The Demonweasel Speaks

So this week’s edition of The Finger goes out to rapid comic book fans. You know, the hard-core faithful, the guys that have been reading X-Men for 30 years and can tell you eveyrthing about why they’ve been crap since whenever and why the movies were so stupid and awful and how they could make them so much better. Are these people my bread and butter? Of course they are. Could I be counted as one of them? At times, yes, but I haven’t been one for a while I’d like to think.

They get The Finger this week for two reasons. One is that they are acutally out there complaining about the Visa check card commericial that aired during the Super Bowl, where are the Marvel heroes show up to help a woman and it turns out she just lost her Visa check card, which really isn’t a super-hero emergency. So of course, rabid comic fans have to be pissed off about the fact that the characters looked goofy, that the costumes weren’t right, or that, god forbid, it was silly. Serious comments on the ad I’ve seen around the ‘net: “*I* had a better Cap outfit for Halloween.” “[T]he folks who made the Visa commercial did not take the Marvel characters seriously.” “[T]he Visa farce was a big step backwards for the serious protrayal of Marvel characters in mainstream media.” This isn’t the fucking tomahawk chop here, or guys done up in blackface, this is fucking comics books. You’re upset the Cap costume looks silly? Guess what? It *does* look silly! The man’s wearing a flag and a mask for god’s sake, that’s not cutting edge good looks! Of course Wolverine looks silly in yellow spandex, because *everyone* looks silly in yellow spandex! And no one, no matter how built or God-Like looks good in a Thor costume. Not even Thor. They look neat on the printed page but suck in 3-D. You’ve been reading comics long enough, haven’t you grasped that? A big step backwards for comics in the mainstream media? You’re right, I’m sure Spider-Man 3 will only make about a nickel because of this movie. Same with X-men 3. And the fascist bastards at Visa will be laughing thier asses off. It’s not a question of they didn’t spend enough money. They made an ad for the super bowl, an ad *designed* to be funny. Trust me, that’s where the money went. These are the same people that will tell you that superhoero movies that are coming out soon are going to suck because they cast someone who’s against type (like Jessica Alba as Susan Storm in the Fantastic Four movie), or if an actress doesn’t wear her hair the same way as they do in the comics then they aren’t being respectful (Famke Jansen in X-men, who didn’t dye her hair bright red for the part), or if you change a portion of the origin story that was written over 30 years ago, you’re making a mockery of the character (Genetically engineered spider? Bio-shooters, not techno-shooters? Perish forbid!). Sometimes things have to change, and you have to take the finished product as a whole and see if it has merit on it’s own, not just because it caters to a statistically small, fantaically loyal fanbase that buys the same comics for twenty years, bitches about how they aren’t as good anymore, but dammit, they’ll keep reading. I guess I shouldn’t complain too much, though. These are the people that pay my salary.

I love you rabid comic book geeks, but this week, you get The Finger

Ugh, another work entry. I hate having to do it from here, but heyl, it’s got to get somehow, right? Right, of course it does.

Watched the ‘Bowl with my neighbors Brett and Monica, which was fun. Beer, nachos, being offendd at every single commercial, since there were a couple that were pulled before hand for being too risque. It’s nice to know that after one flash of boob a year ago, we’re now in some sort of FCC imposed fascist hell-hole. I mean, I was enraged that they showed the Ford convertable commerical three times over the course of the night, where the guy freezes to death because he has the top down. How dare they potentially expose my child to the horror of a freeze-induced death not once, not twice, but three times? How am I supposed to explain that to my 8 year old? How is she supposed to sleep at night? I mean, it’s cold outside right now, she could be terrified if she had seen that. There are also other issues, but I’ll save that for this weeks edition of The Finger. Batman Begins trailer? Sweeeeeeeet. Can’t wait, so excited.

Speaking of, we’re celebrating Valentines Day early. Go us, because we’re awesome, and V-Day on a Monday is just sucky.

As for the ‘Bowl game itself, it was interesting, and (sorry Nick) I found myself rooting for the Eagles, just because it would have been a hell of an achievement if they had won. Instead, they made a hell of an achievement at suck. I feel bad for McNabb, I really do, but seriously dude, hurry up offensive – learn it, and by the way, the guys in the green are on your team. Throw the ball to them.

Life without my computer pretty much consists of me hitting my CD player a lot. I got it for free out of the old Antioch Free Box (before they decided “hey, let’s set this thing on fire!”), so I can’t really complain about getting a 5-disc box with dual tape decks for free, but for fuck’s sake, play one goddamn CD. Please, I’m begging you. My apartment is so quiet it’s scary. I’m a city kid at heart, I need to have some ambient background noise and TV is lame.

Well, “24″ is awesome, “Battlestar Galactica” is hella awesome, and I’m glad that Chloe now knows that Clark has powers on “Smallville.” Now if only she’d tell him. It does make for amusing jibes that she gets to make at him, which she spent most of last night’s episode doing (“Gee Clark, what’re you going to do, run in there and just rip the safe door off?” “Uh…no, of course not. I mean, how could I even do that, that’s just crazy talk. It’s not like I’m an alien or anything. Or whatever. I don’t know. I’ve never even seen Kryptonite, or inhaled it or anything. Hey, what’s that over there?”). I tried watching “Alias” and I just have a hard time getting into it. Frankly, I don’t need anopther show, and since I’ve tried following Alias about three seperate times and it never took, mayhaps I should just give up the ghost. Hopefully, “Desperate Housewives” and “Boston Legal” will be back this weekend. Not like I care about Desperate Housewives or anything. I mean, why would I? I’ve never even seen it, or inhaled it or anything. Hey, what’s that over there?

I sold about 20 CDs of mine that I really just didn’t need to own anymore and got about $27 for them, which is very fair. I wanted to replace them with new music since hey, all my newest music is on my AWOL computer and not on CD yet. All I could find was the new Beastie Boys album. Which is cool, but still, I’d have like to have been able to find *anything* else new or interesting. A whole big wasteland of suck. I did like the whole ode to New York feel to it, which made me happy and nostalgic.

Speaking of selling things, I’m going to put together a bunch of books I don’t need and get rip of those as well and, *sigh* sell a bunch of comics too. Not out of any dire financial need or anything (although one can always use some more green paper), but there’s a lot of suck in there. Things that were cool when I was 13 and don’t really hold up anymore. I mean, I’m not selling any Batmans or Spider-Mans, just because there’s too much love and nostalgia there, but there is some stuff that I just don’t need anymore, like post-Claremont X-Mens from the 90s, and a bunch of my Ultimates comics, because those are all collected in trades and they can fetch me some beacoup green paper. In fact, those I may just eBay myself. There’s an auction going on right now for a slabbed (sealed in plastic) CGC 9.8 (Professionally graded, on a scale of 10 which is the most minty mint ever and perhaps a theoretical impossibility) Ultimate Spider-man #1 that’s up to $400. Yes, I have a USM #1, and yes, it’s in mint. No, it’s not slabbed, no it’s not graded, but maybe I could get $20 or so for just that, perhaps in the hundreds if I put it up there with a lot of the early issues (I, of course, have all 72 and counting USM issues.). The same with Ultimates, Ultimate X-Men, and the various Ultimate mini-serieses. Not to mention the first three issues of Superman/Batman. All mostly in pretty damn good condition for me not storing them bagged and boarded. All told, that’s about 8 medium boxes of comics. And no, that’s not even half the collection. The last time I got ride of stuff was to *throw away* my old school G.I.Joe and Transformers comics. Yes, those are worth money now. No, they weren’t perfect but still. So naturally, I feel apprehensive about selling.

Speaking of, I’m going to get off here (as my better half says), as I’ve finished my chowder and bananas and am ready to roll again.

Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens and Staten, from the Battery to the tip of Manhattan, I remain…

So here’s something old and something new. The Finger. I rather enjoy giving things the finger, so I figured I’d share that with you, the people in my neighborhood. So I’ll try every week to find something that deserves just being given the finger long and hard. This weeks winner of The Finger is Blog Spammers. I fucking hate these assholes. Sure, I can moderate my comments now and you all don’t have to look at them, but when you have to delete about a hundred of thier comments a week, it really sucks. Trust me, I’m planning on trying to find ways to put a stop to this. A close runner up to this is Saturday Night Live, as they apparently had Paris Hilton as a host. Paris Hilton? Fuck that noise. That no-talent hooch has no right to exist, much less take up airwaves. It’s fucking gross. So Blog Spammers and SNL, congratulations: you get The Finger.

So I got word from the computer people: a surge took out my power supply and motherboard. Y’know, the new motherboard I spent $800 on about nine, ten months ago. Funny that, since the fucking machine is plugged in to a surge protector.

Thankfully, the ‘board is under warranty, but they have to send it to the company and it will be three to six weeks before they get it back. Why don’t the just tell me I can’t have my thumbs for that long? Yes, it is sad that I’m that dependent on my machine, but it’s one of my main sources of entertainment, be it for music, gaming, writing or internet. So yeah, this totally blows. I find it dreadfully amusing that I’m always the most anxious to do work when I know my computer is out of whack. I guess I’ll just have to notebook it for right now. It kind of cuts out my ability to edit (yes, I have copies on CD that I can refer back to, but still…), but maybe I can kick out some other jams that have been in my head lately. Like the “Gifted” series, which is knocking on my forebrain a lot lately. Maybe because I was talking about it to Kenzie the other day, but still…I wanna get that out. Give that a chance.

As an aside, I’m getting alot more traffic now that I’m on word press. I’m wondering if it’s because I show up in search engine results more, as that’s what most of the increased traffic is. Weird, weird search engine requests. Like “basic crip walking,” “condolezza rice lesbian,” “really gross naked pictures,” “delusions of granger,” and my favorite, “democracy is stupid.”

Thinking about getting a cell phone. Like, as my only phone. Still debating and checking my options.

I’m rediscovering my CD collection, now having to rely on the stereo for music, like some sort of primate cave-person. I own two Blues Traveller CDs. Who knew?

I’m having some people over for the ‘Bowl. Nothing major, and I’m sure only my neighbors will end up showing up, like last year, but still. I’d like to see a good game. That’s all. I think the Eagles stand a chance, I do. They probably won’t win, but still, good game please? Thanks.

The subject line is one of my favorite Buffy quotes, and yes sweetie, you’ll see it soon, I remain…