Random Access

Thursday – 10 July 2008
Last night, Dr. Z brought my XBox from the AF office up to SLC. Along with it, came the six games I had stored in the carrying case, including X-Men: Legends. Win-Win. I took them home and put Legends in the 360 and sat down to enjoy some comics-based gaming.

I had, however, neglected one very important factor into account: The 360’s poor backwards compatibility.

After some research, I found that I needed to download an emulator – to trick the 360 into thinking that it was an O.G. XBox.¹ (Yes, calling it “O.G.” just made me laugh.) And, even then, there’s no guarantee that the emulator will play Legends properly. *sigh* As the home network is mostly wireless, I looked to see if I had a long enough Cat-5 cable to run from the living room to the office. Nope. Next, I considered trying to cascade wireless routers, since I have SaraRules’ router for the time being. Then I decided that was more effort than I really felt like putting into it last night.

So, I opted for playing City of Heroes.

Which had a new patch release. So, I waited for it to download and then clicked to apply it. I was apparently so wiped from the poor sleep Tuesday night – possibly aided by the Shiraz I had with dinner – that I nodded off before the patch finished applying.

So I called it an early evening, relatively speaking.

This morning, I was up and ready to roll in just over 40 minutes, including the time it took to iron today’s outfit. Not too shabby. It would have been even better if I had remembered my cell phone before leaving the complex. *sigh* At least I have frozen mocha goodness to see me through the morning.

And it’s Comics and Sushi ‘Wednesday.’

Stray Toasters

• Big Bad Voodoo Daddy and Sheila E. are performing Saturday. I’m a little torn about which show I’d rather go to… but leaning towards BBVD.
• The new season of Burn Notice starts tonight.
• The HeroClix Fantastic Four Starter Set should be in stores today.
• As bad as I’ve (re)discovered that Super Friends can be, this sounds like an interesting compliation.
• I haven’t played Second Life in probably a year. This is almost enough to get me to check it out again: New Babbage – A Steampunk City in Second Life:

• iPhone 3G meets the masses tomorrow.
• It looks as though the right reverend Jesse Jackson could use a good talking-to.
  But, he’s still my top choice for reading Green Eggs and Ham:

• I just introduced DaveW to Christopher Titus Apologizes. In return, he sent me back to my desk with a video from Lisa Lampenelli: Take It Like a Man

Namaste.

¹ – O.G. XBox – A conversation between a classic XBox and an XBox 360:

XBox 360: So what are you supposed to be?
XBox: Me? I’m O.G.
XBox 360: “O.G.?” Shit… you ain’t gangsta.
XBox: Gangsta? Naw, man… not gangsta. O.G. “Original Gamer.” Word.

Wednesday – 09 July 2008
Today, after two weeks, I get to relinquish the Leash.
Not only that, but I don’t have to deal with it again for eight weeks, if my math is correct.

Last night, I got my hero on… big time. I had an urge to play X-Men: Legends. Only after I started looking for it did I remember that it is in my XBox carrying case…

…with my XBox…

…in American Fork.

So, I decided to devote more time to Marvel Ultimate Alliance. That was fun. I used the Fantastic Four and the X-Men to run missions. One thing I need to work on is keeping my tanks from dying when going up against bosses: I got Colossus killed the last time I played and got The Thing killed (only briefly!) while fighting M.O.D.O.K. last night. But, it was fun.

Next, I headed to Paragon City and joined a team for a couple of missions. On the whole, it was a decent team, in terms of powers/abilities. In terms of team dynamics, however… they left a little something to be desired. There were more than “a few” team deaths involved. Still, I put on about a half-level before logging out.

Before heading to bed, I toyed with the idea of getting up early and heading to the gym. If I hadn’t kept waking up every hour-and-a-half or so, I might have actually followed through with it. *grblsnrkx*

Still, it’s Wednesday.
And that ain’t bad at all.

Stray Toasters

• On the way to work, Nomad slipped Kool Moe Dee’s I Go to Work into the mix. That made me chuckle.
• sent a few new pics of Bit. This one is adorable:

  

• Ten codes
• Thanks to for pointing this out:



• The artwork of Rob Ullman
• I was talking with loonybin88 about his weekend and, in the course of conversation, he mentioned that one of his sons is taken with one of the girls in the neighborhood. I told him that he might want to start getting the fatherly advice ready… but not like this:

• RedEye’s “Best Superhero” Tourney

Namaste.

Lunch time.  I should be going to the gym, but neither Wes nor Mark are in this office and I really dislike working out alone.

Stray Toasters

• Interviews with Matt Keeslar, The Middleman in… The Middleman
  • A Slice of Sci-Fi
  • iFMagazine
  • TV Guide
• The best video games of the year — so far
• Tyranist: You should click here.
• From the “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!?” file: Teenager finds baby bat in her bra
• … and in a semi-related note: Die off of bats mystifies experts
• First Look: Wonder Woman DVD Movie
• NASA sets date for final shuttle mission in 2010
• Another from the “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?!” file: The World’s Weirdest Health Mascots
• MK vs. DCU screen shots: Now with more Catwoman

I should eat something.

Tuesday – 08 July 2008
Last night, after having a bite to eat and watching a little TV, I decided to head to Borders to do some drawing. I took a few ‘Clix figures with me – it’s been a while since I’ve drawn anything, so I thought it best to work on simple figure studies. Did I say “a while?” I meant to say that I’ve pretty much forgotten how to do everything beyond the point of “hold the pencil.” *sigh* As the song says: It’s a long, dark road out of Hell. But, I’ll eventually get back to where I was.

Back home in time for The Middleman. Apparently, we’re on the West Coast feed of ABC Family – the show comes on at 11:00 here. Not a major hassle, but I wouldn’t mind catching it at 9 or 10. I read something… last week, I think… that says that Kevin Sorbo (Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Andromeda) will be guest starring on an episode. He will be playing a Middleman who’s been in suspended animation. That should prove amusing.

I flipped channels for a bit after The Middleman. I started with Deep Space Nine, but wound up spending a bit of time watching The Late Late Show… before winding up back on DS9. I was mostly killing time until Burn Notice came on. Which I did. And then only made it through twenty (20) minutes of the show before realizing that I needed to call it a night.

Stray Toasters

• I made corn muffins this morning. They’re a nice change of pace to my sporadic breakfast routine.
• Ten
• Classic Nick Fury is back in comics… and has a new ‘Clix figure, to boot.



• For SaraRules and Tyranist: Zombie lawn sculpture
• Stephen Colbert is running for President of the United States… in the Marvel Universe.

(click image for more information)

• Balloon animals from trash bags: Joshua Allen Harris
• It’s a definite sign of the times when even LEGO minifigs are riding scooters.
• Builder discovers ‘priceless’ Tolkien postcard

Namaste.

Monday – 07 July 2008
I hope that the holiday weekend was safe for everyone. As yet, I’ve heard no reports of anyone having to be
rushed to their local medical facility to have fireworks-related injuries treated. I take that as a good thing.

Aside from being slow on the uptake in figuring out that SaraRules had gotten into town early and Friday morning Leash doom, it was a rather good – and relaxing – weekend.

After SaraRules left for Aspen, I headed down to Kate and Perry’s to do a little tech support and to hang with the family. It also turns out that their youngest added +1 to his Crawl skill while they were on vacation. It also seems like he added +1 to his Stand (with support) skill, too.

When I got back home, I planted myself on the couch and watched a couple of episodes of Law & Order: SVU. I flipped over to watch a little bit of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi before deciding to play City of Heroes. I was invited to join a team fairly quickly; we ran a few missions against The Council and Tsoo… and a bank mission. Despite a few inglorious deaths, I was able to put on a couple of levels.

All-in-all, it was a good end to a good weekend.

Stray Toasters

• I am having Butterscotch Krimpets and coffee for breakfast. Not quite the so-called “Breakfast of Champions,” but good, nonetheless.
• July 7, 1936: Get a Grip – Phillips Screws Up the Toolbox
• Hulk vs. Wolverine

• The manual I’m reading just made an analogy between IP addresses and USPS addresses, that impressed me:
  

  “In the same way that a house address has two parts – a street address and a ZIP code (the city and state are not really used anymore – an IP address also has two parts…”

  The impressive part is that not many people outside the USPS really know (or at least think about the fact) that the City and State parts of an address are somewhat superfluous. As a rather high percentage of the mailstream is routed by automated systems, they can usually determine exactly where a mailpiece goes from just the ZIP Code and the street address.

• I’m going to a DCI show in Ogden on Thursday. I haven’t been to a drum corps show in… at least… 10 or 11 years. That should be fun.
• By way of the “You Can’t Do That on Television” file: Porn appears on rugby programme
  (The expression of the guy in the accompanying picture makes the whole thing for me)
• I am amused that this xkcd comic has had the following effect on the Wikipedia entry for “wood”

And… back to it.

Namaste.

Sunday – 06 July 2008
Hancock was fun. I saw it with SaraRules, Meliko and Logan. We all enjoyed it. I’m not sure why it’s been so… lukewarmly… received by critics. *ehn* Yet another reason I don’t pay a lot of heed to people who – love or hate the movie, are still getting paid to see it.

After the movie, we headed to Lollicup so that SaraRules and Meliko could get some boba tea… but they were closed. So, we went for Vietnamese instead. And it was pretty good. As we were in the greater metropolitan neighborhood, I went to Jitterbug to get a strawberry-banana smoothie. Back to SaraRules’ parents to hang out with the family – until we realized that SaraRules had left her quilt (the one she wanted to show her grandmother) back at my place.

So… back to my place to get it. And for a nap for SaraRules… which translated into Marvel Ultimate Alliance time for me. Win-Win-Win.

Back to the house for family time with the grandparents; showed up, too.

After that, we went back to my place to watch a movie before heading to breakfast. We tried to find Hellboy, but the local store didn’t have it. We wound up watching Raiders of the Lost Ark, instead. I hadn’t watched that in a long time, so it was fun to see how well it has held up after all this time.

Breakfast was good. Short, but good. And, for the first time in forever: I made a milkshake – Cookies and Cream with chocolate and caramel.

Home. Crash.

This morning, we got up and had a leisurely breakfast while listening to jazz. We went back to SaraRules’ parents’ house to see Meliko before she headed back to California.

I’m not sure what I’m doing with the rest of the day, after SaraRules heads back to Aspen, but I’m sure that I’ll come up with something.

Namaste.

Saturday – 05 July 2008
Yesterday was good and it was eventful – in a good way – too.

I didn’t wind up playing Ultimate Alliance, but that was cool.  We headed to SaraRules’ parents’ and hung out with her family for a while. Meliko and I talked comics again; I brought over House of M, because she had asked about it on Thursday. The lot of us then headed to Porcupine Pub for dinner. We came back to the house to watch Eddie Izzard: Definite Article. Until it started watching me and SaraRules.

We headed back to my place for a pre-fireworks nap… and almost slept through seeing them at all. We got up and headed up to Wasatch Boulevard, affording us a view of most of the fireworks displays across the valley. We wound up parking in Sugar House and watching their display.

Back home for some ice cream and unwinding… and then I found Blazing Saddles on TV Land! I watched about half of it before calling it a night.

Up early again this morning to head to the Downtown Farmer’s Market. I wasn’t expecting to run into anyone I know, but I did: Josh, from work. Not only did I see him, but we kept passing each other as we wandered through the park.

We’re going to see Hancock in a little while. After that… who knows?

*voop*

Thursday – 03 July 2008
Last day of the work week… sort of. I am keeping the Leash for an extra week, so a coworker can go camping with his family. The up side to this: I’m of pager duty for the next… 8 weeks, I think. That’s not a bad deal.

Last night, I watched Star Wars: A New Hope on Spike. Sure, it was the 90s remixed edition (you know… the one where Han doesn’t shoot first), but I was able to overlook that. For the most part.

I seem to recall Luke Skywalker being known as “the last survivor of the Death Star battle.” ( I just checked with , he remembers that, too.) I also remember this being somewhat retconned:

• Han Solo (and, ostensibly, Chewbacca) was there – he afforded Luke the opportunity to make the shot.
• Wedge Antilles survived – his X-Wing was damaged in the final run on the trench and Luke told him to wave off.

So, we have three (or four) survivors there. I realized something last night and I am not sure if it’s endemic to the updated version only or not: There is a Y-Wing bomber that also flies away from the exploding Death Star:

Let’s examine that picture…

• Millenium Falcon? Check.
• Red Two (Wedge’s X-Wing)? Check.
• Red Five (Luke’s X-Wing)? Check.
• Y-Wing bombe…. wait…. Y-Wing?! What’s that doing here?!

And so, my question is: Who was the mystery pilot?

I also spent some time in Paragon City. I got Kurigari to Security Level 20 a couple of nights ago, but didn’t feel like running his costume mission then. So, I did it last night. I had another character in Icon offer to help me out. Far be it from me to turn down a helping hand. A few minutes later, I was back in the tailor shop, getting hooked up with new threads. (And I STILL need to get a picture of this character…)

Four-Color Coverage
I picked up three (that’s right, “three”) books yesterday. It made for quick, but entertaining, reading:

• Astonishing X-Men #25 – Warren Ellis and Simone Bianchi’s debut issue hits the stands. And, it’s good. The take seems to be a bit of The X-Men meets The X-Files – there is a definite sci-fi edge to the story, so far. The X-Men seem to be settling in to their new locale fairly well. They’re even on good terms with the local government. YeahbuhWHAT?! There’s even a visit from a certain wind-riding Queen of Wakanda. I must give Mr. Ellis a bit of credit for the way he handled the interaction between Ororo and Emma when Ororo asked about joining the team. If I have a problem with the book, it would be with Bianchi’s artwork… but, not for the reasons you might suspect. The art looks amazing, to be honest, but in a few cases it looks like he’s trying “too hard.” Yes, we know that the X-Men’s world is fantastic (wait, no, that’s the Four)… um… Uncanny? Extreme? New? Ultimate? Well, whatever the word is that you want to use, Bianchi seems to want to make it abundantly clear through the art. Their “car” looks like something that NASA could use for a shuttlecraft. The new X-Jet doesn’t look bad, though. Maybe his style just has to grow on me. Regardless, it was a good read and I look forward to seeing in what direction(s) Mr. Ellis takes the book.
• Legion of Super-Heroes #43 – The Legion is still facing lots of political red tape from the UP… even as they send a team to go save the newly-minted, UP-sponsored team of heroes that just had their collective recta handed to them. No rest for the weary, it seems. And who’s the kid talking with Brainiac 5 and what is his angle?
• Trinity #4 – This is DC’s latest weekly title, featuring “The Big Three,” Wonder Woman, Batman and Superman. The book is divided into two parts – the first, featuring the aforementioned trinity; the second focusing on subplots, occasionally featuring the heroes’ antagonists. Kurt Busiek presents a good take on the characters, but unless something picks up or changes in the next few issues, I may be dropping this one.

Stray Toasters

• Thank God, the angels and the Heavenly host for short work weeks.
• 33-ish
• How can you not love a webcomic that does things like this:
  • 
  • 
• Frozen mocha goodness!
• Google must divulge YouTube log
• Despite (or because of) that, I give you:

• Iron Sky. Check out the trailer.
• Inka dinka doo.

Apparently, my technopathic link extends to Defiant, as well as Nomad. After noting in the last post that I wasn’t listening to any music, I fired up iTunes. Out of the gate, I got:

• Eric Clapton – Layla (the plugged, Derek and the Dominoes version)
• The Cure – Just Like Heaven
  (…which made me wonder what a cover by the Ukelele Orchestra of Great Britain would sound like)
• Rockapella – Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?
  (…which, reparsed in my head as “Cartman Sandiego” – don’t picture it; no good can come of it)
• DMX – What’s My Name?
• Bob Dorough – Elementary, My Dear (from Schoolhouse Rock!)
• Janet Jackson – Nasty
  (…which made me wonder how a cover of this by Morris Day and The Time would sound)

I can’t really complain about those selections.

Stray Toasters

• Thanks to for passing along these videos
  • William Shatner for President
  • Whose Line Is It Anyway? – Prison
• For the gamer (and sugar addict) on their birthday: Pac-Man cake
• Wii Wheeton
• Mavis Staples is going to be performing in Snowmass. This weekend. Verdammt.
• And… I finished off another HeroClix card last night. This was a request from someone in the LJ HeroClix community:

Back to the grind.

Monday: Coda
Tonight has been spent playing City of Heroes with MarknTyme and watching The Middleman. Both of them were terribly fun:

• City: I haven’t played a lot in the past few weeks, but I am still enjoying the time that I do get to spend in Paragon City. I put a level-and-a-half on Kurigari. I need to get a screen-cap of him.
• The Middleman: This show is just fun – a little campy, a little quirky and just… makes me smile. And laugh. And tonight’s episode even had Mark Dascascos (The Crow: Stairway to Heaven, Brotherhood of the Wolf) as Sensei Ping, teacher/trainer to Wendy… and luchadors! LOTS of luchadors.

Now, there’s DS9.

Win. Win. Win.

Namaste.

Until last night, I had forgotten that this is a short work week.  I apparently forgot it again this morning… until I started thinking about how I wanted to spread out my work hours – I was planning on working a bunch of 9- and 10-hour days and taking off early on Friday again, when it dawned on me that Friday is a freebie.  Had gone with my original plan of pulling 10-9-10, I would only have two hours of work on Thursday.  I may still do that.

Stray Toasters

• Michael Turner, artist and President of Aspen Comics, passed away Friday night.  He was 37.
• Wizard has a 6-page preview of Astonishing X-Men #25, Warren Ellis’ first issue on the title.  Page Four alone is reason enough to buy the book.
• Walk Score
• In the same vein as someecards comes WrongCards.  They even have an “In event of zombies” section.
• There are rumblings of Frank Miller working on some sort of sequel to 300.  I feel about this the way that I feel about The Dark Knight Strikes Again, his follow-up to The Dark Knight Returns:  You captured lighting in a bottle the first time around.  Don’t force it.  And, more importantly, why screw up a good thing?!
• Wizard, in their “Corps Curriculum” column, posted this picture… with the caption: “Yoda couldn’t have done it better.”  The funny thing is, you could actually overwrite Luke and Yoda’s X-Wing raising dialogue from SW:TESB on this page… and have it fit perfectly.

All that and a new episode of The Middleman tonight.

Huzzah!

Monday – 30 June 2008
6:30 came far too soon.
So I ignored it, in favor of 7:00.
That worked out much better, as far as I was concerned. 45 minutes later, I was on the way to work.

An hour later, I was at work, with a frozen mocha and a bagel sandwich.

Booyah.

Stray Toasters

• You know, a morning that kicks off, musically, with Stevie Wonder and The Jackson 5 can’t be all bad.
  • The Jackson 5 – ABC
  • Stevie Wonder – I Wish
• This is cheesy, but you have to watch it until the third group comes on:

• For the kid and/or gamer looking to turn his or her room into a life-sized video game: Mario Vinyl Wall Decals
• If you haven’t yet, see this movie:



• Safeguarding the World’s Chocolate Supply
  (Yet, they say that bananas will possibly die out in the next 15 – 20 years…)

Attack the day…

Namaste.

Sunday: Coda
Well… after I managed to pry myself from the sofa and actually get moving, I had a fun evening.

I headed downtown to check out the Utah Arts Festival, as I mentioned earlier. I went with a little trepidation: Last year’s festival seemed dull and unexciting, with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band providing the event’s only saving grace. OnlyAly, and went Saturday afternoon and said that it was good, but still…

I got to Library Square a little after 6:00. There seemed to be a good mix of exhibitors in the area between the library and The Leonardo. That was a hopeful sign. I browsed through a number of the booths. I next checked out the ones on the southeast side of the City and County Building. Again, good selections. Checking the time, I found that I still had time to spare before Desert Gypsy went on…. so, I wandered through some of the booths set up along 2nd East. Some of the artists whose work caught my eye included:

• Kenny Tong
• Greg Gawlowski
• Julie Stutznegger
• Penelope Moore
• Brett Varney
• Daniel Ng
• Mason Fetze
• J.P. Jespersen
• Whit Bronaugh and
• Bruce Reinfeld

I headed back over to the City and County Building to watch Desert Gypsy; my friend, Georgia, dances in one of their troupes and I told her that I would come down and check out her performance. It was fun. You could tell that the dancers – and the audience – were enjoying themselves. When they were finished, I hung around for a few minutes to talk with Georgia before she went to get changed.

Next up, I checked out the Salt Lake Alternative Jazz Orchestra. They were fun. I missed out on seeing them last year. I’ll be on the lookout for them from now on, though. When they were done, I headed back over to Library Square, with the intent on checking out Samba Fogo. Unfortunately, the best spots had already been taken. So, I headed up to the walkway that overlooked the square. Not much better; I could only see the tops of the dancers’ heads. But, I was in a good spot to watch MASS Ensemble‘s performance… with their 700’-long “Earth Harp” – stretched between the library and the Amphitheatre Stage.

There is a marked difference between “watching” a performance and “hearing” it. Let me narrow that down a bit: I saw and heard Mass Ensemble; what I did not hear was the harp. Hopefully people who were sitting/standing directly under the strings could hear them. I did enjoy Mass Ensemble’s performance otherwise.

Another band kicked off at 10:00 on the Park Stage, so I wandered over that way. The band was Way Way East Bay, a funk band (with horns!) from Logan, UT. That’s right, I used the words “funk band” and “Logan” and “Utah” in the same sentence. They were pretty good. They did some covers (including Tower of Power’s Dont Change Horses (in the Middle of the Stream) and Delbert McClinton’s Standing on Shaky Ground) as well as some original songs. They were having a good time and they sounded good, too. The crowd wasn’t large (most were still watching the MASS Ensemble performance), but it was of a decent size and they seemed to enjoy the music.

Around 10:30, I’d had my fill of the festival and decided to call it a night. But, the overall experience far exceeded last year’s disappointment.

On the way home, I dropped in and chatted with for a bit.

Stray Toasters

• Ten months
• , I was sorry to hear about the fire/water damage, but glad to hear that you and the Mrs. are okay.
• This still makes me grin:



• , I think that you’ll like this. (Let me know if the link doesn’t work for you…)
• I need to allocate some time for watching Space: Above and Beyond.
• Earth-D
• Eridani Light Horse

Methinks, that’s good for now.

Saturday – 28 June 2008
I had some odd dreams this morning. The topper was one where, in an otherwise “normal” situation, I ran into – and was subsequently chased by – the JLApe. Madness. Even worse: I woke up thinking that it was Sunday. It took a few minutes for it to sink in that it really was Saturday. O.o

Otherwise, today has been great:

• I went to see WALL*E with and . It was great. Much better than I had expected. And it was a lot of fun. There were a lot of tech in-jokes, too – they caused and me to laugh a lot. And, the Pixar short before the movie, Presto, may have just supplanted Boundin’ as my favorite Pixar short. I heartily recommend this movie to everyone.
• Next on tap: A trip to the Garden of Sweden. They’re having their summer sale. I picked up a few more storage containers and picture frames.
• While in IKEA, I ran into . We noticed each other walking towards the checkout. After a couple of moments, he shouted (okay, it was really just a slightly notched-up “indoor voice”),”I know you…”
  Me: *blink blink*
  : From… LiveJournal!
  That kicked a few relational databases into gear… and I realized that we did, in fact, know each other. It was odd – in a far-from-bad way – to be recognized like that from someone I haven’t seen in at least… three years.

Now: I’m grabbing a bite to eat.
Next: Heading to Chris’ to play dolls HeroClix.
Later: Breakfast.

Namaste.

Tuesday – 24 June 2008
After work, I headed home to figure out what to do with my evening. I decided that I’d watch The Middleman and then head to the grocery store to pick up a few things for dinner. Turned out that the 8:00 episode was a rebroadcast of the pilot. So, I went to the store first. Came home, started dinner and watched The Middleman. I had another thought on how to “define” it. Somewhat. It’s The X-Files meets Men in Black, leaning most heavily towards MiB.

After a little channel surfing (including a 45-second delay on Boomerang – man, Super Friends really did blow), I found the second hour of Beverly Hills Cop on Bravo. And there I sat. I haven’t watched BHC in years… and I have somehow not purchased it yet.

After ‘Cop and The Late Show (featuring a really funny Will Smith interview), I decided to call it an early night.

Stray Toasters

• I am working on a few new ‘Clix cards for Chris. It’s… oddly fun and the “worst” part is trying to come up with some of the quotes – I still need to find something for Superman (Icons, veteran) that works for his “Ranged Combat Expert” ability.
• Thanks to MarknTyme for pointing me in the direction of DC Elseworlds
  

(Click image for site)

• By way of SaraRules: Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra (Part I)

• “whiffy”
• Uptown got its hustlers
  Bowery got its bums
  42nd Street got Big Jim Walker
  He’s a pool-shootin’ son of a gun
• With the disclaimers of: 1) I’m a guy and 2) I don’t have kids, I have a question: Is there something offensive about the cover of the July 2008 issue of GQ?

  

  The reason that I ask is this: I was in Target last night and there were copies of this issue in the news rack next to the candy and gum. Something that I’ve noticed here in Utah – and it may exist in other places, but I haven’t noticed it – is that when a magazine cover is deemed “too racy,” they put an opaque plastic insert in front of the magazine, so that only the title shows. And, lo and behold, this issue was one of them.

• And, since we’re already talking GQ: 2008 Fall Preview: Reinvent Yourself
  

Namaste.