Year: 2013

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The Further Adventures of Terrifica

The Womb: Terrifica vs Fantastico album coverI don’t think I can express how much I like Terrifica, my favourite Real-Life Superhero. Let’s just say it’s a lot. Who could not like someone who dresses up as a superhero and goes from bar to bar saving women from drunken hook-ups they’ll probably end up regretting? (Besides jerks, of course.)

I haven’t heard about her lately so I assumed she retired. Be that as it may, I just found out a couple of neat things about her.

First, The Womb has a couple of songs about her (remastered version here). They’re free to download, too, though I chipped in on Paypal just because.

Second, Terrifica used to have a website of which no full record exists. She stopped advertising her superhero career on it after a while. She’s also an artist, which explains why her costume is nicer than for a lot of other Real-Life Superheroes. You can actually find out the school where she got her Bachelor of Fine Arts from simple googling if you so desire.

Third, Terrifica apparently trademarked her name and image all the way back in 2000. Well, she applied for it back then, as apparently it takes a few years to trademark things since it wasn’t officially registered until 2004. If anyone out there ever wants to get in touch with our erstwhile superhero, that’s where to find her (more contact info here). Heck, you can look at the actual paper application yourself. The filing makes her sound like a performance artist, which makes perfect sense:

The description provided to the USPTO for TERRIFICA is educational and entertainment services performed by a superhero, namely conducting lectures, seminars, and classes regarding social responsibility to public drinking and victims of intoxication.

Also, a pharmaceutical company abandoned a trademark for the name “Terrifica” which was apparently a thingy for “combined nutritional additive and sweeteners for use in food and beverages for human consumption”. They filed in 2004 and the application is marked as ABANDONED – NO STATEMENT OF USE FILED as of 2006. The little guy wins against the corporation! Terrifica, fighting injustice by her mere existence.

However, Terrifica is menaced by that most insidious supervillain of all: legal bureaucracy. Apparently trademarks need to be renewed between the ninth and tenth year of registration or they will be considered abandoned, meaning it has be done sometime in 2013. I wonder, will our heroine renew her trademark?

Evidently Terrifica (or rather, Sarah) has moved on from this part of her life, so it’s entirely possible she’ll let the trademark lapse.

But stay tuned, dear readers, because I will definitely follow this story.

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Superman: Man of dickery

As was foretold by Nostradamus, someone has posted a snarky takedown of the plot holes in Man of Steel. I liked the movie okay but I admit to having low expectations. My good feelings toward the film may also be be as a reaction to the virulent antipathy one of my viewing companions had toward the portrayal of Superman. Have you ever stumbled across the online rantings of a comic book nerd railing against ridiculous minutiae? Watching the movie with this guy was like that, except I was hearing the words come out of an actual person’s mouth.

So I thought the movie was okay but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t be better. It was too long, for one thing, and the climactic action spectacle was kind of turning into a mishmash of violence and camera cuts by the end.

But why read what I say, when you can read the snark over at io9?

Samples:

(on Krypton)

Jor-El: Our planet is dying. Clearly, the only solution is to shoot a baby into space.

Lara-El: It’s the only thing that makes sense anymore!

————–

Young Clark: So I’m kind of thinking I should use my powers for good, to help people and stuff.

Pa Kent: HOLY SHIT NO. You must never reveal your powers to anyone! People will figure out you’re an alien! The government will take you away? Got it? You must never help anyone ever.

Young Clark: Even if it’s a schoolbus full of children about to drown?

Pa Kent: Especially if it’s a schoolbus full of children about to drown! You just sit there, and watch them drown, one by one.

Young Clark: That doesn’t seem right.

Pa Kent: And if for some reason someone else saves the bus, IT IS UP TO YOU TO PUSH THAT BUS BACK IN THAT LAKE AND MAKE SURE THOSE CHILDREN DROWN.

Young Clark: Wait, what?

Pa Kent: YOU ARE GOING TO BE A BEACON OF HOPE WHEN YOU GROW UP, CLARK, A BEACON OF HOPE THAT WATCHES CHILDREN DIE WHEN HE COULD HAVE EASILY SAVED THEM.

Continue reading “Superman: Man of dickery”

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Sodomy: pros and cons

Via Foreign Policy:

In his 1961 religious treatise A Clarification of Questions(Towzih al-Masael), [Ayatollah] Khomeini issued detailed pronouncements on issues ranging from sodomy ("If a man sodomizes the son, brother, or father of his wife after their marriage, the marriage remains valid") to bestiality ("If a person has intercourse with a cow, a sheep, or a camel, their urine and dung become impure and drinking their milk will be unlawful").

Let’s just get this out of the way: Yes, that sentence is goddamn hilarious. Of course, the question of whether or not a marriage remains valid if a man sodomizes his father-in-law’s sheep is left unanswered, but let us at least acknowledge that there are serious aims in such peculiarly specific pronouncements about the manifold permutations of the human sex act. Religion is a source of political authority, therefore playing the holier-than-thou game by setting out detailed rules about sex is all part of the political process in Iran.

Which, of course, doesn’t stop outsiders from finding the whole thing amusing. Tee hee.

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Celebration time

Bea Benedicto as Jubilee

Cosplay is usually rather bargain-basement in its aesthetics but this one is actually pretty good. It even manages to change enough about the character’s costume so the clothes doesn’t look stupid in real life.

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Marvel Zombies

Ahem.

Are you tired of having to comb through dozens of articles trying to figure out if DC Comics has done something cringeworthy today? Would you like to be the first person to know how long it’s been since DC’s alienated fans, minorities or people with discerning taste? Do you like regularly experiencing schaudenfreude at the expense of a major corporate entity?

Well, The Outhouse has the solution for you!

Has DC Done Something Stupid Today? is your one stop source to see how long its been since DC fucked up.

Read more about DC’s PR goofs at The Outhouse.

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Alien Nation

I’ve recently installed this Spanish-language trivia game on my phone out of guilt at the deterioration of my fluency en castellano. However, I’ve discovered that I know very little of Spanish pop culture and don’t possess the general bits of knowledge that someone immersed in the Hispanosphere would pick up over the course of their lives. The questions consist of examples such as, “So-and-so is married to this famous actor” and neither the clue nor any of the potential answers are people I’ve ever heard of. That or I get something like, “Such-and-such island is part of this grouping: A)The Balearics, B)The Azores, or C)The Canary Isles”. Oh yes, did I mention that the game is mostly geared toward Spaniards?

The best I’ve gotten is 50% correct and you can bet I earned the hell out of that D- rating. I suppose it’s not the game’s fault it’s not aimed for a Canadian English audience. I am somewhat surprised to discover that Family Matters and Urkel’s catch phrase are considered a common reference point in Spain. Oh well, at least I can feel like I’m doing something with my Spanish skills.

And in case you were wondering, Steve Urkel’s signature phrase is rendered as ¿He sido yo? in the language of Cervantes.

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To reach the unreachable star

Via Foreign Policy, behold: a human interest puff piece from a reporter asking Chinese school kids what they want to be when they grow up. Most of the answers are boring and predictable, but one precocious little girl reveals the dark underpinnings of our dog-eat-dog society:

“I want to be an official”
Reporter: “What kind of official?”
“A corrupt official, because corrupt officials have a lot of things.”

I wish my guidance counsellor had told me this was an option.