Angry Ogre

Until Tomorrow

2006-09-19T13:07:00.000-05:00

Welcome to the temporary home of Tom Sure, hero of the upcoming urban comic fantasy Until Tomorrow. Thanks to a much-needed Mac upgrade, I can't actually update my own webpage anymore. I'm in the process of moving, so keep an eye out here for more announcements.

A Taste of Tomorrow

2006-09-19T13:04:00.000-05:00

Just to whet your appetite for the new site, here's a taste of the opening chapter of Until Tomorrow.

There are some things man was not meant to know. That's where I come in. My name is Tom F. Sure and I'm starting to hate my job.

I was huddled in bar that's never been all that kind to me, trying hard to forget. A wheezing radiator huffed away along the far wall, barely keeping the bitter cold at bay. Sleet hammered the One Eye In's oak door and a shrieking wind rattled the dirty windows in their frames.

The radiator in the corner of the In changed to a syncopated beat, like a drummer experiencing a severely altered consciousness. Every few minutes, the beat of the radiator synchronized with the sleet pelting the windows. The fluid sound faded too quickly into a discordant mess, pretty much typical of my life.

An empty glass sat on the scarred bar surface in front of me. Something small and black with an odd number of legs scuttled unsteadily away from the amber droplet running down the outside of the glass. I made introductions. Bug, thumb. Thumb, bug.

"Fill it again, One Eye." I reached under the bar and scraped my thumbnail clean.

My last job had ended badly. Too much blood and too many broken wet things had littered the ground during the last couple of days. I needed time to forget, to unclench my brain from around the bloody dagger of the past week.

In my damaged state I could only think of one place to go, so I crawled to the One Eye In. Even though he's a successful bar owner now, One Eye never could spell worth a damn. He could have meant it as a pun, but I don't see One Eye as being quite that subtle. He bought the place a couple of decades ago after I convinced him to sell his recipe for long pork to a national fast-food conglomerate.

Of course, One Eye defined success a little differently than most. He's got a place to go when he's not sleeping, a roof to sleep under and, if he's lucky, the occasional obnoxious drunk to bounce around.

One-Eye looked up from the magazine he'd been reading at the other end of the bar and glared at me. Having only the one eye in the middle of his forehead makes his face hard to read for some people. Not me, though. I've had a lot of practice. He wasn't happy.

He stood up and rolled his shoulders. Stiff, black hair poked through the mesh undershirt he wore. At some point, the shirt had been white. Probably. One-Eye's long strides ate up the distance between us in under a second. Along the way, his hairy hand snagged a suspect bottle of whiskey from in front of the mirror. At seven-foot-six-inches, he's shrunk a bit over the years, but he still towered over me by a good two feet.

Looming's one of the things One-Eye is best at, so he practiced in front of me. I did my best to give him a good looming under, but, as always, it never quite worked. That sour smell that rose from his pores always drove me back before I could get off a good loom.

"You an old friend, Tom," he growled. His breath washed over me, garlic and rotten onions and things best not guessed at, and it was all I could do to keep from flinching "So I not thump you this time. My name is Phemus. Use dat name."

I tapped the glass in front of me in what I hoped was a significant manner. I knew I shouldn't, but I had to follow up. It's my nature. I waved a hand in the general direction of the front door and the sign hanging down over the other side of said door, not even bothering to gesture about the green neon eye blazing in the window.

"Hey, if you didn't want people to call you One Eye, why'd you pick that name for your place?"

He shrugged his massive shoulders and scratched at his one eyebrow.

"Is for advertising purpose," he said. "And dat only. Name recogniz... recog –nit –shun."

Since he chose that moment to slop some of the alleged Jim Beam into my glass, I let it go. It wasn't worth the effort.

One Eye nodded as if that made everything clear and thumped back to the latest issue of _Jugs_, a pottery magazine he'd left on the bar. I held the whiskey up to the light and marveled that I could almost see all the way through.

That was when I got the call.

The top of the whiskey burst into flame, flickering blue light through the cracked crystal of the glass. Now, that wasn't something that happened every day. I get most of my jobs over the phone or in my rat-hole of an office. Still, knowing the sort of showoff I sometimes work for, I wasn't surprised.

One Eye looked up from his magazine, longing and maybe just a little hope plastered across his ugly mug.

"Sorry," I said and lowered the glass back to the bar. "It's for me."

Civil War

2006-04-26T18:43:00.000-05:00

version=7,0,0,0" width="300" height="250" id="civil_war" align="middle">

pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer"/>

Snakes on a Plane

2006-03-23T15:33:00.000-05:00

Is there really anything else that needs to be said?

I think not.

Get your copy of the player here

Ultraviolet Review

2006-03-11T00:37:00.000-05:00

So, I just finished seeing Ultraviolet, the new action flick starring Milla Jovavitch. I was in the theater with four 11-year-old boys for my middle son's birthday, so that could be coloring my thoughts on the movie, but, boy did this thing suck.

Don't get me wrong, it was beautifully filmed and it had a European look, with obviously computer-generated long shots and some close ups on Jovavitch that looked like they were filmed through a layer of gauze, but the plot was about as thick as the gauze covering the camera lens. That is to say, not at all thick.

Other than the nod to comic books in the opening scenes (in which we see Jovavitch's character, Violet, in a variety of comic book covers to give the impression she's been around forever), we also see a comic connection in the wafer-thin plot. Vampires, called here hemophages, are accidentally created while the US military is trying to make Captain America. Okay, they don't say Captain America, but they're looking to make a super soldier. What they make are scientific pseudo-vampires.

The plot. . . well, you know what? Screw it. There really wasn't a plot. Suffice to say that the vampires were on the verge of extinction because of those mean humans. Of course, the fact that the vampires only had one woman among them so couldn't propogate their own race other than by spreading around their blood doesn't really speak all that well to their intelligence.

Or mine. Hell, even the boys thought it was a bit of a loss. Nice figh

Southern Man

2006-03-04T22:05:00.000-05:00

It was only when I actually looked at it like this that I realized how much of a southern boy I am.

create your own visited states map
or check out these Google Hacks.

In Brightest Day. . .

2006-02-08T10:08:00.000-05:00

Your results:
You are Green Lantern

Green Lantern		85%
Robin		65%
Iron Man		60%
Spider-Man		60%
The Flash		55%
Supergirl		55%
Catwoman		50%
Hulk		45%
Superman		45%
Wonder Woman		40%
Batman		35%

Hot-headed. You have strong
will power and a good imagination.

Click here

Comic Review: Trailers

2005-12-26T20:26:00.000-05:00

I'm probably a bit late to this party, but I just picked up Trailers, written by Mark Kneece, drawn by Julie Collins-Rousseau and published by NBM/Comics Lit. You can probably tell by the publisher's name, that this isn't just one of them comical books. It's literchure.

Sorry, pretentiousness aside, it's a nice package. Hardcover, with a nice drawing of one of the book's pivotal events on the front dust jacket. In these days of insert stupid air quotesiconicend stupid air quotes covers, it's nice to see a little something that actually gives a clue as to what happens inside.

Josh is an intelligent high school boy who lives in a trailer park with his mother and his three little brothers and sisters. His mom isn't someone with whom I'd want to spend much time, a hooker, a drug dealer and jumping over the border into child neglect with gleeful abandon. Josh, being the responsible one in the family, has to look out for his younger sibs and his mom. Most especially after his mom kills her drug dealer/pimp/boyfriend. Taking a rather more sanguine attitude than Josh, his mom tells him to just take the body somewhere and get rid of it.

Of course, because it should remain a secret, soon it seems as if the whole trailer park knows what happened, who's responsible and where the body is buried.

The deadly event precipitates a steep downhill slide for Josh's family until he has to take charge of his own life and the lives of his mom and her other children.

Collins-Rousseau has a tight style that efficiently conveys the story and does a nice job choosing the camera angles for the story. Her faces particularly are reminescent of the work of Terry Moore, who writes and draws Strangers in Paradise. The black and white artwork shows a nice use of blacks and negative space. The backgrounds, though somewhat sparse, do a good job of conveying the scenery and giving the readers what they need to understand the scene.

Kneece gives the reader a nice little tour through depressing times and places. He constructs a likeable, albeit flawed, character in Josh and makes us care about him. While I wasn't too thrilled with the one-note characterization of the mother as a neglectful idiot, I think it might have been necessary to see her that way since Josh is the viewpoint character and that's probably a bit more on-target for how he sees her. Kneece gives Josh a nice character arc and takes the reader on an engrossing ride.

Still, it's hard to recommend this book with it's $17.95 hardcover price.

Whaddya say we kill comics slowly and wait for the paperback trade on this one?

Giggling like a . . .

2005-12-20T19:57:00.000-05:00

Yes, yes, a school girl. I'm so ashamed of myself, but I just can't help it.

Infinite Crisis hits issue three tomorrow and it's sucked me right into it. Normally, I'm not a huge fan of Geoff Johns's work (he seems way to enamored of his own fannish plot-hammering), but his love of the DCU shines through and dragged me kicking and screaming into this tale.

See, I've always been more of a Marvel zombie. I read the occasional DC, but it was never required reading. Until Marv and George smacked me upside the head with Crisis on Infinite Earths. I knew enough of the DCU cosmos that I could follow along and knew sort of who the characters were, but it was the scale of the event that floored me. Worlds actually did live and die.

I still remember the scene in which Supergirl and Batgirl were talking on the rooftops, with Batgirl scared out of her wits. The ghost of Flash materializes for just a second and begged for help. Great, great stuff.

So far, this version of Crisis doesn't have that epic feel, but the interweaving of various plot threads and the feeling of ominous, impending doom has captivated me.

Johns still has to convince me that bringing back Earth-2 Superman was a good idea, but at least I'll be there for him to work on.

NaNoWriMo: Done

2005-12-02T10:37:00.000-05:00

I know, I know. It's been over for a couple of days, but it's taken this long for my fingers to return to their normal size. The NaNoWriMo portion of the book clocked in at just under 54,000 words. I've still got between 6,000-10,000 more words to go, I'm thining, but, for once, I actually know what the ending will be. I can see it coming down the pike at me, slavering like a mad doberman just back from getting teeth pulled at the doggie dentist.

I just need to keep working on the silly thing.

And, now for a special treat: The opening line.

There are some things man was not meant to know. That's where I come in. My name is Tomorrow For Sure and I think I'm beginning to hate my job.

Humanist of the Best Sort

2005-11-27T00:57:00.000-05:00

Haymaker

You are one of life’s enjoyers, determined to get the most you can out of your brief spell on Earth. Probably what first attracted you to atheism was the prospect of liberation from the Ten Commandments, few of which are compatible with a life of pleasure. You play hard and work quite hard, have a strong sense of loyalty and a relaxed but consistent approach to your philosophy.

You can’t see the point of abstract principles and probably wouldn’t lay down your life for a concept though you might for a friend. Something of a champagne humanist, you admire George Bernard Shaw for his cheerful agnosticism and pursuit of sensual rewards and your Hollywood hero is Marlon Brando, who was beautiful, irascible and aimed for goodness in his own tortured way.

Sometimes you might be tempted to allow your own pleasures to take precedence over your ethics. But everyone is striving for that elusive balance between the good and the happy life. You’d probably open another bottle and say there’s no contest.

What kind of humanist are you? Click here to find out.

Enemies List or Phishing Scam?

2005-11-22T09:23:00.000-05:00

I'm assuming that, although I am of course a dangerous, bleeding-heart liberal, the CIA isn't really out to get me. In that case, this is a brilliantly funny phishing scam. I received the following in my e-mail twice yesterday.

Dear Sir/Madam,

we have logged your IP-address on more than 30 illegal Websites.

Important:
Please answer our questions!
The list of questions are attached.

Yours faithfully,
Steven Allison

++++ Central Intelligence Agency -CIA-
++++ Office of Public Affairs
++++ Washington, D.C. 20505

++++ phone: (703) 482-0623
++++ 7:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., US Eastern time

The phone number actually does link to the Public Affairs office of the CIA, which has a recorded message saying that Steven Allison didn't really send me an e-mail and the CIA is not monitoring my websurfing. This is just brilliant. I love the thought that went into it, because it also allows for the possibility that the CIA is, in fact, monitoring people and put that on their answering machine to fool us.

I haven't stopped laughing for the past five minutes. Great, great stuff.

NaNoWriMo Day 15 update

2005-11-15T13:24:00.000-05:00

Well, today I crashed through the 30,000 word barrier. I'm up to about 35,000 words and feeling good. I think I've actually got the rest of the outline for the novel sitting in my head. Not only that, but this one's got an ending that might actually be able to tie up all the dangling plot threads.

No ninjas.

No monkeys. Yet.

Here's a little taste. Just the first couple of lines or so.

There are some things man was not meant to know. That's where I come in. My name is Tom F. Sure and I'm starting to hate my job.

Tinfoil intensifies, not blocks, radio waves. Seriously.

2005-11-11T10:32:00.000-05:00

So it turns out that wearing a tinfoil beanie is a bad idea if you want to keep secret government radio waves out of your head.

I'm probably a little late to this party, but some students over at MIT did a few experiments to see if the tinfoil beanie so beloved of paranoids everywhere would block out radio transmissions. Turns out that, at frequencies reserved for the federal government, the beanies actually intensified the radio signals.

So, dress accordingly.

NaNoWriMo Day 3 update

2005-11-03T19:09:00.000-05:00

Well, here it is day three and this post is probably going to be longer than all that I've written during the first three days of the National Novel Writing Month contest. Real life has intruded far too much.

I've got the novel outlined through chapter 7 and some other stuff sketched out, but, so far, only a beginning.

Still no ninjas, thank Zod.

Still no zombies, damn it.

Yep. I've officially doubled my NaNoWriMo output here on the ole blog.

*sigh*

Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit

2005-10-12T08:30:00.000-05:00

I just got back from taking my three boys to see Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit and all I can say is thank dog for Nick Park, the creative force behind the movie.

This movie was just absolutely fantastic. Possibly the best movie I've seen in months.

I've been a big fan of W&G for years and my family and I have worn out several VCR tapes of the three W&G shorts over the years, so, of course, I had high expectations for this movie. Even going in with those high expectations, the movie surpassed them with ease.

When the familiar W&G theme music started, I actually got goose bumps running up and down my arms.

It's obvious that it took five years of hard, backbreaking work to produce this masterpiece. Every frame is full of loving details for the devoted fan and the casual viewer. Gromit's face is more expressive than the best Hollywood live actors. He's able to convey more meaning in a lowered eyebrow than most actors can provide with their entire body.

The plot revolves around Wallace & Gromit running a humane rabbit disposal service called Anti-Pesto. They're hired by the people of the village to protect their beloved backyard gardens from becoming rabbit food. Being the nice guys they are, W&G don't kill the pesky varmits, but, rather, keep them housed and fed and out of the way.

Through a series of misadventures, a were-rabbit is set loose on the community, endangering the village's traditional giant vegetable competition. I gotta say, the scenes of the giant were-rabbit howling and the bunnies of the field responding in kind were hilarious.

You must see this movie.

Like This Was A Surprise

2005-09-23T19:41:00.000-05:00

You are a
Social Liberal
(68% permissive)

and an...
Economic Liberal
(30% permissive)

You are best described as a:

Democrat

Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid

Stupid Quiz Time. . . Again

2005-09-09T08:25:00.000-05:00

You're Gim Allon, Leviathan!

Which Legionnaire are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Quick hits

2005-09-01T12:41:00.000-05:00

Runaways #7, by Vaughan and guest penciller Takeshi Miyazawa, continues this title's winning streak. Although I missed the regular art team, this wasn't bad, but was mostly saved by the story itself. The group confronts Swarm, an ex-Nazi scientist who, through exposure to a bad meteor, is now made up of a swarm of killer bees. Yes, an ex-Nazi made of killer bees. How can you not love comics for concepts like that? Newbie Victor Mancha, cyborg son of Ultron, who is destined to destroy the Avengers in the future, is working with the Runaways and steps up to the plate with this issue. Again, how can you not love convoluted stuff like this? Big developments in Karolina's long simmering, unrequited crush on Nico and a suprise alien appearance at the end. It does, however, remind me of several ancient Teen Titans plots. Based on the goodwill Vaughan has garnered for his past work, I'm willing to give it a shot.

JLA: Classified #11, by Warren Ellis and Butch Guice, is a very nice piece of work. Some reviewers have been complaining of the dialogue between Lois and Clark, but I love it. The comic also has the best Wally West to Flash scene in many years. Good stuff.

Ed Brubaker welcomes Micharl Lark aboard as the new regular penciller of Captain America with the just-released issue No. 9 (vol. whatever the hell). Cap, Nick Fury and Sharon Carter lead a S.H.I.E.L.D. assault detachment against Aleksander Lukin, holder of the Cosmic Cube, and possibly the mind behind last issue's bombing of Philly. The raid is unsuccessful, leading to complications for Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D. Not much advanced in the way of the is it or isn't it Bucky plot. Lark, despite giving Cap a bit of a cartoony face, does a great job with the rest of the art.

Young Avengers Does a nice job of wrapping up the opening arc. Stories revolving around time travel normally give me a massive headache. This one, however, only gave me a minor twinge behing my right eye, so, there's that going for it. Major changes for the nascent team, including the (spoiled by the cover) removal of Iron Lad from the team. Nice job by Heinberg to address the whole Asgardian thing when he had the characters point out that it's a really asinine name. Now he's called Wiccan, not all that much better, especially since he continues to dress in Asgardian knock-off clothing.

More later.

Threat or promise?

A religious epiphany

2005-08-31T20:24:00.000-05:00

After long, long years as an agnostic verging on athiest, I have had a religious ephiphany. I now know that this world was created, as were humans, and we did not evolve. It was all a ruse, designed to test our faith.

All hail the Flying Spaghetti Monster, creator of all, lord of all.

I have been touched by his noodly appendage.

I mean, let's face it, it's hard not to love a religion that promises a stripper factory and beer volcano in heaven.

Bow before your king!

2005-08-31T08:05:00.000-05:00

So, yes, I am King Arthur.

Did you ever expect anything different?

You are King Arthur of the Britons! You let no-one
stand in your way, you are brave and strong!
Keep searching, you'll find the grail yet!

Which Monty Python & the Holy Grail Character are you REALLY?
brought to you by Quizilla

Pull List 8/31/05

2005-08-30T19:51:00.000-05:00

Well, it's that time of the week again so let's see what kind of crap I'm taking money out of my kids' mouths to buy.

All right, I've just recovered from looking at the list. My wallet is not a happy camper right about now. Way too many things on the list and that's just the stuff I know about. Only Dog knows what comics will sneakily jump into my pile when I'm not looking. They're tricky like that.

Looking over the list, there's stuff there I don't know why I'm still buying. Habit I guess. (Amazing Spider-Man I'm looking at you.) I really enjoyed JMS's run in the beginning, but now it's pure inertia. Holding on until I see how The Other pans out. If I don't like it, then ASM is gone and Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man takes its place as Peter David's the writer on that and he can do no wrong. Well, almost no wrong. I'm trying not to think about Hulk: Destruction right now.

Probably most looking forward to Runaways, Powers, Young Avengers, New Avengers, JLA:Classified, Ex Machina, Astro City and Astonishing X-Men, if only to see if Whedon can possibly pull it out at the end. Astonishing started out so very strong, but it's rapidly wilting under prolonged attention.

More later.

Threat or promise?

Holy Crap

2005-08-30T19:43:00.000-05:00

I've actually been linked. Mike Sterling over at Progressive Ruinactually linked to this poor pathetic blog. I'm actually sort of stunned. Mike runs a great comics blog, even though he has some sort of strange fascination with Swamp Thing. I need to make sure I actually link to him in the sidebar, if I can even remember how to do it.

Thanks, Mike.

Update Huh. I actually figured it out. Mike's linked.

Fantastic Flop

2005-07-09T21:28:00.000-05:00

Well, I just returned from taking the family to see Fantastic Four and, boy, was it bad. The story was full of logical plot holes large enough to stomp a thing through.

The most eggregious of these plot holes was, I thought, the way the movie just assumed that people would treat the four returned spacers (five if you count VVD, who was supposedly not changed in the beginning) would automatically be proclaimed as heroes. It was just assumed that people would flock to the Four with cheering and signs waving.

Not only that, but at the end, the first thing (no pun intended) the public is aware of during the battle between Doom and the FF is when Doom and the Thing crash to the street. Then there's a huge fight that culminates in Dar-- the FF encasing a man in carbonite. Hell, for all the man or woman on the street knows, the FF have just jumped an innocent man and killed him. And, yet, they're hailed as heroes and feted in the East River.

Heck, even my 12-year-old son, Rich, who loves just about everything superheroic unconditionally, said at the end of the movie, "They couldn't defeated Doom that easily, could they?" And, yep, they did. Just that easily. Most of the movie was spent with the FF trying to cure themselves of their superpowers.

I never saw Elektra so I don't have that to compare it to, but I did see Daredevil and I thought the FF movie was below DD. Well below.

Not Fantastic.

I'm so very disappointed.

Estrogen-free zone

2005-06-17T20:37:00.000-05:00

So She Who Must Be Obeyed is off in Jacksonville, where she's a judge at her residency program's thesis day. I thought, since she's out enjoying herself, why not do the same?

I packed up the boys and headed south. They all belong to the Windyrush Country Club dive and swim team and the dive team has a big meet here in Columbia, S.C. We left home early on Friday morning and drove down to the famous Riverbend Zoo in Columbia.

Great time had by all. The boys wandered around at full speed for four hours, pointing out every single animal and spewing out all the information they had on each exhibit.

Now we're all safely snuggled down in a hotel room much too small for us, watching yet another repeat of The Fairly Odd Parents musical special.

Now there's just the dive meet tomorrow and the trip back.

Hope the house is still there when we get home.

Pull List 4/27/05

2005-04-27T08:34:00.000-05:00

So, let's see what's on the list for this week.

Starting off, we've got General Grievous from the STAR WARS universe. Three copies of that bad boy, one for each of my boys, who all have serious hankering for the next episode. I read the first issue and it wasn't all that great, but, then again, I'm not a huge fan of the franchise. I'll also be getting three issues of Teen Titans Go for the same reason.

Also over at DC, the book of the week for me is Legion of Super Heroes No. 5. Waid and Kitson have done a fantastic job of reimagining the whole LSH concept. I don't think I'm sold yet on the youth revolt bit, but the characters and backstory seem to be working just great. And the humor is a welcome addition. I've been a huge fan of the Legion since the late '70s and stuck with them through every incarnation. This, so far, ranks right up there with my heretical love for the Five Years After era.

My stack also includes Day of Vengeance, because how can you go wrong when a supernatural crisis depends on the work of a talking monkey who's been on a five-year bender.

Invincible and The Pact make the list from Image since I'm really enjoying Invincible the character and he's in both books.

On Marvel's side, we've got the long-awaited fifth issues of New Avengers and Captain America. Better late than never?

Ultimate Secret No. 2 also comes out this week. After the relentlessly slow pace of the first mini, I vowed to wait for the trade on this one. However, I really enjoyed the first issue, so I'm having a hard time holding out here. We'll see what happens.

X-Men: Phoenix: Endsong seems like a lot of work just to get Jean Grey under a frozen lake to correspond to the movie continuity, but darn it if this hasn't been an extremely interesting little book.

Other titles:
Flash #21
Otherworld #2
Wonder Woman #215
Daredevil #5
Exiles #63
Punisher #20
Spellbinders #2
Supreme Power #16

New Comics for 4/20/05

2005-04-20T08:43:00.000-05:00

Good lord. The list for today is huge.

I'm going to seriously have to start rethinkng my buying habits here.

The one I'm looking forward to the most, Dog help me, is The OMAC Project. I guess I'm just a sucker for those big, company-wide crossovers

And, oh yeah, I should have a letter printed in the letters column of Cable/Deadpool 14.

More on torture

2005-04-20T08:32:00.000-05:00

So, the Washington Post had a story, registration required, in Monday's paper about torture in Iraq, tying in with my previous comments on torture on the television show 24.

According to the article, soldiers in Iraq were asked for a wish list of what coercive methods they would like to be able to use when interrogating prisoners. This included tactics such as low-voltage electrocutions, using dogs and snakes and hitting people with phone books.

These tactics were used on at least two detainees: one was badly beaten by an inexperienced interrogator using a police baton, and one died. Now, I'm not trying to tar all the armed forces personnel with the same brush, here. In fact, I'm not really blaming the servicemen and women, but their superiors who encouraged this sort of thing.

A military intelligence staff sergeant who supervised the interrogators said a "fear up" approach had been approved for the interrogation. The unnamed sergeant wrote in a rebuttal to a reprimand that senior leaders were blurring the lines between official enemy prisoners of war and terrorists not afforded international protection.

"This situation is made worse with messages from higher echelons soliciting lists of alternative interrogation techniques and the usage of phrases such as 'the gloves are coming off,' " he wrote.

I've always felt that torture has no place in American life, be it by civilians or by officers in our armed forces. If we can't get the information we need by conventional means, then we need to go out and get more information. Torture goes against who we, as a country, are. Or at least who I'd like to think we are.

But my thoughts were co-opted and voiced better than I could by an anonymous interrogator in the 501st Military Intelligence Battalion who advised everyone to take a deep breath and "remember who we are."

"It comes down to standards of right and wrong -- something we cannot just put aside when we find it inconvenient," the soldier wrote. "We are American soldiers, heirs of a long tradition of staying on the high ground. We need to stay there."

Well said.

24

2005-04-19T15:07:00.000-05:00

In the comments section over at Tom the Dog's You Know What I like we got to talking about the meta-commentary on 24 this season. On Monday April 18th's episode, a suspect in the terrorist plot was being held at CTU and they were about to begin torturing the suspect. Suddenly, Amnesty Worldwide (International) lawyers showed up with a court order making sure there would be no extraordinary measures taken with the suspect.

The not-so-thinly-veiled political commentary seemed aimed directly at those who think that, perhaps, Alberto Gonzales shouldn't have been writing memos authorizing the use of torture for captives in US custody. "Oooh, those Amnesty Worldwide (International) people are just terrible folks, stopping us from doing our jobs by making us follow constitutional due process." This season, the meta commentary seems to be all about how torture works and gets the good guys the information they want. Remember how quick Jack was to bring out the electrical shocks for Audrey's husband? (Don't even get me started on how he so quickly went from torture victim to willing helper.) Every person they've interrogated so far this season has been subjected to torture of one kind or another. It's almost like they're trying to tell us that if we're not torturing someone, the good guys aren't doing their jobs."

Seems I'm not alone in this supposition. Tom the Dog agrees.

I agree on the torture thing on 24. The message absolutely is: torture is necessary and good. When Paul goes from being electrocuted by Jack to throwing himself in front of a bullet for Jack in the space of two hours -- that was just garbage. And the Secretary of Defense actually condoning the torture of his son -- god DAMN, why not just run a crawl along the bottom of the screen saying, "Abu Ghraib prison guards are heroes"?

And you?

Wonderfalls

2005-04-19T07:51:00.001-05:00

So, I happened to notice that the DVD box set of WONDERFALLS was available from Amazon.com.

Of course I had to pick it up.

WONDERFALLS was a wonderfully quirky semi-SF series on Fox from a couple of years back that, of course, Fox cancelled almost immediately. Thirteen episodes were made and only four aired. I remembered really enjoying the show when it came out, so buying the DVD to see the rest of the episodes was, of course, a foregone conclusion.

WONDERFALLS deals with Jaye Tyler, a recent graduate of Brown University, who finds herself overeducated and underemployed. She moves back to her hometown of Niagara Falls to be near her family, but not too near, and moves into a trailer park, finding a retail clerk job at the Wonderfalls kitsch shop. Caroline Dhavernas is fascinating as Jaye, sarcastic, cynical, self-deprecating and wild enough to smuggle someone over the Canadian border in the trunk of her car should the need arise.

Jaye hangs out at The Barrel, a bar where her best friend, played by Tracie Thoms works as a waitress. The Barrel is also where she meets Eric, played by Tyron Leitso, the bartender. Eric's a sad story. He went to Niagara Falls for a honeymoon with his wife, left to play golf, and returned to the hotel room to find his wife, ah, pleasuring the bellhop. He left the hotel room, decided not to go back to New Jersey and to start a new life in Niagara. Romance, possibly ensues.

Then, of course, things get strange. A wax, smushed-faced lion starts talking to Jaye and telling her to do things. Not necessarily bad things, but odd things that, you'll be astonished to find out, lead to good results. It's rather like the current show, JOAN OF ARCADIA, except much more played for laughs.

The difference, though, is that Jaye actually tells people about the talking animals. It's not just the smushed-face lion, but, really any sort of inanimate animal object with a face. And people believe her. Well, some of them do, at least.

That's the thing that fascinated me with the later episodes. Normally, mose recently in JOAN OF ARCADIA, the person receiving the personal requests from the bizarre, keep the 'sodes to themselves. They don't tattle on the supernatural. Jay, although reticent about it, does tell both her friend Mahandra and her brother Aaron.

Normally, in this sort of sit-com situation, the person who gets the instructions, or actually knows about the wackiness has to go through it alone. I'm guessing the meta-message here is that you really can't depend on anyone but yourself. In WONDERFALLS, that's not the case. Jaye receives help from her family and friends, whether they believe her about the talking animals or not. A much warmer message, I thought.

Damn shame Fox cancelled it. Go pick it up. Now. Damn it.

Wonderfalls

2005-04-19T07:51:00.000-05:00

Four-Color Goodness

2005-04-11T21:29:00.000-05:00

So, riffling through the Diamond Comics shipping lists, let's see what's coming for April 13.

The Good Stuff
ADAM STRANGE -- Outer-space frolics and fun
FABLES -- One of the best comics being published today
SHE-HULK: SUPERHUMAN LAW -- A trade collecting the final six issues of the SHE-HULK series. Fun stories.
POWERS -- Bendis's best work.

The Okay Stuff
NEW THUNDERBOLTS -- Old-fashioned Marvel superheroics.
IRON MAN -- Would be in The Good Stuff if it hadn't been delayed three months. Not keeping my interest.
DISTRICT X -- Aside from Astonishing, the best X-book being put out. Not that that's saying all that much these days...

The I'm-Such-A-Marvel-Slut Stuff
EXILES
ULTIMATE X-MEN
ULTIMATES
WOLVERINE

The Oh-God-Why-Do-I-Keep-Doing-This-To-Myself Stuff
X-MEN: THE END: HEROES AND MARTYRS -- I think the category title says it all.

Oh, yeah, I'm cool, all right

2005-03-22T18:10:00.000-05:00

Which Incredibles Character Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

The Weekly Fix, March 9 edition

2005-03-09T09:41:00.000-05:00

Comics I'm looking forward to this week.

Adam Strange #6 because I'm a sucker for a good space opera and this is as close as I've found to one in the last couple of years.

Fables because it's just so damn good. I can't wait to find out what Jack was up to in Hollywood.

Vimanarama because Grant Morrison can do very little wrong and this is him near the top of his game.

Sleeper volume 3 TPB because I'm getting this series in the trades.

Speaking of trades, I'm looking forward to the Inhumans digest as I've heard good things about the series. Also, I think my oldest son would enjoy this one.

New Thunderbolts because sometimes I want some good, old-fashioned super heroey goodness and Nicieza always provides.

Ultimate Fantastic Four because I'm really enjoying Ellis's take on the four, both here and in Planetary.

And lastly, and probably least, is X-Men: The End: Heroes and Martyrs because I'm a sap. I know Claremont's writing has been slipping quit fast during the last few years, but, damn it, the first comic I remember reading was an X-Men in which Nightcrawler teleported blind out of Arcade/Doombot's castle. It hooked me on comics and so I give Claremont way more slack than I should. The last six-issue miniseries of this just sucked. Plain and simple. I'm giving him just one more issue, this one, to start pulling it all together and, if not, I'm done with it.

The Guide

2005-03-06T23:48:00.000-05:00

The trailer for THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY is up and, my god, it's magnificent. It effortlessly captures the whimsey and the wonder of the five-book trilogy. And Alan Rickman, as the voice of Marvin the Paranoid Android, is just perfect. Catch the preview right here.

New Comics for 2/16/05

2005-02-18T10:27:00.000-05:00

Just a quick post about some of the comics I most enjoyed this week.

Marvel giveth and Marvel taketh away.

RUNAWAYS, by Brian K. Vahghan and Adrian Alphona, returns from hiatus with a brand-new first issue. I'm normally not a big fan of cancelling a comic book and then bringing it back a few months later with a new start. However, if this works to give the book some needed sales boosts so I can keep reading it, then I'm all for it. I always liked the previous series and thought it was one of Marvel's best books, but this new first issue just blew the last series out of the water. Even if you've never read RUNAWAYS before, Vaughan seamlessly incorporates all the needed exposition while throwing in some great plot twists and making me laugh out loud several times. Just great, great stuff.

SHE-HULK exits stage cancelled with issue number 12. All is not lost, however, as we've been promised that eight months down the line this title will relaunch with the same creative team and an all-new first issue. Sound familiar? Writer Dan Slott and artist Paul Pelliter craft a fantastic tale, the culmination of the eleven previous issues while leaving the series open for much more fun in the next incarnation. She-Hulk must find some way to stop an insanely powerful Titania, but there's just one teeny complication: Jennifer Walters can't turn back into She-Hulk so she's got to try and stop Titania using her brains, not her brawn. The whole series, really, has been about Jennifer Walters finding her own inner strength, both physical and mental; seeing that she is as worthy as her emerald alter ego. There was a bad moment there when Awesome Andy, perhaps the breakout character of the last year, was almost written off, but, thank goodness, well I won't spoil it for you.

ASTONISHING X-MEN issue number 8 came out this week also, with words by Joss Whedon and art by John Cassady. As always, the dialogue was fantastic and the art was superlative. I've been really enjoying this series and was swept along by the events of this issue up until the very last panel. That's where they lost me. Well, all right, only until next issue, but the creative teams are going to have to work overtime to make what seems like a very lame idea actually work.

State of the Union

2005-02-03T09:08:00.000-05:00

So the state of the union address was on last night. I forced myself to watch.

I lasted all of four minutes, before the smirking face of that hypocritical, lying weasel forced me to change the channel, if only for health reasons. After all, the last time I had sustained exposure to the Hand Puppet in Chief I suffered a heart attack. We don't want a repeat of that.

However, I'm already planning for 2008. Go to http://www.thinkblue2008.com and purchase your blue rubber band, in the stylish immitation of Lance Armstrong's yellow rubberband, to let everyone know you're already thinking about making sure the country goes in the correct direction when next we get a chance to elect a president who's not a moron.

Money goes to several progressive causes to make the world a better place, or at least to mitigate the damage caused by the pack of weasels in control in Washington, D.C., right now.

Test

2005-01-28T14:29:00.000-05:00

This is a test post just to see if it's working