Marvel Universe, an obvious reason to blog


Sooo I was sitting down to do my account management homework and be a diligent student when I got distracted by a link to an article about the Iron Man movie which is pre-production right now. So far I'm pretty stoked about what I've heard as far as who's doing what.

Jon Favreau as director. Money baby, money! I think Favreau could really take Tony Stark to a new level. Favreau sticks to his stories and to his gut, I don't think he'd allow the movie to become to hollywooded-out which seems to be a favored trend in comic movies today.

Gough and Millar for screenplay. I hope that this is the case, Ive also read that it's been rewritten since they had a stab at it. I think they did an awesome job with Smallville and could do well with Iron Man, with 2 important caveates. One being that they can escape the writing constraints of television, making a WB show that can stretch on the lore is a little different that going with a full blown film about a mature character. Also they need to die down with the cheeky dialogue. I mean sometimes Smallville gets a little hard to swallow....but they've been doing better in later seasons. Plus wasn't it rumoured that they were working on a possible Aquaman adapt?

Now just who can play our beloved millionaire turned armored superhero?? Some friends and I were having this discussion a few weeks ago and I really was stumped! They mentioned Wentworth Miller, of Prison Break fame, and I think that could work but I'm not completely sold. I guess I'd have to see him bulk up a bit. However his counterpart in the show, Dominic Purcell could also be a viable option now that I think about it. I've heard people suggest Clive Owen, who I definitely think it smart bad ass that could pull off the driven troubled millionaire part well, but I just don't think Owen is the superhero role type of guy. I mean he went into the comic-esque realm with Sin City, but that was a whole other ballgame (but damn if he didn't rock Dwight on that one....wish they had decided to include more of him from the other books not used for the s.play). Some have suggested Jim Caviesel but I just can't get myself behind him...and not just because he was Jesus either. He just doesn't seem to have much presence on screen (I mean it's hard not to when you're playing Jesus but other than that he's kindve forgettable...like Frequency...I just wasn't enthralled with his performance.) I've also heard Oded Fehr as a possibility. Now first off I didn't have a clue who this guy was....but once I saw his mug on IMDB I was like holy crap Tony Stark...esp Civil War look..which is the most prominent in my mind at the moment. He also did some work with the new Justic League cartoon, which gives him a little comic cred in my book. But not having seen him in anything I'm not sold just yet.

You know what I am pretty rocked about in my mind though....the thought of Hugo Weaving playing Prince Namor! Now this hasn't been mentioned at all...hell who knows if they'd ever even make a Namor movie...maybe in an Avengers story though...

Oh man...make an Avengers movie...maybe that's just because I've been watching the new animated ones....and reading Civil War. But if i'm thinking it obviously other people are. I'd even suggest making a 1602 film adapt if I wasn't absolutely terrified they screw it up royally and bring me to tears. Not that it takes much to sell me on comic/superhero films just the 30 second clip of the Aquaman movie on Entourage got me on a whole Aquaman movie soapbox.

Hooooooly Crap. I totally suck at keeping up with a blog.

Well there used to be a good excuse for it, being that school took over my life, but that was the case in May, and now it is July. So really my excuse is that I suck at life. So here I am, at work, blogging.
So lets talk about how I'm really starting to freak out about about being "adult-esque". I say "adult-esque" because I really don't feel I can call myself an adult yet, maybe it's just denial. BUT! I do know that a lot of adult-like things are coming into my scope....and this freaks me out. I'm entering into my senior year of college and coming to grips with the fact that come next year I could possibly not be in school anymore (I'm thinking grad school is going to be in the works...). Okay so I know that most kids out there can't wait for the day they can say goodbye to school, but that is not me. Not one bit. I love school, I may complain about it but at heart I love it, especially more that having a real job. Here's my thought pattern on the matter: I've been in school since I was 4, so 17 years, plus it's really the only thing I've ever done besides a few part time jobs. Not to mention I'm freaking awesome at school!. So basically I'm just terrified that one, I wont like what I'm doing, and two, I won't be good at it. So here I am trying to get into grad school. Now this isn't just an avoidance tactic, I really don't feel like I possess enough knowledge and skill to really be doing what I want to be doing at this point (working in the advertising industry) so I figure two years of intense study should help me get to that point. And help me be awesome at it too....I need to be awesome at it, seriously. So yeah that covers "adult-esque freak out" numero uno.

Number two is weddings. Holy crap everyone I freaking know is getting married. Yes, I know when you're in your twenties that's what happens but I'm barely in my twenties here, I wasn't expecting this until at least 23-24. My best friend from high school just got engaged, she's not getting married til next fall but we've been looking at all kinds of stuff trying to get ideas and a basic plan down. And they swore I'd get married first, haHA! I win. Still eerie though, I remember being in eighth grade together....now weddings?! In addition to that another old friend's sister is getting married, we had the bacherlorette party this weekend. Me at a bacheloretty party, I'm also not okay with that. It was fun though, nothing too cheeky, just hanging out with the girls. And THEN if that wasn't enough I had to go buy a bridesmaid dress for yet annnoooother friend's wedding which is this fall. It's okay though because she's the one person I'm really not freaked out about it happening with....plus I adore my dress. ADORE! There are also a whole other slew of people getting married that I know but am not as directly involved with. Blah. But hey the way I look at it....at least I'm not freaked out that it's not me getting married, I'm just freaked out that I'm old enough to have friends getting married :). I have enough trouble committing to things like new earrings or perfume let alone picking a man I want to spend my life with....maybe when I become an adult and less "adult-esque"

the whole reason for this is corn dog nuggets.



So I started thinking about corn dog nuggets, these delicious little corn dogs bites sans stick. It really is an ingenious creation.

I mean one, I'm a huuuuuge fan of corn dogs in general. Growing up whenever we went to Myrtle Beach for the summer my older sister and I would only want 3 things from the grocery store for the week. Drumstick ice creams, cereal, and corn dogs. Our schedule: wake up, eat cereal, go play in the ocean for hours, eat corn dogs, play in ocean more, pass out from exhaustion. Ohhhhh man was it fun!

Secondly, I'm a big patron of bite-sized foods. Especially candies. Kit kat bites....bum. M&M's.....bum. Bite-sized Snickers....bum. Hell even the Mr. Goodbar allows for the transformation into bite-sized form via careful scoring. So yeah I don't understand why more people don't buy into the bite-sized craze. I mean why wouldn't they?! Your food it already divided into small enough pieces for your mouth, you can have the illusion of eating a whole lot more. Instead of being like ooooh 1 candy bar, you can be like ooooooh 10 mini candy bars. And well I'm no expert but I think 10 sounds a lot cooler than 1. At least when it comes to candy.

But anyways, the joy of bite-sizing is not just for candy. Lets take a look at some other foodstuffs divided into delightful smallish pieces. MMM grapes! One of nature's own bite sized creations. They're so small but so delicious and fun filled! I personally enjoy peeling the skin off of them with my teeth then eating them. This usually lasts for about 3 grapes before I give up. Strawberries however are the work of Satan, I do not endorse them at all. What about, what abouuuuut.....TATER TOTS! whooooooa do I need even explain....the world of deep friend hashbrown-esque potato-y goodness all in tot form. And may I also say, these buggers are exxxxcelllent when eaten by the bucket with sushi :D. And well of course there are chicken nuggets, probably the most common of smallish foods, even if not privy to the wide world of bite-size most people have tasted these little poultry delicacies. As a child I was quite taken with the chicken nugget, more specifically the chicken MCnugget. I did not want anything to do with any non MCnugget. Strangely enough now I will not go anywhere near the MCnugget, while I am still a fan of the chicken nugget in general. Aside, it is also great fun to heavily emphasize the MC in mcnugget.

So enough on the separate worlds of corn dogs and bite-sized foods, TOGETHER I say! Yes, the corn dog nugget, one of the most amazing innovations of the 20th century. The way I see it: Television, Internet, Corn Dog Nugget. Here is actually the real meat of my blogging, the catalyst** for this entire train of thought.

I started thinking about how McDonald's for a hot minute back in the early 90's sold corn dogs nuggets, and wondered if anyone else freaking remembered that. HOL-Y CRAP! those suckers were good. Any why the hell doesn't McDonald's still sell them? I mean even as just as seasonal item, like the McRib. I firmly believe that if the McRib were not a seasonal and limited time only menu item that not many people would buy it. I mean it's not even bite-sized, plus it's shaped like it has bones and does not, and well that's just odd. But it always makes me think of the Batmobile....I've been a sucker for advertising for faaaar longer than I'd like to believe. At least I'm hoping to capitalize on it now....but that's an entire other blog for another time.

But anyways the corn dog nugget from McDonald's was amazing, and short lived. I miss you little buddy. However, years later I found that A&W, which might have been called All American Food, might have been called Hot Dogs and More, I don't remember but I'm pulling for the latter, well they had corn dog nuggets on their menu. WHOA. Yes, so many a time in middle school and high school I remember sitting at the mall, being on of those non-driving mall dwellers who flat out freak me out now, waiting for the movie to start across the street and partaking in some delicious corn dog nuggets. See now I live right across the street from an A&W and you'd think "whooo hooo my time has come!" but no....they don't serve them! What the CRAP is up with that. I don't know. So alas I sit and wait for the time when my fairweather friends, the corn dog nugget will surface once more. And I remember better times, like every other Friday in high school when it was corn dog nugget day, and all of us in the broadcast studio cheered aloud when reading the lunch menu for the day.







**CATALYST-- so this was completely off the topic of corn dog nuggets so I decided to save it for a sort of post script or addendum to my blog. So as I was sitting there writing I hit a block in which I needed a word, a word that I knew exactly what it was, what it meant, and even how it started, but alas could not discern. I sat contemplating for about 3 mins, then turned to a friend on iM, and started searching on Google, all of which proved fruitless. So I'm sitting here RACKING my brain for this word, because once I get stuck on a word that I want to use and can't think of, I cannot move on until it has been figured out. Probably a good thing I'm not planning on being a professional writer.

But anyways, I'm not coming up with anything when I realize the saddest part of this situation, not only am I stuck with this word I know and can't think of....but I also have in my mind a film in which the word is used as well as the entire context of the scene it which it is used. This both saddens me as well and excites me to no end. The film you ask? Groove. It's an independent production based around rave-culture in the late 90's/early 00's. It's a really stellar film and gives a nice insight into the whole culture (not that I could really verify it as correct) that seems much more accurate and less Hollywood-ized than it's counterpart of the same period, Go (which I also enjoy quite thoroughly, don't get me wrong). But anyways there's this one part when the characters (which don't ask me who they are or their stories because I haven't seen this film since about 01 at the absolute latest) are at this rave and are taking some ecstasy and drinking orange juice. So what does this have to do with anything....well the orange juice they say acts as a CATALYST for the drug. BOOM!!! words in action. So yeah I remembered this moment, this word, and it's meaning, for yeaaaaars to come. And dredged it from the bottoms of the fen which is my mind to bring to this ever so illustrious blog, on the topic of corn dog nuggets.

so the squid and the whale.



I just finished watching this film and right off hand I feel kind of disappointed. It just seemed kind of overly pretentious to me, but that might have been because of the characters. Jeff Daniels' character, Bernard, is a college English professor and a struggling novelist. He plays the "holier-than-thou" academic quite well, which in itself makes me kind of despise him. His oldest son, Walt, is in high school and obviously holds his father on a very high pedestal and models himself after him quite closely. Whatever his father says is gospel. These two versions of the same person wear hard against my feelings towards this movie, but the dynamic nature of Walt as the movie progresses makes it better. By the end he kind of realizes that his father is not perfect and is pretty much the pretentious ass that the rest of us knew all along. Laura Linney did a good job as the mother, I'm beginning to like her more and more as I see her in different roles. Although her age in Love Actually still boggles me. Not to mention the fact that she has an eerie resemblance to Annette O'Toole of Smallville fame. But anyways characters aside you can definitely tell that Wes Anderson has his hand in this film, it being set in the 70's gives it a kind of Royal Tenenbaums feel, but the techniques of filming were different, although a few zooms here and there were trademark Zissou :P. I think this film intrigued me enough that I'll be thinking on it for the next few days. Maybe I'll have a different opinion after some pondering and a second viewing. I think the whole look and feel of it just left me wanting some humorous dialogue, a break from the severity of the story. But it's its own film, and I'm kinda glad it stood its own ground. The scene at the end with the squid and the whale was beautiful and really captures the moment of Walt's turning point in his
perspective on his parents and his life.

But note to all filmmakers: Do NOT cast a Baldwin in your film under any circumstances. No questions, just don't.