Goodbye to skins, goodbye to wings
Popcorn shrimp no more
Farewell, all greasy, crispy things
Bennigan's has closed its door

Adios fajitas, adieu French fries
Sayonara, egg rolls, mini
The end of Brownie Bottom Pies
Yes, Bennigan's is fini

What did her in, most loved of chains?
Well, science says say it's that
The appetizers clogged your veins
With ninety grams, trans-fat

But who could hate, fake Irish lore
And bacon chunks, deep-fried
The cooks were from El Salvador
But they felt Celtic pride

A tragic tale, an epic loss
This final Chapter, Seven
Pray to a spicy, Buffalo cross
There's a Bennigan's in Heaven

Someday again, I hope to sit
Where onions always bloom
Where all nachos are ultimate
And every cheese is bleu

-- Matt Selman

I'm back from vacation, and apparently the Nerd World didn't stop spinning while I was gone. They went ahead and released the 2nd and 3rd acts of Dr. Horrible's Singalong Blog without me. (You can't fault Nathan Fillion's delivery of the line, "The hammer is my penis." Though is there a bad way to deliver that line?) And Comic-Con happened. And they also didn't wait to put out the Watchmen trailer. It's a good thing Matt was here to blog about it, since I went all fanboyish when I watched it and wouldn't have had enough critical distance to say something funny.

Thus I am left with no choice but to blog about watching Jumper on the plane home.

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If there is one cultural event in no danger of being underreported, it's the San Diego Comic Book Convention. I'm shocked the internet was able to handle its regular duties (porn, stock info, amateur porn), with all the bandwidth being devoted to frantic photos of Hugh Jackman, the Owlship and Lego Indiana Jones standing next to a guy dressed as some kind of Arctic version of Boba Fett. (Note to self: sell movie about Arctic version of Boba Fett.)

It's hard to find a fresh angle on this sprawling pop culture Mardi Gras. The obvious and still-abundant media take on Comic-Con, for about five years running, has been "Revenge of the Nerds." I.E., the stuff that you were an outcast for liking in high school is now mainstream culture. Well, maybe, but when I was sixteen, my dream revenge wasn't that someday an Iron Man movie would make $200 million dollars. "Take that high school jerks! The Dark Knight just broke ten major box office records -- now are you sorry you squirted mayonnaise all over my favorite sweatshirt!"

Other easy angles include: 1) Comic-Con has sold out -- it's all really about now is corporations pandering to a lucrative demographic. THIS IS TRUE. 2) Where's the comic books? All I see is movies and toys and video games and card games and creepy replica sword stores. ALSO TRUE. 3) 125,000 people! It's unbearably crowded. UNBEARABLY TRUE -- I was trapped for hours between the irresistible force of "crowd headed for the Lost panel" and the immovable object of "idiots taking photos of the cast of The Sarah Connor Chronicles." (It would be sad to die like that, crushed between the fans of two show I've never seen. If possible, I would prefer to die crushed between the fans of South Park and Extras: Season 2.)

My visit to San Diego, or as it is commonly known, "The City by the Zoo," was so brief, how could I have time to find a new take on the Con? I pulled the old 24-hour ride the train down Friday night party with Sarah Silverman and Stan Lee wake up sprint through the show floor Simpsons panel in front of 2000 fans smackdown chat with The Office writers and back on the train to LA before my wife even noticed I was gone.

(The Simpsons panel highlights: I tried to explain to the fans, "Imagine this: the way you feel about me, I feel about Alan Moore." Judging by their reaction to that bon mot, they think Alan Moore is an egomaniacal jackass. But I won them back with such zingers as, "While the Simpsons Movie was a labor of love, it was also a labor of work" and "A lot of our personal experiences make it onto the show. When I was a kid, the government put a giant dome over my town.")

I was still feeling bad for not having an original take on Comic-Con, until I ran into Time super-writer Joel Stein. Joel will have a smart take, I thought. Whatever he says, I'll just go with that. I interrupted Joel while he was interviewing people, then shabbily accused him of making fun of the attendees, of taking easy shots at their "nerdiness." This was a low blow. Sorry Joel. (In my defense, I was unnerved by a recent hug from the nudest Aeon Flux I have ever seen. And having been to eleven Comic-Cons, I've seen a lot very nude Aeon Fluxes.)

But, as I was running back against the tide of fans to return to L.A., it suddenly hit me. There is one super-powerful thing going on at Comic-Con, and it's not being written about by The New York Times or /Film. That vibe is LOVE. Sure, these people dig this event. And, sure, they're way into vampires or whatever. But these people LOVE EACH OTHER. Deep down, vampires or Star Wars or Japanese girls in sailor suits -- all these compelling imaginary worlds -- are just a conduit to forge human contact. People just want to connect to other people. And at Comic-Con, this desire for connection has never been more joyful or fearless. It's a beautiful thing. All this science fiction fantasy goo just makes people so freakin' happy. These mythologies create friends and lovers and God-knows-what-else -- connections that never would have been born if not for the Con. So call me a sap, but when I see 300-pound The Riddler holding hands and cuddling with a black Borg Queen, I just want to cry.

Gotham City Family Court

Barbara Gordon
Plaintiff

Vs.

Commissioner James Gordon
Defendant

The Plaintiff above named, complaining of the Defendant herein, alleges and states as follows:

1) The parties hereto are husband and wife. Throughout the marriage, the Plaintiff has been a faithful wife and loving mother of their son and daughter.

2) In 2008, the Defendant was shot by a man dressed as a Joker (hereafter “Joker”) while attempting to save the mayor's life. A policeman arrived at the couple's shared residence and informed the Plaintiff the Defendant was dead, while a man dressed as a bat (hereafter “Bat-Man”) crouched guiltily in the shadows.

3) Days later, the Defendant revealed to the Plaintiff that he was not dead, and had only pretended to have been killed. This cruel ruse induced grave emotional distress in the Plaintiff.

4) Soon after that, a man with half a normal face, and half an eyeball and skull face (hereafter “Two-Face”) kidnapped her, her son and her daughter. Two-Face then flipped a two-sided silver dollar to decide which of the family would live and which would die.

5) Plaintiff seeks divorce from the Defendant on the grounds of his having drawn their family into a grotesque menagerie of demented psychopaths, as well making her party to a tiresome discussion of becoming that which you seek to destroy.

6) Plaintiff seeks possession of the couple's shared residence, and a monthly allowance such that the Plaintiff may maintain a lifestyle commensurate with that of the wife of a Police Commissioner, and shared custody of the Bat-Signal.

I just Googled the phrase “Who Watches the Watchmen Trailer,” and got 545 hits. So much for that blog title.

Lord, I wish I had the strength of will to wait see this trailer as it was meant to be seen: in a theater crammed with fanboys lusting to see The Dark Knight -- fanboys who don't know that before Nolan's sad sad sad masterpiece unfolds, they are going to get a special treat -- a preview for the most-awaited comic book movie adaption, sort of, of all time. To experience this trailer with them, in a giant room full of positive nerd energy, would be quite a dorkgasm.

But I don't have that kind of will power. I just checked out the Watchmen trailer in Quicktime. It would have been nice to wait, and experience the trailer with the unwashed hordes, but that just doesn't jibe with my new Old Man Movie-Going Philosophy, which goes a little something like this: WHO CARES? SHOW UP LATE. Being uptight about missing the trailers is a young man's game. So, sacrifice the excitement and chills and mystery of the shared trailer-seeing-for-the-first-time experience, and flop into my reserved seat at the Arclight Hollywood a few minutes after Batman Begins.

If I were Dr. Manhattan, perhaps I would alter reality so no movie trailers were available on the internet – and restore movie-going to its more innocent days, where a trailer was something you could only see in the theaters. But, I'm more like Nite Owl, a fat, old, has-been with a dusty super-car in his garage, so I will have to live with reality the way it is: you watch trailers by yourself on a computer after your kids are asleep.

I'm not really in the business of reviewing trailers, or movies, but here's a few thoughts. First, there's no mention of Alan Moore at all in the credits, which read: “Based on the Graphic Novel Illustrated by Dave Gibbons.” Well, it sure is, as Zac Snyder sure has filmed verbatim many of Gibbons' (and Moore's) classic panels. Also, they've clearly sexed and actioned-up the Silk Spectre and Nite Owl (where's Daniel's pot belly?), and Dr. Manhattan also seems pretty roided-up. (On the bright side, I think I got a peek of his cosmic dong. So they're keeping it real in that crucial area.)

I'm going on vacation. Back 7/28. You all like him better anyway.

This week, the internet has been ablaze with stories like this one on CNET.

Okay, not ablaze. But a bunch of articles. Here's the deal. A Simpsons episode I wrote, called "The Dad Who Knew Too Little," had a joke in it where Homer gave his email address as: ChunkyLover53@aol.com. Ha ha. Homer thinks of himself as fat and sexy. Ha ha ha.

Before the show aired in 2003, I signed up for the ChunkyLover53 email address on my personal AOL account. The thinking was that if anyone wanted to write an email to Homer, it would be fun to answer back. Within minutes of the show's first airing, ChunkyLover53's inbox was packed to its 999-message limit. Oops. Fun over.

Many of the messages to Homer were of the simple, "Who is this?" or "Are U Matt Groening?" or "LOL Homer Rulzzz LOL!" variety. But many people wrote long, thoughtful, attempting-to-be funny missives to, lets face it, the most popular and beloved cartoon character in the world. If not ever. Many, many, many women sent messages to Homer that were designed to make him, uh, stray from his hopefully rock-solid marriage to Marge.

At one point I attempted to save the cream of the "Letters to Homer" crop for posterity, but dumbly lost them. Even more dumbly, I also attempted to ANSWER EVERY LETTER TO HOMER. If ever there was a Sisyphean (or, should I say, WifePissyOffy-an) task, this was it. At first, I would write clever individual responses, then not-clever ones, than paste pre-written gags in again and again, like:

Dear Nerd, I didn't even know the internet was on computers these days, let alone some kind of electric mail dealie. Please send all future letters (and beer) to: 642 Evergreen Terrace, Springfield USA then a zip code. Praise Jebus! —Homer Simpson.

But, fairly quickly, anyone who wrote to Homer was lucky to get a "Doh!" in return, some time between five weeks and three years later. Surely, the vast majority of fans who wrote to Homer never heard anything in response. Which is too bad (I.E. my bad), because Simpsons fans are extremely smart, interesting and passionate people, and deserve more than a "Stupid Flanders" for sticking with this crazy show all these years.

Cut to now, where some clever internet hacker has somehow snagged the ChunkyLover53 AOL Instant Messager address, and is using it to trick people into downloading viruses in the guise of exclusive Simpsons content.

Well, just to set the record straight, I am not that hacker. I am a Mac user, which means I don't know what an "exe" file is, let alone a "computer virus." Also, I just logged on to the AOL email account of ChunkyLover53, and everything seems normal. 895 messages in the inbox, mostly spam, but a few winners, like:

Hey hello!! I love the Simpsons! I FROM VENEZUELA CONGRATULATION!!! by you show!! jajaja sorry my inglish ist bag!! This ist the e-mail the homero!! I love that!

(Homer's South American email buddies have always been adorably vocal.)

I would call AOL to try to straighten this mess out, but it's a dead end. Because of its "fame," ChunkyLover53 is on some crazy "scam-alert" status with AOL. There is a security notation on the account, so that if anyone calls about "ChunkyLover53," they are assumed to be a mischief-maker, and are put on hold for a super-long time and then cut off. Trust me, it's impossible.

(A side story. Once, I also registered the name of a website Lisa had mentioned on the show. A few days after the episode aired, I got a call from someone who wanted to buy the rights to Lisa's site for "marketing purposes," which I assumed to mean "porn purposes." Knowing I couldn't sell it, I fearlessly bid the price up to $10,000, before putting him on hold, then telling him I just got another bid for $100,000. Was he still interested? Too rich for Marketing Porn Guy's blood.)

So, what have we learned from all this? 1) Homer is not a hacker. 2) Don't attempt to answer 999 emails a day and keep your marriage intact. 3) Any boring news story with any Simpsons angle at all, no matter how thin, gets huge internet coverage. 4) NEVER CLICK ON ANYTHING ON THE INTERNET IF YOU DON'T KNOW EXACTLY WHAT IT IS -- EVEN IF IT'S FROM AS ROCK-SOLID A SOURCE AS A PRETEND PERSON'S COMPUTER NAME.

Sadly, we'll probably never find the fiend behind this AIM virus scam. But my money is on Bart.

I was trying to remember the last time I'd seen this kind of nerd feeding frenzy over something. Then I remembered.

And truly, it is a thing to behold. I got impatient yesterday with the server problems and bought a season pass on iTunes (where the evil Doctor is currently holding down the #1 slot in the TV category). $3.99 well spent -- the rewatchability of Dr. Horrible is impressive. The melancholy with which Doogie delivers the line, "I just need to rule it," gets me every time. And to think that he does that opening monologue in one shot. Nice.

James P. has catalogued the multitudinous greatnesses of Dr. Horrible. I will just add a peeve, which is the love interest, who so far hasn't had much to do. And does she have to be helping the homeless? I get it, I get it, she's a good person.

But that's a peeve. I've been rewatching clips from "Once More With Feeling" to get me through the wait for Act II. I wonder how much Whedon and co. are making off this thing? If anybody can make webisodes economically viable, it's him. Balls!

I've been using the iPhone 3G since last Friday. Anita did a proper review, with, you know, testing and such. I will merely add: it's very sweet. All the new features, even that extra G, pale beside the achievement of the App store. I was expecting a lot of rigmarole, a lot of dragging and dropping and syncing and authenticating, but the process of acquiring and installing an App is actually very quick and very slick. If I'm on the subway, and the train goes over a bridge, I can sometimes get a new App on there before it goes underground again.

There is no particular App that I'm love with. The Facebook App is useful, and does things that a Facebook App should do. The mere fact that I can significally extend the phone's functionality on the fly is what's amazing. I don't feel like I'm fiddling with a gadget anymore, I feel like I'm computing.

I'm not at E3. I read about it on blogs like a normal person. While I am doing so the only thing I really care about is the trailers. So I'm going to paste all the major trailers together into one post and say things about them. Because I care.

First up: The Sims 3.

Yeah. I still don't get it.

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