The Legend of Brian Peacock

I went to my first Potomac Nationals game yesterday. Fun facts you may not know about the P-Nats:

1) There's a Ben's Chili Bowl in the stadium, one of only four in the entire country.

2) Albert Pujols used to play there when the team was a St. Louis affiliate.

3) The owner of the team is the first base coach. (Shades of Jackie Moon!) He's also one of only two people in MLB still allowed to wear #42, Jackie Robinson's number, because he was wearing it before it was retired.

Of course, part of the appeal of minor league ball is the idea that you might get to see the superstars of tomorrow, but given that it's just Class A ball--even Class A-Advanced--it felt more like a college game. I don't know if any of these guys are going to get called up to the majors, but if you were taken in, say, the 19th...20th...39th round of the draft, you have to figure the odds are against you. But it was still a decent enough game, with the P-Nats eventually beating the Salem Red Sox 7-3. And for only $12 a ticket, it's hard to argue you didn't get your money's worth.

But I mainly want to talk about a player named Brian Peacock. Designated hitter, part-time catcher.

When he was introduced, I noticed that he got more cheers than any of the other P-Nats, and it turns out that's because he's been there for four years.

On his second at-bat, he hit to the shortstop, who threw the ball to first. As the ball was on its way, Peacock fucking hurtled himself headfirst towards first base, actually going airborne. The first baseman caught the ball and tried to tag him while Peacock was mid-air (and if we're being totally honest, I'm pretty sure he did) but Peacock landed right on first base and the umpire called him safe. Peacock got up and seemed like he might be injured, or at least winded. But then he just dusted himself off and tucked his jersey back in. It was an amazing play.

Grabbing a soda between innings, I noticed a table that was selling game-used bats for $15 each. They had all been cracked while hitting, and then autographed by the player who'd last swung it. I went over, looked at them, and right there, was a well-worn Louisville Slugger with a large crack in the handle, a little tag on it that said "Peacock," and was signed "BP 13." So I figured, what the hell, and bought it. While I was waiting for my change, the guy working the table and I made small talk. He said Peacock was having a great season.

(Going back to my seat, a grown man holding an autographed baseball bat, I felt more than a little stupid, and if anyone around me had asked, I was fully prepared to say it was a gift for a non-existent nephew. But fortunately, it never came up.)

Not long afterwards, Peacock was up to bat again. He got in his stance, the pitcher threw the ball, and...BANG. It hit him right in the helmet. Peacock just dropped to the ground.

When athletes get hurt, we're sort of conditioned to see them roll around and grimace a bit, and then get up, shake it off, and get back to work. But Peacock didn't get up. In fact, he didn't even move.

He was on his back for about 15 minutes, as various people, including the other team's trainer, and eventually, the EMTs, tended to him. A few of Peacock's fans shouted some unkind--though under the circumstances, surprisingly PG--words at the pitcher who'd hit him. I'm not sure how people knew before it happened, but word spread through the crowd that he was going to be airlifted to the trauma center in Fairfax. And sure enough, a few minutes later, a helicopter flew into view, circled around a couple of times, and landed outside the stadium.

Peacock was put on a gurney and wheeled out of the ballpark, as everyone--his teammates, the fans, and the other team--applauded. And then he put up one hand, and waved to the crowd. Since no one in the stands even knew whether or not he was conscious at that point, it was a great thing to see, and people cheered even louder. I'd say there were about 1,500 people in the stadium. If it had been a major league ballpark, the noise would have been deafening.

Hopefully, Peacock will make a full recovery, and he'll get promoted. I'd love to see him play at Nationals Park one day. But regardless of whether he does, this is now my favorite piece of sports memorabilia that I own.

I mean, granted, it's not like there's a whole lot of competition in that category. My former favorite piece of sports memorabilia is a D.C. Armor hat signed by Chuck Brown. But still. It's pretty damn cool.

Summer Movie Scorecard 2010

Have Seen:

Survival of the Dead: B+
Iron Man 2: B+
MacGruber: B-
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time: C

Definitely Seeing:

Jonah Hex
Predators
Inception
The Other Guys
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
The Expendables
Piranha 3-D

Might See:

Get Him to the Greek
The A-Team
Toy Story 3
Grown Ups
Knight and Day
The Sorcerer's Apprentice
Salt
Dinner for Schmucks
I Love You Phillip Morris
The Last Exorcism
Machete

Gary Coleman

He played a black president before black presidents became vogue in this country.

He met David Hasselhoff. (And KITT!)

He reassured kids everywhere that if our parents died, a rich businessman might adopt us and bring us to live in his penthouse with his hot daughter.

He owned a famous catchphrase.

Not only did he guest star on The Simpsons...

...but he had his own Saturday morning cartoon.

I know Gary Coleman had a tough life, especially towards the end. But he also did more cool shit than most of us ever will.

Panel of the Week

From Whatever Happened to Baron Von Shock? #1:

Clinton would have LOVED this

Yesterday:

Apparently, this is what Norfolk, VA feels is an effective way of selling itself to potential vacationers.

In the distance, you might notice a girl dressed up as a mermaid. You could have had your picture taken with her, if you'd been so inclined. I didn't, but I'm not going to lie: I was a little bit tempted. Getting my picture taken with a mermaid in front of the White House doesn't seem like the sort of opportunity that's ever going to present itself again.

Now, some might say that, given the location, a display like is in poor taste. I couldn't disagree more. Personally, I think the founding fathers would have approved. In fact, I think most of them probably would have left their wives for the girl on the right in a heartbeat, assuming that the Segway didn't freak them out, and they had her burned as a witch.

6/4

The most I've ever paid for a Nationals ticket was about $60 when the Red Sox came to town last year. At the start of the season, the Nationals announced that there would be a "ticket lottery" to determine who'd have the chance to buy single-game tickets to the Red Sox series, stressing, of course, that the only way to be guaranteed entrance to what the Nats were all but hyping as a once-in-a-lifetime event, was to buy a season ticket package. Not long before the Red Sox arrived, there were tons of single-game tickets available due to lack of demand, and the Nats just pretended that the whole ticket lottery business had ever happened. So I figured, "Hey, it's the Red Sox. Why not?" and ponied up the dough.

A couple of weeks ago, when Stephen Strasburg fever was really ramping up around here, lots of people were targeting June 4th as his likely MLB debut. It made sense: He wasn't going to start before then, and by that point, he'd have completed the number of innings in the minors that the Nationals had said they wanted him to pitch, and by starting him June 4th, he'd be able to pitch two home games in a row against less-than-stellar opponents. So even though my plan had been to wait until the official announcement to buy tickets, so as not to end up going to see a just a regular Strasburg-less game, I knew that they'd start selling out fast once word filtered around. So I went ahead and pulled the trigger, getting some really good seats for June 4th.

And sure enough, people started buying. As of Wednesday morning, there are still seats available, but all the cheaper options are gone, and unless you're going alone or with a big group, it appears as though Ticketmaster's making it hard to pay anything less than $63 a ticket.

Of course, the problem is that even though June 4th is the presumptive date (I've noticed that over the past week on PTI, whenever there's a Strasburg story, Wilbon has started referring to it as if it's set in stone), the Nationals refuse to make it official, leading people like me who have tickets for that game wondering whether or not they just wasted their money on seeing a Cincinnati Reds game.

I wish I could be Mr. Loyal Hometown Fan, here, and say that the important thing is just being able to root for my team in person. But screw that. I want to see Strasburg.

I don't go to that many Nats games, because frankly, I'm not a die hard baseball fan. I went on opening day. I'll probably go on Ryan Zimmerman bobblehead night, and maybe one or two more games this season. But on the whole, it's just not worth it once the initial thrill of being in the stadium wears off after the third inning or so. The fact that decent seats cost a lot more than they probably should, given the Nats' performance, also has a lot to do with it. Maybe all those seats along the third base line wouldn't always be so empty if they didn't cost $70 each.

(Incidentally, I might be going to a Potomac Nationals game this weekend. You know how much it costs to see a minor league game while sitting in approximately the same location that would cost $300 at Nationals Park? $12. There are days where I'd happily ship the Nationals out to Woodbridge or Bowie if it meant getting the P-Nats or Baysox closer to home.)

Do the right thing, Mr. Kasten and Mr. Riggleman. After so many missteps from this franchise over the past few years, just do this one good thing for the fans, and start Strasburg on June 4th. (And of course, by "fans," I mean just the ones that already bought tickets. I don't really care about the ones who haven't.) Start him on June 4th, because from a business point of view, it makes sense for you guys. Hell, start him on June 4th because June 4th looks a lot like July 4th, and what do we celebrate on July 4th? America. So by not starting him June 4th, you're basically spitting on this country a month before its birthday.

Hey, whoa, no, stop. Don't think about my logic. Just accept it, okay?

The Fringe DC Universe

I watched Fringe when it first came on, and kind of enjoyed it. But then about halfway through the first season, I missed a couple of episodes, realized I didn't really care, and that was that.

But then last week, I heard about a pretty clever gimmick on the show. In the season finale, the characters went to an alternate Earth and encountered their alternate Earth counterparts (who are naturally evil, though sadly, not goateed).

And in one scene, they also encountered alternate versions of several famous comic book covers.

For example, here's the cover of Green Lantern #76:

Here's the same comic from the alternate Earth on Fringe:

Obviously, the new cover is nowhere near as good as the original. Hal Jordan looks like he's on steroids, and I guess Neal Adams didn't exist on the other Earth, which probably contributed to it being so bleak. I also really hate "Red Lantern" as a superhero name. Green Lantern just rolls right off the tongue. Red Lantern? Not so much.

So if we were scoring which Earth has the better version of the comic--and guess what? We are--it would be:

Our Earth's Comics: 1
Alternate Earth's Comics: 0


Here's Superman #75 (the famous "Death of Superman" issue) and its alternate Earth counterpart:

On our Earth, the whole issue is little more than Superman and Doomsday trading blows with each other, and right after finally defeating him, Superman dies in Lois Lane's arms. There's no way of knowing how this storyline played out on the alternate Earth, but if it was Doomsday vs. Batman, that must have been the shortest issue ever, ending with a big red mist where Batman was last standing.

But regardless of how Batman dies, Superman #75 is also a pretty horrible comic; a mindless extended fight scene intentionally drawn with big, one-panel pages to attract all the attention-deficit fanboys who were flocking to Image at the time. So it's hard to imagine the alternate Earth's version being any worse.

Our Earth's Comics: 1
Alternate Earth's Comics: 1

Nowadays, comic book characters die and come back to life like there's a revolving door for superheroes in Heaven. But back in 1985, they mostly tended to stay dead. So when Supergirl was killed off in Crisis on Infinite Earths #7, that was a major "Holy shit!" moment. I was a kid and had just really started reading comics when this issue came out and had no idea what a "Holy shit!" moment was, and even I knew that was a "Holy shit!" moment.

But instead of Supergirl, imagine if DC had killed off Superman. Not like the way "Death of Superman" killed off Superman, where it was clearly temporary, but really killed off Superman. That "Holy shit!" moment would have been 100 times as huge.

Our Earth's Comics: 1
Alternate Earth's Comics: 2

I'm not saying a Justice League with Jonah Hex as a member wouldn't be a blast. But not at the expense of Guy Gardner.

Our Earth's Comics: 2
Alternate Earth's Comics: 2

The Dark Knight Returns is one of the all-time great Batman stories, and as far as I'm concerned, the first issue maybe has the best cover in the history of comics. But let me get this straight: Batman takes Superman's place in Superman #75, and Superman takes Batman's place in Dark Knight Returns? Wow, to say Batman got royally screwed on the alternate Earth is an understatement. To add insult to injury, over there, Christopher Nolan probably directed Superman Begins and The Man of Steel, while Bryan Singer made an ill-advised continuation of the Joel Schumacher Batman films.

Our Earth's Comics: 3
Alternate Earth's Comics: 2

So there you go. The alternate Earth on Fringe may have better technology and 9/11 may have never happened, but people are evil and more importantly, its comics suck.

All of a sudden, this Earth doesn't seem like such a terrible place to live.

24: 3:00 p.m.-4:00 p.m

Thoughts:

-- Wait, how is it that Jack's sleeper hold has put down 200-pound men for an hour or more, but Chloe wakes up after two minutes? Whatever. It's the last episode. I'll let it slide.

-- Normally, I'm not one to question Jack's plans, but I have to think there were at least a dozen better ways out of that situation than having Chloe shoot him.

-- Why the hell would you put your ear that close to Jack's mouth? Given the carnage in the past few episodes, a partially bitten-off ear isn't all that impressive, but it was still a nice moment. Especially since Jason screams like a girl.

-- Damn it. Why did President Taylor have to have a moment of conscience? She's so much more interesting as a bad guy. I was looking forward to Jack sending both her and Logan away to prison. Or the afterlife.

-- It's the final episode, and President Logan has a higher body count than Jack does. That's not right. Oh, hey, now Logan has two kills, if you count him killing himself.

-- Whoops, I take that back. Logan couldn't even do that right. Which is good, because suicide was way too easy for him after all he's done. But leaving him alive and brain damaged? That's awesome. Now I'm really sorry there won't be another season so we can see him as a vegetable.

-- "If I had listened to you, none of this would have happened." If ever there was a underlying theme to this series, that would be it.

-- And...it's over.

I would have preferred an ending that was a little more definitive, like...I dunno. All the terrorists in the world throwing down their guns, nuclear weapons, EMP devices, nerve gas canisters, etc., upon finally realizing that fighting Jack was futile. Or in the very least, a reunion with Kim and his granddaughter.

But I guess having Jack walking the earth, Kung-Fu style, sets up the 24 movie, which is supposedly going to be set in Europe. I only hope it's rated R. Because America needs...nay, America deserves...to see Jack Bauer dispatching terrorists as violently as possible, and able to say "fuck" while doing it.

Because really, that's what America is all about: Killing terrorists and cursing. USA! USA! USA!

Jack's confirmed kills: 0 (38 for the season)

Jack's Words of Wisdom: "You should have let them kill me. Because I'm not going to quit until this is over."

Overall grade: B+

24: 2:00 p.m.-3:00 p.m

Thoughts:

-- Did the cast of Lost thank us for supporting the show? No, they did not. 24 wins.

-- Yes! They brought back the "Events occur in real time" into for the last episode. I don't know why, but I really dug that in the first season, and was disappointed they dropped it.

-- Chloe's Gmail is chloeobrian9? I don't believe the 9. Are you telling me that of all people, Chloe...Chloe!...didn't figure out a way to get a Gmail invitation like, a day after they were released?

-- Reed Diamond is one of those actors who I don't like, but I can't really figure out why. So seeing him tremble in fear as Jack points his gun at him from the backseat, is all kinds of fun.

-- I've seen a lot of action movies, and I can't remember ever seeing the hero forcing one of his enemies to suture him up at gunpoint. It's nice that the show is going out with a cool, original moment like that.

-- It's easy to judge President Taylor, but you know if Hillary had gotten into office, she'd be doing evil stuff like that every single day. That wouldn't have necessarily been a bad thing, either. You know she would have made Max Baucus squeal like a pig, and we would have a public option right now.

-- Does the real UN actually have a red carpet in the parking garage?

-- Add Eriq La Salle to this season's weird guest star list. At least UN Secretary General is a better role than the ones Stephen Root and D.B. Sweeney got stuck with.

-- Jack, no! Not the sleeper hold! Not on Chloe! No!

Jack's confirmed kills: 0 (38 for the season)

Jack's Words of Wisdom: "Don't fight it. Don't fight it..."

Overall grade: B

The most depressing part of the Lost finale

Sorry to all the following:

Michael
Walt
Ana Lucia
Nikki
Paulo
Mr. Eko
Daniel
Charlotte
Miles
Frank
Ilana
Arzt
Cindy
Vincent
And the dozens of other crash survivors who died on the island.

I guess you guys don't get into Heaven.

I mean, it's a big church! Look at all those empty pews! They could have fit more people in there!

Jack and his dad are dicks.

Good finale, though.

We're gonna party like it's 1988

"It's going to be awesome," the cable guy told me and my dad, as he finished replacing our old cable box with a new model. I watched him, almost breathless. The new box had a digital channel display and...and...a remote control! No longer would I have to get up from the couch and turn a dial on the box to change the channel, like someone watching cable TV in some poor, third world country.

But as awesome as all that was, that wasn't what the cable guy was referring to.

"Pretty soon," he continued, "if you want to see, like, Rambo III, instead of going to the movie theater, you can just order it on your TV the day it comes out. It's going to totally change how you watch movies."

The year was 1988, and Rambo III was coming out in just a couple of weeks. I wouldn't be seeing it, though, because my parents had a thing about violent movies. (Oddly enough, they seemingly had no problem whatsoever with nudity or foul language. By that point, I'd already seen Police Academy, Revenge of the Nerds and Back to School, with nary an objection.)

Of course, this promised revolution of the film distribution business model never came to pass. To this day, I have no idea where this guy got that idea from. But 22 years later? His bold prediction is coming true. Sort of.

Major Hollywood studios and one of the country's largest cable operators are in discussions to send movies to people's living-room TVs just weeks after films hit the multiplex, a step that would shake up film distribution.

During a cable industry convention last week, executives from Time Warner Cable Inc. made the first formal pitch to the Hollywood studios for what is known as "home theater on demand." The cable company presented a variety of scenarios. But the main one, which has received early support from some studio executives, would allow consumers to watch a movie at home just 30 days after its theatrical release—far earlier than the usual four months—for roughly $20 to $30 a pop.

At first, $20-$30 a movie sounded like an outrage, until I realized that movie tickets are already creeping up there. Every time I see a family of four or more in line at the theater, I shudder, and thank God that's not me. That's about $50 just to go to a movie. And those little bastards always want popcorn and sodas, too. That's at least another $20. Fuck that. If/when I have kids, I'm not even going to let them know that movie theaters exist until I absolutely have to. I figure if I home school them and don't let them have friends, I can keep it from them until they're at least 13. All they'll ever know is Netflix and maybe this on demand thing.

Anyway, if the wait between the theatrical release and the on demand release is initially 30 days, you know it won't be long before that drops to three weeks, then two weeks, then one week, then day-of, as movie studios get greedier and greedier. Which will hopefully have the effect of forcing theater chains to lower ticket prices for the first time in forever to get customers back.

So, congrats, cable guy. I'm not sure if your bullshit guarantee in 1988 was the result of your being misinformed, or if you just made it up for the hell of it, but I hope that you're on an installation job somewhere, smiling, knowing that you were finally proven right, after all.

Or, given that it has been 22 years, and I don't remember you looking especially healthy, if you're dead, that you're looking down from Heaven somewhere, smiling, knowing that you were finally proven right after all.

Panel of the Week

From Zatanna #1:

Taxing times

A couple of weeks ago, the D.C. Council proposed taxing fitness and yoga classes in the city. Fit and stretchy people promptly freaked out, launched a coordinated effort to defeat it, and the proposal went down in flames.

Today, the D.C. Council proposed taxing soda. I'm not sure if out of shape, future diabetics also banded together, but this, too, was defeated, partly because it would unfairly impact the poor. (Based on my own observations in convenience stores, if D.C. really cared about making sure poor people kept their money, they'd do away with the D.C. Lottery, because some days it's almost impossible to just buy an energy drink without having to wait behind some old woman blowing her social security check on DC-5 tickets. But given how much money the lottery brings in, I'm guessing that idea never came up.)

For some reason, Morgan Freeman actually called council members in favor of the tax. Of all the problems in D.C., soda is the issue he breaks out his God voice for?

Also today, the council declared once again that D.C. should have the right to tax incomes of Virginia and Maryland residents who commute into the city. Or as David Catania charmingly put it:

“I think this is something we can all support,” said Councilman David Catania, I-At large. “The spectacle, though, is that we are in better shape than our surrounding jurisdictions and we would be asking Annapolis and Richmond to cede treasury back to us, even though it was earned here and is rightfully ours.

“If we were to get our way,” Catania continued, “we would certainly put the state of Maryland in bankruptcy and we would put Virginia on the ropes. Doesn’t mean we don’t do it.”

Wow. I know every time the council starts whining about wanting to tax commuters, Congress and the courts tell them to shut up, but after that comment, it's virtually impossible to imagine the Maryland and Virginia congressional delegations not signing onto this plan. I mean, who wouldn't want to run on willingly bankrupting their states? Way to go, Catania.

Some other proposed sources of tax revenue:

Admission to cultural events: This would work great, if all the most popular museums in the city weren't free.

Chimney cleaning services: Are there enough chimneys in D.C. to even make this worthwhile?

Closet/storage design consulting services: Is this like Kurt Russell's character in Overboard? Or more of a feng shui thing? Either way, "closet consultant" sounds like the most useless job in the world, so I have no problem making their lives a little more difficult.

Dating services: The city can't tax Match.com, so it seems like that's most of the market right there. What's that dating service that only caters to rich people? Tax them.

Fur storage: This seems like something we should already be taxing. I mean, I'm not one of those "fur is murder," bleeding heart PETA hippies, but there is something somewhat obscene about just the phrase "fur storage."

Magazines: Talk about a dwindling revenue stream. How about just porn? That always seems be immune to bad economies.

Marine towing service (including tugboats): Is D.C. allowed to tax the government and/or military? Because otherwise, I'm not sure how much tugboating there is to tax.

Massage services: If D.C. would stop raiding massage parlors that give happy endings, this could bring in millions.

Taxidermy: We should probably just outlaw taxidermy altogether.

There was also talk of taxing tickets to sporting events, except for the Nationals, who are still struggling to build a fan base. So if they're exempt, and the Redskins play in Maryland, I guess they might as well call that the Fuck You, Ted Leonsis tax.

So basically, any proposed tax that would bring in enough revenue to make an impact will be so unpopular with voters that it can't pass. Conversely, any tax that can pass will do so because it'll only affect a relatively few number of people.

It seems to me there's just one thing to do: Find some way to tax the living fuck out of tourists. That's something everyone in D.C., be it resident or commuter, yoga enthusiast or Dr. Pepper enthusiast, can get behind.

And if tourists get fed up with a 25% hotel room tax or 50% Segway tour tax, and decide to stop coming to D.C., well...all the better.

Purple Smurfs

There are two things in particular that I remember scaring the living shit out of me when I was a kid.

First, the end of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers's "Don't Come Around Here No More" video.

When you're 8 years old, seeing Alice turned into a cake, sliced into pieces, and eaten by Tom Petty--while she's conscious and watching--is some pretty fucked up shit to come across when you're just channel surfing for cartoons on a Saturday morning.

But speaking of cartoons, a couple of years before that, I saw something that really freaked me out. Something that chilled me to my little bones. Something involving, of all things, Smurfs.

If you couldn't bring yourself to sit through an episode of The Smurfs, the plot is this: After being forced to get up off his blue ass and do some manual labor by an annoyed Papa Smurf, Lazy Smurf gets bitten on the tail by a fly, which infects him with a 28 Days Later-type of virus that turns him into a purple, rage-filled psycho. He then goes around biting other Smurfs, infecting them with the same disease, until only Papa Smurf is left to find a cure.

I didn't realize it at the time, but the episode was basically a zombie movie for little kids. And of course, the scariest thing about zombies isn't getting killed and/or eaten, it's getting turned into a zombie yourself. (Or in this case, purple.) Hence, my freaking out. I can't remember if there were tears. I'm pretty sure there weren't. But can I say for sure? No.

Incidentally, the moral at the end of this episode--I guess all Smurfs episodes probably included some sort of lesson--was that Papa Smurf decided to accept his Smurfs the way they were, even if it meant letting Lazy be, well...lazy. That doesn't seem like an especially good lesson to teach kids, and if anything, I would think the moral should have been "Don't set up your village near flies that can infect you with a horrible zombie disease," but what do I know? I'm no Papa Smurf.

Anyway, watching it now, I obviously feel silly that I was ever scared of an episode of The Smurfs. (Although, a quick check of the Internet reveals that I'm far from the only person who was traumatized by it.) It's hard to feel overly terrified by tiny purple, creatures who run around shouting "G'nap g'nap!" So that's one childhood fear stricken from the list.

The Tom Petty video still kind of bugs me, though.

The Descent: Part 2

Plot: You know that cave full of cannibalistic creatures that killed all those women? Sarah, the sole survivor from the first film, decides it'd be a good idea to go back! And people say characters in horror movies are stupid.

Comments: Okay, that was a bit unfair. After all, it turns out that Sarah has amnesia. So when the authorities as her to help them find her friends, it's not like she has a good reason not to, I guess. But I wish she had refused, because it would have prevented a sequel that didn't need to be made, and probably shouldn't have.

It's not that The Descent: Part 2 is a bad film, per se, but it's an incredibly generic one. The best moments of the first film had nothing to do with flesh-eating monsters, and everything to do with the interaction between the all-female cast, and the claustrophobic shots inside the cave. All that is pretty much forgotten here, as a bunch of new characters travel into the cave with Sarah and are predictably picked off one by one by the Crawlers. And all that's fine. I mean, who doesn't like to see innocent, well-meaning people brutally butchered by subterranean cannibals? But it seems odd to follow up one of the best, most original horror films of the past decade with something so by-the-numbers.

More annoyingly, it does something that fans of the original should find unforgivable. The worst kind of sequels are the ones that go back and change or contradict or otherwise mess up a great moment from the first one. And The Descent: Part 2 does just that by bringing Juno back. (Technically, I guess that's a spoiler, but considering that Natalie Mendoza is listed in the opening credits, it's not that big of one.) Arguably the best moment of The Descent is when Sarah cripples Juno with a pick axe to the leg after realizing that A) Juno had slept wit her husband, and B) Juno had killed (accidentally, but Sarah didn't know that) one of their friends in the cave. That last shot of Juno in the cave as the Crawlers got closer, was really excellent. And while it was sort of nice to see an understandably pissed off Juno confront Sarah, I would have rather they left that ending alone.

On the plus side, there's some decent gore, a couple of nice twists, and I did like the ending, which seemed like a nice mea culpa to anyone who preferred the original, somewhat more hopeless ending of The Descent. But on the whole, The Descent: Part 2 is a perfect example of why, if you know you can't top the original film, you probably shouldn't attempt a sequel.

Script: C+
Acting: C
Gore: B+
Overall: B-

24: 1:00 p.m.-2:00 p.m

Thoughts:

-- I can't believe they got away with the shot of Pavel's guts on the floor. I guess at this point, Fox figures, "What the hell? Might as well let them go out with a bang."

-- At the start of the season, I questioned the wisdom in bringing President Taylor back. If I'd known she was going to turn out to be a sniveling coward only interested in saving her own ass, even if it meant turning on Jack (not to mention, the Constitution), I would have been fine with it.

-- Jack putting on a mask to fight crime is maybe the one last thing this show's never given me. Until now!

-- "Did you hear what I said? That's Jack Bauer!" is the single greatest delivered line in the history of this entire show. Maybe the entire history of television I went back and listened to it at least a dozen times. Can I make that into my ring tone?

-- I realize Meredith's editor probably doesn't want to lose a story to a competitor, but they are in New York City, the media capital of the world. Maybe instead of trying to get to the Justice Department (which, for all they know, might be in on the cover-up), maybe Meredith should hightail it to ABC or CNN or something? Hell, considering that President Taylor is a Democrat, Fox News would kill to get that tape.

-- A room full of dead bodies? Awesome. At first, I was annoyed we never actually got to see Jack plunge the poker into Novakovich's stomach, but after some reflection, I decided the scene was perfect as-is.

Jack's confirmed kills: 7 (38 for the season)

Jack's Words of Wisdom: "You got five seconds before I put a bullet through your head. Five...four...three..."

Overall grade: A+

Geekgasm

I feel I've lost a fair amount of my horror geek cred, because a week ago, I hadn't even heard of The Human Centipede. But now, between the revolting plot, it apparently reducing Sports Junkies movie critic BDK to a whimpering little girl, and Roger Ebert admitting that this film broke his rating system, I really, really, really want to see it.

In fact, I hope this causes, "Who would you want in your human centipede?" to replace "What five people, living or dead, would you want to have dinner with?" as the sort of supposedly thought-provoking question people ask each other. My human centipede would include me in front (obviously; if you don't want to be in the front of your own human centipede, there's something wrong with you), Sarah Palin in the middle, and Dan Snyder bringing up the rear.

Seriously, you need to give this question some thought, because I guarantee that a few months from now, who you want in your human centipede is all anyone's going to be asking you.

Smell you later, Heroes

About the only thing that made me happier than hearing that NBC renewed Chuck was hearing that NBC cancelled Heroes.

I don't think I've ever seen a TV show go from great to awful so quickly. I stopped watching after the second season, and by that point, it was already almost willfully bad. How many dystopian futures could Hiro jump to? Why was Peter always so stupid? Has any TV show ever looked more desperate in pandering to its audience than by giving Hayden Panettiere a lesbian roommate who wanted to save the cheerleader from heterosexuality?

The really annoying thing is that Heroes did so many things right. The first season was fantastic, it had a surprisingly great cast, and the online comics posted on NBC.com were usually pretty good. (It was also nice that a show about superheroes embraced comic books, instead of running away from them, even if a few of the show's plots were suspiciously similar to Watchmen, X-Men, etc.)

Anyway, it was a long overdue mercy killing. To celebrate both shows' respective fortunes, here's a performance from Jeffster!. If you're not watching Chuck, this is the kind of stuff you're missing out on.

Panel of the Week

From Titans: Villains for Hire Special #1:

Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #1

"But if he survives this, if he does the impossible again...if Batman makes it back to the 21st century on his own...everyone dies." - Superman

Over a year ago, at the conclusion of Final Crisis, DC Comics did the unthinkable: They killed Batman!

Okay, well, not that unthinkable, since Batman was the one major character that DC hadn't already killed off at one point or another. So really, it was just his turn.

But this presented a bit of a problem. Sure, guys like Superman, Green Lantern and the Flash can come back to life in a plausible way (well, you know, plausible for comic books), because they have super powers.

But how was Batman supposed to come back from this?

It turns out it was actually fairly simple: DC just revealed that the corpse seen above was, in actuality, a clone of Batman secretly created by Darkseid, whereas the real Batman was merely sent back in time to the prehistoric era by Darkseid's Omega beams.

(This sort of convoluted plot twist encapsulates pretty much everything that's wrong with superhero storytelling over the past few years. But at this point, it's all we've got, so comic book readers more or less have to roll with it.)

So anyway, Batman's stuck thousands of years in the past, with no way to get home. But he makes millions of dollars a year for DC and its corporate parent, and stars in five or six monthly titles, so he kind of has to. Hence this mini-series, in which an amnesiac Bruce Wayne will bounce between different time periods on his way back to the present.

I think Grant Morrison is probably the best writer working in comics. But I've noticed that whenever he writes a comic with a seemingly great, can't-miss plot (i.e., Final Crisis or Batman R.I.P.) he usually finds a way to screw it up. Whereas, when he tackles something with a truly off-the-wall plot (i.e., Seaguy, Animal Man, etc.) he excels. So given how dumb the plot of The Return of Bruce Wayne sounds, this should be awesome.

And to be honest, the story gets off to a great start here. In this issue alone, Batman: meets a bunch of cavemen, gets caught up in a war between two tribes, runs into Vandal Savage, almost gets sacrificed, finds a prehistoric Robin, and gets a snazzy new outfit.

Good stuff. Good, crazy, Grant Morrison stuff.

I'm still not entirely sold on the concept. Some of the upcoming issues (Batman as a pirate, Batman as a cowboy, etc.) seem a lot like unused Elseworlds plots. But this issue was good enough that I'm cautiously optimistic that DC's decision to let Morrison go down this path with Batman for all these months, might finally have a decent payoff.

The West Wing

After years of just catching the odd rerun of The West Wing on Bravo here and there, a few weeks ago I decided to watch the whole series again, which was just beginning a new rerun cycle with the first episode. Like everyone else who lived or worked in D.C. when it was on, the show was a borderline obsession. I have nothing to back this up, but I'll bet that inside the Beltway, it did American Idol-type numbers. And even as the show gradually went from GREAT to Good to okay to almost unwatchable, I--like I'm sure everyone else around here--stuck with it in the hopes it would rebound, and when it did in the final season, it felt like vindication for not giving up even during its worst moments (i.e., Josh screaming at the Capitol).

A lot of criticisms I had while watching it, I still remembered from the first time I saw the show: Mandy was still useless, Isaac and Ishmael was still the worst, most self-indulgent piece of crap ever to air on TV, and Aaron Sorkin seemed to buy into his own hype as the series went on. But there's also a lot of stuff I think I can appreciate more now, being older and more knowledgeable about politics and current events.

Here are a few observations about the series the second time around:

-- There's always a thunderstorm outside when Bartlet's upset about something. Either Sorkin's writing lacks subtlety, or else Bartlet can affect the weather according to his mood.

-- All that lightning fast pedeconferencing that went on in the halls of the White House, that seemed so funny and charming at first? Now it's really kind of irritating to watch. Maybe it's because unlike when the show first came on the air, I have a job and now know how annoying it is when someone tries to have a conversation with you about work while walking really fast.

-- In real life, every character on the show probably would have been fired a few times over. But especially Donna. Donna was like a red shirt on Star Trek, but instead of getting killed on an alien planet, she was just the one the writers used whenever someone needed to do something inappropriate or illegal. It's a good thing Josh subconsciously wanted to jump her.

-- I'd forgotten about how much effort Sorkin put into making the Senate majority leader the big, bad Republican boogeyman that was going to take on Bartlet in the election. And then he just threw all that away, simply so he could relitigate Gore vs. Bush? Talk about a waste.

-- I like Joshua Malina as an actor, but I don't think I noticed originally what a poor substitute Will was for Sam. Rob Lowe may have been a narcissist who couldn't handle being part of an ensemble cast instead of the star, but he was great at reciting Sorkin's dialogue. In the alternate universe where Lowe didn't leave The West Wing for a string of failed TV shows, I'll bet the latter half of the series was a lot better.

-- One of the cooler parts of living around here ten years ago is that you would occasionally read online about where they'd be filming the show (I wish we'd had Twitter back then, it would have made West Wing stalking so much more efficient) or sometimes just run into the cast and crew.

I had just exited the Archives/Navy Memorial station once, and happened to pass Bradley Whitford and Mary Louise Parker walking around, discussing a scene. I did a double take, and Whitford gave me kind of a, "Hey, yeah, it's us," head nod as they passed. That was cool.

Another time, I'd heard where they'd be filming in advance and showed up for it. It was the scene in the inauguration episode where everyone throws snowballs at Donna's window. I think it was supposed to be Georgetown (because Hollywood has only ever heard of Georgetown), but it was actually filmed in Dupont, not far from the Metro station. If you watch it on TV, nothing in that scene is real. The snow? Fake. The fancy lamp posts? Fake. The trees? Fake. There was a small crowd of about twenty people at the end of the street, and the production assistants couldn't have been bigger douches, constantly warning everyone to be quiet even though no one was talking during the scene. Even douchier, at one point, someone who lived on the street opened his window and started taking photos in between takes (not using a flash or anything) and one of the PAs started screaming at him to stop. I'm not sure a PA has the right to tell you you can't take photos while standing inside your own home, and I was hoping for a fight. But unfortunately, he complied.

I've never gotten the appeal of getting autographs or having photos taken with celebrities, so I was content to just stand there and watch them filming the scene. But all the people around me were begging the PAs to bring over the stars during breaks in the filming. Dule Hill and Timothy Busfield were the only ones who did while I was there. Dule Hill gets an eternal thumbs up for me for ignoring the crew members who were trying to drag him back to the trailer, so he could sign autographs and take photos with everyone who wanted one.

-- Considering all the Law & Orders and CSIs, it's a shame NBC never tried a West Wing spin-off. The closest they got was a show called Mister Sterling that was produced by Lawrence O'Donnell, who was also a producer on The West Wing. He and NBC were sort of cagey about whether or not Mister Sterling existed in the same universe as The West Wing. Until it was quickly cancelled, at which point NBC declared that it hadn't. Granted, The West Wing wouldn't have been the easiest show in the world to make a spin-off from, but here are a couple of ways I think they could have gone:

Ainsley Hayes: Sort of Ally McBeal-set-in-D.C. Every episode could end with Ainsley learning a valuable lesson about why some conservative belief she'd always held was wrong, and that liberals were right.

Bruno: Before Sacha Baron Cohen made the name popular, Ron Silver's character was kicking ass on the campaign trail and trying to score with much younger women at parties. Who wouldn't watch that show? I'm not sure what it would focus on when it wasn't a campaign year, but it would have been fun to see just based on Silver's performance alone.

The Secret Service: The guest casting on West Wing was always good, but I especially dug the people who played Secret Service agents. Mark Harmon, Jorja Fox, Taye Diggs, Michael O'Neill, etc. I wouldn't want to watch a boring crime procedural about the Secret Service, but on The West Wing, it was all just goofy fun and games, except when white supremacists would open fire on them, or they were getting killed in convenience store robberies, or shot in the head that time Zoey got kidnapped. Okay, so maybe not all fun and games, but they mostly seemed to be having a good time.

-- CJ being promoted to chief of staff in the sixth season makes even less sense when you watch the earlier episodes, and notice that whenever Sorkin needed a character to ask, "Hey, why is this political thing the way it is?" to give Josh or Toby an excuse to provide exposition for the viewers, and Donna wasn't in the scene, he'd almost always use CJ.

-- Just this past week, after airing the fourth season finale that ends with John Goodman becoming president, Bravo skipped the fifth and sixth seasons entirely, and started with the first episode of the seventh season. If only NBC had done the same thing.

The problem of dead celebrities

I was listening to a recent episode of The Ron & Fez Show, where the subject turned to the heretofore untold story of how Fez, in the middle of one of his emotional breakdowns, wanted to go dig up his dead grandmother after her funeral, and how Ron had to talk him down from doing it. From there, the conversation moved to a slightly less uncomfortable topic: What is Heaven like, and what will you do when you get there?

Dave, another guy on the show, gave what I thought was one of the better answers: Cruise around Heaven with Kurt Cobain. Now obviously, that never would have worked down here on Earth. Dave wouldn't have been able to get within a hundred yards of Cobain when he was alive, let alone, hang out with him like they were best buddies. But in Heaven? Who knows?

So that got me thinking. Let's assume there is a Heaven. And let's assume the Old Testament was mostly just a bluff, and pretty much everyone gets in, unless you're, say, Charles Manson or Hitler or my fourth grade teacher.

What happens to celebrities?

Celebrities, be they actors or singers or just absurdly rich people like Steve Jobs or Queen Elizabeth, are obviously used to a certain lifestyle. Not just in terms of wealth and comfort, but also deference and privacy. They don't want to mingle with the common folk down here, and it's not likely that if it's up to them, they'll want to mingle with us up there, either.

So what happens when a celebrity dies? How is he or she supposed to cope with a world were they no longer have the ability to keep their fans at bay?

I see three possible scenarios for when celebrities get to Heaven:

1) Everyone becomes instantly enlightened. All of our human failings and desires for material objects and status fall away, and we just unite to praise God for all time. So if you went up to Steve Jobs in Heaven (or the levitating ball of light that used to be Steve Jobs, anyway), all you'd want to talk about is how awesome God is, not the iPad. Dave wouldn't even want to talk to Cobain, because Cobain's accomplishments on Earth, impressive as they were, would now seem irrelevant in the larger scheme of things.

2) You ever see Defending Your Life? In that film, when you die and arrive in the afterlife in between Earth and Heaven, you basically stay the same personality-wise, but all of your mortal concerns are forgotten. Hence, no one freaks out over being dead, and despite being happily married while alive, Albert Brooks's character doesn't think about his wife as he falls in love with Meryl Streep. Essentially, we're brainwashed so we're able to let go of whatever thoughts and emotions would otherwise keep us tied to Earth. So in this situation, celebrities are still themselves, but without the massive ego. Randy Moss will sit and talk football with you for hours. Want to go bowling with Tom Hanks? He's up for it! That kind of thing.

3) We all maintain our own identities or super-egos or whatever after we die. So even as you're entering Heaven, you're the exact same person you were right before the heart attack or car crash that did you in. I think this is the preferred idea of Heaven for a lot of people, but for the rich and famous, it'll cause massive problems.

Think about it: No money. No privacy. No security. No limos. You're a movie star, but all of a sudden, you're forced to exist alongside everyone else. On the plus side, I doubt there's US Weekly or TMZ in Heaven, so the paparazzi angle won't be as bad as it is down here. But there are still fans to worry about.

How many times do you think Marlon Brando has been asked to recite lines from The Godfather, when all he wants is to float around on a cloud? How many schmucks like Dave does Kurt Cobain have to deal with every day--and will have to deal with every day for all eternity--who want to be his best friend? I'm not sure if there's sex in Heaven, but if there is, you have to figure Marilyn Monroe has guys hitting on her left and right. Not Joe DiMaggio or JFK, either. Just your regular, average dead guys. Even people like Gandhi and Winston Churchill probably get hassled by their admirers.

It's basically all the worst parts of being famous, with absolutely none of the perks. Maybe that's the trade-off for having such a great life down here.

I guess it's possible, maybe, that I'm vastly over thinking this. But if I were a celebrity, this is the sort of thing that would keep me up at night.

24: 12:00 p.m.-1:00 p.m

Thoughts:

-- Jason goes through all the trouble of instituting these high tech security measures to make sure Chloe can't get to Cole or access any useful information, but he forgets to tell the guard in front of Cole's cell not to leave his post?

-- Jack sets up the meeting with Meredith at "Turner's Department Store," but at one point, you can see a sign with a red star on it, so it's obviously a Macy's. I wonder if the show gave them the opportunity to jump on board the paid product placement bandwagon, but they passed when they found out their store was going to be the scene of a Russian assassination attempt.

-- I'm torn. Jason says the entire Russian hit team was killed, but the last two were clearly just shoulder wounds. I guess I have to give Jack credit for the kills, but it doesn't feel right.

-- I can't think of anything scarier than Jack Bauer holding a pair of pliers. I'm not sure what I was expecting him to do, given the confines of network TV--maybe a broken finger, maybe a pulled tooth--but ripping out a piece of the guy's stomach wasn't what I had in mind.

-- When Jack said, "You think you know about pain? You don't know anything yet," how cool would it have been if instead, he'd said, "You don't know Jack"?

-- Between the rather graphic torture scenes and Jack cutting Pavel open in order to get the SIM card, I'd like to thank Fox's Standards and Practices department for apparently taking the week off.

Jack's confirmed kills: 5 (31 for the season)

Jack's Words of Wisdom: "She died in agony, which is exactly what I'm going to make you do. Unless you tell me what I want to know."

Overall grade: B+

Iron Man 2

Wow. I do not get how the advance buzz was so bad. This is a great, great, great film.

What's really impressive is that Iron Man 2 manages to make all of the mistakes that superhero movie sequels almost always make (multiple villains, tossing in a bunch of new characters, a lame crisis of faith subplot for the hero, etc.), but it doesn't matter! The movie pulls it off! Even the stuff that annoyed me was quickly forgotten.

In the past year, it's been announced that the Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, and X-Men franchises are all getting rebooted, despite still being relatively fresh. It'll be a long time before Marvel will be able to do the same with Iron Man once Jon Favreau and Robert Downey Jr. finish up, because there's just no way they'll be able to improve on this.

Spoilers follow...

The Good:

-- Robert Downey Jr. The novelty of his performance in the first film has sort of worn off, but he's still a lot of fun to watch. Being a DC guy in general, and a Batman guy in particular, I (slightly) prefer the current Batman films to the Iron Man franchise, but at no point have I ever gotten the sense that Christian Bale and Christopher Nolan are having anywhere near as much fun as Downey Jr. and Favreau are.

-- Mickey Rourke and Sam Rockwell. In superhero film franchises, villains generally get worse, not better. But with Jeff Bridges's character by far the weakest part of Iron Man, I guess there was nowhere to go but up. I especially liked that both Ivan Vanko and Justin Hammer are sympathetic in their own way. Vanko wants to avenge his dad, and Hammer just wants to prove he's smarter than the smartest guy in the room. And maybe get laid. Who can't relate to that?

-- The Black Widow. I'm still not sure how Hollywood managed to fuck up an Elektra movie, but I hope that doesn't scare Marvel off from doing another spin-off featuring a female character.

-- The Avengers set-up. I thought the credit cookie was a bit of a letdown, but Nick Fury and a lot of other stuff I missed, make me glad this is going full speed ahead. I'm especially pleased they haven't forgotten about the Hulk, since I guess there's a question as to whether or not Ed Norton is still on board.

-- Shit blowing up. Shit blows up! Lots of it! Especially at the end! Strong writing and acting are important elements of any superhero film, but you just can't overstate enough the importance of shit blowing up.

The Bad:

-- The mask. I don't get why whenever there's a superhero movie sequel where the character wears a mask--Batman Returns, Spider-Man 2, and now this--the star apparently decides that his face wasn't featured enough in the first film, and so his character's mask has to come off every five minutes. If it were me, I'd just enjoy the day off as my stuntman ran around in the uncomfortable superhero costume.

-- Don Cheadle. Don't get me wrong, Cheadle is one of those actors who I'd watch read the phone book. Channel surfing last week, I was surprised to discover he was in Hotel For Dogs, and actually watched the last 15 minutes of that terrible film just because he was in it. And it's not like he did a lousy job here or anything. But they really should have brought Terrance Howard back.

-- The Iron Man case. So usually, it takes this lengthy, involved process and a couple of gigantic robotic arms to put on or take off the Iron Man suit, but Tony's figured out a way to shrink the whole thing down to the size of a briefcase? Why not just have Tony figure out how to defeat Vanko at the race track without Iron Man?

-- The requisite Stan Lee cameo. Does he really have to pop up in every single Marvel-based film? I know this is probably a contractually obligated thing to keep him from suing Marvel again, but the bit's gotten stale.

The Ugly

-- Lazy plot holes. Why did Tony and Pepper seemingly forget they were romantically involved at the end of the last film? How did Vanko know Tony would be driving the race car when no one else did? How did Tony know the exact spot where Pepper was in order to save her at the end? If you're a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent undercover as a paralegal, do you really show off your preternatural martial arts skills? Why would Tony's father hide his "You're my greatest invention" line in a film strip of outtakes Tony would probably never see, or hide the secret of this amazing new element in a diorama?

I'm willing to turn my brain off to a certain degree, but not this much.

-- Drunk Iron Man. I know this sort of came from the comics, but the way it was executed in the birthday party scene reminded me too much of Peter Parker strutting down the street in Spider-Man 3.

Deadtime Stories

I'm posting this for two reasons:

1) It's one of my favorite opening credits/theme songs of all time (made all the more impressive by how godawful the movie that follows it is), and I think everyone should see it.

2) Like I did about this time last year, I'm trying to challenge myself to do a post a day for a month in order to shake off a bit of blogging apathy, and frankly, I've got nothing else for today.

Panel of the Week

From I, Zombie #1:

Summer Movie Scorecard 2010

The summer movie season officially kicks off tomorrow with Iron Man 2. On one hand, this is obviously an exciting time, as Hollywood is nice enough to bunch all the movies people really want to see in one convenient cluster. I mean, who wants to go see movies in February when it's cold and dreary outside, when you could blow a couple of hours of beautiful weekend weather almost every weekend for three months straight?

On the other hand, I'm a little worried this year. A couple of months ago, I was really looking forward to seeing Kick-Ass. When the time came...I just couldn't work up the enthusiasm. Same with The Losers. Granted, in both those cases, I'd recently read the comics they were based on, so maybe I didn't feel like I needed to see the film versions. Still, it doesn't bode well for this being a busy movie summer for me. Never mind the "Might See" list, a few of the films on the "Definitely Seeing" list are starting to look like good Netflix candidates.


Have Seen:

Definitely Seeing:

Iron Man 2
MacGruber
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
Survival of the Dead
Jonah Hex
Predators
Inception
The Other Guys
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
The Expendables
Piranha 3-D

Might See:

Robin Hood
Shrek Forever After
Get Him to the Greek
The A-Team
Toy Story 3
Grown Ups
Knight and Day
The Sorcerer's Apprentice
Salt
Dinner for Schmucks
I Love You Phillip Morris
The Last Exorcism
Machete

Lady Gaga: The Comic Book!

It used to be that if you were a celebrity and dreamed of being featured in a comic book, your options were somewhat limited.

Meatloaf once teamed up with Marvel to promote the Special Olympics.

David Letterman once interviewed the Avengers.

And of course, being the greatest athlete in the world pretty much made you a shoe-in.

But unless you were Jerry Lewis, the odds of getting your own comic book were slim.

But that was then! Nowadays, you just have to wait your turn, and Bluewater Comics will eventually take care of you. They've published comics on people like the Obamas and Ellen DeGeneres, and upcoming issues will feature Taylor Swift and Robert Pattinson.

But for Free Comic Book Day, Bluewater chose to preview their upcoming Lady Gaga issue of Fame.

It wasn't exactly my kind of thing, but I'm completely out of touch with what you kids are listening to today, so maybe it's just me.

This is Lester. He's what I think Jack Black's character from High Fidelity went on to be. Just in case making him a pretentious music snob with man boobs wasn't enough of a clue of what a loser he is, the comic also gives him a nagging wife.

One day, Lester's watching MTV and making snide comments about the videos, and...wait a minute. When the hell does MTV play videos? This comic makes no sense. Anyway, he's watching MTV and all of a sudden, he falls victim to the power of Gaga.

Of course, he's still Jack Black from High Fidelity, so he can't just admit he likes Lady Gaga. So when John Cusack from High Fidelity comments on this strange question, Lester lies and says his niece is a fan.

Leaving the store with his contraband album, so embarrassed that he's actually sweating buckets, Lester gets insulted by some teenagers and keeps inexplicably running into young women wearing Lady Gaga shirts, as a cruel reminder of his lost indie cred. Who knew loving Lady Gaga involved so much persecution?

Lester finally makes it home and--and this is weird, since he just went through all that hassle to buy the album--proceeds to watch Lady Gaga's videos on YouTube. While wearing sunglasses, for some reason.

He's sitting at his computer table, so in the comic, you can't tell if Lester's wearing pants or not while he's watching this video. I'm guessing not.

Hopefully, the full issue will focus more on Lady Gaga than Lester (who obviously doesn't deserve his own comic). So circle May 26th on your calendar, Gaga fans!

For now, though, I'm going to go out on a limb and just say that if this comic doesn't win an Eisner, the whole stupid system is broken.

Not Nerd Prom

First, in discussing the White House Correspondents Dinner, it'd be nice if we could do away with the myth that Ana Marie Cox coined the term "nerd prom." It was an SNL sketch thirty years ago and since then, its most common usage has been as a nickname for the San Diego Comic-Con. And let's face it, in a battle of nerdiness between Washington journalists, politicians and policy wonks, and people who read comic books and participate in Magic: The Gathering tournaments, the Washington crowd will get smoked every time. Come up with your own phrase to describe this thing.

Anyway, I don't get the WHCD. I mean, I'm sure it's a fun time, and if I were a White House correspondent--or someone with even a little pull in this town--I'd definitely go. But it's turned into this multi-day celebration that seems to have overshadowed the event itself. The pandering to celebrities is really offensive, especially the iffy ones like Jessica Simpson, Justin Bieber, and Billy Joel's ex-wife, of all people. Not even Christie Brinkley. The other ex-wife.

If I were a journalist, and I found out I couldn't go to this thing because all the tables were snatched up by media outlets who just wanted to fly in famous people, I'd be annoyed. I imagine it's like being told you can't go to your office Christmas party because the Jonas Brothers and a couple of the Sex And The City chicks decided they want to attend, and there just isn't room for you.

For that matter, if I were an actor, I'm not sure why I'd be so cised to show up for this thing, anyway. There aren't enough parties to go to in Los Angeles? You really have to fly across the country to see Obama tell a few jokes?

The whole thing just seems like a massive ego stroke for everyone involved, and nowhere was was this more evident than the Reliable Source's recap of the event.

Justin Bieber, the tiny tween idol with a big bow tie, was striding out of the dining room of the Hilton Washington Saturday night when a much larger man stopped him and asked to shake his hand.

"My daughter loves you," said Donovan McNabb.

Bieber, 16, with a swagger way beyond his years, turned and took the new Redskins quarterback's outstretched hand. "You might want to shake it before I go to the bathroom," the singer said. McNabb waited for Bieber to emerge from the men's room and asked for photo with him. "This is going to help me at home," he said.

This is not the sort of off-field behavior you want to see from your team's quarterback. It's not Roethlisberger bad (although it does also feature a bathroom and a feminine-looking creature), but it's pretty damn embarrassing. About the only way this could have been worse is if McNabb had asked for an autograph for his daughter, and told Bieber that his daughter's name was also Donovan.

After this, I really don't want to hear any stories of someone approaching McNabb for a photo and getting rebuffed. Once you've cornered Justin Bieber on his way to the bathroom, I think you've pretty much given up any right to say no to someone else's photo request.

Out on the crammed balcony, Eric Holder lit up when he spotted actor Adrian Grenier. "Hey, it's Vince from 'Entourage'! One of my favorite shows!" The attorney general effusively introduced himself to the young heartthrob, then launched into a detailed discussion of last season's plot. "I'm going to work my way on the show," he told Grenier. "I might be able to do something about that," responded the startled actor.

I'm not sure how I feel about the United States Attorney General being an Entourage fan. Not just a viewer. But an actual I'm-going-to-have-a-detailed-discussion-of-last-season's-plot fan. I'm like, 1/10 as smart as Eric Holder, and I'd get bored discussing the last season of Entourage after about 20 seconds.

I like to imagine that at the end of the day, my attorney general goes home and reads law journals and advises the CIA how far they can go interrogating prisoners without it being torture, not thrilling to the misadventures of Turtle and Johnny Drama.

The worst thing? I'll bet if you asked Holder who his favorite character was, he'd say E. Don't me why. It's just an unfortunate hunch.

Jessica Simpson, looking miserable -- because ex Tony Romo was there with his new girlfriend? (A Jessica 2.0 type, Candice Crawford.)

I don't understand how Jessica Simpson or Tony Romo even got in. The last time I heard anything about Simpson, it was because she was having trouble fitting into her pants on stage. And Romo...seriously? We're just rolling out the red carpet for the Dallas Cowboys' quarterback at a quintessential Washington event? Why don't we just invite fucking Donovan McNabb to D.C., too?

Er...I mean, why don't we just invite fucking Kevin Kolb to D.C., too?

It was Jimmy Fallon's first WHCAD weekend. "I was told that locals and press people would bother me," confided the late-night host, who was, in fact, having a great time. "Super fun. It's almost like being at a wedding."

Just then, GQ correspondent Ana Marie Cox bounded up. "We just had a shot of tequila," a breathless Cox told him. "Would you like to come meet my date?" Fallon politely demurred. Cox explained that she was really drunk and then repeated her request. He again said no, but softened the blow by reassuring her that she didn't seem that drunk. Then she wandered off.

Okay, well, the cool kid blowing off the nerd girl is a little prom-ish, I guess. Cox seemed appropriately mortified on Twitter yesterday, but man. She must have been really drunk. If Cox bounded up to me and asked if I wanted to meet her date, I would have also politely demurred, and I'm not even a late night talk show host.

"Would you like to come meet my date?" Jesus. Drunk or sober, who says that?

An actual White House correspondent, Nicholas Johnston of Bloomberg, approached Johansson as the starlet chatted poolside with a few friends around 1:15 a.m. Could he please get a photo with her?

"I'm sorry," she sighed. "It's too late."

Oh, fuck you, Scarlett Johansson. You don't get the fact that you were flown in for the amusement of the people who were actually supposed to be there. It was one photo. Stop with the diva act. For someone who's less than ten years removed from co-starring in Eight Legged Freaks with Kari Wuher, and hasn't been in a decent film since Match Point five years ago, "I'm sorry, it's too late," is a bit much.

I don't think it'd be a bad idea for the White House Correspondents' Association to start setting caps on the number of seats that can be given to celebrities, as opposed to actual journalists. Because when Scarlett Johansson is giving you attitude, the whole "nerd prom" concept seems awfully accurate, with the journalists playing the Tri-Lambs to the movie stars' Alpha Betas.

It's one thing for this sort of crap to fly at an L.A. party. But in D.C.? On their own turf? The Tri-Lambs shouldn't have to stand for this sort of treatment. Next year, just let the nerds have their prom, and don't even invite the cool kids.

24: 11:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m

Thoughts:

-- Again with Jack checking someone's pulse after taking him down with what was clearly not a lethal blow. I sort of get the feeling that Kiefer Sutherland is just improving whatever he wants, and no one on the show has the clout to point out how dumb it is for him to be doing this.

-- D.B. Sweeney needs to call his agent. The star of one of the best romantic comedies and best sports movies of all time--and certainly the best romantic comedy sports movie of all time--deserves better than a 1 1/4 episode stint on 24. I saw this movie called Heatstroke on Syfy a couple of years ago where he and Danica McKellar team up to stop an alien invasion. He deserves better than that, too, but he got to make out with Danica McKellar, so I can't feel too bad for him.

-- In the span of about two minutes, Jack just increased his total body count for the season by almost 20%. Don't get me wrong, these are fun to watch. But I wish he'd gotten more of them, spread throughout the season. The worst thing about the show being cancelled is that my dream of Jack racking up a body count of 100 or more in a season is never going to happen. Not unless he, like, blows up a building full of terrorists in the next couple of weeks, anyway.

-- I don't know if it means I'll have to become an evil, soulless, terrorist-abetting bureaucrat to do it, but I really hope one day I get to the point where I'm like Jason, and have a hot aide who follows me around and whose main responsibility seems to be to hand me an iPad (or whatever it is) whenever I gesture for it.

-- That flashbomb in the safe deposit box was a total Batman move. If there was another season after this one, it would have been cool to see her and Mandy team up.

-- For a moment there, when Jack was staring down Dana, I was afraid he wasn't going to pull the trigger. But then he did! And one more for good measure! This season has seen more than its fair share of disappointments, but I'm glad it gets the important things right.

Jack's confirmed kills: 5 (26 for the season)

Jack's Words of Wisdom: "I'm going to count backwards from three. Then I'm going to kill you."

Overall grade: A+