August 2008 Music Diary

Missed July, which is okay since I didn't have a lot of new music that month. Here's the new stuff that iTunes says I'm listening to-

I Kissed a Girl - Katy Perry
About a Girl - The Academy Is...
Mr Rock & Roll - Amy MacDonald
Can't Find the Words - Karina
Built to Last - Melee
Black & Gold - Sam Sparro

You've heard Katy Perry. Unless you've been living under a rock. On Mars. With your eyes closed and your ears shut.

Found The Academy Is through iTunes - they're meh, but catchy meh. Fell in love with Melee and Amy MacDonald on U.K. pop radio. Sam Sparro and Karina - great free iTunes tracks.

The Wayne Knight of the Computer World

You may have noticed that it's been kinda quiet on the blog. Sorry about that. I've been busy with work - and the foreseeable week or two looks busy, too.

One bit I can share. I got myself a new computer. For the first time in almost a decade, I got myself a new desktop computer. See, for the past nine or so years, I've been all laptop, all the time. But it was high time to chain myself back to my desk. The new desktop can do several things that I just can't do with a laptop, plus it saved me a boatload of money.

For those interested in the geeky details, it's an Intel Core 2 Duo, dual-booting Mac OS 10.5 and Windows Vista. Yeah, I know, Vista. It was cheaper to buy than XP - and yes, it's as lame as everyone says. I mean, it's pretty-looking and all, but some of the most basic things go screwy for no reason. I tried to re-install Vista on a new partition and it went something like this-

"To install Vista, you must format this drive in NTFS. Click Format."
"Vista cannot install because the drive is NTFS. Click Format."
"To install Vista, you must format this drive in NTFS. Click Format."
"Vista cannot install because the drive is NTFS. Click Format."

And it went on like this. Nothing like a dual boot to remind me how much I love the Mac.

Okay - better get back to work. Have a great week everybody.

Fear of a Finnish Planet

Cleaned out part of the garage and found an old box of Zip Disks.

Remember Zip Disks? Ah, 100 huge mega-bytes of storage. Shortages of disks. Clicks of death. Good times.

Anyways, digging through them for old files. Found mostly very old, very awful writings. Then I found a great photo.

The year was 2002. Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. We were outside the E Center, waiting to get through security to watch Team USA take on Team Finland in Men's Ice Hockey. There was a huge buzz over the crowd - it was Team USA's first game with their huge home-ice advantage.

Then the Finns showed up.

It was a big group of Finns, all wearing red coats, all waving Finnish flags, all chanting at the top of their lungs, "SU-O-MI! SU-O-MI!" Needless to say, it was awesome. And surprisingly intimidating.

So the Finns stood in line waiting to get through security - and I thought I had to get a great picture. So I grabbed a tiny American flag, walked up alongside the enormous group, and made a sheepish expression on my face as I waved my tiny little flag. My friends tried to take the picture, but it didn't come out. So they motioned at me to stay there and they'd take another picture.

Then the Finns spotted me.



I couldn't keep a straight face and cracked up laughing, as the Finns directed their Su-o-mi chants at me. You can't even see the tiny American flag I'm holding because the Finn behind me is draping a Finnish flag over me.

Alas, the first pic that didn't come out would've been funnier. But at least the second pic came out, so I now have proof positive what it's like to be intimidated by the Finns.

Oh sure - to you the Finns may seem like nice people. But as for me? I fear the Finns...

"You're speaking in Canada"

A few years back, TNT hired Ali G to interview NBA players for a bunch of playoff commercials. I saw a few of them, but I'd never seen this one. This is Ali G interviewing Steve Nash. It's short - enjoy!

I'd like to thank the academy...

Had to pick my jaw up off the floor when I saw this. Thanks to the wonderful Gillian Horvath, I've been given a pair of Brillante Awards for my blogs.



I can honestly say it's not an honor just to be nominated. It's an honor to win TWO of them!

So big thanks to Gillian. But as part of this, I'm supposed to pass the award on to seven great blogs. So many great blogs, but here're the ones that I'm giving the Brillante Award to-

-Eric Trueheart's Life is More Beautiful than you Deserve!. The Honorary Mayor of Sexy Town (self appointed title?) has the most random blog ever, and it's awesome. He currently has pictures of his Mego Spock that he took on vacation to Peru.

-Mark Evanier's News From Me is constantly updated. In the time it took me to write one blog post, he's probably put up six or seven about comic books, politics, cartoons, actors, old tv shows, and barbecue sauce.

-John Rogers's Kung Fu Monkey. Politics, comic books, tv shows, movies, and geek stuff. Nuff said.

-Tom Hart's Live on Tape. Alas, he doesn't update it enough (something to do about constantly working). But when he blogs something, it's always riotously funny.

-Christie St. Martin's Funny Pages 2.0 is my favorite source for funny, geeky, and cool on that series of tubes we call the interwebs.

-Gotta give props to Rich Hammond's Inside the Kings blog. Sports talk on the internet is always pretty lousy, with know-it-alls taking turns trying to shout louder than the next guy. Then someone like Rich Hammond comes along and brings intelligent insight and commentary.

-And while I'm on sports, the last honor has to go to Gilbert Arenas - Agent Zero: The Blog File. Professional NBA players should not be this good at writing. Arenas is funny, honest, opinionated, and has some great great stories.

What a World

As you probably know, I'm a huge fan of famous great animation writer Michael Maltese.

With anyone that successful and that talented, I always wonder - when he was working on the classic Warner Brothers cartoons, did he know that going to work and earning a paycheck making cartoons would impact the world? That his jokes would be repeated continuously worldwide for fifty plus years? That his cartoons would inspire generations of new storytellers and artists?

Seemingly little things can have a big rippling impact on the world.

Now a few months back, I blogged about meeting June Foray at a WGA event, and asking her about Michael Maltese. Afterwards, I wrote it up as a quick blog post and didn't think much of it.

But then I got contacted by Michael Maltese's family. Thanks to his amazingly-awesome granddaughter, Lisa, I got to meet and spend an afternoon with Mr. Maltese's daughter, Brenda, and son-in-law, Dan. They shared so many stories with me, along with a folder filled with Michael Maltese's writings and artwork.

A few tidbits-

-I got to see Michael Maltese's original scripts to two of the comic books he wrote in the 1970s. From Daffy Duck and Road Runner #82, he'd written the stories "The Whole Tooth" and "Coy Decoy." Unfortunately, those Western Publishing comic books never credited the writer, so it was a real thrill to see two stories that were his. His scripts were entirely drawn, and in some cases, his script art was better than the published art.

-Among the items they'd saved were letters from people asking to buy Michael Maltese artwork. At first, I found the letters kind of crass. But then it hit me that the family wouldn't have saved the letters if they felt that way. In that sense, the letters were just another sign of how beloved he was by everyone.

-In 1977, Michael Maltese was a guest-speaker at Cal-Arts. The transcript of his speech and Q&A session was amazing. Not only did it include his thoughts on writing and art, but it included the names of the students who'd asked him questions. A couple kids named Brad Bird and John Musker...

-When Michael Maltese moved out to California from New York, he'd been promised a job at Disney - but when he arrived, there was no job, so he ended up at Warner. Decades later, his daughter was working at Disney. At a work party, Michael Maltese spotted Walt Disney, and confronted him about what had happened decades earlier. Maltese's daughter was mortified, but Walt Disney was very apologetic. It turned out Disney was a fan of Maltese's work.

There were so many stories - I can't do all of them justice. But just getting to hang out with the family was an amazing experience. Thank you so much to Lisa, Brenda, and Dan for their wonderful generosity.

The crazy thing is that I never would have gotten to get this close to one of my heroes if I hadn't blogged about him. A seemingly little thing like blogging led me to meet his family. Which leads me to my favorite story.

When Maltese's grand-daughter started her first week of work at Hanna Barbera, an older gentleman who worked there told her not to worry about her difficult job. No one's going to get hurt. It's only cartoons. The gentleman then relayed that he'd been told the exact same thing his first week at Hanna Barbera decades earlier... of course, by Michael Maltese.

Seemingly little things can have a big rippling impact on the world. Or maybe just come around decades later to impact your family.

What a world.

"I'm WOLVERINE!"

Sorry - I'm so far behind on blogging. First up - my Comic Con wrap-up.



What's left to say? Comic Con is big. And it's easy to hate it now - it's too big, it's too crowded, it's a death match just to find the privilege of paying $400/night for a hotel room, and searching for a parking spot is pure torture. All this and the other 125,000 people makes it easy to get cynical about Comic Con.

But the people. The people make it worthwhile.

I love love LOVE the way that there are all these great people that I never get a chance to see regularly, but then once a year we all gather and stay out all night catching up. We might as well all leave each other with the blessing, "Next year in San Diego."

So a few choice things from the convention (if I've forgotten anyone, sorry about that)-

Wednesday Preview Night. Had dinner with friends and family at the Rockin Baja Lobster. For Comic Con, they'd done up some very creative comic book-themed menus. Very creative and completely BAFFLING menus.

"Uh, what kind of cheese is in the Batman vs the Riddler tacos? And can I get a side of Spider-Man clone rice instead of the Gwen Stacy clone refried beans?"

Thursday. Caught up with an old friend, Josh, lunched with him and Dwayne and Charlotte at an Australian restaurant, then watched three panels to support friends - the Hulk vs Wolverine panel, the annual animation pitching panel, and the So You Want to Do a Graphic Novel panel. Then a whole mess of us went to dinner at a seafood place. Restaurant was awful, their sushi was even worse, but the company was great. Ended the night at the Hyatt for the Boom Studios party. Caught up with an old friend who I hadn't seen in years and hung out with the writing staff of Leverage.

Friday. Watched the Batman: Brave & The Bold panel, then lived it up at the Gotham Group party. Thought we saw Sarah Chalke from Scrubs, turned out not to be her.

Thought we saw Mark Hamill, turned out to be him. Told us how his sister didn't believe he was the Joker on Batman because she never watched the show (it was opposite Oprah) - and regaled us with stories about his Simpsons episode. Great guy.

Before I left the party, thought I saw Beau Bridges. Turned out to be Beau Bridges.

Had sushi dinner with new friends - then headed to the Disney party. Discovered I'd lost my invite to the party. The invite I'd been given to me only TWO HOURS before. Felt like an idiot, but thankfully an exec came down and got me in.

Disney party was at Stingaree. Amazing venue. Tremendous party with tons of people there. Didn't want to leave, but ended up leaving at the end to get over to the Warner Animation party. Thank goodness I did.



Met Shirley Manson - who I absolutely adore. You can tell by how happy I am. Shirley, not as much. Maybe she's only happy when it rains.

Left the Warner party as they closed down, so they'd run out of gift bags. Hung out in the Marriott lobby with friends. Got smiled at by Elvira - which was weird. We chatted with voice actor Tom Kenny before calling it a night.

Saturday. Watched the Iron Man: Armored Adventures panel. Very strange experience watching a show that I worked on with an audience. Thankfully, the audience reaction was really positive.

Watched the WGA's Writers Room panel with primetime comedy writers, went to Amy W's signing at the DC booth, lunched with Dan and Charlotte at a Mexican restaurant that shows Santo movies, then watched the spotlight panel on Len Wein.

In the evening, went to the WGA Reception and chatted it up with a ton of people. Ducked out of the WGA reception, headed downstairs where I bumped into Erik Estrada downstairs at the Hyatt ("it's PONCH!"), then headed to dinner at Rock Bottom Brewery with friends David, Katie, Rob, Adam, Simon, Richard, and Rob, followed by drinking and bar hopping. Bumped into voice actress Tara Strong on the streets of San Diego - again, only at Comic Con.

Then headed back to the Marriott, because I got a text message from my friend Charlotte to meet them there.

See, this is the way it always works at Comic Con - you sit down with friends, someone you know happens by and joins the group, someone they know joins the group, and soon you have a big group of people.

So I'm sitting there in the Marriott between Charlotte, Bruce Timm, Matt Groening, Len Wein, Dwayne McDuffie, and Glen Murakami.

Yeah. It was like that.

Matt Groening actually got up and introduced himself to me when I arrived. Matt FREAKING Groening. The guy who I wanted to be when I was 15 years-old. Somewhere in my office I've got an autograph he gave me at my first San Diego Comic Con in 1989.

Whenever in situations like this where I'm the least talented in the room, my modus operandi is the same - keep my mouth shut, don't say anything stupid, and hope I can absorb some of their amazing talent through osmosis. I think we were there for two hours. Two amazing hours.

Sunday. Sunday's a blur. I don't remember much of it, except walking the floor one final time, saying good-bye to friends, and leaving the convention center in the rear view mirror. The last thing I remember on Sunday is lying down and taking a five hour nap after it was all over.



Lastly, if you haven't already, go watch Triumph the Insult Comic Dog at Comic Con.

I think that's everything there is to say about Comic Con. Love it, hate it, it is what it is. There's nothing else in the world like it.

Next year in San Diego.