Happy

Amazon Princess Versus Warrior Princess

~ lobablanca

In response to a question regarding Wonder Woman and Xena, Lynda Carter once stated that she thought that Wonder Woman was very classy and that Xena…well, wasn’t. Don’t believe me? Here.

At first, I was a little miffed by this statement, even if it was said by La Carter herself. Xena, not classy?

Well, I’ve been rewatching my Xena DVDs lately…and, yeah, “classy” isn’t really a word I’d use to describe the warrior princess. There are myriad other far more suitable words that spring to mind. Classy just isn’t anywhere near the top of the list. Then again, in a time of ancient gods, warlords, and kings, you don’t really have much of a chance to be classy like Wonder Woman did.

All that said, regardless of whether or not even Carter thinks it’s right or fair to compare the two, it is an inevitable comparison. Which is what prompted this geek break photograph of my Wonder Woman and Xena action figures. Minus the shocking size differences (which shouldn’t be all that shocking; Diana is, after all, the Amazon princess of the two), look at them! There are far too many similarities between these two outfits than can be ignored. Okay, you can ignore them. Unless you’re a geek. Like me. Then they just scream at you every time you look at these figures. Which I do frequently.

I’m not saying anymore. I feel as though I’ve already said too much.

Oh, one more thing: bonus geek points if you can identify the photograph in the background.

Bunneh!

~ lobablanca

Kind of swamped at work, and I’ve been doing fun things away from work (things that I may or may not discuss here at a later time…). Thus are my excuses for any dip in appearances here at the lair.

Mea culpa, denizens.

Here, then, is a photo apology. Here is…BUNNEH. I snapped a shot of this little guy during my Father’s Day visit to North Carolina (yes, it’s been a while…I’m quite behind in posting photos here as well, but hope to resolve this soon with some very exciting photos taken during a recent away team mission).

I think my favorite thing about this photo isn’t even part of the actual image. Instead, it’s the memory of my dad yelling to me as I stalked Bunneh with my telephoto lens, “I think there’s something wrong with that rabbit. He should have run away by now. Why is he just sitting there? Is he frothing? You know, there have been several cases of rabies reported recently in this state. You might not want to get any closer!”

I wanted so desperately to make a Holy Grail Killer Bunny comment at this point in his monologue, but sadly, my dad has never seen the movie.

“Run away! Run away! Run away!”

It's just a harmless little bunny, innit?

I Think He’s Made It

~ lobablanca

This is the voice that gods summon to soothe their weary hearts.

Remember when I wrote this, denizens? No? I wrote it not very long ago in reference to the wonderful, talented Mr. Craig Bevan.

I still feel this way about his voice, perhaps even more so now that I am the proud owner of Craig’s debut album, I Think We’ve Made It.

Yes, the time has come, denizens. You know that Loba would never give her support to anyone or anything here at the lair unless I strongly believed in what I was writing. False promises are not how I roll.

I very much believe in Craig…and I don’t say that simply because he is my friend. I believe in him because he exudes talent in so many ways, but especially when he sings. Take a listen and you’ll know this truth: He loves his music, and that love shines through in every chord and every lyric.

So, here’s the deal: Head over to Craig’s site and get the free download that he’s offering there. And when you fall as in love with his voice and music as I have, you can go ahead and buy your own copy straight from his site. You can also follow the Amazon link I have up at the top of this post or you can buy it via iTunes. Whatever way you prefer, I simply hope you buy it. You won’t regret it, and you’ll be supporting a wonderful musician and a really groovy guy.

Second step of Loba’s Grand Bevan Plan? Tell your friends, just like I’m telling you. Send this post to them to read. Tweet them. Retweet them. Write about Craig on your Facebook page (or your MySpace page, if that’s how you still roll). Whatever way you choose, I hope you’ll join me in getting word out about Craig and his amazing debut.

Snickers Makes Me Snicker, Actually

~ lobablanca

I’m usually not a fan of television commercials. I quite hate them, in fact. Sometimes, though, an advertising campaign is such pure brilliance that even this Commercial Grinch can’t help but fall in love.

So it is with Snickers. First came the Super Bowl commercial, with Betty White and Abe Vigoda:

I don’t think the line “That’s not what your girlfriend says” has ever been funnier. Or oogier.

Then there’s this one, the Diva Commercial:

I’m sure that I should feel some sort of consternation that these are both slightly misogynistic in nature (dudes unable to do their dudely deeds because their hunger has turned them into old women or divas…or Abe Vigoda), but there’s something so effing funny about both these commercials that my feminist sensibilities are appeased by the laughter they invoke. Especially that Betty White commercial. She’s so freaking funny. I’ve adored her ever since I first saw her as Rose Nylund, and I love how she continues to rule the funny block like the Comedy Diva she is.

Bus, The Final Frontier?

~ lobablanca

I had a moment of epic geek proportions on my commute home this evening that I simply had to share with my denizens.

My drive home takes me through a busy section of city that calls for a lot of stop-n-go for about 3 miles. It’s not as bad as it sounds as I typically spend the time waiting for the traffic report and deciding what I’m going to listen to for the rest of the time I’m on the road. I know, tsk to me for splitting my attention.

So today, we’re all in a relatively speedy groove and I’m lucking out with all green lights. I’m also well ahead of the bus that runs its route along this same stretch of road. I can see it about five cars behind me and I’m well chuffed because I’ve beat it (and obviously listening to a British podcast, which encourages me to use slang like “well chuffed” even though I know it would make me sound like a proper git if I ever actually tried to use it in casual conversation).

Anyway, there are a couple of people standing at the bus stop, including a somewhat largely built guy (I think the proper term for him recently appeared in my Rob Zombie rant: “built like a brick shit house”). He’s wearing camouflage shorts, work boots, an unbuttoned jean shirt, and a T-shirt. More precisely, he’s wearing the T-shirt you see above. Yes, he is sporting a vintage fourth season Star Trek: The Next Generation cast T-shirt.

I have this same shirt. It’s in sad, over-laundered shape thanks to becoming the shirt that I slept in all the time, but I still have it, folded up in one of my “boxes of shame” (Pandoro ain’t got nothin’ on Loba). I loved this shirt. Loved the poses. Loved the weird layout that made it look like the crew was: a) letting off a weird nuclear glow; b) floating in space; and c) GINORMOUS in comparison with the Enterprise. Loved Beverly’s yellow hair.

What do I love even more? That I literally squeed when I saw this shirt on a dude I never in a million years would have pegged as a Trekkie. Just hanging out and heading home at the end of the work day. Wearing a shirt that’s more than 20 years old.

Tell me that doesn’t just blast awesome.

God Save the Geek

~ lobablanca

Enough serious. It’s Friday, FFS.

So, here. A combination of two of my favorite obsessions: the British and Star Trek. I think I may have pulled something with how fiercely I smiled throughout this entire video.

It remains a simple truth that, though I may not have my own Twitter account, I continue to haunt the tweets of my ImagiFriendsTM.

One, two, Loba’s coming for you…

What Scares You?

~ lobablanca

Happy Ides of March, denizens! Watch your back and don’t trust your BFF Brutus today. Actually, don’t ever trust someone named Brutus. It’s a weird name and sounds too much like Bluto. Don’t trust people named Bluto either. Only trust Loba.

So I’ve been having a bit of a resurgence of horror love as of late, thanks in part to my DVDregs project as well as the discovery of a new podcast (let’s see how well my denizens pay attention to their surroundings; this new podcast recently made the list under “Sounds Sweet” to the right).

I love horror movies. I love the coronary jolt, the acrid tang of fear and adrenaline. I’ve been a horror fan since I was a wee pup. Back in the day, it was all about gore for me. I was mad into slasher flicks. Freddy Krueger was my all-time favorite at the time, simply because he was all about the gore and camp, two things that when combined provide an unstoppable tsunami of entertainment for those so inclined to enjoy such a combination.

Actually, Freddy is still pretty high on my list of favorites, but I think I’m far more apt to choose the original movie over any of the sequels. That first appearance of Freddy was so very dark and grotesque and disturbing. The guy was a child killer when he was alive, which is one of the darkest of all the criminal acts one can choose for their villain…something that I think is completely glossed over in sequels, which trade in the disturbing truth of this burned boogie man for the camp of one-liners like “Welcome to prime time, bitch!” or “Better not dream and drive!”

As much as I enjoyed watching Robert Englund chew the scenery like a pit bull on steroids in all the sequels (and, really, there is no other reason to watch most of the sequels than Englund’s performances as Krueger), it’s that first appearance of Krueger that keeps pulling me back. That’s the defining Freddy movie, the one that most deserves its place in the horror pantheon.

[I’m still flipping a razor-sharp middle finger to the remake, though. I’d rather be forced to watch one of those craptacular sparkly vampire movies than have to endure watching Hollywood botch up another of my favorite horror movies a la Zombie’s Hallowhathafu.]

So what scares me now? Atmosphere. I think I pretty much pushed this idea home significantly in my Halloween posting from last year. Almost every single movie on that list was frightening because of story rather than how much red dye and corn syrup they used in the making of the film. Even the gorier picks from this list depend more heavily on clever writing than on the gore factor (okay, so Billy from Black Christmas isn’t the most eloquent obscene phone caller…I’ll give you that).

It’s atmosphere. I remember my first realization of this truth came when I was about 12 or 13 years old. I was well entrenched in my horror phase by this point thanks in part to cable television and the local Nightmare Theater movie presentation every Saturday (followed, of course, by Freddy’s Nightmares and Friday the 13th: The Series). That Halloween, the community newspaper ran a contest in which they asked their younger readers to submit a scary story that would be judged for inclusion in their special Halloween section. Prizes were involved as well, but I don’t really remember what they were.

I also don’t remember what exactly I wrote for my submission. However, it was something horribly slasherific, something trite and predictable. Something that to me, at that point in my life, possessed all the trademarks of great horror. Needless to say, I didn’t win. But to this day, I still remember the story that did win that year. It was about a harlequin mask. No blood. No gore. No death. And it was scary as hell. Why?

All together now: Atmosphere. Something like that crawls under your skin and sleeps there, not jolting you immediately, but slowly releasing its venom through your blood, where it seeps and trickles until it’s permeated through to your very core. That’s the kind of horror I find myself loving most now. That doesn’t mean that I don’t like cheap scares as well…but the cheap scares are transitory. It’s the deeper scares that stay with you, make you squirm over and over.

Know what one of my favorite examples of this type of horror in recent years is? 2008’s The Br