Monthly Archives: May 2012

CBS’ “Elementary” to Introduce Sherlock Holmes of Earth-2, Possibly Precipitate “Sherlock War” Crossover

May 31, 2012 By in TV/DVD Tags: , , , , , , , , 4 Comments

Despite the objections of BBC fans, this fall CBS plans to air their own Sherlock Holmes series, Elementary. Starring Jonny Lee Miller as Our Hero and Lucy Liu as mandatory progressive Dr. Watson, the show promises some or all of the following:

The last time I watched a detective show with a British counterpart, whose American version was antsy and not entirely stable, it was Robert Pastorelli in Cracker. Other than introducing the world to young Josh Hartnett’s unkempt hair, it didn’t go over well. I’m curious enough that I might tune in for the pilot. I’m a fan of unlikely heroes with too much nervous energy to spare, but I hope the rest of the cast is given more to do than simply standing around slack-jawed and watching him do all the overacting.

Shocking confession time: despite recommendations from many smart people, I have yet to watch a single episode of the BBC’s renowned Sherlock. My wife and I keep forgetting we have BBC America, and I keep forgetting that season 1 is on DVD. The only excerpt I’ve watched in full is this one:

Frankly, I’m sold. I wish I could say I’m making an Amazon one-click purchase right now, but I have a vacation in two months that needs funded first, and my pre-existing backlog of unwatched DVDs weighs upon me with some shame. Maybe I can rank it at the top of my Christmas list.

500 Festival Parade Second Encore: Smurfs in Surplus

May 31, 2012 By in Conventions & Events, Meta Tags: , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

I don’t understand why, but now that Houghmania is on the wane for the moment, I’m finding that, out of all the other Indy 500 Festival Parade photos out there, apparently shots of Mega Papa Smurf — even this many days after the fact — are inexplicably in higher demand than some celebrity nude pics. In many ways that’s a good thing.

More fodder, then, for those who believe love is blue and blue is love:

Alternate fuller shot of Papa Smurf rounding the corner from Washington Street onto Meridian. Street signs about loading and unloading zones are useless against him.

Papa Smurf so close you can see his seams, right before he destroys all who oppose him.

Beneath him, his merry oppressed Smurflings do his every bidding or risk his stompy wrath.

To a lesser extent, Smurfette and Clumsy were also in the parade, but refused to exit their mushroom love hovel and say hi. They had either a bad case of stage fright or a terrible secret to hide.

Skyscraper Could Make Lovely Starter Home for Young Trillionaire Couple

May 31, 2012 By in Indiana Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

At 48 stories and an external height of 830 feet at the pinnacle of its uppermost spire, Chase Tower is the tallest, most intimidating building in Indiana. Among WikiPedia’s rankings of tall buildings, it’s Indianapolis’ only entry in America’s Top 40. It’s one of the few memorable standouts in panoramic photographs of our not-exactly-sprawling downtown.

Chase Tower offers convenient connection to the ritzy Columbia Club, a unique view of Monument Circle, a neighbor in historic Christ Church Cathedral, quick access to a commendable comic shop just around the corner, and eight different Starbucks within healthy walking distance (two of those at short, arthritis-friendly shuffling distance). Right next to it is the best place to stand for any Hoosier who wants to pretend they’re in Manhattan.

According to the Indiana Business Journal, it’s also for sale:

[Chase Tower] was sold recently to Beacon Capital Partners LLC as part of a package of 14 office towers Beacon bought from Charter Hall Office REIT in Sydney, Australia, for $1.71 billion.

Beacon, which closed on the building earlier this year, is now marketing it for sale through the Chicago office of Jones Lang LaSalle and New York-based Eastdil Secured, a unit of Wells Fargo.

How cool would it be if you and millions of your closest online friends could each chip in $100 and make an offer? If you’re one of Justin Bieber’s 22,570,604 Twitter followers (as of the second I’m typing this), you and your fellow J-Bieb enthusiasts would only need to pony up $75.77 apiece to match the previous sale price for the entire 14-skyscraper package. If you can persuade the sellers to break up the set and part with just the Chase Tower, that shared stake becomes even more of a bargain.

Unfortunately I’m not sure if all 22,570,604 co-owners could fit inside simultaneously and turn it into 48 stories of sheer party town. A timeshare system might be in order. Heck, I’d be tempted to piggyback on the deal myself, in exchange for anytime line-jumping access to the Paradise Bakery on the Tower’s ground floor.

If $1.71 billion seems too steep, the same IBJ article also references a listing for the nearby Capital Center, a modest complex of two mini-skyscrapers (more like skywavers, really) each 17 and 22 stories tall, the shorter of which houses Fifth Third Bank’s central Indy offices. Imagine closing the deal on this and being able to tell your friends you’re a bank’s landlord. They’ll either high-five you and declare you King of Turning the Tables on The Man, or slap a red-letter “1%” on your chest after they finish tarring and feathering you.

If it helps sweeten the deal, the South Tower has a stellar coffee shop. It’s not even a Starbucks.

Sherman-Palladino’s “Bunheads” Does Ballet with Sharper Wit, Less Trauma Than “Black Swan”

May 29, 2012 By in TV/DVD Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

I don’t normally tune in to TV shows in which the women outnumber the men by a wide margin. I’ve seen multiple episodes of The Golden Girls and Designing Women only because they aired during my childhood, when I had no say in what shows our family watched. As far as more recent years go, let it be noted for the record that the gender margin on Buffy was by no means wide.

I never brake for ballet. I was once forced at too young an age to sit through a Dance Kaleidoscope performance of The Nutcracker that scarred me with boredom for decades. I’ve never seen Billy Elliott or The Red Shoes. I only endured Black Swan because my annual fanatical Oscar completism required it. Even ballet episodes of The Simpsons aren’t my cup of tea, except for any scene involving Lugash.

I’ve never even watched an ABC Family series, unless you count a few guilty-pleasure reruns of America’s Funniest Home Videos. I try (and fail) to justify that by citing the members of its writing staff who hailed from the great and powerful Mystery Science Theater 3000. I also secretly think Tom Bergeron is underrated, but you didn’t hear it from me.

And no, sadly, I never saw a complete episode of Gilmore Girls. Nothing about “women’s drama on the WB” sounded like a draw for me. Admittedly, occasional snippets and reviews I caught in later seasons gave me the impression that I might like it if I tried it, but by then it was too late.

Today Entertainment Weekly gave subscribers access to a sneak preview of the entire first episode of the upcoming ABC Family series Bunheads, a ballet drama created by Amy Sherman-Palladino, the creator and voice behind Gilmore Girls. The last time EW sent me a sneak-preview link, that particular free sample lasted all of four minutes before I rolled my eyes at the show in question, closed the browser window, and thanked them for thinking of me.

Given all of this, I had no reason to expect that Bunheads would beat the previous four-minute record. I rolled the dice and gave it a go anyway.

The first minute wasn’t encouraging– a kickline of Vegas showgirls doing their onstage frilly thing for the men, only to be pushed aside by the even less clothed real stars of their stage. The camera switches focus to two girls in the back row, exchanging catty remarks about why they don’t qualify for front row. From there the pace picks up as we move backstage and introduce a very special guest star: Alan Ruck, known to many as spineless sidekick Cameron from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, but dearer to me as Captain Harriman, the schlub who helped Captain Kirk get dead in Star Trek: Generations.

Ruck’s presence as a stubborn, clueless suitor bought the pilot ten minutes of my time. Fair exchange, I figured. I’ve never seen him misused.

The next time I remembered to check the timecode, fifteen minutes had gone by. From there the scene abruptly changed, new characters entered and marked their positions, and the momentum wouldn’t stop. Next thing I knew, the full 45-minute episode had flown by and ended with a precipitous cliffhanger that left me wanting to know what happens next.

In my book, that’s unconscious high praise.

The premise, since it matters: Michelle (Tony nominee Sutton Foster, razor-sharp and Sorkin-film-ready) is a trained dancer turned hopeless Vegas eye candy who impulse-marries Captain Harriman in a rock-bottom moment of weakness and agrees to move into his mammoth abode in a faraway, cozy, everybody-knows-your-name small town called Paradise, a name well chosen from the approved list of ironic names for TV small towns. Everyone except Harriman hates her, especially his ex-girlfriend Truly (Friday Night Lights‘ Stacey Oristano, who steals every scene with pitiful comedy tears), and doubly especially Harriman’s mom (Kelly Bishop, also formerly of Gilmore Girls, playing far from caricature), who is stern and offended at the tawdry acquisition of a surprise daughter-in-law. She lives in Harriman’s home, just as you’d expect from a sitcom aiming for wacky hijinks. Michelle’s in luck, though — hubby’s mansion also houses mother-in-law’s ballet school.

You can imagine the culture clashes. You can imagine the possibilities for the two adversaries bonding over ballet despite having little else in common. You can imagine there are at least four young students with singular character traits who are only a pirouette away from being labeled the Bad News Bears of ballet.

What holds it together and makes it zing are Sherman-Palladino’s ear for dialogue that’s not cribbed from other TV shows; the immediate, surprising depth of the awkward quote-unquote “relationship” between newlyweds Michelle (who’s well aware that her actions don’t speak well of her) and Captain Harriman (who we learn isn’t as dense about their situation as he seems); and a few moments of gravity struck in just the right places that lift this pilot several planes above the level of chick-flick flight-of-fancy. I sincerely apologize for expecting no more than that going into it.

The premiere airs Monday, June 11th, on ABC Family at 9 p.m. EDT. The official site has plenty of preview material and freebies for the curious. I’ve clicked on none of them because I’m giving serious consideration to catching episode two the following week and would prefer to avoid spoilers. Also, if future episodes aim more for the ABC Family young-girl audience and not so much on a level for me, the complete opposite of their target demographic, then I’d prefer not to find out yet.

(I’m thankful the show isn’t aiming for a prurient tone — setting aside that fleeting opening scene — so I can explain to my wife why I think the show might be worthwhile without looking like a dirty old man. It also helps my case that I find her 200% more attractive than any ballet dancer. Yes, really. Don’t give me that look.)

Enclosed below is a two-minute fraction of the episode I watched of The Show I Couldn’t Possibly Like. Enjoy! I’ll just be over here remembering what owning a Man Card once felt like.

(If I could make just one suggestion: is it too late to change the title to, say, Dances in Paradise? Bunheads sounds like an Adult Swim show about animated foul-mouthed pastries.)

My Geek Demerits #2: No Smartphone

May 28, 2012 By in Mundane Tags: , , , , Leave a comment

My wife and I share a single cell phone between the two of us. It’s a dinky LG model 300G prepaid phone with no Internet access. Its special features include a very limited wallpaper selection, a paltry library of super-MIDI ringtones, and the ability to play Sudoku. Its texting capabilities are more primitive than a Speak-&-Spell. I have no interest in writing to someone on a device that requires four keypunches to generate a single “s”.

We didn’t even buy it for ourselves. It was an anniversary gift from a well-meaning relative. Neither of us is a fan of telephones. We keep it on hand for emergencies or rare moments of convenience. I let her carry it most of the time, out of a combination of chivalry and disdain for the thing. Thankfully the minutes roll over infinitely as long as I keep purchasing additional service days. So far through disuse we’ve stockpiled over 2,800 minutes. I could theoretically call Australia and stay on the line from midnight to midnight with no concern for cost.

We know we’re an extremist minority among our under-60 peers. Today’s average American considers their cell phone an essential part of everyday life that combines the usefulness of a few different appliances with several hundred useless distractions. Much discussion has already been held in various venues about smartphones displacing landlines from many homes. I’m sure the same holds true of PCs and laptops for those casual typists who don’t need word processing, spreadsheet capabilities, or CD/DVD-ROM drives.

We realize we could afford upgrading to a smartphone if we felt the urge, but forgo it for several reasons:

* No interest in haggling over pricing, contracts, or bandwidth usage. As long as we continue to underuse, our prepaid Fisher Price toy costs me $15 per month to keep active. If we decide to drop it at a moment’s notice, the financial damage would be negligible. If someone has invented a smartphone contract that’s month-to-month for the same approximate price with unlimited bandwidth, I could see an argument for upgrading. I’d prefer to avoid a long-term commitment to a plan that charges me dozens of extra dollars just because I exceeded my monthly bandwidth allotment after five rounds of Words with Friends.

* Itsy-bitsy keys. I have sausages for fingers. I need a manly keyboard for my manly typing. Even some laptops are uncooperative. I suspect a stylus would be easy to lose and would be an insufficient, frustrating substitute for my reflexive hunt-‘n’-peck keyboard method. I could live with extra typos if I had to, but I would pretty much die without my precious capitalization and punctuation.

* QR code-scanning holds no temptation for us. Oh, no, we’re missing out on extra advertising! Curse the fates!

* Our current appliances remain fully functional. My wife is very happy with her camera. Mine could be better, but it’s not nearly obsolete enough for me to be in the market for a replacement. Our PC serves all our Internet needs with the added advantage of a screen larger than an index card, all the better for viewing movie trailers and extended, heated Comments-section debates. We’re still old-fashioned enough to wear wristwatches, so our timekeeping needs are covered. Our cheap landline still keeps ticking, too, in case we need to dial 911 without worrying whether or not we remembered to charge the phone battery.

* I plan ahead without need for GPS. When we travel, I have all our directions prepared in advance. In the event of a wrong turn or bad directions, I also bring maps in case I need to navigate the old-fashioned way, the way our ancestors managed back in the dark, primeval twentieth century. So far we haven’t failed to return home yet.

* We’re discouraged by the behavior we’ve seen in other smartphone users. We realize millions of sane, collected users exist and conduct themselves just fine. Just the same, we’d rather not risk turning into one of today’s highly visible Stepford Callers. To wit:

— Eye contact no more. As a natural introvert, I already suck at making eye contact, even with people who want me to look at them. If I start carrying around something glowing and flashy to placate me like an audiovisual pacifier, I’ll never know anyone else’s eye color ever again, let alone acknowledge that they’re worth my personal, undivided attention. (Reminder to self: wife’s eyes are brown. Probably. Should double-check that.)

— “Ladies first” is more awkward than ever. When it’s time for crowd egress through a given doorway, it’s hard to be chivalrous when a lady’s mind is in a faraway place and unaware of her surroundings. My recently instated rule for elevator dismissal is, if she’s being hypnotized by her phone, she no longer counts as a “lady” for purposes of determining order of disembarkation. I’ll excuse myself first and let the doors shut on her. Far be it from me to be rude and interrupt her very important reading. I’m sure all those Facebook-shared unfunny Photoshop gags aren’t gonna Like themselves.

— Theaters as Internet cafes, even during the movie. Setting aside the massive distraction and rudeness it presents to the rest of the audience that was respectful enough to put away their toys, I fail to understand why anyone would focus on the tiny handheld screen they carry with them 24/7 while ignoring the large screen they paid an exorbitant fee to watch just this once. If you’re expecting an emergency, a vital communication, or a chat you just can’t miss because that one friend is so totally awesome to hear from, perhaps that two hours of your time would be better spent isolated at home, waiting for the DVD release and leaving the moviegoing to the rest of us stalwart, considerate lot.

— Apps are better than family. I will never forget the time I walked into a nephew’s birthday party and saw most of the adult “partygoers” sitting in a row in the living room, all silently engaged with their phones while the birthday boy spent quality time with the only loved ones not ignoring him — i.e., a few other tykes too small to own their own phones. Just imagine a future after someone invents Baby Einstein smartphones for all ages. With such scientific progress at hand, every family gathering could possess the warmth and charm of a deathly silent study-hall period.

I realize the entry qualifies more as “human demerits” in today’s society than mere geek demerits, but my lone moment of weakness in this area is the twinge of jealousy I feel whenever comic book conventions tout their schedule apps, QR codes for exclusive materials, and other handy on-site networking tools that offer no help for attendees like us who leave their ‘Net access at home. We can see merit in that, especially when it comes to last-minute event cancellations or celeb-sighting flashmobs.

All things considered, we’d still rather do without. Despite what Madison Avenue tells us, we firmly believe we don’t have to have everything. For the sake of some semblance of integrity, I accept my demerit and will continue to appreciate what meager service we’ve gotten out of our li’l plastic push-button knick-knack, even if it can’t access Angry Birds from a single corner of the continental U.S.

Franchitti Wins 3rd Indy 500, Gives Shout-Out to Katniss Everdeen

May 27, 2012 By in Indiana, Mundane Tags: , , , Leave a comment

The Indianapolis Star has released the following preview image of the cover for Monday’s edition, a tribute to Dario Franchitti, winner of today’s 96th running of the Indianapolis 500. Franchitti accepted the customary Winner’s Circle bottle of milk, donned the standard winner’s wreath, and greeted the cameras with a three-finger salute like a proud Hunger Games Tribute.

Share photos on twitter with Twitpic

When he escaped the initial skirmish at the Cornucopia carrying only a set of car keys, the other Tributes laughed at him. LAUGHED.

Cartoon Network Celebrates Memorial Day with Preview of “Annoying Orange”

May 27, 2012 By in TV/DVD Tags: , , , Leave a comment

In honor of all those foodstuffs who died in the line of kitchen conversation, Cartoon Network will be airing a sneak preview of their upcoming, reverent TV adaptation of the YouTube Golden Age classic Annoying Orange on Monday, May 28th, at 8:30 EDT. TV scientists await with instruments at hand to measure the effects of a mere fifteen-minute exposure on the health and stability of unsuspecting Nielsen families.

The official teaser:

I’m out of the loop on 85% of all YouTube phenomena, but I first caught sight of this citric sociopath in his mainstream breakout role alongside other notorious YouTube mascots in a Sprint/Regal Cinemas ad, warning the cell-phone fetishists in the audience to power down. He was hard to ignore as his distinct voice arose from the ruckus and stabbed me right in the ear. Thankfully my son was on hand to explain the concept to me without rolling his eyes too much.

I was surprised to see this pop up on the Memorial Day schedule with little or no fanfare from my immediate social circles. Clearly the world must be warned.

500 Festival Parade Encore: the Hough/Menounos Reunion, Take Two

May 27, 2012 By in Conventions & Events, Meta Tags: , , , , , , 2 Comments

Since I don’t watch reality shows anymore, I’d never heard of Dancing with the Stars‘ Derek Hough before he appeared in the celebrity lineup of this year’s Indy 500 Festival Parade. Based on response to my previous entry, I’m beginning to realize I’m alone in my ignorance. I appreciate being schooled on this, and truly have much to learn about The Hough.

As a thank-you and a gracious acknowledgment to his legion of fans, please enjoy this bonus parade photo of him, which includes a much better view of fellow passenger and Extra correspondent Maria Menounos.

Derek Hough and Maria Menounos!

WikiPedia tells me they were once partners on DWTS. If we’d known this were a highly anticipated reunion of sorts, my wife and I would’ve tried much harder and snapped a dozen more shots. I regret this is the last of our Hough/Menounos photo material, though I’m tempted to find ways to insert gratuitous mentions of him into future entries to prolong the magic.

Indy 500 Festival Parade 2012 Photo Gallery

May 26, 2012 By in Conventions & Events, Indiana Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 8 Comments

My wife and I aren’t sports fans, but in 2011 we decided to try the Indianapolis 500 Festival Parade for our first time together. Each year on the Saturday before the world-famous Indy 500, our city holds a parade downtown with corporate-character floats, scintillating displays, marching bands, celebrities of varying levels of fame, all 33 qualifying Indy 500 drivers, members of the family that owns and/or operates the race, and bellicose street preachers.

Last year’s experience was such a fun date that we agreed an encore was in order. Ninety-degree weather was far from comfy, but we persevered. The following is a fraction of the pics we snapped.

The parade’s Grand Marshal: Australia’s own Olivia Newton-John! She was too far away to take questions and recriminations about Xanadu.

Co-star of "Grease" and "Twist of Fate"

’80s sensation Rick Springfield! The trailer speakers blared “Jessie’s Girl”, the only song of his that our local radio stations remember. As always, they sadden me.

Rick Springfield!

’80s semi-sensation Eddie Money reprises one of his classic hits, “Two Tickets to Parade”. With him is One Tree Hill‘s Jana Kramer, though for some reason all promotional materials avoided mentioning that show in favor of her plans to release her first country music album later this year. All kinds of odd choices in that sentence.

Eddie Money!

Mitch Daniels, governor of Indiana and certified Wild One.

Mitch Daniels, Wild One

TV’s Guy Fieri, of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. It was thanks to his recommendation several years ago that we had the pleasure of trying West Virginia’s Hillbilly Hot Dogs, and we’ll never, ever forget the experience.

TV foodie passes by a Jimmy John's without stopping.

Gladys Knight, well-known Pip-wrangler and midnight train passenger.

Still hearing it through the grapevine after all these years.

Florence Henderson is one of two celebrity staples guaranteed to appear at every Indy 500. The other, Jim Nabors, has bowed out this year. I wish him speedy recovery from whatever ruined a good run for him.

TV's Florence Henderson!

Derek Hough from Dancing with Stars and Maria Menounos from Extra. When their car moved forward to Monument Circle, they got out and had one of their walk-along security men snap their pic together in front of the Soldiers and Sailors Monument. Tourism isn’t just for us little people.

Nobody tell them I don't watch either show.

Captain Keith Colburn from TV’s Deadliest Catch. Alongside him but off-camera is a guy from A&E’s Storage Wars. Missed him by that much.

Deadliest Catch, Friendliest Waver

Miss Piggy, strung along by her obedient Kermitlings.

Dread the power of her giant-sized karate-chop!

Papa Smurf, living large after the success of his feature film debut, striding around atop forced Smurf labor.

Words of wisdom, boots of DEATH.

The Cat in the Hat and his goldfish arch-nemesis declare a temporary truce for the occasion.

Now containing 0% Mike Myers.

The Confucius Institute sponsored this golden dragon float as our new front line of defense against Godzilla.

The golden dragon says, "RAAAAAR."

Giant monster bookworm says read or be squashed. Look for him in his upcoming Syfy Original Movie, Giant Bookworm vs. Golden Dragon.

Giant Bookworm!

The Fred Hill Briefcase Drill Team. Even in those classy suits, they looked a lot less dehydrated and suffering than some of the high school musicians in the parade.

White Light, White Collars

THE Mario Andretti. I haven’t watched or listened to an entire Indy 500 race since college, but even I know and respect that name.

Mario Andretti!

Indy driver Takuma Sato. He finished 33rd out of 33 cars in 2011, but his was one of the two best driver photos we took.

Just wait till 2012!

Marco Andretti, youngest racer in America’s favorite racing family. Take THAT, Speed Racer and Racer-X.

Most Photogenic of Show

Special bonus for longtime readers: I’m please to report at least three food trucks were out and about, making the most of the weekend.

The Edwards Drive-In Dashboard Diner wins Best Truck Art.

The Edwards Drive-In Dashboard Diner.

The Chuck Wagon Deli wins Best Truck I Haven’t Tried Yet. This is the first time I’ve seen them downtown. I would’ve given them a shot if we hadn’t had such a decent breakfast this morning.

The Chuck Wagon Deli.

Der Pretzel Wagen wins Best Sugary Treat. Their cinnamon sugar pretzel was a delightful relief after the parade ended and I needed extra energy for the walk back to the car.

Der Pretzel Wagen.

When most people think “Indiana parade”, I imagine this is what comes to mind first: racecars and farmers. Just add a large basketball and a guy taking a nap, and it would be a true salute to Hoosier stereotypes.

Three Little Pigs.

I trust one or more of the other twenty-one images help balance the scales, so let us never speak of this throwback again.

For wallpaper fans, large-scale versions of these pics are on display in my PhotoBucket album. We have plenty more photos not uploaded, if the public demands outtakes of the Dennis the Menace float, a traditional Chinese dragon, non-character floats sponsored by Big Energy, Indy 500 Princesses, obscured 500 drivers, Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard’s wife’s hat, a stagecoach, the Hulman family, sweltering marching bands, or clowns. I was afraid to photograph any street preachers, so I can’t help you there.

Easily Distracted New Blogger Takes Four Weeks to Realize “About” Page Still Blank

May 25, 2012 By in Meta Tags: , , Leave a comment

[Sometimes it’s the little details that evade me.

The following “About” intro has now been inserted into the proper section of my li’l Internet nook here for future Googlers to peruse and evaluate.]

* * * * *

In the physical world my name is Randy Golden. As far as the Internet is concerned, this name belongs to another Randy Golden who’s been writing and publishing for several years in the name of Georgia tourism. I sign here as “R. A. Golden” out of deference to whoever he is, and as a nod to the small R. A. bandwagon crafted by my predecessors R. A. Lafferty, R. A. Salvatore, and R. A. Jones.

I’m a full-time customer service rep, part-time unpaid Internet participant. I’ve been a steady, sometimes verbose content provider to Nightly.net since 2000. I was on staff from 2001 to 2010, and was the most prolific contributor to their now-moribund Front Page news section. My previous, sporadic blog remains open for perusing if you’re into historical reference. I promise the site-specific in-jokes are minimal.

My amazing wife and I have been married for seven years, but have known each other for twenty-four. Our spare bedroom contains our combined bookshelves and the numerous longboxes that house my 34-year-old, yellowing comic book collection. She, in turn, has memorized the complete script to Superman: the Movie; the titles of all 178 episodes of Star Trek: the Next Generation; and the entire Book of James. One of the many reasons I love her thiiiiis much is because she knows which of those three will be most useful inna final analysis.

My son is in high school and maintains a strict line in the sand between his half of the Internet and mine. Our dog Lucky appears to be a Jack Russell terrier/chihuahua mix. I spend much time every day writing and speaking his dialogue for him as if he were a furry little ventriloquist’s dummy.

The roles of Christian, husband, father, and geek should be a no-brainer to prioritize. I do what I can with what I’ve been given, but some facets lend themselves more comfortably to writing than others.

I set up this blog three weeks before my 40th birthday as a means of charting the effects of the aging process and this fallen world’s degrading standards on my impressions of, reactions against, and general experiences with various works of art, commerce, wonder, majesty, and shamelessness. It’s my way of keeping the writing part of my brain alive and active, rather than let it atrophy and die. Until and unless I can discern what I’m meant to be doing with it, here I am.

I’m prone to lurking on Twitter as @RandallGolden because naturally someone else was first to register my name, and they wasted it on a single 2010 tweet. Here or there, I welcome input, questions, ideas, and simple pats on the head.

Views expressed herein do not necessarily reflect those of any other being, corporation, hivemind, or party line.

“Hunger Games” Sequel Renamed to Avoid Sounding Like Manly Gun-Battle Flick

May 24, 2012 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , 2 Comments

Crowds who flood to theatres next year for the follow-up to this year’s second-largest event movie should note the reworked title that will take up twice as much marquee space. Lionsgate announced today the rechristening of the largest event film of 2013 as The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, as a kindness to those of us who keep their DVDs alphabetized and still struggle over whether to file The Dark Knight under ‘D’ or ‘B’.

No word yet about whether this change was strictly the fault of the marketing department, or if any input was welcomed from incoming director Francis Lawrence (I am Legend). Fans fervently hope the title format is the only element of the series to be even remotely inspired by Twilight.

Ten other new titles may or may not have been under consideration:

Katniss: the Hunger Games, Part 2
The Even Hungrier Games
Hunger Games 2: Hunger Harder
Hunger-Catching Firegames
Katniss Everdeen and the District of Secrets
HG2: Tributes United
The Hunger Games, Episode 2: Catching of the Fire
Peeta: the Hunger Games, Part 2
Panem Has Always Been at War with Eastasia
Hunger Games II with Last-Minute Slapdash 3D Conversion

Also worth noting is the best of the rejected poster taglines:

“No more games. The hunger just got REAL.”

Comics I’m Not Reading: “Avengers vs. X-Men”

May 24, 2012 By in Comics/Lit Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

I recall a time from the 1980s when it was joked that too many chance encounters between Marvel heroes proceeded in identical fashion. Heroes meet; heroes fight and fight and fight; heroes pause to recuperate and compare notes; heroes team up against the real villain. I’d wager this was the premise of at least 200 of the 250 combined issues of Marvel Two-in-One and the original Marvel Team-Up.

Sure, fans loved debating the old “Who’s stronger?” arguments. Having two heroes meet and fight was a great way for writers to present their position, however skewed the answer would be, depending on whose series was hosting the showdown. After decades of Hulk/Thing and Hulk/Thor cage matches, we still don’t have an ultimate, decisive victor for either comparison, but fans love ’em anyway. They’re like literary sports. Since the teams are different each year, there’s every chance that the game’s outcome will be different than their previous face-off.

I can understand how younger fans might hop aboard the Avengers vs. X-Men company-wide crossover train. Not since Marvel vs. DC/DC vs. Marvel have we seen so many good guys pummeling each other senseless for no-stakes us-vs.-them excitement. That was fifteen years ago, though. Times, heroes, secret identities, continuities, pasts, and artistic preferences have changed. Just because it’s been done before doesn’t mean it deserves to be written off as a retread.

Odds are a small portion of the audience may also have changed. It stands to reason that somewhere out there are a couple of newer fans who missed out on that event and want some hero-boxing to call their own. They wouldn’t be opposed to something more recent, something composed by today’s well-regarded talents, and something a little more imaginative than their local HeroClix tournaments.

Here’s my issue, simply put: I have no vested interest in a large-scale skirmish that is the moral equivalent of policemen versus firefighters. When it comes to teams whose purposes and goals frequently intersect, I’m not interested in knowing which brotherhood is stronger, faster, better, or more awesome. After decades of coexistence, successful team-ups, and countless tragedies in which they’ve mourned each other’s losses together as one big Marvel family, you’d think at least one hero among them would have the common sense to raise a hand, suggest there might be a better way, and prevent a few dozen tie-in issues from taking place.

(I’m generously assuming, of course, that the entire conflict isn’t predicated on a simple, stupid misunderstanding along the lines of every episode of Three’s Company. As every bad writer knows, such misunderstandings are an unstoppable force of nature that no amount of effective communication skills could possibly hope to resolve. Can’t be done, don’t try, and don’t bother blurting out the plain truth, because making things even more awkward and excruciating is always the nobler way to go.)

(While I’m thinking parenthetically: this setup has given me one horrid mental image I can’t shake. Imagine if a bevy of surviving 9/11 responders were conscripted into the Hunger Games. Whee?)

As it is, I’m already inundated with all the us-vs.-them stories I can handle. They’re called “the news”. I can read real-life tales every day of good people in heated disputes with other good people over what “good” should look like. Most of the combatants wouldn’t consider themselves evil, but they’re fairly certain the other side is. At the very least, the other side’s sheep are the unwitting, helpless pawns of Big Evil. I have no doubt this is true in select cases, but good luck persuading both sides to agree on which cases. I don’t enjoy watching, nor do I seek out allegories of same, intentional or otherwise.

I firmly believe the writers and artists involved in this project are talented folks. I’ve bought works by most of them, and hope to buy more in the future. In this case, I don’t care who’s responsible or what the premise is. They lost me at the title, and kept me fenced out when the Big Picture was revealed as a widespread crossover. Ten times the story I’d prefer not to read is still a story I’d prefer not to read.

Even allowing that AvX might be intended as nothing more than mindless, literary sports, it’s worth noting that I generally don’t like sports, either. Gave up my man card years ago over that.

Worst thing about all this: when it’s over at long last and the rubble has settled, I bet we still won’t know which team is stronger.

1st Teaser Trailer for PT Anderson’s “The Master” Avoids the 11-Letter S-Word

May 22, 2012 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

From Paul Thomas Anderson, the director of There Will Be Blood, comes another fictional biopic about a potentially disturbed self-made man whose work would come to affect millions in ways not necessarily for the better. Despite Anderson’s own denials, parts of the Internet swear The Master is thinly veiled nonfiction about L. Ron Hubbard, Dianetics, and/or the creation of Scientology. Any similarities to any movements living or dead, real or fictional, will no doubt be left to the viewer to decide and write pretentious essays in response.

(That’s not meant as derogatory. Seriously, I look forward to reading said essays. Some days I thrive on pretentiousness.)

The cast includes Joaquin Phoenix, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, Laura Dern, and Kevin J. O’Connor (the lanky toady from Stephen Sommers’ The Mummy). As with Blood, Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood is composing the presumably eerie, non-traditional score. This first teaser avoids any overt hints of its ostensible subject, instead focusing on flashbacks of Phoenix’s shenanigans while an obscured interrogator watches his immature smugness melt into unease.

[Content warning: teaser contains brief clip of bawdy sand-sculpting.]

I’ve played this a few extra times for the soundtrack alone, but I’m also savoring the one-minute sample of Phoenix’s performance that hints at grander, controversial, hopefully pretentious things to come.

Offer of Free CRT Monitor with Any Purchase Lures Zero Takers

May 21, 2012 By in Mundane Tags: , , , Leave a comment

48 hours after the fact, I remain wiped out from our nine-hour 90-degree yard sale last Saturday. Six families contributed assorted items, leftovers, and baked goods as a charity event to benefit three different needs identified by our church on local, national, and international levels. Our results exceeded our humble expectations by far will hopefully fund many a blessing in the future, but fell short of 100% sell-through.

Luckily for my overcrowded bookshelves, my set of the first eighteen Garfield collections sold in the first hour to an elderly gentleman who also carted off a second armload of children’s books. I was equally glad to pass along a Wheel of Fortune home game that we’d used only once but ultimately rejected when its questionable structural integrity began to damage our calm. My wife cheerfully chatted with the two separate families that now provide new homes for her duplicate Star Trek: the Next Generation still-on-card action figures. A pair of small boys each gave a quarter for the only other action figures on hand, a loose Nightwing and an unidentified all-gray DragonBall Z figurine with one point of articulation. A discerning music collector nabbed himself four zero-hit Oasis CDs (naturally we retained Live Forever and What’s the Story, Morning Glory?). The most surprising sale was our redundant copy (long story) of Spider-Man: the Complete Clone Saga Epic, Book 4.

The other five families had their share of victories, notably in the departments of tiny girl clothing, Disney Animated Classics on white-cased VHS, men’s tools (the hot item of the day — figuratively at first, then literally after hours of sitting in intense sunshine), the aforementioned baked goods, and extremely heavy objects.

If we do this again, next time we’ll have a better idea of what not to bring. I’m not sure why I thought a charity drive was the right place to give up old horror anthologies like Kirby McCauley’s Dark Forces and David Hartwell’s The Dark Descent. Also untouched were my dub copies of Metallica’s S&M, which wore out their welcome long ago after a second listening, but somehow evaded all my previous collection culls. My wife’s Grease soundtrack sat alone and unloved all day. My thirty-year-old copies of Bargain Hunter and Life, both still playable, went into the Goodwill sacks at closing time. The only two large-scale objects that she and I brought, our obsolete 25″ CRT TV and my ancient microwave, returned home with us perfectly functional yet rejected by all.

In fact, all things CRT wound up the biggest loser category of the day. We started at eight a.m. with eight CRT monitors and one flatscreen monitor. We ended the day with eight CRT monitors. By one p.m. we were willing to make crazy deals with the few customers bold enough to brave the afternoon heat just for roadside discounts, but no one would touch the monitors. By three p.m. one of our more adventurous companions was offering a free monitor to every customer, with or without a purchase. No luck. Imagine if the concept of “Get Eight Monitors for Just One Penny!” had been concocted years ago, perhaps Columbia House and BMG might still be in business today. Such a shame that window of opportunity has now passed. Customers were kind enough to continue making charitable donations in addition to their small random purchases, but Adopt-a-Monitor was a total no-go.

Maybe we should’ve added Garfield stickers on the sides of each one and labeled them “Collector’s Item Classics!” or even “Actual props from that one scene in Office Space!” Maybe that’s what we need to work on for our next yard sale. Maybe our problem wasn’t poor merchandise, but poor marketing.

Reviews Mocking “Battleship” Drive Product Placement for Other Board Games Up 4000%

May 21, 2012 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

This month’s most popular Internet pastime has been writers jabbing the latest Transformers sequel by asking the rhetorical question, “What’s next, ________?” and filling in the blank with the one game they were most frequently beaten at as a kid. Unable to settle on just one punchline, the May 25th issue of Entertainment Weekly even provides a full page of Photoshop humor that name-checks five different classic games. Naturally this list includes the commonest punchline of the day, Hungry Hungry Hippos, which in the past month has skyrocketed to 192,000 Google results, up from a pre-Battleship all-time high of twenty-three Google results, twenty of which were disturbing fetish sites.

I expect most of the true classics have already been snatched up by large studios with massive budgets. Fortunately, if I were a Hollywood executive in need of more properties to license, I have memories from childhood and adulthood to plumb for potential licenses I could plunder that few of my arch-rivals would be equipped to translate to the silver screen.

My hypothetical release slate for summer 2015 would include:

Dungeon! — Someone brilliant at TSR boiled Dungeons & Dragons down to its essential elements: dungeon-crawling, simple hack-‘n’-slash, and treasure-hoarding. When my friends tired of the RPG aspect of Advanced D&D (i.e., whatever TSR module connected their AD&D battles into a story), we’d put away their character sheets and most of the dice, break Dungeon! out of the box, and go mindless.

In the movie version, the dragons, trolls, and other monsters would be replaced by giant alien robots. The titular dungeon would exist beneath a large European city that spectacularly collapses throughout the film from all the explosions undermining it.

Dark Tower — Another fantasy board game, this one dominated by a large electronic tower (batteries not included) that stood at the center of the board and determined the course of events on each player’s turn via LED numbers, flashing pictures, and annoying sound effects. The day mine broke down for good was a sad day indeed, except to adult family members who spent the evening sighing with joy.

In the movie version, the Tower itself is like an undertall Unicron ordering hordes of giant alien robots to overrun the lands of Ripoff Middle Earth. The original sound effects are cranked up to 11, distorted through several filters at ILM, and earn an Academy Award nomination. The movie’s release will be accompanied by vigorous lawsuits against any Stephen King adaptations that attempt to use the same name.

Run for Your Life, Candyman! — I was introduced to Smirk and Dagger Games at their 2009 GenCon booth. Not long after, I made a point of ordering a copy of this early release, a Candyland spoof that adds the single most crucial element the original game always lacked: a violent combat system. Each player is an armed and dangerous gingerbread man, opening fire on opponents while absconding through nightmarish candy-themed badlands. It’s a black-humor hoot that’s much more challenging and disturbing than its predecessor.

In the movie version, all those candy building blocks are the MacGuffin sought by a race of giant alien robots who need sugar for fuel. Firing nuclear weapons point-blank in each other’s faces over the centuries has resulted in a species-wide genetic deformity that prevents them from metabolizing raw cane sugar, so the processed sugar of faux-Candyland is their only hope. This would merely be an adaptation of the original Candyland if it weren’t for the gingerbread men’s extremely loud machine guns.

Bargain Hunter — This shopping game taught kids how to search store ads patiently for the lowest prices on furniture, appliances, and pets, as well as how to buy them with either cash or credit card. It came with a plastic credit card machine and several pretend credit cards that you inserted into the machine. You ran the cards through like a real machine, and prayed for purchase approval just like a real shopper. The rules for credit card interest accrual were sketchy and failed to reflect the realities of APRs, annual fees, and predatory lending, but you learned pretty quickly what a fair price was for an exotic lizard.

In the movie version, every department store in the Big City is taken over by a race of giant alien robots calling themselves The Bargain, who aim to dominate Earth’s economic infrastructures from within. Humanity’s last hope against this one-percenter allegory is a single man with a whip-smart attitude and no credit cards to max out. This hero will be played by Dave Ramsey.

Clue: the Great Museum Caper — I’m not sure this sequel ever became a household name, but it’s still a favorite in our family. One player is a thief sneaking through an art museum to steal paintings, recording their movements on a secret notepad in lieu of a physical playing piece on the board itself. The other players are detectives hoping to land blindly on the thief’s space as the disappearing paintings and disabled security devices give away his position. C:tGMC offered more variation in its gameplay and used none of the original characters, not even that cursed Miss Scarlet who was guilty in nine out of every ten times I played.

In the movie version, we pick up where the first Clue movie left off, wherever that was. I never saw it or its three different endings. Clue 2: Dark of the Monet will replace the art museum with the first game’s mansion setting and have twelve different endings. In each ending, the culprit is a different giant alien robot who retaliates against arrest attempts by blasting apart the study, the ballroom, and the conservatory.

File 13 — An integral part of my D&D experience was a subscription to Dragon Magazine, which occasionally came with free cut-out board games designed by a cartoonist named Tom Wham. My favorite was File 13, in which players were game designers attempting to shepherd their silly-named creations through a game-design flowchart. If one of your games reached the end of the chart, your game was published and you won. The board was a pull-out double-page spread; the pieces were tiny colored squares you had to cut out yourself. I still have my copy of the game tucked away in a Ziploc bag somewhere ’round here.

In the movie version, we replace all the games with giant alien robots, the flowchart with a giant alien robot factory, and the name File 13 with the title Transformers 5: Real Steel 2. Otherwise it’s an utterly faithful adaptation.

NBC Keeps “Community” Because Torturing Beloved Show More Fun Than Canceling It

May 19, 2012 By in TV/DVD Tags: , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Like most of ugly America, I initially, unfairly wrote off Community sight unseen as another generic ensemble comedy. Their first paintball episode changed my mind before the third act. A few reruns later, it earned the designation of My New Favorite Show. After a Season 1 DVD viewing binge and an iTunes shopping spree for the first several episodes of season 2, I caught up to the present and proudly stuck around ever after. Not since Futurama has a show mined geek culture so efficiently for so many comedy diamonds. The quick yet incisive character moments and off-the-cuff references fly past the viewer at an Aaron Sorkin fever pitch. The complicated emotional core keeps the study group grounded and bonded without reducing them to typical sitcom caricatures. It’s dense, razor-sharp, off-the-wall, and heartfelt all at once.

Like other fans, I winced and fretted throughout season 3 as it was trounced every week in the ratings by other, inferior, even loathsome shows. My attempts to convince friends of its worth had limited success. A few Internet acquaintances hopped aboard. Some sided with its competition, particularly CBS’ loathsome antithesis, and basically punched me in the heart. I even tried telling family members, but the conversation would have the same disappointing turnout every time. I would mention the show; they would confess they’d never heard of it; I would describe it to them in so many words (neither too many nor too few); they would nod and agree that they should try it sometime; and three minutes later they would forget we had ever spoken.

I was amazed when NBC announced its renewal. My low-rated favorite shows rarely receive a stay of execution. Sometimes a merciful renewal can be a good thing, as when Dollhouse used its season 2 to ratchet everything up several notches and ended with explosive closure. Sometimes it’s a bad thing, as when Veronica Mars used its season 3 to jump every shark in sight (new setting! new characters! loss of old characters! Logan turns to the dark side!) and ended on a despondent cliffhanger.

I had faith that Community would aim for the former over the latter. Of late, NBC has been doling out hints to the contrary, one lamentable update at a time. With that renewal announcement, we were informed the season 4 order would be only thirteen episodes. That’s no guarantee of eventual cancellation, merely a sign they’re proceeding with caution before making a final decision about whether or not to pick up the back nine. Given its underwhelming ratings performance with the all-powerful Nielsen commoners, their reticence is understandable if discouraging.

Later we were told the show would move to Fridays. On Fox this is an unqualified death sentence, especially for a sci-fi show. Community isn’t sci-fi every week, but contains elements. NBC may not be a juggernaut on Fridays, but at least they’re not Fox. Grimm survived its freshman year on Fridays. It can be done.

In that same announcement, we were told its Friday slot will be 8:30 after Whitney. When NBC first aired Whitney on Thursdays after The Office, I don’t recall its ratings topping those of its three lead-ins. After sampling two failed minutes of an unmarried couple communicating entirely through unfunny sex jokes, our household unanimously decided that on every Thursday, 9:30 would conclude our broadcast day. I would hum “The Star-Spangled Banner” in my head and turn the TV off. I am unable to imagine a scenario in which leading off primetime with Whitney will result in Community converting more viewers and surging in popularity.

I’ve had a few days now to convince myself that, short of NBC reversing its decision and axing Community after all, things shouldn’t get any worse.

Today ruined all that when I learned creator Dan Harmon was fired as showrunner:

Just a day after it was announced former Happy Endings writers David Guarascio and Moses Port would take over the Community creator’s showrunner position, Harmon took to his Tumblr page to sound off…

To recap: next season the show will air thirteen episodes on Fridays after Whitney with its creator no longer in charge.

I now wait with bated breath for the next deathly announcement to drop. Will Greendale Community College be replaced with a wacky coffee shop? Will Joel McHale be replaced by Tony Danza? Will Annie turn to the dark side? Will the cast now communicate entirely through unfunny sex jokes? Will Chevy Chase begin receiving an Executive Producer credit? What can go wrong next?

I can count the reasons I should stay. Please tell me, one by one, they all won’t fade away. Pretty please?

Indianapolis Food Trucks Cure Pandemics, Negotiate Worldwide Economic Stability (Part 3 of 3)

May 19, 2012 By in Indiana Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Concluding my recollections of what our local food trucks have done for me. My experiences with the following trucks weren’t exactly scarring, but arguably had margin for improvement. Some cases may have been singular events unlike the average customer’s experience; others may simply not be my cup of tea.

Scratchtruck — Our side of downtown offers very few oases for large, fast burgers. Make no mistake, I was grateful for the chance to try their 1/3-pound Scratch Burgers, topped with bacon marmalade, arugula and gorgonzola. It was worth the money and deserves some repeat business. My fries, which cooled off in no time flat, were less demanding of an encore.

West Coast Tacos — The granddaddy of all trucks, the one that started it all here in Indy. They were the first to specialize in imaginative tacos bereft of cheese, lettuce, or tomatoes. They’re absolutely not a Taco Bell homage. Unfortunately, when I tried three varieties in one meal, the meat on my chicken teriyaki taco tasted as though it had been sitting in a dry marinating pan for hours. As someone who once worked at McDonald’s during a time when they failed at venturing into the fajita market, I know a thing or two about dry marinating pans and the meat they ruin. If I’m wrong and that texture was intentional, then this isn’t my thing after all.

Molly’s Great Chicago Fire — Chicago-style hot dogs with tons of toppings. Great toppings and decent deli-style buns, but on a good day our downtown also has hot dog carts with same-size dogs for half the price. They’re the only truck I know with a breakfast menu (my all-time favorite food group), but I’ve never seen them around in the morning.

Der Pretzel Wagen — I support the concept of pretzels presented in various wondrous forms. My pretzel dogs were great, but when der Wagenmeister asked if I wanted any mustard, I had the audacity to ask for mustard…and ketchup. I could feel the temperature in the air between us drop fifteen degrees as he searched the truck for a packet with such a look. In my defense, I don’t insist on ketchup for every hot dog I eat. I almost never dump it on burgers or fries. Sometimes I’m just in a weird mood and don’t feel responsible for upholding everyone else’s high-falutin’ culinary standards. Besides, if I really wanted to gauche it up, I would’ve asked for Cheez Whiz, or maybe grape jelly.

Groovy Guys Gourmet Fries — Nacho fries, pizza fries, and other variations in the topped-fries genre. The top layer of my steak-‘n’-cheese fries was a small, delectable meal. Below the surface, all that remained were ordinary fries. I had hoped in vain for total meat saturation. They also offered deluxe fry dips such as hummus and sesame ginger sauce — something I should try next time, perhaps, but not as a main dish. I’ll need to pack a sandwich that day.

The following trucks have parked nearby but found ways for me to miss them anyway:

Some of This, Some of That — The first couple times they stopped by, their logo was so hard to read that I couldn’t discern their name well enough from my floor to google them for details. Eventually I caught the name and learned they’re another Cajun truck. I wouldn’t mind trying them, but they’ve mastered the art of hanging out only on days when I have no extra money. That bad timing is totally not their fault, unless they have spy sensors in my wallet and a cruel sense of humor.

Side Wok Dumplings — The first time I noticed them out front, a police car later double-parked near them with lights flashing and hung out for quite a while. The next time they appeared, the sign on their side had been removed. I haven’t seen them since. Their last tweet was five months ago. I’m betting somewhere out there is a great anecdote that connects those sketchy details.

Fat Sammies — An Italian food truck should be a saucy, intoxicating experience. I wish I knew. They pulled away just as I was walking toward them with cash on hand and appetite in stomach. This happened twice. The second time, it was 12:30 on a Friday. As of this writing their last tweet was four months ago. I sense something is amiss.

The list presented in this three-part miniseries is by no means complete. I’m aware of a few trucks that stake out territories outside downtown, and not just in the suburbs. I’ve found this is the biggest drawback to the food truck concept: if you know a specific truck you want to sample, or if you grow too attached to a great one, then you may have to hunt them down. Their collective, lively Twitter presence is a boon for keeping fans and foodies informed of their whereabouts, as are food-truck locator sites such as Roaming Hunger or TruxMap.

More often than not, you’ll have to be patient and wait for them to appear unto you as a pleasant surprise. I like to think the stronger and more popular among them are here to stay. Just the same, check ’em out when the opportunity arises, before a food truck glut begins culling more of the herd…or worse, before someone gives Unigov a reason to brainstorm harsh new rules and regulations to appease their brick-‘n’-mortar competition.

40th Birthday Successfully Celebrated Without Alcohol, Adultery, or ’80s Pop Nostalgia

May 18, 2012 By in Meta, Mundane Tags: , , , , Leave a comment

My 40th birthday, the impending milestone that inspired me to begin chronicling the effects of the aging process on my perceptions of the world around me, has come to pass. The prophecy bespoken by no one in particular has been fulfilled!

With this brand new decade, I expect my body and mind to fall apart a little more quickly. I’ll question my life’s purpose and usefulness a little more stubbornly. I’ll gripe a little more loudly about the entertainment industry and how they cater to everyone’s whims except mine. I’ll be slightly less tolerant of those pesky kids on my lawn, though not quite perturbed enough to chase them myself. All of this assumes it the Lord’s will for me not to drive headlong into a concrete wall tomorrow morning, of course.

So far, no sign of any amplified angst.

It’s my understanding I should be depressed about aging, fussing about my hairline, and wishing I looked hot even though I’m blissfully married. None of that happened today. Admittedly, I already survived the hairline phase last year. I’m glad it hasn’t lingered. I don’t look forward to its resurgence in the future. When it comes to prices we have to pay, though, the hairline is a bargain.

Truth is, I don’t miss my mandatory young-stupid-male years. I’m much more content as a non-young man than I ever was in any given school year. I didn’t spend today moping or waxing nostalgic or listening to ’80s hits over and over again like some of my peers do, as if old Madonna singles were like some kind of aural Fountain of Youth.

My last day at 39 was spent working and playing Final Fantasy VI with my son. My first day at 40 was spent working and dining with family at Bazbeaux Pizza. The two days weren’t radically dissimilar. Yesterday I earned virtual treasures; today, I was blessed with intangible presents and also happened to receive a few tangible ones. I stayed up late last night to confirm I didn’t turn wrinkly or crotchety upon the twelfth peal of the nearest ominous church bell.

Maybe I’m more mellow than I should be because NBC spoiled me with three solid new episodes of Community in a single night. Those alone made today the complete polar opposite of my twelfth birthday, the evening of which I spent wracked with stomach pains while on TV Bobby Ewing was killed in an accident on a show I didn’t want to watch. Fortunately my pain and his death were each temporary. I had thought the show was, too. How generous of Hollywood to knock a perfect score down to two-out-of-three some 28 years after the fact.

This song, I think, sums up my current state of complacency, however misplaced or fleeting:

Just the same, I’ll be steering clear of any and all concrete walls tomorrow. You never know which one has your name on it.

Indianapolis Food Trucks Save Day, Change World for Better (Part 2 of 3)

May 16, 2012 By in Indiana Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Continuing the recount of my encounters with the Indianapolis food truck phenomenon. Although the five trucks I covered in part 1 were extraordinarily good, the following trucks merely ranged from extremely good to very, very good.

The Spice Box — At last, a convenient source of Indian food! The little Indian place we once had near work shut down years ago. No other member of my household will join me at any local establishments such as India Palace or the Shalimar. The Spice Box and their Chicken Tikka Masala cater to a very underserved niche in my palate. Oddly, they can often be seen teaming up with the Mac Genie mac-‘n’-cheese truck for an interesting either/or face-off. Taken together, they’re symbolic of the duality of man.

Taco Lassi — More Indian food, but served Mexican-style with “local ingredients and natural meats.” This sounds wrong, but works well. The Chicken Tandoori won for me last time, but I still need to try the fabled Mango Lassi at some point.

Seoul Grill — Korean tacos! Or, if you need a break from food-truck tacos and don’t insist on meat, try their kimchi quesadillas. I do insist on meat, but don’t let my rules inhibit you.

Gypsy Cafe — Their massive Cuban po-boy is the largest food-truck sandwich I’ve had to date, not to mention one of the most competitively priced. As with Korean and Indian, this is another food group shamefully lacking in my suburb. Some online reviews complain that their use of mayo calls their authenticity into question. I forgive them.

The NY Slice — Pizza truck! Everybody loves pizza! They’re at a disadvantage because they have to compete with a decent brick-‘n’-mortar Enzo Pizza down the block, but the NY Slice has its own charm. I appreciated that they offered options beyond the pepperoni-sausage-cheese Axis of Ho-Hum. Fans of thin pizza might appreciate that their crust isn’t as doughy. Also in the NY Slice’s favor: they’re not a corporate franchise.

Chef Dan’s Southern Comfort — The Catfish Po’boy may not have been as spicy as the other dishes on their Cajun-themed menu, but I was fine with it. It should be noted one of my coworkers didn’t care for the untoasted, unwarmed bun on her sandwich. I don’t deduct points for bun quality unless it’s stale, frozen, or Subway.

To be concluded!

Superman Celebration 2012 to Feature Superboy, Tess Mercer, Satan

May 15, 2012 By in Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

At the southern tip of Illinois and across the Ohio River from Paducah, the small town of Metropolis devotes the second weekend of every June to their world-famous Superman Celebration. More than just a carnival acknowledging their local heritage and history, the Celebration invites tourists from all walks to come join in their festivities. Their Main Street’s center of attention is the also-world-famous Superman Museum, dedicated to their greatest fictional resident, the recently rebooted Superman. Also major draws: the special guests from various Superman movies, TV shows, and other related Super-works who drop by for autographs and Q&As.

This coming June 8th and 9th, my wife and I will be attending our fourth Celebration after previous enjoyable experiences in 2001, 2006, and 2008. The 300-mile drive from Indianapolis to Metropolis against 65-MPH speed limits is not quite my favorite road trip, and we’re not a fan of their casino in any way, but when the Celebration aligns with our schedule, we consider it a weekend well spent.

This year’s guest list as of this writing, subject to change without notice, includes:

John Glover! Normal people know him best as the great and powerful Lionel Luthor, but my favorite Glover role remains that of the Devil himself on the short-lived Fox horror series Brimstone. Peter Horton was necessarily glum and stoic as a resurrected widower charged with returning escaped souls to damnation, while Glover stole all the fun as the sly, charming, yet no less fiendish Prince of Darkness who called the shots and had all the best lines. In addition to voicing the Riddler on Batman: the Animated Series, Glover also earned extra Lionel practice when he played a less-than-commendable one-percenter with a fancy high-rise in the overlooked epic Gremlins 2: the New Batch, recently released on Blu-ray. Glover, more than anyone else, is why my wife and I are pinning this year’s Celebration on our calendar.

Cassidy Freeman! The ambiguously antagonistic Tess Mercer was one of the highlights of Smallville‘s later seasons, much of which we avoided. In those few latter-day episodes I did catch, Freeman was a welcome addition who never disappointed.

Gerard Christopher! I never watched The Adventures of Superboy, but my wife seems eager to meet him, so I’ll assume she did. I bought the first several issues of DC’s accompanying comic series because of spiffy Kevin Maguire covers, but that’s as far as my attention went.

George Perez! I met this legendary comics artist at Wizard World Chicago 1999, but it’ll be great to see what he’s up to these days up close, even if it’s part of DC’s New 52.

Terry Beatty! Co-creator/co-owner of the ’80s hard-boiled detective comic Ms. Tree, and co-creator of DC’s own Iowa vigilante Wild Dog. The costume looks odd today, but I still have my copies and fond memories of the original Wild Dog miniseries and his serial in Action Comics Weekly.

And more! The “Artists and Writers” section on the official site has a couple of names and will surely expand in the weeks ahead. For your small-town festival entertainment, scheduled at various points are strong-man displays, bicycle stunts performed by locals, and a Southern gospel quartet. Of paramount importance is the wonder of deep-fried carnival food, steeped in rich, creamery butter. (Fun trivia: the Superman Celebration is where I first met sweet potato fries. I remember a time when those weren’t a common steakhouse side dish.)

If you prefer to stick to convention-shaped events, your options are a Saturday fan film contest, a dance party, and a Sunday costume contest. Usually I’m a sucker for costume contests (and for posting photo parades online after the fact), but Sunday won’t be doable for us. Dances are no-go as a general rule. As for the fan films…we’ll check our exhaustion levels and plan from there.

I highly recommend keeping tabs on the official Superman Celebration site or their official Facebook page for updates, calamities, and hints about their autograph procedures, which aren’t as simple as “Show up, line up, walk up, win!” In fact, I’ll need to go review those myself…