Too Many Comic Books

I've been catching up on my reading recently.

And the other day I was out driving at night, and came up to a large intersection that had another large intersection a couple hundred yards further on.

I saw green, red, and yellow lights in the air and red and orange lights on the ground.

And where does my mind go?

The Blue, Indigo, and Violet Lanterns are seriously under-represented here (don't even ask, just go here).

It's not really a sickness, just an overabundance of sodium benzoate as a child.

How it Should Have Ended

So about every week or so a fun webpage called How It Should Have Ended rewrites movies. They try to make them either make more sense, or just take care of a little wish fulfillment.

Some of them have been good. Some have been really great.

Their take on "The Empire Strikes Back" is really incredible.

And Then, Depression Set It

John posts some of the worst news on Facebook.

Nothing

That's just about all that's been going in the past few days.

Updates when something occurs that is worth noting.

Such a Fine Read

Today I finished a very fine book.

Another one recommended by io9, The Walls of the Universe by Paul Melko is a story of alternate realities and a boy who get caught in traveling through them with a device he doesn't understand.


It reads fast, and yet is long enough that I didn't feel like it was done before it got anywhere. But at the same time as I reached the conclusion, I read faster to know what was going to happen.


It's a small thing, but I really the concept that neighboring worlds as they are numbered by the transfer device are not slightly different. Similar worlds can be hundreds of parallels away.


The io9 article says that Melko has a movie deal for The Walls of the Universe, and a sequel is is on its way.


He has another book entitled Singularity's Ring. I've just finished reserving it at the library.


But what do I read now?

Fun Day

Today was lots of fun.

I ran to Livermore to get my comics, and had Philly Cheese Steak for lunch.

Then I met John in San Francisco for drinks and wandering.

We started in San Francisco Center and then moved on the the Irish Bank.

After talking about how only the soup and potatoes seemed like authentic Irish appetizers, I came across chicken wings.

So I suggested eating at Hooters down on the Wharf.

It was a nice walk and after working our way through many tourists who all seemed to be walking away from the Cannery, we made it to Hooters. We split a bunch of Daytona Wings and a couple pitchers of beer.

Then we walked back to the Embarcadero, and took BART home.

A New Pet Peeve

Today the environmental consultant for the property owner for one of our sites e-mailed me at 5:01 PM.

Do you know what type of person does that? The type who wants to look like they're busy, and doesn't really want to interact with anyone. The type of person who tries to make other people look like they're taking too long to respond.

Now, I was able to answer some of the questions asked in the e-mail because I have a smartphone for work. I also understand that he was probably talking with his client, or the people his client is trying to sell the land to, and it was the end of the day possibly after a meeting.

But 5:01? Really?

The Coolness Approaches

Okay, this is a bit of a Star Trek themed post.

First off a little video from Germany's Sci-Fi channel:



And then there's the new nearly transparent aluminum.

Comics and Animation

Recently I've watched several of the new DC Comics animated superhero direct to DVD movies. I have to say that I've been very impressed with them.

Back in college "Batman, the Animated Series" brought Batman back to television, and done in a style reminiscent of the old 40s cartoons. Soon after an animated Superman followed, and I was thrilled. In the past few years some direct to DVD adaptations have been made of Superman stories.

"Death of Superman" was a retelling that did a pretty good job without going into all of the "Reign of the Supermen" after-story. There was also an okay story with Brainiac.

Then around the time of the live action "The Dark Knight" an animated anthology called "Batman: Gotham Knight" came out. Drawn in a more modern, but still realistic style, this collection had an almost anime feel at times in the old "Akira" type style.

One that I truly enjoyed was "Superman/Batman: Public Enemies". this one not only held very close to the original comic, but also was drawn in the style of the artist who did the original books.

Two of the newest adaptations have been Green Lantern and Wonder Woman.

The one about Wonder Woman is a blend of the old Wonder Woman with a Steve Trevor romance and the new Wonder Woman emphasizing her youth. It was entertaining and had some good lines in it.

The one about Green Lantern was exceptional, and will give the forthcoming live-action movie something to work with. There's going to be so many animated aliens and effects, that it might as well be a cartoon anyway.

I didn't have Cartoon Network for the animated Justice League, but I plan to catch up on that with Netflix. I did watch the animated Legion of Super-Heroes, but it just made me miss the old comics instead of really enjoying the show itself.

And I thoroughly enjoyed Batman Beyond. DC has even made the animated series canon by creating a more realistically drawn series that refers to events in the TV show. Whether it's a future world or an alternate-future world remains to be seen.

So yes, these keep me happy, and I have several new DVDs to look forward to with the introduction of Supergirl, and a Superman meets Captain Marvel. I'm pretty psyched.

Whom?

Sunday, I spent some time at my parents

While I was there, I noticed this little statue:



Now, surely I've seen it before, but it never registered. At least not for what it could quite possibly be. Compare it to this:



I know a lot of people may not get the reference. So go to this article at Wikipedia and become (slightly) informed.

WTF!

WTF Jeans that is.

Many months ago I read about WTF jeans, and thought they looked pretty cool. I was intrigued enough that I looked up their web page, and ordered a pair.

Now this is a start-up company, and they were gathering funds to do all of the work. They were taking payments through PayPal, but ran into a problem. PayPal requires that all products be shipped within one month of payment. Now as this was in the beginning of the year, with planned shipment around the first of September, that wasn't doable.

WTF had to refund all of the money, and then resolicit payment through credit cards. I repaid for the jeans and then waited for September.

My jeans came in yesterday. Of course, Jennifer and I were out at mail delivery time, but I picked them up today, and couldn't wait to try them on. They use the same measurements as a pair of Levi's, and are low rise. The length of them are perfect, and they've got a button fly. The picture of them on the webpage are cool, but it's even cooler to have a pair of my own.

Now I'm torn between wearing my new WTF jeans tomorrow or my new utilikilt to work tomorrow.

As their slogan says "WTF Jeans - wear them FTW"

Saints Preserve Us

And so as threatened on Facebook, what happens to the good fruit.

The normal thing was for Mom and Dad to eat them of course. Fruit in bowls. Tomatoes on hamburgers, BLTs, with green beans, roasted in the oven, or used in spaghetti sauce.

But Dad can't leave thing simple.

He made peach ice cream. He may have made apricot ice cream too, I'm not sure.

Then there was the attempt at making brandy. Now back in the 70s wine was really starting to become big. And my parents were expanding their palettes. One of Dad's creations was a wine punch which is very similar to a sangria. Now when you make this you use jug wine, and we used what Mr. Welles hawked, so after the parties were over, we had big green empty wine jugs.

I don't know the recipe for making these brandies, but I'm sure it involved a little yeast and maybe even some other brandy to start. But the main ingredient was fruit. and they had lots of peaches and plums to experiment with. Now the wine jugs had screw tops, and that kept them pretty much air tight. And dad had two of the jugs on his work bench in the garage.

The liquid was cloudy with pulp and the yeast, and we just let them ferment.

Again, I don't remember if we heard the mini-explosion, but I do remember going out into the garage and things being sticky, and there being a lot of broken glass. Now only one bottle was destroyed, and Dad took care of ti for a long time.

He or Mom will have to comment on if any of it still survives. I know he used to strain it once a year, and give out little tastes.

Ooh, That Smell...

This morning I was making my lunch for the day, and went to the fruit bowl for my apple (man, that's still hard to spell right).

Under some tomatoes and a couple plums was a nectarine that had gone bad. Right on top of my apples.

Two of the apples had gone bad as well, and the plums were pretty ripe.

As I was cleaning up the bad fruit and washing the bowl, the smell of rotting fruit gave me a mini-flashback.

Between the ages of 7 and 12, the house I lived in had several fruit trees and a garden. An "ornamental" plum tree that produced huge amounts of small plums every year. Then in the back were an apricot, a peach tree, and an orange tree which were no less prolific. In between the peach and apricot was the garden. And my parents' favorite thing in the garden? Tomatoes.

Mine was artichokes, but we never let those rot.

Not that we let the other stuff rot, it was just that birds don't eat half of an artichoke and then throw it on the ground. Artichoke plants also don't get 15 feet tall producing divine tasty treat beyond the reach of the harvest boy and his trusty fruit plucking basket on a stick.

So my spring and summer chores were to pick up the rotting fruit from the garden, yard, and sidewalk.

And my parents wonder why I don't like fruit.

Then there was the day in college when one of the other geology students came in with a grocery bag of tomatoes. She offered some around, and then proceeded to spend the day eating them like apples. Of course they were getting bruised at the bottom and were leaking juice. I had to make sure that I didn't sit close to her that day as the smell was making me nauseous.

Mom and Dad's luck continues to run true as their latest house has a large persimmon tree in the front yard that has proven immune to Dad's dormant spray. They've talked about cutting it down, but it's a nice shade tree for their front yard. So if anyone out there like persimmons, just drop by for a visit when they're in season and you'll be sent home with bags.

Yes, bags. Plural.

Painting

This weekend, in and around Scottish Games and Fantasy Football Drafts, I did some More painting. I'm working on several at once, but this one came together quickly

The title of the miniature is Gray Maiden, so I worked on a monochromatic theme.



I think she turned out rather well.

She is the first of the batch that I got with my birthday gift certificate, so thanks John. the others I'm working on are from various batches, but I'll continue put them up as I get them done.

Cool!

All right, so aside from looking like a Bond villain death machine, this fan is pretty neat looking.



I saw it at OhGgizmo, and they've got some links.

All That Jazz

Last night was our final celebration for our anniversary.

Jennifer had purchased tickets on Goldstar for a jazz trio performing at the Yoshi's in San Francisco.

So of course we had to have dinner there as well.

We started with a tuna tartar that was excellent, and then had an amazing cut a beef that was described as better than a filet, and we believe it was. Unfortunately it was a Japanese term , and we've not been able to remember it. The food and atmosphere was amazingly better than the Oakland branch.

Then there was the trio. They played five songs, and I enjoyed the second and third songs. The others were just noise to me. But the two songs that I did like showed some incredible musicality.