Comic for Monday, January 12, 2009

Posted: 6:00 am, Monday, January 12th

I've watched another hour or so of Sharks in Venice, and it only gets better. There's a fantastic sequence where Billy Baldwin (or whichever sub-Alec it is) gets ambushed in a shop just off of "Saint Mark's Plaza" and has to run. High comedy. There's another part where these ninja assassain mafioso zip-line into his hotel room and start shooting at him where he just hightails it out of there and yells "he's got a gun" to a Venetian cop, who promptly gets gunned down. I haven't looked, but I am 99% certain that Italian cops don't carry guns. (Just looked it up, I am 100% wrong. This Brit seemed to think they are overarmed and thuggish, which I guess I wouldn't've picked up on as a 19-year old American boy.)

Watching the Eagles and the Giants right now, and having seen a smidgen of the Cards' undressing of the Panthers last night, I am kind of taken aback by how many football teams have birds as mascots. Football's a hyperviolent game played by men so monstrous that I doubt I have any genetic material in common with them, and even birds of prey really just aren't that tremendously intimidating.

Ben Lee O'Malley of Scott Pilgrim fame is appearing at Rocketship for a Pilgrim signing on release day! I am very excited.

Your reigning AL MVP is coverboy for the baseball game this season, and the current curse of the cover with that particular game is, as according to YFSF, awesome.

This weekend's movie seen: Milk. I liked it quite a bit, but I preferred Slumdog Millionaire. I do have a thing for films set in San Francisco in the 70s (see: Zodiac). Sean Penn was good, but I don't believe he's a lock for the Oscar if what I hear about the Wrestler is true (that's next on the list of films-to-see). James Franco was really good, though. Wait, maybe Penn is a lock - does a straight guy playing a gay guy qualify for the Forrest Gump qualifier of Oscar baiting? I'm not sure about that one. And where has Josh Brolin been hiding for his entire career? He's had a killer last two years, and I don't think I'd ever seen the dude before No Country. Let's see. Nope, I guess I saw him back in Grindhouse. Man, Grindhouse was great. Oh, shit, Brolin was Wild Bill back in Young Riders? I *loved* that show. Which, as I was 11-13 while it was on, is probably really bad news. WHOA! Stephen Baldwin was in *that,* too! Wow. That's what we call full circle. I'm getting out of here before things get too creepy.

bullfrog

Grafe -- Monday, January 12 2009, 08:37 am

Wasn't Brolin in the goonies?

Yes on the Goonies!

I love the dual light bulbs in the strip.

This probably isn't on the radar for most readers of this strip, but in case anyone IS interested in seeing "Last Chance Harvey" (Dustin Hoffman, Emma Thompson): Don't. It's not terrible, but it's a massively blah film.

I don't like the idea of having an environmentally friendly light bulb, yet it requires you to have a MAT Hazard suit on if someone you accidentally break it.

I also hate that I am unable to write a grammatically correct sentence without a large swig of Canada Dry.

I just saw Milk too and completely agree about Franco and Brolin. Penn will probably get nominated because he kind of did a weird NY/Jewish grandmother accent. I think accents get you nominated. I'm still pissed Harrison Ford didn't get nominated for his Russian accent in that Russian submarine movie. Forget the name. Probably had "Red" in the title.

I love progressive do-gooder comic strips that discuss veganism. Yay frog!

I found the accent pretty annoying throughout Milk. Also did it remind anybody of the voice he did in I Am Sam? I found it very distracting.

K517 the Widowmaker or something? No, wait, that's U517 and K19 the Widowmaker. Something. I don't know.

I'm glad people like the lightbulbs. It was fun to have Jen's be an energystar bulb.

Rickey Henderson and Jim Rice got voted into the Hall of Fame. Rickey was on just about 95% of the ballots. There must be some politics involved, but how the hell did 5% of the writers NOT have him on the ballot? What's the argument against him?

Some guy just forgot.

http://deadspin.com/5125268/octogenarian-writer-leaves-rickey-henderson-off-hof-ballot-hilarity-ensues

Here is the link where he says he forgot. http://deadspin.com/5127313/ancient-journalist-apologizes-for-chasing-rickey-henderson-off-of-his-lawn

A Shocking statement coming from a Yankee's fan..

About the hell time Jim Rice got into the Hall of Fame... The basic reason Rice didn't get in sooner was because certain journalist didn't like him as a person. Fuck them.. he was a great hitter. It is a shame Albert Belle's career died so quickly and he didn't hit 500 homers to see how the baseball writers would have reacted to him as they always look for the guy who compiles certain numbers for their Hall of Fame candidacy.

Regarding why Henderson didn't get 100% of the vote, there are also some writers who believe that nobody should be a unanimous selection and so they don't for ANYBODY their first time on the ballot. I'll just throw it out there that I think those people are stupid and should have their votes taken away.

Coach - Which is more ridiculous - that the guy didn't vote for Rickey or that he DID vote for Matt Williams? Matt Williams???

I'm not sure I agree with the statement, "even birds of prey really just aren't that tremendously intimidating." I had the experience of coming within two feet of a peregrine falcon, surprising one that was working over a meal as it was ripping the meat from its bones.

It gives me this, "Yeah, I'm here, what's it to you d-bag?" look, then flaps its wings to take off for fresh meat with a FWOOSH that was pretty impressive for one of the smaller raptors. I'm just glad that (a) it was in a good mood, and (b) it wasn't an eagle or a larger bird of prey.

Having had that experience, I don't take birds of prey lightly. If you find yourself in Central Park near one of the red-tail hawk rookeries, give it a few moments to watch them, and see if that initial observation stands after that.

What is truly awesome about being married to a comic strip artist is that questionable outfits you wore in the past get resurrected for all to see!

(and I still have those track pants...I love those track pants)

The scariest bird I've ever seen was an ostrich, but, yeah, I was probably too dismissive of birds of prey. Oh, man, who was I trying to tell Ben Franklin wanted the national bird to be the turkey... Must've been one of the kids.

The end of the ND-UL game sucked, but thank Christ we don't have that shitastic NBA-style PA at the JACC. Fuck that.

As far as I'm concerned, 2.0, you can't really be held accountable for something you wear in the comfort of your own home.

I couldn't believe how loud the Louisville arena was for almost that entire game. the JACC crowd really should take some lessons. was quite a game.

Freedom Hall is owned by the Kentucky Expo Center, meaning that it's not a university structure. So I'm pretty sure beer is served. Which helps explain the volume of the crowd. I'll agree, it was impressive - which is exactly why they don't need that asinine "THREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE" announcement. It's a smart basketball crowd. They know when to cheer.