Clark! Zoey!

Six minutes until Smallville and then West Wing! [deep breath]

The Allure of Crapulence

I want to go see the Texas Chainsaw remake, even though remakes suck. What is it about movies I know are going to be bad?

Babble or Prate

Here’s another good-looking page that shows what can be done with some good design sense and the TypePad template builder.

Plus he reads Bendis.

Little Red Bar

Every once in a while I click around to random websites and today I found a very pretty one with a lot of good content. Go take a tour of LittleThinkTank. I think you’ll enjoy your stay.

Of the neat things I found there: a link to a magnificent set of photos of something very pretty. Hint: sleek sleek aluminum.

I Like Toys

Chris Din delivers some of the best news I’ve ever heard: KB Toys has lost a lawsuit and is putting the entire store on sale! From the official announcement:

Defendants will distribute the Net Settlement Fund by providing a discount at the cash registers of all KB Toys, KB Toy Works, KB Toy Outlet, Toy Liquidator and KB Toys Express stores nationwide, including Guam and Puerto Rico, equal to 30% off all qualifying purchases of $30 or more during October 8-14, 2003. This distribution (the “In-store Distribution”) will be done without requiring a request of any store customer and will be separate and apart from, and in addition to, any previously planned promotional events for 2003. Defendants will not advertise or otherwise promote the distribution in advance of the In-store Distribution. Signs detailing the terms of the In-store Distribution, however, may be displayed in or around the stores during the In-store Distribution and up to 48 hours in advance of the In-store Distribution.

And I get paid this week!

Finished Warcraft III

There are a few good things about having your girlfriend gone for a week. One of them is having lots of time on your hands to devote to video games. I finished WarCraft III this weekend. Overall I thought it was fantastic. I don’t think the storyline was a strong as StarCraft’s, but I absolutely loved the smaller hero’s band approach rather than the large-scale army concept of the earlier games. I wish that people on battle.net weren’t so good, because I have fond memories of playing online StarCraft freshman year. I’m excited to jump into the expansion pack, but I’ll probably wait a week or two.

Ex Drunk A Log

In my referrer log this afternoon I found ex.drunk.a.log. It moved me. The author in an early post:

The good news is that by getting sober I was given a chance to confront all my difficulties. The bad news is that by getting sober I was given a chance to confront all my difficulties

Go read this weblog. Start with the first post. This is one of those perfect uses and reasons for the personal publishing format. It gets feelings out there. Maybe someone else has a similar life. Maybe it can help.

Justice League Season 2 Kicks Off

Aside from one teaser this summer, it’s been over a year since the last new episode of Justice League aired. Last night “Tabula Rasa” finally kicked off their second season.

And it’s going to be a good one.

The artists on the show must have been working very hard in the last two years. The artwork, which had leaned more toward the style of Superman, has taken on some of the grittier air of the older episodes of Batman. The backgrounds have a strong level of detail and there’s a much greater use of motion.

I love seeing Lex Luthor as a Silver Age super villain. His current comic book persona as sly businessman turned President of the United States is genius, but watching him run amok in a green power suit with the Justice League in hot pursuit is fun. Combining this to make a Frankenstein’s Monster story out of Amazo was just great. They made a wise change in Amazo’s from this to a plain grey morphing monster (images from Toonzone). Even more impressively, the power absorbing robot succeeds in being a serious threat to the entire league. There are moments when you can actually believe that they might not win this one.

On top of some very good widescreen action, “Tabula Rasa” also features a good side plot featuring Martian Manhunter. While the resolution of his character development in the episode ends up being a little bit cheesy, it works and I bought it.

I can’t wait to see what Bruce Timm’s team has in store for us for the rest of the season.

(New episodes air Saturdays at 10pm on Cartoon Network.)

Album Cover Challenge

Via Mena, here’s a pretty difficult quiz: 60 album covers. The band names have been removed. How many do you know?

Tip for the Chronojumper

Today I ran across a useful set of tips for anyone out there claiming to be a visitor from the future: Idle Words’ “Best Practices for Time Travelers”.

One useful snippet:

[…] insist on an infinite number of near-identical, parallel universes, so you can never travel quite to the same universe you came from. In Titor’s case, our ‘worldline’ is within 2% of his own worldline, so things like sports scores or stock prices might not match up, even if major historical events do.

Check back later today for advice on world domination.