Happy Father's Day?

I went home this weekend to leave my Dad his gift as a surprise. He and my mother were away at her dad's place in North Carolina for the weekend. I figured I'd slip in and out, and it would be a nice thing to come home to for my Dad, since I wasn't going to see him on Father's Day for the first time in, like, forever.

The plan fell apart when I was forced to admit my presence because there was a steady leak from some piping behind his bar and I called my mom to ask what she wanted to do about it. I did manage to close off the pipe that was leaking, but it had obviously been going for a while because there was a puddle in the basement (where the water had seeped the ceiling from above.) Happy Father's Day, Dad! You're going to need to call the plumber!

Oh well. I did leave him his gift with a rather adorable smiley-face mylar balloon right where he would see it upon coming into the house. Maybe that will cheer him up.

The internet is made of win and lose

WIN: Buffy stakes Edward Cullen. Fuck yes.

I'd like to know, from those who are in the know about this: are these clips from Twilight...representative of the movie? Because there is no way in hell I would ever be able to sit and watch this without wanting to punch myself in the face until the physical misery overwhelms the spiritual one I would be suffering from that movie.

LOSE: $25 is not a good deal.

Even now, when I don't play the PS2, like, ever, it's still worth ten times as much as that. This is an insult! An insult!

WIN:

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20 YEARS!?

It's been twenty years since Tim Burton's Batman was released.

I'm not the world's biggest fan of that movie, but that doesn't mean that the fact that it's two decades old now isn't a tad staggering. There was a time when Tim Burton wasn't really anybody. When rubber suits weren't as big of a joke as capes or spandex. That time has been over for two decades.

Wow.

Incedentally, I find the io9 meta about the sequels interesting for one reason: there are other people who, like me, infinitely prefer Batman Returns to Batman. feiran and I, in one of our many uncanny bonding moments, have declared that Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman was the A-#1 lesbian crush of our lives. At the time that movie came out, I was, what, ten? And I still thought she was the most amazing thing I'd ever seen. I got mocked pretty handily, but I went as Catwoman for Halloween in fifth grade. I remember thinking that the black shirt with puffy-paint faux stitches my mom made--to supplement the inferior store-bought costume pieces--was fanastic.

So, I'm biased. I loved that movie to pieces for Catwoman, and I admit that. But overall? Even without Catwoman, I'd still prefer to watch Batman Returns to Batman, I think. It's a lot more Burton-esque of the two Burton Batman movies, and I love his aesthetic even if I don't always love his movies. (Case in point: love these Alice in Wonderland pictures, but I'd love it better if we could just toss out the plot and the movie and pretend this was an intense photo shoot instead.) It's just nice to know that there are other nerds on the internet who agree with me. That doesn't happen often enough.


PS: LEGO Batman is ridiculously adorable. Each LEGO game tries to tweak the formula without really redoing anything major. While LEGO Indiana Jones faltered by trying to branch out from the one character really worth a darn in that franchise--that would be Indy, Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls notwithstanding--LEGO Batman soars because there are so many player characters worth playing with different skill sets that actually make sense. Well, sorta. I mean, it makes sense that Poison Ivy, Mr. Freeze, and the Joker are immune to toxic waste--Ivy's is a natural immunity that goes with her very poisonous nature, Freeze is safely tucked away in his suit, and the Joker survived a full-body dip in acid, so what could toxic waste really do to him any more? Killer Croc is pushing it though--he may be more resilient to damage in general, but toxic waste exposure isn't like being hit really hard. And It makes zero sense that Two-Face is similarly immune to that sort of exposure. I call shenanigans on that.

Otherwise, I'm in love! Especially the part where you get to play the three-story, five-level-per-story game both from Batman's side and the villains'. Also, Batman has different Bat-suits. Schumaker would be proud. (So would Adam West, surely.)