Insalubrious Hubris

 Or, If You Wish To Have A Less Pretentious Title -

"Pride Cometh Before A Fall", and the thing is, the higher up the greasy pole you climb, the further you have to fall.  Your Humble Scribe was practicing his Evil tonight by reading a Reddit about celebrities who had destroyed their own careers through their own greed, stupidity, pride, stupidity, arrogance and stupidity.  It rather struck a chord when I read about someone called "Katherine Heigel", whom I knew nothing about.  Art?

ART!
<sounds of a Tazer being charged>

     How "Katherine" does he look to you?  Get it right!

Keeping her small, just because

     The Heegl was in some vapid comedy called "Gray's Anatomy", which is a pun on the title of a medical textbook.  It was immensely popular, and the Hiegel let this go to her head, slagging-off her costars and the shows writers and a cleaner who didn't tug his forelock quickly enough, because Entitlement Is Me!

    She got fired, and pretty quickly.  During her time on the show she'd also picked up some pretty sweet film gigs, and may have thought this was her ticket to immortality, riches and having a species of salamander named after her.
     However, she'd also been incautious enough to slag off the film "Knocked Up" that she made with Seth Rogen.  Seth Rogen is quite a mover and shaker in Hollywood, and Hollywood took note.

"Katherine couldn't wait to ditch this schlubby loser and shine like the star she was!"

     The film work dried up almost immediately, especially since her reputation as being a spoiled prima-donna preceded her - the Hollywood euphemism for this is "Difficult", apparently.

    Here's the bit that resonates with me.  With very little of substance in the offing (television series she was in died after a season, or even two episodes), she went back to the "Gray's Anatomy" showrunner (it was still running after all those years?  Dog Buns) and explained that she'd like to explore what happened to her character after leaving the show and what had happened to her and where her life had ended up -

     You know what this reminded me of?  A-Train's pathetic attempt to re-write his script in "Dawn of the Seven", so that it's not a definite goodbye, rather leaving things hanging in the air.  Art?

     Ashley and The Homelander don't accept this for a second; A-Train is leaving, it's a done deal and NO WAY is he coming back, ever.  All the panicked scribbling on that screenplay was an utter waste of time -

     Which must be how the Hiegle felt when "Gray's Anatomy" stonewalled her desperate pleading*.  She does adverts to pay the bills now.

     And that, Vulnavia, is why Keanu Reeves still has a career.


Can You Stand More Character And Assassination?

For Lo! we are back to "Legal Eagle's" analysis of 'Laws Broken' and I'm afraid a lot of the lustre has been lost from the halo that Doctor Henry Jones used to have.  We now come to one moment that Devin (the Legal Eagle himself) identified as being particularly redolent of exigent in this bloke's intent.  Art?

Before

After

     Devin lays down the law here, stating that Indy cannot merely shoot the man because he is demonstrating excellent swordmanship, and that the carrying of an edged weapon is insufficient reason to resort to deadly force when one's life is not in immediate danger.  This was promptly taken up in the comments by other people, who contradict this by saying Indy had already been attacked by other thugs with knives, and he was entirely justified in self-defence, and besides, the Man In Black may not be dead after all**.  

It amused me

     Then there was an argument about what law or jurisdiction would apply here, as this is Egypt in the Thirties, a British protectorate, and would British law apply or was there an Egyptian version?  One gets the impression that if this case went to court a lot of lawyers would get rich, the Man In Black would still be dead, and Indy could never return to Cairo.

     I think that's enough iconoclasm for one night.  What next?

There Was This One-Legged Duck, See -

You expect the next line to be about an Irishman running into a pub ahead of a Scotsman, an elk and three Trincomaleeneans.  Not so!  Art?

    This is the aptly-named "Stumble", who lost a leg to fishing-line and who can now get around in his one-duck wheelchair.  One of those stories that the news broadcasters like to finish with as an "Awwww!" moment.  It reminded Conrad, who has a mind like the proverbial sewer skip, of another duck taking advantage of his upright friend's ability to craft methods of individual transport - Art?

     This is Herbie, who loved to skateboard.  There's not much more one can say after an opening like that.

Bendis Recommends -

Don't worry if you don't find these short infills of information terribly relevant, especially since a lot of you have no idea what a 'comic' is, because paper is, like, destroying the Amazon's ozone baby-seal parks, or something.  I say this because we are nearly at the end of Brian Michael Bendis' list of comic books to keep you sane and mentally agile during this lockdown.  One of the two, anyhow.  Today is the turn of "Nextwave".  Art?

Agents of H,A,T,E, eh?  I like them already!

     This is quite old, having only lasted from 2006 to 2007.  It was a tongue-in-cheek look at superheroes and their ilk, poking fun at Marvel's roster of same, and generally being a satire of Marvel itself.  Conrad likes the idea of a comic that doesn't take itself too seriously (or at all seriously) and the artwork by Simon Immonen is really good (and is one of the reasons it was cancelled after 12 issues, because he got paid wheelbarrow-loads of cash for his art).

Finally - 

Conrad managed a little serendipitous discovery yesteryon, whilst carelessly Googling for covers of the "Hotspur" comic.  Art?

     Hmmmmm.  Conrad is willing to allow some poetic licence here, as it was printed in 1948.  One presumes that the Last Man survived because he was in an underground shelter?  Except that won't float, there's loads of underground spaces in New York and there would be other survivors, too, in that case.  Perhaps his survival is a function of that snazzy clubbing gear he's wearing?
     We must also be some distance from Ground Zero, as the buildings are largely intact and there are no fires raging.  Last Man ought not to be boogying around in the open unless he's been observing the Rule Of Seven as regards nuclear fallout.

     Of course, I could be overthinking this -

*  At this point Conrad was sniggering.  But we all know he's a horrid rascal anyway, don't we?

**  A Webly Mark VI at twenty feet?  He's dead alright.