Archive for Personal

Not dead.

By | Published January 5, 2012

I am still alive. I survived the holidays mostly.

Lots of news coming. A lot of changes in 2012. Possible projects, new jobs, new locations… 2012 is going to be a huge year.

I’m not really ready to talk about a lot of it, but here are a couple things I am ready to share:

My writing – I really spread myself too thin in this respect. I am going to try to refocus my efforts and really make the best use of my time going forward. It’s hard to do things right when you’re trying to do too much.

Kneel Before Pod – There will be more of it. We’re going to work to make sure that there’s a new episode every two weeks. I’m also going to do my best to have actual content on the site again. Maybe not daily or anything, but maybe some videos, review and show notes. That’s right, I’m going to be professional and actually post a companion for every episode that will have links, pictures, etc. I also have some interesting ideas to make Kneel Before Pod more multi-media and also get the fans involved a little more again. We’ll see if I can get it to work though.

This Site and the Internet in general – I’m hoping to get back to sharing and communicating with all of you on Twitter, Google+ and elsewhere. I just haven’t had much to say lately and haven’t spent much time in front of a computer with twitter open. Not to mention I had my cellphone turned off during the Holidays to save money. I was super busy and that phone just sucks up my time with email and twitter.

Lastly, here’s a little personal update. Late this year I tried to weigh myself only to find that I exceeded the weight limit on my scale. It was a horrible feeling. I had to make a change. So to start things out I have gone on a Ketogenic Diet to help jump start a new, healthier period in my life. I am already down almost 35 pounds since I started in November and feeling great. I am now around the same weight I was around my second year in college. I’m sure I will be posting more about this in the future.

Anyways, here’s to a wonderful 2012!

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Is the Honeymoon Over?

By | Published October 29, 2011

In general, many people have a problem with other people in positions of authority. Very few people like to be told what to do. It’s just human nature. With that in mind, the relationship between police officers and your regular joe on the street has been tense at times. Over the years various groups of people have rioted for various reasons, some reasons better than others. Pigs, Fuzz, The Man: As long as there have been polices officers, there have been people that disliked them. Though I think that following the events of 9/11, the police in general have been riding on a wave of goodwill from the American population.

Some of you might not remember this, but before 9/11, things that involved the police were ticking time bombs. In 1992 LA burned for six days when the officers that beat Rodney King were acquitted. That same year the movie Reservoir Dogs was released. The movie contained a quick exchange between Mr. Pink and Mr. White that would be the center of many conversations with my friend Donny back in College.


Did You Kill Anybody?

Mr. Pink: Did you kill anybody?
Mr. White: A few cops.
Mr. Pink: No real people?
Mr. White: Just cops.

Could you imagine dialog like that in a movie a few years ago? There would have been hell to pay. Even now, I think there would be plenty of people offended and voicing their displeasure over it. But every day I think it’s getting to the point that it would slide past and only be a story on Fox News.

Every day on my twitter, on Reddit, or just talking to people in my store I am hearing more and more unrest. More people saying “Fuck the Police” and other such now cliche anti-authority slogans. It now seems like a near daily occurrence that someone is getting beaten, shot or sprayed while protesting in their city. Each time I see a video from the Occupy movement, the demonstrators are seemingly more and more hostile towards the police. How many more times till it’s the last time? Will the ineptitude of politicians and the ill=deeds of a couple terrible cops going to lead to riots in major cities across the country?

I hope not. I hope that we can move ahead as a nation and try to make the country a great place to live for as many citizens as we can. But hoping isn’t enough, and I fear that we’re quickly approaching that moment where a couple people are going that last dumb decision and throw us all into social unrest.

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Collecting Yourself into the Ground

By | Published September 21, 2011

So pissed off from my trip to the mall. There’s a place there called “The Bargain Box” there. The owner just opened a stand alone comic shop. It’s terrible. There are more crappy dvds than comics in the shop.

Anyways I’m getting off topic.

I go to “Comix & Collectibles” in hopes of finding an Action Comics #1. I already got it via ComiXology, but I wanted to have a physical copy to lend to a friend. I get in there and I can’t find *ANY* of the DC New 52 relaunch. I look through all the new releases and they’re just not there. I briefly thought “Wow, they sold out of everything! Even Hawk & Dove!?!?!”

Boy was I wrong. I eventually make my way to the back counter of the shop and see they have a bunch of high priced “collectible” comics behind the counter. Then I saw them… The New 52 comics. These idiots had them locked behind the counter. The clerk, who wasn’t even in the shop at the time, runs in and asks me if I was looking for anything. I tell him Action #1, he looks at me like an idiot. I explain it’s one of the newly relaunched titles from DC. He still looks at me with his idiotic blank stare.

“We have new releases in the front & more valuable ones behind the counter.”

This gets me thinking. More valuable comics? None of the DC relaunch titles had been out for more than a week. They’re back behind the counter? I looked over the selection and noticed that they had Detective Comics #1 price marked $12. It had only been out for two weeks. That clearly has to be a mistake.

“Does that Detective Comics say $12?”

The clerk fumbles around, almost turning in circles looking over the small collection of “valuable” comics.

“The one in the middle… the one with Batman on the cover… and the Joker… YES! That one.”

“Yeah, that’s $12.”

“Tell your boss he’s a scam artist.”

And I walked out.

$12 for a comic that hasn’t been out two weeks? A comic that sold incredibly well and will likely never be a collectible since so many copies were sold. There is no collector’s value when every one also owns a comic. If you want a perfect example of this, pick up any of the 5 million Reign of Supermen “special” editions that had the cut out covers. Each one introduced one of the new Supermen and the whole collection of them can be bought for a $1 in most shops. Most of these New 52 comics will be in the same boat in a year or two. Just because something is hard to find doesn’t mean it’s rare. In the case of these titles, the difficulty in finding the titles was a direct result of short-sighted shop owners simply not ordering enough copies.

I think the worst part of this is that one of the largest objectives with this relaunch was to attract new readers. These new #1s were meant to be a safe jumping off point for neophytes so they could enjoy the wonders of comics without the stress and work of extensive historical research into a character. So that being said… what new reader in their right mind would walk into a comic shop, see one of these new comics (which they have never purchased before mind you) and shell out $12 just to read a comic book.

It boggles the mind. Boggles the mind…

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TF New, Comic Books, KBP and Computers!

By | Published September 15, 2011

Tesla Force Submission Packet

First things first, I have officially sent my submission packet for the story entitled Tesla Force to Dark Horse Comics. So if you have seen me mention “Project TF” or just “TF,” that’s what I have been talking about. I don’t want to give out too many details, but it’s kind of a steam punkish/alternate history sort of story. The more I get it out there, the more comfortable I will be when it comes to revealing things about the story. I think it’s a funny story and I think it has a chance of getting some attention. Maybe not from Dark Horse or over the next few months, but by someone at some time.

The new week of DC Comic’s New 52 has hit my computer and I have to say, I was underwhelmed at first. Then magically, I was super impressed. I picked up some comics that weren’t originally on my pull list and I have to say they might be my favorites from this week. I will be doing at least two or three reviews for Guerrilla Geek (Click here for our New 52 reviews. This link will take you to the tag and get you the most up to date reviews!) Once I get a few of the full reviews out of the way, I will give a rundown of all the titles I picked up this week and my verdict. I am really excited to talk about them with Ryan on Kneel Before Pod.

Speaking of Kneel Before Pod, we made plans to record tomorrow. I’m an idiot and I think I might have to cancel those plans. For more info, including what we’re planning for the first two episodes, head over to Kneel Before Pod.

The biggest reason why we might not be recording tomorrow is we’re getting our new computer. Pardon me while I nerd out a moment, but here are the specs:

AMD Phenom™II X6 1100T Six-Core CPU (3.3 GHz)
GigaByte GA-970A-D3 AMD 970 Socket AM3+ ATX Mainboard
8GB (4GBx2) RAM
1TB SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 16MB Cache 7200RPM HDD
AMD Radeon HD 6850 1GB GDDR5 16X PCIe Video Card
Asetek 510LC Liquid Cooling System 120MM Radiator & Fan

I was toying with the idea of getting a better video card, but we don’t run multiple monitors. I am also likely going to upgrade the ram as soon as I get it with some memory I have lying about and get it up to 16GB. It’s not the tippy top end of gaming systems, but for under $800 I should be able to play any game that comes out in the next few years at max video settings. Also, it glows blue. Expect some pictures of it once I get it all setup.

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Too Many Plates in the Fire. Also *BONUS MUSIC TIME!*

By | Published September 13, 2011

Or is it too many irons on my plate? Meh…

Regardless, I have just too much going on for as lazy as I am. I have a couple music albums that need reviewed, multiple articles that need edited for Guerrilla Geek, a submission packet to finalize for a comic I’m sending to Dark Horse, organizing the return of Kneel Before Pod and I’m still trying to write content for Guerrilla Geek. All this while I work part-time in retail. It’s a lot of stuff that needs to be done and I am just too lazy to get shit out the door.

Something really needs to change if I want to get things rolling around here. The good news is that I think my submission packet is all but done now. I just need to read over everything one last time to make sure I didn’t make any really stupid mistakes, put it in an envelope, mail it and pray. I’ve let a few people read over the script and it’s getting great feedback. I just hope it’s enough to get noticed.

Sorry internet, just venting frustrations over my own shortcomings. I mean, I can’t be mad at everyone else all the time. Sometimes I have to save some of that anger for myself ^_-

As promised, here is some music time!

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10 Years

By | Published September 11, 2011

I usually don’t talk about 9/11. Why? Because I don’t really feel I have a right to. It’s didn’t impact my daily life at all. Don’t get me wrong, it was a terrible tragedy and no one can honestly say otherwise, but for me it wasn’t a personal tragedy. I didn’t lose any family members, I didn’t run from a wall of debris, I wasn’t a firefighter that now has to fight politics just so the government will help pay for the long term damage that was physically done to me because I was one of the people that tried to make a difference that day. I was just a 19 year old kid that had no connection to a city suffering what will surely be looked back upon as one of the greatest tragedies of the 21st Century.

I know I’m not alone. I’m sure that everyone that was old enough to remember the events of 9/11/2001 will remember where they were when they heard or saw what happened, but for a majority of us it was not a personally tragedy. Lets not act like our lives will never be the same. There is little difference in my life now as a result of that day and to pretend there is cheapens the suffering of the true victims in my eyes.

So on this day of solemn reflection, or off-colored jokes (hey, that’s just how some people cope), lets not paint ourselves into imaginary victims. Instead, lets remember those poor people that died. Or better yet, let’s keep those who survived in out thoughts. Those who lost people. The first responders that ruined their lives in an attempt to save the lives of others. The poor people that have to walk past that hole in a ground every day for the past ten years. The people across the country that had to sit in anxious silence and wait to find out the fate of their friends and family in NYC. Those people are the victims, not me.

My heart goes out to all the true victims. You know who you are and I hope you’ve found some amount of peace in the past ten years.

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Their Demise is Greatly Exaggerated…

By | Published September 10, 2011

For the past few months, I have seen a lot of doomsayers claiming that Nintendo will have to close or at least stop production on hardware. I’m not sure where all this negativity is coming from, but I personally find it hilarious. Firstly, Nintendo has completely dominated the handheld market since the Gameboy released in 1989. They have went up against Sega, Sony, Atari and many other companies; all of which have failed to take the market from Nintendo. Secondly, the 3DS isn’t even a failure yet. Right now Nintendo is only competing with themselves in the handheld market. People are still buying the DS and are slow to adopt the 3DS. Maybe when the PS Vita comes out later this year Nintendo will have some competition, but as it stands right now it’s a two horse race and both horses are owned by the same person.

Something else that is really blowing my mind is that some people are stating that the Wii was a failure. From an economic stand point, the Wii might be the most successful system of all time. From day one Nintendo has been selling the Wii for a profit. While Microsoft and Sony took a loss for every system they sold at launch, Nintendo was putting money back into their pocket. Now combine that with the fact that the system sold so well, that has to be a huge sum of money. Sure the Wii might not be a critical darling, but it made Nintendo plenty of money.

Lets compare this recent history with what happened with Sega back when they were in the hardware game. The last truly successful system Sega had was the Genesis. After the Genesis, Sega released the Game Gear, the Sega CD, the 32x, the Saturn and then lastly the Dreamcast. That’s ten years, two standalone systems, one handheld (two if you count the Nomad) and two systems add-ons without having a truly successful system launch. That is a level of failure that Nintendo has yet to achieve.

Just remember that these people that are trying to talk you into thinking Nintendo is dying are the same people that have said PC gaming is dying for a decade or two. Nintendo has a couple free passes left before they’re going anywhere.

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Week 2 of DC Comic’s New 52 & Thoughts on ComiXology

By | Published September 8, 2011

I’ve made it no secret that I have been excited about DC Comics’ relaunch with its New 52 titles. I grew up a Marvel kid, left comics for a bit and then returned to comics just as DC was doing another event, oddly enough titled 52. Seems like 52 is a good number for me and DC, so lets take a look at the comics that I picked up this week and some other fun things.

Action Comics #1 – I did a full review of it on Guerrilla Geek, but in case you don’t feel like reading the whole review here are a few thoughts on it. It’s amazing. It’s one of my favorite comics to come out of this relaunch, and honestly, one of my favorite comics to come out in awhile. Grant Morrison does an amazing job setting up a story about a young Superman coming to Metropolis and making a name for himself. The art is great too. I plan on getting this book monthly.

Animal Man – I haven’t read much of the Grant Morrison run of Animal Man from back in the day, but I enjoyed Buddy in what little I’ve seen of him in that run and in 52. I didn’t know quite what to expect from this new volume of Animal Man, but I was interested in exploring it. Overall, another great read. It’s a bit meta-physical spooky stuff and a little bit family drama. It’s got a lot of heart. In about 24 pages it actually had me connecting to multiple characters that I had little or no exposure to. I plan on getting this book monthly as well.

Batgirl – A lot of fuss over this title. First it was the whole Barbara being able to use her legs, then apparently physical comic shops we reacting to a shortage of the title for charging $10 or more for non-variant copies of this #1. I think all the trouble around the book will boost sales, but it will be on Gail and Adrian to keep the readers. So far, it’s an interesting story. The first issue had action and mystery, all while addressing the elephant in the room (why is Barbara walking!?!?1?!?one!???!!omg!) This story has the potential to get away from everyone really quickly, but I am going to give Gail the benefit of the doubt. I enjoyed her work on Birds of Prey and especially Villains Unite/Secret Six, so I think she can pull this one off as well. I will be picking this up at least through the current story arc, monthly if I enjoy it.

Batwing – Batwing was completely off my radar. I wrote it off as “just another Bat book.” Don’t get me wrong, I love Batman, but he gets a little repetitive and all the spin-off Bat books get kind of samey. Then I saw a tweet by Fresh Ink’s Blair Butler (You should really follow her folks. In a world of comic book talking heads and professional know-nothings, she really knows her shit.) that Batwing was beautiful and disturbing. Those are two things I like in comics and boy was she right. It’s almost like a Batman story from the Vertigo imprint. It’s dark, it’s gritty and it’s taking risks. Also it’s fun to see a Batman inspired title taking place outside of Gotham, let alone the United States. It was a pleasant surprise and it will be a monthly title for me.

Detective Comics – Not sure how to feel about this one. It fell squarely into that “Batman can be kind of samey” trap until the last page of the book. It was a complete shocker and I would be lying if I said I wasn’t curious about what is going on. I really hope that the twist isn’t a let down, especially since Batman seemed kind of… dense? Not sure. He just didn’t seem that clever for some reason. Anyways, this one is on the bubble. If the story can pay off the setup from the last page, I will keep reading. Otherwise I might start passing on this title.

Green Arrow – Kind of let down by this title. It wasn’t bad, but it really came across as business as usual. Maybe it will pick up next issue, but as it stands Green Arrow is on the bubble for me.

Justice League International – I have been vocally opinionated about Dan Jurgens in the past. I am perpetually on the fence about “Death of Superman” and the impact it had on DC Comics in the ’90s. However… his Booster Gold stuff really has started to grow on me lately. JLI seems to have a distinct ’90s DC Comics feel to it and I’m still not sure if that’s a good or bad thing yet. Time will tell. It has my attention for now, but it could easily fall out of favor with me. On the bubble.

Men of War – Not usually a war comic guy. I usually prefer my comics to be a little more heady and escapist. Men of War is promising soldiers versus Super Villains at some point, but that concept is almost completely absent from the first issue. I do like the connection to the old Sgt. Rock comics though. I will give this one a couple more issues to brew and see where it’s heading. On the bubble.

Stormwatch – As much as Animal Man is a Vertigo title being published as a DC title, Stormwatch is a Wildstorm book. It has a strong feeling of Planetary and The Authority. I hope it can live up to such a pedigree. The first issue is interesting enough, but we’ll see where it goes. On the bubble.

Swamp Thing – I enjoyed this book despite the fact that it felt like I was missing out on a lot of backstory. I’m not sure if it’s from previous Swamp Thing titles or maybe Brightest Day, but I feel like I’ve missed the setup. It had one seriously creepy scene which I couldn’t help but feel screamed Hellblazer. I think this title has a lot of potential so I will be at least reading the first arc. After that, who knows. On the Bubble.

Some interesting things to note:

ComiXcology guided mode

I got all these comics via Comixology. This has led to a couple interesting developments. Firstly, my impulse buying of titles is through the roof. I ended up buying an initial bunch of five comics. When it was all said and done, I ended up getting ten comics this week. Between twitter recommendations and just general curiosity, I bought twice as many comics as I meant to. Being available digitally made it way too easy to pick up additional comics…

The other interesting thing happened while I was reading the comics. One of the problems with physical comics is that when you turn the page, the whole page is there for you to see. When you use Comixology’s guided mode, it will only show you a portion of the page as it goes through panel by panel. This means if there’s a shocking moment just around the corner, you can’t see it until it actually happens. There were two comics, Batwing and Detective Comics that completely caught me off guard with a shocking moment. The best part is I never saw it coming because I couldn’t sneak a peak at the next page.

So far I am really impressed with the quality of DC’s New 52 and love reading comics digitally. I think the only way I could like it more is if I had a tablet.

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