The Walking Dead Season 3, Episode 1: Seed

Hey, The Walking Dead's back! It's about damn time too. It's been seven months since the last episode. If they don't stop having such long stretches between seasons Carl's gonna be shaving soon!

No doubt about it, this was an awesome episode and a great way to start the new season. I really don't have any major complaints about it. Let's hope they can keep up the good work.

SPOILERS! You've been warned!

• We get new opening credits, listing all the new cast members.

• So it looks like several months have passed since the Season Two finale. Michonne mentions something to Andrea about how they survived the winter. No doubt they wrote in a time jump to help explain Carl's growth spurt. And Lori's belly. And Herschel's hair.

• Team Rick is now quite the well-oiled zombie killing machine. I didn't see a single character do something stupid, unlike last season. Good. It's high time they started writing these characters a bit more intelligently.

• Carl has seemingly gone from Idiot Plot Device to a serious and valuable member of the team. Good. His bone-headed antics last season, which inadvertently resulted in several deaths, was wearing thin. Let's hope they keep up the good work and don't have Carl revert to his old ways.

Lori even managed to not be annoying this episode. And Carol finally seems to have something to do other than look worried. And T-Dog! He had more lines in this episode than he had all last season.

Do you suppose the writers read all the fan complaints on the internet and decided to address the various problems with the show?

• At the end of Season 2, we saw Rick and Co. resting after fleeing Herschel's farm. Then a dramatic crane shot revealed the prison in the distance, seemingly a quarter mile away. Half a mile at the most. Yet somehow the group drove back and forth around the area for several months without seeing it. I suppose it's possible (they made a half-hearted excuse about zombies blocking certain routes), but... it seems unlikely.

Wait a minute! Now that I think about it, they were planning their moves by looking at a road map! Wouldn't a prison be listed on the map?

• Much of the "clearing out the prison" scenes were straight out of the comic book. Pretty awesome to see it come to life like this.

• The infamous prison riot armor even made its appearance! Fans of the comic were no doubt squealing with glee at the sight of it. In the comic Rick, Glenn and Michonne donned the armor in order to safely clear out a nest of zombies. Here they just put on a few select pieces, mostly the bulletproof vests. Odd. If I found a suit of carbon fiber armor in their you can bet I'd be wearing it even in the shower!

• Lori raised some valid- if gruesome- concerns about childbirth in a world crawling with undead.

•  Carl seems to be becoming quite a little horn dog, as he was planning on bunking with Blonde Girl until Herschel shooed him away.

• Michonne was nothing short of awesome in this episode (as she always has been in the comic). Strange that they didn't explain her two "bodyguards." Maybe they're saving that for later? For the record, the two jawless and armless zombies Michonne is leading around on a leashes are her former boyfriend and his buddy. She somehow discovered that by having them tag along behind her, most of the other walkers will ignore her. She cut off their jaws and arms so they can't attack her. Hardcore.

• I've said it before, but it bears repeating: Rick Grimes is Herschel Greene's personal Satan. Before Rick came along, Herschel was living a relatively peaceful life with his family and friends on his magically protected farm. Then Rick and his crew show up and in short order Otis is killed, Herschel is forced to confront the unpleasant truth about his dead wife and walkers in general, he falls off the wagon, one of Rick's crew encourages Herschel's daughter to slash her wrists, two of the people under his care are killed, he loses his farm...

And to top it all off, Rick chops off Herschel's leg! If Herschel survives, he would be absolutely justified in putting a bullet in Rick's life-wrecking head.

• So apparently Herschel has become the new Dale. In the comic, Dale was the oldest and wisest member of the group, ended up getting bit on the leg by a walker, and Rick chopped off his leg in order to (successfully) save him. Now that Dale is gone, it seems he's willed his plotlines to Herschel.

• The appearance of the human prisoners at the end is another element straight out of the comic. The older guy who says, "Holy sh*t!"-- I'm betting that was Axel, an inmate who became a big part of the group. There was at least one black inmate standing there-- I wonder if that was Tyreese? In the comic Tyreese was a civilian who joined the group long before they made it to the prison. But introducing him here would be a good way to finally add him to the show. I guess we'll find out next week.

• All in all this was a great episode, but I'm wondering if they can keep it up. Remember the first episode of last season? It started out promising as the group was traveling down the highway and had to hide from the zombie herd. Then they found Herschel's farm, made themselves comfortable and all action stopped for the rest of the season. I'm hoping we don't get a repeat of that this year. Hopefully the prison won't turn out to be another Herschel's farm.

• Lastly I'd like to thank the asshole at mtv.com who wrote a review of the episode with the headline, "Walking Dead Creator Amputates The Season Premeire." I was doing my best to avoid spoilers all day before I could watch the episode, and thanks to you I accidentally saw your idiotic headline and knew someone was going to get something chopped off.

First of all, that headline doesn't make a lick of sense, and second, who writes a fraking SPOILER in their headline? Thanks for ruining the episode.

UPDATE!
According to AMC, this premiere episode scored a whopping 10.9 MILLION viewers. Almost 11 million people! That'a a new all time record for a cable series. Not bad for our little zombie show.

The highest rated network show so far this fall is Modern Family, which pulled in 5.5 million viewers. Half the amount that Walking Dead got.

That pretty much seals it: Network TV is dead, or at least on life support.

That Ain't Right Part Two

Recently I blogged about the highly inappropriate Sexy Sesame Street Halloween costumes, and predicted that at our current rate of Sluttification, our society would soon run out of pop culture subjects to sluttify. I worried that by 2016 we'd be reduced to creating costumes such as Sexy Blender and Sexy Ball Peen Hammer.

I'm afraid it's worse than I thought. It's already happened. We have definitely run out of sexy character fodder and have begun using inanimate objects.

Case in point:

The Sexy Corn costume.

I... I don't even know how to respond to this. I need to go lie down for a while. Perhaps volunteer to read to the blind or something.

The Incredible Shrinking Slasher

Last night I watched the original Halloween on DVD (boy, does it pain me to have to qualify that statement by adding "the original" before the title). As you're no doubt aware, it's the granddaddy of the modern slasher film.

I'm happy to report that it holds up pretty well, 34 years (!) after it was made. It's also a surprisingly bloodless affair; as it's almost chaste compared to the other films it spawned. It's more like a Hitchcockian suspense thriller rather than a horror movie.

Incredibly the film was made for only $320,000! Even in 1978 dollars that was ridiculously cheap. I bet most films today spend more than that on the craft service alone.

All in all it's very well made and director John Carpenter did an amazing job, especially considering it was only this third theatrical film. Of course since you're reading about it on my blog, you're no doubt thinking, "Oh boy, he's gonna start pointing out flaws." You're very perceptive.

The first seven minutes of the film are all one continuous shot, seen from the point of view of Michael Myers, the villain of the piece. Here we see Michael creeping around in the kitchen and reaching down to grab a large butcher knife from a drawer. Remember that: he's reaching down.

Next we see Michael wander through the family dining room. Note that his vantage point is quite a ways above the top of the table.

Michael then reaches down to pick up a Halloween mask, which he puts on his face. He walks up the stairs to his sister Judith's room, where she's brushing her hair after a recent roll in the hay with her boyfriend. Apparently Michael disapproved of his sister's sluttery and stabs her to death with the butcher knife to teach her a lesson she'll never forget. Please notice that once again he is looking (and stabbing) down at her.

Michael then walks down the steps and out the front door, just as his parents drive up. The camera then switches away from Michael's point of view and we see that he's really a six year old child, no more than four feet tall.

Apparently in addition to being an evil little psychopath, Michael is also a shape-shifter of impressive ability. He's able to enlarge himself to the size of a full grown adult who has to reach down to pick up objects. Or perhaps he's able to stretch his legs to stilt-like proportions. Either way it's an amazing ability.

One more thing: just as Michael exits the house, his parents drive up, get out of their car and approach him. Mr. and Mrs. Myers seem oddly calm and unconcerned throughout this scene. As the camera slowly pulls away from the grim tableau, they just stand and stare at their young son, curiously nonchalant about the fact that he's dressed like a clown and holding a bloody butcher knife.

Mrs. Myers is so unperturbed by the whole thing that she even puts her hands in her coat pockets as she continues to stare at her little monster.

But don't get me wrong. This is just a minor little glitch in an otherwise excellent movie. I don't want to give the impression that it's bad or riddled with inconsistencies, because it really is worth a watch. I'm not going to point out any more or the mistakes or flaws in it.

Oh, all right. You talked me into it.

The bulk of the movie takes place on October 31st in Haddonfield, Illinois. Look at the scene above. Notice how... lush and green everything looks. The scenery looks downright tropical. 

I can assure you that there's no way the foliage would be that green at the end of October in the Midwest. The leaves would be various shades of red and yellow, if there were any left on the trees at all. Most likely they'd all be lying in the front yard, forcing you to go out and rake them in order to shut up that bellowing slag your friends told you not to marry.

A bit later we see Laurie Strode, the heroine of the movie, walking down the street. This time a few dead leaves blow down the sidewalk in a brave attempt to convince us that it's Fall. It works, for the most part.

Until the very next scene in which the leaves have all magically disappeared again. Whoops!

OK, OK, that's enough. I'm not gonna point out any more problems. It's a really good movie and they made it for next to nothing and it's not fair to-

OK, one more thing.

At the beginning of the movie Michael Myers steals Dr. Loomis' car and speeds away in it.

Michael has been institutionalized since he was six years old. He's never driven a car nor been taught to drive. I guess it's not impossible, as he could have observed his dad driving when he was a kid to see how the pedals and such operate, but it's still a bit iffy.

Michael then drives 150 miles (!) to Haddonfield, where he begins stalking Laurie. One hundred and fifty miles. The distance is even specifically mentioned in dialogue. That's a pretty impressive road trip for someone who's never been behind the wheel before. It's a sure bet he'd have to stop and get gas at least once. Did he pull up to the pump and calmly fill 'er up while wearing his white William Shatner mask? 

And how did he find his way to Haddonfield? He was six years old when he was taken from there. Did he go into the filling station and buy an Illinois road map? Did he have trouble folding it up when he was done?

Once he's driven the 150 miles to Haddonfield, he doesn't stop there. He spends the entire first half of the movie cruising around town, stalking potential victims. He ominously follows young Tommy Doyle, who Laurie often babysits, for several blocks.

He then tails Laurie and her friends in broad daylight.

He even drives right past his nemesis Dr. Loomis, his own personal Captain Ahab. Watch carefully and you'll see Michael patiently waiting for the right of way before he pulls onto the street. He may be a psychopathic killer, but he knows his traffic laws!

Then he starts following Laurie and her friend Annie.

In fact he follows them around until nightfall!. So not only is Michael Myers somehow able to figure out how to drive a car, he figured out how to find Haddonfield, then once there cruised around town for hours without ever once attracting the attention of other motorists or the police. In my mind that's more impressive than his seeming invulnerability.

OK, I'm on a roll. No sense stopping now!

Lastly, I'd like to give Judith's boyfriend credit where credit is due. He definitely deserves some kind of award-- a jackrabbit award perhaps. In the opening scene, he suggests to Judith that the two go upstairs to her bedroom for a romp in the sack. Note the time code at the bottom of the screen as they reach the stairs: 3:17.

At time code 4:41, we see him putting his clothes back on, telling Judith he has to go. That's 1 minute, 24 second later. One minute and twenty four seconds to run up the stairs and into Judith's bedroom, disrobe, do the deed and put his clothes back on. 1:24! That's gotta be some kind of record. And not a good one, where Judith is concerned.

Minor glitches aside, it's still a good movie. Really, it is. Go watch it. 

From The Department Of "That Ain't Right"

Well, it's October again, and you know what that means-- Homecoming games, raking leaves, and slutty costumes clogging the aisles of the temporary Halloween stores that have popped up all around town.

The Halloween costume designers have gone all out this year in their search for innocent subject matter to slutify. No pop culture figure is immune, no matter how inappropriate. Their latest target? None other than Sesame Street.

Yep, you read right. The show that's been teaching preschoolers the alphabet and how to count since 1969 is now fodder for "sexy" adult Halloween costumes.

Don't believe me? Behold:

No need to rub your disbelieving eyes, you're seeing correctly. That's Sexy Bert & Ernie above.  I find myself filled with strange and confusing feelings as I stare at Bert's ample rack.

Dear lord, they even put Ernie's beloved Rubber Ducky on the model's booty! We're very near the end of civilization.

Oh, but that's not all. Above is Sexy Oscar The Grouch, accompanied by Sexy Elmo. But... isn't Elmo supposed to be a child Muppet, three or four years old? That's just... excuse me while I go take a shower, in a futile attempt to wash off the sleaze.

To complete this unsettling sextet we have Sexy Big Bird and Sexy Cookie Monster.

You're no doubt thinking, like I did, that these costumes are unlicensed, made by some fly-by-night outfit that hopes by the time the Sesame Workshop gets wind of them, Halloween will be long over and they'll have retired to the Bahamas. You would be wrong.

According to the Yandy.com website that sells these travesties, they are officially licensed by none other than the Sesame Workshop themselves. Did you hear what I just wrote? The people who bring you the Number 7 and the Letter C have freely and willingly whored out their characters for use as sexy Halloween costumes.

The only possible scenario I can come up with probably went a lot like this:

Sesame Workshop CEO: Jenkins, I just don't get it. Our Sesame Street merchandise sells like gangbusters to the 1 to 5 year old crowd, but it drops off sharply among teens and is practically nonexistent among adults. How can we reach the all-important 18 to 34 crowd?

Jenkins: Well sir, what if we marketed a line of merchandise for adults? Specifically a line of "sexy" Halloween costumes based on our most cherished and iconic characters?

Sesame Workshop CEO: Genius! Get the art department designing them right away! I want to see sketches by lunch time!

I have to assume that loud whirring sound you hear is Jim Henson, spinning in his grave like an industrial strength lathe...

I'm worried that at our current rate of Sluttification, Halloween costume designers are soon going to run out of pop culture figures to sex up. We're already sluttifying characters meant for children, for god's sake. After they release Sexy TeleTubbies costumes next year, the well is going to be pretty much dry. They're going to have to go meta and start sexifying costumes that have already been sexified. You know, something like SEXY Sexy Elmo.

Either that or start working through kitchen appliances (Sexy Blender) and various inanimate objects (Sexy Ball Peen Hammer). I suppose they could always turn their eye toward cars (Sexy Yugo?). Regardless, I fear the world will run out of Sluttification material no later than 2016.

Bosses From The Eighth Circle Of Hell: Fungus

Throughout my career I've prided myself on working hard, performing what's asked of me to the best of my ability, and being an all-around good employee. I've also done my best to get along with my various bosses.

Alas, sometimes that's just not possible. Sometimes you end up with a Boss From The Eighth Circle of Hell. 

As I've mentioned before, the Boss I had at the marketing agency in which I worked was not what you would call a computer whiz. We used to joke that we could give him one of those cardboard computers they use on desk displays in office stores and he probably wouldn't know the difference.

One day the Accounting/Payroll lady got some kind of virus on her computer. The Boss walked into the Designer's room and shouted, "Mabel (not her real name) has a fungus on her computer! Does anybody know how to get rid of a computer fungus?"

DVD Doppelgängers" Age Of Dragons Vs. Wrath Of The Titans

I saw this SyFy Channel DVD in the store a couple days ago.

The cover reminds me of something, but I can't quite put my finger on what it could be...

Oh yeah. Now I remember.

The Age Of Dragons designer perfectly aped the beveled font used in Wrath Of The Titans. Cheezus, he even duplicated the extended angle on the letter "A!" To be fair, he did reverse it and extend it on the left side instead of the right.

Hilariously, Walmart had these two titles sitting right next to one another on the shelf. Right next to each other! Less than an inch apart. They're doing my job for me these days.

By the way, according to Amazon, Age Of Dragons is a fantasy-tinged retelling of Moby Dick, but with a white dragon instead of a whale. That actually sounds like a pretty cool idea, but it was produced by SyFy, so I think we all know better.

Here On Johnathan's Isle!

Just one short year ago fast food restaurant Long John Silver's redesigned their logo, complete with awkward tag line (during their Aquaman phase).

Since they had the old logo for twelve long months, it was now hopelessly out of date and the time was ripe for a change. Behold their brand spanking new logo, designed by famed television producer Sherwood Schwartz. Schwarz used the same "wacky" font treatment and off-kilter arrangement that made his Gilligan's Island and The Brady Bunch logos such successes.

Schwartz, who died in 2011, designed the new logo from beyond the grave and transmitted it to Earth in the form of a brown water stain on a men's room ceiling tile in a Madison Avenue advertising agency.

Tales From The Grocery: Some Days You Just Can't Get Rid Of A Bomb!

A year ago I got a second job as a cashier at a grocery store in order to pay off some bills. It was a miserable, humiliating and demoralizing experience in every measurable sense, and I got the hell out of there as soon as my bills were paid. I feel genuinely sorry for anyone who has to work in such a place.

Here's another terrifying Tale From The Grocery. All Tales are 100% true. Enjoy.

One day someone dumped a big box on top of the trash can just outside the front door of the store. The strange woman who worked at the Service Desk asked me to go and see what was in it. I went out and looked and saw that the box was full of old classical records. Not CDs, but old school 33 1/3 record albums.

Admittedly that was a little odd. However the Service Desk woman warned me not to touch the box because it might be some kind of bomb.

Sigh... the terrorists don't even have to do anything anymore to win.

Fall Festival 2012 Memories!

Last week marked the 91st annual West Side Nut Club Fall Festival here in Evansville (or as the kids call it, "Eville").

After parking several miles away and hiking to scenic Franklin Street, attendees were welcomed to the Festival by the lovable Unauthorized Off-Model Dora The Explorer Analogue.

Unauthorized Off-Model Dora The Explorer Analogue was apparently the Official Mascot of the Festival this year, as she was visible everywhere. Here she is with her sidekick Really Off-Model Not-Diego.

 

Of course every year the main attraction of the Festival is its tasty and unusual food offerings. Here we see one of the many exotic and delicious culinary delights available this year: the ever popular Meat Wad. If you're the adventuresome type, you could opt for the Meat Wad Inferno. Spicy!

If eating's not your thing, why not seek out some of the bright new talent on display at one of the two stages in the center of the Festival? Feel awkward and uncomfortable as you watch a six year old girl, clad in a spangled bikini and fishnet tights, belt out Gloria Gaynor's feminist anthem "I Will Survive!"

The Festival features plenty of carnival games to test your skills. Among the many prizes one could win this year was the popular cartoon character Ganjy, The Stoned Rastafarian Penguin. Uh-oh, Ganjy! Those eyes are looking pretty red! You'd better whip out the Visine before Officer McNulty sees them!

Don't forget to try out the many exciting and breathtaking carnival rides along the midway! The Festival features the scariest thrill rides in the Tri-State, assembled by a crack team of (for the most part) sober, unqualified temporary carnival workers!*

*Whoops! That's just a joke, Midway Entertainment, Inc.! I'm sure you have a highly trained staff of dedicated workers who put customer safety first! There, that ought to prevent a lawsuit.

The operative word at this year's Festival was crowds! Lots and lots of crowds. A veritable sea of teaming multitudes attempting to waddle down the street while eating a brain sandwich with one hand and smoking a stale cigarette in the other.

Franklin Street was closed to vehicular traffic for the event, with the exception of sanitation trucks. At one point I saw several garbage trucks carefully picking their way through the densely packed crowd. It reminded me of something, but I can't quite remember what it was...

Oh yeah. Now I remember.

Every year the Nut Club proudly touts the statistic that the Evansville Fall Festival is the second largest street festival in the country, right after Mardis Gras.

As always, I'm somewhat skeptical of this claim. I understand why the Nut Club latches onto it, as it's good publicity, but... it just seems unlikely.

Every year Mardis Gras in New Orleans gets around one million visitors. The Fall Festival gets between 100,000 and 150,000. That's a pretty precipitous drop off. Is there really absolutely nothing that falls in between these two events?

Maybe I'd have an easier time believing it if I had more info. What exactly are the Fall Festival people measuring? The total attendance of the week long event? Is it the amount of land covered by the booths and midway? Are they taking into account the sheer tonnage of the crowd? Are they using some qualifier to get the total, such as Second Largest Street Festival With The Word "Nut" In The Name? Who knows?

Supposedly the whole "second largest" deal was started by the late radio personality Paul Harvey. That explains a lot right there. Mr. Harvey was a popular commentator but few could deny that he was a bit...  eccentric.

"In other news: The annual West Side Nut Club Fall Festival started this week in Evansville, Indiana. It's the second largest street festival in the country, right after New Orleans' own Mardis Gras. Friends, you'll find the world's largest Festival Of Savings when you shop at your neighborhood True Value Hardware store!  Page...................................................TWO!!!"

Stormy Weather

For quite a while now I've been whining about the lame and ineffectual names the National Hurricane Center gives to hurricanes and tropical storms. I feel it's a tough sell to get people to take seriously a hurricane named Floyd. No one's going to evacuate their home when they hear that Hurricane Debbie is coming their way. 

I suggested they start giving these deadly storms more appropriate names, like Destructorr and Devastator.

Well, the National Hurricane Center continues to ignore me, but this week the Weather Channel has finally taken my advice. For the first time they've decided to name upcoming winter storms and are giving them appropriately grim monikers such as:

Brutus

Caesar

Draco

Gandolf (sic)

Khan (!)

Magnus

Rocky (!!)

Triton

Zeus

Finally some fittingly ominous names! Looks like somebody's been reading my blog!

Maybe now that the Weather Channel (which from what I understand is a lowly cable station, of all things) is taking my advice seriously, the National Hurricane Center will see the light and follow suit. Baby steps!

Halloween Mystery

Ah, Autumn! When the leaves begin to fall, the air has a little nip to it, and the Temporary Halloween Stores start cropping up like the black mold on the floorboards of my house, that my insurance company conveniently no longer covers.

There are at least three of this things here in my moderately sized city (two within half a mile of one another). They're vast too; each the size of the average supermarket. All this is in addition to the seasonal Halloween sections in stores like Target, Walmart and CVS. That's a lot of Sexy Plumber costumes.

So who's buying all this stuff? Is there really such a high demand for Halloween costumes these days? 

Are people buying costumes to wear to Halloween parties? I fully admit that I am out of the loop when it comes to this subject. My partying days ended a long time ago, after I was involved in what my family has delightfully dubbed "The Incident." Do Halloween parties still exist? Do people still do that?

Maybe people are buying costumes to wear to the office? Hoo boy, what am I saying? Nobody has a job these days, especially in an office. The few people who are employed are already wearing costumes on a daily basis as they hand out burgers and fries. So no, they can't be wearing them to work. I don't know what I was thinking there.

Are people buying them to wear as they hand out treats at their door? Doubtful. If the public is anything like me they turn off the porch light on Halloween and hide in the bedroom all evening, reading by match light.

Are these stores really that profitable? Do they make that much money from their combined 100,000 square feet of prime retail space, filled to the brim with Sexy Bus Driver and Sexy Journeyman Electrician costumes? I suppose somehow they must or they wouldn't keep popping up year after year. 

It's a modern mystery, on par with how the hell Radio Shacks can possibly manage to stay open in this day and age.

Out Of Context Star Trek Moment

I've been an avid Star Trek fan for many decades, but even I have to admit that certain episodes could get a little silly now and then, especially when viewed out of context.

So sit back and enjoy what may be the greatest Out Of Context Star Trek Moment ever!

Pink. Why, oh why did it have to be pink?

Did no one on the crew even once glance at the set and gasp in horror (or perhaps suppress a giggle), then approach the director and gently suggest he might want to find a different prop for Kirk to hold?

My parents must be so proud of me right now for this post...

Thanks to my pal Ted for pointing this one out to me. Unbeknownst to him, my heightened sense of immaturity had already seen it (causing me to squeal with glee) and I was already making plans to post it.

September Doodles

I have this journal (it's not a diary!) that contains calendar pages at the beginning of every month. I make my own calendars at home and have no need for the one in the journal, so I fill up each day's box with a doodle.

Enjoy these September doodles!

If you remove the large fangs, the guy in the top row, third box from the left kind of looks like a teacher I had in high school. That's Bert next to him, no doubt glaring at Ernie. Looks like Pufnstuf there on the 11th. And is that shrill celebrity Joan Rivers on the 20th?