TGIF - Mad Man Style!

I'm going to start a new "feature" entitled "Rants from the Asylum." It'll be a Thank God Its Friday style collection that appears on Fridays about things that I've stock piled during the week that I can't (or don't want to) devout an entire column to, but still have something to say about. Like...

By now you know I have a mini-obsession with the massive multiplayer online video game, City of Heroes (and its bad brother City of Villains). Well, it turns out that the producer for the upcoming movie Transformers (which I think will be the summer blockbuster) - Tom DeSanto - has apparently secured the rights to NCsoft and Cryptic Studio's popular superhero/villain game. The plan is to adapt it into a live-action feature and then transition it to television in some form. Sweet mutha! WOOOHOOOO!

Fran and I drove (a mere 4-hours) up to Snowmass a few weekends ago for the 4th annual Chili Pepper & Beer Festival. We had a helluva great time. In fact, we had so much fun we're going back next year. We've done the Beaver Creek Blues and Brews Fest three years in a row, and we've been up to the Telluride Blues & Brews, but this was off the hook fun. We had some great new beers (cheers to the light amber lager from Trinidad Brewing Company, and it was a shock to see Stone Brewing all the way from San Diego there!), and listened to some phenomenal tunes. Spencer Durham and his group were fantastic, but listening to Ziggy Marley singin' his dad's tunes... almost a religious experience.

If you're a big fan of the NBC show Heroes, and are suffering from withdraws - like many of us are, maybe it's time to give City of Heroes a whirl! Check out this article for more ideas on how to quell the addiction.

Speaking of video games, this just in: PricewaterhouseCoopers issued a report yesterday predicting significant growth for the video game industry over the next several years (global gaming market to approach $50 BILLION by 2011 - how's that for vid games being for kids?!?!). Click here to read the entire article over at GameDaily Biz - THE industry source for video game professionals.

I want to give a shout out to my graveyard shift working amigo down at Ft. Huachuca, Arizona (where I was born) - congrats on the 50" DLP Mikey! Between that and the new grill... "life is good!" Sorry that it's 110 friggin-hot-as-hell degrees down there though. Well, you like it... and Fran would too, but not me. Hey, at least it's a "dry" heat, right?! Oh, and call me at a normal hour ya illegal alien vampire stalker! ;)

Lastly... my friend Larry sent me the following little ditty. Hilarious stuff!

"Wrong Bitch" - The train was quite crowded, so a U. S. Marine walked the entire length looking for a seat, but the only seat left was taken by a well dressed, middle-aged Frenchwoman's poodle. The war-weary Marine asked, "Ma'am, may I have this seat?" The Frenchwoman sniffed and said "Americans are so rude. My little Fifi is using that seat." The Marine walked the entire train again, but the only seat left was under that dog. "Please, ma'am. May I sit down? I'm very tired."She snorted, "Not only are you Americans rude, you are also arrogant!" This time the Marine didn't say a word; he just picked up the dog, tossed it out the window and sat down.The woman shrieked, "Someone must defend my honour! Put this American in his place!" An Englishman nearby spoke up, " Sir, you Americans have a penchant for doing the wrong thing. You hold the fork in the wrong hand. You drive your autos on the wrong side of the road. And now, sir, you seem to have thrown the wrong bitch out the window!"