There are many tragedies surrounding the capsizing of the Italian cruise liner Costa Concordia last Friday.  In addition to the confirmed deaths and the many people still missing, the fact that the ship’s captain left his post before the evacuation was finished has many people up in arms, rightfully so.  (His claim that he “tripped and fell into a lifeboat” only serve to add fuel to the fire.)

But now there are reports that male crew members were shoving their way past women, elderly, and screaming young children, as they raced to save themselves.

So what’s more shocking: that it was these crew members’ jobs to protect their passengers, and instead they protected themselves?  Or the fact that any semblance of chivalry, or even basic civility, was cast aside in the panic?

To me, what’s horrific about these reports has little to do with gender – it would be just as awful if female crew members were shoving their way past elderly men and young boys during the evacuations.  What’s so sad about this is that people who were in a position to help those in need of assistance chose to only help themselves.

It should be noted, of course, that there very well may be plenty of stories out there about the ship’s crew members doing an upstanding job of helping people to safety and saving lives that are simply not getting any media attention.

But after reading about “totally incompetent“  crew members, or that the crew were telling passengers to relax and have a drink, and that they had no idea how to operate the life boats, it’s hard to not be slightly outraged and what was happening as the ship was going under.

The chivalrous thing to do in that situation, the civil thing to do, the RIGHT thing to do, is to get the passengers to the life boats and make sure the evacuation proceeds smoothly and orderly.  You can make the argument that the whole “women and children first” policy is outdated and even sexist, and maybe it is.  But wanting to save the lives of small children is just common sense.  Self-preservation is a powerful instinct, and sure, nobody can really predict how they would act in such a dire situation.

But if you shoved your way past a child screaming “i don’t want to die,” to get on a life boat, you might guarantee your survival.  But how would you be able to live with yourself if you found out that the family you ran past and didn’t bother to help didn’t make it?

Over the past quarter-century, Super Mario has battled many foes: his arch-nemesis Bowser, Daisy-napping alien Tatanga, future frenemy Wario, and a bizarre Shadow Mario that turned out to be Bowser Jr. in disguise.  (Obviously I am excluding Wart, since Mario never actually battled him, what with the whole thing being just a dream and all.)

But now, Mario is squaring off against his most unusual enemy yet: the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

Here’s the long story short: In Mario’s latest adventure, Super Mario 3D Land (IwantitIwantitIwantit), Mario can use the Tanooki power-up, an item that hasn’t been seen since Super Mario Bros. 3.  When Mario gets this power-up, he grows a Tanooki tail, which he can use to hover over short distances.  Totally awesome, right?

Well, not according to PETA.  Because “Tanooki” isn’t just a made-up funny sounding word – it’s actually the name of a real animal in Japan.  PETA calls the tanuki a “raccoon dog,” that is often skinned alive for its fur.  Obviously, that is a horrible thing, and no animal should ever be made to suffer in such a horrible way; PETA is certainly justified in it’s outrage there.

But they made a pretty big leap in logic after that.  Their website makes the bold (and ludicrous) statement that: “By wearing Tanooki, Mario is sending the message that it’s OK to wear fur.”

Um… what?

They know Mario is a cartoon video game character, right?

I mean, he wore a frog suit in SMB3 – does that promote people killing frogs and wearing their skins to swim faster?  Do his adventures in Super Mario Galaxy encourage players to go into space without a space helmet and adequate oxygen supply? Does his riding Yoshi constitute dino-abuse?

And let’s not just focus on Mario.  Link has been wailing on chickens for his perverse amusement for years.  What about those Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – do they promote the youth of the world to soak their pet turtles in mutagenic ooze and then train them to fight?  Let’s not forget Sonic, and the hedgehog abuse implied there.  And despite what happens in the Raving Rabbids series, not all rabbits enjoy playing unending wacky mini-games.

Not surprisingly, PETA faced the wrath of the nerds after news of their Mario-bashing went viral.  Now, they’re telling fans of the iconic character to “Relax!”  They’re saying that their crusade against the moustachioed plumber was a humorous way to call attention to a serious problem.  They said they were shocked by the backlash.  All they were doing was trying to protect the poor little raccoon dogs of Japan.

Yeah.  Well.  The thing is, they really did it ass backwards. A smarter, alternative strategy would have been for the organization to write an open letter to Nintendo.  In it, they could have said that Mario’s use of the Tanooki power-up is a fun element of a storied franchise, but that there is a serious problem with real-world tanuki being killed for their skins.  Then, they could have set-up a specific fund to collect money to help and protect the tanuki, and ask Nintendo to make a portion of the proceeds from Super Mario 3D Land go to that cause. The odds of the Big N going along with it would have been slim, but at least that strategy would have pressured a big company to help your cause or ignore you at their own peril. Instead, the PETA people have (once again) just made themselves look like nutjobs.

But hey, in the end, this is small potatoes for Mario. He’s the savior of the Mushroom Kingdom, the owner of a lucrative go-kart racing industry, a licensed physician, and the host of countless parties for his friends. If a handful of wackos don’t like all of his outfits, so be it. He can always just grab a vegan-friendly fire flower and just torch ‘em, after all.

For far too long, the only news about Arrested Development were rumors about a movie that was always “coming soon.”

But now – finally – comes the news we’ve all been waiting for since 2006: not only is an Arrested Development movie in the works, but it will be preceded by ten new episodes of the show as well! Yay!

The timing is funny – I just got Seasons 1-3 of the show as a birthday gift last week.  I was looking forward to rewatching the show before, but now I have even more motivation to revisit the Bluth family.

The deal isn’t officially in place, which isn’t great, but the cast, creator Mitchell Hurwitz, and producer Ron Howard have all confirmed the plan.  So we may actually really get new AD by 2013.  Netflix and Showtime are currently in the running to snag the new episodes.  It would be a major win for Netflix, which could use some good press right now.  And the lure of Dexter alone hasn’t been able to get me to subscribe to Showtime, but if they had Dexter AND Arrested Development?  Well, they’d also get some new customers.

It’s the story of a wealthy family who lost everything and the one son who had no choice but to keep them all together… It’s MORE Arrested Development!

There are little to no details about this program yet, like when it will officially start, and on what lines it will be operating.  The only big piece of news available right now is that these cars will be “self-enforced.” (Not terribly surprising – after all, these LIRR ticket takers really have it pretty rough as it is…)

This is only the smallest bit of news, but I’m happy to see that the MTA is recognizing that this is an issue that people care about, and they are taking steps (microscopically tiny steps, but steps nonetheless) to implement this program.  Fingers crossed that it goes well!

I had started as an NBC Page in late August of 2001, so on September 11, I was still one of the new kids. That Tuesday morning, I was working with the audience for The Rosie O’ Donnell show, which taped at 30 Rock. That meant that I was in the city early, keeping the line of people hoping to get standby tickets orderly. Just the week before, one person wanted in so badly that he attempted to bribe me with tickets to the Jackson 5 reunion concert that took place at Madison Square Garden on September 8.  (I declined the tickets.)  We had brought the audience up to the ninth floor, but for some reason there was a hold up on bringing them into the actual studio.  Then another Page, Jonathan, reported back that he heard Rosie was upset, and she wanted to cancel the show because a plane had hit the World Trade Center.  The first thing that went through my head was the scene at the end of Airplane! when the plane, during it’s hectic descent, knocks off the antenna of a disco station.  I just assumed it was some kind of small accident – only a few weeks before, a paraglider had crashed into the Statue of Liberty, and that story was handled by the news by and large as a joke.  But Jonathan and I wanted to know what was going on, so we went off to the “mini-control room,” the final stop on the NBC Studio Tour.  Normally the studio was sued as a way to show the people on the tour what a working news/weather studio looks like, but Jonathan knew how to turn the TV’s in there to live news.  It was in that room that we saw the fire smoldering out of the North Tower.  This was clearly something very different from that paraglider incident.  We sat there for a few moments in utter horror.  Suddenly Rosie’s decision to cancel her show didn’t seem like such a bad idea.

The audience was loaded out, and Jonathan and I, along with the rest of the Pages, were all summoned back to our office space on the 7th floor.  It was on the TV’s in there that we saw that the South Tower had been hit as well.  People began to panic.  I remember one guy whose father worked in a World Trade Center building in Texas, and he was growing increasingly worried about him.  The news then reported that an explosion had rocked the Pentagon in Washington DC.  We were told to evacuate, and that we would all go together somewhere safe.

We were in the locker rooms, changing out of our uniforms, when somebody said that one of the towers had fallen.  We rushed to get out of the building as fast as we could.

I was eager to get home, but there was talk that there was no way to get out of the city.  Someone – I don’t recall who exactly, though I assume it was a woman named Carrie who supervised the Pages, decided we should all walk uptown.  Sara, a fellow Page, was gracious enough to offer he apartment on the Upper East Side.

While we were crossing Fifth Avenue, we saw the North Tower collapse.  Granted, we were in midtown, but the sight was still unbelievably haunting.

As we walked, there was more talk about what else had happened.  That another plane had hit Battery Park.  That every ridge and tunnel out of Manhattan had been bombed.  That planes were basically raining out of the sky around the country.  Of course none of those things turned out to be true, but after everything we saw that morning, it all seemed plausible.  Was I really stranded in the city?  Was this it?  The End?

Keep in mind that this is before the era of smart phones.  This was even before the age when every person on earth had a cell phone.  A bunch of us were taking turns using Carrie’s phone, with limited success.  I remember not being able to get a hold of Courtney, my mother, or my father, but after calling every number I could think of, I was able to get a hold of Chuck. I told him I was fine, and I gave him everyone else’s numbers to call.

Also on the long walk of town, I overheard a small boy asking his mother about what had happened. I remember the conversation vividly.
Boy: “Were there people in the buildings?”
Mom: “Yes.”
Boy, after a pause: “Are they OK?”
I saw the mom struggle to answer, and we kept on walking.

When we finally made it to Sara’s apartment, we did what most of the people in the country were doing – we huddled around the TV. There was an announcement made that if people in New York City wanted to help, they should not head downtown where things were still too chaotic, but instead go to a local hospital and donate blood. Myself and a few other Pages left Sara’s to find a nearby hospital. We found one, and what we saw was profoundly moving: a line of blood donors so long that the hospital had to turn people away. That sight epitomizes to me the great spirit of this city; sure we’re not always the most gracious or kind to the people we pass on the street, but if a stranger is really and truly in need, we’ll step up and do whatever we can to help.

As the day went on, they announced on the news that LIRR trains were up and running again, so I headed back home. The train was packed, filled with people in sheer disbelief about what they had witnessed and experienced.

When I got home, I hugged everyone as tightly as I could, and began making all of the requisite phone calls to check-in. Most of those calls were of the “I’m fine, glad that you’re fine also” variety… except for one.

The days that followed were totally surreal. No one knew what to say, or what to do, or how to react. So many people were missing, and the acknowledgment that that word was just a way of denying the painful truth was a long and slow process.

It’s not easy to remember that day and those that followed, but I do think it’s important to reflect on those memories, and acknowledge what we lost, and how we felt, and how we’ve been able to move on.

So where were you?

This morning, the 2011 Emmy nominations were announced. The usual suspects were all well represented: Mad Men, 30 Rock, everything o HBO.

And as usual, Fringe has gotten no love. Sure, Joshua Jackson got to read the nominations, but no, that does not count.

Come on, Emmy people! Fringe had another amazing season – how could you not at least recognize John Noble for his brilliant portrayals of not one but TWO Walter Bishops?

Sure, Fringe already got the best news it could have hoped for earlier this year when it got renewed for a fourth season, and an Emmy nod would have just been icing on the cake. But it would have been well-deserved, tasty icing. And seriously, have you ever had a cake without icing? I guess what I’m saying is, icing is great.

And so is Fringe. To those who insulted my nerdiness for not watching Big Bang Theory: Are you watching Fringe? Huh? ARE YOU? Because you really should be. It’s like The X-Files, only (dare I say it?) way better. (At least way as far as the overall mythology is concerned. The stand-alone episodes of both series are equally amazing.) And a nerd without a Fringe on his DVR is like a cake without… Well, you get it.

According to Entertainment Weekly, a sequel to 2001’s amazingly brilliant comedy Wet Hot American Summer could potentially happen.

Please let it happen!

Now as a general rule, I don’t believe in unnecessary sequels to movies that stand perfectly well on their own.  And Wet Hot American Summer certainly works just fine as it’s own thing.  Hell, they even have that brilliant epilogue at the end that shows all of the characters reunited ten years later.  But the people in and behind the original movie are SO funny that getting them all back together for another project can ONLY be a good thing.  Sure all of the actors are way bigger stars now, and sure there would be a ton of hype and pressure for the movie to improve upon the original, which is certainly a daunting task.

But I don’t care.  I’d see it.  Anyone who loves good comedy would, I’m sure.  I’d probably even write about it in my gournal.

OMG

OMG

OMG

OK, I’ve calmed down a bit, sorry about that.

But you can understand why I’m so excited – Nintendo just had their E3 press conference, where they announced their next home console, the Wii U.

I instantly want/need/have to have it.

The system will feature HD graphics, but its most newsworthy feature (like the Wii before it) is its controller, which incorporates a 6.2 inch touch screen, that will be used for gaming in some unbelievable ways.  Like what?  Like for continuing a game on the screen when someone else is using the TV.  For aiming and controlling things in new ways.  For storing/accessing your inventory (like in a Zelda game, as in the above picture).  For drawing pictures on the tablet and then using them in the game.

The system will also be backwards compatible with the Wii, the Wii-motes, and other accessories that have sold millions.

So yeah, it’s pretty amazing.

And just look at how cool an HD Zelda will be:

So what of my prediction of an announcement of a new New Super Mario Bros. game at launch on the new system?  Sadly, no such announcement was made.  Though Nintendo did show off some screen shots of a new twist on the game, titled New Super Mario Bros. Mii, where you can have your own Mii avatar play alongside Mario in the game.  He made it clear that he was not announcing it as an in-development game, but I’m going to remain optimistic about it.

Wii U didn’t get a launch date beyond the vague “2012,” nor did it get a price or an official announcement of any first-party games.  Still, I am foaming at the mouth.

Other big news from the conference: The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword will come out for Wii this year, and the 3DS is getting a slew of awesome looking new games, including Luigi’s Mansion 2, Super Mario 3DS, and a new Mario Kart, with karts that can drive underwater and even fly!!

YAY!  Nintendo Forever!!!

I don’t like to think that, in most cases, it is a good thing when something bad happens to someone.  But I also do believe that pure evil exists in the world, and with that in mind, I think it is fair to say that the world is a better place now that Osama Bin Laden is dead.

The news is more than a decade too late, of course. I say ‘more than’ because even if he had been killed on 9/12/01, it wouldn’t have undone what happened on 9/11.

And of course, it still doesn’t. The news of his death is comforting in the sense that it brings to many mourners a sense of justice, and that is a very real and powerful thing. But it doesn’t undo the damage and pain that he caused, and unfortunately, nothing ever will. And yes, there are still plenty of sickos out there that want to kill innocent people, and the death of one man won’t change that. Still, killing Bin Laden shows that the U.S. is capable of hunting down our enemies.

Here’s an ironic anecdote related to this news: When I got out of the shower this morning, Courtney was watching TV, and she asked me, “Did you hear what happened?” For a second, I feared the worst – that another terrorist attack had been carried out. Of course, the news was that Bin Laden had been killed. But as I was thinking about my initial gut reaction, it occurred to me that the reason my mind went to that place was because of Bin Laden and his actions. I may continue to have knee-jerk reactions to things like that for years to come, but knowing that the psycho behind it all is dead makes me feel, right or wrong, that the world is not only a better place, but hopefully, a safer one as well.

The controversy started when Al wrote a blog post detailing his issues when trying to get Lady Gaga to approve a parody of her song “Born This Way” called “Perform This Way.”  Definitely give his blog post a read – he is certainly a better blogger than yours truly, after all. (And a darn good children’s book author, to boot.)

After this news hit, there was an internet outcry (is there really any other kind of outcry anymore?) Why would Gaga object to a parody of her song?  Isn’t she a champion of people being allowed to express themselves?  Isn’t that exactly what Born This Way is about?  Does she have no sense of humor at all?  Why would she make Weird Al jump through so many hoops only to reject him?  Doesn’t she realize that legendary artists like Michael Jackson, Madonna, and James Brown (remember “Living With a Hernia?”) gave Al their blessings?  Hell, the man was even going to donate all proceeds from the song to the Human Rights Campaign!  WHY IS LADY GAGA RUINING EVERYTHING FOR EVERYONE???

(And shouldn’t she know that it’s not a good idea to upset Weird Al?)

But this story has a happy ending.  By the afternoon, Lady Gaga said that the whole thing was a big misunderstanding, and that she had no knowledge of the parody at all.  She said it was her erstwhile manager who had been making these decisions on Gaga’s behalf, and that she loves Weird Al in general, this parody in particular, and she does in fact sanction Al to release it as a single.  Huzzah!  And there was much internet rejoicing.

Of course, some people are accusing Gaga of just back-peddling, and that she did n reality try to squash the parody, and only relented after the backlash.  There’s no way to really know, and who honestly cares?  The important thing is that Weird Al can release the song as a single, charity can be raised for the HRC, and of supreme importance to the human race… he can make a proper video for the song!  He’s promised it is going to be epic, and given his track record and the song’s lyrics, that’s easy to imagine.

Oh, and since this song will be his next album’s lead single, that means that there will be a new Weird Al album coming soon!  Yay!

Without further ado, here is the song that caused all of this hubbub in the first place.  Keep in mind that the text at the beginning and end are now moot – this video was posted when Al thought the song wasn’t going to be released on his album.  And this is (obviously) not the epic video that is sure to come, just the music and lyrics.  But they’re still hilarious.  Enjoy!