Opinionated news and veiws on all sorts of crap from real world politics to comic books to movies to science gone dogma, all from a perspective of a pissy and crude little cartoon monkey named Spank. WARNING this blog contains actual adult opinions and content. If you find anything on this blog offensive we encourage disscussion, but frankly if you can't handle it PLEASE don't try to- you'll only embarass yourself!
Well, apparently it's official. The McDonalds Double Cheeseburger will most likely no longer be a buck as of next Monday (December 1st). It will now be $1.19 on most menus. Apparently that 6 cent slice of cheese they normally charge all of us fifty cents to put on most anything else is just eating them alive.
Enjoy your dollar Double Cheeseburgers while they last. McDonalds is already contemplating introducing "The Double" that will have two burger patties with one slice of cheese between them, probably for the same price as the newly hiked Double Cheeseburger. Apparently the meat of the cow is cheaper to grind up than the residue from the byproduct from squeezing their tits, once again porving that life is cheap, but milking always comes with a price.
This will effectively knock my McDonalds visits WAY down, as I have prteviousaly bitched that you can't get a breakfast there for under four bucks anymore, let alone a Quarter Pounder Combo for under five. This at a time when McDonald's revenue is actually going UP becuase more people are choosing to east out there as opposed to those other more yuppie places like Bennigans and TGI Fridays.
Hey, again it's been awhile since adding anything here, and again I'd like to say that there IS a LOT more in the pipeline, it's just that I've been a little hectic as of late trying to make a little jing as well as working on a new project that is very near and dear to my heart, not to say that this blog is not "near and dear" mind you, just that this has to come first. Hopefully, with the holiday weekend upon us, I will be able to catch up a little and schedule a few things here, so sorry things have been sparse, just keep checking back and I'll try to get something here shortly.
Till then, it's TurkeyDay, hope all of you are well on your way to getting stuffed!
So when did a Quarter Pounder meal get over 5 bucks?? Or, worse still, and Egg McMuffin meal jack to over 4?? I just got my last McD breakfast this morning, and have to tell you that when a QP meal is more expensive than a lap dance around here, there's something VERY wrong- and it ain't with the lap dance price either.
I have the feeling that a LOT of the corporations have developed the same sales philosophy as the gas suppliers and they're leaning on the excuse of the fuel hike to jack up their prices. I. like most Americans, will be voting against these hikes with just not buying anything I think is too expensive. Seriously, CD's that used to be 10 or 11 dollars are now 15? Those were too expensive at 10! No wonder the music industry is crying. Shit like that actually encourages folks to subscribe to Itunes and not even attempt to listen to any new music.
You see the gas prices are dropping slowly while at the same time I can't help but see consumer prices jacking up to more than fill the void. Folks, we're going to be in this so-called recession for some time to come. any company that wants to jack prices like that will have to work twice as hard to earn my business back. Why have a FOUR DOLLAR Egg McMuffin meal when I can get the Breakfast Special at my local greasy spoon for the same price with MUCH better quality food? Frankly it just doesn't make sense.
One the positive side I have become SO much more price weary, and that's a good thing. Plus I've learned that I can go through the grocery store and NOT but a lot of junk food because I can't stomach paying the extra 50 cents or buck, or cheesier still, do with MUCH less product for the same or slightly higher price, especially from the bigger corps. These folks have thrived for YEARS on shaving their overhead, their work force, and their quality of goods while at the same time jacking their prices right up to the limit of what the market can bear to move their shit. It's not that they're losing money with the price of diesel jumping, its that they're making LESS money per item. NOW they'll be making even LESS money since they've not only jacked up their prices, but they'll have to go out of their way to justify the expense to the consumers in there penny pinching times. THEN, after they've seen that folks are really not that attached to their product, they'll be forced to discount AND up their advertising. Apparently Mc Donald's isn't happy that their sales had shown an increase because of our economic hard times, they have to keep their profit percentages at the same level and jack up their prices. Well, I literally ain't buyin'!
WTF?- The Geeks HAVE inherited the Earth!
According to the Huffington Post, as well as other sources that I've tracked to a German newspaper that actually asked the question. President Elect Barak Obama is actually a big comic book geek and that most of us fellow comic geeks probably walked past him at a Chicago Comic Con at one time or another. How cool is that?? He collects Spider-man and Conan, apparently mylar snugs them and files them into comic long boxes. That kind of explains the Alex Ross portrait that popped up many months ago. Finally I HAVE to wonder if he ever read any Arrow Comics (being here in the Midwest and all), and if he's got any Spank The Monkey comics in his collection. Kinda makes the fur on the back of my neck rise thinking about it.
Gotta wonder two things: Does and/or will this raise comic's visibility any higher, and will such comic masters as Will Eisner or Jack Kirby get some sort of honors recognition for their contributions to American culture now that the President (Elect) uses that medium as a source of entertainment? There's a potential world media making article for the first comics oriented website or magazine that can get five minutes of Obama to discuss his hobby. One informed columnist (who's name escapes me and I'm sorry for not properly referencing him because his column was very good) also poses the question of whether or not Obama will be thinking that great Stan Lee tag line when he's being inaugurated "With great power comes great responsibility". Somehow I think he's already considering that with most every decision he's made over the last few years.
WTF?- Spank Blog
Again, apologies for not being more prolific here. My last few weeks have been especially hectic between paying work and getting a mock-up together for a project that I'm still not quite ready to talk about, but it's pretty cool and it seems to be working out, and I'm working hard not to get too excited about it because whenever I get excited about a good looking project it usually falls through the floor. So mum's the word, and we'll see what happens.
What's happening for me is the Xcape-Con this weekend, where if all goes well I'll be announcing the above mentioned project, so wish me luck. For more info in them check out Xcapecon.com. Hope to see most of you there...Maybe SOME of you...ANY of you??
Till then, I'll post whenever I can, I STILL have a good 5-6 Heroes I Miss illos done and ready to go if I can I'll try to get another one of those up here before too long, plus I'm almost done with another Comics My Way rant- so until then...
Truly a metaphor of what was so right and then so wrong with the mainstream comic market, ADAM STRANGE remains one of my personal favorites, and yet at the same time most disgusted and frustrated hero properties in the DC Universe. Adam Strange went from genius to misunderstood to sheer waste in his career, and comics are much worse off for the attempt.
Starting as a kind of heroic science fiction adventurer in the pages of DC’s Showcase series (#17, December 1958) Adam Strange was a modern day world traveling archaeologist, traveling the world in a quest for knowledge when, in an opening so much like Raiders of The Lost Arc, he was being chased off a cliff by the local spear throwing natives and was suddenly hit by a mysterious light that transported him to the far planet of Rann. Once having the alien language implanted into him, he becomes involved with Sardath, a single father-mad scientist type (responsible for shooting the zeta-beam ray to earth in an attempt to teleport earth artifacts to him for study), and his lovely daughter Alanna who, in true heroic fashion, is the most beautiful woman Adam has ever seen. What follows are a number of Flash Gordon style adventures with Adam, armed with rocket pack and ray-gun (staples of most any heroic space opera stories of the day) defending Rann from all sorts of baddies using his imagination (something Rann apparently had in short, short supply- as well as guts), until the Zeta Beam wears off, transporting him back to Earth. Luckily Sardath has been making a number of Zeta beam attempts as Adam continues to tack their hit points on Earth, enabling him to return to Rann every chance he gets to do the same thing over and over again.
When I was younger my parents wouldn’t allow me to read superhero comics because of the violence. It took a little bit of explaining to my mom to convince her that Adam Strange really wasn’t a superhero as much as a science fiction space man. Having only appeared in Showcase for the usual 3 issues, Adam Strange them went to the lead spot in DC’s sci-fi anthology book Mystery In Space, then later on, when I was first reading comics, his adventures were reprinted in Strange Adventures (another sci-fi anthology that for whatever reason, DC kept printing long into the 70’s, even though most of the reprints they did were firmly planted in the 50’s). I read a couple of year’s worth of Adam Strange before I read most other superheroes. Sure, the stories were basic formula: get to Rann- hug Alanna- find trouble, solve trouble, and before he could really enjoy his time with Alanna he was teleported back to earth. Thinking about it, it was again a metaphor, this time for most relationships between boy and girl at the time: hang around- fight off all the barriers to get her alone, then just as you were about to get some- the ultimate put off and you were left to try to get to a base on your next date.
It WAS formula, but it remains a solid and entertaining one, and one that with a reboot on DC’s end could be VERY viable given today’s writing structure. Imagine a younger- early twenties Adam doing his lonesome globetrotting waiting, measuring, trying his best at predicting just where that Zeta-beam was going to hit so he could be once more teleported to his true love on Rann, only to meet with whatever catastrophe found there to fight, then in eternal frustration, never knowing just when the Zeta Beam would wear-off- if you leave it more unpredictable, never quite keeping to a time schedule, the possibilities for drama here would be endless. The ultimate young adult story, especially keeping the odd 50’s sci-fi elements when he is on Rann- making them all the more alien and bizarre, it could easily once again become a space-opera style romance/adventure strip.
Instead of keeping the chase alive, and trying to keep a fresh, more modern to this concept DC incorporated Adam Strange into the DC Universe proper, actually marrying him off in the mid to late 80’s to Alanna, and changing his body chemistry, if memory serves me correctly, so that he could never set foot on earth without dying. Now he his some oddball space policeman/protector/leader of the Rann army, decked out in more fierce armor, with a much bigger gun and armor. Gone is the romance, gone is the “fantastic” elements that made the series a joy to read, but most disappointingly of all, gone is the QUEST. The continual FIGHT Adam had in pursuing his own private happiness, not only on Earth, but also on Rann and with Alanna. He is no longer the hero that I knew and loved. That’s where my true frustration comes in. I miss those elements that made him unique and nostalgic to me, elements that could easily be VERY attractive to new readers, particularly I suspect a female audience. DC has from time to time, tried to attract such an audience in the past and they always seem to fail miserably (I’m planning a “Comics My Way” posting soon to address that, so stay tuned if you’re interested).
Classic Adam Strange reprints hold MUCH more than a good formula story. Once his feature was moved from Showcase to Mystery In Space Carmine Infantino became the penciller on the series. It is definitely one of his very best works, especially when Murphy Anderson is inking him and the majority of those old stories have them together- VERY classic stuff there. Additionally most of the stories (if not all of them) were written by comic’s veteran (and sci-fi plotter extraordinaire) Gardner Fox. It is one of those rare occurrences of top-notch talent working on a top-notch concept- he has never looked or read as good as with them three on him, in fact any story of Adam Strange without one of those three on it just seems a pale imitation.
DC, in a rare case of intelligence, acknowledges how great this series was with multiple reprints of this classic series, in hardbound Archive editions, as well as at least one Showcase Presents volume to date. There’s only enough good stuff to last one more Showcase Presents volume, and I sincerely hope they get around to producing that soon. If you get the chance either one of those reprint venues are great to read and I recommend them both highly, and know they are all available on Amazon. Take it from me, the Adam Strange currently shown in the DC Universe is also a pale imitation of what was, and we as comic readers are MUCH worse off because of it.
Well, it's the next morning and I have to say I awoke with a LITTLE more confidence in the thinking ability of my fellow countrymen. C'mon, is there ANY coincidence that McCain took those states with the lowest education levels? Just askin.
Well, it's done now- THANK GOD!! We can get back to the really important topics, like Comic Books, cool shit in general, and of course- titty bars (whick I appologize for not having a whole lot of here before now- a sitiation I will be working hard to correct- lol!).
McSame and Failin are due for obscurity. Watch and see if McCain survives his current term, let alone get elected to another one, and the same goes for Palin. She has scandal following her enough to last her the rest of her term at least.
I do have to ask and wonder- when's Bristol's wedding? Will she even have one considering her impregnator's unwillingness for marriage- now that the spotlight is a little removed perhaps it will fizzel away, much like her mom's footnote in history.
To me, after seeing this campaign, the Republicans will have to go a LONG way to convince me that ANY candidate they try to introduce to the public is viable, let alone votable for. The Republican side of this campaign has left a shitstain that will not soon be removed from any descent person's conscience, especially any one with enough sense to back up whatever "fact" they might be spewing or spinning.
I'm seriously going to try to stay as far away from politics as I can for awhile.
FINAL McSAME SIGN UPDATE
On Halloween I sold another three signs, then on Monday sold one of the signs from my yard. This morning (Wednesday- the day after the election) I meant to pull up the last sign in my yard and place it in my garage (right next to the Ron Paul sign I still keep out there), but before I could get to it (around 10:30 am) somebody lifted the sign, pole and all, and made off with it. I figured somebody just doesn't have any sense of humor about them at all. Either that or THEY wanted a souvenier and decided that taking the sign was just what they needed.
Still, the final tally for the sign are: 9 sold, one given away, and two stolen. If you are the one that took it, you owe me at least 5 bucks.
Once more, if I had only thought of this about 2 months ago I might have made a small fortune from doing them.
I'll know better for next time.
And here "Next Time", no more politics. at least for a llooonnnggg while!
One of the coolest interviews I've seen from Obama, and it kind of hits close to home as Flint Police's feelings on saggy pants and making it against the law continues to get press nationwide:
I find it strangely ironic that the day before the election (yesterday) that the 2 most major events to happen in each other's political camp were really the obvious themes to me throughout the entire campaign.
First off Obama's Grandmother, a woman VERY close to this man's heart, so much so that he suspended his campaigning a few weeks ago to go visit, passed away. To mark the event, only a day before the election, Obama did what any responsible, presidential candidate so close to winning the election, and yet knowing that so much was riding on HIM, would do: he kept going. Not only did he keep going, but he only mentioned his grandmother's death in passing, swearing not to dwell on it for very long. In all truth, from most of what I've been able to glean from all the reading and research, and trying to sift out from all the hype and shitslinging- he acted presidential about it all. Time to grieve later, right now there's business to do.
On the other hand, again to emphasize and amplify the quality of the difference between the two camps, Sarah Palin was acquitted of wrongdoing for her role in the so-called "troopergate" scandal by a bipartisan commission yesterday. If you weren't looking you might have missed that out of the mainstream media- from what I saw it's just hitting the main news desks now and only a few late night pundits mentioned it last night that I saw. As a PRIME example, again of the quality and tone that this campaign has been waged in, this decision is probably rushed out to try to make some effect IN the media, and admittedly probably ignored by most media, in the hopes of swaying a voter or two in favor of the "pitbull with lipstick". A "pitbull" who swears she ain't goin' nowhere and will probably make a stab at the presidential post in the year 2012. I am taking the UNDER on that bet- it probably ain't gonna happen and I'll tell you why in a sec. Right now I want to finish my analogy on this campaign...
Ok, Palin was found "innocent" on Troopergate, but wait, just a few weeks before she was found by the state of Alaska's judicial board to have definitely broken at least one ethics violation in this mess, so, you ask- "WTF?". Well, the non-partisan board that cleared her yesterday was entirely appointed by HER, and she KNEW they were going to make a ruling on her case, and I'm sure she was hoping they would have made that announcement a few days earlier, but low and behold- SOMETHING held that decision up until it couldn't be used to back up her Vice Presidential run. THERE'S a coincidence in a world where most believe that there are no coincidences. Now, if all the polls are any indication she's probably heading back to Alaska to live, at least for the next four years, right? On a final note, this was a commission that she herself 'lawyered up" on, on the VERY day she wagged the dog on her "Bristol's Pregnant- please give my family some privacy" memo to the press.
To sum it all up, as I see it, Obama, business as usual- business in the face of tragedy, but business as usual. For Palin- Thank you lawyers for getting me cleared, but God Damn it, why couldn't I have used this to have an effect on how I look in the polls and the voting booth!". To me this "Professionalism VS. Legalese Sleeze" honestly sums up the way I see both of these campaigns running. One can still do what he has to even in the face of losing loved ones, while the other props up her loved ones in front of the media in order to divert attention from the real problems and their legal manipulations to fix them. By now, you have no doubt of who I just went and voted for- and this from a staunch Ron Paul supporter to boot.
On Palin and her running wherever; This is the real rub to all of this. Her record is open for anyone to uncover. All it takes is a reading of her entry in Wikipedia, a little "between the lines" reading and some media watching, with full "spin filter" on on any media show you watch and/or listen to. Palin was a FLAWED candidate from the get-go. Just a pair of legs connected to a record that was far from "pitbullish" as much as it was corporate ass-kissing. Any person naive enough to believe that Palin was THE choice for McCain has honestly got to re-educate themselves on just how our "wonderful" political parties work. Seriously. If it was McCain's choice to make he would have chosen Lieberman, ran on his more liberal record and told the neo-cons to goosestep in line. Instead he flip flopped over the last four years, backing Bush's policies, just to get the RNC nod for Presidential Hopeful, was TOLD who his running mate was by the RNC (It's already public knowledge that McCain had only met with Palin one or two times before he announced her as VP choice), in order for this train wreck to move forward to its' inevitable conclusion. One that if the polls are dead on or close to accurate will leave McCain AND Palin impotent for the rest of their political lives, what little there will be left of them. "Mr. McCain, I'm sure you know Mr. Kerry (who?), and Ms. Palin, I'm sure you know of Mr. Quayle...those are both of their footsteps you will more than likely be following, and those are their footnotes in political history that will not only be slightly above yours, but will likely be slightly longer".
I tell folks that Palin was mayor of Wasilla (a town literally 5/8 the size of Flushing Michigan), she took their budget from a surplus to a 25 million dollar hole over a sports complex built by the construction company that built their house (for next to free- again "coincidence"?), and the residents in Flint Michigan just signed a recall petition on their mayor- forcing another election- and He's only dealing with a NINE million dollar hole-in a citer that is lierally FIVE times bigger than Wasilla- go figure. Palin served on the gas and regulatory board where she met a LOT for big oil execs, and preceded a republican incumbent into the Governor's chair using not only those connection but also help from her mentor, the newly indicted Senator from Alaska, Mr. Stevens (who is up one what, SEVEN counts of perjury). Plus, she used the money originally earmarked for that "bridge to nowhere" to cut property taxes in Alaska a whopping SIXTY percent- an advantage that not only bumped her approval rating but made some big land owner oil coprporations REALLY HAPPY. Not only that, but she literally stepped on the republican graves of the mayor, oil commissioner, and Governor that proceeded her, playing this hardball "slit your throat" tactics that seem to stem more from a "woman scorned" perspective more than anyone looking to play the political party game. To me that doesn't make her a "Maverick" by ANY measure- just a back stabbing bitch. Am I the only one who thinks that her entire VP run was a set-up by the RNC? Literally a "win-win" situation for them and played upon her thirst of power to make her totally political impotent. Face it, if she won the VP spot- she's got no real power, and if she losses, she's branded a loser in everyone in the party's mind- "allowed" to finish her term as Governor in SHAME and all the while one scandal after the next will continue to plague her until she retires (she's still got a lot of Wasilla 'splainin' to do) . I think the RNC HATED her, they HATED McCain (who to me was a solid pussy to kiss RNC ass for four years just to get a spot that seems to be taking him nowhere), and they LET him run a down and dirty, shitslinging campaign because that's all that was really left for him to do. What?, he was going to run on message, with a solid by-the-book, full of solutions plan? GET REAL! He couldn't run on his record (and all those flip-flops), he couldn't run on his reputation (knowing full well that if Hillary was his opponent all we would be hearing in the media would have been "Keating 5" over and over again), so he ran the only campaign he could, one of negativity, shitslinging, fear mongering, and hatred. I not only hope he loses, but that he loses BIG!! Again, all this not only from a staunch Ron Paul supporter, but one who voted for Regan, and both Bush's (one time apeaice- I DID vote for Kerry last election).
I, like all of you who give half a shit, await the outcome of this election with baited breath. Either way, not only is history made, but the shape of the world will shift, ideologically, thematically, and even economically. The way we are looked at from outside our borders will be reassessed and we will turn in one direction or the other but things won't be exactly the same as they are today. In the immortal words of the immortal Bill Hicks, "We have a choice, right now, right here, between fear and love, right now, make a choice."
Underground legend, Flint resident, and all around opinionated monkey, Spank The Monkey is the creation of one Randy Zimmerman, who tries to be responsible for this blog's content.
