Flashback Friday: DangerMouse

~ lobablanca
Penfold, shush.
Penfold, shush.

He’s terrific. He’s magnific. He’s the greatest secret agent in the world. Yes, my friends, he is the one and only, DangerMouse. Again, it’s all about the Anglophilia with me, isn’t it? It must be a terminal case if I choose this as the first cartoon to appear here, rather than the longest-lived animated love of my life. Ruh-roh.

DangerMouse, however, was not blessed with the longevity of my favorite childhood cartoon. He was unfortunately short-lived in popularity on this side of the pond. Although he and his bumbling sidekick, Ernest Penfold, led their valiant fight against Baron Silas Greenback and his henchman, Stiletto Mafiosa, for slightly more than a decade in the UK, I remember DM gracing our shores for only a fraction of that time, airing on the cable channel Nickelodeon for maybe 5 years (give or take a year; my memory is dodgy sometimes, especially when it comes to time, and years seem to melt together in my head like the colors in a bowl of rainbow sherbet).

I learned recently from one of my lovely English friends that DangerMouse is a spoof of an earlier British series, Danger Man, that starred a pre-Prisoner Patrick McGoohan. I don’t think the Man ever made it over here to the States, but the Mouse remains a staple of our pop culture. Ever hear of the group Gnarls Barkley? It comprises two musicians, one who goes by the nom de mix, DJ Danger Mouse. Apparently, he even used to do shows dressed as a mouse. No word, though, on whether he also wore an eye patch.

Let’s sidetrack here for a moment to talk a little more about Stiletto. See, until the Interwebs, I didn’t know that he had a last name. I also didn’t know that he wasn’t supposed to sound like a Cockney with un-descended testicles. Nickelodeon thought that calling him Stiletto Mafiosa and having him sound stereotypically Italian would be offensive to Italian-Americans. So they dropped the surname and made him sound stereotypically English…and kind of like he had a helium tank shoved up his bum.

First time I heard Stiletto with his real voice, I thought I’d been duped with a fake bootleg. I can’t locate a video or audio clip that contains this American version of Stiletto, which would have been great solely for the comedic comparison. I’ve also learned that Brits enjoy this bit of trivia as yet another reason to laugh at (not with) their somewhat dim-witted but every now and again good-intentioned American cousins.

Still, even with this politically correct silliness, DangerMouse remains a steadfast happy memory from my childhood. So much so that when I took my first hop across the pond, I went giddy girl apoplectic when I discovered a stall in Camden Town selling DangerMouse T-shirts. The image above is a shot of the front of said shirt. I wear it out and about here quite proudly, getting the occasional knowing nod from fellow cartoon geeks.

If you’ve never seen this wonderfully British cartoon, do rectify this immediately. Got a Netflix account? You can rent them. Love Amazon? You can buy them all on DVD (with the original Stiletto voice, of course).

Until then, here is DangerMouse’s theme song. Hope you enjoy!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrM0E9pag8E&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x006699&color2=0x54abd6&border=1]

Stupid Is As Stupid Sexts

~ lobablanca

I can only imagine what the instigating text must look like: “shO me w@ uv got! b00b pix plz!!1!”

And what do the recipients of such a text do? Take the requested shots with their mobile phones and text them, or as I’ve learned through this article, “sext” them back, of course! I’m still not sure, though, when the common sense factor comes into play in this equation.

Look, we’ve all had lapses in judgment, and sometimes a camera is involved. Bourbon Street was home to some incredibly poor moments in Loba judgment and, yes, photo evidence does exist of said judgment lapses. Some involve test tube shooters and others involve a fellow reveler dressed as Hong Kong Phooey. I’m not telling you about any of the others.

Why tell you this at all? I suppose to acknowledge that everyone does stupid things (even your friendly neighborhood white wolf) that sometimes involve cameras that record moments you might not even remember until you’ve sobered up and seen the proof.

However, these cases involve not even one drop of booze. The only thing that seems to be incapacitating these teens is the combined absence of common sense and inhibition. And this particular cocktail is landing them in a whole shitload of trouble, including some who have landed on their state’s list of registered sex offenders. That is a stain that will follow you for the rest of your life.

What’s most disturbing about this article is the fact that detectives are finding evidence of sexting going on in elementary schools. The oldest you can be in elementary school, barring that you haven’t failed any grades, is 13.

I guess this is comparable to when I was a teen and the Internet was rapidly becoming the focus of our lives. We became the first truly plugged-in generation, doing things online that our parents had only considered possible in sci-fi books and shows. So they didn’t really know how to protect us from what was going on in that brave new world.

That’s only a partial excuse, though because, just like then, this latest trend in stupidity can fall into the “Just because you can doesn’t mean you should” file. Also, anyone who has grown up in this time of instant access knows that once you put it out there, there’s no way of getting it back, and it spreads with the destructive swiftness of a California brush fire. Some are even driven to suicide because of the fallout.

So, really, if you get a sext asking you “show us your bits!”? Don’t. It’s just that easy. Oh, and those Bourbon Street photos? I’ve got ’em. And, no, you can’t see them.

Facing A New Day

~ lobablanca
The two faces of Connie Culp
The two faces of Connie Culp

Modern medicine is AMAZING.

I continue to be as awed by these full face transplants as I was when I first heard of Isabelle Dinoire, the first person to undergo this reconstructive surgery.

Now, doctors have successfully performed the first face transplant here in the United States, on Connie Culp. Ms. Culp was severely deformed in 2004 after her husband shot her in the face with a shotgun. The blast obliterated the center of her face, leaving what almost looked like a meteor crater where her nose used to be.

I didn’t place any of the “before” photos here, because…I don’t know. Silly reasons, I suppose. It felt too exploitative (but writing about her on my blog apparently isn’t). but look at these side-by-side shots. Yes, the “new” Ms. Culp is in for a few more surgeries to tighten up some areas and smooth out others, but it’s just…amazing. She has a new outlook and a new face.

This is only the fourth full face transplant ever done, and so far the most comprehensive. Surgeons replaced 80 percent of her face with the donor face. This raises all sorts of questions. She’s 46 years old. For slightly more than 40 of those years, she saw the same face staring back at her in the mirror, and friends and family saw the same face looking at them. Then her total dick of a husband obliterated that person. Or at least the physical representation of that person.

What sort of psychological ramifications come along with these surgeries? What is it like to look into a mirror, knowing that it’s you, but not seeing your own face? How do you process the fact that you’re now looking at a stranger, about whom you knew nothing prior to their untimely death that has now granted you their face? What do you do if you ever encounter someone who knew that stranger?

My mind is abuzz with all sorts of Twilight Zone scenarios and stories, but then I pull back and remind myself that this isn’t some science fiction concept. This is real. Connie Culp has another person’s face and another chance to be as extraordinarily normal as she wants to be.

Like I said before: Modern medicine is AMAZING.

Cheeky AND Talented!

~ lobablanca
Photo from imagesafari.com
Photo from imagesafari.com

I love Peanuts comics. They’ve been a staple of my geeky life since I was a wee wolf. Even now, part of my morning ritual is to read the daily strip at Snoopy.com before I dive into my Secret Squirrel government work.

This ritual has been a bit derailed for the past few months (actually, it seems like it’s been this way since well before last Christmas). Snoopy.com is closed for upgrades, and so all traffic has been redirected to the Peanuts page of Comics.com. I suppose that’s acceptable, since it allows me to continue to get my daily dose of Chuck & Co. But I miss the official site.

So I thought I’d be sneaky and try other URLs related to Snoopy.com, just to see if maybe there was a way to see what’s going on behind the curtain (hey, it’s worked on other sites; why wouldn’t it work here?). I started with www.snoopy.net. What I got, instead of a sneak peek at the new Peanuts site, was an eyeful of happy.

Seems that a photographer in Ohio has purchased this URL and set it to redirect visitors to his own site, imagesafari. From what I’ve gathered, the photographer in question is Jon Anhold, and he’s been posting online since 2003. In fact, it looks like he started posting 10 days before incite.thought went live. Kismet? I think so.

I know very little about the mechanics of professional photography, but I do recognize what is aesthetically pleasing to my amateur eye. From that perspective, I think Jon’s photos are gorgeous. They’re wonderful compositions with rich, deep colors, beautiful use of natural and artificial lighting, and an ever-present sense of whimsy. The photo I use here is from his site. By no means is this ducky the best of what I saw, but it’s rubber ducky, dammit! He’s so fun…he makes bath time lots of fun…you know the rest, right?

Anyway. He also focuses on subjects that remind me very much of the kind of photos my dad loves to take: landscapes, flora, fauna, machinery, airplanes, cars. There’s a definite sense of comforting familiarity when I look at the pictures at imagesafari. So if you have some free time, I encourage you to go to imagesafari and see for yourself the eyeful of happy that greeted me during my failed attempt at Snoopy.com sneak-a-peekery.

50BC09: Book Number 12

~ lobablanca

circles

I’m a bit ambivalent about my latest read, Merrill Markoe’s Walking in Circles Before Lying Down.

These damned books with dogs on the covers. True, I mentioned Paul Auster’s Timbuktu as being one of these books that I really enjoyed. But they’re not all like Timbuktu. In fact, I think the publishing industry has figured out the perfect way to get someone like me to start reading a literature genre that I typically avoid like the plague: slap a dog photo on the cover.

What genre might this be? “Chick Lit.” To be fair, I think this book might qualify as Chick Lit Lite. It’s by no means on par with The Devil Wears Prada, but it definitely does more than just dip its big toe into those estrogen-heavy waters.

All that being said, I’m a sucker for talking dog stories. I was, after all, the only adult willingly in attendance at the Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed matinee a few years ago. So a story about a woman who suddenly finds herself able to hear every dog around her definitely has a certain appeal. And even though Dawn, the canine-conversing character in question, does things throughout the novel that I found frustratingly boiler-plate for this particular genre, it was still an entertaining read. However, I do have to say that I found the slightly glib use of Scott Peterson and the BTK Killer as ways of moving along one part of the story to be a bit off-putting.

Final score: 3.5/5. Another quick and fluffy-fun beach read to keep in mind this summer.

I’d give you a sneak peek at book number 13, but I’m not really sure what that book is just yet. Sadly, I have such a glut of unread books that I could probably do this 50 Book Challenge for the next 2 years and still have books left untouched. I really need to stay away from bookstores…

Forever Young?

~ lobablanca
WAY scarier than Chucky
WAY scarier than Chucky

I’m not the greatest when it comes to numbers. I admit this fact willingly. I harp on this fact, actually. It really helps when numbers issues come up at work; no one comes to Loba for number help. Loba like.

That being said, take a look at this quote from Hugh Jackman regarding his fear of dolls:

“When dolls come to life in films, that just freaks me out, I just can’t stand that. Chucky? Forget that. I remember when I was a little kid, and that little doll in the rocking chair going, ‘Take the girl right up the hill and kiss the girl goodbye’… I’m like, forget that! That freaks me out.”

Okay, the bold font in that quote is my emphasis. Little kid? Dude, you were born in 1968. Child’s Play came out in 1988. Since when did 20 years old qualify as “little kid” age?

Don’t get me wrong, Hugh. I still consider myself to be a big kid, too, even at 32. But…um…seriously? Child’s Play freaked you out? You’re supposed to be Wolverine, mate. This is something you maybe should have kept a bit closer to your muscly chest, no?

Now if you’d said clowns freaked you out, that would have been a completely different story. Clowns are fucking scary.

Poster Picks: Equus

~ lobablanca

Yes, because I do believe that it is my duty, as one possessing a degree in English, to bring a little more alliteration to your lives, I now bring you Poster Picks (to go along with Flashback Fridays and Gaming Glory).

I love clever posters. I think clever poster designs, however, are slowly dying under the weight of the generic “insert giant photo of star here; add movie/music/theater/television show name here; done” design. Perfect example: Look up the posters for the new Star Trek movie. Those are some of the most boring posters I have ever seen. Head shots of the actors. Wow. I hope the posters aren’t a true reflection of what we’re in for with the new movie. If they are, I better take a pillow.

Posters are supposed to be one of the marketing tools used to draw you in and make you want to see or hear whatever they’re advertising. A giant head shot of Chris Pine with trout pout is not a successful marketing tool. So this is why, every now and again, I’m going to submit to you all a poster that I think truly does justice to mad design skillz.

First submission: The artwork for the 2007 revival of the play Equus. This was Daniel Radcliffe’s chance to prove that he can do more than play with his wand. Er, kind of. I mentioned this poster in my last blog, but I adore this poster so much that it was the first that came to mind when I started thinking about starting this new segment. I don’t own this poster (later segments may focus on some of the pieces that I have purchased), but it is stunning.

I know that other posters from the series focused solely on photos of Radcliffe in various stages of undress, sometimes with a horse and sometimes with a female model…but this is by far the most provocative. It takes the standard celebrity shot and turns it into something hideously alluring. I love, for instance, how the shadows of Radcliffe’s arms become the horse’s ears, and the other bits of alignment between Radcliffe and the horse head that combine into some great PhotoShop morph work. Throw in a Christ-like pose and a horse snout where his groin should be, and you’ve got one hell of a disturbing piece of design work there.

And you know what? It did what it was supposed to do. Had I been in London at the time that this was on the West End (or in NYC when it hit Broadway), I absolutely would have gone to see this. Admittedly, it would have taken quite a bit of mental prep work to get beyond the fact that I would be viewing a former child actor showing me precisely what’s going on under his Hogwarts robes. But I think it would have been possible.

Anyway, I leave you with this amazing poster. Bask in its disturbingly beautiful glory.

equus

Flashback Friday: Jumpin’ Jack Flash

~ lobablanca
We never did tell her what Squiggy did to Booboo Kitty that night...
We never did tell her what Squiggy did to Booboo Kitty that night...

Thank the entertainment deities, wherever they may reside, for making certain that Caryn Johnson didn’t stick with putting makeup on dead people. Even though she very well could have had quite a steady career putting the “fun” in “funeral,” we would have been denied the unparalleled joy that is Whoopi Goldberg.

This is one of my all-time favorite Whoopi movies. This is my number one favorite Whoopi movie. I was 10 years old when I first saw it, and, yes, before you even ask, I probably was too young to be seeing this for the first time. I think I turned out all right, though, for being subjected to such filth at such a young age 😉

I don’t know how to explain why I love this movie so much, but it’s been making me laugh for almost 23 years, and I really don’t see that ever stopping. It’s an incredibly silly story and, really, it’s more of a vehicle to show off Whoopi Goldberg’s sometimes raunchy, sometimes slap-sticky comedy style. It’s also Laverne’s first go behind the camera on something bigger than her own television show.

More than just making me laugh, though, I think at some point in my impressionable young mind, I made the choice that, when I grew up and got a “big girl” job, I was going to emulate Terry Dolittle. I have horrid fashion sense, but I still dream of aspiring to the color-coordinated-down-to-her-Reeboks style that Whoopi’s character sported throughout this movie. Plus, if you’ve ever seen my work desk, you’d think that I had pilfered every toy and sticker from the set before they were able to strike it. Same goes with my home decor choices in many regards.

Other things that can be attributed to Jumpin’ Jack Flash: my introduction to Benny Hill, Jonathan Pryce, Tracy Ullman, and the Rolling Stones, as well as some of the most wonderfully offensive additions to my mental “favorite movie quotes” database. I still will zing out some of the less-shocking lines (“I got MOTHS. Giant, mutant, junkie MOTHS!” or “Dogs barking; can’t fly without umbrellas!”) at the most random moments. Few understand, but I just don’t care. Those who love me appreciate my Cinematic Tourette’s and that’s all that matters.

This is also one of the rare movies that has been with me long enough to have gone from my Betamax collection to my VHS collection to my DVD collection. Whenever the digital revolution spikes into full swing, it’ll follow me there as well. I don’t care that Whoopi would later find herself in the middle of that cacophony of cattiness known as The View (although she also has a special place in my geek heart for asking to be on Star Trek, where she

Holy Creative Literacy Campaign, Batman!

~ lobablanca
Best. Resolution. Ever.
Best. Resolution. Ever.

So Dutch Ruppersberger, a U.S. Representative here in the great state of Muralynd (pronounce it as it’s spelled and you’ll sound like a local!) has proposed a resolution for “Free Comic Book Day.”

Actually, I think this was just his version of yelling “First” to all his other representatives, because Free Comic Book Day has been going on since 2002. But that’s okay. It’s not like Congress has a lot of other things on their plate right now.

Actually, this concept is pretty cool. My grandmother used to always encourage my voracious need to read by saying, “It doesn’t matter what you’re reading, just as long as you’re reading.” She might have had a different opinion had I been reading something like To Serve Mankind for the tasty recipes, but that wasn’t the case. Comic books can be quite the awesome gateway drug to other reading adventures. Or they can stand alone. There are some amazing comics…excuse me, graphic novels out there, that carry as much weight as “serious literature.”

So tomorrow is Free Comic Book Day 2009. Looks like there’s a nice selection from which to choose this year, including X-Men Origins: Wolverine, in honor of the movie hitting theaters today. I’ve never gone to this event before. Comics have never been high on my Collector radar. I’ve had the pleasure of reading other people’s collections, and that has satisfied me. But I might check this out.

I’m also going to put in a plug for one of my all-time favorite illustrators in the game today: Frank Cho. He’s going to be signing books from 1-4 at the Cards Comics & Collectibles here in Reistertown. He is an illustrating god and I have had the distinct pleasure of witnessing his talent from the very beginning (he did a deliciously bawdy strip for The Diamondback at UMCP). He’s also a cheeky little Monkey Boy TM and seems like he’d be really awesome in person. So check him out, check out Free Comic Book Day, and say hey to Comic Book Guy from me.

Tip of the paw to A2 for bringing this to the lair’s attention 🙂

My 2 Cents on the Stamp Hike

~ lobablanca
To boldly lick where no one has licked before
To boldly lick where no one has licked before

So the U.S. Postal Service is bumping the price of first-class stamps by 2 more cents. The new price, 44 cents, will go into effect on May 11. The reason they are hiking the price from 42 to 44 is that they wanted to pay special tribute to Barack Obama, the 44th President.

I kid, I kid. The real reason is the simple fact that the USPS is struggling. They’ve been struggling for a very long time. There’s also been talk recently of cutting a day of delivery from the current 6-day delivery schedule. Then there are the salary freezes, hiring freezes, district office closings, restructured delivery routes. Lots of rumbling throughout the organization.

See, the USPS has always sort of been the government’s equivalent of the red-haired stepchild. You’ll notice it’s one of, if not the only government Web site that ends in “.com” rather than “.gov.” For a long time, the government actually wanted to “spin off” the postal service to stand on their own. They wanted to make them a viable commercial competitor to FedEx and UPS. Bottom line: They wanted to not have to give the USPS federal funding anymore.

But then a funny little thing happened: online bill pay. See, it wasn’t bad enough that the fine art of epistolary communication was dying a slow death at the hands of e-mail and “OMG txt spk 2 my BFF!” But then one of their strongholds began turning against them. Credit card companies and utilities like PEPCO, WSSC, and Comcrap…er, Comcast began accepting online payments. They, in fact, were encouraging online payments. From their standpoint, it was more economically feasible. If more customers paid electronically, they’d need fewer mail room staff and fewer data entry staff to process the tangible payments.

Of course, what’s good for the goose is kicking the gander right in its sack. Which is why the price of stamps keeps going up with greater and greater frequency. Now I know lots of people out there are grumbling over the steady price hike. Never mind that the United States continues to enjoy some of the lowest postage rates in the world. And we’re also able to buy “forever stamps,” which are just stamps that don’t show the postage rate anymore. This is so we can continue to use up our old stamps without having to find 1- or 2-cent stamps to meet the increased rate.

Personally, I’m a big fan of the forever stamp. I’m also a big fan of the USPS. That’s because my father was a faithful employee of the postal service for almost his entire working career. I have him and that gorgeous blue and white eagle for whom he worked to thank for everything ever purchased for me throughout my childhood and adolescence, including my ability to be a bronze-turtle-rubbing liberal arts dilettante.

So to all you perpetual gripers who want to complain about yet another postage hike, I say stick it…stick it right onto an envelope and mail it. You want the hikes to slow down? Start using the service more frequently. Stop using online bill pay. Mail your payments like they did in the “old days.” The more people who use the service means the more revenue…which means they might actually be able to pull back on future hike plans.

I guess all I’m saying is, give the postal workers a bit of a break. The government rarely does (all those big government salary increases you hear about all the time? My dad and his coworkers never saw any of those increases in their checks). Yes, this is a dying industry, thanks to all the technological advances we’ve made in recent years. One day, maybe, there will be no USPS at all. But for now, they are still needed (who else is going to bring me my Netflix movies and Amazon packages?), so go easy on them when they have to charge a little more for postage.

And that’s my 2 cents on the matter.