During my holiday in Washington, I bought a lot of comics. I probably spent a good $300 or so on various graphic novels, due to various sales and whatnot.

At the end of my trip, I found that the volume of books (plus other stuff) was rather greater than the internal volume of my luggage. Needing an alternative solution, I wrapped up a good number of the books into two packages, headed down to the post office and mailed them to myself for about $13 or so.

Two days after I got back, the first of the two packages (containing mostly manga volumes) arrived.

Three weeks later, the second has not, and upon my inquiries to the post office, it seems it is gone for good. I didn't have the foresight to insure the package, either.

This is annoying, since the total value of the books in there was probably about $200 or so. Annoying, and it'll probably take me a while to replace them all, if only because I can't entirely remember everything in there.

On the slight upside, I had read all of the books in there, except for one volume of Supergirl & The Legion of Superheroes and a volume of Legend of Lemnear that was more for collection padding than actual reading. (The early CPM Manga TPs have horrible quality control. They look like bad photocopies, at points.)

So, while it's annoying, there's no immediate need for me to replace any of the books except for that SGatLoSH one.

However, I don't think I'll be repurchasing everything in there. Some volumes I'll need to get again: Birds of Prey, The Atom, and Hack/Slash are bundles of awesome. The Goon: Noir is quite good, if not quite up to the standards of the normal volumes (more anoying is the fact it was signed.) A few other things in there will probably need new copies for my shelf.

However, upon reflection, I'll just sigh and pass on replacing those Powers volumes.

Because, you know, fuck you, Bendis. Really, fuck you.

I like Powers. I like Alias. I like Ultimate Spider-Man. I like a ton of stuff that Bendis has written.

However, this is enough. I really get that Bendis has a massive hate-on for Tigra. I can even understand, since she's really not that compelling to me, either.

But for crying out loud, just stop writing her. He's doing worse than Judd Winick writes Black Canary, at the moment. It's painfully clear that he has no interest in writing the character well, and he has no clue how offensive every scene he writes with/about her is.

Between OMD and this, I'm about ready to give up on Marvel. It's turning into complete crap.

I think I can only turn to others to sum up my feelings on One More Day.

I've been playing Peggle for much of the past week and it's all josienutter's fault.

Actually, now that I think about it, this is probably the first video game I've purchased since I bought a Shenmue 2 for the Dreamcast.


And on that thought, Josie's awesome to hang out with, still. Even if we both drank a bit too much.

She's also awesome to put up with me and show off Mass Effect while I waited until I was ready to drive. Plus, the kitties sure are cute.


I hope I didn't say anything too embarassing. I know I get both talkative and blatantly honest when buzzed.


My comics buying hasn't ceased. Local store had a sale on Wednesday of 50% off all HCs and TPBs... so I bought a bunch of hardcovers for the first time.

Initial thought is they're very -nice- to read. If I felt that paying an extra $5-$10 was worth the increase in the reading pleasure, I might switch for good.

I also got the complete edition of Grant Morrison's New X-Men run. Did so just in time. After I grabbed the copy off the shelf, another four people entered the store who wanted it. I found out today that about another half-dozen did so after I left, as well.

Hey, $50 for the best run of X-Men comics ever? Hot shit.

Also Got X-Factor volume 4, JSA volume 1, Brave and the Bold vol 1, and the Black Dossier. Have read the first three, and all are great.


Was nice seeing the family and such over Christmas, but given the size of my grandparents' place, it felt a bit cramped at times. Things have eased up now, which is nice.


Oh, yeah. The end of One Day More? Worst fucking ret-con in the history of comics. The art sucked, plotting atrocious, ending absolutely crap and the dialogue was only marginally better. I could not help while scanning through it that Mephisto is nothing more than Joe Quesada's avatar in the Marvel U.

Oh, and a nice final fuck you to the fans? The end of the book reprints the wedding.


This is pretty interesting. I think for myself I've got a bit of 3 and 5, have had a some instances of 4, and probably touch 2 in an inverted manner.

Reading the latest issue of Justice League of American (#15), I was struck by how dissonant it seemed.

On one hand, we've got Dwayne McDuffie's script, which is another step in moving the comic from the completely forgettable Meltzer run to something that's palatable. The story isn't great. This is a light issue, without much in the way of plot details (in fact, it very specifically dovetails into two other titles at the end, without resolution), but it's got some kinda fun rock-em, sock-em action going on.

It's also got moments of The Sexy going on. The girls are doing the cool shits, and whooping baddies all around. Not so much for the damsels in distress, here. We've got proactive heroines doing the right thing.

Sexy.

On the other hand, we've got Ed Benes' art, which has taken another step in moving the book towards an ass-shot in every panel (and, depending on how limber he makes the portrayed character, tits as well). In this issue, the art is almost overwhelmingly, objectifyingly sexist, to the point that about halfway through (and this is just a 22-page story, mind), I began to feel a bit numb from the whole thing.

Hop over to my shiny-ish, new-ish blog for the play by play. I use the word "ass" a lot, without meaning "Donkey" or "Idiot". Also, spoilers, but no Spoiler.

Annihilation - Hot damn, this was awesome. It sorta cements in my mind the strength of the "meta series". There's very little that's messed up here and it's considerably more satisfying than Civil War was. Can't wait for Conquest.

Interestingly, the last really great miniseries I enjoyed was Seven Soldiers, which had a similar layout.

She-Hulk - Ah, so we come to the end of Dan Slott's amazing run. I've heard some complaints about how this fits into the rest of the Marvel U, but I really don't care. The combination of humor and action along with some really clever plots (The Gamma Defense! Awesome!) made it a book I always looked forward to.

Here's hoping Peter David (?) can keep up the good work. Of course, if Young Justice is any indication, he can.

Bomb Queen vol 2. - After I finished, I pondered that boundry of satire. It's interesting here because Robinson doesn't cross the line of offensiveness twice. There's a LOT of T&A in Bomb Queen, but it's satire, and rather good at that. (It took me a bit to get the pants.)

I'm interesting in seeing more of his work that isn't in the superhero mold.

Powers: Cosmic - Woo! Powers. Please, Bendis, stop writing Avengers so we can get more Powers.

Scott Pilgrim - Awesome!

Hack/Slash,: Friday the 31st - I love Hack/Slash. I don't care for horror movies of any sort, much less slasher films, but I love it. Perhaps it's because it plays a reverse of the concept that I like it, but it helps that it plays the reversal quite well. Plus, the little bits of humor are excellent.

"The sex" indeed.

Ex Machina: Power Down - I was a little underwhelmed by Smoke Smoke, but Power Down put things back on track. I really like that Vaughan has a definite end in mind (issue 50 or so), so very little of Ex Machina feels like treading water.

Space Pinchy - It's really weird. It's got so much T&A but because it's so weird, I don't find it titillating.

In truth, it was more interesting when I scanned it a bit in Japanese years ago.

Gravity - Mostly I picked it up to see (more) of how Sean McKeever handles kids. He does okay.

Utawarerumono - My viewing of this is a bit disjointed. I watched the first seventeen or so episodes with Chris on fansub ages ago. And now over the past few days I've watched eps 15-26 on DVD.

Um.

My initial reaction to the show was a bit eh. The plethora of unexplained animal-people (I think the main girls are fox-girls, but don't quote me), had me wondering, but it actually got interesting in a political fantasy kind of way in short order. So Chris and I stuck around.

A common theme of the series is that the enemies are violence crazy. Crazy for the sake of crazy. This probably would have ruined it for me, except one of the first of these had the absolutely BRILLIANT idea of attacking people on his own side for... well, suffice to say the event had me laughing for, well, months, now.

Plus there's one character who carries a sword so heavy that nobody else can lift it. She does it one-handed, cleaving through such things as God did not meant to have clove.

Now that I've finished it, I can say that for the first nineteen episodes, the series is fine. Then it totally comes off its rails as a series of unexplained plot twists, unbelievable plot reveals and a whole heap of elements stolen almost verbatim from EVA (but possibly NOT the ones you'd think) make the last seven episodes nearly a complete write-off.

Oh, well. At least Karula's cool.

I've been reading a lot of comics. This seems to happen after several months when I'm able to come back to Washington to visit and pick up whatever Chris has been getting for me or for himself.

I'm not actually sure I could list everything I've read in the past week and a half, but it's an insane load, and I've got a load more on top of it.

In any case, capsule reviews:

( DC )

Bloody hell that was long. I'll get to the other stuff later. I didn't review Supergirl and the Legion becuase I'm apparently missing a volume.

Girl Wonder does a lot of cool stuff. I like to check it out for karenhealey's blog, as well as Rachel Edidin's.

Fortunately, they seem to be making a lot of headway to getting the problem of gender imbalance recognized. It's a long road, but movement is being made.

Unfortunately, the natural fanboy tendency when faced with the truth of the problem is to lash back hard. As such, there's the occasional trolling instance.

In either case, the costs of running the site have mounted. As such, they're holding an auction, with a bunch of cool creator donated stuff up. You can find it all here. I'm eyeing that Joshua Middleton print, myself.

Not really had a good conversation about comics recently. This was nice. I'm actually glad I woke up 2 hours early, now.

Chris: maaaan... so I read The Walking Dead 7 last night. I know the comic is so good, but last night I really started wondering if I should keep reading such a depressing comic ^^;; Vol 7 is called "The Calm Before", and w/o giving too much away, boy is that ever true. After halfway through, I was like, "Ok, things are going too well, it's time for the shitstorm soon." And by the time you get to the 3rd to last page, you won't want to turn it to see what's on the other side ><

Jeff: Hmm... Vol 7 takes it to around issue 42 or so? I'd hope that he doesn't plan to take it much further than 50-60 issues.

Chris: I think I read somewhere that he'll take it as far as the story will let itself be told.
So I don't know what his plan is on many issues he goes

Jeff: Well, I don't think there's much to tell beyond that. Most of the good indie series run that number. Transmet. Preacher. Y: The Last Man. Even if, presumably, a comic could go longer, it's better to end it at a good point than drag it out.

Chris: I like stories that know how to conclude

Jeff: Even, say, Sandman or Lucifer. They both went to 75 or so, but they ended at a good point rather than drag it out.

Chris: I was gonna mention the latter eventually

Jeff: I hope that Kirkman realizes that given the framework he's put together, the story needs to end.

Chris: unless it's something that lends itself to story arcs, then I don't mind if it keeps going. if nothing else, we need some sort of cathartic release to top off all the tension. at least that's what *I* need

Jeff: I'm not sure that's really the case. In fact, at this point, I fully expect the ending to be somewhat disheartening. The characters are in an ultimately hopeless situation. The ending should, IMO, have them realize and face up to that. The alternative is to provide them some ultimate hope of being saved, however once that happens, the story needs to end quickly.

Jeff: There's a reason zombie movies aren't 3 hour epics.

Chris: ind33d

Chris: on another note in comics, when I was at HPB this weekend, I picked up JLA One Million. Man, that really made me yearn for that age of JLA ^^;; I have to be honest, I do go back and re-read a lot the JLA TPBs up to... Rules of Engagement?

Jeff: Has the new writer started, yet?

Chris: yeah

Jeff: McDuffie?

Chris: I think so

Chris: we'll see where it goes. I'm not entire sure I'm hot on the Injustice League idea, but maybe I just yearn too much for the epic battles against different threats and crisises of the previous run. somehow "the good guys team vs the bad guys team" seems too... droll?

Jeff: DC has a problem in editorial. His name is Dan.

Chris: hahah

Jeff: I'm not joking.

Chris: you think it all boils down to him?

Jeff: A few missteps here and there from other people, but, yes, Dan is the man to blame for the current woes. While I admit he's led the company to some success, he's gotten precisely the wrong idea about what worked to reach that success and is pushing entirely the wrong points. So DC's modus operandi is "crisis, Crisis, motherfucking CRISIS!" all the while trying to inject the human balance that the Marvel line has. So we're getting the same serious note over and over again while the characters are repeatedly washed out. Stop trying to inject in backstory. It's a shitty crutch for comic storytelling. Accept that DC's populated by ridiculous characters who are going to do ridiculous things to try and take over/save the world. And run with it. Marvel's got a really good handle on the human superhuman thing. DC should just run with the larger than life stuff.

Chris: you put that well. I think that's how I always thought of the 2 universes, well, at least w/ the teams. I am enjoying Catwoman, and that's not really "larger that life" stuff

Jeff: Okay, Batman might be a mythos entirely in and of himself separated from the rest of the DCU... And I enjoy Catwoman, too... but mostly when the rest of the DCU doesn't intrude.

Chris: I can see that

Jeff: Probably because the concept of a man with no powers doesn't really stack up well when his best friend can blow up the moon, and he has teammates who can harness the sun, run at lightspeed, or have a vacation home on an island of superhuman women.

Chris: unless you make him waaaay smarter than the rest of them put together. except for J'onn

Jeff: Which doesn't work, unless he's of superhuman intelligence. Part of the problem I have with Batman is that invariably, when he's in a JLA or B&S setting, he pulls out these super-tech toys to level the playing field. And I wonder... why the hell isn't he doing that at home? Gotham's got a crime rate that would make Baltimore blush.

Chris: I guess that really gets chalked up to magnitude of setting and stories to tell

Jeff: Hell, Gothamites might check into a Baghdad hotel for a vacation, at this point.

Chris: ^^;;

Jeff: Within the context of Gotham by itself, it works fine. But against the palatte of the DCU entirely, not so much. Unfortunately, crossovers and whatnot are the rule of the game, so the lines are blurred too often.

Jeff: So, yeah. Blame Dan.

Chris: I may just have to completely revamp what I read in the DCU. 'cause it's starting to feel too hard to be in tune with what's supposed to be going on overall. I may have to try and stick to more localized stories, on a smaller scale

Jeff: Perhaps for the time being.

Edit, edit: Actually, in light of me being a stupendous idiot I'm not going to risk doing further damage and I'll take this whole entry down.

Face red, and all that.

This is kinda what it's like trying to put together a meal for my friends. ^_^

Right... comics reviews. Since Chris came down to visit, I got about 4 months worth of graphic novels to read through. I got to a few of them, but since I only had a weekend, most had to wait. And since they're all at home, reviews will have to wait, too.

52 - Hoo, wow. A lot to catch up on, but I like how the story seems to be coming together near the end. It's not perfect, but I think over the course of the past year DC's realized that the week-by-week format isn't without some flaws. The changes to Countdown (where storylines are going to be in month-by-month 4 issue blocks rather than the current week-by-week thing) seem like an attempt to answer those. I've given some thought, and I think that it'd be a good idea if the universe could use a tiered storytelling format. Use a weekly book to cement the line. Have miniseries and such to tell big stories, and leave individual books individual. Of course, I'd argue that characters should stop appearing in so many books. There's too many chances for confusion and dissonance if they're all over the place.

Extra special cool award to Elongated Man, who managed to join the ranks of Atom and Connor Green Lantern for awesome ways of taking out an uber baddie.

Astonishing X-Men: Torn - Makes me yearn for the years when there was but one X-Men team and book to follow. This, New Mutants (Well, called New X-Men NOW but it should be New Mutants), and X-Factor... I could dig that. At least we're fairly well assured that Marvel won't require Whedon to take part in a crossover or anything. While I know his run isn't going to last forever, I'm going to enjoy it for now.

Batman: Secrets - Thank you, lord, for Sam Kieth. In some ways this felt similar to Arkham Asylum.

Batman/Superman: Absolute Power - Jeph Loeb's an odd writer. When I read his stuff, I really enjoy it, but afterwards I have trouble remembering any significant details. He's like the ultimate enjoyable but disposable comic writer. Batman/Superman pretty much exists entirely in that state. The characters have plenty of books to explore their own mythos and such and JLA serves if you want team-ups. What's left but a few popcorn stories?

DMZ: Body of a Journalist - Brian Wood is quickly becoming one of my favorite writers in comics. He's got a bit of work to oust Vaughan from the top spot, but it may not be much longer if he keeps up the good work with this and Local. I'm excited about his upcoming Vertigo title about Norse myths.

Flash - I love Bart, but the new Flash really isn't doing it for me. I'm not sure why, because it seems like it's relatively well plotted and the characters are good, but it's just not engaging. Perhaps the new writer (taking over with issue #9) will turn things around.

Green Lantern Corps - Mostly notable for being more enjoyable than Green Lantern in almost every way. Some of the dialogue is a bit cheesy, but other than that I'm engaged.

Ion: The Torchbearer - I believe this is only the first half of the Ion series. I've got to express my disappointment. While Ron Marz has done okay by finally getting away from the whole "dump shit on Kyle" syndrome he's somehow managed to make the story even more offensive simply because the plotting is terrible. Instead of angst we've got everything going hunky-dory. There's almost no conflict, barely any character, and never a moment where we should feel the least bit of concern for any character's well being.

JLA - I like it, but I've got some reservations. It really strikes me that Meltzer isn't a writer who should have a regular monthly title. There's something that feels detached and unreal about his stories such that I'm never quite sure if they're really in continuity or not. So while I think he's fine for another six months or so, I hope DC chooses another writer to replace him after that. They could always bring Joe Kelly or Grant Morrison back.

Lucifer: Evensong - Similar to The Wake, this was a nice post-climax collection to cap off the series. I'm not exactly happy to see it go, but I think that's just because I felt such an attraction to the characters. I'll miss reading about all of them.

Marvel Team Up: Freedom Ring - Kinda a piffle ending. The art really suffered compared to earlier volumes and it seems like Kirkman wasn't sure whether he was writing a serious or funny book. He can do both quite well, but seems to have trouble going between them. In a lot of ways, this is a bit like Batman/Superman for how it fits into continuity.

Otherworld - This is very much a comic that benefits from reading as a collection. The individual issues were dense and covered a lot of thematic and plotting ground. Pulling them together allows the story to flow much more easily. Some parts of it aren't quite to my taste, particularly since we're not given much of a chance to see the characterization, but I'm really curious to see how it goes. I hope Jiminez gets a chance to finish the whole thing.

Outsiders: The Good Fight - I read the first OYL issue of Outsiders over a year ago, and I had hopes that the story would remain enjoyable. Unfortunately, this is a lackluster performance, and it highlights how much of a streaky writer Winick is. Sometimes he manages to put together compelling stories I can't put down, other times it seems like he's just going through the motions. Outsiders, unfortunately, seems to be more of the latter. This volume is especially sparse, has a lot of unanswered questions, and some questionable characterization. While I can understand a few unanswered questions (this is OYL territory, after all), I'd rather hope that over the course of eight issues a few of them could be answered. And then new questions could be asked.

The sparseness really bugs me, it's been a problem with Outsiders for quite some time, really. It's like Winick realizes that he doesn't have enough story to fill x issues, and not enough storylines to make them all shorter, so he starts padding. Issue 41 is especially bad; it's essentially an entire issue dedicated to hinting that things are going to be exciting... next issue (I presume. It's the end of the volume). Cut the stories down to 4 issues, and this would be the last page or two in issue 4.

As for characterizations, um... Thunder and Grace. There's no excuse for that except to fuel fanboy wet dreams. It doesn't have any precedent earlier in the book. Also the way Brain and Mallah were used bugs me.

Here's hoping that a new writer is brought on board soon.

Seven Soldiers of Victory - A nice end to the epic, even if it didn't quite have the awesome single issue impact that #0 did to get the series started. I don't mind that the series doesn't quite come in with a neat little bow to tie it off, but it'd be more effective if I knew that there'd be some chance for a few of those loose ends (and characters) to be explored. Unfortunately, the combined Infinite Crisis, 52, OYL bit pretty much means Seven Soldiers is going to be a odd but enjoyable note rather than a building block for DC's future.

Superman: Back in Action - It's a fun storyline and seems to bring back the days where world-spanning big events could happen in the pages of a single book without requiring a crossover. Kudos to Busiek for teaming up Supes with a number of lesser knowns.

Teen Titans: Titans Around the World - Now THIS is much more satisfying. Two rather tight storylines, lots of character progression, some questions in the air, many answered, and a true feeling of advancement. Plus, Johns manages to do a hell of a lot better with the Brain and Mallah storyline. I AM disappointed that DC apparently didn't have some editorial oversight so that the two teams wouldn't have completely unconnected adventures (with completely different resolutions) to the same plot hook, though.

I really like the character interplay. Rose and Cassie fighting each other ALONE is enough to read the book. The rest is just gravy.

Testament: West of Eden - Much like Otherworld, this benfits from the collection. I like the concept and the themes that Rushkoff is dealing with, but it's rather clear that he's still a very new comic writer. At times the storytelling gets to be very didactic, where he's telling us what is happening rather than showing us. From the extensively informative liner notes at the end, I can see why he did it this way, but I can't help but think that there are more effective ways to get the point across without compromising the storytelling. Hopefully the series will last long enough for him to learn.

Ultimate Fantastic Four: God War - Oh, thank god the Millar/Land run is over and done with. Carey seems to have a good handle on things to start with and Ferry's keeping up the good work that made me enjoy Adam Strange: Planet Heist so much.

X-Factor: The Longest Night - The differences from Madrox took me a bit to grasp, but I finally got that this is a team book and not strictly a thematic continuation of Madrox's one-man-show.

Thank you karenhealey. No really, thank you.

If not for this, I would NEVER have found out that, against all expectations, Marvel has succeeded in putting together a worse Spiderman plotline than the whole "Green Goblin fucks Gwen Stacy" tripe that JMS came up with a few years ago.

Seriously, (spoilers ahead) radioactive spunk? MJ fucking dies from radioactive spunk?

I'm going to be in the corner sucking my thumb.


Bonus conversation with another friend:
Jeff: Plot line... Spider-semen kills Mary Jane.
Friend: Superheroes aren't allowed to procreate.
Friend: It leads to ruin! Or death! Or one leading to the other.
Jeff: It was like someone at Marvel read "Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex" and thought "Hey, we should do a plotline like that with Spidey."
Friend: Yeah, exactly.
Friend: We can one-up this "Superman".

I notice from today's previews, that Alex is going to get his wish: In a couple months, neither of the two lead X-men titles will have Wolverine as a team member. Which will mean that he'll be showing up in New Avengers and Astonishing... at least whenever Astonishing comes out.

So we've got two new teams, both behind the scenes and on the pages. Ed Brubaker's taking over the writing duties on Uncanny, and he'll be doing Prof. X, Nightcrawler, Havok, Polaris, Warpath, and Marvel Girl. Not too bad. Plus, it's got Brubaker doing the writing, which is awesome. (His Marvel stuff that I've seen isn't quite as good as the stuff he had for DC, but it's still close to top tier.)

Over on the adjectiveless team, Mike Carey is doing the scripts. Normally, I'd be excited, except the team he's chosen is... well: Rogue, Mystique, Sabretooth, Iceman, Cannonball, and Cable. There's two and a half major missteps there. One is Cannonball, who's about as interesting as latex paint. Seriously, when Alex and I talked about this, we both came up with the exact same 20 year old line: "Ah'm invulnerable when ah'm blastin'!" (And thus, we summed up the entirity of Cannonball's character. Well that and he did Lila Cheney, but nobody mentions that.) The second and a half is Wolverine. Or rather, the pathetic attempt to replace him with two characters. Sabretooth is obvious, but far worse is the presence of Cable, who has long been a blight upon Marvel mutantdom. Sabretooth, at least, has a long and somewhat interesting history. Cable just brings up memories of Rob Liefeld, and that's one thing that nobody should have to remember.

In any case, I give it a handful of months before a few of the members get booted and replaced by Wolvie. I'm not sure if I'll read Carey's book, but I may check out Brubaker's once it hits TPB.

Meanwhile, I've finally gotten to the post-House of M Academy X, which has the new writers. Nothing against Weir and DeFillips, they gave it a great go, but for the last 10 or so issues of their run, it was really dragging. My initial reaction to Childhood's End is that it's not quite on par with the writing for X-23, and a few bits directly bugged me, but I am interested to see where they're going. Hopefully the next book won't take so long to come out.

I also got the new Power Pack volume. God, it's fun.


Over in the realm of DC, I'm picking at One Year Later. It's not quite living up to the hype. Some books seem pretty good (Catwoman, Birds of Prey), and I'm quite curious about others, but The Battle for Bludhaven is a total mess. It's like they grabbed every single z-rate character in the DCU and chucked them into one book. Boo to Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Grey for writing this tripe. And that's not mentioning the art. Ugh. At one point I -swear- a character managed to dislocate his own finger just by pointing at someone. Didn't feel any pain, though, and was magically healed a panel later.

I'm feeling middling interest in Green Lantern, but that's less OYL and more that Hal's just not as interesting as Kyle was.

Oh, yeah. Infinite Crisis hasn't finished yet. Holy fuck, though. I'm totally digging how it connects thematically to the original Crisis. Cain't wait for #7. Which I won't get to read until after my trip to Chicago. Poop.


On the thought of the trip, I need to pack. Heading to the airport in about 23 hours.

Must post this before I forget.

Probably the coolest thing I've read in quite some time: Brazil has plans to go completely ethanol... By the end of the year.

Right Stuf is having a sale on Tokyopop items. 33% off. I browsed through the list, and saw a few items that piqued my interest. I think I might use it to grab a random sampling of a number of titles to see what I like. Also, if anyone (Pete, Ro, Chris, Erik) want to, they can give me stuff to order. I'll pile it all on to make the savings better. Note: you can preorder stuff (like, um, the next two or three volumes of Furuba, it seems.)

I find it delightfully odd that the people on my friendslist who talk most about superhero books (ostensibly guy oriented) are girls. Yet I've been having more fascination with more theoretically girl-oriented stuff like what Brian Wood or Becky Cloonan produce.

Media Blasters will release Voltron on DVD. Not sure if I should pony up for it, but it was the first thing I ever got really geeky about.


Fiddling with the new computer. Even with Windows, it's having some issues. Whenever I boot it up, the keyboard doesn't work (works fine in the BIOS and in safe mode. Also worked fine in Linux.) It also doesn't seem to recognize any audio devices, despite the onboard sound. Two very annoying issues. One friend (who helped me with the Windows install) thinks it could be a hardware issue, such as the MoBo dying. Another isn't so sure. I'm afraid it's outside my realm of expertise. If I have to replace the MoBo, that's annoying, and will take a bit of shipping money, but it's better than having to get a whole new one.

Even so, I should try and contact Pat to see if he'd mind coming to look at it.

On the upside, with Windows, I managed to figure out how to do file transfers between the two with little problem. Once I remembered to add foreign language support to the new one, at least. Currently, my music files are transferrring, which they'll probably continue to do for the next hour or so. I, however, will be asleep.