When I told Cami the punchline for today’s strip, the first thing she said was “How could Jimmy NOT know he was ripping off The Wild One? He’d have to be some kind of idiot.”

And the point is… yeah, he was.

But I also defended my position thusly:

When Rob Halford from Judas Priest started running around in black leather pants with a black leather vest and black leather arm cuffs with spikes on them, people thought he had invented a new style to go along with the emerging sound of heavy metal music. So influential was his look that thousands of metalheads adopted the style and it remains as one of metal’s most predominant, signature looks.

The think of it was (and this came to light years later) that Halford was a homosexual and the new style he was promoting came directly out of the leather daddy clubs in the UK. Scores of the hardest of hardcore metal fans were running around dressed like leather daddies.

So, as it relates to Jimmy, one guy starts a trend (Brando in The Wild One), another guy adopts the trend, then another guy and then another guy. By the time it reaches someplace like, oh, say, IOWA, no on really know where the trend came from. It’s adopted as a matter of course.

Don’t believe me? Go to Cedar Falls sometime. They’re still convinced that grunge music JUST happened a few years ago. “Hey! Have you ever heard of this band called Nirvana?”

Wow. That’s a lot of references to popular music for a comic about movies. Mitch Clem? I’m gunnin’ for ya!

I’m hoping everyone out there had a great Valentine’s Day. I had a particularly excellent weekend. Not just for the cherubic holiday, but because we also got the family together and celebrated Henry’s second birthday. We had a great time and he did, too. Wednesday is his actually birthday and I think I’ll post a picture of him to share with you guys then. I think it would be a nice little tradition to show you his picture on his birthday. It gives everyone a little peek into how he’s doing. I love my kid. I think he’s awesome.

Wanna know who else is awesome? Cami. Why? Because she gave me one of the best Valentine’s Day gifts EVER! A Netflix account!

So, it’s official. I am now officially the last person in the world to get a Netflix account.

I don’t know why we held out so long. I’m usually an early-adopter of those kind of things – especially when it comes to movies. But… I don’t know. We never got on the bandwagon. It wasn’t because we didn’t understand it or because it was too expensive. It was more because, well, it seemed like there were just other things we should be spending our money on.

Of course, never mind that we pretty much stopped renting movies entirely during this period. I can’t remember the last time I was inside a Blockbuster.

But, yeah, it was long overdue and now we finally have one. I went though the site for a couple of hours this weekend adding films to my queue and ranking others. The first movie we’re supposed to get in the mail is Man On Wire – the documentary about Frenchman Philippe Petit who walked a tightrope between the twin towers of the World Trade Center shortly after their completion in 1974. I had threatened to make that my first rental if I ever got a Netflix account during a couple recordings of The Triple Feature and I wanted to make good on that threat. I’m excited to finally see it.

Incidentally, we’re recording an episode of The Triple Feature tonight at 9PM CST at TalkShoe.com and I think this week we’re going to put our Oscar predictions in stone before the big telecast on Sunday.

We informally made our picks a few weeks ago when nominations were announced. But tonight we’re announcing ALL of our picks in EVERY category with NO wiggle room. The reason? We’re putting a little something on the line. A wager, of sorts. Basically, whoever comes in with the least amount of correct predictions has to draw a guest strip for the other two guys on the show.

So, if I lose, I have to do a guest strip for Multiplex and Joe Loves Crappy Movies. If Joe loses, he has to do a guest strip for me and Gordon. And if Gordon loses, he has to do a guest strip for Joe and I.

So be sure to listen live at 9:00 PM CST as we committ to record our picks to win at the Oscars this Sunday. There’s a lot on the line and it should be a really good show! See you then!