Comic for Wednesday, May 17th, 2006

Posted: 12:01 am, Wednesday, May 17th

Now, I know what some of you may be thinking - Ron's going to the wedding with Lissa, right? I haven't decided what the deal is there. Either Jen doesn't know about that yet or just considers it a friend thing (which is how Ron and Lissa consider it, just to get everyone on the same page). I wish I had run this one before having Ron agree to go to the wedding, but what can you do? It would've screwed up the timing if I had.

I can't believe the Tigers are having this much trouble with their attendance - they've got a fantastic team and a beautiful park. Reggie Ho, Sweaty and I caught a game there in Comerica's first season of operations. Clemens went for the Goat Fuckers and let up five runs or so pretty early in. He didn't take the L because of a rally, but the Tigers did win it. We were in the Family Fun section, which was horrible because Sweaty was swearing like a sailor that evening. But our ten dollar tickets included a slice of Little Caesar's and a Pepsi, which was fun.

Speaking of Clemens, today's MySpace nightmare is the one person I've ever seen list him as one of their favorite people. This speaks volumes about Clemens. (The Onion, by the way, had a great list about Clemens' potential suitors, which outlines wonderfully why I don't think there's actually any chance in hell of him returning to Boston.)

Staying with baseball for just one second, I didn't actually get to read this blog, but there's a Phillies blog called Beer Leaguer, which is a fantastic name for a baseball blog. Also, I've always kind of liked the Phillies, especially their logo. So, there you go.

A more general blog that I tooled around on for a bit yesterday is Jennie Smash, which the gents at Keep Your Sox On have linked off their main page. The girl reminds me of my friend the red-headed stepchild, and seems to be having a lot of apartment troubles, which are two completely unrelated thoughts. Anyway, hey, if you need something to do.

Anyone need plans for Monday night? The unstoppable Drink at Work is having another of their comedy/music festivals at Siberia, free of cover. I've got a softball game, but if it's raining or if I feel like showing up in my softball uniform, I'll be there. I've yet to make it to one of these things, but I was at the more-or-less prototype version of Presents, and it was awesome. So get ye to Siberia if you're sans plans come Monday.

And finally, for today's ridiculously long chat about nothing, the other night, while 2.0 was still hanging out with her mom, I took the opportunity to watch the Thing From Another World, which I had Netflixed. I hadn’t seen it since I was in the third grade, an astounding twenty years ago, and wasn’t certain how it would hold up (side note – I had this weird obsession with 1950s sci-fi when I was eight, and was for some reason psyched that I got to see the Thing on its 35th anniversary when WXXA for some unknown reason decided to re-run it.. I have absolutely no explanation for this. My parents were in their teens and twenties in the 50s, but neither had much interest in sci-fi, so that wasn’t it). It held up astoundingly well. The Thing, as it’s more often known, was one of the first real Hollywood sci-fi movies since the Buck Rogers/Flash Gordon serial adventures of the 30s and 40s, and, I’m pretty sure, was just about the beginning of the aliens-come-to-Earth genre (no doubt born of its era, ie, el Cold War-o). When you think 1950s sci-fi, B-movie schlock is more or less the first thing that pops to mind (my mind, anyway), so I was pretty surprised to find out that everyone in the film really kind of gave it their best shot, acting-wise. The obsessed scientist plays as a stereotype now, but Dr. Carrington in the Thing is clearly worlds away from the nutty mad scientists in the Universal horror classics of the 30s and 40s. The military guys in the film all deliver their lines with the snappy patter of noir detectives, probably because that’s the only genre a lot of them had to draw off of. There were a few really corny bits (the vegetable-based life form Thing needed human blood to reproduce asexually, for instance), but even most of those were either based on the current science of the day or some thinly veiled Cold War logic (my example falling under the latter, obviously, as was the last line of the movie, “Watch the skies! Keep watching the skies!”). Anyway, I found a good review of The Thing, if you’re interested. (There’s also some references to other side of the coin from the Thing, the Day the Earth Stood Still, which got here yesterday via the Netflix.) By the way, John Carpenter’s the Thing is a completely different movie – it owes as much to Alien as it does the 1951 Thing. One thing I was kind of surprised about in rewatching the Thing was that it didn’t have any sense of isolation to it – there were about 20 survivors from the arctic station, and the screen was oftentimes quite crowded, rendering any attempts at an against-all-odds feel impossible. Still, it’s a pretty good movie. I have a feeling I’m going to like the Day the Earth Stood Still better upon rewatching, but if you’ve got an hour and a half to kill, I could think of far worse ways than the Thing From Another World.

OK! Now that you're all bored to death, go to Pratt and check out some cool art curated by someone who wishes me to address her as "Master," but not in a kinky way (I don't think, anyway).

bullfrog

Man, I *knew* no one would care to read 500 words on the Thing From Another World. Oh well, try again tomorrow.

It's a decent movie but I was underwhelmed, I guess I expected a little more excitment considering IMDB has it at almost 8 stars. Maybe it's cause I watched it after exhausting myself by watching a Harryhausen boxed-set and was used to more visual stuff.

*THING SPOILER ALERT*

The scene where The Thing clubbered the dogs around was awesome. Doesn't someone try throwing a 2x4 at him when they finally battle him? If nothing else, the film taught me to be careful where I leave my electric blanket.

Let me know if you want to borrow the Harryhausen stuff, "Earth vs. the Flying Saucers" is less known but more fun.