Home Fried

I've had Sisqo's Thong Song stuck in my head for like seven years.

Seriously, ever since it was released in 2000. I spent the months it was in high rotation singing it constantly as, at the time, it was the most ridiculous song I'd ever heard.

It still pops into my head every week or so.

And really, with the phrase 'dumps like a truck' used as a compliment to the fairer sex, who can blame me?

Follow-up

Remembered another gag. Be warned, crassness and unsavory language ensues:

There's a monkey sitting on a tree in the jungle and he's got an awful case of blue balls. He sees this lion drinking out of a river with its arse in the air. The monkey thinks to himself 'I could jump down, fuck that lion in the arse, and escape before he knows what has happened.'
He does. The lion is dumbstruck.
Realising what has happened the lion sees the monkey swinging off and gives chase. The monkey is swinging through the trees as fast as he can in blind panic as he tries to escape from the understandably-upset lion.
He comes across a human settlement, swings over the fence, dashes into a toilet cubicle and slams the door shut.
Moments later the lion arrives and throws open the door. Inside is the monkey, sitting on the toilet and hiding behind that day's newspaper.
The lion, breathless, asks "have you seen a monkey come through here?"
The monkey responds "you mean the one that fucked a lion up the arse?"
The lion exclaims "Oh no! You mean it's in the paper already?"

I love that gag, for obvious crassness and newspaper industry reasons.

Over the weekend I wrote about comic book origins, their length being inversely proportional to their quality. Here would be mine:

"As a young boy Stefan Delatovic read comic books a lot. Emboldened by his understanding of big words such as 'temporal mechanics' and 'continuum', he went on to get a job as journalist. When he realised that blogs were free, he took to the digital skies as ... himself."

A Cyclops level of interest there.

What's yours?

Guffaws for All

I spend a lot of time joking around, but none telling jokes.

At a dinner party last week I told the only three jokes I know. They rarely elicit more that a polite laugh, and give a possibly terrifying look into my mind.

Here they are:

----

Q: What do you call a fish with no eyes?

A: fsh.

----

Two fish in a tank. One turns to the other and says "how the hell do you drive this thing?"

----

A little girl is being dragged around a department store by her mother in a frenzy of shopping. She looks up at her mother and asks "mum, why are we shopping for a Christmas tree in July?"
The mother replies, "for God's sake Kristy, you know you have leukaemia."

----

That's right, the only three jokes I've retained. Two are about fish, one involved childhood death.

Ho hum.

Anybody know any jokes I can add to the repertoire?

Comic Book Origins

It is often said - quite correctly - that a good superhero needs a snappy origin.

The most popular of superheroes have origins that can be relayed in one or two snappy sentences. It keeps them accessible. It distils the essence of the character so a new reader can pick up a book and go with a good idea on who they're reading about.

Comic book stories never end. Much like soap operas they go on indefinately, adding more and more stories until no-one could conceivably know everything a character has ever done, let alone relay it to someone else. With this in mind, the snappy origin is a much-needed touchstone.

For example, here's a snappy origin:

Bitten by a radioactive spider, Peter Parker gained fantastic powers. When his thoughtless inaction led to the death of his uncle Ben, he learned that great power came with great responsibility, and vowed to fight crime as Spiderman.

There may be more behind Spiderman's enduring appeal - his everyman status for example - but the origin above gives readers enough to get started. It grounds the character. You remember where he came from.

Here's an origin that is .... less than snappy.

Nathan Christopher Charles Summers was sent to live in the future by his parents, the leaders of X-Factor, when as a baby he was infected by a techno-organic virus by the immortal villain Apocalypse. Raised in the future under the name Nathan Dayspring by his time-displaced sister and later his time-travelling father and the woman his mother was cloned from, he fought Apocolypse, who had grown into a tyrant. When he travelled back to the present to defeat his own clone Stryfe, he struggled to defeat Apocoalype and prevent his rise to power. With that done, he works to fight evil and prevent the bleak future he was raised in from coming to pass. He is Cable.

While continuity-loving comic fans would love an origin like that, it's impossible to relate to someone unfamiliar with the character.

It's too convoluted. While Cable is a popular character, he'll never be a Spiderman. There'll never be a Cable movie that can connect with the masses. Of course, with Spidey 3 out there gumming up the universe, that may be a secret blessing.

Here's some other superhero origins done right:

When Bruce Wayne's parents are gunned down by a mugger, he vows to use turn fear into a weapon and clean up Gotham city as Batman.

Born into a world that hates and fears them for their genetic birthright, the X-Men fight for a world of peaceful co-existence between humans and super-powered mutants.

As the last son of the planet Krypton, Clark Kent has fantastic powers which he uses to defend the people of his new home, the planet earth. He is Superman.

Scientist Bruce Banner was changed forever when he was caught in a Gamma bomb explosion while saving an innocent man. Now, whenever he gets angry, he changes into the The Incredible Hulk, a gigantic, green monster whose super strength is limited only by his rage!

I've always thought the concept of the X-Men was a great antidote for writers unable to come up with a constant stream of interesting origins. Mutants pop-up as the next stage in evolution, allowing a steady stream of superpowered beings with no need for explanation. Elegant.

Of course, it means that many of the X-Men, while interesting characters, are robbed of the interesting origin.

When Scott Summers was born he could shoot lasers from his eyes. He wears red glasses and is called Cyclops.

Oh well.

Molasses

Download ... cap ... exceeded.

Broadband ... shaped. Dialup speeds ... sapping all enthusiasm for internet.....

Soul .... hurting.

Finance, White people, Shafting: An exercise in rambling

To celebrate me starting work at 9am today for the first time in two weeks after a luxurious three-day weekend, I'm going to belch random thoughts. For reference - this is how I'm doing today.

Paragraphs are for the organised. I am anything but.

Jay pointed me towards Things White People Like. Hilarity, and eerie accuracy, ensue.

This blogging thing is a double-edged sword. On one hand, if someone at a dinner party says: "Greetings Stefan! I enjoyed your piece on the apology," it's a nice feeling. However, if later at the same soiree you launch into a spirited anecdote, only to realise too late that some have already read that story on your blog, it can get a bit awkward. "Oh yes Stefan. I'm already well aware of your stance against Little Britain. I read it on your blog, when you had the benefit of editing and were not drunk. It was an entertaining aside, but is deeply unfunny the second go around: quite unlike Little Britain."

This company makes plush toys that are accurate recreations of viruses and microbes, just millions of times their actual size. I dearly want a Sleeping Sickness microbe to rest on my pillow.
"Stefan! What is that delightful object nestled in your boudoir?"
"Oh him? He's just something I picked up to help me sleep." The jokes write themselves.

I nice man recently invited me into his office to discuss my superannuation. It went well and we decided to make some changes to my policy that I barely understand. The wheels fell off when he asked me for my Tax File Number. Is a Tax File Number the sort of thing people carry on their person? That certainly seemed to be the expectation. It was assumed I had the number on hand, or could at least produce it at short notice.
The man is very polite. This is evidenced by his ability to gently ignore my poor grasp on personal finance. I still don't have the number. I failed to return his last phone call. I feel bad about it.

Cracked has published the results of its latest photoshop competition, where it asked readers to produce children's book covers. They're hilarious, and often hilariously wrong. I'm a fan of this one:



















Subtle, but effective.

The writers of the television show Dexter manage to elicit sympathy for their protagonist despite him being an emotionless sociopath. I envy their ability.

Inserting an ecstasy tablet anally apparently produces much the same affect as taking it orally, with the added bonus of a tingly arse. I don't see myself using the information in any way, but life is richer in the knowing.

Public support for the Australian Government's Apology to the Stolen Generation has apparently jumped sharply since sorry was said. Results bitches.

Deja Vu

I'm right in the middle of the movie Deja Vu.

Denzel Washington is a detective investigating a terrorist attack. Typical action fare.

However, 30 minutes in he was taken to a secret base where scientists watch a giant TV that's always showing what happened four days in the past! It makes no sense, but this is just the kind of abject craziness I love.

This thing is nuts. At the moment he's involved in a car chase while wearing goggles that can see through time. He's chasing a car that's driving four days ago while trying to avoid the cars on the road at the present moment.

Now he's watching his partner - four days from retirement perhaps - be murdered days ago, while seeing the crocodiles that have already digested him.

Apparently the case can be solved by following the life of a murdered woman. Denzel is of course falling in love with her while spending days spying on her in the shower. He's only met her in the flesh though, holding her mutilated hand after she died - - four days ago!

This movie is ridiculous. Awesome ridiculous.





















EDIT: The ending sucks. This, my friends, is a message from me to you, from the future.

TV I love: Lost

This is the first in what I hope will be a series of articles examining TV shows I enjoy. I'm not making a concerted effort to keep spoilers out, so be aware. If you find it boring as hell, just tell me and I'll stop.

A plane violently crashes on an island. The survivors quickly realise that they are - wait for it - lost. Not only that, but there are strange things happening on the island they now call home.

When that plane goes down it kicks off one of the smartest shows to come along in a good long while.

Lost is not an easy show. It is not a show for the casual viewer. It demands your attention. It demands your brain. It is not for everyone and it is not an overstatement that you must watch every episode - in the correct order - to enjoy it.

That's why I love it.

All too often television talks down to the viewer, with episodes endlessly recapping the basic concept or setting a status quo that will never change.
Lost is smart and it isn't afraid to treat its audience as smart. It expects something from you - your brain. Rising to the challenge is what makes it so enjoyable.

Each epsiode of Lost follows a basic structure. The main story features the current-day trials of the crash survivors as they struggle to survive on the island. This is intercut with a series of flashbacks into the lives of one character each week. In the best episodes these two stories are connected - the past affecting the present before your eyes. It's a masterstroke of storytelling that keeps the action current while keying into the characters. You care about these people because you know so much about them.

Much of the intrigue stems from the mysterious island. The castaways encounter out of place animals, a tribe of people who were already there, a mysterious monster made of smoke and man-made hatches in the ground. It's a slow burn. Patience is required as mysteries established in season one have yet to be answered. This leads to much of the criticism that is leveled at the show - that nothing really happens and mysterious are never answered. Honestly? There's truth to that. You either enjoy the ride and the joy of constant theorising or you don't. If you need things wrapped up quickly and obviously then this isn't the island for you.

Early in the run when things were at their murkiest, it was the characters that drew me in. Their flashback-driven development was the main selling point while they struggled with basic issues such as survival and hope for rescue.
As the mystery has deepened and more has been revealed the balance has changed and the plot has taken over from the characters. Now we know who these people are we are truly invested in what's happening to them - so that shifts into focus. The pace is quickening and - with an audience trained to be drip fed - the newest season is giving us whiplash with its quick pacing. Season 4 is now only two episodes in and is already pushing as one of my favourites. No momentum has been lost between seasons, as was the case in previous years.

What I love about the show can be summed up by the season three finale.
By then the flashback device was beginning to grow somewhat stale. Most of the surprises and insights to be gleamed had gone by and links were becoming purely thematical. The finale turned it all on its head by revealing in its closing moments that we were watching a flashforward - to a time when some surivors had escaped the island, and were having a crummy time. That's why Lost is so good. The end-of-season twist was not one of story, but one of format, and it was more exciting than 100 bombs in the Summer Bay diner. It also subverted the expectation that the show's natural conclusion would be an escape/resuce from the island, by jumping past that and making clear that the story was not over.
The island action was crisp and exciting, giving each cast member a chance to shine and paying off tension that had built for seasons.

How should you watch it? On DVD. In a marathon watching as many episodes as possible back-to-back.

I love TV

You know those people who endlessly watch, eat and breathe movies? Well that's me with TV. Love it. I enjoy nothing more than picking up a full season on DVD and tearing through the sucker in a day. You may find this hard to believe given my rippling physique and inability to see objects four feet away, but I spend a lot of time on the couch watching a shiny screen.

If I woke up tomorrow and my legs had been replaced with a beanbag-like structure containing drink and chip holders, I'd see that as evolution.

The weird thing is, I watch a lot of television shows, but I never watch television broadcasts. With the exception of the ocassional jaunt onto the trashy Reality TV highway, there's really nothing being broadcast here that I want to watch.

That's a pretty damning call from a guy who believes TV has overtaken cinema as the premiere medium for visual storytelling.

Australian TV sucks. Television stations treat their audience like idiots by dripfeeding them US shows that are months out of date. When they screen something within a month of the US broadcast they champion it as a marvel of customer service. They refuse to invest in local programming. They hamstring any technology that may improve the medium. Digital TV languishes in mediocrity as they block multichanelling. TiVO is coming to Australia next year, but will be supported by next to no channels and thus will be a shadow of its US counterpart.

Because of all this, much of the television I watch is in blocks. Watching shows in one 45 minute block a week is virtually a thing of the past. I'm watching movies. Twelve hour movies. There's a lot of scope there. It's a robust storytelling medium. Having been exposed to that for so long, it shows the cracks in traditional films. The shorthand they're forced to use. There's little time to grow with the characters.

That doesn't invalidate film as a medium by any means. It's just my preference. Print journalists adhere to different guidelines as those operating on radio. Both have obvious value.

I'm in it for the long haul though. It's TV all the way.

This was supposed to be a paragraph-long intro so I could outline some of the shows I'm enjoying at the moment, but my love of the medium shines through, as does my inability to keep things concise.

I'm sure I'll get into some actual programs later, if I can turn off the TV.

Sorry! Sorry 'bout all that!

I'm going to watch the telecast of the Australian Government's apology to Indigenous Australians alone in a locked room, so no-one can destroy my moment of pride with their racist bullcrap.

Unless I'm with my closest circle of friends, it seems impossible for the topic of race to come up in conversation in a way that doesn't have me boiling with rage.

I'm constantly amazed that no matter who they are or how smart they appear, almost anyone I meet comes out with some racist something or other after a while.
Being born into the race that's sadly on top of the pile, these remarks are never targeted at me. The offense I take to them is often written off as trivial or misplaced, like the thought of me standing up for other human beings is something strange and unnerving.

But I suppose that's the whole point of racism, the belief that some people are not like us. Not as good as us.

That's just crazy.

What's equally crazy is that people can seemingly hold these beliefs at arms length from the rest of themselves. I never reached down deep and flicked some kind of 'empathy switch' in my brain. I wasn't always this way either. My spongey teenage brain got swept up in the racist ranting of my peers just as easily as it was convinced to believe that my life would not be complete without Doc Martins.

I overcame both beliefs - those shoes were amazing comfortable, but took 15 minutes to put on each day - and it never seemed like such a big deal. The thought process was just "well, I like being treated good. Maybe others like that too. Maybe I should tell them how comfortable my shoes are while I'm at it."

I copped my fair share of crud at school. We all did. But it faded away. What if it didn't? That would suck. It does suck.

Taking a stance against racism is tough. If you're part of the minority under attack, it can be laughed off as self-interest. If you're not, it can be dismissed as empty altruism.

There is nothing altruistic in a belief that people should be treated well and on their own merits. My belief in such a concept is the self-serving one. I am a person, after all.

So I'm going to sit and quietly watch as our government expresses its empathy for a race of people who have been caused unneccessary pain. I will spend the rest of that week with cotton wool in my ears, so I can pretend everyone else was watching too.

Little Britain. Tiny Laughs.

If I watched Little Britain in a vacuum, viewing the first episode having heard nothing about it, would I still despise it?

In reality, my first viewing of Little Britain was simply an epilogue to the story titled "Stefan Stands Bemused as All Around Him Bark Catchphrases as Quickly and Loudly as Possible Before Laughing Like Drains". See? Even the fictional story based on the experience sounds ungainly and uninteresting.

My repeated queries of "what is that from?" were met with a detailed retelling of the sketch, including any and all catchphrases.

When I eventually saw the show, I was to busy thinking "hmm, that's where this 'dust' thing comes from" to get any laughs out of it. It was a bloodless experience, beaten to death before I even saw it.

It had its moments but I feel it fell far short of the hype. An episode in isolation elicited laughs, but subsequent installments contained the same sketches, and gave the impression that I was watching an exercise in drilling catchphrases into the minds of the masses rather than an ongoing sketch comedy program.

I have to wonder though, is this the fault of the show? Or did it's popularity simply weigh it down before I jumped aboard? How many songs have I loved to death before repeated airplay turned me against them? I suppose I'll never know.

When I was in high school my friends would alternate between quoting Monty Python and wondering why we had no friends. I no longer wonder.

Moving pictures

Inspired by numerous 'Best of' lists scattered around the internet at the moment, here's some of the coolest videos I found floating around in the recent past.
I collect these here partly to form my own link in the endless viral chain, and partly to make it easier on myself when I want to repeatedly watch them.

Daft Hands. Awesome song. Impressive dexterity.



Tracey Jordan interview. Further evidence that his 30 Rock character - the similarly named "Tracey Morgan", is rooted firmly in reality. He successfully rhymes "Captain Kirk" with "Vietnam".



Body Fusion. Hilaroius digital short from SNL. See also "Dick in a Box" and "I Ran", which I sadly couldn't find.



Will Ferrell's Landlord. Really, really funny.



Don't Tase me bro! A disturbing look at police behaviour, tempered by the victim's unrelenting douchebaggery.



Zombie Kid Likes Turtles. I want to be him. So free.



Also, click on the Video label below or on the right sidebar to see some of the videos I've posted in the past - you owe it to yourself to watch "What What?"

A good run

I've had a surprisingly good run with movies of late.

While I'm a TV addict I don't see a lot of movies, owing mainly to the effort involved. Cinema? Too much planning involved. Video? expensive due to my laziness. Internet? Takes too long to arrive and sucks my download limit into oblivion.

My brother manages a video shop across the lane from my place of work. Despite this, and my tendency to visit once or twice a day within said store, I can still manage to leave a new release DVD sitting at home for over a week. If I still had the money given over in late fees, I would be wearing solid gold pants right now.

Most of the movies I end up watching I see through one eye while I'm working nights. This leads me to pick titles I don't want to devote my entire attention to, and leads me to pick a lot of sub-par stuff. It has taught me that movies about two animals fighting each other can be quite good - but only if the animals are genetically modified in some way. It can be surprising when 'Shark versus Crocodile' turns out to involve animals that both conduct electricity, but in a good way.

Despite all this, the last half-a-dozen or so films I've seen have been really good. I intended to write out some full reviews, but my laziness in viewing cinmea must carry over to writing about it as well.

Who knew?

Anyway, here's some quick thoughts on some films I've seen recently and would recommend. Note that my seeing them recently has no bearing on their release date. I again point to my earlier confession, regarding pervasive laziness.

Juno. A fantastic film about a young girl who falls pregnant and decides to give the baby to a couple in need. A descent into overt sweetness is threatened but never comes, with the film balancing touching moments and cutting humour expertly. Michael Cera and Jason Bateman steal every scene they're in. Ellen Page's teenage Juno is sympathetic and hilarous, with the kind of idealised confidence, support and wit that makes it impossible not to identify with/envy her. Highly recommended.

Sweeney Todd. Musical about a murderous barber in ye olde England. A strange as it sounds. Reinforces my opinion that any Burton/Depp collaboration is worth a look. Watched this on a Sunday afternoon while alternatively ironing and sitting next to someone who was ironing. Well suited to that task, but not as entertaining as the trailer suggested. Who knew they could mislead?. Reminded my of Superbad, in that I enjoyed the film, but was out of step with the unadulterated adulation heaped upon it.
Well worth a look.

Shoot 'Em Up. Within the first 15 minutes our hero - Clive Owen - kills a man with a carrot while delivering the line 'always eat your vegetables', delivers a baby mid-shootout and cuts an umbilical cord by firing a gun. At that point you either love it or hate it, and your opinion will not be changed. Hundreds are killed by thousands of bullets in the hope of saving a baby and lactating prostitute. Viewed as a collection of highly choreographed shoot-outs it's great fun. The story is hamstrung in the end when a 'guns are bad' message is introduced, striking a bum note amongst the guilt-free violent excess. A rridiculous film I highly enjoyed. Much fun to be had for the right audience. Tortue for everyone else.

Stardust. Boy meets girl. Girl adopts superior attitude and chooses bastard instead. Boy seeks to win girl's heart by crossing into a fantastical dimension and retreiving a fallen star. A lyrical modern fairytale as only Neil Gaiman can create - the film is based on Gaiman's original story. Weaves quite a few narrative strands together neatly. Buoyed by some excellent performances. Robert DeNiro's turn as an effeminate pirate going undercover as a tough guy nicely underlines the film's playful strangenes, even if his scene adds to the middle a bit. For this nerd, it was refreshing to see a fight between a witch and a swordsmen with a realistic conclusion. The ghostly peanut gallery added a lot. Highly recommended.

Happy Feet. Missed this when it came out as Pixar-lite shovelware has dampened my taste for animated films. Certainly worth the warm reception I distantly remember. Sincere and affecting with a lot of solid gags. Animation was excellent. Impressive for daring to set such a fanciful tale in the real world - complete with human interaction - and pulling it off. The real world is cast in a rose-coloured hue, but that's to be expected. Great use of music. Lots to get depressed about through the middle but it makes the ending sweeter. Well worth watching if you're as out of touch as I.

Se7en. Watched this when it came out twelve years ago but was in the wrong environment and paid no attention. That's a shame as it's an excellent film. Inspired to revisit it by Zodiac, an excellent movie also by director David Fincher. Seven involves the old chestnut of 'murders on a theme' - in this case a man committing seven murders evoking the deadly sins by way of bizarre contraptions and methods. Unlike subsequent, paler films working in the same ballpark - such as the Saw franchise - Seven uses the device as a springboard to greater heights and turns out a dark, moody tale. Excellent performances, particularly from Kevin Spacey. Murders are kept off screen to allow focus on the real meat of the tale - the characters. While never named, the fictional city is felt through every washed-out frame. An oppressive force that sticks with you. It was only after watching that I realised that the feeling in my gut had not been manufactured through gore or jump scares, but through atmosphere and tension. Depressingly rare these days. Well worth watching, as I'm sure you already have.

What about everyone else? Seen any good films lately?

One more day ... with the devil!!

If you're not reading Spiderman comics at the moment, you may be unaware that they've gone batshit crazy.

I've been reading Spidey since I first picked up comics. He's a prime example for why I've always gravitated towards Marvel's cast of character. Marvel's heroes are real people. Of course they have fantastic powers, but they're often welded onto an all-too-frail human frame, flaws included.

Spiderman - or Peter Parker - fights crime by night but by day he's a regular joe who puts up with his fair share of life crap. He's someone you can identify with.

Tangent: When I was a kid I really wanted to be Spiderman. I stopped wanting that when I realised there were no tall buildings in my city, thus dooming me to a life of stopping crimes only if they occurred within 12 metres of the central post office's clock spire. I gave up on being Wolverine after a similar realisation - that his awesome powers would allow one great adventure and then life in a prison for grisly knife murderers.

So of course the most recent Spiderman story centres around him making a deal with the devil, who saves his elderly aunt's life by rewriting history in exchange for erasing Peter's marriage so he can feed on the love it contains. Totally why I read Spiderman.

Seriously, last week I accidently burned down my Mars house, killing the family Cattodarg in the process. I was cut up about it but luckily Satan strolled by and swapped my lifesize Tanooki Suit collection for a small rewrite in history. Now I'm happily a journalist in Australia, Satan is enjoying the satisfaction I no longer recall and the Cattodarg is - I assume - safe and sound. Somewhere.

You wouldn't remember any of that of course. Because of Satan.

Tangent: Like many sci-fi writers before me, I came up with a name for my new Cattodarg creature by combining two existing names and slightly altering the spelling. Come with me now as we assault the Mad King Georboosh in his Wheathoossien Stronghold. Also, Catdog was an awesome show, with an even better theme song.

So, in the interest of spoiling everything, Spiderman had publicly revealed his secret identity recently. This led a sniper to his house and a bullet to his aunt's abdomen. Exhausting all other options, he was confronted by Mephisto - Marvel's satanic stand-in - who offered the deal. He wanted Peter's marriage and would save Aunt May. He would do this by making it so no-one had ever known Peter's identity, assumedly meaning the bullet was now sitting alone and unloved, wondering why 'Aunt May' was clearly written on it.

Peter's wife Mary-Jane convinced him to take the deal and the history was changed. He is no longer married, has no memory of ever having been and is basically reset to who he was thirty years ago - living with his aunt and being a zany single guy.

Within the story, Satan's only apparent change in history was to erase the memory of Spiderman's identity from everyone's mind. In a butterfly effect kind of way, this apparently erased the marriage at the same time.

The thing is, Marvel's editor-in-chief Joe Quesada has spent years complaining about Spiderman being married. He feels it makes the character inaccessible and removes him from his roots as an 'everyman'. Putting aside the fact that the character has been married as long as I've been reading, and I certainly had now trouble identifying with him, does not dealing with Satan lead to inaccessibility?

Tangent: If my experiences with heavy metal enthusiasts give anything to go by: Absolutely.

It's impossible to read this storyline without seeing, between the lines, a blinking light that says "I'm the editor and I wanted to get rid of this marriage. Where's my Satan?"

As unimportant as it may be to almost all human beings, I likes me some comics. Measured on a long enough scale, none of them make any sense. Batman's broken spine? Healed. Superman's age? Same now as it ever was. Captain America? No longer a werewolf.

Tangent: Yeah, I have a lot to say about Spiderman. I could also talk for this long on Drow. Tread carefully.

While we're on the whole 'Cap was werewolf' thing - comics aren't all that realistic. What they do have, when written well, if internal consistency. I appreciate that, and broad stroke revisionist stuff like the current Spidey situation push that aside. Characters come back from the dead all the time, but time is paid to make it work within the story. They were frozen. They were abducted. They healed very slowly. They were replaced by an actress sixteen months ago. It's crazy, but its believable in a highly suspended sort of way.

When Satan erases the knowledge of Spiderman's identity from everyone's brain, it apparently dissolves his marriage, saves his aunt from a gutshot, reanimates his dead best friend and does lot of other crazy stuff. This, at the moment at least, lacks internal consistency.

I love mythologies. I love Lost, Twin Peaks, comic books and movies. What I don't like is feeling like my investment in mythologies is a waste of time because I seem to pay more attention to how it works than the creators. I'll spend hours internally rationalising all the weird stuff that happens to Locke on the LOST island. If Mephisto rocks up there and changes history so it becomes 'LOST in a box factory with a paralysed man', I'll likely stop watching.

Unless he shoot webs. That'd be awesome.

Tangent: My spellchecker tried to turn Batman into Boatman. I'd totally read that.