On Responsibility

You know, I'm not perfect. I make mistakes. And while it's never a pleasant experience, if I've made a mistake, I try to own up to them.

So I'm somewhat puzzled by the last couple of days, where three of my business partners have experienced the same mysterious "You got screwed... but it's nobody's fault" problem. Apparently, there are all kinds of problems out there being caused by mysterious gremlins. Thus, there's no need to apologize for them or in any way make restitution. This is a miracle! Perhaps I need to apply this in my own life more. If I get in a car accident, I won't give my insurance information, I'll just speed away with a friendly wave. "Wasn't my fault, the gremlins did it!"

The minor one is that my payroll company's automated entry system (which has always been a touch squirrelly) didn't work over the weekend, and since they don't have 24-hour customer support, I had to wait until Monday morning to call in payroll. Since I don't think this delayed my payroll, this is a relatively minor issue... it was just the start of the problems that would plague this week.

Diamond Comics (you know, the guys with the monopoly on delivering all comics to everyone in North America?) has what some might call a minor problem with their shipping. That is, on occasion (and by on occasion, I mean every single week), they mis-ship something. Some books don't arrive, some extras do arrive, some are damaged. Most weeks, it's minor. Some weeks, you get something like what happened to me this week, where my entire order of Countdown to Final Crisis #7 was instead Batman Strikes. Which I don't sell a single copy of. In these cases, you can call your rep, as long as you get to them early enough, like before 11 AM, and they are supposed to get a direct ship order sent out so that you have your replacement copies in on Friday. Is that the same as having it on Wednesday? No. But it's a damn sight better than not having them at all.

So I call my rep, who tells me he'll get it taken care of. He's told me this three previous times with this kind of thing, with an issue of Green Arrow: Year One and a couple others that I can't remember. What I do remember is that in only one case did we actually get the books on Friday. On the others, it was Monday or later. So I am skeptical. But there's not much I can do but put my faith in him.

Whoops. Come Friday, no Countdown. I call, I am told "I put the order in, I don't know what happened." No offer to look into it, no "Sorry we screwed up not once but twice," just "Hey, wasn't my fault." Just me saying "So it should be here on Monday?" to which I am told "Yes, it should be." This does not fill me with confidence.

Monday arrives... see where this is going yet? No Countdown. I call again, and ask for a tracking number and an ETA. To his credit, it only takes 45 minutes for me to get a call back with a tracking number, and I am told it will arrive on Tuesday. As of now, I'm still waiting. I also tell him that I would like an explanation for what happened. Because I know this kind of thing will happen again.

Also on Monday, I discover that my other distributor, Baker & Taylor, has mysteriously canceled my large book order for the week. I discover this because I had happened to email my rep on a different matter, and she noticed it. No warning was sent out, if I hadn't lucked into it, I wouldn't have found out until after Friday, when I was wondering where on Earth my Baker & Taylor order was.

So I call in to Customer Service. They're baffled. It was canceled by financial services, they don't have any further information. I call financial services, leave messages on three different voice mails, but since they are on Mountain Time and it was late afternoon when I discovered this, they've gone home for the day.

The next day, they call work (and I'm at home) and I've left instructions to give them my cellphone number. They don't call my cellphone number. I call in to work, get the number for financial services, call them. I am told that they didn't cancel it, and I need to speak with customer service. This is not what you'd call a satisfactory answer, so I explain that customer service told me the exact same thing about financial services. I even tell them that I called my credit card company the day before, and they showed no charge from Baker & Taylor, no attempted charge and certainly nothing that would cause the card to decline. Nobody can figure out why the order was canceled. It's those damned gremlins again! So the gremlins are to blame for me not having books that I needed on Wednesday until Friday at the earliest.

No apologies are offered, and my inquiries about getting expedited shipping in exchange for the screw-up are ignored. As far as they're concerned, there's no need to make up for anything... they didn't do anything wrong! It was just those damned gremlins.

This is comics retail, folks. People on the Internet telling you that your job is obsolete and worthless, your business partners screwing up and not taking any blame, a constant battle with various little fires that need putting out.

And honestly, despite all the problems, I'd still rather be doing this than 99% of the other jobs out there.

But I would love to strangle those gremlins.

Tim Dickinson's Rolling Stone cover story on Obama

Tim Dickinson is easily my favorite political reporter writing right now. Yes, he's fully biased in favor of Obama, but more importantly, he's a sharp and entertaining writer. Check out his story on the Obama campaign at the Rolling Stone site.

Weekly Comics to Come - March 12, 2008

TOP FIVE
Abe Sapien The Drowning #2 (Beautiful art by Alexander, great story by Mignola)
Annihilation Conquest #5 (Awesome cover, plus more excellent space adventure)
DMZ #29 (Starts the new election story, the best issue in a while)
DMZ Vol 4 Friendly Fire TP (Collecting my favorite story arc of the series thus far)
Serenity Better Days #1 (Heists, banter and chases... yes!)

THE REST
Amazing Spider-Man #553 (Decent, but definitely the weakest of the Spidey teams thus far)
Atomic Robo #6 (A fun, action-packed, brain-punching finale to a fun series. Can't wait for more)
Booster Gold #7 (Kind of enjoying the out-of-time Booster/Beetle stuff... pretty sure it's going to end with a downer of Beetle being dead again, but if it doesn't, I'll be happy)
BPRD 1946 #3 (The early days of the BPRD, and I love the Russian demon/girl that has a pivotal role in this book)
Empowered Vol 3 TP (More of Adam Warren's borderline pervy, delightfully funny superhero parody)
Foundation #3 (Further development of the great conspiracy premise)
Marvel Adventures Hulk #9 (Leonard Samson vs. Hulk, courtesy of Paul Benjamin and co.)
Nova #11 (Dull cover by Maleev, but an interesting story of Nova meeting up with a favorite older character of mine)
Suicide Squad Raise The Flag #7 (Great action sequence, and although the Rustam/Flag stuff was probably better left buried, everything else is vintage Squad... I'll be picking up the trade)
Thunderbolts #119 (Solid, although I'm kind of glad Ellis is only here for a limited time, because I think I am too)
Walking Dead #47 (Jesus this book is getting dark... but it's got great action and great characters, and I'm fully involved again)
Wonder Woman #18 (WW versus the Khunds!)
Wormwood Vol 2 TP (Looking forward to the second trade of this twisted series by Ben Templesmith)
X-Factor #29 (Solid follow-up to the first Divided We Stand issue)

Blog Update for February 2008

This is the latest monthly update to the left column of the blog, updating my favorite comics and TV for the previous month. The listings are alphabetical, not by rank of how much I liked them in comparison. My criteria for what makes the list is when I read them, not necessarily when they were published. This is basically also my own records of what I read/liked for the inevitable "End of Year" lists I feel like making.

In terms of comics this month, my reading was much the same as it has been. Enough good single issues that everything didn't make the cut (including the final issue of American Virgin, the latest issue of Northlanders and a few others that were *almost* in there), and few enough graphic novels that two on my list were actually bought months ago but only read this month, and the two that nearly made my list were also older ones that have been sitting on my bookshelf, Scrap Mettle (Scott Morse's art book from Image) and Scorpion: Poison Tomorrow (from Marvel). My daughter loves the new Bakers, btw. She found it on my stack of comics, brought it out of my office and now I've read it to her at least twice and her grandfather (my dad) has read it to her at least once. Breaking down the comics, it was 5 Dark Horse (BPRD 1946 again, plus Abe Sapien, Grendel, Buffy and the final Umbrella Academy), 10 Marvel (a mixture of continuity and non-continuity, written by Brubaker, Fraction, Pak, Van Lente, Parker, Peter David and Abnett & Lanning), 3 DC (1 Vertigo, 1 out-of-continuity Teen Titans Year One and one in-continuity Nightwing that is untouched by the Countdown goings-on) and 2 indies (Jeff Smith's RASL, potential best new book of the year, and another solid issue of Mouse Guard from Archaia).

Not much time for TV this month. Finished out Friday Night Lights and wound up mostly underwhelmed... at this point, I hope it doesn't come back unless they can recapture that first season magic (which I'm not sure they can do, given all the extra baggage in every character's backstory now) and I certainly won't buy season two on DVD. Torchwood also got really dull and dumb, and Netflix sent me the third disc since I forgot to reorder my queue, but unless it winds up being tons better, I doubt I'll rent any more. Lost, however, continues to be spectacularly good, and The Sarah Connor Chronicles has grown on me. Although it's sci-fi on Fox, which means that no matter how great the ratings have been up to this point, it's probably doomed. I also watched the Justice League New Frontier animated movie... it's good, but mostly serves as a great trailer for the graphic novel, which has all the good moments of the movie plus tons of stuff that was cut out with the Losers, the Challengers of the Unknown, etc. Rent the DVD... buy the Absolute Edition of the graphic novel.

Only a couple new RSS feeds added this month. Added Starslip Crisis (after going back to read all the archives prior to moderating the webcomics panel at STAPLE!... more about STAPLE! when I get a little more free time to blog this week) and Yelp!'s Austin reviews, which are proving to be excellent in terms of pointing me to new restaurants I want to try but can't find the time, energy or money to get to.

Weekly Comics to Come - March 5, 2008

TOP FIVE
Buffy The Vampire Slayer #12 (New story arc begins... Oz rumored to guest star)
Dynamo 5 #11 (Another issue of one of my favorite superhero books)
Justice League The New Frontier Special (After watching the movie recently, I'm primed for a return to Darwyn Cooke's period piece Justice League)
Naoki Urasawas Monster Vol 13 (Suspense manga continues to have me in its thrall)
Northlanders #4 (Gets better with each issue, and I have a little info on what's going to happen from Brian Wood, and I'm excited to see it)

THE REST
Cable #1 (Surprisingly good, art isn't perfectly matched to the script but it's a fun read)
Dead Space #1 (The Thing in space by Ben Templesmith and Antony Johnston? Sold!)
Highwaymen TP (One of my favorite action movies on paper ever)
Invincible Presents Atom Eve #2 (First issue was great, looking forward to seeing the conclusion)
Logan #1 (Vaughan and Risso means I will read, even if my Wolverine love is weak these days)
Nightwing #142 (Digging the Tomasi/Morales run so far)
North Wind #3 (More post-apocalyptic wintery stuff)
Terry Moores Echo #1 (Love Moore's art, can't wait to see him tackle something new)
Resurrection #3 (Guggenheim has impressed so far on Spidey, and his first two issues of this were very good as well)
Teen Titans Year One #3 (Beautiful art, and the story continues to draw me in)

Not A *Great* Day

Looks like Hilary won Ohio, and won the primaries in Texas too. So once again, my freakin' vote counts for nothing. On the other hand, my vote in the caucus might, because Obama is ahead in the caucus counting, but with only 5% reporting, that could go either way.

Still, he's ahead in the delegate count, and barring a *huge* shift in momentum that allows Clinton to start blowing out the remaining races, mathematically Obama is still going to win the nomination. But my deeply-held hope that: A) Texas would actually go for the candidate I voted for, for once and B) More importantly, losses in Texas and Ohio would force Clinton to concede so the Democratic party could get on to the important task of running against the Republicans have not come to pass. This race is going to come right down to the wire. I still believe Obama will be the candidate, I still believe he'll beat McCain, but I'm honestly tired of the fight.

But for the Hilary supporters amongst my readers (Hello Manton and wartortle), this was a good day. Congratulations to your candidate. I'm still hoping I don't have to vote for her in November, but she had a good day today.

Of course, the other downer today is that Gary Gygax, father of D&D, died today. D&D has changed a lot since he helped create it, and my enjoyment of the game today owes as much to guys like Bill Slavicek, Mike Mearls, David Noonan, Robin Laws and others as it does to anything Gygax has written for years. But without Gygax, the whole role-playing game thing, which has been a huge part of my life since I was 12 years old, probably never would have happened.

There have been a ton of tributes today, and I can't top any of them. So instead I'll link to my favorites, from Alex Robinson, Penny Arcade and my friend in gaming Nate Southard.

Was The Crazytown Park Not Available?

I know you don't get to choose your venue by name, but it is unfortunate that Obama had to hold a rally in Ohio at the Nutter Center.

Seriously, it sounds like a euphemism for "Mental Hospital."

Weekly Comics to Come - February 27, 2008

TOP FIVE
Fables #70 (Kicking off a story of Cinderella, Fable superspy)
Mouse Guard Winter 1152 #3 (Long wait between issues, but totally worth it so far)
Proof #5 (Kickass cryptozoology comic continues to impress, one of Image's best series)
RASL #1 (New Jeff Smith about a dimension-hopping art thief, and I'm super-excited about it)
X-men First Class Vol 2 #9 (Black Widow, Jean Grey and Scarlet Witch team up in one of the best issues of the series so far)

THE REST
Angel After The Fall #4 (More twists and turns, can't wait to see where they're going after last issue's cliffhanger)
Captain America #35 (Still not entirely feeling the somewhat mundane Red Skull plot, but I am enjoying seeing Bucky struggle with Cap's legacy)
Criminal 2 #1 (Brubaker where he belongs, writing dark-as-hell crime noir)
Gravel #1 (Zero issue of this Hellblazer-by-way-of-special ops was pretty good)
House Of M Avengers #5 (A solid ending, disappointing only because the rest has been so spectacularly good for me)
Justice League New Frontier DVD (Very well animated, great voice cast, but it does miss a lot of the charm of the graphic novel.)
Many Adventures Of Miranda Mercury #295 (New sci-fi adventure series from Archaia and writer Brandon Thomas, who I've long been a fan of)
Marvel Adventures Iron Man #10 (Iron Man vs. Spider-Woman. Nice.)
Marvel Zombies 2 #5 (Solid conclusion, but I can't believe they think there's more mileage in this concept)
Nearly Infamous Zango #1 (Slacker supervillainy by Austin local Rob Osborne)
Previews Vol XVIII #3 (Down the Line coming next week, unless STAPLE! and store inventory derail my productivity, which is entirely likely)
Thunderbolts International Incident (I'm a Gage fan, but it's becoming clear that without Ellis, the new version of Thunderbolts is a bit of a dud)
World War Hulk Aftersmash Damage Control #2 (Fun, and with a great last page reveal)
Wormwood Calamari Rising #2 (More strangeness and alien god invasions by Templesmith)
X-men Legacy #208 (New direction for this book, I'm intrigued to see exactly what the Xavier mind-trip thing is)

Do Not Vote For This Man

So Ralph Nader is going to run.

My response is one that would be filled with expletives. I voted for Nader instead of Gore, to my eternal regret. I would never do it again. And while I at first rejected the notion that he was a spoiler, I believe now that his entry into the race may have been what gave us Bush as President. I believe that he shares some culpability.

Especially since he's long since abandoned any pretense of trying to accomplish anything. Nader's big selling point in 2000 was that he was going to get enough votes to get federal funding for a third party, and to a guy so commonly disgusted with both parties, that sounded like a worthy goal.

This year, though? There's no way he's going to get that many votes. He's certainly not going to be President. And his issues are tarnished in importance when, instead of dealing with serious candidates, he puts in a Presidential bid that can only be viewed as helping the Republicans by drawing away votes.

Nader is running for his ego, and nothing more. He's tarnishing whatever good works he's done with these pathetic displays, and certainly I've lost a lot of the respect I once had for the man.

If I Weren't Married Already...

I'd want to marry Grassroots Mom for this article. It's *awesome* and really shows Obama's policy chops, which are even stronger than I'd suspected from my admittedly smaller amount of research.

If your biggest worry about Obama is that he hasn't accomplished anything, go and read this article. Grassroots Mom did her research into both candidates, and she breaks it down, and her support for Obama came *after* that, not before.

More about Obama

If you had told me, during the last two elections, where I was disenchanted with the candidates of both parties, that during the '08 election I would spend five hours outside, most of them just standing around waiting, putting off eating dinner and spending time with my wife and kids just to see a candidate for the Democratic nominee speak?

I would have thought you were nuts. But that's exactly what I did tonight. The last-minute news of Obama speaking at a rally in Austin on Friday got me to cancel my regular D&D game, leave work a bit early (good to be the boss, although I had to come in early as a consequence to get some stuff done) and drive downtown in rush hour traffic. Whereupon I stood in a line for two hours before being let into a big open area to stand around for three hours before seeing Obama speak for about an hour.

Totally worth it, btw. His speeches are good on da Interwebs, but they're frikkin' amazing when you're surrounded by tens of thousands of like-minded supporters, and you're about twenty feet away from the man, so that you can see amidst the polished speech and practiced speech-makings the sincerity and spontaneity that set him apart.

I came home with a lack-of-food headache that is only now, two hours later, finally going away. And I lost about eight hours of time that I could have used to catch up on TV or reading, spend time with friends or family or even just kicked back and played some XBox. And spending a ton of time crammed in like sardines with people is generally a painful experience for me, especially when some of the crowd were kind of obnoxious frat-boy types, but...

Totally worth it. Wish I could have managed to get to the front to shake his hand, but it was too much of a zoo, and I was tired and hungry and needed to pee (TMI? Sorry.)

Btw, have I mentioned how much I love John Rogers's political writing? Here's another reason why.

I'm Interviewed!

Interview with me about retailing by Greg Pak, over at Broken Frontier.

This is awesome

A takeoff on will.i.am's great Obama "Yes We Can" video... but with McCain.

Obama in Austin tomorrow

I'm going down to the rally tomorrow. Doors open at 6, speech starts at 9, I'm planning on getting there around 4. I know full well that this means I still might not be early enough to get in, but I have to work, and I have to try to get in.

If anybody else is going, drop me a line so we can maybe meet up and chat while we wait to get in or wait for Obama to speak.

A Little De-Bunking

There have been plenty of folks who have called Obama an empty suit, a charismatic speaker with no policies. The answer to that can be found on his website, where he outlines the issues and his plans for some of them. If you want more, read his book, The Audacity of Hope, which is as good as his speeches, but because of its nature, offers a lot more policy and procedural specifics as well.

Then there's Dave Sim. Semi-famous for creating the 300-issue self-published opus Cerebus, more famous for fucking up that opus with increasingly paranoid rants about the feminist-homosexual axis. Here's a well-researched essay by Smith Michaels over at Blurred Productions explaining why Sim is full of it.

Thank You, Wisconsin!

Obama Wins Wisconsin.

Hibbs Brings The Statistics Hammer to the Fight

There are those on the Internet who, despite never having worked in a direct market shop and quite possibly having dropped off even shopping in them for quite some time, feel qualified to make assessments about the health of the direct market, how much better the bookstore and Internet bookseller market is and how the direct market is a dinosaur on its way out.

Brian Hibbs, a longtime retailer in San Francisco, brings out the Bookscan charts to put the lie to this particular fallacy. This is pretty intense number-crunching reading, but if you want to see just how well graphic novels do in bookstores versus the direct market, check out this article.

Here's a hint: The Direct Market sells more than the bookstores in just about every category. And the art comics that some like to claim are what more folks want to read don't sell any better in bookstores than they do in the Direct Market. And superhero continuity books seem to do pretty damn well in the bookstore market and the direct market.

And... well, just read the article. Suffice to say, some Internet pundits (I won't name any names or drop any initials) don't really know what the hell they're talking about.

Guardians of the Galaxy

The creative team of the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy series spills a few beans, including dropping a little glee bomb for Nova fans by revealing the home base of the new team.

I can't wait for this book. I'm anticipating it more than anything else Marvel or DC are doing for the whole first half of 2008. Go read the interview and see why, then make sure and pick it up when it comes out.

Weekly Comics to Come - February 20, 2008

TOP FIVE
The Atheist Vol 1 TP (More under-rated, imaginative spooky stuff from the mind of Phil Hester, with John McCrea on art)
Grendel Behold The Devil #4 (Loving the return of Wagner on Grendel)
Incredible Hercules #114 (Fantastic cliffhanger ending, great Black Widow/Hercules stuff, this book is great)
The Order #8 (Great, great issue... goddamnit, why did this book have to get cancelled?!)
Zorro #1 (Matt Wagner writes, Francavilla draws, Randy reads)

THE REST
Amazing Spider-Man #551 (I can't believe how much I'm digging Guggenheim's Spidey, but I'm really into it at the moment)
Batman And The Outsiders #4 (Just good solid DC universe action without the continuity porn)
Batman Confidential #13 (The Wrath, a.k.a. anti-Batman, returns with creator Mike W. Barr at the helm)
Brave And The Bold #10 (Slowly losing interest as the stories get more fractured and the cast gets bigger, but... when it's on, it's really on)
Fear Agent Last Goodbye TP (The latest and best of the Fear Agent stories)
Hack Slash Series #9 (Lesbian blood-drinking college cultists and the sexy slasher slayers who kill them... next on Oprah)
Immortal Iron Fist Orson Randall Green Mist Death (Great little pulp-style one-shot, just like the annual)
Invincible #48 (I honestly don't remember what all is going on in this book, but I know I've been digging it)
The Order Vol 1 Next Right Thing (Honestly, with the cancellation, I decided not to pick up the trade... might change my mind if it ends strong or leads strongly into Fraction's Iron Man)
Superman Confidential #12 (Clay Moore and Phil Hester on the origin of Jimmy's signal watch, plus Superman vs. Mexican wrestlers)
Transformers Spotlight Vol 2 TP (Weirdly psyched to read these, the last one was a lot of fun)
Umbrella Academy Apocalypse Suite #6 (Can it all make sense, or will it just be a beautiful mess?)
World War Hulk Aftersmash Warbound #3 (Losing track of the characters a bit, but great art and some interesting moments)
Youngblood #2 (First issue was... OK. Really needed great. But I'll give it another chance to impress.)

Tribute to Stephane Peru

I don't usually do a ton of linkblogging, mostly because when I'm reading through my links I forget to just come back and post them here. But it seems worth noting that Greg Pak, Fred Van Lente, Khoi Pham, Mark Paniccia and Nate Cosby have a tribute to the late Stephane Peru, a young colorist who recently died. You can find the column, although with some samples of his work, at BrokenFrontier.com.

Texas - Make or Break for Clinton

OK, Texas Democrats (or independents who are going to vote in the primaries), I need to chat with you, if you're reading my blog. Everybody else can listen in, but I'm really talking to the Texas folks here.

Our votes don't usually count. We all know that we're in a red state, and our vote in the election will almost certainly go to the Republican candidate. We're late in the primaries, where the decision has usually been made.

This year, we're not just affecting the decision, we're crucial to it. The Clinton camp is *counting* on Texas to stop the momentum Obama has gained by sweeping the last batch of primaries.

And I am counting on you to help me finally make my vote resonate with the actual results of voting. Just this once. If Texas can actually go for Obama, I will do a gleeful dance of joy.

So... if any of you are on the fence, or supporting Hilary but interested in hearing why I support Obama and think you should too, if I can sway you to vote for Obama in the Texas primaries... please, post in the comments or feel free to come and talk to me at my shop. This is supremely important to me, and I'm happy to talk about why.

Blog Update for January 2008

This is the latest monthly update to the left column of the blog, updating my favorite comics and TV for the previous month. The listings are alphabetical, not by rank of how much I liked them in comparison. My criteria for what makes the list is when I read them, not necessarily when they were published. This is basically also my own records of what I read/liked for the inevitable "End of Year" lists I feel like making.

The writer's strike is over, so my favorite TV shows will return, although it's a pretty sad and pathetic little list at the moment, so not this month. Right now I'm enjoying Torchwood (season 1 on DVD), Friday Night Lights (I haven't seen the last three eps, but by all accounts it got better and more than likely won't come back, so I'll go ahead and finish it out), The Sarah Connor Chronicles (even if I'm not wild about it, I'm engaged enough to watch) and Lost (the first two episodes of season four were great and amazingly jaw-droppingly mind-blowing, respectively).

In comics, Marvel sort of ran away with my favorites again, with 9 of the Top 20. Of course, one of those is a cancelled book, three are miniseries and one is a one-shot, so I'm still unsure about their 2008 prospects. DC has 4, 2 Vertigo (both books that are ending or over), 1 out-of-continuity (The Spirit, also over, at least for me) and 1 out-of-continuity DC Universe (a limited series). So Marvel still has the edge in terms of shared superhero universes for me. As far as the other 7 books, there are 2 Image (Dynamo 5 and Fell), 2 Dark Horse (Buffy and Grendel) and then 1 each from Devil's Due, IDW and Boom! Almost making the cut this month were 2 Dark Horse (BPRD 1946 #1 and Usagi Yojimbo #109), 1 Boom! (North Wind #1), 1 Image (Proof #4), 1 Red 5 (Atomic Robo #4), 1 Adhouse (Johnny Hiro #3), 1 Vertigo (Northlanders #2) and three Marvel (Captain America #34, Fantastic Four #553 and Marvel Adventures Iron Man #9).

Most of my leisure time that would have been spent blogging, reading comics and watching TV has gone to playing Rock Band and Burnout Paradise on the XBox 360. If you have the means, I highly recommend it.

Scott Dunbier, Storyteller

I propose that during the San Diego Comicon, Scott Dunbier should have some kind of panel where he tells stories from his days as an art dealer. I know I'd be glued to my seat.

For an example of why, read this hilarious story of an exchange with Klaus Janson.

Then go read the rest of his blog. You won't be sorry.

Weekly Comics to Come - February 6 & 13, 2008

Wow, I've been really bad keeping up with these, and I still haven't done the monthly update for January, either. Soon, I hope.

TOP FIVE
American Virgin #23 (The final issue. *sob* Really sad to see this go, really excited to see the ending)
Battle Royale Ultimate Ed HC Vol 2 (Hooray! More ultraviolence! And sex! I've read all of this before, of course, but I'm glad to get it in swanky hardcover form)
Jellaby Vol 1 TP (New all-ages full-color graphic novel by Kean Soo, right on the heels of Kazu Kibuishi's impressive Amulet Vol. 1)
Nova Annual #1 (Loving Nova, looking forward to seeing the artists here, but hoping that Mahmud Asrar doesn't leave Dynamo 5 to go to Marvel full-time)
X-Factor #28 (Fantastic issue, has moved me from casual reader to follower of the title)

THE REST
Atomic Robo #5 (More fun science + punchy action with really nice art)
Bprd 1946 #2 (Ditto, only set in World War II)
DMZ #28 (Kind of ready for a longer arc, but these one-shots have been interesting at least)
Foundation #2 (Conspiracy based on following Nostradamus's theories. I really loved the first issue, and I'm anxious to see the follow-up)
Suicide Squad Raise The Flag #6 (Wish I loved this more, but I'm still reading it, at any rate)
Tiny Titans #1 (Unbelievably cute all-ages elementary school teen titans book)
X-Force #1 (Surprisingly decent action comic)

Comics for February 5, 2008

TOP FIVE
Fables #69 (Fantastic ending of the best story of the series thus far)
Amulet Vol 1 Stonekeeper (Beautiful and engaging new all-ages adventure/fantasy comic from Kazu Kibuishi and Scholastic)
Abe Sapien The Drowning #1 (Stunning Jason Alexander art, intriguing story of Abe's first solo field work)
Annihilation Conquest #4 (Continues to be awesome cosmic spectacle with great character work as well)
Buffy The Vampire Slayer #11 (Another strong Whedon issue introducing the big bad and featuring more great Xander/Buffy stuff)

THE REST
Darkness #2 (Decent follow-up, I remain mildly interested)
Nightwing #141 (Very good foundation issue for the new creative team)
Northlanders #3 (Best issue of the Viking story so far)
Teen Titans Year One #2 (Loved this one, spectacular art by Kerschl)
True Story Swear To God Image Ed #10 (9-11 and a marriage proposal... big stuff in this issue!)
Uncanny X-Men #495 (Pretty solid first issue of the post-Messiah Complex run)
Warhammer Forge Of War #5 (Nice doomed ending)
Bakers Babies & Kittens HC (Fun, if lightweight, with great cartooning)
Batman False Faces HC (Early Vaughan work on Batman, pretty good stuff)
Jumper Jumpscars TP (Prequel to the upcoming film, but I found myself hard-pressed to care about the characters, and Hurtt's artwork wasn't as spectacular here as it was on The Damned)
Marvel Adventures Iron Man Vol 2 Digest (Stealth armor, space armor and great stories in this all-ages Iron Man tome)
Gyakushu Vol 2 (Action manga from the art half of Amazing Joy Buzzards)
Pantheon High Vol 2 (Second volume of the gods in high school story by Paul Benjamin)

The Writers' Strike - Over?

It looks like the strike may be over.

I'm just not sure that's a good thing.

Because it looks like there was a long, painful slog that hurt just about everybody and wound up with an only incrementally better deal. It looks like essentially the corporations did exactly what they wanted to do and gave up the tiniest amount because to fight for a truly fair deal is basically impossible against their deep pockets.

I don't think that the arguments for why the WGA should (and probably will) take the deal are wrong, but it's disillusioning at least to see that, in the end, money and greed basically won out over principles and togetherness. (By which I mean the greedy bastards at the AMPTP won out over the WGA, not that the writers have somehow chosen money over principles... because if they were gonna do that, there never would have been a strike.)

I hope I'm just misreading and that the agreement is much better than it looks, but it looks like a lot of people were put out of work, lost their deals, lost months' worth of income for a pittance worth of minimal gains.

Mostly, I just hope it's not a preview of what's going to happen this election season. But with Obama sweeping today's primaries and caucuses, things are looking up. Now I just hope my fellow Texas democrats don't disappoint me.

Mind. Blown.

Damn, but Lost was great tonight.

I'm dying for more. And hoping there's an end to the strike so that we can get more than 8 episodes this season.

More Politics

Barack Obama gave a speech in New Orleans. Full text is here, partial video is here:



I'm angry about a lot of things the Bush Administration has done, from the Iraq War to the Patriot Act to the creation of the Orwellian Department of Homeland Security. But nothing made me angrier or more frustrated than what happened in New Orleans. If I ever talk to George W. Bush (yeah, that's likely) that is the first thing I will ask him. Aren't you ashamed? Don't you have trouble sleeping after all the people who died, after a great city was nearly destroyed, helped in large part by your incompetence and the incompetence of the people in your administration?

Also, the link is to a left-skewing site, so take analysis with a grain of salt, but apparently John McCain skipped out on the vote for the economic stimulus package. Didn't vote yes, didn't vote no, skipped out to avoid making a decision or a statement on one of the few things Congress has accomplished in recent years. I said recently that if it came down to McCain or Clinton, I'd vote McCain. I now know that to be passing insanity. I'll vote independent, McCain is no longer even remotely deserving of my respect or my vote.

New Podcast

As part of my role with STAPLE!, I've done a short series of interview podcasts with a few folks who are coming to the show. The first one just went up on iTunes, and here are the details and links:

Very excited to announce a brand spanking new feature of the STAPLE! website - STAPLE! Podcasts!

In this first episode Randy Lander of Comic Pants and Rogues Gallery Comics & Games talks to Fred Van Lente, author of Action Philosophers and a brand new work, Comic Book Comics, a comic book history of comics, which will be making its world premiere at STAPLE!

We'll be posting a new podcast every week, so be sure to keep checking back. Upcoming episodes include Danielle Corsetto (Girls With Slingshots) and featured guest Brian Wood!

iTunes users can subscribe to STAPLE! Podcasts using this link.

All podcasts graciously recorded by the studios of Dial A Stranger: When you don't know who to turn to, turn to who you don't know. http://dialastranger.com/

I Got My Hotel Room

I guess I'm going to San Diego this year. Kind of surprised, because I thought there was no way I was getting a hotel room. But after frustration with the busy phones and a near-miss using Firefox, I saw a tidbit about using Internet Explorer on The Beat comments thread, and 15 minutes later, I had my room booked.

I'm at my favorite hotel that I've stayed at (OK, favorite affordable hotel, the Holiday Inn on the Bay) and though I was tempted to go for the more expensive but swankier Embassy Suites or Hard Rock Hotel, the extra cost was just too much for what essentially boils down to a place to sleep and a place to leave my stuff.

Now I have to see if I can find a roommate to help split the costs... or decide if I want to just pay the whole thing myself and have a room to myself, like I did a couple years ago.

But this is good news, I really didn't think it would be as (relatively) easy as it was.

Yes We Can

Tomorrow is either going to be a really good day, or a really bad day, for me and other Obama supporters.

But I *want* to believe it's possible that there's going to be a candidate I'm excited about for the first time ever. And for right now, at least, I do.

Why I Can't Call Myself A Bleeding Heart Liberal

I am, in many ways, a dyed-in-the-wool liberal. Free speech, universal healthcare, tolerance of all race, sexual orientation, religion (OK, I get a little squidgy around religion, but I wouldn't *ban* it or anything), a helpful welfare/unemployment system, etc.

I've even come around on capital punishment. I used to be for it, for the most part, and I still believe that some crimes are punishable by death, but our system is so flawed in execution that it's not able to provide such punishments in anything close to a just manner, and too many intelligent people I respect are diehard against capital punishment, and so I find myself having to ignore my own instincts in this one area and decide that yeah, capital punishment is probably a bad idea.

But I've still got just a touch of right-wing, eye for an eye type thing in me. Because when I see something like this:

Death Sentence in Afghanistan for disseminating a report criticizing Islam

And I see that the response from Reporters Without Borders is a statement, and others are organizing a petition to plead with the barbaric, ignorant pig-fuckers that passed the sentence in the first place, all I can think is: "Uh, why don't we take up a collection and hire some mercenaries to bust this kid out and bring him to America? Wouldn't that be better than writing a letter?"

Of course, that also begs the question of why the enormous numbers of troops we have over there aren't doing exactly that. Because if they're not, then it looks like the U.S. Government supports this sentence. And I don't care what kind of diplomatic fuss it might cause, if we're allowing this kind of shit to go on, we might as well not be there.

Thus ends Randy's "thoroughly uninformed and simplistic views on foreign policy."

Shoplifter Update

They came in on Thursday night, two days after making off with somewhere between three and six volumes of Battle Royale. They had one other girl with them who had not been with them the last time. And the employee who was there walked up, told them "We've been having trouble with stealing, and we think it was you. Get out and don't come back."

The one who hadn't been with them protested, but the others didn't say a word. They knew they were caught, and they knew that my employee had snapped photos of them on his cellphone so that if we have any further trouble, we can quite easily identify them for the cops.

Problem solved. It would have been more satisfying to catch them in the act, and when reordering volumes 1-11 of Battle Royale tonight (aside from 2 and 7, which are frustratingly unavailable at the moment) I gritted my teeth, but it's nice to have it dealt with so quickly.

Retail Woes: Shoplifters

Anyone who has worked retail (or especially owned a shop of any kind) knows that shoplifting is part and parcel of the experience. Generally it's called "shrinkage," like the inventory magically shrunk rather than being carried off by thieves.

It's an annoyance, but it's one I haven't had to deal with too much, because of the nature of our business. While we do get a lot of casual traffic, most of the people who would be interested in having our product enough to steal it also have enough of a fondness for the store to pay for it instead.

Most.

We've had a couple of packages of dice go missing lately. We know because we find the empty boxes stashed somewhere in a display, the dice obviously slipped into a pocket and carried out. Annoying, but relatively minor.

Then today, my manager and one of the employees noticed that some of our Battle Royale was missing. Notably, the first three or four volumes, and our inventory indicated we had one, and in some cases two, of each volume. Later tonight, a group of four teenagers who have been semi-regulars (although they've rarely purchased anything) came in, and while the manager was busy, they stole three more volumes of Battle Royale. He knows this because they were there when the teens came in, gone when they left, and there were no other customers in that time.

So we know who they are. We know what they look like. And the next time they come back, they will either be read off the property or arrested for shoplifting. Which isn't much comfort as I go to buy about eight or ten volumes of Battle Royale that I already bought, but it will be if we catch them in the act.

An Open Letter to Games Workshop

'Ello There Gents,

I'd like to have a word with you, as a retailer who does fairly well with your miniatures games and very well with the role-playing games that Black Industries has produced for you. Specifically, Warhammer 40K Dark Heresy, which was selling so well on its opening weekend that I ordered about three times more than I initially thought I'd sell over the product's lifetime because the momentum seemed so impressive. Given how well Warhammer Fantasy was supported, how beautiful the production values were on Dark Heresy, I thought it worth taking a several hundred dollar risk on your product.

So I'd like to know why you decided to cut me off at the fucking knees by announcing that you're ending the line come September. I mean, as someone who bought the game for himself and hopes to run it at some point, I'm mildly annoyed from a personal standpoint. But don't get me wrong, you've got plenty of fan ire right now... let's change lanes a bit.

Because as a retailer, a *partner* in selling your games, I'm pretty fucking livid. You had to announce this the very day that I purchased hundreds of dollars in stock from you? You think maybe this might come back to affect my bottom line on your products, and then as a result your bottom line? It's certainly affected the amount of trust I'm willing to extend to you in preorders, which will begin affecting you pretty much immediately.

So thank you for the thoroughly puzzling decision to cancel a game so anticipated and so popular that it sold out at manufacturer *and* distributor level within days of release. And while we're at it, thanks for deciding to cancel Talisman, one of the best-selling fantasy board games of all time, after finally bringing it back.

I honestly have no idea what the fuck kind of business plan you have at Games Workshop, but I can only assume someone there has an almost paranoid fear of stacks of easy money. I guess selling out of a product in six minutes is somehow not an indicator of success in the world of Games Workshop, but a deadweight line of miniatures based on an expensive license (Lord of the Rings) is something to be carried for years, and foisted as an unnecessary expense on your partner stores in order that they might be able to carry your actual products that sell.

P.S. To anyone confused by this post who wants to know what I'm talking about, you'll find the whole thing detailed at the Black Industries site.

Weekly Comics to Come - January 30, 2008

TOP FIVE
House Of M Avengers #4 (This '70s flavored superhero book is one of my favorite Marvel books of the moment right now)
Proof #4 (I had advance copies of #1-3, so this is my first new Proof in months, and I'm highly anticipating the read)
What If Spider-Man Vs Wolverine (Loved the original What If?, and Jeff Parker does a great follow-up)
Wormwood Calamari Rising #1 (Yay! More Wormwood, Gentleman Corpse! With drunken leprechauns!)
Y The Last Man #60 (The finale... hope I wind up liking it)

THE REST
Batman The Man Who Laughs HC (Ed Brubaker's Batman stuff collected, including his great tale of the Joker's first encounter with Batman)
Captain America #34 (I have my issues with it, but this is a good intro to the new Cap)
Casanova Vol 1 Luxuria TP (Now that the trade is out, I need to revisit this. Especially since, with The Order going, I'm going to need a place to get my Fraction-writing fix)
Fantastic Four #553 (McDuffie's story continues to impress, as does Pelletier's art)
Manhunter Vol 4 Unleashed TP (The original Manhunter series, now complete in trade. I keep hoping for an announcement of a new #1 any day now)
Previews Vol XVIII #2 (Down the Line is in the works)
Salem #0 (Witch hunters vs. real witches from Boom! Sounds interesting)
Young Avengers HC (The whole series collected, and I'm thinking about picking it up)

Man, I've got a lot to write about

Stuff I want to blog about:

*How much Burnout Paradise rules and thoughts I had about what could be even cooler in the sequel

*Obama's win in South Carolina

*Essential Luke Cage, Archie Goodwin & Steve Englehart

*New Recipes I've tried in the past week

*The new Warhammer 40K RPG Dark Heresy

*My take on ComicsPro's latest position paper (hint: I disagree with it, as I have with *all* of their position papers thus far)

What I seem to have time to blog about:

*Things I want to blog about

Marvel Trying Their Hand At European Comics

There have been a lot of publishers trying to make headway in the American market with European comics. I'm always heartbroken when they fail, because there are a *ton* of European comics I'd love to read, but usually what happens with these deals is that they print one or two books I'm interested in, a whole bunch I'm not real interested in, and the whole thing goes under before they get to books I want to see.

Marvel's going to give it the old college try, though, and I think that's pretty cool. Nice looking art on the books so far, too.

Oh, and Obama in South Carolina? Beating Clinton by 2-1? Awesome. Victory speech:

Hooray Marvel!

Look, I give Marvel a lot of shit on Comic Pants and elsewhere (even while loving some of their output, like The Order and other great books that have *not* been canceled), but you have to give them credit for getting this one right.

Marvel Studios signs Interim deal with WGA

A Gaming Weekend

Yes, technically it's Tuesday, but I have Sundays and Tuesdays off, so that's my weekend.

After watching most of the NFC championship game on a whim on Sunday (my Tivo changed channels, so I still don't know who won... guess I should check ESPN after I finish writing this), I got the bug to play some Madden. So I fired up the XBox and played a home game, Broncos against Raiders, and beat them 20-0. Given that I've been getting my ass handed to me in Madden vs. the computer (and it was even worse the one time I tried playing another person online), and I'm a Broncos fan, this was quite satisfying.

Not, however, as satisfying as tooling around Paradise City in the new Burnout: Paradise. I'm a huge fan of the Burnout games, and when I played the demo, I liked it, but the combination of wide open spaces and limited, locked demo made me wary of what the full game might look like. Nevertheless, I bought an extra (third) controller for Christmas that I never even opened, and I decided it was probably better to trade that in and pick up Burnout instead. $10 later, I'm playing Burnout.

It's a blast. I'm starting to get a hang of the open-ended city driving, and I'm loving how fast cars unlock and how easy it is to find stunts and do cool jumps. Can't wait until some friends get it so we can do some multiplayer, apparently there are co-op achievements.

And as I was going offline for the night, I checked XBox Live on a whim to see if there were any new songs for Rock Band. I didn't really expect there would be, but there was a new pack of Oasis: Wonderwall, Don't Look Back in Anger and one more I can't remember. I dug the hell out of that Oasis album, so I downloaded that one too... now I just need to play it.

But first I need to find out who's playing in the Superbowl. And maybe finish watching Scrubs Season Five on DVD, and catch an episode of Cupid.

Weekly Comics to Come - January 23, 2008

TOP FIVE
Annihilation Conquest Book 1 HC (Glad to be getting the new Annihilation in hardcover)
Johnny Hiro #3 (The first two issues were fairly different but good, looking forward to seeing what's coming in #3)
Order #7 (A great issue, as Fraction writes Namor very well)
World War Hulk Aftersmash Damage Control #1 (Great to see Dwayne McDuffie back on these characters, and the art on the book is terrific too)
X-men First Class Vol 2 #8 (Beautiful interior art by Eric Nguyen, and as usual, a great story by Jeff Parker)

THE REST
Afterburn #1 (New post-apocalyptic adventure book from Red 5)
Hack Slash Series #8 (Back to reading this in single issues, and I'm really enjoying it)
Marvel Adventures Iron Man #9 (Iron Man vs. an army of gray original Iron Man armors by Van Lente... give this guy the regular Iron Man book, already!)
Marvel Zombies 2 #4 (Still surprisingly fun and as always, great art from Sean Phillips)
Therefore Repent TP (Interesting, gorgeously illustrated graphic novel about a post-Rapture New York)
Usagi Yojimbo #109 (Heading into 2008 with a pretty impressive series of 2007 stories under its belt)

The Perfect Storm of Inside Joke Theatre

Well, it was a pretty big weekend for me, and there are new things to talk about in comics, TV, movies, videogames, family and politics. In other words, every single thing I write about on this blog will be contained in this post. Feel it's mighty (yet inconsequential) power!

So TV, first off. I watched the second episode of The Sarah Connor Chronicles, and I'm pretty much convinced that if the strike wasn't on, and there were a lot of shows competing for my time, this one wouldn't make the cut. The cast is a little bland (even Summer Glau, who shines in her brief moments, is not getting enough chance to show off) and the stories seem a little low-key for a story about the end of the world. I love the idea of using time travel to place agents on key missions, but so far that idea has shown a lack of imagination in execution, and worse, I get the sense that they're not thinking all the implications through, which is death for a time travel story.

It's not a bad show, by any means. But it's up against my fondness for Terminator and T2, and even the things I liked about T3, and that's a pretty rough bit of competition. I'll probably give it a couple more episodes to hook me on the same level The 4400 did (decent, not great, good for filling time), but I'm not dying to watch the episodes or anything.

In politics, the big news is that Clinton won the Nevada primaries, another disappointment for us Obama supporters. Obama's camp is saying that they actually won the primary, with more delegates, so it's not over by any means, but we're starting to get into that "Well, to understand who won you need a doctorate in American political machinery" territory that's just frustrating to follow. Suffice to say, I'd been hoping that the Iowa victory was a signifier that he was going to have the nomination sewn up, and it still looks like a pretty serious fight. I think the Democrats may yet again take an election that should be a cakewalk (if they'd run Obama or Edwards) and turn it into another stunning snatch of defeat from out of the jaws of victory (I don't think Clinton can beat McCain, who is showing surprising strength in the Republican primaries).

I still believe in Obama, and he's still the only person I *want* to vote for. I'll hold my nose and vote for Edwards if he's there instead, or McCain if he's up against Clinton, and if none of those choices are available, I'll probably be voting independent and nursing an even more shattered faith in our electoral system.

In videogames, I've been downloading new songs for Rock Band, and wow is it dangerous how easy it is to get new content for the XBox 360. I bought a bunch of new songs, they're all a lot of fun (my favorites are the Police three-pack and "Gimme Three Steps" by Lynrd Skynrd, but Blink 182's "All the Small Things" is quite fun too) and I keep watching for new songs, which seem to appear about every two weeks. I'm already looking for the next opportunity to throw a Rock Band party. Best videogame ever.

This weekend was the 1st anniversary of my owning Rogues Gallery. Well, technically, I signed the check and ownership papers on February 19th, but we jumped the gun by a month for scheduling reasons. To celebrate, we had a party on Friday night and Saturday afternoon, which featured game demos, creator signings and lots more. It went very well, and I'm pretty proud of how the store has developed. Some highlights:

*On Friday night, I got to play Zombie Fluxx with several of my customers and friends, and we had a lot of fun. Fluxx, for those unfamiliar, is a card game by Looney Labs wherein the basic rules are "Draw 1, Play 1" but there are Rules cards that change that (and many other rules) throughout, and Goals that generally include having two or three "Keeper" cards on the table. The goals, rules and Keepers change throughout the game, and it's a fun bit of chaos. Zombie Fluxx adds zombies to the equation, and is even more fun than the original.

*Also on Friday, I had organized an expedition to see Cloverfield with guests Greg Pak and Scott Kolins (and his wife), several of my staff and a couple of my customers. I got about 30 minutes in (right about when the monster shows up) and had to leave the theater, because the jerky camcorder filming style was about to make me sick. This is the second time this has happened to me, the first was with the Bourne Ultimatum. So now it's not just first person shooters I can't see, it's some films. Stupid motion sickness. At any rate, everybody else seemed to enjoy the movie, and there were a few good trailers, which included the Star Trek teaser (pretty effective, and I'm not a huge Star Trek fan in general), the Iron Man trailer (again, I love this trailer) and the Jumper trailer (looking forward to this one as well). Kind of surprised there hasn't been a Hulk teaser or trailer at this point, though.

*On Saturday, we had a signing in the store with Greg Pak, Scott Kolins, Matt Sturges and Paul Benjamin. And for part of the time, we also had The Defuser, the winner of the second season of Who Wants To Be A Superhero? and an Austin local. It was a lot of fun, and Scott drew a sketch of The Flash for my daughter Katy, which she loved. Greg, despite being a writer, likes to draw Hulk pictures with his signature, and so he drew a backer board sketch of Hulk for my daughter as well, and she loved that too. She also got a picture with The Defuser, and she was just elated to meet a real live superhero.

*We had a good event, which also included our "Hulk Smash" sale (wherein everyone who bought something smashed one of four styrofoam cups, Hulk style, to win something written on the inside), our writing contest to start defining our roguish mascot, Maximillian Larch and our second miniatures painting contest.

With the anniversary event done, it's time to start looking forward to our next store event (probably Free Comic Book Day in May) and throw myself a bit more into my duties on STAPLE!, the independent media/small press comics show that is having its fourth year in Austin on March 1.

And now I leave you with three trailers that I caught last night, all of which I thought were pretty good.

This was my favorite. Tina Fey and Amy Poehler? That's enough right there. Holy crap, Maura Tierney is in it too? And Romany Malco? And guest spots by John Hodgman and Sigourney Weaver? Promising.


This also looks like fun, and I'm really intrigued the notion of John Krasinski and George Clooney playing off each other. The fight scene at the end cracked me up.


I love Judd Apatow and his production company, and I'm a big fan of both Kristen Bell and Jason Segel, but this didn't crack me up like the trailers for 40 Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up or Superbad.

What Really Happened to Britney Spears

John Rogers has a theory. An AWESOME theory.

Other Ways In Which Obama is Better than Clinton

As reported by The Chicago Tribune's Maureen Ryan:

Obama's favorite show? The Wire.

Clinton's favorite show? Grey's Anatomy.

Advantage: Obama.

Man, if I could somehow work comics and videogames into this, it would sum up everything I write about on this blog.

TV Thoughts: Sarah Connor Chronicles, Friday Night Lights & Cupid

First of all, the best show I'm watching right now is one that was canceled years ago, although there is a developing remake by the original showrunner. That showrunner is Rob Thomas, also creator of Veronica Mars, and the show is Cupid, starring Paula Marshall and Jeremy Piven. I loved it when it was on, still hate ABC for canceling it, and when one of my favorite critics, Alan Sepinwall, started doing "Strike Survival Club" and writing up episodes of Cupid, I started re-watching. They're all on Youtube, and the links are in Alan's column, I highly recommend doing the same.

Friday Night Lights is *this* close to dead to me. I feel about it the way I felt about Heroes Second Season, except that Heroes First Season was nowhere near as good as FNL Season One, and FNL Season Two, for all its missteps, is not as catastrophically bad as Heroes Season Two was. That said, the gap between what I liked about season one and what I like about season two seems about equal. It's not just the misguided Landry murder subplot, either. Now that that's done, we're having equal bits of nonsensical melodrama and a distressing lack of one of the most interesting characters on the show, paralyzed former QB One Jason Street. Even worse, no Street means no Herc, and that's just a damn shame.

But the stories are just so un-engaging. The Smash "who will he choose/should he choose" college story never quite made up its mind about the point it was trying to make, and the resolution seemed to come out of nowhere. I'm not sure how his picking TMU because they pressured him into giving him a verbal commitment is more pleasing to his mother, who last I recall was trying to get him to go to school for something other than football. I'm not sure when all the women on FNL became flighty, or mean, or uncertain, either. Jessalyn Gilsig did a great job with the role she was given, but that character was ditzy or right depending on the needs of the story, rather than as an outgrowth of the character. It was distressing to see Tami turned from the strong woman she had been into the second banana in the Taylor home, and even more distressing that they seemed to be going out of their way to make us hate Julie.

I mean, in season one, Julie was the smart one, distinguished by a healthy sense of skepticism about the importance of football vs. academics, and then she was half of a perfect cute couple with Matt Saracen. While her youthful rebellion in the opening part of season two was distasteful, it was believable... but they keep pushing it too far. Having her mope around and act all hurt because Matt had moved on when she behaved like an absolute brat makes her seem incredibly selfish. Having her not speak up for Tim Riggins when he was basically thrown out of the house for trying to help her was unconscionable. Sure, she eventually came around and confessed, and I can *buy* her being reluctant to tell her dad the truth, but it makes her look like a weaker character, and the character already looked weak-willed and selfish enough. The girl needs a storyline where she doesn't look like a brat, and soon.

Then there's Riggins and the drug dealer's money, which can only lead to another misplaced crime type subplot. Basically, while there are occasional scenes that work, and still a ton of good actors on the show, the overall direction the stories are moving in, and the melodramatic upshift in tone, has turned it into a completely different, and much weaker show. I'm *this close* to taking it off the Tivo season pass list... if there weren't a strike on, and there were more shows competing for my attention, it'd already be gone. Being the only game in town only gets you so far, though... I can use those 45 minutes to read or play videogames or surf the Internet instead.

The same thing applies to Sarah Connor Chronicles, which was stronger than I expected but still not great. They've completely miscast the main role, aiming for hotness rather than toughness, and that's a huge, huge chink in the armor. To her credit, Lena Headey does her best with the role, and has some good badass moments, but Linda Hamilton had the look and feel of a completely crazy badass in the movies, and she's just not on par with that.

Summer Glau as a new kind of Terminator is great casting, and she does a good job, even if I spent the whole time thinking "Wait, if they've got liquid metal terminators, why not send one of those back instead of another more limited physical model?" Their casting for the main male Terminator and John Connor is fine, at least so far. But someone over at Alan Sepinwall's board mentioned Katee Sackhoff, and now that's all I can think... man, what an awesome Sarah Connor she would have made.

The show is OK... I'm curious how they can get an ongoing narrative out of the setup they've had, which is basically a re-do of Terminator/T2, which really nailed the concept to perfection. In fact, I was thinking as I watched the first episode that somebody *really* liked T2, and they were just doing a TV budgeted version of it (bad idea). But then the whole time travel thing came up, and I thought that was a clever twist.

However, I can't help but think about the inconsistencies in the mythology whenever I watch or read a Terminator story, and it bugs me. In the original movie, time travel was experimental and rare and blowed up, and it really wasn't supposed to be used again. Now it's so common that they built a backup time travel device in 1963. In the second movie, they sent an outmoded T-800 because it was all they could manage. Now they've gotten their hands on some kind of newer model. And in the second movie, they had created this advanced liquid metal terminator, but now they're back to sending standard model T-800s back. Which might make more sense if the liquid metal was some kind of prototype, and they sent dozens of T-800s instead of just one, or if they had some kind of shift in the formula. But in a lot of ways, it seems like they're trying to emulate the cool parts of what has gone before without realizing that part of what made it cool was that it was new and unique, not a retread of something we'd seen before.

I dunno. I'll give it a few episodes to prove itself, and it did launch stronger than I thought, and I'm curious what exactly their ongoing status quo is going to be... but my fear is that it's going to turn repetitive real fast.

Weekly Comics to Come - January 16, 2008

Surprise! I'm not *just* writing about politics, I also cover comics from time to time. :)

TOP FIVE
76 #1 (This looks like a blast, a great riff on '70s comics)
American Virgin #22 (Closing in on the end, and this remains one of my favorite comics)
Incredible Hercules #113 (A really fun use of an under-used hero, great work by Pak, Van Lente & the rest)
Miki Falls Vol 4 Winter (Mark Crilley's romance/supernatural manga concludes, and I can't wait to see how it ends)
Resurrection #2 (First issue of this post-alien invasion book was really good)

THE REST
Angel After The Fall #3 (I've been digging season six of Angel almost as much as season eight of Buffy)
Atomic Robo #4 (Tons of fun, great art, as always)
Bone Vol 7 Ghost Circles Color Ed SC (Yay! Getting ever closer to having the whole Bone saga complete in color)
DMZ #27 (Guest art by Nathan Fox, which is awesome, another single issue story from the DMZ)
Fell #9 (Wow, I wasn't sure we'd ever see this book again!)
Fight For Tomorrow Tp (Early Brian Wood Vertigo work that I want to check out)
Grendel Behold The Devil #3 (I'm an issue behind, but I loved #1, and I really need to catch up)
Hawaiian Dick #2 (Solid first issue, beautiful art by Scott Chantler, looking forward to reading more)
Hulk The End Premiere HC (Hate the premiere hardcover format, but I love both the stories in this collection)
Immortal Iron Fist #12 (Reads *much* better in trade, but still fun reading in single issues)
Lifelike HC (Dara Naraghi, a small press genius, finally gets his due from IDW with this hardcover of short stories)
Thunderbolts By Ellis Vol 1 Faith In Monsters TP (The softcover of Ellis and Deodato's great supervillain book)
Umbrella Academy Apocalypse Suite #5 (I don't understand it half the time, but it's beautiful and fun)
World War Hulk Aftersmash Warbound #2 (Promising first issue, but I'm more excited to see what happens now that all the setup is out of the way)

How The Media is Fucking Up The Election

Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi writes a cynical, caustic and hilarious piece on political reporting. I thought I was bitter and jaded about the political process, but I'm a wide-eyed newborn compared to Taibbi. Read the whole thing, and definitely stick around for the last paragraph, which is laugh out loud funny.

I love Rolling Stone's political coverage, it's probably my favorite RSS feed for politics.

Another Reason to Vote Obama

Karl Rove, manipulative turd to the stars, seems to admire Hilary Clinton and dismisses Obama.

I don't care what party you're in... if Karl Rove likes you, that's not a good sign.

Holy Crap

TSA Searches, Detains 5 Year Old Boy

Jesus, I hope this never happens to us. Because I know that with me, this story ends with me being tased and arrested after BITING OUT THE FUCKING THROAT of the idiot who tried to take my kid away from me in front of witnesses.

TSA or no TSA.

It Ain't Over Yet

Unfortunately.

Clinton is looking like the winner in New Hampshire. CNN notes in its article that New Hampshire has an older base, and that a lot of the independents voted Republican, and voted for McCain.

I don't know what this means in the context of who's going to get the nomination, or in terms of the Presidential election. Certainly it's disappointing, and not what I expected. I honestly thought Hilary was going to get her ass handed to her in New Hampshire, or at best that she'd lose by a narrow margin. After Iowa, and polls showing a 10 point lead for Obama in New Hampshire, I didn't think she could win, even though I'll be first to admit that polling is an inexact science at best.

Bummer for me and other Obama supporters tonight. I had hoped to have a clear indication that Obama was going to be the candidate, but clearly we're going to have to wait it out until Super Tuesday.

Here's the thing... McCain won in New Hampshire. And though I hold my nose at the very thought of it, given his desperate attempts to ingratiate himself with the insane Bush-era Republican leadership, I'd probably vote for McCain over Clinton. Which would be my first vote for a Republican ever.

EMusic "Trial" Subscription

Edited to add: Well, that was unexpected. After I posted my rant, which was basically blowing off steam, I was contacted by email by someone from eMusic who refunded my money and explained that I had canceled my music account, but must have accidentally signed up for an Audiobooks account. I didn't think that there were two separate accounts, which was my mistake.

So essentially, in terms of customer service, I take it all back. Getting back to one guy blowing off steam on a blog is really going above and beyond, especially when I'd basically said I probably wasn't going to be an eMusic customer anyway. So instead I'll say that if, unlike me, you're more interested in a wider selection of less well-known bands and trying a bunch of stuff out rather than ala carte buying a handful of music each year, you might give eMusic a try. Because that's pretty good customer service right there.

Original post below:
Netflix, which I love, has advertising on their disc sleeves for various products and services. One of those, back in November, was for a free trial of EMusic. I'm pretty happy with iTunes, but these were DRM-free MP3s, and it had an interesting subscription/price structure that still allowed you to own your music, so I figured I'd give it a try.

I wound up picking up albums from Spoon, Gogol Bordello and Pain and an audiobook from James Ellroy, but I couldn't find most of what I was looking for, and I decided that the service just wasn't for me. I don't have time to discover new bands and new sounds while I'm paying for the time, which seems more like the focus of eMusic.

No harm, no foul. I was a member for about 20 minutes, I went and canceled the account. Wasn't really looking for the music I downloaded, but it was good, and it was free.

Then I go through my VISA statement today and discover that I was charged the $9.99, despite having canceled immediately. Not only that, I was charged $9.99 again a month later. Clearly, my "trial" subscription was still active. After being unable to find a customer service phone number (which you can find here, I guess I didn't look carefully enough) I went over and canceled my subscription again, and this time I saved the email with my cancellation. If I don't get charged again, I'll call it a learning experience, and I've still paid $20 for three albums, which is fair, even if I would rather have spent those $20 on iTunes for albums and audiobooks I really wanted.

Weekly Comics to Come - January 9, 2008

TOP FIVE
Bprd 1946 #1 (World War II era BPRD, another great artist, I love the number of good BPRD/Hellboy spinoffs we're getting)
Foundation #1 (Intriguing little X-Files meets Nostrodamus book from Boom!, I've read the first issue and it's great)
Nova #10 (Another spectacularly good issue of Marvel's best book)
Spirit #12 (Darwyn Cooke's run comes to an end, and since #11 was so good, I have high hopes for a strong finale)
Youngblood #1 (Joe Casey and Derec Donovan, I'm interested to see this and hope it'll be fun)

THE REST
30 Days Of Night Red Snow TP (I can finally read the entirety of Ben Templesmith's World War II era vampire tale)
Bprd Vol 7 Garden Of Souls TP (Steampunk robots vs. Abe Sapien, plus plenty more)
Marvel Adventures Hulk #7 (Hulk and Silver Surfer, with David Nakayama returning on art)
Nightwing #140 (Rags Morales on art, Peter Tomasi writing, I'll check in and see what's up)
North Wind #1 (Post-apocalyptic climate change book from Boom!, very nice art and promising story)
Suicide Squad Raise The Flag #5 (Enjoyed the last issue quite a bit, I'll be back for this one too)

Obama Wins Iowa

Aw hells yeah.

Even better? Hilary Clinton came in third.

Blog Update for December 2007

This is the latest monthly update to the sidebar of the blog, updating my favorite comics and TV for the previous month. The listings are alphabetical, not by rank of how much I liked them in comparison. My criteria for what makes the list is when I read them, not necessarily when they were published. This is basically also my own records of what I read/liked for the inevitable "End of Year" lists I feel like making.

Turns out December is a busy month when you've got family and own a retail business. I barely had any time to do extra reading this month, and the writer's strike turned out to be a blessing in disguise for my free time, even if it does make all my fears of future corporate domination seem all too real.

It was a pretty good month for comics, and there were a dozen or so books that didn't make my cut-off for best of 20, including, for the second month in a row, issues of Batman and the Outsiders (DC), Angel (IDW), Fearless (Image) and plenty of others. Marvel dominated again, with 10 comics, and two of those had two issues in the month, so technically it's a dozen. Image had 4 (Dynamo 5 plus three promising newcomers), Dark Horse had 2 (although I haven't had the chance to read BPRD or Lobster Johnson, both of which might have made the cut), IDW had 1 (although it was a great one, new Wormwood) and Oni had 1 with their interesting new book Resurrection. DC scores the other 2 with Vertigo, and again the mainstream DC Universe has little to nothing to offer me.

With the Writer's Strike, it looks like I'll just put my Top 10 shows on hold for the time being. In fact, I took the rather shocking (for those who know me) step of dropping my cable down to the very basic minimum this month, and that mostly for my daughter's shows. Honestly, I've got a huge backlog of DVDs to get to, plus a Netflix queue I've been neglecting, plus the XBox with Rock Band and some other games... my free time is more than covered.

Year End Recap Internet Meme

I'm planning to write some kind of "Year in Review" post, but since I probably won't have time for that, this meme, posted by Steve Rolston amongst other bloggers I read, appealed to me:

1. What did you do in 2007 that you'd never done before?
Had a son. Bought a business. Played Rock Band. Canceled my digital cable.

2. Did you keep your New Years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I don't make resolutions, usually. If I had, I'm sure I would have failed at them. See also, why I don't make resolutions.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Well, there was my wife. And my sister had her second son. And one of my employees and friends had a boy with his wife. So yeah, it was a big year for births.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
Nope, this year was pretty clear as far as that went.

5. What countries did you visit?
I visited California, which is *like* another country when you're visiting from Texas. Also, on December 31st, through the miracle of Rock Band, I visited the United States of Rocking Out.

6. What would you like to have in 2008 that you lacked in 2007?
Money. Or alternatively, the ability to not stress about money and whether or not we have enough of it to survive now and into the future.

7. What date from 2007 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
February 19, the day I officially bought the comics shop. And June 11, the day my son Aaron was born.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
I bought a comic shop, and managed to avoid running it into the ground for the entire year.

9. What was your biggest failure?
I freaked out way too often about how the business/our personal finances were doing, and I took on so much that I feel like some things (comic reviewing in particular) suffered.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Aside from a couple evil cold/flu type things, not really.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
Rogues Gallery Comics & Games. And I didn't buy them, but getting an XBox 360 and Rock Band for Christmas qualifies as my favorite material things acquired for the year, aside from the store.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Food... we spend a shocking amount of money on groceries every month. Then the mortgage, ever-more costly gas, health insurance, preschool bills, etc. Nothing fun, really.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Wow, I sound like a broken record, but the birth of my son and buying the store.

16. What song will always remind you of 2007?
I don't tend to link music and memory, but if anything sticks, it'll probably be either The Fratellis - Flathead because that song cheered me up a lot when I was stressed or The Humpty Dance by The Digital Underground due to a number of inside jokes at the store in the last few months.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:

Older or wiser?
Yes and probably no.

Thinner or fatter?
About the same. So fat. :)

Richer or poorer?
Poorer. But my *future* financial prospects are much stronger, if we can survive the duration of the business loan.

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Gone outside, exercised, spent time with my wife and kids (because no matter how much time I spend, it's never enough).

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Messing around on the Internet. Like I'm doing. Right. Now. So this will be the same answer in 2008, probably.

20. How did you spend Christmas?
Visited the in-laws in Dallas the week before, had Christmas Eve at our house with my parents. If only my sister and her husband and kids could have visited (and Katy hadn't had strep), it would have been perfect, but as is, it was still a great Christmas.

22. Did you fall in love in 2007?
Yes. With Rock Band. :)

23. What was your favorite TV program?
How much time do you have? Choosing one, I'd say Dexter.

24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
Almost certainly, but I don't have a handy list or anything.

25. What was the best book you read?
Non-comics, since that's a list all its own, my favorite book of the year was probably the final Harry Potter.

26. What was your greatest musical discovery?
The Fratellis

27. What did you want and get?
XBox, Rock Band, a comic book store, good friends, good family, etc.

28. What did you want and not get?
A bazillion dollars, worldwide fame and a license to kill.

29. What was your favorite film of this year?
Knocked Up in theaters, Children of Men on DVD

30. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 36, and I cannot for the life of me remember what I did.

31. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
More money, less near-death and hospital bills as a result of Aaron's arrival. But really, it was a pretty satisfying year.

32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2007?
Um... t-shirt and shorts or t-shirt and jeans?

33. What kept you sane?
Suzanne and the kids. My best friend/store manager Dave. Videogames and TV. Murdering hobos with my bare hands. (Wait, scratch that last one.)

34. Which celebrities/public figures did you fancy the most?
There are whole lists for this kind of thing, but I'm gonna go with Tina Fey.

35. What political issue stirred you the most?
I've fallen into a sort of simmering, constant frustrated outrage over the Bush Administration, but I think I was stirred most by realizing that Barack Obama is a candidate I'm actually *excited* about, rather than just willing to settle for. I'm dying to see how tomorrow's Iowa primary plays out.

36. Who did you miss?
I'm always disappointed Don MacPherson can't make San Diego, as I haven't seen him for years.

37. Who was the best new person you met?
Wow, I don't know. I always meet a ton of people in San Diego and at STAPLE!, and new customers turn into friends with regularity at the shop.

38. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2007:
I will always, always stress about things I can't control, even if everything winds up turning out OK.

39. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
Yeah, that's gonna be a little too emo/Myspace for me.

Weekly Comics to Come - January 4, 2007

Remember, comics are coming in on Friday this week... if you go into the store on Wednesday, they may point and laugh at you. And also, since I was too busy last week, my list of comics I got/read the last week of December is here as well.

TOP FIVE
Annihilation Conquest #3 (Another great issue of Marvel space adventure... I'd really like Abnett & Lanning to get an ongoing Annihilation style title, in addition to Nova)
Dynamo 5 #10 (One of my favorite new series of 2007)
Northlanders #2 (Solid first issue, and the second one builds nicely on that)
Overman #2 (Loved the first issue of this science-fiction book from Image, looking forward to seeing where they go next.)
Teen Titans Year One #1 (The art on this one, by Karl Kerschl, looks drop dead gorgeous. The covers and solicits seem to promise a fun, engaging series by writer Amy Wolfram. And it's out of continuity, so maybe it won't be as fucked over as many of DC's mainstream superhero books are right now.)

THE REST
Buffy The Vampire Slayer #10 (Joss Whedon written interlude that sheds light on the big bad of Season Eight)
End League #1 (High fantasy post-apocalyptic superheroics. Good high concept, intriguing art)
Essential Power Man And Iron Fist Vol 1 TP (Been waiting a while for this one... of course, I still haven't finished reading Essential Moon Knight Vol. 2, these Essentials are huge time sinks)
Fearless #3 (Nobody's talking about this weird little Image superhero book, which is a shame, because it's got solid writing, a neat hook and great art)
Thunderbolts #118 (Not as big a fan of the second story arc as I was the first, but there are still plenty of good moments.)

December 28

TOP FIVE
Captain America #33 (Great issue, one of the best in a while, interesting lead-up to the new Cap next issue)
House Of M Avengers #3 (This is in the running for my favorite miniseries of the year. It's that good.)
Proof #3 (Image's newest breakout book, with a great concept, writing and art)
Queen & Country Definitive Ed Vol 1 Tp (Love the new design, and 12 issues of Queen & Country for $20 is a steal)
X-men First Class Vol 2 #7 (Great second part to the powers lost story, with tons of Sentinels as a bonus)

THE REST
Brave And The Bold #9 (Kind of a weak issue, too many characters, and though it was crafted well enough, it didn't have the hooks for me that so many issues of this series have)
Daredevil #103 (It's good, but I'm still having trouble with Brubaker's uber-dark, kinda slow-moving, take on Daredevil... probably just not for me)
Fantastic Four Isla De La Muerte One Shot (Fun, weird FF special by Tom Beland and Juan Doe)
Giant Monster TP (Darkly funny giant monster story)
Invincible Presents Atom Eve #1 (Haven't had the chance to read it yet, but I love the work of these guys on other books, and I like Atom Eve)
Marvel Adventures Iron Man #8 (Steampunk Iron Man = awesome)
Marvel Zombies 2 #3 (Still surprisingly fun... I'll almost certainly pick up the hardcover)
Midnight Sun TP (Beautifully illustrated little indy gem from Slave Labor)
Usagi Yojimbo #108 (Continues to be as good as always, loving the current story)
Wasteland Vol 2 TP (Haven't gotten a chance to read through it yet, but I dug the first trade and want to catch up)

Xbox 360

So I got what I really wanted for Christmas. My parents-in-law got me an XBox 360, and my parents got me Rock Band.

Yes, I do have the best parents and in-laws in the world.

So I finally plugged in Rock Band tonight, just to try out the solo guitar action and...

Oh.

My.

God.

This game is so good, I may never play Guitar Hero again. Downloadable songs, the ability to switch and play bass, drums or sing, plus multiplayer and online multiplayer with all of that? Not to mention I love the little tweaks to the Rock Band guitar, like the multi-mode whammy bar and the inset fret buttons, and the super-customizable avatars are awesome as well.

If anybody out there is on XBox Live, please friend me... I've put my gamertag up. I'm a pretty casual gamer, and I can't play first-person, or even a lot of third-person, shooters without getting ill, so I won't do the huge multiplayer HALO or Bioshock or Call of Duty... but I could definitely use some folks to play Rock Band online with, or people who will play with a total novice at Madden '08. I also swung by Gamestop and picked up their "Buy 2, get 1 free" used games to get Tomb Raider Legend, Marvel Ultimate Alliance (I already have it on the PS/2, but this one has Hawkeye and Moon Knight, two of my favorites) and Crackdown.

I can't wait for Burnout Paradise City. I've been digging the demo. And I'm going to buy the full versions of Catan and Carcassone at some point too.

Best of 2007 - Movies

I have gotten to the point where I see less than a dozen movies in the theater, and they're usually the big, dumb Hollywood flicks, while I wind up finding the smarter movies I really love on DVD about a year later. 2007 was no exception, and since my movie viewing was so sparse, rather than a top 10, I'm just giving the whole list:

On Netflix:
Children of Men - Intense, amazing performances, great in every way. My favorite film of 2007.
Pan's Labyrinth - Gorgeous, imaginative, the best Del Toro film I've ever seen and my other favorite movie of the year.
Casino Royale - When I watched this again on DVD, I gained a larger appreciation for it. It's still way too long and inconsistent in tone, but it's got a ton of excellent moments and Daniel Craig is great as Bond.
Fail Safe - Surprisingly engaging take on a classic play with a fantastic cast.
Deja Vu - Enjoyable action movie from Tony Scott, for those who dig his quick-cut, frenetic style. I happen to be one of those people.
Night Watch - Not entirely great, but imaginative, fresh and fun.
The Last King of Scotland - Great performance by Forest Whitaker in a somewhat bland movie.
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - Good, nowhere near as good as the book nor as good as the reviewers made it out to be.
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets - Good, nowhere near as good as the book.
The Illusionist - Interesting, and a great performance (as always) by Ed Norton, but I didn't love it.
The Lookout - Boring. Didn't finish it.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - Boring. Didn't finish it.
Shortbus - How do you make what is essentially porn this boring?
Crank - Too over the top and dumb, couldn't quite enjoy this, and I say that as a fan of The Transporter and somebody who watched and enjoyed parts of Transporter 2.
Stranger than Fiction - Weird, likable, more or less forgettable.
Little Miss Sunshine - Overrated, occasionally funny but overwrought and melodramatic.
Out of the Past - Couldn't get into it. Came highly recommended by Ed Brubaker, but I'm just not an old movie guy.

In Theatres:
Knocked Up - Funny and sweet, the heart at the center of this one puts it just above...
Superbad - Which is funnier than Knocked Up, and has an equally great cast, but it's focus is on comedy over character.
Hot Fuzz - Hilarious, and as good or perhaps better than Shaun of the Dead. Although still not as great as Spaced.
Ocean's 13 - Fun, although I didn't think it was noticeably better or different from Ocean's 12, unlike most of the critics who lambasted 12 and loved 13. I liked both about equally, and neither one as well as Ocean's 11.
Ratatouille - Pixar delivers the goods as always, although it's weaker than their last few. Great short at the start, though, and still an excellent movie.
Bee Movie - Surprisingly fun, took my daughter to this one and we both had a good time.
Pirates 3 - Loud, pointless, occasionally fun.
Transformers - See above, but with transforming robots, too many pointless human characters and way too much Michael Bay and Shia LaBeouf
Bourne Ultimatum - Well crafted, but the first person shaky cam stuff actually made me ill and I had to leave the theatre before it finished, which downgrades it in my mind
28 Weeks Later - I hated this, found it laughably bad, and don't understand how so many people gave it good marks.

Best of 2007 - Music

My Top 10 Favorite Albums of 2007
The Fratellis - Costello Music - I'm pretty sure this album was released in 2006, but I hadn't really heard of The Fratellis before this year, and now they're one of my favorite bands. I can't remember the last time I bought an album and loved every song on it. Certainly none of the other albums on this list can make that claim, even though there were some very good albums this year. Hoping we'll see more Fratellis in 2008.

Hot Hot Heat - Elevator - Another band I've heard of, but never sampled before 2007. Hot Hot Heat has the same sort of poppy up-tempo style that many of my favorites on this list have, and I dug quite a few songs off this album.

Arctic Monkeys - Favourite Worst Nightmare - Love the Arctic Monkeys, and although this wasn't as great as their last album, there are still a half-dozen really good songs, and not really a stinker in the mix.

Hot Fuzz - The Soundtrack - Nice weird mixture of music, from '60s standards to (you guessed it) a couple Fratellis tunes. First place I heard the band, actually. Also has a great song by The Eels.

Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga - Austin based band that I really should have checked out earlier. There are a few songs I really like on here, but I'm even more impressed with Girls Can Tell, their older album that I picked up off eMusic. But this one was released this year, so it goes on the 2007 list.

Foo Fighters - Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace - Solid, although not spectacular. The Foo Fighters never fail to deliver at least good music, but this didn't have the killer hooks in me the way their last few albums have. A couple really good singles, though, and overall I dug the album.

Fountains of Wayne - Traffic and Weather - I'm about 50-50 on this album, but the songs I like, I really like, and I find all of them listenable, even if most of them didn't wind up on regular rotation.

The Killers - Sam's Town - It's weird, I like The Killers when I hear them on other people's iPods, but it usually takes me a while to realize that before buying the album. That was the case with Sam's Town, which I bought a few months after release, at least.

Modest Mouse - We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank - I liked this better than Modest Mouse's first album. The lead single they released was my favorite song on it, though.

Arcade Fire - Neon Bible - This one took a few listens to decide I liked it, but then I wound up actually loving one of the songs on it so much it made my Top Favorite songs of 2007.

My Top 10 Favorite Songs of 2007
Flathead - The Fratellis - Close call, but it's my favorite track from the album - great video, too - Chelsea Dagger is a close second, and another great video


Theme From Andrex - Shawn Lee's Ping Pong Orchestra (Picked up on it from the Ocean's 13 trailer)


Fluorescent Adolescent - Arctic Monkeys - One of my three favorite songs off Arctic Monkeys, I also really love "Do The Bad Thing" and "Balaclava"


Don't Make Me A Target - Spoon - My favorite song off the Spoon album, which became a favorite after I saw it used perfectly on "Chuck," and it's in close competition with "The Underdog"


Souljacker Part 1 - The Eels


The Well and the Lighthouse - Arcade Fire - Favorite song off this album


Radio Nowhere - Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band - iTunes freebie, and one of my favorite Springsteen tunes ever - But then, I'm not a huge Springsteen fan


New Routine - Fountains of Wayne - My favorite song off the new Fountains of Wayne, although "Someone to Love" is close... and the video embedded below, since I can't find New Routine on Youtube. Also, this video features Demetri Martin from The Daily Show, which is cool.


Dreaming of You - The Coral - From The Scrubs Volume 2 soundtrack - occasionally sappy, but they pick good music for these


Chick Habit - April March - Perfect ending to Tarantino's Death Proof - in the theatre, at least - I hear the DVD version is interminable, and I can believe that, because Grindhouse was perfect as one movie, but didn't seem like a good idea as two longer ones.