Vague Warnings and Finished Things

I started a new stick of deodorant the other day. Usually, I don't think much of it. I just remove the lid, pull that little plastic plug off the top and swipe it around my underarm area. For some reason, though, I noticed a message pressed into the stick. I've seen them before, but never paid much attention. This time, it caught my eye, saying "Take the risk".

What risk?

Does the deodorant know something about the future that I don't? I'm not entirely comfortable with a hygiene product that knows more about my destiny than I do.

Or is it just saying I need to shoplift a certain war-based board game?

Anyway, turned 29 on Monday. Saw Pirates of the Caribbean 3. Or, really, Pirates of the Caribbean 2b, since the second one really didn't have much of an end to it. Less so than most movies in the middle of a trilogy. I mean, think about it...

The Empire Strikes Back

• Luke's Jedi training........finished
• Rescuing Han and Leia........finished (not entirely successfully, but still...)
• Han and Leia's admissions of love (well, as much as Han is ready to do to this point)..........finished

All that's left hanging is Han's fate and the trilogy arc with Luke and Vader. Another one...

Back to the Future, Part II

• Sports almanac..........finished
• Fixing the present...............finished

The one thing that was left was what happened to Doc and how Marty was going to get home...which was only introduced at the end as a teaser for Part III.

PotC 2 had none of that, so I couldn't, a year ago, tell you if it was a good movie or not. Entertaining for the 2 hours or so that I watched it, surely. But it wasn't until I saw "3" that I could tell you how the 2nd should be judged.

However, I have to say, it is good.

Highlight for me.......best film wedding. Ever.

Solutions Abound

I've been hearing a lot about how they're going to change the movie ratings system so that movies with "excessive smoking" will get a higher rating like movies with people getting disemboweled do. At first, this struck me as a bit silly. I mean, sure, I'm as anti-smoking as the next guy (unless that guy is a smoker...then it just doesn't work), but...well...it seemed like maybe they're a bit...I dunno...crazy about it. However, after having a few days to mull it over, I came up with a better solution, and it's all thanks to Steven Spielberg.

For those of you who just didn't care, when they re-released E.T. a couple years ago, they digitally editted some scenes. In some cases, it was to make E.T. seem more realistic, like a bathtub scene where the pores on the rubber puppet were releasing bubbles. However, the scene that made the biggest splash as far as the news was concerned was the chase scene where the Federal agents were trying to catch E.T. and E.T. makes Elliot and his friends fly to get away. In the original, the agents all had guns. Spielberg thought, as he was preparing the new version, that it seemed unrealistic and excessive to have all these grown men with guns trying to stop a few kids.

Apparently, Spielberg doesn't think that they might want the guns for the alien who can make kids fly.

Anyway, since he didn't like the idea, he got rid of them and gave the agents hand-held radios. A little wussy, but a good solution. And that got me thinking. Instead of changing the ratings, we can just take out the cigarettes and replace them, too. At first, I thought it would be a simple matter of replacing all the cigarettes with these:


And that seemed like a good idea, at first....but then I thought about it. Sometimes a sucker isn't appropriate. For one thing, they aren't very manly. Can you imagine Humphrey Bogart sucking on a lollipop in The Maltese Falcon? Sure, Bogey would certainly lend a bit of toughness to it, but not everyone could pull it off. Jean-Claude Van Damme certainly wouldn't.

Does he ever smoke in movies? ...What am I saying, he's French...of course he does.

Actually, that raises a lot of questions about the tough image associated with smoking, but I digress.

So I began to think of alternatives. A couple sprang to mind:



Now, I have to admit, they still lack that je ne sais quoi that's necessary to convey the Bogey image, but for most actors, it'll do. Plus, it sends a healthy message to the kids about eating their veggies. But, it would be irresponsible of me to have left it at that, since Bogart was my example and I had yet to find a cigarette replacement for him.

Then it hit me.

Only one substance could possibly match that no-nonsense attitude and overall manliness that Humphrey Bogart exuded.

Heroes Finale Short - Spoily

Upon second viewing, the finale was excellent. The music as Petey preps to go boom, called poignant by the captions, started out a bit sappy, but once the rest of the Heroes music effects joined in, it was better. I can't wait until next season. Good stuff, man. Good stuff.

I Need a Hero...

***Spoilers for those of you too lazy to watch tv when it's on...

Well, Heroes, Volume One, is over. Good episode. Not sure if I'm satisfied, but I'm going to watch it again in the morning while I'm feeding Aaron, so I'll be sure to have a more full feeling tomorrow. Of corse, I think I'd be happier if there'd been more spectacular use of powers, like the 5 Years Gone fight between Peter and Sylar that we didn't get to see, but, then, Peter is hardly capable of that kind of control, still.

Obviously.

It seems pretty safe to write-off Nathan as far as returning characters go. I mean, sure, you have to respect the old comic law that states that if you don't see a corpse, then it's still up in the air (of course, even then it isn't set in stone). It was nice that he finally made a good choice. He had such potential and yet he was always such a...there has to be a non-expletive laden expression for him, but words fail me.

I was glad to see that Ando survived. Especially later in the season, he became a very likable character. Hopefully, he'll be back once Hiro is back.

You know what I mean.

I thought the manhole cover bit at the end of Volume One, before Two kicked off, was a nice touch. Very comic book. Plus, Sylar has really grown on me. I wonder how long until he resurfaces...

Several of the other characters, some of whom are kind of up in the air as far as their survival goes, I'd like to see back. Partially, because I'm not sure what their purpose was. I mean, D.L., for instance. I'd also like to see Parkman be more useful, which can only happen if he continues to breathe. Niki...feh. Micah...I think it'd be hard to find ways to use him...especially with him being a kid.

It occurs to me that in the press releases, we were promised things that I don't remember seeing. New characters for next season, for one. I guess I'll be looking for that in the morning.

I really hope they keep Tim Sale on for artwork. I was always kind of lukewarm about his art in comics, though I did like the Batman books he did with Jeph Loeb. But his work on Heroes lends it some credibility. This isn't to put down Alex Maleev, the guy responsible for Sylar's whacked out stuff. I just don't dig his style as much. Still, his version of "Nathan" as President was pretty wicked.

Was Mohinder's only real purpose to save Molly so that they could find Sylar who would've shown his face there at the plaza anyway? I mean, that and leading Sylar to the mechanic with super hearing...

I forgot to mention my favorite moment from last week, an episode that I thought was thoroughly cool upon first viewing (maybe because Greg Beeman directed it....I liked his stuff in Smallville, too) was when Bennett took out Thompson.

So very cold.

Well, I'd go on, but Aaron is sleeping on my forearm and its really hard to type this way...

Numb

I think Sarah Ellerton, artist and author of Inverloch (see the links on this blog), just went for a "holy crap!" moment.

Inverloch, for those of you who don't follow it, has chronicled the adventures of a da'kor (think dog with horns) named Acheron and the group of misfits he's accumulated since embarking on his journey to find an elf, Kayndar, who was kidnapped years ago by a dark mage. I may be reading too much into it, but I think she just revealed something rather important to our understanding of what's actually been happening (and why) in the last two updates.

I'd suggest you read it. Probably all of it, since if you haven't it won't make any sense at all.

Unfortunately, tonight is the Heroes finale, so all of my Keanu-like "Whoa"s are in storage and will not be released until 8pm, central standard time.

Compliance

It's Aaron! And also Spidey.

Eclipsed

So, tonight is the season finale of The Office. I really like that show. It's one of the few things on TV that I purposefully watch. There are other things, of course, that I watch just because they're on, but I watch The Office because I want to watch it. It's really sad for me that the season is ending tonight.

And that's for reasons totally unrelated to The Office.

You see, I've been all about Heroes lately. It's got all my favorite things!

• Super heroes...........check.
• Crazy action.............check.
• Conspiracy................check.
• Comic books..............check.
• Cinnamon-sugar pretzels from Auntie Anne's..................Well, ok, you can't have everything.

So, in all the excitement about the Heroes, I've not really been enjoying the lead-up to tonight's episode of The Office. That's not to say that I haven't enjoyed the show. It's just that...well, I'm just more excited about Heroes, which is funny, because I didn't see the first episode and just almost didn't watch any of the others because I was sure it was gonna suck. Proving, once again, that I really have no idea what I'm talking about most of the time.

Invitation

If you have any interest at all in winning free Spider-Man 3 stuff, put your email address in a reply and I'll hook you up with an invite to the Spidey 3 Game Community. Lots of cool stuff. I won a shirt, a hat and some sticker.

And don't forget to check out my sketches of Peter Petrelli and Sylar below.

Heroes Sketches

As promised, or at least, as suggested, here are a couple of Heroes sketches. The first is Peter, which I finished (as sketches go) last night after the show. The second is a more finished version of the Sylar sketch I could've sworn I posted back in November when I drew it, but I can't seem to find now. However, you should note how close I was to calling the death of the "super-hearing" lady. Just got the wrong gender....

By the way, the show rocked SO hard last night...





Might do some more sometime soon...(and finish the Sylar one)