PeterDavid.net

I will be attending the midnight opening for “Dark Tower 2″ at Midtown Comics. Before that, on that Tuesday, March 4th, I will be appearing as part of the Comic Book Club, 8 PM, at The Peoples Improv Theater, 154 West 29th Street, 2nd Floor, between 6th and 7th Avenues.

Then, a couple weeks later, I will be attending the Wizard Convention in Los Angeles. I’m very much looking forward to seeing old friends there.

PAD

It’s now down to voting on the two wild card cities. The Hasbro press release to that effect is reprinted below.

USA! USA!

PAD

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On “The Colbert Report” tonight, the number five threat on the “Threat Down” was the international edition of Monopoly.

With one day to go on the voting, let us see if America can get a Colbert bump.

PAD

I went to the WGA meeting last night on the contract. There were maybe a dozen or so people in the audience. Most people had obviously already mailed in their ballots, but I came in because I was interested to see who would show up and if anyone had anything interesting to say.

A microphone was set up so that people could get up and address the board and have their say about the contract.

Nobody did.

The meeting ran about ninety seconds, and most of that consisted of a Ferris Bueller-like “Anyone? Anyone,” and when no one had anything to say, we voted. I suspect it will carry overwhelmingly.

I wonder if the WGA West meeting had more fireworks.

PAD

UPDATE: The WGA has just confirmed that the new contract was overwhelmingly approved by over 93 percent of the membership.

Okay, we’re done with the fashions. Moving on to the main event. This will be pretty much the ol’ Cowboy speaking, unless otherwise indicated. We continue below the cut line.

Personally, I think that Jon Stewart will mention the settled strike within the first thirty seconds of his time.

And away we go.

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Yes, from the blog that gave you the live snarking of the State of the Union and commercial reviews of the Superbowl, Cowboy Pete will provide ongoing commentary on the Oscars. Why? Because I’ve only seen one of the nominated films and I want to do SOMETHING to keep myself awake. Coverage will begin at 8 PM, during which time Wrangler Kath and Cowgirl Ariel will provide fashion commentary for the red carpet arrivals, after which the ol’ Cowboy himself will saddle up at 8:30 for the stultifying marathon that is the Oscars. Be here because, if you’re not, you won’t be.

UPDATE: Going live in one minute. Comments below the cut line.

PAD

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I spent an hour of my life I will never get back last weekend fruitlessly attempting to score Billy Joel tickets for his Shea Stadium concert. An hour of phone lines ringing busy, circuits being tied up, and web sites refusing to load. I mean, I never even got close to being able to purchase them.

Now, on ebay, there are no less than 194 sellers peddling anywhere from two to four tickets apiece.

Did anyone buy tickets to actually go and SEE the damned concert?

PAD

While attending Toyfair, I found out that Hasbro is putting together an international version of Monopoly, and instead of street names on the board, there will be city names. The color coding remains the same: The most valuable real estate will be on blue spots, for instance (normally occupied by Broadway and Park Place), and then green, yellow and so on. There is currently a vote going on that is open to anyone in the world with a computer, and you can vote once a day for up to ten cities. The top vote getters will be on Broadway and Park Place, and the rest will be apportioned to the remainder of the real estate.

Now how, you may ask, is the United States faring in this international voting? The answer: Miserably. Of the twenty eight properties on this quintessentially American game, only two US cities are making any kind of showing, and neither is in prime real estate. New York is #8 (relegated to the much less tony yellow section of the board), while, Las Vegas is an abysmal #23. What’s number one, you may ask? The most popular international city?

Istanbul.

Are you freaking kidding me?

Personally, I think this is an abysmal state of affairs. Istanbul the number one city of international Monopoly? The best thing one can say about Istanbul is that it’s a catchy song covered by “They Might Be Giants.” But “New York, New York” is practically an anthem.

According to the woman at Hasbro I spoke to, the website where the voting is going on–www.monopoly.com–is getting 10,000 votes a day. That’s not all that much. A concerted web effort can turn this around.

Obviously I want to see New York nestled in the top spot, with more US cities occupying as many of the rest of the valuable properties as possible. Knee-jerk patriotism? Unreasonable nationalism? Well…yeah. You got a problem with that? If the residents of freaking Turkey should be allowed that indulgence, so should I.

We’ve only got until February 28th to get it done, so spread the word to all and sundry. Feel free to repost this anywhere and everywhere.

PAD

Well, when the hosting company says “no action will be required on your part for this migration. We will archive and copy the site content to the new server”, they’re wrong.

Bear with us. And by bear, we mean one of those Stephen Colbert bears.

The first post “Messiah CompleX” issue.

Whad’ja think?

PAD

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
–Shakespeare

The WGA membership voted overwhelmingly (92 percent from what I’ve heard) to end the strike. This is a separate matter from voting on the new contract, which will take place over the next two weeks. I suspect that will be ratified as well.

Writers should be back to work as of today.

PAD

A brilliant writer and talent, an entertaining dinner companion, and an all around great guy.

He will be missed.

PAD

An actual conversation I just had with an outfit that regularly calls Kathleen (during dinner time, of course) looking to have her donate money:

CALLER: Is Kathleen David there?

ME: No, she’s not.

CALLER: When would be a better time to reach her?

ME: When she’s here.

(Confused silence. Then…)

CALLER: Thank you.

ME: No problem.

PAD

An e-mail has been send around to WGA members stating that a tentative deal has been reached that, I get the impression, is going to be satisfactory to all concerned. A meeting was held today at 2 PM which I was not able to attend, since Ariel’s High School bowling team had their county-wide playoffs today. One has to have priorities (Ariel’s team came in second, by the way, and Ariel herself did excellently, shooting four games over 200.

From the tone of the letter, it appears that there will be no further picketing (which of course means the Oscars will go forward with no impediment–a big relief for Jon Stewart, I should think.) I have to think that, short of some sort of egregious problem, the strike is done.

PAD

Hillary will win the NY primary.

Why?

Because with Edwards out of the race, I voted for Obama.

PAD

Marv expressed dismay and, even worse, an interest in Ann Coulter because spammers forced me to shut down a WGA-related thread that he contributed to (a tactic, I suspect, of the AMPTP’s. Just remember kids: You can’t spell AMPTP’s without sPAM. Coincidence? I. Think. Not.

So here’s an entire thread dedicated to the greatness of Marv Wolfman.

Go nuts.

PAD

The Coke ad that features the dueling balloons…not only because it was funny, but it was prophetic. Here the Giants were predicted by just about every pundit to be losers, and in the fourth quarter there’s an ad that shows perennial loser at sports, Charlie Brown, triumphing over the redoubtable competition of Underdog and Stewie.

Congrats, Coca Cola. You’re still the real thing.

PAD

Yes, because you demanded it: Beginning at 6 PM, this website will provide ongoing commentary on the Super Bowl commercials.

Why? No clue.

PAD

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I have taken the liberty of shutting down comments on the “Had a feeling” thread, not because anyone was saying anything unacceptable–indeed, Marv’s comments were particularly welcome–but, Marv’s posting notwithstanding, it appeared to have run its course and instead was serving as a magnet for a particularly virulent spambot. So I’ve turned off comments on that thread in hopes that it will dispatch the spambot to whatever cyberhell spat it out.

Second, just as a general reminder, this board will not tolerate people endeavoring to pose as, or post as, other people…particularly well-known people. Bad enough that it takes a certain degree of cowardice to snipe from hiding; endeavoring to impersonate others, no matter how hamhandedly and obvious such attempts are, is beyond the courtesy I wish to extend to posters. Indeed, such rude behavior deserves no courtesy whatsoever. So any counterfeit idiots will have their comments deleted. In the future I would appreciate more sensible board denizens refraining from responding to such yahoos because you’ll just be perpetuating comments that I will have deleted and I’ll probably have to wind up deleting your comments too, in order to avoid confusion.

Thank you.

UPDATE: And just so you know, if you’re an idiot/one of the idiots who thinks that it’s clever to post slams under fake names. Those comments aren’t merely being deleted. They’re being junked. What that means is that they’re being kicked into a special folder which takes note of them. And if there are enough junked e-mails from one source, the program translate it as spam and blocks the origin point. Which means that such individuals will wind up effectively banning themselves.

PAD