This past week on the footnote:

Ryan discussed a new career that involves a shovel. I reviewed Wanted and then reviewed the fajita burrito. DJ talked about Facebook, Kirk and reviewed Dark Knight without having seen it. I wrote about worldview issues and then about a monk who plays heavy metal, for reals.

Go enjoy, and stop by the footnote daily, because there are at least 3 posts a day, every day, M-F (weekends we only post like once, we’re slackers that way).

This is the BIG ONE folks! The FIFTH ANNIVERSARY ISSUE of the footnote! Holy shiznit! It’s been a blast during the few years I’ve been there, I know that much, and it has brought me a ton of new friendships and opportunities. So Happy Birthday Footnote! You’re five, which in Internet Years is like being old enough to drink! YAY!

So what is in this landmark issue?

• Anti-Thoughts by Mr. Grovemiller: Dustin makes a return engagement to his former job and gets all reflective ‘n’ stuff.
• Letters From Heck by Mister Xalieri: Want a little perspective about the ease of life in Heck? Try a little bit of Hell instead.
• Next Stop Willoughby, the debut contribution of one Mizz Adrienne Jones: Adrienne tells us of a truly horrifying tale from her teenage years. The red menace can totally ruin your social life.
• Pure Lard by Mister Kirkbride: From a distance, you might think that the dark stuff all over D.J.’s face is dirt or magic marker… but hell no! That’s his hair! D.J.’s got some manly, unruly whiskers.
• Reality is What You Make It by Mister Belden: Either modern society is kind of contradictory in its behaviors or John’s a little confused.
• Sight Gags for Radio by well … Mister Me: Adam’s saga of trying to balance his work load versus passing up opportunities.
• Tales of the Working Girl by Mizz Thompson: A holy encounter brings new meaning to the phrase “family game night.”
• Truth of the Matter by Mister Dilbert: Ryan realizes that he might be one of the world’s only remaining Charlie Chaplin fans.
• Transmissions From My Childhood by Mister Grovemiller: For his final installment of the column, Dustin takes a look at The Muppet Show.
• Story Time! by Mister Kirkbride: This piece is called “Sassy Chef’s Dreams and Other Stories.” And that’s all we’re going to say about it.
• Spoiler Warning by Messrs Kirkbride and Grovemiller: Don’t move, dirt bag! Dustin and D.J. have just watched Police Academy and they’re going to tell you all about it.
• Hooray for Comics by Mister Me: Adam P. Knave checks in on those bitches at the Legion of Superheroes.

So yeah. So much good stuff! The Hooray for Comics I am especially proud of and AJ’s piece is grand, Kirkbride made me cackle, Grovemiller did a Transmissions! It’s so packed with goodness this month. And then? I direct your attention to the Very Important Editor’s Note on the right sidebar on the front page. Oh yes! Changes are coming!

All right! Over at the footnote (more about tfn in a sec) there I interviewed Cory Doctorow. Over at SFReader I reviewed his upcoming book. They link to each other so choose which you want to start with: The Cory Doctorow interview or the review of Little Brother, and then swap and read the other half!

Yes, I am paving the roads of the future, getting SFReader and thefootnote to link back and forth and love each other in the way that people can get arrested for.

Today is also a full update of the footnote. So along with that you can also read:

Leigh discussing cars, Laszlo talking about evolution, of a sort, D.J. making you read about reading, John pondering money, me being honest about being a writer, Krystal telling us how to achieve greatness, Ryan opining about lint, D.J. talks to the Bastard Winos and then you can vote on this month’s You decide! It’s a chock full of fun update!

This journal will be prank free this year. I swear. Unless I am linking to someone else’s prank and get caught by it in which case I will mistakenly spread stuff around. But I’m not planning on that.

The Footnote is updated. Lots of column-y goodness. MMmm. Enjoy.

The new Iron Man trailer:

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NEW Dazzler Service Announcement live today!
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Crazy Little Thing is fully posted. Monday I hope to have the downloadable versions up. To those of you that read it in serial format I thank you and hope you enjoyed it. I am going to take a bit of a break, probably until late March - so 3 weeks - before I start the next free fiction story. It will be nothing like the one you just read. Totally different vibe, genre, everything. More on that closer to it happening.
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More later.

It’s time for the next entry in the DSA (The DAZZLER Service Announcement)! This time out I give you Part 2: Where Demons Fear To Dwell!

Featuring: The Enchantress! The Avengers, the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, the X-Men, agents, stagehands, trolls AND MORE!

It even has Cassandra Ferlenghetti! And more Exclamation points than your FDA requirments!

So go forth and read the DAZZLER Service Announcement! Otherwise disco singers with grudges and laser shooting abilities may just come to find you ar home. While you’re sleeping. And you don’t want that.

Oh no, you don’t what that at all.

The DAZZLER Service Announcement - part of your daily disco breakfast.

From the column itself:

You hardly see it these days but back in the ’80s it felt like if the X-Men weren’t out fighting they were in the Danger Room. How much time can you spend in a room called the Danger Room without getting hurt before you think of it as only the Fairly Hitty Room? And after a few years does it go down to only That Room Where We’re Bored?

Eventually they’ll have to refer to it as simply “The Room.” No sense of style in that. Also, as a last Danger Room note, I think Crunch gyms should have Danger Rooms. To hell with treadmills and stationery bikes. Dodge some missiles and metal tentacles for a while. That’ll get you in shape!

(You can also go back and read part one)

It’s time for a tfn update!

Columns about slippers, dogs and life, apartments, religion and culture, publishing, apathy, company, Lohan films, the joy of comics and Bea Arthur!

Go read!

I am here to announce something new. Something special. Something that is only the start of a bigger thing!

THE DAZZLER SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT - appearing only on Comics 101.

Yes. It will show up roughly every other week (sometimes weekly, I am not in charge of the sched folks, I just write this stuff) and run for 21 amazing episodes. Each episode of the DSA is devoted to the intense love and … well each one sits and stares all wide eyed at an issue of Dazzler. For the first 21 issues.

The first episode of the DSA is up now! Go forth! Read! Share! Enjoy! Tell your friends, hell tell your enemies, too. It’s Dazzler, after all. DAZZLER I tell you!

I am excited. So is Dazzler. Hopefully, so are you.

This week: THE DAZZLER SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT - Part One: So Bright This Star

Dustin goes on strike against his TV.

Leigh tells a tale of spotted moments.

Laszlo gets some good vibrations of a sort.

D.J. lists his lists of listy things.

I talk about playing well with others.

I also go into the Saga of the Super-Sons. Yes. Batman, Jr and Superman, Jr.

D.J. tells us what happened to unicorns.

AND MORE….

The footnote updated! A new Just the Right Bullets, a new Letters from Heck, Pure Lard, Reality is What You Make It and Anti-Thoughts. I love all these.

But also, as a surprise… Hooray for Comics: The Legion of Super-Bastards - No, seriously.

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So sometimes I read reviews of books I already have while on the phone. It’s something Amazon is really good for. Why would I do this? It makes me laugh! Here is today’s gem, and man I love it so… wait for the end…

American culture at the end of the 20th Century is a sewer of moral depravity, illogic, unreason, and poisonous ideological sludge, all flowing in a great, toxic river toward an inevitable cataract plunging down a bottomless abyss. One of the turds in this sewer is accelerating faster than all the others toward that pit, and proclaiming, as it outdistances the other blobs of filth, that it is superior to them all. This turd of which I speak is Mr. Robert Anton Wilson, and if his books have any value it can only be that they are perfect specimens of the most diseased and evil literary mind the 20th century could hope to offer. What makes Wilson’s books so toxic is that they appeal to young, semi-intelligent people who are dissatisfied with the status quo and looking for a different, better way to live. Wilson’s books have only one message: Reality doesn’t exist, and you sollipsistically create your own reality. Wilson degrades Man continuously by comparing human behavior to that of apes, and endorses a lifestyle of irrational hedonism and occult mysticism. All of this filth is served up with a contemptuous snicker, as if Wilson finds the collapse of Western Civilization nothing more than a dirty joke. To the misinformed, this appears profound and clever, but it is merely another case of a literary charlatan muddying the waters to make them appear deep. Wilson has nothing to offer the searching mind. For those readers who truly wish to rise out of the sewer of today’s sick society, I urge you to study the philosophy of Objectivism, as outlined by Ms. Ayn Rand in her novel Atlas Shrugged.

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In other news: The Queen’s gynecologist died. Yep, the Royal OB/GYN kicked the bucket. He was 82. Best part? His last name was Pinker. Enjoy.