Podcasting:
I've been sort of getting into the idea of podcasting lately. I have subscribed to a few podcasts now that iTunes is offering them, including Indie Airplay, the Monday Show with Sara Routh, Augie's Pipeline podcast and the iTunes New Music Tuesdays podcast. I've been looking for some good comics commentary or Austin-central podcasts, but haven't found anything yet... recommendations are welcome.

I'm also toying with the notion of doing a podcast myself. Probably a sort of "week in review" for comics, maybe some kind of back and forth commentary with myself and somebody else (it'd be great to do audio Two in One reviews with Don, but he's kind of in Canada, which makes it difficult, plus we're both tremendously busy with schedules that never coincide), who knows? I've downloaded Audacity on Augie's recommendation, now I just need to look into getting a microphone for the computer and seeing how hard it is to work the software and MP3 encoding.

Chance of this actually happening: Probably about 50%. Chance of it being regular instead of fading away so I can watch more TV, play more videogames, read more comics and play more with my daughter: About 25%.

Advice, recommendations on content and presentation and offers of help greatly appreciated.

Friday Night:
Just recently picked up Burnout 3 for the PS/2, now that it's dropped to $20. I had already played the game heavily when it was rented and loved it, so I was glad to finally get the game to have whenever I feel like crashing cars. Since we weren't having our regular game this weekend (the GM is off racing his Mini somewhere), I invited some of the crew over to my place to play the game. Burnout 3, for those who haven't played it, is a racing game where you try to crash other cars, narrowly avoid oncoming traffic and even engage in a "crash mode" where you try to cause the most spectacular crashes for the most monetary damage.

You know the crash physics are good on a game when a group of five guys watch a fictional crash into a wall at high speeds and respond with a visceral "oooohhh! ouch!"

Heroes Con vs. Wizard World Atlanta:
The news of Wizard's shot across the bow of long-running comic convention Heroes Con is spreading across the web. Newsarama has a pretty good rundown of what's been said so far.

I've been meaning to get out to Heroes Con for some time, especially given that my sister and brother-in-law live down there. Given the number of pros who haven't gone in the past but who are going this year as a show of support, as well as all the good I've heard about the show, it sounds like 2006 is the year to drive down with the wife and kid to visit relatives and hit Heroes Con.

You may be able to hear the crickets on the floor of the Wizard World Atlanta Con, if this keeps going at the rate it's going. Or they'll wise up, apologize and move the Con. I've been to two Wizard Worlds (the first one in Chicago and the one two years ago in Dallas) and have always come away unimpressed in comparison to the original Chicago Comicon, San Diego, even the small press shows like SPX and STAPLE.

Weekly Comics To Come:
Every week, as part of my retail job, I run down the invoice of what's coming into the store next Wednesday. I also pull out the stuff that looks interesting to me, so I figured why not take that list, make a few brief comments and try to make that the regular Friday update on my new daily blog? Will this continue, or will it be one time only? Time will tell!

ALREADY READ:
Astro City The Dark Age #2 (Very interesting stuff about the Silver Agent)
Capote In Kansas Gn (Fantastic semi-biographical story of novelist Truman Capote, certainly one of the best graphic novels of the year and a must-buy)
Daredevil Vs Punisher #2 (Fairly standard Daredevil/Punisher material, but done with style by David Lapham)
Hulk Destruction #1 (Decent but forgettable beginning of a spotlight on Hulk foe Abomination. Peter David writing is pretty good, if a little hard to follow at times due to time jumps, Jim Muniz art is sort of OK but not much more)
Runaways #6 (Great follow-up to last issue's reveal about Victor Mancha's parentage and good finale to the first arc of the returned series)
Silent Dragon #1 (Beautiful art by Leinil Yu, not quite sold on the story yet but the futuristic Yakuza/military tale does intrigue)
Spider-Man Human Torch Im With Stupid Digest Tp (Amazing and totally overlooked Spidey/Human Torch LS by Dan Slott and Ty Templeton in cheap as hell $8 digest format - If not for Capote in Kansas, this would probably be my pick of the week)

HAVEN'T READ:
Bill & Teds Most Excellent Adventures Vol 2 Tp (First volume was kind of fun, this is the remainder of Evan Dorkin's take on the slacker duo)
Courtney Crumrin Tales #1 (Naifeh explores some of the supporting cast of Courtney, starting with warlock Uncle Aloysius)
Cute Manifesto Tp (A collection of Kochalka comics)
Dead West Vol 1 Gn (Looking forward to reading this undead western by Rick Spears and Rob. G, creators of Filler and Teenagers From Mars)
Godland #1 (Mind-blowing cosmic fun mixing Kirby with the deconstructionist style of Automatic Kafka by Joe Casey and Tom Scioli)
JLA Cyberforce (Really? Cyberforce? Isn't it 2005? And Silvestri, the only possible draw for these characters, isn't even involved)
Losers #26 (More kickass action from Diggle and Jock. Sorry to see it go in 2006, and yet happy about the notion of seeing the wrap-up)
Nightwing Year One Tp (Fun formula superhero by Dixon, Beatty and McDaniel - fits right in with the Batgirl: Year One and Robin: Year One trades by the same writers)
Previews #25.8 (Down the Line should follow next week)
Queen & Country Declassified Vol 3 #2 (First issue was terrific, looking forward to seeing more of this IRA/SAS tale)
Star Wars Republic #77 (After this, two more issues to go in the great Ostrander/Duursema run on Star Wars: Republic)
Tick Days Of Drama #1 (New Tick! It's kind of lost its luster for me, but all the Tick comics, with or without Edlund, that I've read have been enjoyable)
Usagi Yojimbo Vol 19 Fathers And Sons Tp (The finale of the Usagi/Jotaro story, as great as Usagi Yojimbo always is)
Western Tales Of Terror #5 (Contributors this issue include Steve Niles, Scott Mills, Tony Moore, Small Gods creators Jason Rand and Juan Ferraya and Tom Mandrake)

Daily Updates?
I've resolved to try and post something daily on this blog. As I am remarkably uninteresting, no doubt many of these posts will be utter nonsense. Take this one, for example.

Anyway, new blogs to add to my daily reading list (that should have been on there long ago): The Comics Reporter and Bags and Boards. These came up as I reached day two (Thursday) of my Con report, which will no doubt frighten and disgust in its length and rambling nature when I finally get it finished and posted (I'm betting on Monday) at Fourth Rail.

Still haven't really turned on the TV since getting back from San Diego, aside from watching the two episodes of Family Guy I had saved (I needed a laugh). The first episode of Battlestar Galactica second season, the latest Rescue Me and about a week and a half of The Daily Show all call to me. As do my new copy of Burnout 3 for PS/2 (purchased right before I left) and Scrubs: Season One DVD (already watched from Netflix, but would like to rewatch).

Also need to read some of the Marvel First Look stuff from next week: Runaways, Daredevil/Punisher, a couple others. Already read the DC stuff I wanted to, which meant reading Wildstorm's Silent Dragon (interesting start, though not the slam bang opener I had hoped for) and... uh... something else I've already forgotten.

See, I told you... daily = rambling. Hopefully I'll improve as I get into the groove. Or, more likely, give up and go back to semi-monthly updates.

Read So Far:
I've got an enormous pile of graphic novels and comics to read coming off San Diego, and it's going to take me a while to get to reviewing them all.

So far, however, I have read: Gunpowder Girl & Outlaw Squaw, And Then One Day #1 & #4, Small Favors Vols. 1-2, Bumperboy Loses His Marbles, Arsenic Lullaby: Year of the Fetus, The Passion of Da Keef, Invincible HC, aeiou, Scalawag, Tricked, The King, Smoke & Guns, 1000 Steps to World Domination and Spiral Bound. Reviews of all of these should hit relatively soon (next couple weeks, hopefully) but the quick hit favorites are the Invincible HC (packed with extras, so damn cool!), Tricked (worth the wait), The King (better than Three Fingers, which I loved), Smoke & Guns (insane fun) and Spiral Bound (all-ages greatness).

*sigh* I was this close to being caught up on all my comps before San Diego, now I've got a huge backlog again. Ah, well, it's all stuff I'm dying to read and review! :)

I Have Returned:
Back (finally) from the big San Diego trip, a day later than planned thanks to delays and other related BS from Southwest Airlines. This is the first time I've had major flight trouble in a while, and definitely the *last* time I'll fly through Las Vegas on Southwest if I can avoid it. While our customer service in San Diego was great, friendly and accomodating in what were unbearably difficult circumstances, we got nothing but frustration and anger from dealing with the ranking manager on duty Lance Thibodeau in Southwest's Las Vegas branch. He was of course mildly more helpful than the woman who first greeted us with a surly "That means nothing to me" when we told her we were the six misconnects from Austin and got more surly and unhelpful from there, but he was basically a sarcastic and useless tool and we had to badger him to get us the hotel rooms that had been promised us in San Diego if we wound up stranded in Vegas.

Aargh. This will of course all show up in the con report on Fourth Rail in a few days. Oddly, I just finished perusing Newsarama, which has all the news that I missed while on the floor of the Con, and realized that most of it holds little to no interest for me. It's all about DC/Marvel plans, and while there are a few intriguing bits, the big hypefest books that are going to sell don't really hold much attraction to me. Does this mean I've lost interest in comics? Well, given the stacks of graphic novels and sketchbooks I picked up in San Diego, and the fact that I'll probably go read a few more when I finish typing this, not really... it just means that I'm getting tired of bullshit hype and would rather have creators doing their thing instead. San Diego was a nice reminder that there are still a ton of people out there beyond DC/Marvel, and the reports of good sales from most everyone I talked to a welcome reminder that there's interest in this kind of thing from fans as well.

Fantastic Four:
Just as I seem to be out of step with the majority of comics buyers relating to the two event stories going on at DC and Marvel, I also seem to be somewhat out of step with the consensus on comic book movies so far.

Because honestly, I liked Fantastic Four. Certainly better than Batman Begins. Why? Well, mostly it comes down to fun. Batman Begins is dour and lifeless, Fantastic Four feels like the sort of fun I'd rather have in my comics. It is true, in a lot of ways, to the spirit of the team that was instilled by Lee and Kirby in their legendary run.

I'm not saying it was a great movie. There are any number of logical inconsistencies that add up, and if you let yourself keep asking questions about the variations in science, the bizarre flip-flops in characterization that a few characters suffer (poor Doom worst of all) or why on Earth someone thought it was a good idea to use that music at that time, you'll probably hate it.

However, if you can go with a flow and ignore some of the Hollywoodisms (and these days, to enjoy an event movie you pretty much have to ignore some Hollywoodism), Fantastic Four is a pretty fun, even action-packed take on these characters that does justice to at least 3 1/2 of them. Doom gets short shrift in the script, but it's nothing that couldn't be fixed with a sequel that has him taking over Latveria and becoming the Doom we'd all prefer, and I like to think that Julian McMahon could handle that role and that the missteps as Doom in this movie are due more to script failures. Jessica Alba is, as with Sin City, a bit miscast, as she doesn't quite make me buy into her as smart scientist Sue Storm (btw, I like changing Sue from '50s housewife to Reed's scientific equal, whether it's here or in Ultimate FF), but in general she's still pretty good. Michael Chiklis, as expected, is great as The Thing, and the effects actually work to make us believe him as the Thing. A little old school, maybe, could have used a bit more CGI touch-up maybe, but certainly not as bad as early shots would have led you to believe. Ioan Gruffudd is given the difficult job of bringing major-league stiff Reed Richards to life, and he pulls it off admirably.

Of course, Chris Evans as Johnny Storm steals the movie. He's the guy actually enjoying himself when the powers comes along, he gets some of the best special effects and some of the most effective humor and action sequences. I would have guessed before seeing the movie that Chiklis was the best bit of casting, but Evans is the real find, he just embodies everything that Johnny Storm should be. Oh, and I like the change that he is the team's pilot, not just Sue's younger brother who tagged along on the mission. I wasn't down with all the changes made in this story from the original (Doom as business tycoon feels like lazy writing, for example) but I did like quite a few of them.

Maybe it's lowered expectations, maybe I'm willing to forgive a lot in the name of fun... but unlike Batman Begins, I see myself buying Fantastic Four when it comes out on DVD. And although Batman will get a sequel and FF might not, truthfully I'd rather see that reversed, because I'd love to see these actors meet again, this time with Doom at the head of Latveria, as he should be, and with all the origin stuff pushed out of the way to make way for a stronger story.

A Good Weekend:
I don't technically get holidays at my job, but because Sundays and Mondays are my regular days off, and because many of my friends were enjoying a three-day weekend, I got to enjoy this holiday weekend quite a bit anyway.

Friday night was a DVD release party for the STAPLE DVD at Austin Books. I did the interviews with Scott Kurtz and Michael Lark on the DVD, and I thought Gary Bartos and Doug Benning did a terrific job putting the DVD together. If you've got any interest in seeing a series of interviews about a first-time (very successful) small press show, this DVD is well worth a look. For me, the coolest thing was hanging out at Austin Books with my friends Chris Nicholas, Dave Lamplugh and Nate Southard as well as out-of-towner Toby Craig and DVD director/producer etc. Gary Bartos. Much good conversation and a fun, cheap late dinner at Taco Cabana made for an entertaining evening.

On Saturday, before going in to work, I went to the Red River Cafe with Gary, Chris, Dave and Toby and had brunch. Good food, more good (if weird) conversation, lots of fun. Then on Saturday night I went with my buddy Dave Farabee to see War of the Worlds. Dave was unimpressed, but I was pretty happy with the movie, and the suspense pretty much had me hooked in throughout. The very end is a little bit too pat and sentimental, but most of the movie I liked.

My wife and daughter had been out of town on Friday and Saturday visiting relatives in Dallas, so I was glad when they returned on Sunday, which also happened to be my wife's birthday. After spending the day playing with Katy, Suzanne and I took her over to my parents' house to spend the night so we could have an evening out. We went to The Melting Pot, an *awesome* fondue restaurant. It's pricey, special occasion fare all the way, but it was just amazing food. Melted cheese and bread, apples and veggies, a "Pacific Rim" sampler of meat (which included duck, teriyaki steak, pork, chicken, shrimp and potstickers) that we cooked at the table and an amazing dessert course made up of chocolate, marshmallow fluff and graham crackers made for a great meal. Truthfully, I ate a bit too much, and regretted eating that last bit of cheesecake (dipped in the chocolate), but I couldn't resist.

We then went to see Mr. & Mrs. Smith, which I also liked quite a bit. Pitt and Jolie had great chemistry, Liman's direction is as sure and sharp as his work on Bourne Identity and Go and the story might have been easy to read, but the action was solid and the general writing pretty decent.

Tomorrow, we'll go over to my folks' house for burgers and brats on the grill and Katy's first experience with fireworks (Black cats and sparklers). A good weekend. And now it's almost 3:00 AM and I should really go to bed.

Batman Begins:
I'm already sick of talking about it. Working in a comic shop, everyone comes in and immediately asks "Seen Batman yet?" Apply to any other comic or geek-related movie, and you might get why I'm just tired of talking about all the geek-tainment much, much faster than most. Especially since really, I have to be a buzzkill on this one. Batman Begins is a decent flick, but it is not the great definitive Batman movie everyone is making it out to be. It seems like as comic fans, we've all become so desperate for a good comic book movie that any halfway decent comic book movie gets called great.

Don't want to spoil it for anyone, so all I'll say specifically is that the first half, the Bruce Wayne half, is pretty good, and I bought into most of it. I thought Bale did a great job playing Bruce Wayne in general. But his Batman is so over-the-top angry that I felt like Bale didn't "get" superhero acting and was almost verging on camp. Liam Neeson and Michael Caine were both terrific, and in fact their characters' relationships with Bruce were so much more interesting and believable than the one he had with Katie Holmes (who I like, but who really didn't belong in this movie... others have suggested Talia as a more obvious love influence, and a likely stronger female presence, and I totally agree). Gary Oldman was good, but his Gordon was toned down to a borderline comedic presence at times, and I think Oldman could have pulled off the badass Gordon from Year One if only the script had allowed it. Then there's the second half of the movie, the Batman vs. supervillain half, which seemed like a completely different film. The plot doesn't really make much sense, and it's like the whole thing suddenly went from ultra-real to over-the-top sci-fi, and it didn't work.

Overall, my sense was: Good casting (with a couple exceptions), good direction, weak script. Good movie, but I'm unlikely to see it again. Bale provided the best Bruce Wayne we've yet seen in films, but I thought Keaton was a better Batman. And nothing live action has even come close to touching the animated series, which got it all right in all the right ways.

Favorite superhero movies for me remain The Rocketeer and The Incredibles, with X-Men 2 trailing just behind, and X-Men and Spider-Man quite a distance beyond that.

Oh, and I'm in almost total agreement with Scott Kurtz (of PVP) and Peter Travers (of Rolling Stone, who also nailed Episode III right on in his review).

iPoooooodddddd!!!!:
Read that in a sort of Star Trek II "Khaaaaannnn!" inflection. See, I sent my iPod Photo in for repair due to battery problems a little while back and got back (in rapid time) a new iPod Photo which seemed to be working perfectly. No sign of the previous problem. The previous problem being that for some reason, even when fully charged, when I disconnected the thing from the power adapter at work and brought it to my car, it would sometimes just conk out and refuse to reset or act like it was alive. After two days or so of dormancy (when it had drained most of its remaining power), it would respond to a reset and allow me to power it up, working a few days and then doing the same damn thing.

It just did it again today. And I'm remarkably frustrated with it. I can't decide if its superstition that the work connection has something to do with it or if the iPod mini cord is somehow different than the iPod Photo cord (despite looking identical) and I've now screwed up two iPods. Hoping that when the damn thing comes back on, I can do a software reboot and fix it. If anybody out there reading this has had the same problem or has any tech advice, I'm all ears.

Next Fall Season:
I love this time of year. See, I'm one of those weird folks who loves reading the Previews of what's coming up in comics, watches the movie trailers on the Apple site about once every couple of weeks and watches pilot season with interest. I want to know what's next, because even if everything is disappointing me now (as is often the case with comics and movies at the moment, although happily not TV), something great might be just around the corner.

TV networks had their "upfronts" this week, and given that this new season gave me two new shows I loved (Lost, Veronica Mars) and some shows that impressed me again or still (24, Arrested Development, The Shield), I'm excited to see what happens next. There was only one big schedule conflict (although it is a doozy), something I always worry about when networks are shuffling their schedules, and there are a few promising shows. Also, Veronica Mars, which is probably my third-favorite show (behind Arrested Development and The Shield), wasn't even on my radar until early in the season last year, so there could still be some surprises waiting. Here's what I'm looking at for next season (not counting midseason):

Sunday 8 PM
Family Guy (FOX) - If Fox can stop screwing with the timeslot, and thus my Tivo, so that I wind up getting the lackluster American Dad instead of this show. It's been on three times, I've seen it once.

Monday 7 PM
Fathom (CBS) - Intriguing alien invasion show (third of its kind on three networks), aliens are some kind of "new sea life," but the cast and producing crew don't stand out, and there's no way *anything* could compete with:

Arrested Development (FOX) - I'm so thrilled that this show got a third season renewal, and will be watching every week.

Monday 7:30 PM
Kitchen Confidential (FOX) - I like the cast on this one: Bradley Cooper from Alias, Nicholas Brendon from Buffy, etc. I also like the premise, about "bad boy" chef Anthony Bourdain, and I want to watch the show if only because it's lead-in is AD and I'll see what FOX is pairing with that. But if it's not good immediately, I'll probably switch over to:

How I Met Your Mother (CBS) - Premise sounds dull, typical relationship type stuff but with the twist of being narrated from the future by the successful couple. The cast, however, includes Alyson Hanigan and Neil Patrick Harris. I'd rather see both of these actors on drama, because I think they're stronger there, but I'll at least check this out.

Monday 8 PM
Emily's Reasons Why Not (ABC) - Heather Graham was really good in her Scrubs guest shot, so maybe this comedy about her as an advice columnist will be funny. But I'll probably watch:

Prison Break (FOX) - A season-long show about two brothers planning a prison break? Has 24 in its DNA, and sounds like good, pulp "guy soap opera" fun in that vein.

Tuesday 7 PM
Bones (FOX) - Premise sounds too CSI, and a little boring, but it's got David Boreanaz from Angel and there's nothing on opposite that I want to watch, so I'll at least catch a few early episodes.

Tuesday 8 PM
My Name is Earl (NBC) - Jason Lee as a low-rent crook who wins the lottery and then tries to right all the wrongs of his old life? Good casting (also has Jaime Pressly and Ethan Suplee), good premise, no timeslot competition, I'll be watching. But two of those three apply to Joey, and I gave that up, so it'll have to be good to earn its place on the Tivo.

Tuesday 8:30 PM
The Office (NBC) - I like this when I watch it, so I might watch more. Or I might not.

Wednesday 8 PM
Lost (ABC) - One of my favorite shows of this season. You can bet I'll be watching, although it might be on a friend's DVR because:

Veronica Mars (UPN) - MOTHER FUCKERS! They renewed the show and put it up against ABC's ratings juggernaut? Don't get me wrong, the only thing that could get me to choose against VM is Arrested Development, but I'm not most of America, and this could easily kill the show if they're hoping to see ratings improvement. Jesus, what are they thinking?

E-Ring (NBC) - Bruckheimer-produced drama about the Pentagon. Mildly interested, has Dennis Hopper (!), but up against these two other shows? I'll never see it.

Wednesday 9 PM
Invasion (ABC) - Another "alien invasion" show, this one probably has the best chance of success, since it's lead-in is Lost. Cast isn't instantly recognizable by name (although I know some of the faces), but the general approach sounds interesting, and again, no timeslot competition for me.

Thursday 7 PM
Alias (ABC) - Almost lost me early this season, still nowhere near as good as it was in seasons 1 and 2, but has regained my interest enough that I'll watch if nothing better is competing. And nothing is.

Thursday 8 PM
The Night Stalker (ABC) - No love for the original, my original interest in X-Files has turned to hatred, and yet... this sounds like Kolchak crossed with the Fugitive, and a good underlying central mystery can help a show. Curious to check it out, at least.

Friday 8 PM
Threshold (CBS) - The third alien invasion series, hampered severely by the involvement of Star Trek's Brannon Braga and Blade: Trinity's David Goyer, but boosted given that it features Carla Gugino, one of my favorite actresses, as well as some other notably good cast. I'll watch, although not if it's on opposite Battlestar Galactica.

And that's it. Mind you, some of my favorite shows aren't in this upfront, including all the intriguing looking midseason stuff like The Unit (Shawn Ryan and David Mamet) or The Inside (coming in June, really looking forward to this one) or the stuff on cable networks like Sci-Fi (Battlestar Galactica) and FX (The Shield), but that's what I'll probably check out come the Fall season.

Star Wars: Episode III:
I tried like hell not to get my expectations up above the "this is gonna suck" level that I had after Attack of the Clones, but I apparently didn't manage it, because I was still really disappointed in this movie. A few neat moments, but most of the emotional resonance comes from John Williams's score and the nostalgic ties it has to the actual good Star Wars movies, and all of Lucas's many directing and writing foibles are on display in this flick. It is the best of the prequels, but that still ranks it amongst some of the worst crap I've seen in a theatre.

Seriously, this thing is getting good reviews from the fanboy quarter on Ain't It Cool all the way to the critics in the mainstream press, and I'm left wondering what movie they saw that I didn't. I wanted it to be good, wanted the hype to be true, but man... it isn't. Episode III wasn't as boring as Episode II, but it's still miles away from good.

Life and Times of Juniper Lee:
And this is a reminder to set my Tivo for Judd Winick's new show on Cartoon Network, The Life and Times of Juniper Lee, in May. Yes, I'm using my blog as a reminder system now. I can't help it, my memory is swiss cheese, and only getting worse as I age. :)

Mark Ricketts' Webcomic:
This is just a link to remind myself (and anyone else who might be reading this and like good comics) to check out Mark Ricketts and Jay Washer on BEATITUDE.

Is this thing on?
Well, let's see, I last updated in... huh. 2004.

Hey, I've been busy! No, not busy, what's that other word? Lazy. Actually, I have been busy, but mostly the reason I haven't updated the blog is that it just doesn't occur to me, and usually I'm spending time playing World of Warcraft, watching DVDs (either from Netflix or my copious post-Christmas/birthday stacks) or Tivo (I'm roughly a month behind on The Daily Show), writing reviews or, more likely, playing with Katy.

So it's another big update of what's been going on in my life, which are probably of no interest to anyone but myself, but it's the Internet blogger age, so I'll post my thoughts anyway.

Games: I love World of Warcraft. I bought the Collector's Edition from a friend of a friend just before Christmas, and have been playing it in fairly devoted fashion ever since. My character is Marrok, a level 47 Dwarf Warrior on the Gilneas server, who is an Armorsmith & Blacksmith (level 255), Cook (level 275) and Miner (level 260-something). Yeah, I can geek out about the game for a while. Anyway, it's really fun, much more repeat fun than City of Heroes, the first MMORPG that I played, and I paid up front for 6 months to get a cheaper rate and don't regret it at all. The upcoming D&D Online is tempting, and maybe by the time it comes out I'll be ready to depart World of Warcraft for a new game, but I'm not sure... it's a really great game. And has made it unnecessary for me to pick up any other games for PS/2, although I do want to give God of War a try at some point.

iPod: My last post indicated that I wanted an iPod Photo. I bought one after Christmas and for the most part haven't regretted it at all. I got to show off a slideshow of Katy pictures for family on a recent trip to Arkansas, and that was a lot of fun, and I love having all my music in one little box that plugs into my car stereo. I was a bit annoyed to find myself having battery problems about a month ago, but I sent it in for warranty service and got a new iPod back almost within a week, so I've got no complaints about Apple's service. I do wish I'd held out until the price dropped from $500 to $350, but then I would have gone many months without all my pictures and music in my pocket, so I'm not too terribly disappointed.

Movies: I haven't seen a ton of movies in recent months. I rented Garden State and really enjoyed that, but mostly Netflix has been occupied sending me TV DVDs. However, I did see Sin City, which was amazing, and just last night I went with some friends to see Stephen Chow's Kung Fu Hustle, which was equally amazing. Lots of fun, fight sequences that have all the visual innovation of the Matrix movie with better story and characters, so involving that I didn't really even notice the subtitles because I was so involved in it. Owen Gleiberman at EW described Chow's style as "Tex Avery meets Quentin Tarantino," and if you throw in a little bit of Bruce Lee, I think that's about right. My buddy Dave got me the soundtrack as a belated birthday present, and it's terrific too.

TV: I changed up my "current favorite" TV listings over on the sidebar. Alias is gone, because I'm still watching but increasingly skeptical about the new direction it's gone in, while 24 has returned, recovering nicely from the season three stumble for what has probably been its best season ever. The Shield is also having a great season so far... no surprise, as that show has really never even had a bad episode (aside from some misfires in the Mamet episode where I didn't think he "got" the show), but I've been taken aback at just how much I'm liking Glenn Close's character, and hoping that she'll stick around for more than one season. Also digging ABC's new spy/PI drama with comedic touches Eyes, although given the ratings, I'm not sure how long I'll be able to enjoy it. I was also shocked at how good the Sci Fi Battlestar Galactica was, and cannot wait for it to restart in July. Oh, and Arrested Development and Veronica Mars continue to be my favorite shows, coming in just below the Shield. Delighted that Mars is getting a season two, very hopeful that Arrested will get a season three. It's actually been as good or better in season two than it was in the brilliant first season, and cracks me up like no other show on TV.

Deadwood: I list favorite shows that I watch on Tivo, but I don't have HBO, so there are a lot of shows that I watch on DVD. Doesn't mean I love them any less, just means that I'm patient and don't mind the "wait for DVD" (akin to waiting for trade paperbacks) approach. Deadwood is a recent discovery, and I adore this show. I haven't watched the last disc (although I probably will as soon as I post this), but the first season is just great. It might be my favorite thing ever from HBO, and was almost enough to get me to sign up for the network if I didn't already have so many demands on my time and plenty to watch. Of course, I haven't watched The Wire yet, which everyone also tells me is really good, so I can't say Deadwood is the best thing on HBO, but I can say that it's my favorite thing so far, beating out Sopranos and probably even Band of Brothers, although that one's really close.

That's it. Everything else is either comics (which I cover ad nauseum over on Fourth Rail), boring day-to-day life stuff (like my sink being clogged up in the latest of seemingly neverending house expenses) or talking about how cute and smart and wonderful my two-year-old daughter Katy is.

Early November Update:
So let's see, a fair amount has happened since the last time I posted. I think there was some kind of election, but I've blocked it all out to keep from screaming and going mad.

So, what else? Well, I saw the Incredibles today with my lovely wife, and my take on it, some 10 hours later, is that it is probably my favorite Pixar movie and is certainly the best superhero film ever created. It's got its funny moments, as with all Pixar films, but it also has tremendous heart, fantastic action, a true understanding of superheroes from both a story and a visual side and a '60s Silver Age superhero/cool Bond espionage vibe that is unbeatable. Not that any of this is surprising, really. Pixar has never let me down, Brad Bird (writer/director of this and The Iron Giant) is awesome and Michael Giacchino (composer for this, Alias and Lost) is both exceptionally talented and perfect for the material. Great work by the voice cast as well, especially Holly Hunter, Craig T. Nelson and Brad Bird, all of whom just brought so much life to their characters.

TV season is rolling along surprisingly well, given that most of the new offerings this season looked awful. But while much of the TV landscape is a wasteland of reality shows and scripted TV so dumb it might violate the Geneva convention, the bright spots do shine all the more brightly. Veronica Mars has turned out to be great, a little overly cutesy and impressed with itself at times but just on the right side of quirky, with exceptional writing and some great casting. Lost hooked me after about three episodes, and though I'm still not prepared to say it's better than Alias, it might just be as good. Bravo, meanwhile, has a cool new show called Long Way Round about Ewan McGregor and his buddy Charley Boorman going from England to New York by way of Asia on BMW motorcycles, which I'm really enjoying so far. Arrested Development has started up again, which is great news for those of us who enjoy intelligent comedy. And Drawn Together on Comedy Central, on the opposite end of the spectrum, is crude in imaginative ways, not quite up to South Park's level of outrageous humor but definitely entertaining in an "I can't believe I'm watching this" kind of way.

My faith in mankind has been shaken a little this last month or so (don't worry, I'm still not going to talk about the election), and part of that is that somebody broke the passenger window of my car and stole my radio while I was parked in front of my house! $750 and a great deal of hassle later, the upside is that I have a new, cheaper car insurance policy with better coverage and a new, cool in-dash radio/CD player for the car. It has two features I've wanted for a while, the ability to play MP3 CDs (I now have over 800 songs across 5 CDs that comprises most of the music I want to listen to in the car) and an audio in-jack for my next big tech purchase, an iPod.

I'm waiting on Christmas money to see if I can afford one. My original plan was to buy the 40GB deal, maybe even spring the extra $50 for the cool black and red U2 limited edition, but then I went over to Apple's site and saw this. Now I can carry around all the baby pictures I want along with my music. I can't wait to pick this up, and very much hope finances allow me to do so in January.

Late September Update:
Yeah, I'm just not real good at the concept of blogging, which is meant to revolve around frequent updates. Most of my web effort goes into The Fourth Rail.

However, there have been a few things worth noting on this site. Most notable is that I took a weekend trip a few weeks back out to New Orleans for the N.O.D.I.Y. alternative media show. Put together by Leo McGovern, who runs the free magazine Antigravity in town (which happens to syndicate Snap Judgments as well), the show was unusual and a lot of fun. Music, a variety of things besides comics, a night-time show and a bar right there (the whole thing was held in a warehouse sized bar called Twiropa), I had a lot of fun. Probably would have had more if I hadn't been wiped out from the 10-hour drive, but the Saturday after, when we just bummed around New Orleans, was plenty of fun.

I was there with my buddies Chris Nicholas and Dave Lamplugh (creators of the minicomics You Chose Right The First Time) as well as Toby Craig (creator of the Engine minicomics and more), whom we had picked up in Houston. On Saturday, we all walked around, got plenty of pictures (and Toby and Dave got plenty of sketching done), had breakfast at Cafe Du Monde, lunch at Central Grocery (where we had their awesome Muffelettas) and dinner with Leo and his girlfriend Michelle at a place Leo picked out called Mandina's. We then hit a few of the coolest bars I've ever been to, thanks to Leo and Michelle, which were more local places and not as swamped as the Bourbon Street joints. I discovered my new favorite drink, Coke and Absolut Vanilla, and maybe had a *little* too much of it, but it was a good time.

That's the really exciting stuff that's gone on. Otherwise, I've been playing the hell out of Burnout 3, which I rented from Gamefly, and much as I enjoyed Burnout 2, this one is sooo much better. It looks better, and the addition of the ability to steer your car after you wreck is just genius. I also like the "Road Rage" events that consist of you trying to wreck as many opponents as possible. It's been getting rave reviews at the game sites, and I can see why. I desperately want to hold onto it, but will probably give it up soon so that I can rent Star Wars Battlefront and X-Men: Legends, both of which I'm also hearing good things about.

New Fall TV season has started, and is pretty much just as bad as I thought it was going to be. However, there are a couple bright spots. Joey is a guilty pleasure, just like Friends was for the last four or five years of its existence. Lost had an intriguing opener, not quite the throat-grabber that Alias was for me but certainly interesting. And the real winner of the Fall season so far for me is Veronica Mars, which had a very smartly-written pilot, plenty of charm mixed with a little darkness (not unlike Rob Thomas's previous show, Cupid) and a terrific cast, highlighted by the lead actress. Surprisingly enough, UPN might have my favorite show right now, although there is room for Lost to overtake it, and of course, it *will* be overtaken when The Shield, Alias or Arrested Development start up again. Still, well worth a look.

Other than that, I've also been lucky enough to find that Trio is running Spaced, the Britcom by Shaun of the Dead creators Simon Pegg and Edward Wright, and it is every bit as funny as the clip reel they put together in San Diego indicated. Happily, I'll have every episode of Spaced on my Tivo in just a few days, and this has spurred me to organize a trip to the Drafthouse to see Shaun of the Dead next weekend. Still bummed I missed Pegg and Wright when they were in town to premiere the film, but ah well.

Robert Rodriguez Scares Me:
I finally sat down to watch the DVD of Once Upon A Time in Mexico tonight. I'd already re-watched the movie, but I sat down to watch Rodriguez's commentary and the extras. Rodriguez's commentary is great, as he just talks constantly throughout, and it's both extremely technical and yet accessible to the casual viewer, funny and light without being stupid or lightweight. Then I watch the Ten Minute Film School, Ten Minute Cooking School and Inside Troublemaker Studios featurettes, and I realize that Rodriguez is talented in so many areas that he doesn't even realize how rare it is.

Rodriguez can compose scores (kickass ones, too, like the one for Kill Bill), direct and write movies, speak intelligently on sound mixing, editing and other movie technical shit that I barely understand, play guitar, cook, mess with CGI/digital effects... it's frightening. It also makes for a very entertaining DVD, and bodes well for the upcoming Sin City. I mean, I'm predisposed to like Rodriguez already because he's a comic book fan who resides in Austin (like me) and because he's made several movies I really love, but realizing just how far his talents range makes me all the more happy that he's the guy doing Sin City.

Meet the new game... same as the old game:
Well, since I had only played once in about three weeks, most of my superhero group had outlevelled me and several of my friends had quit, I decided to call it quits with City of Heroes. I enjoyed it when I played, but I wasn't feeling the addiction anymore, and couldn't justify $15 a month for something I was only playing for a few hours a month. Still, early May to mid-August is a pretty good run for a game, and I'll definitely be back on the game at some point... just not right now.

I'm also getting my superhero buzz from a new Mutants & Masterminds game I started with my regular gaming group. It's the first time I've played M&M, and I like it so far, although after having played pretty much Champions only for about 10 years, it's taking some adjusting. The superteam, as is typical for my gaming groups, is more than a little bit strange. There's a speedster social worker who got his powers from being caught up in an alien drug deal (Torque), the electrical blaster who was sort of the head of a gang in a bad area of town until reaching adulthood and becoming a superhero (Bolt, although originally he was Shock, and before that he had no official superhero name), the '60s vocalist for a third-rate band who got sucked into 1993 by a dimensional invasion and was granted a number of weird powers like transmuting objects into other objects, teleporting and animating objects (The Shifter) and, off a dare, a plant guy (Doc Nightshade). They chose The Outcasts for their team name, and it's looking pretty appropriate. First session was fun, though, and while I'm still getting the hang of the power levels/balance, I think M&M may wind up overtaking Champs as my favorite superhero RPG.

I've been playing SSX3 on the PS/2 a lot lately, and my love of console games got the better of me. With City of Heroes funding turned off, I decided I could once again justify my subscription to Gamefly, the Netflix-like service for videogames, and started that up again (Net savings from CoH to Gamefly: About a $1 a month. Nice one, Randy). At any rate, though, I currently have Spider-Man 2 out for rent, and while the plot and some of the dialogue is just hokey as hell, occasionally crossing the border into downright stupid, the webswinging through New York is really addictive and fun.

So there you have it. Three loooong paragraphs about my videogame habits and gaming. Good God, does anyone read this blog? If so, I'm deeply sorry that I don't have anything more interesting to say. My wife's got cute baby stories on her blog, maybe you should visit there. :)