The irony, oh, the irony.

Wearing Superman pajamas and covered with his Batman blanket, comic book illustrator Dave Cockrum died Sunday.

The 63-year-old overhauled the X-Men comic and helped popularize the relatively obscure Marvel Comics in the 1970s. He helped turn the title into a publishing sensation and major film franchise.

As far as “superheroes” go, the X-Men and Superman don’t really do it for me. In contrast, however, Batman is my favorite superhero, precisely because he isn’t actually super. He isn’t super strong, he can’t fly, or see through walls (er, without technological help). He’s just an ordinary guy — albeit, a bit rich — who has devoted himself to kicking ass. The running theme beneath Batman, and Bruce Wayne, is this: anyone can be Batman, if they’re motivated enough.

I mean, really, you can’t be Superman unless you’re, y’know, Super. Same for the X-Men or Spiderman or any of the other “super power” superheroes, mutants or otherwise. Exposure to radiation doesn’t actually lead a person to develop superpowers, it usually leads to a person dying.

And that is why Batman is the coolest hero. He’s the James Bond of the superhero world.

(For that matter, couldn’t Bond be considered a superhero?)

“Smash” meaning me — got rear-ended driving from Lot 7 to Glen Garage, and now I’m in Bateman’s on my second beer. Being a lightweight has advantages. I’m fine, car is fine. Low speed impact by hot chick who wasn’t paying enough attention. No big. I got to see down her shirt and my bumper has a few extra scratches. I’d write more, but as I said, I’m drunk … and on my second beer. Thankfully, many hours until my night class that I have to sober up.

You know what I want?

A girlfriend.

Preferably, sharing my taste in films and entertainment and food. Willing to sleep with me a plus, but I’m cool with it if you’re a “wait until marriage type”. Has to love happy drunks and not be totally scared by firearms. Cooking a plus. Needs to be smart.
Most important? Must make me want to be better person.

Ok, food arrived, off to eat, later.

UPDATE:

I’m drunk and on the 2nd floor of 7800 York and Geisha is quite angry with me. I got to Glen Garage and texted her: “Got rear-ended.” Then I went to Bateman’s where there is no cell reception. She finally got ahold of me after I left Bateman’s and verbally berated me: “I WAS WORRIED!”, because she gets a text message and then I’m not answering my phone. She’s right, and all I can say in my defense is that fuck, I just wanted some drinky-drinky!

I heard this on the radio a week or so ago — the Ed Norris Show — and meant to write about it, but kept forgetting.

There’s a scam going on with gift cards. Here’s how it works: perp goes to store and peruses the gift-card section. Perp writes down the number of the gift card, but leaves it on the display rack. Customer buys the gift-card, which is then activated. Knowing that at this time of year, most gift-cards will be for Chunukah and Christmas presents, punk waits a few weeks after copying down gift-card numbers before going to the retailer’s online website and using the fraudulently obtained gift card. Then, when the actual recipient of the gift-card tries to use it, “Oh, I’m sorry – there’s no balance on this card!”

I don’t get why Ed Norris and his lowly sidekick Maynard couldn’t figure this out, they were both on the air saying “I don’t get it.” Meanwhile, I’ll be buying all my gift-cards from behind the counter this year.

(This lovely holiday warning brought to you by your favorite neighborhood Snay).

Finally, I have caved to the pressures of the Christmas shopping season and have decided that the time was right to give in and just get my damn tree out of storage and put it up already. I mean, yeah, yes, I own a fake Christmas Tree, which is like, bad and evil. There’s the whole thing about me being an athiest and why should an athiest celebrate Christmas? Well, duh, because I like getting free stuff. Plus, isn’t it really a secular shopping holiday anyway? Yep.

Anyway, photos:

Yeah. Well. I never said I could afford a very nice fake Christmas Tree, did I?

This is looking from my couch — see my laptop? it isn’t on my lap — at the wall and the shelf-unit the tree is on. Notice that fragments of Hogwarts — the parts which broke off this weekend — are currently awaiting reconstruction next to a mini-statue of the Dark Lord of the Sith.

Took this photo yesterday afternoon, Guy preening and peeved at being interupted in his cleaning. I wish that chair wasn’t there, but even so, I love the look of Hogwarts rising up behind him. What a great photo! I am the best photographer ever.

E-mail me if you’re interested. You’re going to have to pick it up and I can’t remember how to take it apart.

I love Boston. It’s a beautiful city with such a wonderful history. And while I’d like to live there, I could only do so if I was able to get around without a car. Thankfully, Boston has a nice public transportation system, the T. Back to the car thing, did you hear this news from Boston’s Back Bay? Parking spaces are owned and sold, and some dude just paid a quarter-million for one. I hope he’s got a really nice car, like an Aston Martin or something. He probably drives a Ford Festiva. “I would’ve bought an Aston-Martin,” he’s probably telling his friends, “But I had to spend two hundred and fifty grand for a parking space!”

On the bright side, at least his Festiva will have its own parking place to keep it nice and clean.

HT: Carpundit.

I could tell the kid clerking at Target was new, because, well, yes, he was polite and all, but he actually tried to engage me in conversation, and I can’t remember the last time I went into a retail shop and actually got in a conversation with the clerk. Anyway, so we started chatting as I checked out — I now have a rug for my bathroom, yay me — about the Ravens v Steelers game today. This is what I knew going into the conversation: apparently, the Steelers didn’t do very well. He’s all talking about what a great game it was, and an analysis of their running game and linemen and maybe Rothlisberger has some pyschological problems about being aggressive after his motorcycling mishap …

… meanwhile, I can’t think of how to break it to this kid that I’m not a big or even casual afficianado of football. I do find it in me to contribute that I find tightly scoring games much more satisfying, where such an overwhelming victory is a bit of a let-down compared to a victory that was hard fought. I ellaborated on this this to myself as I walked to my car and then drove home (interesting question: you can talk to yourself, but can you think to yourself or is that implied with the word ‘think’?) by comparing today’s game to Risk, the classic boardgame of world domination. Anyway, while I won’t deny enjoying games where I trounced my opponents each and every round, I really got a huge thrill at the very end of games where successful offenses were met with successful invasions, and for every three countries I conquored I lost two.

“So, what I’m saying to myself,” I thought to myself, “is that football games are like wars.”

Like, take what I mean, right? World War II. I mean, yeah, you’ve got the actually evil bad-guys, their seeming domination over Europe and Asia, and the long bloody struggle to defeat them. You know why WWII is so interesting? Because it wasn’t a walk-over. It wasn’t “shock and awe” and ten jocks pounding the shit out of some nerd in the toilet. Naw, it was like ten jocks trying to beat the shit out of ten other jocks. Invasions, and manuevers, and strategy, and bombing missions, and spys, and so much intrique and drama and …

Like, seriously, the Spanish-American War? BORING. On the other hand, the American Civil War? How very exciting! For two years, the South was all like, “Man, you guys suck! Okay, your defense is … meh … but your offense? Shit!” but then they got crushed heavy by industrialization. I can hear Madden, “Man, will you just look at them torching Atlanta? What they’re doing here is annihilating the will of the population to fight. What an incredible tactic that is sure to bring this war to a quick and satisfying close!”

Oddly enough, and I’ve always wanted to say this, but the Boer War wasn’t very boer-ing! Hah, me.

Also odd? I love football movies. My favorite is The Replacements.

And by “little friend”, I mean neither his Lego penis, nor a good sized assault rifle with grenade launcher and bayonet mount. No, no, I mean the duck on his head. Although, come to think of it, sex with him probably be really uncomfortable for her. (And when I say “for her”, I mean any woman who is about to jump into bed with a man made out of Lego bricks, not either of the chicks in the photo, especially since I don’t want them to get mad at me for posting this photo on my blog, but, y’know, no hotlinking and it was on the internet … I’ll black out your faces if you want).

But, seriously, can you imagine the conversation, if some chica decides to have sex with a man made out of Lego?

“Hmm. Super-thin, ribbed, or mutual preference?”

“Okay, do you have any condoms that will make it, er, smooth?”

“Uh, smooth?”

“Yeah. Y’know. Less blocky and peggy. More rounded. I like round penis. I don’t like penises with corners. Sorry.”

(Also: He wouldn’t be as good picking up women if he knew he had a duck coming out of his hair.)

I found this image while doing a google search for “Lego Porn.” No, no, joking aside, I do not self-pleasure to actual lego porn, I thought it would make for an interesting post. (I do enjoy pornotube and wetcircle.com for my internet porn enjoyments, if for some reason you were interested in that).

If you are interested in Lego Porn, presented to you from the “don’t let your boss see this post unless you want him to think you’re really kinky” file:

One girl blows as another looks on, guy goes down on chick, bald lady about to be rear-ended.

Yes. I’m sure you’ll never look at your child’s Lego toys the same way again.

C’mon.

Seriously.

If you know the lane you’re driving in ends at the light, why don’t you try to get over before you have to honk and wave and force your way into the next lane over? And, no, I don’t buy the argument that “you’re new to the area” because you knew enough to make the first unmarked right-turn into the Verizon building. You knew. You knew and you chose to be a moron.

Also on my list this morning:

People on highways in lanes that are marked to end. Instead of taking a proactive role in merging out of that lane, they wait until the lane ends, then just keep going into the next lane over (staying always to the right of the solid white line), and honking and screaming at the people they’re running into other lanes. Dickweeds. Prime targets for “Driving While Stupid.”

People who speed up just to stop faster. Some douchebag last night gunned around me as I got into the turn-lane for Shawan Road, just to pull back in front of me in the same lane. I got the last laugh, though a few traffic lights up on Shawan Road where I “cock-blocked” him from getting into the northbound lane. Serves you right.

Also, making a left-hand turn out of the Indy’s parking lot onto Ashland Road can present its own challenges. First, during high-traffic times, it can be nearly impossible to make the left. Second, if there are a large number of vehicles waiting to turn onto York Road, it can be difficult to see traffic from York Road. Get past all those hurdles, and you’ve still got one more: traffic turning left from the shopping-strip across Ashland Road will quite often see the coast clear — even after you’ve made the turn and coming down on them — and gun it out. Then you’re stomping on your brake and honking and they’re like “where the fuck did you come from?” and I’m like “OH MY GOD LOOK BEFORE YOU TURN!” and want to poop my pants, but, y’know, don’t.

You know what sucks about having a sore right-shoulder? Waking up in the morning, realizing you’ve slept the whole night on your side with an arm now very achy and sore, and realizing that it will hurt too much to, er, pleasure myself while in bed. And, seriously, if you can’t be not-the-master of your own domain in your own bed, what’s the damn point?

I’m so sleeping on my stomach tonight. Or my back. Or my left-side. Or something that does not interfere with my Sunday morning self-pleasuring.

Sometimes, moving fragile Lego castles across one’s living room can be detrimental to the physical well-being of said castle.

The damage report? A good chunk of the topmost portion of the really tall tower came down. So did the owlry. Nothing irreperable, thankfully. Those repairs, however, are going to have be a project for post-finals.

Compare the bottom photo — notice my artful illustration of the damaged sections — to this photo from my Brickshelf gallery.

Monday, featuring a few hours of work, specialty cooking and dinner and a movie with a friend seemed more like a weird Friday night where traffic wasn’t crappy and I didn’t work the evening.

Tuesday, the last day of class for me before Thanksgiving Break, seemed like Thursday. It seemed like Thursday because Thursday is the last day of classes for me before a four-day break from class.

Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving, felt like Friday. Traffic was shitty, everyone seemed to have “workitis”, and it was busy. Zebulon was observed taking forever to make pizzas. Tips were across the board — from great, to shitacular. Of course, Wednesday felt like a weird Friday because Fridays I work entirely at the Indy now.

Thursday felt like Sunday. Again, an odd Sunday, because I wasn’t working. So, a Thursday I didn’t work felt like a Sunday where I wasn’t working.

Friday felt like Saturday.

Saturday is probably going to feel like a mid-summer (i.e., “dead slow”) Sunday.

Frankly, after most of a week feeling like days that aren’t the day they are, I’m really hoping that Sunday feels like Sunday. Y’know. A good old-fashioned “Football Money Sunday.”

(Big Shout Out to Gary’s Accountant and Payroll effers, who apparently didn’t get the checks out in time for them to be delivered today. Here’s hoping they arrive tomorrow, otherwise, that money won’t be able to get to my checking account until Wednesday night. No big, I’m comfortably in the black, even with several hundred smackers in bills in the mail).

Here’s another good use of YouTube! The first video is shot outdoors of an individual firing a Walther .22:

Even for such a small load, it’s pretty loud!

Now here is a clip of the same gun being fired, this time with a silencer on the barrel:

No report, all you’re hearing is the action working.

I’m excited, because Gary owns a silenced .22 Walther, and I’m going to get to shoot it soon. Doesn’t hurt that the Walther P22 is very similar to Bond’s P99. I think I might just have to wear a tuxedo up to Gary’s when I go to shoot. Y’know. So I can do the whole “Snay, Malnurtured Snay” thing.

When the questionable content is “Have a Happy Thanksgiving”, you could probably try to tone your anti-spam-comment software down a notch or two. Or add word verification. Or something that doesn’t leave a blogger (me!) trying to post the same damn thing on your blog for five minutes utilizing a variety of different user ID, e-mails, and completely abandoning the thought of leaving a link back to my blog. I was moderately surprised that when I edited my comment to read “have a fucking happy thanksgiving fuck spamware!” it didn’t post because, y’know, I figured that would be fitting.

And, yes, I agree with you: “If you are a spambot, I hate you.”

Spam blows. So do anti-spam measures which fuck up ordinary bloggers trying to leave a nice little note. Wouldn’t it be nice if our political leaders could do something valuable for a change, and collect all the internet spammers together in one place and then bombard the shit out of ‘em with artillery?

I say, “Sweet Lord Jesus, I Would Even Vote Republican In That Case!”