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The Buffy comic continues with issue 4 and Buffy learns that some of the human race wants to hunt her down for being part demon. Most of the rest just want to fuck Spike. Dawn is still a giant. I don't know where you'd get giant pants, but you could wash them on those abs.
Man. That Star Wars sure takes a beating some days, huh.
Here's a couple of lighthouse postcards. Both on the Linen type of paper. A very popular subject for postcards. Here's a nice shot of some apartments on Jackson Square, New Orleans. You can see that the hand coloring is of varying styles. I prefer the coloring in the top two.
That's Domo-Kun. He got something going on in Japan where he's the mascot of NHK TV. I think he's yelling at that guy for stealing his satelite signal, or he's happy, I can't tell which. The other picture makes him out to be some sort of wrathful agent for God. I don't think that's part of the story. There's a goofy flash game here where Domo has to whack the Powderpuff Girls on the head with a stick. It's a hard one. I kept getting blasted with lightning bolts. There's a jpeg here that you can print out and make your own domo paper puppet and his tv. Here's a Domo-Kun FAQ. Guitar Wolf, a Japanese band, has music in a Domo short and in the movie Wild Zero. I just thought Domo-Kun was fun to look at but I don't feel I need a toy to enjoy him. You should check out Wild Zero too, although some of you won't like it.
Just a reminder to watch The Fifth Element once in a while. It sure is fun. I heard that the director Luc Besson said he would retire from directing after his tenth movie. His last movie was Arthur and the Minimoys and it's number 10. He wrote the book the movie is based on and has continued the series. I read the first two books, now out in a single volume, which tell one story. They were ok but not great. It was a bit of a rip off to split that story into two books, but there you go. Better to wait for the paperback or buy used. A used paperback is actually smaller and cheaper. I just looked Luc up on the IMDb and he's listed to direct the next two Arthur stories.
I don't remember buying any of the Kenner Star Wars action figures when the movie came out. I spent my money on records in those days. I bought a few in the 90's but haven't seen them in a while.
That's a cardboard cutout of Princess Leia on the right. Life-size. I got a John Sheridan from Babylon 5 in my front room. Life-size. Trouble with big stuff?
There have been a lot of Princess Leia statues. I never bought any of them. I have two or three action figures. I do have an early Jabba figure somewhere. I'll get to them eventually.
At least the picture of Princess Leia on the box looks like Carrie Fisher. I don't know who those dolls are.
Two movies about disfunctional fathers trying to get their daughters back. And what two different movies they are. The Host is a Korean giant mutated monster movie and Pro Life is a movie about a girl getting knocked up by the devil.
The Host came out last year in Korea and the buzz was pretty good. It was the highest grossing Korean film ever. The Koreans saw the movie 13 million times. It came out in the theaters here a few months ago. Greg bought a Thai dvd at some convention. The USA dvd comes out in August. The movie starts with a scene, based on a fairly recent real incident, in which some US asshole doctor forces some poor Korean sap to pour 100 bottles of formaldehyde into the Han River. Some years later this giant fish monster pops out and starts killin' and eatin' the people it finds dottin' the banks. It's like a Han River Korean All-You-Can-Eat Buffet. Some good chow there and plentiful. No tipping. I liked the monster and I liked that it showed up right soon and stayed out in broad daylight. The CGI was darn good for a 10 million dollar movie. A pretty huge budget for a Korean movie. One of the largest. I liked the monster as it loped along terrorizing the fleeing citizens. Kind of playful. It didn't eat them right away. It almost seemed to be enjoying the enthusiastic reponse to it's presence. There was some good camera work and interesting shots. I liked the shots from the elevated train. The people on the train slowly come to realize there's a monster coming. Look out!
There's some humor and some sadness. Some bravery and some foolishness. There was a nice mix of characters. Like this odd little family. That's them there. They have their problems but like so many disfunctional families they all pull together then one is in trouble. The father and one of his sons run a small food and beverage stand just off the water. The son has an 11 year old daughter. The mother had the baby and ran away. The son has a brother and sister. When we meet the family they are watching the sister on the tv. She's an archery champion but she chokes and gets a bronze metal. The son with the daughter seems kind of out of it and that's sort of explained. The monster attacks as they all go outside after the sister fails at the archery games. The monster snaps up the young daughter and disappears down in the river. A little later they get a call from the daughter. She's still alive down in the sewers. The family pulls together and escapes the authorities to rescue her. They don't do so well at first and some of them die. Eventually the monster is vanquished and the survivors take a page from Mad Eye Moody's book and remain ever viligent. "Keep watching the waters!"
Pro Life is John Carpenter's second contribution to the Showtime Masters Of Horror Series. A young woman is running from something crosses paths with a couple in a car. Since they work in a clinic they take her there. It an abortion clinic. The girl is pregnant and wants to have the baby removed. Turns out she was raped by the devil. Nobody would want that baby. Nobody but her prolife father. God's been talking to him and told him to protect the baby no matter what. He brings his three sons and a shitload of guns. Many die in the assault. The daughter has her baby and it's a cute bloody demon spawn with a baby's head and a spider like body. The devil shows up to collect his child but the mother has already killed it. The Devil is sad as he leaves with his dead spawn. The father dies knowing that he had been tricked by the Devil. As Nelson would say: "Ha Ha!" Sadly the father dies off screen. It was disappointing. The movie occasionally made me laugh. I enjoy movies about religious fanatics being tricked by the devil. If there were a God, He'd be laughin', it was a good joke.
Back some months ago I got me one of those George Forman grills and I have been telling everyone who will stand still for 3 and a half minutes how much I like using it. A very low percentage of the people I talk to have ever used one. Mike, the Mike from Friday Night Movie night not the Mike from Winnipeg, uses one at his job to make grilled cheese sandwiches. I have not tried that yet. I have been eliminating cheese from my diet. Since I got this grill I have been thinking of tossing out all my pots and pans. I quit frying quite a while ago. And BBQ'in' is so seasonal. I don't use my stove for anything but heating water anyway. The only reason I don't have an electric kettle is that circuit is tied to the one that has the air conditoner on it and if you forget, out go the lights when you fire both up. That and you are less likely to find a good cheap electric kettle here. I have a kettle that whistles and that's a good thing. Harder to get wrapped up in something and forget the kettle is burning red hot on the stove. Last time that happened I threw the kettle out in the snow. Saved me shoveling my walk. The only kind of shoveling I like to do anymore is of the food into mouth kind. And now that I got me a new George Forman grill I have been shoveling pork chops into my mouth.
I was telling my brother Clyde about my new pork chop receipe. You grill some pork chops. I prefer the bone off type. They cook faster and no bone to deal with. I trim off all the fat too. After they are cooked I sprinkle a little parmesean cheese on them and drizzle a tablespoon or so of Litehouse Ceasar Salad Dressing over them while they are still hot. Serve with something of your own choosing. I found the flavors were quite compatable when I had Ceasar salad and pork chops last week. I normally buy the low fat dressing but I got a free bottle of Litehouse Ceasar and damn if that ain't some good dressin'. A bit thick for my taste but what a great flavor. Rich, and heavy in fat, something for a treat once in a while. Oh, you tastey fatty morsels and your lucious calorific toppings, why are you so tempting.
I also make a Beef Bowl. I use ramen noodles and a bit of the beef flavoring. I just sprinkle a quarter of a packet on the noodles after I drain them. I cut the beef into small pieces and put it in the grill. I used to use a wok. Either way? Done soon. I sprinkle salt, pepper and celery seed in the bowl with the noodles and toss on the beef with a half a tablespoon of not butter. I used to use butter but now I use I can believe it's not butter. There used to be this resturant on University Avenue, just a block or two away from Broadway. This is on the north east side of down town Minneapolis. There's a gas station there now. The resturant was called the Kobe Kitchen. They had a great Beef Bowl. Beef, stirfried, on a bed of rice. Big bowl of white rice, good amount of beef, reasonably priced. Nice, simple, tastey. With 4 peas on top. I would toss them out. There was a side of cabbage salad with a clear dressing. Tangy. They moved to the Washington, DC area back in the early 80's. I miss the Beef Bowl. Mine is different enough not to be a substitute. So many resturants and dishes gone. I am sad.
I started with another Glen Cook. I read Old Tin Sorrows and liked it. I like chain-reading a lot of a series in a row. I don't know why. I can guess, but who gives a shit about that. This book has a 400 year old cook! She's really big. Garrett helps in the kitchen of an old mansion. There are some rum doin's goin' on amongst a group of grizzled retired professional soldiers. There's murder and some bad ghoul like reanimated corpses. They do some of the murderin'. There's a ghost that Garrett falls in love with. He has sex with her. No surprise there. Some paintings figure into this story. That's the nice thing about the Garrett books, they continue to move along creating new places to go. We are in the country with this book. Garrett grows a bit and some stuff burns down. Lesson learned? Helpin' people will put your ass in danger, but you might get laid.
The Dragon's Eye: The Dragonology Chronicles Vol 1 by Dugald A Steer had a dragon in it. I saw it at HPBs and I had a coupon. It had a dragon right on the cover. Pictures too. It was fair, not much more than that. It took me too long to read it. The illustrations reminded me of Berni Wrightson. The story is about some kids who get involved with some people who raise dragons. There's a villian and a nice guy on our side. It's an ok story based on some other Dragonology books that came out in 2003. They were fancy art books with the care and feeding of dragons. Lots of art. Here's a book based on the idea. It just not that great a book. It's not a keeper and I wouldn't bother with more, if they ever come out. There are toys and books at Target for this franchise. The toy dragons are not too bad but I did not buy any. I have lots of that sort of crap.
I finished the month with two more of Glen Cook's Garrett mysteries. Dread Brass Shadows starts with Garrett's part time girlfriend getting stabbed. His anger is shared by his pal Saucerhead and they start investigatin'. Someone will need their ass kicked. This book, the fifth, also introduces Winger. She's a large woman who fights, drinks and steals. Garrett eventually winds up in bed with her. There's a magic book and some intrigue and danger. Lesson learned? Someone is always getting killed in that town. You'd think people wouldn't live there. But they do.
Red Iron Nights is from 1991. The first book came out in 1987. The next five would take 18 more years. There are several threads of story winding around in this book. In the main one the local head of the police asks Garrett to help with some murders. They are grizzly. Garrett digs into the past of the young women, finds the killer, finds out there's a new killer, and eventually brings things to a fairly nice conclusion. Garrett gets a talking parrot, with a gift for the profane, from Morley. It will feature in the rest of the series. Lesson learned? People who give you pets are not good friends. I mean really, why would you give someone something that poops? None for me thanks.
For some reason I brought the Batman Boxed Set that came out in 2005 along and we wound up watching the first of the series. I had gone through the box when it came out, watching each movie with the commentary on. Yes, I even listened to the commentaries on the two movies by Joel (accused of killing the series) Schumacher. He was sure that people were just like him and really liked the nipples on the bat suit. I guess I was kind of thinkin' it might be nice to see Batman again. I have quite a fond spot for that first movie. It will be a while before I get around to watching the Schumacher ones and I have mixed feelings about the second Tim Burton movie. I dislike 
the Penguin parts but like the Catwoman bits. As Sperhauk said the first Tim Burton movie was a pretty new take on the superhero genre at the time, or something like that. I had been fond of the 60's TV Batman when it was new but not so interested now that I am older and wiser. It's still not something that has turned up on DVD. Y0u can buy Batman - The Movie, as I did, and have more 60's Batman than you need. It was made during the break between the first and second season. No rest for Adam and Burt. You can see that in Return To The Batcave: The Adventures of Adam and Burt, a 2003 fictional-ish look behind the scenes. They compliment each other, both the characters and the movies. People paid a lot of compliments to Batman when it came out in 1989 and I pretty much was sold from the first minute. It has it's low points and dumb jokes but the look is pretty good and the characters are vivid and fun. Who would work for the Joker? This movie was the first time I started thinking about that. Why would criminals work for the Joker? He kills his workers. And there are no benefits on the job. Must be guys with low self esteem, or tiny minds.
There was nothing tiny about the characters of our next feature. San daikaijû: Chikyu saidai no kessen is called Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster here in the USA. There's a new DVD with the original Japanese version and the original American release. We watched the latter dubbed version. In this movie the Princess channels the dead Martians not the dead Venusians. Godzilla finally makes his first appearance a third of way into the movie. At the urging of the tiny Mothra girls he joins forces with Rodan and Mothra to kick the ass of KIng Ghidorah. There's quite a bit of destruction and a song by the Mothra girls. It's fun. I need to pick up one of these for myself.
