Happy Birthday To Me

Today marks yet another birthday for me, as I turn 29 years old today... which makes me the same age as what they used to say how old Superman was (within his fictional setting). That said, it still hasn't stopped me from receiving my first "over the hill" birthday card already...

Women's Rights March in DC

Saw some footage of the women's reproductive rights march in Washington DC yesterday (including Whoopi Goldberg's speech). Watching it on C-SPAN and then changing channels to see how CNN/MSNBC/etc. covered the same story felt rather different...perhaps the interview with the pro-life individual on CNN had something to do with it.

Per a few comments made by speakers at the rally, if all of the participants actually bother/remember *to* vote come November, though, I'll be even more impressed.

Doonesbury Addresses Iraq In Big Way

Was surprised to read today's "Doonesbury" strip (more for B.D.'s headgear aspect than what I suspect would happen to him leading up to today's strip)...

Here's an article about the storyline.

Passwords for Chocolate?

There's a BBC news article that says that 70% of people in a survey would give out their computer passwords in exchange for something as trivial as chocolate. Weird...

Dubya and Frustration In a Small-Town (Continued)

Various tidbits:

• Reuters ran an article on Bush with the headline: Bush Makes Three Mistakes While Trying to Cite One. Heh...
  
  
• Powerpuff Girls marathon on Cartoon Network tonight. Woohoo...
  
  
• As mediocre as it looks, I was hoping to see the new movie Connie and Carla, but apparently it's not going to play here in my rinky-dink-sized hometown (unless it's being held off to get here later than elsewhere, which I doubt)... though having only nine movie theater screens total in the whole town (a six-screen multiplex and a three-screen theater) probably doesn't help (or its drag-queen-focused subject matter). Then again, this is also the same town whose theaters get criticized for a tendency to not screen African-American-produced movies (including those by Spike Lee).
  
  

New DC Comics in July List

The list of new books is here.

The ones I'm interested in are:

• The various "DC Comics Presents" issues that're being put out to honor the late Julius Schwartz. Might be interesting to read---after a brief perusal of the Batman one first (to make sure he isn't as badly written as he is in his regular comics).
  
  
• "Crisis On Multiple Earths, volume 3." Another compilation of the old JLA-JSA teamup stories, including the "Seven Solders of Victory" storyline (which I haven't read, but now I could since it's in an affordable reprint).
  
  
• Not interested, but I also see that the "All-Star Comics" Archives apparently only need one more volume to finish off the original Golden Age JSA stories' run (only have reprints of both the last JSA story and "The Patriotic Crimes" story).
  
  
• Also not interested, but I see they plan on putting out a kid-oriented comic of stories from various "Kids' WB" Saturday morning cartoons...though at $8, I doubt many of their target audience will be much interested (esp. when "Disney Adventures" goes for around $3 or so, last I checked)...
  
  

More on gay marriage (and Blacks)

The website africana.com had an interview with a Keith Boykin, a Black gay civil rights activist, on his feelings on gay marriage and the Black community's treatment of gays.a

One thing that would be nice to see on TV is more people of color who're gay or lesbian depicted---most news reports and entertainment images seem to cast the image that "gay = white"; outside of one of the characters on "Six Feet Under" and one of the characters on long-cancelled "Spin City," I can't think of another such character offhand. And the last news report I saw on gay people of color was a WGN news report on black men cheating on their girlfriends to have sex with guys... important I suppose, but not exactly anything more in-depth than the usual "shock-value" TV news journalism (the WGN promotional bumpers for the story seemed to play up the shock-value side of things)...

Americans and gays/gay marriage

According to some L.A. Times poll, 60% of Americans feel that homosexuality is "against God's will"; however, the same percentage also believe that they're "sympathetic toward gays." Whatever...

More Filler

I know I haven't posted in awhile. I've been sick this week. But anyway...

• The music industry apparently decides that they could rake in even more $$$ by increasing prices on legal downloading services like iTunes. Uh-huh. That ought to help cut into mp3 filesharing *and* lessen their image to the general public of being a bunch of money-grubbers...
  
  
• I tuned into "Air America" for a few minutes for the first time today (around 10 AM Central Time); noticed the tone of what I heard sounded more "shooting the breeze" than the usual AM talk radio "fiery rhetoric". Also noticed that the signal wasn't the strongest where I live, probably the result of living 50 miles outside of Chicago, Air America having to sign up with a less-than-top powered station there, and being on the dial next to powerhouse (and conservative talk radio bastion) WLS...
  

More Miscellaneous Stuff

• DC Comics is releasing a series of one-shot issues (under the old "DC Comics Presents" comic title) as tributes to the late Julius Schwartz, each one involving the various characters he worked on (Batman, Superman, Adam Strange, etc.). Here's hoping they're entertaining (though personal pessimism suggests that the Batman one still won't be...).
  
  
• The Simpsons voice actors are demanding a pay raise. Obviously whoever said "at least cartoon characters can't demand more money" as a purported advantage over live-action shows was sorely mistaken. Still, if I had to work on producing the Simpsons in its current tired state, I'd probably demand more money, too...
  

Miscellaneous Stuff

• An article from the Washington Post reviewing Air America's debut...
  
  
• Google is planning to offer free email, with 1 GB worth of storage...apparently this isn't an April Fool's Day joke. The idea of a Google email address does have strong appeal to me; let's hope it has decent spam blockage/spam filtering features.