Seems that the Wonder Cat decided my cape would make a good bed. He dragged it off to his little hidey-hole and has made quite the futon out of it. Was none too please when I reacquired it. Of course, now that I have been without it for so long, I think I might lose it altogether. There is something clean – almost Bauhaus – about a simple uniform. ‘Course I can’t do my “Bela Lugosi” impression at the mixers anymore, but that was getting a bit old anyway.
Besides, it kind of smells like cat pee.
Why do they have to name these stores “Big & Tall” or “Big John’s Boutique”? It’s bad enough we can’t shop at Banana Republic, or even Gap for Pete’s sake, we have to endure the humiliation of buying our clothes at the same place the guy who wears Muumu’s gets his form fitting tarp.
People are always saying “Why don’t you just have your clothes custom made?”. Do you know how expensive that is? You know, we don’t get paid for saving mankind from the tyranny of despots. This is a charity, baby. And unlike a certain crusader I know, my parents didn’t leave me a billion dollars.
OK, that was a cheap shot, but the guy doesn’t have to rub our faces in it. Who wears a tux every evening? I mean, come on!
People often ask me, well all of us really, why we don’t go and fight in Iraq (currently) or any war for that matter?
Well, the answer is pretty simple. As a rule, we don’t get involved in problems that the masses create for themselves. If we did, we’d never get any sleep done. Besides, most of us think the current Administration is full of putz’. We tend to be apolitical, but generally you can bet your bottom dollar that super heros are all about helping people. So I guess we all tend to be about social justice. Our motto is that those who are strongest need to help those who are weaker. Not a popular sentiment in todays society. Everyone seems to be out for themselves. So be it.
Now, when Dr. Fiend and his ilk start sending warheads to major world capitals, we’ll step in and save the day. But if the US wants to go to war with everyone else, well, they made their bed…
Seems like I’m getting some flak for not keeping up with this blog. Just want to point out that when “you” have a busy day it means you had to stay at work until 8:30. AmazeMan and I have been dealing with Doppleganger. Of course we had no problem catching him right away, that is, we caught one of him. That’s the problem with Doppleganger. If you don’t get both of him at the same time, you might as well not have bothered. So, as much as it embarrasses me to admit it, we got ‘imprisoned’ in his ‘sphere of isolation’. Now if you ever want to really hate your best friend, spend over 2 months trapped in the ‘sphere of isolation’ with him. I thought the whole point in those things was to be ‘isolated’. Hell, I could have been practicing my Mandarin Chinese, or dividing Pi by 13. Anything but listening to AmazeMan blather on and on (and on) about how his younger brother always got the best of things when they were kids. How many times do I have to remind him that his brother is now a manager at a Jiffy-Lube and he is one the greatest superheros of this century. Boy that guy has a chip on his shoulder.
Anyway, we had been stuck in that sphere for what seemed forever when I got a pretty great idea, if I do say so myself. One of the things about getting older is that you tend to produce a lot of, how shall I put this?, gas. To say that we can ‘break wind’ would be like saying a tornado creases a house. Now the cool thing about villains is that, by and large, if they don’t kill you outright they keep you imprisoned forever. Not sure what the psychology is about that, but there you go. So if you are lucky enough to be imprisoned rather than impaled, you are fed pretty well. So I get this idea to ask for only high fiber foods. You know, garbanzo beans, bran muffins, corn, etc. Now the kicker here is that I am severely lactose intolerant. No joke. One ice cream cone and I am tooting out the 1812 overture. So I load up on all the fiber I can and then wash it down with a couple gallons of whole milk. Didn’t take more than 15 minutes to get things going down there, if you get my meaning. So I tell AmazeMan to hold his breath and I let loose a barrage of methane loaded butt burps that pretty much fill the ‘sphere of isolation’ with a noxious, and explosive, level of hydrocarbons.
Now this plan would be a death sentence without a quick and certain method of ignition. Hello wintergreen lifesaver! Now, a few of you might remember that if you bite down hard on a wintergreen lifesaver, there is a neat blue spark. Great fun when you are out camping in the dark. Anyway, one well timed chomp and the ‘sphere of isolation’ disintegrated into the ‘jumble of destruction’. I’d like to say it was planned, but I totally lucked out that the resulting explosion knocked out Doppleganger (both of them) and we were able to capture them (him) and escape. The only downside is that AmazeMan kinda lost most of his left eyebrow (you never know how these things are going to work out) and now he has a ‘Six-Million-Dollar-Man’ look about him. He’s getting really tired of me making that eye zooming “doo doo doo doo doo” sound effect when ever he looks at something in the distance.
Good times.
You’d be amazed at how hard it is to find shoes that match your super hero outfit. No, seriously, it’s a real hassle. I think everyone assumes that there is some kind of “Heroes-R-Us” store that we all go to get our outfits, but there isn’t. Nor could there be, as the market is pretty small. So all of us have either made them ourselves, or paid one of the others to help out.
Since this is not a paying gig, I decided to make my own. Now with Nike and Adidas all coming out with spandex this and lycra that, it has been relatively easy to find something to wear. If you are good with a needle and thread you can certainly find enough silver lamé and microfiber to make a ensemble that is quite laudable. But shoes are another thing. It’s just not possible to make them yourself, and believe me I’ve tried. I don’t care how many glue guns and leather uppers you have, you just can’t get something that will take the wear and tear of fighting crime.So we all are at the mercy of the market place to come up with something that either hits a bullseye style-wise, or can be easily jury-rigged into something useful.
There are, of course, those who cheat and basically wear a dance shoe covered up by a lycra ‘sock’ that matches your outfit (*cough* Superman *cough*), but by and large most of us just go with something off the shelf. The Italian designs are the best when it comes to color combos and fashion forwardness. The Germans seem to have utility on the nose. But my little secret is the plain old wrestling shoe. Sure the support is for shit, but throw in a few Dr Scholl arch supports and you are good to go. The selection of colors and styles is fantastic. A close second is the boxing shoe, but those things are lace crazy and the last thing you want is to be late saving the planet because you were too busy tightening up your booties.