Corona | Coming Attractions

Sure, everyone wants to preserve Hitler's brain, until you put it in the body of a great white shark and then you never hear the end of it.

Sorry, I'm channeling Dr. Farsworth again. It could be described as annoying, except when you channel as many folks as I do, it stops bothering you early on.

That's funny, Red.

I've got an annoynce for the OP: bad prognosticators. I was just reviewing an old box office thread at Excelsior, which was filled with bad predictions, particularly about the box office fortunes of 'Iron Man', when I came on this gem:

http://excelsiornews.freeforums.org/box-office-central-t741.html

Thurston McQ wrote:

Looks like it [Iron Man] is less than a week away from being the highest-grossing non-Spider-Man Marvel property.

This pretty much locks Favreau in as the Avengers director. Bad news if you didn't like Iron Man, I suppose.

Looks like it's full steam ahead for the homogenization of superhero movies. The next radical change will only come when it is clear that the current formula is no longer lucrative.

So if the only superhero movie you actually like after all this time is Donner's Superman, Viewer X, you'd probably be better off cutting your losses and never watching another superhero movie.

I'm not sure if you're aware, Nostradamus, but Whedon is directing 'The Avengers'. What, is that mud on your face? It must be pretty embarrassing to be so demonstrably wrong.

I wish he was right.  I don't think Whedon is up to it.  Then again I am also convinced that the Avengers will be a massive pile of poop!

When it turns out to be the greatest superhero movie ever made and destroys every single box office record then Jack will remind me I said that.

I'm sure some people around here are ecstatic that the director of the Avengers went from the guy who did the astonishingly average Iron Man to the guy who did the astoundingly average Serenity.

I really enjoyed Iron Man.  Iron Man 2..... average.  Although it may be that Downey is amazing in the role and that by Iron Man 2 I was just used to him!

My reservations about the Avengers have very little to do with the director.

I'm not happy that the re-cast Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner. I just don't see him in the role. Nothing against Mr. Ruffalo.

I'm still confused as to how Bruce Banner really fits into an 'Avengers' movie. I'm not totally sure how the Hulk fits in either. Is he supposed to be part of the team? Is this the Gray Hulk? Isn't Bruce Banner usually working on his own to control his Hulk transformations, and he doesn't want to be the Hulk, then he turns into the Hulk and runs rampant, and some people, like the 'Avengers', have to try to stop him?

The Hulk was part of the Avengers' origin (bunch of heroes come together to fight a common opponent (Loki in the comics), then at the end decide to form a group). I think the Hulk was a member of the Avengers for about 2 more issues before his volatility caused them to part ways. In the Ultimates (different universe version of the Avengers), Bruce Banner was part of the team, and when he'd become the Hulk, he'd end up fighting the Avengers. But they would use him on occasion by dropping him into the middle of the bad guys where he would go beserk on them. So far the movies have been pulling a lot of their influence from the Ultimates comics (Spider-man's organic web shooters, Dr. Doom being part of FF's creation, Galactus being non-corporal, Banner dropped from a plane and turning into the Hulk right before impact, Nick Fury being a dead ringer for Shaft)

Jack S. Pharaoh wrote:

I'm not sure if you're aware, Nostradamus, but Whedon is directing 'The Avengers'. What, is that mud on your face? It must be pretty embarrassing to be so demonstrably wrong.

I love you, Jack S. Pharaoh.

Current Annoyance

Moving.

I haven't lived in the same place for more than three years since 1997.

My mother, aunt and grandmother drove up from Alabama to help me move. They got here more than ten hours earlier than they were supposed to get here, which was a hassle. (I didn't have enough things packed to suit their fancy, which led to at least a little nagging from all three of them.) They left here four hours later than they were supposed to leave here, which was a hassle. (I ended up having to cancel an appointment about forty-five minutes before it was scheduled to take place, meaning I will be charged a cancellation fee.)

While my aunt and I were moving box springs out of the bed of the truck (after we had just moved them into the bed of the truck; they decided they didn't like it the way it was), the truck's paint job got scratched. My aunt thinks it was my fault, for some reason, despite the fact that she and I were moving it together, so, in my eyes, her culpability is at least on par with mine. (Though she told me to slide it off the side, and I was trying not slide it off the side, to avoid something like damaging the paint job. She was sliding her end and it slipped. At least that's how I remember it happening. Maybe I invented the memory to make myself feel better about scratching the paint.)

Here's the problem: she borrowed the truck from a friend. It's a pretty new truck, and it has one of those fancy gradient paint jobs, where three different colors (turquoise, silver, and some shade of purple) meet and intermingle at various points. So even though the scratch is only about an inch-and-a-half long (and maybe a third of an inch wide), they're thinkin' a professional fix is going to cost about $1000 (since they'd pretty much have to repaint the whole section so that the color will match. My aunt thinks her insurance might cover it, but if it doesn't, I was told I might need to get a job in between my two in-between jobs to pay to have it fixed. (Of course. I couldn't imagine *not* having to work to pay off shit. Work, work, work! [I know. I know. Everybody has to work all the time, and nobody else gets any time off, either {except Ol' Moneybags Dimple, natch}, so I should quit my bitchin'.]).

While we were all inside the apartment fretting over this monstrous inch-and-a-half gash, some dude in another truck manages what must be the most impressive parallel parking feat I've ever witnessed: he works his car in between the truck my aunt is driving and a small car. There might have been half an inch in between the car in front of the guy's truck. Between his truck and the one my aunt was driving, there's . . . well there was no space. In fact, the guy's rear bumper was pressed into the front bumper of the truck my aunt was driving. My aunt immediately went into litigious mode, took pictures of the kissing bumpers (to have as evidence in case the guy moved), called the cops, had the cops observe as she backed her truck up to see if there was any damage to it, saw that there was no damage, thanked the cop, and sent him on his way.

Did I mention that they put all my stuff in a horse trailer? Did I mention how allergic I am to horses, and how, even though my mother and aunt spent a long time cleaning the trailer, it still reeks of horses and makes me chain sneeze for minutes at a time?

I'm pretty exhausted. Otherwise I would write more. I would write more, and I might even proofread.

You're allergic to horses? Is that the inspiration for Horso?

Horso is the inspiration for me.

Horso is an inspiration to everyone.  Except possibly Seabiscuit.  He's so badass, he is inspiration for Horso.

Seabiscuit fucked Horso for breakfast.

Seabiscuit wasn't shit without Tobeyman.

Current Annoyance:  Totally unexpected Monday morning ailment that makes me ache all over, my head pound and my nose run like a relay team.  I feel like shit!

Sounds like you need to go golfing.

Are you calling me a cunt?

:)

Daltons chin dimple wrote:

Current Annoyance:  Totally unexpected Monday morning ailment that makes me ache all over, my head pound and my nose run like a relay team.  I feel like shit!

Prognosis: Too much vacation.

Prescription: More vacation!

I'm starving and far too tired to get up and feed myself.  Too much Jameson.  Too much sex.  Not enough sleep.

Hell, who am I kidding?  There's no such thing as too much sex.

You were about to disappoint me, Kah.

Although, to be fair, the complete lack of you having sex with me disappoints me on a daily basis.

 Relatedly: It's now August. When am I due in LaCrosse? 

Straight after Soccer, just before Curling? 

The cord for my USB headphones that I use at work got tangled around the arm of my office chair, unbeknownst to me.  I had to get up to do something, and I swiveled my chair to do so.  The USB connector got slightly yanked out of the computer, but it didn't seem so bad.  No visible damage as far as I can tell.  However, it is no longer recognized when I plug it in. 

I have tried it in a couple other computers, but no dice.  It is apparently dead (despite making a crackling noise in the speakers when I plug it in).  I guess that it is still getting raw power (thus the speaker crackling), but something else is damaged enough that computers won't recognize it as a pair of headphones.  I doubt it's still under warranty, and I don't think I could find the receipt anyway.

So now I have to go the rest of the day in boring silence.  No music.  No podcasts.  No random Youtube videos.  Nothing.