Issue 162

News: It bears repeating.
Several issues ago, I remarked that a scene in Left Behind was one of the things which truly made it one of the most horrible works I've ever read (although an infamous Harry Potter fanfic seems to have replaced it at the top.) However, I think it bears repeating that the scene is one of the worst I've ever read in a book for several reasons, which I will detail here. The scene has reporter Buck Williams doing his job, a very rare occurrence, and interviewing the scientist (Chaim Rosenzweig, who, as we later learn, dabbles in everything from botany to nuclear physics, to Romanian government) whose fertilizer has turned Israel into an agricultural center on par with the Midwest. This has somehow not only led to peace in the Middle East, but has apparently led to at least some states being annexed by Israel. And it all goes downhill from there, because during the interview, a gaggle of Russian bomber planes carrying all of the country's nuclear weapons (enough firepower to end life on earth several times over) soars overhead. The authors never explain why this should occur, but it is implied that it is done out of spite. Sure, there may be no valentines between Russia and Israel, but somehow I doubt that even nuking Israel once is in the cards. For that matter, doesn't Israel have nuclear weapons of its own? And hell, even if Israel was defenseless and Russia's nukes didn't end life on Earth, using all those nuclear weapons on a coastal nation like Israel is bound to have a lot of adverse effects on the Mediterranean. Maybe the entire Mediterranean would be unfit to fish in, and that could cost a lot of livelihoods of a lot of Fishermen in Italy, Greece, or other Southern European countries, and maybe, since the UK and France have nuclear weapons, and in this case, Russia would have wasted all theirs, a nuclear war between the EU and Russia could happen. However, all this is averted when the hand of God appears and destroys the planes, leaving the Israelis unharmed, and some harmless powder rains from the sky (the Authors being oblivious that powder falling from the sky after a nuclear explosion is most likely Nuclear Fallout.) However, all of this could be forgiven if not for one thing: It doesn't change anybody's mind about God. Really. Here is one of the most unambiguously miraculous events possible, and according to the text, nobody seems to bat an eyelash, and churches don't seem to have grown.

Film Idea of the Day: Gaia's revenge. Possibly the most intentionally stupid film idea I've put on this blog. Simply put, "don't pollute, because if you do, the planet will ******* kill you."

Review of the Day: My Immortal. Holy Crap. The fact that this story even exists makes me weep for humanity. The utter disregard for the Harry Potter Canon (incidentally, the lead three characters from the books, Harry, Ron, and Hermione, are renamed Vampire, Diabolo, and B'Loody Mary Smith, and have apparently defected to Slytherin), its own self-contained continuity, and even spelling and grammar aside, this would still be the most idiotic thing I've ever read because the plot is 1/3 descriptions of the main narrator's wardrobe, 1/3 sex scenes that read like Beavis and Butthead wrote them (like "he put his thingy into my you-know-what"), and 1/3 Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way (our author surrogate, whose name is rarely spelled correctly, and who is not related to Gerard Way, although she wishes he was because he's hot) being "Goffik," attempting suicide, and attending the same My Chemical Romance concert several times.

Quote: "I laffed statistically."
___________An actual quote from My Immortal.

Link of the Day: If you really want to read My Immortal, here goes.

Issue 161

News: We're back, and with the stupidest plan in existence.
Well, I've been having a lot of problems lately that prevented me from updating, ranging from my laptop breaking down to my need to study for my final in Genetics and write two final papers totalling 12 pages in the space of about a week. But now that classes are over, and my laptop has been both repaired and replaced, I come bearing tidings of a new blog entry.
On Atop the Fourth Wall, one of the shows on That Guy With The Glasses, the host Linkara sometimes lists the stupidest plans that have ever been featured in comics on the show. Plans like making twin clones of Adolf Hitler, a plot to elect Nightcrawler as the pope with each twist in the plot being 31 different flavors of "This cannot work," and a plot to take over the Mafia by rigging high school track meets. However, on one of my forums (Not Newspeak Dictionary, because I got banned after one of the mods went beserk and I disagreed with him), somebody shared an email advertising what is probably the stupidest plan I've ever seen. Are you ready? Here goes. As it turns out, you're supposed to send a CHRISTMAS card (yes, apparently CHRISTMAS is supposed to be in allcaps) to the ACLU, which will apparently stop their operations dead in their tracks, and their plan to take away CHRISTMAS will be stopped. We will ignore the fact that odds are, the ACLU will not give a damn about whether anybody sends them Christmas cards, and get to their underlying belief in the War on Christmas. Let me be entirely blunt; The "War on Christmas" is entirely one-sided. Most secular Americans, myself included, do not care whether you greet us with "Happy Holidays" or "Merry Christmas," or even "Io Saturnalia!" It is the conservative Christians who are really waging a war on the phrase "Happy Holidays." They seem to think it's some sort of inclusive holiday greeting that acknowledges other religions (and yes, they think it's a bad thing) and taking the Christ out of Christmas (and, of course, Christmas is really just a continuation of the Roman celebration of Saturnalia, and many Yuletide traditions, from gift-giving to Santa's hat, are taken from it), but in reality, even if one doesn't count the holidays that other religions celebrate around this time, there's virtually no other time of year in which so many holidays are celebrated around the same time. Look at the current holiday season; it begins with Thanksgiving and ends around the New Year, and traditionally, it even extended as far as January 7 (Twelve Days of Christmas, anyone?).

Film Idea of the Day: The Reverend. A seminary dropout ends up becoming a mafia hitman.

Film Review of the Day: American Splendor. Well, I'm kind of interested in Indie comics and Robert Crumb in particular, so I decided to watch this movie, especially considering that Dr. Venture played Crumb, although I haven't actually read any of the actual American Splendor Comics. However, as it turned out, even though Crumb has about ten minutes of screen time, I was actually interested in the movie, particularly by the mix between animation, live-action, and documentary (Pekar, his wife, and his nerdy friend are played by both a fictional actor and the actual person.) And although Pekar's voice does get particularly grating, it does compel me to try to find, and hopefully read the actual comics.

Quote of the Day: "Ordinary life is pretty complex stuff. "
________Harvey Pekar

Link of the Day: That Guy With the Glasses Site.