I found this Sporcle game’s mix of Shakespeare and Batman so dangerously amusing that I wanted to punch an English teacher in the face and throw him two or three stories onto the street.  Then I realized that the closest English teacher was me and I thought better of it.

PS: If you’re a long-time fan of Batman, you might remember that Adam West hid the remote control for the entrance to the Batcave inside a bust of Shakespeare.

I’ve passed my teaching interview and will be teaching high school assuming I pass my background check. But they’ll only start paying me three weeks after starting, so I need savings to cover those first three weeks.  I’d really appreciate if you would donate to help defray my costs, especially if you’ve benefited from my reviews and/or articles and/or would like to be a Benefactor of Badassery.

This news article might help you if you’re worried your superheroes don’t get enough to do besides superpowered brawling.

The Marines are working with the Los Angeles Police Department to learn more about policing intensely violent areas without alienating the residents.

(Incidentally, I wonder how much the LAPD can teach anybody about that. It’s like getting advice about how to cook Bambi burgers from a vegan).

The Wounded Artist Project has a helpful video here.

I came across this in the Wikipedia article of Kevin Conroy, the long-time voice actor for Batman.

After the September 11, 2001 attacks, Conroy helped out in the relief efforts by volunteering to do cooking duties for officers and firefighters.  On the Batman: Gotham Knight DVD’s commentary, he said that another cook found out he was the voice of Batman. The cook asked if he could tell everyone, and Conroy agreed, though he thought no one would even know who he was. At the other cook’s urging, Conroy yelled in the voice of Batman, “I am vengeance! I am the night! I… am… Batman!” (a line he delivered in Batman: The Animated Series), eliciting cheers from the first responders eating at the relief center. They began telling him what their favorite episodes were, and how they had watched the show with their kids. He said it was the first time he had seen any of them smile or laugh since the attacks a week earlier.

Batman never ceases to amaze me.  Err, unless Joel “Batman and Robin” Schumacher is involved.  I should amend that to “Batman never ceases to astound me.”  Good God, movie audiences haven’t been that astounded since Sean Connery killed a bunch of henchmen in bear suits or a bear-suited Nicholas Cage punched a woman in Wicker Man.

Penn State recently released a workplace orientation video about potentially angry students, such as veterans. But which angry students did they miss?

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The students’ lounge had It Must Have Been The Mistletoe on infinite repeat.  Always the editor, I was thinking about some simple ways to fix this song.  It was surprisingly easy:  It Must Have Been the Missile TOW.

Now that is a revolution in military affairs.  Picture courtesy of fugly.com.

Today we got an e-mail that asked “who’s paying you to crank this [expletive] out, the CIA?”  Well, no.  As far as I know, the CIA doesn’t offer grants for superhero novels, even kickass ones with accountants and mutant alligators from Homeland Security.  In fact, judging by my ramen account, it looks like no one is paying us to write this novel.

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Hint: the Iraqi connection.

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Picture taken from one of the Marvel Civil War comics. #1, I think.

This isn’t government-sponsored national service, but I think that twelve stitches and a hell of a lot of ass-kicking earn the tag.

A Tulsa newspaper reports that a Batman imposter walked into a grocery store and unsuccessfully tried to open fire. Then an airline mechanic tackled him from behind. Several minutes of unrelenting pounding ensued.

A poster from Edmonton, my favorite Canadian city, notices that the new Wolverine trailer has Wolverine in an American military uniform. Assuming this isn’t just a Hollywood gaffe, Marvel is probably rewriting Wolverine as an American rather than a Canadian.

This isn’t as annoying as Superman’s motto getting changed to “truth, justice and the American way all that stuff” or the inseparably American GI Joe getting turned into international peacekeepers, but Canada still deserves better than this.

I found this list of Navy slang pretty funny. Here are some choice Navy phrases…

• Bullet Sponge: U.S. Marine.
• Cleaning Stations: Hour-long field day evolution where everyone drops what they’re doing and cleans their spaces. See “XO’s Happy Hour.”
• Corpsman Candy: Sore-throat lozenges handed out at sick bay in lieu of any substantive treatment. Sometimes accompanied by two aspirin. Continue Reading »

FIRST COMIC — NEXT COMIC

FIRST COMIC — NEXT COMIC

Picture courtesy of the US War Dogs Association.

“Truth is the glue that holds government together.” — Gerald Ford

“If you want to live under something held together by glue, you probably wouldn’t make much of an architect.” — Mike, Director of the Office of Special Investigation’s RETCON branch.

Dr. Darpa: I heard that Russia is now patrolling its nuclear-armed bombers 24 hours a day now.

Captain Carnage: That’s right.

Dr. Darpa: That could destabilize US-Russian relations, if we thought there were any conceivable chance Russian bombers could get close enough to attack Chicago or Seattle.

Captain Carnage: I’d say at least 50%.

Dr. Darpa: 50%, hah! Not after you see what I’ve been working on: Project Unmutually Assured Destruction. It’s the largest surface-to-air missile site ever built. It was so colossal that I could only fit it in Yosemite National Park.

Captain Carnage: An antiballistic missile site in a national park?

Dr. Darpa: Now, the only remaining task is to name it. I present to you: the Yosemite SAM Site.

This is an excerpt from an interesting article on college.

I assigned a research paper. This time around, the students were to elucidate the positions of scholars on two sides of a historical controversy. Why did Truman remove MacArthur? Did the United States covertly support the construction of the Berlin Wall? Their job in the paper, as I explained it, was to take my arm and introduce me as a stranger to scholars A, B, and C, who stood on one side of the issue, and to scholars D, E, and F, who were firmly on the other—as though they were hosting a party.

A future state trooper snorted. “Some party,” he said.

Web Gumbo provides a great picture of his unit mascot. You might wonder what a Marine mascot does. Deliver pep talks? Rally the fans? Please.

Agent Orange, our mutated alligator, says that “it’s not surprising that they turned to an alligator when they needed someone to scare and bond with Marines. Here you can see the gator playing Marco Polo with a Marine that is obviously enjoying the gator’s friendly and sociable company.”

Lash retorts retorts that “if the guy’s actually enjoying anything, it’s probably the thought that he will soon not be dangling over a watery grave.”

The Defense Department reports that the US Navy successfully hit a dying US satellite with a missile.  I’m, uhh, not thrilled that we’re spending (sixty million) tax dollars to shoot down our own satellites, but at least we didn’t miss.  Heh.

 A Time article had the following correction. 

An article on Thursday about John McCain’s relationship with his children misstated, in some editions, the site of a graduation ceremony for Mr. McCain’s son Jimmy, which was attended by several siblings. Jimmy McCain graduated from Marine boot camp; there is no Marine Academy.

“There is no Marine Academy.” Yeah, Time. Any college football fan could tell you Marines play for the Naval Academy, one of an elite group of nine teams that beat Notre Dame this year.

I’ll chalk this up to a crucial misalignment of football fans, rather than a “I-hope-someone-at-Time-knows-military-stuff.”

And, just in case anyone at Time’s Human Resources Department is reading (wink wink), I know the difference between Kaipo-Noa Kaheaku-Enhada and a Hawaiian death-threat.

And you thought “Army of One” was bad…

“We’re not really black-ops assassins or conspiracy bagmen, but encryption and information assurance are sexy too!”– NSA

“Our acronym doesn’t really stand for ‘Systematically Eliminating Troublesome Information.’ Not officially, anyway.” — SETI

Strictly speaking, our mission generally entails tasks like garbage collection/inspection, bomb sweeps and surveillance, but there’s no reason we couldn’t have battle royales in the Oval Office. — Secret Service

“Package delivery anywhere in the world, any time. Special service to China available. What can Blue do for you?” — US Air Force

Striving to keep New York free of supercriminals, starting with the prisons. – NY Department of Corrections

• I thought of a related quote that I didn’t want to list separately. Agent Black: “The only place in NYC that’s free of supercriminals is Rikers.”

“Taking unconventional warfare to the next level.” — USAF-STRATCOM

“Have you ever killed anyone? Do you want to?” – CIA

A Marine typist vs. the Chicago Manual of Style:

MARINE:  About two spaces after a period.  As a U.S. Marine, i know that what’s right is right and you are wrong.  I declare it once and for all aesthetically more appealing to have two spaces after a period.

CHICAGO MANUAL:  As a U.S. Marine, you’re probably an expert at something, but I’m afraid it’s not this. [sic]Status quo. [sic]

I think XHTML turns properly formatted periods (with two spaces after) into single-spaced periods.  That looks HIDEOUS, which is especially problematic for writers that upload large blocks of text, like novel chapters and lengthy reviews.  Whenever I edit a Word Press post, I have to go back and make sure that I’ve replaced the double-spaces so that it’s readable.

I think it’s pretty funny that we don’t put any spaces after periods in abbreviations.  Something like “he’s a U.  S.  M.  C.  drill instructor” would be painful.

Proving that, when you have 10,000 Marines in one place and nothing to kill, strange things happen.

Two questions.

1. Do you live outside of Austin or San Antonio?
2. Do you hate puppies?

If you answered no to both questions, look into the TSA’s puppy adoption program.

(Sorry, Oklahoma… this is just another reason Texas is cooler).

Everybody knows that ladies go nuts for puppies and Texan ladies swoon especially for servicepuppies.  Fortunately, you can get the ladies and save the day, thanks to the servicepuppy adoption program.

You don’t hate servicepuppies, do you?