Your Back In The Saddle Quizo Update

Notes from under the floorboards this week:

- So, yeah, the Eagles are pretty freaking good. I wouldn't get too wild just yet - the Rams are not, suffice it to say, a full set of examination papers - but if the Birds can beat the Cowboys next week I think we can be legitimately optimistic. DeSean Jackson appears as though he might be the real deal, and HOLY CRAP Asante Samuel is awesome. The Eagles aren't going to win by 35 points every week, mind you, but a man can dream.

- After playing the first 10 hours or so of Half-Life 2 probably 3 or 4 times in the last couple years I picked up The Orange Box a couple weeks back and I am determined to get through the whole thing this time. I just got to the part where the game moves from cool and intense to freakishly weird (super gravity gun!) but I have this nagging feeling that the game isn't actually GOING anywhere. This is at least partially because by this point in the first game you at least knew what the hell was going on, whereas now as near as I can tell I'm just flinging furniture at aliens for the hell of it.

- On the TV front, I am finally caught up on Supernatural and Friday Night Lights and have moved on to Rome, which is probably not as hilarious a show as I am finding it. I dunno, I just think it's funny that around the whole backdrop of the Roman revolution and Julius Caesar destroying the Republic there's these two guys who basically stumble around through the whole thing accidentally causing all of it. The show is great, though, don't get me wrong. It's hard not to be when you've got a hell of a cast - sweet zombie Jesus James Purefoy's Marc Antony is a freaking ANIMAL - and you're basically making a 13-hour version of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar crossed with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Also being by FAR the most expensive show in television history helps. If I was spending $8 million an episode I'd probably make a pretty good show too.

- For those interested in such bookish, nerdly things, Brad Meltzer is going to be at the Chester County Book Company on September 17 and Neil Gaiman is going to be at some secret undisclosed location that is almost certainly the Center City Borders on October 1. The Meltzer deal should go quite well, that store is very nice and the the crowd fit very well in there. Plus Brad is very cool. The Gaiman thing, I dunno, man. The last time I went to a Neil Gaiman signing two thousand people showed up, and I'm pretty sure even half as many people at the Borders on Broad Street would cause the building to explode like a microwaved potato. Unless there is some other gigantic super-Borders around here that I am unaware of (hint: there is not). And Neal Stephenson's new book comes out this week. Yay! The sun? What's that?

- I caught on TV this past weekend the director's cut of Aliens, which I'd never actually seen (that cut, at least). The extra stuff doesn't do a whole lot for me, honestly; the bit with the colonists at the beginning, meh, and frankly the movie wasn't any worse off without ten minutes of footage about robotic machine guns. Yes, they're Aliens and yes, they're trying to kill us, Jim, WE FUCKING WELL GET IT. Two things did particularly strike me after seeing it for the first time in maybe ten years. For starters, for how much we remember it as this super-intense non-stop action blowout, it actually takes a LONG time to get going. Here's a trivia question for you: how far into Aliens is the first shot fired? Answer: NINETY-FOUR MINUTES. The second thing that you realize: that unlike a lot of things, Aliens IS just as good as you remember thinking it was when you were young. Going into it I actually expected to be a little disappointed, thinking it couldn't possibly live up to my memory of it as a drunk, obnoxious film student (as opposed to the sober, obnoxious Quizo Guy I am now). It does. No movie called "Aliens" really has any right to be that good, but it is. Interesting side note: after watching it I went online to read about it and found this whole exegesis about how Aliens is an allegory for the Vietnam War, right down to the fact that the Colonial Marines' vehicles and stuff were specifically designed to look like US Army equipment from Vietnam. Wild, huh?

- Finally, after an abortive attempt at Quizo last week, there is a rumor that my parents will show up again tonight. That is, to the more disturbingly competitive amongst you, some kind of enticement for some reason. It's not so great for me; all it means is that I have to listen to my father complain about the geography questions, which over ten years of playing Quizo with him I have never once seen him get a single one of right. For some real fun tonight, ask my dad what he teaches. For some more fun, ask him how he got the splints that are currently on two of his fingers. When you are done I will be waiting in the usual spot to receive your pity.

JLK

Your Year in Review Quizo Update

Hello, good morning, and a hearty first-email-of-2008-how-the-fuck-are-ya to all the folks out there in Quizo land. I hope everyone's holiday - pick and choose whichever you may or may not have celebrated - was as filled with awesomeness as mine was. We're back tonight for the first time in three weeks and I hope y'all are rested up and ready to game it up - I came up with the speed round on Friday night and it is fan-freaking-tastic. I've been threatening to do this one for a long time and now I'm finally pulling the trigger. It's going to be great.

As it is the beginning of a new year, I am going to fully embrace the zeitgeist and present a quick "Best Of" for 2007. All entries are entirely subjective. In the event that you should disagree with any of my choices, please refer to the Palestra Jon Rule.

VIDEO GAME OF THE YEAR: A lot of choices, to be sure. Bioshock is creepy and beautiful; Rock Band is, well, it's goddamn Rock Band; Halo 3 I played once and regarded as just as phenomenally stupid as its predecessors but sure is pretty; in the end, though, the choice is fairly obvious: Portal. Why? Any game that has a psychotic, pathological liar artificial intelligence telling you "any contact will result in an unsatisfactory mark on your official testing record, followed by death" has to be it. Absolutely the most fun thirty bucks can buy. Remember: the cake is a lie.

BOOK OF THE YEAR: I read so many goddamn books in a given calendar year - and limiting ourselves to strictly regular books here, not comics, we're talking about a hundred-something on average - it's tough to narrow down a list, much less remember everything I actually read. In trying to compile even a top ten list one book kept jumping to the front of my mind, which more than anything I think means it probably should rank at the top: William Gibson's "Spook Country." Over his last few books the mad prophet of the future has matured into a deliberative surgeon cutting into the present, stripping away the outer layer of meaningless crap that covers everything to show you what the world is really like. Plus Gibson is one of the few writers who actually makes ME feel inadequate; his prose is so pristine and delicate it will - to steal a phrase of his - make your teeth hurt. That has to count for something.

ALBUM OF THE YEAR: This one is less tough since in the entirety of 2007 I bought precisely two new albums, and as much as I love Kylie Minogue "X" is certainly not her strongest effort. "Magic," Bruce Springsteen, der.

TV SHOW OF THE YEAR: Fuck you, David Chase. Fuck you sideways. Combine that gigantic Charlie Foxtrot with 24 going completely off the rails almost from the beginning, Lost bungling its first 6-8 episodes, the inexplicably-popular Heroes continuing to be one of the worst television shows I've ever seen; and 30 Rock, despite it's constant hilarity, being sort of all over the map, the straight-up best show on television was - and still is - Battlestar Galactica. I've said it before and I'll say it again: you are stupid for not watching it. Weeks or months or years from now you will watch it and say, "oh my god, this show is incredible, I can't believe how stupid I was for not watching it," and I will agree that yes, it was pretty fucking stupid of you. WATCH THIS GODDAMN SHOW.

COMIC BOOK OF THE YEAR: Dear Mr. Lucas - please read The Sinestro Corps War to learn how to make space opera awesome. It has everything your crappy Star Wars prequels lack: interesting characters, great dialogue, a compelling villain (several of them, in fact), and a plot you don't have to excavate out of a Mayan ruin to understand. Basically it will knock your socks off for every page from beginning to end. Short of reading this fantastic story - basically the only good comic published in what was a shockingly dismal year for the medium across the board - please never make anything ever again. Signed, The World.

MOVIE OF THE YEAR: Seeing a lot of great movies over the last year makes this a tough choice, but the problem is I still haven't seen a whole bunch of the big "prestige" movies yet. In terms of provisional choices, though, I actually ended up with a tie between Gone Baby Gone and, in what came as a shock even to me, Eastern Promises. Odds are you haven't seen either of these movies yet (few people have). I've talked about Gone Baby Gone before, which you'll now probably have to wait for the DVD (February 12) to see if you haven't already, but I got the Eastern Promises DVD over the holidays and holy shit it's incredible. I mean, WOW. I don't know when David Cronenberg became an actual mature filmmaker but Jesus Christ on a flaming pogo stick this is an absolutely flawless film. It is top to bottom perfect. You will not be disappointed.

All are of course welcome to discuss any surely-farcical deviations from the above, but remember the rule.

I'll see you tonight, then.

JLK

Your Wildly Vacillating Quizo Update

I have railed against the weather numerous times in this space - previous instances of summer cold or winter heat or snow in April or whatever - and despite the fact that it is dark, cold, and raining in mid-August, the weather specifically is not what I'm shaking my fist at today. No, the problem is that for the last weekend life in general has taken this strange sort of erratic turn and, well, I tend to think my life was interesting enough beforehand.

One of the underlying causes of all of this is that the constant stress of obsessing about the horror show that my job has become is beginning to cause noticeable cracks in my psyche. This wouldn't be so bad were it not for the fact that it was pretty well cracked to begin with.

Things started well enough on Thursday night when I went to a book signing by William Gibson at the library. This was quite the big deal for me, bringing to 40% my completion rate for Meeting My Top Five Literary Idols - which is close to as impressive as it's going to get when one considers that meeting F. Scott Fitzgerald or William Shakespeare would require, respectively, some serious necromancy and some really, REALLY serious necromancy, and the fact David Mamet scares the shit out of me. (For the record, the other 20% that I successfully met was Neil Gaiman.)

The reading/signing thing was cool - he has aged an awful lot recently, but he's still sharp and funny, and when he signed my books he commented happily on how well-traveled my copy of Neuromancer was.

Then on the way home from the signing my car blew up.

This is only slightly an exaggeration. My car overheated fairly dramatically - the temperature gauge swinging back and forth over the redline, steam occasionally, but not constantly, billowing out from under the hood - and the next morning when I went to open the hood (it being too dark to see the engine at the time being, you know, night and all) there was coolant fluid pretty much everywhere, so it's a safe bet that SOMETHING with coolant in it, a hose of some sort I'm guessing, failed rather catastrophically while I was driving to the comic shop from the signing. I figure I was lucky to limp the car home. After consulting my finances and my personal feelings on the matter I determined that I am sick and fucking tired of spending money keeping this goddamn 16-year-old whoring sonofabitch car running. So, after my show is over I will be out and about on the market for a car.

Show, you say? Why yes! A show. Perhaps you've heard I produce shows. It's called Dealer's Choice. It is by Patrick Marber and it will be playing in the Restaurant at the pub opening on September 18. Originally we were going to be part of the Philly Fringe, but that is a gigantic pain in the ass to say the least, so we're not. Someone in my ridiculously talented cast - and here I do not exaggerate even the slightest little bit, this bunch is the most talented single group of actors I think I've ever seen in a show in this city, I don't know how in the HELL they're working for me - came up with the idea of calling our show the headliner of the "Philadelphia Binge Festival," and I liked it so much I decided to steal it. Tickets for the show are a scant $10, and if you get there early enough you also get to have dinner. So it's like going out for dinner and a show, only you're going to one place. Ask me for details. Website is up and ticket sales begin shortly.

Everyone remember the Medea references? Oh, that was nothing. Prepare to be besieged.

Anyway, a rental car later, me and some of my boys (and their moms and sisters, which was a little odd) were on our way to the Meadowlands on Saturday night to see the Los Angeles David Beckhams (nee Galaxy) play the New York Red Bulls. I wasn't sure what to expect from the experience necessarily, but two tailgates (totalling some 7 hours, both before and after the game), being pressganged into cooking for more than a hundred people at said tailgates, 66,000 fans in the stadium, spending the game next to several hundred Red Bulls supporters who can be charitably described as "completely insane" and NINE FUCKING GOALS! was certainly not it.

Sunday morning saw a big-time shock in the Manchester derby, and then something less of a shock as Chelsea and Liverpool played another spiteful, mean-spirited game that ended, mercifully, in a 1-1 draw, though I'm still convinced Chelsea left 2 points on the table there and could have won. The combination of the beginnings of cold and rain, the knowledge that I'd have to go to work 18 hours after, and the fact that we didn't beat the filthy Scouse put me in quite the pissy mood. Until I got home, at least, where after weeks of prodding I finally convinced my father to watch Hot Fuzz which - as I predicted - he loved, thus once again proving the age-old axiom "I am always right."

Then, just before bed, I pulled out my new William Gibson book to read before sleeping, and I noticed that one of my Top Five Literary Idols apparently inscribed all of my books "To Joan."

I don't even smoke anymore, but there aren't enough cigarettes in the goddamn world for this.

JLK

Your Clueless Quizo Update

So I was going to do a thing telling the story of how last week I met the author of the #1 book on the New York Times bestseller list, thus bringing my total of authors I've met who were #1 on the bestseller list when I met them to two. Then I looked today and the book dropped to #2. Since I'm not about to ask a question about who's #2 on the bestseller list at this moment, that rules that out. For the record, it was Brad Meltzer last week. He's a hell of a guy. And, also for the record, it took Meltzer six books to reach the top spot, whereas the other guy got there his second try. I still think it's funny that people who write comic books can sell 8 zillion regular books and none of the reviews or anything ever seem to mention comics. Bastards.

Then I was thinking about doing a thing on, I dunno, local sports generalness, but I think everyone knows the Eagles won convincingly yesterday, and I'm assuming that the Phillies' half-game wild card lead will explode at some point in the next seven hours, possibly due to a plague in the locker room, or the stadium catching fire, or a plague in the locker room catching fire. This is the Phillies we're talking about, after all. No lead, no matter who it's against, is safe.

Then I saw a story about how the sequel to the Fantastic Four movie - which was pretty awful to begin with - is going to have the Silver Surfer in it. Is, in fact, going to be ABOUT the Silver Surfer. This brought to mind the thought that, like Ghost Rider, the SIlver Surfer is one of those things that looks cool when someone draws it but looks pretty fucking stupid walking around on a movie screen (or surfing, as the case may be).

Then I remembered last week when Nick (of runaway winners I Did Zidane's Sister) thought that the subject line of the e-mail was a clue and went and memorized all kinds of crap about Guns 'n Roses (who I am listening to as I type this, in fact, in a completely random occurrence). I decided that putting clues in the subject line as a regular thing was far too ridiculous, and that this week there would not only be no clues in the subject line, but that there would be none in the e-mail whatsoever.

And then I decided I'm a big liar. Well, not so much decided as remembered.

Enjoy.

JLK