Comic for Thursday, February 16th, 2006

Posted: 7:40 am, Thursday, February 16th

In case anyone's wondering, of course I bothered to actually look up the first t-shirts the Ramones sold. Remember, this is Five Bucks to Friday. Thorough on t-shirt research, incredibly lax on every other aspect of the strip. Writing, art, punchlines - that's all a sucker's game. T-shirt detail - that's where it is. Along these lines, there's a nice article about how rock t-shirts used to mean something from an issue of the North Bay Bohemian about a year ago. I can't think of any shirts I own from bands I haven't seen in concert right offhand, but I do know that I bought a Springsteen shirt from the 80s for a friend a few years back, but since she's undoubtedly the biggest Springsteen fan I know, I consider that OK. Still, though, the fourteen-year olds walking around in Ramones t-shirts. Hell, the fourteen-year olds walking around in Nirvana t-shirts... Old Man Conway does not approve. He shakes an angry fist, instead.

Using the word 'bohemian' as the vaguest of segues, has anyone else seen the ads for Rent coming out on DVD next week? It's also coming out on PSP format. This has got to be the result of corporate groupthink. Or selling one PSP of Rent has got to completely recoup the cost of printing 2,000 or however many of them. Or they're only printing them on demand. Let's think about who owns PSPs - now let's think about whatever conceivable target audience Rent had. The Venns diagrams do not intersect.

(For the record, I greatly enjoyed the touring production of Rent that I saw back in '99 - I just don't trust Chris Columbus to direct anything of any emotional weight.)

Grafe found this hall of famer yesterday about the sex tour of the San Francisco zoo. My favorite line: "It turned purple, then black, then it atrophied. Then it fell off, and he ate it." Yowza.

Article from New York mag I actually haven't bothered to read yet about 'the haves and have-nots of the blogging boom.' Anyone want to guess where I fall on the spectrum?

I'm not sure if I've ever mentioned this last item here in this space... OK, when I was a kid, I used to read these books that were abridged versions of the classics - like, HG Wells, Mark Twain, Edgar Allen Poe and Robert Louis Stevenson were a bunch of them. Oh, White Fang, too... Jack London. OK, anyway, they were tiny little books, and they had a picture on every other page. Seriously, half of the book was pictures. I've tried describing these things to 2.0 and she had no idea what I was talking about, and I'm pretty sure we unloaded the things at a garage sale when I was in ninth grade (same time I unloaded the NES, which I can't believe I did). Well, yesterday morning on the subway, I see some lady reading Kidnapped by Robert Louis Steveson, and it's one of these books. It was all I could do not to snatch it out of her hand to check out the publisher's info, but instead I just read over her shoulder. I think she was using it to help teach herself English, she looked Russian. I managed to copy 'Illustrated Classics Edition' off the cover, and that was it. A google search turned up a ton of results ofr Classics Illustrated Edition, but only a few for what I was actually looking for. Eventually, though, found it. Anyone else read these guys? They had a ton of them, but this is definitely the one I remember the best. I still think it's why I know the plot of most Poe books. Anyway, crazy that I saw one on the train.

Yep, that's all I've got. Anybody have anything they'd rather talk about?

bullfrog

I had those books too.

I also own one of those ramones t-shirts. Every time i think about putting it on, i try to remind myself that ashley simpson wore one of these. That usually makes me dig further into the closet to find the rollins shirt.

Oh yeah, did anyone see the rollins anti-meth commercial running during the olympics?

There's a great moment in _The Time-Traveler's Wife_ (which is Ramones-heavy) where the characters encounter 14-year-olds wearing punk gear that *they* had been wearing before the kids were even born.

'And how much did you pay for your rock'n'roll t-shirt / that proves you were there / that you heard of them first?'

http://www.purelyrics.com/index.php?lyrics=owd jzjsl

But the poor kids -- can they help it they were born into Britney when their heart goes out to the Ramones?

Is it just me or does Jack get more and more annoying every week?! I wish he was put through the Iraqi torture exercise to shut him up for a while. By the way, I believe the man is an Other and should not be let out of the armory! Let him rot and die in there.

While I'm at it, perhaps Luke should be put in the armory with him because his cranky attitude on the Vineyard was deplorable. I have a hunch eventually he will find out that he is being scammed on this whole daughter thing, but until then, we must all suffer with his kranky, distracted, forgot-I-was-getting-married attitude.

Happy Spring Training! So long Sammy, Reggie will greatly miss you (but will be sure to honor you by drafting you to my fantasy teams).

I'm not sure what exactly my problem with reprint tees is. 2.0 will say it's just because I'm a curmudgeon, but I think it's more I don't like that a band like the Ramones has been reduced to an image (even though their image is rather iconic). If you can name more songs than are just on their greatest hits album (and I doubt Ashlee Simpson can even name the songs on her own album, frankly), then it's cool to wear. And, yeah, it sucks for the kids that're born today when the radio plays one good song every five years, that's true. As you can see, as usual, I'm conflicted and incapable of expressing a coherent opinion on this.

Haven't seen the Rollins ads, Grafe, but the hour of Olympic coverage I watched last night before Lost came on was the first I've watched at all. What the crap was with the team short-track speed-skating?

Reggie, no more Gilmores - I haven't watched the tape of it yet.

Lost spoiler coming, co-worker Ivor, in case you haven't seen it yet. I don't want to have to hear you bitch about me spoiling it again. Why did the writers put Sawyer in charge of the island if half the time he's used it's as comic relief? He shows no interest in actually being in charge. I know he was out chasing a tree-frog around and making fun of poor Hurley at the time, but even if he had been around, I don't see him caring about the Other-ish being brought into the island.

I'm OK with Jack, though. He's been written into a reactive role for the most part, and there's only so much you can do with that. At the rate we're going, we're going to have to have Jin lead everyone, because it seems like they're all losing their minds.

By the way, E says those were heiroglyphs on the countdown and the picture the military dude looked at was Kate (I have a terrible memory for faces, but I guess that makes that dude Kate's real dad, who was an army recruiter the one time we saw him). Also by the way, could "Iraq" have looked any faker in the flashback sequences?

And, yes, spring training. Good times!

Funny you should say that about Jin...last night I mentioned that I would like to see the show take a bad ass turn with Jin and Sayid taking control, stopping everyone like Jake from their persistent whining, and going out into the wilderness to slaughter the Others (mistakenly off-ing Ana Lucia with a heavy dose of friendly fire...they could always claim they were shooting quail). Hurley should have thrown the Ranch at Sawyer. I liked Sawyer until last week when he took over the island. Stupid.

The radio station here was speculating some Moses and the plagues thing ahead on Lost. They figured the hieroglyphs (which apparently said "cause to die") and Sawyer killing the frog were just foreshadowing that storyline. If I were a true fan I'd spend the day on www.thefuselage.com

The same radio station played "Dick Cheney has a gun" on the radio this morning. DC is loving this story.

Hell yeah man, I read all those books in third grade. The thing is, I forget 80% of the plots. My favorite back then was "Tale of Two Cities" because it had lots of illustrations of guillotines and revolution, and at age 9 that seems pretty cool.

"the picture the military dude looked at was Kate"

Yup, if you remember, in the episode where she blew up her stepdad, her real dad was an Army recruiter.

Before we get all misty eyed at how music was so much better when we were young, i would highly recommend going back and looking at the billboard charts. There was plenty of crap around when we were growing up too.

As for the team short track, it's one of the "new" sports. I'm pretty sure the olympics has figured out every combination possible for speed skating. sometimes there are 4 people on the track, sometimes 2, sometimes a whole team, sometimes a relay, sometimes you need to win heats, sometimes you need the best time overall, sometimes you just need to beat the person you're racing against, sometimes you race twice and add the times.

Dude, just give me some more biathlon!

Oh and USA women's curling finally go their act together yesterday. Woo!

"And USA women's curling finally got their act together yesterday." 'Bout time, frigging goldbrickers.

I swear to God, the only reason I know any Poe or Wells is because of the pictre every-other-page books. I think the Fall of the House of Usher and other Edgar Allen Poe was my favorite at the time. Bringing the grimmest author of his time to elementary students. That's good stuff.

Looks like George Will is getting a little frustrated with the administration of One.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/a rticle/2006/02/15/AR2006021502003.html

Looks like George Will is getting a little frustrated with the administration of One.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/a rticle/2006/02/15/AR2006021502003.html

Wait....I'm confused about Lost. I did realize that the picture at the end was of Kate, but wasn't that guy not REALLY her dad? I thought she spent her whole life thinking it was, but when she found out the abusive guy was actually her father, that's when she snapped and killed him. And I didn't catch it last week, but apparently Kate's mother was Sawyer's waitress when he met his con-partner at the diner.

And I'm so upset because my TiVo didn't get Gilmore Girls this week! I just assumed it was a repeat and that's why I didn't have it. Now I'm so depressed. Wait...can't be depressed....US women won a curling match. Yeah, that doesn't do anything for me.

No, Kate's real dad was the military guy, the abusive guy was her step-father.. Right?

I liked the editorial linked to off of the Will one, E.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/a rticle/2006/02/14/AR2006021401783.html

Nope, you were right, Sec. Forgot all about the affair while Army Dad was in the war.

Awesome article on one of the two bars in my neighborhood. Farrel's opened the day Prohibition was repealed, and, as the article says, serves beer in 32 oz styrofoam cups so you can take it outside and smoke - or just take it outside and walk around. It's something of a cop bar - on St. Patrick's Day, they use police tape to cordon off the overflow, and it's always swarmed after the cop funerals that occur at Holy Name down the street. I love that it's closed for a week to get a new floor put in and that warrants a Times article. I also know the guy at the wine shop across the street - there's another guy in there who's not an imbecile (re: not a "Rush Limbaugh guy"), he's actually pretty cool.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/16/nyregion/16b ar.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

although it's nice to see some windsor terrace businesses in the 'news' both farrell's and fields fine wines and spirits leave a lot to be desired. i have actually never seen a woman in farrell's. and the liquor store really doesn't carry many fine wines or spirits. it'd be great to have that yankees signage in farrell's put in the dumpster around the corner. i love the convenience and location of these places, but there are better options. this is one man's opinion.

I dig Farrell's, even if there's many places I'd rather drink. Any place that opens at ten each morning and leaves the lights on at full strength until all hours of the night, so that you can see exactly how depressing everyone who's been drinking there all day is, is OK by me. I agree completely on the wine place, though - we only go there if it's freezing or if we're too beat to drag ourselves to Slope Cellars on 7th.