Crossing a finish line- again

Ah-ha! Ye thought ye got me, eh? Well, no sir, all eleven, just as ordered.

And no, I didn’t just throw together three separate posts just now, I’d actually written them up Monday and Tuesday- but Monday’s wouldn’t post (lousy weird button not doing anything…) and Tuesday’s, well, I didn’t make the trip to another computer to post the two up. So, before work today I’ll be stopping off somewhere, USB firmly in hand, to post all these up.

In that case, I guess I’m telling you to scan back a few entries if you wanted to catch anything you missed.

I didn’t end up going to any theatre Tuesday night, couldn’t get anyone to go. True, I only tried three people… wait, I tried three people! That’s a fair number of people!

Instead I spent time on the Doctor Who TV tropes page and spent some hours at the gym. I paid particular notice to the music being piped in, listening for hints on song structure because, as I wrote Monday (but only posted today) I’m wanting to write a song.

I think I may have hit on an appropriate topic for the song. Or at least a fun topic. At this moment, I’m thinking it’ll be about Pluto. We’ll see how it goes.

Needed to pick up some cereal, so 3am trip to the expensive Metro. Got Vector, a chicken salad thing, and- TWIZZLERS!

Aw yeah, Twizzlers! I saw ‘em, and I wanted ‘em.

Note to self about the salad: the red onions are no good for you. It feels like I’m on the verge of suffering from heartburn. Pretty sure the culprit here is the onions, they’re my prime suspect. But don’t leave town yellow peppers.

It’s 6:18am now, spent the rest of my night watching Muppet Treasure Island. Should probably read the book. Wonder if the Captain really did have a lover that took with Captain Flint and ended up marooned on the eponymous island, or if that was added so Ms. Piggy could be in the picture.

Man, I want to see that new Muppet movie. I probably shouldn’t have said I’d watch it with this one person that I can hardly ever get in touch with or see. Feels like that one Simpsons episode where, once Bart has finally become chief justice of the Supreme Court, Homer finally takes Bart to see the Itchy and Scratchy movie.

That reminds me of the time I explained… something in my modernisms class (forget what) then immediately said “like in that one Simpsons episode”. The professor stated that I had said something really well, but then ruined it with the reference. That stuck with me, obviously. As far as academics go, I’m sure I learned the most from that professor, that guy’s the best.

Of course university teaches much more than academics and most of those lessons aren’t to be found on any lesson plan.

Ah well. I should be off to bed then. If you’re curious it’s now 6:28am. Time flies.

Nov 29th

Nine in the morning, and I’d really like to get back to sleep. Debating whether or not to invite a cute girl to a movie this evening-seems like a no brainer, right?

This morning I watched Jodie Foster’s “The Beaver”, and the other day I finished “Terminator: Salvation” (or whatever it’s called) and I realized they both had Anton Yelchin in them. That’s pretty surprising. The only thing I knew the kid was in was the awesome Star Trek pic, I go out and get two random films from the library, and he’s in both.

Guess I should actually talk about Terminator first, I saw that one first. It kinda sucked. Playing it on my playstation 2 it skipped like crazy, but I didn’t care much at all. There just wasn’t anything to it; the movie feels like it was a twenty two minute show, as opposed to a feature length film.

And I thought John Connor was supposed to die in it? Did I hear wrong? I kept expecting him to die, and that the human-terminator hybrid would assume his identity to lead the resistance. Could I have made that up? No, probably I just misheard someone.

Instead! The terminator guy gives up his heart so John Connor can live, and not ONE person was like “hold up buddy, you don’t have to kill yourself!”

Well, the girl that loved the terminator was sort of against it, but she didn’t exactly put up much of a fight.

The CGI Arnold was actually really good; I was impressed on that front. Not that the skill of one computer generated image has any bearing on the story.

And that creepy little girl that hung out with Kyle Reese (Anton Yelchin) - nothing happened with her! Zip! I expected her to turn out to be another infiltration terminator unit, maybe with a broken voice modulator or something, and that’s why she never spoke. Nope, just a scared girl that gets to hand John Connor the big detonator at the finale. She couldn’t even press the button herself? At last that’d have been cool.

I wonder if part of the problem is that the original Terminator movie (the only one I’ve uh… mostly seen all of) is tense because you don’t think anything is going to stop that villain, the action building and building until finally it’s stopped, the end. It’s tense, frightening. In this film, you start off with giant flying ships and motorcycle robots, all of which get taken out by the humans, so right away the film has shifted from that tenseness to an action/war emphasis. Only at the end do we get that near unstoppable Terminator, but ten minutes of getting chased by the thing isn’t enough to build the kind of necessary dread. It’s like the film remembered what franchise they were shooting half way through, but it was too late to switch gears.

Yeah, that’s enough of that one.

The Beaver… it’s good, sure it’s good. I guess I have to applaud it for its true to life nature (beaver puppet notwithstanding). I imagine for me to sit back and think a movie is “great” I have to be tricked, manipulated into thinking “THERE! That’s the answer!” and I walk out of the theatre thinking I’ve got life all figured out.

(Alternatively, a particularly instructive movie, like, ACTUALLY instructive, would also be great, but for now I’ll assume that I’m fool enough to not be able to tell the difference between actual answers and getting my proper emotional strings plucked to think I’ve got the answers, because… how should I know the difference right away, if ever?)

But The Beaver’s principle statement is that life is messy. The father isn’t magically cured of his mental illness; the son still faces a daunting future. They all get a little closer together by the end, and I liked the concern on the son’s face as he accompanies his father to the hospital after the garage accident- this kid has spent the whole movie trying to get away from his father, but at that moment he’s scared for the guy. It’s a moment that strikes me as being off message in a more traditional film, but in a movie about life you can just capture that honest little moment without structuring the whole piece around that sole revelation.

I liked all the performances, I liked the story- Jodie Foster (the director) could probably have stood to cut more of Jodie Foster (the actor, but yes, the same person), leaving more focus on the father and son dynamic, but eh, whatever.

Man, I really want to go see the Muppet movie, but I’m supposed to see it with a friend of mine who really has a hard time making plans to do stuff. What else is playing? Hugo looks pretty cool, but I’m not sure I’m in the mood for that one. Arthur Christmas has been getting surprisingly good reviews even though, to me, it looks terrible. No, I’m not going to see that one.

I’ll figure it out.

Stuff to do in the coming year

Even though I'm tired after a full weekend of work, the night before last I got pretty inspired and energized. Here's what I'm going to do.

Write a song- a friend of mine has encouraged me to write some music, something I really haven't done much before. In response, I've decided to write a song for her as a Christmas present. It's gonna be rough, but I bet she'd like it.

Write a novel- I've already discussed the novel I'm working on. I haven't done much more since then, but the story has been percolating in my head, and I'd really like to get it on a page/screen. I just need to suck it up and pick up a little laptop to write on.

Write a short story- I got an e-mail as a "friend of Merril" or whatever about a speculative/science fiction contest happening in February. Seems pretty cool, I'd like to contribute to it, so I will.

Make more money- I don't have a choice about this one, I plain need to be making more. To that end I have to, again, suck it up, get my smart serve certification, and pick up some extra security work for my days off. Hurgh I'm tired just thinking about it.

The more exciting stuff:

I'm going to apply to be a tree planter for this upcoming season. When is that season? No idea, I presume the summer. Where do I apply? No idea. The deadline? How should I know! But I'm pretty sure I've got a friend who did this that can give me this info, also, when I discussed this the other day the people I was talking with suggested this could be work in B.C. which is way more awesome than my thinking of doing it in Ontario.

Assuming that takes the summer months, what next? What else!- apply to teach english over seas! I'm thinking if I apply nowish I can make a September session. I've been told to check out "footprints" as far as an organization to do this with. It's a lead, I'm a detective, just go with me on this, don't bring me down.

But Isaac, what will you do before that stuff? Hey, I don't know, what about finally pursue my bike courier ambition?!?! Wouldn't that be insane? If I managed to do all this stuff this coming year? What's great is, if I totally hate the courier thing, then who cares, I'm off to plant trees! If I love it? I can always go back to it!

I'm excited, do I look excited? Trick question, this is a blog, you can't see me right now.

I have some obstacles to over come, but I think all of these things are achievable. If I didn't, I probably wouldn't be so pumped.

Hitting targets and getting credit

It LOOKS like I'm posting two in the one day, and I am. But it's not my fault! I wrote the previous entry yesterday and the button wouldn't work for the posting! Not sure what the deal was, but it's thoroughly unfair.

I spent the night napping on the couch, fully clothed and then some, with three sweaters on to fight back the cold, and my OTHER sweater and jacket combo protecting my poor chilly feet. I'll probably have to return for ANOTHER nap, today being the start of one of those three day weekends (like all my work weekends).

I dreamt a friend of mine gave birth to a polar bear, also that Tom Welling punched out a wave in the ocean. The Tom Welling bit isn't such a mystery, his face is plastered along the back of most of my comics this week advertising that final Smallville season on sale. I don't know WHERE the polar bear came from. That may just be me being weird.

I stayed up late, reclining and warm, watching my brother play Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. To hear everyone talk about it, it's a pretty big deal. Okay. All I know is that he repeatedly failed to hit these ten targets on his bird in the alloted 120 seconds, and I thought it was hilarious. I challenged him to let me have a shot, and no, I didn't succeed, but I did easily beat his tries while refusing to take a moment outside of the trial to figure out the controls- they are pretty intuitive, and I had been watching him beforehand, so I had the gist.

Boy I gave him a hard time about that. Very funny.

I just received and activated a new credit card, a good thing for several reasons. One is that I now have credit powers again (online purchasing, the all important parking lot convenience), the other is that it gives me a little hope that maybe my credit ain't as bad as I thought- I have almost payed off my other card ($300 to go, down from $1,800+!!!)

Or else these credit guys think I'm sucker. Well, past evidence would support that, but I'll show them.

Oh, it's also good in that I gave all my money towards the family finances, and maybe I'd like to eat sometime in the next week before I get paid again. That's a definite plus.

But yes, it's burning a whole in my pocket/consciousness, not in the classic sense of "ooh, money to spend!", but in the sense of "you have an explosive in your pocket, that can be used for good or ill, so use your head!"

And as long as I'm thinking like that, I should be okay. Unless I have a nervous breakdown or something.

Or to put it another way, great power great something something. You know the line.

Last saturday in certainly more detail than none at all. You have to give me that!

So my couple of days off have consisted of bed. Very disheartening. I'd like to be not tired please. Also, I'd like to be not cold, my feet were ice cubes last night.

A friend of mine has been encouraging me to write some music, I think because she kind of wishes I was someone that went around writing music all the time. To that end, today a couple of lines with potential have come to me, I hurried down to pen and paper to record them, and I'm thinking this will make a lovely Christmas present for her.

Ugh, but music notation... well, whatever.

Yes, last weekend I was supposed to have a late lunch and a movie with someone, but it didn't happen! She said she was going to be late, so I told her to call while I napped- but no call, C'apn!

It's relatively cool, she got me apology chocolates, so there you go.

That evening (and why I couldn't switch things up to a late supper... boy was I hungry that afternoon) I had a bud's house warming to go to. I recorded the address in my cell phone as a draft text, but when I got to the area the draft was all messed up and the info gone! I called up a guy that I knew would be there to ask for the address only to find the party cancelled! The host had gotten sick and cancelled the event whilst I napped that afternoon (or maybe earlier, I forget when I last checked the event page)!

So instead I ventured down to the Lakeview restaurant at ossington and dundas to hang out with that excellent gentleman who told me of my sudden change in evening plans. A good time was had by all, we discussed Marmaduke crossing the terribleness threshold into brilliance (my words) and the strip Scary Gary- which I'd planned to do that night anyway, I cut out examples from the paper for this purpose.

(What other purpose could they be cut out for?)

The minute our party left the restaurant, two other friends of mine were randomly going in! So I went back in the restaurant with that group! And soon after, the friend of mine that leaves nearby and with whom I was going to spend the night showed up!... okay, that last bit wasn't a surprise, that part was actually planned.

We had apple/pear pie- quite a combination! I spent way more money that night than I'd planned, and that was just for the all day breakfast and then the pie. I seriously don't know how people spend so much on alcohol. I mean, how is it possible to have that much disposable income? Crazy. One of these days I'll try having money, that seems a popular lark.

Leaving the restaurant (again) I almost immediately went horizontal on the couch, it was really comfy. The place was crazy warm, I'm definitely not used to that (he says, currently wearing four sweaters and a jacket, because he just doesn't want to deal with cold right now). We talked for a good long while, it was nice.

I couldn't really sleep much. 5am-6am happened, then I was awake and headachey. I got to watch Thundercats, though it took too long to load. When that was over I returned to that couch, read a bit of that Put Out More Flags book, fell back to sleep from something like 11am- 1pm, but with lots of little phone time checking in between.

Man, I'm leaving a lot of specifics out, mostly conversation details, but I could certainly paint a more interesting picture of these set pieces. But, eh, a lot of that isn't my laundry to air, so to speak.

That's good for now, I'm going to lean back on this (relatively) big, comfy couch right here, continue to keep all these clothes on, and stew a bit. Or sleep. Mostly sleep. We just got back from Tucker's Marketplace. And I wanted to sleep BEFORE we went there!

Put out MORE Flags!

Wanted to hop on here yesterday, gave myself some time before work to do so, but someone else was on the thing, and even though I felt vastly entitled, I kept my mouth shut, waited a few minutes (i.e. wasted a few minutes) then left for work.

Finished reading that "Put Out More Flags" book. The parts with Basil Seal were fun, which makes sense with him being the main character, but the book was too fractured for my tastes, with a lot of characters getting screen time that ended up requiring too much effort than I wanted to put in to keep straight. That may actually not be the books fault, since all these characters were apparently in previous Basil Seal stories, it could be that I was supposed to get to know all of them from a previous adventure, and just jumped in at the worst possible moment.

80 pages into Gulliver's Travels and having a great time, though the very begining, the first five pages I'd guess, was slow going, just setting up Gulliver's history and whatnot. So much of the book is detailed measurements of things and how they compare to the distorted landscape of the lilliputians and brobdignagians (I only just started that latter section).

Spent the weekend off being hugely tired, at one point suffering from a great headache (likely from tiredness), but also hanging out with three and a half separate groups of friends (the half is indicative of the time I spent crashed on the couch belonging to one person, as opposed to a group of people).

I'll talk more about the weekend later, I suppose tomorrow (tomorrow being in five hours, and I only just got up and ate a bowl of cereal, a pasta supper almost completed in the meanwhile).

Right now I have to get cleaned up a bit and buy comics before the store closes!

Doctor Who two

Ah my head. I really didn't get enough sleep.

So, first thing then- snogging. Naturally I'd heard the word before, but it's been brought back to attention thanks to Doctor Who and the word is fantastically amazing. When I tried to quantify what exactly had struck me about it, it's the fact that it's somehow simultaneously high AND low brow. Isn't that just quintessentially British? I think that's amazing.

Obviously there's some culture shock involved, but I wonder if the constant hand holding between the Doctor and his companion is a sort of normal thing over there, or if this is particular to Doctor Who. Well, how can I really know? Sure, I could ask someone. Maybe later.

Either way, it shows a closeness, an easy familiarity and tenderness that really draws the viewer in. Well, it draws me in anyways.

I really like Rose Tyler. "Rose X The Doctor forever!" I should say in my best shipping voice. Particularly near the end of her run (the writers knew where the character had to go... well who else would know?) you could see her coming into her own, having learned the Doctors methods, she could save a day or two on her own at this point.

She was an excellent cryer. I can see people that'd think she went too far, almost more like stage acting versus the small screen, but it was a good counterpoint to the Doctors reservation, and even then, it's not like she was gushing tears when a flower got stomped on- it was always in response to a very personal hurt and fear, when she thinks she's lost those close to her is when she cries... and that's a pretty good reason! And her last episode in series 2 is genuinely heart breaking.

Same with the Paul Cornell scripted "Father's Day" from series 1.

Actually, did I say this was a crazy sad show yet? Wel it is! Tragedy upon tragedy.

There's the one episode where the Doctor gets to manipulate these nano machines that were the cause of all the trouble, and they brought back everyone they'd messed up, and the Doctor is stoked "EVERYONE LIVES! JUST THIS ONCE, EVERYONE LIVES!" I think I quoted that right, the everyone lives bit is correct, that's for sure. A happy episode, just flat out happy. I'm spoiled, most of MY heroes save everyone all the time. Except Uncle Ben. That guys got it rough.

Martha Jones, the companion after Rose in series 3, didn't emote as much as I thought she should have, but then again she had it tough. Rose was the every-woman who got elevated to the Doctors level (or thereabouts) by the end, Martha starts off as a sensible med student, a VERY different character. Even in the fact that she decides to leave the Doctor of her own accord, that she can resist that thrill addiction of travelling all over time and space- by definition she's a low key character.

And that's not a bad thing- I understand the fourth series has Donna as the companion, she was featured for one episode "The Runaway Bride" or something, the episode before Martha Jones arrived, and she was always yelling and being high strung and whatnot. Pretty annoying. Hopefully it'll be toned down some when I do check out that fourth series.

All right, that's post, I'm bouncing.

A little nostalgia for JLA Secret Origins

Ah man, I'm so far behind on this thing for the month. I'll catch up okay, but yeah.

Noticed an odd little shift the other day. While it's certainly nothing new to feel down I actually realized that I had moved a step beyond that- that I was thinking more like "I deserve to feel down".

That's rather excessive. Rather harsh, self.

Rather.

I've got a couple of library stuff to return, so that means it's now or never if I'm going to talk about them. Well, "never" or "the next time I take out these books, if I do" whichever comes first.

There's the first two volumes of "Justice" by Jim Krueger, Alex Ross, and Doug Braithwaite, notable for name dropping Robert McKee (too lazy to check the spelling, but I've talked about "Story" before, so maybe search through my previous posts if you want to fact check me. Oh, what's that? You'd have to manually search 'cause I never tag my posts? MWAHAHAHAHAH) and the concept of the villain thinking of him or herself as the hero, all things being a matter of perspective.

I say perspective, in place of "all things are relative" i.e. good and evil, because I've got a pretty good rubric for "good" and "evil" in my head. If an action does good to you and harm to all others... that's an evil act. Pretty straightforward.

I bring that up because Gorilla Grodd can think he's the hero of his own story all he wants, but it's pretty hard to argue with the fact that he'd be happy to eat the Flash's heart given the oppourtunity.

That was a gruesome example I just came up with. No heart eating is actually contained in Justice.

But that's not actually what I wanted to talk about- this other book, "Secret Origins Featuring the JLA" is a collection of single issues outlining the origins of the JLA as of the years of the Morrison League.

There are 7 stories, one for each of the members (except Martian Manhunter who ALWAYS gets forgotten. Which sucks 'cause he's awesome) and then one for the origin of how this iteration of the Justice League got together.

Of the six individual character origins, half of them are pretty terrible. Like, crazy terrible. Like, "why would anyone buy this?" terrible. That's mostly just an art issue, however Aquaman has both the worst art AND the worst, most convoluted origin story as of this time.

Maybe Erik Larsen (the writer) just hates Aquaman? That could explain it.

The three for Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman are appropriately the best. All three have art that tricked me into thinking they were done by much more famous artists (I'm looking at you Batman by Staz Johnson and James A. Hodgkins who tricked me with their skill into assuming it was Kevin Nowlan on art. What? Nowlan is great! I hope that's how his name is spelled!)

BUT!

The narration for the Batman comic is really stupid. "Predictability, here, is a complex calculation between logical occurrences and dubious motives. While destiny is the elusively simple matter of becoming who you are."

Elusively simple. Riiight.

Also, pretty sure "bestial" isn't a word. You mean "beastial"?

Whatever. The important story is the JLA origin my Morrison and Millar, with art by Howard Porter- so pretty much the actual creative team for JLA at the time. Why is it important? Because somewhere, in some comic or magazine, or maybe even someone else's collection (but seriously, probably my own) I read this story when I was little-ish. I'd have been about 12, and this was probably my first time reading a book with all these characters, my first glimpse into the wider DC comic universe outside of a couple of Batman books (a very different animal) and that ONE issue of Superboy that so informs my tastes to this day (in case I've never mentioned it before, I now own all of that Superboy series. If some one told me I had to get rid of all my comics, but got to keep my Superboy series and my first two Spider-Man comics... I'd be okay with that. And as long as we're talking hypotheticals, if I had to keep only one comic out of my collection, it'd be that second Spider-Man comic. I should really talk about that comic sometime.)

Got distracted there, didn't I?

You know this JLA comic taught me the concept of super conductivity? I think that's amazing... but, what's funny about it now that I'm older (in fact it seems crazy that this never occurred to me before) is that they just throw super conductivity into the book with no real explanation of why the temperature is dropping so much to allow super conductivity of the metals in the building.

The evil alien menace just asks Batman (who's the only one who can save the day, naturally) what he did, and Batman says he "Sabotaged the air-conditioning system."

See, it could be I'd have to wait until high school to grasp just how cold it'd have to be before we'd be talking super conductivity time, but now... couldn't they have thown in that Batman used Mr. Freeze's gun or something with the... air... conditioning. It just sounds so silly now.

Don't get me wrong, the whole thing is still awesome, and I love the fact that it did actually teach me something science related ("Drop the temperature of most metals to absolute zero and they have no electrical resistance." "Super conductivity"- though I doubt ANY metal would have ANY electrical resistance at ABSOLUTE zero. I suppose I could be wrong, though it seems a pretty intuitive fact.).

Plus this comic simply bleeds cool. Like the bit of stubble and the merciless smile on the Flash's face as he smashes the alien complex, while Batman is all cloaked in the shadows... and they don't even bother showing the pair race out of the building as it explodes in a faux bit of drama because "They don't call me the Flash for nothing."

And then there's Green Lantern's awesome dialogue- while everyone else is the established super hero, a bit on the stiff side, Kyle is almost the side kick/viewer stand in. After saving the day, but losing their powers in the process (they come back) he says "Yeah, cool deal, but what are we supposed to do now? Join the concerned mothers of america? Look at the state of us. The Flash is the only one in the team who even SMELLS like he's got super-powers anymore. You must admit, this kinda sucks."

Ah, Kyle. You'll ever be the best Green Lantern ever.

Alright, sweet, that's a post people.

Talking Doctor Who 1

So I've wanted to talk about Doctor Who for about the last two weeks- and now I'm going to do just that. Let's see what I say.

So I got loaned the first three series of the modern Who show, and the first thing to know is that for the first two series the companion to the Doctor is Rose Tyler, and the third series has Martha Jones. This is key because the Doctor is a sort of set character, most of the development happens on the part of the companion. They are (like all good side-kicks) the viewer getting the chance to hang out with their hero (I forget what the word is I'd usually use to describe that phenomenon...), and the reason that things get constantly explained. The Doctor may know everything, but that companion is always asking what's going on, so we the audience get to hear it.

As with most big series, I was resistant to getting into it. It took me years before I got with the crowd and read a Potter book, for instance. Interestingly, even now, with me quite liking the Doctor Who stuff, I have far more reservations about the series than I usually associate with a series I like.

That last sentence was confusing: what I mean is that I can sit here and say "yes, I like this Doctor Who business, BUT there's a bunch of stuff that drives me crazy and comes close to breaking my willing suspension of disbelief."

That's a weird mix that doesn't usually come up with a property I like.

To get into specifics, the show drives me crazy with the fact that the bad guys can be shaking in their boots at the thought of the Doctor... even when they've got him surrounded, they each have some super disintegrator, and he has no weapoons.

Just shoot him! You want the universe? Just shoot him!!

The one time they actually DO shoot him, he happened to have a personal shield device that episode. That was awesome, I was good with that, but it just drives the point home that these villains are generally lacking in good sense where the Doctor is concerned.

To compare to another series, take Batman (particularly Adam West Batman). This was a constant complaint back in the day, the Joker or whomever never shooting him, but instead putting him in an elaborate death trap. However, I've never had a problem rationalizing this for Batman, because I was either too young to question it (now THIS stands as the best evidence that Doctor Who is a kids show), or, when I got older, there were always the suggestions of the villains various psychosis getting in the way. Joker loves having Batman around, he's not going to kill him. Two Face ALSO used to be friends with the guy, plus that coin has a habit of flipping good at the most inoppourtune times for him. Riddler wants to prove he's smarter than Batman, what's smart about firing a gun?

Oh, and to take the famous Harry Potter example: why does no one there grab a gun, since spells take longer and there's no real defence? I always assumed everyone in that story is kind of stupid about mundane solutions. It's a weird rationalization, but there you go.

The point is, I've never been bothered by this kind of thing before. Fortunately, the show has plenty to offer to redeem itself. The deep mythology, the limitless invention of setting, the great companion development (I love Rose, and will talk more about her in a later post), and some of the best techno babble I've ever heard.

I really do think that the best techno-babble eschews words that do mean something in a proper context, because with even a little bit of study the whole thing falls apart and becomes cheesy to the extreme.

Why does this happen? Time vortex.
How'd you open that? Sonic screwdriver.

It mostly avoids tellings us the impossible specifics of tech jargon- how else is a modern day writer supposed to go about describing the science of the billionth century? You can't really research that.

Some panelling conversation

The following is an e-mail I sent in response to reading this article: http://toobusythinkingboutcomics.blogspot.com/2011/11/on-steve-ditko-stan-lees-amazing-spider.html

The site is more than worth the time to check out if you have any interest in comics literacy. But right, that e-mail I sent.

"I wanted to share a bit about how I think you’ve just flipped my perspective on things. When I began my university career, I guess this was 2004, as a hobby that I probably devoted too much of my work/study time to, I worked on a comic of my own (just pencil drawings, shown only to friends for the most part). This was long before I began doing comic reviews, also many personal intellectual advances due to education/experience had yet to be made (I’m not too worried about stating the fact that I’ve made progress, so long as I acknowledge that it’s a lifetime process, and I’ve got a long ways to go still), but the comic’s still pretty fun I think.

Anyways, with each page I’d always be concerned with varying the layout from what came before, for the sake of mixing it up a bit. I didn’t want to change it for the sake of change alone, and for that reason I’d really wrack my brains to justify mixing it up, to justify the move from a 3X3 grid (even then I was aware of how short changed I was with modern comics storytelling, with three panels to a page, a splash page, a DOUBLE page splash. Wanting to emulate those early Marvel’s I admired, you’ll be hard pressed to find one of my pages with fewer than six panels… well, okay, not hard pressed, that’s exaggeration, especially since I usually opened up the issue with a splash page.).

The flip on my perspective that’s been brought about is the fact that those reasons to break out of the 3X3 mould, if they don’t jump out at you on their own, I certainly don’t need to chase after them. At least, that’s if I’m writing comics more to my taste; it may be a different matter if I’m trying to be marketable to the “wider” modern audience of, you know, that rump that keeps coming up in conversation here. Well, that’s a bridge I can cross if I ever get to it.

Ah-HA! But before I fall into yet ANOTHER trap of thinking in one set way, it’s important to be aware that visual variety is indeed key to keeping that eye on the page and finger turning the corners over. You rightfully point out the various different camera shots Ditko uses on a single page- exciting AND communicative, rather than just exciting in the “look at all the crazy assortment of panels on a page”.

It must be said that of course there’s a place for the storytelling of the crazy panelling variety- I’m hardly going to tell J.H. Williams to knock it off with the beautiful (often beguiling) Batwoman stuff (I’m just going by the Detective Comics run and the little of Promethea I’d read, I haven’t actually checked out the new 52 Batwoman, though I assume it’s done in the same style), but there should maybe be a label for new comics readers, and a reminder to the seasoned veteran: “Warning- this comic for advanced readers only, otherwise you run the risk of continuous head scratching and loss of interest in the comics medium!”

It’s like you say, there has to be some* mastery of the basics of the language before it can be messed around with, this is true of both the creators AND the readers, though I often forget that about the readers.

*I say “some” because I consider myself notorious for being woefully ignorant and antagonistic towards the specifics/scientificity of (particularly linguistic) grammar. Participles, infinitives, other… grammar-y words… how is it that in trying to make clearer communication possible, the rules to express that effort are as clear as mud? AND frequently argued over amongst the experts regardless! So, yes, I specify “some mastery” to avoid being that most hated of things- a hypocrite!"

Kuiper belt? I guess I can look it up...

My floor is currently littered with newspaper bits that I wanted to talk about, but I don't really feel like getting them right now. Some other time then.

The most important entries down there are the Scary Gary and Marmaduke strips that showcase their redeeming qualities. It's important!

And yes, I'm surprised about the Marmaduke love too- it's crossed the hate threshold and is now a brilliant strip, all without changing a thing about itself.

Maybe that's what those republicans down south are counting on. Ho ho I miss Daily Show.

Speaking of shows that I want to see- Community! I haven't seen ANY of the new season, and there're SIX episodes out. I'm hoping nbc.com will hook me up, though that looks increasingly unlikely. Helpful youtube has been advocating I check out any number of sketchy sites to satisfy myself. So sketchy. Plus I just got rickrolled into a scary halloween thing, which then rolled me to some, I don't know, armenian guys account.

It's only funny if I get to hear "Never gonna give, never gonna give"

Oh, but even then, it's gotta be the full song. Who doesn't want a bit of Rick Astley still? Maybe it's only me that's still good with it.

Got up at 5:30pm today, which is fine, but I don't have a whole lot on the agenda tonight. Wish the gym was still open. Well, I did laundry anyways.

By the way, I've started plotting a novel. I've got the general idea down, but it's in the fleshing out that things happen. I've only written either the ending, or just before the ending, waiting for some resolution. I'm excited, but I'd still rather do something else this evening.

As an aside, my spirits have generally picked back up. I feel more hopeful, which is crazy, since things have actually gotten worse if I start the think about things too hard. So I won't.

I was loaned a book on the hubble telescope and astronomy in general. I didn't want to spend the whole night reading it in detail, but I still learned a thing or two. Uh, I may have forgot what I learned. I think Pluto is currently classified as a dwarf planet in the "Kuiper belt" orbiting the solar system? Is it Kuiper? Not sure. But there's another dwarf planet that's bigger than Pluto, and I guess is the main reason Pluto got demoted from Planet status (which is messed up). I think that other dwarf planet is named... Eres?

Anyway, after looking through the book, I'm walking outside, it's dark like always, I look up into, you know, infinity, then back down to this little mudball of ours, and couldn't help but laugh at myself, my problems, really, everyones problems. Wow is it all so small.

Just looked it up- BAM Kuiper belt was correct. Man, I kinda rocked that one. Wait, let me chack the name of that other dwarf planet... oh whatever it's Eris. One letter off.