I have, in the past, put more thought than is necessary into the topic of superheroes who were probably just created, used, and forgotten by their creators. The previous ones were used to decorate a box of tissues, but today’s offering is a couple of superheroes even more mercantile: They’re from ads.

Working, as I do, in the industry of putting paper with ads on it into people’s homes, I occasionally pay attention to those ads. Basically this is only when they have superheroes in them… Anyway, over the couple years since that last post, I’ve bothered to take two of these superhero-using ads home and I will now introduce you all to those heroes.

(I won’t be showing what the ads were for, though. I’m not getting paid, why should I?)

First up:

This man is basically Superman. Anyone can see this. This is Superman, but blonde. And he has a different symbol. A fiery symbol. This guy is depicted lifting the world (though this is probably metaphorical. Or at least a model world. I’m ruling out that he is giant. I won’t allow it.) he probably has Superhuman strength on a Superman level. He can also clearly fly. It would be easy to assume that this guy has your basic Superman Powers powerset.

Except fire is apparently enough of a recurring for this guy that it is his chest insignia. This implies he has more than just heat vision. This could come in the form of fire-breath replacing the ice breath of superman, but I’m going to assume more. I’m guessing this guy has full pyrokinesis. So what we have here is this guy who can fly, is super strong, can probably go really fast, and can generate and control fires. Sounds like a pretty heavy hitter to me.

Secondly:

This second guy looks less stereotypically like a superhero. Your typical superhuman guardian has a strong square jaw and impossibly muscular physique, but this guy, owing perhaps to the cartoony style he has been rendered in, looks like more of a goof. The smile isn’t helping. It’s also worth noting that this guy is the first of the ones I’ve discussed so far who is actively pitching the product he was designed to pitch, instead of just looking superheroic on an advertisement. This guy is actively looking the reader in the eye and pointing to say: “Check out this deal here. Maybe you’d like it?”

I get the feeling of a normal man in a costume from this guy. Just some athletic man who wore a costume to try to improve his community by crimefighting. But in a world with guys who can fly and shoot fire, maybe this guy finds it a hard job, as he would. And because of that it isn’t quite so insane that this guy would have to resort to taking advertising jobs. He probably also does exhibition shows at carnivals and public service announcements where he tells kids not to talk to strangers. He’s the workaday hero who can’t help much, but does everything he can to help. But I bet there is some drawbacks. He’s bound to feel some resentment, and I doubt he personally enjoys every ad that he has to do. But bills need to be paid, even for a man in a cape.

So there we go. Two more superheroes who I am probably the only person who has ever discussed them on the Internet. I win again.

A conversation between Kiiip and myself has recently made me realize that God existed before the Earth, so he is extraterrestrial, and thus an alien. Kiiip amended it to make it clear: He’s an Illegal Alien. God has no legal right to live here on Earth and he is taking our jobs and our women (our virgins, even). And then he had a kid, an anchor baby, to give him a credible claim to humanity. Go figure. We shoulda built a fence.

Haiku!

I see frankensteins.
They’re coming for me. Oh no.
I must run away!

Not much of note just now. Trying to get more things done at once than I’m actually getting done. To make things worse, Marq is again Internetless. I’m going to have to find some superior way of making us millionaires. A quicker way.

At this exact moment I’m weighing the pros and cons of taking a nap. Cons are currently winning, but my eyelids are really filibustering here.

Hey, a few days ago was Groundhog Day. I didn’t consciously know it was coming, but I must have subconsciously, because my dream the night before had Bill Murray in it. So that’s neat.

This is gonna be pointless, so don’t bear with me. Yeah, don’t. Just ignore this.

So, two weeks ago, while cutting my fingernails, I missed my left ring fingernail, right? I noticed a few hours later, or even the next day, but I figured “Screw it, I’ll cut it next weekend” and just let it be. By the end of that week I was actually looking forward to cutting my nails again to get it all synched up. So then I did. Fascinating, no? But anyway, I realized later that this is the same finger which I got caught in a machine at work a few years back and had the nail completely pulled out. It took months for it to grow back. So now, in the course of my life, I’ve cut this one specific fingernail probably a half-dozen fewer times than all my other ones. And now this fact is on the Internet! Hooray for technology!

Haiku!

See the golden fog.
See how it rolls over there.
Fooled you! It’s not there.

Yeah, I don’t actually have much to say. I kinda messed up my sleeping habits over the last couple weeks, so now I’m up in the daytime trying to right it. But I’m spending the time trying to get a ton of SecGovs done so I have a nice comfortable buffer. We’ll see how I do.

Back when Geocities decided to commit suicide and take all our hard work with it, I lamented the death of my first website, the Adam West Batcave, but I’m just remembering something else that Geocities took too. I had once created a website devoted to telling the world that Patrick D Ryall sucks.

I think I called the site “geocities.com/pdrsucks/” and on it I wrote from the point of view of a person who supposedly knew me in school and had an intense distaste for me. I’m pretty sure I only got a few paragraphs of insane ranting done, but I had always planned to get back to it. Unfortunately, as time passed, I forgot about it. It likely would have come back to me at some point, but then I forgot about it when it mattered most, at the end of the Geocities era. When I got everything from the Batcave, I forgot to get to pdrsucks and save what I had done. I could have transferred it to some blog somewhere or something. So now all that is lost. I never linked to the site anywhere, because it wasn’t finished, so I doubt it exists in any cache online anywhere. It is lost to the ages.

I remember I told Kiiip about it as I was doing it, but I never told Marq. In fact, the entire reason I was building a site about how much I suck was because I hoped, someday, it would get into search engines Marq would stumble across it and be amazed. But now that will never happen…

So anyway, Marq, now you know. Maybe my finally telling you this could be considered your birthday gift since I got you zero ones for your actual birthday last weekend?

Okay, so today (or Wednesday anyway. For me this is still my Wednesday waking period, even though it is after midnight) a bunch of websites shut themselves off in protest or whatever. Obviously I didn’t do that for the Book of PDR, for various reasons including the fact I wouldn’t know how. Also including the fact that since nobody much really comes here, so nobody would notice. But the main important super serious reason is this: I’m a radical anti-capitalist who pretty much endorses all forms of copyright infringement and piracy or movies, music, and software. I want it mandatory and taught in preschools until everyone has no money ever. So obviously I’m the exact kind of enemy the SOPA bill wants to destroy. Therefore the reasonable people who want the bill defeated but aren’t actually insane would be better off not associating with me. Right? I’d damage their credibility.

(Actually, I don’t think there’s much copyright infringement on my site. The Canadian Heritage Moments, maybe would count? I’m sure there’s a picture of Batman on here somewhere? But mostly I’ve preferred to keep things PDR-related (probably to our detriment).)

Anyway, that’s not the real reason I’m doing this post. At some point I made a promise to use this side to record all my encounters with police officers, so now I’ve got to do that. Unfortunately, though, this one isn’t me being suspicious in any way. Basically I just got home from work and found a situation in the lobby of my building (it isn’t important the details because it involves people I don’t know) and even though everything seemed to be in hand with 911 already called and such, I didn’t want to leave until I was sure everything worked out so I wound up holding the door for the three cops and two paramedics who showed up. That’s pretty much the extent of it.

But here’s what I took from it: All those cops looked younger than me. What The Chunks Is That About?