Reading: Takeoff! by Randall Garrett
Music: Motion City Soundtrack
TV/Movie: Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein
Link o' the Day: New England Webcomics Weekend


Friends, what are we going to do about Jack Black? I mean, really.

We all know he has talent. We all saw High Fidelity. Yeah, yeah, he can kinda sing and kinda play the guitar, but he keeps getting billed as a comedic actor and I'm just not buying it anymore.

I think what set me off was a recent viewing of Be Kind Rewind. The concept was good enough--the exectuion a bit shaky and some of the reasoning unsound, but overall a better movie than a bad movie. It's probably one of Jack Black's best performances in recent years, but sadly it's not saying much. I really expected more from him, and don't know why.

Once upon a time, seeing Jack Black's name in a cast list was a good thing. Then movie after movie he kept disappointing me until Tenacious D: The Pick of Destiny just broke me.

I watched Be Kind Rewind because the thought of amateur re-shoots of popular movies on video was an amusing enough idea to start watching a movie--not because Jack Black was in it. Now his presence is more of a distraction because I haven't forgiven him yet for Nacho Libre.

But you know what the thing is? I know that someday he's going to win our hearts again. It won't be via buffoonery (I'm looking at you Orange County) and it won't be because someone gave you a serious role that you decided to ham up (King Kong). No. Jack Black will grow up, take a mature role... maybe have a few grey hairs on his head...or a comedic role that's not based on the "deluded loser" character type, and we're going to see an actor who makes us smile, maybe laught, maybe weep, but not wince.

Trust me on this. It'll happen. We believe in you Jack. Don't fuck us over.

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The week continues to be nicely productive and it looks like that by the end of the day I will have hit all my work goals for the week. Nearly all. I have some webpage work to do as well and will try to catch up on that this weekend, but as far as print stuff is concerned, I'm just about there.

One thing that would make my job easier is if the writers and editors actually edited their text before submitting it to me. It sometimes takes as much time to line-edit a job after I've finished laying it out as it does to do the initial layout. One interesting difference I note is that those who type their manuscripts on computers are guilty of this more than those who type their manuscripts on old-fashioned typewriters.

I wonder why that is. Maybe computers really are making us lazier. At least schools still aren't accepting papers written in internat-speak, but you know it's just a matter of time.


Rumor has it... - In 1956, Padraig Carvey (father of comedian Dana Carvey) the Atlantic in a sailoat made entirely of paper.


By the way, School of Rock wasn't too bad.

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Today's link visits the blog site for the New England Webcomics Weekend to be held March 20-22 in Easthampton, MA. Guest include Randy Milholland of Something Positive, Scott Kurtz of PVP Online, Jeph Jacques of Questionable Content, David Willis of Shortpacked, Zach Weiner of Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal and many, many more.

Cheers!