davemerrill

Had a pleasant weekend with nice sunny warm weather! It's not going to last, but we did enjoy it while we could. Went out to Woodstock on Sunday for the nostalgia sale held in the fairgrounds auditorium. Hours were 10-3, which basically means we got to see the last 45 minutes of the show while everybody was packing up because lord knows you don't want to be stuck in that giant Woodstock Ontario traffic jam when the nostalgia show lets out! Seriously, 3pm? You can't stick around until 4? I know the beer store closes at 5 and you don't want to face the possibility of not having a full 2-4 in the house during that long 20 hours before the beer store opens up again on Monday, but people from the Big City are here and they have money to spend on your junk, so don't be in such a rush! 3pm is a joke. Get with it guys. We did manage to find some neat stuff, actually we got better comics at the Woodstock Nostalgia Show than we did at the comic book thing last weekend. An issue of THIRTEEN, an Oral Roberts evangelical comic, some Tippy Teens & Go-Gos, some prime Al Hartley Jeezus comics, and at the antique store outside of town with the disturbing Victorian-era electric medical device, some metal Coke signage and a paperback edition of the seminal 1895 Moody Bible Institute work LITTLE DOT.

Saturday we did some shopping and went looking for episodes of GARTH MERENGHI'S DARKPLACE and/or interesting Blu-Ray DVDs to rent, finding neither. GARTH MERENGHI'S DARKPLACE is a 6-episode British comedy series that's purportedly a lost 1980s horror/supernatural TV show written, directed by, and starring Garth Merenghi, author, visionary, dream-weaver. And actor. It's one of those live-action things that gets shown on Adult Swim to irritate pedants, and it's really freakin' funny. Mike Horne showed us an episode in Boston and it kinda stuck with us; its deliberate 1980s syndicated-TV badness is pitch-perfect, and Garth Merenghi himself is disturbingly similar in appearance and attitude to several people I've dealt with in the fan world.

Speaking of TV shows, this Sunday the new show from the guys who brought you BAND OF BROTHERS premieres on HBO - it's called THE PACIFIC and it promises to make "YOU DIE NEXT, JOE!!" the fun catchphrase among children and adults alike. I enjoyed the heck out of BAND OF BROTHERS and am definitely on board for this one.

Speaking of manly men man type entertainment, my subject line is Robert "Lucky Ned Pepper" Duvall's famous line from TRUE GRIT, which is currently in production from the Coen brothers. Not a remake of the classic John Wayne film, this new version will be a more faithful adaptation of the original novel, which means it will be even truer and even grittier than ever before. I'm a big fan of both the movie and the book and of the Mad Magazine parody "True Fat" and will totally be there to see Rooster Cogburn take the reins in his teeth one more time.

We watched the Oscars so I didn't get my Zero Fighter strip of the week finished until today. I always enjoy the Oscars, it's like a family reunion of the people you see on TV and in the movies all the time. I liked the dual hosts, I liked the opening song, I thought the John Hughes tribute was swell, and it clocked in at three and a half hours and some change, long but not terribly long. I was cooking spaghetti through most of the first hour anyway. I didn't see any of the best picture nominees so I didn't have any particular favorites, though I do feel not nominating PONYO is a criminal error. I guess they figure, Miyazaki isn't going to show up, so why bother? SECRET OF KELLS is coming out in theaters this week and we might just catch that one. I do feel like we missed out on a lot of good pictures for whatever reason this year. Eh, we'll rent 'em.