Since human religions are inscrutably weird, I’d expect a ladybug one to be even worse. But at least they can see me, I assume. Ladybugs have eyes in all the cartoons, but I’m no entomologist. In any case, I’ve never grown wroth with ladybugs. I have a very straightforward relationship with the insect community.

I only have the one commandment (“Thou shalt not lay eggs in my cereal”) which I think is reasonable. I should be able to lay down some laws. It’s not like the bugs are pitching in on the mortgage.

I had thought the house was built on an ancient ladybug burial ground. But these macabre incursions are a recent phenomenon and the house has been around for 20 years. I had even begun to suspect that the ladybugs had build some sort of nest inside my walls because of the harsh winter, then wander in through some hole in my bathroom caulking and succumb to the chemicals the exterminator sprays. But I am trying to be logical, so I am disregarding the more outlandish ideas. (Holes in the caulking. Puh-leeze.)

I am never going to sell the place if it’s haunted by ladybug ghosts. I have to figure something out.

Does this say "put your hand in me"? It does not.

As usual in situations like this, I start thinking “bat box.” My neighborhood has enough bats to qualify as a “shitload.” I assume we have a lot of caves, vampires, or crimes in my area. So if I put up the bat equivalent of a birdhouse, some of those bats can move in and serve as little flying Robocops.

I am assuming that bats would automatically know to patrol the perimeter. They may take down a few moths, but that’s a small price to pay. And the mosquitoes… they can have all the free mosquitoes they want. They claim there’s no malaria around here, but that might be just what they want us to think.

So I’m getting a bat box. Expect updates about my new air force.

Some of you pedantic skeptic types might be saying “Christian, while I’m sure a bat would be happy to eat a ladybug, it’s going to be difficult for a flying creature to get them out of your walls using only echolocation.” Look, shut up. Bats are smart. They have incredible resourcefulness and a nearly supernatural drive, much like the superhero for whom they are named.

How do you buff your palm so much it becomes refle--... never mind. But don't high-five someone you're about to shoot. Bad form.

But until the bat box arrives and the bats come back from wherever they spend their winters — some stately manor, no doubt — I still have to deal with these suicidal ladybugs. Does anyone know how to cheer up a ladybug? The only peppy ladybug song I know is the Sesame Street one I referenced in the title. That feels inappropriate since I accused Sesame Street of lying.

Oh well… I do have a caulk gun lying around somewhere…

Marian Call on tour with some ghost orbs (Credit: Brian Adams)

Too-talented-for-her-own-good singer/songwriter/nerd-hymnist Marian Call is touring soon, and she’s going to be roaming all over the Southeast. This is an alien environment to most Alaskans, so everyone be nice.

And Atlanta is included! We don’t have details yet. Hetero Life Partner Tim Farley and I have each volunteered our places for a house concert. She’s got some other options as well. Wherever she’s playing around here, it’ll be sometime around March 8-10.

She’s going to do at least two shows, one at a real venue if it works out. So if you live in town and don’t want do drive out to the sticks with all the moonshine-soaked yokels, you should be okay. Or if you’re in the burbs and would rather not get stabbed to death during a carjacking inside the perimeter, you may have a workable option.

Keep your eyes peeled here or watch your normal Call-based information sources. Once there are details, there will be saturation. If you’re not familiar with Marian’s music, you have six weeks to get familiar. Go to mariancall.com and check it out.

Then come to a show and tell Marian in a very detailed way how much you love her. Provide a bulleted list if possible. The ladies love bulleted lists. She may even let you get a picture with her.

Seriously. She'll be photographed with anyone.

If you don’t live in Atlanta, she’s going to be touring other, lesser places too. Like the Northeast and Europe. (Not Denver. Never Denver.) If you can host a house concert, lend a hand.

Or, you know, don’t support independent music. We’ll always have Coldplay.

That’s certainly true in my case. I read those comments because I want to understand what they’re going through. Often the depth of their struggles is only matched by the breadth of their strength. Not often enough, though. If you ever need a reason to go hug your throw pillows and rock quietly back and forth, read some stories of the people who couldn’t find what they needed.

If only breast cancer had a good marketing hook...

Recently, one of my favorite bloggers compared our treatment of cancer sufferers to depression sufferers. I’d never thought about it before, but I think Jenny has a point. I’ve been on bike tours and walks for cancer. There’s an underwear run in Canada to raise money for “below the waist” cancers — colorectal, testicular, ovarian, prostate and cervical. Testicular cancer even has its own champion bicyclist who might have been juicing. There’s bound to be a memorial pancreatic cancer iPhone app soon.

Cancer also has favored nation status on House. That’s more than we can say for lupus.

But looking for the equivalent support and fundraising systems for mood disorders is a study in frustration. I can find Mental Health America and some suicide hotlines, but I don’t see any fun runs where everyone’s in thongs or something. It’s surprising, because the list of current celebrities who’ve had to cope with depression includes some pretty big names:

• Angelina Jolie
• Catherine Zeta-Jones
• John Hamm
• Anne Hathaway
• Hugh Laurie (he doesn’t have lupus either)
• J. K. Rowling
• Buzz Aldrin

Pretty A-listy. But with the except of Catherine Zeta-Jones, they all talk about depression in the past tense. Buzz Aldrin, for example, struggled with his new fame after the Apollo 11 mission and pretty much crawled into a bottle for the first half of the 70s. While I am glad one of my heroes fought off his demons, that doesn’t sound like what Jenny Lawson or Allie Brosch or many of the commenters on their blogs are describing.

Why is that? Why does cancer, or Parkinson’s, or multiple sclerosis get the celebrity PSAs and the charities and events and Melissa Etheridge songs?

The answer is obvious, I think. Cancer can strike anyone of any age or social class with no warning. The treatment for it can be long and harrowing. Even if you pull through an occurrence, you are more likely than others to have it again. Every time you wake up with something different about you, you are panicked that your reprieve is done and the ride is starting over. It’s not a disease you really get cured of — you just learn to ignore the fear and hope each change isn’t lighting the fuse on another internal bomb.

But depression is different. Depression is… ummm… well… see… shit.

Glibness aside, the difference is one shows up on an MRI and the other hides in your brain. Someone with a tumor is sick and needs our help; someone with a mental disorder is crazy and needs to be in a funny jacket with the sleeves tied around back. If you see someone with a weird lump, you get them to the hospital (usually). If you see someone sitting in the dark and staring into space, you try to cheer them up or tell them to snap out of it. Would you tell a cancer victim to quit behaving like a baby and stop having a malignant growth on their colon?

(If Lorraine Day is reading this blog, I withdraw the question. Sorry Lorraine, I’m just not convinced your “eating beets and oppressing Jews” plan is the cure for anything. Also, get away from my blog you delusional butt-nugget.)

I don’t know what it’s going to take to start viewing depression as a serious disease, and people with depression as victims. I don’t think it helps when our glitterati doesn’t bring it up until they can talk about it as being “long ago.” We’re too afraid of people with some funky wiring in their heads because we think they’ll do something like drown their children or dress as Howdy Doody and drive the wrong way on the interstate or buy Snooki’s book.

I think there’s a branding problem, too. The word “depression” can be applied to severe disorder that you wrestle with every day, or it might be feeling temporarily a little glum all afternoon because it’s the last season for Chuck.

Maria has summed up the posts I’ve referenced here and several more. She’s set up a place where people can at least share their experiences and their pain, and they can do it anonymously so they can step back out into the world with their masks on. Reading the posts on there is wrenching if you have even a shred of empathy in you. If you can make it through those, you won’t be thinking about Chuck for awhile.

Or maybe I’m just a little extra sensitive today. My ultrasound last week found an anomaly, and I’m worried I might get to go through this cancer shit again.

At least an ultrasound can give me proof there’s something unusual going on. Even in the worst case, we’ll see exactly what’s happening and I’ll have people running and walking and biking for me too. At least until the American Cancer Society discovers I’m an atheist.

In the meantime, people just as sick as any cancer patient sit alone running razor blades along their arms to stave off the numbness for a few minutes. Maybe someone you know. It might be worth finding out. It might be worth finding help.

OMG this is Chuck's final season!

It’s an eye-catching headline. There are a lot of easier way to murder someone than giving them cancer.

But if you click the link, you’ll see that it’s actually manslaughter because they didn’t get his cancer treated. They’d find what felt like swollen lymph nodes, but then it would go away. Then it would come back. Then he was dead. Oops!

I’m no doctor, but I strongly believe lumps are bad, even if they come and go. If you walk into the doctor’s office and say “my son had a lump on his neck, but it’s gone now” the doctor will not say “great — thanks for coming by!” Lots of things can cause swollen lymph nodes. Including Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

Grrrr.

It’s possible I’m projecting here. A few months ago I had swollen lymph nodes too and got put through a battery of tests that ranged from irritating to painful. I think the needles they use in needle biopsies are barbed. In my case it was nothing — I had a bad cold a week before a routine checkup and my nodes were still puffy.

I’m definitely venting though. Hodgkin’s lymphoma has an 80% recovery rate if treated. The rate is somewhat lower if ignored. Now those ex-parents are probably going to prison, where they’ll get proper medical treatment if they need it.

Check those lumps, people. Don’t worry about the cost, worry about the cancer.

Who would win in a fight between Batman and Wolverine?

The results are in and I can confidently announce that my Facebook friends are smartasses. Stop the presses.

I also got some votes. In those votes, Wolverine won almost 2 to 1. Interesting.

My Facebook friends on Team Wolverine are forgetting one small detail…

Batman would kick the shit out of Wolverine!

Yeah, okay, on paper Wolverine has a lot of advantages — adamantium skeleton, quick healing, animal senses, a century of training, etc. But it’s not like Batman hasn’t fought tougher people.

Bitch had it coming for tearing the batcape

Done it more than once, too.

Wolverine may have adamantium bones, but Batman has kryptonite testicles

Wolverine is willing to kill – Bats don’t play that

True. But Batman spends his nights dealing with people willing to kill.

This is Killer Croc about to eat The Bait Wonder. But props to Robin for bringing the snark.

Batman doesn’t have to kill someone to beat them. In fact, by not killing them Bats get the joy of stomping their asses again some other night. The only drawback is that he sometimes has to get a new Robin. Groupon should offer a deal that good.

Wolverine is Rage Personified. He’s an unstoppable fighting machine.

Yeah, Wolverine has a lot to be pissed off about. He’s effectively unkillable. He’s going to live much longer than regular humans. He never forgets to bring his weapons along. He’s got Hot Mutie Poon lining up just waiting for some romantic stabby spooning. Life is tough when you’re a  short Canadian.

"Dude, all that sucks for you. By the way, are you immune to Parkinson's?"

Look, we’re talking about Batman here. He’s also had a double-shot Venti Rage Frappuchino. I promise, you do not want to see Angry Batman Face.

Raaaaarrr!

Sorry, bad example. Try this one.

"I'm fine, how are you?"

They wouldn’t fight each other, they’d be allies

They're fighting about a woman. Really.

Yeah, probably. But we’re talking about guys with some short fuses. It just takes one of them to snap while the other is standing there. A trenchant observation like “Nice haircut, stubby. You look like Gay Heat Miser. Is that why your mask has Gutter Guard?” would do the trick.

Once Batman hears the tell-tale snikt! his immediate reaction is not going to be soothing discourse. He’ll send the latest Robin in to distract while Batman checks the AA-cells in the batarangs.

Both of these guys have fought their fellow white-hats before. They have anger issues which may distract them from the big picture.

What makes Batman so great?

Like Wolverine, Batman is a close-combat master with perfect physical conditioning.

Well, normally

One thing Wolverine is not known for is brain power. But Batman is smarter than the rest of the Justice League put together, even if you don’t count Aquaman.

And what does brain power get you when you’re facing an unkillable human blender? A big ol’ victory!

Adamantium is nice, but stainless steel has some advantages

Ah HA!

What you’re seeing here is Gandalf flinging Van Helsing through the back of a train before snatching Sookie, using only magnet powers and by leaving tooth marks on the scenery. You think this option wouldn’t occur to Batman? Flip the polarity on those magnets back and forth and you can make Wolverine dance!

Dancing aside, all Batman needs is a big fridge magnet. Where the hell is he going to get a big fridge magnet? He’s Batman! If Captain Kirk can make a mortar with bamboo and lighter fluid, Batman can scare up a powerful magnet for once.

You’ll find Wolverine stuck to the side of a truck under a giant magnet that says “Honey-Do List.”

Emasculating? Sure. But Wolverine once dated someone named Squirrel Girl.

This is how Marvel Comics says "we hate our readers"

In Conclusion

Wolverine is tough, violent, flexible, taut, and… we’ll go with tumescent. But he would also be Pinky to Batman’s Brain.

I know the Facebook vote went against me, but as with Snuffleupagus, truth and logic is not a democratic process. I’m sorry, Facebook friends.  I love you all, but you have been blinded by the reflected glare of adamantium claws.

This the Ikea Bevkam, which is Swedish for Kitchen Bondage Cart. Note the optional bukkake hole.

There’s one actual rape scene in the film (and kudos to the director for making it horrific instead of erotic), for which the victim gets revenge in time to go help Daniel Craig untie a knot of rape, murder, and more rape. I think a great deal of it was incestuous too, but I lost track of how all these old white people were related to each other. The character introductions read like the credits on an A-Ha album.

The European version of this video had a lot more rape

Update: I am reminded that there are two rape scenes. There’s the first rape I mention above, then the payback when Lisbeth shoves a metal dildo up her attacker’s poop chute. I had sort of blocked that part out because of the applause in my theater, which I still find mildly disturbing. But I certainly did not mean to dismiss a rape from the Swedish cinema records.

As for the movie itself, I thought it was sort of slow. The first 45 minutes was pretty much people sitting at desks talking to each other. The first real action scene was, well, kind of rapey. Then more talking. Some non-rape consensual sex (kinky!). Two hours into the film, there’s a mashup of bondage and explosions. The ending of the story is about 20 minutes before the ending of the film, if you know what I mean.

That said, there was some outstanding acting, most notably Rooney Mara. She managed to get into the head of the profoundly disturbed Lisbeth Salander. Her on-screen performance was as impressive as her physical transformation.

On the right is the real Rooney. On the left is Moe from the Three Stooges after the zombies come.

Rooney may have had an advantage no other actress has — she’s the granddaughter of the guy who founded the Pittsburgh Steelers. She might have learned a lot by just following Ben Roethlisberger around. I’m also assuming it took several hours every morning to putty over her dimples — not that her character tossed off a lot of toothy grins.

When we weren’t watching or learning about some raping, we got subjected to the plot. That’s a real problem when you’re talking about this story. It’s basically a fantasy memoir from a writer with a fetish for vengeance and an odd view of chivalry.

Thees slootty toortle-a hes beee beggeeng fur it.

Judging by the bajillions of Steig Larsson books sold, I may be holding this view alone. I feel like a Ke$ha fan. But a good mystery is one you feel there’s a hope of piecing it together yourself from what’s given. With this one, you basically just had to start asking who the rapist was and wait for the big twist they telegraphed 30 minutes in. (When you see a recognizable actor in what looks like a throwaway role, there’s your cue. If you had a police drama with a lineup, and there were 4 unknown character actors and Brad Pitt, you can probably see the guilty party in Raping Queen: The Untold ABBA Story.)

To be fair, none of the violence towards women is glorified — which is an old word for “fapworthy” for those of you who exist only online — and the perpetrators don’t exactly get away with it. But I don’t buy the relationship between the main characters. Why would a writer write a story where a woman can’t help but get in bed with a writer? I wonder if the first draft of the novel had a chapter on Blomkvist’s gigantic penis. (Unfortunately, Larsson didn’t live to see his fantasy self portrayed by the current James Bond. Might have ripped Little Steig clean off if he’d known.)

And the case could have been handled entirely over Skype. I’m not sure that a movie of someone typing and talking to a web cam is worse than a movie of someone scanning photos and staring at a MacBook. MecBuuk in the local parlance.

It’s worth a look on DVD to see Rooney’s performance, but I honestly can’t see why these books are as beloved as they are. If you see it, let me know what you think. And what I am missing.

And if this is more true-to-life than I think — Sweden, stop it.

He's not actually thanking God for leaving him off the Pro Bowl. He's thanking God for the chance to learn humility via a bad hair day.

Like the rest of you, I’m waiting for Pat Robertson to tell us how we’re going to be punished for this. Haiti got a killer earthquake for a centuries-old pact with Satan. Hurricane Katrina showed up because of… let’s see… abortion? Was that an abortion one? Ariel Sharon had a heart attack for giving Gaza to the Palestinians.

What’s going to happen to us for failing to properly honor Tebow H. Christ? Denver hasn’t had a good sirocco in awhile.

Though they have had a few Sciroccos

The Broncos still have a shot at the playoffs, which might make the Lord less wroth. (Is that how you use that word? Or is it wrathy?) If the Broncos smite the Kansas City Chiefs this weekend, prophecy will be fulfilled and Tebow will be swept into the postseason by flights of angels. Then he will get the everloving shit stomped out of him by the Pittsburgh Steelers. We might be doomed regardless.

Since Pat hasn’t given us any hints, I’m preparing for everything. I have a snow shovel, a lot of sponges, a 55-gallon drum of Calamine lotion, and a generator hooked up to my Playstation.

I hope it’s enough. I fear God’s wroth will eventually turn into a full-blown crankiness when Tim Tebow finally comes out of the closet.

Note: The following contains spoilers for the plot of Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows. But really, you aren’t going to a Guy Ritchie movie for the plot. Rest comfortably in the knowledge that there are plenty of slow-motion punches and high-speed homoeroticism. If you’re concerned with a coherent story and understandable character motivations, get to an art house cinema. Hippy.

Professor James Moriarty is a bad dude. He’s Sherlock Holmes’ only intellectual peer in all of Victorian England. In fact, he might even be better at seeing the big picture. Holmes is consumed with stopping Moriarty’s nefarious schemes. No one else can do it, after all. Moriarty must be foiled for the good of civilization, before he… umm…. well… wait, what is he going to do? I am sure it’s naughty!

He did poison Rachel McAdams, forcing Holmes to dig up another attractive woman to put in danger.

You'll do. Stand in front of those guns, please.

I don’t know why they bumped off Rachel only to replace her with another woman serving the same dramatic purpose. (i.e. insulting Holmes and Watson to remind us that women cannot really love them like they can love each other.) Maybe Rachel compared working for Guy Ritchie to being in a Madonna video and got fired.

I have avenged you. Call me!

For what it’s worth, I’m a big fan of Rachel McAdams. For many reasons. In Holmes’ place, I would have simply shot Moriarty and hidden his body under a pile of unsold DVDs of The Notebook.

Back to Moriarty. He must have had a scheme beyond revenge for The Time Traveler’s Wife.

And he does! Moriarty has acquired an ammunition factory and various other companies that make war machines. As soon as some big war breaks out, he’s going to be rich!

Wait, that can’t be right. Isn’t creating a monopoly a little lackluster for the grandfather of Lex Luthor and Darth Vader? Turning your nose up at anti-trust laws is a criminal act, but when did Holmes get a job with the Federal Trade Commission?

Is this movie trying to indoctrinate us into thinking robber barons were bad? (I think we knew that. They’re called robber barons. Not puppy barons.) Maybe this is a delicately timed critique of the proposed AT&T and T-Mobile merger? If so, it worked — that deal collapsed three days after the film was released. Or maybe it’s meant to tell young people why it’s important to diversify your portfolio.

Moriarty made two huge mistakes. The more obvious one was getting into a fistfight next to a balcony several hundred feet above a river. It is possible to foil someone’s plans by shooting them in the damn face from across the room, you know.

But he wouldn’t have been on that balcony if he hadn’t been impatient. Moriarty tells Holmes that war is inevitable anyway, obviously referring to World War I. (We can match certain elements of the movie to the Holmes book The Final Problem, which was set in 1891.) At the time, Britain still had an empire, and was fighting these little border skirmishes all over the place. Moriarty didn’t need to kick off WWI — he would be lighting his pipe with 100-pound notes just from the Second Boer War, even if he only sold guns to England. Rachel would still be alive, and Moriarty could afford to hire Holmes to mow his lawn. If he needed to supplement his income, he could patent that plastic surgery stuff he’d invented to make that gypsy look like an ambassador’s aide to kill some other ambassador to start a world war. (Don’t ask.)

That said, kudos to Moriarty for trying to take the economic route to world domination. He has a slightly higher body count than Disney and Microsoft had in their own journeys, but it has a touch of plausibility which every Ultimate Weapon Manufacturer lacks. Just in the last 20 years, we’ve been prepping ourselves for first the Japanese and now the Chinese takeover of the world by simply buying it out from under us. Moriarty would have been in position to do the same thing (or as close as possible in the Victorian era) had it not been for his double helping of ego with the hubris chaser.

If this movie sounds incredibly dark and weighty, don’t worry. There is still plenty of time for romance.

We're not going to sit down until you feel my nipple, Watson

It’s an entertaining film if you like smoldering stares are action scenes shot with a strobe light. But it sort of falls apart when you start extrapolating beyond the ending credits.

Enjoy the scenery, folks. Downey’s spending the next two movies in flying red armor.

Goodbye, Mr. Hitchens. I thought a lot about what you said.

Gonzo’s chicken must be very disappointed.

Unrelated Star Wars Questions: During Luke’s first long conversation with Obi-Wan in A New Hope, he (Luke) learns about the Jedi Knights. But in later movies, including the prequels, they are almost always referred to as simply Jedi. Is there a difference between a Jedi and a Jedi Knight? Or was the “knight” quietly dropped to avoid confusion with Baywatch Nights or Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights? Would the prequels have been improved with some dirty dancing? (“In a corner, no one puts Yoda!”) Or maybe Darth Hasselhoff?