National Lacrosse League Cancels 2008 Season

From the Baltimore Sun:

Players' Association rejects league's last collective bargaining agreement proposal

The Associated Press
12:37 PM EDT, October 16, 2007

NEW YORK - The National Lacrosse League canceled its 2008 season after failing to reach a labor agreement with the union.

The executive committee of the Professional Lacrosse Players' Association rejected the last collective bargaining agreement proposal, the NLL said today.

"The plan is to take the season off and try to get with the union and negotiate a deal that works for both parties and get back playing in '09," NLL commissioner Jim Jennings said.

The 14-team league was scheduled to open the season Dec. 27.

"It's devastating," Jennings said. "We're in a position right now where we're just starting to build momentum with our fan base, our teams, with television and sponsors over the last four, five years. We're not the NHL, not the NBA. This is going to cause a lot of pain to a lot of people."

Comics for Halloween

The New Captain America

Marvel Comics revealed this new design by artist/painter Alex Ross earlier today. Come January they will be debuting a new Captain America. Now don't go getting your hopes up, Steve Rogers is still dead - there's someone else wearing this new costume. My bets are on Cap's old sidekick Bucky, now called Winter Soldier.

Am I the only one who finds the gun and knife disturbing?

Details (or those that are available) here

Dexter's Second Coming

It's a pretty trick for a writer to pull off a hero out of a villain, even more so when it's a serial killer. And thus it is with Showtime's "Dexter."

Michael C. Hall, late of HBO's "Six Feet Under," plays Dexter Morgan a blood specialist for the police who is also a serial killer. Taught during childhood by his adopted policeman father to channel his darker urges toward other more deserving serial killers, Dexter easily makes that villain-to-hero leap. It is disconcerting when Dex does do his own serial killer thang, that you suddenly realize you're rooting for him.

The core of the lesser (or is it better) of two evils comes from the book(s) by Jeff Lindsey - "Darkly Dreaming Dexter" and its sequel "Dexter in the Dark" which I heartily recommend. He's a complex character who is surrounded by just as intriguing back-up and played by just as talented cast. If you don't already have Showtime, this is worth getting it for. The second season has just begun, and it trumps the first in just two episodes so far. See it!

September 2007 Movie Log

Movies I've watched or re-watched this month include: The Avengers, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Bill Cosby: Himself, Mystery Men, In His Life: The John Lennon Story, X-Men: The Last Stand, The Devil’s Rejects, Dementia 13, Janis, Up Up and Away, Silent Hill, Drop Dead Gorgeous, Superman Returns, Boa, The Blues Brothers, West Side Story, Mask of the Avenger, Shaun of the Dead, I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With, Crime Unleashed, Memoirs of an Invisible Man, The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, The Great Race, Rollerball (1975), Shopgirl, The U.S. vs. John Lennon, Dark City, Moog, Josie and the Pussycats, Portrait of an Assassin, Office Space, Hostel, 3:10 to Yuma (1957), Forbidden Zone, Come On Get Happy, Apt Pupil, World Trade Center and A Simple Plan.

The only foray to the theatre this month was to see friends perform to Rocky Horror, so really no theatre flicks this time out. Insomnia had me raiding OnDemand again, and Showtime’s free preview this past weekend (Yay! Dexter!) offered up some new choices as well.

Flicks to add to the list of movies I’ll watch whenever they are on TV: Office Space, Josie and the Pussycats, West Side Story and Shaun of the Dead. Mystery Men would be added to my wife’s list, I just happen to be in the room.

Among the best this month (that I had seen for the first time) would be slim pickings with Shopgirl, I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With and World Trade Center.