Archive for: November 2006

“Graphic Novel” illustrator Dave Cockrum wasn’t just drawing the dream, he lived it, all the way down to his Underoos.

X-Men’s Dave Cockrum Dies at 63

By KATRINA A. GOGGINS

The Associated Press

Tuesday, November 28, 2006; 6:01 PM

COLUMBIA, S.C.—Comic book illustrator Dave Cockrum, who in the 1970s overhauled the X-Men and helped popularize the relatively obscure Marvel Comics title into a publishing sensation and eventually a major film franchise, died Sunday. He was 63.

In his Superman pajamas and with his Batman blanket, Cockrum died in his favorite chair at his home in Belton, S.C., early Sunday morning. He had suffered a long battle with diabetes and related complications, his wife, Paty, said Tuesday.

Scots’ alcohol habits cause alarm

Many young Scots regularly wake up unable to remember how much they drank the night before, a survey has claimed.

The Scottish Executive poll of 1,000 Scots …

I was hanging out with the armadillo last weekend, just sitting around the house and having a few, you know?  Like six or seven.  Doubles.  Anyway, about halfway through I lost what little manners I have and started prying.  I wanted to know what he’d been doing since the last time I saw him. The conversation went something like this:

’Twas the month before Christmas, and all through the ‘sphere

Was a chorus of sighs, from folks who sought cheer

By hoping ‘gainst hope that Jeff had returned

But when they clicked through, they only felt burned.

Of Jameson linguistics and songs of the Eighties,

Of talking mustaches and hot movie ladies,

Of red pills and ‘dillos, and rock-hard men’s nipples,

None of those could be found, though the postings had tripled

5: It gets you really high.

4: That little mishap with the electric carving knife?  Only a flesh wound.

3: You wake up at 2:30 a.m. to see a zebra at the foot of your bed staring at you…and you feel just …

And now for today’s Dumbass News.  I guess we should start with the obvious one:

“Is that a guitar in your pants, or are you just glad to see me?”

Gives new meaning to the term “cock rock.”

“Hey baby, …

Came he right now to sing a raven’s note,

Whose dismal tune bereft my vital powers;

And thinks he that the chirping of a wren,

By crying comfort from a hollow breast,

Can chase away the first-conceived sound?

Hide not thy poison with such sugar’d words;

Lay not thy hands on me; forbear, I say;

Their touch affrights me as a serpent’s sting.

Thou baleful messenger, out of my sight!

Upon thy eye-balls murderous tyranny

Sits in grim majesty, to fright the world.

Look not upon me, for thine eyes are wounding:

Or, as we say nowadays in our less verbal, more visual culture…

Eh, give it about another week or so.  And no, you still can’t use my Kithchen Aid Ultra blender.  The last time somebody commandeered that thing in my absence, I spent several tedious hours plucking anejo-bloated grub worm bits out …

Wakey, wakey!

on the need for more participation in security.

Peace can never be taken for granted, and the first responsibility of any government is security. That is why France wishes to contribute to a political structuring of the world that averts perils. It wishes to help in the exercise of shared responsibility within the framework of strong, legitimate and accepted international institutions, particularly through reforms of the UN and the security council. It is working to build a political Europe capable of meeting its international responsibilities in the service of peace.

Good idea, Jacques.

The threat of generalised war in Europe has disappeared

Uh . . .

The Europeans have relied on their American allies for too long. They have to shoulder their share of the burden by making a national defence effort commensurate with their ambitions for Nato and also for the EU. This is a mark of the solidarity which links the two sides of the Atlantic. This is what France, one of the leading contributors to the alliance, is doing through its Military Estimates Act. The aim is to ensure the ongoing modernisation of its strategic force – in compliance with the principle of strict sufficiency – as well as the equipment, rapid-response capability and deployability of French conventional forces.

Okay, sounds good.  Can’t wait for the peace dividends.