It's the Fall TV Scorecard - Part One

It dawns on me that the new Fall TV season is in full swing as of this week, and I haven't taken the time to tell you what I think you should and should not be watching because, let's face it, my wife says I spend my entire life in front of the TV set as it is, so who better to listen to? So here, in no particular order, are my opinions of the new Fall series to date.

BACK TO YOU: Completely professional. Completely serviceable. Completely unoriginal. Leads Kelsey Grammer, Patricia Heaton and the always-wonderful Fred Willard do what they do best, but I can't escape the feeling that I've somehow seen it all before.

THE BIG BANG THEORY: Easily my favorite new sitcom of the season. I've liked pretty much everything creator Chuck Lorre has touched, and this is no exception. I saw the first version of the pilot last season, and the second version earlier this year. Strangely enough, the opening scene that aired as part of the first episode is the third version of that scene I've seen, and I think it works the best. The only change they made from the first pilot to the second that I really disagreed with was the exclusion of a female nerd character who I thought was a perfect mix with the other three leads, played by Johnny Galecki, Jim Parsons, and now Kaley Cuoco. I've read that Sara Gilbert will be joining the show in essentially that role and I have to admit I'm pleased. Besides, how can I hate any show where one of the lead characters is clearly a DC Comics fan? I'll be watching every week.

KITCHEN NIGHTMARES: Okay, I'll admit it. I'm a big fan of chef Gordon Ramsey's other series, Hell's Kitchen, so I was already inclined to root for him here. While I've enjoyed the first two episodes aired so far, I'm afraid that this series will quickly start to become repetitive. Whether they can find enough different kinds of nightmare restaurants to hold my interest remains to be seen.

REAPER: Is a hoot-and-a-half. The basic premise of a young slacker discovering on his 21st birthday that his parents sold his soul to the Devil before he was even conceived is great fun, and Ray Wise (whom I've loved ever since he played Dr. Alec Holland in the original Swamp Thing movie) plays a Devil who is both charming and suitably unctuous, and incredibly entertaining to watch. Tyler Labine makes a great loopy sidekick to our reluctant demon-hunting hero played by a wonderfully woebegone Bret Harrison. I hope the show is a hit.

CHUCK: Does to the world of espionage what Reaper does to the supernatural. Slacker Nerd Herder Chuck Bartowski, wonderfully played by Less Than Perfect's Zachery Levi, suddenly finds that he has all of the NSA's greatest secrets downloaded into his brain and both the NSA and CIA want that information. The writing is crisp, funny, and kind of touching, and I look forward to seeing where it all goes. Right now, Chuck is appointment TV for me.

LIFE: Okay, so LA detective Charlie Crews, played by Londoner Damien Lewis, is framed for a multiple murder and spends 12 years behind bars getting brutalized, until his attorney finally proves his innocence and gets Crews released from prison, where he receives a multi-million dollar settlement and his old job back as an apology. Now Crews is sort of a cross between Adrian Monk and Doctor Gregory House, using what he learned in the slammer to help him solve crimes, even as he constantly munches on the exotic fruit he was clearly denied while in stir. The show hasn't hooked me yet, but I'm willing to give it a few more episodes before I bail.

BIONIC WOMAN: Boy, has there been a new series more hyped this season? I think not. And, frankly, I think it needs all the help it can get. Yes, I know the show is a reimagining of the old '70's series, told with the same sort of dark and gritty style of the similarly-revamped Battlestar: Galactica, but does it have to be so relentlessly grim? Lighten up, people. Despite the fact that this show costars my old friend Miguel Ferrer, I'm not sure I'll be sticking with it much longer if it doesn't give me somebody to root for.

K-VILLE: Oh, please. Basically, policeman Anthony Anderson stays in New Orleans when all about him leave town because of the flooding. Now Anderson is teamed with a new cop transferred in from another city and played by Cole Hauser. Problem is, Hauser turns out to actually be an escaped con who was accidentally freed by and had his life turned around by Hurricane Katrina. Sure. That sort of thing happens all the time.It's unfortunate they chose the Big Easy as the location for this series, since the basic plot just doesn't hold water.

DIRTY SEXY MONEY: Truth to tell, I liked this one a whole lot more than I expected I would. It's one of those huge over-the-top black comedy Dallas-type soap operas with a really terrific cast, led by Peter Krause (of Sports Night and Six Feet Under fame), the always-exceptional Donald Sutherland, and Oscar-winner Jill Clayburgh. It may start to wear on me after a while, but for now I'll tune in every week to enjoy the ride.

KID NATION: Okay, I may be the only person in America who actually likes this show, but in fact I like it a lot. I'm a sucker for shows about inspiring kids, and this show is full of them. 14-year-old Michael, who always knows what to say to rally the other kids, 10-year-old Emilie, who barricades herself in with the chickens to protect them from dinnertime slaughter; tiny little 9-year-old Taylor, caught between overwhelming homesickness and the need to be one of the town's leaders. I just love this stuff and these kids' attitudes and look forward to seeing if they can actually make the ghost town they now call home work.

Okay, that's it for the new season so far. More reviews and my humble opinions next week.

Wickedly Wonderful

It seems my lovely wife Christine and I have been going to the theater a lot of late. Herewith my report...

Six weeks ago, we attended the season opener of Reprise!, a musical series of which I have spoken often here in the past. This season opened with On Your Toes, one of the lesser efforts by Rodgers and Hart, memorable only for the song There's a Small Hotel and for the mini-ballet Slaughter on 10th Avenue. Still, the Reprise! production was as charming as possible under the circumstances, with a wholly competent company led by Stephanie Powers (of Hart to Hart fame) and Dan Butler (Bulldog on Frasier). We had a fine old time and look forward to the revisionist Reprise! production of the legendary Damn Yankees this November. I'll fill you all in once we've seen it.

Three weeks ago, Christine and I and our dear friend Gillian Horvath went to see the Actors Equity special one night performance of William Finn's wonderful Falsettos, with Malcolm Gets (of Caroline in the City), Vicki Lewis (of Newsradio), and Seinfeld's Jason Alexander (now creative director of the aforementioned Reprise!) leading a talented cast. Although the performers were still on book for much of the production, we found the show to be funny, charming, and ultimately touchingly heartbreaking. Well worth our time.

Last week, Chris and I went to see the road company of Lerner and Loewe's classic Camelot at UCLA's Royce Hall. Lou Diamond Phillips has just stepped into the role of King Arthur, previously played on the road by the great Michael York, and while Phillips doesn't necessarily have the greatest voice in the world, he is certainly the best singer I have ever seen in the role. Christine was thrilled to finally see a show where she knew all the music. While the sets were clearly scaled down slightly for the road, the show remains one of the classics, and the cast was easily up to the task. If Camelot comes to your neck of the woods, it's an evening well worth your time.

Last night, however, was one of the best nights I have spent in the theater in many a moon, as Chris and I and our friend Emily Mayne went to the Pantages Theater to see Wicked! In a word, WOW! Now this is what a Broadway musical is supposed to be. The sets are spectacular. The songs are singable. The story is inventive, compelling, funny, and touching. And the performers bring the house down. The current production stars Eden Espinosa as Elphaba and Megan Hilty as Glinda, both of whom have performed the roles in the Broadway company, with the always-wonderful Carol Kane as Madame Morrible and the charming John Rubenstein as the Wizard. We laughed. We cried. We were heartbroken that it had to end. Christine, who is usually one of the toughest critics I know, absolutely loved the show, which should tell you a whole lot right there. Wicked will be playing in LA at least through next March. We absolutely intend to go see it at least once more. I strongly recommend you do the same. This show gets a resounding five claws up.

This is Supposed to be a Joke, Right?

As some of you may know, I live in the west San Fernando Valley, north of Los Angeles proper. About a half mile south of my house is Ventura Boulevard, one of the Valley's major thoroughfares. Until a few months ago, about a half mile east on Ventura stood one of the few Taco Bell fast food restaurants in the area. We have several Del Tacos around, but this was the only Taco Bell. Once every so often, I'd stop there for lunch, to try the latest Gordita (which somehow always sounded like a Japanese movie monster to me) or the newest Quesadilla or whatever. Three or four months back, I decided to stop by the Bell to grab a quick bite, only to discover it had gone out of business. This surprised me, since most fast food chains don't drop like flies much around here, especially when there aren't many others of the particular chain to be found locally.

At least once a week since then, I've driven by to see if anything had changed at the location, and about a month ago, I was thrilled to finally see a LEASED sign on the property. Something new was going in to replace the Taco Bell. I spent the next several weeks pondering the possibilities. We're already butt deep in McDonalds and Burger Kings and Wendy's and Jack-in-the-Boxes and Carl's, Jr. around here. Even In-n-Out Burger (the best fast food burger franchise in the country, bar none) has maxed out in the area, with one available within a couple of miles now in any direction. We've got all the Pizza Huts or Domino's or Little Caesar's or KFCs or Subways or Quizno's we'll ever need. What I was really hoping for was a Sonic Burger since the only Sonic in Southern California that I'm aware of currently is down by Disneyland, a 90 minute drive away. When I was in Metropolis, Illinois back in June for the annual Superman Celebration, I had brunch at their local Sonic Burger and fell in love with their Diet Cherry Limeade, my favorite drink and one I cannot find around here anywhere.

So you hope, right? You drive past the location every so often to watch the demolition and reconstruction and you wait for the big, bright banner to go up, announcing what's coming, and you hope it'll be a Sonic because you really have a Jones for those Diet Cherry Limeades and then one day the banner goes up as expected and you read it as you drive by and you almost drive your car straight into the nearest lamppost because you're so astonished by what you see.

COMING SOON, the banner reads, in bright green letters at least a foot high, ANOTHER STARBUCKS COFFEE DRIVE-THRU!

That's it? After all this anticipation? That's all I get? Another freaking Starbucks?

Now don't get me wrong. It's not that I dislike Starbucks (although, to be honest, I much prefer the Ice-Blended coffee drinks at the local Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf), it's just that there seems to be a Starbucks on almost every other street corner, interspersed with the aforementioned Coffee Beans. In fact, to add insult to caffinated injury here, were you to stand in front of the new Starbucks location on Ventura and hurl your no-fat, no-sugar, half-caf, no foam, Venti Mocha Frappachino with enough force, you would literally hit someone standing in front of another Starbucks diagonally across the street. They are that close together.

So what are we to assume here? That Southern Californians are too lazy to cross the street for a cup of coffee? That the City Planners have finally run out of new ideas completely? That some evil super-villain is doing this just to drive me crazy (admittedly a short trip)?

Truth to tell, I just don't know, and I honestly don't really care. I just mourn for my stillborn Sonic.

So can anybody tell me where I can get a decent Diet Cherry Limeade around here?

I Hear the Train A-comin'...

Well, seeing as how I lambasted the original so cruelly a few blogs back, I thought it incumbent upon me to go check out the new incarnation of the movie 3:10 to Yuma, based on the short story by Elmore Leonard. For those who came in late, the original film, made 50 years ago, mind you, starred Glenn Ford (Pa Kent in the first Christopher Reeves' Superman film) as the roguish, charming, homicidal stagecoach robber Ben Wade and veteran character actor (and Supporting Actor Oscar winner for Johnny Eager) Van Heflin as Dan Evans, the desperate farmer who accepts $200 to escort the captured Wade to the town of Contention, where Wade is to be put on the title train to Yuma prison, where he will be properly tried and then pretty much promptly hung. The film is essentially a character study, as the two men come to understand and to some small degree respect one another, on the long trip to Contention. There is some action and gunplay along the way but the biggest problem with the story, as I've mentioned before, is that it has one of the most anticlimactic climaxes I've ever seen in a film. It's the kind of ending that has you leaving the theater shaking your head, wondering why you bothered to watch it all in the first place.

The new incarnation of Yuma stars Oscar winner and perennial bad boy Russell Crowe as Wade and Batman Begins' own Christian Bale as Evans, and each of them brings more of what the characters are to the roles than did the originals. Crowe's Wade is more roguish, more charming, and infinitely more homicidal than Ford's, while I've rarely seen a more woebegone farmer than Bale's Evans. I should also make mention of Ben Foster as Wade's right-hand man, Charlie Prince, a role assayed in the original by the late Richard Jaeckel. As Prince, Foster gives new meaning to the word psychopath. Generally excellent in a variety of supporting parts are Gretchen Mol, Peter Fonda, Alan Tudyk, and especially Logan Lerman as Evans' older son William.

There is a lot more action in this new incarnation of Yuma, though the film remains at its heart a study of two men of radically different moralities thrown into mortal conflict. The climax, which I found to be the single most disappointing part of the original, is much, much better here, though still not entirely satisfying. Over all, however, I'd have to give this film a solid three claws up.

Truth to tell, though, as I sat there watching, there was only one real thought that kept rattling around inside my head:

"Y'know," I kept thinking, "What this film really needs is a catchy theme song."

Just a Thought

An interesting observation as I grow older: as a rule these days, I find that I feel a lot less like a young Turk and a whole lot more like Turkish Taffy.

Aw, Shucks

Okay, so I e-mailed the legendary Stan Lee to inform him about the bizarre coincidence of my previous post, and within mere minutes, the living legend replied thusly...

Just goes to show -- great talents tend to congregate at the same place.

Positively makes one blush, it does. Yes indeed.

Oh, and for those of you wondering the next most obvious question regarding Stan and myself having lived in the same building, albeit a decade or so apart, namely did we live in the same apartment, sadly I have to say no. Stan makes mention of having an apartment that faced the rear of the building, while I have vivid memories of standing on the sidewalk in front of the building, shouting up to my mother, who was leaning out our apartment window, asking her for ice cream money, which she would then usually toss down to me, a dime tied carefully inside a handkerchief so it wouldn't get lost.

Wow, I haven't thought about that in decades. The memories this is all bringing back: running around on the Grand Concourse with my now-departed grandparents sitting on a bench nearby, keeping a watchful eye on me; my late, lamented Dad buying me one of the last issues of the original Plastic Man comics at the small candy shop across the street; all of us carefully staying out of the path of the great dinosaurs that still roamed the earth in those prehistoric days. God, was I ever really that young?

Okay, Wein, that's just about enough of that. Any second now, and I'm gonna start hearing Maurice Chevalier and Hermione Gingold singing softly in the background.

Believe it or Not

This is one of those things which, if it wasn't true, nobody would believe it. I was just browsing through Mark Evanier's always-entertaining News From ME blog, which you can link to at the right side of this very page. Today, Mark linked to an interesting article from the Sunday New York Times Key Magazine, which includes a slide show photo gallery of all the places comic book legend Stan Lee, former Editor-in-Chief of Marvel Comics and the co-creator of the Fantastic Four, the Amazing Spider-Man, the Incredible Hulk, the Mighty Thor, the Uncanny X-Men, and, just to balance the scales, the Astonishing Ant-Man, has lived in his long and prolific life. Out of idle curiosity, I decided to check out the gallery and what I saw there absolutely floored me.

It's no secret that I spent my formative years growing up in Levittown, New York, or, as I like to call it, "The Cliche´City of the East". Remarkably, I'm not the only comics professional to hail from that illustrious post-war Long Island village. That lovely little suburb also gave us former Dark Horse and Batman editor Bob Shreck, Zippy the Pinhead creator Bill Griffith, and Mr. Monster writer/artist Michael T. Gilbert, among several others. But, love Levittown though I might, it wasn't my first home.

No, from birth until I was seven-and-a-half and casually wandered out into the middle of the street one day, where only my father's quick reflexes saved me from being run over by a passing truck, thus deciding my family to move immediately to the suburbs, I lived in an apartment building in the New York City borough of The Bronx. The address was 1720 University Avenue, and, as I remember it, the place looked almost exactly like this.

The astonishing coincidence in all this? According to today's Times piece which can be linked to in its entirety by clicking here, Stan Lee lived in this exact same building just a decade or so before I did. Now what are the odds of that?

Sort of makes one wonder what future former Editor-in-Chief of Marvel Comics is living there now, don't it?

A Quick Claws Up

And it goes as promised to faithful reader J. Kevin Carrier for correctly identifying the title of the previous post as a line from Neil Simon's Biloxi Blues. When Eugene Morris Jerome, played in the film by Matthew Broderick, gets off the bus in Biloxi, Mississippi, to begin his Army basic training, he mutters, "God, it's hot. It's Africa hot. Tarzan couldn't live in this hot." I loved the line and it's always stuck with me.

Here, in the real world, it looks like the heat wave has finally begun to break. It's only 81˚ right now and they don't expect it to break 90˚ for the rest of the week.

Of course, weathermen have been known to be wrong before.

Tarzan Couldn't Live in This Hot

And a quick claws up to the first faithful reader who can tell us where the title of this post comes from.

Well, it was 115º on Saturday, 114º Sunday, 112º on Monday, and the last time I checked, the temperature was already at 94º today. You know it's too damned hot in Los Angeles when people are traveling to Death Valley to get away from the heat.

I'm just saying.

Blast From The Past - Pt. 1

This being the first of what may well become a series of reminiscences of my early days in the comics biz.

Okay, so it's 1973 and I'm the Editor-in-Chief of Marvel Comics, not bad for a kid in his mid-20s. The Marvel offices are on 575 Madison Avenue, I can't remember which floor. Head Honcho Stan Lee has the corner office, and what has lovingly come to be known as the Marvel Bullpen fills most of the rest of the same side of the hall. The Editor-in-Chief's office is a glass-walled room inside the much larger Bullpen area, so the E-i-C is available as needed to his staff. The Marvel editorial staff in those days, as best I can remember it now, includes Chris Claremont, Scott Edelman, Roger Slifer, Roger Stern, Irene Vartanoff, and almost certainly several others who will e-mail me immediately after this is published to chastise me for forgetting them.

Anyway, on this particular day, I had just returned from my annual pilgrimage to the West Coast to attend the now-omnipresent San Diego Comic-Con and spend some vacation time visiting with friends. During the course of my trip, I'd paid a visit to the self-proclaimed "Happiest Place on Earth", Disneyland. Now, being a responsible person and knowing I can't return home to the "kids" empty-handed, while at Disneyland, I've bought my entire staff those classic Mickey Mouse ears with their names embroidered on the back. Got it so far? Good.

So here it is, the end of the day, and the entire Marvel Bullpen is sitting at their desks, diligently doing their jobs, copy editing, color correcting, making bad puns, all of them to a man and woman wearing their mouse ears, and Stan strides by the Bullpen, heading for the lobby and the subway home. He glances into the Bullpen distractedly as he strides by, wishing us all a good evening, and then he's gone from sight.

A beat. Two beats.

Then Stan's hands come into view, grasping the side of the Bullpen door frame, followed a moment later by the top half of Stan's head, peering into the room sideways as if to verify he did indeed see what he just thought he saw. He looked a bit like the famous Kilroy drawing that was so popular during the Second World War. Seeing Stan's confusion, I raise a finger and open my mouth to explain why his entire staff is sitting there, wearing mouse ears. But, with a gesture, Stan stops me before I can utter a word.

"No, don't tell me," he mutters, sadly shaking his head, as he picks up his attache case and heads for the door, "I don't think I want to know."

Only in the Movies

Well, I was supposed to be spending this evening at a screening of the Russell Crowe/Christian Bale remake of the Elmore Leonard western, 3:10 to Yuma, but my movie-going buddy Bob Skir was involved in a minor accident this afternoon (just a dented fender and a mild case of Whiplash, thank Heaven, nothing more serious) and I didn't feel like going over to Hollywood alone, so here I am blogging.

In preparation for seeing the new film, I watched the original Glenn Ford/Van Heflin version of 3:10 to Yuma on the Western Channel a few days back (it's running twice more this Thursday if you've a mind to catch it before seeing the new one) and found it to be an interesting character study with one of the most "What the...? You can't be serious. I spent two hours watching, waiting for this?!?" endings ever, though I'm told they've majorly revised the ending in the new version. But what made the original film for me was the opening theme song, sung by the legendary Frankie Laine. Back then, the right theme song could help make or break a film. In fact, it's long been argued that what helped to make High Noon such a hit was a combination of the theme song, sung in the film by John's dad, Tex Ritter, and later on the record by the aforementioned Mr. Laine, and the brilliance of the film editor who cut in all those wonderful shots of the town's clocks counting down the minutes until the villainous Frank Miller (clearly in his days before 300 or Sin City) would arrive in Hadleyville to shoot hero Will Kane dead. And what would The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance have been without that haunting anthem by Gene Pitney? And even without lyrics, Elmer Bernstein's theme to The Magnificent Seven is one of the greatest movie scores of all time. But, as my friend Peter David often says, I digress. What I really want to talk about is the theme to 3:10 to Yuma, arguably one of the most surreal songs I've ever heard.

I apologize for the fact that I don't have the name of the composer or lyricist at hand (though you can easily check that out if you watch the film on Thursday) but I did take the time to copy down the lyrics. Imagine the great Frankie Laine (accompanied in parentheses by the inevitable chorus) singing this...

There is a lonely train called the 3:10 to Yuma.
The pounding of the wheels is more like a mournful sigh.
There's a legend and there's a rumor
When you take the 3:10 to Yuma
You can see the ghosts of outlaws go riding by (riding by)
In the sky. (in the sky)
Way up high, the buzzards keep circling the train. (ah ah ah)
While below, the cattle are thirsting for rain. (ah ah ah)
It's also true, they say, on the 3:10 to Yuma
A man may meet his fate, for fate travels everywhere.
Though you've got no reason to go there
And there ain't a soul that you know there,
When the 3:10 to Yuma whistles its sad refrain,
Take that train! (Take that train!) Take that train!

Wrong. Wrong. And, dear Lord, wrong. Take the stage. Take a carriage. Take a horse or a mule. Take gas, if you have to. But under no circumstances, get on that cockenlocker train. I mean, Jeez, they've just told you the train is lonely, it's haunted, you're more than likely to die while riding it, there are buzzards waiting to pick at your carcass, and you've got no sane reason to get on board in the first place. What are they trying to do, get you killed? Honestly, the lyrics could just as easily be...

Want to die from a terminal tumor
Or perhaps be devoured by a puma?
Then the 3:10 to Yuma is surely the train for you (ooo ooo ooo)
'Cause you're screwed (ooo ooo ooo) really screwed.

At least, that would be more honest. Think about it, people, the train is so bad, there's not only a legend about it, there's a freaking rumor. What more proof could you possibly need?

But things get even worse. Know all that cool, horrible stuff the song talks about? Well, none of it actually happens in the movie. Zero. Zilch. No ghosts, no fate, no buzzards. Hell, the train itself doesn't even show up until the last few minutes of the final scene. If there had been Truth in Advertising laws back in 1957, I think I might have demanded my money back, despite the fact that, aside from the ending, it really is a pretty good film.

Still, the worst part of it all (and my lovely wife Christine will happily testify to this, assuming she hasn't already killed me by now) is this:

I cannot get the damn song out of my head.

To Blog or Not to Blog

The problem with starting a blog, says my good friend What's My Line? Live On Stage director Jim Newman, is that it's pretty much like beginning a diet or joining a gym; once you start, you really need to stick with it for it to do you any good. Hence, you may well guess, our little problem. When I started this, I intended to blog every day -- honest to Pete, I really did -- but life seems to keep getting in my way.

To give you an idea how bad this has become, I started to write this particular blog last Saturday. Not the Saturday just past, mind you, but the previous Saturday, ten days ago, and I still haven't finished it. I guess a big part of the problem is that I'm trying to figure out what the purpose of this blog, if any, really is or should be.

I know many people use their blogs for self-promotion, to advertise any upcoming products or appearances. Trouble with me is, much of what I'm doing right now, the expert witness work for a local law firm, the super-secret gaming projects, are things I'm not allowed to talk about, and most of my comic book work appearing these days is usually reprints in the Marvel Essentials or DC Showcase format. I feel weird somehow promoting the old work, and the new material like the Conan: Book of Thoth mini-series I wrote with Kurt Busiek, or the various Simpsons and Futurama issues I've done for Bongo Comics have generated no response at all here, nada, zip, zero, so I'm wondering why I should even bother. Also, with What's My Line? back on hiatus for Heaven know how long, I have no upcoming appearances to plug. I mean, my next out-of-town convention appearance will be in Memphis next March. So, for now at least, there's no point in promoting it this far in advance.

Other people use their blogs to talk about what's going on in their lives but, frankly, not all that much is going on in my life right now worth talking about and that which is gets covered much quicker than I can seem to get around to it by my lovely wife Christine over on her blog. Thus, if you'd like to know what's been going on in my world for the past month, just click on Chris's link over on the right. So, again, what's the point in my being redundant?

Still others use their blogs to discuss movies they've seen or upcoming TV shows. Now, while I've see a number of movies over the last few weeks -- Hairspray (absolutely adored it and can't wait to see it again), Stardust (starts off slow, but picks up steam, and Robert DiNiro's performance alone is worth the price of admission), Ratatouille (occasionally oddly creepy -- these are rats, after all -- but ultimately charming and endearing. Can Pixar make a bad movie?), and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (loved it, especially the last 20 minutes in 3D; gotta love IMAX) -- but, again, Christine has already mentioned these in her own blog, so I'm a day late and a dollar shy. I've also seen many of the new fall TV shows so, if you folks are interested, maybe I'll talk about those in another post. But again, reviews need to be timely, and that's one thing I'm not.

Then there's politics. A lot of folks use their blogs as a platform for their political agenda. Now, while I consider myself a lifelong Liberal Democrat, I've generally been a pretty apolitical person, at least until the Clown Prince stole the office six years ago. I could rail on about that, but what can I say that more well-informed, more articulate political pundits cannot and haven't already said far more ably than I? Besides, the one time I mentioned global climate change on this blog, I started getting nasty comments from several right wing ostriches, and who needs that in their life? So it looks like politics is out.

And what does that leave me with? Well, it turns out that when I fail to blog for any long period of time, I start to get email from many of you wondering after my health. Am I all right? Am I suffering from Death Cooties? Please, let us know. First, let me thank those of you who've done so from the bottom of my heart for your concern. It truly is touching. Second, let me assure you that, as far as I can tell, I'm in as good a shape as I can be for a guy missing most of his internal organs. But that, and that reason alone, seems to be why I've got to continue with this. I appear to be suffering from an affliction unique to the Computer Age...

Bloguilt.

I'll try to stay in touch.