Useless Bits of Genius: All Hail Our Fantastic Leder, Arpoovian Shebber-Shenty

Slightly NSFW.
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The First Unspeakable Horrors Crossover

It's the long awaited team-up of Tom Wait's Tuesday and Useless Bits of Genius.  It's the video the people at the people at the Sesame Street workshop don't want you too see.



I always thought there was something wrong with that guy--

Useless Acts of Genius: My ded's been sending me cat vidoes--

If I've got to suffer, you've all got to suffer--

Useless Bits of Genius: It's Still Better Than the Phantom Menace

Useless Bits of Genius: Acapella Video Game Music

Seriously, this is impressive.

Review: Bedlam 1-3

Ler me get this out of the way: Bedlam is a good comic. It  may even be the super hero comic of the last year.

 There is every reason for me to hate this comic. It's falls into the  "I wanted to tell a story using established DC/Marvel Comics characters but  the major comic companies would never let me do this stuff to their characters so I changed everybody's name and published it myself" type of story-telling that is often tiresome in independent super-hero comics. 

However, Bedlam manages to make the most of using characters that we are familiar with and then twisting them in unexpected directions. To be blunt, the premise of the book is  "What if the Joker were cured and became a police consultant, helping the police and Batman solve crimes?" 

The story hook is simple. Set in the city of Bedlam, Madder Red, the Joker pastiche (think a creepy mask instead of clown make-up),  is captured by the costumed vigilante, the First, who is essentially Batman. As anyone who as seen The Dark Knight knows, Red's capture is actually part of a plan to bring the city into anarchy from his prison cell. 

Unfortunately, the plan goes wrong and Red is believed dead by the authorities. In truth, he is spirited away by a man known only as the Good Doctor, who "treats" Red  and reintegrates him into society supposedly cured of his insanity. (This is helped by the fact that Red was never unmasked and thus can resume his civilian identity of Fillmore Press with no one the wiser).  When a series of murders in the city, Red, as Press, offers to help the police who take him up on his offer do to his ability to predict the killer's next move.

The series'real strength is that it is a Batman story utterly unconstrained by the limits of being a Batman story. Thus, it is free to play with our expectations. For example, it is free to do things with a stock  Batman  characters that couldn't really be done in a Batman comic. At the end of the day, for all of his flaws, Batman is the hero of the story. By contrast, the First is portrayed much less sympathetically, a burtal thug who beats confessions from suspects with the approval of the city's police forces.

The scariest thing about Bedlam is that even the heroes are corrupt. This is perhaps most exemplified by the Good Doctor. Loosely based on Dr. Jeremiah Arkham, the asylum keeper from Batman whose tendency to think of the various super-villains as victims in need of treatment goes a long way towards explaining why homicidal maniacs under his care keep escaping every second Tuesday, the Good Doctor takes that character in an disturbing direction. Having gone beyond traditional methods of treatment, the Doctor uses truly brutal techniques of torture and brainwashing  (Red goes from giving long speeches to having trouble speaking in complete sentences without getting distracted as an after effect of the Good Doctor's "therapy") to cure super-villain of their "evil" all the while without realizing that, in his own way, he is a super-villain himself.

The real star of the show is Madder Red. We're never quite sure why he's doing anything. There are hints that there was a method  to his madness and other hints that indicated that he was just doing it to relieve his boredom. (The first issue give us the sense that the reason Red  tries to goad a police inrterragator into simply killing him is not for the pleasure of driving a good man to murder, but  because it would be something new.) Similarly, after his "rehabilitation", we aren't sure if he's truly changed or he has some ulterior motive.

Ultimately, I have to say Bedlam is one of the best comics to come along recently. At the point I stopped reading, the book is still setting up it's first story arc and it's status quo. That being said, I can't wait to see where it goes from here.

More Sir Christopher Lee

I shall begin by answering the question "Is this music video I am about to post here good?" The answer is no, no, it is not. It's mediocre at best.  From the musical band Rhapsody of Fire, the song is part of there Dark Secret Saga, an epic fantasy told in song. It details the quest of group of humans, elves, and hobbits to dispose of the One Ring in the fires of Mount Doom to prevent the rise of the dark lord Sauron. (Note: This is not literally the plot of the song cycle but I maintain that on a more metaphorical level, the previous sentence is completely true).

 However, the video is worth watching for one reason: It is the closest we will come to seeing Christopher  Lee sing a duet with Weird Al Yankovic.




Remember, kids, unless you're in comedy, that hair style is not a good idea.  It will never be a good idea.

Greatest Super Villain of All Time: Mr. Midnight

A good supervillain preys on his enemy's weakness. Sometimes they attack a hero's friends and family. Other times they use  an elaborates series of deathtraps and trials designed to  break the hero's spirit.   But I think you'll agree that Mr. Midnight for reduces his enemies to a curled up wreck in a fashion that's all his own.

From the Return of Captain Invincible.

For some reason I can't exactly put my finger on, I think Mr. Midnight would be a great Iron Man villain.

Super Short Review: the Pathology of Addiction

Wow! Just wow! The first thing I have to say about this video is that it is incredible simplistic.  I mean, l I know there is  a biological causes for drug addiction. There is a biological component to all human behavior. On the other hand, I don't think an addiction can be boiled simply a lack of serotonin and an excess of dopamine. There are other factors that should at least be considered like social pressures, the environment in which a person was raised, and economic factors.  Otherwise, what's the point of trying to stop people from doing drugs?  If this video is to be believed, addicts are addicts because of evolution and addiction is hardwired into their genes.

Did anybody really stop to think that showing this video at an anti-drug seminar really sends the wrong message? No use trying to avoid drugs and alcohol! Your best bet is to seek help after your life spirals out of control which in this video means that you turn into a shark and eat a dude. This video just illustrates why I think anti-drug seminars are ineffective. The people who put them on always seem to think that their audience is twelve. It's patronizing and incredibly insulting. I know they mean well, but seriously, at least show some respect for you audience instead of numbing our minds with this drivel.

Incubus- the Warning

The song is about living life to the fullest because you never know when everything could end.  The music video is making the viewer defecate in his or her  pants about as often as possible in four minutes.