Obviously those reported plans to make Evil Dead 4 turned out to be false. However, Bruce Campbell has a semi-related project in the works that may turn out to be even more amusing.

Given that his two books have been an autobiography and a fake autobiography, it was only a matter of time before he started playing himself in movies:

My Name Is Bruce is the tale of a small town set upon by demons after a group of teen-agers unwittingly unleash an ancient curse. Campbell, playing himself, is kidnapped off the set of a B horror movie and, despite his protestations that he’s just an actor, is forced to play the role of his heroic movie character in order to save the town.

Mark Verheiden is writing the screenplay. He’s a writer/producer on Battlestar Galactica and Smallville, so that’s more promising than Campbell if directed his own script, as he did on the awful Man With the Screaming Brain.

The concept sounds a little like Fright Night, except with an actual B-horror actor instead of a fictional one, combined with the hero-worship mockery of Free Enterprise. The title reminds me of the old B-comedy They Call Me Bruce, about a Chinese man mistaken for Bruce Lee.

Canadians Healthier Than Americans, Survey Says

Canadians are healthier than Americans, have better access to health care and have fewer unmet health needs, a new study of both countries reveals.

The findings come in spite of the fact that the United States spends almost twice as much per capita on health care as Canada, the researchers noted.

[...]

Specifically, Americans are one-third less likely to have a regular doctor, two times less likely to take needed medications, and one-fourth more likely to have unmet health care needs than Canadians.

But the American health care system is the BEST IN THE WORLD!!!1!

Right. Because it’s best to leave the important decisions up to insurance companies who have a vested interest in denying as much coverage as possible. Hospitals spend combined billions just on staffers whose sole responsibility is squeezing blood from the stone that is the insurance industry.

I’m one of those Americans without a regular doctor, by the way, because every doctor in Tucson has a six-week waiting list for appointments. When I get sick, I’ll just try to get over it myself rather than wait three hours to pay $50 for an Urgent Care visit.

I’m spending my Memorial Day the same way I spend most of my days off during a Tucson summer — indoors, AC cranked up, hiding from an angry sun. So while everyone else holds barbeques and lounges by pools, I’m making my way through my usual stack of books, video games, and DVDs.

Which is not to say I haven’t had a busy social calendar lately. My free time has been surprisingly full during the last week. Laurel invited me, Ron, and a few other friends to go bowling on Thursday night — free bowling with a $4 cover and cups of bad beer for 50 cents. We then retired to Laurel’s place for margaritas at 1am, even though most of us had to work in the morning. I was the first one to leave, as always.

Then on Saturday was a combined birthday party for Ron and Laurel, who share a birthday on May 31. Ron invited his gamer-geek friends and employees (he manages a game store in Tucson Mall), so I only knew maybe half of the people there. But I still had as much fun as an antisocial misanthrope can at a loud, crowded party. I sobered up and drove home at 2:15am with, once again, the party still going strong. Apparently a few stragglers kept going until 7am or so, a concept that’s always been foreign to me.

Since then, I’ve relaxed and let my liver heal. This used to be one of those days where I would swear I was going to get some writing done, then chastise myself at the end of the day when, inevitably, I didn’t. Not so much today — between the move and everything else in my life, I’ve barely thought about writing in 2006, let alone done any. What’s more, I haven’t missed it. That should probably worry me.

I did have an idea for a brand new creative outlet last week, an idea my friends think is just fabulous. I’m going to ponder it a while before I start anything, though.

‘Star Wars’ Fans Upset About DVD Plans for Original Trilogy

Despite earlier reports that Lucasfilm would be re-releasing the original unedited theatrical versions of the first three Star Wars movies on DVD, it now turns out that they will be copied from the laserdiscs of the films released in the mid’90s, formatted for the conventional TV screen and not wide-screen “letterbox” versions.

Apparently, what they meant to say is that the Original Editions will be widescreen, but not anamorphic. Viewers with widescreen TVs will have to muck around with the “zoom” feature to make it look right — except for me, since my new TV doesn’t seem to have that feature.

Note that this only effects people with widescreen TVs, or anyone who plans to purchase a widescreen TV ever in the future… which is just about everyone. Nice one, Lucasfilm.

The other thing about this is, if we’re talking about non-anamorphic DVD-rips of the original laserdiscs… those have been available for ages via torrent downloads, convention sales, and other bootlegger sources. Except for (possibly?) improved audio/video quality, wouldn’t we just be paying for a product that’s no better than a bootleg?

My money and I can wait for a proper DVD release. Again.

They Might Be Giants now has three ringtone MP3s for sale: “Phone Phone Phone,” “Ring Ring,” and “Call Connected Through the NSA.” The NSA one is also available for free download, but despite (or perhaps because of) being funny political satire, I’d rather have the first two as my ringtones.

Now I just have to figure out how the hell to get MP3s onto my new phone…

In response to Al Gore’s upcoming documentary An Inconvenient Truth, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which is a front group for Big Oil, is airing a pair of 60-second ads, hoping to keep muddying the facts about global warming the way they have for decades. (If you remember Thank You For Smoking, this is an example of arguing not to lose instead of arguing to win.)

However, what they’ve come up with plays more like an SNL parody than anything else.

The first spot called “Energy” sings the praises of carbon dioxide and warns that the government will someday try to outlaw exhalation.

“Carbon dioxide. They call it pollution. We call it life.”

The other one, “Glacier,” is slightly less hilarious, although it does feature ice un-melting back onto a glacier. Mostly, it’s just the standard oil company lies about the science involved.

I was all set yesterday to move my cell phone service over to Qwest Wireless to reward them for not selling out their customers to the NSA like Verizon did. Then I did a Google search to find the closest Qwest store and discovered this press release. Apparently, if you get Qwest Wireless service in 61 major markets in the West, including Tucson, you’re actually getting Verizon.

Just goes to show you how hard it is to “buy blue.”

I ended up going to T-Mobile instead. I also bought one of the more expensive phones available from them, a Samsung model that was just introduced at CES 2006 a few weeks ago. I usually avoid the expensive phone models, but its included 1.3 megapixel camera (with low-light settings) proved too much of a temptation.

I’m not sure I’m happy with it, though. Some of the controls are counter-intuitive, and there’s no way to light up the exterior date/time display without opening the phone. Since I stopped wearing a wristwatch, I’ve been using my phone as a sort of pocketwatch, so that’s a bigger problem than it seems.

Christopher Moore posted “The Beta Male Manifesto” on his blog, an essay he’s sharing with audiences on his current book tour. Some of it applies to me, some of it doesn’t at all, but it’s mostly for humorous effect anyway. Go and read part 1, part 2, part 3, and the conclusion.

HBO recently announced a pair of long-awaited DVD releases.

First up is season 2 of Carnivale on July18. Carnivale is the closest television has ever come to a DC/Vertigo comic. I watched season 1 about a year ago, and I understand season 2 had a much faster pace and more plot, but unfortunately it didn’t come to a definitive conclusion before its cancellation.

Then on August 8 comes the third season of perhaps the best show on television, The Wire. At the same time, the first two season sets drop in price to SRP $60, which doesn’t help me since I already own used copies of each.

As per usual for HBO DVDs, these two sets are insanely overpriced at SRP $100 for 12 episodes. Netflix queue, here I come.

I checked my PO Box this morning for the first time in ages and found a weekly Nielsen Diary along with $15 cash for filling it out. I have the power! I control which shows live or die! Moo hoo ha ha ha!

Actually, I’m mostly just amused/disturbed that this is really how networks make their programming decisions…