Kiva lets people from all over the world request small loans to start or expand businesses or do any number of things. Several months ago, I loaned a woman in the Philippines $25 to buy supplies for her convenience store. She has taken out and paid off 20 loans like this one. It works because lots of people kick in small loans. Like with any loan, you might get it back, you might not, but it’s a great alternative for people who want to give but hate not knowing where the money is going.

Kickstarter is full of fun and interesting projects. Recently, I helped fund Remee, The REM-enhancing Lucid Dream Mask and a project for custom-dyed yarn.

If you donate a certain amount, you can usually get samples of the product, but you can contribute as little as a dollar if that’s what your budget allows. Kickstarter donations are routed through Amazon.com and are super easy.

We’re both pretty excited about being able to support interesting projects without having to put up millions of dollars. Also, I can’t wait to get some funky yarn in the mail.

Tony Stark: He’s a fun romp, and then he’ll send you home in a helicopter the next morning. A helicopter with MOTHERFUCKIN’ LASERS! If he lets you stay the night. He’s all sorts of fun until you get tired of his smartass one liners and smash him in the face with an iron. He’s a fuck friend, not a boyfriend. But what a fuck friend.

Steve Rogers: He’s the boyfriend. He won’t sleep with you for half a dozen dates or so, and then only after he’s had a chance to make a good impression on your Dad. He’ll buy you flowers and open doors for you. He’ll be a bit of a prude until he lets down his hair, and then he’ll be outrageously enthusiastic. He’s a closet whore. He won’t understand what to do with the ball gag, but he won’t object, either.

Bruce Banner: Total monster. This quiet, nerdy guy will be a surprise animal in the bedroom and then be awkward and shy about it later. Just don’t invite him to your place. You don’t want to have to replace all your shit every time he gets gets pissed about something he read in Popular Science. Also, if for some reason he starts to get angry while you’re going at it, leave. In a word: Ow.

Thor: It says something about me that I totally forgot about Thor until Donna mentioned him. He’s the frat boy who thinks having an enormous penis is enough to make all the chicks dig him. He’s feeling a little inadequate since meeting the Hulk. One plus is that he has amazing stamina, but actually being a god makes him overconfident. Like Donna said, he’s OK for a tumble, but at the end, you’ll be like: “You’re pretty awesome, Thor, but you know your friend, the one with the “issues”? Do you think he’d call me?”

Nick Fury: You’re not woman (or man) enough for Nick Fury. It’s sad, but that’s just the way it is.

Hawkeye: He’s the guy we want to take home and nurse back to health. Let’s just say, we’d like to Florence his Nightingale.

Black Widow: Donna says she would let Black Widow have her way with her, but I think she’s too much of a mind fuck. Your mileage may vary.

Loki: Donna’s assessment: “Loki is No-ki.” I agree. Loki isn’t a superhero, but I include him here because I can. Loki is the guy who keeps a box of tissues and a gallon-size tub of hand cream by his bed and tells you he has dry elbows. He’s also the guy who keeps “accidentally” trying to give it to you up the ass because he “misses” the hole. Three times in a row. He’s probably great at oral sex, though. Also, he needs to get over being adopted. From personal experience, it’s no big deal.

I finally saw The Avengers, and I gotta say: Avengers, fuck yeah!

Most of the world agrees with me that this movie is awesome, but I’m really enjoying the high-brow critical response. With all the pretentious goofiness they’re spewing about it, it seems some people were expecting a sequel to Citizen Kane.

Orson Welles eventually gets about as big as the Hulk, but it's not the same.

First: While this movie has a lot of action and explosions, no one sees a movie just for that. There have been tons of onscreen explosions since the second Death Star was destroyed, and it takes a lot more than things that go BOOM! to impress people. If just blowing shit up were impressive, Fourth of July fireworks displays would be the most popular YouTube videos ever.

Second: There ain’t nothing wrong with blowing shit up. Watching Grand Central station get flattened and the Hulk tearing up everything is hella fun. People have to care about the shit that’s being blown up, and it has to look good, if it’s going to work. Making this stuff look good is a skill. If you don’t care about visuals, you should be reading a book. For those of you who have seen the movie, imagine how lame it would have been for The Hulk to punch Thor and have him fall down, vs. how fucking sweet it was to watch Thor get kicked entirely out of the frame by an effortless side punch. Or watching Hulk interrupt Loki’s Evil Monologue of DOOOOOM by tossing him around like a naughty ragdoll. No one says, “Well, that sunset sucked. I’ve seen that shit a thousand times.” Violent scenes done well are great no matter how often you’ve seen a dude fall down.

This guy shouldn't be wearing any pants.

Especially entertaining is the idea that this movie isn’t “important” enough. Because guys in spandex pants and giant phallic horns need to change the landscape of cinema. Look here: Moby Dick might be one of the greatest literary masterpieces of all time, but I can’t get through it because it’s boring as hell. It seems like some reviewers are disappointed that The Avengers isn’t Casablanca.

Side note: Loki really needs to just buy himself a Ferrari or something. The giant phallic horns on his head aren’t subtle at all. I’m sure the girls think it’s hot on Asgard, though. Loki’s superpower is his ability to stand upright under the weight of his massive…headpiece.

This ended up being a critique of movie criticism more than anything else. I would take movie reviews more seriously if reviewers would judge them within the context of their own genre rather than assume that every movie needs to be a deep, meaningful visual treatise on human nature. That assumption makes a lot of reviews at worst tedious and at best irrelevant, like comparing candy bars to racecars.

But back to the movie. I have three remaining questions:

1) How does the Hulk not lose his pants when he gets biggie sized?
2) How does Tony Stark not get a shit-kicking when he bounces around in that suit?
3) How does Samuel L. Jackson stand being that awesome?

P.S. It makes me happy that New York has recovered enough from 9/11 that we can watch NYC getting blasted without having a collective PTSD reaction. I mean that seriously.