One more thing about Melbotis

The name of this pic is "WANT", taken by Jamie's brother, The Dug.

On Mel's last birthday, we skipped a party for me (we had birthdays around the same time) and had a party for Mel. He received the bag of tennis balls.

Doug sent this to me today and I had to share.

Halloween Interactivity! Day 2: Maxwell

We're back for Day 2 of the Signal Watch Halloween Interactivity!

Signal Corps, I'd be lying if I said we wouldn't welcome additional entries.  We'd love to hear what you've got to say!

For a quick review of the interactivity guidelines, just click here, and you're off to the (spooky) races.

Longtime Leaguer and now Signal Corpsman Maxwell (aka:  Cowgirl Funk) has submitted a response to at least half the interactivity.  She gets a gold star!

Maxwell, take it away...

I have a soft spot for the Peanuts gang and assumed that It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown is a treasured and easily recognizable part of Halloween Americana.  In this delightful Halloween classic, Charlie Brown cuts too many holes  in his ghost costume, and only receives rocks when the gang goes out for "Tricks or Treats".

This, like most of my terrible costumes, was an overestimation of cultural relevance, and suffered further from poor execution.  Instead of cutting holes I opted to draw too many eye-holes onto my white ghost cloth.  The costume may have made more sense in a group of other ghosts, with a little more context.  Instead I looked like a ghost dalmatian with a bag of rocks.  Good grief.

A selection of additional poor costume choices:

• Abstract Art 
• Steve Prefontaine 
• A dead model from the 1999 GAP Mellow Yellow, "Everyone in Chords" Campaign

As a quick aside, I would have paid good money to see you in the Prefontaine outfit.

So, what is "Melbotis"?

So, it occurred to me - there's a whole audience out there that doesn't know what the story is with "Melbotis", "The League", why is the house called "League HQ"?, etc...

So, here's the story.

In 2000, Jamie and I moved into a house in South Austin just about the time some friends had broken up and were moving to separate coasts.  Whilst together, they'd taken on a Golden Retriever pup they named "Melbotis".  The name came from an inside joke they had about a couple named "Melba" and "Otis".  I didn't know this until well after they'd handed Mel over to us in the summer of 2000.

The pronunciation is, roughly, "Mel-Boh-Duss".

Right after he came onboard, I took Mel to the vet for his routine check-up, but at his original vet.  I believed his name was spelled "Melbodus", and learned that, no...  it was spelled "Melbotis" while looking at his medical records.

Mel was a big boy.  I think he topped off at 112 pounds before he got put on a diet.  Big, and very happy to try to sit in your lap, or at least get as much into your lap as possible.

He was also oddly smart, and we began to realize his vocabulary was fairly extensive.  He loved to swim, run off the leash, hoard toys and tennis balls, shake, play fetch, do a trick or two, and destroy toys.  He could follow directions and hand gestures, and generally liked being involved in whatever scheme you had going on.

I was 25 when we got Mel, and something about a dog that large that seemed to know his own business meant that I was perfectly comfortable treating him more like a roommate than a pet.  Sure, we fed him and took care of him, but he was given a lot of latitude to just sort of come and go from the house to the yard, get in the car if he felt like it, and just generally hang out.

Mel's Halloween costume circa 2002

Jamie had never had a dog, and suddenly she was faced with this thing as large as herself living in the house. I would not characterize the first year as building a deep emotional bond, but then Jamie's job evaporated, and she spent a few months at home looking for jobs.  And during that time, she and Mel became really good buddies.

In 2002, we moved to Arizona.  For a while I'd made jokes around the house about how we were the "League of Melbotis", and so when I launched a blog in 2003 (this was new stuff back then), that was what I named the site.  You can still see League of Melbotis online.

Halloween Interactivity! Day 1: My Brother

Hey Signal Corps!


We didn't exactly get a crippling flood of responses to this year's Halloween interactivity. I don't know if you're still worn out from last year or you didn't feel like putting up with my shenanigans for a second go-round. Maybe its the economy or sun spots. You're an unpredictable bunch.


Its a SPOOOOKY time of year, full of ghouls and goblins and sugar cookies.  And we feel this lends itself to a bit of personal storytelling.  I may personally be very scared of the unquiet dead in ghost form, and you might find the idea of the Moth Man terrifying, but that's what makes it interesting.  We've all got our thing.


This year we had two questions we asked.  Two fairly simple questions, I thought.   Well, not questions you people wanted to answer.


Luckily, we can always count on my brother, Steanso, to make sure I get at least one response.  I should note:  He kept asking me if he "won". So, everybody, he "won", okay. Let him have this.  


Now, from my brother...


1) Favorite underappreciated scary movie:

Does anyone else remember Q?  That giant, flying lizard was somehow both cool and a little scary when I was a kid.  Mostly I just liked big, giant monsters (I was a big Godzilla fan since the time I was about toddler size), and when I saw Q as a pretty young kid, it struck me as some kind of weird American take on the Godzilla theme.

Also C.H.U.D.  They were cannibalistic and humanoid and they lived under our feat.  Who wouldn't be made a little nervous by that?

And I liked Maximum Overdrive.  Giant, killer trucks.  It was funny and stupid, but the idea of being run over by giant, sentient trucks was still both entertaining and a little troubling.  ...I just read on Wikipedia that Stephen King (in his only directorial attempt) has now said that he was "coked out of his mind" during production of the movie and didn't really know what he was doing.  Somehow that movie about the angry trucks makes a little more sense now.

I've never seen this movie, but I always appreciated that the killer truck had the face of The Green Goblin

2)  Worst Halloween costume?

Well, one year I was The Blair Witch.  I wore a set of bobbly antennas and a black tee shirt.  The Blair Witch is muy mysterioso and leaves a lot of room for interpretation.

Another year I started out wearing a cool jawa costume that looked just like something out of the movie.  It had a big hood, a dark cover over the face, and eyes that lit up.  Cool costume for a little kid.  But it was also made of think, burlapish material and it was really hot.  Eventually I ended up taking off the hood and walking the streets as a small, sweaty Obi Wan Kenobi.  The neighbors didn't really get why a little kid would want to dress up as a short, stinky version of the old man from the Star Wars movies, but they gave me candy, anyway.

I've also been various things just involved clown makeup or fake blood (sometimes at the same time).  I used to wear this stuff when my band was playing Halloween gigs because it would be too hot to wear a mask.  Once the band got rocking, though, the makeup or fake blood would usually run, and I'd just end up looking like some kind of bruised, multicolored mess.  Nothin' to be proud of.

Reading Superheroes and "The Book" - pieces on a board

En route to Laredo I switched between podcasts and the audiobook of Grapes of Wrath.  We'll talk Steinbeck some other time, but one podcast I listen to with regularity is Radiolab, produced out of New York. And if you wonder about the pedigree of the show, one of its hosts/ producers/ creators recently won a MacArthur Genius Grant.

The episode I was listening to while plowing across the glittering fields of Texas was "Games".  You can hear the episode below.

At the 26:30 mark, there's a terrific story on chess.



I loved this story. Jamie and I tried many games while we lived in Arizona, looking for ways to fill weekends. At one point, we owned a plastic chess set that actually had the possible moves of each pieces printed into the plastic. It was real beginner stuff. But whether we played Checkers, Chess or Connect Four, sooner or later, we stalemated. I always found this interesting if only because it became predictable and boring. We both play defensively, neither of us had any real strategy or experience to call upon, and so... we'd just stalemate. Too few moves in our arsenal, too little understanding of the games we were playing, and the fact we played only one another wasn't helping, either.

Signal Watch Reads: Justice League #2 (New 52)

Justice League #2
Justice League: Part Two
writer - Geoff Johns
penciller - Jim Lee
inker - Scott Williams
colorist - Alex Sinclair
letterer - Patrick Brosseau
associate editor - Rex Ogle
editor - Eddie Berganza
this review is of the print, standard cover edition

Having had read almost 3 dozen of the New 52, I'm a bit over the shock of these All New #1's not exactly having the best idea what a #1 might look like that's useful to new readers.  In this series, its clear that Geoff Johns will be writing for the trade.  He's counting on the fact that our new readers have familiarity enough with Superman, Batman and Green Lantern (and The Flash!) that we need not spend much time getting readers caught up.  It'll be several more issues before the band is put together, I'd guess, but when assembled, Johns will have put down a template for a possible treatment of whatever Justice League movie the comics-side of DCE must be day-dreaming about as the trailers for Avengers have spun the internet into a little tizzy.*

Saturday Night Interactivity - Drunk Tweet "Big Trouble in Little China" with Signal Watch, @Placeslost, Comics Scribe @chris_roberson and the fabulous @allisontype

What the hell, ya'll?

So Saturday night, PaulT and I are joining comics writer Chris Roberson and his amazing better-half AllisonType, for a screening of Big Trouble in Little China.  And YOU can play along.

THE POWER OF THE INTERWEBS

We'll be having a cocktail or three and via the magic of Netflix Streaming, we'll be watching the John Carpenter directed classic Big Trouble in Little China.

Whilst watching, we'll be on Twitter using hashtag #BingeTrouble


As a reminder, our twitter handle is:  @melbotis

Follow along as PaulT, Jamie and I attempt to keep up with these veteran DrunkTweeters!

drunk tweeting: it's all in the reflexes

Signal Watch Reads: Supergirl #2 (New 52)

Supergirl #2
Reunion
written by - Michael Green & Mike Johnson
pencilier - Mahmud Asrar
inker - Dan Green
colorist - Dave McCaig
letterer - John J. Hill
cover - Asrar & McCaig
editor - Wil Moss
group editor - Matt Idleson

Oh. So. This is what we're going to do. Again.

I haven't reviewed either Superboy #2 or Justice League #2 yet, but I shall, because I KNOW you've been waiting, but as the New 52 rolls out, you can't simply read this single issue in a vacuum without noting how other comics are handling their relaunches.

Last issue, Supergirl landed on Earth, stepped out of a shell, and began fighting guys in robot suits involved in the absolute most hilarious/ worst-case scenario for protocol for an agency meeting an alien entity I'd ever seen.  In this issue, all we get is Superman getting beat up by a girl half his size for absolutely no reason other than that comics still believe that when two people meet who don't know one another, the correct answer is to throw a punch even as one person is trying to calmly talk to the other.

We already did this.  Just about 7 years ago, we did more or less exactly this same thing.  100,000 readers watched the Supergirl title implode and collapse in on itself with bratty, hysterical Kara Zor-El slugging everything she didn't understand, like a hillbilly on meth.

We're two issues in, and there's no hint of a story, conflict, who Kara is, etc... and I suspect we won't see any of that for a while.  There are so, so many things for her to misunderstand and punch.

I can't believe that, given the opportunity to relaunch Supergirl (again) after the last volume floundered, the answer has been to repeat almost exactly the same mistakes that were made on the first go-round.  Its just 20 pages, 15 of which feature Superman getting slapped around and our protagonist (who apparently knows exactly how to throw a super-punch) behaving not like a scared teen-ager, but like a poorly written imbecile.  Its just embarrassing.

Honestly, this is an absolutely terrible comic.

This Moment in History: Qaddafi dead

Today I saw reports that Libyan leader/ dictator/ state-funded-terrorist-supporting quack Muammar el-Qaddafi (I'm going with the NYT's spelling) had been killed in a clash in Libya between Qaddafi's dwindling forces and the uprising against his regime.  On the elliptical at the gym, I watched Anderson Cooper trying to make sense of video footage he'd received of a bloody-faced Qaddafi, apparently just before his death.  And here's an article on the whole, ugly, final day of Qaddafi's life.  

Our younger readers will not necessarily remember Qaddafi as the bogeyman to the US that he was back in the 1980's.  But his participation in bombings of airline flights inform a bit of why it seemed logical to the US populace in 2003 that perhaps Saddam Hussein was supporting terrorist action.  Many of us remember Qaddafi in association with bombings such as the one at Lockerbie.

I also recall our repeated attempts to bomb Qaddafi, which eventually led to his retreat from the world stage as the US sent sorties of F-111's over Tripoli, strategically placing bombs into the bedrooms of his various homes.

I was in history class when we discussed how and why we'd bombed Libya.

I won't mourn the man, but just as I am uncertain that I was uncomfortable with the festival atmosphere that followed the death of Bin Laden, it doesn't feel like anything to celebrate.  It just feels like is something that never should have happened to begin with.  I dunno.  I guess we'll just have to differ on that.

Your nickel discussion of this "The Thing" prequel

Tuesday evening SimonUK and I went and saw The Thing at the Ritz.  We'd both been anticipating the movie for some time, Si more than I, as John Carpenter's 1982 take on The Thing is sort of, I think to him, a bit like Miller's Crossing or Blade Runner are to myself.

But I really like Carpenter's The Thing, too.  I'm not much of a horror fan (I was a delicate child and prone to getting easily freaked out), but I hold The Thing and The Shining in very, very high regard for their era.

Last year Si, StevenB and I all watched a digital restoration of the original, and it was a reminder of how darn well that movie holds up, in no small part because of performances by Kurt Russell and Wilford Brimley.

The new movie is actually a prequel, and if you saw the 1980's version, you will likely remember the Norwegian Camp.  Well, this is that.