Computer Chips

I just dreamed I was walking through an Apple store or something, but in addition to all the normal displays where they have devices you can try, they had this one section with potato chip samples that were put up in the same kind of fancy way with descriptive cards and plush backing.

And I tried some. And I knew this was in the midst of a pandemic. I also knew there’d be every reason for me not to do that even without the pandemic. I don’t eat things I just find. With two exceptions, I don’t eat things I don’t make for myself. I definitely don’t eat potato chips.

But in the midst of a pandemic, I ate these potato chips that had just been sitting on a store counter as some little kid was just running around them. In fairness, that was what the chips were there for.

Bonus Question!

Strongest Chip?

Hazard.

Old Loki

I’ve heard that Richard E. Grant has been cast in the new Loki show, and people are speculating that he’ll be playing an older version of Loki, in line with the weird time happenings of the series. I remember when he was cast in an X-Men film, and I hoped he’d be playing Mister Sinister, who’d also been teased for an appearance. But despite that perfect casting, he turned out to just be playing a random scientist. And not Mister Sinister playing a random scientist, which that character has been known to do.

But I think the aptitude he’d have for portraying Loki would compensate for that missed opportunity. Especially since “Loki” feels partially like a Marvel take on “Doctor Who”, and Grant could knock out that part too. And I think he might have in some comedy sketch or something? I don’t know. But yeah.

Bonus Question!

Best Marvel take on “Doctor Who”?

Probably Dan Slott’s Silver Surfer series. If for no reason beyond the dude’s obvious passion for the franchise. Actually, I liked when he basically turned Hank Pym into the Doctor before that in his Avengers book. I’ll go with that.

Unsolicited

On Tuesday afternoon, I get this message on Facebook from someone I don’t really recognize. But she’s real. I think she came to one of my shows in the past or something? She wants to know when my next performance is, and then she says she’s looking to join a band. I say our roster’s full at the moment, but since our drummer’s next few weeks are quite busy, it’d be nice to have a spare drummer to sit in on the occasional rehearsal in that time. She’s excited, and we discuss details. Of course, I ask her if she’s been taking necessary pandemic precautions, and she assures me she has.

Later in the evening, she starts sending me random but harmless messages. I assume she’s bored and possibly drunk, but that’s fine.

Then I wake up early on the following morning to find this.

And that’s what I get for humouring unsolicited requests to jam.

Bonus Question!

Best jam!

Probably strawberry.

Hand Mates

I don’t know if this was something I heard or something I dreamt, but it was something about handshakes in a world after the pandemic.

For what it’s worth, I’ve never been overly fond of the practice. Historically, I’ve reciprocated when someone’s really wanted one, but I generally prefer alternatives. Anyway, someone was saying that handshakes will be obsolete in the wake of COVID, and that made sense to me. Then they went on to say that it was a ridiculous practice anyway because it was used in the dark ages or whenever by patriarchs who were marrying off their daughters in order to judge the virility and worthiness of potential mates for those daughters. And I thought “Wait. The fathers are trying to assess the sexual prowess of these suitors by what? The vigour of their handshakes?” That doesn’t seem quite scientific. Maybe this says something about me, but I feel as though I’m often far less attentive during a handshake than I am during mating. I don’t know.

What about you?

Bonus Question!

Best dowry!

Probably a horse? It’s probably like getting a sports car for a wedding present.

PreciXion

Everyone’s saying that the name of the new Xbox console, the Series X, is leading all of these ill informed parents to accidentally buy the old Xbox One X consoles because of similar naming.

But I can’t imagine how that could happen on a significant scale. Was I the only kid who made sure to specify exactly what I wanted on my Christmas lists or whatever?

“To be clear. We want ‘Super Smash Bros. Melee’. We already have ‘Super Smash Bros.' We want ‘Super Smash Bros. Melee’ for Gamecube. It comes as a disk, not a cartrridge. ‘Melee’.”

Even my father understood that. And then he proudly ran back into the house from the store at the beginning of December to show it off to us before he wrapped it up and hid it away till Christmas.

So yeah, kids. If you don’t want another Xbox One X, just be clear. It’s just a good life lesson in general.

Bonus Question!

Best X?

Beards of the Father

So. Doctor Strange, whose facial hair really hammers home his whole magical Tony Stark thing, is going to replace Tony as Spider-Man’s new mentor in the kid’s next movie?

I swear, man. If we ever see Uncle Ben in the MCU, he’s going to have that exact same beard, which a young Peter Parker will imprint hard upon, setting up a lifetime of finding father figures in familiar facial follicles.

Bonus Question!

Iron Beard versus Beard of Strange!

The latter. It’s magic. Duh.

Why Watch The Watch?

I heard some of the controversy about the infidelity of BBC’s “The Watch” to its Discworld source material. Even Terry Pratchett’s daughter stepped in to say such. I was totally prepared to be bemused by another fairly rote police procedural adapted from a wonderfully quirky property dear to my heart. Then I watched the trailer. And …

Well, it’s not exactly that. It’s not feeling like Discworld, which gives more credence to the complaints I was hearing. But it doesn’t actually look entirely bad? It looks like something vaguely intriguing that could stand on its own merits, bolstering the opinions of those who question why they bothered to attach it to Pratchett’s legendarium in the first place. Beyond the dollars of course.

But yeah. I do so love Discworld, and this is not going to hit that spot, but maybe it’ll miss by a margin wide enough to make it land in a place I might enjoy for completely unrelated reasons. Like crashing a plane to Hawaii in Spain or something.

Bonus Question!

Best disc?

Aten, aspect of the Egyptian sun god Ra!

Fieri-Man!

I saw that, which led to this.

Fieri-Man! Fieri-Man!

Does whatever a Fieri can!

Eats some meat! Any size!

Puts some ice cream on his fries.

Check out! Here comes the Fieri-Man.

Is he hype? Listen, dude.

He can show you the wildest food.

Can he find new ways to keep you fed?

He puts chocolate mousse on bread.

Hi-yeaow! There goes the Fieri-Man.

In the heat of the day at the scene of good eats,

With streaky hair, he pumps up the beats.

Fieri-Man! Fieri-Man!

Friendly nation-wide Fieri-Man.

Wealth and fame are pretty nice, but have you tried churros on rice?

Life is a great big cookout. Wherever food gets took out,

There goes the Fieri-Man!

Fortified Avengers

I’m enjoying the new Avengers game. While I was waiting for it to download, I saw that Fortnite was having a crossover with Marvel and decided to try it for the first time. It looks great! I like that kind of art style. I played around in it for 2 or 3 minutes as Thor before I confirmed that it’s just not my kind of game.

But the actual Avengers game! Kamala’s story is done with impeccable cuteness. I’ve gotten past the part where she and the Avengers look like characters from an early Tony Hawk game because of their shaggy hair and lack of costumes. Now it’s real stuff.

And I enjoyed how MODOK didn’t really mind being turned into a giant grotesque head. His problem was with the fact that the source of that transformation was superhero blood. He just hates those superheroes, you guys!

Bonus Question!

First floating head?

Zordon.

Earring Saga

I came back from my first haircut since March to find that an earring had been inadvertently knocked out in the process. I couldn’t find any of my good old earrings for some reason, and since the only thing I could find to keep the whole open made my lobe react somewhat poorly, I ordered a cool kind of cosmical replacement from Etsy.

After having the new stud in my ear for a day, I randomly found one of my best earrings on the floor while I was working out. This was also the last day I had to work out at home, since my local gym was letting me back right after that. I know it wasn’t the earring I lost because it was screwed in far too tight. After a good wash, it’s back in my ear, and the Etsy stud is back in its box for the nonce.

Bonus Question!

First Etsy purchase?

A Labyrinth necklace in 2008.

There’s a Frood Who Knows Where His Mask Is

You remember that style of kids’ PSAs that’d say things like “It’s cool to follow the rules” or “It’s hip to be safe”? And thus made themselves an easy target for facile middle school mockery? 2020 seems to be the year that’s determined to bear that out.

This is when even the crustiest punks are imploring people to practice social distancing and obey mask mandates.

“Yeah, you know that marathon month of hot box art show concerts we were planning to have in my unventilated 6-by-8 basement? PWYC, BYOB, dogs get in free? Yeah, um, I’m just going to do it by myself this summer. See you again when things have cooled down a bit though, yeah?”

And you see it, don’t you? You see two strangers walk through a parking lot, and the one in the mask is the one you’d want to hang with. He’s the one who knows what’s up. Remember when smoking stopped automatically making people look more attractive and ceased to be unequivocally cool? Now it’s just equivocally cool? You still might see the occasional person who looks good with a cigarette in hand, but they’d probably look about the same without it. 

This feels like the step beyond that. Tacit visible agreement with the statements of health authorities is the new hotness in the year of the new cold.

Bonus Question!

Best mask?

Jim Carrey.

Mulanimal Crackers

I have nothing against it, but I really doubt I’m going to see the live “Mulan” movie. I liked the original, but I think my personal experience of the remake would be similar to my assumptions around the 2019 “Lion King”. Too much of the charm is missing to my tastes. In the case of “Mulan”, that charm is largely coalesced in the form of a diminutive dragon with the voice of Eddie Murphy.

But you know what else got released to streaming around the same time? “Animal Crackers”! A movie about officially licensed Animal Crackers with the voices of Ian McKellen, Office Jim, and others of epic merit. With heart! Apparently, it was a huge passion project for some of its creators to the point where one of them painted the official poster by hand. And one of the directors turned out to be the guy behind the animated “Mulan”.

So you know what? “Animal Crackers” is to me the real successor to cartoon “Mulan” for the summer of 2020. Confirmed.

Bonus Question!

I just realized Eddie Murphy’s Mushu could be a descendant of Eddie Murphy’s Donkey and his dragon wife.

Comics, Cartoons, Comedy

Man, that final weekend in August. The August of not a lot of movies!

And this one weekend had three big ones I had to see. Who knew a day would come when an X-Men movie would not be prioritized of all else for me after a lifetime of my affinity for the franchise? And it’s not because I’m not excited. I’d be here for it even if no one else thought it looked good. And public opinion is not seeming to be largely against its quality.

Nah. I’m holding off on that, which is a film that looks somewhat appropriate for the Halloween season in its horror overtones, and the new Bill-Ted movie because of Phineas and Ferb. It hasn’t done much in years, but I still love the soundtrack, which includes some cuts from their first movie, like the song Slash played on. And was called out in for the guitar solo.

Now they have another movie, and since the whole franchise is predicated on endless summer, it felt right to fit it within the season. So yeah. In the words of Phineas, “Alright, Slash, let’s go.”

All of you are called Slash for the purposes of that quotation.

Bonus Question!

Worst Phineas?

Phineas Mason, the Tinkerer, was a bit of a jerk. Especially to Spider-Man.

Greasy Grandeur

My girlfriend and I were on the subject of musicals I hadn’t seen after she showed me the second “Mamma Mia” movie for the first time, and the one at the top of the list to watch was “Grease”. But then her mother, who’d been planning a trip across the country to visit her, caught wind of this plan, and she insisted on our waiting for her to watch it together.

And lo! That day came, and the younger brother and grandmother turned out to be there with us too. In addition to the things I already knew I’d absorbed about the film over the years through osmosis, there was even more I was familiar with in one way or another, regardless of its attribution in my head to the movie.

I did not know that it ended with a flying car though. That was a perfect ending, though the mother’s opinion was rather opposite.

Anyway. Worth the wait.

Mourn Porn

This is one thing I won’t fault him for. Maybe the only thing. But for real. Grieving should be allowed but not enforced. No use for mourn porn. When my father’s father died, he flew to England for a fortnight to see if his mother was alright, but apart from that, he was his usual jaunty self. And when he died? I basically did the same thing without the intercontinental flight because I was already living with my mother. And I’d just been to England over the summer. And no one who’d been within a mile of either my father or me would include heartlessness on a list of our faults.

Uber Oddness

For most of 2020 at least, I was having this weird problem with my Uber app where it would say my arrival time would be around 7:15 in the evening regardless of starting time and destination.

When the time came in the spring to get a new phone after years, I assumed a side effect would be resolution to that weirdness. Not so much. I continued to ignore the issue.

Then Uber started acting up late upon one summer night until it revealed the cause for that evening’s behaviour was its urgent need of an update.

And that solved it.

Bonus Question.

Tastiest Uber?

Bubble.

Mermaid Energy

So. I never actually watched “The Little Mermaid” in its entirety. It came out in the year before I was born, and my parents didn’t really go out of their way to get a bunch of Disney stuff till I arrived. Thus, I have vivid memories of constantly watching “Aladdin” and “The Lion King” in my early years. 

I always meant to get around to it, but I never did until I started seeing this girl who loved it. She had strong mermaid energy anyway, and she seemed like the right person to watch it with.

Seeing it in its fullness for the first time felt like connecting all the scattered dots I’d accumulated through osmosis and occasional peripheral clips over the course of the last three decades. Everything finally got assembled and reinforced by a bunch of songs I didn’t really know.

I always liked “Under the Sea” though.

Sebastian’s got wild pipes.

Bonus Question!

Which Sebastian has the wildest pipes above the sea?

 Bach. The guy from Skid Row. Not the composer.

Gwen Stacy!

Fun story behind this new song. When we play it live, there’s usually a third verse about the Ultimate universe version of Gwen to follow up the first verse’s classic Gwen and the second’s Spider-Gwen.

But on record, that felt too long for the kind of song this is. A verse had to be cut, and it made sense to cut the Ultimate verse since Marvel eventually decided to do away with the Ultimate universe. The reasoning even seemed similar: it was just too much.

Also, no one knows how we got the guitar tone we did in the studio. Our producer accidentally had two separate amplifiers running, but it somehow worked out for the sound.

Gwen! Stacy!

We're going out for coffee. She's counting every bean. I'm dreaming up a movie, and she's stealing every scene. She walked into my story just to write a whole new part. She lets me crawl across the walls of her spectacular heart. She's banging on my mind like a spider on the drums. She's a dextrous danger when her rhythm comes. She's set up in my soul, and she's swinging from the ceiling! She's got a sting in her song, and she's spinning up a feeling.

Bonus Question!

Gwen Stacy!

Back in the Paragon City Groove

Despite the fact I hadn’t really spent much time in it since the mid aughts, I never lost my appreciation for the setting of City of Heroes. It captured my heart to an extent most fresh superhero worlds don’t quite reach. I knew there was a novel that took place in its early years, but I was unable to find it in any digital format, which is how I read since I don’t like carrying books around. But I did find an old paperback copy and bought it just in case. That was years ago. 

When quarantine began, I pulled it out since more time at home meant more time to read in a place where the book was anyway. Then I got to the end and discovered there was another book, which I ordered immediately. Of course, in the current situation, it took months to arrive, which actually worked to my taste in the end since the story took place in an era long after that of the first book. 

Anyway, it’s been fun to revisit the world of the first big online game I ever played.

Bonus Question!

Best city for heroes?

If Marvel’s taught me anything, it’s the magnetic pull of New York for anyone with a superpower.

Ingress

I’m generally pretty good at making an entrance. Bursting onto the scene in a characteristic way! I’ll admit I’m not so great at exits. Bad at goodbyes. Entrances are what I feel fine about though.

In most areas. I’ve come to believe sex is the notable exception.. My penis is like Kramer. Fumbling with the doorknob, tripping over the threshold, and falling into the table in the kitchenette. Then it picks itself up and gets down to business with Cherry Seinfeld. Then it’s all good.

But yeah. Fucking entrances. Entrances in fucking.

Bonus Question.

How is your penis different from Kramer?

It’s not hairy like Kramer. I keep that business high and tight.