So at Tor.com today I’m talking about the new Watchmen portraits and what these might mean in terms of the adaptation from page to screen. The answer is mostly, “It looks good! TOO GOOD. Also, Laurie, go put on some pants. What are you, nine?”

However, anyone who has read an X-Men comic knows that Laurie got off easy. You know whose costume really sucked? Casablanca-records-sponsored mutant Dazzler! Who I hate. Let me show you why!

That’s not even why. That’s just how the poor thing looks.

Disclaimer: I am not well-versed on this; in a conversation about comics, I’m out-comic’ed in about two minutes. All I know is what I read as a thirteen-year-old, instead of leaving my room ever. That was mostly X-Men.

But seriously, Dazzler sucks.

She had her own miniseries back in the day, inexplicably called “Beauty and the Beast,” where she flipped out because of the pressures of fame and couldn’t control her power and had to go to Heartbreak Hotel (actual name) and attempt some mutant rehab. Meanwhile, Beast is all, “How about we go to the State Fair on Tuesday? I have my dad’s car for the weekend,” and she’s all, “I can’t believe that you, who are ugly, have more control than I, the beautiful one!”

You can start reading the synopsis of the series here, but I got acid flashbacks and had to stop.

The thing I most remember is her talking to the young girl who lives/works there, and finds out her mutant power is that she can change the color of a flower. Seeing this, Dazzler thinks, and I quote, “Hmm…makes sense that nature would have scattered a few lesser powers among all us big-time mutants,” which is pretty big talk for a woman whose power is basically to channel garage bands into the Fiesta Texas nightly laser show.

She sucks, is what I’m saying.

And what I’m really saying is, it never hurts to have good-looking costumes in your movie, but I have a sneaking hope that even in awesome latex costumes, everyone is still as lame as they should be. Right, Dazzler? (Oh yeah, I went there.)

On Tor.com, I babble about how the Middleman DVDs are actually happening.

This makes today much cooler than, say, Monday, when the DVD promise did not yet exist. But if you give a mouse a cookie, she’s gonna want details on the special features.

My dream list of special features would be:

- Table readings for all the episodes. This isn’t as nuts as it sounds; from ABC Family’s own site, we know they filmed at least, what, five? I’m sure they shoved a camcorder in a corner most times.

- Episode commentaries with the principal actors – and without Javier Grillo-Marxuach. He can have separate commentaries, of course, but in my dream DVD sets the actors never have to compete with the director.

Best example ever: the LOTR commentaries. Peter Jackson and company talked about themes and planning and triumph and all sorts; the actors made fun of each other and talked shit about the dialect coaches.

- Screen tests!

- Behind the scenes filming. Waaaant.

- Storyboards or other information from the planned 13th episode.

- Bloopers. You know their bloopers are amazing.

- Things I know I am missing. What am I missing?

(YAY DVDs.)

It’s just as well that I never go into my kitchen. I have some kind of entropic field.

An old friend of mine came into town, and as part of the evening’s festivities we baked gingerbread, because that’s how we roll. And by “we baked,” I mean that I stood in the kitchen and handed her things, and she baked. It came out nicely! It smelled like a molasses factory, in a good way. It looked like normal gingerbread should look:

Disclaimer: this picture of gingerbread is a representative example, and not our actual gingerbread.

See, I asked for lemon icing, which sounded appropriately delicious. We banged around in the refrigerator for lemons, and pulled out sugar, and followed the recipe exactly. I stood and watched, helpfully, and imagined the gingerbread coming out with that slightly rum-soaked glaze that happens all the time in the food shows, where women pour things contentedly over cakes and the camera pushes in like it’s porn.

When the “lemon glaze” was finished, we poured it over the gingerbread in a very prosaic and you-missed-a-spot way that gives me new respect for anyone who can cook on camera, and let it cool.

Something went horribly wrong at some point (entropic fieeeeeld), and now the gingerbread looks like this:

Good news: if you can peel the lemon off, it’s delicious.

* Band name!

This ad singlehandedly made my ridiculous commute bearable:

They also have West Village Move, from the same photographer, which is convenient for me, since my pictures are always so blurry it just looks like I’m tweaking on PCP or something.

(My favorite part is that box on the top left that says “Feelings:” and then gives you room to write. HA!)

It’s amazing how upsetting I find just the trailers for movies like Taken and The Last House on the Left. I am a weenie of the highest order. I am easy to scare. (The last time I saw a horror movie in the theatre was The Blair Witch Project, which I sincerely regret, though in that particular case I regret wasting two hours of my life and nine bucks. That’s like forty dollars today!)

Seriously, though, every time the Taken trailer plays on my TV, my blood pressure goes up five points. I cannot imagine sitting through two hours of that. We will not even talk about Last House on the Left.