Month: December 2006

The Four of the Fantastick go off the map, but do there be dragons there? Whad’ja think?

PAD

Baghdad (AP)–The world was shocked to learn that Saddam Hussein has been preemptively cloned and is currently in utero. A perfect clone of the recently hanged butcher–said to be eight weeks along–has been revealed to be “doing fine.” The identity of the Iraqi woman carrying the deceased dictator’s clone is being kept strictly secret.

Immediate cries for the abortion of the fetus were resisted by the Iraqi government at the behest of the Bush White House. In a short statement, President Bush stated, “As a civilized nation, we must fight for the sanctity of human life except in those instances where we decide it’s not sacred…and this is obviously not one of those times.”

Officials have declared that, shortly after the clone is born, it will be put on trial for slaughtering the Kurds, found guilty, and be executed. Upon announcement of that decision, there was much celebrating and shooting off of guns. Stray bullets were responsible for the accidental deaths of three children and two more US troops.

PAD

Saddam is dead. Executed.

First, I’m opposed to capital punishment. Period.

Second, just what Iraq needs: A high-profile martyr to rally around and provide reason for an even more massive explosion of violence than we’ve already seen.

PAD

Back at my computer after our sojourn to visit Kath’s parents (with a stop along the way to see mine as well) and am hard at work on two projects: A “Fantastic Four” original novel, and a “Sandman: Year One” one-shot.

Also, a tip of the hat to board denizen Garrett Sims who tipped me that Amazon.com was running a mad sale on Garman GPS devices. I picked up the exact model that navigated us so adeptly to Georgia and back, knocked down a whopping 67% off retail. I love post-Christmas sales.

PAD

Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #15 hits the stands this week, featuring Deb Whitman’s bookstore signing plus a cameo that’s already being noted at various websites. Whad’ja think?

PAD

With our house sitting firmly ensconced, we embarked upon our annual drive down to Kath’s parents. To save wear and tear on the family vehicle, I typically use my Amex membership rewards to pick up some huge Avis car for the voyage. And this time, just for kicks, I also opted to rent something I’d never seen before: the Garmin brand GPS.

Holy cow, how cool is this thing.

On a screen about the size of a hand-held video game, it gives you a constant view of the road up ahead of you, with a pink band of color charting your intended path. You can set it for any address in the contiguous United States and it will give you door-to-door directions, along with constant info as how much distance you’ve covered, how much further you have to go, your ETA, etc., as well as constant voice prompts courtesy of a polite female voice that we’ve dubbed “Majel.”

But that’s not all. First of all, at one point Majel informed us of an accident two miles ahead and offered to chart an alternate route, enabling us to sail around the jam. Second, when we hit a miles-long traffic back up (courtesy of an accident on the OTHER side of the road; even Majel can’t perceive rubber-necking delays), we triggered the “detour” function, got off the highway, and lost no time using the surface streets. Probably the best aspect was that, since I prefer to drive long distances at night, I was faced with impenetrable fog at 4 AM. My visibility couldn’t have been more than ten feet in front of me. No problem thanks to Majel: The display on the screen was unaffected, giving me half a mile of “visibility” as to when the road was going straight and, more important, when it was curving. It took me less than a minute to master the art of glancing between the screen and the road and consequently moved through an extremely hazardous traffic situation with complete confidence.

I don’t know that I’m going to go plunk down the retail price for one, but the rental price was certainly worth it. And if you do a lot of travelling, I can’t recommend enough having one of these gadgets.

Oh…happy holidays to anyone inclined to celebrate it.

PAD

I finally saw “Borat” the other day, and there was something about it that bugged me about it for quite some time afterward. It took me a while to figure out what it was.

It made me wonder because throughout much of the film I simply wasn’t laughing. I winced a few times (particularly during the scene where the naked Borat is wrestling with his equally naked, staggeringly obese producer). I loved the sequence where a TV weatherman desperately tries not to break down laughing when Borat, after participating in an achingly embarrassing on-camera interview elsewhere in the studio, keeps wandering into the middle of the weather report while searching for an exit.

Most of the time I just watched it. Others around me were howling, but I felt disconnected from it, as if I was missing something. And I didn’t know what.

After giving it some thought, now I think I do. And it stems from the following realization:

Andy Kaufman did this first, and better.

Continue Reading “My problem is to be making with “Borat”” →