NW. Are you shocked?

What? I just got NW, what am I doing blogging it?

Well, today I'm in preparations for the big Guatamala trip. Laundry is being washed. The handwashables are hanging up to dry. Things are getting done around here.

So, on to NW and ... Ye Gods! The man on the cover has huge pores! I never notice this stuff, but maybe all that Go Fug Yourself reading has rubbed off on me a little. Dude needs a full-face Biore strip and exfoliation, stat.

Plus, the cover is about hearing loss, one that could ostensibly use a photoillustration. But the problem with NW's latest batch of photo illustrations is that they are so crude, so ugly, so ... junior high collage ... that it would look almost as bad as the pretty man with preposterous pores. Is NW afraid of running pretty, clever and realistic-looking p.i.'s? Think back with me here, folks. Last week it was the inside article. Nevada Sen. Henry Reid and Frootloop Sen. Bill Frist blowing up the Capitol dome in a cartoon cutout. Before that it was a xerox of a hand tinted pink with a teensy xeroxed dollar bill. Totally obvious and ugly. The last pretty p.i. was ... Martha! The one that got NW in trouble with journalists. People, there is a middle ground where something is an obvious p.i. and yet is not completely ugly and primary colored. Find it. Or give your artists a little more time to conjure something up.

Mark Whitaker is less pukeupable today. Though there is one tittery comment in his column that makes the eyes roll, and, believe it or not, it is his own TRAGIC LAST SENTENCE!

"And in a first look at the latest bid to bring our most human superhero to the screen, Devin Gordon explains why great writing and characters, not special effects, will make 'Batman Begins' soar."

Soar? Soar? Most human? Phhhhlllbbbbtt. I'll give you "Most Human" in the category of superhero without any actual superpowers. But the big B is kind of a goth caricature of morose tragedy. So is The Punisher, and I don't believe he has any superpowers either. But then, I shouldn't expect a NW editor to be well-versed in the fantasyverses of DC and Marvel.

Oh, Lord, Nevada residents are going to choose their own quarter design. The finalists are so ugly. The state quarters have pretty much all been a travesty. Delaware started fairly strong with its simple man on horse entry, even if it did lose points for basically trying to bust on Paul Revere. But Connecticut's tree? The multiple state symbol salads? I suppose the one I liked the best would be Vermont's exceptionally non-pretentious man tapping a maple tree for sap. Or did I just define it too well there? Anyway, the upshot of the whole Nevada Votes! is that the two designs will tap into two divergent and hideous new agey trends — in one corner, Native American tchotchkes, in the other, bucking horses racing down a plain with "snow capped" mountains and sunrise behind them. What, no wolf designs? Anyway, I predict horses because the native gewgaws do not include a dream catcher. Oh, bonus trivia for the horse people — apparently the wild n frees are trying to get out of the state altogether, since the angle from which the Nevadans that see the sun rise over the Sierra Nevada range is way out on the border. California here they come, right back where they started from ...

Letter writers love George W. For Washington, that is. Oh man, I started to sound like NW there. Here's one letter writer's TLS:

"May he be immortal."

Are these people this fawning all the time or is there something about NW that brings it out in them? "That divan is divine." "The polka-dot plant yet endures the dryness, a bold soul is she." "Your passing the salt was a demonstration of your natural grace and good heart."

But let me not mock these NW fawners any more. Let me mock the TLSs.

"He had a race to start."

"That's something that Jason Reinhardt's mother knows all too well."

"They never imagined the horror Lamonica described could have been taking place inside."

"And he's just about certain to use some of the techniques that kept his father in power for nearly three decades."

"With such fans, Freston won't mind the jet lag."

"Money has been earmarked for cobblestone streets around the NYSE — a nice historical touch for an institution whose 213-year traditions for doing business may be history."

"Sounds good to us."

"Nobody said it would be a simple undertaking." (The story is about a rise in enrollment in undertaker programs. The story would have been a lot better with some details — in the accompanying photo, there's a jar of "Velva Post-mortem massage cream," which demands some sort of explanation, especially seeing how you can't find it through Google. However, here's a closeup on the label. Though I would be careful poking around underbunny's photo essay if I were to actually poke around on it.)

"For better or for worse, we're stuck with marrying for love and accepting the consequences of living happily ever after — until someone better comes along."

"If we were forced to give out an Oscar today, we'd hand it to Blu-ray, but if these guys don't start acting in unison, this sequal could get a thumbs down." (What does that even mean for two competing companies with two DVD standards?)

"He couldn't bring himself to do it, though — not after so boldly resurrecting the superhero in the driver's seat."

"As a true-grit tale of redemption, on the other hand, it lands one solid body punch after another."

"Besides, the made-for-TV wars are already grim enough."

"Instead, what you get is the pure joy of looking at the world — and looking hard."

"Now she can sit back and enjoy her summer — in shorts."

And that's a wrap.

Obviously there will be a pause in the blogging as I head to G-mal and the even more exotic A-saw for holidays. No guest blogger, but if my comment section is any standard, I don't have that many readers anyway to miss me.

Adios, amigos!