Wednesday Comics II

Okay, is it wrong that I'm excited today? It's Wednesday and that means new comics. I don't buy many anymore but what I do buy, I really enjoy.

I have really enjoyed DC's Wednesday Comics (wordless preview at right) so far, thanks to a recommendation by KC Ryan. It's in newspaper format and does cost a bit, but having full-page comics, advancing the story one page per week is kind of fun, and reminds me of the Sunday Prince Valiant strips of my youth. The first page of this 12-page story appeared full size in USA today two weeks ago, and the rest of it, as it is published, is available on USAToday.com. I especially like the Metal Men story drawn by Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, one of my all-time favorites. There is a Batman feature, as well as Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Flash, Hawkman, Metamorpho, and Teen Titans. It's almost like the late 60s until you get into Kamandi, plus The Demon & Catwoman (?). Good stuff!

Then, the one I've been waiting for: Invincible #64. As much as I criticize DC for their apparent bloodlust in their comics, Invincible is ten times as violent as anything DC has ever published. The difference is, Robert Kirkman created and owns Invincible, and he can do whatever he wants with the character without tarnishing my childhood memories. At the end of #63, Mark (Invincible) Grayson has just suffered a major personal loss. He has been beaten. He has multiple compound fractures, and is barely conscious. Then he comes up with a great line: "I don't care how strong you are. I don't care how fast you are. I can see the future...you don't live to see tomorrow." Chapter 4 of "Conquest" should be great! If you don't read this book, start with the first trade paperback, or better yet, the Ultimate Collections, and don't stop until you're caught up. This is seriously good stuff. I'm talking about Judas Contract quality. If you were reading comics in those days, you probably remember when that 1984 Teen Titans annual was going to come out and you couldn't wait to find out what happened. This is just like that for me. Check out the power of these pencils from artist Ryan Ottley's deviantart page:

Who knew that comics could be fun again?

The Watchmen Dilemma

What to do, what to do? I want to have Watchmen available to see in my home immediately, but I don't want to shell out the money multiple times when each new, exclusive version of the movie is released on DVD, Blu-Ray, et. al. and be left with a disc that I no longer want. The "ultimate" edition of the film is supposed to be released around the holidays, intercut with the "Tales of the Black Freighter" animated video, and clocking in at around 3.5 hours, with documentaries and motion comics and presumably everything else involved with the movie. For the "director's cut" being released today, which is still longer than the theatrical release, I understand that the Blu-Ray has a special commentary feature with picture-in-picture commentary, which sounds really cool. The only problem is that I don't have a Blu-Ray player, nor do I plan on buying one before Christmas, when we are thinking of getting a Playstation 3. So, when I received the email from Fandango suggesting that I download the movie on iTunes, the solution presented itself. In the short term, I can download the movie to my video iPod and plug it into my TV to view. Magi hasn't even seen it yet, so it will be immediately viewable. Then I simply have to wait until we have the correct player for the "ultimate" Watchmen home-viewing experience, and hopefully have the equipment to support that experience. And the best part is that I won't have an annoying, inferior disc taking up space in my video cabinet.

Anyone want a previously viewed copy of the first version of "Serenity," by chance?

Update--I just read that this version of the director's cut comes with a $10 coupon for the ultimate edition to be released later, so if you're considering doing what I'm doing, I just wanted to make you aware that the inferior version won't be worthless.

The Moon Isn't the Only Place with Reduced Gravity

I wish comic book artists would look at real women once in a while. If you rotate the image 90 degrees clockwise, it's fine. But since it appears she's on her shoulders...

Hot Serial

In the late 70s, I used to watch a show on WGTU channel 29 called "Hot Serial." Shown at 11:00 each night, "Hot Serial" featured a nightly chapter in an old movie serial, like Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe, or Radar Men from the Moon, featuring Commando Cody. It was a great show to watch when you only had a 9" black and white television, since the serials were filmed in black and white anyway! The titles for the syndicated program always started with a bowl of steaming cereal suspended by wires, flying around the screen.

I received a set of Flash Gordon serials that I had purchased for my dad, and I'm watching them now, thinking back to when we lived in my grandparents' basement. Good times, hot serial.

Separated at Birth?

On the left, Draco Malfoy. On the right, Adrian Veidt, aka Ozymandias.

"I'm not a comic book villain, Potter. Do you seriously think I would explain my master stroke to you if there were even the slightest possibility you could affect the outcome? I triggered it 35 minutes ago."

He's the Best There is at What He Does...

...But what he does is not costume design. The latest results are in from Project Rooftop's Wolverine project, and I have to say that these results underwhelmed me. I mean, this is Wolverine. Why in the world does he need kneepads and elbow pads, not to mention an underlit chest plate? Half of the designs make him look like a half-baked samurai and the other half like a commando. One of them is simply a retread of Sabertooth's costume from the 90s. Oh, well. I still like the project.

"The Haunted Lighthouse"

Spoilers follow.

In the second episode of the "Adventures of Superman," "The Haunted Lighthouse," Jimmy Olsen vacations on Moose Island, an island off the coast of Maine, where he visits his Aunt Louisa. Jimmy explores the island and hears a woman's ghostly voice crying out that she is drowning. Jimmy encounters a stranger named Mac who tells him to go get his cousin Chris because they have something to load. When Jimmy gives Chris the message, Chris is enraged at Jimmy, accusing him of spying. His aunt calms things down and encourages him to forget about the encounter.

Later that night, Jimmy sees the lamp in the lighthouse lit, despite the fact that it's supposedly been shut down for 20 years. Being the good reporter, he investigates. Unbeknownst to Jimmy, Chris is following him. As Jimmy tries to open the door of the lighthouse, Chris throws a knife into the door, over Jimmy's shoulder. Chris threatens Jimmy, who goes back to his room. In his room, he finds a note from his aunt, asking for his help. Jimmy's cousin finds him knocking at the door to his aunt's empty room and leads him outside. Aunt Louisa surprises them and sends them back to their rooms.

Jimmy calls Clark Kent, back at the Daily Planet, and tells him to come right away. The call is disconnected, and Clark takes to the skies through the window of the storage closet. Arriving at the door of Aunt Louisa's house in his guise as Clark Kent, he runs into Jimmy, who tells him the whole story. Jimmy leads Clark to a cave, where they find the tide coming in. Kent clearly suspects something as fog starts rolling in. As Jimmy goes back to the house, Clark changes to Superman and flies out to a Coast Guard boat where he enlists the commander to help.

Meanwhile, cousin Alice brings Jimmy a note from Aunt Louisa which makes Jimmy go to her aid. He makes his way into the cave, followed by Chris and Mac, who he spots too late. They knock Jimmy out and turn a hidden lever, trapping Jimmy behind bars in the cave. He comes to, but can't escape as the tide is rolling in. He then hears the voice again.

Back at the house, the horn of the Coast Guard cutter is heard. Mac and Chris leave with a gun, hoping to hold them off. Back on the cutter, Superman spots Chris and hears Jimmy. He rushes to his aid, bending the steel bars aside. As they exit the cave, Mac tries to kill them by pushing a large rock down, then tries to stab Superman with a knife. Mac finally tried to crush Superman's head with a large rock, but Superman sidesteps, and Mac misses, him, falling to his death off the cliff.

Superman explains to Jimmy what's really going on as Jimmy compares a note written by Aunt Louisa to an old recipe she had sent him and finds out that the Aunt Louisa he had met was an imposter! The real Aunt Louisa is freed from the lighthouse, and captures the imposter, now revealed as Mrs. Carmody, her former housekeeper. Chris is brought in by the Coast Guard, and the smuggling operation is revealed to the Coast Guard by Clark Kent, as he joins them in the house. Then the secret of the drowning crier is revealed has Aunt Louisa's parrot, who's been shut outside all the time. A good laugh is had by all. Well, all except Mac.

A couple of interesting things about this episode: Superman allows a man to simply fall to his death by sidestepping an attack that would not have harmed him. I'm not quite sure how this fits Superman's current code against killing, but I thought it was based on the idea that life is sacred. This must have been more of the 1930s Superman, who routinely did such things.

This episode is also narrated by Superman/Clark Kent. I don't remember that being a common device in this series, but we'll have to see as we go through more episodes.

Summertime Goodness

In my pursuit of finding the good things about living here in northern Indiana, I noticed a good one to write about today. Volcano Pizza makes really good pizza in Elkhart. I would put a link here, but you wouldn't believe how many local businesses don't even have a web presence. Volcano is famous locally for their summertime tent sale, which they only have for a couple of days each year. All they sell are Italian sausage sandwiches. They consist of flat Italian sausage patties cooked to perfection with grilled onions and green peppers on fresh bakery rolls. They're about five bucks apiece, but as you can see, there's no shortage of people who show up to buy them every year in the parking lot behind their restaurant! They set up tables and chairs under the tent, and you can enjoy your food with your neighbors right then and there. Can you guess what I had for lunch?

Church Signs

Here's another instant classic!

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A Great Day

How do you define a great day? I had one this weekend, and it was one of the greatest days I’ve ever had. What made it great? A little background first:

Every year my teacher friends and I plan a trip to Comerica Park to see the Tigers play. This began in 2000 when my good friend Dana suggested that we go visit the Tigers’ new park. I had lost most of my interest in baseball following the 1994 strike and hadn’t been to a game since the 1993 ALCS. We saw the Tigers beat the St. Louis Cardinals 10-1 on June 10, 2000, and saw a very rare feat: Mark McGwire stole second base! I loved Comerica Park. Compared to the new Comiskey Park (now U.S. Cellular Field), which was a bland, grey bandbox of a stadium, Comerica was an amusement park for baseball fans. We returned in 2001 to see the Tigers and Cubs (Cubs won 10-6), in 2002, 2003 (Bonderman’s second career victory during the worst season in Tigers history), 2004 against the Yankees (Tigers lost 5-3, but Pudge Rodriguez went 3-for-4 at the plate), and then in 2005 we started expanding our operation.

Magi and I had taken our friends’ kids to a game on Father’s Day 2005 to see newly-acquired Placido Polanco hit a walkoff home run against the San Francisco Giants, and while I was at the stadium I asked about group ticket sales. I was able to get 15 tickets to a Yankees game on July 2, and we made a weekend of it. I saw Bonderman beat Randy Johnson on Friday night, backed by home runs by Chris Shelton, Polanco, and Magglio Ordonez (in his first game back after hernia surgery). Bonderman went the distance, scattering eight hits and two runs over nine innings. The Tigers lost the next two games, but we all had fun sitting down by the Tigers’ dugout. I went back for Sunday’s game, too, seeing the whole series against the Yankees that season. The best game, though, was on September 11, when my teacher friends and I went by ourselves and sat right behind the first base dugout against the Royals. I was able to get this picture of John McDonald from on top of the first base dugout:

There were only 20,559 fans in the stands if you believe the official attendance. I think there were really only about 10,000 to be honest. The Tigers won 14-4 and made me very happy.

In 2006, it was literally a whole new ballgame. I went to nine regular-season games that year, seeing the Tigers play the Yankees (another group outing), Red Sox, White Sox, Twins, Orioles, and the Royals, including the last game of the season, when the Tigers lost the division title. But when I did get to see all four home games in the ALDS and ALCS AND the first game of the World Series because of the schedule change brought about because of that last regular-season loss, all was forgiven.

Once Sera came into our lives, our excursions to baseball games dwindled somewhat, but now we still make it to at least one game every year. I went to a Tigers-White Sox makeup game with my friend Doug on April 25, 2007, and Sera’s first Tigers game was in August, just four short months after we brought her home. I honestly remember nothing about the game except that the Tigers lost, but I do remember taking her to the gift shop because she was restless and I remember not caring as much about the game as I did her enjoyment of the experience…as it should be.

We took Sera to another game the following year, on June 28, and that was my only Tigers game for the year. It was memorable because of Miguel Cabrera’s theatrical walkoff double in the bottom of the ninth, but what really sticks in my mind is Sera’s enjoyment of the postgame fireworks.

So what made Saturday such a great day?

First, we had our annual teacher outing to Detroit planned and two people backed out. That freed up two tickets, so Magi and Sera could go. After I got the first night of at least eight hours of sleep since my dad got really sick, I was rested and ready to go. We loaded up the car and headed to my friend Dana’s house. First, though, we stopped at Charlie’s Butcher Block in Elkhart for some food, since we hadn’t yet eaten breakfast. Their full sandwich menu was available, so I got us a couple of their subs, as well as some lobster bisque pasta for Magi and fruit salad for Sera. The lobster bisque pasta may have been an unusual choice at 9:00 AM, but it was delicious, as were the subs.

Dave was already there when we got to Dana’s house and I gave them a walkie-talkie so we could chat on the road if we wanted to. We got on the toll road and took off. About two hours later, we stopped at a rest area, used the rest room, got cinnamon rolls, and got back on the road. About a half hour later, we arrived at the Dundee, Michigan Cabela’s. This was my fifth Cabela’s store visit in ten days, and the Dundee store is tops. First, it’s huge, and the selection is far better than the other ones, especially for the clothes I need. I’ll remember that next time. Since all of my clothes shopping is done for the year, I pretty much just looked around happily, planning for next year when I’ve (hopefully) gone down another size.

Then we arrived at Dana’s friend Steve’s house in Ann Arbor. Steve is a great guy and always goes on our outings with us. Sera had, of course, fallen asleep in the car about two miles before we got to his house, so we planned a late lunch in Ann Arbor before we planned to make the last leg of our trip to Detroit. Ann Arbor has lots of great restaurants, but it really has a wonderful attraction in Zingerman’s. Zingerman’s is a world-famous deli with high-quality meats, cheeses, and breads. Magi knew about the place even when she lived in New Orleans. Well, Zingerman’s also has a restaurant along the highway called Zingerman’s Roadhouse and we’ve talked about going there for some time. We were not sorry we did. We were seated outdoors in their covered section, within sight of their HUGE barbeque grill and smoker. We could see that they were taking slabs of meat off the grill that were at least two feet long. Our mouths collectively started watering. Our waitress carefully described the menu and the chef in great detail, and even brought us some pulled pork to sample with each of the three sauces they use. We had a sumptuous, fantastic meal. I had the pulled pork sandwich with their zesty tomato BBQ sauce, with fried sweet potatoes. Wow! Steve surprised us by very generously picking up the check. Dana surprised us even more by paying for the baseball tickets. It’s nice to have good friends like this!

We arrived in Detroit right on time, finding our usual parking lot and making our way to the mosaic tile Tigers logo on the third base side of the stadium. We had our annual picture taken, and went right inside, hardly even waiting in line. We received complimentary Detroit Stars Negro League caps, as the Negro Leagues were being honored that night. We quickly found our seats in section 122, and settled in.

I got to the gift shop just before the game started, picking up a new Tigers T-shirt for Sera and a new insulated lunch bag for myself. My old one literally fell apart this summer. I really wanted to pick up a Brandon Inge All-Star jersey and some other shirts, but the largest size they had available was XXL. It just gave me more motivation to keep losing weight. I got out of the gift shop for less than $40 (a record) and got back to my seat before the National Anthem was even played.

It was a good game. Brandon Inge came up with a clutch RBI single and made a spectacular diving play at third base, and Miguel Cabrera hit a majestic opposite field home run in the 9th to pull the Tigers to within a run, but they ended up losing 5-4.
During the game Sera had seen a vendor with cotton candy and had asked for some, and we promised to get her some the next time he came around, but he never did. We even asked the other vendors to send him our way for a guaranteed sale, but after four innings of waiting she began to get impatient. I finally got up and found a kiosk that was selling it, and wouldn’t you know it, just as I arrived back at our seats before the top of the fifth inning, the vendor was just getting to our section! The fireworks show was not quite as impressive as last year’s, but Sera enjoyed it nonetheless.

After we dropped Dana and Dave back at Steve’s place in Ann Arbor, where they spent the night, Sera dropped off to sleep. Magi and I got to spend a very quiet three hours together, chatting the night away in the car, which is an amount of time we never get to spend together (awake) without Sera being the focus of our attention. I think this was my favorite part of the night. We had time to relax, listen to music on our iPod, and to reflect on our lives together and our wonderful, wonderful daughter. We got home at around 2:30 in the morning, exhausted, but very happy for having each other, our generous friends, and a great, great day.

Just Cut My Frakking Heart Out

Already?
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Ride Like the Wind

10.77 miles in 42 minutes, 10 seconds this morning for an average of 15.3 miles per hour. All on five hours of sleep! I think I'll have breakfast and take a nap.

One Year Later

Here's our annual family picture together at Comerica Park, compared to last year's picture. One of us has grown in that time, and two of us have not. Can you tell who's who?

Go Tigers!

My daughter and I are excited to be at Comerica Park!
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Why Not DC?

The reason I don't read most DC comics can be summed up with this one page. Too bad it's missing what Superboy did to Pantha and Damage.

Blue Popsicles

When I was almost four years old, one of my earliest memories was of watching Saturday morning cartoons with my dad. He was working third shift at the G.W. Bliss factory in Hastings, Michigan, and he slept most of the hours that I was awake. The one time I got to see him during daylight hours was when he came home on Saturday morning and we watched cartoons together. 1968 was a particularly good year for cartoons, and we watched them side-by-side while eating Kool-Pops. I always had a preference for the blue ones, and strangely enough my daughter prefers them too, without any urging from me.

Everything these days reminds me of my dad.

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Wednesday Comics

Comic books, I wish I could quit you!

Why is it that comics come out on Wednesdays now? In my college days when I first discovered an actual comic book store (Fanfare Comics and Cards--now called Fanfare Sports & Entertainment in Kalamazoo, Michigan) new comics came out on Fridays. My then-girlfriend and I would get on a bus at Western Michigan University's campus for $0.75 and make our way across town, where we would load up our weekly take, trek all the way back for another six bits and pore over what we had bought. It was a great end-of-the-week ritual.

Now that new comics come out on Wednesdays, I have to worry about whether or not I can even get to the comic book store before something is going to sell out. My weeknights during the regular school year are pretty tied up in spending time with my daughter and I often can't make it into town until the weekend. I don't buy that many monthly comics now, and the number has decreased steadily over the years partly because when I miss out on an issue because of its selling out, I just drop the series and either wait for the trade paperback (if I liked it) or just forget it altogether (if I didn't like it enough).

When I was in college and had a little disposable income and comics were only $0.65 each, I bought virtually every Marvel and DC title published, as well as some early independents, like First Comics' "Jon Sable, Freelance" and "Badger," along with Comico's "Elementals." Now, with the state of comics the way it is, here's what I'm buying:

Kurt Busiek's Astro City

This is my favorite comic book series of all time. It's a self-contained universe, characters who die stay dead, and the perspective changes from story to story. Sometimes stories are told by bystanders, sometimes from the viewpoint of the heroes, and other times from the vantage point of the villains. Everyone has a say in how they see the world. The "Confession" storyline, probably my favorite, tells the story from the perspective of a boy sidekick as a normal kid comes to the big city in hopes of seeing some superhero action. He becomes Altar Boy, sidekick to the dark crimefighter The Confessor, and not only learns about his mentor, but also of a vast conspiracy to invade the Earth and a plot to get the world's superheroes out of the way.

Batman and Robin

I'm not thrilled with the direction that the Batman comics have taken with Dick Grayson being the new Batman (again) but with the team of Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely (All-Star Superman) behind the wheel, I'm willing to go along for the ride for a while. So far, we're getting to see some good stuff, like a flying Batmobile (it's about time!) and there's an interesting dynamic to this dynamic duo as Robin is the dark, brooding character and Batman is trying to lighten him up. I'll follow this one at least through the first story arc to see where it goes.

Invincible

I could write for pages on this book, and someday I will. It is hands-down, the best superhero book on the market right now. It's the story of Mark Grayson, the seemingly normal son of the world's foremost superhero, as he discovers his powers and embarks on his own career as a superhero. Read this one from the beginning, either through the trade paperbacks or the hardcover collections (which I prefer) because writer Robert Kirkman weaves twists and turns that will leave you stunned and you don't want to miss any of it. I bought this series from the first issue and sold the first 10 for around $150 on eBay. And it is that good!

Incognito

If you like crime comics, this one's for you. I bought this initially because of the character's superficial similiarity to my RPG character, Domino, but what lay inside blew me away. It's the story of a villain in the witness protection program who can't stay away from the action of the super world. It's almost like a Richard Stark's Parker novel with superpowers.

Top Ten

Top Ten is the story of the 10th precinct, a police station in a world where superpowers have proliferated to the point of critical mass. Everyone has superpowers, origins, costumes, and the whole schtick. Think of it as Hill Street Blues in the superpowered world. Alan Moore wrote the initial "season" with Gene Ha art, and the new season is written by Zander Cannon with Gene's art on the first few issues.















Well, that's it. I am down to five monthly titles after all these years. They're good titles and only one of them is bogged down in universe-spanning continuity with danger of crossover contamination. Give them a try if you are really wanting something good to read and you can't quite quit comics.

"Superman on Earth"

"Come with us now on a far journey, a journey that takes us millions of miles from the Earth, where many years ago the planet Krypton burned like a green star in the endless heavens. Here, civilization was far advanced, and had brought forth a race of supermen, men and women like ourselves but advanced to the absolute peak of human perfection."--From the opening of "Superman on Earth."

"Superman on Earth" was the first episode in "The Adventures of Superman." In this introductory episode, we meet Jor-El, a scientist who warns the council of the planet Krypton of its impending doom. Packing his son Kal-El into an experimental model rocket to escape the planet's destruction, Jor-El and his wife Lara face Krypton's doom together.

Eben (pronounced "ee-behn")and Sarah Kent, out on a drive, witness the crash of the infant's rocket and rescue him from the burning wreckage. As Clark grows older, he finds himself different from other kids and questions his strength, speed, and other special abilities that no one else his age seems to have. Sarah tells the 12-year old Clark of how they found him, and he seems to understand. A visual montage later and grey-haired Ma and Pa Kent are getting ready to celebrate the 25th anniversary of their adoption of Clark, when Pa has a heart attack and dies. Ma sees Clark off at the Smallville bus depot. She explains that the costume she made for him are made from the blankets he was wrapped in the day they found him and Clark is off to Metropolis.

Clark Kent takes a job at the Daily Planet so that he can be alerted to emergencies that need his attention. He tries to meet curmudgeonly Perry White, the editor of the great metropolitan newspaper, but White is too busy to talk to him. Unphased, Kent makes his way out through a broom closet, along a ledge and through White's window. As he enters the office, Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen get a lead on a story of a man hanging from a dirigible 1,000 feet in the air. Clark suggests that if he gets the exclusive story, White should give him a job. White agrees, thinking him crazy, and Kent makes his first storeroom costume change and takeoff. After Superman saves the man and Kent gets his exclusive (and job), Lois asks him how he got there so fast and got the exclusive story. Clark smiles and says, "Maybe I'm a superman."

When I was in junior high and lived with my dad, I used to come home every day from school and run next door to my grandma's house. There, at 4:00 I would open a can of pork & beans or Franco-American spaghetti, eat it cold, and watch this show. My dad would come over when he got home from work and I would tell him about the episode I'd watched and he would tell me about watching the show when he was young. It started on television when he was nine years old, and my grandparents had one of the first televisions in the area. The show became something we had in common, as this was just before the first Christopher Reeve movie came out. I even bought the book Superman Serial to Cereal by Gary Grossman because I was so interested in the show. There's a list of episodes in the back and I used to mark them off once I'd seen them. I saw this episode only once and it was much later than I'd seen the rest. It was very exciting to see the origin of Superman on TV. Of course, we've all seen various versions a dozen times since in various video incarnations, but this was the first. I bought my dad the entire series on DVD over the past few years, and now I have it to enjoy all over again after 30 years. Good stuff, good memories.

Am I Tired?

Yes, I guess you could say that I'm tired. Before we left on our trip, I bought two pairs of New Balance 622 cross trainer shoes to go with my other pair of 622's. I now have a white pair, a brown pair, and a black pair. This morning when I dressed in the dark so as not to wake up Magi, I inadvertently put on two differently-colored shoes. I did not even notice until I walked into my classroom. They feel exactly the same on my feet, but they sure don't look the same in the light of day. I've heard of people wearing mismatched socks, but I never thought I would wear mismatched shoes.

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Home At Last

3,765 miles and nine days later, we are home from Utah and saying goodbye to my late father. I have to go to work tomorrow and I could use a week off.

Special thanks go to Magi's nephew, Bret, who went with us and saw to many of Sera's needs from the back seat on this long journey.

The sheer volume of family photos and my dad's personal stuff will take weeks to blog through, but I'm looking forward to it as part of the healing process. My father was...unique, to say the least.

Vail

Vail, Colorado is way prettier than anywhere in Wyoming.
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Sunrise

The very crack of dawn in Panguitch, Utah.

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This is Even Harder than I Thought it Would Be

Going through my dad's stuff is just heartbreaking. I gave him this travel mug just last summer when we went to Star Trek the Experience while visiting him. I did not expect to get it back. At least not so soon.
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Sweet Blissful Sleep

After yesterday when Sera napped just an hour out of the 15 we spent on the road, we have caught a break!
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No Cornfields

Not here in Wyoming anyway. We decided to attack Utah from the north. We'll return through Colorado so that Magi's nephew can see more scenery.
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Maid-Rite

Maid-Rite burgers are pretty good! They're loose meat burgers and appear very fresh.

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Cheaper Drinks than McDonald's

This unfortunately named place sells 32-oz. Drinks for $0.59!
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How do you tell the difference between Illinois and Iowa?

No, really. Is there a difference? I've seen no evidence of deserts or canyons so far. Nothing I can drive my uncle's Corvette into except more cornfields and I really don't think that would establish my recklessness.
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Like the View?

After a bit of a late start we are well on our way on the least scenic part of our trip. If you are a fan of cornfields, then the first 550 miles of our trip is for you!
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Working It

Yesterday I did 7.65 miles in 30 minutes in 90+ degree weather. That's an average of 15.3 miles per hour. I have to explain this since 71% of adults can't even calculate miles per gallon. I blame the math teachers.

Thinking Ahead

I've been keeping myself busy for the week, and trying not to think about my dad. We're headed for Utah to take care of everything on Saturday, and I'm sure with a 25-hour trip and four days camping in the town where he lived I'll have plenty of time to do just that. Right now, there are preparations to make, including a minivan repair (I'd rather not have brake failure in the Rocky Mountains), picking up and adjusting to new glasses (and contact lenses) tomorrow, picking up Magi's nephew who's going with us and hopefully helping with Sera, and packing up our camping gear.

Magi has prepared an entire organized menu for the stay, and has already made several dishes that we can cook using the Dutch oven we picked up a few years ago but never used. We are pretty much always ready for camping, but this time we have to conserve space for bringing back family photos and and a few personal items that we won't trust to shipping companies.

Virtually all of the surviving pictures of me when I was a child are in these boxes. My mother's were almost entirely wiped out by mold, not that there were that many of them from those years after the divorce, I have about half a dozen, and my dad had the rest. It will be something to go through them. I'm just sad that he won't be able to elaborate on any of them or tell me stories from my early childhood. Last year when we tried to do so, he got very upset and was reluctant to think about the past, which if you knew my dad, you would find very unusual.

I'm hoping that my brother will be able to join us there, since I haven't seen him in seven years and my sister (she has a different father; yes, I know that makes her my half-sister, but I've never thought of her that way) should be able to spend some time with us as well, since she also lives in Utah. The three of us haven't been in the same place at the same time since we saw "Braveheart" together, which would make it 1995.

I'd like to spend more time going through Bryce Canyon National Park, which last summer I found to be one of the most beautiful places I'd ever seen. It makes the Grand Canyon look colorless and plain. Unfortunately, we didn't know what we were missing until we drove through it on our way out of town. We spent about two hours driving and stopping at overlooks, taking pictures, but it was very rushed. I'd really like to bring my bike, but there's no room on this trip.

I know this is going to be an emotional week ahead, and I'm just trying to put off confronting the fact that he's gone until my first summer school session is over (Friday) and I have the appropriate time to really start grieving. I guess this would be the denial stage, then?

Testing posting from BlackBerry

I just want to see if I can post from my phone.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Oops!

What's wrong with the third panel?

A Loser Again!

After a six-week plateau, I was down to 282 pounds this morning, a loss of four since last week. After cooking dinner and putting Sera to bed, I had the hardest 30-minute ride yet. I did 7.5 miles, which means I hit my target average of 15 miles per hour, which included a mile of construction zone with loose gravel and rocks. When you're feeling down, endorphines seem to be the way to go.

Father's Day

Father's Day, as you might imagine, was difficult. My dad had been fighting bladder cancer for a number of years. The surgeons would operate, remove tumors and then he would spend days expelling clots. This last time, he just didn't seem to rebound. The pain, already considerable given his spinal arthritis, was compounded. He couldn't sleep. He couldn't eat. He put on a brave face, made plans to take long trips, but simply got worse. This last week was the worst for him. When I talked to him a few weeks ago I think he was trying to protect me, but then Dee called. Dee is the woman who has been his angel for the past eleven years. She was the love of my dad's life, and made his last years the happiest of his whole life.

Dee told me that it was bad, worse than he was letting on. Within a week the prognosis was that he was terminal. I made plans to get out to Utah as soon as the first summer school session ended, but his condition degenerated far faster than anyone expected. When I talked to him a week ago today, he was lucid and upbeat. But when the hospice workers started him on Fentanyl and I talked to him on Wednesday, he was starting to slur his words and the pain was so great, he knew when morphine was not working and the Fentanyl was kicking in. By Friday night, he was nearly incoherent and was talking about having visions. He still wanted me to pick up some Winchester rifle cartridges for him on my way out to Utah, though! When Dee put him to bed on Friday night, he didn't wake up again, which was probably a blessing. He passed away last night, so at least now his pain is gone.

I'll be writing about my dad all this week. There's a lot to say, and it will help with the grieving process. We'll be headed out to Utah to settle his affairs next week. We'll be camping in Panguitch while we're there. I know he'd have loved that.

John McClain October 8, 1943 - June 21, 2009

I lost my dad today of all days. Dad, I love you and I will miss you.

The Truth About Santa

I still remember the day that I found out about Santa. I was in third grade and was one of the last holdouts in my elementary school class. I firmly believed in Santa Claus, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary. A hand-painted toybox give to us by Santa had so strongly resembled a storage box that had been in one of our sheds, that I pointed it out. I was sternly corrected that it was not the same box, even though that storage box was no longer in the shed. The price tag for my Mickey Mouse watch that Santa gave me one year was still attached to the leather watchband that the elves had allegedly made. I still held out.

The last straw came on a Sunday when I was reading the Parade magazine section of the Sunday paper, and the question of the week to celebrities was posed to Alan Alda: "When did you find out there was no Santa Claus?" I was very upset. Not because there was no Santa, but because I had been wrong and I had been lied to. And then when I was asked to perpetuate the myth for my younger brother and sister I became complicit in the conspiracy.

I'm not looking forward to the day I have to admit to my daughter, who's currently three, that we lied to her. She won't be fooled for long with small mistakes, though. We'll probably be busted when she figures out that Santa couldn't possibly afford the licensing fees required to make Mickey Mouse watches and still give them away for free.

Still Not Losing

I'm stuck. I bought a new bathroom scale and it's making me mad. I figured that it was going to give me a different result than the scale I had been using during the school year, but I was going to simply use whatever it said as a new baseline and move on from there. Oddly enough, it gave me the same result as my May 4 weigh-in: 286. Since this scale uses increments of 0.2 pounds, I'll even throw in the exact weight: 286.2 pounds. Okay, not so bad. My weight hasn't changed in about 40 days or so. I'm still working out every day, and controlling what I eat. I can look at this as a new starting point and move on, right? Well, I stepped on the scale this morning and guess what it said? 286.2. The same exact thing. I guess it's not so bad, since yesterday we had a cookout (more on that later) and I probably ate the equivalent of a quarter cow or something, but I would have thought the scale would at least have a different number.

I guess I'm going to have to increase the intensity of my workouts or just work out longer. I can spare an hour a day now, but I don't know what I will do when regular school is back in session. I can tell you right now that I'm not getting up at 4:00 AM!

Before and After

What a difference nine months can make!

Ten more miles today, riding down to the park where I play disc golf and back, and then scouting garage sales in the nearby neighborhood where every street is named after either game birds or the dogs that hunt them.

Disc Golf

I've been playing disc golf for 20 years now, on and off. My buddy Eric introduced me to the game when I moved to Michigan City back in 1989, and we spent many an enjoyable day at Madeline Bertrand park in Niles, Michigan. For those not familiar with the game, basically you throw rubber discs, sort of like Frisbees but with much slimmer profiles and more mass toward a goal consisting of a basket suspended from a metal pole with link chains hanging from the top to catch the disc. You try to use the minimum number of throws to get the disc in the goal, and the lower your score the better.

I hadn't played in a few years, but my recent surge of activity has gotten me out to play quite a few rounds already this year. We've played Wilson Park, Madeline Bertrand Park, and I've played Ferettie-Baugo Creek three times this week. It helps that Ferettie-Baugo Creek is right by my house, and I bought a season pass so I can play all summer long for $30. The courses by us are typically a mile or so long when you add up the hole distances, and the game provides a very nice walk in the woods. Some of the holes go through narrow groves of trees, and some cover 600 feet of open space.

It's going to be interesting to see if I can get back to the form I had when I was stronger ten years ago and to see if accuracy can overcome age!

Batman and Robin Unmasked

I was reading the DC Comics message boards today and I just don't get Batman and Robin anymore. People were going on and on about "what kind of Robin" this new kid Damian is going to be with Dick Grayson being Batman now. I yawned.

When it comes to the point where a character has been replaced so often that the role is typified, then it's no longer a distinct character. It's a company trademark.

The whole point of being a masked vigilante is to go unrecognized. The Batman dressed up the way he does because "criminals are a superstitious, cowardly lot" and a bat would frighten them. Okay, when you're driving around town in a bat-shaped car, they have pretty much figured out that you are not a bat, and the symbol becomes a fetish.

At some point, I would like to see a character with no identifiable theme except that no one knows who he is. He gathers evidence and strikes, leaving behind no trace of his identity. He doesn't want thanks or recognition and he doesn't want to join a group. He is always seen from the back or in shadow, and the challenge to readers is to determine who he is. There would be clues left to the readers by the writer and the artist and the mystery would be a fair one. It would be solvable (unlike that piece of crap "Hush" storyline) and the character would be a pre-existing one from the annals of comic book history. At the end of the storyline, his identity is revealed and the story ends. The story would end because his effectiveness is compromised by the loss of anonymity and he fades back into obscurity, teaching all the glory hounds a lesson in how it should be done.

Oh, and that new Robin suit? Sheesh.

I Deserved a Break Today...

...so I got up and got away to McDonald's. I used to eat at McDonald's for breakfast quite a bit. I like the sausage burritos, even though they are about the worst thing for me in the world. But last night I couldn't sleep at all. It was too humid even with our air conditioner and ceiling fan running on high. Every time I woke up, I was in a deep sweat. When I finally got up at 5:00 instead of 4:30, I only had 15 minutes to work out even if I pushed my departure time another 15 minutes back. I thought about just skipping it, but that way lies quitting. So I got on my bike, rode really hard for 15 minutes, and hoped for the best. The way I see it, any exercise is better than the none I was going to get if I skipped it.

My rear end was still dragging when I left for work, so I decided to stop at McDonald's to get a cup of coffee. I typically avoid that much caffeine, but it was either that or collapse before noon. I stopped at the McDonald's that used to drive me batty back when I was going there all the time. They couldn't get my order right to save their own lives. I swore every time they screwed up the order that I would never go there again. But I always did. And they always screwed the order up. I hadn't gone to that particular place in a loooong time.

Today, I ordered my former usual, the sausage burrito meal with coffee. Guess what? No hash browns. To tell the truth, I didn't need the hash browns. I know what's in them and I really didn't need them. But good grief, they messed up my order the one time I go there in a year? I was getting my hash browns.

On my way to school for the last two days, I was thinking to myself, if you can't even do good work at McDonald's, what on earth can you do? It made me think of a car wash that our baseball team had when I was a kid to raise money for uniforms. My grandfather and my father taught me how to wash a car. And believe me, if I missed a spot I heard about it and fixed it. When my friends did a sloppy job I was there to fix it. If my dad had heard from a townsperson that they had gotten a lousy car wash from something I was involved with, I knew I'd hear about that too. So while other guys came and went from the car wash, I stayed the whole time to make sure the cars were getting completely clean and that nothing was missed. That kind of work ethic is missing today. Even with mundane activities like washing a car or filling a bag at McDonald's, there should still be pride in doing the job right. This may sound curmudgeonly, but this is something about which previous generations were absolutely right.

The Soft Bigotry of No Expectations

We saw Terminator: Salvation on Sunday, and I liked it. That isn't to say it was a great movie, but neither did I expect it to be. Unlike Star Trek, I had no idea what it was about, save that Christian "Psycho" Bale was playing John Connor.

I think this is a pattern for me. I loved Iron Man last year, but hated the Dark Knight. I am by no means an Iron Man expert, and was willing to forgive minor alterations to the Iron Man mythos. But you put Batman, the Spirit, or Star Trek into a new form, and I get relentless in my attention to every last detail. On the other hand, I loved Watchmen and I have a really strong familiarity with the material. I guess it's just hit or miss, but it sure is easier to like something when you go in not caring whether or not it's any good.

Star Trek--Upon Further Review (Spoilers)

We went to see Star Trek again Friday night at the drive-in. I really wanted to like this movie so I gave it a second look. I did like it better the second time, but this time I brought my Skywalker Ranch director's pen with me and took notes from my favorite lawn chair. Here are some thoughts:

• The music during the Kirk birth/death scene was very reminiscent of Giacchino's work on LOST. I loved it.
• Still don't get where the deep canyon in Iowa came from. I even made sure to pay attention to make sure that's where the scene was set. It was.
• Sarek's scenes with Spock were great. I like this Sarek much better than the one in the Original Series.
• Nice nod to Star Trek the Motion Picture with the reference to the Kohlinar ritual.
• Vulcan bullies. Not logical.
• Spock seems to be vulnerable to "your mama" jokes. I suggest Dave Chappelle be his nemesis in the next movie.
• Someone get Zachary Quinto a better razor. Spock always seems to need a shave.
• Starfleet cadets are not enlightened in this future. Uhura calls Kirk a hick and suggests that he has sex with farm animals and the guys with her call him a townie and start a fight. I doubt this is what Gene Roddenberry had in mind.
• The broken Kelvin salt shaker Kirk absent-mindedly plays with in the bar is a nice touch.
• "Space is disease and danger wrapped in darkness and silence." Good grief.
• Kobayashi Maru test is a nod to Star Trek II, of course.
• Spock: "You, of all people should know that a captain cannot cheat death." Kirk should have responded with, "Your mama."
• Kirk bumping his head in the shuttle was like Scotty's similar move in Star Trek V. Still funny.
• I really liked the effects of going to warp.
• When the Enterprise enters the battle site with shields up, pieces of broken hull bounce off the hull, not the shields. With the shields up, that shouldn't happen.
• "Hi, Christopher. I'm Nero." WTF was that? A meet-cute?
• Spock's eyebrow raise was cool. But it was the wrong eyebrow. I myself can only raise my right eyebrow. Maybe Quinto can only raise his left.
• When Kirk and Sulu are beamed aboard at terminal velocity, they should have made a big splat on the transporter pad.
• Old Spock: "James T. Kirk, how did you find me?" Me: "Bad writing, Spock."
• "Are you out of your Vulcan mind?" Classic Bones.
• Reference to Admiral Archer's prize beagle was a nod to Enterprise.
• Scotty's learning of something he hasn't discovered yet harkens to Star Trek IV's transparent aluminum paradox.
• Kirk to Old Spock: "You're going with us, right?" = Luke to Obi-Wan: "I want to go with you." I get the parallel now. Luke is a farm boy, Kirk is a farm boy.
• Loved the bridge sound effects but not the lighting.
• Kirk slapping Spock on the shoulder was funny.
• Pike's uniform at the promotion ceremony was similar to Admiral Kirk's uni in Star Trek the Motion Picture.
• Kirk, in the final scene: "Bones." Holy Shat!

I'll give them a mulligan on this one. There was enough cool stuff to keep my interest.

Left Behind, Part 2

Same class as the last one: "If he ain't got blue eyes and blonde hair, he ain't Hitler."

Can you feel the accountability?

Left Behind

One of my students picked up this photograph and asked, "So is this guy named after the battery, or what?"

No Child Left Behind, indeed.

A Sad Day--for XM Radio

I canceled my XM Radio account today. I have been an XM subscriber since 2005, and the service has given me hundreds and hundreds of hours of listening pleasure. I remember spring break of that year, listening to the Tigers from the patio of the condo we used in Gulf Shores, thinking that it was amazing technology that allowed me to listen to my favorite team while almost a thousand miles from home.

Now, sadly or not so sadly, I have that technology at my fingertips every day in the form of my Blackberry Storm. Using its 3G connection, I pay only $19.95 for the entire season of baseball. Not only do I get to listen to every game, but I can even choose which broadcast to listen to, home or away. I can watch video highlights using the same application, and check box scores too. I can also listen to music channels on my phone, which makes the XM pretty much obsolete. I'll miss it, I suppose, though I really don't know why. Just habit, I guess.

Where Star Trek Fell Apart For Me (Spoilers)

I've been giving this a lot of thought. Star Trek got a 95% positive rating on the tomatometer, and I just wonder if I'm too close to the subject to see it objectively, like when I didn't like the Dark Knight when nearly everyone else did. After two days, I've found the point where it falls apart for me. It's not about the time travel or the new continuity or the design of the ship or the plot structure. As it should be, Star Trek is about characterization.

Where the movie goes flying off the track is the point when Spock kicks Kirk off the ship. It was the "Wait...what?" moment of the whole film. I can see punishing the insubordinate cadet who messed up your Kobayashi Maru test. There's this thing called a brig on most ships. It's a place where people can be safely contained until such point they can be dealt with with due process. But essentially throwing him overboard in a life raft was, well, extreme to say the least, and a very un-Spocklike thing to do. Where is the logic in sending the guy that the captain made your first officer to a hostile, alien predator-filled environment, landing him 14 kilometers from the nearest Federation outpost, which is manned by two engineers? In my wildest imagination, I can't see any incarnation of Spock doing that. It just seemed to serve the plot points of picking up Scotty and meeting old Spock, and no other reason.

Speaking of old Spock, why in the hell did Nero drop him off on a little planet to watch Vulcan be destroyed, and then allow him to go free? I felt like it was a Dr. Evil moment where Scott Evil suggests shooting Austin Powers in the head, rather than Dr. Evil's idea: I’m going to put him in an easily-escapable situation involving an overly-elaborate and exotic death."

I'm pretty sure that's where the wheels came off for me. I really wanted to like this movie, and to a certain extent I did. But when characters go that far away from who I think I know them to be, it takes me right out of the drama and makes me start thinking critically, and that's never a good thing for me when watching a movie, particularly when it's a subject about which I care deeply, like Star Trek or Batman.

By the end I was thinking, let me get this straight: Kirk went from a third-year cadet on academic suspension to captain of the Federation flagship in (more or less) one day? Riiiiight.

Star Trek

Spoilers follow.

Gene Roddenberry's original pilot for Star Trek was deemed "too cerebral" by the network, and they ordered a second pilot made. There was never any danger of that criticism for this movie.

This was a nice summer popcorn movie during which I felt perfectly safe not thinking too much. If I had, I might have wondered where the mile-deep chasm in Iowa was located. I might have wondered why the starship Enterprise was being built on the ground in Iowa, and how it was supposed to get into space from there. I might have wondered how JJ Abrams felt that he had captured Gene Roddenberry's optimistic future by portraying Starfleet officers as drunken bullies who beat up townies in Iowa's bars. It's a good thing I didn't think about that in the first 15 minutes. I might not have enjoyed the other 112.

This was a fast-paced action/adventure movie with enjoyable stunts, gunfights, explosions, and lots of laughs. It didn't say anything about the human condition. There was no allegory for present-day culture, morals, or beliefs. There was no lesson to be learned. In other words, it wasn't Star Trek.

I'm sure this will be a hit with the masses. It will serve to spark new interest in what was an ailing franchise and effectively reboot it. I'll enjoy the new films, as I did this one. I just hope that now that they've hit the reset button that next time they'll actually have something to say.

"Crank It" Songs: REO Speedwagon's "Take It on the Run"

"Heard it from a friend who

heard it from a friend who

heard it from another

you been messin' around..."

There are just some songs that play on the radio (especially XM's Classic Rewind, channel 49) where I have to crank it. I am forced by nostalgia to turn the volume up as high as I can without disturbing the the other classrooms around me.

This morning's "Crank It" song is REO Speedwagon's "Take It on the Run." Back in the glory days of 1981 our Mesick High School football team had won its first game of the season, after successive 1-8 and 0-9 seasons. Our coach, Bill Hollenbeck, had thought to inspire us by playing college fight songs on his stereo system, which inspired us to ask if we could play something else. The first cassette we played (yes, kids, before there were CDs) was REO's "Hi Infidelity." The locker room was rocking out and we killed the team we were playing that night. Rock music won out over college fight songs for the rest of the season, and we went 6-3. It was the first winning season in years in Mesick football.

Not Losing?

Ten days after my last weigh in, I'm still at 286. Not bad, considering I didn't work out while camping and we ate either in restaurants or at carnivals for all three days. Elephant ears and Eggs Benedict are not really considered health food, I'm told. Now it's time to focus on losing again, though.

Some of my colleagues and I are going to the Tigers game in Detroit on July 11, and that will include a stop at Cabela's to buy a school wardrobe that will fit. I've been wearing pants that are four inches too large in the waist for weeks now. I hope I haven't stabilized already and that I'm just at a plateau brought on by a three-day break from my routine.

2010

I never thought of a year with such a sinking feeling until ABC teased the last season of "Lost" by using "2010." I really have to wait that long??

Sunrise

I know I'm doing this backward, but the last morning we spent camping this weekend gave me one of the most beautiful sunrises I have ever seen. Of course, it was 27 degrees the night before in our tent and we froze all night, but I guess there has to be a price for beauty.

Photo taken at Northern Exposure Campground, Mesick, Michigan.

The Rob Liefeld Name Game

Back in the late eighties when I was just out of college and doing substitute teaching, I was also an aspiring artist and a gamer. I loved to create characters. My main source of inspiration was a dictionary, which could be found in most of the classrooms in which I taught. Most lesson plans left for me included the words, “Press play,” so I was often left to supervise a few dozen kids who promptly went to sleep when the lights went down. This meant lots of quiet time to create characters! I searched the dictionary for cool words and latin roots that could be turned into superhero and supervillain names. I came up with some pretty good ones, too. It turns out, though, that I was not as smart as I thought because the new wave of characters being created didn’t require that much creativity. Rob Liefeld showed me the way.

The first Liefeld character I noticed was Deadpool, recently portrayed by Ryan Reynolds in X-Men Origins: Wolverine." “The Dead Pool” was a Clint Eastwood movie featuring the character Dirty Harry, and it was released just three years before the character first appeared in New Mutants #98. There was never really any good reason for an assassin to be named Deadpool, so I just chalked it up to an homage. Then, when Liefeld’s Youngblood was released just a few years later, a pattern emerged. It wasn’t enough that his group was named after a bad Rob Lowe movie. Characters named Shaft, Diehard, Vogue, and Riptide appeared, confirming his method of creating many character names: Just steal them from popular movies, songs, and horrible Stephen J. Cannell TV shows! At the next gaming session I attended, I suggested that during the character creation process that we just play the “Rob Liefeld Name Game.” Hilarity ensued.

“I’m the Rockford Files,” urged one player.
“Lethal Weapon,” offered another.
“Material Girl,” said the female among us.
“We can gather to form…the A-Team,” said yet another.

Almost twenty years have passed since those halcyon days and thousands of movies, songs and television shows have been brought forth. What would Rob Liefeld name his characters and superhero groups today?

Let’s play!

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

We had fun at the drive-in Friday night seeing X-Men Origins: Wolverine. I don't have to write a review, though. This guy did it for me!

Losing, Losing, Losing

Down to 286 this morning. I've lost 30 pounds since coming back to school after winter recess, 56 pounds lighter than my heaviest.

I rode my bike outside yesterday, enjoying the beautiful weather as well as an exciting Tigers game that I listened to on my BlackBerry Storm. Despite a late night, I still rode this morning while watching the second episode of my new guilty pleasure, Castle.