Everyone's a Racist, unless they're not

In case you missed it, earlier this week Fox announced the new cast for the Fantastic Four reboot. The big controversy (other than who are these guys?) is that Johnny Storm is going to be played by an African American actor, Michael B. Jordan. This has basically split nerds into two camps. "Johnny Storm should be white because he is white in the comics" and "shut up, racist".

I guess there's a third camp too. "Who cares, this movie is going to SUUUUCCCCKKKK"

I don't really like the cast because they're all too young and young equals origin story and origin stories kinda blow. We're about 1 year removed from Jonathan Hickman's amazing run on the Fantastic Four and I would MUCH rather see a movie based on parts of it than another stupid origin story. They might as well rename the film Fantastic Four Babies.

I will say however that I don't believe that everyone that has problems with the casting of an African American guy to play a fictional white character is automatically a racist. In case you didn't know, comic book fans can be a little fanatical. The idea that they want to see movies based on comics look JUST like the comics isn't that absurd.

I'm not saying there aren't people out there that are opposed to this casting because their racist. I'm sure there are plenty, I'm just not so quick to point that finger as some.

Catch 22 Xbone

Fake Geek Girls: An Urgent PSA

I've really been avoiding this whole fake geek girl hullaballo because I find the whole topic of who's a real geek and who's a real nerd terribly exhausting. However, this fake PSA is hilarious and I'm all about hilarious. Also steam trains, I'm really into steam trains these days.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Big big news hit the interwebs yesterday. DC Comics has decided that keeping up with the times means keeping up with Marvel circa 1992 and they’re going to introduce a new gay character. More specifically they’re going to take an existing “major character” and retcon them out of the closet. Ordinarily this kind of revisionist history is the sort of thing that would grind my gears, but DC just rebooted their universe so technically none of these characters has a history that would conflict with an outing like this. The two ironic exceptions being Batman, who has a son and somehow managed to keep his history where he hooked up with most of his female cast of villains and Aquaman, who is actually married in the new 52.

I’m sure this will cause much gnashing of teeth with the conservative crowd. Comics are for kids, moral corruption, gay-Obama-marriage, Spider-Man can’t be Hispanic, etc. etc. The interesting thing here to me is that by making a big deal about this it shows how little DC actually cares about its current gay characters. I’m sure somewhere Batwoman is punching through the top of Ross Perot’s hat.

Save the Double Downs!

believe it or not, this is the 3rd time I've used this pic
So a couple weeks ago KFC blessed us with a little thing called the Double Down. If you're not familiar with the Double Down it's basically a chicken sandwich where the chicken has been replaced with Bacon and Cheese and the bread has been replaced with fried chicken. Why would anyone do that? Because this is America, we don't have time for meatless buns.

As you might expect the media has had a field day with this most American of Inventions. Depending on who you were listening to, the Double Down is either a sign of the Apocalypse or the reason the Taliban hates our freedom. Of course what everyone fails to recognize is that it's just another fast food sandwich, and an unremarkable one when you actually look at it's nutritional stats.

Here's a quick little graph that compares the amount of fat, sodium and cholesterol that are in the Double Down to other fast food staples using the Double Down as a base.

chart via FiveThirtyEight

Sure the double down is definitely on the heart attack side of this bell curve (yes I know it's not a real bell curve), but there are about a dozen other sandwiches/burgers that are worse for you than the Double Down. Hell the Wendy's Baconator is pure evil weighing in at the equivalent of 2.45 Double Downs and you I don't remember any special reports on the Quizno's Baja Chicken (btw Aryn, you can't order that anymore).

What's my point? Don't listen to anyone on TV. They're all lying to you, especially Mel Kiper Jr.

..uh, I'd like to hear from Sideshow Mel

It's been about a week now since some peeping tom broke the internet when he posted video of ESPN sideline reporter Erin Andrews changing in her hotel room. While the actual act was as illegal and indefensible as you can get, the chaos that's followed has been 1000 times more interesting than any keyboard cat meme the interwebs could conjure.

Two of the more popular sports blogs out there, the Big Lead and Deadspin, were practically falling all over each other to see who could be the most contrite. Kinda silly considering neither site has a reputation for real hard hitting journalism and both have a solid history of treating her like a sexy piece of meat in a pantsuit.

All week long I've read articles in the paper, watched investigative reports on TV and listened to people on the radio talk about how horrible and disgusting this whole ordeal is. Other than their righteous indignation, these reporters and pontificators all have one thing in common, they've all seen the tape! take it away Pappa Bear..

Call me crazy but I think everyone in the media and the blogosphere would be doing everone else a favor if they saved their cartoonish outrage on this one. I don't know if I can handle this much irony.