LA Prison Blues

OSU! Its Friday, December 9, 2011, I'm ready for a good beating, and the is The Side. Got a Karate seminar that starts this evening and goes all day tomorrow. Really looking forward to it because it should be really great, and I don't have to travel and miss a bunch of work for it.

Quick addendum to Wednesday's post. I did indeed return the cards to Joey at Kings who gave me a refund. He pretty much thought it was BS that anyone would have the cards cheaper in this area, and looked shocked that someone would helm me up over $1.25. When I got home the Missus said that the girl in question claims that she knows Joey and would get the cards from him at a cheaper price. I'm doubting that. I'm going to be having a very good conversation next time I go to the shop.

On to current business. There's a guy I know on Google Plus, Ryan Drewery. We don't agree on a lot of things, but he's a good guy. I respect him. It seems some people who were arrested at some Occupy LA thing were still in jail even though people that had been arrested for worse crimes weren't held that long. Ryan posed the question: why is this? Its a good question, and deserves an answer.

10 of them.

REASONS WHY THE OCCUPY LA DOOFUSES ARE STILL IN JAIL: THE TOP 10!

10: Less chances of getting sexually assaulted in jail as opposed to their camp site.

9: Gives them something else to bitch and moan about.

8: Technically, they are still on public property.

7: Less homeless people milling about.

6: They're changing their focus to Occupy Jail to confuse people.

5: The jail had wi-fi, so the they can use their iPhones and iPads to go online and gripe about how bad off they are.

4: Jail smells better than their camp site.

3: All they really wanted was three hots and a cot.

2: They refuse to leave until they finish the game of Monopoly they started. Unfortunately every time someone starts winning the game the other players take all his money and redistribute it evenly to all the players. This is immediately followed by all of them yelling, "SEE? SEE?! IT REALLY DOES WORK!"

1: The line "I've done time" doesn't mean shit until you've been in longer than Henry David Thoreau.

MUSIC!

You just know those folks sipping coffee and smoking big cigars are those pesky 1%ers. Great cover of a great song. Hail the Rev!



That's all for me today. Hope to still be in one piece by Sunday. I'm sure i will be, and that piece will likely be bruised. See y'all then.

They all had it comin'

Gadzooks! Its Sunday, July 10, 2011, I'm being plotted upon by small, fluffy animals, and this is The Side. Sure enough I was walking to the garage to get something and a partially eaten pear was dropped right in front of me. I heard the little bastards making their squirrelly type noises in the tree. If that's how its going to be, I'll have their fluffy asses.

On business that doesn't involve a varmint vendetta. As many of you know, I'm a laborer. I help fix stuff, paint stuff, etc. Saturdays in the summer are jam packed because that's the turnaround day for renters at the beach houses. So we get a laundry list of things that need fixed that the renters let the agency know about and we try to fix as much as we can between the time the previous renters leave and the next ones arrive. Not much time, so its pretty annoying when they show up early and wait around for the place to get cleaned so they can enter. There is a set check-in time after all.

That said, we don't feel too badly when the occasional stray comment slips out as we walk by them as they sit by the front door like vultures.

THINGS WE REALLY SHOULDN'T SAY IN FRONT OF RENTERS AS WE LEAVE, BUT DO ANYWAYS BECAUSE WE ARE TRULY HORRIBLE MEN: THE TOP 10!!!

10: "Its a shame they've condemned this place."

9: "With all that blood I'm surprised they didn't change the carpet."

8: "I know they did a great job cleaning it, but I don't think I could swim in that pool after that guy crapped in it."

7: "You can't even smell the dead guy anymore."

6: "If that thing goes there's going to be raw sewage on every floor."

5: "How will they get the snakes out of the attic?"

4: "People really need to clean up after their orgies."

3: "I told you caulk would fill a bullet hole just fine."

2: "I wonder if it'll catch fire again."

1: "Think the exterminator got 'em all?"

MUSIC!!!

Linkin Park covering an Adele song: surprising. It being really good: shocking.



Alrighty. I'm off to Google to kick off the G+ Buzz Tourney. Look me up on there. See y'all Wednesday.

Geek Overload!

Hang on, I'm comin'. Its Sunday, May 15, 2011, I'm limpin' like a pimp with polio, and this is The Side. Blogger was down for most of Thursday and Friday, so I'm making up for that today. As for the limp, I'm pretty sure I aggravated an old injury. I came off a roof years ago and broke my heel. Taking the down time necessary to let it heal right wasn't an option, so I kept going on with things, and typically its fine. However, work this week involved jumping over some railing repeatedly, and eventually I landed wrong.

Guess its time to put my feet up and talk some comics.

FALL OF THE AMAZON

Well, I said the Wonder Woman TV show was looking and sounding pretty bad, and it seems that upon seeing the pilot episode NBC agreed with me. I've followed this story and read a bunch of articles about it and I've looked at comments attached to the articles. No one had much of anything nice to say about it.

Look, the girl was pretty, and she might be a pretty good actress, but she looked either freaked out or constipated whenever she was photographed doing any stunts. The costume was redesigned three times based off the latest Jim lee design which no one really cares for. It doesn't look like Wonder Woman, plain and simple. Word is the script was atrocious. I heard there was a seen with Wonder Woman crying over her ice cream with Etta Candy over the stress of being Wonder Woman and running a business, which wouldn't surprise me one bit since David Kelley was behind this.

This thing didn't have a prayer.

Fans keep bitching and moaning about the lack of a live action Wonder Woman project. I still say be happy with the awesome animated feature from a few years ago. But, if you want to do this right you put Greg Rucka, Gail Simone, and Eric Kripke in a room together, and you let them have it out. Rucka and Simone understand what is great about the character of Wonder Woman and Kripke knows how to make epic TV and still ground it. You let them get the ball rolling. You then find an actress who is athletic, and preferably with a strong background in dance. Dancers perform incredible physical feats while making it look graceful and easy. Wonder Woman is as tough as they come, but she's incredibly graceful. This is important, just as much as having the acting chops to pull off a character who is elegant and caring and very compelling.

This can be done right.

COMIX!!

This week FLASHPOINT #1 came out in which DC let's us all know that Barry Allen is the greatest hero ever and without him the DC Universe would be doomed, but not in a way that made sense like "Chain Lightning". The effects of this story will be felt through out comics everywhere. In fact, Marvel's "Fear Itself" storyline concludes with Barry Allen telling everyone that 'everything will be alright' and then resurrecting Johnny Storm with the power of his awesomeness.

Let's light this candle with BATMAN INCORPORATED #6 in which we discover quite a few things, but foremost is Chris Burnham is one hell of an artist. Love his work here, right down to him drawing Bruce Wayne's eyebrows to suggest little bat wings. These previous issues have been a lot of build up. We've got an idea of what's going on. If you haven't been following but were thinking about maybe trying to jump on this train, this is the issue to do it. I've talked a lot about how Bruce Wayne is structuring this thing and here it all is laid out pretty for us. We also get a good taste of how this organization is going to operate. There's a couple of new members including a mysterious new Wingman who will be Bruce's ace-in-the-hole in the upcoming fight with Leviathan (Its Barry Allen, because Barry Allen is the awesome-est hero ever). This new foe has been creeping me out. He weaponizes children and its revealed that the youngest one is 18 months old. That pushes all the buttons I need to make me want Bruce Wayne to take this guy out. This book is flat out cool.

Moving it on over to R.E.B.E.L.S. #28. This is the book's final issue. They've had a great run. This was definitely a sleeper book which I don't think had a huge following, but everyone who got onboard really dug it. Word is this book got axed to make room for all the FLASHPOINT stuff, because Barry Allen is so awesome that there's just not enough room for all of the existing DC titles and the amount of awesomeness Barry Allen possesses. We get the conclusion of the battle with Starro. There wasn't a ton of loose ends to get wrapped up, so this book is nice and tight. Thank you Tony Bedard, Claude St. Rubin, and the rest of the creative team for a really fun ride.

In RED ROBIN #23, Time is up against assassins who are in competition to kill important people and he's got to stop them before they get to Barry Allen thus depriving the world of his awesomeness. Tim's running a nasty risk trying to get the inside track to take this group on, and its one that Commissioner Gordon and Batman don't quite approve of. Marcus To is back on pencils, and thank goodness for that. The story is pretty good. Tim's walking a fine line, and I'm hoping to see this pay off.

Things are getting thick in BATGIRL #21 as the Reapers send their latest agent, Harmony, on missiony types things which our gal Steph has to stop, which she does with a "huzzah", thus validating me for bringing back "huzzah". She also has to deal with her stalker, The Grey Ghost, who turns from annoying to creepy to jerk. I've enjoyed the dynamic in this book with Steph and Wendy, but its looking like that's coming to an end as Wendy is leaving to go to Nanda Parbat to try heal herself and start a church devoted to the Awesomeness of Barry Allen. This book continues to be consistently entertaining.

BIRDS OF PREY #12 has Jesus Saiz joining Gail Simone in this new storyline, and I'm one happy little nerd. I totally dig Saiz. I loved his stuff on the old CHECKMATE series and hes true to form here. The Birds latest case connects with one of The Questions, so we get a Question/Huntress team-up which is always a blast. We have the Birds working an infiltration, which makes it so fitting that Saiz is onboard with a superhero/espionage angle. I'm going to be honest, this felt like a Greg Rucka book. This is what I think it would be like if Rucka took a turn writing BoP. I mean this as a complete compliment to Gail Simone, as Rucka is in my eyes one of the top espionage story writers working today. I loved this. I loved this so much that I can't even slip a Barry Allen awesomeness line in here.

In HELLBOY: BEING HUMAN, HB and Roger the Homunculus head to South Carolina to investigate a weird grave robbing that takes a nasty twist. Its a nasty case with some bad voodoo involved. Roger is forced into action which he's not very comfortable with. He's not the violent sort. Fortunately, Barry Allen shows up to tell him that everything is alright. This is a fun little one-shot. If you haven't gotten a good, creepy Hellboy fix in a while, then this should be just what you need.

This has been the word of Barry Allen for the people of Barry Allen. Praise be to Barry. Allen.

NOZZ'S FAVORITE SUPERHERO MOVIES: TOP 10!!

Mike Federali wanted to know, so here we go. These are my favorites, and not based of critical reviews or how much money they made. These are also strictly live action movies, because if I start factoring in animated movies this list changes entirely.

10: The Phantom The first hero to wear tights, and purple ones at that! Billy Zane hit the weights like a champ because he refused to wear a padded costume. Same writer as INDIANA JONES AND LAST CRUSADE. Its a family friendly adventure and a great popcorn flick.

9: The Crow This movie pretty much hit cult status upon release. This was going to be Brandon Lee's star maker, but ended up his swan song. Great film with an awesome soundtrack.

8: Spider-man Tobey Maguire and Willam Defoe really brought their a games. While I'm not a big fan of Kirsten Dunst as Mary Jane I'm willing to look past that for the many great scenes in this film.

7: Sin City They filmed a comic and did it well. Brilliant cast. Robert Rodriguez brought Frank miller's comic to the big screen in a way no one was really ready for. This was the big comeback for Mickey Rourke and he played Marv to the hilt.

6: Ironman 2 Speaking of Rourke, notice how the first Ironman flick ain't here? Its because Mickey Rourke drove this film like a champ. Robert Downey Jr. did his thing, but the rest of the cast were just as stellar.

5: Hellboy If you want to talk about great casting, Ron Perlman as Hellboy is spot on. This movie is a blast. Del Toro brought us right into the Hellboy world and mythos without a cop out or apology.

4: Batman Begins This is the best Batman film to date. Christian Bale is a great Bruce Wayne. And just when things got too heavy you have Michael Caine with every bit of charm you'd expect from Alfred Pennyworth. That's exactly what was missing from THE DARK KNIGHT: charm.

3: 300 No prisoners! No Mercy! This movie kicks ass on a primal level. They expanded on the comic quite a bit, but it was done so very well. This movie is one to watch when you need to get fired up to do what you've got to do.

2: Spider-man 2 Alfred Molina was remarkable here. Tobey Maguire again played an excellent Peter Parker. The train fight was remarkable. We really felt horrible for poor old Spidey making cheering him on as he saves the day that much more satisfying.

1: Thor That's right, I'm going there. Like I said when I reviewed it, this movie was a blast. Just a whole lot of fun. Good action. Funny as hell in parts. And it had a very solid plot and story. Top notch work and wasn't afraid to pull us straight into a fantasy world which it showed off gloriously.

MUSIC!!

Been a bit stressed this week. Missing Friday's post due to technical problems didn't help. Still, when you feel down, and Barry Allen is busy saving the world, there's only one thing to do.



That's my load for today. No numbers jump after the Pocoyopocalypse, but I'm keeping an eye on it. I'll see y'all Wednesday. My Barry Allen bless you and keep you.

Batman and Nathan Fillion pwn Charlie Sheen

It is the Tango of DEATH! Its Friday, March 11, 2011, I still can't dance, and this is The Side. I've been talking a bit about the Wisconsin protesters. The bill they were protesting limiting the collective bargaining rights of public sector unions got passed despite a lot of idiocy. There was a major brouhaha and a lot of morons were pissed. Michael Moore called for students to do a walk out, which of course would mean even less work for the teachers would actually cared enough about their jobs and students to keep doing their jobs.

So what will this all mean?

These teachers and other union workers will continue getting the same pay they were getting before. They'll still have their pensions. They'll still have their benefits. That is if they still have jobs, because I know I wouldn't if I fucked off for a couple weeks. But they are still union workers, so they probably can't be fired.

They all yelled as they protested "This is what Democracy looks like!" Once they stormed the capitol building in Madison. Makes me glad we're a Representative Republic. Anyone care to imagine what the news coverage would be like if it were the Tea Party pulling this nonsense?

Ah well, on to happier things.

FILLION IS BETTER THAN SHEEN: THE TOP 10!!!

Sure, Charlie Sheen is winning, but there's someone who is winning even more and without even trying. That is of course the greatest living dude and one ruggedly handsome sum'bitch: Nathan Fillion! Why is he winning more than the tiger blood fueled stud of studs? Glad ya asked!

10: My kids' top three favorite superheroes? Ironman, Batman, and Captain Hammer.

9: Nobody is trying to help Charlie Sheen buy the rights for his old TV show.

8: When the police approach Nathan Fillion its either to get his autograph, or ask him to help fight crime.

7: While Charlie Sheen is praying for the possibility of a MAJOR LEAGUE sequel, everyone else is praying for a SERENITY sequel.

6: Charlie Sheen may have a million more Twitter followers than Nathan Fillion, but none of Nathan Fillion's followers are just there waiting for him to self destruct.

5: Charlie Sheen's co-star: Jon Cryer. Nathan Fillion's co-star: Stana Katic. No contest. Sorry Jon.

4: When a girl fantasizes about Nathan Fillion when in bed with her fella that's perfectly acceptable. When a girl fantasizes about Charlie Sheen while in bed with her fella he may catch something he can't wash off.

3: The last time anyone called Charlie Sheen "Captain" he had to pay her for it, and he probably didn't remember the next morning.

2: Charlie Sheen may have Adonis DNA, but Adonis has Nathan Fillion DNA.

And the top reason why Nathan Fillion is more winning than Charlie Sheen...

1: CBS just signed Nathan Fillion to star in their new show "2 3/4 Dudes". The three quarters is Nathan Fillion's penis.

COMICS!!

If you didn't think I was going to start off with BATMAN INCORPORATED #3 this week, you're obviously new here, so welcome aboard. Grant Morrison and Yanick Paquette take the action to Argentina this time for a team-up with El Gaucho. Bruce is hoping to get his old friend to join his worldwide organization, and teams up with him on a case. What really knocks my socks off is that in the last storyline we had a distinctive Japanese feel to things as Batman and Catwoman went to Japan. This time around we have the same creative team giving us a story with all the fiery heat I would expect in a "Scorpion Tango". We see a lot of parallels between Batman and El Gaucho and get just a glimpse of El Gaucho's life, and its enough to make me want to see a series about him. The highlight was Bruce's tango with Tristessa. Gorgeously drawn. I'm digging this grown up Bruce Wayne. He's not the preptime bad ass of fanboydom. This guy is a freakin' stud.

The batiness doesn't stop there. BATMAN AND ROBIN #21 continue Dick and Damian's case with a weird religious themed murderer. The White Knight is revealed and this new addition to the Batman rogues gallery is just creepy. He's methodical in picking his targets as well as in how he leaves his victims. This is a great storyline, which I expected of Tomasi. He's got the character chemistry down and has given us a case that we can sink our teeth into. Top notch stuff.

Was that all the Bat-stuff this week? Not a chance! BATGIRL #19 pits Steph against new foe, Slipstream. This story is actually a follow up to the events of the "Death of Oracle" storyline and ties in nicely to the Batman Incorporated brand. There's a bit of a new status quo emerging, with Steph getting online backup more from Proxy. Firewall also gets a major upgrade. This is a solid little story with Steph not only trying to track down and take down the new high speed thief, but also dealing with her fanboy Clance, AKA the new Grey Ghost. I really don't like Clancy, but that's on me as the old "Grey Ghost" episode of BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES is one of my favorite episodes. Its nice to see the Grey Ghost in the DCU, but I'm a little ticked he's such a goof. Still, its another great issue from this really fun series.

Oh hey, about that whole "Death of Oracle" thingie, BIRDS OF PREY #10 wraps up that storyline. Gail Simone knocks it straight out of the park. I just wish that the series would get a solid artist. Since the departure of the overly exploitative Ed Benes, the art has been serviceable, but not terribly exciting. Fortunately Simone keeps our attention with some of the best writing in comics. This issue sets up the new status quo that I mentioned in Batgirl with the Birds taking on the Calculator and his hired thugs after the seeming death of Barbara Gordon. This story is a nice little reminder that these ladies aren't to be trifled with, ever. Black Canary and Huntress are utter forces of nature.

Rounding out my reads this week is ZATANNA #10 which isn't a bat-book, but is written by Paul Dini, so it still sorta counts right? This book is a bit of a sleeper. The Missus loves this title. We've seen Zatanna for years playing off the Justice League and aiding other heroes when magic cases pop up. This series gives us a better idea of Zee's heritage and the baggage that comes with it. This issue is very creepy in often a very subtle way. Is the man transformed into a puppet by Zatara really innocent? Zee takes him to her family's ancestrial home to find the answers. Its a big mistake, but one that is gorgeously illustrated by Chiff Chiang.

MUSIC!!

What was hilarious was this song hit right after "Learn to Fly" and bunch of people thought the Foo Fighters were just a nice little pop band. Suckers.



That's it for today. Sunday may be a tad light as there's two little girls who are turning four and there's a Tinkerbell themed party that I shall be smack in the middle of. Pray for me.