The Giant Robot Challenge: US throws down the gauntlet, Japan accepts

I've mellowed as I've aged.  Now all I want is a quiet evening, reasonably priced cocktails, sleepy dogs and robot fights.

I am not talking about your little BattleBots or whatever...  If I wanted to see remote controlled cars running over each other, I'd hang out in a hobby shop on Saturdays.

People, we live in age of unparalleled wonders, and as I progress through my 40th year, I am now satisfied to know that, before I slip off the mortal coil, it is looking increasingly likely that I will see two multi-ton robots beat the scrap out of each other.

Cry havoc and let slip loose the bots of war!

TL;DR: Finally Reading Marvel's "Infinity", event comics and the DC-ification of the Marvel Universe

It took me a really long time to make it through Marvel's Infinity collection of Avengers stories.  There was no "Trade 2" of New Avengers, so in order to keep up, I had to buy a huge, expensive trade with a mix of Avengers comics that I wasn't reading.

Back in Arizona, I remember seeing the recipe for a "Kool-Aid Pie" and, more or less based on the name, I went ahead and decided I must try it out.

I hadn't ever done much baking, or made a pie, but I bought the ingredients, all of which looked like ingredients I should probably have for a pie.  A crust. Sugar.  Dehydrated milk, I think.  Then I got out the mixer and whatnot, and maybe 1/3rd of the way through the process of making the pie, I re-read the recipe and realized - "oh, I'm just whipping up sugar and Kool-Aid and putting it in a pie-crust".  It was literally an inedible pie.  It would have looked neat and cool sitting there all purple, but there was nothing really there.  No pie in my pie, just- purpleish whipped sugar.  Not even the basics of an actual pie, just something you would throw in a movie, I guess.

That's kind of Marvel's Infinity.  It seems like it should be a story.  It seems like it's going somewhere, but it was sort of a hand-waving illusion to get you to next, more expensive event, and all of this was some laborious and unnecessary Kool-Aid pie.

oh, yeeeeaahhhhhhh....!!!!

To be blunt -

Taste Test: Taco Bell's "Cap'n Crunch Delights"

Well, Leaguers, it's been a long, long time. A lot of moronic food has come and gone over the years, but nothing has really piqued my curiosity. Yeah, even the waffle breakfast taco did nothing for me. It was incredibly stupid, but somehow it lacked that je nes sais quoi.

 But today I saw an ad for something worthy of my Taste Testing talents. And so, I felt the need to dust off the taste buds and go to work for you, The People.

Just when I think I'm out...

Yeah.  @#$%ing "Cap'n Crunch Delights".  No @#$%ing idea.  I was literally on the elliptical figuring out what we should do for dinner and said to Jamie "grab me some of those Cap'n Crunch things at the Bell."  She tried to stop me, but I wasn't thinking of me.  I was thinking of you, The People.

So, to review, Cap'n Crunch is a breakfast cereal famous for three things:

For your Fourth: Spirit of '76 Superhero Celebration!

Magic Watch: Bell, Book and Candle (1958)

I won't ponder too long the lack of an Oxford Comma in the title of this movie, but I will say I lost a full two minutes making sure of comma placement in this post.

Bell, Book and Candle (1958) is one of those movies that you hear about a lot, but not one I ever had any particular interest in seeing, aside from a cast that includes some great talent.  A just-post Vertigo Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak (yowza), Elsa Lanchester (formerly the Bride of Frankenstein), and a pre-Some Like it Hot and The Apartment Jack Lemmon.  I actually quite like casual magic/ shadow magical cultures in my movies (see: Mary Poppins), but I dunno.  I watched Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie growing up, and I wasn't quite sure what all I'd get out of this that's different - aside from the cast.

Happy Fourth of July from The Signal Watch! Doing it up with Flags!

Patriotic Watch: Johnny Tremain (1957)

When I was a wee lad, I remember being a fan of this 1957 Disney production.  Back in the day, Disney did a lot of live-action movies of varying quality (seriously, Disney, where the @#$% is my BluRay edition of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea?), and often featured stories set in the past.

Originally intended as part of the Disneyland TV series, Johnny Tremain ended up better than anyone was figuring, so Walt decided to repackage it for theatrical distribution.

The movie probably left a greater impression on me than I realized, because in rewatching the movie three decades later, I kept saying "oh, yeah, right!" and remembering scenes as they unfolded.  But I doubt I'd thought about the movie for at least the last fifteen years.  I do recall that we watched a lot of Wonderful World of Disney growing up (and early Disney Channel) and read our share of historical fiction, so we got a lot of the G-rated high adventure stuff in our diet that, wonder upon wonders, fit pretty neatly in with the Disney World "Liberty Square" look and feel for history.*  If it was intended to make a tri-corner hat wearing nerd out of me, mission accomplished, Walt.

Today you should thank James Madison for the Bill of Rights

So.  The Bill of Rights.

He's here to protect your personal liberty (millennials, this is Bill the Cat and he was very relevant at one point.  This sight gag is hilarious to your elders).

It's not that the idea of a listing of citizens' rights hadn't been a part of government documentation before.  The states had included similar language in their own constitutions.  But when we got close to wrapping up our own Constitution, James Madison himself - the guy who brought the Constitution draft to the meeting that became the Constitutional Convention, didn't see the point.

Madison thought that we had that stuff sorted and that the Constitution already covered what the government considered a right.  But...  not so much.  Figuring out what was important, what people would fight over, etc... was seen as a hindrance in just getting our feet under us, and so it became the work of the first Congresses to sort it out.

The Anti-Federalists really did want that Bill of Rights, and made their case loudly and often as it would help protect individual liberty.  You'll notice the Bill of Rights gets brought up a lot still today when it comes to how we relate to how our Government is allowed to deal with us (although people tend to cite their favorite Amendment while ignoring others, and interpret the Amendments to suit their own needs as often as they do their religious text of choice).

Having done everyone's work and worrying for them, this is Madison at age 32.

When the first Congress went into session, the Bill of Rights was the hot topic, and even James Madison eventually decided this was a good idea, if for no other reason that to belay the likelihood NOT having such a thing would lead to another go at an all-new Constitution, and we'd never get on with it as a Country.  This is one of those places where you realize people are talking past one another, or are in "violent agreement" - seemingly arguing but actually wanting the same thing for different reasons.  Madison agreed that we should have those Amendments so long as they were there to define personal liberty, and - apparently the only one willing to do any heavy lifting - Madison also drafted the Bill of Rights, but as inserts right into the body of the Constitution.

And, welcome to government work kids, because now it went to committee.  And to the House and the Senate and back to Committee, all the while with our favorite workaholic, Madison, shepherding the process along.

Then, of course, you have to go out to the State legislatures for ratification... and...  ugh.

Comedy Watch: Wet Hot American Summer (2001)

Jamie informs me that we're getting eight "episodes" of all-new Wet Hot American Summer on Netflix, and I have no idea what that means.  Because as far as I knew, until about 8:30 tonight, it was a movie I've seen once or twice and that I've always liked.

But way back in 2001, a pretty colorful group of actors and comedians came together to make a movie that, by all appearances, was intended to make them laugh, and if anyone else liked it, all the better.  The movie was a spoof on the cliches of both summer camp movies (a brand of movie that I suspect has died out except in weird echoes as kids movies.  I don't even need to Google it to know there has to be a Air Buddies movie where the puppies go to camp.)  But there was a time when there were enough of those sorts of movies that they had their own cliches, I guess.

Putting Together the Constitution

After the British had thrown in the towel, the United States was faced with the same problem every teenager faces that day when they move out of their parents' house - sure, you have a whole of freedom, and that also means you've got the freedom to actually totally botch this whole "we're on our own" bit.

"Seriously?  No one brought even one pen?"  

We started off with something called "The Articles of Confederation".  A pretty solid document that took 3 years to ratify.  It also almost immediately demonstrated that a gentlemen's agreement to act like a country sometimes but to have completely separate entities doing their own thing with only a bare central government doesn't for a nation make.  Believe me, I work across multiple universities in a sort of handshake agreement, and you can lose a mind-boggling amount of energy corralling people when they have no real responsibility to each other.  And I'm not out trying to make treaties with France.*

Sometimes a little central authority is a good idea.  Like, when you need a central navy, maybe, and not just folks in boats with cannons saying "oh, yeah, we're the Cleveland navy.  Totally legit."

There was also no real authority for taxation, which meant no money in the treasury to pay debts, defend ourselves in the future, etc...  And foreign policy can be a bit sticky when you have no real head of state.