BIG COMIC WEEK
Goodness. After a few lackluster weeks, this week was kind of nuts. Superman finally hit the stands again. Civil War #7. Amazing Spider-Man. Wonder Woman. Checkmate. A good week. I'll be posting reviews, etc... to Comic Fodder.
Can't Vote for my Candidate
So after swearing off American Idol, I decided to spend some time with Jamie last night, and that meant watching American Idol.
I think I'm letting my prior irritation with the show go as I understand AI understood they may have crossed a line with their audition shows this year, and at this point, they are getting down to the nitty gritty of actually caring about how people sing.
Anyhoo, I only watched about half of last night's show, but I thought it was pretty clear that Lakisha Jones is in a completely different league from the other teeny-bopper contestants trying their best to emulate better singers. Lakisha simply IS one of those better singers. She's simply not been discovered to this point.
Lakisha is not beautiful, and when not singing, her self-esteem drops to nil. But I think AI voters are smarter than they used to be and no longer just vote for the poodles the first few rounds.
As mentioned above, I couldn't vote for Lakisha. I tried. I tried calling on and off for about an hour and could never get through as the line was busy. I take that as a very good sign for Ms. Jones.
'08
Friday I am taking time out of my busy schedule to go and see Presidential Hopeful Barack Obama speak at Auditorium Shores. Schedule providing, I want to see everyone who swings through Austin and speaks in a public venue which does not require $1000 a plate dinners. This includes folks from any party you want to throw at me.
I am, of course, most curious about Obama. I've no idea what his politics and policies actually are (I guess I could read his book or his website), and aside from being relatively fresh to DC, and having a smoking habit, I don't know much about the guy. So Friday I shall go to hear some platitudes and get some vitamin D.
I 2 IKEA
When I was 17 we were headed back from a weekend in San Antonio visiting College Jason. I have no idea how long it had been there, but it was the first time I'd ever noticed Ikea, and the first time I had to go there.
As a grumpy 17-year-old with lots of homework to do and with no plans to buy furniture, I was more or less shanghied into a shopping trip to the amazing assemble-it-yourself furniture store. If Ikea was looking to create a nightmare scenario for a reluctant shopper, they'd fully succeeded.
For those of you have never been to Ikea, it's the only shopping experience I'm aware of that demands a forced march out of its patrons. Like Disney World, there are probably hidden doors and passagways for use by the staff, but for schlubs like me, you have an endless march through adorable housing goods ahead of you.
The bottom line is that Ikea requires that you make a visit to their store an event. You cannot go to Ikea just to buy, say, a spatula. You're going to pick up a table, an ottoman, cutting board, drapes and various unnecessary plastic objects.
So this week I needed an inexpensive desk. I'd done my due diligence at Target, Wal-Mart, Office Depot and the Office Max site. But as a gentleman of generous vertical and horizontal proportions, and with a mass close to that of a white dwarf star, I was pretty sure one of the particleboard specials designed for college kids wasn't going to work for me.
So, after a little bit of browsing their website, I decided Wednesday would send me to Ikea.
Ikea is located north of Round Rock, which is a pretty good jog from South Austin. When I was a kid, Round Rock was but a happy little hamlet without much going on. In fact, their two claims to fame were (A) during the cowboy era, a notorious criminal named Sam Bass had been gunned down in the streets of Round Rock, and (B) the actual Round Rock, which was a point for turning around in a creek on the Chisolm Trail.
Now, it's suburban sprawl of the Chandler-kind. JoAnne Fabrics abound. Restaurants like "Cheddar's" dot the freeway. A huge flyover is being put in at an intersection that used to be a swinging stop light. It's a true oddity how Austin stops a few miles South of downtown, but goes on for an infinite distance North of town.
The Ikea was a looming monstrosity of Univ. of Michigan blue and gold, clearly visible a mile or two before reaching the store. What struck me immediately is that Ikea's philosophy is fundamentally different from virtually any other store. They trust their own shoppers to handle their shopping. There are not chipper teenagers positioned every thirty feet (who can't answer your questions, anyway). Items are marked fairly well, and you're able to grab a pencil and paper and write down the items you need to pick from the bins at the end. Further proving their faith in their shoppers, Ikea requires that if you want a desk, you don't just write down the table name. You have to write down the tabletop model, the frame number and the sort of legs you'd like as all parts are mix-n'match. There's a bit of personal responsibility associated with your purchasing. No commissioned sales staff showing you items you don't want to look at, and because you live by the laws of polite society, you are forced to look at.
Also, they had a totally sweet late-80's mix playing over the PA at a comfortable volume everywhere you went.
But I still had to walk through The Maze of Scandinavian Consumer Madness. I can't say it didn't work. I bought a cheese grater Octavio had once described to me in glowing terms, a spatula I thought would solve my pancake-and-egg-turning problem, a cutting board for properly shuffling chopped vegetable bits into a pot, and a turtle pillow for Jamie's delicate noggin. But mostly, I found a desk of the exact dimensions I'd imagined, with adjustable legs to fit my elephantine body structure, and it was white. I did not want stained wood as the colors of my office are, shall we say, not exactly reminiscent of a woodland meadow. I also have to mention the price was in line with what I might have paid for a low-end desk elsewhere, the furniture was easier to assemble than any Target furniture, and was made out of materials I have some faith in.
I'm definitely much more supportive of the Ikea than I was prior to my shopping expedition. I am not crazy about the near-hour drive to get there, nor the aimless meandering of shopping there, but I suspect repeat trips to Ikea will not be a frequent occurence. However, return we will. I saw options for our kitchen and for our upstairs hall/ oddly proportioned upstairs area that gave me some ideas. And that, Leaguers, is the point of the forced march. I may not have bought a hallway's worth of bookshelves yesterday, but I might next time.
Ikea, you win again.
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
2007 Mellies?
Hey, Leaguers. Last year I think I got a little overambitious as far as The Mellies went. We had tons of questions, about 4X the number of respondents I'd expected, and I spent an insane amount of time putting the whole thing back together. Basically, by the end, I swore I'd never do it again.
Instead of abandoning the Mellies, I'm looking for interest levels to see if I should run this again.
How did you feel the last round went?
If we did it, would you participate?
Would you be willing to place your answers in the comments section rather than have me assemble everyone's responses?
It's in your hands, Leaguers. Tell me what you want.
Instead of abandoning the Mellies, I'm looking for interest levels to see if I should run this again.
How did you feel the last round went?
If we did it, would you participate?
Would you be willing to place your answers in the comments section rather than have me assemble everyone's responses?
It's in your hands, Leaguers. Tell me what you want.
Monday, February 19, 2007
Bone Headed Movie
Just saw "Ghost Rider".
Wow.
Curiously, it's not Nic Cage who is going to drive you nuts. I think Nic Cage must have held both the director and the script in contempt and chose to just sort of do his own thing. And that's the only brilliance you'll see in "Ghost Rider".
After the movie spends somewhere near twenty minutes putting together the set-up, the rest of the action is just sorta obvious. Sorta. They pretty much say "Here's Ghost Rider, here's what he does. He has to keep X from happening." But this is also one of those movies where things were either lost in script versions, on the editing room floor, or because the director didn't know what he was doing. This is the same director as Daredevil, so who knows. Not me. There's just some action that seems to occur just to occur and not because it makes much sense. Like Wes Bentley's wardrobe.
It's not really clear why Satan's son is in a fight with daddy, or what his master plan is. Or why he...
Oh, heck. At least the movie moves along really, really fast. And Eva Mendes is very good looking, even if she has the least believable presence as a news reporter in recent memory. But, again, she's very good looking, and so we can forgive her.
Sam Elliot plays the old Ghost Rider, who actually DOES have precedent from the comics, if my West Coast Avengers memory serves.
I dunno. It's a dumb movie. But the FX are decent, Cage was funny, and Eva Mendes is, I repeat, very good looking.
I've not read a lot of Ghost Rider comics. Frankly, I thought the character was sort of one note. But that can work okay in a movie. It just doesn't sustain over an ongoing comic series.
Wow.
Curiously, it's not Nic Cage who is going to drive you nuts. I think Nic Cage must have held both the director and the script in contempt and chose to just sort of do his own thing. And that's the only brilliance you'll see in "Ghost Rider".
After the movie spends somewhere near twenty minutes putting together the set-up, the rest of the action is just sorta obvious. Sorta. They pretty much say "Here's Ghost Rider, here's what he does. He has to keep X from happening." But this is also one of those movies where things were either lost in script versions, on the editing room floor, or because the director didn't know what he was doing. This is the same director as Daredevil, so who knows. Not me. There's just some action that seems to occur just to occur and not because it makes much sense. Like Wes Bentley's wardrobe.
It's not really clear why Satan's son is in a fight with daddy, or what his master plan is. Or why he...
Oh, heck. At least the movie moves along really, really fast. And Eva Mendes is very good looking, even if she has the least believable presence as a news reporter in recent memory. But, again, she's very good looking, and so we can forgive her.
Sam Elliot plays the old Ghost Rider, who actually DOES have precedent from the comics, if my West Coast Avengers memory serves.
I dunno. It's a dumb movie. But the FX are decent, Cage was funny, and Eva Mendes is, I repeat, very good looking.
I've not read a lot of Ghost Rider comics. Frankly, I thought the character was sort of one note. But that can work okay in a movie. It just doesn't sustain over an ongoing comic series.
Sunday, February 18, 2007
What up
I think at this point I've more or less explained what that post from the other day was all about to the folks who asked. Let us all put that behind us now, shall we?
I learned an important lesson this week regarding my expectations of my own life, and, I think, in keeping my ears and eyes open when it comes to the big decisions.
In less exciting life lessons, I also learned that the comic store is going to do everything their power not to give you any money for your comics when you go to resell back issues. The good news on this is that I held onto a lot of my Spider-Man comics, so those didn't just disappear on me. I also still have my runs on X-Men and Uncanny X-Men. And more closet space. But I will never, ever try to resell comics at the comic shop. I guess I don't mind too much that I practically gave away the comics I gave away, as I had no plans for reading them ever again, and was pretty certain nobody was going to be that interested in reading them, either.
But, yeah, the whole thing left a sort of bad taste in my mouth. I can't say my tastes are really that much more refined today than they were when I bought a lot of those comics in the last twelve years or so, but I was given some good tips by my Comic Shop owner/manager in PHX. His advice: Pick one thing you're going to collect, focus on that, and if you manage to collect all of those, great. Then you can move on. Now, this applies for purchase of back-issues and less for purchase of current titles. Obviously if I buy Extreme Combat Rats #1, it doesn't mean I should buy every issue of Extreme Combat Rats. But it does mean that if I am to "build" a collection, it's best to have long runs ona title. There is, basically, no advice for what to do with your copies of Extreme Combat Rats numbers 1 -4 that you purchased, but gave up on, and then saw was cancelled with issue 13. It's unlikely anyone will ever really want those.
(Although there will be someone out there who will set up an Extreme Combat Rats fan site, possibly with their own fan art and fan fiction.)
What I did get was some store credit to Austin Books, with which I picked up the Invincible Ultimate Collection Vol. 1, as per JimD's recommendation. And JimD was right. Invincible doesn't necessarily bring a lot new to the superhero genre, nor even really the Teen Superhero genre. Instead, the series takes the concept and simply chooses to execute on some fairly well worn ideas extremely well. In fact, a forward thinking movie producer would find a way to turn the first 13 issues into a very popular 2-2.5 hour movie.
Saturday jason auditioned me for our new, non-existent band. Jamie played key boards, I played the bass and Jason played drums. Sigmund showed up for the end and played the trombone, and thus was born: Sigmund and the Steans Monster (and Andy). Look for us to be filling stadiums next summer, as people rock out to our hit "If I was a Fish".
Last night we headed to Jeff and Keora's place over on Enfield. Apparently Jeff and Keora live in a quad-apartmenet building tucked amongst some obscenely expensive homes in one of Austin's older, monied neighborhoods. I do not know why, but their rent is insanely reasonable. A while back I kept asking Jeff why he didn't move, but I will never ask him that question again.
Anyway, Jason just called and I think we're headed for food, coffee and maybe the dog park.
I learned an important lesson this week regarding my expectations of my own life, and, I think, in keeping my ears and eyes open when it comes to the big decisions.
In less exciting life lessons, I also learned that the comic store is going to do everything their power not to give you any money for your comics when you go to resell back issues. The good news on this is that I held onto a lot of my Spider-Man comics, so those didn't just disappear on me. I also still have my runs on X-Men and Uncanny X-Men. And more closet space. But I will never, ever try to resell comics at the comic shop. I guess I don't mind too much that I practically gave away the comics I gave away, as I had no plans for reading them ever again, and was pretty certain nobody was going to be that interested in reading them, either.
But, yeah, the whole thing left a sort of bad taste in my mouth. I can't say my tastes are really that much more refined today than they were when I bought a lot of those comics in the last twelve years or so, but I was given some good tips by my Comic Shop owner/manager in PHX. His advice: Pick one thing you're going to collect, focus on that, and if you manage to collect all of those, great. Then you can move on. Now, this applies for purchase of back-issues and less for purchase of current titles. Obviously if I buy Extreme Combat Rats #1, it doesn't mean I should buy every issue of Extreme Combat Rats. But it does mean that if I am to "build" a collection, it's best to have long runs ona title. There is, basically, no advice for what to do with your copies of Extreme Combat Rats numbers 1 -4 that you purchased, but gave up on, and then saw was cancelled with issue 13. It's unlikely anyone will ever really want those.
(Although there will be someone out there who will set up an Extreme Combat Rats fan site, possibly with their own fan art and fan fiction.)
What I did get was some store credit to Austin Books, with which I picked up the Invincible Ultimate Collection Vol. 1, as per JimD's recommendation. And JimD was right. Invincible doesn't necessarily bring a lot new to the superhero genre, nor even really the Teen Superhero genre. Instead, the series takes the concept and simply chooses to execute on some fairly well worn ideas extremely well. In fact, a forward thinking movie producer would find a way to turn the first 13 issues into a very popular 2-2.5 hour movie.
Saturday jason auditioned me for our new, non-existent band. Jamie played key boards, I played the bass and Jason played drums. Sigmund showed up for the end and played the trombone, and thus was born: Sigmund and the Steans Monster (and Andy). Look for us to be filling stadiums next summer, as people rock out to our hit "If I was a Fish".
Last night we headed to Jeff and Keora's place over on Enfield. Apparently Jeff and Keora live in a quad-apartmenet building tucked amongst some obscenely expensive homes in one of Austin's older, monied neighborhoods. I do not know why, but their rent is insanely reasonable. A while back I kept asking Jeff why he didn't move, but I will never ask him that question again.
Anyway, Jason just called and I think we're headed for food, coffee and maybe the dog park.
Friday, February 16, 2007
Thursday, February 15, 2007
The Era Resumes
Sometimes (when you're single) you meet a really nice girl. She's pretty, and she's funny, and she even agrees with you that Trompe Le Monde by The Pixies is a pretty good album, when everyone else in the world thinks it wasn't a great effort. You have a good first date, and you think "Wow, this is it!"
At he beginning she mentioned she liked mountain biking, and while you weren't that into mountain biking, you thought "That's fine! I can go mountain biking every once in a while. We love The Pixies!" But then when you go out the next time, all she talks about is how you're going to go mountain biking. She talks about tire types, changing tires, handle grips and certain kinds of dirt on certain kinds of paths.
So, you bring up The Pixies, and you realize the only Pixies album she actually owns is Trompe Le Monde.
Figuring it's a fluke, you try again and she insists on actually going mountain biking. So you figure, "Ah, that's okay. I can try this."
So you go mountain biking. And while you've ridden a bike before, you aren't keeping up because, honestly, who takes a two-wheeled vehicle under your own power into rocky terrain?
You go out again, and it's more mountain biking. More talk of mountain biking. More trails and rocks. Anyway, she's being sort of encouraging.
But you realize, "She doesn't just like her mountain biking, she NEEDS to go mountain biking." So as pretty and funny as she is, and even though she also likes Trompe Le Monde (in her own way) you realize that maybe this isn't such a good idea.
And so, anyway, you call it off sort of abruptly. No doubt she's pissed. After all, you liked biking, didn't you?
So you're single again, and you sort of talked her up to everyone, so what does that make you?
At he beginning she mentioned she liked mountain biking, and while you weren't that into mountain biking, you thought "That's fine! I can go mountain biking every once in a while. We love The Pixies!" But then when you go out the next time, all she talks about is how you're going to go mountain biking. She talks about tire types, changing tires, handle grips and certain kinds of dirt on certain kinds of paths.
So, you bring up The Pixies, and you realize the only Pixies album she actually owns is Trompe Le Monde.
Figuring it's a fluke, you try again and she insists on actually going mountain biking. So you figure, "Ah, that's okay. I can try this."
So you go mountain biking. And while you've ridden a bike before, you aren't keeping up because, honestly, who takes a two-wheeled vehicle under your own power into rocky terrain?
You go out again, and it's more mountain biking. More talk of mountain biking. More trails and rocks. Anyway, she's being sort of encouraging.
But you realize, "She doesn't just like her mountain biking, she NEEDS to go mountain biking." So as pretty and funny as she is, and even though she also likes Trompe Le Monde (in her own way) you realize that maybe this isn't such a good idea.
And so, anyway, you call it off sort of abruptly. No doubt she's pissed. After all, you liked biking, didn't you?
So you're single again, and you sort of talked her up to everyone, so what does that make you?
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Tired
The new job continues apace. I'm still trying to adapt to a new environment, names, people, ideas, alphabet soup and cube life.
Mostly I spent the first two days completely exhausted and jittery on caffeine. I also feel completely out of touch with the world as personal e-mail is still something I'm not sure is okay, no "web surfing" in the office (even during lunch, I guess...), and I'm not really picking up the phone. Still the new guy. Gotta look crazy busy, and I am.
Poor Jamie. I took her out to dinner last night, and I know I was a million miles away the entire time. We went to Austin-fave-spot Castle Hill in our attempt to do something nice for a change. I just didn't think i was very good company.
Today, at least, I am not totally exhausted. I remember this from starting the job in PHX. I was tired for most of the first month, and then one day my body adjusted to the lack of sleep, I settled in, and got used to things in general. It'll happen again. It's just going to take time.
Poor Lucy is very upset by my return to work. Mel is, too, but he seems to understand what is going on, while Lucy has spent 1/5th of her life with me at home for her amusement. Her clock is off as she's waking up when I get up. And today Mel actually came and got me out of bed as I tried to squeeze in five more minutes of sleep. Apparently he wanted to be fed and would not be denied.
I saw an article that mentioned a ton of bands are going back out on tour, including Van Halen and The Police. There's an odd generational thing that happens every decade where the folks who were kids or teenagers during a certain decade is able to somehow relive their past, now that they've got an income and will pay out the nose to see their bands. In the 70's, 50's music was big. In the 80's, the Summer of Love generations pilt no small amount of ink telling us how great it had been and making sure the "oldies" and classic rock stations played 60's faves. In teh 90's we all uffered through a revival of the Village People and Disco nostaglia. And now we're getting the Police and Van halen (I'm sorry you Hagar fans, Van Halen is an 80's band).
There was some commentary about the "sad" state of music that we have to pull from a catalog that's 20 years old to build concensus, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Those bands didn't just pay their dues, they're still selling records twenty years after they broke up. Where's the NKOTB reunion tour? Weren't we once told they were bigger tan the Beatles?
Hop everyone is having a good Valentine's Day.
Mostly I spent the first two days completely exhausted and jittery on caffeine. I also feel completely out of touch with the world as personal e-mail is still something I'm not sure is okay, no "web surfing" in the office (even during lunch, I guess...), and I'm not really picking up the phone. Still the new guy. Gotta look crazy busy, and I am.
Poor Jamie. I took her out to dinner last night, and I know I was a million miles away the entire time. We went to Austin-fave-spot Castle Hill in our attempt to do something nice for a change. I just didn't think i was very good company.
Today, at least, I am not totally exhausted. I remember this from starting the job in PHX. I was tired for most of the first month, and then one day my body adjusted to the lack of sleep, I settled in, and got used to things in general. It'll happen again. It's just going to take time.
Poor Lucy is very upset by my return to work. Mel is, too, but he seems to understand what is going on, while Lucy has spent 1/5th of her life with me at home for her amusement. Her clock is off as she's waking up when I get up. And today Mel actually came and got me out of bed as I tried to squeeze in five more minutes of sleep. Apparently he wanted to be fed and would not be denied.
I saw an article that mentioned a ton of bands are going back out on tour, including Van Halen and The Police. There's an odd generational thing that happens every decade where the folks who were kids or teenagers during a certain decade is able to somehow relive their past, now that they've got an income and will pay out the nose to see their bands. In the 70's, 50's music was big. In the 80's, the Summer of Love generations pilt no small amount of ink telling us how great it had been and making sure the "oldies" and classic rock stations played 60's faves. In teh 90's we all uffered through a revival of the Village People and Disco nostaglia. And now we're getting the Police and Van halen (I'm sorry you Hagar fans, Van Halen is an 80's band).
There was some commentary about the "sad" state of music that we have to pull from a catalog that's 20 years old to build concensus, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Those bands didn't just pay their dues, they're still selling records twenty years after they broke up. Where's the NKOTB reunion tour? Weren't we once told they were bigger tan the Beatles?
Hop everyone is having a good Valentine's Day.
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