Och, if I give it any more she'll blow, Cap'n!

Sorry, Captain. I missed what he said. My Bluetooth is falling out of my ear.

Flickr user Poletti has posted a photostream he's calling "The Galactically Hot Women of Star Trek". It's pretty fun looking back at the funny outfits and facepaint that the Original Series used. Clearly, in the 60's, the future was in metallic bras.

I grew up watching reruns of the series on Saturday afternoons after the morning's cartoons, and it's pretty fair to say that Star Trek was my first exposure to the mini-skirt. Ah, memories.

Check out the gallery for 60's boobs, feathered hair, and structurally unstable space fashions.

Title of the post comes from Star Trekkin', a song made famous by Dr. Demento. Rock.

This just might get me on MySpace...

The Kronos Gyros Woman has a profile on MySpace.


And she needs friends. Because, as you can see from looking at the corporate web site, she's been replaced by someone younger, and less 'ethnic' looking.


I think this is a travesty. Frankly, I appreciated having my processed gyro food stuffs advertised by a lovely lady who actually looks like she might be Greek. Considering that here in Chicago, you only see Kronos Gyros advertised in decidedly non-Greek pizza and burger joints, it just makes me feel better.

While we're talking about authenticity here, can I just say how unhappy I am with the concept of Chicken Gyros? This is just another tragic effort to make "ethnic" food that will sell to boring white people. Chicken gyros? Hey, I like chicken, and I like gyros, but I don't need them masquerading as each other. Chicken gyros seems to be the gyros option for people who don't like gyros. If that's you, then great. Go eat chicken. But hey would you want chicken pretending to be something you don't like? Why not try something else? Maybe...wait for it...Greek chicken???

Apparently, this isn't the first time that the corporate overlord has tried to mainstream their product. From the Kronos corporate web site, quoting an article from Crain's Chicago Business:

In 1975, Chris Tomaras founded Kronos to manufacture his own broiler, the Kronomatic. Until selling the company in 1994, he was his own marketing chief, picking point-of-sale materials from table tents to pita wrapping to get operators excited about the gyro. He also picked the first Kronos poster model, a blonde.

"The idea was to not have a Greek-looking girl, but an American girl," says Mr. Tomaras, 68. "And it worked. It worked by Americanizing the product."

Hah. Sure.

Racist.

I think this is the cheeky corn-fed American-looking girl that original Kronos owner Uncle Tomaras settled on for his advertising:

Boosted this photo from a very funny article at TODAY YOUR HAIR IS VERY NICE.
Go read it. It's funny.

It's a sad, but nothing lasts forever. Everything evolves. A new sandwich needs a new spokesmodel. My Gyros Woman wasn't the first, and she isn't the last, but in my opinion, she's the best. I'll take the Bronze Age Gyros Woman over the Modern Age knock-off, any old day.

For more gyros art, check out The Gyros Project, a labor of love featuring landmarks of the Chicago spindled-meat scene. Here's my favorite: Mmmm...I want Booby's.

And finally, I leave you with another choice tidbit from the Crain's article, which illustrates how steeped Chicago is in gyros history:

In the 1970s, some local entrepreneurs began innovating on the gyro (a word meaning "rotate" in Greek), then handmade in local Greek restaurants.

Among the first was Peter Parthenis Sr., an immigrant and University of Illinois engineering graduate who designed the Autodoner vertical broiler. He started mass-producing gyro meat in 1972 after seeing restaurateurs struggle to prepare it themselves.

"The first meat cone that we sent out of state was on a Greyhound bus," says Mr. Parthenis, 60.

Well. That explains why those buses smell that way.

Meat Cone?

That makes me feel a little dirty. And a little hungry.

Frank Miller's making a movie of The Spirit?!

Wow. Seems like Frank feels he learned a few things hanging around on the set with Robert Rodriguez and Zack Snyder. "Uhm, actually" you say, pushing up your nerd glasses, "Frank Miller was credited as a director on Sin City."

Sure. Whatever you say.

I like Frank Miller's writing work. Mostly. [I'll forgive him for Robocop 2 and 3, which--ironically--Encore was showing this last weekend as part of some geek-gasm. Everybody's gotta eat, and it sounds like he wasn't pleased with the interpretaion of his script.] His art is great, and has spawned a ton of imitators. But, while Frank has had some great moments as a hired gun (cf. and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns and Daredevil: The Man Without Fear), I think he's at his best when he's building his own house, as opposed to when he's painting someone else's. Just look at Sin City or 300. Those move beyond mere graphical novels and become works of literature. He and Will Eisner were friends, though, so the emotional connection might move Frank to produce some really great work.

I think he'll find that being a Film Director--all alone and without someone of Rodriguez's chops there to do all of the hard stuff--is a lot messier than being a writer. When you're director, there's no one else to blame; the buck stops with you, regardless of any other problems the project may face.

At least there's a decent cast...

	Scarlett Johansson	...	Silken Floss
	Samuel L. Jackson	...	The Octopus
	Eva Mendes	...	Sand Saref
	Jaime King	...	Lorelei Rox
	Gabriel Macht	...	The Spirit / Denny Colt
	Paz Vega	...	Plaster of Paris
	Sarah Paulson	...	Ellen Dolan

I like The Spirit, but I'm not sure that the darker aesthetic where Frank Miller does his best work is the right milieu for The Spirit. Will Eisner threaded his pulp-noir with a vein of high camp, and I don't know yet if Frank Miller can do camp in a way that does honor to Eisner's material.

I want Will Eisner's The Spirit. As Frank Miller's The Spirit, I'm not sure it will be as good. And it would surely be a shame to tarnish a legacy like Eisner's and a character like the Spirit.

Check out some production photos at TheMovingPicture.net. See Sam "Bad Mother Fucker" Jackson in funny clothes! See Scarlett Johansson do her best Enid impersonation! See Eva Mendes photocopying her butt! (Seriously.) Hurry! Before they get yanked by the studio!

Finally, Frank, I love and respect you. I only ask that you reassure me of one thing.



You're not the Dream Master, are you?

Depressing Documentaries eveyone should see...

Last week I watched The Corporation. It's a documentary that came out a few years ago, which looked interesting from the previews. You know, in that 'you'll feel like slime after watching this' kind of way.

The prime mover of that genre is An Inconvenient Truth, which I also recently watched. K has a self-protective reaction to material like this. She says, "I know things are bad, and knowing exactly how bad will only make me feel hopeless." She tries to preempt her own despondency, which is probably a good idea.

I, on the other hand, have no fear of any feelings of doom. I say bring it on, doom. So, I recommend to you a few great documentaries that made me sigh with resignation. Watch them. They'll depress you, but maybe if our stomachs are turned often enough, humanity will start working to reverse our destructive trends.

• The Corporation - This documentary tracks the rise of the modern corporation and the power it holds over our lives. Did you know that legally a corporation is treated as a person? (That's where the term corporate entity came from.) This documentary attempts to convince you that the corporate entity lacks any sort of human moral compass; essentially, the corporation has a psychopathic personality by design, its only interest is earning its shareholders money. You can watch the whole doc for free on YouTube by going here.

• Bush's War - This remarkably researched doc from PBS's Frontline reveals the political machinations that led to the Iraq War. Some great interviews here. Bet you never realized how horribly the President and his staff manipulated the American people. Watch the whole thing online at the Frontline web site; click the link above.

• A Lion in the House - Kids with Cancer. You'll cry, and decide everyone needs health care. This link goes to Netflix's placeholder for the film. Hopefully they'll carry it soon. You can purchase your own copy from the film's web site; click the film's title above.

I don't have any magic bullets for solving the problems these films raise, but the promise of America is a better life for all of us. In this election season, we all have the opportunity to promote change. These films motivate me to make a difference beyond my vote, however small my contribution may be.

The eyes are following me...

I was looking at my email the other day, and I was caught entirely off guard.

Like most geeks, I get a ton of messages from electronics retailers in my Inbox. I was looking over the latest sale offerings from Buy.com, and they were advertising R.E.M's new album with this picture:

(Click on the guys' faces for a screenshot of the full ad in context)

What frightened me was Peter Buck staring out of that promo photo...looking almost sinister.

Sinister, like...him...


You be the judge.



That image makes me uncomfortable.


Are we sure that Bill Berry isn't trapped in the Black Lodge somewhere?

"HAAAAAAAAA...litosis!"