7/12/04 3:51 AM: "Enough talk. Let's go make with the 'biff' and the 'pow' already!" -- Spider-Man, She-Hulk #4.

OH, THAT AGAIN ...: It's not important why I was in Orange County most of Saturday and Sunday, struggling to free a Black woman from the clutches of the Orange County Sheriff's Department (whose website is surprisingly full-featured). It's almost not important that my radiator started leaking like a beltway insider every time the car stopped long enough to catch its breath. No, what's important is what happened while I was sitting at a bail bondsman's office in Santa Ana.

Aforementioned victim of justice gone awry was being asked questions for the form that got her out of jail. Bail bondsman, a jovial sort who was awfully chatty, asked her, "do you consider your complexion dark, medium, or light?" She paused to think. Bail bondsman said, "well are you dark like him ..." and pointed at someone standing nearby "or medium like him ..." and pointed at me.

Now, this bail bondsman sees (sadly) a lot of Black people go by him. He's seen a lot of different shades, and he has hereby pronounced me "medium," which breaks into a long discussion held on the topic previously. I stand vindicated.

THE OTHER SHOE: So the dog-smell in the car (which is now named "Wolfsbane," due to a score of reasons, only one of which is the voting results) is really only challenging when it sits in the sun, which rarely happens given my nocturnal tendencies. However, as noted, I was all over the OC this weekend like Josh Schwartz, so I got a few whiffs. I'm probably just gonna have to re-upholster the whole damned thing. That's a less pressing issue than the radiator.

The car has run hot since I got it, and now I know why. On Friday afternoon, I poured a whole bottle of cooland into the car, which made it smoke but not run badly Friday night. Saturday, after hustling down to the OC, I walked back to the car to find a puddle of coolant the size of a small lake underneath the front end. Since then, I've been pouring in small amounts of coolant to keep it going, and find the leak. There appears to be some kind of cap missing underneath, and possibly a crack somewhere as well. This irks me. The car has already, long before I owned it, had two head gaskets replaced. Aside from the cooling issues (and the dog smell), ol 'Bane seems OK. Still developing ...

BACK IN BUSINESS: As of today, I have 945 songs in my karaoke disc book, and a much better collection of songs (while still missing some faves) than I lost. My newer, thinner iPod likewise is working well (I just gotta check on my 100GB drive, with all the music on it). I did notice that when 'Bane goes over the lane bumps on the freeway, the 1995 AC Delco CD player skips, so it will simply have to go.

Still musically speaking, I ran my show Friday off the iPod as background music, which went well. I like a lot of the new songs I got in the batch, some of which are already favorites. A painful, expensive lesson, but I appear to be pretty much back in shape.

HIZZONNER: In theory, I'll be having lunch with the mayor of Los Angeles at noon today. I took a long nap during the evening on Sunday, so I should be OK to make it. I have no idea how that will turn out, but I think I'll take my camera, as nobody will believe it if I don't have proof I was there. More on this story as it develops ...

GRARGH! SHE-HULK LITIGATE!: I've been reading (and buying) Dan Slott's She-Hulk recently, and I gotta tell you, I'm enamored. He's captured everything I loved about the classic first two seasons of Ally Macbeal (which is all on VHS in my house, somewhere) and combined it with super powers and characters I know well. The aformentioned Spidey line is now my favorite dialogue bit he's ever had, and almost a mission statement for me. A new issue hits stands this week, and I'm atingle with anticipation.

I never thought I'd pimp a Marvel book, but who knew?

SPEAKING OF COMICS: The only editor I knew who had an interest in my work, Teresa Focarile, has left Marvel for (to me at least) parts unknown. This is just a thing. I'm sorry she lost her job (my read on events), but she wasn't anxious to hire me anyway. I have my top secret Canadian project still bubbing under the surface, and I still can't talk about it, and it still drives me crazy. That's all I have to say about that.

PRE-EMPTED: I had a chance to go to an event for the Roots' album release tonight at the Hollywood & Highland complex, but when I woke up at 11ish (just as the guest list was opening) and I was still in my underwear (I showered and napped around 7:30), I had no belief I wanted to get all spruced up to rub shoulders with people I probably loathed and girls who were in elementary school when I was in college. I somehow am all right with that.

FAMILY TIES: Speaking of being all right with that, I had to disappoint my mom and little brother, saying I would not be traveling to Wisconsin to visit. Largely because it's in Wisconsin, which I hate, and I try not to purposefully do things that will make me unhappy, regardless of the benefit to other people. I am likewise all right with that.

EXPERIENCED, LOYAL, HARD-WORKING: I just updated my résumé for the first time in what seems like aeons. I got a whiff of a story that Yahoo! was gonna be in need of an entertainment journalist, and if it could fit into my schedule, I know from my peoples Billy Johnson and Adisa Banjoko that those Yahoo! checks always clear. I was amazed how much linkrot had gotten into the thing, so I cleaned it up and made it current, showing all my professional committments. I expect nothing from it, but whatever.

CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?: I finally got to post on Usenet again, after Google Groups coughed up its guts at me for something like two weeks. SBC, of course, doesn't support any usenet software outside of Microsoft's vile Outlook Express (die, Microsoft, die!) which I'd rather hump a wildebeest than use. I'm wrestling with Thoth and some other Usenet alternatives, but I'm not really enthused about it. As Warren Ellis notes, the signal-to-noise ratio on Usenet is pretty high, and for every Roger Tang or Tom Galloway or Tenzil Kim or Johanna Draper Carlson or Robert Carnegie there's at least twelve "time to be evil" twelve year old spammer troll bastiches with stupid ideas and no spoiler warnings. Netiquette is far too uncommon, I tell ya.

SPEAKING OF "BIFF" AND "POW" ...: Before I got to work on Friday, a homeless man was in Mel's Drive in on Highland, masturbating. The restaurant's general manager Skip (who also hired Hollywood Karaoke and therefore me for the gig) goes over to kick the guy out. The guy prevaricates, pauses and then punches Skip in the mouth before fleeing into the brightly-lit Hollywood night. Stitches ensue for Skip.

There's also a new group of barely-legal Black people who have started coming to my show, crowding my equipment, singing badly, screaming into the mic, constantly pestering me about when they're gonna sing and (of course) never tipping. I'm starting to loathe them both for their youthful overbearing exuberance and their sheer noise volume. I think I started to get through to 'em about the yelling at least, as they really sang their last song this week instead of screaming it. It was a really crazy weekend all around me.

TICK TICK TICK: Comicon is in, what, two weeks? The karaoke event there is just not gonna happen, because I don't have access to neither a room nor a karaoke set that has speakers and a TV. That saddens me. I also have to remember to nag my boss Jonah, as his check is paying for my hotel. I'm hoping the radiator thing doesn't complicate that, as I still wanna drive down.

AND NOW, FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY RANDOM: "Midget bowling is the sport of kings. Little kings, albeit, but kings." -- my old high school pal Carnell Greer

That should be it for now. Back to you in the studio, Hal.