Dreaded Purple Master

Can't think of anything more appropriate to our National Day of Mourning, April 15.

Sorry, revealing today's shirtless subject would constitute a spoiler for Countdown #3, but I have to say I can't remember the last time I was this eager for a throwdown.

Click for the real image, and if you're one of those who'd given up on Countdown... Aren't you sorry now?

I knew something was wrong with yesterday's clip. I thought Costello was the short one.

I was actually hoping to find the Harry Shearer bit about the concert featuring (I believe) the Who, the Guess Who, Yes, and the Band.

All right, no fooling, I really mean it, this time for sure. From the film "The Gay Nineties" (hey, this bit probably is that old), Abbott and Costello's pick for the definitive performance of "Who's on First".

Hey, folks, still working on a lot of stuff, still not ready to tell you about any of it yet, but I wanted to share the news that ARTC got someone's attention!

Atlanta Life Magazine's April issue features your favorite New Old-Time Radio group with a rather nice 3 page article and some pictures!

Don't live in Atlanta? No worries! You can check out the article at http://www.atlantal Click on the cover and then navigate to page 56 where the audio drama in print goodness starts.

And don't forget about our next show at the Stage Door Players on April 26 at 8:00pm.
Info about this show is at www.artc.org.

Thanks for listening and remember...

There is Adventure in Sound!

Yesterday's video looks wrong, too. The style is too archaic. Here's a somewhat more modern version of Abbott and Costello's classic "Who's on First">

Sorry, yesterday's recording doesn't seem to be complete. Here, again, is Abbott and Costello's classic "Who's on First", all the way to the shortstop joke...

So rather than risk it, in honor of the first week of baseball season, enjoy Abbott and Costello's classic "Who's on First".

Take photographic LOLCats, Mutts, and Krazy Kat, put 'em in a blender, add huge dollops of talent, and you get Laugh-Out-Loud Cats, now appearing at Hobotopia.

If you already know the story of Ranma 1/2, you know that this scene is a crucial one in the long-term development of the character, and nekkidity is absolutely essential to the story. No, really.

If you don't know the story, well... Buckle in, this will take a sec. Ranma is a teenaged boy who sometimes turns into a girl. That's girl-type Ranma above left. (It's magic, something about falling into the cursed Pool of Drowned Girl.) Above right is Ryoga, Ranma's martial-arts rival, who was at the cursed springs at about the same time (tracking Ranma). Due to Ranma's rambunctious training exercises, Ryoga also fell into the cursed spring -- but in his case, the Pool of Drowned Piglet.

Anyway, the scene above is the critical moment in which Ranma learns that his fiancee's new pet piglet P-chan is actually his rival Ryoga -- and Ryoga learns that the idiot girl who caused him to fall into the spring is the same Ranma he was following all along. And he thought he hated Ranma before.

As any fan will confirm, I've left out a lot.

The first American publication of the manga was flopped horizontally, so that action flows from left to right to conform to left-to-right English. I've flopped it back and reversed the word balloons, so that the panel appears as originally drawn -- and more closely resembles the anime version of this same scene, as you can see.

But Bookseller's magazine does, in their annual Odd Titles contest.

Want some more?

The accompanying photo is, as you see, a screen capture from WXIA-TV that someone posted to flickr, enabling me to blog it from there. Photographer credit is Shane Durrance.

Meanwhile, from Atlanta Metblogs, I found a Google Map of the path of the tornado's touchdown through downtown Atlanta. Those of you who know where I live can see that the closest approach was about a half-mile. The old Fulton Cotton Bag Mill (now Stax Lofts) got most of the initial press, but a quick flickr search for "atlanta tornado cabbage town" will show you what they're dealing with there.

This news, fortunately, had nothing to do with me personally. Although there is a connection: One of my wife's coworkers lived at Stax. She's OK, but she got out with little more than her pajamas and a mismatched pair of flip flops.

You mean to tell me that this couple -- these folks we've never seen before, but who know Alfred and where "the house" is, an who Batman would "know anywhere"...

You mean they really are...?
Well, I'll be superamalgamated.

No explanation, just "Yep, we sure are dead. We don't look like us, and we don't even look like we looked last issue, and we are dead as dead can be, but here we are. Mysterious, isn't it. But it's true, Batman says so, and he's never wrong, except about that whole Brother Eye thing. So, how you been?"

Somebody's nose should be twitching, all right.

Disclosure: I edited the second panel, borrowing dialogue from the panel just before it, because it seems that DC has forgotten how to do a Dramatic Reveal. Don't they know the characters only say their own names in conjunction with a full-face portrait? Isn't this cast of characters confusing enough without having characters that intentionally don't look the same from issue to issue?

Miss us? Ok, so we let three months go by without bringing you news of the wonderful world of radio drama. That doesn't mean we haven't been doing anything...quite the contrary. We've been so busy that it's been tough to find the time to tell you all about it.

Unfortunately we're still doing most of the things we've been doing and they're still not ready for us to tell you yet.

But what I CAN tell you is that we've got a long out-of-print title back on the shelves and another show coming up!

First the show.
The Man Who Traveled in Elephants by Robert A. Heinlein, adapted for audio by Brad Linaweaver
April 26 - ONE SHOW ONLY
8:00pm
Tickets: $10
Special musical guest: Juliana Finch!
Stage Door Players
5339 Chamblee Dunwoody Road
Dunwoody, GA 30338
Phone: 770-396-1726

Now the long out-of-print title.
The Invisible Man by H. G. Wells, adapted for audio by Thomas E. Fuller
http://www.artc.
Just $12 for the CD!

And don't forget about Audible.com! They haven't got our entire catalog yet, but they've got most of it and more on the way!

And never forget, no matter what else happens...

There is Adventure in Sound!

Of course, over at Dark Horse lovers do get nekkid.

That sound you hear is the thunder created by hundreds of thousands of fanfics spontaneously combusting, accompanied by the weeping of their authors. And as many more authors crying, "Yes!"

(From Buffy Season Eight #12.)

International Association of Time Travelers: Members' Forum Subforum: Europe – Twentieth Century – Second World War
Page 263

11/15/2104
At 14:52:28, FreedomFighter69 wrote:
Reporting my first temporal excursion since joining IATT: have just returned from 1936 Berlin, having taken the place of one of Leni Riefenstahl's cameramen and assassinated Adolf Hitler during the opening of the Olympic Games. Let a free world rejoice!

Read the rest of this clever short by Desmond Warzel.

I've long had a theory that the Titanic sank when 542 time machines materialized on board at the same subjective moment, causing its cargo hold to burst. Sadly for Amelia Earhart and Roanoke, future historians did not learn their lesson immediately.

Yes, in the DC universe, only heterosexual lovers actually get naked with each other. Actually, I suppose if the ghost of Mort Weisinger had anything to do with it, nobody would get naked in the DC universe. I mean, even Superman wore jammies. Yes, with his uniform under them, of course, just in case.

What's that? Mort Who? Never mind. Old joke. I doubt that anything that happend in 52 would have happened if he were still around.

Anyway, here's Renee Montoya, barely recognizable from her origins in Batman: The Animated Series, cuddling with... with... Darn, did we ever find out who that is? She calls Renee by name several times when she starts shooting at their intruder (Vic Sage, aka The Question), but Renee never does call her name. Ah, well. Life's rough in the Old Supporting Characters' Home. We don't see her again, anyway.

Maybe she's Lucy Lane. That would explain a lot about Lucy's relationship with Jimmy Olsen.

(From 52 #2.)

UPDATE: What do you mean, a tornado? We don't get tornadoes in downtown Atlanta, we never have, get seri--*


Holy crap.

(Picture from a reader of the AJC.)

First, the spoiler: Everybody's fine, no damage done here at casa del purpure.

At some point, if you haven't already, you'll probably see or hear a newscast or newspaper that speaks of the TORNADO that touched down in downtown Atlanta last night, causing significant damage to the CNN Center, Georgia Dome and Ga World Congress Center.

Then it headed east and TOOK OFF portions of the top floor of a building variously known as The Old Fulton Bag Mill and Stax Lofts, on Boulevard at Decatur Street / Dekalb Avenue / the MARTA overpass. It also damaged about 20 homes in Cabbagetown, the residential area behind the lofts, at the corner of Boulevard and Memorial Drive.

This, as you may know, is unnervingly close to my house.

Yes, we heard the tornado from here, and yes, it makes ONE HELL of a racket, and yes, it does indeed sound JUST LIKE a train, if a train were moving without actually touching the tracks.

And yes, LIKE AN IDIOT, I went out on the front porch to see what I could see, which was nothing. Just dumb luck I didn't end up on the roof of the Cyclorama.

But the Fulton Bag Mill is as close as it got to here.
Everybody's fine, no damage done.

If you can't quite see (I certainly can't), and you're too lazy to hit the link for a larger image (and, really, how lazy is that?), it's a canvas bag meant to sit on your running board (your car has a running board, right?) so your dog can ride safely and comfortably and not stink up the car. Photo Basement thinks this is Quite Possibly The Worst Invention Ever.

I'm not sure I'd go that far. I can think of plenty of worse ideas than this. You probably can too. Cordless jump rope. Weed-cutting golf club. New Coke. Cell phones.

MORE: I won't try to keep up with the outpouring of grief and respect from the comics community, but I would be remiss not to link to Heidi MacDonald and Mark Evanier.

AJC | Forget MP3s, some teens turning to vinyl records
On a recent afternoon 15-year-old Graham Saylor popped into Decatur CD to check out new releases. But he sprinted right past the CDs, stopping, instead, at the six bins of vinyl records.

Saylor prefers to listen to his favorite new acts, such as TV on the Radio and the Black Keys, on the black 12-inch platters. Some classmates at Decatur High School have become vinyl fans as well.

So what attracts the teens to a musical format that was proclaimed landfill fodder years before they were born?

"I just dig vinyls more. The tone is warmer. I'm not much of a digital guy," explains Saylor.

See also Wired.com: Vinyl May Be Final Nail in CD's Coffin.