Comic for Monday, July 10th, 2006

Posted: 7:40 am, Monday, July 10th

I cannot count the amount of times I've acted out this strip.

You guys ever hear about Wolfgang's Vault? The whole thing is explained here, but, basically, some dude bought a building formerly owned by Bill 'Wolfgang' Graham, the dude who more or less created the modern concept of a rock show. In the basement, he found a massive trove of t-shirts, posters, tickets, and recordings from back in the day. The server's slower than hell, but if you can ever get through, there is some awesome stuff for the grabbing. None of it's what we in the industry call 'cheap,' but if you've been itchin' for a Ramones poster from '77 and don't remain on speaking terms with Kelly, then this is the place.

Doonesbury ends on a very nice note yesterday.

2.0 and I went to see the Pirates movie yesterday. It wasn't very good - too long, too complicated, and not nearly as fun as the first movie. There were a few really good sequences - a battle in a mill wheel that was kind of similar to Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom's first sword fight in the first movie, and the costume design was outstanding on Davy (Ktulu) Jones' crew. The film would've benefitted greatly by borrowing the map from the Indiana Jones movies, because it was impossible to tell where anyone was at any given time. It was like, "Let's go to Tortuga!" And they were there. It was a little fun playing spot the BBC actor - Gareth from the Office and the dude that played Stephen in Coupling were both in it (as they evidently were in the first one, too, just I hadn't seen those shows yet). Anyway, not terrible, but not great, either. We also got the preview for the Nativity Story. It is just me, or does that seem as big of a cash-in on the Passion of the Christ as Pirates 2 was on the first movie? Oh, another preview was for Lady in the Water. First, I didn't mean for this post to turn into Bullfrog and 2.0 Go To the Movies. Second, the poster for that flick reminds me an awful lot of the poster for Underworld Evolution. I just thought I'd mention that.

Not much else - the Sox go into the All-Star Break three games up, and it could've been four if they somehow managed to score in innings 12-18 of yesterday's grueling war of attrition with the Pale Sox. In case you haven't seen it eight million times, here's the Zidane headbutt from the World Cup finals that just gets funnier every time I watch it. And that's all from the sports desk.

"Headbutt" was the search topic for today's MySpace nightmare, and it yielded an all-new godawful color combo that these cretins have found - light blue on bright green. Wow. I could've sworn I saw someone comment on this chick's Space, "Keep fighting the good fight and repost," which is funny, but it could have just been my corneas fusing shut.

bullfrog

I really enjoyed the Pirate movie. Not quite as good as the first one, but considering the entire series is being developed out of a 10 minute ride from Disney World, I think they've done well. However, I disagree with the guy who brought a 1 year old to see it at my theater. People - there are tons of 13 year olds looking to make $6/hour to watch your kid watch TV AT HOME.

So, what can you say in a final World Cup soccer game to get someone ejected from the last game of their career???

"Cheese-eating surrender monkey."

Check it out - the Something Awful link over the weekend is cats that look like Hitler.

http://www.catsthatlooklikehitler.com/

Also amusing - the Daily News' back cover for the Cup:

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/index.html

Don't forget to check out the Vault Radio--Right now I'm listening to live Jimmi Hendrix Spanish Castle Magic.

Second item:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/a rticle/2006/06/29/AR2006062901908.html

Shitwit: "We shouldn't fear a world that is more interacted."

He's right. We shouldn't fear a world that is more .. interact... What?

The actor who played the evil British guy in "Pirates" also played Mr. Collins in the most recent adaptation of "Pride and Prejudice." As Jeremiah says -- my head asplode!!!

Oh, the East India Trading Company guy? Wow. I love that only the same twenty or so British people get work in Hollywood.

Did anyone care more about Depp's second-in-command guy *way* more than they did Orlando Bloom?

Has it been previously established that Ron is Greek? I never noticed him wearing letters before today.

I think he's had his sweatshirt on a few times before.. This isn't going to help my never-ending claim that Ron is actually not me, but...

OK, there's no Greek system at Notre Dame. All the dorms are single-sex and you (with very few exceptions) stay in the same dorm your entire time on campus (I think something around 60% stay on-campus all four years, and 90% for three years) and back in the day (mid-90s), they all had more-or-less their own characteristics that somewhat closely approximated something approaching frat life. My dorm, Alumni Hall, had a signature event known as the Wake and were rivals with the dorm next door (Dillon sucks), and interhall sports made sure everyone got involved to some regard with dorm life.

Anyway, Alumni, due to the architectural adornments of the building, had the Dawgs as our mascot. Understanding spelling and one-to-one character substitution if not actual translation, someone way back in history decided that we should also have Greek letters, delta omega gamma, because that spells 'dog'. And so, despite there being no frats on campus, every last bit of Alumni Hall merchandise ever created has a Delta Omega Gamma stamped on it, and the dorm even sometimes has big, light-up metal letters hanging off the front of it.

What a long and boring explanation. I'm very sorry.

Hey, at least you didn't have to claim allegience to a really bad 1980's movie... http://imdb.com/title/tt0091225/

Oi! At least Howard has a consistent mascot, unlike most of the girls' dorms (and some men's). Badin changed theirs all the friggin' time. (I think Walsh, Welsh, and Cavanaugh were guilty of this, also.)

Walsh has been the "Wild Women" for the last 10 years, thank you very much. Not that I'm claiming that a "wild woman" is a GOOD mascot. but they have been consistent.

I thought Walsh were the Whirlwinds for a while. Maybe I'm thinking of Welsh. My bad. Since I just finished a rather grueling task that took most of my morning, I'm going to quickly list off all the ones I can remember from our days under the Dome before going back to work:

Alumni - Dawgs. Dillon - Big Red. Zahm - nothing, but had a moose for their mascot for some reason; unofficially, the Assholes. Carrol - Vermin. Stanford - Studs. Keenan - Knights. Flanner - 'Cocks. Keough - Kangaroos/Roos. O'Neill - Angry Mob, I believe. St. Ed's - I don't think they had one. Sorin - Screaming Otters. Knott - Angels/Beavers/Juggerknotts. Seigfried - Can't remember what they were as a girls' dorm, Shockers/Ramblers when housing fellas. Fisher - Green Wave. Morrissey - Manorites (lame). Lyons - Lions. Pangborn - Phoxes? McGlinn - Shamrocks/Rocks/has lice. Welsh - ? Badin - Bullfrogs, about eight other things. BP - Banshees? Cavanaugh - Chaos, ten other things. PE - Pyros. PW - Purple Weasels (Jen's worn a PW shirt once or twice). Lewis - Chicks. Farley - Smokers.

God, why do I remember this stuff?

You're a bit dated on some of those, but it has been awhile. For those of you dying to know all the current info: http://www.nd.edu/~orlh/halls/

So all this talk of schools and mascots got me thinking about Pratt. I have long said that there isn't any athletics at Pratt, and if there was it would be paintball or ultimate frisbee or some such nonsense. I was wrong!

We are the cannoneers! And this:

http://www.pratt.edu/athletics/

is our mascot.

My head asplode.

Wow, not only do you have a mascot, it's pretty friggin' cool.

Whoa, wait, no. I just checked the link. That thing will haunt my nightmares.

One of my all-time favorite team identities is the 'Fighting Friars' of Providence College: http://friars.cstv.com/

What would St. Francis think?

Yeah, whirlwinds was Welsh...problem with having 2 identical sounding female dorms on campus. they should've at least made wElsh a guy's dorm...

To add to the obscurity, Rutgers-Newark indeed apparently has its own sports teams as well (surprisingly, they are actually worse than the Piscataway Scarlet Knights) and are called the Scarlet Raiders. http://scarletraiders.rutgers.edu/ Brilliant.

The Scottsdale Community College mascot is the Fightin' Artichoke, which is pretty cool.

A few years back, Wake Forest and Arizona State met in the Hula Bowl, played on Christmas Day. Someone on ESPN wrote, "I'm Jewish, and I know it's wrong for the Demon Deacons and the Sun Devils to play on Christmas." Thought that was funny.

A baseball quiz to pass the time while I go to lunch - I got a 31.

http://proxy.espn.go.com/chat/sportsnation/qui z?event_id=2191

I have to chime in and say that my alma matter actually had 3 mascots. Officially, we are the College of Wooster Fighting Scots. http://athletics.wooster.edu/fightingscot.php< /a> But we have two more unofficial mascots...the scottie dog, McWoo (http://athletics.wooster.edu/fb/photos/2002/pa ges/mascot.htm) and the COW (for the name of the school). Believe me, nothing's better than having your face on your student ID right next to a cow's butt (which apparently there's no picture of online).

I love all the Fightings thrown in before collitch mascots. Letterman used to do a weekly report on Ball State football called "The Ball State Fightin' Cardinals Fightin' Football Report" or something like that. Good times.

And "McWoo" is freaking awesome. If that were the ND mascot, I don't even want to wager a guess on how often a drunk Bullfrog would yell McWoo, doing the Ric Flair "WHOOOOOO!" for the second syllable.

Because it's been like eight times in my head already, and I've only been aware of the name for three minutes.

Could be worse. At Fairfield we were (are) the Stags, which is all fine and well, until you get to women's sports and the 'Lady Stags.'

Lady Stags.

Sheesh

Zero

I would just like to point out that the Cannoneer of Pratt Institute is wearing a Gondolier uniform.

What's that about?

...and I disagree with you bullfrog, I think Pratt's mascot is no more haunting then the fightin' Irish's leprechaun. Interpret that as you will.

hey you City-dwellers, what hope do I have finding street parking Sunday for a picnic in Sheep's meadow? Just gte off the West Side at 72nd street and pray? Help a B&T out!

Zero

I took that to be a French navy outfit, actually.

It's the detailing on the face and the were stump-chin that get me.

Zero - my uncle often finds parking around the mid-50s on the West Side. A little further away, but still doable. Sunday summers on the Upper West probably aren't hopeless for street parking, what with the exodus to the Hamptons or wherever people with money go to.

And Lady Stags is ridiculous, you're right.

Oh my God, I *love* McWoo!

Could McWoo beat the animated .gif of the Fighting Scot? Could anyone beat the animated .gif of the Fighting Scot? What would happen if the Fightin' Irish ran into the Fighting Scot? Would they fight, or would they go stomp the holy hell out of the Dandy Brit?

Oh my God, I *love* McWoo!

McWoo can do cartwheels (since there's actually someone who wears the costume to all campus events) but the Fighting Scot has a sword. And is followed by a band of bagpipers. I'm gonna' put my money on the Scot. But the ND leprachaun scares me, so I don't know who would win THAT fight.

Wow, that's funny, because the leprechaun would be flanked by the Irish Guard, who are basically bagpipers without bagpipes. It would be a fuckin' rumble.

By the way, "McRoo can do cartwheels" sounds like the descriptor on an old action-figure box. "Thunder Punch He-Man has a spring-action arm!" "Lex Luthor has karate-chop action!" "McRoo can do cartwheels!"

1) Do they still sell He-Man action figures? Every time I see a Bratz doll, I weep over the souls of today's children.

2) My University mascot is a Bengal Tiger, like about fifty other colleges and universities. (University of Missouri - Columbia) My high school is a bit more contraversial: the Fighting Savage, with yes, an Indian as the mascot. And yes, people have tried to suggest alternative mascots, but apparently no one would perfer the fighting Banana Slugs. Let the outrage commence...

The anime-d up He-Man maybe three years back to try and bring the toy line back, but everything came out looking like Todd MacFarlane got his hands on things - ie, ghastly.

Wow. The Fighting Savage. If he has a flanking army of men in kilts, he can join the Scot-Irish rumble. And if not, he can cater by bringing the artichokes. I'm just rambling, now.