Good morning loyal subjects! Enjoy your day in Janitoria. Labor until you tire, and then labor some more!

Hi ho Mustard, away!

Can I just ask what the bloody hell is wrong with people in NYC where everyone was drinking Stella Artois on St. Patrick’s Day? I mean I don’t dislike the beer but I don’t think it’d make my top 10 beers and certainly not when there were a multitude of good Irish beers on tap. I mean come on, Stella?

But other than that bizarre aberration, New York was a good time. Had excellent seats to see “Wicked” which I thoroughly enjoyed and yes I’m determined to hunt down the book now. I feel bad for Erin who has read it haven’t to field all my questions of “did that happen in the book?”

Black 47… is there a better band to catch on March 17^th? Well probably but they were still darn fun.

So holy flurking schnit is my March Madness bracket totally shot to high hell. After last night I’m down to praying for UConn to run the table. Brilliant job of me to pick ‘Cuse to run to the finals. Momentum huh? Yep, I’m an idiot. But hey, all you Duke lovers got nothing anymore.

Shameless plug for www.emusic.com. If you want an iTunes for indie music, this is your poison. Great bands and it’s ¼ the price of iTunes. Plus you get 25 free songs for signing up. Yeah, the caveat is that you have to commit to at least $9.99 of music but that’s one album off iTunes and you get 4 times as much. It’s doesn’t have every artist. But if you’re a fan of any of the music on the O.C., Scrubs, Veronica Mars, Grey’s Anatomy I’d say you’ll find a good 75% of that music there. It’s nice to be able to greatly increase your music collection while still doing it legally.

If you haven’t seen V for Vendetta, go see it now. It’s the Batman Begins of this year. Dark, intelligent and fun. Natalie Portman gives her best performance, possibly ever (yeah, might actually be better than Garden State). And Hugo Weaving proves that Keanu really would have been completely useless in the Matrix movies if it wasn’t for him. Seriously, even with his face completely covered for the entire movie his acting is that good. And for all the political hullabaloo about this being an anti-Bush thing, it’s really not. It’s about a populace rebelling against a fascist state. Yes, there are definitely some jabs at the current administration but in actuality the source material was a commentary on Britain during the Thatcher regime. And I don’t recall hearing this much outcry when Good Night and Good Luck came out (and if you don’t think that had some commentary on the current US political situation you weren’t really paying much attention, were you?).

New and Notes:

www.eavesdropdc.com. It just keeps growing.

So after catching all up with Veronica Mars, I’ve forgotten to Tivo it 2 weeks in a row. D’oh!

Can I just tell you how glad I am that they moved Bones to Wednesdays at 8? Now I don’t have to flip the channels hoping something better than Freddie is on.

Prison Break and 24 back to back! Glaring… coincidence…overload! And it’s still the best 2 hours on TV. Until next year when Gilmore Girls and Veronica Mars go back to back. Come on CW! Do it!!!

I haven’t caught an episode of South Park since maybe it’s first season but holy crap, did I laugh my farging ass off at the death of Chef. Don’t blame Chef, blame that fruity little club that scrambled his brains.

Until next time:

“Aw things were going so good for me and Stewie, but now he hates me again. Brian what should I do to win him back?”

“That depends. Do you want my advice or are you just asking random questions again?”

“What's a hypotenuse?”

I AM A MAN!!!! A MAN DOESN'T WEAR A PURSE!!!!

Mustard… It’s madness I tell you! Madness!

So the time has come once again for all good boys and girls to stop working and start filling out their March Madness brackets. My Final Four could be one of the most bizarre ones around. First of Gonzaga. Cause for some reason I just really like the Zags so what the hell. Next up: BC. Why? Very simple. Cause every since my sister starting attending there I have had the distinct impression that reality has decided to bend itself around them for the sole purpose of pissing me off. Seriously, every ND/BC football game since then has just turned out in the exact opposite outcome of what I want and BC continues to win in basketball as the Irish enjoy the NIT tournament (hey, they beat Vandy by 10 last night. Go Irish.). So what the hell? Instead of fighting it, I’m going with it. Hell, they almost topped Duke for the ACC title. And my championship game? UConn vs. Syracuse. Cause I’m a dirty dirty Big East whore. Always have been even prior to ND. Syracuse is on a helluva role after that Big East tourney so I’m throwing my weight behind that momentum to run through Duke until they run into the Huskie wall and UConn takes home the title. Odds of that Final Four happening? Eh, why not?

You want a great new band to get behind? Try The Subways. Caught them here in DC a few weeks back and holy crap are they amazing live. They have a great alt-punk sound. I highly recommend picking up their Young for Eternity album. Rock & Roll Queen is phenomenal and the whole album will just get your blood pumping. But as good as the album is, they’re just that much better live.

Caught the first episode of HBO’s tons of polygamy fun, Big Love. Must say, I’m really liked the pilot. They took what would normally be a relentlessly stupid gimmick on a modern sitcom, played it completely straight and built a pretty darn captivating show that I can definitely see myself checking out (yay, for on HBO on demand. As if my Sunday TV schedule isn’t crowded enough.).

News and Notes:

Headed on up to NYC this weekend for St. Patrick’s Day (will actually be catching Black 47 that night. Awesome). Also have tix to Wicked which I’m looking forward to seeing. Will probably need to read the book right after watching it though. Stupid obsessive compulsiveness.

eavesdropdc.blogspot.com – it just keeps getting bigger

Holy Veronica Mars cameos, Batman! First Teddy Dunn (Duncan) is on Gray's Anatomy then Tina Majorino (Mac) is on Big Love. It’s like after Buffy and Angel went off the air and all those alums started showing up randomly.

Until next time:

“Clearly I'm pushing some buttons here.”

“You couldn't push my buttons if you tried, in fact I have no buttons- please think of me as buttonless. All smooth, like G.I. Joe's nether regions, and by the by, this image has been brought to you by my son Jack who has been yanking the pants off of his toy soldiers and leaving them in provocative positions on my nightstand. It is just disturbing enough that, leaving the house, I'm cranky and less able to suffer fools, which brings me back to you, the fool. I'm done suffering you so go now, go, go before you can write a book entitled 'Help A Large Doctor is Beating My Ass “colon” The Lester Hedrick Story'”

“That was a mouthful. Anyway, if you need to talk just give me a call.”

“He seems strangely impervious to my threats. That annoys me.”

I'm gonna double-kill you! Then I'll bury you in a shallow grave! Then I'll dig you up and kill you again! THAT'S the beauty of a shallow grave!

Hello Mustard, Come into my life…

Little bastardized Super Furry Animals for you there. Hope you enjoyed it.

Alright, so we are done with the Oscars and for those of you keeping score at home: Martin Scorsese, 0 Oscars. 3-6 Mafia: 1. I love Jon Stewart. Best Oscar host in years. That ad-lib alone should get him back next year. So what did I think of the awards? Unless you count Crash as the HUGE SURPRISING UPSET that about 50% of the population were predicting, they pretty much went by the book. Also did anyone else notice they got the entire frat pack up there to present with lone exception of Vince Vaughn? Ben Stiller is a very strange man.

So, the Oscars are over which means it’s time to look forward to the summer movie season and so I proudly present the return of:

Jeff’s Top 5 Most Anticipated Summer Movies:
(in order of release)

V for Vendetta – So how take make me really look forward to a movie: Take a great Alan Moore graphic novel. Add the in Matrix’s Wachowski brothers (doesn’t matter what you thought of the sequels, they looked damned great). Cast Natalie Portman and Hugo Weaving. Commence drooling.

X-men 3 – So yeah, instead of Bryan Singer, we ended up with Brett Ratner. Yep, that’s a rather large step down. And there has been some questionable pictures sent out (with Colossus looking like a Halloween costume and Vinnie Jones looking a little stupid in that muscle suit. The jury is still out on the look of Beast). So why go see it? Great casting (Kelsey Grammar is perfect for Beast and Vinnie Jones, despite looking like crap, is the perfect attitude for Juggarnaut). And it’s still got Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan. As long as those two are still in an X-men movie, I’ll go see it. (PS, yes, for those of you in the know or who paid attention to the trailers, I get the irony of that comment).

Cars – Yeah, the first trailer didn’t do much for me but I think that’s really just Pixar building a slow buzz. I think the final one will be much better and if nothing else, it’s Pixar. They haven’t missed yet and until they do, I’ll go to anything they put out.

Superman Returns – Bryan Singer doing Superman? Yep, I’m there. So Brandon Routh isn’t Christopher Reeves. No one will ever top Christopher Reeves. I’ve come to grips with that. But come on, it’s Bryan Singer doing Superman. That’s gonna be great.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest – Because the first movie was the biggest surprise I’ve had at a movie in a very long time. I mean I went into it with low expectations but damn, was I blown away. Now my expectations for this are a helluva lot higher but Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow is always entertaining and I love the look of the film. By the way, great job for spoiling the ending of the movie Wikipedia. Then again, I guess it’s tough to give the synopsis of the 3^rd one without spoiling this one.

Honorable mentions:

Mission Impossible III: Why? Cause it’s JJ Abrams and Philip Seymour Hoffman. I don’t care of Tom Cruise dies 2 minutes into the movie. In fact, that may help a little.

A Scanner Darkly: Why? Richard Linkletter doing an “animated movie” (which if you’ve seen Waking Life, you know what that entails) based on a Philip K Dick movie equals quality sci-fi entertainment.

Da Vinci Code: Why? Cause the cast astounds me even if Tom Hanks is horribly cast and needs to cut that hair. It doesn’t make him look younger, just really really creepy.

News and Notes:

Oh my God! You killed Edgar! You bastards! So I’m a little pissed at 24. Of all the people to kill off, Edgar? Not to mention oh look, Tony is back on his feet a whole 7 hours after being BLOWN UP! So why do I keep watching this show? Simple: They brought in Peter Effing-“Robocop” Weller!!! That right there is enough to make me watch it this year AND next. In fact I think next year should be all about him. I mean come on, Peter Weller or Kiefer Sutherland? Is it even a question?

A new book is coming out alleging Barry Bonds took performance enhancing drugs. Ya think?

http://eavesdropdc.blogspot.com – it’s gonna be huge.

Until next time:

“JD, I really don't wanna do this. Can't we just go home, and put on our PJs and watch "Grey's Anatomy"?”

“Oh, I do love that show. It's like they've been watching our lives and just put it on TV.”

When a woman gives birth to a crack baby you don't buy her a puppy!

Mustard: You’ve had it coming.

Ok, so another week another delightful entry. It warms my heart.

The Strip is done. Holy closure, Batman! Yes, almost exactly a year and a half after first doing a goofy panel in MSpaint one boring night, I’ve completed my opus #1. Ok, maybe it’s opus #2 if you count the earlier 5-man sprite comic I attempted way way back when which only lasted like 6 panels. But I don’t know what to feel. Yeah, a little sad that it’s done. On the other hand the prospect of not having to devote such a large amount of free time to it anymore is a definite plus. But either way, I’m happy how it turned out. Thanks to all my regular readers who encouraged me to keep it up as I won’t lie, I never really planned on keeping it up through 6 full episodes.

So what’s next for me? Well, I don’t really know. I’ll probably go back through and clean up a few things such as misspellings at some point. Also the idea of doing a commentary kind of intrigues me and wouldn’t take nearly as much time. Plus I might throw up a section for some of the “special panels” I did for things such a holidays and birthdays not to mention there’s the possibility of putting up the aforementioned “lost 5-man” strip. And no, I’m not going to resume that comic. It’s dead. I was nice while it lasted but I’m not starting it up again.

As for the possibility of a new comic? Who knows. I’ll admit that, while it did take up a huge amount of time, it was pretty fun making this one. And yes, I’ve had ideas for follow-ups. But nothing is happening with that anytime soon. I just want to relax. And as many people have pointed to me that I could probably have done something commercial with the comic had I not used sprites. Course the problem is that I have no artistic ability of my own, so it would be difficult for me to use anything but sprites. So who knows? For now I’ll sit back and enjoy the fact that I did manage to take a project like this and follow through with it all the way to the end. Thanks for reading.

So Oscars are coming up this Sunday. Should be an interesting night if for no other reason than Jon Stewart is hosting. Man, and they thought Chris Rock was irreverent? Anyways, I think I’ve failed on the mission to see all Best Picture Nominees. Just started too late this year and didn’t see any before the noms went out. But I did see both Capote and Good Night and Good Luck. I really liked Capote but I thought the performances (which were outstanding and Philip Seymour Hoffman should easily get the award) were better than the movie itself. Good Night and Good Luck I also really enjoyed with tight performances though a pointless subplot involving Robert Downey Jr and Patricia Clarkson’s hidden marriage kind of took you out of the main story. So we’ll see how this night goes off. But both those movies really aren’t in the running as all pre-Oscar buzz has essentially narrowed it down to Brokeback Mountain and Crash. So we shall see.

Oh and if you haven’t seen the Brokeback to the Future spoof, you’re missing out.

News and Notes:

Do you like to laugh at the stupid/silly/crazy things people say? Do you sometimes find yourself heading to Crowley’s blog to just cheer yourself up with a good laugh? Well then head on over to eavesdropdc.blogspot.org for some fun times at the expense of the residents of DC. Goods times or your money back guaranteed (disclaimer: moneyback guaranteed not valid).

Entourage coming back in June. Wait a minute, that’s 3 months away! Damn you HBO!

How bout them US and Canadian hockey teams? Oh, wait…

Until next time:

“Or, Mel Brooks is on and he is so funny, and you think, 'What a wonderful world we live in that there's a Mel Brooks to go to sleep to.”

”Mel Brooks is never on Charlie Rose, and when he is on he's talking about Nazis and then you go to sleep and you dream about Nazis and they all look like Nathan Lane and you're creeped out for days.”