March 2006

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Friday March 31, 2006 11:30:05 PM #

» So far Firestorm is the only DC title that I'm dropping "1 Year Later". In all fairness, I had dropped it earlier, but began picking it up during the Crisis crossovers, so it wasn't like I was following the title intensely to begin with.

Besides the fact that the book seems to reinvent it's status quo set-up every 6 issues or so. I really hate the new costume design (didn't like the previous one either). I will cut DC some slack though, even playing around with it myself for awhile I found it difficult to make the puffy sleeves, "Ronald McDonald" red and yellow and the flaming hair really work well. Anyway my take on the costume is at the right. (Maybe he could hang out with Obsidian and then the sleeves would make sense?)

» While on this topic, I'm willing to see how the whole recasting of the All New Atom works out, and I get that DC is looking for ways to bring diversity to it's line-up but redesigning the classic Gil Kane designed costume into this horrendous looking outfit? Doesn't work for me either. It's too busy to fit in with the big seven.

Friday March 31, 2006 7:09:05 PM #

Let's Go Surfing

» Real Simple article/guide to Expiration dates of 77 foods, beauty products, and household goods.

» NASA can hear what you are thinking.

When we speak aloud, we're forcing air past the larynx and tongue, sculpting words using the articulator muscles in the mouth and jaw. But these muscles go into action regardless of whether air is sent past them. All you have to do is say the words to yourself and you're sending weak electrical currents from your brain to the speech muscles. Jorgensen's trick is to record those signals (known as electromyograms), process them with statistical algorithms and compare the output with prerecorded signal patterns of spoken words, phrases and commands. When there's a match, the unspoken turns into speech.

» Superheros and their Religions Big list, lots of characters, lots of religions.

» Top 15 Skylines of the world. Just one guys opinion but worth it for the pretty panoramas.

Saturday March 25, 2006 9:16:13 PM #

Random Non-Sequiters

» One of the best things about this time of year is the easy findability of Starburst Jelly Beans. Do go out to a store and find some. They are absolutely fantastic.

» Spent some time in Gotham City One Year Later Today, with this weeks' Batman, Catwoman and Robin titles. All three very well done. Good Stuff.

» Supposedly, it's noble to be like squirels and store away nuts for the winter. Really though, you got to wonder, if squirels are so smart why don't they go south for the winter? Noone would get in the way of a flock of a hundred squirels migrating south for the winter.

Let's Go Surfing

» Downloaded a Project Gutenberg text. Had a hard time loading the rather large file on my handheld. I found a freeware program called Text Wedge that allowed me to specify a byte size to chunk the text into smaller files. Works good.

» Importance of Slack time.

» Giant Lego Aircraft Carrier

» DC Superhero Checks

Monday March 20, 2006 4:23:47 AM #

» I watched the first 4 episodes of Sons and Daughters Sunday. It's a very good show. It has that same pacing feel as The Office but applied to a family instead. Plus the show prominently features the Office Space "O" Face guy as a character, hillarious! Anyway it's very good stuff. I highly reccomend.

Sunday March 19, 2006 12:42:59 PM #

V for Vendetta
[R] about 2 hours
In Theatres: 3/17/06 Date I saw it: 3/18/06 at Cinimark Rivertown.

I haven't read the comic book. From what I hear, this movie is different from the comic. From what I've read in interviews, this movie seems to be a Wachowski bros. film based in inception from a kernal of the Alan Moore book, with the aplication of Warner Brothers Inc.'s corporate sensibilities to take the scarier political edges off it. With that said, I did find the movie interesting. For the most part it was not stereotypical action fare. The relationship component was largely a mentorship one, which is a refreshing redirect from typical Hollywood: boy saves girl, girl saves boy, boy and girl live happily ever after pablum. Mind you that story was in there, an American movie can not be made by a major studio without that plot, but great effort seemed to be applied to supress it the best they could. If you squint, you could pretend it wasn't there.

At it's heart this movie could have been a great yarn, much like the first Matrix, of pitting Those that Believe in Order against those That Believe in Freedom (and I ain't talking about the contemporary American idea of freedom when I say that. Real Freedom is a messy business.) This movie falls short of that level grandiosity. Still it's good stuff, and I imagine there is the potential in 6 months to a year for there to be a really good Director's Cut edition of this film (I'd love to see another 30 to 60 min expansion where WB got out of the way of sanitizing this.)

Still all in all, good stuff, go see.

Overall [good] Story [good] Special Effects [good]
key: [awful] [poor] [ok] [good] [great]

Random Non-Sequiters

» Very lengthy, interesting, Alan Moore interview at The Beat: Part 1 | Part 2.

Several times Alan Moore points out that he's an anarchist in the article. Over and over again he points out that he should OWN his work. How do those two statements align?

» Speaking of ownership, Cory Doctorow over at Boing Boing is quite upset about Marvel and DC's joint trademark on the word Superhero. Personally, to me, this is like Kleenex or Xerox, yeah there are companies that continue to fight these common word trademark issues, but they can only harass and collect money on this. If indy comics want to use the term "superhero" on their books they can they just need to be creative about it (INAL). In fact they could legal piss off the big two by probably compliing and doing it just like store brand grocery items do, e.g. "Compare this brand to Scope™". Under the book titles they could probably state: "Compare this book to Marvel™ or DC™ Superhero™ titles." with the proper trademark attribution at the bottom. I can't see how they could be stopped from that?

I know that's not the point. The point is that superhero is a common word and *should* be able to be used by everyone. Yeah, we could petition Marvel or DC to release the word, but as public corporations they really can't do that. To do that would be counter to the financial interests of the corporation, which legally they can not do (Barring customer outrage reaching boycott levels, but seriously that's not a terribly realistic outcome is it?). Best to direct this argument to legislatures to create non-litigious review processes to return trademarked words back to the public domain. If that's your thing that'd be a way to do it. Don't hate the playa, change the game.

However, who "owns" the word superhero, is pretty far off my personal outrage topic scope. Who owns words in general is too. I could sit here all day and make up new words.

Saturday March 18, 2006 8:14:08 PM #

Random Non-Sequiters

» Yesterday, I picked up the new X-Men Series, Marvel Legends scale, 'Wolverine with Gold "Wild Bike"'. A little red, white and blue paint later and the cycle fits much better under Captain America don't you think? I planned on doing this repaint the moment I saw the X-men toy in the Toy Fair shots. Below is an Marvel Legends "Rider Team-up" shot.

» Tried to watch another episode of Conviction. I got about 25 min into it an dropped it, clearing the third episode from the DVR as well. It's not a bad show, but there just isn't anything that hooks you in and although there are some good actors involved, they just don't have compelling characters. It's a flat show.

» Hey, there was finallly a new episode of The Office. "Take your Daughter to Work day". Not a bad episode. Some good moments. Looks like a rerun next week and then a new episode two weeks from now.

» I was bummed to see that CN is skipping a week on new Justice League Episodes. Not even a rerun on the sced tonight. The Legion of Superheroes episode is slated for next weekend though, should be a good one. (In the meantime the first season DVD comes on on Tuesday. Pick-it up!

» Read this past Wednesday's Infinite Crisis Secret Files. DC seems to be pioneering a different type of story decompression with Infinite Crisis. This story was told in one page form in both the recent Batman Annual and Identity Crisis books, but here within this one book they tell the same story 3 different times, somewhat from three different perspectives, but not really. Anyway, at it's core I think the Superboy stunt within is a cheat but as far as restructuring continuity goes, it works well enough and is open ended enough that it should work for years to come with the DCU's continuity adjustments.

Tuesday March 14, 2006 7:02:54 PM #

There are two holidays today, March 14th,
this is one and this is the other (NSFW).

Sunday March 12, 2006 10:43:13 PM #

» Just watched the Pilot Episode of Conviction. While I won't say it's bad, there was nothing terribly original in it to hook me. Pretty safe by the numbers drama that's filmed well. It seems crafted as much by studio execs as writers. The cast is a little too attractive for a show that at least at first glance isn't completely trying to be Melrose Place. Initially I tuned into the show for Julianne Nicholson, but the character doesn't really work for me. She played a young inexperienced lawyer nine years ago on Ally McBeal (yeah it's been that long), so it seems a little odd that she still has the same newbie part. I might watch another episode or two, but tuning in weekly seems doubtful at this point. Kudos to NBC for providing the free iTunes download though.

Sunday March 12, 2006 11:51:52 AM #

» Now reality vs. future possibility. For the optimistic or those with strong false beliefs, future possibility always wins. It's bird in the hand vs. birds in the bush. It's half empty vs. half full. Eye of the beholder for sure, But there's the sticklers in the details of the definitions of reality and possibility that do come into play. Rule from on high from a castle in the clouds or watch the sky from the shed on the hill. Choices, choices, choices, consequences, consequences, consequences. And the sands fall to the base of the hourglass.

» Shouldn't Meet the Press have it's name changed to Meet Tim Russert? There hasn't been a press to meet on that show in a considerable period of time. Don't get me wrong, I like Tim Russert, but "Meet the Press" is a little strongly titled isn't it? Just something to ponder.

» There is a show on the Discovery Channel titled: "How William Shanter Changed the World". I haven't seen it yet, but that's a great title.

» Battlestar Galactica Season Finale last night. Really good stuff. Writers must follow DC Comics because they did their own One Year Later jump. Now how long do I have to wait for next season :(

» Justice League Episode last night featured most of the top tier female characters. Good Stuff. Season 1 DVD comes out March 21. Hopefully the sales go gangbusters and CN is financially encouraged to make another season because it's a very very good show (not just cartoon, but show).

Thursday March 9, 2006 9:39:46 PM #

» Brevity. It's a good thing. Places to do, things to go y'know?

Comments on Comics or One Week ago's One Year Later.

» Infinite Crisis #5 - I liked it. Good Stuff.

» Adventures of Superman #649 - A what if that wasn't a what if. Neat trick.

» Green Lantern Corp Recharge #5 - Guy Gardner pushes Hal aside and saves the day. uh, ok.

» Batman Annual #25 - Bonus Points for working in both Death in the Family outcome splash panels into continuity. Double bonus points for including most of the popular internet speculations. "Make No Mistake It is Him." Meme-worthy.

» Detective Comics #817 - 1 year later- I liked it. Kindof had the Gotham Central Vibe going on. "Don't worry, he liked hearing what you said. Of course he's never going to let on, but he did." Good Stuff.

» Outsiders #34 - 1 year later - 14 pages of fictional African politics before the good guys show up. "Wow, Sarcasm in the field. The Boy Wonder Returns!" Interesting team roster. I like the Captain Boomerang addition.

» Aquaman #40 - 1 year later - Confusing state of affairs. Is this a "Continuity Wave" effected book? Don't really mind the updated origin as presented. Beautiful art. They got me for another issue, but this one's on my short list to possibly drop if it doesn't go somewhere and find a way to make Aquaman relevant to the DCU in his own title. Previously Sub-Diego seemed a neat twist, but it didn't really end up going anywhere.

» Really liked the art on all three of the above 1 year forward books, top notch stuff, nice new shiny paper. Solid starts. And here I wanted to cut back after Crisis. Not looking like it yet if they keep this up.

» Saw Marvel is using: Marvel, Your Universe! as a tagline. Um, no it's not. I'm on Earth Prime actually ;)

Sunday March 5, 2006 7:01:32 PM #

Random Non-Sequiters

» Power+Money: tools, Status+Control: goal, Position+Influence: reality. Add 5 billion people. Formalize through protocols, religion, politics, and sex. Stir occasionally into a single segmented system adding a t-spoon of salt and dash of pepper to taste.

» Wonder Woman #226 wherein Greg Rucka illustrates why the 10 year timeline doesn't work. Nice book, but when you look at 22 years (plus) on a 10 year timeline, well, those hero's are kindof busy aren't they?

» Life, if it was easy, everyone would be doing it.

» 90min Season Finale of Battlestar Galactica next week.

» Are You From the Past? IT Crowd T-Shirt.

Freeware Scrabble Tile Solver Software Makes words from your Scrabble tiles.

Slideshow of Various Sci-Fi Illustrations

» Looks like there is a new line of DCU Paperback Novels coming out: DC Universe: Inheritence by Devin Grayson featuring Aquaman, Green Arrow & Batman, and DC Universe Last Sons by Alan Grant, featuring Lobo, Superman & Martian Manhunter. The latter is listed as a March 7th release by Amazon.

» Jon Stewart hosts the Oscars tonight.

Thursday March 2, 2006 6:28:46 PM #

I don't spell check and my grammar, sentence and paragraph structure on this site leave alot to be desired. Most times I forget to go back and reread a post to see if it makes sense. Sometimes I type the word "Fnck". Flip the "n" over... I don't have a problem with the word myself, I just type it that way to slip it past overzealous work censorship programs and for the benefit of those that are sensitive to that sort of thing.