The End is Here, again

Free at last! Its Friday, October 21, 2011, Happy Birthday, Mom, and this is The Side! I get a break from the demolition job today. Its not a bad job, but for some reason the area smells like burnt pumpkins. I don't really mind the smell, but I have no clue where its coming from and that's bugging me.

DOOM!!

We've got another apocalypse due today. The crazy old guy who predicted the end of stuff a few months ago revised his prediction and its supposed to go down today. If you're reading this, it hasn't happened yet.

Still hasn't happened.

Nothing yet.

....

Hm.

....

Still nothing.

Y'know. I think the crazy old guy might be wrong. Guess I better get that birthday card to my Mom.

Yeah, still nothing. Sorry, to anyone who was really hoping for the end of stuff. I know it would have made a lot of people happy. Them a lot of those whiny smellies down at Occupy Wall Street would get their wish and wouldn't have to pay back their student loans. Then again, the crazy old guy was predicting the Rapture, and with Christianity being so passé nowadays, those poor, put-upon, iPhone toting saps would probably be ticked off if they did get Raptured up.

Wouldn't that just suck. Imagine being some nice little old lady. You pass on, hopefully from something quick, easy, and completely uninteresting. You get up to Heaven and there's a bunch of hippies occupying the Pearly Gates claiming God is part of the 1%. They claim they're going to stay out there until there's a mass redistribution of halos and harps. St. Peter just sits there looking annoyed with his hand on the level to the trap door, pondering if he could just dump the whole lot of them, and wondering how Karl Marx could have inspired such things as he's pretty much sat around and done nothing his entire afterlife.

There's still plenty of folks thinking we're living in the end times. Some are hoping to see the big J.C. upon his return. Some might just want to see how it all ends. Plenty are hoping it involves zombies.

Truth is, plenty of people have thought and believed the same thing throughout history. Well, maybe not the zombie part. We're not going to figure out when the end times hit through math. It'll happen when it happens.

And it happening still hasn't happened yet as you're still reading this.

Yep, still nothing.

...

Is hallmark still open?

MUSIC!!

Seemed appropriate.



Off and running, gang. I'll see y'all Sunday.

End of Days!! (Not the Schwartzenegger movie)

Crap. I'm still here.

I had hoped to be off world by now kicking back and dining pleasantly on Hell roasted sinner's ass with fried apples and nice light beer. But it seems I got passed on by this go around. I took a nap and must have missed the big earthquake. I do that sometimes. Used to sleep through earthquakes all the time as a kid. No damage to the property, but I'm still here.

The family is still here too. I suppose that's my fault for not getting us to church more often. The neighbors are still about too, but they're a scandalous lot, so no Rapture for them.

Can't imagine why I didn't get yanked on up. Ah well, can't dwell on such things now. The dead should be rising pretty soon, so I'd best get ready.

That's right, true believers, its Sunday, May 22, 2011, we're a day into the End of Days, and this is The Side.

DOOM!!!

Hurricane season is coming up. It starts June 1. This is of course the annual event when the local weather forecasting type folks get the squeals because they may just get to justify their existences. We get PSAs all summer long telling us to be prepared. There'll be pamphlets in the grocery stores with their pictures on them superimposed over scary looking storm pictures with instructions inside letting us know what to do if a hurricane heads this way. That's the typical procedure.

However, this is the End of Days Hurricane Season. Already the National Weather Service has predicted bunches of named storms and a few of them are sure to be major. Normally when they say that we just roll our eyes because its business as usual, but what with the apocalypse and all, I'd best be taking this seriously.

Fortunately, preparing for a hurricane is a lot like preparing for zombies. Your best bet it still get as far away from them as possible. However, doing things like getting plenty of supplies in the house and boarding up your windows is still a good idea. I'll be putting up the boards later today. I even painted "The End is Upon Us!" on one that's going to face the neighbors across the street. Figure, its best to warn them, that and now I won't have to looks at their house.

I do wonder if the zombies are prepared for a hurricane. I don't imagine the shambling dead being overly concerned with anything that doesn't directly involve the flesh of the living. However the thought of 50 to 60 mile per hour winds knocking zombies over the street is a pretty amusing mental image. The wet pavement under them making them slip would make for extra hilarity. Unfortunately, I'll never get to see it, what with my windows boarded up and all.

NWA, GO GO GO!!!

The NWA (Neighborhood Watch Association) has made its preparations for the End of Days. Of course, by preparations I mean the guys made a beer run. We're not terribly worried about supplies since we have an armored personnel carrier and can fit plenty of beer in the back. It served us well during Snowpocalypse last winter. Yesterday was quiet in the court. We fed the chickens. Fed the fish. Fed the resident wiener dog. There was a bar-b-que. The steaks combusted. This was a bad omen.

Y'know, I try to keep up with these here bad omens, but steaks combusting if a pretty nefarious one. I like steak! Stupid End of Days is trying to deprive my of my favorite noms! Now I'm scared to open up the bag of Cheetos in the pantry.

Then there was the cornholing. Because if its all over there's not better way to wait for the end than to cornhole.

You know, that game with the board with hole in it. You try to toss the beanbags in. Kinda like a sissy version of pitchin' horseshoes.

What were you people thinking?

I didn't take part in it. I was pretty tired what with all the doom approaching. Doom approaching will indeed wear a fella out. So I went to bed early. Figured it would be a pretty peaceful way to go, but sure enough I had to go and wake up this morning.

END OF DAYS DITTY!!

Just a little uplifting number to get your End of Days started.



Y'know, I saw an article that read "Sarah Palin buys house in Arizona, reignites 2012 talk" and wondered to myself how she factored into that Mayan prophecy. Imagine how silly I felt once I clicked the link and saw it was just about an election. That's going to do it for me. If you don't here from me again, when the zombies have risen up, and we lost power so I can't blog about zombies rising up. Pesky zombies.

The Last Comic Review

ITS HEADED RIGHT FOR US!!! Its Friday, May 20, 2011, we're all gonna die, sooner or later, and this is the Side. Yep, that pesky old time of prophecy is upon us again. Judgement Day is scheduled for tomorrow, so with such big stuff happening I hope you appreciate my dedication in getting this week's comic reviews to you.

I'm taking the Buffy approach to this whole thing.

"Its the end of the world."

"Again?"

Yeah, so guy claimed that the Judgement day was gonna be Saturday. Massive earthquake to be followed promptly by the Rapture and the Almighty laughing at those silly Mayans and their silly calendar.

Screw this. Time to discuss matters with a bit more realism.

COMIX!!!

This was kinda a weird wee in that I got three comics and while all three were really solid, none of them really jumped up and made me want to read them again immediately. Kinda weird since all three book have really good creative teams. I do know why though, and I'll hit on those individually.

ZATANNA #13 had Paul Dini back on the reigns and Jamal Igle serving up the hotness. Love these guys. So why wasn't I super-amped on this book? Now, I really dig this series, and this was a good issue, but this is a set up issue. Its one of those books in which we're shown that big stuff is coming, and in this case we're shown by a mystic kitty cat. There is no shortage of action, but that comes from Detective Colton trying to stop brother Night from escaping prison. So while we do have Zee interacting with mystic kitteh and having a tete-a-tete with the Spectre, the action isn't on her. I do understand that. Its got to happen sometimes, and I have to say I'm a lot more interested in Colton now than I was before. So its a good comic, but spends more time building our villain and a key supporting cast member. If you've been curious about the book, you might want to pick it up as i think this issue is heavy on the foreshadowing.

TEEN TITANS #95 has the team going up again Rankor, and its not going very well. In fact they've been getting picked off a few at a time and taken prisoner. JT Krul seems to be taking this old school. I remember quite a few team books from when I was a kid in which you'd have them up against a big bad and the villain and his crew would manage to pick them off one at a time. Typically the last hero would free the others and a giant beatdown would ensue. So its pretty familiar territory, but I'm OK with it. I may have a good idea where this is going, but I'm curious as to how they're going to pull it off. Nicola Scott's art is as always a delight. JT Krul is still turning our a decent story. The only problem is that I'm hitting the same notes here that I've seen many times before. Its done well, but its pretty familiar. We'll see how things pan out next issue.

TINY TITANS #40 this week is all about Kroc. Kroc rocks! Its a Krocapalooza! Its Krocaggedon! Its... its... a whole lot of Kroc. Kroc follows the gang to school. Chaos ensues. Not much for DCU continuity gags here this time around. The book is always really cute, but but when it does stuff like "Finals Crisis" or "Mister Johns Comic Shops" I usually get a bigger chuckle. My kids will probably dig it though.

MUSIC!!!

Going with the obvious song choice, but a very cool version of it.



That's it for me FOREVER!!! Unless the world doesn't end tomorrow in which which, we'll see yeah back here Sunday.

The end is nigh!

Its Sunday, August 1, 2010. Welcome of August, you're all doomed. Due to that doom I have turned the comment moderation because Gucci Spam Bombs and the JPI virus are small potatos compared to what is coming.

THE BIG DOOM IS COMING!!!

What you are about to read may shock you, and for that I apologize. I want you all to know that there is hope, and the situation I am about too outline is not cause for utter despair. There have been a lot of seemingly unrelated news stories, that have a very unfortunate connection. The signs are all there.

We turn our attention first to Antarctica and the Icecube. The Icecube is a science station purposed for the finding of neutrinos, which are tiny particles that aren't easily found. What is of note is not the neutrinos, but what is considered background noise by the scientists, Cosmic Rays. More importantly, the pattern in which the Cosmic rays are hitting Earth. It seems that they are hitting the planet from one direction, but there's a distinct lack of Cosmic Rays from the other. Scientists have their theories as to what could be causing so many more Cosmic rays to come from one direction (they theorize a Supernova), but what they've failed to consider is why is there so much less activity from the other direction. What is stopping the cosmic rays?

We now turn our attention to the Straight of Hormuz where there was a mysterious impact with a Japanese oil tanker. The crew of the tanker have said that they don't know what caused the massive dent in the tanker. They claim they saw a flash of light and felt a big impact, but none of the people aboard that ship have any explanation as to what happened. One popular theory points to terrorism as attacks on ocean going vessels is nothing new to them, however there doesn't seem to be evidence of a conventional explosion.

Two seemingly unrelated stories, coming from half the world apart. But as we know, two weird instances are merely a coincidence. It takes three to truly make them a pattern. So what on Earth could possibly link Cosmic Ray patterns and the striking of a Japanese Oil tanker? For our answer, and the third piece of the puzzle, we turn to China.

This happened a few weeks ago, but well within the appropriate timeline for things to fall into place. A UFO was spotted over an airport in China. This is pretty wild in and of itself, but more so is that the fact that the Chinese Government is willing to have dialogues about the sightings. This is something totally new because it used to be they threw people who though they saw UFOs or tried talking about them into prison. So obviously, they're taking this seriously and likely have intelligence that we do not.

Those that observed the object claimed it had a 'lantern-like' appearance. But I ask you, gentle readers, does that image look like a lantern to you? Of course not. I posit that it is indeed something more foreboding. And in the interest of public service I have investigated this matter, and that included calling in some favors from sources I won't disclose, but they have shared with me a picture of the likely source of these phenomena.



I know its a little bit blurry, but you can make out Galactus in the picture which was taken from a really really good telescope. Seems the Mayans knew about Galactus and while we're not sure if their estimated date of his arrival is accurate its still going to be a bad day. Of course this has come to the attention of President which it seems that he's know for quite sometime. The Pop-Star-in-Chief explained that was the reason why he stopped caring about the economy and jobs. He figures if the world is going to get eaten then we might as well spend our remaining time "funemployed", and its no problem with the Government spending money that they don't have since we won't be around anyways.

Unfortunately, I'm going to have to be the fly in Obama's plans, because somebody has to save the world, and it might as well be me. That's right. I'm no quitter! I've already begun building my mighty satellite weapon which I'll be using to kick Galactus's big armored ass. After years of playing Space Invaders I'm ready for him.

Bring it on, you big sum'bitch!

However just in case you don't think I can take Galactus (which means you haven't been here long enough), here's some inspiration for planning your final moments before the planet gets nom'd.

FICTION NOT STRANGE ENOUGH

OK, see what I did up there? I took real life facts and news stories and twisted it into a weirdo jumping off point for a big space action adventure story. This brings us to the crap currently going on in SUPERMAN. In SUPERMAN or hero is currently dealing with societal problems. Now this is being rationalized a number of different ways. Superman fought more human foes and societal corruption back in late 30s and into the 40s when he was introduced. There's thoughts that Superman needs to be taken "down to Earth" so he can better relate to people. There is also the notion that the character needs more realism. These are all crap, and its making for really boring storytelling.

I went and used that nasty word "realism" again. Now, there's got to be a bit of realism in comics. And no I'm not referring to the fanboy definition of terrible shit happening to characters to make it 'real'. I'm talking about human truth. I'm talking about facts. Every good work of fiction has a bit of truth in it. Its how we as readers can connect with even the most fantastic of stories. But we don't want to beat a reader over the head with realism.

If you pound them with too many facts that don't add crucial elements to the story then it can read like a textbook. It'll cease to be entertaining. Same thing if you hammer the reader repeatedly with vows of society. It ends up depressing and not fun to read. Sure it will draw attention to a problem, but with you go on too long all you're doing is lecturing. Greg Rucka delt with the subject of child slavery in his novel "Walking Dead". The issue was handled with a grave seriousness and gave some chilling cold hard facts. These facts added to the drama and urgency of the story. Once again, Rucka got it right.

In comics, specifically superhero comics, there is room for social commentary, but writers can't forget that these are escapist soap operas. Having an issue or two in which superheroes deal with a real world problem like drug abuse or suicide can be a very good and powerful thing, but taking Superman on a year long walking tour of misery is going to do nothing but make readers looking for a good time to look elsewhere.

MUSIC!

Concluding our week on mining Pickle's Pantry Parlour we are going live. Enjoy.



Alright, that's it for today. See you Wednesday and DFTBA.

BLOGAGEDDON!

OK, so today wasn't the end of the world. I know some of you are disappointed, but chins up, the end may still be near! We may all be doomed by that most insidious of dooms: pop culture. We see to have things out there appealing to the lowest common denominator. I mean, American Idol is still on, and people still watch it. Wendy Williams is still on TV twice a day. We're following completely vapid crap because someone said it was popular.

It's Bandwagonageddon.

To clarify, allow me to provide a definition from the fanboy dictionary revised edition.

bandwagonageddon - n - the utter destruction of something good due to bad ideas being blindly followed

Example: The Flash is good. We like Him. Wally West is a neat character who long time readers have watched grow up and become a great hero. Bad idea of bringing back Wally's long dead mentor and predecessor, Barry Allen is introduced. The company goes with it, because even though they know bringing this character back from the dead is the stupidest thing they good possibly do, they do it anyways due to nostalgia. People read it, and somehow ignore the stupid because of some sort of memetic trickery.

Its like the idea of something carries more weight than the actual thing. Things are thought of as great, but really they kind of suck, but various factors cause us to overlook the suckage. And this is why we're all doomed.

We can't just go along with this crap! We have to go in and intelligently determine why ultimately Blackest Night was dumb, or why Scott Pilgrim is a tool. Sure there will be die hard fans who don't understand how you have a problem with The Dark Knight and think your dislike of it is some sort of horrible character flaw. You can't convert them. They are lost. Empty vessels waiting to be told what the next thing is that they are supposed to worship, love and throw money at.

But then there are those whose minds can be sparked. They don't care about Tiger Woods. Why don't think the Government should be doing all the crap they're doing despite them claiming they know what they're doing. They've got a few legitimate doubts about the Pop-Star-in-Chief. They see what's popular and are wondering what all the fuss is about.

Don't follow the shepherd. Be the shepherd.

If no one is willing to lead the charge upward, we all fall downward.

Now get off your ass and do something amazing.

THIS IS THE END!

An asteroid will be passing between the Earth and the Moon today. Scientists say that we're all safe, and it'll have no effect.

But I know the truth...



I know some of you are scared now, and are looking to me for some sort of comfort.

Well, tough tacos.

I'm looking forward to getting my Sun Sword and chillin' with a Mok.

Marty versus the Apocalypse

When I was in eight grade I had a history teacher, Mister Humphries. He was a good teacher and an interesting guy. The interest did not come solely from his astonishing resemblance to Santa Claus, but in that this guy was a really weird dude and every so often he'd inflict the weird on the class. We ate it up. On Halloween he showed up in a robe with a staff looking somewhat like a stout Gandalf and told us all about things like witchcraft and urban legends and things that go bump in the night. Of course this would get him fired today. He also brought in his Civil War reenactment gear and watched us squirm as we sat outside the school in the yard and he, in full costume, waved an old pistol around. The kind you had to stuff the powder into to. The thing worked too. Of course that would get him fired today too.

There was another thing that stuck with me. He showed us a documentary on Nostradamos, the ancient prophet. You probably seen his name in some of the check out lines at the grocery store while glancing at the tabloids. We watched this video in 1988. I couldn't tell you when the video was made. In this video, going by the writings they figured as near as they could that something was going to come out of the sky and strike most like likely New York City in perhaps 1994. It also said a man in a blue turban would play heavily into this. Pretty freaky stuff to see when you're 13. Keep in mind that I was viewing this in the twilight of the Cold War so the assumption was Russia nuking the Big Apple. I do admit to having the contents of that video in the back of my mind during a good chunk of 1994, only to make it 1995 and felt some relief.

I don't have to remind anyone what happened in 2001.

Now fast forward to yesterday's newspaper in which it reports on the front page that 2012 theory is gaining followers. For those who don't know, the Mayan calendar runs out around the Winter Solstice in 2012, and people are thinking that means the end of the world. That's right. The people who didn't have enough sense not to dump the bodies of their human sacrifices in the same river which they got their drinking water out of were able to predict the end of the world over a thousand years later. That's right, the calendar is over a thousand years long. Most likely the folks making the calendar died or got bored or something.

I swear. This is like Y2K all over again.

There's reports of planetary alignment also going on around the same time, so obviously all the planets lining up will destroy us all. Do I need to go into how stupid that is? THEY'RE MILLIONS OF MILES AWAY! Yeah, it cool that planets line up, but eclipses are cool too, and unless you're watching HEROES they don't mean nor do anything aside from getting us to look to the sky and say "wow".

Maybe the Mayans knew about man made global warming. OMG! AL GORE IS RIGHT!

Perhaps the Earth's magnetic poles will switch. There's some solid science stating that this does happen. It would get pretty bad if this happened, but it's survivable, especially with our knowledge and know how. This is science the Mayans did not have, so the chances of a Pole swap going down when the calendar ends is pretty thin.

Ooo, what if it's the Second Coming? The Rapture and all that. Could the Mayans have divined the time table of the events of Revelations? We're still relatively close to the year 2000. People get freaked by big numbers. They thought Jesus was coming back in the year 1000 too. There is some interesting Biblical prophesies that are currently coming into play, but the odds of these two things being relayed are slimmer than my lotto chances.

Remember when I mentioned that the calendar ends on the Winter Solstice? That's the longest night of the year. That's some pretty easy to figure out even in ancient times. It also makes a pretty solid spot to start and end a calendar year. They made a calendar over a thousand years long. Isn't that long enough? Can't we cut them some slack. I'm sure they had lives to, albeit short ones with those dead bodies in the river.

You know what I do when my calendar runs out? I buy another calendar. Next year's might have Batman on it!