For those who haven’t seen it but intend to, stay through the credits of Iron Man. They hint at an upcoming Avengers movie. For those who don’t know, the Avengers are one of the premier superhero teams of Marvel comics, probably surpassing the X-Men. The past and present roster lists are like a Who’s Who of superheroes—almost everyone who’s anyone has been a member, if only briefly, including Spider Man, Wolverine, the Hulk, a Greek god, a Norse god, and Captain America (patriotism embodied). So this movie is potentially bigger than the X-Men movies, and certainly bigger than any of the single superhero movies.

IMDB has confirmed that the movie is due out in 2009. Here’s a brief run-down:

When Captain America is awakened from an icey prison, and some of the greatest evils earth has seen are born, the Avengers go into action. Captain America, Iron-Man, Hulk, Wasp, Ant-Man and Thor. Will they be able to stop the likes of Loki and the Masters of Evil?

Hang on, hang on, let’s back up a second. Ant-Man? Are you serious? We have Iron Man, Hulk, the Norse god of thunder, and a man whose superpower is shrinking? He retains all of his normal strength while ant-size. But that’s sort of like showing up to work intoxicated but insisting that I retain all of my social skills while drunk.

To be fair, Ant-Man has another superpower. He can talk to ants. Look out, villains! No picnic is safe from Ant-Man! This guy is officially worse than Aquaman if for no other reason than Aquaman has a trident.

Actually, to be really fair, Henry Pym (a.k.a. Ant-Man) was a brilliant roboticist, and was one of the founding and longest-standing members of the Avengers. But I’m not sure I want to see him fighting alongside two guys who can lift more than 100 tons.

That’s okay, though! Ant-Man will have his own movie due out in 2010. The writer is making great efforts to let everyone know that the movie is not intended to be a spoof. If you have to go out of your way so people aren’t expecting your movie to be a spoof, you might want to consider some different subject matter.

If you feel your calendar needs some personality, or you just need a face to go with a date:

The Human Calendar

Check it out—the SEO rapper:

http://theseorapper.wordpress.com

I want to see someone apply for a job in search engine optimization, and when they ask you what experience you have, you say, “I learned this stuff in the streets.”

Apparently all white people like Wes Anderson films. I, unfortunately, did not see Bottlerocket until 2004, so I’m a poser by ten years.

(For the record, though, I loved The Life Aquatic.)

Our beloved cat-hero Franny has decided that her favorite thing to do now is take a nap on top of a power strip in our living room (“power napping,” as we like to call it). This is fairly routine at our house. Well, today, Janelle was talking on the phone, I was checking for musicians on Craigslist, and Franny was power napping when Janelle and I heard a zap and saw a bright flash of purple light. Franny dashed away from the power strip. I immediately thought she had chewed through something, except for the fact that she hadn’t been electrocuted. When we investigated Franny, we saw this:

That’s right. That’s burnt fur. The culprit was her collar:

Franny had partially unplugged one of the plugs in the outlet, and then let her metal collar touch the exposed prongs. There’s a very important lesson here for us all: don’t get electrocuted. It hurts, and it’s embarrassing, and it destroys collars.