Always have candy and an opinion and be prepared to share both.
I'm catching up on Zachary Quinto's newest project, Brilliant Minds.
So at one point, Quinto's character takes ecstasy to better understand a patient's situation as she took the same drug. Turns out it was laced with PCP and one of his character's interns has to babysit him as he navigates the effects.
Aury Krebs' character, intern Dr. Dana Dang gets the job:
"I hate being drug Sherpa."
How many times in my life could I have used that phrase?!
Hats off to the writer of that little gem.
Deserts. Ice planets. Forest moons. High tech cities, lava fields, asteroid fields. You name it, Star Wars has gone there.
This week? A spa.
Seriously. Mud baths and room upgrades. It was like cosplay Fantasy Island for a bit.
Skeleton Crew just keeps finding new ways to make me roll my eyes in disgust.
Three episodes to go and hopefully another cancellation to add to the pile of corpses Disney has piled up since it took over a once grand franchise.
They managed to turn Boba Fett into a bureaucrat who takes meetings and baths. He'd fit right in on this show.
Me, I'll be eating a nice quiet turkey dinner and topping it with a bit of homemade apple pie.
Whatever, where ever, however and with who ever you are celebrating around this time of year, I wish you and yours the very best of it.
May the New Year find you healthy, happy and safe.
And long may it be so.
Update.
After 2 days of Christmas specials and all the nostalgia and heart that's packed into Rudolph, Frosty, Whoville, Tiny Tim and all the rest, I was pretty emotionally drained. I spent today watching the 7 Christmas episodes of The Repair Shop, pretty much each of which includes a restoration with deeply painful and difficult emotions attached to the object or objects being restored. They do a lot of fun, happy stuff too, but it's a teary-eyed roller-coaster. I am emotionally wrung out.
In a good, if exhausting, way.
I hope to recover in time for the New Year.
Ugh. The best part of the fourth episode? It ended.
Four more to go. I doubt I have that much mental fortitude.
Jude Law's line from this episode sums up my feelings about the show:
Whoever greenlit this garbage needs to go back to their fast food career.
For all our sakes.
How is this disaster still a 7.2 at IMDB?
It seems that I'm not the only one who is really enjoying Dune: Prophecy. The powers that be have renewed it for a second season, so we're in for more back stabbing, pseudo-religious, weirdly dark, sci-fi fun sometime in the future. Given how long it takes to make a few episode long "season" these days, I'll avoid saying "next year" because it wouldn't surprise me if we don't see "season 2" until 2026.
Travis Fimmel always brings a psychotic weirdness to his roles (his Ragnar Lothbrook in Vikings is searingly terrifying at times) and he's perfect as the enigmatic, fanatic Bashar, Desmond Hart. Mark Strong, who seemed a little lost as Carmine Falcone in The Penguin earlier this year is note perfect as the somewhat self-doubting Emperor of the Known Universe, Javicco Corrino. Mark Addy as Evgeny Harkonnen is so much fun to watch and the pre-echo of Baron Harkonnen is note perfect.
There's a host of beautiful, super-fit British twenty somethings playing other roles too, but the standouts are the middle aged women playing the senior Sisters. Emily Watson and Olivia Williams play the Harkonnen sisters, Valya and Tula and they're both entirely in charge of every scene they are in, without seeming to make any effort.
If you're a Dune fan, this show is gold, but seeing that it takes place 10,000 years before the events that played out in the Dune films, casual fans might find this show a little puzzling. The choice to do a show about the Sisterhood of the Bene Gesserit makes perfect sense if you've read the Frank Herbert books and the prequels by his son Brian with co-writer Kevin J. Anderson, but if you haven't got that background you might be left a bit confused by the whole thing. The Sisterhood's multi-generational genetic manipulation plan doesn't really get much screen time or deep explanation in the films and what we do get of it is very abbreviated and terribly well laid out.
Dune: Prophecy fills in a lot of blanks from the films, but I'm surprised that there is enough interest in the depth and breadth of the Herbert-verse for the show to be a hit. Pleasantly surprised, to be sure.
Now that there's a second season, I'm sure we'll see the beginnings of the Missionaria Protectiva, the Litany Against Fear and the Bene Gesserit fighting techniques along with what we've seen of the Gom Jabbar, the Voice, Face Dancers and more.
I can't bloody wait!
Comparisons have been made to beloved movies like The Goonies and E.T. The Extra Terrestrial.
I don't see it.
I'm assuming that the argumentative, know-it-all, never-shut-up kids are supposed to be charming, but to me it's just grating.
I can honestly say that 3 episodes in, this is the first Star Wars show or movie I actually hate. And I've sat through the treacly sweet Young Jedi Adventures.
The droid is fun, voiced by the very talented and actually charmingly argumentative Nick Frost.
Overall, I'd rather sit through the Holiday Special again than be forced (see what I did there?) to endure the 5 remaining episodes of this mess.
This past weekend, I revisited some of my favourite Saturday morning cartoons, including one from 1983, a time when I generally scoffed at cartoons as "kids' stuff". I was all of 13 and entering that awkward time when a young man still secretly enjoys "kids stuff" but tries to act like an adult and pretend he doesn't.
Most people grow out of it by leaving "kids' stuff" behind. I pretended to do that until I decided it was just easier and more fun to embrace the fact that I love cartoons and a lot of other "kids' stuff". I'm much happier this way.
Anyhow, that cartoon I mentioned? Dungeons and Dragons. It's about a group of teens (and one younger kid) from "our" world who land in a fantasy landscape inspired by the Dungeons and Dragons role playing game after a carnival ride goes haywire. For a 40 year old cartoon, it's aged very well and is still a LOT of fun. It's out on DVD and probably streams or youtubes or something. I highly recommend it for anyone who likes swords and sorcery, dragons and/or cartoons. It's got a little Scooby-Doo, a little He-Man and a little Lord of the Rings with a Saturday morning spin on the whole thing.
It hit at a moment when I had only recently started playing the role playing game. That eventually led me to my love of painting miniatures, a hobby that outlasted my interest in role playing games by a lifetime.
The picture above includes the entire main cast. From left to right:
Venger, the main villain. He has one horn and we just won't comment or ponder on that any longer.
Dungeon Master, the local guide and good guy who meets the heroes when they arrive in his world and gives them magic weapons to help them find their way home.
Hank, the Ranger and the leader He is given a magic bow that shoots bolts of energy. Kevin Costner boosted his look when he made Robin Hood - Prince of Thieves.
Diane, the acrobat. She is given a magic staff that extends and can be used in a variety of ways. And a fur bikini, apparently.
Bobby, the barbarian. Youngest of the group, he's given a magic club that lets him bash things. He also is the main keeper of Uni, a unicorn that the team rescues in the opening credits.
Presto, the magician. He is given a magic hat that he can pull things from. Never the right things or what he actually asks for. He's one of the main comic elements and is apparently actually named "Presto" since no one ever calls him any other name. Naming your kid "Presto" is terrible parenting, particularly since he's totally incompetent as a magician.
Eric, the cavalier. He is given a magic shield, ironically often forcing him to protect the group, despite being the most self centred member of the team.
Shiela, the thief. She's given a cloak of invisibility that she activates by raising the hood. She's also the elder sister of Bobby, the barbarian.
In the show, the team finds a new way to get home every week and every week they fail, usually because their getting home would cause suffering or spread evil in the world they'd be leaving behind. The show ran one season and they never got home. I would love to see the show get a reboot one of these days. If you're really observant, you can see a live action shot of the gang in the background in the 2023 film Dungeons and Dragons - Honor Among Thieves. I guess they never got home....
So, Hero Forge doesn't have any baby unicorns to work with, which decided me on creating the team a little older and allowing their outfits a little leeway since they've been adventuring for a few years now.
And finally...
Yeah. I am still that kid who loves this stuff. Long may it be so.
Very soon, a trailer for the next Superman movie is going to drop. The rumour is that it will be here before Christmas, but even if it isn't, you're bound to see the newest incarnation of Superman in his full costumed glory well before the July 11 release of the film. You may have already seen this image of David Cornswet suiting up:
It's not what I would have chosen as the image to introduce the world to the new Man of Tomorrow, but it at least gives us a decent look at the costume and the new logo.
And that "S" is the latest topic of conversation in the Geek-o-sphere. The new logo is based on this:
It swaps black for the more traditional yellow background, in a darker story called Kingdom Come, with an older, darker Superman. Genius and worth looking up and reading if you're not familiar.
The new logo takes this Ross design and swaps the yellow back in. Presumably, James Gunn plans a brighter, more hopeful Superman and the logo is a sort of "best of both worlds" blending:
It seems some portion of the Geek-o-sphere takes issue with it. Comic book fans will argue about just about every molecule of every movie, show and book on the planet. It's often like watching the infinite monkeys at infinite keyboards, all living in infinite parents basements, eating infinite Cheetos and pounding infinite Red Bulls. This time, someone actually got James's Gunn's attention with a demand to use the "original" Superman Logo, not the one he's using. His response was to ask if they wanted him to use this:
It may not be familiar, but it's the original. From this:
Like most things about the Man of Steel, the logo evolved and continues to do so. When a property like Superman has 80 years of life and change, we mere morals have a tenancy to revere the version we are most familiar with as the "real" version. I am as guilty of this as anyone and being aware that I am, I fight the instinct at every turn. If new and different versions of beloved characters didn't spring forth from the creative talents in the world, we'd have one Batman movie, one James Bond movie, one version of Robin Hood and play them all on repeat.
What a horrible thought!
Anyhow, in case you're wondering, Superman's S has been changing it's shape and even its colour regularly for the last 80 years. Long may it be so.
I suspect that the person who made the demand of Gunn had something like the 1998-2009 version in mind as the "original", but as you can see, it's far from it. There's a wealth of options in just the limited selection presented here and I applaud Gunn for going his own way without losing sight of the history of the character he's about to reintroduce to the world.
Now, if he'd just get back to me about my African-American Superman script...
I have been saying for years that one day, in my lifetime, a woman will take the mound in a Major League Baseball game. Today I learned we are one step closer to that.
The first woman to EVER play professional baseball in Canada will take the mound for the Intercounty Baseball League Toronto Maple Leafs.
34 year old Ayami Sato, widely considered the best female baseball player in the world, has signed for the 2025 season. It is unlikely this will lead to any "next step" with a Major League franchise as the Maple Leafs aren't directly affiliated with a "big" club, but it's still an important step.
Looking at her repertoire, she compares favourably with many minor league pitchers. She features a darting slider which she considers her best pitch, along with a curve and a high 70s fastball.
So, no knuckleball. I figure that it'll be a knuckleball pitcher that finally cracks the Major Leagues, since a knuckler thrown in the 70s can and will strike out Major League hitters on the regular. In the era of high 90s heat, it's unlikely a "big" club would have the confidence in Sato to try her out.
Still, it's awesome to see the sport creep a little closer. I am going to see if I can find my way to a Maple Leafs game this summer.
...but when I ran across this on the internet, it sent me into a mad fit of laughter for far longer than I'm comfortably able to admit. Some days it pays to live alone.
I hope you get similar results.
And if you are wondering, I really, really want one of these.
And a long, long beach on a windy day....
4 seasons.
53 episodes.
1 major recasting.
10% too much teen angst.
2 perfectly cast leads.
1 series finale.
1 chance to stick the landing.
While the purple Commander Data's head from the purple Enterprise says this specifically about the colour of the Enterprise in "our" dimension, it applies to everything:
Today marks a personal best for me. I've been alive for more days in a row today than I ever have before.
Guess what? It's that same personal best today for you too, dear reader.
If you accomplish nothing else all day, you'll still have achieved a personal best today.
I am looking forward to breaking my own record tomorrow.
You should, too.
I grew up in a era where every tv show ran 20 to 26 episodes a season and there was a new season every year, usually starting in September.
So it puzzles me greatly why shows that are now 8 or 10 episodes per season can't seem to keep to a yearly schedule anymore.
What happened?
As an example, I offer this quote from an article about the soon (supposedly) to start production Harry Potter series from HBO chairman and CEO Casey Bloy:
" “I think an annual schedule will be tough, but it depends on how much is written ahead of time,” he said."
What the hell?
First, this is adaptation of an existing series of novels. I know it's still got to be written as a script, but it's not like they don't have a framework. Surely writing 6-8 hours of material to adapt a novel is something that can be accomplished by a team of writers in less than a year? I'm pretty sure I could knock up a decent script for the first season in a week or two.
I have little interest in Harry Potter, but it's industry wide. Every show films fewer episodes and the time between seasons gets longer all the time.
It's like there's no talent in Hollywood anymore.
Oh..wait...
I'm going to give you a link. Here it is.
If you go there, you'll see a list of 50 pictures from social media that will bring you the warm fuzzies and maybe even give you the misty eyes.
Are they all real? No idea. And really, who cares? They're lovely and gentle and life affirming. Their veracity isn't important.
So what kind of pictures are all that?
Pictures like this one about what might be the world's smartest cat.:
I promise, you will smile. You might even laugh. At the end, you'll feel pretty good and that's a pretty impressive accomplishment for a bunch of pictures from social media.
I have no idea where it comes from, who the people are or if it's even actually real, but watching this creepy bastard get his cumuppance just makes me happy.
I can imagine my sainted Mother's reaction to this would have been very similar. But with more post-consiousness nad stomping.
It isn't easy to get a unanimous opinion on pretty much anything in the internet age.
Imagine a school board in today's political climate voting on anything unanimously!
Well it happened in Missouri. Swedeborg, to be exact.
The local elementary school needed to name a new building and their choice was a unique and unanimous one. They named the building after the school's about to retire janitor of 30 years, Claudene Wilson.
You read that right. Not a war hero or politician, not a sports legend or civil rights activist, a janitor.
This lady has, for 30 years, cleaned up the school and taken on just about everything else that needed doing and in the process become a fixture in the lives of generations of children. Her care and dedication have endeared her to students and faculty alike and in a touching gesture, they put her name up on the side of the damned building. Where it belongs.
While you might think it an odd choice at first blush, if you watch the interview embedded in this article (sorry, I couldn't get twitter and blogger to play nice) you'll understand that this was exactly the right choice.
The work done by "everyday" people is what keeps our lives running. Without school janitors, garbage collectors, construction workers, couriers, warehouse staff, grocery store cashiers, customer service folks and countless other men and women working "regular" jobs, there are no celebrities, no sports heroes, no media moguls or business tycoons to get their names and likenesses slapped on everything from sneakers to rockets.
It's nice to see a "regular" life get some love and attention for a change. It's extraordinary, actually.
Every once in a while, I stop by Hero Forge and design a few miniatures. I no longer paint much as my once sharp eyes aren't really up to the task anymore. I can do it with glasses and magnification but it's just not as fun somehow.
Hero Forge is still a kick though. I can design pretty much any character, with the only limitation being what's available in the vast catalogue of features, clothing and equipment they offer. That catalogue is constantly growing, too. The painting options are damned near infinite, giving you the ability to paint with metallic, plastic, cloth, skin and bone textures and hues among many others.
My latest stop yielded a version of a comic book band I was a big fan of as a kid:
Okay, so I'm still working my way through the Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies library and I'm still running into things I almost can't believe.
Like the clip below.
It's legit, from the 1956 short "Wideo Wabbit," not some 21st Century mocking attack on the morals and humour of the 1950s. The voice Bugs is doing is his impersonation of Groucho Marx (Google him, kids) and not evidence that this is a fake clip.
...you know the rest.
So about that "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all," stuff...
There's a song in the first episode that sets up the whole story. The song is pretty good.
The last scene of episode 7 is also pretty cool.
I have nothing else to say.
Another one of those childhood hero types has left us today.
Ron Ely played the King of the Jungle in 57 episodes of Tarzan from 1966 to 1968, the same years that saw Adam West play Batman.
Ely also had a couple of notable roles later on in his career. He was never really a huge star even during his Tarazn days, but he was one of the best looking and fittest men in Hollywood at the time, making him perfect for the role of Doc Savage.
If you're not familiar, Doc Savage is a proto-superhero who predates the advent of "real" superheroes like Superman and Batman by half a decade. He's a regular human who has trained his mind and body to the peak of physical and mental ability and surrounds himself with a team of experts in various fields who help him solve mysteries and stop crime. He operates out of his "Fortress of Solitude" in the Empire State Building. And if that name is familiar, it's because Superman appropriated it for his own "Fortress of Solitude" years later.
The filmmakers of Doc Savage: Man of Bronze took a camp approach, in the vein of the Batman show of the 60s and the movie was a flop. I've seen it and it's not bad. There's a fan edit floating around on the web that "de-camps" it and makes a decent movie out if it.
Ely had a bunch of guest roles on tv through the 70s and 80s but never really found great success. Notably, he appeared on the Linda Carter Wonder Woman show and did a single episode of the 2001 Sheena: Queen of the Jungle show, much to the delight of Tarzan fans.
Had there been a Superman show made in the late 60s or early 70s, Ely would have likely been the front runner for the lead, standing 6'5" (or 6'3" depending on your source) and rocking an impressive physique for the day, his charming smile and gentle delivery would have been perfect. He did get the chance in his most notable guest role on the Superboy show when he got the opportunity to play Superman, if only a retired, sweater wearing, silver fox version of the Man of Steel.
James Gunn continues to work on the upcoming Superman movie and it's still months and months away.
However.
We got some details today and a look at the next iteration of Krypto, the Super-Dog. I am smitten.
Apparently, Gunn is an advocate for rescue dogs. This is Adopt a Shelter Dog month, so he shared that the inspiration for Krypto was his own rescue dog. When they brought their new dog home, he proceeded to destroy their house and made Gunn wonder how much more difficult it would be to deal with if the pup had super powers. That apparently influenced the script and the direction of the movie.
Now that I've had a look at the pup they cast as Krypto, I'm dying to see what Gunn does with him! He's scruffier than previous incarnations and I have a feeling that will reflect in his personality. I can't wait!
PS:
It just occurred to me that the reason I love that dog is that it looks a lot like a dog my neighbour used to dog sit a couple of times a year. That pup was the best! So sweet, so friendly and so happy to see me every time I got home and she was out in the yard.
I miss that dog!
Awards shows bore me to tears. I never watch and haven't since back when Silence of the Lambs was Best Picture.
Still, they sometimes bring attention to stuff that might go unnoticed, so that's a good thing.
This year's Emmys have come and gone. I think that the timing will be against it, but there's a show airing now that MUST get AT LEAST the Best Make-Up award for 2025.
Somehow, a team of geniuses make THIS work:
Colin Farrell's performance is amazing and he deserves consideration for it. But the make-up!
Not once have I looked at the lead character and seen anything but an overweight, scarred, middle-age slob with a limp. It's like the anti-Farrell.
The show itself is as good as any mob drama I've seen (not my favourite genre) and Farrell's performance as the Batman villain has drawn me in completely.
Addendum:
I anticipated this show being a filler between The Batman and the soon to film sequel, but it was so, so much more. What you have here is 8 episodes that are nothing short of spectacular. Colin Farrell's Oz Cobb is far and away the best street level Batman villain ever put on film. No powers, no tech, no gimmicks. Just a gun, a mouth and a superb mind coupled with an absolute lack of conscience. The action is pretty damned good but the plot, the twists, the payoff and the final gut punch are all next level.
Watch it. Even if Batman isn't your thing, this is pure gangster drama at its finest with a lead for the ages.
I'm currently doing a deep dive into the Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies cartoons.
I thought my "Golden Collection" was complete, but it's only some 500 or so shorts. They made 1000.
I don't happen to like the really old stuff and I'm horrified by some of the racist depictions that were considered "funny" at the time. I'm also running across a LOT of shorts that never ran on the shows I watched in the 70s on tv. I assume that the racism, alcholism, gun violence (there's a few horrible "funny" suicides that are truly jarring) and/or sexism in certain of the shorts (particularly those from the 40s) were deemed too "adult" to allow them on Saturday morning tv decades later.
Still, there's a lot to love once you filter out the worst of it. There are also a more than a few surprises to be noted in what I think of as "the good stuff" which makes up between half and two-thirds of the 1000 cartoons.
One BIG surprise was the number of times the various characters actually show up. The numbers are generally lower that I expected and in some cases truly, shockingly low.
Consider 1000 cartoon shorts. Now consider the global popularity of some of the characters. Just off the top of my head I figured the "main" lead characters would have more appearances that they actually do.
Bugs Bunny, the marquee character, appears in 163 or so. I didn't count and I'm getting that number from Google. I mean, that's lots of cartoons, but somehow you'd just expect that he'd been in more like 250 of them or so.
Porky Pig appears in 153 according to the Google box. He appears in a lot of the early stuff, when the characters were still finding their classic designs and voices, so in my "good stuff" list it's only about 125 or so.
Daffy Duck, 130. Like Porky, the early Daffy stuff is (to me) not really enjoyable, so again, more like 100 or so.
Sylvester? 103, including 3 that won Academy Awards.
From 1000 cartoons, those 4 characters account for the leads in about half of them. Not really a surprise, but I still find the totals lower than my Saturday morning cartoon memories would expect.
I was surprised by some of the numbers for other characters.
Elmer Fudd takes on Bugs or Daffy in 71 cartoons. That seems about right.
60 Tweety appearances seemed low, but considering Sylvester also faces off with Hippity-Hopper the baby kangaroo and Speedy Gonzales, it tracks.
Speaking of Speedy, he appears 58 times, which is higher than I would have thought. Based on how I remember the cartoons as a kid, I thought there was a LOT more Tweety than Speedy.
When I was a kid, we watched the Bugs Bunny and Road Runner Show. Considering he got second billing, it's kind of shocking to see that there were only 49 Road Runner cartoons. Wile E. Coyote shows up in 5 more where he's trying to catch Bugs and the same character design was used for "Ralph Wolf" in 7 shorts where he's up against Sam the Sheepdog.
Yosemite Sam only appeared in 33 cartoons. Can you believe that? Only 33 out of 1000 and yet he's one of the most beloved characters of the franchise, particularly among short-tempered fans and pick-up truck drivers, for some reason.
Foghorn Leghorn was in 29 cartoons. He wasn't a favourite of mine as a kid, so it seemed like he'd been in a lot more than that!
Now comes the truly stunning number.
The Tazmanian Devil. Insanely popular character, huge global recognition. He spun (see what I did there?) off into his own show in the 90s, is on shirts, cups, posters, bumper stickers and just about any other place you can print something.
Truly a mascot for the phrase "quality over quantity."
How many times do you think, in all those 1000 cartoons, did he show up?
Take a guess. If you don't Google it, you'll be wrong.
He's since showed up in more shorts and movies, but from that original 1930 to 1965 run of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies, he was in five.
FIVE.
That just spun me out.
Addendum:
Turns out that another character of great significance and immense popularity also only appeared in FIVE Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies shorts.
I mean these two appeared in almost as many as Taz and Marvin, COMBINED, with 9 total cartoons in the same time frame and I've NEVER seen one of them flipping me the bird from the rear window of a pickup truck.
Don't get me wrong. I love the Goofy Gophers, but it's just so weird to realize they did more cartoons than either Taz or Marvin the Martian. Indubitably.
Try to imagine being in a theatre in 1942. Not so much the theatre itself, but think about the kneelength or longer skirts, uptight about all things sex related, no nudity in film AT ALL, wholesome expectations you would have had of the experience. Movies in general were, by today's standards, strictly G and PG affairs.
Especially the cartoons.
And yet...
From "The Rabbit Who Came To Dinner," a Bugs Bunny and (very off-model) Elmer Fudd cartoon from 1942 as Elmer tries to get Bugs out of his house:
Elmer's got naked lady paintings in his house! Now I've watched a LOT of Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes cartoons over the years, but I never saw that!
And in case you think it's a fluke, from the same short cartoon:
A full moon! Not a cheeky look at Bugs' furry, always naked anyhow butt under a hillbilly wrap skirt, but a human posterior in its full artistic glory!
Gives a whole new meaning to "I tawt I taw a puddy tat!"
In a Hollywood-esque piece of serendipity, on the last day of the Major League Baseball season, Pete Rose has died at the age of 83.
If you look at the season as a life and the post season as a Hall of Fame, it sadly lines up.
Sure, Rose bet on games.
He also played more games (3,562), had more at-bats (14,053), accumulated more hits (4,256) than anyone in the history of the sport and had more than 200 hits in 10 different seasons. All of those numbers are major league records that have stood since he retired in 1986. He was named to the All-Star squad 17 of his 24 active seasons as well.
The idea of someone holding 4 significant MLB records for nearly 40 years and NOT being in the Hall of Fame is just silly.
It is long past time for an asterisk section, with all the gory details writ large to make it clear that the inclusion isn't an honour but just an acknowledgement of the facts.
If necessary, open it only to the asterisk players once they die so they cannot collect on the glory, even tainted, of being in the Hall. Steriods, gambling, criminal activity and more can disqualify a player from the Hall, but none of those things erase a player's dominance during their career. They might have cheated, but they still DID it. You can't tell me that Babe Ruth never played loaded (or that he didn't drink like a fish during his career which coincided with Prohibition, making him a law breaker) or that there aren't men who abused their wives and kids in the Hall or a hundred other disqualifications. The only difference is that they never got caught. Ty Cobb is in the Hall and by all accounts he was a TERRIBLE human being on a bunch of levels.
Shoeless Joe, Pete Rose and a whole host of steroid era hitters like Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa who aren't technically banned but won't ever be voted in as legitimate inductees were DOMINANT in their day. That the all-time single season home run record holder, Barry Bonds, isn't in the Hall in some way or other is mind boggling. How does ignoring the most dominant hitter of an era serve baseball?
I'm not in any way suggesting that the cheating behaviours be forgiven or glossed over, but the Hall of Fame is a museum of sorts and a museum needs to display the truth. The truth is, Pete Rose hit safely more times during his career than anyone in history. Not putting him in the Hall isn't punishing him anymore, it's denying a historical truth.
A long time ago, I saw a very famous magician live at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
Two things are significant.
1. I annoyed my then girlfriend by pointing out how most of the tricks were done and likely ruined the experience for her. I'm single for a reason, folks.
2. Turns out that one of the most influential magicians, a guy who a lot of modern magicians point to as the inspiration for the modern, intimate, natural style of magic that most of us are familiar with from stage and screen, was from Ottawa. I grew up there, so it's always a kick to learn that a local boy made good. Look up Dai Vernon, he's really cool. Or just watch Lost in the Shuffle.
Magic!
A little history, a little personality, a little magic and a lot of fun. I won't say it's the best documentary I've ever seen, but it's definitely the best documentary about a possible murder mystery that might just have had clues to its solution embedded in the art of standard playing cards for centuries that I've ever seen.
Talk about hiding in plain sight!
If the theory is true, it's the greatest piece of close up card magic ever done!
Check it out. It's worth your time.
...or "Super Hero".
I was only made aware that Marvel and DC Comics both held a joint Trademark on the term "Super Hero" or "Super Heroes" very, very recently when I read about an effort (apparently not the first) to get the Patent and Trademark people to rescind the trademark as too generic a term. A company wanted to market "Superbabies" (I have NO idea and nor do I care) as a "team of superheroes" and ran into the trademark issue.
Well, now you no longer have to worry about it. They won.
Apparently the Marvel and DC people failed to respond to the petition and the Trademark has been revoked.
I'm usually on board with most things that comic book companies want to do to protect their interests, but this one seemed pretty low class to me. It's a very generic term, thrown around for all kinds of reasons by all kinds of people. Marketing a character or characters as "super hero" in NO way could ever diminish Marvel and DC's brand. Perhaps they finally saw just how crappy it was to hold onto it and simply decided to do the right thing. We'll likely never know.
If the legalese interests you, there's an article for you here.
So there's a new show on ABC, based on a French show (that also inspired a Greek show) that is called HSI: Haut Potentiel Intellectuel.
The ABC version of the show is called High Potential. I love this show so much, it's doomed.
It's another "outsider gets a job as a consultant helping the police" show. Castle, The Irrational, Monk, Elementary and on and on. It's a well used trope. Well used tropes are well used for a reason.
To work, a show like this requires two key things. A great McGuffin and a great lead to make it work.
1. Morgan is a single mom with authority issues and an IQ of 160. Her high functioning brain can't sleep if she sees mistakes, so she winds up fixing a mistake in a murder file she knocks over while working as a night cleaner at the police station. The technical term (according to the show, I'm not 100% on it) is "High Potential Intellectual" which means you have advanced cognitive, creative and memory skills.
2. Kaitlin Olson, who I've never heard of or seen in a single thing absolutely KILLS it. Super charming, yet perfectly believable as someone barely able to manage her life thanks to her obsessive brain, while simultaneously always being the smartest person in the room.
Writing will be key. It's not enough that they showcase her brain full of facts, they have to keep finding ways for her to tie things only she notices to the things rattling around in her head. The gruff detective she works with...I'm not sold on yet but he's very "opposites attract" and these shows usually go down the "will they/won't they" road. So far...don't see it and hope that's the way it stays.
Nothing I like this much usually makes it past the first season, but hey...it's got high potential.
So unless you only use the internet for e-mail and porn, you're aware of Moo-Deng.
She's a baby Pygmy Hippopotamus in Thailand and has more fans than Taylor Swift. Or something like that. She is beautiful, full of life and fun and I love that something so pure and innocent has become a viral sensation. It gives me hope for us as a species.
And now she has her own AI Generator. That's right. You can click this link and create your own AI generated, custom situated Moo-Deng. It's free to do, but Buzzfeed wants you to post your creation to their comment section. To do that you need to sign up or sign in. If you don't want to do that, use the print screen button and paste the screen into your paint or photo program and save your creation that way.
It's nice when the interwebs give us something...nice.
Hard to believe I almost missed this!
Enjoy sliding up and down your Bat-Poles tonight. And may all your enemies be Jokers.
...but getting old still sucks.
I was helping a neighbour with a little paint project today. She's in her 80s and I prefer that it's me on the ladder painting her eaves. Plus, it gets me off the couch, which is not a bad thing.
So, while we have he ladder out, she graciously allows me to use it to clear out a little ecosystem that's grown up in one of my eaves troughs.
Now this particular gutter is just above the roof of my back porch and I've cleaned it out plenty of times over the years when enough muck builds up that things start growing there, but it's been a few years since I've noticed that it needed tending. This year, it's trying to grow a whole forest up there.
The back porch has a low slope roof that I've been on a dozen times over the years. I usually get out there through my little bathroom window, but it's been several years and more than a few pounds since I last did this. There's at least the fear, if not the real possibility of a Winnie the Pooh situation here.
Have you ever thought about how other people see colour?
I remember having my mind blown during a drunken conversation in my twenties about this very thing. Since I can't see through your eyes, it's entirely possible that you are seeing totally different colours than I am. What I think of as red might be what you think of as yellow. Like that.
Now until we can figure out how to see through another person's eyes, there's no way to confirm that hypothesis one way or another, but there are still colour questions that science can answer.
Every once in a while the internet will go a little nuts over a blue dress that looks gold to some people or some other colour dispute. One scientist has had an ongoing dispute with his optometrist wife about a blanket in their house that he sees as green and she sees as blue.
So, he created the Is my blue your blue? website. You click the link and pick if the screen you see is green or blue until you get a result. The whole story is here.
I've taken it twice and I get the same result each time. My green/blue boundary is 177 which is bluer than 78% of the population. For me, what most people deem "turquoise" looks green.
There's obviously some skewing because different monitors will display the same colour slightly differently, but it's still fascinating. If you have the ability, I recommend taking this with several people at once, all on the same monitor. It might not remove the colour skew as a monitor to monitor issue, but you'll be able to see among yourselves who is green with envy and who is boo-hoo blue.
Sad, sad news today.
James Earl Jones, the voice of Darth Vader and Mufasa, the bad guy in Arnold's Conan movie, the glue in Field of Dreams and many, many other characters in cinematic history, has died at the age of 93.
Should you like to see the late, great James Earl Jones in a joyful, fun and not in any way digitally created role, I recommend his turn as the Josh Gibson inspired power hitting Leon Carter in 1976's The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings. It's a somewhat sanitized look at the lives of (fictional) Negro League baseball players in the late 1930s and it's a very, very good film with Jones, Billy Dee Williams, Richard Pryor and more. One of my favourite movies of that era, actually.
So, if you're so inclined, fire up a Star Wars movie, Conan the Barbarian or Field of Dreams and salute the career of one of the all time great actors of the last 50 years.
Thanks for the memories, Mr. Jones. With great respect, you shall be mourned.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. This time I have more than my opinion to back it up.
Blue Eye Samurai was the BEST show of 2023. Not the best animated show, not the best drama, not the best fantasy show, the best show, PERIOD.
I don't do award shows, but this year's Emmy for Outstanding Animated Program went to Blue Eye Samurai. As far as I'm concerned, it should also win best Drama, but awards programs are notorious category snobs.
For me, the knowledge that there's a season 2 on the way is even better news than the Emmy.
Best. Show. Period.
...in one of those "funny tweets of the week" lists...
Those tweets are never funny by the way.
Anyhow.
One of them struck one of my few remaining nerves. It was said facetiously but I think it has real merit and as a natural night person, I fully endorse it.
They need to keep museums and art galleries open past midnight. At 11PM, I'm ready to go do something, but the only option is a bar. I'm a guy in his 50s. Bars hold no mystery and less appeal.
Plus, I remember how we looked at the "old guys" in the bar when I was in my 20s. Yeesh.
If there was an art gallery or a museum open at that time, I'd so go! I don't want to drink at that hour, or ever, really, but I can see myself checking out some artifacts or great art. Put a serious "no, this isn't a place for kids to meet each other" cover charge on it to pay the staff. Sell some nice snacks and drinks at ridiculous prices and I'm a weekly visitor.
Let's get on this.
Alas, another one of the supporting players in the tapestry of my life has left us.
James Darren, singer, actor, bon vivant, has died at the age of 88.
He had a long and varied career, but to me he will ever be the sentient hologram with a heart of gold and effortless stage presence, Vic Fontaine. Deep Space Nine went far off the usual script when they added his recurring, swingin' sixties lounge singer and the odd juxtaposition of the man out of time, worldly wise, 1960s Vegas entertainer on an alien space station in the 24th Century just...worked.
The proof is in the I'danian spice pudding. From the 7th Season episode, Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang, Darren's Fontaine and Avery Brooks' Captain Sisko just...work.
The best is yet to come...
Thanks for the memories, James. You are missed.
It's once again time for someone, somewhere, to determine the best wildlife photographer of the year.
Personally, I prefer the comedic version if this competition, but even the "serious" photographs can be stunning, funny and even heartbreaking.
The link to the story is here. Enjoy.
And what's a post about photographs without...a photograph?
One of the finalists:
