lost a good soul to the big bad unblinking eye in the sky.

life is so competitive. its a massive multiplayer online game.

instead of swords and arrows and sledgehammers and grenades people wield invisible weapons.

once upon a time blogs were secret tools. they could get inside the cracks and clean out the dirty parts.

some say love, it is a river.

if so i think fear, it is an ocean.

theres a few things i fear. high on the list is selling out.

another thing i fear is taking the easy way out.

almost everything i learned about life i learned from video games.

dont go into God Mode too much. dont hit restart. dont use cheat codes.

experiment, look around, try new things. work as a team.

and most importantly walk around and shake out the carpal tunnel every hour.

v i s t a

that everyones on different paths

and sometimes your paths may look like theyre going the same way, but no way jose.

and some people really do wanna meet ryan seacrest.

and some people just wanna save the world.

me, im crazy. i think the world is ours. and it can be whatever we think it should be.

naively, i think that if you get a few smart committed people together miracles can happen

and likewise, i think a lot of people arent interested in true greatness

which just makes them that much easier

to beat.

and the editor and publisher were there too

the occasion? the little blog that could, The Hero Complex was redesigned and moved over to the mighty WordPress platform.

this is a blog that a former dept editor said would never make it. “Boucher is way too busy to do 3 calendar features a week AND run a blog about comic books.” i was told.

not only did Mr. Boucher make that editor eat his words, but Geoff has seen his little blog host a freakin film fest (with guests Christopher Nolan, Leonard Nimoy, and Ridley Scott). how many blogs you know have a film festival?

look at my man paul weeping at the beauty of the newly designed blog. and check out our publisher Eddy basking in the glory.

from a note sent out by Entertainment Editor, Sallie Hofmeister:

Today the blog reboots with a dynamic redesign by Stephanie Ferrell that gives our visual-savvy readership a vivid destination on the Internet. There’s video and weekly trivia and a spot showcasing exclusive comic book art before it’s seen anywhere else. Susan King has a dedicated corner for coverage of classic Hollywood sci-fi and horror. There’s a direct pipeline to Show Tracker’s coverage of “True Blood,” “Fringe,” “Smallville” and other television shows that speak to the Hero Complex constituency. Our new approach to reader comments gives our audience a prominent platform to speak out and, more than that, connect with each other. All this enhances our relationship to a readership that has an obsessive passion for sci-fi, comics, superheroes, fantasy, horror, animation, special-effects cinema and illustration. There will be more coming, too: Video games will soon have a spot on the landing page.

The new frontier was reached through the efforts of Paul Olund, Scott Sandell, Tony Pierce, Jevon Phillips, and many, many others. It comes, too, as Hero Complex scored a record month for traffic in July with more than 1.1 million page views and launched a film festival with three days of sold-out crowds and participation by Ridley Scott, Christopher Nolan and Leonard Nimoy.

a lot

its tourists

maybe it reminds me of being on vacation. which is a great feeling.

theres a restaurant on pch called Gladstones. they feed you so much food that you need a doggy bag. but instead of a regular doggy bag theres a guy who uses gold foil to wrap up your leftovers. he makes fun shapes like crabs or fish or… sharks.

perhaps your saw the LA Times feature on the “rehab” Gladstone’s has received lately.

while waiting for the green arrow to let us turn east down Sunset, i kept snapping pics of a nice man waiting for his family to return to him as he held his leftovers.

i wondered – is that cake in there? some of the seafood platter? mounds of bread?

i knew one thing it wasnt. it wasnt salad. ever see anyone put salad in a doggy bag?

farewell white pants. farewell gladstones. farewell summer.

adios touristos.

was like “definitely not”!

we were on a stakeout. then we were supposed to go to bible study. then it got canceled.

biggest problem with karisa, shes a body in motion. meaning she doesnt like to just sit and visit.

so i was all woman why dont you make yrself usefull then

she was all im gonna wash the f outta these dishes

then she posed pretty for a picture

then she couldnt stop posing, but i was all, not by there, thats my spiritual section

you got the bottle cap cross, bono, chopper one on my 21st bday, andre the giant and that yogi doing the headstand pose on a new york man hole cover

then i was all lemme show you my magical bush.

but that didnt interest her as much as the sleepy buddah

or the bababooey wall of fame

but you know the thing that karisa likes the most: brainstorming! but she didnt wanna do it at my house. she wanted to do it while sipping margaritas and eating mexican food from the roof of a hotel in the sun

strangely all the king’s technology and our LA expertise let us down. we simply could not find a good place for such things. we tried west but the marine layer chilled off the wessside. so we went east young man.

and thats when we met the astronaut

and he said im not just any space man, im dennis woodruff. and karisa said omg the famous weird hollywood director who drives around with his name on his car? and he said come here

and he smelled a little funky but he had a cute dog. always have a cute dog. so we said yo dennis woodruff, where can we drink margueritas in the sun, and he said right behind you is a lil place called Fridas.

and thats where we thought up Hipster Bible Study

make it bloody

and funny

and starring jessica alba, lindsay lohan

cheech

steven segal

and robert dinero

cant beat their patio

while out there i thought about the live version of Naive Melody (“home is where i want to be…”)

and then Randy Newman’s “My Old Kentucky Home” which always cracks me up

and Motley Crue’s “Home Sweet Home”

and even though its a commercial now, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zero’s “Home”

our waiter had an ironic mustache and was really honest

i think Kanye is a far more entertainer rapper than Jay-Z

i think he’s angrier than Eminem

and i think he’s more creative than the Beasties have become.

now it’s nice to see that he’s as gracious as Common.

can’t wait for Power.