One of the things I was big on back when I was more active in the anime club was to try to get more anime movies to play in local theatres. Back then, they only played the art theatres and hardly came to our area if they came at all. I even made a road trip once up to Chicago to see Princess Mononoke, and that was directed by the major director Hayao Miyazaki and released by Disney. But now that anime has become more mainstream, it is showing up more and more in the theatres. But with DeathNote, based on the manga and anime about a mysterious notebook that if you write someone's name in the book they die, it's only playing two nights only May 20th and 21st. Even the wife heard about this film at work. So even with such a limited window it is stirring up interest.

This has been a crappy week. Gene Colan is ill, and doesn't have health insurance, which is a situation that even if we do have, we're not in much better shape. Gas just keeps going up, and I think that people are conditioned to because first we were told that there's nothing we can do about it, then told that it was going to hit $4 a gallon, and now that it's almost at that mark, people are passing along the ancedotal tale that it's going to be $5 a gallon. And even if you can afford gas, what do you do when your car goes out? Some people are trying to sell their stuff to make ends meet, but it's getting to be more sellers and less buyers.
It's a good thing this is an election year. We can see about doing something to address these--
California's Supreme Court has okayed gay marriage! It's those activist judges just doing what they want to, no never mind what people want. Something's gotta be done! Why won't they let the people decide?
*SIGH*
I don't want eight more years of this crap... To all those people spouting off what was written a couple of paragraphs ago, about "activist judges" and all that, can I talk to you? I hope you're not parrotting what someone else said to express your feelings. I mean, it isn't just some renegade judges that are forcing what they want on people, they are sworn to uphold the law. And it isn't like a family squabble when the kids go to mom and dad to decide, this is a matter where laws and legal precedents are cited. Judges don't get to do what they want, there has to be some basis on what is presented to them. And if it isn't, there are safeguards in place to address those wrongs. It isn't a bunch of "liberals" that skipped up to the steps of the California Supreme Court and said "Could you let gays marry? Pretty please?" and the judges, who wanted it but those gosh-darn laws wouldn't let them decided to do what they wanted and said "yes". Sorry, didn't happen that way. There is a level of courts that cases work up to, and most of the time the cases that want to go up the next level usually don't. It is only those cases where there is a question as to how it was decided gets to go up, either in the case itself or how it was presented. It isn't just somebody that's deciding how it should be for everyone else based on what they think, and that certainly isn't a way to decide things.
And as to those who want decent Christian people to decide these things and not the law, there's an organization that can help you. And you can wear your own uniform. And it's easy to make, too. You start with a white sheet.
Update 11:13pm: Here's a point that Mark Evanier just made: you know that "letting the people decide" thing? It's more about getting the type of voter they want to the polls, not "saving the institution of marriage" or anything like that. And I know it's a democracy, but there are some things you don't want the people to decide. There's a reason why "taking the law into your own hands" is not a good thing. Google "lynching" and "fragging" if you'd like an example.
And instead of parroting talking points you hear other people say, you might want to learn about them, or you'll end up like this jackass (courtesy of Chris Matthews and Keller):

First of all, what we've been doing for the past 8 years has gone so well, don't you think it's time to do something else? And quit squealing appeasement when someone mentions talking to someone. As Matthews says at the end of the clip talking is not appeasement. But if you insist on squawking the squawk, let me help you out. Here's the Wikipedia page on Neville Chamberlain, and the entry on the appeasement of Hitler. It's interesting, you can learn something. I learned something from the appeasement entry: it wasn't a case as some people think of giving in to a bully, it was an attempt to maneuver Nazi Germany against the Soviet Union, taking care of two problems at once, but didn't work.
But if you don't want to try reading and learning, you can always yell when you don't know something. That always works.

You know how NASA has a press conference about a meteor narrowly missing the Earth? Cracked.com has something similar: 6 near miss movie bombs. Also: the 9 most obnoxious memes to escape the internet tubes.
John Ostrander writes about the amusement park they're planning for Iraq. And learns something Dave Sim once wrote: no matter how weird I try to be, real life beats me to it.
And I hate to put this in a dis n dat, but I have nothing else to add: Will Elder has passed away.

When people think of beach front properties, they think of California, Florida, and the Hamptons. They also think about how expensive it is to buy one of those properties. But one good place for coastal properties is North Carolina. It's more than a place for Hollywood to go to film movie and TV shows for tax breaks. There's all sorts of beautiful Wrightsville Beach real estate available. And I know Greg Dean has his annual get together for fans of Real Life web comic. It's a great place to move to or get away from it all. What's different about Coastal Carolina Properties is that they don't list individual properties, but work with potential buyers to obtain the property that is more to their liking.

Up here gas is $3.95 a gallon, getting close to that $4 everyone was saying it was going to get. And now the word's going around that it's going to get to $5. Are the oil companies the ones starting these stories, to kinda prep us? I'm starting to adust my travelling appropriately. I'm doing more combining of trips, which I already do, living out here in the middle of nowhere. Any idea of when we're going to ramp up mass transit? As I've mentioned before, it's frustrating that we're the only major country without a real mass transit system, even more so that the oil, tire, and auto companies dismantled the system we had in place. It's going to be awhile at best before the next viable energy source comes along.

Hey kids, remember the good old days when you wanted a computer you'd order a kit and put it together yourself? You don't? Well, they used to do that. And the way things are nowadays it sounds like a good idea. Why buy a computer when something goes wrong you spend hours on the phone, have to take it in and be without it for days, and likely end up not covered under warranty? Or you can build your own computer to your specifications, whether it's gaming computers or one for tooling around the internet. You can also get upgrade kits to increase your ram or replace your CPU. All you need is a screwdriver and you can save hundreds.

Apparently I'm the go-to guy for free stuff tip-offs. Today McDonald's is giving away a free Southern Style Chicken sandwich if you buy a drink. But according to Tammy it's until 7pm. And Dunkin Donuts is giving away an iced coffee today until 10pm.

There's a lot of talk on how to get the attention of the search engines. You want to get the higher rank listings when readers do a search because a lot of times they won't go past the first page, if that. Plus, the page rankings that a lot of search engines provide for web sites will cause that site to rise in stock, and the contents of that site will rise as well. And there are a lot of companies that offer services in search engine optimization (SEO) for people who are looking for ways to increase their value in those regards. Of course, the main way to do that is content is king. No matter what you do to crunch the numbers or manipulate them, at the end of the day you've got to have the steak to go with the sizzle. A good way to provide that is to provide what people are looking for. One popular referral to this website is the post I wrote about explaining the ending of the movie Trading Places, which I've went into in greater detail, and it all started when Scott Kurtz wondered about it in the blog of his web strip PvP. I see it pop up as a top referrer when I check those stats from time to time. Another good way is to have the higher ranked websites link to your posts. As with real life, being associated with a higher class will rub off on you and cause your stock to rise. One way to achieve that is to have edu links that link back to your web site. By employing a strategy to obtain those links and to time it so that it will cause your web site's popularity to increase will cause the value of your site to increase. But as I've said before, you've got to have the juice to back it up. If you can provide the material that people will be interested in, it will help you a lot better than if you really have nothing and resort to false manipulation to try to hype up your web site to people and search engines.

Colleen Doran passes along this bit from her e-mail of a speech about 11 thing you don't learn in high school. It's purported to be from Bill Gates, but Colleen relays this Snopes link debunking that claim, and has 3 other pieces of advice. Good advice, nonetheless.
P.S. to Cousin Ruthie: I'm sorry I would debunk the e-mails you send like this. Getting to the bottom of urban legends has been something of a hobby of mine, and anything I did along those lines in my replies was not meant as anything against you.

Any employer will tell you that the cost of labor is a lot more than just the wages and benefits. The training is a major expense. No matter how knowledgeable and experience the new hire is, there are different ins and outs of the business and industry that you need to bring them up to speed. Plus, you want to maintain continuity in your company to ensure that everyone is pursuing the same goal. Most companies just do their trianing on the fly, just passing along their knowledge that usually results in passable ability on the new employees' part. But with this training management software, you can improve your training and more important reduce your costs.

Good friend Mark Gibson has his eBay auctions up now. Alas, I didn't see anything to bid on, but that doesn't mean that there isn't good stuff. If you don't have Fallen Angel, including the DC run and the first five issues of the IDW run, I would highly recommend it. To the best of my knowledge, DC hasn't collected the last third of their run. Another recommendation is the first four issues of JSA Classified featuring Power Girl with great Amanda Conner art (and issue 1 is the Adam Hughes variant cover) And the shipping charges are reasonable, no sticker shock there. There's other good deals to be found, so check it out.

Back before Wizard took it over, we looked forward to going to the Chicago Comicon each year. I'd look forward to it more than Christmas. Every year we'd save up money to go, including putting change in the bank to cover the tolls, and we'd have enough left over to have some extra spending money. We'd be making good time going up highway 65, making good time...until we got off the highway. Most times there'd be traffic and we'd have to wait in the traffic jam to make it up to the convention. We would factor that into our plans, and eventually got up to the point where we'd head up the night before so we wouldn't have to fight traffic. It was exciting seeing the comics celebrities out and about in the hotel. The first year they moved from the late Ramada O'Hare to the convention center, I was trying to get my bearings and figure out how to use the walkways to make it from the hotel to the convention center. that was nicknamed by the congoers as the habitrails. And I passed by Neil Gaiman. There it was, July, and hot inside the habitrail and he was still in his trademark black shirt and leather jacket. Even though Chicago is famous for their deep-dish pizza, ironically I was crazy about a local place's thin crust pizza that we'd get at every chance while we was up there. And on the way home we'd stop off at Godfather's Pizza (the other pizza place was closed Sundays) until Godfather's closed up there, then it was Cracker Barrel.
And eventually years of curiousity overcame us and we would venture into Chicago proper to take in the sights. There are all sorts of things to do in Chicago. We always wanted to take sightseeing tours like the kind offered by Trusted
Tours and Attractions. They offer tours across 23 cities in the US and can certainly help you with Things to do in New York City, for example with their sightseeing tours. And if you sign up for their newsletter by May 31st you can be eligible to win a iPod.

Today was Kathy's payday, and the original plan was to go out, cash her check and get some shopping done. But I didn't get much sleep last night, and it was a gloomy, rainy day today; Prince Caspian comes out Friday and we wanted to see it, and our Kroger's in the area has some good sales starting tomorrow, so I decided to go out and get everything I could done shopping-wise before I had to pick her up this afternoon. So I made some arrangements to cover the shopping fund-wise, and went to the store to pick up some deals today. One of the best was Walgreen's had Ben & Jerry's ice cream buy one at $4.49, get one for a penny. And Smart Source had a $1 off coupon for two, so I got 2 Americone Dream for $3.50. I couldn't find Kathy's Coffee Heath ice cream, but she still had one in the freezer, so that worked out. I also got some good deals for her brother to help with his food, but when I took it over to his apartment, he was already well-stocked. So now he's even more so. I popped into Burger King real quick to get Kathy a value meal with a double Whopper with cheese (as she said she loved it since we saw Iron Man and wanted to try it out afterwards)
Usually we have frozen pizza for supper on Wednesdays, but I was able to talk Kathy into fixing up her special chili, as it was a cold, wet miserable day today. It includes a pound each of hamburger, sausage, and smoked sausage. The good thing is there's enough left over after a full and hearty meal to have leftovers 2 or 3 times.

Many golfers out there keep track of their scores and handicaps and want to analyze the data to look for ways to improve their game and to have an officially approved handicap that is accepted. One good source for sports golf software is NetHandicap that allows you to enter and track your score. It's real easy to join and it's a minimal fee that you don't have to pay large fees to join a club. Plus by joining you can make connections with others of the same interest and read articles and tips to improve your score. If you don't have to have a USGA handicap, they also offer a recreational handicap for more informal purposes, as most golfers aren't planning on playing in sanctioned tournaments requiring a USGA Handicap Index,

From Cracked's web site: 7 Commandments all video games should obey. And here's the discussion thread I heard about this article from, and the follow up discussion. And I've been frustrated wanting to get t o a save point so I can go to bed. And a lot of times the simple games are a lot more fun than the new ones with the long load times.

Southwest Vein & Laser Institute is a medical spa in Phoenix, Arizona that specializes in spider vein treatment, cellulite reduction, laser hair removal, and microdermabrasion treatment. The wife will kill me for saying this, but she'd be the first to admit it to you, but there's a couple of those things she'd love to have done. They work with their patients to decide what would be the approach to treat any problem areas they might have. And a lot of times when you improve something about yourself, you feel better. And the part of the country where it's located is known for it's dry arid climate that I'm sure would be good for you.

Jerry O'Connell is saying that he was bullied on the set of Stand By Me, and Wil Wheaton was one of the bullies. Wil says it ain't true.
ABC and CBS announce their new fall schedules. Scrubs move is confirmed, and Life On Mars is on the schedule. Chief O'Brien as Gene Hunt! Big Bang Theory and How I Met Your Mother are returning, both shows we discovered this year and worth checking out. Reaper's coming back. US version of Spaced is dead. Get the original on DVD coming to the US on July 22nd. And what else? "Hey You Guys!!!"
Megan Fox nude pictures. Get your Megan Fox nude pictures here. Ever wondered how actresses keep from being filmed nude when a scene requires it?
Mark Gibson is preparing some eBay auctions and wondering about the quick buck. Either way, let us know when your auctions are up. At the very least I can get the word out.

The school year is winding down, but one thing that'll always be around is fundraisers. But with the way things are nowadays, I don't think parents will let their kids go door to door to sell their products. Sure, the parents can sell them at work, but there's some people that wonder about doing something like that on the clock, not to mention some of the stuff was overpriced and it was stuff you wouldn't get it if it weren't for a good cause. But here's a good way to contribute to school fundraising programs: you can sign up and shop online on sites you shop at anyway, and a portion of the proceeds can go to the school of your choice. Why not lend a helping hand while doing something you're doing anyway?

Word's getting around the internet that Gene Colan is ill. The family has some eBay auctions set up. Or if that's too rich for your blood you can send money via PayPal to genecolan@optonline.net. As Journalista suggests if you do send a PayPal donation, please note it as a donation in the comments box, to help the family in sorting between the donations and the auction payments.

The SocialSpark.com opportunities to write have been trickling in slowly. This is supposed to be a more targeted site to better match advertisers to bloggers to write about their product. What would be cool would be to write about comic books coming out. Anything other than the exclusive to Diamond Distributors publishers I'm sure want to get the word out about their books and drum up interest. I'm pretty easy as far as that, I'm always on the lookout for new stuff and more than willing to give it a try. And it would be easier than relying on a small blurb in the Previews catalog to try to get people interested. And it'd be good to write about new movies, TV shows, DVDs and CDs coming out. It would certainly drum up interest on my part that would extend beyond just writing about it. I've bought quite a bit of the things I've written about in the past, and they have been welcome additions to my collection. And I've tried out "Burn Notice" on USA after writing about it and looking forward to season 2 starting up this summer. So at the very least you're likely to get the money I make writing about things like that from me. And hopefully I can bring a few others with me, and that's just one person.

I was in a bit of a funk about the Indiana primary returns, but Mike Gold has a nice spin on it in his ComicMix column this week. I had read of the Klan's dominance in this state in the 1920s, and it's good to realize some progress is being made with Obama getting 49% of the primary vote, coming within a percentage point of Hillary. Going back to the Gold column, the comments are noteworthy as well, especially Vinnie Bartilucci's: "if you give credit to the progress made in an area, some people will assume that's enough, and slack off." Also of note is Michael Price's: "A theater-operator uncle of mine in Northwest Texas put an end to segregated moviegoing at his picture palaces during the 1950s, defying corporate headquarters in Dallas until the improved box-office returns from Amarillo, Texas, caused the brass to see things in a new light." As with everything else, opinions will change if for no other reason than those in power will realize they're losing support and/or money if they continue to hold their never-swaying opinions, and then all of a sudden they've "reconsidered".

An apocryphal tale that Stan Lee passes along is that Spider-man's success could be attributed as much to the standard superhero trappings as the personal struggles that everyone has dealt with, citing Peter Parker's acne as an example. but can you cite an actual example. Issue number, story, anything? The closest I can come up with is after Peter kisses Mary Jane and she wonders if he's blushing or if it's acne. Anyway, if you're more worried about your skin than comic book trivia you might look into what's called the best acne treatment. And as with all medical matters, consult with a physician before undergoing any treatment regimen.