Shut Up and Dance
Comics A-Go-Go
Green Lantern: Legend of the Green Flame
In Gaiman’s pre-Crisis script, Hal Jordan loses faith in his Oath and mission, and visits Clark Kent for advice. Along the way, they discover a lost Power Battery, travel to Limbo and Hell, and then Jordan uses Alan Scott’s original Oath to bind the wild Battery and restore his confidence.
JLA/Avengers #3
All seems well during the JLA and Avengers’ annual Silver-Age style crossover party, but something’s wrong. This creates a clever combined history of both teams and their adventures, but it’s merely clever. Both teams discover the dying Grandmaster, and they learn the truth about the separate universes they must restore.
Planetary/Authority: Running the World
An interesting non-crossover between the teams, as each investigates the same threat from a different point of view. The only contact between the teams is in an Elijah Snow/Jenny Sparks flashback! Best detail: the idea that the centenary heroes are the planet’s immune system, fighting off invasions and internal threats.
Planetary/JLA: Terra Occulta
An engaging twist on the crossover notion: treat the members of the JLA as if they were Planetary, and treat the members of Planetary as if they were the villainous Four. Both groups are enriched by the transposition. Readers need to be familiar with both series to enjoy the contrasts.
Superman: Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?
Alan Moore’s classic capstone to the pre-Crisis Superman shows the final days of the Man of Tomorrow. Nuisance enemies become murderous, foes ally against him, and Superman loses all of his supporting cast but one. But then Superman goes too far to defend his home, and chooses his own end.
Take Time to Digest That Turkey
It’s the long weekend – there’ll be plenty of time to shop.
You Can\’t Take the Sky From Me
We watched one of the two unaired Firefly episodes Monday night, and it confirmed my overall impression of the show: Fox TV Execs are idiots. Sure, the two-hour premiere movie was awful, and the first two episodes were slow going (especially those featuring the Malcolm/Inara riff on the vile Spike-Buffy romance), but the show picked up steam with the fourth episode and never looked back.
This episode marked the return of Saffron, Malcolm�s erstwhile wife, and her plans for one final score. This was another caper story, and Dina and I were laughing throughout the entire show. That character is pure gold.
And then we were saddened to realize that there�s only one more episode left to watch. I hope the Firefly movie gets off the ground, because I want to learn more about Shepherd, and see a conclusion to the River plotline. More Jayne jokes and just more Kaylee in general wouldn�t go amiss.
Self-Edited Horoscopes
FEBRUARY:
Abstract thoughts. Loves reality and abstract. Intelligent and clever. Changing personality. Attractive. Sexy. Temperamental. Quiet, shy and humble. Honest and loyal. Determined to reach goals. Loves freedom. Rebellious when restricted. Loves aggressiveness. Too sensitive and easily hurt. Gets angry really easily but does not show it (Annoyed, on the other hand, is another story.). Dislikes unnecessary things (but has a fluid definition of necessity). Loves making friends but rarely shows it. Daring and stubborn. Ambitious. Realizing dreams and hopes. Sharp. Loves entertainment and leisure. Romantic on the inside not outside. Superstitious and ludicrous. Spendthrift (can I get an �Oh, yeah!�?). Tries to learn to show emotions.
[more fun from Rockasaurus.]
Bad Half-Hour
Dina’s car appointment runs long. Late for work. Ben asleep in crib. Reschedule morning meeting to afternoon. Reviewing morning email. Wake Ben up to get ready for lift to office. Ben not happy at all. Comfort Ben, find bottle, feed Benwhile fielding instant messages from office. Phone rings. Nobody on other line. Doorbell rings. Phone rings. Must be Dina. Phone rings. Answer as if it was Dina. No answer on other line. Buzz open door. Double-parked. Pack Ben in car seat, get gear together. Phone rings. In-laws. No time to talk. Get outside. Realize that bus pass still in apartment. Return. Get in car. Arrive at office. Meeting successfully rescheduled.
Big day ahead!
Weekend Roundup
This was a weekend of feverish activity for everyone.
On Friday, I drove home after a busy day at the office, and found myself taking an unusual number of detours due to trucks, ambulances, moving vans and � get this � a tow truck pulling a Ford LTD! I laughed and thought how please my father-in-law would be to know that his 19 year old car was holding up.
(How old is this car? Not only does it have the �Unleaded Fuel Only� label on the fuel gauge, but it�s made of this space-age substance called �steel�!)
The evening was pretty quiet. I started to read some of the rulebooks for my unplayed games in anticipation of the next day�s gaming activities, Dina played on the laptop, and Ben was gently fussing. He was running his first fever. But we weren�t worried.
Saturday was a busy day. Ben was still running a fever in the morning, so we phoned our local CLSC and got in touch with the Info-Sante health line. Info-Sante is staffed by nurses who dispense medical advice, which is a great for parents who are unsure of how to read their child�s symptoms.
They reassured us that a low-grade fever is a normal side-effect of Ben�s second round of inoculations, and that so long as the fever went down after a dose of Tempera and that the little guy kept eating and drinking well. Since all three of things were happening, we were okay. But Ben clearly was uncomfortable�and quite mad about the situation!
Then, I drove out to pick up Ramsay for the start of Boardgaming Day. I invited a bunch of people over to play some of my unplayed boardgames before I had to pack things up for the December/January move. I had a stack of 6 unplayed games, but I doubted very much that we�d get through them all.
The drive was quite eventful. There was no traffic on a bright sunny day (I seem to have lost my sunglasses, which didn�t help), but I did run out of gas on an expressway. Fortunately, I was familiar with the sensation of a car losing forward impetus, so I took the next exit and drove to the gas station across the street.
As I�ve mentioned before, the gas gauge is unreliable on this car, so I have to rely on the trip meter. When I first took the car, the gauge read �Empty� and the trip meter read 136 miles. I filled the car until the pump handle closed and a little bit of gas leaked over the side, for a total of 14 litres. I thought that was a little low, but I assumed that the �Empty� reading on the gauge actually meant �Halfway�.
When I filled up the car, the gauge read �Empty�, the trip meter read 63 miles�and it took 30 litres to fill the tank.
So, either I didn�t fill the tank right full that first time, or this car gets really terrible mileage in the city!
Either way, I�m filling up the car every 60 miles until another pattern establishes itself.
That bit of excitement out of the way, I went to Ramsay�s, held the ever-growing Vincent, spoke with Mirela, and then we were on our way. We stopped by the grocery store for provisions, and then returned home for a quick bite of lunch, and a couple of rounds of 7th Sea while we waited for the others.
While I was gone, Dina had managed to settle Ben for a while, and then started baking cookies. Oatmeal-chocolate chip cookies�yum!
So, after we split the 7th Sea games between my Montaigne Armada and his Vesten Weather deck. It was messy.
By that time, Sylvain had arrived, and we played Monkeys on the Moon. This was a lot of fun, and it�s definitely a game I�ll play more often, and with more players. And, I�ll avoid the dreaded Monkey Scorn!
The only bobble with the game is that a lot of the mechanics are colour-coded: red cards, red tribes, red ships, red tokens. All the cards have �Red� printed on them, but not the tokens. This was a problem for Sylvain, because he�s colour-blind. But we managed to keep things in separate piles and the whole experience worked out very well.
After the Monkeys, we turned, inevitably, to Zombies. Michel had joined us, so we played a four-player game of Zombies! The goal is to survive a Zombie movie and reach the heli-pad. The gameboard is random, combat with the shambling hordes is frequent and deadly, but if you die, you�re replaced by your long-lost brother.
Combat is resolved by die rolls. By the end of the game, I was on my 3rd brother.
After Ramsay introduced the Zombies to an Alternate Food Source, and Sylvain found a car with the Keys Still in It, the game was over.
Then, we ordered food, and Sylvain bade us adieu. Not to worry, he was replaced by Francois, and we sat down for a multi-player game of Roborally.
Bad things happen in Roborally. This time, I drew the perfect hand, but played a Turn Left instead of a Turn Right as my first card. Why? Because I forgot which way my robot was facing.
D�oh!
After I played out the hand, Francois asked me �Is this a blog-worthy moment? Will your narrative be eloquent?�
I said it would be terse and vulgar. And I burst out laughing.
Ben was sitting on my lap at the time, and every time he�d fuss from the fever, everyone would say that he was complaining about my choice of cards.
Michel won the game, and then we tidied up.
Sunday was supposed to be a sleepy day for everyone, but Ben�s fever still ran, and he had started coughing (he�s so cute when he coughs! He sounds just like a little boy, and not a four-month old baby.), so we phoned Info-Sante again. They said he might be getting a cold to go along with his inoculation side-effects.
Oh, goody, I said. Ben will be pleased.
And he really wasn�t.
Between doses of Tempera and Ben-cuddling, we tried to get some housework done. While Ben was down for a nap, I decided to do a Clean Sweep on my CD collection: I sorted all our CDs, put all of Dina�s in her lighthouse CD rack that her dad made for her, and then I set about pulling out CDs that I either didn�t listen to or couldn�t understand why I owned (these were bought back in the days when book/CD/movie clubs were the eBay-esque bane of my cash flow). The �One-Hit Wonder� pile reached 75 CDs!
Now I have much more storage than before.
The only kink is that I don�t know what do to with these CDs. I�m too lazy to post them on eBay or haul them down to the local second-hand shop for pennies on the dollar. Maybe I�ll donate them to Sally Ann or some other local charity.
This is the start of my pre-moving plan. I�ve already vetted my card games, and I�ve vetted my music. Next, videotapes, clothes, magazines and�gasp�perhaps even books and comics!
The Roads Must Roll
Yup, the transit system is up and running again. The morning commute was so pleasant that I’m not at all bothered by all the stuff I left on my desk at home.
Bring on the day!
Now I Know Why I Take The Bus
On the fifth day of the transit strike, I’ve learned a few things:
One - Four days of parking the car in Old Montreal (meters or lots) costs 80% of a bus pass.
Two - I’m only saving 15 minutes of transit on a good day.
Three – Everybody drives to work on Fridays.
Four - Parking lot attendants are easily affronted if it takes you more than one maneuver to back your car into a space.
Otherwise, this week’s driving experience has been good and necessary practise.
But once the transit system starts rolling again, I’m leaving the car in front of the apartment.
Our Happy Mr + Miss Family
I always loved the Mr. Men series of children’s books by Roger Hargreaves. Appropriately, my parents gave me Mr. Chatterbox to read. The only lesson I learned was never to wear hats.
[Thanks to Scott for the reference. Because he only sends me important work-related material.]