My buddy told me something that’s really gotten me unhappy. Naturally, I told him everything was fine. Does he even know he told me anything? Like all our big conversations, he was drunk while we were having it.
If I haven’t made it clear, I really hate alcohol and the excuse it is to people. There, now you know ONE of my values. Please don’t assume the rest.
Okay, sorry, enough of that. I’ve got a ton of library books that I want to at least mention, but I’m pretty sure the majority of them are due back today… AND I’m not exactly in the mood for anything in depth. So I’ll take each book as it comes.
First up, Marvel’s “Strange Tales II” the second anthology of more independent creators taking a fun crack at Marvel stuff. The Kate Beaton stuff is naturally the best, but she’s got the home team advantage, as well as being plain amazing. Not surprising, the Silver Surfer is a big player in these stories. People love the Surfer (as an idea). The book was dedicated to the memory of Harvey Pekar, who in fact has a story in it about The Thing asking Harvey to hook him up with a government job. It’s awesomely splendorous.
Jeff Smith’s RASL volume 1… did I already talk about this one? I forget. It’s really cool, and I love the creator, AND the fact that it’s sort of a cartoon Sliders (I finally bought season 1 and 2 of that !) but I do wish the story covered more ground in this first collection. So my complaint is that I don’t have volume 2 to read.
The Irredeemable Ant-Man by Robert Kirkman is great. The guys a slime ball, but you still get to like him. It’s almost lucky that this is the entirety of the series, that it got cancelled, as it allowed the character to branch out into the Avengers Initiative book and then onto Secret Avengers. I don’t know where he is now, but it’s still cool the amount of legitimacy this supposed joke character has attained.
Speaking of irredeemable, here’s the sister book (brother book?) to Mark Waid’s “Irredeemable”… “Incorruptible”! It’s not as accomplished a story as Irredeemable, since that one gets to cherry pick from a host of Superman conventions to tear down. This one has the worst bad guy decide if the world’s hero is going to now be a genocidal crazy man, Max Damage was now going to be a hero. The motivations are sort of there, but it’s still a little hard to swallow. Still, I like the concept, especially since, you know, this is at the end of the day a book about a good guy (mostly). Well, he tries to be good. He mostly succeeds anyways.
X-Men: Original Sin- a crossover between Wolverine Origins and X-Men: Legacy when it starred Professor X, it’s a lot of rewriting history that you get a lot of these days because a lot of comic creators are, you know, creatively bankrupt. Eh, skip it.
Already talked about the Goon.
Did I talk about Jonathan Hickman’s Pax Romana? Well, if I didn’t, long story short is there is no story. It’s a bunch of stuff that sort of happens, but the writer is so intent on putting the pieces together of “how would you go back in time to advance society so things chugged along a bit quicker than they did?” that he completely misses the point of storytelling. Except as a ‘what not to do when writing a story’ there’s no point to reading this. Plus, it’s a killer on the eyes to get through.
Two Generals by Scott Chantler- a well researched and sweet story about this Chantler fellow’s grandfather in WW II, with an excellent animated art style. Someone should get this made into an animated film, that’d be a real coup for Canadian culture. The comic is good too, but no one is really going to hear about it if it isn’t a movie of some sort. Unfortunately.
The first volume of Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso’s award winning 100 Bullets. A mostly rotating cast of characters are used to answer the question- if you could get away with murder, especially against someone who wronged you, would you? The form of the story is so strict that it stretches the creative muscles to answer differently with each new character- but they would completely answer differently, of course. It’s like writing a sonnet, it’s restrictive to not write in free verse, but it also gets your brain working, and there’s a flow to it all. I didn’t think I’d like this book, but now that I know what it’s all about I really see the appeal.
Kick-Ass! Finally read the book that the movie was based on. Yes, it is much different from the movie… not necessarily in what happens, there are only two things that are particularly different, but those two things greatly change the tone of the story. I prefer the film one, it’s both more off the wall AND more realistic, and the main character is a better person than in the comic. That’s because all the changes for the movie are to change the central thesis of the comic book: that only an asshole would be a super hero. That’s evident in how the movie version doesn’t even consider how his father would be devastated if he got killed, where the comic version realizes it, but then does it anyway because he’s addicted to it. Then there’s the Big Daddy conundrum- in the comic he just becomes a super hero and ruins his daughters childhood because… again, asshole, wanted to be special. The film version actually did have a wife that was killed- movie Big Daddy really was everything he said he was. The other big difference is that movie Kick-Ass gets the girl in the end, and comic book one gets made fun of by the girl and tormented a little. I felt the movie version was more accurate- the kid becomes a world wide sensation, lame though it was he was a hero, sure he’ll get the girl. However, now that I’ve read the comic I do get why comic Kick-Ass doesn’t get her… because he doesn’t deserve to. He isn’t a good person, again, that was the whole thesis of the comic. I’m not surprised that he isn’t popular. He kinda sucks. Anyways.
Volume 5 of Tom Strong, I’ve actually read this before, but I forgot that when I picked it up at the library. Whatever, it’s still good. The best, and saddest (I mean saddest for us real people/most snaptacular) is the last story where Tom’s world is changed so that his adventurous life and family was all a delusion, and he’s just some normal guy in the real world. He snaps out of it when, as he tells us in the epilogue after the fact, “The world that Morovia created, the world I was imprisoned in… it was a terrible place. The skies were always gray, the politicians were all liars, the people lived in loneliness and fear. There was no sense of adventure or wonder… and my life was so empty. Without you and your mother, without our friends. And I just realized no place like that could actually exist… outside the mind of a madman, that is. And that realization broke the spell. Simple as that.”
Volume one of Kill Shakespeare. It’s cool, my buddy Owen has a story in the back as illustrated by J. Bone, which is an awesome fact. It’s alright.
Invisibles: Bloody Hell in America, the first volume of the second Invisibles series. It’s all magicy stuff, mostly nonsensical, but at least the author avatar is a bit less of a Mary Sue this time out. It’s not really my thing, but I love Morrison, so I have to read through it regardless.
Victorian Undead: Sherlock Holmes vs Zombies. It’s Sherlock Holmes, making none of the usual dumb mistakes associated with zombie stories (lucky for Watson, eh what?) and there are huge side burns everywhere. What’s not to love about this? Could use more deer stalker cap, even though that’s an affectation added by the film serials or somewhere.
Volume 7 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8. I think I already talked about this one.
Filthy Rich by Brian Azzarello. It’s a crammed black and white book which makes it hard to tell what’s going on and who’s who sometimes, but pretty good all in all. You have to remember the protagonist isn’t a good guy… or maybe you should forget. That way the Stephen King/Twilight Zone ending won’t bother you. Not that it’s supernatural at all, just that the guy is determined to kill this one woman who wronged him at the first opportunity. By that point he’s become her driver, so I don’t know what he’s waiting for, but whatever. It’s pretty good, kind of a lame mystery, and again, I prefer good guy protagonists.
Patsy Walker: Hellcat. A bubble gum comic. It’s alright, though you have to be really well versed in “comic-ese” to understand a bunch of it. It’s fast and silly, kind of too silly for me, which is, you know, REALLY silly. The main story of two (both written by Kathryn Immonen) is ultimately anti-climactic. Ah well.
I don’t mean to shock you, but “After the Golden Age” by Carrie Vaughn is actually a novel, not a comic. What?!? Isaac can read books too?? Yes, I’m a man of many talents. But don’t get too excited, it’s still about super heroes. Anyways, I applaud the effort, but there are a lot of missteps in the story here, the universe is too small to make the mystery that difficult, and the ending straight up sucks. We spend the whole novel seeing what a jerk the superman analogue is to his powerless daughter, and then at the end he swoops in, saves her just in time, but is killed in the process, and then, two or three years later, she’s talking about what a good grandfather he’d have been. INncorrect. There was little evidence to support that he was even a decent father, so the entire ending is sappy and disingenuous. A couple of flashbacks to him BEING a good father would’ve cleared that up nicely though.
And yeah, that’s all the books. Now they can go back to the library and I can hopefully not get fines.
Sunday, October 9, 2011
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Two posts up in one day. I prefer not to do that.
I’ve gotten up a little early today because I’ve got a lot scheduled and not much time to do it all. Plus I’ve got some self hate running through my head.
There’s this one guy I’ve met a couple of times, I like him, he’s a really good guy- in fact that’s the thing, he’s so good that I can’t help but think “wow, this here is a person that is just better than me. I wish I was more like this guy.”
But then my worse nature kicks in, trying to chip away at this guy, bring him down to my level (or lower). “Hmm, doesn’t smile much, perhaps has issues with self confidence?”
It would be amazing, and probably horrifying, if someone could just go up to me and call me on this. I’d probably suggest they read (pronounced “red”) my blog, and this person could reply “wow, so conceited!”
I need to get taken down a peg or two. Maybe I’m sort of talking myself down a half peg right now. But yes, humility is important. It helps keep your abilities in perspective, it helps you appreciate the efforts of others- you know, humility!
Fortunately, I have had some good lessons as far as that goes. Most of my university career taught me humility, with a special mention going to my experience in the symphony orchestra where it just kept getting pointed out how not good enough I was for the thing. Man, that sucked. And the first year I was only there because they asked me!
The best example though, the one that isn’t tinged with bitterness and embarrassment, is back in grade eleven biology when I said something, I forget what now, and my buddy cracked that I was a “pretentious bastard”. I (clearly) never forgot that, because even though this guy never gave that a second thought, he was probably more kidding around than anything, he wasn’t really wrong.
Uh, about the pretentious part.
I sent him a letter a couple of years later thanking him. Maybe that sounds strange to you.
Since my last post, which I’ll have just posted but wrote a bunch of days ago, I got fairly sick and got better, just like the rest of Toronto. My voice still sounded a bit weird, but almost back to normal. I was at a birthday party last night where I talked too much about really trivial things (par for the course) and have hurt my throat yelling over the music. I probably should have gotten a drink for my throats sake- I mean water or sprite or something.
I played a little pool with this one younger guy. He was encouraging, though it was with that self assurance that comes with actual being okay at pool… or at least knowing full well that he was playing with someone that’s only played a handful of times in his life. It was actually interesting to watch this guy go from an area where he was in control, the pool table, to that of a circle of people talking, where he now flipped to this guy that talked way too much with a bunch of poorly thought out jokes… and now I’m describing myself. Isn’t that wonderful. Fantastic.
Maybe that describes me, but I will happily affirm that my bad awkward jokes are way cleverer than pool guys jokes. His were mostly of the sarcastic-admission-of-hard-drug-use variety… my jokes are usually, you know, Spider-Man related or something.
I seem to feel a bit better now, so I’ll get to work on my reviews. I’m going to ignore that I achieved that feeling by basically chipping away at pool guy like I said I was wont to do. :(
There’s this one guy I’ve met a couple of times, I like him, he’s a really good guy- in fact that’s the thing, he’s so good that I can’t help but think “wow, this here is a person that is just better than me. I wish I was more like this guy.”
But then my worse nature kicks in, trying to chip away at this guy, bring him down to my level (or lower). “Hmm, doesn’t smile much, perhaps has issues with self confidence?”
It would be amazing, and probably horrifying, if someone could just go up to me and call me on this. I’d probably suggest they read (pronounced “red”) my blog, and this person could reply “wow, so conceited!”
I need to get taken down a peg or two. Maybe I’m sort of talking myself down a half peg right now. But yes, humility is important. It helps keep your abilities in perspective, it helps you appreciate the efforts of others- you know, humility!
Fortunately, I have had some good lessons as far as that goes. Most of my university career taught me humility, with a special mention going to my experience in the symphony orchestra where it just kept getting pointed out how not good enough I was for the thing. Man, that sucked. And the first year I was only there because they asked me!
The best example though, the one that isn’t tinged with bitterness and embarrassment, is back in grade eleven biology when I said something, I forget what now, and my buddy cracked that I was a “pretentious bastard”. I (clearly) never forgot that, because even though this guy never gave that a second thought, he was probably more kidding around than anything, he wasn’t really wrong.
Uh, about the pretentious part.
I sent him a letter a couple of years later thanking him. Maybe that sounds strange to you.
Since my last post, which I’ll have just posted but wrote a bunch of days ago, I got fairly sick and got better, just like the rest of Toronto. My voice still sounded a bit weird, but almost back to normal. I was at a birthday party last night where I talked too much about really trivial things (par for the course) and have hurt my throat yelling over the music. I probably should have gotten a drink for my throats sake- I mean water or sprite or something.
I played a little pool with this one younger guy. He was encouraging, though it was with that self assurance that comes with actual being okay at pool… or at least knowing full well that he was playing with someone that’s only played a handful of times in his life. It was actually interesting to watch this guy go from an area where he was in control, the pool table, to that of a circle of people talking, where he now flipped to this guy that talked way too much with a bunch of poorly thought out jokes… and now I’m describing myself. Isn’t that wonderful. Fantastic.
Maybe that describes me, but I will happily affirm that my bad awkward jokes are way cleverer than pool guys jokes. His were mostly of the sarcastic-admission-of-hard-drug-use variety… my jokes are usually, you know, Spider-Man related or something.
I seem to feel a bit better now, so I’ll get to work on my reviews. I’m going to ignore that I achieved that feeling by basically chipping away at pool guy like I said I was wont to do. :(
P.S. I got sick later
I’ve just returned from finally watching Midnight in Paris. I was smiling through the whole picture. There’s that Owen Wilson onscreen personas charm, the non-digital grainy picture thanks to the AMC at Kennedy Commons (maybe also in part to how the film was shot- how could I tell the difference?), the blustery good nature of the caricatures of famous people.
It’s sort of like a grown ups version of Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. Which is high praise, as far as I’m concerned.
It’s raining lightly outside, just like the end of the movie.
The story is very much wish fulfillment- “what if I could meet all these people I’ve looked up to?” It’s like fanfiction in that sense. Your self insert character just dropped in on another universe and everyone acts just how you expect them to… plus everyone happens to love you somehow. Was it all a dream? As if that ever matters.
I strolled into the theatre with a couple of minutes to spare. It was just me and two old ladies at the front. The one, just before the movie started, asked the other if they were alone. “No, there’s one other person here,” was the reply. They laughed at a couple of things but left half way through the movie. Maybe they snuck in from/to another movie. Having the entire theatre to myself was the height of luxury, I’m lucky.
Heh. Everything out of Hemingway’s mouth was loud and abrupt. Everything had to be “true” with that guy, that guy in the movie I mean. I liked the advice about writers not wanting to read another writers work “we’re both writers, we’re in competition with each other. Either you’re book is bad, and I don’t want to read bad work, or it’ll be good and I’ll be jealous which is worse still.”
Maybe that’s the quote, I didn’t have a notebook at hand. And then when he drunkenly yells out “ANYBODY WANNA FIGHT?!” Again, these are cartoon versions of famous figures, but that makes them either more truly how Woody Allen (movies writer) sees them, or how he wants them to be perceived. It doesn’t matter which is the case, I’m unlikely to ever meet the man. I could write a story where I meet up with him. But if I were to do that I’d rather meet someone else. I’d previously thought about Animal Man, so maybe that’s still on the table.
I was trying to soak up as much atmosphere as I could afterwards. Two guys outside asked if I was alright- I probably looked high. Actually, the one guy sounded like he asked if I had or possibly wanted a tic-tac. I said no thank you before being informed the guy was asking if I was alright.
Making that the shortest, most successful game of telephone ever.
The objective of telephone is to obscure your message to the greatest degree possible, right?
If there are any others of this quality then I’ve gotta check out more Woody Allen movies.
Right now my head hurts, I’m getting sick, and so that’s gotta be stopped as soon as possible.
It’s sort of like a grown ups version of Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. Which is high praise, as far as I’m concerned.
It’s raining lightly outside, just like the end of the movie.
The story is very much wish fulfillment- “what if I could meet all these people I’ve looked up to?” It’s like fanfiction in that sense. Your self insert character just dropped in on another universe and everyone acts just how you expect them to… plus everyone happens to love you somehow. Was it all a dream? As if that ever matters.
I strolled into the theatre with a couple of minutes to spare. It was just me and two old ladies at the front. The one, just before the movie started, asked the other if they were alone. “No, there’s one other person here,” was the reply. They laughed at a couple of things but left half way through the movie. Maybe they snuck in from/to another movie. Having the entire theatre to myself was the height of luxury, I’m lucky.
Heh. Everything out of Hemingway’s mouth was loud and abrupt. Everything had to be “true” with that guy, that guy in the movie I mean. I liked the advice about writers not wanting to read another writers work “we’re both writers, we’re in competition with each other. Either you’re book is bad, and I don’t want to read bad work, or it’ll be good and I’ll be jealous which is worse still.”
Maybe that’s the quote, I didn’t have a notebook at hand. And then when he drunkenly yells out “ANYBODY WANNA FIGHT?!” Again, these are cartoon versions of famous figures, but that makes them either more truly how Woody Allen (movies writer) sees them, or how he wants them to be perceived. It doesn’t matter which is the case, I’m unlikely to ever meet the man. I could write a story where I meet up with him. But if I were to do that I’d rather meet someone else. I’d previously thought about Animal Man, so maybe that’s still on the table.
I was trying to soak up as much atmosphere as I could afterwards. Two guys outside asked if I was alright- I probably looked high. Actually, the one guy sounded like he asked if I had or possibly wanted a tic-tac. I said no thank you before being informed the guy was asking if I was alright.
Making that the shortest, most successful game of telephone ever.
The objective of telephone is to obscure your message to the greatest degree possible, right?
If there are any others of this quality then I’ve gotta check out more Woody Allen movies.
Right now my head hurts, I’m getting sick, and so that’s gotta be stopped as soon as possible.
Friday, September 30, 2011
A couple of colours in this one.
Really lethargic today. Got up at 3 something and had a two hour nap at 8. The time is currently 12:25am.
Who’s that guy that says “the time is currently…” I feel like there’s some radio guy that does that.
I imagine I’m mostly just worried about this brown discolouration at the base of my left hands middle finger. I just noticed it Monday- I’ll set up a doctors appointment tomorrow to get it checked out. Of course if I get any useful advice from my doctor it’ll be the first time. Yeesh. I’ll probably die of skin cancer and the guy’ll tell me to get some bed rest or something.
I’ve got a bunch more library comics to talk about, but I’m actually just about to start work on my weekly reviews, so I’ll hold off on that.
I spent about an hour at the gym today, from 10:45pm-11:45pm. Despite my lack of energy it was the best non running workout I’ve had in a long while. The music system played that “Boys of Summer” song, I’m not sure what it’s called, but I do love to hear it at this time of year. Maybe it’s a little late in the season to be listening to it- nah it’s still appropriate. I’m not entirely sure if it was the rockin’ out awesome version that I like, or the original- but if I’m not sure, then it was probably the new one. Whenever I hear the old one it’s super obvious it’s the old one. It’s the slower pace you see. The song feels more methodical then.
I also heard Pearl Jam’s “Alive” on the radio. I’d like to check out the lyrics sometime, it sounded like it’s about some guy who fails to perform with his girl (possibly because of some survivors guilt?), or else just isn’t excited at all to be with his girl. I don’t know, like I said, I’d like to check out the lyrics sometime.
This is my last post for September, finishing off my first month of blogging without actually having the internet at home. I’m surprised how well I did, a couple weeks back I thought for sure I wasn’t going to be able to meet my quota, but here I am, moonwalking across the finish line. Or whatever you do when you’re about to cross the finish line and are supremely confident about winning or something.
Oh, I beat Catherine last night. The last couple of levels I had a bit of coaching help, but that’s just because I wanted to be done with the whole thing. Other than maybe trying some versus mode, I’m done with that one.
Yesterday I had this dream where I was being pressured to take this drug that made you super smart and fit. I felt bad about it- but I did take a swig of that blue bottle, reminding me now of Alice’s various size changers. This led to me taking some brutal exercise course with, I suppose, whomever developed this system and a bunch of other class mates.
I remember this one old woman, slightly over-weight, who was having trouble breathing, that the instructor stopped to berate for not keeping up because she wasn’t using “all that strength she had to keep herself standing” for the exercise. I thought that was horrible and woke up soon after.
I thought there’d be potential for a story somewhere in that dream, and I guess there still is, but I realized it would just be a slightly modified version of Limitless- which I already thought was an awesome movie/story.
It’s 1am now, I’d better get on those comic reviews. I’ve got seven to do, which isn’t too bad at all.
Oh, yesterday after the rain there was a rainbow- how amazing is a universe that has rainbows? I totally get where double rainbow guy is coming from.
Who’s that guy that says “the time is currently…” I feel like there’s some radio guy that does that.
I imagine I’m mostly just worried about this brown discolouration at the base of my left hands middle finger. I just noticed it Monday- I’ll set up a doctors appointment tomorrow to get it checked out. Of course if I get any useful advice from my doctor it’ll be the first time. Yeesh. I’ll probably die of skin cancer and the guy’ll tell me to get some bed rest or something.
I’ve got a bunch more library comics to talk about, but I’m actually just about to start work on my weekly reviews, so I’ll hold off on that.
I spent about an hour at the gym today, from 10:45pm-11:45pm. Despite my lack of energy it was the best non running workout I’ve had in a long while. The music system played that “Boys of Summer” song, I’m not sure what it’s called, but I do love to hear it at this time of year. Maybe it’s a little late in the season to be listening to it- nah it’s still appropriate. I’m not entirely sure if it was the rockin’ out awesome version that I like, or the original- but if I’m not sure, then it was probably the new one. Whenever I hear the old one it’s super obvious it’s the old one. It’s the slower pace you see. The song feels more methodical then.
I also heard Pearl Jam’s “Alive” on the radio. I’d like to check out the lyrics sometime, it sounded like it’s about some guy who fails to perform with his girl (possibly because of some survivors guilt?), or else just isn’t excited at all to be with his girl. I don’t know, like I said, I’d like to check out the lyrics sometime.
This is my last post for September, finishing off my first month of blogging without actually having the internet at home. I’m surprised how well I did, a couple weeks back I thought for sure I wasn’t going to be able to meet my quota, but here I am, moonwalking across the finish line. Or whatever you do when you’re about to cross the finish line and are supremely confident about winning or something.
Oh, I beat Catherine last night. The last couple of levels I had a bit of coaching help, but that’s just because I wanted to be done with the whole thing. Other than maybe trying some versus mode, I’m done with that one.
Yesterday I had this dream where I was being pressured to take this drug that made you super smart and fit. I felt bad about it- but I did take a swig of that blue bottle, reminding me now of Alice’s various size changers. This led to me taking some brutal exercise course with, I suppose, whomever developed this system and a bunch of other class mates.
I remember this one old woman, slightly over-weight, who was having trouble breathing, that the instructor stopped to berate for not keeping up because she wasn’t using “all that strength she had to keep herself standing” for the exercise. I thought that was horrible and woke up soon after.
I thought there’d be potential for a story somewhere in that dream, and I guess there still is, but I realized it would just be a slightly modified version of Limitless- which I already thought was an awesome movie/story.
It’s 1am now, I’d better get on those comic reviews. I’ve got seven to do, which isn’t too bad at all.
Oh, yesterday after the rain there was a rainbow- how amazing is a universe that has rainbows? I totally get where double rainbow guy is coming from.
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
The good really does outweigh the bad
Well, that’s two really rough days at work over with. They had me sweating bullets, with the little juggling act I did with a CPU and pretending I wasn’t doing anything with the CPU. That took acting skills. I may have just earned a daytime emmy.
But there were some really nice things too. A gorgeous girl gave me chocolate and told me about an experiment involving neutrinos going faster than light. I’m pleased in that has-to-be-the-smartest-person-in-the-room jerk way that I already knew about that experiment, but it was still super great.
And a really nice resident gave me two chocolate bars just because. I haven’t eaten them yet, but still, really nice.
Man, that’s actually a lot of chocolate.
And today I found a perfect condition copy of Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay that someone just left out to be recycled. I was like “… yeah, I’m taking this.”
It was at least at one point my buddy’s favourite book, and he even loaned me his copy so I could read it (I know, generous). That was actually back in that year of school when we lived together. That was a crazy time. A good time, now that I think back on it. Though I guess everything is relative.
AND someone was getting rid of some random weights! Now THAT’S crazy. Weights ain’t cheap, son! So now I’m the proud owner of a single 30lbs dumbbell, two 5lbs weights, a 7lbs weight, a 10lbs pound weight, and a bar for those weights to go on. Not sure how useful the SINGLE 7 and 10lbs weights will be, but we’ll see what happens.
Maybe they’re cursed weights.
Okay, so now I sound like a scavenger going through trash for this stuff- a thought that, trust me, I find pretty gross, germaphobe that I am, but the book was on top of a box, not on the gross ground at all, and it called to me.
The weights… well, weights are expensive! Also, it’s not like I trust the cleanliness of the weights at the gym anyways.
Enough of me being defensive.
I said I was going to talk about more of those library books I picked up, uh, but actually I’ve just got hit by the sleepys. I did only just now get back from my security shift- I think it’s legitimate for me to be tired!
It’s raining right now, which is good. It’s cooling. I feel like I’ve been stuck in sweat mode the last couple of nights trying to sleep. It’s gross.
And I see we’ve got daylight poking in the windows through the trees. I wonder what I’ll be up to today? Sleep first, find out later.
But there were some really nice things too. A gorgeous girl gave me chocolate and told me about an experiment involving neutrinos going faster than light. I’m pleased in that has-to-be-the-smartest-person-in-the-room jerk way that I already knew about that experiment, but it was still super great.
And a really nice resident gave me two chocolate bars just because. I haven’t eaten them yet, but still, really nice.
Man, that’s actually a lot of chocolate.
And today I found a perfect condition copy of Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay that someone just left out to be recycled. I was like “… yeah, I’m taking this.”
It was at least at one point my buddy’s favourite book, and he even loaned me his copy so I could read it (I know, generous). That was actually back in that year of school when we lived together. That was a crazy time. A good time, now that I think back on it. Though I guess everything is relative.
AND someone was getting rid of some random weights! Now THAT’S crazy. Weights ain’t cheap, son! So now I’m the proud owner of a single 30lbs dumbbell, two 5lbs weights, a 7lbs weight, a 10lbs pound weight, and a bar for those weights to go on. Not sure how useful the SINGLE 7 and 10lbs weights will be, but we’ll see what happens.
Maybe they’re cursed weights.
Okay, so now I sound like a scavenger going through trash for this stuff- a thought that, trust me, I find pretty gross, germaphobe that I am, but the book was on top of a box, not on the gross ground at all, and it called to me.
The weights… well, weights are expensive! Also, it’s not like I trust the cleanliness of the weights at the gym anyways.
Enough of me being defensive.
I said I was going to talk about more of those library books I picked up, uh, but actually I’ve just got hit by the sleepys. I did only just now get back from my security shift- I think it’s legitimate for me to be tired!
It’s raining right now, which is good. It’s cooling. I feel like I’ve been stuck in sweat mode the last couple of nights trying to sleep. It’s gross.
And I see we’ve got daylight poking in the windows through the trees. I wonder what I’ll be up to today? Sleep first, find out later.
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Looking at some books
Okay, let’s do a couple of blurbs on these comic book collections I picked up from the library. So, in not necessarily the order I read them in (so I may have forgot the order, so what?):
Vol. 7 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer “Season 8”
I picked up the first, I don’t know, 12-16 issues of this series for a friend- actually, I was just going to get her issue 1, but then I didn’t see her, so I picked up issue 2, then 3, etc. etc. so I got to read a fair amount of this series.
Volume 7 collects issues 31-35, so I’ve definitely missed a bunch. Mostly all the different things that Dawn has been transformed into, in a sort of running joke I guess (she started the comic series off as a giant!)
Eh. Buffy has awesome superman style powers in this book, which I take it most fans found sacriledge. I do agree that it changes the book too much, but obviously I don’t care all that much. Seeing Xander geek out over the powers was fun, and having a sour faced Dawn show up in panels repeating the idea that these powers are going to turn out to be bad was pretty funny.
The likenesses of the characters are captured pretty well- but sometimes not. Those are the stupid panels. And there’s an impossibly long sex scene in the book, so maybe go buy it for that.
The Goon vol. 10 Death’s Greedy Comeuppance
The Goon is an amazing series that I’ve somehow read entirely out of order. And by somehow, I mean I kept grabbing random collections out of the library. It’s written and illustrated by Eric Powell, and illustrated is definitely the right word, because his books are beautiful… which is an interesting counterpoint to the horror and dark (dark) humour of the books.
It’s that humour that sets the book apart. The Goon himself is so quiet that his sidekick (okay, I forget his sidekicks name at the moment…) does most of the talking, thereby elevating the silliness level. Again, I’d like to stress the darkness of the humour- this book series ain’t for the easily offended.
The backup story is about this deathless death-seeker named Buzzard, sort of an anti hero in the Goon books (uh, Goon is already an anti hero… so Buzzard is a super anti-hero? Buzzard is sort of a mostly good zombie, so take from that what you will.), travelling around with this kid on a quest to kill this monster that’s been terrorizing a village or somesuch.
In the end, Buzzard doesn’t die (which means he failed in his goal) and his travelling companion kid does get killed. It’s pretty sad. The kid’s last line is “I prefer to not know what it’s like to not be in awe of the stars.” On account of Buzzard mentioned that you get old enough things lose their shine and interest for you, the stars being the example he gave earlier in the book. But then Buzzard ends the tale looking up and “remembered a time when I was in awe of them.”
So those are two books, I’ve got a bunch more, but that can wait until tomorrow.
Vol. 7 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer “Season 8”
I picked up the first, I don’t know, 12-16 issues of this series for a friend- actually, I was just going to get her issue 1, but then I didn’t see her, so I picked up issue 2, then 3, etc. etc. so I got to read a fair amount of this series.
Volume 7 collects issues 31-35, so I’ve definitely missed a bunch. Mostly all the different things that Dawn has been transformed into, in a sort of running joke I guess (she started the comic series off as a giant!)
Eh. Buffy has awesome superman style powers in this book, which I take it most fans found sacriledge. I do agree that it changes the book too much, but obviously I don’t care all that much. Seeing Xander geek out over the powers was fun, and having a sour faced Dawn show up in panels repeating the idea that these powers are going to turn out to be bad was pretty funny.
The likenesses of the characters are captured pretty well- but sometimes not. Those are the stupid panels. And there’s an impossibly long sex scene in the book, so maybe go buy it for that.
The Goon vol. 10 Death’s Greedy Comeuppance
The Goon is an amazing series that I’ve somehow read entirely out of order. And by somehow, I mean I kept grabbing random collections out of the library. It’s written and illustrated by Eric Powell, and illustrated is definitely the right word, because his books are beautiful… which is an interesting counterpoint to the horror and dark (dark) humour of the books.
It’s that humour that sets the book apart. The Goon himself is so quiet that his sidekick (okay, I forget his sidekicks name at the moment…) does most of the talking, thereby elevating the silliness level. Again, I’d like to stress the darkness of the humour- this book series ain’t for the easily offended.
The backup story is about this deathless death-seeker named Buzzard, sort of an anti hero in the Goon books (uh, Goon is already an anti hero… so Buzzard is a super anti-hero? Buzzard is sort of a mostly good zombie, so take from that what you will.), travelling around with this kid on a quest to kill this monster that’s been terrorizing a village or somesuch.
In the end, Buzzard doesn’t die (which means he failed in his goal) and his travelling companion kid does get killed. It’s pretty sad. The kid’s last line is “I prefer to not know what it’s like to not be in awe of the stars.” On account of Buzzard mentioned that you get old enough things lose their shine and interest for you, the stars being the example he gave earlier in the book. But then Buzzard ends the tale looking up and “remembered a time when I was in awe of them.”
So those are two books, I’ve got a bunch more, but that can wait until tomorrow.
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Complain complain
I’m so tired. I just finished my comic reviews, after giving up on sleep, a rough wake-up-a-lotty four hours isn’t going to cut it for today.
I had a terrible dream yesternight that I won’t go into, but I know exactly what it’s trying to tell me, and I’ve got to figure out what to do about it. I know, I know, my ambiguity is enthralling.
Returned Ulysses to its rightful owner. She’s moving to B.C., so I’ve got to find a new copy to read. Hopefully a similarly annotated version, even though it’s the fact that I’ve got those extra notes to read that really slows down my progress. I’m sure I’d understand it well enough if I plowed through, but so long as those notes exist I-MUST-READ. Them.
In the meantime, I picked up a bunch of comics from the Fairview library, which has a superior collection of comics. Before bed last night I read through the first volume of Jeff Smith’s Rasl, and then my body was all “wow, that was cool! You know what else is cool? Never sleeping again!”
So, my body is a big jerk.
Argh okay, I’m going to try for another hour. I’ve got plans at 2pm-ish, so this degree of tiredness is unacceptable.
I wanted to write more here, but this is going to have to be it.
Oh, but even as I was distressed by terrible dreams, yesterday I found attached to my toiletries bag (what, you don’t have a toiletries bag?) a little sticker looking thing of a dove. It was a good little calming message for me, so that was cool.
P.S.- I’ve now slept throw everything. That’s wonderful.
I had a terrible dream yesternight that I won’t go into, but I know exactly what it’s trying to tell me, and I’ve got to figure out what to do about it. I know, I know, my ambiguity is enthralling.
Returned Ulysses to its rightful owner. She’s moving to B.C., so I’ve got to find a new copy to read. Hopefully a similarly annotated version, even though it’s the fact that I’ve got those extra notes to read that really slows down my progress. I’m sure I’d understand it well enough if I plowed through, but so long as those notes exist I-MUST-READ. Them.
In the meantime, I picked up a bunch of comics from the Fairview library, which has a superior collection of comics. Before bed last night I read through the first volume of Jeff Smith’s Rasl, and then my body was all “wow, that was cool! You know what else is cool? Never sleeping again!”
So, my body is a big jerk.
Argh okay, I’m going to try for another hour. I’ve got plans at 2pm-ish, so this degree of tiredness is unacceptable.
I wanted to write more here, but this is going to have to be it.
Oh, but even as I was distressed by terrible dreams, yesterday I found attached to my toiletries bag (what, you don’t have a toiletries bag?) a little sticker looking thing of a dove. It was a good little calming message for me, so that was cool.
P.S.- I’ve now slept throw everything. That’s wonderful.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
