I don't want to say that my girlfriend is better than your girlfriend, but she got me a complete set of 'Dinosaurs Attack!' cards for my birthday. You can draw your own comparison and conclusion.

As always with a movie featuring dinosaurs...I don't care about the actors, director, script, or anything about the over-all quality of the motion picture. The only thing that I care about in a dinosaur movie is if there are dinosaurs in the movie. Hence, with the long over-due Jurassic World, I think I will be quite pleased.

If there's only one thing that is a certainty on this world of ours, it is that Hollywood employs the most untalented and terrible poster designers in the history of the universe. Ugh. Way to go, yet another cringe-worthy and shameful poster for a movie that I'm especially excited to see. How about this? If you don't have the time, skill, or care to make good posters, just stop making posters. No one wants to see your posters. The fan made posters that pop up online are always better than the real ones 100% of the time and we're all going to see X-Men anyhow. Unless the awful poster that you've just released turns us off of the experience of going to see Days of Future Past.

The Clone Wars animated series had the rare combined story-telling challenge of being an in between chapter to a prequel shared universe of sci-fi tales. It's a rare undertaking to produce a teevee series in which one of your central hero's will soon-after go crazy and help kill all of his friends and comrades and help to spread evil through-out the universe. The series has built itself to being not only worthy of it's legendary Star Wars roots, but I think it's quite often better then the motion picture adventures. I've been enthralled and on the edge of my couch watching this fifth season evolve and head towards its conclusion. I'm glad I finally got all caught up, and am looking very forward to watching the final season on Netflix.

I've lived in a world where I had nothing but negativity and harsh feelings towards The Tonight Show for the past couple of decades, except for the brief Conan run on the show. It was popular, but it was never more then a lame show filled with sub-par comedy and cookie cutter interviews from a terrible host.


Hence, I quite enjoy this new Jimmy Fallon. The show has sprinted out of the gate, and desperately wants to entertain at every possible moment, and so far it has been a success on all counts. Last night's Kevin Bacon introduction is another in a long line of great talk show moments that The Tonight Show has been skillfully stacking up over the past couple of weeks. Watch for yourself and experience pure joy.

When I was a young lad worshipfully watching The Transformers on Saturday mornings, never in my wildest space robot dreams did I think I would ever be able to own a part of the show. Now thanks to the power of the interwebs, I have my very own piece of animation history to put on the wall. And, it cost way less then what an actual Soundwave action figure would cost. Thank you eBay! And yes...now that I found this thread on eBay it takes every fiber of my being to hold back and resist from emptying my bank account in trade for all of the animation art from al lmy favourite shows. I don't need to buy food and pay bills...but I totally need a drawing from Masters of th Univers of The Real Ghostbusters!

Finished up watching the first season of (Green) Arrow. I still cringe at the horrible levels of violence and murder that the vigilante undertakes on the show. Though, I continually get won over at how in each and every episode there's some geeky comic book reference or in joke, whether that be a hotel room number being 52, a pair of characters being insultingly called the Wonder Twins, or Ted Kord (Blue Beetle) having his name dropped. I just wish that the producers and writers would have leaned towards Ollie shooting people with boxing glove or tazer or net arrows, instead of having him rack up such an astronomical body count episode in and episode out. Every time he kills someone, I just think "Batman could've done that without killing anybody."

My pal Kelly Tindall celebrates the whopping 100th edition of The Adventurers comic by setting up a spiffy new website to showcase it. If you haven't been reading, zap back to the first page and start reading!

I already have accumulated a good handful of "when I was a kid" statements or complaints in regards to our futuristic modern times.

When I was a kid there was no internet, if you wanted to find something out you had to go to a library. My friends and I used to go to the library to research character traits and plot points for role playing games. When I was a kid if you wanted to find out movie listings, or sports scores or the weather report, you would have to read a newspaper. Often, to find out the current events, you'd have to wait a not so current 24 hours or more.

When I was a kid you couldn't just click on Netflix to watch a movie or teevee show whenever you wanted to. You had to leave the house, go to a store, get a movie, bring it back home, watch it, then bring it back to the store! To watch a teevee show you'd have to wait until a pre-scheduled time and sit through commercials. If you missed an episode,you'd have to wait until it was re-run to fill in the blanks.

When I was a kid, cartoons could for the most part only be watched on Saturday mornings. During those Saturday morning marathons you ate sugary cereal from boxes which always had a prize inside of it. Saturday Morning Cartoons have seemingly become a thing of the past, and with budgetary restraints and monetary corners to cuts, so have prizes in cereal boxes.

So, DC Comics announcing that there will be 4 comics to collect via cereal boxes fills me with a lil bit of nostalgic geeky joy. Maybe this endavour will garner heightened cereal sales and we'll turn a corner and be returned to a wonderful world where kids can look forward to prizes accompanying their breakfast cereal fun.

It seems a little late (or really early), but March's issue of Marvel's best comic book takes a swift turn into the bizarre with a Holiday Special. Cartoon-y guest artist Chris Eliopolous steps in to help tell the faux Holiday teevee cartoon tale of the Winter Friends. Except for book-end pages, the bulk of the issue is devoted to the super-hero team adventure of Yaldog, Rama-in-Pajamas, Santalope, Samantha Hain The Pagan Princess, Kwanzaagator, and Menorable.

This wonderful multi-cultural, multi-belief, multi-nationality, multi-celebration, multi-holiday, multi-animal super-hero team extraordinaire is my new favourite go to example that we can all get along at the Holidays and that Fox News has no need to worry about the non-existent war on Christmas. I hope Marvel publishes more adventures featuring these guys come Holiday season. I want toys!

My best friend, a fairly good judge of my likes and dislikes, was sure that I would love the new Spike Jonze movie Her. She was right. The critics and the awards folks heaping the movie with praise and throwing tiny statues at it are also right. Anyone who complains that there are no good movies being made anymore is wrong. They should stop going to see Grown Ups 2 and Transformers 4 and see stuff like Her instead.

We have screenings of her at the Mayfair Theatre through Thursday March 20th.

We hosted a lot of fun Saturday Morning Cartoons at the Mayfair Theatre this-morning for the second of our ongoing celebrations of the lost joy that was getting up bright and early to watch cartoons. As great as some of the kitschy barely animated at times favourites from teeve's past, I think that the commercials are the real fan favourite part of the programming.

My personal favourite was this Doctor Who commercial for the Sky Ray Space Raider popsicle with a Dr Who adventure card inside! They used 'Dr', even though we all know of course that it's a full 'Doctor' when speaking of The Doctor.

If I had my own phone booth time machine I would go back to 1967 so I could collect them all!

The celebration in honour of the greatness that is Saturday Morning Cartoons hits the Mayfair Theatre for a second round tomorrow, Saturday March 15th at 10:00am. We'll be screening no less than three hours of retro cartoons, even including some not to be missed teevee commercials of the era. If that weren't enough of a draw, we'll also be offering up an all you can eat cereal bar, featuring all manner of unhealthy sugary breakfast fare. On top of that we will also have door-prizes on hand from our friends at Lost Marbles, and delicacies from Auntie Loo's Treats. Our inaugural Saturday Morning All You Can Eat Cereal Cartoon Party last year featured cartoons the like of Jackson 5, The Beatles, and Count Duckula, and a cereal commercial starring Norman Bates...who knows what wonders tomorrows event will showcase!? If you live here in Ottawa, there's nothing more awesome that could be occupying your time. If you live elsewhere, be jealous that you don't live here!

It's not every day that one of your old pals is the subject of an article in the newspaper (or the "newspaper"...since I read it online) under the headline: Man fights off would-be carjackers. Stories like this are only cool when the outcome isn't horrible. In this case, my friend beat up three criminals in self-defense and left them running away without his car or any ill-gained profit. He's a regular old school Charles Bronson. Glad to have him on my side.

I love my friend Kelly's online comic based on day-to-day true stories, The Adventurers. Make your day better and go read a bunch of 'em.

The world is a better place with Neil deGrasse Tyson hosting a Cosmos reboot on teevee. Here in Canada you can watch it on Global, and in the States on Fox. Drop whatever you're doing and go make yourself a smarter human being by watching it.

News leaked today that Kevin Smith is co-writing a Batman 66 / Green Hornet mini-series, which will be illustrated by Ty Templeton, one of my all time favourite comic artists. There was a time in the days of Frank Miller's Dark Knight and the Micheal Keaton / Tim Burton big screen incarnation of the character that I did not appreciate the Adam West era of the Batman. Now I think that it's pure television perfection and comic book brilliance. I have great anticipation that the classic series is finally being released onto dvd/blu-ray sometime in 2014, I look forward to having that on my shelf.

I also like when there is any kind of big push and media attention put towards a comic that is actually appropriate for a kid to read. Kid friendly comics are a sadly minuscule happening in this day and age.

I have no problem with someone getting a gig via nepotism, as long as they then prove themselves with some talent to back it up. At first glance, Zack Whedon being put into the writers chair on the new Serenity mini-series from Dark Horse Comics might seem a bit suspect. Zack is of course the brother of Serenity creator Joss Whedon, so not difficult to guess who recommended him for the job. Zack has a resume built up to prove that he can stand on his own in the scribe department though, having contributed to shows like Deadwood and Fringe, and written comics based off of The Terminator franchise. He of course also collaborated with his brothers Joss and Jed on the Doctor Horrible's Sing Along Blog phenomena.

I hope that this post-movie Serenity story-arc becomes an ongoing series. Everyone involved is doing a great job and doing the beloved cult teevee series and movie proud. I have missed these characters dearly. Never say never, especially in this day and age of geek media supremacy, but I don't think we'll ever see these characters in live-action movie or teevee form again. Getting more great comic book stories is just as fine by me though.

The 2nd issue in the Image publisher comic Deadly Class was just as excellent as the premiere issue was. The story follows a young suit clad punk in the 1980's as he makes his way through a villainous version of a Charles Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters.

Writer Rick Remender brought up the books letters page pointed out that the joy that writers and artists get from creator owned work is that they can do whatever they want. A reader doesn't have a decades long affection for these new characters and tales, and there's no continuity rule-book that a creator has to work under. When Remender turned The Punisher into a Frankenstein style monster (which was awesome!), that garnered him a lot of geeky hate mail I'm sure. While working on books like Captain America or Venom can be a lot of fun and very rewarding I'm sure, I bet there's also a lot of editorial mandate from the Marvel / Disney powers that be.

Creators are doing some great stuff for Marvel and DC, but more and more I think their hearts belong to doing original comics outside of the Big Two publishers. Grant Morrison has left behind Batman to do his own work. Matt Fraction is doing an amazing job on Hawkeye. I bet if he could only pick one book to write though, that he would pick his creator owned work (and also amazing) Sex Criminals. Jonathan Hickman has recently come off arguably the best run on Fantastic Four since the original incarnation from Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Yet, what he's doing with East of West might just end up being even a greater accomplishment.

As long as these indie books continue to get support, we'll see more of the high quality same filling the comic store shelves and websites. So, if the mainstream norm leaves you wanting more, be sure to get out there and support the lil' guy. I for one want a whole bunch of more issues of Deadly Class.

A friend forwarded this picture to me this-morning. I cannot tell a lie, I would still much rather you bought a copy of Zomkeys of course, but I never-the-less find it pretty amazing that something I wrote is on the shelves of the Ottawa Public Library.

If you are a geek and in Toronto this weekend (March 7th, 8th and 9th), drop by the Toronto Comicon and visit Zomkeys artist Barb Felix and editor Kris Waddell at the Mirror Comics table.

Another great guest drops by the Mayfair Theatre tonight thanks to Ottawa University's Science Students' Association. Science & Zombies will feature an opening lecture from Dr. Robert Smith? (yes...there's a ? in his name) from the Department of Mathematics and Statistics and author of Braaaiiinnnsss!: From Academics to Zombies. The good doctor has developed mathematical models of zombie infections and its horrific outcome in a real world scenario.

Who better for the title-card on a zombie themed night other than the author of World War Z and The Zombie Survival Guide, Max Brooks. Advance tickets can be purchased for $10 at the Science Students Association website, if there are tickets left-over they will be on sale at the Mayfair Theatre box office.

I will be getting my copy of The Zombie Survival Guide autographed and be doing my best not to yell, "Your parents are Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft!"

I kinda hated Smallville. Every once and a while I would try to give it another chance when they had an extra special episode. I'd tune in when Christopher Reeve was on it, or characters I love like Cyborg or Martian Manhunter. Nothing about this non-Superboy show could win me over.

I didn't want to give the more recent DC Comics teevee series Arrow a chance. I thought it was lame that they took the Green out of the equation, and figured that all we were going to have was another Smallville on our hands here. Alas, the adventures of the hunky Greenless Arrow left me shocked at his goon killing ways, and unimpressed.

None-the-less, this picture of The Flash from the upcoming teevee series looks really cool. Third time's a charm?

I'm very excited for the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy movie from Marvel. The cornerstone of my excitement is getting to see one of my favourite comic book characters of all time, Rocket Raccoon, up on the big screen and brought to life in all his computer graphic animated glory. It also means I can likely look forward to spending lots of monies on Rocket Raccoon merch. I want a lunch-box, I want t-shirts, I want the action figure. I am also looking greatly forward to the Scottie Young created comic book series. Tis truly a golden geek age of Raccoon. Take my money Marvel!

I totally understand when people either look negatively towards or don't take seriously the impact that the Academy Awards hold on the cinematic arts. I'm on board with the thought that movies really shouldn't be put into best of lists or judged the best of a calendar year. I think movies are rather subjective. I was really not a fan of the movie Crash, yet it won best picture a few years back. This year I really loved Gravity and Nebraska, but I know a number of folks who don't think they are nomination worthy.

Aside from being uninterested in movie awards, I none-the-less really love Oscars night thanks to the Mayfair Theatre. Every year we do a live telecast of the event up on the big screen and pack the place with well dressed patrons. We also have a liquor license for the evening and we'll have treats from Auntie Loo's and pizza. There will be prizes to be won and all kinds of fun to be had.

In the same way that the original traditions of Christmas mean little to me, but I still love Christmas...I don't care what wins what, it won't effect my opinion of a movie, but watching the Oscars on the big screen with 300 loyal cinema fans is super fun. And there's a chance that a Jackass movie can win an Oscar tonight!

Finished reading this collection of Power & Glory comics that Dynamite published. The bright yet dark super-hero and James Bond spies tale is a bit hard to follow and the script doesn't fully mesh together as well as it might have. There are no complaints about the art though. The story is unfortunately not the greatest, but the Howard Chaykin artwork is just beautiful. If you want to check out a much higher quality written comic with Mr. Chaykin's accompanying art-work, pick up the current Image Comics series Satellite Sam.

I admit that I am not a card carrying member of the Kvin Smith filmmaking fan-club. I really loved Clerks when it came out in the day, and then things went a bit down-hill for my taste after that. Then a couple years ago Kevin announced that h was retiring from filmmaking after Red State. Which I ended up really liking too. So, he was retiring just after I thought h had finally become a real filmmaker and broken out of the slacker Silent Bob mold. His retirement lasted about as long as Jay Z's did, he now has three films in the pipeline in various states of development.

Despite my neutrality to his movie making, I have always thought that Kevin Smith has known how to tackle the skill of public speaking and being a good interview subject and DVD audio commentary participant. He has puzzle-pieced these skills together to become quite the internet corner-stone with his always building podcast empire.

I'm always looking for new podcasts to listen to. I'll find one that I like and just marathon through libraries worth of episodes. I never listen to music anymore in my hadst wearing time, it's all podcasts all the time. I've delved into a Kevin Smith hosted show for the first time with Fat Man on Batman.

As you might guess, this podcast focuses on Kevin Smith talking about his favourite fictional character with Batman related actors and creators and fans. So far I've listened to episodes featuring animation masterminds Paul Dini and Bruce Timm, Batman voice-actors Kevin Conroy and Diedrich Bader, 1960's Bat-icon Adam West, and Jedi Master and greatest Joker ever - Mark Hamill. I'm a giant Batman geek, so not so surprisingly, I really like the show. It's not just completely Bat-centric though, conversations weave into talking about all kinds of other stuff that happen to come up around the theme.

I can do without the familiar x-rated humour that a Kevin Smith dialogue always circles around. I fast forward through the rather annoying Kevin Smith sung 'snoochie boochie'-esque opening intro and theme song. Besides for those complaints, Kevin Smith is an intelligent and passionate host and this is a worthy tribute to a character that happens to be my favourite as well.

This weekend the Mayfair is excited to welcome the great Crispin Hellion Glover back into the theatre. The two nights will each feature a live dramatic performance showcasing portions of his books with a slide-show happening in the background. Also as part of the two day event, we will screen his films It Is Fine! Everything Is Fine!, and What Is It?

A q&a will follow. Don't be shy to ask about his work on Back to the Future or Friday the 13th or Beowulf...or any other curiosity you might have in regards to his ongoing career. The live performance is not to be missed. And it is in Mr. Glover's contract that we can't close up shop until he gets to meet everyone in attendance. I got my copy of Willard signed on his last visit.

This is truly a one-of-a-kind night out from some truly independent non-Hollywood cinematic art. For more info, please check out the Mayfair Theatre main site.

I was reminded of a valuable life lesson today. If you have something in your world that you care about, don't read about it on the Reddit.

I mistakenly linked over to a Reddit section talking about the Mayfair Theatre. Those 3 or 4 furiously opinionated angry misinformed anonymous internetters on any given sub-section sure are upset about everything. It wouldn't be so disconcerting if what they are angry about had any basis in truth. The blessing and the curse of the interwebs is anyone can go online and ramble on unedited. Just like right here!

I just don't know where people find the time. Isn't it healthier to chat about things you like? Y'know, I'm routinely angered by the filmmaking practices of Michael Bay...but I'm not going onto message boards yelling into the great unknown under a code-name. I just have better things to do.

I'm still sad about Harold Ramis. This will always cheer me up.

It was hectic with lots of e-mails and wrangling and social media hours spent working along at Mayfair related chaos. Our projector exploded, as you might understand, a working projector is kind of a necessity to screen movies at a movie theatre and to make money and stay open. Plus, I was a bit upset at some editorial rejection for a comic book script that I wrote and am very fond of.

As an added bonus, I woke up at 4:00am with the worst pain I've ever felt in my life thanks to an ear-ache. Seriously. It was deadly. Worse than getting a chest tattoo.

Amidst all the broken Mayfair stress, writing woes, and a debilitating pain in my head, to top it all off I got a text informing me that Harold Ramis died. Not a good day.

My mum used to let me watch SCTV reruns in my early childhood, so by the time I saw Ghostbusters and Stripes, I was already a fan. I won't bother running through Harold's resume...but I will point out that I even liked Multiplicity.

This all happens on a day in which we had Caddyshack on the schedule at the Mayfair. If the projector hadn't of konked out on us, we would have screened a Harold Ramis movie tonight! What are the chances of that!?

Anyhow, I'm really sad...we're all sad. On a day when I get choked up reading many a Harold Ramis tribute from everyone from Patton Oswalt to Bill Murray to President Obama, luckily we can easily remember his genius talent and better times. Let's all go watch Ghostbusters.

Marvel Comics at it's worst can be pretty guilty of some sub-par representations of their women characters, like when a female hero wears g-strings instead of pants while they battle evil. The company is also extremely guilty of endless money gouging cross-over's and of giving popular characters numerous titles titles that dilute the talent and the story-telling possibilities. It wouldn't be so bad if the crossovers and spin-off's were good...more and more they leave me very unimpressed. I've actually pretty much given up on most of Marvel.

Sneaking through the shockingly uneventful world ending crisis events and the 473 Avengers and X-Men books a month, the good news is that a handful of great books still manage to sneak through. FF was great. Hawkeye is great. And, I'm pretty sure after having read the first issue of the reinvention of Ms Marvel, that this series has potential of greatness.

The new Ms Marvel is a feisty imaginative Muslim Pakistani-American teen living in New Jersey. She is set firmly in the Marvel universe, and to top of the daily troubles of her teen existence, she now finds herself with super-powers and in a costume similar to her favourite Avenger. The series is drawn by Adrian Alphona, veteran of one of my favourite comics ever, The Runaways. Writing duties are handled by G.Willow Wilson, writer of Vertigo's Eisner nominated series Air.

Ms Marvel is on of those critically acclaimed, fan favourite kind of books that usually seems to cling on the cliff of cancellation for its entire run. I hope Marvel makes enough money off all those crossover's and merchandising to give this one a chance.

A belated congrats to my talented comic drawin' pal Marco Rudy on his mini-series run on Marvel Knights: Spider-man wrapping up with the recently released fifth issue. The story-arc titled '99 Problems' was a beautifully illustrated story. I might even go as far to say that you've never read a super-hero book that looked like this before. Really great stuff. If you missed out on the monthly comic release, I'm sure Marvel with have it collected up into a big fat comic for your purchasing enjoyment soon.

"You're Welcome" - Well played Marvel...well played. I'm going to go get my tent and lawn chair and get in line.

Some eagle eyed patrons may have noticed some intriguing new information while looking at the March schedule poster that went up on display yesterday at the Mayfair.

In the words of the great Douglas Adams...Don't panic!

There is a big change upcoming for the Mayfair Theatre, but it is not a change to fear. Starting next month, the Mayfair will switch up to weekly scheduling instead of a monthly schedule format.

The bad news, for the first time since the late 1970s (when more adult fare was being showcased at the theatre), you won't be able to magnet a Mayfair program to your fridge. What's the good news?

This means that we can book week to week and hence can bring in new mainstream and new indie movies much faster. There have been numerous times that we have missed out on on booking a new movie sooner, or sometimes missed out on a getting film all together. We haven't just missed out on Hollywood movies repeatedly, but also genre cult type stuff. All this was due to schedules being set in stone sometimes six weeks or more in advance.

Other popular Mayfair style theatres successfully program in a similar manner without a monthly schedule. So, just because of the change, this doesn't mean we will miss out on continuing to screen movies that you've come to love seeing at the Mayfair. Programming new movies faster doesn't hinder the likes of The Room, Rocky Horror, Saturday Night Sinema, Christmas classics in December, Halloween fare in October, Saturday Morning Cartoons, and movies from local filmmakers (etc...) from gracing our screen.

All of our scheduling information will be available on our website, Facebook and Twitter, and listings will of course still be available in Ottawa newspapers. We'll soon have information available about signing up for our e-mailing list if you are interested in getting programming updates in such a manner.

I am very excited at the programming possibilities that this will open up. I am confident that our fine patrons will not be disappointed.

People who complain that there are no good movies being produced now-a-days are the kind of movie-goers who do not seek out great movies like Short Term 12. If you are paying to see movies the like of Transformers 3 or Grown Ups 2, and then complain about the lack of quality cinema...it's your fault. If looking for some fine quality motion picture entertainment, never be afraid to make that small extra effort of a step away from the mainstream.

Short Term 12 is heart-felt, intelligent, gripping, funny, and deserves many more eyes pointed towards it then it will get. It screens at the Mayfair tonight at 9:00pm and tomorrow (February 20th) at 9:30pm.

Gravity is well deserved of all of its praise received. It's also a prime example that movies should be watched on a big movie theatre screen and not on a tablet.

Gravity screens at the Mayfair tonight and tomorrow (February 18 and 19) at 7:00pm.

Ghostbusters screens tonight at 6:30pm at the Mayfair. When I was a kid I wanted to be a Ghostbuster when I grew up. That hasn't rally changed. I will never get tired of watching this movie.

What's wrong with Hollywood isn't the normal frequent complaint of too many sequels, remakes, reboots, and general amounts of unoriginality. What's wrong with Hollywood is that they have no interest in having a master like Drew Struzan paint poster for them anymore. Just look at the photoshopped mess that is a poster like The Avengers, or pretty much every other sub-par one-sheet that is unleashed to a movie theatre now-a-days...it is confusing and purely shameful.

Watch the doc 'Drew Struzan - The Man Behind the Poster',and feel angry at the inexplicable idiocy that is the Hollywood movie making decision process. The look at Drew Struzan's posters for Back to the Future or Muppets or Indiana Jones or Star Wars or Harry Potter or Hellboy, and feel better about the potential of movie magic.

Oh, 'House of Cards, I wish that I had no work, no errands, no plans, or any other obligations and that I could have just marathoned through your whole second season today. The first three episodes were just as wonderfully Machiavellian as last season was, and I have a good feeling that the rest of the Netflix season will not disappoint.

I'm very tired of people complaining and moaning about the commercialism or general fakeness of the holiday the is Valentine's Day. It's a harsh proclamation, but I've always thought that if you are bemoaning the existence of Valentine's Day, it's because you have nothing to do on Valentine's Day. I was single on many a Valentine's Day, so I can identify with and feel that pain...but I feel like ranting about it or begrudging people who do stuff on the day is a colossal waste of one's time.

If you don't have a date tonight, I'm sure there is something else productive you can do with your time of the Valentine's theme. Eat some cupcakes, watch the Charlie Brown Valentine cartoon, get together with other single friends...or if in a more horror themed mood, watch a movie like My Bloody Valentine. If you want to avoid love themed festivities, that's totally fine too, just don't be one of those negative souls crying about the evils of a Hallmark holiday. Hallmark has never made up a holiday! They just profit from them. No one has a gun to your head to make you go buy cards.

Today my girlfriend and I will ate cupcakes for breakfast, today we will get dressed up and go for a fancy dinner, and then we will go to the Mayfair for a sexy short film festival. My girlfriend also got me a card with Crow from MST3K on it, and a Robot vs T-Rex shirt. Nothing to complain about there.

Join us tomorrow night at the Mayfair for Ottawa's favourite Valentine night traditions: Painted Lips and Lolly Licks: The Sexy Film Festival. This years presentation includes 20 new erotic short films of every sub-genre from Ottawa, Canada, and international offerings. The program will be judged by adult film star Mandy Morbid. Doors open at 9:00pm, the festivities will begin soon after. It's the perfect way to wrap up your Valentine's Day.

Oh, great. The publication of the new series Deadly Class marks yet another great read to check out from Image Comics. C'mon Image, I only have so much in the way of an income to put towards buying comic books.

Watching old Transformers cartoons while taking a bit of a lunch break gives me wonderful flashbacks to when I lived close enough to home to come home for lunch while in grade-school. I wish I had nothing else to occupy my days with,I would just watch these old cartoons all day long. The sound effect alone that the Transformers make when they change from robot to vehicle brings me pure childlike joy. It's the opposite of what I felt when watching a Michael Bay Transformers movie.

I always get angry at people who negatively judge movies before they see the movies. Recently I happened to read someone practically have a nervous breakdown hissy fit because Michael Douglas had been cast in the upcoming Ant-Man movie. This Marvel fanatic was reacting to the casting of an actor in a movie the way a more logical person might react to a hate crime, ecological disaster or his house being burnt down. You would think that he'd be happy at the news that an Oscar winning actor had been cast in a movie property that h clearly cares deeply about. On top of that,the movie is directed by the flawless Edgar Wright, and also stars Paul Rudd. This should all bring one joy and hopefulness, and yet it seems like every press release only brings some fans trucks full of anger.

I am a giant comic book nerd. I have love comic books all of my life. I have been angry about sub-par scripts and art and poor movie adaptations to be sure. The catch is, I wait to actually take in the product before passing judgement upon it. I didn't like the movie versions of Green Lantern or Man of Steel or Batman & Robin. There are moments in each film that push me towards fits of geeky Hulk rage anger. I also realize that they are just movies,and no matter how terrible they are, it doesn't take away from my love of the comic book source material. Just because the Batman & Robin movie is horrible, doesn't suddenly make the Batman movies and cartoons and comics that I love suddenly become awful.

Geek anger as such perplexes me. The latest Hollywood offering to be pelted with unnecessary cinematic geek ferocity is the Robocop remake. I got to check out the new movie at another free screening that I keep getting invites to. The sci-fi cyborg cop revenge tale features new twists and turns away from the original, along with lots of bad guy bashing, giant robots and a nice dose of Fox News shaming. It is not a great movie, but I don't really think that the original is either. Nostalgia and the teenage brain tend to skew the quality of one's entertainment intake. The movie features Gary Oldman, Michael Keaton and Samuel L Jackson in supporting roles...I'll see any movie with a triple bill of talent that impressive. The original Robocop was pretty cool, and so is this one. And I give that opinion having actually watched the movie.

Finally read Supergods by Grant Morrison, my favourite writer. The book is the historical journey through the comic book age of superhero's / the autobiography of Grant's life while writing the characters. It's a fascinating read for a comic geek, and I would hazard a guess that it would be a very interesting read for the normal human too. I'm all on board with Grant's belief in alternate universes, aliens, that he's met comic book characters in real life...all kinds of awesome madness. If Grant started up a scientology like church, I'd be front of the line to sign up. Hence, I admit that I might not be the toughest critic of his work. Like all of Grant's best work, this visit into non-comic writing is interesting and full of imagination, and packed with comic book history that even a life long devotee like myself wasn't knowledgeable of. Plus, you just might come out of it convinced that the future can effect the past. Which is something that I never pondered before, but thanks to Grant, I now believe.

I do love a good documentary, of any subject matter. Via his Doug Loves Minis podcast, Doug Benson gave out the recommendation to check out the My Little Pony fan documentary called Bronies. I've never watched the cartoon, but have heard the rumblings at how surprisingly great the animated series is. As Doug commented, the doc starts out a bit rough around the edges, but once the endearing and inspirational nerds are introduced it becomes a very interesting doc. Plus, there's some fun animation, and appearances from legendary voice actor Tara Strong, and Q himself, John DeLancie. It's great that what easily could have been a blatant brainwashing commercial to trick girls into buying toys, has actually become a worthwhile quality program. And as Doug warned, this doc about boys and men who are fans of a cartoon about talking ponies, did indeed get me choked up a couple times.

David Letterman is my late night hero and king. Craig Ferguson and his gay robot and intern horse sidekicks have my heart. Conan and Andy are like old high school friends. I get all my news from the Daily Show and Colbert Report.

I had no specific ill will towards Jimmy Fallon, but my late night teevee watchings were already pretty packed. Plus, all that I really knew about the host was that he was in that horrible movie Taxi, and that h was the guy who could never make it through a sketch at SNL without laughing rather unprofessionally at himself.

Over the years I've seen some rather brilliant crossovers with Jimmy and Craig, with Jimmy and Daily Show and Colbert, and even Dave has appeared in a Jimmy instigated gag. With Jay Leno out of the mix, it seems like the late night wars of officially reached a peaceful truce. Plus, his house band is The Roots. You can't go wrong with that.

Jimmy and his gang will soon jump up to the Tonight Show time-slot, bringing the show back to NYC for the first time in decades. Hopefully NBC will not go insane again, and Leno will stay off the NBC airwaves for good this time. I've just watched the three 'Best of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon' specials and his final episode. It's evident that not only is Jimmy a really nice guy, but that he's having a hell of a good time, and trying really really hard to entertain.

I think this final musical number was the last straw in pushing me up onto the Jimmy Fallon bandwagon. Talk about a dream come true way to wrap up one's run on a talk show and get ready for the new gig.

Batman and Robin Annual 2 is yet another comic to come out since the untimely demise of Damian Wayne that features both a present day story revolving around and a flashback to his Robin. It's more proof that the Bat creative teams can't stop thinking of Damian stories to tell, and the editors and publisher aren't adverse to them doing so. I continue to miss that angry pompous little bastard, and look forward to someone bringing him back to life sooner or later. Since he has a penchant for immortality and resurrections, might I suggest a story-line involving his grandpa Ra's al Ghul?

In All Star Western 27, the New 52 incarnations of Jonah Hex and Superman meet for the first time. Jonah's present day, displaced from his own time sci-fi cowboy adventures continue to be a lot of fun. I still think Superman looks weird without his red underwear though.

The new Joss Whedon executive produced and Zack Whedon written Serenity comic got me choked up on pages 15 and 17. Reading comic books is a geeky emotional roller-coaster.

Auntie Loo's is making donuts now!? Tis truly an amazing time to be alive and living in Ottawa.

Went to a good ole' fashioned, free to get into, flee market style, held in a community centre, Sports Card and Comic Book convention. It was about 75% sports cards, of which I have no interest in. Except I'm kicking myself for not remembering to try and find the baseball card of Carl Yastrzemski with the big sideburns that Milhouse wanted. I did stumble onto my most favouritest of thing to find at such a gathering, cheap bin comics. Better then even dollar comics or finds from the 50 cent bins, these ones were a mere 25 cents a piece. Got a batch of 1970's treasure including issues of Aquaman, Flash, Justice Society, World's Finest, Superman Family, and Man-Thing...16 comics for a whopping four dollars. I almost feel bad for ripping the guy off. Almost. Then I look at the awesome cover for Man-Thing #1 and I feel better.

Got a giant stack of comics delivered, about six weeks worth I think. One in the stack was Marvel Knights Spider-man #4. Not only is this proving to be a great lil' stand-alone mini-series, but it also happens to be drawn by my pal Marco Rudy. Of course, that means that I am going to tell you to go buy it. You won't be disappointed, the five issues will feature pretty much every villain ever in Spidey history, and the artwork is really something else. I even forgive Marco for not being able to sneak in a panel of Spidey punching me.