A birthday is just the first day of another 365-day journey around the sun. Enjoy the trip.

Na na na na na na na na, Mustard! Na na na na na na na na, Mustard! Mustard! Mustard! Mustard!

That was to the theme of Batman, if you didn’t get it.

So another year in the life of Mr. Snow has come and gone. I know for the most part I tend to rant and rave in this blog but I’m not all full of anger and contempt. So in honor of my birthday, I’m doing a 180 and presenting you with:

Things I’m Grateful For in the Past Year:

(in no particular order)

My Family, each and every semi-dysfunctional one of them

Jackasses in California and Wankers in Georgia

The Simpsons, still crazy after all these years

The Family Guy being back on TV

Jeff, that wiggle that just sleeps too doggone much

Scrubs being the funniest show on TV and still going

Scrubs on DVD!

A Star Wars movie that doesn’t suck

A Batman movie that doesn’t suck

A Van Helsing movie that sucked but I had had a few beers before which made it funnier than it was probably supposed to be

Discovering new music that is innovative and fun and actually good

Beer

Hating Booter for being all the way over at the band building and why the hell can’t he just meet us at the library? What the hell is wrong him? Why is he such an ass?

“I have to tie my shoe. You guys go on up ahead.”

“Yes.”

Get Fuzzy

Having 12 hours worth of Lord of the Rings Extended Editions on DVD

Crowley’s obsession with siege engines.

Crowley getting me hooked on Firefly.

Me getting Crowley hooked on Justice League Unlimited, Star Wars: KOTOR I and II, and Batman comics.

Being up on Crowley 3 to 1.

Pointless competition.

Now officially owning every episode of Buffy and Angel.

Bittorrent.

Coronas and chips at Mexicali blues.

New carpet.

People taking their shoes off before walking on new carpet.

Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim.

Margarita’s in 20 oz Coke bottles.

Long days by the pool.

Sunburns.

Baseball in DC.

Baseball in Atlanta.

The Mets maybe kinda almost not sucking…?

People actually reading my dumbass strip that I just started making one night when I was bored.

Peanuts, peanut butter, cats, milk, chocolate, and other things that can kill Booter.

Friends with good senses of humor.

Acceptance of male pattern baldness with grace and nobility.

Booter and Ashley’s happy new year.

Pictures of Booter and Ashley’s happy new year.

Booter’s New Year outfit.

Pictionary.

Give me my hair back! Why God why???

Strongbad.

Power hours and CD’s made for them.

A new car!

A 95 year old Great Grandmother who emails every week and is into Harry Potter.

Crowley finally posting all his collected quotes to a blog.

Wednesday nights.

Brock’s reach around on Gilmore Girls

Michel’s reach around on Brock

Erin’s first keg stand.

Erin’s last keg stand.

Did I mention it was a keg of Yuengling?

Mmmmmmm…. Yuengling.

Douglas Adams books.

Café Asia takeout.

Owning an iPod.

Not joining the "iPod nation".

Hey remember that time I got Bruce Campbell’s autograph and had birthday cake with him?

Beers on the balcony.

Concert buses and the beer provided on them and the shelter they provide from torrential downpours.

And finally a wonderful fiancée who makes me happy each and every day.

Ok, that’s not a complete list but I figure it’s enough for now, no?

Until next time:

“Boo-yah! Welcome to Kuzcotopia, my ultimate summer getaway! Complete with waterslide!”

“What?”

“Isn't it great? It's my birthday gift to me! I'm so happy!”

No, uh, he's not even behind the box, he's barely obscured by the box.

You know it…you love it… you sometimes even read it… the Mustard!

The AFI just came out with their list of top 100 movie quotes. This list is open to debate but I can’t fault most of the choices one way or another with one notable exception: “Love means never having to say you're sorry” is #13? That’s the 13 best movie quote ever? It beats out “Rosebud”? It beats out “You’re gonna need a bigger boat”? It beats out “They call me Mr. Tibbs”, “Bond, James Bond”, “We’ll always have Paris”, “Round up the Usual Suspects”???? What the hell are these people on? Nevermind that the quote is one of the dumbest and most asinine things anyone could ever possibly say but for god’s sake, #13? Is Ryan O'Neal finding time in his unemployment to be on the AFI selection committee? Cause holy hell I can’t find any other reason for that getting there.

So remember how I was saying the Mets aren’t sucking? Nevermind.

Way to go NHL Players Association! After refusing to accept a salary cap and having the entire hockey season canceled, what did you do? You accepted a friggin’ cap! Why couldn’t you have caved in about a year ago and not ruined the future of the sport?! Brilliant job, jackasses.

Holy crap, if I hear one more of these stupid goofy cutsie celebrity couple names, I’m going to lose it. Bennifer, Brangelina, TomKat…. the people who come up with this crap need to be mauled by rabid cougar.

Ok, lot of hostility going on there. I’m better now.

Moving on I present to you, #4 of my Top 5 Most Anticipate Movies of the Summer:

BATMAN BEGINS

Holy sweet jefe, was this a great movie! This started out as possibly the lowest of my 5, but damn, it’s since shot straight to the top! Honestly, this is the best movie I’ve seen this year, period. Yeah, I know, not a whole lotta Oscar worthy pictures have come along so far, but still, this was phenomenal. Any worries I had going in were proved completely needless. I loved, loved, loved the buildup this movie had. You don’t even see Batman til halfway through and I didn’t care at all! The slow burn was great up to the sweet payoff. I also love the way they portrayed Batman. I was scared to death that Batman was gonna show up and start showing off Matrix-like kung-fu fights. Not a chance. He moves through the shadows stalking his criminals, scaring the crap out of them until suddenly jumping out and beating them senseless. You’re actually seeing the action from the point of the view of the criminals as Batman takes them down, confused, shaking and unfocused. They’ve finally got Batman right in this film. He’s not the campy, colorful, joking putz that Schumacher turned him into the past two films. He doesn’t dress like a bat to show up at charity auctions with an eff-ing Mastercard! He dresses like a bat to scare the living piss out of criminals! Which is what this movie shows. Hell, this movie is a scary movie in and of itself. Little kids would be balling their eyes out at some parts of it. I love it! Please God let them keep this up through the sequels. Everything about Batman’s arsenal and tactics are explained here unlike the other movies, and they all make sense which is amazing considering the stuff he does. Christian Bale plays a perfect Bruce Wayne, the cocky rich playboy in public. But as Batman, he’s even better. The scene where he’s interrogating a crooked cop who he has hanging upside down over the side of a building suspended from a rope, is one of my favorites in the movie. Everyone in this movie does a great job. Cillian Murphy as Dr. Crane/Scarecrow is phenomenally creepy. Gary Oldman as Sgt. Gordon… finally we have a Gordon who isn’t some lazy ass who sits around waiting for Batman to solve all his problems! He’s an active policeman, one of the few honest ones in the city, and it’s about damn time he was shown that way. Michael Caine as Alfred is exactly as he should be, supporting Bruce but conflicted by it. Liam Neeson is so much more than I was expecting in the movie. He’s such a good actor and he’s fantastic here. Ditto Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox who had a bigger role than I expected and I’m damn happy about it. Hell, even Katie Holmes, who I was sure would stick out like a sore thumb, does a good job. While I would probably still have preferred to have the Harvey Dent character in this role, she plays her character exactly as needed, the steady, level-headed foil to Batman’s emotional, action-oriented mindset. The only minor quibble I may have with this movie is Ken Watanabe. He’s only in the movie for like 5 minutes! It’s nothing more than a brief cameo rather than the major part I was expecting him to play. Ah well, still a great movie. The last scene could also be one of my favorites but since the reviews I’ve read have all been missing this, I’d like to point something out. ...... POSSIBLE SPOILER BUT NOT REALLY JUST DON'T READ IF YOU WANT TO BE COMPLETELY SURPRISED…… the Joker reference in the final scene, while possibly setting up the sequel, is actually a reference the Batman: Year One graphic novel by Frank Miller which ends very similarly (Great novel by the way, if you want to see where this movie really came from). Ok, so that’s enough, stop reading and go see this movie already!

News and Notes:

Currently writing the strip and will hopefully start Ep. 5 in the next week or so.

Meeting Bruce Campbell tonight!!! Mwa ha ha ha!

Back home for the bro’s graduation. God, I feel old.

George Romero made another “Dead” movie. I’m rather intrigued…

Alright you chowdah-heads, until next time:

“After all these years, are you still afraid of me?”

”Well, remember on Thanksgiving when I said your turkey was dry and you picked me up and shook me?”

”Well, then, don't say that.”

Dude, why eat medical supplies when you've got pudding and tater tots right here? It makes no sense!

Holy forgotten blog, Batman! The Mustard has come back?

Yeah, yeah, I know, it’s been freaking forever since I updated this thing. What can I say, I’m a busy man, doing busy things. The job has been murder lately and I’ve also wanted to get the strip out a little more often than I had been, so the blog got pushed back. But I’m back baby!

Speaking of the strip, Episode 4 is finished! Yay! Probably take a little time before the next one, seeing as how I haven’t really written it yet, but I’ll get something out soon.

Remembered Crowley’s birthday this year! Go me!

Holy crap, how crazy is the National East this year? Every team over .500! The Mets aren’t sucking! The Nats are in first frickin’ place!

I have a policy where I try to review every movie I see, regardless of what is it. So without further ado I give you my review of:

THE SISTERHOOD OF THE TRAVELING PANTS

Not only did I see this movie, I saw it on opening night. Wow. Yes it’s a chick flick. No, it’s not a crappy one. So here we go, the good: I was heartened by the fact that Alexis Bledel is in it as her performances on the Gilmore Girls and Sin City have been quite entertaining. The performances in general are quite good in this movie. The four leads play their characters well and seem to really be into it. The movie itself actually deals with the different issues these girls face quite well, without sinking too much into the usual chick flick clichés. I’ve never read the books and quite frankly I never will read the books, but I have a suspicion the movie succeeds in it’s themes due mostly to the books' writing. I’ve heard they made major changes to some of the stories but the movie comes off quite well in that I never got lost on plot points due to lack of familiarity with the source material. The not so good: With some of the plotlines I was actually surprised how relatively deep and realistic they went with them, and I hoped that they would stick with it. Unfortunately, they fell into the trap at the end of feeling the need to tie up every loose end. This hurts the movie greatly in that it suffers from Return of the King syndrome with way too many endings. ROTK at least earned it as it was a 3 part epic trilogy. In this movie it just comes off as a cop out, refusting to actually allow the movie to not end everything all nice and happy. Yes, I get that it’s a chick flick but I almost believed halfway through the movie that they might finish it off without trying to make me leave the theater feeling all fuzzy. Final verdict, this isn’t gonna be something guys gather around to drink beers and watch but as far as a date movie goes, you could do far far worse *cough* Prince and Me *cough*.

Opening tonight: Batman Begins. The positive buzz on this is making me so happy. Now if only it included a scene of Batman burning an effigy of Joel Schumacher, it just might be the greatest movie ever.

Music You Should Be Listening To:

The Thrills – So Much For The City

Great, low key, alt-rock with a slightly country twist, this Irish band puts together some good music. Check out One Horse Town for the album’s highlight.

Green Day – American Idiot

Green Day grew up and put out possibly the best album of last year. Good for them. Honestly, this is album is fantastic and while unabashedly a concept album with Green Day foregoing their typical 2 and half minute quick radio-friendly fare which may turn off some of their younger fans, this is the best thing Green Day has ever done by far. Who knew doing a very artsy album would actually improve Green Day’s sound?

News and notes:

June 22^nd, I get to meet Bruce Campbell. Giggity-giggity-giggity!

Booter officially has an agent. God speed little doodle!

Scrubs Season One DVD is amazing. The show is just brilliant people! Why aren't more people watching it? Damn you NBC!

Until next time:

“The key to my exercise program is this one simple truth: I hate my body.”

“What!?”

“Do you understand that the second you look in the mirror and you're happy with what you see, baby, you just lost the battle!”

“You should give speeches to teenage girls.”