I may not look exactly like Quentin Quire, but I think I at least captured the “disaffected mutant youth” vibe.
I made that “Magneto Was Right” the night before we left for MegaCon. I made my own stencil with a piece of poster board and an exacto knife, and then I carefully filled it in directly on the t-shirt with a Sharpie. For the lettering, I used my lightbox. It only took a couple of hours, and I was really happy with the end result.
Last weekend, Allyson and I went to MegaCon for the first time in several years. We hadn’t gone in a while because we were really underhwhelmed the last time we went, but these days I’m really into comics again, making a trip seem way more exciting than it had seemed in years. When you add in the fact that the half of the Comic Geek Speak crew was going as well, it made a trip pretty close to mandatory.
I went into the con really excited to do some “dumpster diving” in 50-cent back issue bins. You see, Gainesville has a really terrible selection of back issues. The only comic shop that specializes in older back issues is only open twice a week and isn’t really guaranteed to be open even during its posted hours.
I’ve been listening to a lot of Uncanny X-Cast episodes here lately, and Brian had me interested to give the 1980s New Mutants series a try. I decided to put together a run of as many of the first 55 issues as I could while I was at the con. This was my project and my quest. In the end, I managed to put together a run of issues #1 through #55 for $36 — only about 65 cents per issue.
In addition, Allyson picked up…
I noticed that my Renee Montoya question made it into the Newsarama coverage of the DCU panel. I thought that was pretty nifty.
Overall, we had a great time. It was great to meet some folks that I only knew as names on Internet message boards, and it was awesome to buy so many comics for so little money. And, hey, staying in a really nice hotel is almost a vacation in and of itself.
While sitting in my office just now, I heard Allyson start whistling in the shower. Now this isn’t really an uncommon occurrence. Allyson whistles or otherwise makes noise when things get too quiet. What is somewhat funny is the song she started whistling.
She started whistling “Take ‘Em All”, an oi song by Cock Sparrer.
Take ‘em all…Take ‘em all…
Put ‘em up against the wall and shoot ‘em.
Short and tall, watch ‘em fall.
C’mon, boys, take ‘em all.
How did I end up in a life this perfect?
Ultimates 3 #1 disappointed me more than any comic ever has. This is intended a statement of fact more so than an attempt at hyperbole. I didn’t like the characterizations, and the writing style wasn’t working for me. The art was serviceable but not to my tastes. I knew that I shouldn’t expect Millar and Hitch, but I was left with a terrible feeling of disappointment when I finished reading it.
Ultimates 3.2 showed up in my DCBS shipment on Monday, and I finally got around to reading it yesterday. I feel like this comic is personally kicking me in the balls over and over again. All of the things I loved about the old series is just gone. Thor speaking like a reasonable human being? Nope. Political tension and drama? Nope. Lots of downtime to let the story build? Nope.
Things that took the shizzle out of my nizzle:
I’ve already ordered up through #4, so I’ll almost certainly go ahead and order #5 for $1.79. I’ll stop publicly complaining about the book from this point, but I have to say that I’m going to either skip or trade wait Jeph Loeb and future Ultimates titles unless something drastically changes my mind. This comic is just plain not written for a reader like me.
Technorati Tags: Ultimates 3, Jeph Loeb, Comics, Marvel
One of my favorite things about living in a university town is the progressive attitude that the community as a whole takes toward social issues. I don’t necessarily mean “progressive” in the same sense that a lot of Democrats are using the term, though that usage may have some degree of overlap with my meaning. University towns like Gainesville always feel like we’re at the forefront of society’s relentless march toward the future with very little sentimentality to hold the community back. This isn’t to say that there aren’t nostalgic/conservative voices to be found in the municipal discourse, but frankly, such views rarely occur in sufficient frequency — or perhaps more accurately, volume — to really retard the overall sprint toward what’s coming down the pipeline.
In Gainesville, unlike most of the surrounding rural areas, homosexuality isn’t a scarlet letter of shame. Gay folks are accepted here, and in all honesty, I think most of us have a hard time even understanding why someone would even think to discriminate against a gay couple. In Gainesville, technology is embraced rapidly and without reservation, leading to some really interesting and unique approaches to narrative, social interaction, and productivity. In comparison, other locales often seem unnaturally slow or disconnected. Here, global warming is understood as a scientific reality and not a talking point to be debated. As a result, our elected leaders have made us one of the few US cities that have committed to implementing the Kyoto protocol.
Now, of course I’m simplifying matters to an alarming degree for narrative effect. Many of the rural people that commute to Gainesville to work are more in line with the rest of the country when it comes to an ideal vision of the world, but the overall point I think is a fair one. The net effect is that Gainesville feels quite different from nearly everywhere else around us. Taking trips to other cities and towns in Florida often feels like traveling to a foreign country with distinct values and mores and returning home always feels like something of a grand comforting homecoming.
In Gainesville, it’s normal to weird and weird to be normal, and on some level, I think that’s why I have yet to leave. I can easily picture myself moving somewhere else, but in my Walter-Mitty daydreams it’s always to a place that’s more cosmopolitan, even more accepting, and even closer to the dream of what the future could be. It’s precisely the sort of thing that’s hard to quantify about a place, but I’ve come to realize that it’s absolutely critical to my sense of happiness and my emotional wellbeing.
Technorati Tags: Gainesville, Florida, progress, progressive
Back when I got my bike for last year’s birthday, I quickly started riding it to work every day. I had a great time on the bike, but I eventually gave it up because riding to work meant missing out on sitting around with Allyson for a little while on campus before we had to head to our respective jobs. I’m really protective of any time I get to spend with my beautiful and wonderful wife, so I started driving to work with her. I hated myself for it, but spending more time with Allyon by driving the ol’ armored vehicle was the better of two flawed choices.
Then, a couple of weeks ago, we got Allyson a Trek hybrid bike of her very own. We went out on a couple of the trails here in Gainesville and just generally had a great time together. Then, starting this week, Allyson and I started commuting to work together on our bikes. This morning, after making our way to campus, we even had time to chat for a few minutes and get a piping hot cup of coffee from Starbucks. It feels great to save the gas, get some physical activity in, and still get to spend some quality time with the most awesome girl on the planet.
Honestly, though…The best part? Leaving campus every day. Getting off campus in your car at 17:00 is like a scene from Dante’s Inferno mixed with Escape from New York. On the bike, you’re just constantly in motion with no gridlock whatsoever. You can tear down bike paths until you get off campus and onto little side streets that just let you glide right home. My commute home takes exactly the same amount of time with no wasting of fossil fuels and none of the vehicular stress that makes me hate my fellow man. I arrive at home pleasantly tired and in a really positive mood. After a few days of this, you really start to lose sight of why our culture fell so in love with the car in the first place. Simply put, riding a bike is still just as fun as it was when you were a kid. Getting from place to place is a pleasant experience rather than a hateful chore.
Several years ago, Allyson and I lived in a nice but inexpensive apartment very close to campus. This sort of environment happens to be the native habitat for the university graduate student, a population skewed heavily toward international students. Where many apartment complexes had random undergraduate soirees and bass machines, we had lots of nice people with rich brown and yellow skin hues, people who spoke kindly with unusual accents. We became good friends with some of our neighbors, never failing to offer up a hearty hello as we passed by each other.
I will say at the outset that I am profoundly impressed with the English-speaking ability of most international students. After three years of Spanish, a year of university French, and an aborted crash course in Japanese, I have mostly obtained the ability to spout rather convincing language-like gibberish. In contrast, the international students I’ve met here in Gainesville are often better able to converse than their native American peers. It’s quite easy to forget that you’re interacting with someone for whom English is only a recently acquired linguistic skill. Only unfamiliar accents and peculiar word choices remind you as you otherwise effortlessly chat about rental costs, banquets with free food, and American cigarettes.
One such odd word choice remains humorously seared into my memory. Allyson and I were returning late at night from our second shift jobs, and our favorite neighbor, an engineering student from India, happened to be peacefully smoking a full-flavor Camel cigarette on his front porch. After the exchange of customary pleasantries, our friend recited the most uncomfortably funny sentence in the history of interpersonal interaction.
“I saw your pussy in the window the other day.”
After a second or so of repressed laughter paired deliciously with a slight tinge of paranoia, it became apparent that he was referring not to my wife’s nether regions but rather to our feline companion Tux’s tendency to sit and wait for us in the kitchen window. We talked a bit about how he jumped up there when he knew we were supposed to be heading home and how he liked gazing at the outside world.
But we were always careful about keeping the blinds closed after that. You know, just in case.
I’m getting really sick of Countdown crossovers. Both stories in JLA #16 were some kind of DC Event tie-in. I stopped reading Countdown after a couple of months because it just wasn’t working for me. Do I need to drop Justice League for the same reason?
Florida Book Store II had a 50% off sale on a whole bookshelf full of trades. After spending at least fifteen minutes looking through the whole rack, I ended up picking up X-Factor Visionaries: Peter David, Vol. 1 ($8) and the first Christopher Priest Captain America and the Falcon volume ($5). In addition, Allyson filled in our collection a bit with two volumes of Bendis’ run on Daredevil (which we had previously only read (and loved) at the library.
No, I’m not thrilled about the events of Amazing Spider-Man #545, but I have no intentions of dropping Spider-Man. In addition to my love for the character, I’m still really excited about the creative teams for Brand New Day. The preview pages look absolutely beautiful, and frankly, after the funeral dirge that has been everything since Back in Black, I’ll overlook nearly any grievance if my Spidey becomes fun again.
I’m also being driven absolutely insane by the emotional response to the issue on nearly every comics forum on the Internet. If you’re upset, stop buying the book. There’s no need to tear up your copy or set the issues on fire. Just don’t buy the books. Take the nine bucks you were going to spend on thrice-monthly ASM and use it for something else that you might enjoy. I’m keenly aware that comics are a leisure pursuit for me. At the point I stop enjoying a book (cf. Moon Knight and Countdown), I drop it and just ask folks over at the CGS Forums to recommend me a book to try in its stead. I understand caring about your hobby and being passionate about your interests, but at a certain point, you have to worry about your blood pressure and ulcers.
As many of you have heard or gathered from the few pictures I’ve posted, I’ve been growing my hair out for the better part of a year now. It’s gotten quite long by Rusty standards (though still not the longest that it has ever been), and I absolutely can’t wait until it’s long enough to tuck my bangs behind my ears.
A couple of weeks ago, however, one of Allyson’s nightmares revealed the important role my hair has come to play in our relationship. She dreamed that I went into the bathroom and shaved all of my hair off. This caused her to go into all manner of confused despair. In her nightmare, she was mourning the loss of my hair.
Since then, we’ve come to refer to my well-conditioned brown locks as “our hair”. If we ever got divorced I fear that we’d have to somehow develop a procedure for shared custody of our hair.
But on the plus side, I should definitely get a check every month for hair support.
You know that kid in your class that raised his hand to answer every question, the kid who waved his head to answer the question as though the fate of the universe itself rested on his success in wresting away the teacher’s attention? Yeah, that was me. At least that was me until I realized that I could just worke ahead in my workbook and piss off the teacher by finishing the year in the first month of any given subject. I was a bright kid who knew I was intelligent, and I had a real obsession with knowing The Truth about everything. I also never did anything without taking things about five steps beyond normal.
As you can imagine, the Santa Claus myth quickly became a point of obsession. I gathered over time that my parents were filling the role of the jolly old elf, but I hedged my bets in case they would suddenly stop buying me as many Christmas presents. However, I also needed desperately to prove that I was intelligent enough to see through their ruse. What I needed was to trick my parents into revealing the lie themselves, allowing me to prove my ability to find the truth amidst their lies while still maintaining enough righteous indignance to justify an annual offering of presents. My initial plan was to rig up a walkie-talkie under the living room table while quietly sitting in my room listening in to my parents. The implementation of this grand investigation, however, was found to be lacking since my mom discovered my covert operation when I was using masking tape to secure the walkie-talkie under the table.
Recriminations about how children who did these kind of things didn’t get presents abounded.
I decided that my ruse was up, but I still needed to play my righteous fury card to ensure a steady stream of presents. Consequently, I sat down and wrote (with pen and paper) a treatise on the folly of the Santa Claus lie and how it undermined all attempts by parents to stress the importance of telling the truth. I was ready. I dug my heels in, and I was ready for an argument.
When I presented my thesis to my mother, she did the worst thing possible. She laughed at me. Not being taken seriously was the single worst thing an adult could do to me. I took great pains to speak like an adult and think like an adult, and I therefore fully expected people to treat me like an adult at all times. I got so mad and ashamed that I just started crying, which immediately switched Mom over to consoling me rather than laughing at me.
Once I had calmed down, Mom asked me why I couldn’t have just told them that I knew. This question confounded me.
This story tells you several very important things about me.
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