Galley Wife SLL sends us this link to the World Championship of Magic. I wonder who’ll win this year. Can’t wait to read all about it in next month’s Poof.

Remember, a trick is something a whore does for money.

Or candy.

Stephen Hunter’s taste in movies could hardly be further from my own. I think I agree with him on a film about six times a year. But he’s a wonderful critic: Smart, interesting, fun to read. He’s everything you could want. His review of The Ant Bully contains a fabulous rant:

“The Ant Bully” represents a ruinous force in the world that might be called, for lack of a better term (although, heh-heh, this is a pretty great term), “promiscuous empathy.” We identify with anything: birds, bees, flowers, trees. We weep for all. We make a fetish of our compassion and treat our feelings as if they’re ideas. This contagion holds that there is no us and them in the world, that we are all one big us. The fact that the world then makes no sense is of no matter to those who hold this point of view; far more important is how happy it makes them feel, how moral, how superior. All they are saying is give peace a chance.

And he’s just warming up. It gets better from there.

But that’s not the real story here. Look at the head and subhead:

“UMD fire sale at Amazon UK:
Most movies on PSP-friendly Universal Media Disc being sold at half of regular price or less; porn still regular price.”

I wonder why the porn is holding its value. Seriously?

Public Service Announcement: Have you ever tried calling your local phone or cable company and found yourself screaming at some VoiceXML program? Or, in my case, aggravated beyond words because of an airline’s incompetence (that would be United Airlines’ losing my luggage for an entire week). Well, thanks to Galley friend M.R., we may have found a way out. It seems M.R. has stumbled upon this useful link that provides the key to accessing “human customer service” for over a hundred major companies. For example, stuck on the phone with a computer over at Comcast? “Press * at each prompt. Ignore invalid response.” United Airlines? “Say ‘Agent,’ then ‘Domestic’ or ‘International’ as appropriate.”

This may be the biggest breakthrough since the Allies decoded Enigma.

John August has insane hotness:

Most screenwriting nerds can be divided along an axis of DC Comics fans and Marvel men. Largely because of the too-young-to-realize-it-was-bastardized Superfriends, I ended up in the DC camp. But one of the things that’s kept me there has been the franchise’s willingness to accept that every once in a while, you need a good housecleaning.

Thus, you have events like Crisis on Infinite Earths, which, while clumsily executed, had the laudable goal of simplifying the DC Universe. Through drastic and sometimes painful choices, the editors succeeded in getting rid of extraneous characters and plotlines, effectively rebooting the world.

I have come to believe the same thing must happen in the real world. The time has come to rethink, retool and retire many of our celebrities. . . .

It only gets better from there.

How good is the 2006-2007 Eagles season going to be? This good:

Yesterday, the last day of about two dozen rookies and serious-injury recoverees practicing, well, you had Koy Detmer catching passes out of the backfield. And while the 33-year-old backup quarterback showed excellent hands – nary a bobble, let alone a drop – his routes lacked a certain crispness.

Offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg explained that with fullback Thomas Tapeh still sidelined with a balky hamstring, “Koy knows this offense, every position. So we just stick him in there and he runs a little route. We don’t mean to throw him the ball as much as we’ve been doing, but our defense has taken certain things away.”

With outside-the-box thinking like that, 12-4 is just where we start the bidding. If we bring back Randall and put him in at wideout, who knows where the ceiling is.

Anyone know who the top prospect is in next year’s draft?

If Cars didn’t prove it, this does: The Golden Age of CG animated movies is officially over:

The Ant Bully: Rise of the Prolitari-Ant. Easily one of the most bizarre kids films I’ve seen in a long time, The Ant Bully is your typical, by the numbers CG kids film thinly disguising a delightful work of subversive fiction. It’s one of those films, that as it unfolds, causes you to look around the theatre at the other adults and ask: I’m not the only one seeing what I’m seeing am I?

You know those Bibles they make for kids? The ones with the simple stories and colorful artwork that leaves out all of the complex and adult themes that you’d have to commit hours of time to explaining away? Well, if someone sat down to make a similar version of the Communist Manifesto, it would look a hell of a lot like The Ant Bully. It’s a warm ultra-liberal hug of a kids film, preaching the joys of socialism and hard work, all the while telling a story of what the world might be like in a liberal post-9/11 world. . . .

After a devastating attack by “The Destroyer” (a little boy named Lucas) that floods and collapses their mound, destroys their egg chamber and kills untold scores of ants (they brush over this aspect very quickly), the film’s religious figure (a wizard as to avoid any direct correlation) Zoc (Nicholas Cage) concocts a plan to sneak into enemy territory, shrink “The Destroyer” and bring him back for trial. When he does, the ant masses are howling for blood. They want to tear the Destroyer apart. They cry out to eat him alive. But the wise and benevolent Queen Ant has different ideas. You see, The Destroyer is at war with the ants simply because he does not understand them.

Her idea? Sentence l’il Osama to live and work with the ants so he can. Because once they understand one another, there will be no reason to fight. While there, Lucas learns the value of hard work for the mound and how every Ant has his or her place in society. They each have their own specific jobs that they’re born into to do, and it’s important that each ant does its part so they can all enjoy the fruits of the harvest.

Yes, yes. I know. Ants are natures Communists. And I can imagine that it might be hard to tell a story about them without such an overt theme. Except that, well, they did it in ‘Ants’. But this isn’t just an “our culture, their culture” thing. Because as overt as it appears earlier in the film, the point gets hammered home towards the end. As Lucas and Zoc sit atop a rock and stare at the human city, Zoc asks ‘Is that your hive?’ ‘Yeah, I guess it’s like a hive.’ When Zoc asks about how it works, Lucas replies ‘I guess it’s every man for himself.’ This leads to a Zoc monologue about how that just doesn’t make any sense. Everyone has their place and don’t the humans realize that if they all work together and share in the fruits of their labor that they all can benefit?

It’s almost that time of year. And let’s not mince words: This is going to be a rough season. A season of discontent. The season that gets Andy Reid fired.

But it could be worse. We could be with the Detroit Lions:

-Last year, the Lions were quarterbacked by the two-headed monster of Jeff Garcia and Joey Harrington. This year, they’ll be quarterbacked by the two-headed monster of Jon Kitna and Josh McCown. Next year, the team plans on using seven-headed monster Tiamat, who has no NFL experience (or arms, for that matter), but can spit boiling hot acid at would-be defenders with her copper dragon head. Defenses are urged to use their vorpal swords against Tiamat if they wish to slay her and take all her precious, precious gold pieces. For more information, defensive coordinators are urged to consult the Fiend Folio.