A Few Quick Reviews of Some Recurring Patterns That I've Noticed In the Comics of Yesteryear, By Johnathan

Rather than do four small reviews, I have decided to serve them all up in a single entry, like a delicious platter of tiny foodstuffs. I think that I might call them 'Reviewlets,' or maybe 'Opinion Mini Quiches.' No matter, on with the ridiculousness!

First up:

The Tendency of Male Versions of Female Superheros to Wear the Exact Same Costume as Their Originals (Opinion Mini Quiche):

Take a look at this:
Saturn Girl and Princess Projectra are being manhandled by their male counterparts. I do admit that 'Prince Projectur' doesn't look too bad (though I question his choice of pants), but let's take a closer look at Saturn... Boy? Lad? Male.

He's wearing a bathing suit, folks. The white modesty panels that he's installed on the sides do nothing to disguise the fact that he took this directly out of Saturn Girl's closet. And gender-flipped doppelgangers do this every time - it's like there's a union and they'll either cover dental or the cost of costume tailoring.

NOT APPROVED

Next:

Over-Zealous Recapping (Opinion Mini Quiche):

Check this out:
In just two panels - two poorly, poorly-written panels - they've established the names of the whole Kent family, the names of their erstwhile visitors, how everyone relates to one another, and that Clark Kent (son of Jonathan and Martha [wife to Jonathan {Kent, Father to Clark} and mother to Clark {who is Superboy}, as well as girlhood friend to Lisa {mother to Kathy}] and secretly Superboy [Superboy is Clark {Superboy} Kent]) is actually Superboy. I'm surprised that they didn't squeeze in the origin of Beppo the Super-Monkey, honestly.

Now I understand that the average reader of Superboy comics circa 1970 probably needed this sort of thing - they weren't the media-savvy mental giants that we are today - but really: couldn't they have stretched it out a bit more?

NOT APPROVED

Hup!

Misogyny (Opinion Mini Quiche):

Simply put, Superboy kept the sisters down. Look at this:


So basically, Lana Lang got this alien belt, see, and she could wear it because she had such a slim waist, see, and it made her pretty much the equal of ol' Supes. Only drawback was that the belt functioned using advanced powers of magnetism, and so could only protect Lana from metallic projectiles such as bullets and not, say, rocks. Which is, I admit, a crappy weakness for someone to have. However: I do not see why this logically led to the destruction of the belt. Should someone whose only weakness (quick recap: Superboy's [Clark {Superboy} Kent] weakness is Kryptonite [Irradiated shards of the destroyed planet Krypton, home planet of Beppo the Super-Monkey]) seems to be about as common as sandstone, and who further seems to mention his susceptibility to it in every conversation that he ever has be allowed to take away someone's powers because they themselves have a weakness? Answer: no. Chauvinist pig.

NOT APPROVED

Last one!

Text Boxes With Hands (Opinion Mini Quiche):

I don't know if this was the work of one artist over at DC, or if it was a fad for a while, but text boxes with arms and hands that pointed at each other and so forth were all the rage for a while.

Witness:

Now these guys were totally awesome.

JOHN APPROVED

A Much Better Review of Advertising, By Johnathan

Oh, heavens. I was wrong. When I wrote the advertising review (see below) this is the only ad that I needed. Take a second and read it:

There. See what I mean? It's a much better ad for my purposes - the i Patrol gets called in by the Mayor of their presumably very small town to lead the Hero Parade (which appears to be celebrating the Mayor and his brothers, if those sashes are hereditary), which is ludicrous. The kids get top hats and canes and ride into history in the best parade ever. This is all great stuff, but I just can't concentrate on it, and all because of one man:

Parade Hater Horace.

I love Parade Hater Horace. I love him so much. I love that he tried really hard to have the Hero Parade cancelled, and that he had the conviction to wear that sweater while doing it. I definitely love any villain that shouts 'Foiled again!" when foiled two or more times.

I wish that Parade Hater Horace was part of DC continuity - he could have tangled with the Flash or been a part of Superman's ridiculous Silver Age mythos. He could have gone nuts and joined up with the Luthor/ Brainiac Axis of Evil during Crisis on Infinite Earths and been killed by Oans or shadow monsters or something. Then he'd have been eased back into continuity by the cool writers - the ones who knew that it was a good idea to bring back Superdog but skip Ace the Bat Hound - and killed off and replaced by his nephew (who would have P4R4D3 down one arm and H8T3R down the other and a 'cool' haircut and 'rad' sunglasses) by the uncool writers - the ones who keep doing that kind of shit to every character ever. Then he could have been reimagined sans continuity by John Byrne and re-reimagined by Grant Morrison or someone. We'd have learned how he was abused by a parade when he was a kid or how a parade stole his woman or how the government programmed him to combat parades because of an ancient prophecy that predicted that a parade would someday put out the sun. In the big fight outside of the Gulag in Kingdom Come there'd be some dude in a yellow shirt beating the tar out of one of the Wonder Twins, as lovingly rendered by Alex Ross. And after he found out about the mind wipes he'd have come back deadlier than ever.

hmmm.

Oh, Horace. What might have been.

Entirely,

JOHN APPROVED

Review of Construction Guys Who Hammer What Sounds Like Copper Washtubs Early in the Morning While I'm Still Asleep and Then Don't See the Need to Ham

mer For the Entire Rest of the Day, By Johnathan.


Raurgh!

NOT APPROVED

Review of advertising, By Johnathan

So, as you might have been able to tell by even a casual glance at the rest of my entries in this blog of love and magic, I like the old comics - I find them delicious. One of the things that I love the most about these funnybooks of yore is the advertising - partially because the way that things are advertised has changed so much and partially because no matter how gandiose the claims made or exciting the typeface used, I know in advance how successful the product was, and can snicker to myself on a level totally different from that on which I usually snicker at advertising.


But enough generalities - how about some specific examples, eh Johnathan? (this is what I'm imagining you saying - good job on spelling my name right, by the way.) Very well: here are some advertisements that I have oh-so-tenderly liberated from their original contexts.
(I recommend clicking on the images to get the full impact of their majesty)

First up:
So, putting aside the fact that the cartoon spokescat looks like he's hooked on a mild euphoric (Which is not actually uncommon - I believe that if such characters were real, the stigma of possible drug abuse would hover over their misshapen heads like a life of petty crime haunts the future of every child sitcom star), and putting aside the notion that anyone could have fun playing with those crappy-looking models - let alone acquire a million laughs from each, or from both in tandem - the real eye-catchers for me in this ad were the three young chaps that were oh-so impressed by el Gato's drug-addled ramblings. Let's take a closer look, shall we?
The first of these youngsters, although noseless, might be the only honest one of the bunch - he took AMT's money but he just couldn't bring himself to praise such stupid models, so just went with an expression of polite disbelief. I'll bet that he grew up to be a mildly corrupt cop. The second child, who I'm guessing - due to the same congenital lack of nose - is the first tyke's brother, chooses to focus on the model-building process - with his talents of obfuscation and misdirection, he's probably gone into politics. The third kid... well, putting aside the fact that he's flat-out lying and he knows it: look at that face! You could insert basically any evil thing that you want into that speech balloon and it will look totally natural. "No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die." "In exactly thirty minutes the Statue of Liberty will be no more.""Kill all of the kittens." Kid gives me the creeps. Probably lurking in somebody's closet right now.
I include this ad only so that I can point out that a)"It's magically delicious!" is a much better catch phrase than "Tis a charmin' cereal... simply charmin.'" and b) Either this is Lucky the Leprechaun's dad, or ol' Lucky's had a facelift some time in the last thirty-odd years.
It's a bitchin' bike, and not a bad idea, but the four-panel format always left a lot of questions unanswered in the various adventures of the i patrol that've cropped up in my reading over the years. For instance: everyone leaps into action / onto their bicycles in order to find this kid, but the bikes don't really come into the resolution of the adventure, like they would if the kid were trapped in, say, a half-pipe or been kidnapped by someone in a motorized wheelchair. Also: character development. This kid in the sombrero intrigues me - I didn't think that sombreros were big as accessories in the late Sixties, and if I'm right I want to know why this kid's got one on. Is he half Mexican? Was the iversion Corporation so in the know that they were trying to woo the Hispanic segments of the purchasing public decades before anyone else? Sadly, I doubt that we'll ever know.
Hoo boy - this one's a doozy. Setting aside the fact that those kids look kind of like store mannequins brought to hideous life, and setting aside the fact that the text starts rhyming halfway through, we come to the really important question: What the hell?

What the hell was this thing? It looks like somebody read - no, skimmed - a book on mysticism and fortune-telling, and then crammed as much of it as possible into a single creepy package. You got the name, Ka-bala, which is surely not meant to invoke the spirit of Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism, as popularized by Madonna), surely. You got Taro(t) cards, you got some faux ouija board stuff with the old Eye of Zohar (which looks a bit like a Magic Eightball, come to think of it) - you've even got several references to the marble being made of crystal, which is probably no mistake. Cripes - I'm surprised that there wasn't a little fold-out table where you could read the entrails of a plastic bird.

Little backgound on the last entry: the Phantom Stranger is this mysterious guy who gets into all of the magical business in the DC Universe. He might be all powerful, and he might be a semi-fallen angel, and he might be a lot of things. Every time that somebody tries to really nail down what the Stranger's really all about, somebody else muddies the water again. He's mysterious. Only three things about him are known for sure: he has a cool name, he has a cool hat, and in this one Hellblazer comic he shows up at John Constantine's birthday party and gets vomited on, which was cool. Anyway, apparently at one point he had a comic book all to himself, and here's the ad: Children! Are you prepared to follow strangers? Phantom strangers? Awesome.

Everything's JOHN APPROVED

Review of Unusual Words That I Learned From My Father, Part Two, By Johnathan

Today's Word: Squam.

The tale: So my Dad has two sons, a bad memory, and a fondness for nicknames. While the first two traits when combined lead to myself being referred to as 'Nick' half the time, a liberal addition of the third to our lives somehow solved everything. Fully a third of the time my brother and I are referred to not by our names but by a revolving selection of nicknames such as Worm, Toad, Tadpole, Weasel, Spook, Unscrupulous Creature, etc.* These names were not exclusive to either one of us, although I believe that Nick was/is referred to as Tadpole more frequently, while I am most often Weasel (Indeed, a perhaps-apocryphal family story holds that for a time in my extreme youth I thought that Weasel was my proper name). As well, I, by dint of my greater age, am sometimes given the prefix 'Super', as in Super Toad.

One word always stood out, however. Amongst this veritable zoo of nicknames stood one that basically made no sense: Squam. Though I have been referred to by this title (or it's Super variant) for much of my natural life, I have no idea what it means. I can't bring myself to ask at this late date, though, so I can only hope that my Dad read a lot of HP Lovecraft in his youth, and has simply abbreviated squamous.

Anyway... it has a nice ring to it.

-JOHN APPROVED

*Upon reading this list I feel compelled to note that this was not a Boy Called It kind of situation - these were somehow very affectionate nicknames.

Review of Hipster Erotica: GETTING SCENE by paul

http://www.hipsterotica.com/

Pay attenshions noobs.

Not only do I know about hipstererotica.com I go there, regularly, and I check to see if the guy has made any new posts. I totally didnt see you there. I practically know the guy already. American Pervert, you are so right rofl. Anyways. THis guy is killing me and ->














See you there.

APPROVED

Review of Sudden Unexplained Illness by Paul

I woke up this morning. I was sick. I went back to bed. That got boring fast. I began to trust my ILL -ness, and I tried to do - things - as if there was nothing wrong with me. I ate supper. I went outside. I got some scene at the Grocery Store. Walking back from the grocery store my temperature began to rise and i broke a cool sweat. I saw a number of attractive ladies on that walk. I repressed all of my urges to vomit with the most non-chalant smiles, waves and gestures. Paul the calm consumer guy walking down the street feeling like he was about to vomit but not showing it.

"Sorry, I cant talk now sweet heart. I have got to go get something off my chest." Oh for sure. I came back had a sip of Orange juice then I vomited, cooly, like it was nothing. I had myself A shower. I took some time to prepare a meal replacement. I watched some TV with the guys.

NOT APPROVED

Review of Unusual Words That I Learned From My Father, Part One, by Johnathan

Today's word: Jillyprog.

Some history - This is a logging word, but I'm not too sure whether it's widely used, or confined to Nova Scotia, or peculiar to my family, though my Grandfather did work in a logging camp, so I suspect that someone, somewhere, at some point, has used it before.
In any case, my family burns wood, and all of that wood has to be cut, and so I spent many of my winter weekends throughout high school in the forest, lifting heavy things whilst my father wielded a chainsaw. Now, the normal means by which one cuts down a tree of any size is to cut a notch out of the trunk on the side of the tree that you want to hit the ground, then saw completely through and let gravity do the rest. Occasionally, though, this tried and true method fails, and one is left with a huge piece of wood balancing unsupported on a tree stump, which is not the most ideal situation. To solve this problem, my learned elders would cut a long stick and we would place one end high on the offending trunk, then push mightily on the other, thus bringing low another mighty forest giant. That stick, my friends, is known as a jillyprog.

JOHN APPROVED.

Review of Some Outsider Art, by Johnathan

So my job mostly involves talking on the phone to Southerners (subreview: people who say "Huh?" every time that they can't hear you on the phone and you have to be polite even though you want to hunt them with knives - NOT APPROVED) which leaves me somewhat parched, as you can no doubt imagine. So I drink a lot of water, and as a result go to the bathroom a lot. And in the bathroom that I go to, I've noticed a thing: someone has drawn a little face on the wall in greasy fingerprints. This is fine. However, this greasy little face has been drawn directly above the urinal, which forces me to conclude that it has been drawn using ball sweat.


-NOT APPROVED

Review of What If? By Johnathan

What If?, for those of you who may not be giant nerds, is an on-again, off-again series from Marvel comics, filled with tales of alternate realities and hosted by the cosmic-powered, blue-toga'd Watcher. The Watcher's entire race are bald, emotionally detatched voyeurs in blue togas who observe other civilisations for no discernable reason* and are not adverse to telling easily-illustrated tales of the wonders of the cosmos.

The series filled two major needs: firstly, it had about a hojillion artists, and each of them got to draw the Watcher as he or she had always envisioned him, from concerned alien baby:
To grotesque, horrifying alien baby:
But more than merely a vehicle for the apparantly burning need of all comic book artists to draw their own radical new type of alien baby in a blue toga, What If? allowed comic book writers free reign: as all of the stories were set in alternate dimensions, all bets were off. Mostly, this involved taking some major or minor event in Marvel continuity, putting a new spin on it, and killing off as many characters as logically possible, from a dead Iron Man in a story about the Hulk going nuts, to a pretty cool little yarn where giant snake gods eat literally everyone on earth.
But as cool as it always was to see how Captain Britain was going to get killed off this issue, the really great thing about What If? was when it suddenly veered off at right angles and gave you something like this:
Ghost Rider getting ready to sacrifice Pope John Paul II. I don't even remember why anymore. I'm just glad I saved the picture.

JOHN APPROVED

*Note to any comic book nerds that may read this post: Earth X was a shitty reimagining of the Marvel cosmology, and I choose to ignore it, so there.

Review of big butts, By Johnathan

I cannot lie:

JOHN APPROVED

Review of Comic Book Hilarity, by Johnathan

click it! click it good.

Ok, so as usual I'm starting my review with an image taken from a comic book, and as usual that image has been selected because it made me giggle when I saw it for the first time. Unusually, this panel has not been spirited away from a mid-Sixties comic novel, but rather from an issue of Shade the Changing Man, c. 1993. Now, it's not that contemporary (oh shit, '93 isn't that contemporary anymore, is it? Curse you, Father Time!) comics to not bring the laffs with them when they come to visit, it's just that we've all become so much more aware of our senses of humour since der Sixties. The above panel, featuring Ernest Hemingway clobbering a mutated alien police officer while James Joyce eggs him on, could certainly have occurred in a 1965 issue of Superman, but if it had, it wouldn't have been because someone had realized ahead of time that it'd be hilarious (well, probably not, anyway). It would have just happened. Superman would be dicking around in the past - telling people about the future, getting involved in important events, daring the laws of causality to be true, the usual - and he'd run into Hemingway and Joyce, and there'd be a scrap, because there always was. And that's why it would have been funnier to have found this exact panel in that 1965 Superman: because nobody involved meant for shit like this:

so very funny. They just wanted a picture of Clark Kent wrestling some guy, 'cause it was part of the plot. The result: comic gold. Cheap comic gold. Comic fool's gold. Yeah.

JOHN APPROVED

Wait, what did I just approve of?

Review of Some Guy D357roying the Legend of Zelda, by paul

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5245277851446670151

This guy beat TLOZ in 32 minutes.



APPROVED

Review of owning, by paul

Counterstrike servers create about 10 deaths a minute
(based on myown observations, deaths seen and unseen
but generated by a server so, someone saw the death
or could see the death, it happened, it was a game event.
A servers containing 12 - 16 people, over a varity of levels
maintain an avarage of 9-10 deaths a minute.
Its possible that this could be much higher, but do to the
nature of a win scenario in COunter Strike, being almost a
zero sum game, ie at least one team must lose most
if not all of its members in a loss, it
is rare to see fewer than 9-10 a minute. )

15360 minutes in 16 hours of play a day.

5606400 minutes of css a year which means

56064000 deaths on one server a year. In a year we see:

1207170048000 so thats 1.2 trillion(13 digit number)


1.2 trillion virtual deaths caused by counterstrike alone,
if evryone in the world played Counterstrike
(7 billion) that would mean that
each person gets to kill 172 people... ... ...great

The national debt of the united states is 8.4 trillion dollars

The US natinal debt increases by
1680000000(10 digit) a day

all counterstrike servers known by gamespy generate
3307315200(10 digit) virtual deaths a day,
roughly twice as many virtual deaths to virtual dollars
in fact , if one added all othe online gaming deaths,
the numbers would be quite different they would
be prolly 100 times higher or more.

When I own, I like to keep things in perspective.
When i take on the online charcter f10, I like to
get the message out about just how many virtual deaths
can occur. I don't approve of death, but virtual death
is also wrong.

N07 4PPR0V3D

Review of Superman as husband, by Johnathan.

Granted, this is a dream sequence - Supes' cousin Supergirl is hell-bent on finding der Man of Steel a wife (and incidentally causing untold damage to the space-time continuum and my suspension of disbelief in the process) and so visions of marital servitude are naturally enough dancing in her head.

All that aside, though: Superman is a terrible better half, just terrible. Here are some reasons:

a) Superman is a master roboticist/ virtual demigod, yet poor Mrs. Kent still apparently spends her days puttering around their horribly-decorated split-level bungalow, while her so-called better half has exciting adventures in exotic lands. She apparently has so little to do that she has become the greatest cook in all of creation, when really she should be spending her days in a Martian pleasure-palace, waited on hand and foot by automatons and subjugated supervillians.

b) This alien guy. I've read plenty of Sixties Superman comics, and I gotta say: 75-90% of the time, anyone that the Big Blue befriends turns out to have a heart full of betrayal and a secret stash of kryptonite. If he keeps bringing home every 'friend' that he makes once he's outside the ionosphere, sooner or later ol' wifey's going to get fragged. And her with nary a robot in sight to protect her...
Even assuming that Superman never accidentally brings home his new pal the Predator or something, this is a troubling little scene. Why? Three words: explosive allergic reaction. I get the impression that the Two Space Amigos have just dropped in unannounced, and Super-housefrau has pulled the latest in the endless series of meals that she cooks just to ease the bitter loneliness of her existence off of the stove and served it up. Further, I'm betting that even the Universe's Greatest Cook doesn't constantly have a series of different meals on the go, each tailored to a different alien biochemistry, and that one day an unexpected extraterrestrial dinner guest is going to end up as a thin film spattered liberally throughout the dining room. Come to think of it... maybe it's already happened, and that's why the walls are such a terrible shade of yellow.

NOT APPROVED

As a final aside: at the end of the story, Superman described his ideal bride, and it turned out to be someone just like Supergirl, but not his cousin. Uk.

NOT APPROVED

Review of ankles, by Johnathan.

Ankles are good, in that - like all worthwhile joints - they help you to move. Plus, they're handy for use in jokes about how old someone is, as the fetishes of yesteryear (ankles, wrists, knees, post-marital sex), are totally good for a laugh. Ankles are also home to anklets, which are slightly questionable as jewelry, but have a totally bitchin' name. Anklet. Without ankles, we'd all be tottering around like poorly designed robots, which would be hilarious for a couple of days, but would probably get old quick.

However, I twisted my ankle something fierce this morning, so:

JOHN DISAPPROVED

Review of Jean Pierre's Photoshopabilites, By Paul

PAUL APPROVED

Review of Purposed Unpowered Vehicle, by Paul

Even with handles, the Car Seat Flying Saucer would
have been difficult to control. The image of being pulled swiftly across
empty farmers fields, by a small truck, or over open water,
by a fast moving boat, was, for a time, a nice fantasy.
However entertaining, the CFSC would have almost certainly lead
to serious injuries and tremendous dissapointment on the part of
Jean Pierres parents who definatly weren't away for the weekend.
In the end the face of skepticism, left of CSFC,
won over the spirit of entreprenurship, right CSFC.

As for the CSFC.

NOT APPROVED

Review of Old Comic Book Mail-Order Stuff, Part Three, By Johnathan

Next up: The SWITCH-BLADE COMB!


Kind of dumb-looking. Bad idea - bet it got some poor kid shivved.

NOT APPROVED

Review of Old Comic Book Mail-Order Stuff, Part Two, By Johnathan

In contrast with the astonishing and glorious POCKET SPY SCOPE (see Part One), may I present:

The X-RAY SPECS, a heinous and cynical exploitation of the same nerdish lusts served so faithfully by the altruists behind the POCKET SPY SCOPE.
Though an invaluable kitsch resource and generally cool-looking eyewear, the X-RAY SPECS are their core an example of the tendency of humanity to exploit the weakness of its fellows for the dubious pleasure of reaping stacks and stacks of cold, hard cash. The specs operate by optical illusion, and allow one to see 'bones' when peering through them at a hand or an arm. But look at the ad! It says that you can see through clothes! There's a buxom lass in the background! The clear implication is that one can employ these spectacles to play the voyeur on the sly - and how many of our nerdish forebears had their hopes dashed as a result? How many horn-rimmed, bryl-creme'd, zit-encrusted youths gambled their dollar on the specs, figuring that they would ogle their secret crush (and make no mistake - all of their crushes were secret) in public with none the wiser, only to find to their disappointment (six to eight weeks later) that these traitorous lenses simply didn't work as implicitly advertised? How many of those same intrepid, gawky lads had no money left after this soul-crushing betrayal, and were unable to purchase the POCKET SPY SCOPE? How many boys crouched in the undergrowth, pockets protected, squinting forlornly at the lighted window in the distance, where was visible only the occasional and oh-so-tiny glimpse of rosy girl-flesh, rather than the orgiastic/voyeuristic inadvertent strip-show that was their due? How many virgins wept in the rhododendrons?

Geeks of yesteryear, I acknowledge your sorrow.

NOT APPROVED

Review of Web Browser Inconsistencies, by Paul

Hi there,
is there anybody who can tell me why the header of this page results in mislayout using Firefox, while works ok with any other browser (I.E., Opera, Netscape)?
...

Why is not good mix em and px? It's a bad CSS design or just because you I not have idea what the resulting width will be?
...

I just plain stink at positioning unless it is fixed. The float property has always given me grief for some reason. I know the look I want can be achieved as I have seen other layouts that work in Firefox but for some reason, something in my coding somewhere isn't allowing it to happen. Just can't figure out what that is. LOL
Thanks for the info. I will keep playing and see what I can figure out. :)
...

This is not a right or wrong thread, just two way of doing things and the reason for that.

...

Dear forum guy,

I have had your problem with _________ as well, and wow there sure are a lot of ____________ problems. Dont give up. THe best way to achieve the effect you are going for with your web page is actually quite strait forward. Dont be embarrased guy! Any time you see one thing in FF and Opera and another in IE, you can safely bet that its time to cut the web off of your page.

1) Go to the Office supply store and buy a pad of blank paper. Get a lot because there are millions of people on the internet. They all have the same problems as you.

2)Buy a ruler, a compass set and a pack of colored pencils. I have been using these woodless colored pencils: http://www.artstuff.net/woodless_colored_pencils.htm
A lot of people will tell you that you just can't get some resolutions with them, but I think they weren't pressing hard enough. If you can't afford these you can always get a 12 pack of crayolas. Sure there are only 12 colors, but they are affordable and you can get them anywhere. If you are just trying to display text as you say then a 12 pack of crayolas should get you started.

3)Your font woes are familiar territory. THis plastic stencil will sink that battle ship BAM!









4) Now you are ready. Once you are done your page throw it out side and let the world wide do the rest.


NOT APPROVED

Review of Old Comic Book Mail-Order Stuff, Part One, By Johnathan

Part one in a series of close looks at the sort of things that people used to try to sell kids who read comics. Our first guest:

There's only the faintest of attempts to disguise the fact that this device was only ever going to be use for one thing: voyeurism. Watching sports? Counter-spying? Pshaw. This thing, for the low, low price of $1.75, enabled early-60s nerds (possibly the dorkiest nerds of all time, studies indicate) to gorge their pasty, lustful eyes on beehive-ed maidens en boudoir. Until I learned of this, I was troubled and confused by the insistence of the authors of the era on describing undergrowth as 'sticky.' Now, however, I am troubled and proud, knowing that as I read I am witnessing the legacy of my nerdish forebears - and the indomitable POCKET SPY SCOPE!

JOHN APPROVED

Review of bezoars, by johnathan

Bezoars are formed when undigestable material accretes ith the stomach of a human or animal. there are several different kinds, classified by the type of material that forms the bulk of the mass. Bezoars can be formed of hair, plant fibres, and even the gel capsules that medication is delivered in. Trichobezoars, pictured here:
are the hair-based type. They often build up in the stomachs of young girls who chew on the ends of their hair. Trichobezoars are packed with partially-digested food, and therefore smell terrible. As you can see, the bezoar conforms precisely to the shape of the stomach, and usually must be surgically removed.
Bezoars have a long mythic history - they were traditionally believed to be proof against poison, and European royalty frequently had them set in gold, like gemstones.

...

Bezoars are incredibly gross.


NOT APPROVED

Review of kid sidekicks, by Johnathan

I'm not totally opposed to the notion of youthful sidekicks for superheros - the Robin series has turned out okay (except for the *ahem* unpleasantness with Jason Todd), and I'm sure that I could think up another if I spent a few seconds... Speedy. He's okay. Except for the smack.
Anyway, if you do happen to begin adventuring with a coyly elfen boy-child, and your collective weakness just happens to be a phisiological need for regular moistening, and you are required to avail youself of the milky bounty of a mountain goat or die... try not to make it lok like you're grimly shooting hircine ejaculate into the gleeful face of your hot pants-clad boy toy. Because that's gross.
NOT APPROVED

Review of Lex Luthor, by Johnathan.

Ok, so he doesn't have anything to do with the ray, but still: it's a ray! From space! An unexpected one! Luthor is friggin' cool as a cucumber here, in what might be classified as 'incredibly bizzarre circumstances'. Even the ape-faced murderer in the background is kind of weirded out, and he's ray-free. But Lex... dude would be smoking a pipe if he had one.

JOHN APPROVED.

Review of this tiny version of Photoshop that I got, by Johnathan

So I had some picture that I needed to edit, but I've rapidly been filling up my computer with comic books - space is at a premium, yo. The solution, an incredibly small version of Photoshop. Seriously, you can run it off of a usb storage device. It's really wee, is what I'm saying, which leaves more room for comics, and more room for comics means that I'm going to find more stuff like this:



















Superman doing a Flavor Flav bit in the 60s. This guy has always been ahead of the game.

Tiny Photoshop: JOHN APPROVED.

Super Flav: JOHN APPROVED.

John: Oppressed by a Crow

Not really - this guy was awesome.

JOHN APPROVED

A belated review of the construction guys, by Johnathan,

I agree with Paul, but must add this: when C.O.R.E Construction started work it kind of looked like they were putting in a moat for the fitness place next door, which would have been unbearably awesome.
Since they did not, I'm putting it in bold:

NOT APPROVED

Review of smells, By Johnathan.

Not all smells - that would take a while.

OK, so last week Paul was away and I didn't know when garbage day was and now there's a bag of garbage lurking in the kitchen, waiting to be taken out. There are smells hiding in this bag and sometimes when I am nearby they ambush my nose in an unpleasant manner. Plus, last week was kind of rainy and cold, so I closed all of the windows in the apartment as a survival tactic, resulting in a buildup of 'man smell' in my room. The apartment, in short, was not an olfactory symphony. It was more like... nostril muzak.

NOT APPROVED

Review of Deer Ticks by Paul

I have been sleeping in the forest lately. Not right in the forest but in a tent in the forest. THis is not an entirly unfamiliar predicament. However, in South Western Nova Scotia there are Deer ticks. In south Western Nova Scotia is where I have been sleeping. I have some how managed to not wake up with deer ticks on my body which has been great. For the most part I rarely get them on me. This morning, I woke up at 730 to make John coffee for his job interview. I had slept in the nude and the last thing on my mind was insects. I woke up to find that a deer tick had some how made it into my room, under my sheets and onto the inside of my leg just below my knee. Suffice to say, I've never really paid careful attention to the shape of my body until this morning. I found just the one, but there could be more lurking in my luggage. Watch out John!

N O T APPROVED

Review of some other spam I got, by Johnathan.

On the other hand, getting email from a "Temujin Leffingwell' is awesome.

JOHN APPROVED.

Review of some spam I got, by Johnathan.

Ok, so I'm cleaning out my email account and I come accross a message from someone named Felix, and since I know a Felix I opened it. Turns out it's badly written spam that's trying to get me to go to some website and their strategy hinges on me thinking that the email really is from some old friend named Felix who cares about where I'm getting my black market viagra. So, to enhance the illusion, they've randomly selected the name of the person that it's addressed to, hoping that I might have that name, and, knowing someone named Felix, romp off to buy boner drugs from them.
The name that they chose? Lenhart.

NOT APPROVED.

Review of C.O.R.E. Construction: by Paul

There is a Construction Company, that has taken over my apartment building. They have blocked access to my compost bin, which i use diligently, with their CAUTION tape and orange fence. I come home from work, usually around 1 pm, to find them all standing around watching heavy machinery fumble with bits of asphault, cement and gravel. Usually there are about 6 to seven people in high viz outfits whose role in the operation is uncertain. They just stand there and watch motionlessly as giant yellow bucket arms pound and pry into the layers of street. One of them intercepst me and lets me know that its ok for me to cross their boundaries and enter my apartment. Ok... Its Saturday and their machines are parked in the parking ot where my compost bin is. My access is blocked from all sides and now there is a growing pile of rotting fuit and vegitable remains sitting on my counter, siting very still. Their role in my life is uncertain and given my finacial situation at the moment I have considered a lot of potential solutions. More than likely, I am going to go outside right now and do my best to toss them near my compost bin...being held alone over an unswimable ocean of, apprently dangerous, immobile machinery. My plan is of course to make sure that i visit the Compost bin immeadatly on Monday morning , with a high vis escort watching my proximity to their equipment. I am hoping that I can establish some sort of agreement with them and perhaps give their extraneous laborers something to do.

NOT APPROVED

QUOTES FEED: Paul on Smoking

"Cmon Johnathan its all mental...its not like you need it? Its not like you are trying to quit masterbating..."

Paul: Approving

Dalhousie University by Paul

I have given Dalhousie Univeristy 50 000 dollars. I have beenemployed by Dalhousie University for 1 month and I have still not been paid.

NOT APPROVED

Review of being unemployed, by Johnathan.

This one is a mixed bag I am afraid. On one hand you get to sleep in, plus you can watch movies all day if you want. On the other hand you'll get kicked out of your apartment pretty soon and won't be able to eat. I wish that I had a good scheme to get some cash right quick, but all that I can think of is 'get a job.'

So, until I get rich, NOT APPROVED.

Review by Johnathan of this girl I saw today.

Awesome.

JOHN APPROVED.

review of the internet today by paul

Today the internet has not been that interesting. Most of the fun that I had today I made up myself or experienced through walking around outside of my apartment. I'm not convinced that this will always be the case. However today, so far, the internet has been a dissapointment.

NOT APPROVED

review by paul of internet access at peak hours on blogger server

Its 1 pm and the blogger server is not responding to my query. As a blogger, and a shareholder, I find this unacceptable. I dont care what you have to to remedy this situation...maybe move your server to China. Or delete some of the chaff. Just fix it.

Review of the Good, the Bad and the Ugly part two. By Johnathan.

Forgot to mention something: uh... two things.
one: Lee van Cleef is awesome, though his name sounds like internet slang.
two: 'The Ugly' isn't so much 'ugly' as 'Mexican', though I guess that The Good, The Bad, and The Mexican isn't as good of a title.

still JOHN APPROVED.

review by paul of pauls toothpaste: Colgate Total...non whitening

The peroxide or what ever they put in the whitening toothpaste ...which is everywhere...suddenly as f thats what i wanted is not in my tooth paste. I heard that Floride might be bad for us, but when i tried the hippy tooth paste - without floride - my gums started bleeding... : but then i read this
Fluoride disrupts the synthesis of collagen and leads to breakdown in the bone, tendon, skin, cartilage, lungs, trachea, and kidney. Fluoride inhibits the formation of antibodies in the blood, which cause a disruptive effect on various tissues in the body, which then confuses the immune system and causes it to attack its own tissues. Fluoride increases the tumor growth and the general cancer rate. Fluoride has been linked to cancer, low IQâ genetic disorders and muscle degeneration. This information has been based on mercola.com research which we trust as a source of information more responsible than government agencie

That sounded bad...


then i read this:

As recommended by the US National Research Council: “The effects of fluoride on various aspects of endocrine function should be examined further, particularly with respect to a possible role in the development of several diseases or mental states in the United States.”

Which came as some relief

PAUL APPROVED

review of johns review: by paul

Ok so theres like a few spelling errors there john...could you maybe leaborate..no ...don't

reviews by john: good the bad and the ugly

Ok i know this is a little late and I dont know if many of you are going to get to see it intheatres but I think its going to be out on video soon or beta...but the good the bad and the ugly totally ruled.

they made it together

Johnathan and I were hanging out in the aprtment today. I said hey John I heard that blogs are liek awsome, what should I call my blog. John said some stuff and I made something else up. So there is no further explaination available at this time.