Dracula on the One Dollar Bill

BAH! Its Wednesday, September 22, 2010 and I'm in a foul mood. Perhaps its due to my computer not working properly for some unknown reason. But these things are to be expected. It could be I had to work under a house yesterday and the dead rats that were my only company were poor conversationalists. But work is work. Or it could be that my head is still a bit achy from my daughter's first attempt to take me out by slamming my head in the refrigerator.

Yeah, that's probably it.

I figured I'd have a few more years before my children tried to kill me by any means other than frustrating me to death. Apparently I should have known better than to try to cross a three year old who really wants some juice.

COMIX!!

Got an early look at DRACULA: THE COMPANY OF MONSTERS #2 and this book knows how to take its sweet time. This is not the type of pacing I expect in a comic book. By now we should be up to our eyeballs in a serious body count with guts and gore all over the place. Nope. Honestly the creepiest part was Evan coming to the horrible realization that there's no way out for him. Conrad has him completely at his mercy with this veiled threat of something horrible. Every time Conrad appears I get this feeling that something really bad is going to happen.

And bad stuff does indeed happen. In issue 1 we found Dracula's. This issue we see him return in quite the messy manner. Evan is trying his best to maintain his decency despite being demanded to do indecent things. Again we have the type of pacing I expect in a classic horror film. Dracula's return is a nasty affair, but it a spike in the action as the rest of the issue we continue building up slowly to something horrible. And that something horrible may indeed be on the way as the team in Europe that found Dracula's remains makes another find, and something definitely finds them.

I think the most striking thing here is the color and tone of this book. For the most part, it's not dark. Its bright and colorful and the very matter of fact in the storytelling. Usually with a horror comic its heavy on the ink. There's lots of shadows with very stylized art. Whenever I think horror comics, I think of Gene Colin's art on the old TOMB OF DRACULA comic Marvel did back in the 70s. This is a heavy departure from that and works well with the story. At face value, everything seems fine and dandy. However, as we venture into the wine cellar with Evan, we see that something terrible is taking place and its only a matter of time before its unleashed.

POP POLITICS!!

I knew this year was going to be absolutely ridiculous in the political arena, but I never thought I'd see this. That's right. The Democrats have given up trying to justify themselves. They know that they are about as popular as gout. They know nothing they've done to help the economy has helped. They know they have spent a ridiculous amount of money to the point that it'll be forever before we make a dent in the deficit. They've just thrown up their hands and said, "Yes, we are a bunch of assholes. No, we aren't going to change. But, the Republicans are still worse than us."

And our good old Pop Star-in-Chief is still banging away with his car in the ditch analogy despite that more and more people are realizing that its crap. If the Republicans did indeed drive the car that is America into a ditch, its the Democrats that dug the ditch and currently look like they're trying to bury the car.

This is insanity at the point I never thought I'd see. Sure, some folks say that both parties suck and one side is no better than the other. Still it was nice that the parties at least tried to give us the illusion that our country wasn't being run by a ginormous herd of schmucks. Its like they've just given up. They know that we, the filthy unwashed masses, are on to them putting their agendas ahead of what we want, and now that the genie is out of the bottle they don't know how to deal with it.

Trying to instigate class warfare by saying they're going after "the rich" with their tax hikes ain't cutting it. People right now just want to work and know they can keep a roof over their heads and food on the table. Those rich folks that're getting targeted are one's that can create jobs. So that's backfiring hard.

THIS ISN'T WHAT VOTING IS SUPPOSED TO BE ABOUT, DAMMIT! This is supposed to be sending in our best and brightest to represent us. Its not supposed to be about having to settle for the person we think is going to screw us over the least.

They can't admit that they are wrong in what they are doing and have done. Trying to show off their achievements isn't working out because more and more people don't like what they've done. So its down to blatant finger-pointing and trash talking the other side.

I was wrong.

This isn't a Political Sumo Tournament.

This is straight WWE, Jack!

Under two months to go before the election and I've got a fiver that says someone tries to hit Christine O'Donnell with a folding chair before its all over.

EXTREME MAKEOVER: CASH EDITION

One more thing about the economy and then I'll shut up until someone else does or says something else completely stupid. A graphic designer claims that the best way to stimulate the economy is to redesign our currency. I'm not sure if he's joking. I really hope that he's joking. Still, I looked at some of the designs and most of them are pretty lame. Besides which, we just had a redesign on our currency. Please note the when this happened that the economy didn't receive any kind of boost from it.



There is a definite shift in how we spend, and I'm not talking about amounts, I'm talking about methods. There's less cash in motion and a lot more debit and credit cards. This of course makes me think about BATMAN BEYOND because (all together now) its really all about Batman. On the TV show they referred to currency as 'credits'. One episode had a girl on it searching frantically for a card with credits still on it to keep her car from getting towed. It makes me wonder whether or not we're heading in a direction in which society runs solely on credit and what you earn goes to pay into that credit.

For now though cash is still king. As I told radio superstar and comic writer Bobby Fresh as he waited to the phone line to be freed up so he could purchase his comics at Kings, "You can be as famous as it gets, but money talks."

JOB INTERVIEW

Cruising through the internet I found an job listing.

"WANTED: Individual for freelance security position. Hand-to-hand combat training a plus."

So I contacted the party who placed the ad and they got back to me pretty promptly, which was nice. After a bit of online back and forth I got lined up with a phone interview. It was with a very well spoken Englishman who referred to himself as Mister Smith. I thought it should be Smyth as he was English and pondered whether or not he had baggage.

He informed me that company I'm being considered for is subsidized by a Fortune 500 company. I was surprised I was already being considered, but they said they had their computer specialist already do a bit of digging on me. He also told me my record was a bit spotty, but they had seen and hired much worse.

He asked about my previous security experience. I told them about working the door at South Beach Grill. I also told them about managing to work in downtown Suffolk and not dying. That last bit impressed them as they said experience in dealing with hostile urban areas would be very beneficial to the position.

He asked about my martial arts training. He then told me my 25 years of experience in Karate would be a good start.

He of course made sure to ask if I had a valid driver's license, which I do. I informed him that I did also have my own vehicle, and he told me that was all well and good, but vehicles would be provided for the job.

He then inquired if I had much acting experience. I told him I played a weed in my 6th grade school play. No lines, but I did my own stunts. I could hear a bit of disappointment over the phone, but he told me that the company could work with that.

It was all very nice and pleasant and I think I made a good impression. He told me that he'd be in touch once the board had made a decision as to my application. He did have one question that may or may not be a deal breaker: "Would you be willing to move to Gotham?"

MUSIC!!

And now the video which is destined to be requested repeated by my children, which I will let them watch despite their attempts to kill me.



That's the ball game for today. If there's no post on Friday then the computer finally went tango uniform, I'm stuck under a house with dead rats, and the twin three year olds got the better of me in hopes of the insurance money being spent on a new Nintendo DS.

Maybe all of the above.