The Skin of Our Teeth

Yeah, I know - I haven't been around in weeks. I never had a lot of readers, but at least I use to update every day or every other day at the most. Now its been maybe a month, I haven't checked.

The first main focus today, Christopher Reeve. It has now been eight days since news of his passing has reached our ears and I have yet to make a comment on him. How can I though? Every thing that probably can be said, has been said. He was one of my boy-hood idols, and that never changed - still hasn't changed. I just can't give the man a proper tribute, its just not possible. When I heard the news as midnight was appoarching on Sunday night, I really did just crack. I had known his health was not the greatest, but it still came as a shock. Shocked everyone.

As I said, I don't think I could ever make a well enough tribute to the man, so I won't try. I'll just say it as plainly as I can, thank you. Thank you for everything. You'll be missed but let's all take comfort in the fact that he can now, once again, walk and it has been liberated from those tubes and that chair.

And a week to the day of his passing, Bryan Singer has announced (and it has been confrimed) the casting of Kal-El for the next Superman movie. Brandon Routh will be the next to don the cape. Brandon who? Exactly. He has made a couple TV cameos on such shows as Will and Grace and Oliver Beane. I'm not firmiliar with his work but he looks the part  and he's the guy that Singer wanted - so I'm happy. At least we finally have this movie moving forward.

No word on when or who will be casted in the roles of Lex or Lois or any othe character.

Other musings,

Michael Jackson is offended by Eminem's new video, Lose It? Hey Mike, ever think that molesting children, grabbing yourself in public, and hanging "your son" over a balcony might have offended someone?

Speaking of Lose It - was Marshall trying to make the most annoying song possible? The song is slowly growing on me, I'll admit, but really, it's nothing I want to listen to over and over and over again like some of his past 'raps.'

Is it about time the Boston Red Soxs just nuked their entire team? It's becoming painfully obvious that this team does not have the mental aptitude to take on the Yankees, and nothing is going to give them that. Let's start dismantling the team and find a new attitude for this club. Trading Nomar was a great start, let's finish the job and change the make-up of this team. Lord knows though, that Theo Epstein will spend the off-season just loading up on more parts. And the same result will happen again next October. I keep flopping my mind on Orlando Caberara. Prior to this season, I considered him the second best short stop in the NL (behind Edgar Renteria) and I would think that the Red Soxs would love to keep him, but reports are saying that Theo is willing to give him as much as $8 million a year to stay. Usually my theory is, whatever you can to keep your vital parts, you do it but I may draw the line on Orlando there.

Despite Juraj Kolnik's comments about scab players for the NHL season, I'm still sticking with the players on all this. If it comes to scab players and the owners stoop that low, I for one, won't be watching. Why pay NHL prices to watch AHL/ECHL level talent? I like Kolnik a lot, but he still hasn't reached his full potential (he's closer than most though)  and a couple hundred bucks, I'm not going to pay to watch him go through all that. If I want to watch AHL talent, I'll go to watch the AHL. There are other outlets for hockey, I'm not that desperate for 'NHL hockey.'  You can't just take the AHL, slap the 'NHL' label on it and fool me. May fool other people, but don't expect me to care.

I finally saw Lindsay Lohan in Mean Girls last night. Ugh. Honestly, the first half of this movie was funny and smart. What the hell happened in the second half? I almost had the faint hope that maybe I didn't know where the movie was going, but alas, it went where I thought and it was a major dissapointment. It's like a tale of two movies and I really can't pin point where it all goes arye....wait, yes I can, when she became the Queen Bee, so to speak. You knew it was coming, but you wished it didn't. The dynamic of comparing school to the African jungle was nice but they just didn't do enough with it (and possibly, that's a good thing - you never want to over use a dynamic)

I must admit, it's always nice to see Lacey Chabert, who I think is not only one of the best looking women out there, but also one of the best dressers too. Rachel McAdams, who I enjoyed in The Hot Chick, is the lesser used of the Plastics - she really needs to go back to being a brunette. And who can forget Tina Fey. There's just something about women in glasses that get me going. Her beauty gets paled by her younger co-stars, but meow. I know I just ripped the second half of a script she wrote, but I won't deny how sexy she is. 

How weird will it be to say "The Houston Astros win the playoff series?" Seriously, if they win this year, I'm going to have a hard time saying that.

Give me Cards, Astros, Yankees, Angels.

I say "never bet against the pinstripes," but anyone notice that the white Minnesota Twins jerseys have pinstripes on them?

Hugh Jackman will reprise his role as Wolverine not only in X-Men 3, but in all new Wolverine movie penned by David Benioff, who gets screenwriting credits for Troy. No one points out that Benioff is an accomplished novelist and that he wrote the book 25th Hour (as well as the screen adaptation directed by Spike Lee and starring Edward Norton.) I know this is Wolverine's 30th anniversary this month, but I'm a bit tired of Wolverine. Now he's going to be an Avenger? What next - Spider-Man as an Avenger? Oh shit, two for two.

Speaking of the re-vamp of the Avengers - the destruction of the current Avengers has been, well, crappy. You put Brian Michael Bendis and David Finch on the same book and you expect it to be gold, but Avengers Dissembled is possibly the worst Avengers story I've read, and that's saying a lot following up the Chuck Austen run on Avengers. Maybe the infallable Bendis finally has put too much on his plate. He should cut back on titles because the quality suffers here. The arc also has been marred by four of the most pointless super hero deaths of all-time. What real purpose did Hawkeye's sucide serve? A quick wrap-up to the battle? God, that's such a hack job. And from Bendis? I don't believe it.

R.I.P. Scott Lang Ant-Man, Jack-of-Harts, Hawkeye and Vision. Take solace in the fact that Marvel's "Dead-is-Dead" rule has been fairly abused with Magento and Collosus of late in the X-Books. Ugh. When's Betsy coming back, Joey Q?

Megaman NT Battle is ok, finally brought myself to watch it today but does anyone miss the old Blue Bomber and the old Megaman cartoon? Megaman X and this NT crap really just doesn't shine as much as the good ole 8-bit version of our beloved Robot Hunter.

Goddamn Packers - I've always hated your fucking team. I grew up with the Bears and I've been trained to be nasty towards the Packers and this year isn't helping. You fuckers can't lose when I need you to and you can't win when I need you to. So far through four weeks, the Packers have done the opposite of what I've picked them to do. Fucking Farve, I hope someone makes you regret coming back from a concussion without missing a game.

Wow. Season four of Smaville, three episodes in has been....poor to be nice. Hopefully the ship gets righted in 4.05 "Run" but 4.04 "Devoted" looks like I could probably skip and wait for the DVD release. Cheerleaders posioning the football team's water with Kryptonite? I thought we were past these type of plots.

Fredrick Cabana gets 8 games for the knee-to-knee hit on Sidney Crosby? Wow. I was thinking four or five games and probably more than four for Vachon's mauling of Petr Vrana. People have been yelling "star treatment" over all this suspension stuff and Sidney is hockey's biggest draw with the whole lock-out situation in the NHL but look folks, I'm sorry but you've got to protect your superstars. Should all players be protected equally? In a prefect world, the answer would be a resounding yes. But everyone knows that today's sports are a business, and Crosby is a cash-cow. Perhaps an over-hyped cash-cow, but a cash-cow none-the-less. With hockey needing all the attention, hype and cash-cows it can get - let's pray Crosby hits big time and isn't a bust or doesn't wind up hurt.

Is Cabana a goon? No, he's not a talentless hack, but it was a dumb hit and he deserved to be suspened. I think that's right that he was. I know a good portion of you will disagree with this, but I have no problem that a couple extra games were "tacked on" to Cabana's suspension based on who he hit. It doesn't shock me and maybe I've just grown complacent torwards it and that's why I don't care. I don't know.

The Vochan suspesion, I figured was coming.  On one hand, I see Vochan as 'sending a message' in retailtation for the hit on Sidney but Sidney did come back later in that game (hasn't played since though) and as a goon, you challenge the other team's enforcer - not the 5-10, 5-11 talented Vrana. Instead Durfense and the Mooseheads tried to make it an-eye-for-an-eye by going after Vrana. That was the far more disgusting thing that happened in that game. Probably more disgusting than Vrana slipping into the second round in 2003.

Without hockey and without the spare time that summer (Without summer classes) affords me, yeah I haven't been blogging as much. I apologize for that, but school has been slightly more hectic than I'd wish. ENG311, it's required and our late professor Razak was telling us how difficult and demanding this course would be. Uhm, this course would have been worth my time if this was my first semester in college, not towards the end of my undergraduate work. Everything in this class I've already done before and about 90% of the stories I've already read before. How many times must I go over Oedipus Rex, Wilfred Owen, the Romantics, Negative Capability and the sort? I enjoyed going over Hamlet again, and had no problems with the Stafford poetry, but ugh, I don't want to go - it's not worth my time at 10 am to get exposed to material and assignments I've been doing the past three, four, five years. It's utterly rediculous. I've half-assed all the assignments and only missed two points so far (for comma mistakes, and anyone who's read this blog or my dabbles into creative writing, is well aware of my damnation of commas.) 

 Peer reviews of our poetry explications were the worst. I've done explications before - why are we taking this like its the first explication anyone's done? We're all English majors for fuck sake's - shouldn't this be a Cap-scholars freshmen class? Two of the three other people in my group did the same poem we broke down line by line in class. Oh, let me tell you, reading THOSE were fun. To their credit, they did add in enough we hadn't talked about in class to give them a unique voice but man, talk about the easy road. I feel I should get some extra points (say two) for at least doing a different poem. I have no fear with my explication now after reading those three and its no offense to them. I wound up making 32 separate comments on one paper, and when he sent back my paper, it had one spelling correction, a style issue (that according to both Hacker's MLA handbook and EB White's Elements of Style, is not wrong), and two total comments on the side. Give me more feedback than THAT!!! God. He did bring up one good idea in those two comments, alas, the same point was brought up by another member of our group and said better by her.

Seeing as we turn in everything digitally, I only go to class because of the requirement to go. She'll allow only two misses, and I believe I'm either on miss one or miss two already.

The Nabokov/Borges class I've missed, I believe three times due to unfortunate circumstances but, I've easily learned a ton there than any other class I've taken recently. It's a class that has completely influenced and changed not only my writing style, but also my outlook on life and death. They are certainly two authors I recommend reading together.

Random thought number one, Jennifer Garner is beautiful. Too bad they butchered her character of 'Elektra.'

Still have yet to comment on Smallville episode 4.02 "Gone." Hopefully, I'll be more in control than my thoughts on episode 4.01, where my thoughts were every where.  The good for this episode, Lois was a lot better. I thought Lois only partially worked in "Crusade" but here, it seemed she clicked on all cylinders and her dialouge was good. Chloe is back, took two episodes less than I thought it would, but remember, all comic-related medium feels this strong urge to return to status quo as quickly as possible. Funny thing is, no mention or glimpse of Gabe Sullivan when Trent found the new safe house. Michael Ironsides as Sam Lane was tremendous in his, albeit, small part.

But these first two episodes have suffered in a way that they both have felt rushed - too many characters, too many plot lines and not enough TV time. Smallville's success has been not on plot lines but on strong character development. We've just had Lois thrusted down our throats and not much else in the way of other character's developing (sans possibly Lex). I know we need Lana back in Smallville by the first hiatus of the season (after episode 8) but you could have at least brought that plot thread in for episode 3 or 4. And then brought Jason in later. 

Jason has to be rich to allow him to uproot his life that much to come to bumfuck, Kansas to be with Lana. She's a special girl but yeesh, you've only been seeing her a fraction of a year. I love his character so far but his appearance in Smallville has seemed forced, and felt tacked on to the end of 4.02. Lana's dialouge with him falls flat at times, but I genuinely like him - more than I can say about Adam, and Whitney (for at least the first couple episodes until that powerful angle with his father's illness gave him some human qualities we could all relate to. Two of my favorite and most touching Smallville moments came in season 1: when Lex pulled some strings allowing Whitney's dad to see Whitney practice with the Sharks football team, and when Clark interjected himself into Whitney's solo-basketball game - those tender moments have been missing for a while it seems.)

Looks like Lex has, or will in the next couple episodes, drop off into the completely evil side. His banter with his father hasn't been as strong as it has been in the past. I don't know if this is a sign that he's going down the wrong path for good or its poor writing. Given the quality of the writing so far in season 4, I'll go with the second reason. Sadly, if Lex does go off the deep end by the end of season 4 (I think they'll stretch it out until the season finale and then, he'll finally truly, betray everyone) what would the purpose be for Lionel? I can't imagine Smallville without John Glover's tremendous character. And to think, he was only supposed to be a bit character for the pilot and he turns out to be the best character the show's got. I believe Glover when he says that Lionel is "misunderstood" and not truly evil. I think very soon, we'll see Lex top anything his father could have ever possibly done wrong in his life. There will be a line of distinction made and I hope, Glover's character is alive to see Lex cross than line and thus, realize his greatest mistakes. I know how I'd write the season 4 finale, now it's up to Miller and Gough to top my ideas - which I'll devulge as the season goes forward (I'd be making too many assumptions if I let it all out of the bag now.) M&G were able to top my season 3 finale that I wrote by the end of the Adam Knight-saga so I have faith they can do it again. Just let's hope they pick up the rest of season 4 by then.

One more strong point on Gone was the Lana and Clark dialouge at the end about 'dystiny.' Two things that have always facsinated me with super hero characters, especially Superman - the senses and ideas of legacy and dystiny. Maybe that's why Smallville excites me so much, but that conversation inside the Cave I really feel set a small undertone for this entire season. Well, I should say the undertone has been there the entire run of the show, but I think it comes full force in this season, leading up through season 5, and hopefully, 6 and 7.  We have Clark and Lex's story on the cave walls - now we have Lana on the walls. What is her story, how does she play into all this and what is her dystiny? It's going to be fun to find out.

Hopefully, now that every thing is (relatively) back to normal, the episodes can slow down slightly and we get back to quality Smallville programming. If not, the DVD sets are being broke out again and I'm going to be watching an awful lot of ABC Family. Too bad 4.03 "Facade" and 4.04 "Devoted" look to be slightly average ideas - but then again I said that about 3.06 "Relic" and that turned out to be one of the best episodes they've ever done. Can't wait for 4.05 "Run" but why Bart? And why is Clark playing football? Didn't John tell him NO on many occasions? Hopefully, there's no more red kryptonite involved.