The Middle of the Dark

Yes, Darby Harn is still alive. I am snowed in for the moment so I decided to take a break from a West Wing marathon (how good was this show?) to update this increasingly pointless blog. I am thinking of wiping the slate clean in the new year and starting a new one. I will be wiping many slates in 2009. I will be that guy on the corner offering to clean your windows for some change except I will be cleaning your slates. Or maybe just mine. I tend to get stuck in the mud when it comes to other people's slates and by now I've said the word slate too much. I work all day, and write all night, and I have no life. In college I studied all the time and worked my ass off to get through because I had to. At work I study all the time and work my ass off because I have to. It's not easy for me and it never has been. The trade off is I have nothing else and when it comes to everything else I missed the meeting. And it costs me, exponentially, the further I go. So, yay. At ...

On the birth of their boy William. Congrats to two of the best people I know. All the best. I wonder how jealous Howie is...

The first ever picture of a planet in a solar system that is not ours: The skinny. This is just the beginning.

Newsarama offers a really good op-ed on why the next Batman film could - should be - called The Dark Knight Returns, and also why the Joker should come back. And be recast. Check it out. I think it may have persuaded me from my position that recasting the character would be difficult in the least. I don't know, however, that a literal translation of Frank Miller's Batman into Nolan's is possible or even feasible; that said, the article is good food for thought. I've always thought Batman's story has to end. His success prevents it of course. Even if Nolan completes his trilogy, which is what we seem to be in for, Warner Brothers will want and rightfully so as many films as they can get. And they should make Batman films to their hearts content. This article suggests a great idea: allowing myriad artists take their own whacks at the character, in various films. Batman has proven his elasticity. But since we're talking about the first true, complete - p...

He's George W. Bush. Apparently. Andrew Kalvaan departs from his rocker in the Wall St. Journal in a suprisingly deluded way and I just have to put my two cents in. The Dark Knight does not have a pro-Bush or pro-neo conservative stance. If you think it concerns the war on terror, and that is a legitimate argument, and if you think Batman=Bush, which is not legit, then here's why you cannot walk away from this film thinking it somehow legitimizes the last 7 years: Batman fails to take the Joker seriously until it is too late. Batman fails to kill the Joker when given the opportunity, and the justification to do so. Batman 'extradites' a non-national from a foreign country where he has no jurisdiction. Batman abuses his power and technology to spy on his own people. Batman's actions only embolden his enemy. You can find a correlative for everyone of those items in the last 7 years, and none of them are positive, and none of them presented that way in the film. T...

Tomorrow is Irish Fest in Waterloo. Neil Gaiman is writing a 2 part Batman story for the comic series next year. Apparently it will bridge the gap between the current R.I.P. storyline, which I'm lost with, and the future of the character, which seems destined to be different than the status quo. The only thing cooler than this is if they found water on Mars. Oh, yeah. Water exists on Mars. Also, liquid (not water) is flowing freely on Titan , Saturn's enigmatic moon.

Season 5 of Project Runway just got WAY less interesting for me. Okay, so the dress didn't really work. But why must they always cut the cute ones? Sigh. I think I liked her so much because she reminds of two friends who have somehow been genetically spliced together in a seamless, beautiful fashion. Auf wiedersehen Emily.