ZAPNotes

Right in my old back yard, no less! Some would-be XBox 360 scalpers were robbed at gunpoint after failing in their attempt to double their money by selling 5 XBox 360s to people standing in line to buy them. Nobody likes a scalper, I guess. No word on wether or not the gunmen then played Santa Claus by turning over their ill-gotten gains to some needy gamers. I'm guessing not. I'd be sympathetic to the plight of these boys, except for the fact that they were scalping! So now their actions have deprived four gamers from having a potentially incendiary home electronics device. But seriously, someone needs to take the rage out of A-Rage.

Josh Friedman. Joy.

...but I didn't realize that I had this much. I hope I find a good home for all of it.

A horse apparently named after a Viven Leigh character and a Dead Kennedy can drink legally for the first time today. Somehow we don't think that procuring alcohol has been an issue prior to today. But now it's, you know, legal. Joy. Make room at the trough!

...and none of us are worthy. Don LaFontaine did the voice over for this trailer! We weep with anticipation for the coming greatness that is Uwe.

I'm still trying to recover from my 15x10 -3 minutes of nationally televised fame. But here are some quick answers to burning questions you may have. If you've got another kind of burning, see a doctor. • I do work with the guy that Clay was hitting on. • Alla really was responsible for the win. • $45 glasses of cognac on someone else's tab are nice perks. Highly recommended joy.

But I certainly had nothing to do with this monstosity. Or did I?

OK, so posts about Gallo's reproductive juices don't elicit responses. Noted. Here's something that I may or may not have been involved in. I like how it says they were given access to me, as if I were a commodity. Or maybe they weren't given access... Guess you'll just have to tune in and watch. ;-)

Are you stumped as to what to get that certain single female on your shopping list? You know, the one who wants to have children, but hasn't found the right guy? Look no further, dear readers, as the intrepid JAD staffers have been working tirelessly since five minutes ago to bring you the solution to your KwansMasKah conundrum. Vincent Gallo's sperm. For only $1,000,000. We know what you're thinking and right now we're wishing that we were female, so we could take advantage of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. We mean, did you see Brown Bunny?* Price includes all costs related to one attempt at an in-vitro fertilization. (A $50,000 value) If the first attempt at in vitro fertilization is unsuccessful, purchaser of sperm must pay all medical costs related to additional attempts. Mr. Gallo will supply sperm for as many attempts as it takes to complete a successful fertilization and successful delivery. Sperm is 100% guaranteed to be donated by Mr. Gallo who is drug,...

The emollient Dr. Uwe Boll has announced that his upcoming opus, Dungeon Siege, will be split into 2 movies. We're not sure that mere mortals a worthy of such a bounty of Uwe-goodness. This event may be on a level with the Berlin wall coming down. Or the birth of Christ. The genius that is Boll is so sublime, so perfect that lesser humans cannot begin to divine it. We can only witness the results, his magnificent celluloid gemstones that shine so brightly. He is creating an oeuvre unparalleled in this universe. (And we imagine any others.) With bold ideas such as the non-importance of both character and production design, he is picking up where the avant-garde left off 30 years ago. We weep at the bounty he has presented unto us. Needless to say, we're going to go start the line for tickets tomorrow. We also think that this makes it official: Time travel has been invented. How else can you explain two-bit hack directors like Tarantino and Coppola doing the same thing ...

This is news? We're pretty sure that more people thought Ellen was straight than thought the Commander was. Geeky fan boys everywhere are colored unsurprised.

The new King Kong is going to be 3 hours long. Personally, we have no problem with 3 hour movies. As long as they move along at a decent clip. I imagine that spectacle such as Kong is a good candidate for working well as a 3 hour picture. Some 3 hour movies that move well: The Lord of the Rings films The Godfather Titanic Casino Some 3 hours movies that don't: Dances with Wolves Boogie Nights Punch Drunk Love* Actually, anything by P.T. Anderson Lost in Translation* * We know these movies weren't technically 3 hours long. They feel longer. Watching them will take years off your life.

If, like us here at JAD you find yourself frequently despising the inanities spewed from las bocas of the talking heads who cover events of a sporting nature, we have a site for you. Joy.

OK, I'm a horrible, bitter and spiteful GFB. I admit it.

There is a God.

Somedays you get 0.2 metric tons worth of work dumped on you. With a tight deadline, because the client took a week and a half to get back to you. On these days you curse the client, your AE and everyone's respective parents. You start to get a little stressed. Then you realize that about half your working time will involve going through photography of Jessica Alba and suddenly you don't mind. So much.

Him being Owen Wilson. In the movie business there are generally things called likeness clauses. A likeness clause dictates how big your mug has to be in relation to anyone else's mug (and sometimes who is even allowed) in promotional materials, like posters. Generally when you're the star you get the provision that no one's likeness may appear bigger than your likeness in the poster. In the case of 2 stars, they generally have to be equal. Which brings me to why you don't want Owen Wilson's agent: It's not even close. Sure, Double-V's head is lower than OW's, but apparently Vincenzo is a giant. (Or Owen was passed over for the role of Mini-Me only because his nose is crooked.) If it's still not clear, here's a Photoshopped version of the poster to illustrate how much bigger V 2 is in this particular poster. Keep in mind that all I did was rotate the bits of his body. I scaled nothing. I didn't fix the bit of perspective on him (he...

I didn't think that teaming Obi-Wan Kenobi with a talking horse was a good idea, but even I didn't expect this. This first trailer, the one with Mr. Pink delivering the only bit of dialogue, was actually good. But the subsequent offerings made it look worse and worse. The brown artwork probably didn't help. Apparently the more the horse talked, the less people wanted to see it. I know for a fact that Mr. Large Body of Water Partially Surrounded by Land is very involved in the marketing of his movies, so he's got to share some of the blame. Maybe most of it. After all, he's the one that cast the horse.

www.uweboll.com

"At the end of the day, I don't have to worry about what people think of me, whether they hate me or not. People hated on Jesus. They threw stones at him and tried to kill him, so how can I complain or worry about what people think?" –– Eagles wide receiver Terrell Owens, on how people might react to his potential camp holdout. I'm so glad that the hated Eagles have to deal with this guy, after he trashed by beloved Niners before leaving town. But I have to admit a grudging respect for them over the hard line stance they're taking with this idiot. I wonder if it has occurred to him that if he holds out that he won't get paid anything and that that might not be good for his family, which is the other quote attributed to him. And all this posturing after a year which could only be considered his fourth-best as a pro. And after he had gotten his dream gig in Philly. And after signing a good contract with them. This is all as laughable as the time Latrell Spre...

Don't do it. However tempting it is to use other blogger's comments areas to promote your ultra-crappy, badly written excuse for using up server space. Make an interesting comment and you'll be rewarded with page views and maybe frequent readership. But blog spam isn't welcome and doesn't work. So don't do it. Just. Don't. Thank you.

I'll post what I thought was overlooked and what shouldn't have been included later. Meantime, here's the list as it is: “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn,” “Gone With the Wind,” 1939. “I’m going to make him an offer he can’t refuse,” “The Godfather,” 1972. “You don’t understand! I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I could’ve been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am,” “On the Waterfront,” 1954. “Toto, I’ve got a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore,” “The Wizard of Oz,” 1939. “Here’s looking at you, kid,” “Casablanca,” 1942. “Go ahead, make my day,” “Sudden Impact,” 1983. “All right, Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up,” “Sunset Blvd.,” 1950. “May the Force be with you,” “Star Wars,” 1977. “Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy night,” “All About Eve,” 1950. “You talking to me?” “Taxi Driver,” 1976. “What we’ve got here is failure to communicate,” “Cool Hand Luke,” 1967. “I love the smell of napalm in the morning,” “Apocalypse Now,” 1...

JAD's favorite movie director, the inscrutable Uwe Boll , is allegedly being considered for directing duties on a movie adaptation of the PC game Postal. This kind of genre-jumping ( House of the Dead , Alone in the Dark & the upcoming masterpiece that is Blood Rayne ) is virtually unprecedented, but we feel that the intrepid autuer will be up to the task. Dare we say, "Oscar?" Yes, we dare.

Thank you for telling us that you are not going to have children* in your bed anymore. We'll just gloss over the glaring contradiction here. But well done to you! And congratulations on the not guilty verdicts! Too bad you couldn't get the judge to allow a verdict of innocent... * And by children we specifically mean young boys. But hey! It's a natural and loving thing, right?!?!

Anyone can do it! Just keep in mind to never use your source's name, and always play up a celebrity's reaction to something using the following words: Blast Slam Fuming Here's an example: "Latigo Flint blasted reports that his guns do not actually fire live ammunition." Use them in combination!: "Gil slammed fellow carnie Sal's insinuation that he got a bit too personal with a badger. "It was cold and he wasn't even there!" the one-eyed Whack 'em Cats operator fumed." That's right, kiddies. Anyone can write a gossip column. And with the internet, anyone can publish it, too! p.s. Don't forget to put a salacious slant on everything. And blow things out of proportion, too. In fact, you may want to change your middle name to that.

ABC has just announced that they are dropping the NBA Finals in favor of repeats of "Lost" and "Desperate Housewives".

(I actually started writing this the day after I saw it. It's taken a while to get around to finishing it.) I'm glad I didn't do the midnight show. First, a little background on my involvement with George Lucas's creation, known as Star Wars. I was not even two when the first Star Wars was unleashed upon the world. Back then, it was just Star Wars —the sub-title "A New Hope" was added later (which is ironic, considering the much more objectionable changes later made to the original films by Lucas.) But I have always known Star Wars. It is the first film I remember seeing. My brother and I had a good percentage of the original toys, we actually still do. I've dressed up as Star Wars characters for Halloween and I've watched every Star Wars spinoff, even the Ewoks movies. I have owned the original trilogy in 3 different incarnations on video. I have a print of Darth Vader hanging in my house and until the last few years I've continued to col...

 "Will be remembered as one of the greatest movies ever made. 'Classic' isn't kind enough a word for this gem. The best film to be unleashed onto the public in 25 years!" -- Alex Sandell, JUICY CEREBELLUM Calm down, big boy. Calm down.

$21.7MM opening. I like to think that Douglas would be proud. If you haven't seen it yet and you liked the books, I do recommend it. There's a definite plot, and a lot of things are different, but the essence is there. It's also such a joy to see practical creature effects again. The CGI is great, especially when they get to Magrathea, but the aliens are wonderful creations of Jim Henson's shop. When you see the Vogons, you'll wonder why GL had to go all-CGI with his creatures. 4 stars out of 5

Ok, that headline could be cooler. Just imagine that it's 40 years ago. And that you're in a NYC subway. And instead of reading a blog, you're reading some graffiti. And instead of "TMQ", it says "Frodo". ... Alright, it was a stretch. Sue me. I've got Barry White as my legal counsel. This is exciting news. I'm so excited I need to go beat on Kid Mayo with my Titanium Pimpstick™.

After watching some (OK, a lot) of the opening weekend of the NBA's second season, some things occurred to me. • Is George Clooney trying to compete with his buddy Brad by doing Budweiser VOs? WTF? • The new Bulls are fun to watch, but watch out for Ben Gordon if they start losing again. • Do the movie/playoff tie-in promos that TNT does really work? I'm not sure that this is the right venue for Kingdom of Heaven . • The adidas commercials are works of art, but somebody please tell me what they have to do with the shoes. The shoes are intelligent? Does that mean they understand the ads? • Enough with the pouty looks after you score and get fouled. If you're trying to look intense, it's not working. You look like you just chomped on a lemon. Score, pump your fist and be done with it. Stop trying to look like you've just had every member of your family insulted and your hometown invaded by locusts. It's just basketball. • Ahmad Rashad owns the NBA behind...

Apparently my home town Fan Force is lining up for the midnight showing of Star Wars Episode III: ROTS. The odd thing about midnight showings or any late night movie viewing in Anchorage is that it's still light when you exit the theater. This can take some getting used to. (This only applies during the summer months, BTW.) The really sad thing about this is that the line is almost guaranteed to be better than the movie. This one's still going to suck, boys and girls. Great effects and awesome Jedi action will be melded together with mind-numbingly dull (and pointless) politics, bad writing and possibly worse acting by most involved. I saw the last one in the theater and the highlight was hands down the 5 minute lightsaber battle before the movie started, put on by a couple of fans in costume with plastic sabers in hand. They had some great moves and generated more applause than anything in the 2 hours of pain than followed. Of course, I will be seeing this conclusion...

Adobe (makers of PDF and Photoshop) have announced that they are going to devour the company known as Macromedia (makers of Flash and other junk). Joy. I don't throw my lot in with the whole "corporations are evil" crowd, but this is not a good thing. It's not like the EA/NFL deal (which was initiated by the NFL for reasons known only to Lucifer); it may be worse. Macromedia was Adobe's only competition in at least a couple spaces, such as image editing and web interface builders. This means effectively no competition for the new GoLive/Dreamweaver product, and likely, no innovation. The only good that could possibly come of this is if the Flash interface gets fixed, because right now it blows yaks. I'm not holding my breath. Hopefully the regulators will disallow this one. Later in the day, videogame retailer Gamestop announced it's pending assimilation of videogame retailer Electronics Boutique. It's the hip thing to do, apparently. Tomorro...

...no, we are not dead. ...yes, we are very happy that the Lakers are officially out of the playoffs. But this does not end our "Down with KBB" mindset! ...yes, there will be Titanium Pimpsticks™ for sale here soon in this spot. Shill, shill, shill! ...no, and you don't want to, either. ...yes, he was a groovy kind of guy. Not perfect, but hey: who is? ...42. Don't you read? ...yes, she is a skank. Dating, shtupping and marrying a scumbag is skanky. It doesn't matter that she's currently married to the guy. This pregnancy just underlines the skankiness. ...Gil is dead. ...no he's not. ...that's right, we're coming to NYC in May for a bit. Or at least NYC-adjacent. ...yes, he is dead. If not, why isn't he posting? ...the new Beck is good. Buy it. No, not the beer. But it's OK to buy beer, too.

We have sold two Suspicious Yak tees! This is great news, but apparently it's not enough to nurse Gil back to posting health. So. Buy. More. Shirts. (Or Western Union the carny some money. I think he's in Manitoba.)

It is a well known fact that we here at JAD despise with a level of intensity normally reserved for cockroaches and Carrot Top one Kobe Bean Bryant. We have posted about this several times. In a glorious development, the rest of the known universe is coming on board with this view. Chad Ford, "insider" for the Galactic Sports Station ESPN, has authored a column entitled, "Kobe's Act Wearing Thin In L.A.?" in which he writes: As a player, Kobe Bryant ranks as one of the 10 best players in the NBA. But given the Los Angeles Lakers' current problems, and the obstacles they face in fixing the team this summer, should owner Jerry Buss entertain a Kobe trade? This is fun. This is better than the 8-game losing streak that just ended (only the second 8-game slide since the 60s for the Lake Show). The answer is of course, yes. The debate (if you thought there was one) about which player KBB or the MDE made more of an impact in LA, is over. The bigger impact, the...

Funny that they didn't send one to me...

This will help you with that—as soon as their ordering system is up and running. Until it is, they may give you some lemon-soaked paper napkins. Joy.

The jury did not believe that Lil' Kim's sunglasses kept her from noticing that it was her friends who were shooting people outside the Hot 97 radio station. Apparently she misplaced the manual for her Joo Janta 200 Peril-Sensitive Sunglasses™. The jury, having not personally experienced the usefulness of having sunglasses that turn progressively black in the presence of danger, thought she was just a liar. Zaphod could have told them that a person wearing such sunglasses would definitely not seen anyone shooting anyone else under any circumstances. The interesting thing about the above article is not that Lil' Kim is the first female rap star to go to prison, but that this radio station is the place where rap entourages go to have shootouts. "Hot 97 is the same station where the posses of 50 Cent and The Game traded bullets last month." Hot 97 is the new OK Corral! We may have just found a career for Latigo that would make good use of his skills. He just...

Sadly, the 150 foot icescraper has fallen. There were rumors that it suffered the breakdown after learning its phone number was released to the world when Paris Hilton's sidekick was hacked, but we're pretty sure that's nonsense.

Every once in a while the machinations of clients can actually get to us here at JAD. We like to think that normally we know the score and can accept the insanity and inanity that is working in the entertainment industry. It is the price we pay, as they say. But there are those times when it gets to be a bit much and we wish for great bodily harm to be inflicted upon those that contract us to do the dirty work of advertising the product. Generally these wishes go unfufilled, much like those of Jessica Simpson and Lindsay Lohan, who wish to be taken seriously, or Paris Hilton, who wishes that her vagina was more selective. But this afternoon we were actually given the opportunity to make these violent dreams a reality and so much more besides. At least, we think that is what happened. You be the judge. Sometime after lunch, the receptionist buzzed to inform us that we had a visitor and would we like to have them come up? This was most unexpected, as we are generally not allowed visitors...

CONFIDENTIAL NEW BUSINESS PLAN Given the advancements in Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) technology, it is now possible to create the world's next great invention: The digital bumper sticker. See, OLEDs don't use a lot of voltage, can be almost paper-thin and are actually brighter than conventional LEDs using the same amount of power. This next generation bumper sticker (NGBS) will affix to your bumper or rear window as normal, but it will have a wireless connection to your cellular phone (WCTYCP). Flash memory (like in the iPod Shuffle) will keep each slogan displaying on the NGBS for at least 3 months without requiring a recharge/replacement. The advantages of this NGBS for the investor are so many as to boggle the mind, but I will outline a few for you: No more stale slogans. If your candidate lost, you can instantly update your Dennis Kucinich sticker to read "Don't Blame Me, I Voted Kucinich!" We think this will be a great revenue stream. After the l...

They say that everything is bigger in Texas. This may be true, but if you want to get really big, you have to go to Alaska, where I grew up. (But don't tell anyone in Texas that. They're still sore about not being the biggest state anymore. I'm not kidding.) In Alaska, things get REALLY BIG. On account of the almost perpetual light in the summer, the produce at the state fair looks like it's been hit with Wayne Szalinski's expanding machine. We have the largest bears, the biggest fish, a little mountain that is 4 miles high (and a taller ascent than Everest) and now we have a 151-foot tall ice sculpture. Why? Because it's Alaska. We have to do strange things to keep ourselves entertained during our 29-month winters. Check out the link for the progress photos. It's pretty amazing. Someone has to climb up to the top of this thing every few days to dig out the nozzles and add 10 feet of pipe to keep the thing growing upward. And remember, it's p...

Saturday turned into a date night without even trying. I made dinner for my lovely wife and then we went out to see maybe the finest working stand up commedian today, Eddie Izzard. No, he's not touring right now. He was in LA doing four nights in this tiny 99-seat theatre, working out new material. He came on about 9 pm, as scheduled (I don't think he realized he was in LA) and proceeded to do mostly new stuff for 90 minutes. He was in bloke mode, no dress or makeup. Given the size of the crowd, he would occasionally get into conversations with us about the accuracy of some of his historical jokes. He did reference some of his earlier bits, but that's his style if you've listened to or seen more than one of his shows. Some of the new stuff was quite the hysterical. Great bit about houseflies. He wrapped up with "The Deathstar Canteen" from Circle, but a bit altered, which was kind of like the Rolling Stones playing Satisfaction live and extending the s...

In light of our friend Gil's enormous medical bills, we here at JAD have created a t-shirt design that highlights the dangers of yaks to help him defray these costs: We think they're pretty nifty. All profits, after Cafe Press's enormous cut, will be sent to Gil. Hopefully he can then get the creditors off his back and post more. Or maybe he'll just get drunk again. Whatever. All we care is that he posts more.

It appears one of our MM items from last week is now incorrect. Which is not the same as being incorrect when we published it. We here at JAD like to think that we are 101% accurate 99% of the time. So there. On with the correction! Jessica Alba is, in fact, very interested in one night stands. This news comes via The Sun, which means that it's practically the word of God*. The queue starts to the left, boys. Please try to be orderly about this. * If God were very, very drunk, and having a bitchy row with some nuns.

What if Harvey Weinstein and Michael Moore sat down to dinner and started eating each other? Would we wind up with a two-headed Jabba the Hutt? The Blob? The Return of Marlon Brando? Would we be overrun with a thousand mini-Harchaels like in Army of Darkness? This is a question that needs an answer! We need to get a crack research staff on this.

Imagine if the internet had been invented 100 years earlier. Or even earlier than that. Of course, that might mean that a lot of other things would have to be invented first, like monitors, keyboards, computers and toilet paper, but let's skip all that. What kind of blogs have we missed out on? Let's jump into an alternate universe and find out! [waiting.] OK, good. You've made it! Let's look at some of these blogs!: Spreading the Word M. This blog reads kind of like the Bible. Very dry. A lot of "Shalt Nots" and so on. I don't think this guy got laid very much. The Big Fat Roman Orgy B. Wow. This was one catty bitch. He spent post after post whining about his boss. Boring! The Vicious Blog D. Parker And I thought the last one was catty. This reads like a Ted Casablanca column, only literate. Stank of gin, too. Killed Another One W. H. McCarty Thrilling recounts of gunplay, fast horses and dirty women. Every other post was about some guy that ...

... overheard at various Oscar after-parties: "I may have to re-think that whole 'I'm not going to do Daredevil 2 ' thing." -B.A. "Why is it so cold in here?" -H.S.'s ass crack "Mr. Hoffman, are you sure you want a fourth? The awards aren't even over yet." -Kodak Theatre bartender "Right off-stage was a pretty good place to watch. Yeah, we had the heart equipment with us. Those old timers can go at any time." -On call paramedic "Have you seen Lumet's daughter around?" -every hetero male "Fucking Kevin Costner. Who even remembers Dancing Wolves these days? They should make him give it back after The Postman " -M.S. "Nah, it's cool. I'm not bitter. At least I'm not Martin Scorsese. That old bastard must be going around the bend right now." -P.G. "It feels beyond good, what do you think?" -M.F. "What? Do something? Fuck-off! I'm off duty." -A.B.'s...

Apparently Sony's Everquest 2 has added a new "feature". If you type "/pizza" the game launches Pizza Hut's web site, so you can order a pie whilst slaying dragons or virtually wooing an elven princess. This beats the former method, which was spending 5 minutes on the phone with a good pizzeria, ordering something that would actually be edible. The online comic Crtl-Alt-Del has taken this "innovation" to its logical conclusion. Joy. Bad Cover Alert™: Some bimbo named Katrina Carlson has forsaken all credibility or originality and covered the classic "Drive" by The Cars. Another case of trying to cash in on someone else's brilliance, this abomination adds absolutely nothing to the original. Ben Orr is spinning in his grave, no doubt. I was driving (no pun intended) Sunday night when we heard this crap being pushed over the airwaves and into the car's stock radio. The resulting hysteria of both of us simultaneously trying t...

I offer this: I don't object to the poster design. In fact, I kind of like it, although I would have done some things differently. But this marks the 938th time that "Terror has a new name" or some variation thereof has been used to promote a horror film. It's time to retire the line into the cliché wing of the Copywriter's Hall of Fame. Post haste. Further, it doesn't even work in this case. Which name are they talking about? The Jacket? The copy line is near the actor's name, not the title. So does this mean that 'Brody' is the new name of terror? Maybe Knightley is. Her teeth are certainly scary, but I'm not sure they inspire terror in anybody. I think you'd have to be a bit dodgy in the heart to have anything to fear from either of these two. Visually, this poster isn't an improvement on the first two, one of which offered up the ugliest picture yet seen of the not-so-attractive Keira Knightley. The first two were quite...

Apparently the new Mr. Spears, in addition to being a total scumbag, is about 5' 6", as seen in top-secret government surveillance photos of the demon ritual. This must be the reason her parental units gave their blessing to this unholy union. The previous Mr. Spears, Jason Alexander, although dim, gullible and apparently unable to tell the difference between a real girl and a fake one (which may speak volumes about BS's taste in men), may have been too large a specimen to be controlled by their alien-demon hybrid technology.

It's part of the job that you get projects that are fun to work on for one reason or another (big movie, classic, something you really liked, etc.) and then there are projects that aren't so much fun (the studio is basically dumping this title, Pauly Shore movies, etc.). A while back, I was given one of the latter. The studio had been going round and round with the primary star of this particular movie. They were trying to get a key art* approved. This was a dog title. It had sat on the shelves for something on the order of 2 years. There's generally one reason for a movie not getting a release: it sucks. There are occasionally other reasons, but the when it doubt, it's this one. This movie didn't have the makings of an out and out suckfest. The primary star is a well-known comedic actor, was teamed up with another well-known and liked comedic actor, co-starred an major award-winning actor and was directed by an award-winning director. On paper it look...

My earlier satirical blog about Alone in the Dark isn't half as funny as this supposedly true account of the scripting of said masterpiece. Enjoy. By the way, the trailer for Bloodrayne may make you go blind. You've been warned.

I've filled up my first list at Amazon of packages designed by me. Fear not, friends, as I have another list in the works. Just waiting for the studios to send the release data to Amazon on several titles. And here is the finally started, long-awaited international list. There's more to come and probably more back titles that I can't think of right now.

I just discovered that iTunes has Eddie Izzard albums available for purchase. I just give them my password and I get offbeat historical funny goodness delivered. straight. to. my. computer. There goes my productivity for, oh, February. Joy. iTMS, you are a diabolical mistress. Oh yes. Oh yes.

As you've probably already heard, coach Rudy T. is about to quit the Lakers, halfway through the season. The national sports media says that this move is health-related (although nothing to do with the cancer he battled a few years ago, thankfully). The official line from the team is only that he's thinking about it. Right. What the screaming heads (Stephen A. Smith) on Sports Center won't go out on a limb and say, although the more connected local radio hosts know, is that it is a cancer-related decision. Cancer spelled with a 'K'. This is the kind of Kancer that had Zen-Buddist and all-around-laid-back-guy Phil Jackson seek therapy to help him deal with it. This is the kind of Kancer that would score 40 one night and then not take a shot in the first half of the next game because he was criticized for not distributing the ball enough. When this Kancer leads the team in scoring this year, they're a .500 club. When he doesn't, they're 4...

From Yahoo!: Tara Reid and Christian Slater's scary movie "Alone in the Dark," [underachieved] with just $2.5 million, finishing well out of the top 10. [...]the movie stars Reid as an anthropologist and Slater as a paranormal investigator[...] It is depressing when a deserving art film, such as Alone in the Dark fails to find the audience it deserves. The movie was a labor of love for all involved, with the actors working for scale. Directed by the visionary Uwe "Germany's Scorsese" Boll, the movie tells the heart-wrenching story of gumshoe (Slater) and the woman he loves (Tara "America's Kidman" Reid) as they fight for the future of the world against all odds. The cast is rounded out by Stephen "America's Anthony Hopkins" Dorff. The movie has also missed out on the awards season, because unfortunately, it was not released in time for Oscar consideration because everyone involved wanted to get it right, no matter how lo...

Hoy es cumpleaños de mi del amigo Latigo Flint. Le $5 deseo la gran diversión, puta de Tijuana y una botella del tequila más fino que una cuenta de dólar diez puede comprar. También le daría un saludo de 21 armas (o deba que sea 29?), pero me parecía haber colocado mal mi arsenal entero.

1. The Razzies, that protector of quality in film, have sold out and gone political, nominating Bush and others for Worst Acting honors for Jabba the Moore's film of last summer. 2. We need to send a Terminator back in time to kill Axl Rose right after he completes laying down vocals for Use Your Illusion albums. This is a good thing on many fronts. It prevents the band from being ruined by Axl. It stops The Spaghetti Incident from ever being contemplated. The 3.5 GnR albums would be elevated even higher because of what might have been. And several years later, Courtney Love-Cobain won't kill Kurt and make it look like a suicide because it would just look like he was being an Axl copycat. Let's get our scientists on this! 3. Was I the only one who was hoping that Terrell Owens would slip and snap his broken leg in two when he was jumping up and down on the bench Sunday? At least the Eagles get to be dismantled by the Pats, bringing a lousy NFL season to a...

As traumatic as the Vince Neil run-in was earlier, my day has been resuscitated by Ian Andrew Ziering's wife. (Yes, they're still married, apparently the divorce isn't final. They're making it work, unlike those A-List ) I get to play with photos of her in a bikini. And get paid to do it.

So I'm playing some music via iTunes and I decide to pop into the music store (iTMS) to see if there's anything new and interesting. And there was. But not for the right reasons. For wrong reasons, so very, very. Wrong. Vince Neil had the third "ad" at the top of the iTMS home page. I can only hope that these are paid ads, making Apple a little money, because there is no other good reason on this earth for that to be where it was. So I just had to click on it, to see what he was up to. ... Who can I sue to reclaim the 30 seconds of my life that were wasted listening to this drivel. Don't get me wrong, I love the Crüe. I can even make the umlats quickly as I type. "Kick Start My Heart" and "Dr. Feelgood" are in a class by themselves. The problem here is that Crüe-less Vince sounds nothing like Vince+Crüe. Vince+Crüe=Gold, at least for a while. He should have looked to the successful solo careers of other front men, who...

Apparently Fox TV has realized that they "relied too heavily on Reality TV" . This is a revelation up there with "Hey! The sky is blue!" and "Toast is good with butter." "Reality" TV is the most gawdawful invention foisted upon us since Muzak. It doesn't even qualify as reality. It's just cheap programming. Producers don't pay scale to the writers—yes, if you think "Reality" TV is unscripted I can hook you up with Jennifer Aniston, real cheap like. Hell, they don't even call the writers writers, all in an effort to protect the lie that this is something out of real life. No royalties are paid to the (non)"talent" people in front of the cameras. DVD royalties? Hah! Don't make this bitter entertainment industry vet laugh. The contracts they offer contestants on American Idol make being a sex slave in the Middle East look like a good gig, or at least one with more dignity. Fox has become the ...

Natalie Portman won a Golden Globe this weekend. As my friend Rube Waddell* has pointed out, this could be the start of a new trend; play a stripper, take your clothes off, win an award. Joy. This hopefully will replace the depressing trend of; ugly up, win an award (Hillary Swank, Halle Berry, Nicole Kidman, Charlize Theron). Some may argue with Hillary Swank's inclusion in my parentheses, but that's why I've got comments turned on. * Don't bother with Rube's blog, he doesn't post there anymore, which is a shame, because he's got one of the great blog names out there.

I won Latigo Flint's coveted Best Comment Ever Award! This is right up there with my Key Art and Alex Awards. Unfortunately, I did it anonymously, to mess with my bro, who was messing with me, so Latigo may not believe that I did it. But I did! I used Google's Language Tools to do it. Oh yeah, here's the winning comment. It's #4.

Don't Panic, click the image for a larger version.

Not me, I assure you.

A while back, I created an Amazon list of DVD packages I've designed. As I noted then , it was not complete. One of the titles I was hoping to find is currently only available from the publisher. Carnival of Souls is a classic horror film, one that George Romero credits as an inspiration for Night of the Living Dead . (Hey! I did a package for that one, too! What do a coincidence!) Both movies include commentraks from Mike Nelson of MST3K fame. Go ahead and buy them both. I like this package a lot because it is one of the first finishes that incorporates work I did in 3D, which was cool.

KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic has turned me onto The Chapin Sisters , a 3-girl group of singers and their musical stylings. They're kind of like a cross between Sepultura and Bambi .* I recommend you check them out, especially their cover of Britney's "Toxic" . Joy. I found out their next show is going to be here in LA, a mere number of blocks from where DarthMoridin toils. Double Joy. Are you still here? Click the link , dammit! * They sound nothing like this. I just wanted to see if you were awake. But who knew that Sepultura would have an official web site? The Brazilians are still in full effect. Yo. Dog.

cpMaia likes to come up with fun games you can play with your friends. Her latest inspired me to come up with one of my own. Everyone who plays has to come up with three (3) songs they wish they had written. I hope those of you who aren't musicians play along as well. I'll start: Paranoid Android , Radiohead Divine roller-coaster vocals along with some out-of-this-world guitar work. With Or Without You , U2 Simplicity and restraint elevate what could have been a late-80's power ballad to classic status. Comfortably Numb , Pink Floyd 2 of the greatest guitar solos of all time.

I'm a slut for all things Apple. I admit it.

I think that if next year the Broncos make the playoffs and wind up in a match-up up with the Indianapolis Peyton Mannings, the NFL needs to step in and replace said Broncos with the 7th seed. It would probably make for a much better game. In other sports news, it's official--the NY Mets have lost their collective minds. Of course, you could also argue that Carlos Beltran has lost his mind for agreeing to go to the Metropolitans and treating the Astros (with whom he was one game from the World Serious) like garbage. I would not disagree with you. If you were to say that Scott Boras is the devil, or is at least having NIN's "Closer"-type sexual relations with Beelzebub, I would say you were quite observant.

WARNING: thar be jargon ahead, matey! Quark XPress sucks. Actually, it doesn't just suck, it invents new ways to suck. It's actually so good at doing so that you kind of have to admire the dumbass engineers at Quark for being able to delve to new realms of suckage. It's quite spectacular. Quark XPress is, unfortunately, the current standard for desktop publishing (DTP) page layout programs. Back in the day, when we could only work in square interfaces and RAM still cost upwards of $20 per megabtye , it was the bomb, yo. It was mean, lean and let you put whole categories of businesses out of work with a single click (typesetters, etc.). But then they started upgrading, casually ignoring advances in the system software it was running on for years at a time. And then there's the bugs. Bugs so bad that some major releases (*cough* 4.0 *cough*) got categorically ignored until the next point release (x.1, x.2, etc.) in which the bugs were squashed to the ...

I created a list on Amazon of DVD packages I designed. It's not complete as there are a few I probably can't remember and some that aren't out yet, but you may find it of some interest. This is a domestic release only list. I may at some future point do an international list on their UK site.

While we here at IJAD strive to avoid such things as politics or serious current events like a Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster strives to prevent you from being sober, some things just cannot be helped. It occurs to us that it might be a good idea for the news networks and outlets in this country to stop being PR flacks for the "terrorists" out there. How about not running every video tape from OBL? How about not reporting on every possible person out there and their supposed reasons for operating? There's a concept! You will instantly reduce their "power"--much of which is perceived, not real--by at least 95%. Their capabilities are in actual fact so miniscule that they would be nothing without the media to give their message strength. Yeah, I know. Too logical.

Hope this one is the best so far. dM