Photo credit: Dana Voigt

How do you get people to pay for the more premium gas?

Easy. Raise the price of your cheap unleaded gas so that it's twice as expensive as your premium gas. Problem solved.

A friend of mine from college snapped this photo from her cellphone this morning in Clearfield. Proving once again why WaWa's rule and Sheetz's drool! Major Sheetz FAIL.

Yeah, I know I haven't been blogging... But, you see, my desk at work disappeared. It just VANISHED! What do you want me to do about it??! (It could be under this mountain of work I have to do...but I'm too scared to start looking there.) Hopefully it turns up soon.

Of course, there is the off chance my desk-gone-MIA has been nabbed by those zombies that have been lurking around the country, according to those big orange construction signs. Because, you know, zombies do have a blood-snarling urge for, ugh, desks.

What am I talking about? Well, hacked construction signs around the country have been warning drivers of "Zombies Ahead" instead of "Construction Ahead" or "Slow Down" or "Turn your wipers on" or "Click It Or Ticket" the past month, or so.

Obviously, authority types and the PennDOT folks don't think too highly of this grade-A shenanigan spreading around the country like a virus. But now that the invading undead have made their way to our neck of the woods, I want to know why. Why zombies? Are the zombies fighting back? Is this a futile attempt to take back the fantasy monster throne from the Twilight franchise and it's vegetarian vampires? It's possible. Zombies need love too. They can't stand by as the world falls in love with a romance novel series about vegetarian vampires. It's bad enough that they're talking about making a Lost Boys threequel.

Of course, there aren't REALLY any zombies. It's just some misled brilliant kids wielding their uncanny brilliance to scare old people instead of using it to save the world.

But if you think about it, it's like bathroom stall writing. You want to write something that people will instinctively read, and laugh at. So if you were as smart as these kids, and could and would hack into one of these highway road signs for one hour tonight, what would YOU say? Would you confess your love, or propose marriage? Could you say something to better the world? Or are the gloves off? What would you put on a blinking road sign?

"THE BRITISH ARE COMING!"
"WHERE'S WALDO??"
"UNICORNS ARE REAL"
"THIS IS SKYNET. I AM SELF AWARE"
"TURN AROUND! MAULING BEARS! AH!"
"THE MOONINITES HAVE LANDED"
"U R BEING RICK ROLLED"
"NEWSPAPERS RULE!"
"WHO WATCHES THE WATCHMEN?"
"BIN LADEN AHEAD"
"YOU CANT DRIVE 55"
"HONK NOW OR DIE"
"NAKED HASSELHOFF AHEAD"
"BUSH RE-ELECTED"
"TAG YOU'RE IT"
"TWO FACE LIVES"

"In space, no one can eat ice cream."

It's Friday, so instead of blabbing about whatever, I just want to lob a tried-and-true classic out there and see who remembers it.

Killer Klowns From Outer Space.

Seriously.

Who remembers it? Was that not the most RIDICULOUS movie ever conceived?

I remember it, and I suffered the most gruesome nightmares a 6 year old can endure for the majority of my childhood because of it.

It's easy to talk trash about playing (or pretending to play) some of the greatest songs ever written on fake, plastic guitars plugged into a video game system.

But us un-elitists here at the Scene & Heard headquarters, are woefully below the hip standard when it comes to The Beatles: Rock Band game slated for release on PS3, Xbox360, and Wii September 9.

Do you really care if it's silly to play simulated music in front of a TV set? Shut up, because playing "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" as a pixelated George Harrison will be the coolest thing to happen to video games since a stick figure jumped over alligators in Pitfall on the Atari. Besides, if you say you don't want to play Beatles music as a Beatle in a Beatles video game, you are lying to yourself (or you don't like their music, thus making you too weird to analyze anyway).

Though it's been announced that the game's developers, Apple Corps, Harmonix and MTV Games, have secured rights to at least 45 Beatles songs to use in the game, we haven't seen anything resembling a tracklist yet. But they have said the game will be a "visual and musical history" of the band. [source: Variety] And as Apple Corps CEO Jeff Jones put it: “It will span samples of the whole catalog all the way through.”

Sounds to me like the game will take some cues from cover acts like Beatlemania Now who dress up and act out all the different phases of the group's storied career. From Liverpool, to Beatlemania's Invasion, to the costumes and drugs, to their greatest songs, to their demise.

That in mind, it's easy to come up with 45 songs that are LIKELY to be in the game. But bare in mind, this is only a wish list--nothing official. But if I were a master schemer in the MTV Games office, my tracklist would start by shaping up something like this for the game:

Period I/Mania (settings: Liverpool, Ed Sullivan show)
1. I Saw Her Standing There (big mistake if you don't start with this song)
2. I Feel Fine
3. Love Me Do
4. She Loves You (this will be such a great one to sing)
5. I Want To Hold Your Hand
6. Hard Day's Night
7. Eight Days A Week
8. Ticket To Ride
9. You've Got To Hide Your Love Away
10. Help!

Period II/Getting Better (setting: America)
11. I've Just Seen A Face
12. Drive My Car (beep-beep! beep-beep! beep-beep!)
13. Taxman
14. I'm Only Sleeping
15. Doctor Robert
16. Got To Get You Into My Life
17. Paperback Writer
18. Day Tripper
19. We Can Work It Out
20. Yellow Submarine

Period III/We're On Drugs (settings: in respective movies, and trippy dream sequences)
21. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
22. With A Little Help From My Friends
23. Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds
24. It's Getting Better
25. Within You, Without You
26. I Am The Walrus
27. Hello, Goodbye
28. Strawberry Fields, Forever
29. Baby You're A Rich Man
30. All You Need Is Love (can we get some plastic violins and trumpets for this song?)

Period IV/Love & Revolution (settings: Abbey Road, more trippy sequences?)
31. Back In The USSR
32. While My Guitar Gently Weeps
33. Happiness Is A Warm Gun
34. Why Don't We Do It In The Road?
35. Helter Skelter
36. Revolution 9
37. I Want You (She's So Heavy)
38. Here Comes The Sun
39. Two Of Us
40. For You Blue

The End (setting: the record label rooftop show, obvy)
41. Get Back
42. Come Together
43. Hey Jude
44. Yes, the full on Abbey Road Medley (from "You Never Give Me Your Money" to "The End")
45. Let It be


...So whaddaya think? There are certainly some gems like "I Will," "Rocky Raccoon" "Eleanor Rigby" and "Yesterday" notably missing, but would they translate as well into a stand up and play with plastic controllers party game? Who am I to judge? You tell me, what classic Beatles tracks do you want to play in this upcoming game?

There's no need to fear! The Mercury is here!

It's not easy being the promotions and marketing guy for a newspaper in the age of 'dieing newspapers.'

People look to you to be the hero. But dudes like me--standing 5'4, and weighing in at 130 pounds--aren't exactly hero material. (A radioactive spider bite might help.)

Funny thing is, that's why people turned to newspapers in the first place--for a hero. The people wanted the uncanny truth, unfloundering democracy... and crossword puzzles. Think about it; why did Clark Kent and Peter Parker work for their city's newspaper when they weren't fighting baddies? Because newspapers fight for the truth, for the people, for a better community and for a better tomorrow.

So I figured if what the people want is a hero, it's time we gave 'em one, darn it. And last week, that's exactly what we did. We had our resident (and awesomely talented) cartoonist Alan MacBain bring The Mercury to life--as a full on super hero with Dr. Manhattan's glowing blue skin, a shiney chrome Jay Garrick helmet, and a faithful (not to mention feisty) floating sidekick named "Dot." Besides, after all these years of elegantly posing next to The Mercury logo, it's the least we could do for our pal Skippy.

If you missed Sunday's Mercury, you missed this introduction panel. (Give it a click for full resolution.)

But now that Pottstown's hero is here, how do you see his crusading story unfolding in the future? What evil villains might await him? What are his weaknesses? Will Marvel Comics hate us for creating a superhero cooler than The Mighty Thor? And does anyone else have Bonnie Tyler's "Holding Out For A Hero" stuck in their head?

But more importantly... who will play Skippy in the movie adaption? Def not Christian Bale!

I'm X-tremely X-cited. Heck, I'm X-static! And you should know X-actly what I'm talking about.

Even though I've given up on bothering with any of the television MTV is responsible for these days, I've become a habitual reader of their well-informed and lovingly written entertainment blogs. Particularly the Movies Blog and the Splash Page.

But today, they really upped their stock in the nerd hearts of us entertainment fiends by unveiling the premiere of the final trailer for X-Men Origins: Wolverine movie.

Movie Trailers - Movies Blog

I thought it would be just another 30-second commercial short with recycled footage--but holy f-bomb! This sucker looks more and more like it's finally the X-men movie the world has so long craved. Take a gander at those Gambit and Deadpool scenes! They look x-ceedingly x-cellent. And...a guy with 'radiant' eyes?! Cyclops?! Is that you??? What are you doing in Wolverine's trailer?!

Sure, it's looked awesome in the previous trailers we've seen (and we've seen quite a few)--but this new behemoth of a sneak-peak has sent our heads rolling. Frankly, it seems we got more mutants and X-men in this sucker than we saw in the original X-Men trilogy! And it's all those rad mutants that weren't in those first round of compromised X-Men movies.

Let's do the roll call based on what we've seen in trailers so far. Here are the mutants who appear to be in this Wolvie movie.

Wolverine--um, duh.

Victor Creed/Sabertooth--And he doesn't look like a blumbering idiot for once. I'm impressed.

Gambit--sure to be a screen stealer, particularly since he never showed up in the original X-Men flicks.

Deadpool (and/or Weapon XI)--another sure-to-be scene stealer. And if that fugly looking red dude in this trailer is Deadpool after he gets all nastied up, well, this movie is gonna be The Dark Knight of X-men movies, no doubt. (Or maybe the nasty looking foe is not Deadpool, but the mysterious Weapon XI. OR! Perhaps...Weapon XI IS Deadpool???)

Cyclops...wait, what did you just say?--That's right. I don't know many other dudes who wear red shades to cover up a set of shiny, nuked out pupils. A pleasant surprise, though I'm guessing he doesn't run into Wolvie (just S-Tooth).

Charlie from Lost!--Well, I don't think I've seen him in the trailers or in any pictures, but Dominic Monaghan (see also, the hobbit I look most like) has been confirmed to play some muto-chump named Barnell Bohusk.

The Blob--Speaking of Lost, you remember that a-hole Keamy who shot our beloved Alex dead? Well he's gone Eddie Murphy and become a mutant now--a big, disgusting, blubbering one who seems to have a fancy for boxing. Yeah, that big guy in the previously seen trailers is actually the same actor.

Emma Frost--w00t!

Will.I.Am.--never thought I'd see a Black Eyed Pea in an X-men movie, but stranger things have happened. Here he's Kestral, which makes him like Nightcrawler--but without the ugly blue face and tail.

Storm?--we've seen a toddler Storm in the first trailer, but it sounds as if her scene was pulled from the final cut.

More?--And with all the mutants that Wolvie seems to be freeing in this movie, I'd say we can expect a few more morsels of cameos & fan favs here and there. Is it too much of a stretch to think we'll even see a Captain America appearence in one of these wars that Logan fights in?

For pictures of some of these jokers--cheers.

X-Men: Wolverine hits theaters May 1. Get X-cited.

And while we're on the subject, any other good "ex" words where we can sub in an "x" while talking about this movie? x-ceptional? x-animate? x-orsism? x-cept?

You know how I know when it's ridiculously, disgustingly, insidiuosly, stunningly, god-forsakenly cold?

One rather 'duh' system of measurement would be to pull out your trusty ol' thermometer. If you see no red (I worked REALLY hard to avoid any Mercury pun there) in the thermometer and you're standing outside, and you can't feel your arms... then you have frost bite, it's cold, and you should stop doing whatever it is you're doing outside in the cold. However there is a bright side. At this point, you could let a bear maul your arm off, and you wouldn't feel a thing. You can't buy toughness of that magnitude, pal. Of course, you can't buy another natural left arm either, so don't go having TOO much fun with your new frostbitten limb.

Another option is to check the 5-day forecast at (ready for it? here comes the daily cheap plug!) pottsmerc.com, which can prove quite insightful. However, because Bob Dylan said "you don't need a Weatherman to know which way the wind blows" and the simple fact that boring people check the weather (see also: people who use weather for small talk/elevator talk with colleagues and peers), I don't take this route.

Or (as brilliantly showcased in Dumb & Dumber and A Christmas Story) you could employ a brainless friend of yours and kindly ask him or her to stick their tongue to the nearest flag pole. If it sticks like rubber and the tongue needs to be hacked off, then yes, it is ridiculously, disgustingly, insidiuosly, stunningly, god-forsakenly cold out, and you should get in doors, make cocoa, and call your friend to leave him a voicemail where you can now say things like, "How come you're not answering? Pole got your tongue? I never thought you'd give me the cold shoulder like this."

But if you're like me, you're all out of friends with tongues left to stick to poles. So I've been forced to find other creative ways to find out how cold it is outside.

Today, dear readers, is ridiculously, disgustingly, insidiuosly, stunningly, god-forsakenly cold.

And do you know how I know? Because, when I went to get in my car this morning--the seats and floor were STILL COVERED IN SNOW FROM YESTERDAY'S SNOW STORM. And it's not like I didn't use the heater when I drove home last night. This, is landmark cold. This is colder than the black hearts of those folks out there who will rick-roll trick you into believing a Batman 3 trailer has surfaced. That is cold.

So now that we've established that it's cold, what now? We don't donate our frostbitten limbs to would-be mauling bears, no sir. We dig out those lonely, desolate records of warmth that only resonate when you feel lifeless, numb, and bitterly frozen in time. Days like today, these soft, soulful records set my soul afire:

Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago and Blook Bank EP

The entire catalogue of Margot & The Nuclear So & Sos (I prefer the set of acoustic demos I uncovered on the internet somewhere)

Eddie Veddar - Into The Wild Soundtrack (If you don't want to hear "Hard Sun" after a snow day, you are soulless. SOULLESS.)

Meredith Bragg & The Terminals - Silver Sonya

Brand New - The Devil & God Are Raging Inside Me

Death Cab For Cutie - Narrow Stairs (particularly the last song)

Elliott Smith - New Moon ("Angel In The Snow" and "Thirteen" get me every time)

Coldplay - Parachutes (with a name like Coldplay, they deserve to be on the cold fighters list, right?)

Nick Drake - Pink Moon (better for those quiet summer nights under the stars, but fits remarkably well in this category too)

What about you? Any records that you only listen to this time of year that just melt all those icicles growing off ya? And did you know that it was cold today?