Ultraman is Back!

Well, sorta. Actually, the digital internet world has ushered in the mass release of bootlegged Ultraman tapes that, even through the poor quality, bring back the youths we thought we'd lost. Alex gave me a few of these tapes, and I purchased the rest from some guy living in his parents' basement who I found through eBay. Now, the higher-res Ultraman is also on the web at Absolute Ultraman! I find it particularly interesting to watch some of the episodes and monsters that plagued my early nightmares and try to see what cues and images were most unsettling. While the quality of the costumes and effects are now even less bearable, the insights into my early childhood have been worth all the latex.

I recently read an entertainment story about the possibility of an upcoming Superman vs. Batman movie. In the story, Superman is described as "noble and just," while Batman is "obsessive and vengeful;" hence, their ultimate showdown. These are certainly the images that we now see of these characters, but in typical American fashion, we've become so entranced by the most superficial of characteristics - one's "super", the other's a "bat" - that we've totally missed the mark on their characters. One of the key elements in any of the old Batman comics, was that he always left the villains unscathed but wrapped up for the police to find, with the ad nauseum caveat that "revenge should never come before justice." Superman, on the other hand, started off as Hooveresque thug who violated every Constitutional Amendment he could think of for the opportunity to physically abuse perceived wrong-doers: check out the very first ever Superman comic from Action Comics.

This just in from Yahoo! News:

RABAT (Reuters) - Surgeons have managed to stitch back a Moroccan boy's penis after it was bitten off by a donkey, the official MAP news agency reported Thursday.

Professor Mouaad Mounir, chief urologist at Ibnou Toufail hospital in the southern city of Marrakesh, was quoted as saying the operation on the seven-year-old boy was carried out last week.

He said the operation had taken 45 minutes and was successful.

MAP did not say how the donkey managed to bite off the boy's penis.

A source at the hospital confirmed the agency's report, but declined to give further details.

Donkeys in Morocco are used for laborious work on farms and garbage collection and are often subject to harsh treatment.

"And they knew not their holes from an ass on the ground" - Everything you Know is Wrong! the Firesign Theatre.

I will never do meaningful work on the computer again. Now, with le Piano Graphique, I can spend hours composing and improvising by using my computer keyboard to activate their stored sound and image files. Seeing and hearing their samples dance to The Quick Brown Fox is mesmerizing.

Japanese Ice Cream

Dinner and dessert at once

Opens my abdomen.