I started watching The Middleman when it began airing for two major reasons: 1) it’s based on a comic book and 2) said comic book is written by Javier Grillo-Marxuach, who was also a writer on a little show called Lost. The Middleman bears a superficial resemblance to Men in Black (and—gasp!—a novel I was working on last year): young aspiring artist Wendy Watson is recruited by a mysterious guy known only as—you guessed it—the Middleman to help fight off aliens, zombies, and evil masterminds bent on taking over the earth. Possibly using gun-toting gorillas. While it might seem like strange fare for a “family” channel, what with references to sex and frequent bleeped-out swears for comic effect, the show maintains a wacky fun vibe chiefly because of its enthusiastic leads: Matt Keeslar as the all-American Navy SEAL turned planetary hero and the charming Natalie Morales (whom I failed to resist as my new TV crush) as the sarcastic and plucky Wendy. The plots are often silly (the last episode featured aliens masquerading as a boy band), but enjoyable, and the writing is at times sharp enough that it might slide right past you without your noticing. Having read that the show’s ratings are not performing as well as they should be gives me even more reason to mention it to anyone looking for a fun summertime TV show.

Bonus: two of my favorite PSA promos for the show.

I’m not entirely sure that it’s advisable–much less practical–to write an entire blog post from my iPhone, but given that Automattic has released a WordPress application via the App Store it’s certainly possible.

Of course one of the major problems is that with the iPhone’s lack of copy-and-paste support, it’s really hard to put links in (hence why I didn’t give a URL for the WordPress app). As far as typing goes, the iPhone’s keyboard actually isn’t too bad, especially when you learn to trust the auto-correct. I do find, however, that my writing feels less fluid, because I can’t type as fast as I think and because I often have to go back and fix typos (I will add–only partially as an excuse to try editing a post on the iPhone–that this experience would be unbearable without the ability to use Markdown; it goes with mobile blogging like Lost goes with existential headaches).

That said, I could see this as a good way to post something about an event or a way to capture a live experience. You can even embed (no, iPhone, I did not mean to type “elves”) photos, which is pretty cool.

The interface needs a little work though. I kept finding myself tapping the wrong field by accident, and the category interface could be a little stronger, as could the photo features. But for a first version, not too shabby. As always, the future is almost here.

Interesting Salon interview with the author of a book on the history and philosophy of jokes (via The Morning News).

I’m not as big a Hellboy fan as Jason and Tony are—I’ve read a few of the comics, and I saw the 2004 movie, which I enjoyed. While I did like Hellboy II: The Golden Army, I would say that on many fronts it failed to fully engage me (especially coming on the heels of the complex tapestry of The Dark Knight). But much of it does work: director Guillermo del Toro’s fantastic imagination for the creatures that inhabit this world, for example (which bears a strong resemblance to his 2006 masterpiece Pan’s Labyrinth). The most successful scenes to me are not the action scenes, which still rely a little to heavily on CGI for my tastes, but the ones that focus on the mundane lives of the characters themselves: Hellboy and Abe commiserating about love over a beer and sappy love song or the great slapstick scene of Hellboy butting heads with new BPRD leader Johann Krauss. But del Toro seemed to be tugged between telling a couple different stories in the movie (Hellboy’s relationship with humans and the overt conflict with the elves), and ends up giving short shrift to both. That said, it is worth noting that Selma Blair is hot—in every sense of the word.

It’s long. Let’s get that out of the way right up top. Christopher Nolan’s sequel to his excellent 2005 Batman Begins, The Dark Knight (rejected working titles: Batman in the Middle, Batman Keeps on Keeping On) clocks in at a hefty 2 hour, 32 minute running time that approaches Lord of the Rings level epic. Despite its length, it rarely feels bogged down—though it probably could have benefited from some edits here and there and it veers into territory that Tony and I had both presumed would have been covered in a sequel. Nolan’s The Dark Knight has much in common with Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2, which many consider the apogee of that series: free of the shackles of re-imagining the hero’s origin story, Nolan (like Raimi) spends much of the second installment concerned with two main questions—”what does it mean to be a hero?” and “what is a hero’s relationship with the people he protects?” Things go, er, less well for Batman than they do for Spidey, but that’s always been part and parcel of the dark knight’s character. Like in Batman Begins, a fantastic cast of supporting actors (Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, and Gary Oldman) elevate the movie from mere popcorn flick to dramatic tableau—add to that a solid showing from Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent and a gosh-darned note-perfect performance by the late Heath Ledger as the Joker. Nolan and Ledger have captured the Joker as a character: he’s a wild card, a psychotic force of nature concerned only with sowing chaos.

Some might be concerned with where Nolan’s Batman diverges from its source material (to which, it must be said, the movie is largely if not always faithful)—that, to me, misses the point. The character of Batman has been interpreted by so many different authors and artists over the years that he has become more of a legend, a fairy tale character to be spun for different ages. Nolan has ably captured his Batman—a Batman for the 21st century—in the same way that characters like James Bond or Dr. Who have been constantly re-envisioned for contemporary contexts. What matters (and what makes his films excel) is that Nolan’s vision is internally consistent: his interpretation of characters perfectly fits the story he is telling. At this point, the only worry I have is that Batman 3 (working title: Batman: Batting .1000) might verge into Spider-Man 3, Return of the Jedi territory. History has shown that all we need is Batman taking on a horde of Ewoks to ruin a perfectly good franchise.

Dan’s recent post on hoverboards, combined with Tony’s recent addition of an entire blog category on cake, has made me realize something: If Doombot is ever to be a destination on the web for hoverboard enthusiasts (as our keyword referrals and 14-page Google position indicate may be our destiny), we need an entire category on hoverboards. So I made that, just now.

Now, on a tangential note, I’d like to tell you about the grassroots campaign to get Nike to mass produce the McFly 2015, also known as the sneakers Michael J. Fox wears in Back to the Future II.

At Online Fandom, Dr. Nancy Baym notes that her earlier post on the shoe was one of her most read posts to date, suggesting that the popularity of hoverboards among internet surfers may well extend to this futuristic shoe. (Perhaps I should retitle this category, “The Year 2015″..?) More recently, she offers an update to comment on how Nike made a shoe sort of like the one in the movie, but not enough like it to appease fans.

Nevertheless, I find this news promising. Sooner or later Nike will move on from these “Hyperdunk” sneakers and get the self-lacing McFly model correct; then, we might see self-drying jackets; and finally, after this, functional hoverboards. Cross your fingers, everybody (for seven years or so, just to be safe).

In our continuing self-appointed duty to bring you all the news that is fit to electronically print about our favorite cryptotechnological means of conveyance, I just wanted to point out to you that one lucky person will be able to take home the actual hoverboard used in Back to the Future II. Along with a handful of other rare artifacts such as the Holy Fucking Grail, it’s being auctioned off on July 31st. Granted, you’ll need to pony up $30,000—but come on, I mean, a hoverboard pays for itself, amirite?

There’s kind of a cruel bent to this auction. I mean, selling of C-3PO’s feet? And what about Geordi’s visor; how’s the poor guy going to see? Why don’t you auction off Stephen Hawking’s wheelchair while you’re at it?

Oh man, it’s an embarrassment of riches, though: I mean, The Rocketeer’s helmet? Kirk’s phaser? A Tusken Raider costume from…Attack of the Clones? Ew. Lame.

Unfortunately, I suspect I’ll be missing the event, as I’ll be busy helping some jackass unload his moving van. But if anybody is looking for something to commemorate a certain blog’s upcoming fifth anniversary (hiatuses not included), well, I’m just sayin’.

Something Awful offers a fuller list expanding on Asimov’s three laws of robotics (not to be confused with Ellis’s revisionary three laws). Sample laws include:

10. A robot, when given contradictory orders by two human beings, and assuming those orders do not violate the First Law, must decide which order to follow based on which human being has a deeper voice.

18. A robot must be very careful when tickling a human being, because a robot does not know what it is like to be tickled, and therefore cannot safely apprehend when it is no longer funny and it starts to become cruel.

23. A robot must shut up around girls and let me, Isaac Asimov, do the talking; however, a robot may bail me out if things start to go haywire.

I went to the dentist the other day for a root canal and a filling. The cavity that I got the filling for was so deep (that is, close to the nerve) that they prescribed me penicillin to make sure we took care of any infection that might have found its way in through the tooth decay. This led to something of a quandary, however: Was I allowed to drink tonight, at my weekly bar night, while on antibiotics?

Being in my twenties, I decided that I may not be entitled to the same foolish notions of immortality common to teenagers, but I believe I’m close enough to justify feeling nigh-invulnerable. So, I had some beer first, then came home slightly tipsy, and then checked the internet to see whether I was going to die.

Good news! I should be fine. However, it was difficult to find a source that sounded even semi-reputable from mere googling. You see, when you search for “penicillin” and “alcohol,” you get some folks saying it’s a bad combo, and others saying it’s fine, but the top results are still random strangers on the internet more often than, you know, doctors (who presumably still use telegraphs and smoke signals as their preferred means of communication). Moreover, the top sites for answering questions along these lines seem to be the kind of sites where someone asks a question and then everybody votes for a favorite answer. I appreciate that two Yahoo! Answers readers took the time to vote on which answer seemed most plausible (or at least desirable) to them, but I’m nervous about accepting medical advice from someone identified only by the email address “cute_blondie_angel@yahoo.com.”

That’s not to say that this isn’t good advice, of course, or that the cute and blonde are incapable of dispensing useful medical wisdom. After all, it seems that cute_blondie_angel actually is training to be a prenatal doctor. I mean, I guess you could say she “claims to be” training, but that seems like a weirdly specific thing to claim. Moreover, one could make the argument that she’s no less authoritative than the (supposed!) transcript from a TV show I first linked to as somehow acceptably convincing.

In conclusion, the internet may or may not be full of lies, but I’ll forgive it as long as it offers semi-convincing packaging for the lies I prefer to hear.