Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb!

I have six free reserved seats at an Iron Man sneak preview tomorrow night, and it's proving unbelievably hard to give them away. I've managed to lure three people in addition to myself. I'm actually having trouble even thinking of anyone I know who would want them. Am I really that much of a friendless dork?

I gloat.

I went to that Iron Man costume contest/movie release party event thing and surprisingly cleaned up in the trivia contest. I was blurting out crap I didn't even know I knew. Here's a picture of all the goods I had to carry all the way home. On foot.



This was the nerdiest walk home I've had to perform since carrying home my TARDIS playset.



Anyway, they gave me two copies of the Iron Man movie adaptation by Peter David, a huge Nerf Iron Man cannon thing (which'll probably end up on eBay), a shirt, several pieces of the type of brickabrack (is there a proper spelling for that word? perhaps the spell check will enlighten me...) they always hand out like posters, stickers, buttons, and other such things that will assure onlookers that an Iron Man movie is about to be released. The items with which I am most pleased are three vintage comics--Iron Man volume 1 #7, #8, and #118--and six seats for a Tuesday night sneak preview of the movie. I don't think I even have five friends to take.

All of this Iron Man hoo-ha is making me want to roll out the opening to the 1960's cartoon.

Grammar nerd ranting; feel free to ignore.

I realize I'm not perfect and freely admit that I am a little rusty on the rules of comma use, but I do flip out over certain grammatical/spelling errors, especially the mixing up of contractions/possessives like "you're"/"your", "it's"/"its", or "they're"/"their". This is possibly due in part to having a high school grammar teacher who looked quite a bit like Patrick Stewart (and had a Captain Picard-like presence even) and literally patrolled the halls listening for improper grammar, writing tickets for offenders, making them appear in Grammar Court (I think its very existence merits capitalization; and no, I'm not fabricating its existence), and imposing small fines. I never got caught, either because my grammatical skills were rather epic or because I was a nerd who rarely had the opportunity to speak to anyone. Anyway, I'm blathering on here, but I'm just offering some context before making fun of someone, a completely anonymous party. Last week on my lunch break I went to an eating establishment which shall remain unnamed (but shouldn't be hard to figure out for those who happen to be aware of current promotions that are being heavily advertised on TV with a neat Godzilla knockoff), and they had this crudely written sign displayed at the counter. Its message, although vaguely clear, is so badly written in so skillful a way, it's almost as if it's intended to be humorous or possibly written by someone with a degree in Bizarro grammar.



Take a look at that:

"REGULAR STEAK (FT.)
ONLY $5.00 (FIVE)
DOLLAR.
Fore Limited Time Only.
THANKS."

The next day said sign had been upgraded to this:



The most entertaining elements here are "Doe's not included", "Pastrmi", "Chease" (twice even!) and "Valu". Not as poetically bad as the first sign, but it's still noteworthy.

Anyway, I'm off to a comic book store to observe an Iron Man costume contest. That's where grammar snobbery gets you, kids.

Humanity is my favourite species.

A man got drunk, became Darth Vader by donning a... trash bag, and went on a rampage targeting members of a... Jedi church? Seriously, keep an eye on this guy. He might be a future Darwin Award winner.

Arnold Schwarzenegger vs. Fatalysia

I already alluded in my blogs to Arnold Schwarzenegger's bodybuilding event that might have had an impact on SPACE's attendance. Fatalysia artist Uriel Duran kindly commemorated it with this piece, which I must admit I am posting quite late. He sent it to me shortly after SPACE, and I've had a combination of blogger's block and not having technology at my disposal that gets along with Photobucket's revamp. This is in no way a slam against anyone who attended or took part in SPACE. I just genuinely found it hilarious on some level that my life might have been inadvertently impacted by Conan the Barbarian and had this image in my head of literally being chased out the door by him.



Check out Uriel's site here:

poor Aquaman

(a customer return)

Sometimes my subconscious actually scares me a little.

I don't know how my brain comes up with this crap. Last night I dreamed an episode of the 80's sitcom Webster. Only Webster's dad was Ugandan dictator Idi Amin. Amin had a bunch of concubines he was preoccupied with, and Webster and his adoptive mom (or "Ma'am", as he called her on the show) sat in fold-up chairs wanting to talk to him about something but fearing he would kill them if they interrupted his antics. I awoke from this rather unsettled. I really don't want to have to worry about running into Amin if I go to sleep.

Priorities, seriously!

Okay... it's nearly 1:45 a.m. on Friday night, and I just finished an email to the SciFi Channel about their schedule. That's one of those warning signs that I really should go outside and find a life, I believe.