Ok. Excuse me while I geek out on here for the next 100 lines or so. I'm a Comic book geek, and have followed the Legion of Superheroes (LSH) since the 4th grade. Long ago I acquired every panel appearance, slurpee cup, and promotional item that had anything to do with the LSH. So excuse the hell outta me if I am looking forward to the upcoming LSH cartoon that will replace the recently cancelled Teen Titans cartoon.

I tried to hold off getting to excited for a while. An LSH cartoon was talked about and abandoned years ago. This time however it really looks like it's going to happen. The Justice Leage Unlimited episode that airs in 2 weeks will test the water a bit with an featuring the LSH. This however will be based on the designs of Bruce Timm. Bruce Timm is the genius that guided Batman the animated series, Superman TAS, and Justice League Unlimited thus far. JLU is his swansong with the DC universe charcters and Warner Bros has moved towards a more Japanimation style with Teen Titans ( love that J-Pop theme song). Legion looks like it will follow along with that "neo-jap", super-deformed anime style.

A few charecter designs have begun leaking out. These may not even be the designs chosen ( several designers have been commisioned) but it gives us a glimpse of where they are headed.

The First of the designs comes from OVI NEDECLU who's worked on WB cartoon Static Shock as well as Juniper Lee. She's also part of the design team for Neil Gaiman's Coraline.

CLICK ANY IMAGE TO ENLARGE

I like this style a lot. But the idea that XS as a woman of color has big thighs and a ghetto booty seems kinda racist to me. She runs at super speed for chissakes! I'm thinking she'd work that ass off in no time flat. I also like the fact that Timberwolf has his "oldschool" costume from the 1960's.
I like the way Brainiac 5 is portrayed here but Saturn Girl's bell bottem type pants have got to go!

Below are designs by Ben Caldwell from the Star Wars: Clone Wars 'toon. His designes are already rejected but I posted them here anyhow.
I Like Brainiac 5's look here as well. It's very reminiscent of his evil ancestor...just not AS evil.

Young Clark Kent looks very 2006 here. It looks like he could come right out of my kids middle school. I like the skater-boy look on the left the best of all.

and here is Clark as Superboy...

Saturn Girl is about what I'd expect. I like the way her hair stands on end when using her power in the image at far right.

My favorite of all the Ben Caldwell Designs is the Timber Wolf design. Looks like he'll be able to turn into the FURBALL version of timberwolf at will. I hated the FURBALL charecterization of Timber wolf but in a cartoon aimed at kids it would be right on target.

These new Volkswagon commercials are just gawd damn hilarious! Has anyboday seen these yet? They feature Peter Storemare the swedish actor who played satan in Constantine and is probably best remembered for sticking Steve Buscemi in the wood chipper in FARGO. Any how they are a hilarious send up of the Pimp My Ride show and all the people tricking out their yugos to look like the belong in the Fast and the Furious.

click the three videos below.

V-DUB in Da House keepin it real!!

V-Dub in da House volume #1
V-Dub in da House volume #2
V-Dub in da House volume #3

CLICK TO ENLARGE

During the 1970’s Marvel and DC comics struggled to find their place in the new world of social relevance. The civil rights movement was barely in the rear view mirror, and both companies decided to create a wealth of black superheroes. Unfortunately, most were created by goofy white guys whose only exposure to blacks (we didn’t know what an African American was in those days) was through the schlock-filled blaxploitation movies like TNT Jackson, Black Belt Jones, and Super Fly.

When you use those kind of movies as a template to build a black superhero comic book character, you get lame characters. The lamest of the lame was Tyroc of the Legion of Superheroes.

CLICK TO ENLARGE

Tyroc is just a stupid name. As my girlfriend points out, it seems to be a bastardization of the name Tyrone. I mean seriously--why Tyroc? One wonders if the character had been a robot would they have named him Leroid. If it wasn’t so ridiculous it would be insulting. On second thought, it IS insulting.

As if that’s not lame enough, author Cary Bates took it a step further by trying to explain away why up until that point we had never seen a black person in almost 20 years of Legion continuity. He explains that all the black people left and went to live on an island off the coast of Africa to get away from whitey. Sounds like a futuristic utopia as imagined by David Duke. Even sillier is the name of this secret Island of Black People: Marzell. Marzell? Isn’t that the name of the guy trying to kill Bruce Willis in Pulp Fiction?

Tyroc’s power was pretty lame as well. He could yell magic words that would allow him to perform great feats. Teleporting, exploding things, and materializing chains and restraints out of thin air are only a few of the things we see Tyroc doing with his strange power.

This Tyroc Trivia quiz has a list of the magic yells

Tyroc was indeed pretty lame. It is hard to stand out as the lamest of all on a superhero squad that boasts Matter-Eater Lad as a member, but in my opinion Tyroc wins hands down.

Thinking of the Olympics games in Torino being refered to as the "Torino Games" makes me think of the gawd-awful trips my sister and I took cross country during the many times the Air Force re-located our family. Those trips cross country involved my Dad's 1970 Ford Torino Wagon:

Five days riding in that hot car (Dad disconnected the air conditioner to save gas milage, or so he thought). We'd pass away the time playing games in the car as we drove.

When I say "we," I mean my younger sister Susan and I.

We played all the bingos--Licence plate bingo, billboard bingo, and all the alphabet variants of those as well. You know the one, where I'd take the passenger side of the road andmy sister would take the driver's side and we'd see who can get a billboard for every letter of the alphabet first. Alpha-bits cereal, then Bumblebee Tuna, then Charleston Chew--you get the idea.

These were our Torino games...or at least the games in the Torino.

Sue would be anxious to start the minute Dad pulled away from the dusty KOA Kampground. I usually was unavailable the first 200 miles or so, because I was busy reading the comics I had purchased the night before at the gift shop. All the KOA's had these re-packaged three packs of comics--three Marvels or three DC's packaged together. I remember having JLA 101, Superboy 189 and Detective Comics 428 all in one bag. I also had Avengers #101 (Harlan Ellison script in comic form, no less), Conan #20 and some Captain America where he fought the Scorpion, and Falcon didn't have wings yet.

The KOA three packs were the bomb, and I got to buy two at every stop. By the time we got to Tuscon, I was a full-fledged comic book geek.

My parents encouraged the game playing to keep our minds off the heat, and we'd play all the games we could think of. There was only one that eventually got vetoed. It was called the Sandwich Game. It was a memory game and my sister and I each have pretty good memories.

It worked like this. I would start and say " I have two slices of bread."
My sister then replies, " I have two slices of bread, with baloney."
Then I would say: " I have two slices of bread, with baloney and pickles."
Then she'd say: "I have two slices of bread, with baloney, pickles and cheese."
I'd come back with: "I have two slices of bread, with baloney, pickles, cheese and ketchup."

This would go on and on for miles and miles. Knowing what I know about how annoying two kids can be, I totally understand the fact that my Dad nearly lost his mind somewhere in New Mexico and pulled over, veins popping form his skull to yell:

" YOU DON'T HAVE ANY BALONEY! YOU DON'T HAVE ANY CHEESE AND YOU DON'T HAVE ANY GOD-DAMNED KETCHUP. YOU AIN'T EVEN GOT ANY BREAD, SO SIT THERE AND BE QUIET FOR THE NEXT 100 MILES. YOUR BOTH GROUNDED FROM TALKING!!!!"

That was the end of the Torino Games.

This is hilarious. Anyone thats seen the epic Saturday Night Live rapping sketch LAZY SUNDAY from Andy Samberg and Chris Parnell knows how funny it is, But here are a couple Hoosiers providing there "midwest response" to that video. Watch these wacky hoosiers bust out the mad rhymes Beastie-boys style.

Click here for Lazy Muncie

In the comics world, I'm more of a DC geek than a Marvel zombie. However, Marvel is a cool source of cheesy audio clips from which to make techno songs.

Here is one I made from the lame Iron Man cartoon from around the era of the ill-fated West Coast Avengers. The intro is taken from the old 60's Iron Man toon though.

Here is the song I made from Iron Man: Download file

Anyone that knows me knows that I’m notoriously cheap. They don’t have adjectives that adequately describe my cheapness.

Nothing gets me knotted up like hearing a radio ad for Kroger or Marsh offering triple coupons. There’s a method to the madness, and I’ll walk you through my procedure. I am the Yoda of couponing. My best-ever Olympic couponing moment was a summer day three years ago when THE UNCANNY eX-wife and I bought two heaping grocery carts full of Coke screw-top six packs and after ringing us up, the store owed us 37 cents. I thought the cashier was gonna have a meltdown, so we bought a pack of Tic Tacs to avoid her trying to figure out what to do with a negative total.

Kim has been a party to (or a victim of) my coupon madness many times, but isn't a total convert. She's still a bit of a Brand name queen.

But I digress; here is how I pulled off my latest Kroger couponing adventure.

To begin, you have to have a home store to base your strategy on. This needs to be the store you go to most. Buy two flexible multi-pocket envelopes and go to the store. Use one pocket to represent each aisle in the order you like to travel the store. Write down the headings in the envelope to match all contents of the aisles. My first slot in the envelope is "bread, produce, deli, popcorn, seafood" because that’s whats in the first aisle. The second is "candy", the third is "razors, hair care and dental," etc.

Then every Sunday without fail you have to buy a paper and clip coupons. Clip everything. Do not limit yourselves to things you use or need or even like. Forget that. You're in a new paradigm now. I buy tons of cat food. I have no cat. I buy baby products, but my son is now 13.

Common sense must go out the window. You’ll see why as we go.

The other thing you need to forget about is a grocery list. You only think you need those things. The only thing allowed on grocery lists are items that rarely or never have coupons, such as:

Beer

Sugar

Milk

Lunchmeat

That’s it. Nothing else. Your kid likes Go-Gurt? Screw that. You wife's gotta have only the Security Maxi-pads? ( I assume approved by the Department of Homeland Security) Tough. We are no longer brand-name whores.

Now start at the beginning of the store. Today's deal is fifty cent triple coupons and dollar double coupons. That means a coupon worth 50 cents is now worth $1.50. A coupon worth 55 cents is $1.10 and coupons worth a dollar are now worth $2 dollars--are you still with me?

My son Alec and I started shopping at about 4 PM.
We’re looking for what I call the magic price. The magic price is $2. Any item priced $2 or less has potential to be free. It’s okay to pay a little for each item, but my ultimate goal is to pay about 30 cents for most items, though there are several that I will never pay even a penny for because I have accumulated so much. These items are always free. Only a sucker pays for:

Toothpaste

Toothbrushes

Disposable razors

Shaving cream

Shampoo

BBQ sauce

Soap

Conditioner

Frank's Red Hot Sauce

Yellow Mustard

They are always and will always be FREE. Stop buying them at ANY price.
I have shelves and shelves of this stuff that won't fit in my kitchen.

If you really want to buy one, come to my garage. I will sell you any of the above cheaper than the grocery store. At present count, I have 39 bottles of BBQ sauce,
plus dozens of everything on that list. I cannot use them as fast as I get them for free. (And yes, I donate to the food bank on occasion.)

I dispatch Alec an aisle ahead to scout out the magically priced items.

“Jolly Time popcorn, Wonder bread and Pepperidge Farm products,” he informs me, are all magic priced. That means they have the potential to be free.

I tell him to ask at the deli what the cheapest Lorraine cheese is priced.

After scouting the above coupons we find that Jolly Time popcorn and Pepperidge Farm products have 50 cent coupons and will now be 79 cents and 50 cents respectively. Lorraine baby swiss is on sale for $3.99 a pound and a ½ pound of it will be free with my dollar off coupon doubled to $2.

All of that comes to only a $1.29. A buck twenty-nine for a loaf of Pepperidge Farm cinnamon swirl bread, A 3 pack of microwave popcorn and a half-pound of fresh sliced deli cheese. Beat that!

Ok, I will.

The candy aisle was a bust, but the Aqua Fresh toothbrushes were a motherload of goodness. As I mentioned before, I have a shoebox full of toothbrushes.
Enough to last me longer than my teeth are sure to be in my head (at least that's what my dentist threatens). Why buy them? Well, the Aqua Fresh toothbrushes are on closeout for 98 cents. My dollar off coupon is doubled to two dollars. Kroger is now paying me $1.02 to buy them (limit two). Now my total purchase is negative 75 cents.

Those toothbrushes, cat food, Franks Red Hot sauces, BBQ sauces etc. are paying for the things on my VERY SHORT list of non-coupon items-- especially beer and meat--both important parts of my food pyramid.

This cycle repeats itself over every aisle. It’s a slow process, but 3 hours later (that’s the only drawback) we have a mounded full cart of groceries and a heaping pocketful of coupons. We head to the check out.

Choosing your checker is vitally important. High school kids do not care about their job, so shop while they are working. Those checkers the rest of you complain about--the ones that talk to their friends while waiting on you and can’t make change in their head. They are your friends.

They have no patience for double-checking the occasional expired coupon or scrutinizing that coupon that says “12 oz size ONLY” when you know you damn well bought the 10 oz size. Some old biddy cashier who looks like the body double for Estelle Getty will scrutinize every coupon and re-read the tape--very annoying. Find a good cashier (and by good I mean “dumber than a box of hammers.”) It’s too bad Wal-Mart doesn’t double coupon, because all their cashiers are pretty dim.

Alec and I proceed to the check out. I let two or three people go ahead of me while I unload, because once she starts on my coupons it will take her a half-hour to ring me out. Finally I have her start on my stuff and she rings everything up. Be sure to watch the screen as she rings it up. Kroger will give you an item for free if it rings wrong so if you catch it it's worth watching for. I usually catch at least one a month. This is best on the day prices change over (Thursday).

After she rings everything, give her your Kroger card and coupons.

Then, step back and behold the magic.

Tonight our order came to $172 for an overflowing cart of groceries.

After my coupons were subtracted, the grand total I wrote my check for was $62.40!

I used to DJ a bit. I don't know how to scratch or any of that stuff ( wish I did) but I do like to dabble with digital audio, creating re-mixes, and mash-ups.

Mashups if you don't know are there merging of two or more exsisting songs into one new track ( hopefully with pleasing results). The most famous of these being the DJ DANGERMOUSE Grey Album on which he remixed the entire Beatles White album with Jay-Z's the BLACK ALBUM. Also in 2001 there was a popular mashup made from Elvis "little less conversation" mashing against a techno song.

I've made a CD for fun of about 15 tracks and I'll post one here from time to time. I'm still learning this process but It's pretty fun to dabble.

My first offering to you is TUPAC's Changes and The Youngbloods "Come on people now".

TUPAC/Youngbloods GET 2GETHER & MAKE A CHANGE

God damn this cracked me up!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfODSPIYwpQ

I wasted an hour and a half of my life last night. An hour I can never regain as my own. An hour that could’ve been spent sipping a beer, reading a comic book or watching a good movie, but instead I sat and watched our President.

Yeah, I write for NUVO. Yeah, I vote Democrat a lot more often then Republican, but he’s still my President and there's an optimistic part of me that wants him to do good. I don’t root against him. It’s hard to fantasize about scenario where he falls flat on his smug Texas face that doesn’t involve the country going further down the shitter.

So I tune in and watch hoping for some optimistic sign that maybe he’ll change. Maybe this Oz-like president finally gets a heart (or courage or a brain for that matter). But noooooooo! No.

Not this time. He’s in the final term of his presidency, he’s got a majority in both houses and he’s got the Supremes on his side (Scalito and company, not the Motown group). He stands in a better position to make a brave, bold, sweeping change and push through important life-changing agendas. The position to build and secure the future for generations to come.

He hinted at it. He brought up all the right issues. Our addiction to oil, social security, Medicare and any other crisis that looms larger and larger as the Baby Boomers slowly grow into retirement age. He brought up every important issue we face, yet he offered no direct plans on how to fix them. It's as if he thinks that acknowledging the problems will be enough.

I’m so hungry for a president that will do these things that I would vote Republican if I thought they’d offer a candidate that would address those issues.

All we get is a president so anxious to head into his lame-duck phase (still two years away) that he’s willing to offer lame platitudes and lame agendas instead.