last weekend, the traditional first weekend of may, we had our third annual beer pong tournament of champions & summer kickoff barbeque. i only wish i had a camera or friends who were better about sharing the photos they took while attending, because it was a great big fun time. this year jessica and i were the ‘panda beers’ and had white/black baseball jersey shirts and little panda ear headbands and were adorable while kicking our fair share of beer pong butt. we didn’t win, of course, but our two losses were to the two final teams, so i didn’t feel too bad. i think i’m starting to prefer the idea of bigger teams and more cups per side, as it almost turns into a sporting event, with each team cheering for their comrades and tensions running even higher in the big clutch moments. if you missed this one, you definitely have to try to make it next time we play, it was great.

i also caught spider man 3 sunday afternoon, and won’t bother writing a full review because i was kind of ambivalent about it. it wasn’t as good as i’d hoped, but had its moments and a few excellent scenes, so there’s no real use in raving or complaining too much. i’m mostly interested to see if they continue on to a next one and if so, where it might lead. what cool spider man villains are left at this point? lizardman? the rhino guy? i think there was an electricity-controlling guy that would be pretty sweet, but beyond that they just need to devote more breathing room to the venom story and don’t try to pack a triple dose of bad-guy character development into one rushed and scattered movie. it made me ache for the next nolan batman movie, or just to rewatch batman begins.

speaking of adaptations, though, i popped in from hell last night from netflix since i’d read the alan moore graphic novel a month or so ago, wondering how it translated. let me tell you two things right now: the book is unbelievably good, interesting, well thought out, skilled, and gripping. if you like comics, history, or true-crime drama (think the movie zodiac but in turn-of-the-19th-century england), you owe it to yourself to check it out, it’s amazing. the movie, whatever merits it may indeed have as a film on its own, i will never know as a reader and lover of the book. i could barely make it past the half-hour mark because it was just so unfortunately far off from everything that made the book great. johnny depp as a young, psychic/drug-vision having detective? did you even READ the book, hughes brothers?

in non-negative review territory though, clever sketch comedy fans really ought to be checking out human giant on mtv2. i ran across these guys on the net a while back doing this excellent pitchfork parody sketch about tapes n’ tapes, and saw them in a magazine a few months ago that mentioned they had a show coming, and went to all the trouble to write a note to myself saying, ‘tivo human giant’. luckily, i often obey notes to myself and it definitely paid off — it’s quick and smart and really funny, like i’m sure lots of internet comedy short makers wish they could be. do most people even get mtv2 though? i feel like not enough people do, which is a shame. between mtv’s website and youtube though i’m sure you could at least dig up enough clips to see what i mean, i mean come on, i can’t do everything for you.