No blogging today, folks. I’m at a conference in Mont Tremblant, and the Internet here is, as they say, “le sketchy”. And long form blogging on an iPhone hurts my thumbs.

But I will see you hep cats back here on Monday.

After 67 years of baffling celibacy, beloved comicbook redhead Archie Andrews will marry cruel heiress Veronica Lodge, forever forsaking hottie-next-door (who bakes!) Betty Cooper and long-term homosexual life partner Jughead Jones. Reggie is likely to remain nonplussed. But the world will never be the same.

Archie Comics have announced that an upcoming six-part series will detail the nuptials of America’s favourite teenager. It will no doubt also have some contrived means of returning everything to the status quo by the end, since Archie Comics is surpassed only by Dr. Pepper in it’s commitment to the original forumla.

Will it be a dream? An alien plot? Some sort of time-transferance accidentally masterminded by bumbling local genius, Dilton Doiley? Personally, I’m hoping for a massive divorce settlement. Marrying a rich girl without a pre-nup is a time-honored strategy for Midwest teenagers to improve their socio-economic fortunes. Go Archie! Dig that gold!

Of course, I’ve always been a Betty man myself. Gentlemen prefer (wholesome, athletic, brainy) blondes after all. And she bakes! In fact, the comics have so relentlessly pushed Betty as the superior choice that if Archie actually did find wedded bliss with Veronica, the very fabric of time and space would be torn asunder. Although, having said that, the original Betty – Archie – Veronica triangle could benefit from a little old fashioned adultery. I dare you to not read Archie Comics again once it descends into Desperate Housewives-esque levels of moral turpitude.

Also, Mr. Lodge is going to be pissed.

If you were born between the years 1975 and 1985, congratulations. Your childhood spanned the most culturally interesting period in human history. How else to explain contemporary Hollywood’s ruthless pillaging of cherished shows from this era? Transformers, GI Joe, Thundercats and now…Flight of the Navigator.

Walt Disney Pictures has announced plans to remake the 1986 children’s sci-fi flick. For the uninitiated, it’s a timeless tale of a boy who gets abducted by an alien probe, loses eight years due to the relativistic effects of faster-than-light travel, gets re-abducted by the same probe that needs a map contained within the boy’s brain to get home, and then has a series of wacky and heartwarming adventures. Here’s the original trailer:

As a kid, I was variously fascinated and terrified by the movie. I found the idea of getting abducted by a giant talking robo-eye in a ravine behind your house vaguely unsettling, mostly because there was a ravine behind my house. On the other hand, the idea of blasting around in shape-shifting spaceship that could also turn invisible was pretty cool. It may have also taught me to believe in myself, but in 1986 I was so inundated with that message by a variety of programs and books it’s hard to establish a causal relationship.

No doubt, the remake will probably grossly pervert the spirit of the original, and will no doubt star Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as the alien ship. Also, the guy writing it’s only other contribution to the world of film is the Tim Allen/John Travolta “we’re old!” vehicle, Wild Hogs. Nunc Scio is not optimistic.

An announcement on the King streetcar this morning:

“This isn’t that Queen car, people. The next person that enters through the back door, I’ll take this car right out of service.”

Strong words. Of course, unless the TTC has some sort of ubiquitous omni-intercom wired through all of Toronto, the hypothetical individual who next enters via the back door can’t hear the driver’s warning because they’re not yet on the streetcar. But full marks for being surly.

The Toronto Transit Commission: your source for poorly thought out, useless threats.

I prefer steel bikes. Sure, aluminum and carbon fibre is lighter and a bit stiffer. But you can’t beat the smooth ride and clean lines (not too mention the old-school appeal) of a CroMo frame.

So, I was pretty excited to see that Specialized is issuing a steel version of their popular fixed/singlespeed Langster. This bike has been aluminum for a long time, so it’s nice to see it get back to thin tubes. And it looks pretty nice, too:

There’s an all-white version as well, for those adverse to candy-apple red. It appears from this photo (snagged from a dealer’s catalog) that the steel Langster will be available as a frameset only. But that’s OK…custom builds are why you buy a steel SS in the first place, right?

I enjoy all of the Call of Duty games, especially the ones where you get to kill Nazi Zombies.  But in terms of sheer quality, the jewel in this franchise’s crown has to be Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Infinity Ward’s finest creation is just really, really good. And the multiplayer is epic.

COD4 was so good that it’s sequel will be spun into it’s own series, rather than another installment in the venerably COD library. The new game will simply be called Modern Warfare 2, and will most likely be awesome. Here’s the brand-spankin’ new trailer:

Nice. Here’s hoping the single-player game is longer than it was in COD4 (eight hours? Please sir, can I have some more?). The game drops on Nov. 10, 2009. HT to Miles for the video.

In the course of an average week, I come across a lot of cool movie trailer. But I usually don’t post them, mostly because they don’t really stand alone interest-wise.

But as I awoke this morning, it occurred to me that I could combine many trailers into one awesome post. So here you go. The first-ever installment of Movie Trailer Friday.

First of is a trailer that actually came out last week, the spot for apocalyptic father-son tale, The Road. But since I love the book and because I’m very excited for the movie, here it is anyway:

Mmm. Bleak.

Next, we have the first look at the new Bruce Willis sci-fi flick, The Surrogates. It’s based on the excellent comic by Robert Venditti, and looks pretty slick:

I’d hoped the production design would be a bit more Bladerunner-ish, but I think we can all agree that Bruce Willis looks better without hair.

On the animated side, here’s the second trailer for Shane Acker’s 9:

This movie looks amazing. And one of the characters is voiced by Crispin Glover, which more or less guarantees insanity.

This one is also a little stale, but well worth a look. It’s for District 9, an aliens-on-Earth story and metaphor for intolerance. It’s like Alien Nation, but way cooler looking.

I’m into it, but I can’t help think setting the whole thing in South Africa is a bit on the nose.

Since TV also has trailers now, here’s the teaser for ABC’s remake of the classic (and cheesy) alien-invasion miniseries V:

Finally, lest you think I only watch dystopian or apocalytpic sci-fi, here’s my pick-of-the-week. The trailer for indie Detective flick, Give ‘Em Hell Malone. It just looks violent and cool and awesome:

Hard-boiled goodness. And bonus points for using Johnny Cash’s rendition of “Rusty Cage”.