceable. BSD is simply preparing for this inevitability. He has years of experience as a law enforcement officer, and iss always complaining about wanting to retire. A cushy government position should be perfect.

Minister of Finance: Smaug

This was a very hard decision to make, as I thought long and hard about giving this spot to Richie Rich. However, in the end I decided that I needed to put someone with more experience in this position. Sure, many blame him for losing all the gold to a bunch of Dwarves and a Hobbit, but it was hardly his fault. They had fate (not to mention a Wizard) on their side. Besides, he had that mountain of treasure for hundreds of years, not everything can last.

Minister of Education: Laura Roslin

Sure, this is a step down from her current position as President of the Twelve Colonies, but I can't imagine anyone better for this position. She even has experience in the office. I'm sure editing papers and such would be a bit mundane for her, but she could get a consulting in a few years.

Minister of Justice: Harvey Birdman

While not a good attorney, or superhero really, for that matter, he has a certain panache that you want in a position like this. Moreover, he has an amazing costume, can fly and has that cool crest on his head, all of which will be very helpful in a position such as this. And an eagle... that's important.

Minister of Health: Beverly Crusher

There was no one who I wished would take my temperature more as a child than Dr. Crusher, and for that alone I think she deserves the spot. She is extremely strong willed, and driven, but also very caring. Years experience as Chief Medical Officer aboard the Enterprise as well as a stint as Head of Starfleet Medical, are about all the experience anyone needs.

Minister of Culture: Mellvar

The wunderkind of the advisory committee and also the least qualified, Mellvar is best known for his run in with the Futurama crew in the episode "Where No Fan Has Gone Before". Despite that, his encyclopedic knowledge of culture (and by that I mean Star Trek) will be vital in this position.

Minister of Agriculture: Edward Scissorhands

This position isn't really all that important unless you're a farmer or really into plants, so I went for the guy who would best trim the hedges, not that BSD has any hedges. But, I'm sure he'd do a fine job mowing the lawn. Though, he is a bit unstable, I think he can get over that problem.

Minister of Transportation: Ringo Starr

I had been considering Megatron for this position for a while, but in the end it had to go to the most downtrodden Beatle. Noe one can deny that he always made the trains run on time as conductor at Shining Time Station. Besides that, he spent a lot of time on the Yellow Submarine and he ran a Magical Mystery Tour for a while. Oh, and he wrote Octopus' Garden... I'm not sure what that has to do with this, but he's really proud of that.

Cthulhu... I love you

2008-11-22T21:48:00.005-05:00

Please add to the ranks of the gay film classics (The Bird Cage, The Crying Game, et cetera, et cetera)- Cthulhu: or Welcome Home to the End of the World (2008)

I first learned about this movie the same way I learn everything about Cthulhu, throught ambient noise, the only way anything Lovecraftian seems to travel. As if from the belly of some long lost god-creature my T.V. set, unaccompanied by my attentions, ran an ad for Here!- Gay Television on Demand . And through the waves of radiation something in the Cthulhu center of my brain, along with my Gaydar, was triggered and I heard the call of the beast; the call of gay Cthulhu.

It'd seem that sometime in the sadly Dickianless movie making period of 07-08 a littl Lovecraft novella called "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" was adapted by the up-and-coming gay production company and cable channel Here!. From what I understand the movie is a two way metaphor where the fear and pressure that Russ (the films gay protagonist) faces when returning home to his small-town roots in order to attend to his mothers estate is matched by the realization that his father is part of the Cult of Cthulhu, a cult that worships the greatest evil know in the universe, a large, flightless bird, generally found hibernating in the Pacific Ocean in the submerged ancient city of R'lyeh, who is most assuredly the sign of the end of days. It's pretty scary stuff.

Now truth be told I haven't seen this movie, as of yet, so I cannot say for sure that Cthulhu is gay in this movie, or if it even makes an appearance at all. But I'm hoping he does, and I'm hoping for some gay-tentacle love finally done tastefully.

PSA: National Coming out Day is October 11th. Remember, you've got a friend in BSD.

A Post-Mortem: Pushing Daisies

2008-11-21T22:52:00.002-05:00

I've never lost a show before... never before have I found a show I really liked, watched every week and had it canceled on me. Sure, I enjoyed Futurama when it was on, but I didn't watch it every week. I didn't have the patience or the inclination to plan my life so rigidly back then. I was a kid, and while it was a great show, I never felt the sting of its cancellation until much later. But, that is just what is happening to Pushing Daisies, or is what is most likely to happen unless there is some excessive surge in viewership. I'm not holding my breath. It's sad, because before this year I never really took the time to look at so many TV shows, read reviews and decide what ones were good enough to watch every week. It's part DVR and part patience, but I've found that there are a lot of good shows, maybe not compared to how many are actually on, but they are out there. Yet, despite all the complaining I hear about the horrible sludge that fills our little glowing boxes, no one is watching this show... This magical, wonderful show that succeeds so much at creating simple and pure happiness. The love story is amazing and pure, heart wrenching and joyous at the same time. It is the most original show I have seen in years, perhaps ever and yet it's being canceled. I wrote the following before the show got the ax:

Pushing Daisies, Wednesday 8:00 (ABC)

A strange amalgam of Tim Burton, Douglas Adams and... uh... Arthur Conan Doyle? Pushing Daisies is one of the most original shows on television. The acting is great, the characters are quirky, interesting and deep, the dialogue is funny and witty, the plots clever.

Pushing Daisies follows Ned the Piemaker, who happens to have the power to bring dead things back to life. There are only two catches, that if anyone he brings back sticks around for more than a minute, someone or something else dies and that he cannot touch anyone he anyone he brought back to life again or they will die permanently. He does just that to his childhood sweetheart Charlotte (Chuck), but now he can never touch her. Their romance is amazing, as they try to discover ways to show affection without touch. This sort of quirky weirdness permeates the show.

Ned and Chuck, along with Emerson Cod, a Private Investigator and Olive (the waitress at Ned's restaurant) romp about the city solving murders. While, the subject matter is at times dark, the show is painted in bright colors and light dialogue that provides an odd contrast. I suppose most of the mysteries are just too quirky to be scary.

It's without a doubt one of the best shows on TV, and one that is in danger of getting canceled, so I urge you to check it out. Here are some clips to wet your appetite.

Scissor Man?

2008-11-19T16:48:00.001-05:00

Really? Scissor Man? Come on... how lazy are you, Mr. Anonymous Ebayer? It's not like this person didn't know how to find out who this character was. He's one of the X-Men! How hard is it to wikipedia X-Men and match him up to someone? Hell, he could've asked a few random people on the street and someone would've known.

Googling: October

2008-11-16T11:46:00.003-05:00

While this usually goes into "State of the Blog", or at least has a couple times... I've decided to expand the section a little. Every month (haha, yeah...) BSD will be going over the Google search keywords that brought people to the site, laugh at the funny ones, retch at the disgusting ones and try our best to fulfill the queries of those who came here looking for answers, but surely didn't found what they were looking for. It should be good fun.

As always the search result that brought people here most was some form of "tentacle rape". Since we don't have tentacle fan-fiction or pictures of huge breasted anime chicks getting skewered by slimy appendages, I'm sure you're all very disappointed. Sorry.

However, we do have our funniest/weirdest/best tentacle rape search of the month for you.

"Tentacle rape" derivative of the month: "batgirl tentacle"

1. "I hate ohio" - So do we, but we're not really sure what to do about that. I had a plan to annex Toledo, but that's sort of on the back burner for now.

2. "cine prive band" - Youtube video of people watching porn.

3. "'far side' werewolf" - Here you go.

4. "'garbage truck' couch" - Yeah... weird.

5. "47 in battlestar galactica" - Significance of the number 47

6. "anti ayn rand rant" - Yep, that's us. Up next: Why Atlas Shrugged is a horribly written work.

7. "beowulf historical inaccuracies" - Um... dude, just give up on that one. In the first place, it's mythology, so it's not "historical" as such anyhow. Secondly, if you want to know the differences from the book, just don't bother... That's like asking how cake the food is different from Cake the band.

8. "does the canadian flag as well as the american flag hang at hockey rinks" - Some of them sure... All of them? I doubt it.

9. "finnegan's wake unreadable" - No, but it's un-understandable.

10. "gob sticks" - A clarinet, apparently.

11. "girls like tentacle rape" - No, no they don't... Maybe really odd anime freaks with breasts do, but girls? No.

12. "halloween hootenanny" - Halloween party for hicks?

13. "in beowulf whats shields childhood like" - Um... shields don't have childhoods.

14 "manta secret of green tentacle" - I'm going to assume you meant this

15. "marty feldman tits" - While the old picture that Caleb and I had of this has gone missing, I did find this article, which I think is even better. Enjoy.

16. "shootout zamboni pattern" - There isn't any difference between how the ice is smoothed before a shootout and normally... at least as far as I've ever seen.

17. "why is calvin johnson nicknamed megatron" - Because he's huge and badass as hell.

Well that does it for this month... well, last month. Expect the next Googling in a few weeks.

Bush vs. Harding

2008-11-14T13:47:00.001-05:00

Bush seems almost likable these days. Maybe it's just the fact that John McCain didn't want him within one hundred miles of his campaign, and he was out of the spotlight, but he has been a lot less annoying lately. His statements to Obama have been nice enough, but then again, what can he really say? He's not going to release a statement lambasting the President-Elect or chastising America for electing a democrat. Well... at least I wouldn't think so, but with Bush you never know, and his congratulations call was a little odd. He even has stated he has some regrets about his actions and word choice. I think that perhaps Bush is just hoping he won't be regarded as the worst President in history. But, I don't think Teapot Dome really has anything on this eight year debacle.

It's too little too late. My only hope is that people remember the ineptitude that was the administration of George W. Bush.

100 mistakes for the President to Choose From

Watchmen Update

2008-11-13T12:01:00.004-05:00

The internet has been astir with rumors about the ending of the upcoming Watchmen movie, and while I usually don't post about movie rumors all that much, this one has me worried. For any of you who don't know Watchmen is a graphic novel by Alan Moore (V for Vendetta, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen), a rather interesting character to say the least. Many consider it the greatest comic book ever written. While I am no where near an expert on comics, Watchmen is one of the few I have read. Alan Moore has been a critic, to say the least, of the several movies made from his comics, and while I think he goes overboard sometimes, after reading V for Vendetta, I'm starting to think that maybe he does have a point. After reading the graphic novel, I still enjoy the movie, but it is nowhere near as good as the comic. So, I suppose that is why I am so worried about this movie, but also extremely excited at the same time. The following link and analysis contains spoilers, so if you haven't read the comic and don't want to know plot details, don't read below or click this link.

-Highlight for Spoilers-

From the rumors I've heard, some sort of nuclear assault is going to replace the weird squid alien that came at the end of the comic. Ozymandias is supposed to be using this plot device to draw the world together because of an outside threat. I just don't understand the change... The squid monster worked fine, and we here at BSD always support a good tentacle rape joke. Did they want to make the movie more realistic? It's a friggin' comic book adaptation. I just have a hard time believing that they can manage the same message with a nuclear war as Moore did with the alien "invasion". Ozymandias used the alien to unite the world against a common foe, an extra-terrestrial invader World of the Worlds style. I just don't know how this can accomplish the same thing. Hopefully I'm proven wrong.

But, who knows... I won't hold judgment on the movie until I see it, but I'm worried. But, I'm also pretty damn excited. At the very least, I am looking forward to seeing the characters on the big screen, the action, the special effects, and Rorschach's costume. I hope that'll be worth the price of admission and that I'll be pleasantly surprised by the rest.

House of Frankenstein

2008-11-12T11:17:00.004-05:00

(This post is part of Careful With That Blog, Eugene's Universal Horror Blog-o-Thon. I usually only write posts when something really good hits me, so hopefully this is decent writing. Enjoy.).

My only real experience with Universal monster movies is yearly around Halloween when Caleb and I, and some of our friends head down to an old theater in Detroit to watch some classic horror films. While they are fun, I’m definitely not as big of a fan of them as Caleb is, or probably Paul. I think their biggest problem is that you already know the plot going in… I think it’s just pop culture osmosis or something. Besides that, their pacing is a little too slow and their plots too convoluted, but the latter is partly what makes them so fun. However, seeing House of Frankenstein for the first time made me realize just how much Universal had missed their mark on the film. While it turned out to be a generic monster movie that tried to cram Dracula, The Wolfman and Frankstein’s Monster into the same movie, I was imagining something far greater… A buddy movie… Seinfeld for monsters. While The Munsters and The Addams Family give you an idea of what I’m talking about, those were takes on the family sitcoms of the 60s and 70s.

All I want is a bunch of freaks sitting around their apartment in Bucharest and whining about their problems. Frankenstein’s Monster the idiot of the bunch, Dracula the womanizer, The Wolfman always annoyed at the lost sleep from his murder binges, The Invisible Man talking big, but never actually doing anything but sit around and watch M.A.S.H. re-runs, The Creature from the Black Lagoon glubbing… it’d be great. Doctor Frankstein could be their landlord, maybe… You could throw The Mummy in there, too. We could call it Frankstein’s Place.

The plots would be a mix of the mundane and the ludicrous, maybe an annoying Van Helsing could stop by every once in a while. The monsters would want to just be left alone, but they’d have to throw him out the window or they could just eat him, I suppose. But that would be the genius of the show, there is just so much material to pull from. Despite how contrived most of the movies are, these characters are extremely interesting.

Why have them doing the same damn thing all the time? I’ve seen enough Universal Monster movies to know they all have the same basic plot. For once we’d see the world through the monster’s eyes. Sure they’d kill people every once in a while, and maybe The Invisible Man would be tempted to rape some people, but… okay, well that’s not really defensible, is it? But… it would be great! Blood, guts, Frankenstein’s Monster sitting in front of the TV and watching Sesame Street all day.

Okay, this probably is just a really bad idea and I’ve gone off the deep end, but it really seems like it’d make a good show. At least it would be better than House of Frankenstein. At the very least there wouldn’t be any gypsies.

House of Frankenstein focused on some demented scientist whose brother new Dr. Frankenstein. His goal was to bring Frankenstein’s Monster back to life or switch someone’s brain with the Monster’s… or… something, I honestly don’t remember. He ends up killing some schmuck who runs a travelling freak show and quickly after brings Dracula back to life. Dracula eventually gets into a hilarious carriage accent and Dr. Weirdo and his painfully Igor-like assistant head off to free Frankenstein’s Monster and The Wolf Man from blocks of ice beneath Frankenstein’s castle (which I assume is the titular “house”). The Wolfman is freed first and falls in love with some gypsy woman, who eventually has to kill him… Of course, he dies before Frankenstein’s Monster comes back to life. Yes, folks… this movie whose one draw is that we get to see The Monster, Dracula and The Wolf Man together never actually puts them conscious on the screen at the same time.

Fucking brilliant. And that’s the best part of this show! It has all of them together at once, doing weird monster stuff. It’d be like the Super Friends with less world-saving and more pointless table smashing! It takes the best parts of those Universal movies (the monsters), sticks them together and removes the stupid, megalomaniacal idiots, the overacting heroines and the contrived plots. We’d leave in the angry townspeople, of course, because who doesn’t love an angry mob every once in a while?

There is Nothing Quite like Hope

2008-11-09T21:48:00.005-05:00

"The only way you can get Americans to notice anything is to tax them or draft them or kill them" -John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany

Sometimes I hate politics... sometimes I lose faith in democracy. Sometimes I think I'm an arrogant ass, sometimes that those around me are morons. Most of the time I just wish people would take a bit more interest in politics, that they would just care a little more. Care to take the time to do some research, to vote on the issues and not the personality of a candidate, to vote on more than one issue. Sometimes the system depresses me, and what depresses me more is that I have no real solution to any of the problems inherent in it. Yet, this isn't one of those times... for once, I just feel happy, because after what seems like an eternity I feel like I have won. I feel there is something to look forward to, for once I have hope.

Barrack Hussein Obama is President-Elect, defeating a craggy old candidate who I liked so much more when he was just a Senator from Arizona and who I have a feeling I will like a lot more now that he's just that once again. I don't really think that the Washington establishment will change, but that was never why I wanted Obama to win in the first place. But at least there is a little hope for once.

I'm not going to go through his platform and explain why I voted for him, but just enjoy the moment. For now I just want to say that on election night I felt optimistic again. Seeing the scenes from all over the country, from all over the world of people jubilant was amazing. To see so many people happy because they believed something great had happened, voting for something positive, rather than because they were afraid.

The United States has taken a huge step toward wiping away the remnants of slavery and segregation. But it is bigger than just that, what I am most proud of is that this is a resounding denunciation of the idea that "American" means WASP or hick. Yes, the goal is that someday we will be able to elect a black man and that won't be anything special, but we are finally on the right path. For once the President is something more than a white Christian male. Someday we'll elect a woman, a Muslim, or an Atheist. And someday none of those categories will matter.

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character" -Martin Luther King, Jr.

Hopefully this election truly is the resounding defeat of the Christian Coalition that it seems and that social conservatism will die with them. Hopefully the Republican party can transform into something more akin to what it once was, can transform into a party focused on a capitalism tempered by The New Deal. While I doubt I'll agree with such a party much, at least I'll be able to respect it.

Someday maybe Owen Meany will be wrong, that people will look around themselves and care more than what is effecting them that very instant. We as a people, need to fight for what we believe in again and stop the infringing upon our freedoms. I truly believe that November 4th, 2008 was a huge step in that direction. We have a long way to go, but I have never been prouder of this country.

Battle Hymn of a Loser

2008-11-05T12:00:00.004-05:00

(I had prepared this post in the unfortunate event that Barack Obama were to lose the Presidential Candidacy. For my entire adult life I've known only one man as President and only now do I breath easily and thank god.)

"Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There was never a democracy that did not commit suicide."
- John Adams

We were promised the world and today we lost it. But things could be much worse. We lived through Bush and plenty of others lived through Nixon. And that’s where I’m at now: ready to live through Nixon and the Vietnam War.

Friends of mine have told me that if the Democrats lost this race they’d leave the country. To each one of them I asked the same question, “when?” When you’re done with school? When you have the money? When it gets a little worse? It’s an unrealistic threat they make.

How much of our anger is real? As much as we may complain about the Bush administration and the U.S. government we didn’t riot in the streets in 2000 when the election was stolen- we were a civilized group of losers. We played into American mythos and to the thief went the spoils.

It should come as no surprise that we’ve been indoctrinated but there’s something about our sense of Democracy that seems genuine- inherent in us as Americans. Which is why it’s so upsetting when our Democracy fails us.

It’s unrealistic (and un-American) to abandon a burning ship. We’re Americas and no mater how fast our ship might sink to us the rest of the world is a sea full of rats. We stand by our flag until the end and fill ourselves with rage and cynicism. And I’m ready for that anger. I’m ready to live through Nixon and come out the other side, more aware than ever of the lies we’re told and the brown people we’ve killed. I’m ready to become Thompson and Ginsberg and the Beatles fueled by injustice and absurdity. I want to suffer all the slings and arrows of this once great nation. I want to feel alive if not through jubilation and joy than through suffering and martyrdom.

Even now if Bush were to apologize I’d forgive him. If America were to apologize I’d forgive them too. And if not… Well, by 2040 it’s expected the whites will be a minority race, the country will be hot and ugly, with luck California will be gone to Arizona Bay and if not maybe we’ll have at least found some way to fix Ohio once and for all. And I’ll still be here, 55 years old and angry as hell.

“He piled upon the whale’s white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart’s shell upon it.”
-Herman Melville

Greatest Halloween Songs

2008-10-29T16:03:00.002-04:00

Halloween is almost upon us, and you all know what that means... yes, hearing Monster Mash until your ears bleed. While, I won't deny that I enjoyed the song as a kid, and that it is catchy, I've had my fill of Monster Mash for this lifetime. So, we here at BSD have attempted to compile a few song to replace it. The first seven songs were picked by me, the last eight by Caleb...

I Put a Spell on You by CCR
Why it rocks: While not really all that relevant to the topic, I'll admit... it does talk about magic. The real reason this is on the list is because of the pounding, incessant music and the growling cries of Foggerty.
Scariest/creepiest line:
I put a spell on you, because you're mine.

Witchy Woman by the Eagles
Why it rocks: Sure, it's an obvious pick, and not one of my favorite Eagles song, but you can't deny that it fits here. The music is wailing enough to be creepy, and while the lyrics seem a bit contrived at times, there are some nice lines.
Scariest/creepiest line:
Crazy laughter in another room
And she drove herself to madness with a silver spoon.

Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin
Why it rocks: Perhaps overplayed to the point of having lost all meaning for most people, it was always one of my favorite songs growing up. The music in undeniably creepy and sad, the theme of death permeates the entire song.
Scariest/creepiest line:
Your head is humming and it won't go,
In case you don't know,
The piper's calling you to join him

Banshee Song by Gob
Why it rocks: Well... it's about a Banshee, and love... or something. I'm sure that's a metaphor for something, but... Banshees! Another very creepy melody and obviously Halloweeny lyrics.
Scariest/creepiest line:
I am every waiting
You are out there wailing

Mr. Crowley by Ozzy Osbourne
Why it rocks: Organ music, lyrics about the craziest motherfucker in Victorian England, and Ozzy Osbourne... can't get much scarier than that. I'd like to see Ozzy sing this to Alistair Crowley's corpse... that would make a damn good concert, actually.
Scariest/creepiest line:
Mr. Crowley, what went on in your head,
Mr. Crowley, did you talk to the dead.

Lady in Black by Uriah Heep
Why it rocks: Solemn, but with a nice beat. The lyrics are almost spit out and the refrain is replaced simply by a moaning wail by the only band (that I know of) named after a Dickens character.
Scariest/creepiest line:
And I begged her give me horses to trample down my enemy,
So eager was my passion to devour this waste of life.

Werewolves of London by Warren Zevon
Why it rocks: Without a doubt my favorite Halloween song. It's oddly upbeat for the subject matter, but the music has just a tinge of creepiness to mitigate that fact. Quirky, fun and violent, what is more Halloweeny than that? Ahoooooooooo!
Scariest/creepiest line:
I saw a werewolf with a Chinese menu in his hand,
Walking down the streets of Soho in the rain.

Ice Cream Man by Tom Waits
Why it rocks: The sheer eeriness of this song gets me every time. The twang of the bells and the melodic chimes in the song’s opening are hypnotizing and the melodic sexual innuendos in the lyrics are a virtual Pied Piper’s pixie song of Humbert Humbert or Pennywise.
Scariest/creepiest line:
I got a cherry Popsicle right on time
A big stick, mamma, that'll blow your mind

Ice Cream Man - Tom Waits

I Hear the Rain by the Violent Femmes
Why it rocks: A slightly quicker (and slightly creepier) funeral dirge than we’re used to.
Scariest/creepiest line:
Burry me out on a lone prairie.
Friendly calls of the coyote.

Thriller by Michael Jackson
Why it rocks: Three of the greatest words in horror cinema: Vincent Price voiceover. Price did for terror what John Waters did for homosexuality in a way Hitchcock and Castle could only dream of.
Scariest/creepiest line:
Creatures crawl in search of blood
To terrorize your neighborhood.

Bela Lugosi's Dead by Bauhaus
Why it rocks: Tragic and romantic, just like Dracula, just like Lugosi.
Scariest/creepiest line:
The count,
Bela Lugosi’s‘s dead,
Undead undead undead.

Hybrid Moments by The Misfits
Why it rocks: It wasn't easy choosing just one Halloweeny non-Halloween song by the Misfits- there are too many to choose from. Hybrid Moments captures the feeling of fleeting fun which Halloween carries with it the older I get.
Scariest/creepiest line:
If you’re gonna scream, scream with me.

Weird Scene by Mr. Brown
Why it rocks: For a very long time I had no idea what this song was. I heard it on Little Steven’s Underground Garage while driving to Grand Rapids, MI on Halloween in 2006. It has since become one of my favorite songs and supplement to Ray Bradbury’s classic Halloween short story The Homecoming.
Scariest/creepiest line:
Uncle Billy’s always locked away inside the shed
He’s got these little marks along the right side of his head
Says he got them swimming with the dolphins in the sea
He is the favorite uncle of the weirdest family.

Discover Mr Brown!

Goosebumps Theme
Why it rocks: This song still sends a shiver down my spine. When I was young this show scared me more than the X-Files did because it could keep my attention, was fully comprehendible, and this song. The strings are like knives and the piano is like the forest in Hansel and Gretel.
Scariest/creepiest line:
Viewer beware, you’re in for a scare.

Ride of the Valkyries by Richard Wagner
Why it rocks: This song is a Halloween hold over from my parents. I'm used to when hearing this song being told about how for the first few Halloweens my parents lived together they would set up speakers on the windowsill of there flat and play it all day long until trick-or-treating was over or the church down the street from them asked that it be turned off.
Scariest/creepiest line:
“All that listening to Wagner makes me wants to invade Poland”
~ Oscar Wilde on Wagner

by Matt&Caleb

A. Dracula

2008-10-27T12:29:00.002-04:00

This past friday I saw one of the worst original run Frankenstein movies Universal put out, House of Frankenstein. The movie was followed by a direct sequel named House of Dracula which miraculously resurrected all the characters from its predecessor. Anyways, all these monsters got me thinking, "it's been a while since we've seen my favorite friends..."

Teen Wolf Too: the Todd Howard story

2008-10-21T14:52:00.004-04:00

Todd Howard (Jason Bateman) has problems. He’s recently been admitted to Hamilton University on a sports scholarship he doesn’t deserve. So why did they accept him? Well, Todd’s got a cool cousin, his name is Scott Howard. Scott Howard was like Todd once (an uncoordinated loser virgin) but Scott had something other guys didn’t have- a little wolf in his genes. Scott was able to use his werewolfishness to score babes, sink threethrows, ride on rape-vans and generally win over everyone he met. Scott was a cool guy. So why shouldn’t Todd expect his story, a weak repackaging of Scott’s 1985 smash hit Teen Wolf, not turn out the same way?

Because Todd doesn’t know he’s a werewolf, even though the slightest amount of pubescent cleavage or school related stress is enough to throw him into a glowing eyed, Vader voiced, sweaty hissy fit. But all that changes during one fateful dance when Todd cups the ass of the hottest piece of Georgia peach at Hamilton University. Hormones hit hard in Todd. The claws come out as they say and without much warning Todd is grabbing a hold of fat guys and pushing down old women in an attempt to hide his hairy shame.

Todd's o-face.

From there Todd’s life gets a whole lot worse. As you may or may not know minorities have not always been treated with the utmost respect in this country and werewolves are no different. It wasn’t until the mid 50s with the outcome of Chaney v. Board of Education that the desegregation of schools allowed for wolves and men alike to attend the same schools. And even after the ruling it took time for the integration to take hold, first in the youth of the nation (specifically Beacontown High School) and then on a larger scale. So it should come as no surprise when Todd, outed about his condition, is the butt of dog jokes and flea related pranks.

It seems the only person unafraid of Todd’s hidden side is Nicki, a doe-eyed biology major in one of his classes, full of masochism and suffering from sever father issues. She isn’t afraid of the animal within Todd (or the flower within herself,) even when he verbally assaults her in the library, throws some books at her, and talks down to her. Nicki is a glutton for this Teen Wolf Too’s mantic abusive love.

Soon enough Todd is pushed into the ring for his first match on the Hamilton University boxing ‘team.’ It is about here that Todd’s life changes into something a little more familiar: Scott’s life. After a few too many blows to the face Todd ‘wolfs out’ and pummels his opponent in a blur of hair and pulled punches.

Exit light. Enter montage. Todd is swept up into the fast paced life of competitive college boxing and all the perks it has to offer- most notably high hipped 80s women, fat timesless sidekicks, and fast flashy cars. With all these things Todd is also accompanied by the Wolf, who is fast becoming the high jumping, Frisbee catching, orgy hosting, Motown singing mascot the schools needs. Quickly Todd’s story devolves into a series of the training, fighting, and flirting montage with more Wolf than Todd and more hotter girls than Nicki than Nicki.

Who do you want to be today?

Lucky for Todd he has friends like Chubby and Stiles, who enjoyed being outperformed so much by Scott in high school they felt the need to room with less impressive cousin in college. After slowly pushing him into the wolfy limelight Stiles and Chubby come to the realization that Todd’s hormonal other side is much worse than they ever thought it could be. Not only is he more likable than them Todd also works far less. Through bitter jealousy, or maybe true friendship, Stiles shows Todd what he has become: “A jerk.”

Todd reconsiders his choices. Is it better to be different and popular, or the same and un-noticed?

Enter redemption montage. After seeing how out of hand he allowed his life to get after turning into the Wolf, Todd has a heart to heart with his uncle Harold as Scott’s father once again substitutes in for his nephews absent parents. After learning the old one-two of bowing from his over weight and over aged uncle Todd rushes over to the library to make amends for the way he’s been treating Nicki. As always Nicki is more than hhappy to accommodate Todd and as soon as he lets loose with the big “I’m sorry I hurt someone I really love” line the two spiral into a cramming session to prepare Todd for his biology final.

Enter cramming montage. Between piles of books Todd learns a whole semester of biology, taking short study breaks to pound Nicki into a sex coma all to the accompanying classic Send Me an Angel by Real Life.

Needless to say Todd aces the test and wins his last match of the season without wolfing out. I guess one night of light training, hard studying, and awkward sex can make up for nearly anything.

Also needles to say this movie has a few problems. It’s no Never Ending Story 3, but than again what is. However there are a few mistakes that go beyond forgiveness. One such mistake is the story and casting. While it’s obvious that Teen Wolf Too is a half-assed remake of Teen Wolf they try to stay as true to the initial story as possible. So much so that much of the story and characters are exactly the same- but not all. Though James Hampton returns as Uncle Harold and Mark Holton as Chubby other characters are not as well remembered, like Coach Finstock and Stiles who both reappear in Teen Wolf Too with new faces.

Anther problem with this movie is the pace. The array of montages do little to speed along the plot and instead last much longer than most of the dialog scenes. The dialog scenes are also incredibly slow. The amount of dead time (silence) in Teen Wolf Too is more uncomfortable than Todd and Nicki’s lab partner flirtations.

But perhaps most bothersome about Teen Wolf Too is how it destroys the forth way time and time again. Through out the film sighs, Frisbees and t-shirts continue to appear with the wods TEEN WOLF TOO printed on them. Its almost as if the students of Hamilton University are all aware of Todd’s cousin Scott and are clever enough to think of calling him ‘Teen Wolf Too’ as an homage to the legendary Beavers player.

The only part of this film which can honestly be commended is its excellent depiction of the werewolf as a serial rapist. Just like other movies in the same genre, like Lon Chaney, Jr.’s the Wolfman of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, Teen Wolf Too properly conveys the absolute boner-rage and forceful lust which all werewolves are driven by.

All and all Teen Wolf Too is an awful film. It’s a poor remake and worse sequel. Parts of it can be considered ‘good awful’ but it’s too slow and awkward to watch to even be enjoyed on that level. The best thing someone interested in watching this movie could do would be to watch Rocky II (2 not too) and Teen Wolf (one) side by side. Maybe the only good thing that Teen Wolf Too has going for it is that it’s a stepping stone to a better film- like Temple of Doom before it or Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation after it, Teen Wolf Too is the middle child in a three part series of excellence. What’s next? Teen Witch of course.

Colin Powell

2008-10-19T14:59:00.003-04:00

I want to take a quick break from Halloween-themed posts and talk a bit of politics.

I can feel a rant coming, but I'm going to hold off on it, mostly because I don't have the time to write it considering I should be writing a paper on the Enlightenment or a German essay, but I think this is important.

I really believe that the only chance that this country remains what it was meant to be by our Founding Fathers is to stop this neoconservative movement that gained so much power during the Bush administration. I could go on and on about Guantanamo Bay, The Patriot Act, The Second Iraq War, and the hundreds of other horrible mistakes that administration made, but the most important part would be lost. Their ideology is unconstitutional and full of hate. If one thing can be gained by the American experience, it should be, that an individual has the right to do whatever he or she wishes as long as he or she is not infringing upon someone else's rights.

That's why I don't dislike John McCain. I don't agree with most of his policies, but I don't dislike him and that's why I like Colin Powell. If there were more Republicans like him, and probably more Democrats like him, this country would be in good shape.

Today, Colin Powell endorsed Barrack Obama. It's a huge victory for him, even though he already had a very commanding lead in the polls. I really believe that it will help quell fears of his inexperience, especially on the Iraq War front.

Lastly, Kyle showed me a very interest site for polling statistics. They also have some nice articles.

Graveyards

2008-10-18T18:15:00.017-04:00

When I was born my family lived across the street from a graveyard. There was our house, a brown brick Tudor building with a high isosceles roof and lead set windows. Then the black flattop of the street dividing us from St. Alphonsus church with its roof twice as high and slender as ours and stained panes of glass and flat steps in front of a shallow church yard. And then there was the graveyard full of faded and new tombstones and great big carvings of christ in the midst of his crucifixion.

There were days when my brother and I would play between the stones and others when we would slink past them to the corner store. And other times when I'd go there by myself, crossing the street and squeezing through the fence to wander dumbfounded to the far side of the yard like wading out into the deep end of swimming pool. I'd pick up pieces of trash or crunch dry leaves and grass in my little hands before rushing home again, too scared to stay too long, evading any horrible thoughts I could like trying to escape a Band-Aid caught in my wake.

Before I knew what a calendar was I was easy pray for Friday the 13th tricks by my brother. It didn't matter that I didn't know who Jason was, or what a Friday or a 13 was- I understood bad luck and fright as well as anyone did. When I got older my mother's stories about how at the 'old house' (that house) ouija boards would never work right and tarot readings always seemed congested only fueled my fearful memories. Memories which even today, when graveyards do little to scare or thrill me, are made electric again with the static rustle of Halloween over the street drains.

A feeling I also got when reading the first few pages of Neil Gaiman’s new work The Graveyard Book as I leafed through it at the bookstore the other day. It's a delightful collection of stories (8 to be precise) which together tell the story of Nobody Owens, a child raised by ghosts. As Gaiman describes the thing it's The Jungle Book, with ghosts instead of animals and graves rather than trees.

All and all it's a enjoyable book intended for young readers but accessible by anyone but what I've been enjoying most about the book is the continued coolness it's booktour is allowing Gaiman to cultivate. Over the summer I read Gaiman's first true novel, American Gods, after hearing he had released the full text onto the internet free of charge. I loved the book but even more I think I enjoyed what Gaiman had accomplished- he grew his readership. Months after releasing the book on the web Gaiman's book sales saw huge growth. But what is even more impressive than that is that Gaiman recognized what many good authors today have also seen, that even though the author owns the copyright it's the readers who own the book. And the more interactive and giving an author can be the more receptive and gracious their readership will become.

With The Graveyard Book Gaiman decided to deal with the graciousness of his readers before the demand for him flooded his readings and elongated his signings. Instead of releasing The Graveyard Book online as he did before with American Gods, Gaiman did what with a book like this could be considered one better. He read it aloud. In nine nights at nine different book readings Gaiman read through his book, each night linking a video of the reading on his website for anyone to enjoy. And, with a children's story like The Graveyard Book it's hard not to enjoy having it read to you the way so many other books had been so long ago.

I recommend you take a look through the book if you get the chance, if only to experience the great artwork of Dave McKean. McKean also did the artwork for another Halloween book, a personal favorite of mine, by a favorite of BSD's- Ray Bradbury's The Homecoming. The Homecoming is another amazing autumnal story perfect for Halloween time.

You can find Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book here. If you have the time it is an easy and fun listen, especially this time of year. Happy Halloween everybody.

CML