List

Sooo I'm waiting for a meeting to start (the story of my life at work) and so I am going to do one of these things that make a blogger seem more human to their readers. If I have any readers. Ganked from Dianne Sylvan's blog.

5 Items in My Bag

1 – a crappy old Motorola cell phone
2 – a copy of The Saxon Shore by Jack Whyte
3 – a variety of pens from back when I worked in a restaurant
4 – a change purse made out of owl fabric
5 – a moleskin notebook

Titles of 5 Files in My Documents Folder

1 – levantineneandertals.doc
2 – thelock.doc
3 – firewoman.jpg
4 – hammertimenazis.gif
5 – PRAAAAY.jpg

5 Things on My Coffee Table

1 – a variety of coasters made out of old disks
2 – 2 remote controls
3 – DVD: The Wire and Turner and Hooch (my roommates' tastes vary WIDELY)
4 – A NetFlix envelope
5 – Sadie's Can o'Doom

5 Things in My Fridge/Freezer

1 – a bag of mixed veggies, frozen
2 – half a cherry pie
3 – Publix-brand 2% milk
4 – homemade strawberry jam
5 – ice pack

5 Things on My Desk

1 – a pencil sharpener shaped like a cat (guess where the pencil is inserted??)
2 – a whole mess of magazine clippings, printouts, etc. for scrapbooking purposes
3 – copies of The Skystone, The Singing Sword, and The Eagles' Brood
4 – an empty flowerpot with a mermaid painted on it
5 – candles

5 Songs With the Highest Playcounts on My iTunes

1 - "Eden Echo"--Kamelot
2 - "The Last Sunset"--Conception
3 - "Everybody Here Wants You"--Jeff Buckley
4 - "Find the River"--R.E.M.
5 - "Parallel Minds"--Conception

Prindresses

I will make no bones about my desire to see The Princess and the Frog this weekend. I like Disney, and I like old-fashioned hand-drawn animation.

And I also want to know if there's a reason other than impending poverty why Disney has produced merchandise for Princess Tiana showcasing two different dresses. I can't be the only one bothered by this! 10-year-old girls of the Internet, cash in! Back me up! Every Disney Princess (TM) gets ONE iconic dress. One "The Dress". Just one. Belle has the glorious yellow gown; Aurora has the pink gown; Cinderella has the blue gown. Tiana has the...blue AND green gowns? Presumably, from what I have seen of movie stills, the green gown is The Dress. Why, then, are they creating merchandise, posters, and cardboard standies with her in the blue AND the green gowns? (Srsly guys, I have seen two different standies in two different theatres featuring two different dresses.)

Disney, this is just not on. It has to be the green one! Powder blue is Cinderella's color! In future Disney Princesses (TM) posters, mugs, compilation DVDs/CDs/videogames, we assume that Tiana will be wearing her pretty lily-pad-inspired green dress. So why all the double marketing?

My boyfriend, of course, thinks I am blowing this out of proportion. He does not understand, being a boy and more of a Miyazaki fan, the import of The Dresses. Go to Google Images and type in "Aurora". The page will be filled with pink. The same happens for Belle (yellow) and Cinderella (blue). The core of Disney Princesses (TM) are defined by their Dresses. It is true that every girl has several different outfits throughout her film, but The Dress is what she is identified by and what the dolls, etc. are marketed with.

Snow White is an interesting case. For one thing, she only has one dress--The Dress--and that gown is multicolored. Then again, Snow White is a weird film and a weird character. Nevertheless, it is worth pointing out that her concept is not replicated by any of the other Princesses. The lesser princesses/women of Disney--Jasmine, Ariel, Mulan, Pocahontas, Meg--likewise have their own iconic colors: turquoise, a fishtail and some seashells, red, tan, purple. Disney recognizes a simple formula for making their girl characters different from one another and easily recognizable. That Outfit, In That Color.

So this is my ultimatum, Princess and the Frog. Give me a damn good reason why Tiana gets two dresses, or tell me that she doesn't.

Sex, sex, and rock'n'roll

Because I think it's such fun that women are only featured in hard rock magazines if they're hot (eg, Revolver's annual "Hottest Women In Metal!" issue), I am going to objectify every male metal artist whom I consider attractive. Consider yourself warned. Also, I encourage everyone to also read my own post about the hot women of metal. We are equal opportunity objectifiers here.

10. Bjorn Gelotte. Guitarist for In Flames. Originally the group's drummer, Gelotte now wields his axe in all directions and sports an interesting twist on heavy metal follicular fashion: close-cropped noggin, hefty beard. Looks good to me!

9. Kiki Loureiro. Guitarist for Angra. Jesus H., does this guy look like a model or what? He's so pretty, he almost didn't make the list. Then I remembered his guitar chops and reconsidered. Dude can shred and has insanely Pre-Raphaelite hair. Doubleplusbonus!

8. Oliver Palotai. Keyboardist for Kamelot. Maybe it's unfair to have more than one member of the same band on a list, but it's their fault for having more than one ridiculously attractive member. The very Germanic-looking Palotai, unfortunately, is involved with the equally gorgeous Simone Simons (to the despair of everyone everywhere who has eyes), but that does not mean we can't enjoy his lean mean keyboarding arms and well-conditioned hair.

7. J.D. Cronise. Guitarist and lead vocalist for The Sword. Certainly one of the better doom metal vocalists, and attractive in a way rather similar to Dan Watchorn (see Number Two), Cronise makes the list chiefly for his skillz at dropping lyrical hints to literature, including nods to George R.R. Martin, H.P. Lovecraft, Arthur C. Clarke, and Norse mythology.

6. Janne Wirman. Keyboardist for Children of Bodom and Warmen. Good-looking in that clean, Nordic way, and a little calmer than his manic bandmates, you also gotta figure that as far as musicians go, groupies aren't too interested in the guy behind the keyboard (unless that guy is our Number Eight). So all love for this list's resident elf impersonator, Janne Wirman.

5. Henrik Danhage. Guitarist for Evergrey. Homeboy's got all the metal good looks: long hair, an acceptable beard, plenty of tattoos, soulful eyes. Okay, maybe that last bit isn't the norm, but it works for him, particularly when he's ripping your ears out with his guitar.

4. Steven Wilson. Porcupine Tree's lead singer and guitarist. Far too often heavy metal dudes follow a pattern--lots of hair, lots of leather--which is by no means bad, but can get old after a while. For the nerd girls in the bunch, Wilson is here for all your underwear emergencies with his stylin' wire-rim glasses and Cromwellian bob haircut. He also often plays barefoot, which is kinda cute, and makes music to fuck with your head to!

3. Mikael Akerfeldt. Singer and guitarist for Opeth and vocalist for Bloodbath. This guy's prowess with both death metal and clean vocals, as well as his flowing locks and stellar facial hair, cements his status as one of heavy metal's hottest dudes. The fact that Metalocalypse's Toki Wartooth is based on Akerfeldt doesn't hurt either.

2. All of Priestess, especially Dan Watchorn. Hot in a hairy, Canadian way--lots of beard!--these guys rock. Hard. Mikey Heppner's rocky-road vocals might not be guaranteed to make you come in the way of our Number One but it's still pretty sexy (in a hoarse, Canadian way).

1. Roy Khan. Past singer for Conception, current (and, presumably, future) singer for Kamelot. Trained as an opera vocalist, so you know he's got pipes. Also, rockin' bod much? Yes please. It's too bad he's married, but really, no one thinks about that when he's working up a sweat and straddling microphones onstage.
Honorable Mentions: Dave Mustaine (Megadeth), Tore Ostby (Conception, Ark), and Gabriel Garcia (Black Tide...jailbait FTW).

Charge of the Goddess

For an academic side-project--'cause graduate school just doesn't give enough homework!--I've been researching Goddess religion in historical and contemporary contexts. This means scouring the university and public libraries for all the classic texts on neo-Pagan and Wiccan revivals, including Starhawk's The Spiral Dance, and Drawing Down the Moon by Margot Adler. Drawing Down the Moon in particular is an excellent text, which has survived the test of time far better than Starhawk's book (it helps that it was updated and re-released last year), and is more interested in the sociology, anthropology, and psychology of Paganism, rather than providing a witches' handbook or how-to guide. Adler is sympathetic to the Pagan movements, as she considers herself a Wiccan, and though this is clear to the reader, scholarly research and varied viewpoints balance the text.

Thus far, it seems that Goddess religions in general and Wicca in particular are not exactly what I thought. I confess, I'm a fan of The Craft, Charmed, Practical Magic, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and while all are good in their ways, none come terribly close to depicting the point of Wicca or the traditions as they stand today. It is easy to be drawn in by candles and incense, ceremonial garments and daggers, lovely chalices, hand-crafted wands, moonlight rituals, and altars or shrines to ancient goddesses--and while what Adler calls the "trappings" of Wicca are significant, she emphasizes, as do many of the Craft interviews throughout the book, that the items used in ritual are symbols. Isaac Bonewits in particular has noted that physical symbols such as pentacles, incense, and lighted candles are useful for instigating and maintaining altered states of consciousness, which is one of the intents of Wicca: to open and broaden the mind in order to perceive truths which a person might not otherwise be attuned to. Much of what is termed "magic" is done by the mind; methods for honing, conducting, and releasing this magic include forms of yoga and Reiki, meditation, hypnosis and trance, and dancing (and some Wicca do advocate the responsible use of hallucinogens, though I'm not certain how widespread this is).

What really stood out to me, though, is not the physical, rational explanations for magic or for the pursuit and practice of magic. The point Adler makes that struck me is that a Wicca practitioner can worship the Goddess without belief--the "religion" (though as I read more, the more I tend to view Wicca as a group of "traditions"; covens and circles are autonomous, following no set liturgy and having very loose group structures, depending on which path they follow, and the bulk of Wiccans in North America are solitary) leapfrogs out of any sort of conflict with "faith" as it is used by most mainstream religions today. Wicca allows for atheism, polytheism, monotheism, pantheism, agnosticism, and secular humanism; it does not grate on intellectuals, people who are hard scientists, or people who consider themselves Christians or Jews. The worship of goddesses is flexible enough to allow nearly any mode of thought or belief, or none at all. I find that this goes back to the significance of symbols within Wicca--the Goddess may be viewed literally, as an Earth Mother figure, or she may be seen as an archetype of and for powerful women throughout history, and a practitioner may worship the idea of her, rather than using prayer and supplication in more mainstream ways. The ideal of the Goddess is appealing to men and women who desire strong, intelligent, sensitive, self-possessed and self-controlling female models; the thorny question of historical goddess worship and matriarchal societies is not really a question for debate at all once you take the view that the concept of a goddess religion is what many Wiccans are interested in. To be sure, there are many reconstructionist paths and some traditions which hold to be gospel-truth that at some point in human history there was indeed a Golden Age of Goddess religion, but the thing about Wicca is that a practitioner is not required to subscribe to ANY of these ideas. If a person is drawn to the archetypal Goddess as an icon or avatar of themselves, or what they could become, and looks upon worship of the Goddess as a way to a more enlightened mind, a more open soul, a more responsible, responsive, thoughtful, and fulfilled life, then that is what Wicca will provide.

I guess my point is that there is no need and no call to look on the Goddess as the literal creator of the Earth, as there is in Christianity. For many, the Goddess is an ethereal concept of higher thought, not an actual being, and so rather than restricting practitioners to worrying about what she is up to and whether or not their actions please her, and if she supports the Republicans or the Democrats in the upcoming election, followers of Wicca are free to form her as they will and utilize what she represents to achieve spiritual experiences.

Wicca and other neo-Pagan traditions are by far the most sympathetic religious paths I have encountered thus far.

Cool Jew

Okay, okay, you asked for it and here it is: My Favorite Jews.

Fran Drescher
Andy Samberg
Jon Stewart
Jeff Goldblum
Eve Ensler
Willow Rosenberg
Tevye
Josephus
J. Robert Oppenheimer
Zac Efron
Herschel Krustofsky
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Sacha Baron Cohen
Al Franken
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Barabbas
Jake Berenson
Fagin
Amber Benson
Adam Goldberg
Judy Blume
Andrea Dworkin
Moon Knight


You might be interested to know that about half the starring or supporting cast of Buffy the Vampire Slayer is Jewish, including Amber Benson, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Alyson Hannigan, Michelle Trachtenberg, Seth Green, and Danny Strong. Jesus Christ!

Just sayin'

The good, the bad, and...well, there's just the two today

The Good:

Drag Me To Hell, Sam Raimi's new flick, is good. Seriously good. Not as good as the Evil Dead trilogy (because really, what is?), but leagues better than, say, Spider-Man 3. The Chin does not make an appearance, but that sweet Oldsmobile does, and who can possibly complain about an ancient Gyspy crone cursing Alison Lohman's cute little blonde Aryan self? Justin Long is charming as always, and it's frankly nice to see a caring, devoted, trustworthy boyfriend in a horror film, isn't it? Furthermore, as in the case of Ash, Lohman's character reaches a certain point in her harrowing now-demon-cursed life where the getting flung around the kitchen and being used as a teething ring by said ancient Gypsy crone just becomes TOO MUCH--as, I venture, it would in reality--and she starts fighting back (hint: it involves a kitten!). And therein lies the glory of Raimi's films: they push the hero/ine so far that eventually the character becomes, not quite a villain, but an anti-hero/ine. Watching this movie, half of you wants Lohman to escape the curse and the other half is almost glad when she does get dragged to Hell, and that's reality for you; how far can the survival instinct go before the person trying to survive turns into a self-serving asshole and slaughters kittens, debates whether or not to curse a dying old man with a nebulizer, robs graves? Drag Me To Hell, like most of Raimi's horror films, examines the line between physical and spiritual/personal preservation.

The Bad:

Terminator Salvation, the newest installment in the Ah-nuld robot vehicle, is bad. Really bad. And what's worse is that it has potential, but staunchly refuses to exploit it. I went in expecting that Marcus, the cyborg character, would be the fulcrum of the story, the turning point of the war between the machines and the humans--plainly, the future: that the film would acknowledge humanity's debt to and reliance on machines, and would find a workable future in hybridization. Nope! Instead, the movie may be summed up as "the difference between us and the machines is the beating of the human heart" (and if you want to hear that in Christian Bale's Batman voice, so much the better). Backward! Hypocritical! In short, so ten years ago. Salvation is a sad entry into the Terminator canon, marginally better than T3 but so much less than the first two. Skip it and reread Donna Haraway's "Cyborg Manifesto" instead.

It's finally time

Yes, children, the hour has arrived: your faithful author has decided to undertake the CDAB: the Comprehensive Disney Assessment Blog. Over the course of this post, I will lay out once and for all my personal favorite Disney films.

The films will be divided into four subcategories: Classic Disney, Modern Disney, Weird/Forgotten Disney, and Live-Action Disney, with each subcategory containing my top five films. Let's go!

Classic Disney (1930s-1960s)
1. Fantasia (1940)
2. Peter Pan (1953)
3. Lady and the Tramp (1955)
4. The Sword in the Stone (1963)
5. Sleeping Beauty (1959)


Modern Disney (1970s-present)
1. Robin Hood (1973)
2. The Rescuers (1977)
3. Beauty and the Beast (1991)
4. Lilo and Stitch (2002)
5. The Emperor's New Groove (2000)


Weird/Forgotten Disney (any era)
1. Pete's Dragon (1977)
2. A Goofy Movie (1995)
3. James and the Giant Peach (1996)
4. The Three Caballeros (1945)
5. The Great Mouse Detective (1986)


Live-Action Disney (any era)
1. Cool Runnings (1993)
2. Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971)
3. The Parent Trap (1961)
4. Mary Poppins (1964)
5. The Mighty Ducks (1992)


Whew. That was tough. Really, really tough. You have no idea. Disney is awash in great films that I left out--Mulan, Hercules, The Black Cauldron, Cinderella, the third Aladdin. The remake of Freaky Friday was honestly pretty good. The Fox and the Hound, Piglet's Big Movie, and of course the mighty Toy Story franchise...clearly I should have made the lists longer. Le sigh.

Jesus is always the answer--what is the question?

Questions to which 'Jesus' could conceivably be the answer:

+Who is the current president of the United States?
+Who is the missing fifth Baldwin brother?
+Who is your asshole father who sold you to some redneck in a trailer outside Biloxi for a case of Busch Lite twelve years ago?
+Who is Kanye West?
+Who was the fifth Beatle?
+What do you say at fiveAM when you stub your toe while trying to let the dog out?
+Who owes the thirteenth apostle twelve bucks?
+What is the average flight velocity of an unladen swallow?
+Who is L. Ron Hubbard's father?
+Which has a longer coastline, Jutland or the Yucatan?
+Who does a really good Gandhi impersonation?
+Who created the Salk polio vaccine?
+Who shot J.R.?
+Who shot JFK?
+Who wrote The Female Eunuch?
+What does Foucault's pendulum show?
+In what region of the world can the nua-nua bird be found?


Question to which 'Jesus' is definitely not the answer:

+Who is the son of God?

Blue balls

No, no, my significant other does not suffer from any sexual dysfunction involving testicles (I make sure of that, ha-cha cha-cha). However, I have to admit I was left wanting more by Watchmen.

(Plus, hello, did you see Doc Manhattan's junk enough? No? Eighteen penis shots in one film just not enough?)

I love the graphic novel, and I wanted to love the movie--I mean, hell, I went to see it at midnight in IMAX; I wanted it to be another slam-dunk along the lines of 300. Maybe mythologizing history works better when that history is already half-myth, or maybe the graphic novel of Watchmen is simply more complex than 300--duh--but something about this film experience left me cold. Visually it's amazingly evocative of a graphic novel, and the fight scenes are intense, the soundtrack is fun, the opening credits are full of information and simultaneously enjoyable to watch, the casting is mostly good (particularly The Comedian)...so what's the problem?

No idea. Maybe too much of Billy Crudup's dick. Maybe too much of Matthew Goode's bronzer, Malin Akerman's hair, Patrick Wilson's aviator eyeglasses and impotence. Maybe too much reverence--that might be it. So faithful an adaptation leaves you with an embalmed feeling.

After a few days' thought:

I have decided that my main problem with this movie is not that it's too close to the graphic novel, but rather that it doesn't necessarily pick out the points of the novel which are most salient and most critical to understanding what Watchmen is all about. I mean, Nite Owl and Ozy and all the rest AREN'T superheroes. THAT is the point that it seems like Snyder and Co. didn't get, and which does not translate onto the screen.

Bad day

#s 383, 384 of Things Which Piss Diana Off:

-the sudden plethora of goddamn blow job songs (I'm looking at you, "Addicted", "Crazy Bitch", and all versions of "Lollipop"). I like oral as much as anyone, but srsly. The "it's only hot if I'm shoving her head down" meme is sick.

-people who mix up "white elephant" and "Secret Santa" parties. This is what comes of being functionally illiterate.

Let my dreams unfurl

I had the intense, nearly orgasmic, pleasure of seeing Kamelot live once more recently, and something occurred to me: one or more of the band members have a real problem with God, or at least organized Western religion.

Which is fine by me, but I sort of wonder why it's taken me so long to notice, especially if you consider a few of Conception's very anti-religion songs (Conception being the other super-awesome delicious band Roy Khan was part of). I mean, look at 'em: when Kamelot isn't...

+singing about some sort of vague karma, heh heh ("Karma") or Hindu-ish life cycle ("The Haunting", "Love You To Death", "Soul Society"),

+they're openly defying or denying the white male Christian god ("III Ways to Epica", "Soul Society" again, "We Are Not Separate", "Center of the Universe"),

+or taunting the audience with images of an uncaring deity ("Abandoned", "Eden Echo", "Across the Highlands", "Farewell", "Mourning Star") with an evil regent on Earth ("The Inquisitor"),

+a sympathetic demon-figure ("Descent of the Archangel", "March of Mephisto"),

+and, well, Hell ("Black Tower", "A Feast for the Vain" );

+or brandishing their own self-sufficiency ("Rise Again", "Up Through the Ashes", "The Fourth Legacy", "The Edge of Paradise", "Wings of Despair", the "Elizabeth" cycle, "Moonlight", "Anthem").

+They also have a tendency to remake Christ in purely human form ("The Human Stain", "Up Through the Ashes" again, "Birth of a Hero", "Moonlight" again).

+It should be noted that all of these apply to "Nothing Ever Dies".

Whew! Seems to me that Kamelot are a bunch of agnostics at the very least (or maybe pandeists)... Conception, on the other hand, seem to favor textbook Satanism. Their choice gems: "War of Hate", "Among the Gods", "The Promiser", "Parallel Minds", "Soliloquy", "Under a Mourning Star", "A Million Gods", "Gethsemane", "Angel", "Reach Out", and the double whammy of "My Decision"/"Missionary Man", in which any variety of religion-related topics are discussed, including false prophets and preachers, sacrifice, self-reliance and/or the setting-up of oneself as a god, denial of deity, the silliness of the sects, the possibility that Jesus kind of resented being sacrificed, and hey kids, Lucifer is your buddy!

(Kamelot also obviously has a bit of a King Arthur fetish, clearly; if the name wasn't proof enough, check out "The Shadow of Uther" and "Once and Future King", and (if you ask me) "Karma". This band really caters to my own set of obsessions.)

Free people read freely

The right to read is celebrated during the last week in September, and as we have a notably anti-intellectual freedom lady running for Vice President, I'm taking this observance as an excuse to slack off my school assigned texts and indulge in a little Pullman, a little Lawrence, a little Twain.

Here's the list for 2007:

1) “And Tango Makes Three,” by Justin Richardson/Peter Parnell

Reasons: Anti-Ethnic, Sexism, Homosexuality, Anti-Family, Religious Viewpoint, Unsuited to Age Group

2) The Chocolate War,” by Robert Cormier

Reasons: Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Violence

3) “Olive’s Ocean,” by Kevin Henkes

Reasons: Sexually Explicit and Offensive Language

4) “The Golden Compass,” by Philip Pullman

Reasons: Religious Viewpoint

5) “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” by Mark Twain

Reasons: Racism

6) “The Color Purple,” by Alice Walker

Reasons: Homosexuality, Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language

7) "TTYL,” by Lauren Myracle

Reasons: Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group

8) "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” by Maya Angelou

Reasons: Sexually Explicit

9) “It’s Perfectly Normal,” by Robie Harris

Reasons: Sex Education, Sexually Explicit

10) "The Perks of Being A Wallflower,” by Stephen Chbosky

Reasons: Homosexuality, Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group

Interestingly, it seems that the emphasis has shifted from race to sex --any kind of sex. After all, everyone knows that "offensive language" and "unsuited to age group" are unimaginative code for "sexually explicit"; heck, within the context of His Dark Materials and And Tango Makes Three, "religious viewpoint" and "anti-family" are clearly indicative of sexual themes. Then again, fearing a natural human function makes almost as much sense as fearing a skin tone. I'm almost glad to see, though, that Huck Finn is hanging on at #5; however, I would venture that cries of "Racism!" are simply a veneer for the real thing fundies fear about Twain's classic: its anti-authoritarian stance. The scene when Huck, fearing for his mortal soul, writes a letter turning Jim in...and then tears it up, declaring, "All right, I'll go to hell", is, I assume, the most frightening scenario any conservative can imagine.

I'm also glad to see that people have finally left off James Joyce. Why bother attempting to ban Ulysses? Anyone who claims to have read and understood it is probably lying.

Tell your friends!

Okay, so, remember the part where Joss Whedon is God? Yeah. Reaffirmed by his new project, the online miniseries of Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog.

I mean really. Stars Neil Patrick Harris and Nathan Fillion? Check! Supervillain wannabes, evil horses, homeless folks, asshole superheroes, and laundromats? Check! Quintessentially Whedonesque one-liners and staging? Check! Musical goodness? CHECK! The series, in three acts, covers the sad tale of a would-be supervillain (Neil Patrick Harris in the title role) on the Evil League of Evil (run by aforementioned evil horse), and his many defeats, both in love (with spicy laundress Penny, played by Felicia Day) and in combat (by the "corporate tool" Captain Hammer, played by Captain Tightpants himself, Nathan Fillion). Prime singing abounds on the part of all cast members, Freeze Rays are created, tight goggles and shirts are proudly worn; Harris the villain is sympathetic, shy, and full of pipe-dreams and bad intentions, and Fillion delectably awful as the muscly jackhole Hammer--everything is here.

Whedon, because he is a compassionate deity, posted all three acts of the series for free from July 18th through July 20th, and both the series and its soundtrack are now available on iTunes, if you missed it. There'll be a DVD edition this fall, complete with any number of tasty extras, including shiny new musical numbers by the cast.

He's done it again, kids. Download it now, buy the DVD in the fall, or be like me and aim to do both, but give it up somehow for Whedon and Co. for delivering laughs, music, and heartfelt villainry in the perfect dosage.

One thing Ben Stein and Co. got correct

Evolutionary theory makes no claims about the origins of life.

Okay, that's done, now how about a million (or so) things that the so-called documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed gets wrong?

Let's see--how about the selective quoting of Darwin's Descent of Man to back up the shaky link between Darwinian theory and eugenics, which happens to leave out telling and significant bits which actually show Darwin as being anti-eugenics? How about the use of the term "Darwinism" in order to sell evolutionary theory as a completely unified school of thought, despite the fact that evolutionary science is now synthesized between natural selection and genetic theory? How about the claims that no dissent against this "Darwinism" is allowed, despite the myriad arguments against various tenets, many of which often become accepted into the theories when they provide sufficient scientific data? How about the attempts to claim Intelligent Design as a science, when as something that is scientifically untestable it simply doesn't qualify? How about the disgusting and ham-handed use of Holocaust imagery? How about the creative editing of evolutionary biologists' quotes?

Face it: Expelled is irresponsible and scientifically incorrect. The teaching of Intelligent Design does not belong in science courses, because Intelligent Design is not science. Save it for comparative religion and philosophy, kids.

Homo Vasconensis (or, in which it is confirmed that Diana is a huge dork)

Anthropology may be proving the Basques right (unless you're a lumper). See, the paleontological discoveries at Sierra Atapuerca in Burgos in northern Spain are, according to their finders, a species apart from both earlier and later versions of Homo. It is purported that the skulls of Gran Dolina Boy and others are neither Homo erectus nor Homo heidelbergensis but another species: Homo antecessor, the ancestor to the neanderthal and sapiens lines.

There could be something to it; the bones identified as antecessor are the oldest yet found in Europe, save for the fascinating transitionary fossils found at Dmanisi in Georgia. Since the trendy line of thinking utilizes heidelbergensis as the probable antecedent to sapiens and neanderthalensis, the even older fossils at Atapuerca and La Gran Dolina are the logical predecessor to the heidelbergensis finds from various sites in Europe.

Well gee! Dating from 1.2m to 800,000ya, antecessor seems to live up to its name...if it isn't an offshoot of ergaster or the same species as heidelbergensis. Really, it depends on what side of the model and assignment arguments you're standing. Juan Luis Arsuaga, one of the antecessor discoverers, even claims that the species living in Spain commanded a symbolic, logical language. Associated tool findings show an Acheulian assemblage, indicating a dispersal out of Africa. Antecessor's proponents declare it to be the last common ancestor to both Neanderthals and early moderns--and thus, the ancestor to ourselves.

And look where it's located...right up there near the Basque country. Though situated in Castile-Leon, Burgos is close enough to Euzkadi's borders to be more than coincidental, don't you think? Maybe the famous Basque declaration of "first humans in Europe" isn't too far-fetched after all. I'm betting by and large that Basque anthropologists are splitters. While more of a lumper myself, I think it's about time we stopped using erectus (and by extension, ergaster and heidelbergensis) as a dumping ground. In this case, I may be willing to suspend my suspicions of carefree splitting--even if that willingness is due more to my fondness for Basque cake than paleoanthropological evidence.

Devil women

Why are all metal frontwomen so damn hot? I mean really. Most metal men aren't hot (the demigods of Kamelot excluded), so how is it that the most masculine of music genres, heavy metal, gets the most dollsome lady singers?

Cristina Scabbia, Lacuna Coil:

Anneke van Giersbergen, The Gathering:

Simone Simons, Epica:

Shannon den Adel, Within Temptation:

Tarja Turunen and Anette Olzon, once and future voices of Nightwish:

You see what I'm saying? And they can sing, too--ridiculous! Maybe it's because all the good metal comes out of Europe anyway. Good genes and all that. Hmmph.

Really awful books

I like to read so much that every now and then I read things which are terrible just so I can take a break from all the usual rhapsodizing.

So without further ado (and it is ado, people, not adieu), we have the Top Ten Books Which Make Diana's Brain Itch!

10. The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy. It hurts me to put this on here, because I adore Thomas Hardy, I really do. But it is so very, very awful. Man loses wife and child in a bet? What? This, I believe, was Hardy's lone delve into opium. What you should read instead: Anything else by Hardy. Really. Including his poetry.

9. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. Again, I love Dickens to death, but, along with so many other bona fide geniuses, he's like the girl with the curl right in the middle of her forehead--when he's good he's very good, and when he's bad, he's horrid. Pip, go choke. I'd rather read about Barnaby Rudge and his blackbird. What you should read instead: Dombey and Son, Bleak House, and David Copperfield.

8. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf. I really don't like Virginia Woolf, period, and this technically is not as bad as Orlando, but both are simply exercises in egotism. People who write specifically to change the shape or style of writing are rarely my friends. What you should read instead: if you HAVE to read Woolf, To the Lighthouse.

7. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. It isn't just that her politics are loathsome; her characters are cardboard cut-outs representing ideas, and the entire work serves an agenda other than story and character development. I guess I'm old-fashioned. What you should read instead: Anything else by anyone else that isn't on this list.

6. Blood Canticle by Anne Rice. Interview is okay, Armand is pretty fun, but Blood Canticle is tripe. Actually, most of Anne Rice is angsty nonsense, albeit nonsense with hot vampire-on-vampire action. What you should read instead: Queen of the Damned.

5. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Trashy people doing trashy things. Ugh. What you should read instead: Tender is the Night.

4. Everything Ernest Hemingway wrote ever except For Whom the Bell Tolls and A Movable Feast.

3. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. Whine whine whine, angst angst angst, my sister is smarter than me, wonky "message" at the end. Poor little rich boy. What you should read instead: nothing by Salinger, that's for daaaaamn sure.

2. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. I'm sorry, Matt, I really am, but I just cannot pretend to like these books any longer. Long, overweeningly descriptive, dull, long, full of bad poetry and ditties, excessive tendency to borrow from Germanic myth, long, dull, and did I mention long? What you should read instead: The Silmarillion (not even kidding).

1. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. And I'm not even religious! The writing is overwrought, the characters are weakly stereotypical, the plot borrowed at best, and the "facts" incorrect. Utter drivel. What you should read instead: don't read Dan Brown. Burn Dan Brown.

But is it exothermic or endothermic?

Places Hell May Be Located

- Walmart

- Any chain restaurant

- Haines City, Florida

- _________ and MLK Blvd (every city has one)

- a black hole

- a parking garage

- an apartment complex and its parking lot

I'd hit that