A lady holding up The Body Shop and Nine West using only a piece of paper and a cat mask doesn’t draw a lot of heat in The Big Apple, even after a year-long crime spree (here).  But a Russian spy ring headed by a chick in a princess tiara with a Linkedin account gets a little more coverage by network affiliates (here).  Behold the splendor of New York!

Supervillainy is on the rise apparently in New York City.  And I’m not taking about idiots trying to blow up Times Square using clocks and firecrackers.  I mean good, old timey comic book, flamboyant mayhem, and 007 style world domination schemes!  This is the New York I dream about when I go to sleep in Rhode Island – and now, it’s here!

Just when Australian crime was getting all the spotlight, with Jedi and ninjas foiling wrongdoing in the past few months, New York steps up in a way that only those outside of the city can appreciate (I can assure you that nobody looks twice at a woman in a cat mask or a Russian in a crown on the Lower West Side).

If we could get a couple of superheroes mixing it up with these villains we’d have ourselves a Disneyfication-size boon in tourism downtown.  Ohhh, or maybe a giant robot, or secret agents in business suits wearing jet packs (finally jetpacks), or …

Wanted Poster for New York "Catwoman" (CBS/WCBS)

Anna Chapman, alleged Russian spy (AP photo)

Thirteen year old, Hibiki Kono has acquired spider-like superpowers.  With the help of is school’s shop teacher, he built a vacuum powered rig that allows him to escape the wedgies of bullies by climbing out of their reach.

Inspired by his favorite superhero, Spider-Man, and hell-bent on battling injustice, it seems that this crusader has only one weakness – girls talking to him.

It’s Spiderboy: Boy uses Tesco vacuum cleaners and a suckerpad to create super-hero wall-climbing gadge

As wall crawlers go, two Tesco vacuum cleaners and a suckerpad don’t quite make a web-slinger.

But try telling that to Spider-Man fan Hibiki Kono, 13, who created a gadget to emulate his hero – then amazed his friends by scaling the school wall.

Hibiki made the climbing machine using the suction of two £14.98 Tesco value vacuums, attached nozzle pads then plugged it in. He said: “I used to dress up as Spider-Man when I was younger, I love the films.”

Teacher Angus Gent, of King’s College School, Cambridge, where Hibiki built it in five months, said once his pupil was bitten by the Spidey bug there was no looking down. He said: “I’m hugely proud of him. He has a real flair.

“I had doubts but once he proved it could work I encouraged him. It’s amazing for someone his age.”

Normally if Debbie Gibson turns up in a made for TV movie, I hum the opening bars of ‘Shake Your Love’ and proceed with my day.  My relationship with her ’80s nemesis, Tiffany, is slightly more complicated (She used to sing ‘I Think We’re Alone Now’ right to me).  Regardless, my adult logic has always been, “Unless they’re singing in a mall or wearing a denim jacket and an old-man hat, I’ve got other things to worry about, like watching Season 2 of Magnum PI.”  But, my friends, today we embark on a new path – an idea so high concept that it makes Stallone’s Expendables look like a cheap ploy to cash in on the ’80s nostalgia harbored by men in their late 30’s.  Today, we prepare for Mega Python Vs. Gatoroid!

I want to shake hands with the prophet at the Syfy network who first envisioned this groundbreaking work of breathtaking genius.  Let me set the scene.  Debbie Gibson plays an animal rights activist who frees wrongfully imprisoned snakes, then releases them to grow, unchecked, to humongous proportions. Tiffany (ahh sweet, Tiffany) is a park ranger of some sort who helps underprivileged alligators rise up to destroy their oppressors. The actual plot is a tightly guarded secret at Syfy.  Which is awesome – I don’t want to know too much going in!  I can’t tell you if these staples of my adolencent fantasy life will be teaming up in the movie or battling each other.  I also have no idea why a Gatoriod would want to fight a Mega Python, but I’m sure as heck gonna find out.

There WILL be more from thedailyjim.com as this thing gets further into production.

Over the past few months thedailyjim.com has continued to bring you the happenings from the University of Mississippi where the Rebels are looking to replace ousted mascot, Colonel Reb.  Our super accurate reporting style continues as news develops in Oxford Mississippi.

While the Colonel can no longer be reached for comment, one contender vyiing for his position, famed Rebel Alliance leader Admiral Ackbar, has taken to Twitter to further his campaign (although he doesn’t update much – I assume because his big finger/claw things are kinda rough on texting).

The Associated Press reports that online mascot voting by the Ole Miss students, faculty, staff, alumni, and football season ticket holders will begin this Monday, June 28th and continue through July 5th.  This will narrow the field from over 1,000 to just Admiral Ackbar and ten guys who don’t have a chance (Face it, the Admiral is a military genius … he can probably figure out the rules to football in an afternoon).

Read the full AP article below, then go do something else.

Associated Press – June 24, 2010 5:44 PM ET

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) – The search for a new mascot for the University of Mississippi enters a new phase on Monday when students, alumni and faculty will vote online on their top choices.

The Ole Miss Mascot Selection Committee has received more than 1,000 mascot idea submissions. The list will be narrowed to 11 after the voting ends July 5.

The vote is open to students, staff, faculty, football season ticket holders and members of the alumni association. They’ll rank their top 11 choices using a code.

Students voted Feb. 22 to pursue a new mascot to replace Colonel Reb, a caricature of an Old South gentleman.

After next week’s voting, the committee will decide which ideas will be developed as color drawings.

Welcome to the future.

In a diabolical play to gain further control over humans, robots are now selling us booze.  It’s only a few days away from the launch of the new iPhone4, and the robots aren’t taking any chances.  They want us nice and liquored up so we wait in line to buy it.  The machines won their petition to the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board; which means robot controlled kiosks filled with wine, and accessed by your driver’s license, will start appearing in supermarkets across PA this summer.

My bet is that ageless comedy Terminator, Betty White (she’s been the same age for like 25 years -obviously a T-100) will somehow reassure us that this is in no way a robot conspiracy through her mastery of humor and old lady cuteness.

All this time I’ve been worried about the eventuality of zombies, or aliens, or apes rising to power, and the damn robots get their liquor license first.  It’s a funny world … at least it is now; wait until they figure out that Terminator technology then begin to enslave us for their own amusement … anyway …  Here’s a pretty intelligent overview of the story from CBS’ Dayton Ohio affiliate WHIOTV.com

Thanks to Terminator -style, booze dispensing robots, this Stormtrooper could lose his job.

Some people memorize countless baseball statistics.  Others love those damn Sudoku puzzles.  I watch passengers sitting next to me on the airplane barrel through the New York Times Crossword (in ink). Me, I plan my every move for the upcoming zombie attack.

Listen, I know it sounds geeky… even a little paranoid, but the Research and Development team over at Graphjam.com have finally released some very telling data that will back me up.  I’ve included the following graph that has been prepared by their experts.

So enjoy Wade Boggs’ career batting average while it lasts.  Oh yeah, and Sudoku won’t make you faster while fleeing the undead hordes.

Thanks to Babs McSween for the Graphjam link!  You’re  making my intern, Ben, look like a chump.  Awesome!

*NOTE* As always, props to the folks who can do the Times Crossword in ink.  If you manage to make it to my place during the zombpocalypse without any bite marks, we’ll fix you up real good.

Hey Spider-Man,

Enough with the freakin’ webs already!  I get that you’re some hotshot superhero, savin’ New York, but c’mon man, pick up after yourself.  You’re the pride of Queens, how’s about helping us out by takin’ ‘em with you when you’re done with ‘em?

What do you think happens to them webs you leave stuck on buildings?  That’s freakin’ right, you “don’t know!”  Well, I’ll tell you, me and my crew gotta get up there and swat at ‘em with brooms, and sticks, and crap.  One time, I swear on my mother, they sent me up to the top of the Chrysler Building with a fishin’ pole to clean up your mess.  How much crime happens up there, web-head?

Now,  I don’t know what part of you makes that crap, and I don’t wanna know, but it’s sticky, man.  I go home, I gotta wash up for like an hour with turpentine.  No joke, one time my hand got stuck to a cereal box while I’m pourin’ breakfast for my kid.  I had to get on the A Train lookin’ like some kinda whack-a-do with a cardboard freakin’ Coco bird stuck to my hand.

Seriously, you’re like a spider, can’t you jump around the city from buildin’ to buildin’ without them webs?  I get that you gotta tie up bad guys.  I got no beef with that, but all the time with the swinging?  It seems pretty unnecessary.  You know, the kids’d love to see you on the subway once in a while.

Anyway, next time you see that Sandman, punch that jerk right in the ribs for me.  His mess is worse than yours.  I don’t know how that guy’s still walking around, I got like a hundred pounds of him in a box back at the shop.  The new kid at work threw a sandwich in there the other day, to see if he was hidin’.  So I said, “Did you just chuck a good sandwich in the Sandman box?  Now you got no sandwich, dope!”

Go Mets!

Donnie Burns, Crew Chief

New York City Dept. of Public Works

New York, NY 10038

This Monday, on his blog, screenwriter and Hoodwinked director, Cory Edwards posted some news about his script for the Fraggle Rock movie.  He wrote, “The only overall note coming from the studio is this: ‘Not edgy enough.’” (Read the post in its entirety here).

Mr. Edwards goes on to theorize that he will most likely be replaced on the project because of his unwillingness to alter Fraggle Rock without clear definition of the word “edgy.”

While this deserves reflective comment regarding the state of film money making and the leeching of any possible nostalgia from our collective youths for profit, there are writers working on that response right now.  Thedailyjim, on the other hand, is going to lean into this situation by giving you:

The Top Ten Ways to Make Fraggle Rock “Edgy”

10. Change name from “Fraggles” to “C.H.U.D.”

9.   Make a couple of those Doozers gay.

8.   Marjory, the Trash Heap is murdered, but not before sharing her dark secret.

7.   Replace Cantus and his minstrels with the Insane Clown Posse.

6.   Wander McMooch sets up a Thunderdome in Fraggle Rock.

5.   It is revealed in the opening sequence that Boober has been stockpiling weapons for   the inevitable Doozer uprising.

4.   Give the movie a title that will appeal to the 18-24 “urban demographic” like, Fraggle Rock: Grab a 40oz. and Let the Ass Kicking Begin.

3.   Doc and other “Silly Creatures” are welcomed warmly into Fraggle Rock, only to bring disease and death.

2.   Use old plot lines from HBO’s The Wire as source material.

1.   One Fraggle has 24 hours to save Fraggle Rock any way he can. “My name is Gobo, and today is the longest day of my life.”

Two North Carolina locals comments on the same event.

Hillybilly Sighting Startles Local Sasquatch

by Billy D.  thedailyjim.com

Monday, June 14, 2010, 9:45am

On June 5th, a Sasquatch reported seeing a creature wearing a camouflage ball cap, smelling of beer, and singing Lynyrd Skynyrd songs near his cave in Cleveland County, North Carolina.

Knobby indicates to reporters where last week's incident occurred.

“Knobby,” the the name the Sasquatch gave one reporter, claims that he was out for a walk late in the evening on Saturday because his wife had guests over and she doesn’t like him smoking cigars in the cave.  During this stroll a strange beast, “Came out of nowhere,” then made a guttural noise that sounded, “a lot like the opening chords to ‘Sweet Home Alabama’.”  A terrified Knobby quietly followed the slow moving brute to a pile of beer cans and a small campfire.  “I went back the next morning, but he was gone.  I’ll never leave my iPhone again!”

Authorities are reassuring locals that hillbilly sightings, while common, are usually pretty funny and best when video recorded.

Bigfoot afoot?  Local Legend Resurfaces After Local Sighting Near Casar

by David Allen Shelbystar.com

Monday, June 14, 2010, 10:00am

Legend speaks of an ape-like creature who called Upper Cleveland County home in the late 1970s.

Photo by Jeff Melton / The Star - Timothy Peeler shows where he reportedly saw Knobby, a bigfoot creature of Cleveland County lore, earlier this month.

Robert Williams, then covering the news for Charlotte media outlets, named him “Knobby,” a towering beast many considered as the resident Bigfoot.

Williams never saw Knobby — “I only wrote what I was told.”

Knobby stories flew overseas, Williams said, drawing interest from New Zealand and beyond. Newspaper articles from 1979 detail more than a dozen Knobby sightings and investigations by the North American Research Association and researchers from a university in Massachusetts. But the rumors and sightings near Carpenter’s Knob — hence the creature’s name — mysteriously stopped decades ago.

Then, Timothy Peeler called 911.

Peeler, of Vanada Drive in Casar, is a self-proclaimed “South Mountain man.” He’s surrounded by woods and a ridge worthy of postcards.

It was June 5 when Peeler supposedly spotted a man-beast, upwards of 10 feet tall, that screeched like “a night bird” and grunted in the warm night air.

The creature sported dark hair, Peeler said, with a grey beard stretching to its navel.

Authorities were dispatched that morning around 3 a.m., according to a report from Cleveland County Communications.

Deputies filed a suspicious person report after investigating the incident.

Williams was surprised to hear of the recent sighting. It had been years, he said, since Knobby’s supposed existence made headlines.

The sasquatch was reportedly sighted in the 70s by numerous people, including highschoolers, a banker and an elderly woman. One man said Knobby might have broken his goat’s neck.

“People came in from everywhere,” Williams said. “People contacting me from around the world.”

Interesting Swedish T-Shirt company, T-Post, is offering you $1000 to be a hero.  Okay, so it’s not Tony Stark size money, but you’ve already got the cape, and a thousand bucks will bank roll a nifty new utility belt so you can stop using that ridiculous fanny pack.

I thank Megan Gibson at Time.com for throwing up the Bat Signal on this one before the contest ends this Monday, June 14th.  At this writing there are only a handful of entries, so check the contest rules here and start powering up.  My super ability to predict geek behavior is telling me that T-Post will receive several videos from the Philadelphia Comic Con this weekend.

A quick note about T-Post from their website: “Offbeat news + graphic t-shirt = T-post, the world’s first wearable magazine. Every five weeks, subscribers receive a new t-shirt in the mail. News story on the inside. Artist interpretation on the front. All-around conversation piece.”