Munsoned

I read a funny story about the late Thurman Munson and posted about it over at Will We Ever Win?

In looking around for a Munson photo to use, I came across this 1971 Topps baseball card featuring a really nice, simple design. All the cards that year were black, and used muted colors for the name, team and position — here green, yellow and red. I like the use of all uppercase letters for the team, and lowercase letters for the name.

Munson's card was different than most in that it featured a horizontal layout with an action shot, whereas most of the others were vertical with a headshot or some other staged shot. Munson's also has a 1970 All-Star Rookie trophy for extra points.

When I used to collect sports cards the horizontals always stuck out amidst the sea of verticals as extra cool, and the same is true here.

Dream Police

I had a couple weird and vivid dreams last night.

The first one was a short one. I was advising Mischa Barton on her next career move. Which is funny because I've never seen The O.C., and the only thing I remember seeing her in was an old episode of Miami Vice Fastlane. But that didn't stop me from dishing out advice.

She was on the phone with her agent telling him to get her anything. I told her this was a bad idea, and that the time was right for her to use her popularity among the young crowd to get a personal project onto the air. If Fox was already flooded with such young-minded fair, and wasn't interested, then take it to whoever was at the bottom of the ratings pile and looking for stuff to hook in young viewers.

All she needed was an idea for a project. Did she have one? She said she did, but the dream ended around here and I never heard it. It was probably genius.

The next dream was a good bit longer, but already getting fuzzy as I type this. I was attending a live outdoor performance by The Kids in the Hall, somewhere looking like the Old Main lawn at Penn State.

I don't remember any bits they were performing, but in between they would play parts of a black and white cop movie they ostensibly made, but weren't in. And it wasn't funny. I'm guessing it was supposed to be like one of their weirder pieces — like Sausages — but it started to feel very Lynchian. The main cop was someone looking like Tom Hulce, maybe because someone brought him up the other day on one of my Name That Film pics. Playing another cop was Lynch stalwart Dean Stockwell.

The Tom Hulce-looking guy was leading a team of detectives on a case, and they were all busy at their desks in the police station. I'm pretty confident this scene came from my watching 10 minutes of The Border — in which a bunch of border patrolmen were processing a bunch of illegal aliens at their desks — before going to bed.

The Kids were also showing a trippy animated movie that eventually turned into a comic book I was reading. I remember everything being red and orange, Optimus Prime and a page featuring some completely orange Stormtrooper Biker Scouts.

What that all means I have no idea.

Mr. 2000

I reached 2,000 views yesterday on the 'ol Orange Whip. There's a good chance most of those are mine, but thanks for stopping by anyway. Photo via.

Keep it relevant

Are "Carrie and the girls" in the upcoming Sex and the City movie still relevant? Short answer — no. Longer answer — were they ever? I guess if you wanted to sell bad fashion to middle-aged women (especially from NYC), delusionally thinking they were hot shit like the show's stars, then it was pretty relevant. Otherwise, who cares?

Had the A&E section of Sunday's Philadelphia Inquirer actually been in there, maybe I would have learned differently, but it was missing. I can't really complain as I grabbed a delivered copy off my apartment building's stoop. (There are frequently extra papers laying around.)

Qwitter

Twitter pooped out today, but I liked this "technical difficulties" image. Warren Ellis had an idea to fix these problems.

The Hoxford files

Looks like Ben Templesmith has a new project in the works called Welcome to Hoxford. No idea what it's about, but it looks like it won't be too much of a leap from Templesmith's other work. Maybe we all should print out the photo, take it to a comic shop and put in an order, and be surprised. Could be fun. You can follow the linky and print out a poster-sized version too.

We do need another Heroes

Excuse the negative waves, but another Memorial Day has passed without a viewing of Kelly's Heroes. What gives?

This used to be a guarantee over the Memorial Day weekend, when war movies are running nonstop. But no Kelly's Heroes again this year, unless I missed it (don't think I did though). TBS, AMC, TNT, Turner Classic — I'm looking at you! What the hell?

Huh. I'm looking at the IMDB entry for Kelly's Heroes, and I had no idea Moriarity was played by the man who would become Capt. Stubing. The more you know ...

Sweet Oddball art by Dan Avenell.

Ah, ah, ah!

Speaking of 30 Days of Night, I liked this entry in a gallery of Photoshopped movie posters featuring the Muppets. I liked the below as well. Via.

Orange On the Aisle: 30 Days of Night

Checked out 30 Days of Night, the horror flick based on the hit comics miniseries by Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith.

I never read the original series (I read some of the Bloodsucker Tales series, one of many follow-ups), but the concept sounded great and the trailer looked badass.

The concept: A crew of vampires descends on the town of Barrow, Alaska, which we're told is the northernmost town in the U.S., and which is about to descend into its annual 30 days with no sunlight. Vampires in a town with no sun for 30 days — a horror concept genius in its simplicity. And the head if the vampires thinks as much, saying, "We should have come here ages ago."

A repeated theme/criticism in the reviews I read noted there's no back story on these vampires — we don't know their story, where they're from, how they exist, anything. They just hop off a boat and get to killin', basically. Supposedly there's more back story in the comics, which saw the vampires starting out from New Orleans. Niles and the other screenwriters left this out of the film, wanting to maintain the notion of isolation with everything being set in Barrow.

The New Orleans story was the basis of a series of short episodes available from FEARnet On Demand. I watched them last year when the movie was about to come out, but I don't think they'll appease anyone looking for more back story.

But aside from wanting to know what was up with the boat that got the vampires to Alaska, the lack of back story didn't bother me. I was content knowing these vampires were just out for a good feasting opportunity, and ready for the gore. Of which there was much. This movie is damn bloody — these vampires aren't recruiting an army of the night, or brooding emo-style over their predicament — they're out for blood. A town's worth. Some of the carnage aspires to the creativity of recent zombie movies, including the excellent Dawn of the Dead remake.

But while the carnage is commendable, there are some problems with 30 Days. There are a few instances in which action on the part of characters we're led to believe would be very dangerous is handled off-screen. Early on, there are vampires all over town killing people in the streets, but a group of survivors moves from the diner to a house without being seen. I was expecting a scene with the survivors sneaking from point to point, relying on their town knowledge — one of the only advantages we're told they have — but no, nothing, they're just in the house all of a sudden. Pheww, I was worried.

Now huddled in the attic of this house, days pass by in large chunks — as we're told by the Day 15, etc. graphic. And while we were told the vampires were going house-to-house looking for survivors, they apparently got tired of doing this before hitting the hideout house.

And is the heat on this house? If not they'd freeze over the course of a month.

Oh yeah, 30 days? From the way the film was presented, this easily could have been set over two or three days and not lost anything storywise. There are so many jumps in the time, the whole 30 days thing is lost. If they didn't put up the graphics informing you of the day, you'd think the movie took place over a weekend.

If it was 30 days, what were the vampires doing that whole time? We can assume the survivors were trying to keep quiet and un-eaten. We know the vampires got tired of searching houses, so what, Wii Sports?

On a positive note, the cast was good, and the direction and look of the film was pretty slick. Pretty good overall if you can ignore some plot holes and are in the mood for some vampire gore.

Notes:
* Ben Foster looked like a dirty, bug-eyed Ben Templesmith drawing come to life.
* Stay away form little girls in horror movies, unless an axe is handy.
* Maybe the eeriest images from the movie is right at the beginning, when we see the vampires' freighter boat in the distance as Foster's character heads into town to prepare for their arrival. (A boat of vampires traveling the seas looking for blood is pretty cool, and the basis of a Sean Phillips comic — possibly with writer Ed Brubaker, can't remember — that never happened. Shame, looked cool.)

— 3 out of 5 dives through kitchen windows

Supersize him!

What the character select screen might look like in a fighting game featuring fast food characters, as designed by *Lysol-Jones. I guess the Hamburglar is a secret character you have to unlock. Via.

The missing cereal monster link?

The Pittsburgh Penguins' Evgeni Malkin ... FrankenBerry?!? You make the call.

Who's the big winner?

In case you didn't hear, Danica Patrick won her first IRL race — becoming the first woman to win in the series — at Twin Ring Motegi in Japan in April. Aside from its historic significance, the win offered a funny photo op as Patrick is nearly equaled in size by her trophy.

I actually cropped Katsumi Kasahara's AP photo to single out Patrick because I thought it was funnier this way. But to see second place finisher Helio Castroneves hold his trophy for another funny comparison, check out the original.

Indulge Tom Waits a moment

I've seen this posted a couple places, and finally watched it. Tom Waits is crazy.

Thunderdome Pennsylvania

Starting tonight, two Keystone State teams enter, one team advances to the Stanley Cup finals. "I know you won't break the rules, they're aren't any." Well, OK there are, but whatever.

Unfortunately for the Flyers their best defenseman — maybe best player — Kimmo Timonen is out the rest of the playoffs with a blood clot in his ankle. But no excuses, no mercy ... Thunderdome!

(Don't ask me how long it took to make this.)

Let's party

I've seen this photo in at least three different places recently, so I'm not giving anyone credit, but the awesomeness of this needed to be noted.

Respect

I saw an early Shelby Mustang GT350 — red with white stripes — for sale on the side of Route 611 in Horsham Monday. A street-going version, not a full-on racer like the above, if it was even an original. Haven't seen any Honda F1 racers around, early or otherwise.

Holy crap high side!

Jorge Lorenzo exits his Yamaha bigtime during practice Friday for Sunday's Moto GP race in China. Reports have him hurting both ankles, fracturing one, which sounds like he'll be out for this weekend. Sucks, but could have been worse, damn.



UPDATE: Lorenzo "got out of a wheelchair" to qualify fourth Saturday. This guy rules. Speed @ 4 p.m., get on it.

UPDATE 2: Lorenzo finished fourth. The Doctor won it.

Drop It Like It's Hot (ancient ritual remix)

Actually looks kind of fun. Guy at the bottom has some good hands.

Rocky 'round town

This is the two-part "Rocky Jumped a Park Bench," which I thought might have been a joke based on the title, but it's actually a completely unironic look at the memorable Philadelphia locations used in the Rocky movie franchise. Still pretty funny though.