A sad farewell

My brother is moving out of a 3 bedroom house with a huge bonus room and a large yard into a roomshare situation where he just has one bedroom and bathroom. The result for him is that he had to leave a lot behind. The result for me is that I had to go and clean out all of the shit that I had stored in his garage, lo these many years.

I’m not really going to miss all of the old college textbooks or the games missing half of their components, but I’m really going to miss the novels. I had a collection of what seemed like every pulpy science fiction novel written before 1995. There were just a massive number of books. And all of them good. Well, maybe not all of them. Some were downright bad. But that’s beside the point. They were mine! MINE!

Sure, they hadn’t been read for years, since I put them into storage, but the knowledge that they were there, should I ever want to go read them, was reassuring. Now, they’re going to be gone forever, probably into the grubby little hands of some pimply adolescent nerd who’ll never love them like I did. Damn kids. They ruin everything.

I can’t even tell you how traumatic this was. I went through and winnowed the collection down to just one box of the really, really good stuff. But just looking at that wall of books that would soon be gone forever… it was a tough moment for me. Now my dreams of having a comprehensive sci-fi library someday are dashed forever. And even more tragically, I own less stuff now.

Man... I love stuff.

*sniff*

Accidental Tatoo

Just a word of advice when using a clicky pen. When the pen tip is already out, you do not need to push down on the clicker. You certainly don't need to hold the pen backwards and jam your thumb down on the pen tip. Doing so will not only hurt a great deal, but will deposit some ink deep subcutaneously, giving you a little tatoo-esque spot on your thumb. I dont' recommend it.

No, they don't go great together.

Chocolate-chip bagels. What the hell is up with these things? All I want is a cinnamon-raisin and I keep pulling out these stupid chocolate things. And if it's not chocolate, it's blueberry. Jesus Christ. What's the point of free bagels if all you get are these horrible concoctions?

Don't get me wrong, I like chocolate. That doesn't mean that I want it in everything I eat. I mean, I like Jolly Ranchers but that doesn't mean that I put them in my sandwiches.

HasbrOWNED!

So we had some guests over for dinner (Vietnamese takeout) and games (Transamerica) and it was very nice. Meeting a couple neighbors and their friend is always nice.

It was somewhat unfortunate that one of our guests harbored a secret hatred of all things board game related. Apaprently, her father had worked for Hasbro/Parker Brothers and she and her siblings had been forced to test prototypes and new editions of games and such. Understandably, this has left her a bit soured on the idea of playing such a game for fun. Nevertheless, she played and claimed to enjoy Transamerica.

When she was telling us about her board game history, however, she told us that she and her siblings had to write Trivial Pursuit questions as well. Anne's response to this was something to the effect of, "Well, that figures!" And not in a jokey way, either. She was essentially saying, "Well, no wonder that horrible game has such shitty questions. It makes sense that a bunch of kids wrote that crap." Which is a sentiment that I kind of agree with, but maybe not enough to say it to a person the first time I met them. It was fine, though, because everyone laughed and they probably didn't think anything of it. I doubt anyone besides Anne and myself even remember that particular part of the evening. Well, Anne, myself and anyone who happens to read this, anyway. Anne's embarssing moment immortalized forever in blog form.

Superman/Batman TPB Review

Just finished my review of Superman/Batman: Public Enemies. It's up at IGN Comics.

Check it out.

Too much time.

Just when you thought that Star Wars couldn't get any cooler.

Clearly someone has too much time on their hands. It might be me.




The whole thing is ridiculous anyway. Everyone knows that only a unicorn can properly wield a lightsaber.

I've got it! Wait... No, I don't.

The company softball team went down in defeat again last night. I did not have the fortune of playing with them this time, as I had to go to class, but I understand that they did much better than the time I played, a couple weeks ago.

In the game I played in, the score was 1 to 3o+. Both teams stopped counting after they passed 20 or so. And that was in just 3 innings. That's 3 minutes at bat and then 35 minutes of fielding, just praying that they would hit the ball directly into somebody's glove.

I hear that they've improved. In the last game, we scored 4 runs and the other team only got 21. The umpire told our guys that we need to practice more. It's tough when even the impartial official tells you that you suck.

It was the final game of the season and our records stands at 1-8. And before you get too excited, the win is the result of the other team forfeiting because they only had 7 players. Little did they know that they could have easily won anyway.

In addition to the losing, which is mildly embarassing, we've also had several injuries. One guy tore his quad and will probably need surgery. Two other guys are on crutches, too. One from a severe sprain and the other from some sort of minor break. Hell, I was sore from standing around in a field for 2 hours. It's sad, really.

On an unrelated note, check out this site. Basically, an artist takes children's drawings and then fleshes them out. It's really quite cool.

Comics, comics, comics.

My reviews at comics.ign.com

True Story, Swear to God: Chances Are

Channel Zero and Channel Zero: Jennie One

Proof of Concept

Bad Mojo

Superman/Batman: Public Enemies

Demo: The Collection

Also, my panel discussions are here.

Starting Over

Here we go.