This week’s white board quip is from the deep, dark days when white board quips were just getting started (that is to say, back in 1998 when I was an intern at Hewlett Packard). This is the type weirdness that made the white board quips so popular.

If you could choose between the body of a sixty year old and the body of an eighteen year old, where would you keep it?

Three of the big four sewage television outlets have joined forces to lobby Washington and the American public for less government interference. According to an article I read today, the TV Watch Coalition, which includes the parent companies of NBC, CBS, and Fox, intends to push for less regulation and to “counterweight such groups as the Parent’s Television Council and the American Family Assn.”

In other words, Hollywood is tired of getting it’s wrist slapped by the FCC for airing indecent content. Instead, Hollywood wants to monitor itself. Now, call me intolerant, but isn’t that a lot like hiring the produces of “Girls Gone Wild” to chaperone you’re daughter’s Spring Break trip?

Ahh, the smell of progress. According to a recent AP article, a zoo in Syracuse, New York, is studying the feasibility of powering their facilities with the zoo’s main byproduct, poo! “Particularly the prodigious piles produced by its pachyderms.” (I wish I’d made that up, but it’s a quote from the article.)

The idea is not new. There have been many studies into poo power. My dad worked in the fuel department of a large electric company before he retired, and can attest to the frequent studies of burning cow manure in power plants. However, this is the first attempt of a zoo using it’s own … ahem … resources to produce electricity.

It so happens that elephants are inefficient digesters and their grassy diet produces high energy poo perfect for producing power. In addition, each elephant (the zoo has six total) produces half a ton of power poo every day! The zoo spends about $10,000 a year to dispose of this waste, much of it going to compost on local farms.

Now, if only the elephants could be potty trained. Oh wait! They CAN!!

Some of you may have noticed some new art work popping up here and there at good ol’ SYNS. One regular reader made a comment yesterday.

Hey I just noticed … what’s with the new artwork at the tops of the pages? Nifty.

Nifty indeed!

I found a new source for retro art and I plan to put it to good use. I’ve got oodles of new images just waiting for the right story to come along. While before I had four rotating banner images, now I have ten! (That’s the title image at the top of the page. It’s different every time the page loads… What do you mean you never noticed?! Gaww!)

Now, I know what you’re thinking: How could you steal some else’s images and use them as if they were your own, you vile internet scum!! Well, cool your jets. Every image you see was traced drawn by your’s truely. Granted my work may bear a striking resemblance to someone else’s art, it is because I traced it in PhotoShop purely coincidence.

A couple of weekends ago, I had a big movie weekend and watched eight flicks… EIGHT! Friday’s theme was stuff I’d heard about and might like; Bourne Identity, Bourne Supremacy, Napoleon Dynamite, and Anchorman.

I’ve already done reviews for the Bournes and for Napoleon. Anchorman didn’t merit a review, other than maybe “blech“. I mildly enjoyed Old School, but Anchorman was not Will Farrell’s best work.

Saturday’s theme was comic inspired movies; XMen, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Hellboy.

Obviously, XMen is a slam dunk. Most people consider it one of the first real comic-book based movies, as it stays as true as possible to the mood and characters of the original material. No need to review this one. It’s a classic.

So, I’m left with three reviews to do and time is ticking. With each passing slumber I come closer to forgetting the details, so I’m going to buckled down and review all three right now. Hold on tight.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is loosely based on a comic book of the same name, written by Alan Moore, who also wrote Constantine (which I hope to see soon).

The premise is very literary, which I love. A half dozen characters from what can only be described as the Victorian era’s sci-fi literature are lumped together to make a team of super heroes. To be honest, I had not heard of most of them, by name, but I knew their stories. Washed up African adventurer, Allan Quatermain; suave and neurotic, Captain Nemo; Mina Harker, from Bram Stoker’s Dracula; The Invisible Man; Dr. Henry Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; and Dorian Gray, one of my favorite Victorian bad guys. All are forced to learn team work in order to save the world.

The special effects are very well done. The acting is on par with Sean Connery, in other words, terrific. The script is engaging though sometimes cliche. All in all I really enjoyed the flick. Enough, in fact, that I want to dig up some of the original graphic novels and learn more about the story.

On the down side, I found a review on IMDB by someone more familiar with Alan Moore’s original work. Turns out Hollywood really bent this one over.

If you liked this movie, I’m not going to fault you. There are some cool things going on in the background, and the premise itself is intriguing. But PLEASE read the book. Its the only way to know what really could have been.

Still, the movie is good on its own, so I give it three out of a possible five grins.

To be fair, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow is not a comic book. But it should have been. It was the brain child and life-long dream of Kerry Conran. The show is influenced by… nay… emerced in the 1940’s sci-fi serial hero format. This could easily have been screened right next to “The Green Hornet”, “Buck Rogers” or “Flash Gordon” and it would fit right in, right down to the far fetched technology and cheesy dialog.

What is really land-mark about this film is that there was no set. The entire show was filmed on blue screen, with large props (okay, set pieces). Then the film is rendered in such a way as to blend the actors and physical props into the computer generated shots so that they match flawlessly. It’s got that old, colorized, grainy look that perfectly matches the real thing.

I got a real kick out of the story and characters. The script was stellar and the acting was great considering the flavor of the film. It was intended to be a little flat and cheesy, just like the 40’s adventure flicks, so I count that as a credit to the cast.

Mostly because of the ingenuity, but also because I really enjoyed it, I would probably buy this DVD if I saw it on sale. Thus, it gets four grins.

Last, but certainly not least is Hellboy. This film is based on the comic books by Mike Mignola, and from all I’ve been able to find, it is religiously faithful to them. Mignola was in the director’s back pocket which is how this genre should always be done.

Once gain, I am inspired to hunt down some graphic novels and learn more. I’m not a comic book nerd, never got much past Mad Magazine, but I really love these kinds of fantasy stories. Hellboy has only increased this feeling.

The story begins with a long flashback to the end of WWII. Nazis have enlisted the help of some mysterious mystics to summon up all sorts of nasty, ethereal, end-of-the-world type stuff, including a demon child … (highlite to reveal a slight spoiler) that will bring about the apocalypse. However, some crack US troops save the day and foil the Nazis. Yaaay us. The demon baby has already been summoned, though, and is taken in and raised by an American paranormalist.

Fast forward 50 years or so. Now there’s a super secret government agency that has employed the demon, Hellboy, and some other unexplainable characters to fight evil beneath the streets. As you can see this has the makings of a really horrible, Hollywood, super hero flick. But stick with me.

The comic book style saves this movie. It’s gritty and has brilliant comedic threads twisting throughout, most notably in the fight scenes. I really like how Hellboy is played. He’s an average joe, working stiff, kind of guy. It just so happens that he’s daily grind is fighting horrific beasts of the underworld. I particularly like the dead-pan way in which he looks at an impossible situation, like the subway train that’s about to run over him, and sums it up with a glum, “aww crap.”

The special effects, including tons of makeup, is tremendous. The story is very entertaining and the acting is off the charts for this genre. I will own this movie and eagerly await the sequel (slated for next year). Thus it garners a perfect five grins.

Whew… we made it. Thanks for reading!

I’m really bummed to learn that Dilbert.com only keeps a couple of months’ worth of comic strips archived. This quote was from a January strip, but I can’t link to it.

This WBQotW was Alice’s response when she was asked if the latest managment tactics had motivated her.

“My urge to hurl has increased a little bit.”

Sam Walton had a vision… The store that saved America. American goods sold at low prices to help the average Joe make ends meet and keep Joe’s company running strong. Poor old Sam died in 1992 and his dream died with him.

I vividly remember the big push back in the late 80’s. Wal-Mart was the big new thing and all their commercials talked about buying American. Made in the USA! Whoo Hoo! Apple pie and baseball. Let’s head on down to the Wal-Mart! Of course, I also remember that a few months after the Wal-Mart opened, the K-Mart down the street closed. Then the Anthony’s (cheap clothing store) closed. Then the… well, you know the drill.

The last time I went to Wal-Mart, I did an improptue survey as I strolled through the women’s clothing with my wife. I couldn’t find a single piece of merchandise that was made in the USA. Granted this was not an exhaustive search, but it was enough to turn my stomach.

Wally-World has had a ton of bad press lately. I watched in horror as their CEO was interviewed recently. The guy was as cold and heartless as you can get. The words coming out of his mouth were all about low prices at any cost. Every question about fair wages, health care, and sweatshop merchandise was answered with the same cold, heartless smirk. “We give American’s good products at low prices.” Excuse me while I uneat my American made lunch.

Wal-Mart stocks are hurting and their media image is suffering, but they are fighting back tooth and nail. At least that part of Wal-Mart is still All-American. You poke me in the eye, I’ll gouge yours out! Case in point: http://walmartwatch.com has started running ads in big name news papers explosing Wal-Mart’s dirty laundry. Today, as I was reading the news, I caught a banner ad for Wal-Mart’s newest PR web site, http://www.walmartfacts.com which comes out swinging: “WalMartWatch.com – Do they just make this stuff up?!” Youch!

This month Chistianity Today published an article, “Deliver Us from Wal-Mart”, which discusses the morality of shopping at the big blue. Wal-Mart has been a boon to Christian marketing. They require music labels to produce toned down versions of hip-hop music or they won’t sell it. They push a heck of a lot of Christian media, from VeggieTales to The Purpose Driven Life. But, once again, at what cost? I’m curious to see how Wal-Mart will retaliate for the Christianity Today article.

I’ll let you read all the nitty gritty details. Personally, Wal-Mart is my new least favorite place to shop. I’m not advocatting a boycott or anything, but this consumer will be spending a lot less money on Chinese goods at America’s Superstore.

I have to be honest. I have no idea where this came from, but it’s been sitting in my quip queue for a while.

“I blame the soup. Stupid soup.”

I got this in an email from my nephew, Sgt. Dustin Ladd, who returned from Iraq several months ago. (It looks like Dustin got it from my Uncle Robert, who did two tours in Viet Nam. Either way, it’s priceless.)

If you consider that there has been an average of 160,000 troops in theater (That means “in Iraq”, for the rest of us civilians.) during the last 22 months, that gives a firearm death rate of 60 per 100,000.

The firearm death rate in Washington D.C. is 80.6 per 100,000. That means that you are more likely to be shot and killed in our nation’s capital, which has some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation, than you are in Iraq.

Conclusion: We should immediately pull out of Washington D.C.

I’ll get the permit, you guys paint some signs. We gonna have us a peace rally!

“Make Love, Not Laws!”

“No More Violence in the Senate!”

“Hell No, We Won’t Go… to the polls”

I have found that the best way to judge a sequel is to watch it right after it’s predecessor. I really enjoy well thought out spy movies and have been looking forward to seeing the “Bourne”series for a while.

I’m not a huge fan of James Bond or that genre. Yeah, he’s got cool toys and gets all the chicks, but it’s just too predictable and silly. Why drop the guy into a pool of sharks or tie him to a table under an elaborate super laser, when you could just finish him off with a .32 slug to the forehead? Maybe I’m just too smart for Hollywood. But, then there are movies like “The Bourne Identity” and its sequel “The Bourne Supremacy”. The best of this genre are always based on spy novels, probably because people who read are also too smart for Hollywood.

This series concerns a poor fellow who’s lost his memory, Jason Bourne. He doesn’t know who he is or why he was found floating in the Mediterranean with bullets in his back, but he does know how to kung-fu the crap out anyone who tries to push him around, even though he’s not sure how he knows or why so many folks are trying to push him around.

As the story unfolds you find out that he is a government funded assassin. (That’s about the only predictable thing in the whole series.) And, since the government has lost track of him, they assume he’s become a rogue agent. Their solution? Kill him, of course. (Okay, I guess that was a little predictable too.)

The cinematography, the script, the special effects, and even the acting are all superb. The fight scenes were probably some of the best I’ve ever seen, not only in the choreography, but in the way they were shot. Everything happens quickly and is shot up close which quick movement as if you were standing between the guys while they punched, kicked and stabbed. Very exciting.

In the DVDs extra features, I learned why. These movies were directed by a couple of guys outside the Hollywood scene. They were indy directors who wanted their movies to look like indy films. They went out of their way to avoid Hollywood camera work, Hollywood scene blocking, and Hollywood predictability. Even the dialog was minimally directed. Let the actors act. And boy does it work!

Lumping these two flicks together for one rating is a bit unfair. Each of them is really good in its own right. Each of them is good enough to sit on the same shelf will all the great Clancy movies. (And Matt Damon is seriously threatening Harrison Ford, in my mind, for the perfect spy movie actor. Not overtaking, but threatening.) However, I do recommend watching the two in sequence to make them easier to follow, the same as I would recommend for the Lord of the Rings trilogy (even though it is a 15 hour marathon). I gave LotR five grins, and I’m hesitant to put Borne on such a high pedestal. But they really are excellent films, so I must relent and award only the second ever five grin rating.