Movie Review: Ironman 3

SPOILERS WILL BE IN THIS PIECE, SO IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE MOVIE YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED SO DON'T COME CRYING TO ME.

Alrighty, I tried really hard not to get swept up in the hype surrounding this movie.  I was in fact a bit worried about the change in writer and director, but Shane Black has done movies that I really like.  I also was not really thrilled about the look of the new armor, but if my biggest problem is going to be something cosmetic like that, then I can over look it.

I really, really wish that was my biggest problem with the film.

I'm going to start positive.  Everyone brought great performances to their roles.  Robert Downey Jr. was again remarkable as Tony Stark and making it to the point where the character will be synonimous with him. Paltrow was lovely as always and was a great counter-balance to Downey's Stark, although I think the banter between Pepper and Tony was better in the previous films.  The kid in the movie was incredible and the scene with him and Tony were easily the highlight of the film.

Now here's where I tick off a lot of fans.

I was excited about one thing with this movie: The Mandarin.  They hinted at the character back in the first movie.  I was stoked to see that he was finally going to be the big bad in the movie.  We've established that aliens exist in the Marvel Movie-verse so have a baddie with alien tech in his rings could play beautifully here.  It could have even served as a bridge with GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY or even a little hint at something Thanos-y.  

No.

Its Ben Kingsly playing a druggie actor pretending to be a big bad.  Yes, the revelation was funny, but at the same time I felt so incredibly cheated here.  It was a brutal letdown and really soured the movie for me.

Now, here's where I'm a real nit picky douchebag.

Pepper somehow gets mad fighting skills and can perfectly aim a repulsor blast in the movie's climax when she couldn't do it before?  The Extremis thing made her a cyber ninja or something?  

Oh, and the Missus pointed out that the brain with the fancy pants brain projection, and the only time there was any sort activity was when the guy got pinched?  Really?  I'm not a neurology expert, but I think there's a lot of stuff going on in the brain all the time.

And why was charging the armor a problem?  Tony is walking around with an arc reactor in his chest which completely powered previous armors?  That made no sense at all.

And the ending.  The Missus said it felt like a wake, and she was right.  It was like the character was wrapping it up and turning in his armor.  Well, at least blowing up all his armor.  No more arc reactor in his chest either.  No wonder Joss Whedon was wondering what was he supposed to do with the character now?  It looks like Ironman is now retired.  They even said "Tony Stark will be back".  Not Ironman.  Sure that's probably done to get buzz going, but that's not the buzz I'd like to see.  

All the other Marvel movies have left me with a feeling of "that was aewesome and I can't wait to see what's coming next".  This one did not.  Instead of opening up new things with the Marvel Movie-verse, it felt like it was closing one of the books.

Not a bad movie, but it let me down really hard.

Unleashing the Beast

Allow me to share the mountain of self-importance that I currently possess.

The local alternative station 96X does a little feature on weekdays, "The 4:20 Buzz", in which they feature new music and listeners respond if they want it in rotation or not.  I drive a lot.  I don't have a working CD player or any other music player in the car.  Its radio or nothing so I have a definite interest in there being good music on the radio.  I started calling in to vote, and honestly I did not think my one vote would matter all that much.  The fellow that takes the calls, James Steele, took an interest in me after a referred to one song as "freaky strip club music".

Things progressed from me just calling and spouting off about the song of the day to the two of us chatting about music, radio, the alternative format and everything.  The station is 20 years old this year and I remember fondly being a college kid and having this station blow my mind.

Last Tuesday I asked "Hey, why aren't you guys playing "Beast" by Nico Vega?"  Most of you probably know this song from the BIOSHOCK INFINITE trailer.  That song is freaking perfect for the format on the X and I didn't just want to push it because it was a song I liked, but because I really thought it would do well on the station.  I mentioned it, and James made a note of it.  I did figure that the note would get shuffled off, because this guy is busy and gets bombarded with "play this song blah blah blah..." all the time.

Thursday night I get a message from him on Twitter.  He listened to the song.

Friday I get in the car to drive home.  One song was ending on the X and sure enough the very next song was "Beast".  I played it at horribly inappropriate volume, windows down, and head banging.  I called James.  He had gotten a message from the indy rep a while back about that song.  I got him to listen.  He contacted the rep and got an awesome version for the radio.  Starts out slow and bit folk-sy and then kicks your teeth in.

Even got a Tweet from Nico Vega. ":) xo nv"

Sometimes, really cool stuff can happen when you just open your mouth.

My Gran'dad

My grandfather passed away this week.  The service will be on Tuesday and the obituary will be in this Sunday's paper.  It'll read:

Mario Emanual Nozzarella, 86, passed away April 11, 2013. Born in East Liverpool, OH, on March 7, 1927, he was the son of the late Manuel and Zilea Nozzarella. He was predeceased by his wife of 64 years, Louise Nozzarella. He is survived by his three sons, Emanuel Nozzarella (Sandra), Mario Nozzarella (Bonnie) and Dwayne Nozzarella (Kim) and his daughter, Cynthia Herchenroder (William); seven grandchildren; seven great-grandchildren. The Family will receive friends at 10 a.m. Tuesday at Hollomon-Brown Funeral Home Tidewater Drive Chapel and a graveside service will be conducted Tuesday at 11 a.m. at Forest Lawn Cemetery with Pastor Steve Styron officiating. In lieu of flowers, contributions can be made to the Alzheimer's Association or Davis Corners Rescue Foundation. 

So that's him.  Or part of him.  Let me tell you a few things about a cool old man.

Most of us don't think of our grandparents as cool.  I always thought of my grandfather as a kindly, sweet old fellow.  Then I remember watching an old MTV show called FEAR in which young, fairly stupid 20-somethings would be in notoriously haunted places and have to complete tasks.  One such location was the U.S.S. Hornet, the most haunted ship in the US Navy.  I mentioned it at my grandparents' house, and and my grandmother looked to her husband, and said "You hear that.  He's talking about your Hornet."

His Hornet.

Damn right.

Gran'dad served in the Navy for twenty years.  I regret not asking him more about it.  I do recall seeing the picture of him in the hula skirt though.  Also heard a story about him getting a hit by a Jeep while in the service.  Well, it seems he sort of hit it back as when he determined getting out of the way wasn't an option he shoulder-blocked it.

He thought the world of the Missus, and was quite happy that I settled down with a Navy girl.  Him and Meagan would sit and chat away for hours if you let them, and I wish I could get the picture of the two of them dancing at our wedding out of the album.  Unfortunately, I can't dance nearly as well as he could.  He loved his great-granddaughters as well.  Dad brought him over to the house and at that time the girls were very shy around my father and would hide from him.  They didn't have that problem with Gran'dad as they quickly ran up to him with great big hugs.  Dad wasn't sure why, but I pointed out that kids know who gives out the five dollar bills.

Of course he borrowed those five dollar bills from my dad, but that's beside the point.

We did have some good quality time.  Like when Gran'dad, Dad, and myself had a nice Father's Day dinner at Pargo's.  The restaurant was giving free ties to all the fathers that came in, so they got theirs.  This was long before I had kids, but sure enough Gran'dad sweet talked the waitress out of one more tie for me.  We pondered when we should show off our matching ties, and with my cousin Ashley's wedding impending we decided that would be the perfect time.  So I show up with my Pargo's tie.  There's Dad, and sure enough he left me hanging.  No Pargo's tie.  Then Gran'dad got there and no Pargo's tie on him either.  "Et tu, Gran'dad?", but with a smile and a wink and revealed that he had the tie tucked neatly in the inside pocket of his jacket.  I'm pretty sure Gran'ma vetoed the tie.

To say my Gran'dad enjoyed golf a bit is like saying I talk about comic books a little bit.  They say that golf is how you ruin a perfectly good walk.  Well, to Gran'dad that perfectly good walk was a waste of time if you didn't have your clubs with you.

As he got on in his life his memory began to fail him.  He spent his last few years in an assisted living facility, which was very nice.  The transition wasn't the smoothest one as we were told visiting wasn't a good idea until he really got settled and used to staying there.  There was even a couple of reports that he attempted to escape.  About a week after I was informed of this, this picture landed in my inbox.

That would be Gran'dad at Hooters.

I have an elaborate fantasy as to the details of his escape.

But lastly in regards to me: I am a nerd.  Not one of you tourists who think you're nerds because you watched THE AVENGERS five times in the theaters.  Oh no.  I can tell you who was the best man at Spider-man's wedding.  I can drone on endlessly as to why Batman is an important literary figure.  I still have my Marvel Super Heroes lunch box from kindergarten.  I can tell you about how Ironman's armor used to have a roller skate feature.  Quads.  Yeah, you read that right.  Ironman rocked quad skates!

And how do I know that last bit?

Because there was a little table next to Gran'dad's chair, which typically held a few magazines and that day's newspaper.  I was three, maybe, and in with those magazines was a FANTASTIC FOUR comic and an IRONMAN comic.  To this day I don't know if he had those for him, or if he knew his first grandson would like them.  I still have them both.  First two of thousands.  

Thanks, Gran'dad.  I love you.

My Resumé of Hate.

It's time to come clean with you people: I'm a terrible person.  It has been made clear to me that not only am I a racist, but also a sexist.  I never intended to become one, but unfortunately for me I ended up having an opinion.



The racism part is easy to explain: I think Barack Obama is a terrible president.  I just don't think he's done a good job.  He seems more interested in being cool and campaigning than he does in actually leading the country.  In think he's more interested in catering to special interest groups when issues that affect the country as a whole are not being tended to.  I also don't think he has any ideas as to how to truly fix any of these problems as he just wants to keep raising taxes in stead to doing some sensible measures.  Obviously, all of this is because he's a black guy.

There's still this weird undertone of "If you don't like Obama then you're a racist" that pops up here and there.  Sure there's some people out there who don't like him simply because he's black, but there's also many of us who don't like him because of his choices and policies.  But we're back to the old fighting like a six year old tactic of lying to change reality, and claiming something is "hate speech" simply because you don't agree with it.

But this is old news.  Let's talk about me being a sexist.  I discovered this because I've been informed that Seth MacFarlane's little song and dance number at the Oscar's is all about hate.



DAMMIT!  I thought I was being all open to diversity because it had a gay men's chorus in it and I'm still trying to make up for hating all them there gays by eating at Chik-Fil-A.  But no, I'm a terrible sexist because I laughed my ass off.  I don't know what's wrong with me in that I lack the empathy to feel bad for these poor women who were sitting there in gowns that cost more than my annual income and were being systematically called out for choosing to get a bit naked in from of the camera.  Maybe if they hadn't made so much money from it I'd be a better person and feel bad.



Now, the person who let me know this is about "hate" is a woman whom I like a lot.  She's a smart, funny filmmaker.  Tons of talent.  We just disagree about this, so I'm not going to throw out a link to her blog because I don't want anyone going over there and leaving snarky comments.  However, she's truly offended by this so what she should do is make video entitled "We Saw Your Junk", make a nice little song and dance number about it, post it up on YouTube and watch the hits come on in.  Living well is the best revenge and making some coin off of a clever retort is nice.

So let's see.  I don't like Obama, so I'm a racist.  I laughed at that Seth MacFarlane bit, so I'm a sexist.  I still eat at Chik-Fil-A, so I'm still hating those gays.  Oh wait, I nearly forgot, those parents who are being pissy with a school for refusing to let their son use the girls bathroom because of a label they slapped on their kid are morons so obviously I must hate transgender people too.

(Sindenote: STOP LABELING KIDS.)



So that's me.  Big ball o' hate.  I would blame you all for blocking me from whatever social media I may or may not be one and leaving me all alone with my hate.

Or you could understand that having different point of view isn't hate.  Laughing at satire isn't hate.  Eating Chicken sammiches isn't hate.  And finally the diversity that the people who hurl about allegations of "hate speech" and the like are trying so hard to defend needs to still include white, straight guys too.  Otherwise I'm going to have to find some sort of minority status to claim to fit in.  Which likely wouldn't be too difficult as sane people are getting scarce.

Commuting Fun!

Yesterday, I was on my way down to the beach to do some renovation work. The road I take has quite a few twists and truns to it, so the 35 mph speed limit is no joke. Road was a bit wet too.

A white car comes around the blind curve in front of me doing I'd say about 55, and skids into my lane. I jump on the breaks, and brace myself, because if they can't correct, I'm going to eat it. Nothing but ditches and trees on either side of the road, so nowhere to go.

The car hauls ass back into their own lane, but still going way to fast, and I found myself in a sweet spot, because they arced into their lane, around my car, and ended up over-correcting which sent them skidding into a 180 and landing them in the ditch behind me and the only thing that kept the car from rolling was that the ditch was deep enough to wedge that sucker in. So I pull off into a driveway, and jump out because I'm not seeing anyone getting out of the car.

I hustle back to the car in the ditch, and there's a girl in there about college age. She can't get the door open, so I pull it open and give her a hand on out. She's half laughing, and I think that was pretty much her way of dealing with the moment, so I didn't chew her ass out for nearly taking me out with her horrible driving.

Right then a mob of bicycle riders come around the bend with their spandex and windbreakers. All the pieces come together. Those asshat bike riders are always blocking up traffic on that rode. This girl sped up to get around them, which she shouldn't have done, and lost control.

And then one of the moron bike riders says. "You're going to need a tow truck."

 I hate those people so hard. Last year a guy got arrested for puting tacks in the road to flatten their tires. I'd have totally paid his bail. They ride on groups of dozens, and if you're behind them on that road you are completely screwed.

Unfortunately, its the most direct route to where most of my work is.

Balls.

Character find: Darla Deering

I've been far away from Marvel Comics for a quite a long time.  With time having proven me correct for my reasons to begin my boycott, and DC not wanting my money, I decided to give Marvel another chance, and it was obvious to me where I should start.  The Fantastic Four have always been special to me.  The first comic book I ever got was a Fantastic Four comic.  Marvel recently re-launched all of their titles in a bid to get those precious new readers, which I think is stupid but oh well, so I got on board with Matt Fraction's new run on boht FANTASTIC FOUR and its sister title FF.

Quick recap: the Fantastic Four are going off into space and it shouldn't be a long trip, but just in case they appointed a replacement team.

This brings us to Darla Deering.  She's a new character and was described as a celebritant like Katy Perry of Lindsey Lohan.  That induced quite as eyeroll, but the FF series was getting drawn by Mike Aldred, so I eagerly picked up the book.  That description of Darla does the character no justice at all.

She's on the team because Johnny forgot to pick a replacement for then they were on their trip and when he got reminded hey got ahold of the first person he could think of, which was the girl he was dating.  Shouldn't be a problem, after all they are only supposed to be gone for four minutes.  She is a pop star, and apparently a pretty famous one.  She has no powers at all.  Honestly, at first glance she has no place at all on the team.

Then we watch her a bit.

Reed takes Johnny at his word.  If he says that she is right for this, then that is good enough.  So there's Darla face-to-face with an in stasus Moon Boy who really needs to get back to his own time and she askes a very imporatant question: "Are we going to help him?"  There's this creature that looks barely human by our standards, but she empathetic to him.  So much so that she goes back in time with Johnny to help get him home.

She cares.  Great big heart-right-out-there-on-her-sleeve cares.

There she is in this whole new world that she's been asked to be a part of of surrounded by these amazing people.  She's awe-struck at times.  She's delightfully curious.  She's also quite scared.  More than anything that someone will get hurt because she does not think that she's cut out for the team.  Everything we've seen her do comes from one motivation: she cares.

From the adorable scene with Artie and Leech on the roof, to her crying her eyes out because she felt that she let people down.

She is delightfully and refreshingly human.  She's the character I want to follow through this great big weird adventure.

Gun control =/= answer

Gun control is in the news big time since the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary.  What is really unfortunate about the discussion that has risen up since that incident is the ideas being pushed will not solve anything.  I understand people being emotional and reactionary to the shooting.  I have two children in kindergarten, the same age as the majority of the victims.  I can barely fathom the grief the families are experiencing.

Since the shooting the president received many letter from children which said they wanted him to get rid of the guns.  This is understandable because those are children.  That's a child's solution to a problem they are not really equiped to understand.  The problem is not the weapon, is the person holding the weapon.  Its tough to explain to a child that some people have something really wrong with them and will hurt and kill people.

So, we've gone on to blame inanimate objects and Second Amendment, and ignored the fact that the guy was mentally unbalanced.

Most of the push for new gun control laws have come from Democrats and Liberals, which is not surprising since often they feel they should have the rights to live as they please, but if they don't approve of something, rights should be taken away.  They don't like guns.  Fine.  They shouldn't have them.  No one is making them have one.  They should stop being a bunch of hypoctries and demanding other people live as they see fit.

There's puch for a ban on assault rifles.  The shooting that sparked this debate was done with handguns.  Most shootings are done with handguns.  Hell, most people, including many yelling the loudest in this, have no idea what an assault rife actually is.  But, assault rifles sounds scary.  An AR-15 looks scarier than a Glock 20.  Like I said, this is emotional, and fear is a pretty strong emotion.

Don't forget the morons who think they're oh so cute and say "well, the Founding Fathers only meant the Second Amendment to apply to the type of gun s that existed back then".  Idiots.  Its meant so they people could protect themselves from weapons that those who would harm us would use.

On to the folks that want to limit the number of bullets in clips and magazines, many of which do not know the difference between the two.  I think the big push is no more than ten bullets.  That's plenty, if real life was a movie and everyone always hit exactly what they were aiming for.  Some poor woman has three guys break into her home, then I hope she's a hell of a shot.

The gun control argument is stupid and does nothing to help anything aside from making foolish people feel better.  We need to understand why these people break.  Is it misdiagnosed mental disorders?  Are they unable to make the distinctions betwen fantasy and reality and have seen to much violence in entertainment?  Is this the result of our society being OK with prescribing mind altering pills to kids because they don't pay attention well enough in class?  These are hard questions, which probably means they're the one's we need to focus on.

I'm not saying we need to do away with violent video games and movies, because once we start that stopping it will be a pain.  Its all fine until someone says "we need to get rid of Star Wars because there's guns in it".  I'm also not bashing the medical industry as a whole.  Some poeple really do need to be on some form of medication.

It all comes down to people, and specifically us as parents.  The future rides on us and how we are raising out children.  No parent wants to think that there's something really wrong with their child.  Its tough.  If the government wanted to do something really useful, they'd be taking steps to help them, like Senator Greg Ball of New York said.

 

Taking away guns won't solve anything.  I can make an explosive device with stuff easily available at Home Depot.  If you have one one of these non-ideological suicide attackers go to hurt a bunch of people then they are going to attempt it with whatever they can get.  We can't depend of a governemnt who seems to barely understand the problem to be the answer.

"Have you ever been with a warrior woman?"

A while back I came across an article saying that Gina Torres will be guest starring on an upcoming episode of CASTLE, thus re-uniting her with Nathan Fillion and all the browncoats rejoiced.  Huzzah.  Well, except for one guy who did not much care for her role on FIREFLY.

I really appreciate Gina Torres as an actor... but I couldn't stand Zoe. She had no definition of her own; she was defined by Mal and Wash (and mostly Mal at that). Yes, if the series hadn't been cut off so soon she probably would have grown, but a bit more thinking about her beforehand could have made her a much better character.

Which baffled me to no end.  He continued.

 She had almost no personality beyond following Mal around and doing anything he told her to do. There were rare flashes in her relationship with Wash, but they were far too few, buried under her trailing Mal around like a lost dog. Again, I realize that if she'd had time to grow she would have most likely become a much more interesting character, but I would have prefered a bit more care taken with her from the get-go. Everyone else on the ship stood out in some way. Zoe stood out by not standing out at all.

I then asked him exactly which show he was referring to.  It was as if I had slipped into a parallel dimension where there was a show much like FIREFLY, and yet different in that Zoe was boring.  There was a brief exchange about opinions and can't we all just get along.

No.  No we can't.

Let's get one thing clear: that whole notion of 'everyone's opinion matters' is garbage.  Some things are not subjective.  Now, if he had stuck with he couldn't stand Zoe, then that's fine.  But saying she had no difinition of her own was just completely untrue.

Now, if you have no idea what I'm talking about because you haven't seen the show, FIREFLY was a TV show that ran for 14 episodes and then for reasons beyond anyone's understanding was cancelled, only to have a movie made of it years later.  All the episodes and the movie, SERENITY, are available for instant viewing on Netflix.  Have at it.  Its really a brilliant show.

Now, onto the matter of Zoe.  Saying she has no definition is false, but how could someone come to the conclusion that she doesn't?  This brings us to a lot of interesting points to consider.  Zoe does not have any character development on the show.  She's a constant.  She's the rock.  The Zoe we meet in the beginning of the series is the same one we have the entire time.  And its easy to miss her character at times.  She doesn't have funny lines like Wash and Jayne.  There's no budding romance for her like with Simon and Kaylee.  There's no sexual tension with her as with Mal and Inara.  There's no mystery to her as with Book.  She's the opposite of River in that River is completely unpredictable as we can barely fathom what's going on in her head , but Zoe is always rock solid.

So you have to look to see what she's all about.  That can be hard with a rather large and diverse cast.  So let's look.

1. SERENITY: We meet the cast and get our first look at Zoe.  We know she's a vetern soldier.  We see she's very loyal to Mal.  She's deeply in love with her husband, Wash.  We also see her act as the counterpoint to Mal.  She does not follow blindly, but offers valuable insight into plans.  If there's something that could possibly go wrong, she's the one who brings it up.  We also see that she has a sense of humor as she sahres a good hard laugh due to the prank on Simon.

2. THE TRAIN JOB: Here we get Zoe and Mal on a job and she gives him a bit of grief, teasing him that if he gets caught she wants his share of the loot.  You see this with people who have worked together for a long time.  She places along quite well during their little escpare from the local authorities.  We also see her morality in that there's no question that the loot needs to be returned once its discovered what it is.

3. BUSHWACKED: The interrogation scene stands out here.  She doesn't want to say squat to the Alliance officer.  The war may be over, but she's not happy with the outcome.

4. SHINDIG: When Mal gets out of line, Zoe lets him know.  "See you back on the ship, Captain."  Seems a bland enough line, but not the way she said it.

5. SAFE: We see Zoe in the sick bay tending to an injured Book.  Another glance at her protective nature.

6. OUR MRS. REYNOLDS: When someone trails behind another person 'like a lost dog', they don't go giving that person the grief she gives Mal here.  Mal's the butt of the joke, and she's quite eager to let the entire crew in on it.  We also see a slight jealous streak possibly, as she not a fan of Saffron after the scene in the kitchen.

7. JAYNESTOWN: Zoe's pretty much part of the gag about Book's hair here, but she's great.  Not to mention having a laugh at Jayne's fame.

8. OUT OF GAS: Now here's the neat thing in regards to this topic.  We know pretty much everything we need to in regards to Zoe.  This is about all the other characters and how they came onboard.  We do see her questioning Mal's dicision to buy the ship.  We also see they she doesn't like moustaches.

9. ARIEL: There's actually nothing here that doesn't just show us more of what we already know.  The story is pretty tight around Simon, River, and Jayne.

10. WAR STORIES: Here we go.  Zoe's allegiance to Mal and her love for Wash are dead center here.  The thing is, the story is more about Wash coming to grips with his wife's loyalty to the captain and him understanding her better.  Zoe is, as always, decisive.  What would seem to be a difficult choice as to who to save is made before she even walks through the door.

11. TRASH: Ah, playing the part.  No insights here as what seems like a big moment is likely part of a cunning plot.

12. THE MESSAGE: This was a really heavy episode.  There was a lot for the characters to deal with emotionally.  How does Zoe deal with the death of a former compatriot?  She she's what she has to as to what to do the the body and honoring his final wishes.  Then she has a good hard drink and laughs about the great memories she had with him.  We also see which way her loyalties lay if between old war buddies and her current crew.  She sticks by her crew without question.

13. HEART OF GOLD: A seemingly losing battle with horrible odds?  When the cause is right she doesn't hesitate to jump right in with defending the Heart of Gold.  We also get the revelation that she wants to have a child with Wash.  With her protective nature he'd make one hell of a mother.

14. OBJECTS IN SPACE: The finale of the series centers much on River Tam.  We do see Zoe and Wash making out on the bridge and River's reaction to their passion shakes her a bit.

Then we have the movie.  We do see her reaction to what happens to Wash and it seemed that so much joy went right out of her.  There's a part of me that hopes that her and Wash had a passionate night somewhere in there and product of that night brings her the joy that she'd been hoping to meet.

So what do we have in Zoe as a character?  A fierce soldier with a very protective nature.  She loves her husband with passion.  She very loyal, not just to her captain, but the whole crew.  Her intelligence has pulled the team out of stuff spots, and she's a firm counter to Mal's occasional recklessness with her calm rationality.  She's also funny as hell.

Yes.  I'd say she's a pretty defined character.

Adam and Eve: Bizarre Love Triangle in the Zombie Apocalypse

Dating has become a really weird thing.  Used to be you'd meet a nice girl in a bar, a coffee shop or church.  You'd chat a bit, and hopefully get her phone number.  Then there's that period of agonizing if its too soon to call so you don't come off as desparate as you actually are.  Then you meet and do the whole first date thing in which you try your damnedest not to come off like a complete shmuck and hopefully get her to want to possibly go out with you again.

Nowadays, you meet someone on Facebook.  You chat while browsing their carefully selected pictures, that might not really be them, but gives you the impression that there's someone attractive on the other end typing.  You chat and flirt with texts.  Maybe get your Skype on.  Then you finally sack up and decide its time for that real life meet-up.  That's the state of things, and its a whole horrible ordeal.

It gets much hairier when the real life meet up involves trekking across miles of zombie infested terrain.

Yep, Dan Nokes has been at it again, and this here is a review of ADAM AND EVE: BIZARRE LOVE TRIANGLE IN THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE Vol 1: "Post Armageddon Underground Bunker Blues".  Dan is, above all, a storyteller and he's always been damn good at pulling me right into his tales.  This is no exception.  Of course there's going to be the obvious comparison with Image's THE WALKING DEAD, because this deals with very much the same notion: "OK, I've survived the zombie apocalypse.  Now what?"

We come in about seven years after the shambling undead nommed their way to world domination.  We meet one Adam Jenkins of what's left of the U.S.A.F. and it quickly becomes apparent that this fella is no Rick Grimes.  I completely buy this guy.  He's not some big stud.  He's a guy who hunkered down and managed to duck the worst of things when everyone around him was getting munched.  So for five years, it was just him, his dog, the A.I. the bunker has installed, and his girlfriend.  Well, ex-girlfriend.  OK, she's dead.  Sort of.  So in dealing with the fact that the only person he has to talk to really only wants him for his brains (literally), the guy buries himself in his routine.  He goes on doing his job and maintaining the bunker.  At first I wanted to think he was nuts, but ultimately how is Adam supposed to cope?

We do get the backstory of how it all went down, and where everything went horrible.  We see how things went with Adam and his dead ex.  What's great is that while expostion is typically pain to get through Dan keeps it interesting and really uses it to paint and fascinating picture of who this character is.  Adam Jenkins is  a completely believable character in an unbelievable situation.  We don't see exactly how the zombie outbreak got started, but we do witness how the bunker got overrun.

Fast forward to our guy Adam, along with Schafer the dog and Groucho the A.I., getting set to go on their big adventure to find love.  Riding their hi-tech segway off to adventure in the wild's of post apocalypse Maryland.  Here's where the real weirdness sets in.  There's such an oddball absurdity to the entire thing and yet it stays just shy of going completely screwball.  This really is fine-line writing because this story could go ff the rails at anymoment and devolve into a goofy comedy or a cliché horror tale.  But it doesn't.

There's a couple of bits here and there that we have get around like there still being power in some areas and food not being a major issue.  We get around this because this isn't the point.  We've done that story a thousand times.  This is about one guy who is all alone in the world and goes out to risk himself to make a meaningful connection with someone else.  There's this vibe that Adam is kinda that guy who lives in his parents basement and doesn't want to go out, but finally finds something worth the risk.

It is a damn interesting take on the genre that's been beaten straight to undeath.

So read it.

And apologies to Dan for being incredibly tardy in reviewing his book.  I suck, but he doesn't.  So go read his stuff.

Presidential Championship Bout!

Round one on the debates is over and done with and Obama got stomped pretty bad out there.  He looked like he wanted to be anywhere else but on that stage.  There was a lot of build up to this debate, and many of his supporters were confident that their image of Obama the amazing orator was going to come out onto that stage and mop the floor with Mitt Romney.  Didn't happen.  Then there was a period of silence as those supports tried to make sense out of what had just happened.  Then the excuses started flying.

It was the altitude of being up in Denver.

He was playing "rope-a-dope".

There was a strange sudden onset of narcolepsy.

Those of you that have followed me for a while know I'm a fight guy.  When you have two guys going after each other in the ring most likely someone is going to get beat.  There's always those post fight interviews with the guy who loses, and often the guy who lost has some sort of excuse.  It really just makes them look like a bitch.  If you get beat, you should just admit it graciously, and go back to the drawing board to try harder.  Political fighting is different from real fighting of course, so if you get beat you'e supposed to make excuses, and try to spin things.

The day after the election Obama goes out and says "That wasn't the real Mitt Romney."

Really?  In that case Bizarro Mitt Romney done kicked your ass.  The thing with this campaign is the Obama camp has been trying very hard to define who Mitt Romney is.  They've painted a picture of an old fuddy-duddy who can't connect with people and only cares about rich folks.  It looks like they've actually bought into that too.  That wasn't smart because if you start having a lot of delusions about who your opponent is and buy into them, you are going to be in for a world of hurt when your real opponent shows up.  Romney came off charming, intelligent and in command.  The guy looked presidential.  Whether you agree with him or not on issues, he was outstanding in that debate.

We have a serious miscalculation by Obama in this round.  But really, there wasn't much hope for him to win an economic debate with Mitt Romney.  Where do we go from here?

Next week is the debate between the Joe Biden and Paul Ryan.  Not a very good follow up if you're camp Obama.  Biden is prone to gaffes and has a history of making comments that don't totally jive with the administration's agenda.  Really, all they can hope for is that Biden doesn't say anything that hurts the campaign.  So, if this week Biden doesn't makes things worse then he's succeeded in his job.

That'll take us to the final two debates between Obama and Romney.  One of those is going to be on foreign policy.  Typically those favor the incumbent, but right now, its really shaky.  If you had asked me last month if Obama had that one in the bag with the bin Laden trump card I'd have had to say "yes".  Doesn't matter that it was the intelligence gathering techniques that Obama himself objected to that led directly to the mission being possible.  The meme of "Obama got Osama" has caught on as if the president himself had pulled the trigger.

But now we've had the terrorist attack which killed our people in our embassy, including our ambassador.  Obama was running around saying it was the result of an anti-Islamic film and it was protest that got out of hand when it was obvious to anyone following the story that it was a terrorist attack.  Protesters don't bring RPGs.  There's records that the ambassador requested more security and it was denied.  The scene as of this writing has not been secured by the FBI, so its possible that sensitive documents that could endanger more people are out in the open.  To make things worse for the President, its out that he doesn't attend many of his security briefings.  Skipping out on meeting with foreign leaders to go on The View doesn't help either.

Its really not looking good for the Obama camp.  There's a ton of openings for Romney to exploit.  Still, in the fight game there's a saying: "You never want to leave it in the hands of the judges."  In politics, its almost always going to be in the hands of the judges, and we hope the judges (being the voters of course) are paying close attention.

When six year olds attack...

This is not really about kids doing things, but about grown people who claim to be intelligent, but insist upon fighting their battles as a child would.  Kids get upset when they don't get their way.  So do adults, but one hopes that we handle things in a better, more mature fashion.  And we have to handle things more maturely because the way kids wage their battles does not succeed when faced with an opponent with any type of backbone or intellect.

The tools kids have to wage their campaigns are very limited.  They include, causing a scene, yelling really loudly, and just flat out lying to hopefully somehow change the perception of reality around them.

This brings us to what went on at Chik-Fil-A this past week.  As I posted before, some people got all ticked off at Dan Cathy for making statements supporting his view of marriage.  His statements shouldn't have surprised anyone as its no secret that the man is a strong Christian.  However, the dum-dums out there began wailing about hate speech and intolerance.  This is the lying in hopes of changing perception of reality.  Cathy made no statements about hating anyone.  Also his stores do not discriminate at all in regards to hiring or serving customers.  That's tolerance.  That's the definition of tolerance.

The yelling loudly, was mostly done in the way people yell loudly nowadays, on the internet.  There were all these posts and articles denouncing Cathy and his company.  Most of them distorting the truth.  Media matters even posted forged documents.  Then there was the moron who decided to film himself being a complete douchbag to a poor girl working at the drive-thru at a Chik-Fil-A.

Finally, we get to the causing a scene portion in which same sex couples kissed in stores and took pictures, with one couple proclaiming "We win".

But who is the real winner here?  Chik-Fil-A.  They posted record sales this week.  They didn't really react to the same sex kissing thing except with a few amusing bits of giving sandwiches and lemonade to a few of the couples.  That guy who made the video?  He got fired from his job.  So this little campaign against Chik-Fil-A has completely backfired.  This is good, not only because it reaffirms that civilized folks won't cave to an irrational mob, but also because I love Chik-Fil-A.  Its my favorite fast food place ever.

This of course isn't the first time groups have used these tactics.  Remember the stupidity that was Everybody Draw Muhammad Day?  That was been a bunch of people got ticked off that nutjob Muslims made death threats to artists making cartoons of Muhammad and a Dutch cartoonist was actually killed.  This was a case of there being a legitimate issue, but the group that decided to take action did so in the stupidest way possible.  The plan was to put so many pictures of Muhammad out there that Islamic rule about not depicting the Prophet (because they consider that idolatry) would be crushed in the name of freedom of speech and expression.  What actually happened was stupid people got their lulz on and Pakistan shut down the internet in their country.  Why did they do that?  Because the people in that country did not want to see those pictures and it makes western civilization look like a bunch of douchebags.  So the internet, being the biggest tool for free speech around, got shut down because of people abusing that freedom.  Probably good thing because I don't want to see what kind of government gets elected over there riding a wave of anti-western sentiment.

And of course there the biggest example of people throwing a collective hissyfit like a gaggle of petulant children: the Occupy goobers.  Remember when these pinheads were running around saying how they were going to change everything and weren't going to leave their little camps until things changed.  They didn't even know what kind of changes they wanted made, but as long as people who had more money than them suffered, they were cool with it.  Massive fail.  The only thing that happened there was sexual assaults, people getting stuff stolen, money getting wasted, and dopes now have a police record.  But at least some old hippies got to relive their glory days, right?  And the pathetic thing is some people just can't let this one go.  They want to be the liberal version of the Tea Party or something, but have netted zero results in anything productive.  So, the all the lying, yelling, and causing a scene amounted to squat.

So what do we learn from this?

Being louder doesn't win a debate.

You can try to distort truth, but people will only put up with a certain amount of BS.

Causing a scene to try to bully an issue will always fail against having an issue or idea strong enough that a scene forms on its own.

The thing is, these three examples do have legitimate issues at the hearts of them.  Equal rights for homosexual couples, artistic freedom of expression, and current economic/social-political climates are all things that should be up for intelligent discussion and debate so that one day, hopefully, we can make some meaningful progress that everyone can live with.  However, there'll always be those that have that gut instinct to stand in the middle of the grocery aisle and scream and bawl because mommy didn't buy the Lucky Charms.  When and if those people wise up and grow up we have another generation coming up and there's a lot of them with a very entitled mentality that leads to this sort of crap.

So be ready.

And eat more chicken.

Eat More Chicken, You Haters!

You see that delicious thing right there?  That there is a chicken sandwich from Chik-Fil-A, OR SO IT SEEMS!!!  Really it is a decisive instrument which a bunch of bigots use to spread HATE!  HATE HATE HATE-ITY HATE!  You see those pickles?  Pure evil.  Created by eeeeeevil Christian sorcery to make the hate grow faster.


And how do we know this?  Because the CEO of Chik-Fil-A said in an interview that he supports traditional family values.  Therefore, he must hate gay people.  Doesn't matter that he said absolutely nothing at all about gay people, or gay rights, or gay marriage.  He supports traditional marriage and that's not gay, so he must HATE GAYS!


OR, he may just support the traditional family structure and has a different opinion than some people.


But that still hasn't stopped a bunch of dummies from boycotting the restaurant, and claiming that people that do eat there are "supporting hate".  So instead of having a reasonable dialog about a subject in which both sides could possibly find some common ground and everyone live happily, we call the folks on the other side hate mongers and grab up the torches and pitchforks.


I eat at Chik-Fil-A twice a week.  Why?  Because I can't afford to eat there three times a week.  The food is excellent.  I always have impeccable service.  The staff is always friendly and helpful.  The place is an absolute delight.  Am I supporting hate?  No.  I'm enjoying the food I have loved since I ate at the Chik-Fil-A at Greenbriar Mall which was right across from the Space Port arcade which I'd go to to play Joust.


The restaurant has not hid anything about its founders having Christian values.  I haven't seen one open on a Sunday yet, even though that's up to the individual managers.  Those people working in there, they aren't there to hate gay people.  They're just working and trying to give people the food the want in a pleasant place.  The people eating there, are eating there because they are hungry and like the food.  There's no insidious plot at work here.


The people who are saying the store is supporting hate are pricks, plain and simple.  Its not hate to have a different opinion on something.  Until the restaurant chain alters its corporate policy to cater any and all events calling to harm against a group of people free of charge, they are not supporting hate.


Now, for you boycotters.  If you are not going to go to those restaurants anymore because you don't feel comfortable eating there now, that's your right.  You're being really silly, but that's your right.  If you're one of those goons up in arms calling for the store to be run out of your town because the CEO has a differing opinion than yours, well I guess you're an example of why we really aren't as accepting of diversity as we like to think.  Somebody's prejudiced around here, and its not looking like Dan Cathy.

Railing at Social Media and the Fools Therein!

What's really fun is that the fool in this instance would be me.  Everybody gets a bit tired and cranky sometimes, and boredom is a factor too.  So, when I spotted a picture my buddy on Google Plus posted mocking Republicans and mentioning pigeons crapping on a chessboard, I figured I'd have a bit of fun.  So I played the "I'm a republican, why are you picking on me card" and feigned some mock indignation.  Allen fell for it.  He's a nice guy, and sure we don't agree on some thing politically, but he's a straight shooter.  I was going to let him know I was just screwing around, but then he got his rant on.

Internet/social media propoganda 101
Reality check people: -- IF I (or anyone for that matter) posts a graphic attacking: Atheists, Christians, Democrats, Republicans, Nerds, Jocks, Redheads, Long Hair's, Blondes, Jazz Freaks, Music haters... etc....... there is a 99% chance the post is EITHER simply meant as humor and/or intended as propaganda against the extreme elements of whatever group is being mentioned..... If you see such a graphic and believe that it is specifically targeting you? --- Think twice, chances are, you're wrong (unless of course you ARE a backwards ignorant trolling bigot who deserves to be called out---- but really, assuming I have you in one of my circles--- you really think I would have left you there if I actually felt that way?--- jeebus, grow up people

Now this brings up a really excellent point.  We get bombarded by information on the internet.  Ideas are flying about.  If you're going to go on a social media site, you have to have a thick enough skin to be ready to deal with what other people post. They may say things you don't agree with.  They may post something they think is funny that offends you.  The main thing is: most likely they are not posting it to particularly offend you.


Now, there's another side of this coin.  When you're posting something about a group of people, you have to remember that you're posting about a group of people.  I'll make fun of our Pop Star-in-Chief or his walking gaffe machine VP, but I'm a bit hesitant to go after Democrats as a whole.  I have friends and family members who are Democrats.  My aunt is a Democrat, and I love my aunt to pieces.  So I don't want to post anything that'll upset her if she happens to see it.  So if you're posting something about a group of folks, you need to be prepared for possible fallout if someone you know and like doesn't like what you may have insinuated about them.


So, my bit of trolling of Allen yielded some pretty cool results.  Unfortunately, someone else decided to chime in.  We'll call him "Jay", mainly because that's his name.  On Google Plus is you scroll over someone's name you can see a little pop up giving you a couple of bullet points about them like location and occupation.  Jay's bullet point said he was a "thinker" and I should have backed away right there.


Unless you're one of the shambling dead craving brains, you are a thinker.  Don't put that in you occupation unless possibly you work in one of them there think tanks, which I always been curious about.  And don't put "free thinker" in there either.  That translated directly to "kook".


But I made the mistake of poking fun at the Thinker, and that always brings out a rant.  Its never a good rant either.  You're always kind of hoping for some Dennis Miller quality rant that just rails on with insightful, poignant things and is so amazingly clever that even though they're dumping all over you, you've got to give them props for freaking amazing their rant is.  Nope.  Its always them trying to show that their intellectual shlong is bigger than yours or anybody else who happens to read it, and even if its loaded with perfectly poignant facts as to the topic at hand, its so frakking boring that you have to fight the urge to just respond "tl;dr".


So, don't ever troll a "Thinker".  Its never worth it.  Just no fun at all.  I did try to get the guy to lighten up and make it obvious that I was indeed just screwing around, but Thinkers think serious think-stuffs, and have no time on this here intarwubs for shenanigans.  So I got blocked, which is a shame, because as everyone knows: I'm a complete delight to be around.  I dunno.  He might have just been having a bad day.


So, what did we learn today?


1: Allen Marshall makes an excellent point that needs consideration.


2: Forethought before posting probably needs to happen more.


3: Being a "Thinker" can be mistaken for being a knob, so we gotta be careful of that.

Not looking good...

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES is coming soon wrapping up Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy.  Not particularly excited about it, because I didn't like THE DARK KNIGHT.  The movie, while well done, was really all about the Joker, and I was there to see him lose, not win.  Even the staunchest supports of that movie have started to admit that it was too long, too depressing, and batman got his cape and cowl handed to him.  However there's the notion in the air that the previous movie being the second of a planned trilogy would be made up for by Batman's ultimate triumph in the last installment of the trilogy.


The previews don't really fill me with confidence.  


What makes me even less confident is that a tie-in game is being released.  In this game you play a criminal that is looting Gotham during bane's attack on the city.  You can't play a good guy.  You can't play a policeman.


This further gives me the impression that in the Nolan films, the villains are the real stars, and Batman's just there to give them someone to fight.  Yes, Batman does have one of, if not the best rogues galleries of any superhero.  However, we've seen what happens when the villain gets the top billing in a Batman flick.  Schwarzenegger.  'Nuff said.


I'm really on the fence about even seeing it for the sake of reviewing it at this point.

Thoughts on Snow White and Huntsman

Saw it over the weekend.  Beautiful scenery.  Chris Hemsworth did his thing.  Charlize Theron was absolutely venomous.  Nice to see Nick Frost is anything.


Now, I've got a pretty good ability to suspend disbelief.  You have to when you come up a comic book nerd.


Dwarfs?


Fine.


Fairies?


Fine.


Evil queen doing evil queen spells?


Fine.


But I've got to draw the line when they start referring to Kristen Stewart as the 'fairest in the land".


That's one weird looking broad.





When the women who are supposed to look unattractive look more attractive than the star, you've got problems.

Comic Reviews (6-6-12)

THIEF OF THIEVES #5 has hit the spot I've been waiting for.  Really the first four issues have been establishing the characters and the situation.  Its been a lot of exposition, but its been masterfully done and completely engaging.  We have Conrad, the master thief who walked away from the life, and now we have his son who is looking down the barrel of what looks like a long, hard prison term.  At this point we now have a hint of where this story is going to be going.  I'm quite pleased.  For a bit I thought it was going to turn into a guy breaks his kid out of prison type thing.  I should have known better.  Kirkman plotting this, and Spencer writing it, I definitely should have known better.  This is a caper book.  The problem with reviewing caper books is that there's so much going on, but everything's spoiler.  I can say this.  We find out what happened to his ex-partner/brother-in-law.  We meet some new interesting characters.  We also get an idea of how Conrad plans on getting Augustus out of jail.  Of course with a book like this, I severely doubt that everything is as it seems.  Sharp written, and beautifully illustrated.  Seriously, if you haven't been buying this book, you need to start.


MORNING GLORIES #19 also came out because its that time of the month.  You know how it is.  You spend most of the month with everything being fine and dandy.  Then there's that time of the month where you're emotional and confused and possibly bloaty and wondering "what the hell just happened, and what did I just read?"  Yep.  Its PNS.  Pondering Nick Spencer.  And that can be quite difficult when it comes to this book.  Here, we focus on Hunter.  I like Hunter. He's likable.  He means well.  He's late for important stuff.  He's sympathetic.  We get some more of Hunter's backstory, much of it involving his mother.  Now, while all of this is solid ground for us to go from, as soon as we venture off the solid ground that is Hunter, we're off into a completely topsy-turvy, whiskey tango foxtrot ball of what 's going on and why is this happening?  Zoe's trying to kill Hunter.  She's an important piece to this game that is being played, and we're still not sure exactly what this game is because we've been dumped into the middle of it from issue one.  And as confused as I am about everything that has gone on in this book, and I've read every issue and still am not 100% sure about what's going on, I CAN'T STOP READING THIS BOOK!  Its too interesting!  Spencer has instilled this notion in me that all of the insane stuff that has gone on in this book fits together somehow, and I'm only just now starting to put the corners of this thing together.


DRACULA WORLD ORDER #1 is Ian Brill's first creator owned effort.  Its a fairly solid work and I dove through the first issue painlessly.  The world building is handled expediently.  The character designs are interesting.  Alexandru, Vincent, and Mai are looking to take on a world run by Dracula.  We have Alexandru who is Dracula's son.  Vincent is the last of the vampire hunters.  Mai is a prisoner who has had her genetics messed about with by a vampiric mad scientist.  The design of Dracula is striking and quite different than what I'm used to seeing.  Very menacing.  There was a bit of an eyeroll moment in which Dracula seized power by transforming "The1%" into vampires and I had to laugh thinking whatever's left of the Occupy morons would be all over this since its kind of a metaphor for how they view things.  I don't know if Brill buys into all that, but it makes for an interesting enough story.  The artwork is very good.  I was actually a bit surprised by how good it was.  All and all, this has the makings of an interesting series, and is off to a pretty good start.  This book is in limited release, but can be downloaded at Comixology.

Being stupid and paying for it

I was driving home from karate last night and while on the 168 bypass I saw a car flipping in the median.  The headlights were spinning, and parts were flying off of it.  I quickly pulled over and ran over there to see if i could help.  The car was upside down.  Others had quickly run over to vehicle.  The guy inside was screaming and actually had people thinking there was a woman in the vehicle, with how high pitched and panicked he was.  He had been wearing a seat belt and the airbags had deployed.


One of the people who ran to his aid was the guy he had been racing.


I know this because a big fellow who was standing next to me saw the whole thing.  The two cars go next to each other.  Each honked their horns.  Then they took off.  One car lost control.  The fellow who told me this had been behind them when it happened.  I saw where he was parked and he had his kids in the car.  I couldn't help thinking about how much worse this could have been.  I thought about how many times I take my kids down that same bypass.


I felt every ounce of sympathy for the driver leave me.


Yeah, I stuck around until police and fire fighters got there.  I was ready as we saw a bit of smoke come from the engine to do whatever we had to to get the driver clear if the car started to burn, but fortunately it didn't come to that.  Police showed but fairly quickly and I waited until i got the OK from an officer before heading off for home.


I'm not wishing ill on the driver, he's had about enough ill visit him last night.  Not sure of how injured he is.  I know the vehicle is totally.  I'm just happy no one else got hurt.

SO Close

My dojo competed in the battle of the 7 Cities Tournament yesterday.  My daughter competed, and she did alright.  Got a couple of finalist medals out of it.  My other students did well.  Had a few get some trophies.  The demo team did well, and put on a good show.


I competed at the end of the day.  I was a bit tired, but I shook that off.  My family was there and that was extra incentive.  Most of all, it was my birthday, and I wanted that forms championship belt.  The last few years, a Tang Soo Do stylist named Jerry has been dominating in the forms division.  Nice guy, but that's who I was gunning for.  He wasn't there, so it was pretty much wide open.  There were still a lot of strong competitors out there, so I knew I had to bring out everything I had.


The weapons division went horribly.  I hit a slick spot on the floor and nearly fell, but managed to catch myself and continue.  But that slip cost me dearly and I was completely out of placing.  No problem, I'd just make up for in in the empty hand competition.


I did Hakutsuru for my kata and this was the first time I'd used it in competition.  Usually I did a combination of Hakucho and Shiho Kosokon.  That's scored well for me, but I knew I needed to take things up a notch.  I was one of the first three up, which usually isn't a good thing.  But that fine because I had my form ready.  Its a white crane form and I got out there, and well....





I killed it.  Just threw the gauntlet down for everyone to try to catch my score.  There were a lot of those guys who came damn close too.  Seriously strong forms out there.  It the end though I got first place and it was on to the grand championships.


My dad and stepmom had to go, but they saw me win, so everyone was happy.  On I went with the four other division winners to see who gets the belt.  I was to go third.  No problem.  The first girl was pretty strong.  The second girl was someone who I've competed against a few times, and she's very good, but she slipped in the same spot I had slipped in the weapon's division, and she managed to catch herself as well, but it cost her in the scoring.


I got out there and put everything I had into the kata and it paid off.  My scores were strong, but would they hold up against the last two guys?  They went out there and nailed there forms and I'm running the numbers in my head.  They both had me beat.


So, much to my surprise, after all the scores are calculated, i get announced as Grand Champion.  I'm floored.  They call me up, and i stepped forward like a kid who thought he might possibly be in trouble for something, but they said I won, and the look on my face had to be one of a man who was utterly perplexed. This was what I was after, and all I could think was "someone's math is off".


Here comes the tournament promoter with the belt, and the cash prize money.  I've known this guy for years.  He's honestly excited that I finally won the grand.  The missus is one her cell phone calling my dad.  She excited.  I'm sort of excited, but it all just seemed so wrong.  Then I saw one of the other competitors looking at the scores.  He, rightfully, called for it to get re-checked.  


Scores got recalculated, and then with tons of apologies, the belt and cash prize went to the guy who won the weapons division.  Now, the guy who called for the scores to get checked did not win, nor did he think he had, but he knew something was wrong.  The woman who slipped also wanted the scores rechecked because she trains with the promoter and wants to make sure everything's above board.


But again, lashings of apologies from everyone, and no belt for me.  Ah well.  At least I got to touch it.

Comic Reviews (5-30-12)

THE WALKING DEAD #98 continues the "Something to fear" storyline which will be leading us to issue 100. You know something is up when the person behind the counter is freaking out over the issue with a complete, "I can't believe that happened" look on their face.  Yes a main character gets bumped off in this issue and I honestly didn't see that one coming.  Its true what Kirkman says about this comic: "No one is safe."  The battlelines are drawn between Rick's group and this mysterious Negan.  Lately with the group taking out an entire herd of walkers its seemed like they were ready for anything.  Granted, Rick's group is still as tough as they come, but its looking like Negan's group is a serious threat.  Now we have the loss of an important member of the group, which has me seriously wondering if Rick and the others will be able to hang on to their community in the face of this threat.  There's some critics that say the series moves a bit slow, but they certainly can't complain about this issue.  Plenty of action, and all of it brutal.


ANGEL AND FAITH #10 is an absolute hoot.  The quest to get Giles back takes an amusing turn when we meet Giles' Great-Aunts.  These sisters have used every trick in the book to stay young and beautiful, but now with magic gone, the bill has come due.  Christos gage and Chris Samnee do a huge gear shift in classic Whedon fashion.  When things get really heavy like they did in the last storyline, when its time to turn around and deliver some fun.  The sisters are an absolute hoot, as is how Angel and Faith react to them.  I had some real laugh out loud moments here.  At the same time, we also move along with "Giles Quest".  This is a really well done issue.  I had a blast with it.


ROCKETEER ADVENTURES 2 #3 serves up three stories again.  David Lapham and Chris Sprouse give us a nice story with with Cliff and Betty thinking about their future and what could be.  There's a story by Kyle Baker which is better off skipped.  The last is by Matt Wagner and Eric Canete which is an interesting retelling of the Rocketeer's history.  Sprouse and Canete both really serve up for beautiful art, and this is added to by a sweet pin-up by Eric Powell.  I would have liked some more action with this issue.  The stories show a lot of love for the character, but now a lot of punches thrown and bullets flying.  Not bad, but hopefully we'll get more action next issue.


ZOMBIES VERSUS ROBOTS ANNUAL 2012 came out, and to be honest I only picked it up because Drew Moss drew one of the four stories in there.  Sam Keith did art on a story in there too, so that's a bonus.  It was interesting in that Keith and the other artists have a really quirky style, and that really made Moss's stand out with his cleaner style.  I'm not a big ZvR fan, and this issue isn't going to get me on the bandwagon, but it wasn't bad at all.  The "Summer" story was the stand out for me, but of course I'm biased there.

Book Review: "Alpha" by Greg Rucka

For months I've been diligently and steadily working my way through all the Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.  Frankly there hasn't been much of anything that's kept me from breaking stride with this. The volumes sit in my car and are read whenever I get a chance.  In fact I'm nearing the end of it.  The home stretch.  I'm looking forward to completing my journey through the Holmes mythos.


And then Greg Rucka just had to put a book out, and when that happens, I'm dropping whatever I'm reading and picking it up.


I've read all his Atticus Kodiak novels.  I've read all of his QUEEN AND COUNTRY work.  In fact I was eager for more Q&C, but here we have something different.  ALPHA gives us a whole new protagonist, Jonathan "Jad" Bell, and all the excitement we could want from a Rucka novel.  This book shines.  The characters are pitch perfect.  The action isn't forced.  The suspense is high.  As with every Rucka novel once it gets going its nearly impossible to put down.


The premise is straight forward, there's a suspected terror attack eminent on a major theme park, and Bell needs to stop it.  What sounds simple is given a ton of beautifully crafted twists that make this book amazingly compelling.  First off is the park.  Before you even start reading, there's a map of the park, Wilsonville.  We quickly get a feel for this park and the characters that inhabit it.  We find out all about Gordo, Betsy, and pooch; the Flower Sisters; and Clip Flashman.  All of this is laid out to the point that it seems tangible.  Wilsonville comes alive just as much as Disneyworld or Universal Studios.


As always with Rucka's work the character's are fully realized.  Jad Bell is very likable in that this man is a professional who holds his job and what is right in the highest regards.  He's lived a very rough life, which we get a brutal taste of in a flashback scene.  We get everything we need to know about this man very quickly.  He's not the only character we get to know well as we also follow his opposite number, Gabriel, in this.  Gabriel is a sleeper agent who is going to be running the attack on Wilsonville.  Here's a really nasty twist to this: you almost start to like the guy.  It would be so very easy to write this guy as a total scumbag.  Still, Rucka inserts a very sympathetic side to him.  No doubt that what he's doing is completely wrong and horrible, but there still that little bit of him that's completely in love with his girlfriend that makes you like the guy just a bit.


I do love the little moments some characters get.  We see these park employees under the worst possible circumstances and we see them doing their jobs and doing right by the park guests.  We see people in the control room that know that something really horrible is possibly happening and just by staying where they are it could mean their lives, and they keep doing their jobs.  On the other side we get glimpses of the men pulling the strings behind this operation and, oh, how we loath them.


The one thing that stuck with me just a bit was the timing of certain events and how coincidence was such a factor.  Jad's ex-wife and daughter are scheduled to visit the park when the threat is imminent.  Jad's daughter is deaf and Gabriel's girlfriend is an ASL (American Sign language) interpreter.  It seemed a bit too coincidental, but it certainly served to up the drama level and gave both players in this game a high emotional stake.  Its pretty easily forgiven too since Jad's daughter and Gabriel's girlfriend are both delightfully written.


This book moves.  Rucka gives us plenty of information to go on and conveys it interestingly.  He doesn't beat us over the head with facts we don't need, and when he gives us something extra its always entertaining.  The flow is fast paced and easy reading.  There are time in here where chapters overlap events, in that the same thing is covered in three different chapters from three different perspectives.  While I could see this going horribly wrong and getting tiresome, that's never the case here.  Every different perspective is fresh and gives us a vital new take on things to totally flesh out the events.


I loved every bit of this book, and its looking like the start of a strong new series from Rucka.  I left this book wishing I had the next one right in front of me.  He's devious like that.  Typically, when you get to the end of a Rucka chapter there's a little bit there compelling you to say to yourself "OK, I know its two in the morning and I have to be up at six, but just one more chapter..."  This whole book not only left me satisfied, but sunk a hook in me craving more.