Because my back aches

And I just talked to a branch from Tilsonburg.

There was a guy I went to school with (Jason? Mike? One of those two particularly rare WAS names) who would do the summer tabacco harvest. I managed to avoid the common rural jobs. I worked delivering Sears catalogues (Ah, spring 1985. Thou art my eternal nemesis).

Thankfully, I got sprung from that job (3.5 cents a catalogue) to the union world of grocery store employeeism. Ahh, the A&P. Although I did suffer a massive head injry my second day on the job, I stuck through it for most of high school, through summer highs and winter lows.

The reason that a grocery store employee would have to suffer through two of Canada's four, individual seasons (at least, back then) was that I was assigned to Parcel Pickup duty. What that meant was that customers would pack their groceries in the store, which would then be put into little numbered plastic bins. The bins would be sent out on rollers (and up a conveyor belt) to the parcel pickup section, which was outside.

So, customer would come in, PP employee (ie YHB) would scurry to find them in the PP room, and get them out to the car. God forbit someone dropped a bag with fragiles in it.

The worst was when a customer got the wrong box of goods. They'd get pooched, and the customer who was supposed to get that box got pooched. Good times!

There was also the benefit of being right next to a cow farm. High summer, there's nothing like the scent of cow dung wafting through the parking lot. Yum! Then there was the amusing time a cow wandered into the parking lot. Is there anyway to page the store manager that there's a cow in the parking lot that won't sound like you're having a drug episode?

Still, better working next to a farm than doing actual farm work. I had friends who'd end up haying and stuff.

One summer in university I got to do landscaping, which is a fascinating way to learn how much dirt you can get into your pockets (answer: A lot) and how many nails you can get into your feel while removing old roof tiles (ditto).

But on the momentary lapses between cars, especially in the summer, it could be nice. We'd get ice from the del and put it in containers, and as they melted that would be delightful ice water.

Then we'd make fun of John, who had sex with a cow once. Ah, well. It was a small town.

Hoo'd win: Not my idea, not my fault.

In the eighties, two classics of the superhero genre were released, created by Frank Miller and Alan Moore. They were The Last Superman Story (Whatever happened to the Man of Tomorrow) and the Wolverine miniseries where he goes to Japan and fights ninja and gets hit on by a hot Japanese chick with a non-functioning survival instinct. Ah, man. Those were AWESOME.

Admittedly, the two of them are also slightly better kwown for some other, less enjoyable works, namely The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen. Miller's Dark Knight Returns took Batman and pumped him into the stratosphere, postulating a retired dark knight detective who came out of retirement to suppress Gotham's gang problem. Admittedly, Jim Gordon really was screwing the pooch on this one, what with the cats being nailed to doors and stuff.

Miller's Batman was a tired old man, caught up in a mission he thought he'd left behind him when his vigilante activities were outlawed. But he puts back on the cowl, acquires a new Robin (allowing Miller to get in a petty little "I hatez hippiez" dig. Oh, Frank, you wacky neocon) and stalks the streets of Gotham, gettin' er (and by "er", I mean Justice!) done. Grrr!

Moore's Watchmen featured a group of retired heroes struggling to save themselves from an assassin who's excecuting them one by one. At least, that's what Rorschach thinks. Based on Charleton comics character The Question, who was created by high functioning Randroid Steve Ditko, Rorschach takes his name from a psychiatric test based on the patterns you see in random inkblots.

DC Comics, corporate master of both these characters, had decided to produce a new miniseries about superheroes that promises to have lots of puncheminnaface entiteld Countdown: Arena A spinoff of the increasingly disappointing Countodown series (anything happened yet? Anything at all?), this will feature a character who was a bad idea 15 years ago, Monarch, doing something that will allow for lots of puncheminnaface. Who says DC isn't the house of ideas? Wait, was that DC? Or Marvel?

Ah, well. At least they aren't arguing constitutional law at each other and making fun of Superman because he hasn't seen the Youtube video with a dog pooping on a baby. There's another one called Golden Reliever.

Anyway, to beat DC to the figurative (literal?) punch(eminnaface), I propose we settle this once and for all. Hoo'd win? Batman, the returned Dark Knight, or Rorschach, the crazy unemployed guy who has a grapple gun and body odor?

I just hope he does better than The Munsters.

[Poll #1091431]

Best Halftime Show Ever That Doesn't Have a Boob In It

This totally makes up for me missing Video Games Live last year.

Don't think you won't pay, Tommy Tallarico.