On This Day...

As anyone who has read this blog over its short (but epic!) life online knows, we tend to stay away from politics and "real," serious news, and instead we focus on fan culture and the like. We see this blog as a nice little escape for people; be it a quick read during a lunch break, or a nice sit down with a cup of coffee in the morning.

Either way, we want this blog to be fun, and entertaining, and a cool way to stay in tune with all the dorky goodness out there. But today is a different day than any other, and we thought we would be remiss not to mention the historic nature of Inauguration Day 2009.

No matter what your politics are, I think everyone can agree that today marks a unique moment in history; today brings with it the culmination of years and years of struggle and the scene in Washington, DC, this morning is a testament to just that.

Today, our country takes a great leap forward as the Reality of America does its best to catch up with the Promise of America.

So, tomorrow we'll be back with the usual, dorky wonderful that is the nature of this blog, but for now we'd like to leave you with the following:

Yesterday, we celebrated the life and teachings of a great, peaceful man. And today our country will swear in its first African American President. So, on this day in history, we encourage all of our readers to take a moment to think about where we are now, how far we've come, and what is left to be accomplished.

...as you watch the inauguration right here, streaming live from Hulu.com:

This and That

A couple of different topics to talk about today, mostly because, since my candidate lost the First Annual* Exfanding Your Horizons Fake Election this past week, I haven't been in the mood to speak to anyone. All I have to say now is...

SLAPPY MCINTRYE '08!!!!

*ahem*

Now, then. Some of you may remember my previous (and whiny!) posts about Diamond Comics Distributors and how they were, essentially, messing things up badly for my local comics shop.

Well, things have gotten better since then. So much better, in fact, that last week, when I walked into my LCS, I had four weeks' (four! weeks!) worth of comics and graphic novels waiting for me.

Which doesn't sound like such a bad thing, right?

Well, not so much. See, like most comics fans, I know what's gonna come out each week and I know exactly how much I'm gonna spend at the shop before I even get there. And while $100 worth of comics and such spread out over the course of four or five weeks isn't bad...$100 worth of comics spread out over the course of four or five minutes...is.

Pretty bad, I mean.

And I think there were several other customers who felt the same way. Now, full disclosure here, I ended up buying all of the books, and spending well over a hundred bucks, but there were others who didn't. And, really, who can blame them? But, by leaving stuff at the shop, who gets the short end of the stick?

Well, the fan/consumer because he or she likely had to put something back. And, well, the retailer because the fan/consumer will likely have to put something back.

And this is the cyclic effect of Diamond's inability to get books--books that are ordered two months in advance by retailers, mind you--out to said retailers.

In any case, it looks like the problems (whatever the heck they may have been) are close to being resolved, and my LCS is back on a normal Wednesday to Wednesday schedule.

So, on to the next...

I just wanted to mention the fact that, despite my being a pretty uninformed DC reader (i.e., I really don't know the minutiae of the DC Universe, and to be blunt, I have no idea who most of the characters running around in their current event books are).

That said, though, I find myself really enjoying Final Crisis and many of its related tie-ins. I commend the DC writers (Grant Morrison, Geoff Johns, Greg Rucka, etc.) and artists (JG Jones, Shane Davis, etc.) for their work.

I honestly never thought I'd be into this event, but I have to admit, I am really digging it. Granted, there are several moments in almost every issue where I pull a "yeah-buh-wha?" but the story itself is intriguing and dark and ominous, and I just don't know how (if?) the good guys are going to win.

And that's good story.

Anyway, enjoy the weekend everyone--and thanks to all of you for checking out our humble little blog. As I write this, I noticed that we reached the 1,000 hit mark (wee-hee!) so thanks to everyone for trying it out, and hopefully you'll stick around for a while!


* editor's note: totally not annual

James T. Kirk Elected Fake President

Though the political race was neck-and-neck up to the last second, James T. Kirk has emerged victorious with ten votes and has been elected Fake President in a completely fair and unrigged election.

In other news, engineers at Google continue to be baffled by the glitch that causes users' Web browsers to suddenly close after entering the search term Kobayashi Maru.

This has been a truly historic election: Kirk, promoted to Captain in the year 2264, is the first man to be elected President over 200 years before being born.

It was exciting to watch the polls grow from a single vote for Slappy McIntyre to a single vote for Slappy McIntyre and twenty-nine votes divided between everyone else, but the real excitement occurred after the polls closed.


Post-election news

Mario and Luigi, who fell one vote short of Kirk and Spock, appeared before all nine of their supporters late last night for a concession speech.

"Thank you so much for-a voting for me!" began Mario. After an awkward moment in which Mario and Luigi jumped up and down a few times, they left the stage, as they are unaccustomed to speaking more than one or two sentences at a time.

Still, most of their adoring audience continued to scream for the brothers up until the point when the crowd was eaten by the Tarrasque, at which point all of the audience was screaming.

Kirk was scheduled to speak shortly afterward, but he was detained in a fistfight backstage and was deemed unfit for public appearance by election officials after his shirt was unnecessarily torn to shreds in the scuffle.

Meanwhile, Zombie Abe Lincoln, enraged by the mere four votes he had received, began ravenously hungering the flesh of the nearby Vice President-Elect, but then he remembered that Spock's Brain left a bad taste in everyone's mouth.


More post-election news

Reports of scandals related to White House interns is already at an all-time high thanks to the charming Kirk and his running mate, Spock, who is currently undergoing pon farr.

Kirk is currently investigating alternate means of official Presidential transportation. He refuses to ride on Air Force One, claiming that "There's... something on the wing. Some... thing!"

Mario has decided to leave politics for now, choosing instead to pursue a career in medicine. Luigi, frustrated by being second yet again, took out his aggression by throwing any and all objects within reach. Local authorities report that several people were hit by errant vegetables, resulting in over a dozen injuries and one game over.

The Tarrasque left to take a very long nap somewhere. It had spent the entire morning and afternoon rampaging across the country, devouring Ralph Nader supporters before they could get to the polls, which undoubtedly cost him the election.

Bucky Barnes (Not Dead Captain America) left the moment the winner was announced to go rescue the Democratic and Republican candidates for Real President from being assassinated. Presumably, he succeeded, though there's probably no way to know for sure.

Zombie Abe Lincoln is standing right behind you. Don't turn around.

Slappy McIntyre mistakenly assumed that elections were scored like mini-golf and broke out his finest horse to celebrate his assumed success:


Dead Captain America had no comment.

The greatest political "oops" ever?

In case you haven't heard this from other reputable news sites, it was revealed this morning that a grave proofreading error was made on several million ballots across the country in which the Democratic candidate for President was listed as "Barack Obama."

We're sure that nobody noticed this spelling error, however, but in the event that you were mislead in any way, we present to you the true President-Elect for whom the masses actually voted:

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Brak Obama.

We apologize for any confusion this may have caused.

Join us later today for the full coverage of our Fake Election.


...What, you don't remember his announcement to run?

Sheesh.


[Image from http://animatedtv.about.com]

Election Day!

Last chance for voting on our poll for Fake President! Vote before midnight tonight, or else you'll turn into a pumpkin.

Tomorrow we'll give you a full news report of the results of our election. Then we'll return to business as usual. For a while.

Once again, here are our candidates:

Slappy McIntyre
James T. Kirk
Super Mario
The Tarrasque
Captain America (Deceased)
Zombie Abe Lincoln

And, in case you've missed out, review our Month in Review if you wanted to see all the other things we've been up to that aren't related to politics. (Well, some of them are...)

Vote for Fake President, and vote for Real President. Waiting and voting took me about 45 minutes, so bring a book, Game Boy, or court jester to entertain you. From what I've heard, the biggest deciding factor in how long it's going to take to vote is the organization of the people running the polling location, but those reports could be false.

Anyhow, everybody go out and vote so we can stop telling you to.

Poll Position

Yet another reminder/request to vote in our poll for Fake President before midnight tomorrow. Make some friends, and then tell all of them to vote!

The more votes we receive, the better our upcoming new banner will be. If it looks like junk, it's because not enough people voted; we'll blame you forever, or until we make a newer banner, whichever happens first.

Based on the current number of votes, our new banner will be a picture of the Hulk next to the words EXFANDING YOUR HORIZONS: BRUCE BANNER written in a hideously colored and nonsensical font, perhaps Wingdings.

Please vote.

Also, as my own public service announcement, make sure to show up to vote for Real President tomorrow. I'll spare you my diatribe on this issue, but vote according to your convictions, not your party affiliation. That's all.

The winner of our Fake Election will be officially announced at some point on Wednesday. Our regular Poll of the Week will resume on Friday, and we will resume posting our usual fare on Thursday. With any luck, circumstances will soon be such that we will be able to start bringing you longer, more detailed posts once again.

In the meantime... go bake a pie or something.

The things people read nowadays...

Just in case you're reeling from all the political hubub now that Election Day is almost within reach, we here at Exfanding Your Horizons will be providing you with a break from all of that for the next few days.

Do please remember to VOTE in our POLL for FAKE PRESIDENT, though, before you FORGET that we're having our own ELECTION. The FATE of the WORLD depends ON it.

Moving on...

As I said in an earlier post, I've really been getting into comics lately. Between borrowing from Alex and buying my own, here are the comics I've read or been reading recently, in the off-chance that anybody actually cares:

- Batman: Year One: an outstanding retelling of Batman's origin story and my favorite Batman comic thus far.

- Batman: The Long Halloween: A very solid whodunnit (and follow-up to Year One) that opened my eyes to some of the great things people can do with the visual portion of comics, but a little too crime-drama for my tastes. Still very good.

- Batman: Dark Victory: Another solid whodunnit (and follow-up to Long Halloween) that was still a little crime-drama heavy for me, and suffered a bit from constantly needing to explain who everyone was and what happened in the previous book. Still very good.

- Batman: Hush: Set significantly later than the three books above, this was more my style and had a great story and amazing artwork by Jim Lee. The first half of Hush ranks a little below Year One, but the second half fell apart for me because there were so many references to other comics, Batman and otherwise, that I had trouble keeping up. Overall, though, it balanced out to be very good.

- Batman: The Dark Knight Returns: Set at the end of Batman's career with a much older Batman, I found the story to be really engaging... when it wasn't being told almost exclusively through TV news reports. The artwork, which I found to be inconsistent and usually sloppy, bothered the heck out of me. I read this right after Year One, so it was rather jarring when I realized that I had missed decades of plot in-between (in the same continuity or otherwise). Good, but I had serious issues with it.

- Batman: The Dark Knight Strikes Again: Set after The Dark Knight Returns, this one pulled in characters and villains and ideas from all over the DC universe, and it did a good job identifying everyone and everything so that I seldom felt lost. I had the same issues with the artwork that I did with the last one, and the few times I was lost were pretty big and important ones, but overall this was pretty creative and good.

Now, there's been more than Batman, though you wouldn't suspect it.

- Ultimate X-Men: I'm borrowing the complete series on CD and going through it little by little. I'm around a dozen issues in, and after I got past the first issue I began to enjoy the series, though I could put it down today and not look back without shedding a tear. There are some neat action scenes, but I sorta feel like the series was aimed specifically at teenagers (maybe it's all the various "Tobacco Is Whacko... If You're A Teen" ads they have in every issue), and the character don't feel as deep as I hoped they would be. Enjoyable enough to keep reading.

- Green Arrow: Year One: Green Arrow and several other DC characters made crossovers into the Batman stuff I've been reading, and Green Arrow caught my attention. This book tells his origin story, and though a few parts made me wince a little bit for one reason or another, the artwork is excellent and the story is highly engrossing. Excellent.

- Star Trek: Voyager: Encounters with the Unknown: I just had to return to my Star Trek roots. This is a collection of four story arcs from different Voyager comics that all relate to--surprise!--encounters with the unknown. The first two stories were really well done and very enjoyable; the third one, a condensed and slightly altered retelling of the computer game Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force, was pretty disappointing, save for the end; and the last one had a great concept but didn't prove to be quite as exciting as I was wishing it to be. Overall, though, I got my Star Trek fix, and I liked it.

That's all for me... for now.

A very brief interview with Zombie Abe Lincoln

Some of you may remember my post about Virsona, a website that allows you to "chat" online with artificially intelligent historical figures and other automated folks.

Submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society, here is proof from Abraham Lincoln himself that we are totally not making up this Zombie Abe Lincoln thing:

Abraham Lincoln: Hi.
You: Are you a zombie?
Abraham Lincoln: Yes, and I crave your delicious democratic brains.

This is truth.

The polls are open!

Ladies and gentlemans, the polls are now open! Vote now for who should be Fake President. There's no electoral college here; your votes actually matter!

If you missed our candidates, here they are again:

Slappy McIntyre
James T. Kirk
Super Mario
The Tarrasque
Captain America (Deceased)
Zombie Abe Lincoln

The winner will be announced on November 5.

Presidential Candidate #6: Zombie Abe Lincoln

Today, Exfanding Your Horizons is proud (read: mildly embarrassed) to bring to you our final candidate for Fake President. Today’s candidate is one half of a Zombie Dream Ticket, and he's hungry for another term in the Oval Office. That, and brains.

Presidential Candidate: Zombie Abraham Lincoln (un-deceased)

Running mate: Zombie Mary Todd Lincoln

Party affiliation: Republican

Experience: Led the nation through the Civil War, enacted the Emancipation Proclamation, considered one of our finest statesmen and one of our greatest Presidents. Oh, and... Blurrgh.

Reason for choosing running mate: After the reanimation, she just seems so much more clear-headed.

Positions on the issues:
- Domestic policy: No more plays. Or theaters. Or actors.
- Gun Control: My heart says no, but the three inch hole in my skull says yes.
- Equal Rights: Zombies were people, too.
- Stephen A. Douglas: He tasted fantastic this morning.

Chances of appearing as a secret boss in the next Resident Evil game: Very high

Reason for not being invited to host Saturday Night Live: Obvious

Least Favorite Actor: A tie between John Wilkes Booth and Bruce Campbell


Well, that's it folks! All of our fake (and ridiculous!) candidates have had their chance to voice their platforms, and soon the time will come for you to choose. So, in the words of that old guy from the movie with the other old guy...choose wisely.



[Photo (minus hysterical word bubble): www.bostonherald.com]

Presidential Candidate #5: Captain America

Yesterday we continued our introduction to the new candidates entering this year's Presidential race. Today, we uh, continue to continue. Confusing sentence structure aside, today’s candidate is a little less…alive…than our other candidates.

Presidential Candidate: Captain America, A.K.A. Steve Rogers (deceased)

Running mate: Captain America, A.K.A. Bucky Barnes (the, uh, alive one)

Party affiliation: Avengers

Experience: Decorated war hero; leader of the Avengers; most patriotic super hero ever

Reason for choosing running mate: What with Rogers being dead and all, choosing a very much alive (and in continuity!) running mate only makes sense.

Positions on the issues:
- Domestic policy: Tony Stark is a jerk, and as President, I will treat him as such.
- Foreign policy: When I was alive, we handled the Skrulls in an issue or two. Today--ha! Decompressed storytelling, anyone? Oh, and Tony Stark is a jerk.
- Marvel Comics' "Dead is Dead" policy: In my first month as President, I promise to appoint editors dedicated to a traditional reading of company-wide mandates, and who will overturn this policy when the issue is brought in front of them.
- Being dead: I’m not real big on that, either.

Campaign rallying cry: AVENGERS ASSEMBLE!


Join us tomorrow for more of this nonsense.


[Image from www.marvel.com.]

Presidential Candidate #4: The Tarrasque

Today we're introducing a rather... unconventional candidate. I would say that no further introduction is necessary because this candidate speaks for itself, but... well, this candidate doesn't speak.

Presidential candidate: The Tarrasque

Party affiliation: No, no. The Tarrasque doesn't affiliate with parties. The Tarrasque fully ate parties.

Qualifications: Legendary; virtually unstoppable destructive force; about as tall as a five-story building; survived the conversion to 4th Edition

Reason for devouring running mate: Hunger

Positions on the issues:
- Health care: One word--regeneration
- Foreign policy: Eat everything in sight
- Domestic policy: See above
- National security: Eaten
- Economic crisis: Run for your lives
- Dependency on foreign oil: No, seriously, run for your lives
- Zinc mining: We're all gonna die
- Aaaaargh

Chances of being elected: Burp


Oh, dear.

We're nearly done with introducing new candidates, but come back tomorrow and Monday to see what other candidates we can dig up.


[Image from www.wizards.com.]

Presidential Candidate #3: Super Mario

With all the talk of Joe the Plumber out there, we figured it was time to show you what happens when a plumber really gets involved in politics.

Presidential candidate: Mario

Running Mate: Luigi

Party affiliation: Mario Party

Experience and qualifications: Veteran princess-rescuer; countless victories won against the Koopas; his Final Smash is awesome; excellent driver; master at sports, including, tennis, golf, soccer, baseball, and basketball; alleged plumber

Reason for choosing running mate: Luigi is the only one who can jump high enough to reach the boxes of pasta on the top shelf of the White House kitchen cabinets

Positions on the issues:
- Foreign policy: Mario will personally aid any foreign nation in need of assistance and will pursue his objectives tirelessly until he succeeds or runs out of lives
- Economic crisis: If we plan carefully and time it right, a flying ship full of coins will appear and our financial woes will be over
- National transportation: Replace cars and highways with a complex network of pipes, springboards, and flying carpets
- Pollution: Anything can be cleaned up if you spray water at it long enough
- Military spending: We'll save money by claiming that "Shirt" and "Pants" count as viable battle protection
- Education: All schools will receive complimentary copies of Mario's Time Machine and Mario Teaches Typing
- Abortion: Anyone attempting to harm an infant of any age will be halted by a green dinosaur throwing eggs at them

What you'd have to look forward to at the beginning of every Presidential speech: "It's a-me! Your-a President!"


We continue tomorrow with a legendary candidate that is one of a kind.


[Image from www.mariowiki.com.]

Presidential Candidate #2: James T. Kirk

Yesterday we kicked off our introduction to the new candidates entering this year's Presidential race with a brief look at candidate Slappy McIntyre. Today, we would like to introduce a man who would boldly go where no President has gone before.

Presidential Candidate: James T. Kirk

Running mate: Spock

Party affiliation: Federation

Experience: Starship captain and Starfleet admiral; he was out saving the galaxy while your grandfather was in diapers

Reason for choosing running mate: To win over the pointy-eared demographic that went unrepresented when Legolas dropped out of the running

Positions on the issues:
- Energy crisis: We need more power, Scotty!
- Immigration: Heightened security to protect against illegal aliens with ridged foreheads
- Gun control: All firearms should have an optional "stun" setting
- Domestic policy: A chicken in every pot; a woman in every port
- Foreign policy: Attack any nations we can't communicate with, then sleep with their women
- Gay marriage: Not unless I'm invited to the wedding

Campaign rallying cry: KHAAAAAAN!!!


Join us tomorrow for an overview of the first sibling duo (that we know of) to run for President.


[Image from www.trekcore.com.]

And Now, for Something Completely Different

In these tumultuous days of Stock Market fluctuations and increasingly important political issues, the country has come to a defining moment in its history. And, with the current tone of this year’s Presidential Election being what it is, we here at Exfanding Your Horizons have decided that the time has come to throw a few new hats into the ring.

So, over the next several days as we approach the real election, we will present you with several candidates for our fake election.

During the week leading up to Election Day, we’ll have a poll up for you to vote for your favorite fake candidate.

Then, on Election Day, we'll reveal the President of the United States that you voted for.

Anyway, on to our first candidate. Enjoy... and Godspeed, little doodles...



He is a man who will help to heal the wounds of division between us in this country.

A man who will stand up for the working class.

A man who will fix the economy.

A man who will be the greatest American President.

He is...this man:

His name: Slappy McIntyre
His party affiliation: Independent Socialist/Fascist (on weekends)
His platform: Playstation 3...until "Gears of War 2" comes out, anyway.
His promise: To ensure hilarity in the Oval Office.
His running mate: None; as a fascist, Slappy hates everyone. Especially you.

Vote Slappy McIntyre ’08!


We warned you it would be something different. Be on the lookout tomorrow for candidates... from... SPACE!!!

Seriously.