Every trip to the comic book store with my 4 year old turns into an educational field trip. We walk down the aisles and look at all the covers so he can identify the characters and constantly ask, "Who's that?"

He has basic categories for comic book characters. They are either good guys or bad guys and they are either happy or not happy. Here are some excerpts from our latest comic shop field trip:

Spider-Man
Logan: "He's a good guy. He protects me."
This is a long story that involves bad guys being defined by hiding their mouths.

Batman
Logan: "He's not happy."
Dad: "Nope. He's dishing out vigilante justice. He's a good guy."

Human Torch
Logan: "He turns into fire. Then he turns it off and he's okay."
This is after a discussion about how the Human Torch has special powers that make it okay for him to be on fire. We don't touch fire though. Ouchies.

Zombie Captain America
Logan: "What's that?"
Dad: "Well, there's Captain America's shield."
Logan: "Yeah. Who's holding Captain America's shield? A skeleton."
Dad: "Well, technically it's a zombie but it looks a lot like a skeleton."
Logan: "Yeah. A skeleton!"
This was followed by endless discussion of Captain America's shield all the way home.

The art of the mixtape was lost with the rise of CD technology. Being forced to queue up songs, listen to the whole thing, then switching sources to get the next song was such an organic process. Making a mix CD lost that magic. You grab a bunch of music files, drag them around, and click "Burn." It's like serving a TV dinner at a dinner party.

With the advent of the iPod and the internet, the mixtape needed reinvention once again. Lots of options have appeared to fill that void. The two most popular seem to be Muxtape and Mixwit.

Mixwit has a better interface. Old school cassette tape images with handwritten track names. But one can only use songs that are out there on the internet. Lame.

Muxtape is a little more straight-forward, but no volume control. But I need to be able to use my library to make a mix, so that's the one I chose.

Thanks that muxtape I was able to make my perfect mix of movie montage songs into a real mix. And here it is:

80s Movie Montage Mix

To me, making a tape is like writing a letter. There's a lot of erasing and rethinking and starting again. A good compilation tape, like breaking up, is hard to do. You've got to kick off with a corker, to hold the attention (I started with "Got to Get You Off My Mind," but then realized that she might not get any further than track one, side one if I delivered what she wanted straightaway, so I buried it in the middle of side two), and then you've got to up it a notch, or cool it a notch, and you can't have white music and black music together, unless the white music sounds like black music, and you can't have two tracks by the same artist side by side, unless you've done the whole thing in pairs and...oh, there are loads of rules.

- "High Fidelity"

Be warned: A lot of video support on this one. Time suck extraordinaire.

The 50 Greatest Comedy Sketches of All Time

If I made the list, there'd definitely be less SNL and more Kids in the Hall and Monty Python. Not to mention Vacant Lot's Blinded By the Light sketch.

Regardless, great comedy and great descriptions. Here's an excerpt from the description on the More Cowbell skit from SNL (#50):

This sketch provided a showcase for Will Ferrell's mugging and Jimmy Fallon's snickering, while simultaneously reducing one of the greatest rock songs ever to an annoying catchphrase.

And to spoil it for you the #1 sketch is, predictably and deservedly, the Dead Parrot Sketch from Monty Python.

They say you're never supposed to use an analogy to win an argument, but how else can you infuse the "The A-Team" into a conversation about politics? Analogies are like a maple bacon bar from Voodoo Doughnuts. They combine two things that should never be together to create an enlightening experience.

Here's a blogful of such enlightenment:

Blank is Like Blank

Starbucks is like that crazy ex-girlfriend you still get together with:
You hate yourself for going back, but the familiarity makes it convenient, and until you find something better, it’s all you’ve got.

The closest I get to using my English degree in my daily life is laughing at obscure literary jokes in "Mystery Science Theater 3000." In order to keep up my writing skills, before I lose them all to old age and reality television, I try to keep creating prose. Mostly, I've been writing posts for Echo-7, but recently I discovered a whole new medium to play with -- comics.

Thanks to a local company called Toonlet, making web comics is very simple. Mix and match pieces to create characters, write some dialogue, and hit a button. Web comic!

Some people use them for blogging or political commentary, I use mine for zombies.

My Undead Life #1

My Undead Life #2

I'm going to admit something to you. I haven't seen every movie ever made.

In fact, there are a lot of movies I'm ashamed to say I have never viewed in their entirety. It's that Shameful Movie List of Regret that I try to avoid talking about with other people because when it comes up that I haven't watched said classic I always get the same retort:

"You've never seen that? Seriously? You've never watched that film? Ever? Really?"

The conversation always continues five sentences longer than it needs to. It's pretty simple. Fact A: This movie exists. Fact B: I have not seen it.

Therefore, I try to fill in my gaps of cinematic history for two reasons. First, these movies are famous for a reason. Second, to avoid future "you haven't seen that" conversations.

I've found that watching a film long after the hype has infused it into the public consciousness provides a different viewing experience. Sometimes good. Sometimes bad. Either way, I can say that I've seen it. Here are two classics that I can now say that I have seen:

"Citizen Kane"

Plot: Rich white guy dies. Mentions his sled.

AFI Ranking: Number one film of all time...ever.

One Word Review: Eh.

Post-Hype Thoughts: Good movie, sure. Best film of all time? Not on my list -- Top 100 Movies That I'd Take With Me On a Desert Island If That Island Had a TV, DVD player, and Electricity. It was well shot, well acted, and well scripted but at no point in this GREATEST FILM EVER did I care about any of the characters.

"Casablanca"

Plot: Chick walks into a bar. So do Germans. Cafe owner and piano player are forced to make decisions.

AFI Ranking: Third greatest film ever.

One Word Review: Noir-tastic.

Post-Hype Thoughts: I deem this movie deserved of its many awards and accolades. It captures a time and place through good, solid character development. It was so good I forgot to feel embarrassed about not seeing it sooner. As a bonus, I can now identify all of the "Casablanca" themes that "Barb Wire" used. But that Pam Anderson vehicle is not on AFI's top 100 movie list? Bah!