Fangasmic?!

Oh, that's right. Because they want to get more kids reading these comics...


That'll look great on the lunchboxes.


Um, no, it really didn't. (from Detective Comics #1, September 2011)

Holy Derivative, Batman, er, Batwing!

Ben Oliver [artist]: You're SURE this is what you want me to draw?

DC Comics Excutive: Hey, if Marvel can get Samuel L. Jackson to star in their movies, why can't we?

Ben Oliver: Um...


(Batwing #1, September 2011)

"I'm the Doctor...

So, basically... rip me off for the DC Comics universe reboot."


(Doctor Who, April 2010)


(Stormwatch 1, September 2011)

New, Blue, DCU?

Oh, that's right. Because they want to get more kids and women reading these comics...


(Stormwatch 1, September 2011)

Torchwood Math

The second episode of the Doctor Who spinoff Torchwood: Miracle Day saw a dramatic decline in viewership: about 30 percent, according to Entertainment Weekly columnist James Hibberd.

This means:

* 30% of the first-episode viewers were spared the f'ing awful hour of TV that was episode two. Everything about this episode failed: characterizations, motivations, the acting, the plot, everything. Imagine the worst expositional and mock-action excesses of 24 mixed with the logic- and chemistry-defying stupidity of MacGuyver. I gave T:MD a chance because Torchwood: Children of Earth was a gripping British SF thriller in the tradition of Quatermass. Now I'm thinking much of Children of Earth's success had to do with the direction of Euros Lyn, the wise choice to never show the 4-5-6, and a terrific performance from Peter Capalidi. T:MD is much closer to seasons 1 and 2 of Torchwood: absolute crap, start to finish.

* the 70% of viewers who returned got to sit through such gems of dialogue as "I'm not gay but I'll let you feel me up if you get me a vodka" and "Water? I'm American, too. Can't I contribute to our global cultural hegemony with a nice frosty cola?" Who would ever speak either of these lines?!

* 70% of epsiode 1 viewers got to see Wayne Knight--in a glass-walled office on a busy floor full of intelligence analysts!-- look as shifty and squirmy and guilty as anyone ever looked as he planned the end of Torchwood. It's as if the director said, "Do that character you did in Jurassic Park, but bigger." Where, oh where, is a dilophosaurus when you need one?

* 30% of the viewers are obviously smarter than I am, but rest assured I'll be contributing to the dropoff in viewing figures between episodes three and two. It's time to put the torch to Torchwood. And give good actors like Bill Pullman something worthwhile to be in.

Firefox 4.0...

Unbelievable. Firefox release 4.0 replaces the menu bar, a tool that works incredibly well and has been ingrained in computer users' minds for 25 (25!) years with a box you must click to get a dropdown menu, from which you must choose an option to get a sideways-expanding menu, from which you must chose your final option.

Yes, the menu bar itself is an unnatural construct, and only seems intuitive to us now because of its ubiquity. But to take this proven bit of near-universal design and toss it is just mental. WTF, Firefox?! This is as annoying as when Micrsoft decided to the same with Office, with those interminable "ribbons"! The more-is-more school of software design.

I'm sticking with Firefox 3.6.8 until I absolutely have to switch.

The abuse of language continues...

This was on the Weather Network's website:

Poll? Vote? Where the hell did the people who wrote this go to school?!

Poll: "a sampling or collection of opinions on a subject, taken from either a selected or a random group of persons, as for the purpose of analysis."

Vote: "express one's preference for a candidate or for a measure or resolution"

If anything, this is a quiz, and one could submit an answer or a guess, but not a vote. Opinion or preference has no value in this case. No amount of voting can affect the answer, as the answer is a fact. Hence there can be no opinion about its validity. The imprecision with which language is used never ceases to amaze and annoy me. No, wait... amaze isn't the correct word...

Maybe the Weather Network boffins aren't used to absolutes. "50% chance of Scorpius this month... with a possibility of Orion blowing in from the northeast."

*The correct answer (not opinion) is Orion.

Irony, ca. 1963

Dropbox just got better! (How is that possible?)

Dropbox is just plain awesome. Now it's a bigger size of awesome, even if you have the free account: an extra gig of storage space for 15 minutes of your time (more if you want to give your brain a workout; I'll cop to using this answer key). Either way, a huge thanks to the developers at Dropbox. When I've got more work coming in, I'll upgrade to a paid membership, I promise!

When is an Alien not an Alien?

Now, apparently.

Alien prequel now called Prometheus and will be an unrelated story.

This sounds like a good idea to me. The Alien films really had no "continuity," it was more that they had the common elements Ripley, the Alien and its variants, and an evil corporation looking to harness the Alien as a weapon. There is no real Alien "universe", given that decades elapse between the films. Notice that I'm not counting the Alien vs. Predators films. I'm barely counting Alien: Resurrection, which which was a terrible film, chock-a-block with dodgy effects, cardboard characters, and an incredibly unengaging story.

So Ridley and gang get to make something new. Huzzah!