or how i learned to elevate the mundane

• Spectreman – The bad guys were talking apes.  One of them had blonde hair.
• Starblazers – How cool was the space battleship Yamato anyway?  Plus, all of the characters had groovy 70′s hair and were impossibly thin.
• Space Giants – A family of robots:  Goldar, Silvar, and Gam.  Silvar was one lucky lady, I guess.  And who didn’t want a friend who could turn into a rocket?
• Ultraman – This show was better than Spectreman.  The robot guy was cooler looking and the storyline was less hokey than the other show.
• Macross/Robotech – The king of space opera anime.

“The Number of the Beast” by Iron Maiden

I’m fascinated by all of this Tom Cruise scrutiny lately.  One of the things that we’ve discovered about him is that he’s something called an “Operating Thetan 7″.  It’s like you have to have 100,000 experience points to attain that level, or something.  You get +10 to score with a Hollywood hottie and you get $20,000,000 gold pieces per film otherwise it’s not worth your time to collect the loot.

Unfortunately, I think with every level up you get -1 on Intelligence even though you gain +2 on charisma.  And such is how it is with Tom Cruise.  It’s all very strange.

Still, the buzz on MI:3 is pretty good.  Even Jeffrey Wells has given it the go-ahead sign.  So has Kevin Smith, though he also liked Star Wars – Episode III so take this with a grain of salt if you’re so inclined.  I count myself as a Kevin Smith fanboy, but his glowing review of SWEIII was just so disappointing.

Not that it matters much to me anyway since it’s unlikely I’ll catch this in the theaters. Since having kids I think I’ve seen all of a half dozen movies in the theaters and most of those have been due to Work Morale Events.  It’s just another in a long line of DVDs to rent from Netflix.

“Rockin’ in the Free World” by Neil Young

What do these two fictional characters have in common?  A cuddly, strangely anthropomorphized sidekick (e.g. Chloe O’Brian and Boots respectively)?  Or could it be an amazing ability to traverse vast amounts of distance in what seems to be an amazingly short amount of time?

Nah, it’s neither of those (though readers who guessed either should give themselves a pat on the back and perhaps reassess their T.V. watching habits).  No, it’s not those two things.  It’s their incredible bags! Those bags are what every man or woman dreams of carting around with them.  They contain just about anything you need in just about any situation you could think of.  Need to fly over a canyon?  Backpack has a hang-glider for you!  Need to diffuse a thermonuclear device? Jack’s bag has just the trick!  And there’s next to no bulk to these magical napsacks, it’s as if you weren’t carting around literally tons of equipment!

I want a bag like that.  Do you think they sell them at REI?

Next up:  Diego’s little computerized animal encyclopedia versus Jack’s totally rockin’ PDA.

“Sweet Child O’ Mine” by Guns ‘n Roses

Heh, this is pretty amusing. Plus, I didn’t know that about drinking pop solo.

“Take Me Out” by Franz Ferdinand

Nothing too saccharine or lame.

“The Girl I Can’t Forget” by Fountains of Wayne

“Hackensack” by Fountains of Wayne