How to Find a Halloween Pop-Up Store

Searching Google leads to a rather enormous assortment of articles about Halloween Pop-Up Costume Stores, without any actual way to FIND said Halloween Pop-Up Costume Stores. And while it's true that, yes, you can usually just throw a fake rock and hit one around this time of year, it would be nice to be able to go directly to one or even ::gasp:: call one.

So here:

http://www.rickysnyc.com/ustorelocator/location/map/

http://checkout.spirithalloween.com/storelocation.aspx

Presidential Debate - 90 Minutes in 5

In case you missed this week's Presidential debate, here's the whole thing... in just 5 minutes.

Just Me and My Women Binder

My personal favorite part of tonight's Presidential Debate was when Romney said that businesses have to make business hours allowances for women so that they can go home and cook dinner. Classic.

Christopher Columbus - Profiles in Historical History

I examine the complex and controversial history of Christopher Columbus. Just in time for Columbus Day!

Hello, Sunrise. Guess I didn't get anything done, hmm?

I'm a night owl, but I don't actually have insomnia, so all nighters, for me, usually mean one of two things:

1. I've been working all night on a project that has a deadline.

2. I've been attempting to work on a project(s) that don't have a deadline, and failed to make any actual progress.

As the I glance at the 5:31 AM in the upper right-hand corner of the computer screen, I'm afraid I'm currently in the midst of the latter. Sadly, more often than not, when I find myself on the cusp of greeting the morning sun, it's because I'm staying up in the hopes that a flash of motivation will push me to finish any number of tasks on my To Do list.

I've written about this before (I think - past 5 AM, clarity of memory is one of the first things to go), but since I maintain this blog more as an exercise and outlet more than anything else, it bears restating. It's both a symptom and a problem at the same time: a symptom in that it's a result of a general lack of focus and discipline I have when it comes to developing and completing my own independent projects, and a problem in that I certainly shouldn't deal with an unproductive day by practically guaranteeing a second unproductive day by staying up all night arguing with idiots on the internet ("Hey, moron, Tesla Coils do NOT create energy from thin air like lightning!")

I often wonder if others have a similar issue. Even though I live in a city of 8-12 million people, it can seem so quiet and empty here in the dead of night. The city that never sleeps seems to take at least a bit of a cat-nap around 5am. For a little bit anyway... I mean, the teachers are waking up soon.

6:19 AM - My body is finally convincing my brain to give up on finishing the video editing I've been trying to finish since Monday. Perhaps when I wake up...

The Avengers (in 90 Seconds)

Finished only a month and a half after the movie came out! Who says I'm not timely? (Ugh...) In any event, I give you... this nonsense.



Two things I learned from making this. One, making videos is a muscle you have to exercise regularly or it atrophies and you end up taking a month and a half to make one, stupid, 2 minute video. Second... wait... oh crap, I forgot to learn anything else.

M.O.D.O.K.: Mental Organism

PLEASE NOTE: I did NOT write this piece of brilliance. I found it years ago on a site called ludickid.com, which has now, I just discovered, disappeared into the internet ether. This is a profound tragedy, and I mean to rectify it immediately. So here I  give you MODOK: The Mental Organism

WHO'S THE MENTAL ORGANISM?

So, what is it about MODOK?

Well, there's really three types of comic book supervillains. First, there's the best kind: the kind that's genuinely cool -- well-written, interesting, with a cool costume, an intriguing origin, or a nifty hook. A villain who good writers want to get a shot at, who gets good dialogue, who returns again and again in stories that prove genuinely memorable. Dr. Doom was one such villain; the Joker is another.

Second, there's the vast majority of super-villains. They exist only as an excuse to crank out the product: a couple of dipshits in tights mixing it up in the middle of Manhattan. Nobody can really get that excited about the Fadeaway Man or the Melter one way or another; they're just sort of there. At best, they're given a decent hook, or are at least stupid enough to make jokes about. But you don't really like them.

Finally, there's the rarest of birds: the super-villain who is so profoundly fucked up, so misbegotted or deranged or downright incomprehensible that there's just no way you can hate him. At some point your brain just shuts down and says "You know what? Fuck it. I kind of like this guy." Jack Kirby had a particular genius for creating characters like this.

MODOK is one of them.

He's got a big giant head, always a plus for a villain. He's got teeny, runty little limbs, and his head is so heavy that he's forced to cruise around in a rocket-powered chair; he's the super-villain equivalent of one of those really fat women at the supermarket riding a Lark. He has incredibly mental powers and is an asshole. He's so dementedly entertaining that you don't even care about the fact that he has a purple costume. He's so inexplicably beloved that he has inspired an entire academic publication devoted to researching his complex character:  The Journal of MODOK Studies (which can be yours for a mere $2 sent to Second Period Industries, P.O. Box 948, Athens, GA 30603).

And, of course, there's the name.

MODOK. It sounds awesome just by itself: like a barbarian or a Japanese sci-fi monster, "Godzilla vs. MODOK". But when you learn that it's not just a name, but an acronym -- and not just an acronym, but an acronym for 'Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing' -- well, that's just awesome.

Amazingly, MODOK was not always MODOK -- no, he started out as MODOC. A lowly lab assistant working for Advanced Idea Mechanics (A.I.M.), hapless dimwit George Tarleton was transformed by a power-hungry scientist into the double-domed MODOC -- 'Mental Organism Designed Only for Computing'. But the newly awakened and empowered freak thought to himself, "Screw that! Computing is for pussies. I'm gonna do me some killing." Which he did, starting with the man who created him. And he went on killing and did not stop.

Of course, the name lends itself to one of my all-time favorite running gags. For you see, MODOK is not just a mental organism designed for killing; he's a mental organism designed only for killing. One can get endless enjoyment contemplating previous prototypes of MODOK before they finally got it right. Polluting A.I.M. headquarters are MODOFs, MODOWPs, and MODOMLMs taking care of various filing, waxing & polishing and middle-level management tasks; and somewhere in a hidden hi-tech fortress, Ms. MODOK asks the former George Tarleton to take you the garbage, and he responds, "Bitch, do I look like a Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing and Trash Removal?"

In the end, MODOK-love is a little like a crush, a little like a child, a lot like a cult: you either get it, or you don't. Get it. Feel it. Live it. The man, the mental organism: the MODOK.