I Can't Cancel...the Subscription Was Only $25

77 pages.

The current issue of Entertainment Weakly devoted 77 fucking pages to Sex in the City.*

Didn't that show go away twelve years ago? Does anyone still care about Sarah Jessica Parker and her coven of horny, aging harpies?**

There wasn't enough regular content for even one bathroom reading session. Now I have to stay informed on actual world events and settle for Newsweek.

* That's right, I used the F word today. That's how pissed I am.
** Or HAHs, as I shall refer to them henceforth.

A Very Special (Lame) Episode

It occurred to me that I've reached a minor blogging milestone. I created Rider's Block exactly six months ago.

Before I hit the Publish button for the first time, I retro-dated the first post (by about 48 hours) to coincide with a significant moment in my life, which also marked the exact moment the previous version of this blog died. A few of you know what I'm talking about.*

I'm not going to get all serious and preachy about personal stuff--at least, not yet (feel free to skip my life lessons at the end if you like your Rider carefree and aloof)--but suffice it to say I'm glad I had a blog (or two) to help me through the mile of crap I had to crawl through at the time. I've come through wiser and relatively intact.

I promise Gordon Jump won't make me take off my shirt in this very special episode. Instead, for old and new readers, here are a few "highlights" from the past half year.

• This post has attracted literally thousands of Google searches for Beowulf--yet to this day it hasn't earned a single comment from lurkers.
  
• I began a series of posts featuring my solidarity beard for the Writers Guild of America strike, and no one seems to know exactly when I stopped using my real face.
  
• Searches for quotes from the movie Hard Candy continue to drive Ellen Page fans to the Block.
  
• When Marvel Comics retconned the marriage of Spidey and MJ, my Photoshopped classified ad brought in hundreds of hits from geeks seeking a fictional, newly single, redhead.
  
• I told the true story of a phone call I received from Morgan Spurlock's production company asking me to participate in the TV show 30 Days.
  
• I was particularly proud of my "Cloverfield Monster Revealed" post and accompanying image. I contributed in a tiny way to the viral marketing, making me part of the problem.
  
• My most controversial post centered around my review of Roger Ebert's review of Cloverfield, and I had a joygasm when an anonymous commenter from Edmonton defended Mr. Ebert and said my opinions don't matter. The best part? I provoked an actual reaction from a Canadian.
  
• I mounted a soapbox and voiced my official boycott, after 33 years, of The Amazing Spider-Man.
• I introduced a blog mascot (who has run away from home twice now). You'll see more of Boxter soon.
  

Now for the serious part. In my opinion--and cranky Canadians can tune this out--there are two rules a blogger should live by: Keep your real name to yourself, and don't tell coworkers you blog. Plausible deniability is crucial in this hobby. Believe me.

Here's to six more months.

* What most of you don't know is I've been on Blogger, in various incarnations, for almost six years.

How Is the IHoB Like a Comic Book Convention?

Because you can ask McGone to sketch fictional characters and he'll do it, just like the starving dudes wielding 2H pencils and Sharpies in artists' alley. He won't charge 20 bucks, either.*

This is McGone's interpretation of my blockheaded observation that possibly-dead Claire and Christian came off as evil Siths in last week's Lost. (Personally, I think the Emperor would have been even more evil with a sweaty glass of scotch in hand.)

One more question: How is McGone not like a comic convention? He owns fewer crazy outfits, he's felt the touch of a real woman, and he has above average hygiene.**

* You just have to buy the first and last rounds at the next meet-n-greet.
** Well, he has a girlfriend and he smells good, anyway. Two out of three...

14 Joys and a Will to Be Merry*

I'm dancing around the Block like fool today. I finally found a song that Apple hadn't added to the iTunes Store since its launch in 2003: "Sentimental Lady" by former Fleetwood Mac member Bob Welch.

Sure, iTunes offered knockoff remakes by Welch, which elicited such customer reviews as "DO NOT BUY!!! These are not the original tracks, this is CRAP!" and "I really love Bob Welch, but seriously, the remake of 'Sentimental Lady' really blows."

The reviews were so hostile that Welch himself apparently posted a long retort, claiming, "The reason I did these re-records is because the ORIGINAL versions are inferior." He explains that the old music was "highly compressed" and filtered poorly, and that the new stuff has "full bandwidth dynamic range" and was "meticulously" recorded. Also his voice "finally sounds the way [he] always wanted it to."

It was all very George Lucas circa 1997.

Two things Bob Welch needs to know: 1) "Sentimental Lady," the original version, was an awesome song from my childhood I've wanted on my iPod for a long time. I have patiently checked on its iTunes status several times a year for five years. My current play count an hour after download is already at three.

And 2) Bob Welch looks like Jame Gumb.

* Maybe the lyric should be "a will to be Mary"?

Maybe Speed Should Have Consulted the Oracle

Remember when you were eight and it was nice outside and you ran to the corner store to buy six dollars' worth of lemonade mix and you set up a stand in the driveway and waited all day for customers to drive through your cul-de-sac and finally your mom felt sorry for you and gave you a buck and winced as she drank the warm swill?

Remember that?

That's how the Wachowski brothers feel today about Speed Racer's box office numbers. What is that? A 16% return on their budget?

I hope they had fun making it. At least it got them out of the house.