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While changing to workout at the gym, you realize you’re wearing your Incredible Hulk underwear, your oversized vintage Spiderman T-Shirt, and carrying your Iron Man movie promotional water bottle. Also, your trainer has nicknamed you Tony Stark for some reason.
You’ve been on a date with a guy simply because his screen name was DrkPhnx
You went to see Elektra in the theatre. Twice. And you bought it (and Ghost Rider) on DVD.
Your MySpace profile has at least one reference to Captain America dying for MySpace.
You can remember the names of more mutants than guys you’ve slept with (although, this might also make you the regular kind of whore)
When visiting Golden Gate Park, you make a joke about the dreaming celestial looking extra shiny today. Nobody else has any idea what you’re talking about.
Only one of those is not a story directly out of my life. Try and guess which one in the comments.
Thanks to everyone who sent birthday wishes yesterday. To clarify, although I joked, it’s not the getting older that had me reluctant to ackowledge my birthday yesterday. I didn’t want to celebrate my birthday because no amount of well-wishing was going to keep it from being a crap-tastic day. Call me crazy, but I think birthdays should continue to be special, even in your 30s. Instead of having a special day, I had work (I’m a fucking rock-star for hard-coding updates to our website because we’re having problems that prevent me from using our usual web editing software, big boss can’t operate basic office equipment or software which makes life harder, and I’m dealing with a far-less-than-competent contractor daily), class, homework, dieting, and trying to keep my brave face on despite my friends moving away. In short, it just wasn’t a special day, it was a banal, if not abnormally bad sorta day.
Anywho, the final issue of the Whedon/Cassaday run on Astonishing X-Men came out today. It’s hard to believe that this story arc I’ve been reading for three and a half years, the very book that brought me back to comic books (curse you Joss Whedon!), is over. The final issue had me choking back sobs in public during my lunch break. {spoiler font - highlight to read} I’m so glad Kitty isn’t officially dead - it will be less obnoxious when they eventually bring her back. Also, the final exchange between Kitty/Emma - beautiful, just beautiful. So much goodness: Beast/Brand. Scott’s eyes failing. “Brand isn’t my given name.” “I will rule it.” And the reveal featuring a drooling Reed Richards… I fucking love this shit. {end spoiler font} I’m looking forward to some quiet time where I can start at the beginning and read the whole 25 episode story in one sitting.
In fact, I’m very much looking forward to late June, when I can (theoretically) go back to pleasure reading, watching movies instead of doing homework, and playing video games.
Also, even though all those internet quizzes tell me I’m a Carrie, I’ve still never watched a single full episode of Sex in the City. It makes it hard to get excited about the movie. I guess I’ll always be more of a Golden Girls sorta guy (I’m totally Dorothy)…
J.R.R. Tolkien thought the phrase “Cellar Door” to be especially beautiful. No offense to J.R.R. (I can call him that, we’re close), but if he had lived into the 21st century, he might have realized English contained a phrase vastly superior in it’s beauty: Free Comic Book Day.
Jennifer, Jacob and I spent the day visiting Whatever and Isotope before heading down to the Metreon to watch Iron Man. As you can see, it was a day of geekery.
I quite loved Iron Man. If only all comic book movies were done this well. I can’t imagine anyone other than Robert Downey Jr. playing that role, and I would have loved more fight scenes… or longer fight scenes.
The trailers were awesome, too. Although I’m not as excited about Indiana Jones and The Beef as most everyone else. Still, Batman + Hulk + Love Guru (I admit it, seeing Justin Timberlake’s crotch on the big screen is awesome).
Anyway, I think we were trying extra hard to have fun today. Jennifer and Jacob are moving to Cincinnati (the day before my birthday). It has to do with Jennifer’s immigration status and the process of getting her green card. She’ll be working in Ohio for up to 6 months before coming back to San Francisco, but it’s going to hard having my best friend leave for most of the rest of this year. It’s not like she wants to go, she just has to if she doesn’t want to get deported or go bankrupt not working during the gap between her visa expiring and her green card being approved. Anyway, I’m not going to get weird about it, because I’ve spent the last several months talking about moving away for law school in a year or so.
She’s told me that I have to come visit Cincinnati sometime while she’s there. We’ll see, I guess. I’m wondering if I can tack it on to the end of my planned New York trip this fall. Hooray, Creation Museum here I come!
Today was made of awesome, wrapped in an awesome shell, and topped off with awesome sauce.
Okay, so I had a really good time. I spent most of the day in the big hall watching the parade of stars, including The X Files panel with David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson, Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz (although there are bigger fans than me, I was still awed by this panel); John Cho from Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay; Jon Favreau, director of Iron Man; and the Starship Troopers 3: Marauder panel with Casper Van Diem (so fucking hot, even when he’s acting like a spaz), Jolene Blalock (ditto, though with less spaz) and Edward Neumeier. I ended the evening watching Justice League: The New Frontier, which is officially released (straight-to-DVD) next Tuesday (loved it, its got my recommendation).
When I wasn’t watching kick-ass clips of the Iron Man armor, stoners getting mistaken for terrorists, good-looking people trying to recruit me into the war against the bugs, or other fun stuff, I mostly watched the crowd. I also picked up a few queer-interest books (Pride High and How Loathsome) based on the interesting Prism Comics panel I watched at the start of the day. Sadly, someone stole the final (signed by the author) issue of Pride High right out of my bag… I know when it happened, but I didn’t catch the thief in the act, so I’ll probably head back tomorrow and replace it.
I was a little disappointed that I ran out of energy before the Masquerade (for the second year). I also missed the Chinese New Year Parade.
I’m too tired to do much of a play-by-play recap, but photos are after the jump.
My first day at WonderCon was a blast. Since things didn’t get rolling until after noon, I slept in a bit this morning and still arrived too early. It gave me a chance to really look closely at the panels and decide which ones I wanted to attend. Lotsa photos and details after the jump…
One of my guilty pleasure blogs is Shirtless Superheroes. Incredibly hunky guys who are also caring, good-intentioned and selfless are half the reason I read comic books. Plus, I’m convinced more than a few comic book artists know how to homoeroticize characters even when placing them in blatantly hetero situations. Case in point, Mike Choi’s artwork in Uncanny X-Men #495. If anyone wonders why I’m a huge Scott “Cyclops” Summer fan after this, I don’t know what will convince you.
Also, before I get to the good stuff, I have to say that the X-books are really capturing my attention again. UXM, X-Force, X-Factor and the new Young X-Men all sound like great stories to me. After the action-and-plot-heavy Messiah CompleX, what I can see so far is a continuation of that big story, but also gets back to the interpersonal drama we know and love from this big old soap opera.
Today was my annual review at work. I’m glad it’s over. Despite getting a lot of positive feedback and constructive advice, I was really beating myself up over personal and departmental goals that were not met in 2007. I knew I wasn’t going to meet some of those goals as early in the year as April, and it’s been frustrating knowing that I would be evaluated based on objectives I would have happily revised 9 months ago.
Anyway, I promised to start my comic book diet this week, but cutting down to 5 titles doesn’t mean I’m dropping all my interests, just waiting for the trade paperbacks. So, I ended up buying Uncanny X-Men: Rise and Fall of the Shi’ar Empire and Watchmen (yeah, I know, I’ve been putting it off) today and spending as much money as I usually do on Wednesdays.
To make things worse, I needed to buy a new binder for DVDs post-Giftmas, so I stopped at Best Buy on the way home. Almost $100 later, I have plenty of room to reorganize my DVDs, file away software discs, a bargain bin copy of Cruel Intentions (forgot how much I love that movie) and the ridiculously high-priced Director’s Cut Xodiac. I should just go ahead and cancel my Netflix account for a while. I now have about 35 movies in my collection that got opened and alphabetized but never viewed.
Edwards dropping out of the race hasn’t affected me much, although I am a bit disappointed. You know why? I was secretly hoping that the Democratic Convention would turn out like the season 6 finale of The West Wing. Everyone complains that the convention no longer serves any purpose other than a week-long commercial for the Democratic Party. What if it was an absolutely riveting commercial where three candidates had to continue differentiating themselves, pleading their cases, earning their delegates, and all the while sharing Democratic values and providing exposure to other party members? I’m just saying, that would have been sweet. And no one would be able to complain that the convention doesn’t serve a purpose anymore. I’m a political geek, I know.
When you announce that it’s time to take the annual anonymous workplace climate survey and the general reaction is “What’s this? Why? Who’s going to see it? How can I be sure my views will actually be recorded? How will this be used?” - is the survey itself actually relevent anymore? I would think the reaction to the announcement would tell you most of what you need to know about trust and understanding of the organization’s objectives.
And we’re back to having those freakish 2-day weekends, too.
Yesterday the newest installment of Buffy Season 8 comics (8.10 “Anywhere but Here’) came out. Spoilers after the jump.
Since I was last in town, my brother-in-law has upped the security on my parent’s wireless network, meaning the only access I’ve had to the internet has been when I can elbow my way onto the famly machine during the day. I finally got the passwords and clearance I need to set up my laptop, so I can get back to looking at porn blogging and keeping up with world news.
Anywho, I’ve spent a lot of time with my niece and nephew. Callie is still shy around me, but Craig has latched on to me and wants my attention every moment we’re together.
I was able to drop in on some friends yesterday and do some shopping today. However, I’m feeling a sore throat and a bit of a cold, so I may not get to go out and see people as much as I’d hoped to. We’ll see.
New pet peeve: comic book stores that bag and board all their new issues. I’ve discovered many new comics simply because I was able to browse interesting comics, and sometimes I’m not sure from the cover if I’ve read an issue or not - so I have to flip though a few pages to be sure. When the entire stock is bagged, I’m far less likely to buy anything new. I stopped by 3 different comic stores in Salt Lake today (because everyone seems to be sold out of the new chapter in X-Men: Messiah Complex) and all of them were doing this. When I slipped one bag open just to check the price (printed on the back) of a new release, I got yelled at by the store manager (I left and did not buy anything from that store). Look, I know serious collectors are obnoxious about this - that they won’t buy something bent or wrinkled - but I’m a read ‘em and toss ‘em in the pile kinda guy, and a very loyal comics shopper, too. Today’s comics shopping experience was so unfriendly and uninspiring, I don’t think I’ll bother next time I’m in Salt Lake.
My buddy Michael from QSaltLake sent me this. It sort of takes me back to the heydays of Cherry Poppins in Las Vegas.
There was an awesome reveal in today’s chapter (5, I think) of X-Men: Messiah Complex. I’m really loving X:MC so far. Since the House of M reset, the X stories have been decent but not especially great (aside from Astonishing X-Men, which has always rocked). X:MC is doing a great job at telling a big story in a big way. Also, Scott is pretty much center stage, which is great because he’s my favorite mutant. I love the way his character has grown over the years. Plus, I think he’s dreamy.
It did occur to me, however, how long the Astonishing story has been going on. It began before the House of M madness, lasted through Civil War and World War Hulk and is finally wrapping up the Whedon/Cassiday run December 19. The story must take place in a relatively short span of time, but it’s still unclear where it fits into the continuity. It’s taken almost 3 years to cover a few weeks of time. And why am I trying to make sense of the Marvel Universe time-line? I mean, we are talking about young adults (mid-20s to early 30s at most) who were teenagers in the 60s.
