Thoughts at the Moment...

• The pilot episode of "V" was pretty good, but it might've been better as a mini-series or movie rather than a series with a five-year plan.

• Hammacher Schlemmer makes a nice catalogue.

• The Starbucks instant coffee is actually very good, especially for those of us who like coffee but are lazy.

• The Will Ferrell movie "Stranger than Fiction" was pretty good, and yet I have no strong desire to see it a second time.

• I think I prefer the Nestle brand water to other kinds of water, except possibly Evian, but even then it's twice the cost of Nestle, so there you go.

• I think I read too many comics. If I were a smarter man I'd stop reading so many of a monthly basis and start buying the collected editions. They're cheaper, take up less space, fit nicely on a bookshelf, and give you a whole story. Granted you have to wait at least two months after the story finishes to finally get to read it and there's a good handful of books that actually read better as single issues, but if I were a smarter man I'd make the switch for most of the books I read.

• I don't read like Pizza Pizza pizza. Specifically their pizzas with tomatoes, green olives, and black olives. Something about them... not that great. Their cheese and regular veggie pizzas are great though. But their olives taste funny.

• Heath Ledger's Joker was pretty good. Not that I want to see that become the standard of all other media versions of the character, but you could do worse borrowing some aspects of that take.

• Sometimes it hard coming up with good fodder for blog postings, so writing down a lot of random junk gets the job done on occasion.

• The other day I couldn't remember if I'd told a friend about something or dreamt I'd told him it. Or whether or not I'd actually done the thing I told my friend about. I now I can't remember what it was I may or may not have told my friend I may or may not have done. Ah well, I suppose.

At the Moment...

I'm a too stuffed up at the moment to form much of a coherent thought for an update (my sinuses being as sensitive as they are).

Still, thought I'd stop by to say that I caught "Wolverine" on the weekend and thought it was pretty decent. Not a great film, but pretty enjoyable and fun all the same. Wish Deadpool was a little truer to the comics (at least during his appearance later in the film -- Ryan Reynolds nailed the part during the first bit), but it's a good enough set up for a spin-off film. Not really getting all of the bad press and feedback the movie's been getting, but to each their own I suppose. I'd recommend it.

Anyway, I'm feeling a little too bowling ball-ish to say much else, so I'm going to sign off. See you.

Random/Useless Thoughts of the Moment

What's the appeal of Saved by the Bell? It wasn't a very good show, and yet it's been running continuously since it first aired twenty years ago. I like to think I'm a fairly intelligent person with an eye for quality television, and yet, if it's on, I'll watch it, even though I know it's not that great. Even when it was still airing new episodes, I knew it wasn't that great. I remember thinking as a ten year old that it "really went downhill once Screech's voice changed". It always bugged me too how every non-main cast member student was some sort of stereotype, and how all of the classes seemed to be held in that one room across the hall from Mr. Belding's office, and how 75% of all classes were taught by Mr. Tuttle or Mr. Dewey. And still, God help me, if I come across an episode, odds are I'll stay with it at least until the commercial break. Maybe they have some kind of hypnotic thing going on, like that episode where Zack put a hidden message in a song to get Bayside's female student body to fall for him during that Valentine's Day, heart-swapping thing.

Now I don't know what's worse. That I admitted to watching Saved by the Bell*, or that I made reference to an episode.

*I caution to add that that's infrequently, if ever. Just so we're clear.

Thoughts at the Moment

Well, I pre-ordered a copy of the third printing of the Spider-Man comic book with US President Obama on the cover. I already have a copy of the 2nd printing, so I'm not sure if springing for another version (even if the cover is slightly different) is okay or just kind of dumb. Still, in the event I win the contest I've entered for a copy of the first printing, I suppose it'll be good to have all three. I'm just hoping there isn't a fourth, since I'd probably wind up buying that too, because, as we've well established here, I'm a dope when it comes to these things.

On a semi-related topic, how neat was it for Obama to tell the Citibank folks to cram it with walnuts when they wanted to buy a 50 million dollar private jet. Good show. It hasn't completely sunk in that Bush is no longer the President of the United States, but it's starting to. And now that the US is finally in good hands I can start worrying/caring about my own domestic politics, something I've neglected while the global superpower forty minutes from where I live was going all bowling ball-ish.

On another semi-related topic, I read the seventh and final issue of DC Comics big crossover series Final Crisis last night. And I'll probably be reading it again soon since I have no idea what actually happened there.

This issue I understood better, and while it's contents are slighter and less all-encompassing than Final Crisis, I still enjoyed it a great deal since I quite like the featured villain, the Parasite. He's one of those B-level villains, that's too important to kill off for good, but not important enough to, you know, take over the world or cause any serious trouble. I have an affinity for those middle-of-the-road folks, and in this case it's coupled with a great visual. Nice that they did some work with his characterization as well, since he's often neglected in that area.