Final Thoughts on the 2008 Detroit Tigers

74-88, .457, 5th place in the American League Central. Dead last, even behind the Royals. Thank goodness this nightmare season is over.

Position Players

Curtis Granderson—Curtis started off the year on the disabled list after suffering a fractured finger in the second-to-last spring training game. He rallied after that, especially improving on his strikeout numbers and his average against left-handed pitchers. Despite missing the first three weeks of the season, he still scored over 100 runs.

Placido Polanco—Normally sure-handed Polanco committed eight errors this season, compared to none all of last season. He hit .307, down from .341 the season before, but his numbers with runners in scoring position declined even more, down to .278. For the previous three years, he hit .364, .396, and .380 with RISP. This is a big reason for the Tigers’ poor year.

Gary Sheffield—Sheffield, who had off-season shoulder surgery, tried to stage a comeback after a dismal year last year. Unfortunately, he tore a tendon in the middle finger of his right hand sliding into second base, and re-injured his surgically-repaired shoulder early on. As a designated hitter, a player should bat higher than the .228 with 19 home runs and 56 RBI. His continued thuggish behavior, especially during the recent scuffle with the Indians’ Fausto Carmona, makes me want him gone. I don’t care if he ever hits 500 home runs.

Magglio Ordonez—The 2007 American League Batting Champion got lazy this year. His constant swinging at the first pitch caused him to ground into a staggering 27 double plays. He still hit .317 with 103 RBI, but his fielding and baserunning were just plain awful.

Carlos Guillen—Carlos moved over to first base because of his 24 errors at shortstop last year, but the move was short lived to make a position for the even worse-fielding newcomer, Miguel Cabrera. He committed 14 errors in 89 games at third, and he just didn’t seem to have much pop in his bat, with only 54 RBI compared to 100 last year.

Pudge Rodriguez—Pudge was hitting .295 for the Tigers this year, when they traded him to the New York Yankees for former Tiger relief pitcher Kyle Farnsworth. It marked the end of the Tigers’ playoff hopes, as they were visibly shaken after the trade was announced. After that, they went right down the tubes. Thanks, Pudge, for coming to Detroit and putting us back on the baseball map.

Brandon Inge—Brandon suffered a displacement fracture to the ego this season. When the Tigers brought third baseman Miguel Cabrera over from Florida, Brandon found himself without a starting job. Even after Cabera proved to be as mobile as an oak tree in the hot corner, the Tigers put Carlos Guillen there instead. Brandon began the season in center field in the place of Curtis Granderson, and was actually one of the only hitters who didn’t fail in the first few weeks of the season. Brandon played in the outfield, at third, shortstop, and catcher this season. His batting average was atrocious, but he only committed one error the entire season, that one coming with only two games remaining in the season.

Marcus Thames—Marcus didn't show the improvement I looked for last year, keeping his long swing and hitting everything to the pull field. It scares me every time he goes after a ball in left field.

Miguel Cabrera--Leading the American League in home runs at 37, Cabrera got off to a very slow start. Once he got used to the American League, he hit like crazy. It was very exciting watching him in the second half of the season. He started out the season at third base, where he was a butcher, but converted quickly into a very good defensive first baseman.

Edgar Renteria--This was supposed to be the shortstop that we were looking for to shore up our infield, but Edgar's lack of hustle and production made him expendable. He hit .332 last year, but only managed .270 this season. The Tigers are not picking up his option for next season.

Pitching



Justin Verlander—A nightmare season for Justin, as he struggled with control over his fastball in more games than not. It seemed like early in the season he tried to slow his pitches down, but all that did was give the batters more time to tee off. He ended up with the most losses of any pitcher in the American League.



Kenny Rogers—I said stick a fork in him at the end of last season and I was right. He just lost it this year. Retire, Kenny.



Jeremy Bonderman—Season-ending surgery took Bonderman completely out of the equation as he battled a blood clot in his pitching arm. He actually had to have a rib removed.



Nate Robertson—Nate collapsed completely, and his dominance over left-handed batters ended quickly.



Armando Gallaraga--What a bright start for a young pitcher. Armando came up to replace the injured Jeremy Bonderman and had a better season than Bonderman has ever had! He went 13-7 with a 3.63 ERA. By far the best pitcher we had this season.



Joel Zumaya—An off-season injury took Zumaya out and he never recovered.



Fernando Rodney—I would still pay money to see him shipped out of town. He still looks like a lost child on the mound and fields his position like a coachless little leaguer.



Todd Jones—The Roller Coaster knew this was his last year and he played hurt most of it. He's retired now.

I can't even describe the disappointment that this season has brought me. The Tigers had a lineup loaded for success. "Win now" was the philosophy behind the trades that brought Miguel Cabrera, Dontrelle Willis, Edgar Renteria, and Jacque Jones to the Tigers. Instead it blew up in our faces. This season was harder to watch than 2004 (when I was first able to watch Tigers games on cable. Thank goodness I couldn't watch in 2003 when they went 43-119) and 2005 when they toyed with getting to .500. This team had all the pieces in place, but just played poorly. It was like they would try to find new ways to lose. When the starting pitching was good, the bullpen was bad. When the starters and bullpen were good, the defense or hitting would let them down. It was just like watching an orchestra, whose musicians all had different sheet music, trying to play all at the same time.

There's always next year, I guess.

All Star Superman

As All Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder was, in my opinion, the worst Batman comic book ever printed, All Star Superman is among the best examples of its title character's comics.

For 12 uninterrupted issues, unmarred by world-shaking crossovers and unnecessary guest appearances, we have been treated to Grant Morrison's and Frank Quitely's tribute to the wonder that is Superman. Nearly every element of the Superman of my youth is there: the bottle city of Kandor, the Fortress of Solitude, Krypto the Superdog, the Superman robots, Luthor as evil scientist (as opposed to the post-Crisis corporate tycoon), Jimmy Olsen's signal watch, and Bizarro. And it's all done well. Morrison takes the inane and treats it with respect and dignity and tells a story that is completely adult, without language and gore that would gall anyone with good taste.

The story begins in issue #1 with Lex Luthor killing Superman. No, really. Luthor plots Superman's death by overloading his cells with solar radiation, the same solar radiation that provides Superman's powers. Superman literally has more power than he can handle, and his cells are being disrupted by the surplus. Superman spends the entire 12-issue run putting his affairs in order and doing what he can for humanity before his inevitable end arrives.

Frank Quitely's art takes some getting used to, but grows on you after a while. He tends to draw Superman's red trunks more like boxer briefs than the circus trunks that inspired them, and Superman's cape is a bit short. But then again, that's how it looked in the fifties and sixties.

This title is a throwback in another way, too. I probably wouldn't have bought the first issue and gotten sucked into the story if it had not been for one thing: The first issue had a variant Neal Adams cover (seen at right). I am a huge fan of the Superman vs. Muhammad Ali treasury comic done back in 1978, and Adams' Superman is nearly as iconic to me as his Batman is. I remember a lot of the 70s Superman books were the same way. They would have an Adams or a Rich Buckler or a Nick Cardy or even a Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez cover, with Curt Swan interiors. Quitely is a bit more stylized than Curt Swan, but his blocky Superman is certainly reminiscent.

This series may have taken three years to put out 12 issues, but the story was well worth the wait. This is how Superman should be done.

Counting to Ten

She's growing up way too fast.

Sera went from diapers to "big girl panties" in about five seconds. We started the potty training process when school let out in the beginning of June, but we got sidetracked when we went on our long vacation in July. When we came back, though, we started the process again, and bam! She's potty trained. The sticker she's wearing in the picture is from her first accident-free day at daycare. She was very proud of it, and so were we.

She's really interested in helping us cook. Magi and I share cooking duties, especially in the summer when I can grill every night if I want to. Whichever one of us is not cooking tries to keep her entertained so she doesn't get underfoot, but it's been more and more of a challenge. In the picture, she is helping to stir the pasta salad that fed me for a week at school.

We just assembled the Learning Tower, a pretty expensive stepping stool that has safety rails to keep flush with our work surfaces in the kitchen. Sera has already found it wildly fascinating to help prepare food, and I like that. I learned to cook in college, working in the dorm cafeteria. Don't generalize, now...Western Michigan University's food service was outstanding. There were never complaints about food in the dorms. I credit it for helping me to decide to stay in the dorms all the way through school. Cooking is a skill that everyone values when you can do it well, and I'm glad that Sera wants to learn. Yesterday, she helped make her own sandwich for lunch. She chose what went on it and spread the mayonnaise on with her plastic knife. She chose chicken and ham, mayonnaise, tomato, onion, pickle, and sport peppers from the refrigerator. I'm not making this up. I didn't choose a single item. She's like a little Dagwood, this one. Takes after her daddy!

The most amazing thing that Sera has done in the past few weeks is to count to ten. It's not what you think. She didn't just recite the numbers in order. She counted her floating letters one by one as we put them away. It's just amazing to me how quick she is, and the quantum leaps in cognitive development she makes. And every time she does it, I feel like she's moving too fast. On one hand, I want to take her to do grown up activities like canoeing and hiking; on the other, I want her to stay my little girl forever.

I have a feeling I'll get my wish both ways.

Deliverance

In the fall of 1984, I took a course called Film Interpretation (ENGL 210) at Western Michigan University. It was a four-credit course, and part of my English minor course of study. Before you begin to think that it was a blowoff course, you need to understand something. It changed my life, and remains to this day the course I use most in my daily life. In this class, I not only had to watch the movies but had to write about them extensively. I learned technical terms like rack focus and non-musical sound bridge. I learned what each member of the credited crew list does. And I had to identify and write about themes and techniques presented throughout some of the greatest movies of all time. Included in the film list were Citizen Kane, Meet John Doe, Cheyenne Autumn, The Quiet Man, It's a Wonderful Life, The Seventh Seal, The Third Man, The 39 Steps, and Deliverance.

If that last choice seems odd, it did to me too...at the time. Deliverance was one of only three color films we saw (Cheyenne Autumn and The Quiet Man being the others) and I wondered before the projector started rolling why it was among the classics. My mother and stepfather had gone to see it back when it was released in theaters in 1972, and I still remember them talking about the foul language and how it wasn't necessary, but that didn't stop them from buying the soundtrack, complete with the song, "Duelling Banjos," riffs from which are still used to this day when certain subjects are brought up.

As I watched the film, I was transfixed. Deliverance begins as a buddy film, with four Atlanta business men taking a canoe trip on the Cahulawassee River. The Cahulawassee is about to be dammed by a power company, which will back up the waters to form a lake. Entire towns will be moved en masse and the valley will cease to exist. Lewis Medlock (Burt Reynolds, in his breakout role) is the leader of the pack, literally defining macho for a generation. Jon Voight plays his second banana, Ed, an art director who is bored with his life and family. Drew (Ronny Cox) and Bobby (Ned Beatty) are their hangers-on who come along for kicks.

SPOILER ALERT

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The canoe trip begins well enough, with the foursome encountering a cross-section of Appalachia. As they fuel up their cars at a filling station, Drew initiates a jam session with a local albino boy, playing his guitar matched with the boy's home-strung banjo. the duet increases in complexity and speed until Drew finds himself outmatched by the boy. The city and country cultures mix seemlessly until Drew concedes the match and offers the boy his hand in congratulations. The boy turns his head away, ignoring the gesture, to which Bobby cruelly and dismissively responds, "Give him a few bucks."

As they make their way down the river, the neophyte canoers meet and master some minor white water, bolstering their confidence in the task ahead. They make camp, bonding over whiskey and a fish that Lewis spears with his bow. This marks the end of the buddy movie, as the next day Ed and Bobby pull up on shore to rest. They encounter two mountain men, who take them captive and rape Bobby. This is the salacious part of the movie that popular culture always refers to as the "Squeal like a pig" scene. It's too bad our culture wasn't a bit more mature, because the true horror of the violence justifies Lewis' actions as he fires an arrow into the back of the rapist as he is about to turn his gun on Ed, who has a similar fate awaiting him with the other man. As the rapist dies slowly and the other man gets chased off into the woods, the foursome has to decide what to do. This is the heart of the film, not the "Squeal" scene. The men argue about the results of their actions, and whether or not they should even report the killing. As they finally decide to bury the man upstream where no one will ever find him, their fates are sealed. After the burial scene, in which Drew, the sole vote for turning themselves in, digs like a frenzied animal (in direct proportion to the humanity of his argument) the four men make haste to get off the river as quickly as possible and to put the trip behind them.

As they approach some fast water, Drew is shot in the head and falls into the water. The canoes are both dumped in the rapids and Lewis is severely injured with a compound fracture of his right femur. Bobby and Ed get themselves and Lewis to shore and hunker down in a gorge with sheer cliff walls. When night falls, Ed scales the cliff face to go after the shooter. He just makes it to the top where he falls asleep. Waking at first light, Ed sees a mountain man with a rifle trudging through the forest. He takes aim with his bow and looses an arrow into the throat of the man, but the tree he is resting on gives way and he falls on one of his own arrows, which impales him through the side. He pulls the arrow through and packs the wound with his own clothing. He then lowers the body down to the river below, and the three surviving men sink another body and make their way home.

Lewis has almost died in the night and needs medical attention immediately. They begin their hurried trip downriver, when they encounter Drew's body, his arm savagely twisted behind his own neck in a most unnatural angle. They decide to sink Drew's body into the river too, and quickly get their stories straight as they approach their destination. They get to the town where their cars were left, and get to the hospital. Their story almost doesn't hold up with the local sheriff, but the men escape, hearty, but not necessarily whole. The last thing we see is Ed's nightmare of bodies rising to the surface of the new lake.

Deliverance is one of those rare movies that is written by the same man who wrote the novel upon which it is based, James Dickey. Dickey was known to me as a poet when I saw the movie, but not as a novelist. After seeing Deliverance, I kept my eye out for the book at garage sales. Sure enough, I found a copy for a dime and I've read it dog-eared over the last 20 years or so. The prose is pretty nice:

"Movies and pictures of Indians on calendars gave me a general idea of what
to do, and I waved the paddle slowly through the water, down and along the left
side of the canoe. The nose with Drew in it--I saw now that I was moving
him to one side or the other, to turn the canoe, was going to be a big part of
the problem--swung heavily out toward midstream, where the current began to pick us up and move it a little faster. The sensation of pure riding could not have
been greater though we were doing not much more than drifting, bogged with the
weight of the gear, and with uncertainty."

That's some good stuff, right there. The book, as you might imagine, fills in all of the gaps left behind by a two-hour screenplay. The first chapter takes you behind the motivations for taking the trip in the first place, which admittedly, the dialogue of the film takes care of less-than-adequately. The reader finds out Ed's last name (Gentry), for example, which is never mentioned in the movie at all.

But, this is one time when seeing the movie will not spoil the book. In fact, I recommend seeing the movie first and then reading the book. There are hardly any inconsistencies between the two ("Squeal like a pig" is not in the book), and the cinematography of the canoe trip adds to the mind's eye when reading about it. Since James Dickey wrote both the movie and the book, you can consider the movie sort of a condensed finished draft with a little added material.

9/11

I hate this day. I always hate this day.

In 2001, our four-teacher team had taken all 100 of our students into our large lecture room to take ISTEP, our annual high-stakes exam. The kids were busily working away, when one of our team members came in, badly shaken. One by one, we went out in the hallway, where she told us about the World Trade Center. My first thought was, well, a plane hit the Empire State Building by accident once and it was no big deal, but then she told me that it was a passenger plane. We struggled through the next two hours of testing, trying desperately not to upset the students. My eyes kept welling up and I had to leave the room several times. On one of those trips, the second plane hit live on television. I immediately turned back around to get the information to my friends. A messenger came around to the rooms, instructing us not to tell the students what was going on until after the testing was over for the day. When it finally was, the kids asked us what was wrong. They were pretty observant, that group. We turned on the televisions in the room right about the time the fist tower fell.

The next several hours were a living nightmare. We were told not to leave the televisions on, and to just go about our day. Right, like that was going to happen. I kept watching on my classroom computer, as CNN.com covered the events, bringing new video footage up every couple of minutes. A few parents came in to get their kids that day, and I can't say as I blame them. I would have too. There was no question in anyone's mind that terrorists had struck America.

I was angry. No, I was furious. I wanted to know who had done this reprehensible thing and I wanted to hit them back. I stopped on the way home and bought an American flag and mounted it outside my house. Many others did the same thing over the next few days. I remember a spirit of togetherness and unity that I'd never felt before and I've never felt since. I supported the president when he sent troops into Afghanistan. There was and is no question that it was the right thing to do. It would have been equally right to go after bin Laden with every resource at our disposal. It would have sent a clear message to those who would employ these means to achieve their goals.

Now I wonder if we'll ever get him.

In 2004, Magi and I visited Ground Zero. If you've never been to Manhattan, let me describe it as a cacophany with the volume turned up to 11. Cars honking, sirens wailing, people bustling about town, all have their music. But when you step onto the block where Ground Zero is, it's like being in the Cone of Silence. It's eery. All the activity ceases. Even the street hawkers peddling their 9/11 postcards and scrapbooks are relatively laid back. What struck me the most besides the obvious gaping wounds in the concrete where the footprints of the towers lay, was the shrapnel damage done to the adjacent buildings. Some of them are old, with moldings that no one builds with anymore, and they were peppered with debris from the falling towers, scarring their beauty. We saw a neighboring building that was simply--there's no other way to say this--shrouded. It was covered in a large black canopy that looked just like a funeral veil. It was a somber, life-altering moment to see the site in person.

I hate this day.

My Turn

After a week of taking care of a sick Sera and a sicker Magi, it's my turn. Sera came home from daycare with a cold last week, and Magi wasted no time in picking it up. I stayed home with Sera, since I have way more sick days than Magi does, and then Magi stayed home when she needed to last week. I haven't missed any days for myself, but I certainly could have justified it today when I coughed for 45 minutes straight. I bought some cough drops and got it stopped, and I made it through the day, only to find that Sera has a runnier nose than she did when she was in the middle of being sick, along with a slight fever. So, I may be home with her again tomorrow. If I am, I'll post something more substantial.

Family Dynamic #1

With an entire DC universe not fit for a child's eyes, Family Dynamic is a breath of fresh air. Written by J. Torres, formerly of Teen Titans Go!, and drawn by Tim Levins, formerly of Gotham Adventures, Family Dynamics is the story of a generational superhero group whose powers are derived from the four classic elements: earth, air, fire, and water.

The first issue opens with an introduction to the Family via flashback. Pyralis, the father, is shown drawing flames from a forest fire up into the sky while his wife Sirocco draws the oxygen away using a vortex of her own creation. Their son Troylus brings a tidal wave to douse the flames, while their youngest son Terran evacuates civilians on a flying rock. It's actually refreshing to see an introduction done like this for the reader.

The introduction continues as the family is interviewed by another hero in his secret identity as a reporter. The exposition that follows gives a nice, detailed history of the team in their home of Storm City.

While the elemental quartet idea is by no means an original concept, it is a welcome sight to see a comic book that I can read to my daughter without having to edit the dialogue first. And the art? Well, let's just say that I was thinking of Mike Wieringo two weeks ago on the anniversary of his death, and this book made me think about him again. Tim Levins has adapted some of my favorite elements of 'Ringo's style, from the highlights in hair to the shadows of the wrinkles in an ordinary pair of pants. Add a cover by Sean "Cheeks" Galloway, and you have a real winner in this comic.

Originally scheduled as a six-issue miniseries, initial orders of #1 caused DC to cut it back to three. Give this book a try, and let's see if we can't get some more issues of a comic that deserves it!

Captain America Called...

Captain America called, Senator McCain. He wants his shield back:

http://store.johnmccain.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=RSR2916

I know it has an extra white circle, but it's still pretty funny.

I Believe a Man Can Fly

I was going to wait until December to write this, but the muse is upon me.

I'm in a semi-darkened theater in Battle Creek, Michigan on Christmas Eve, 1978. I'm with my brother, my sister, my mother, my stepfather, and his three kids. We've ridden in the bed of a pickup truck with a cap on it, huddled together in blankets to get us all to the movies. We have popcorn and drinks, and in my hands I have a movie program, the first I've ever seen. I've been reading about the new actor Warner Brothers has found to play Superman, and I've seen him in previews for the past two weeks. He looks like the real deal in the program. As I peruse the actors' biographies, I'm up to Glen Ford, when the lights go down. I get goosebumps. After the bit with the kid reading a copy of Action Comics I hear the low rolling bass. Dum de da dum dum. Da da da da dum de da dum dum...then a burst of blue light fires the credits right at my eyes!

Two hours later, I walk out of the theater in a daze, past the ten-foot wide crystalline Superman The Movie logo sign. I have just seen the greatest movie in all of my fourteen years. Over the next several months, I see the movie four times. I see it with my dad, and with one of my best friends, Ken. We travel to Traverse City on a night when he has keyboard lessons, and after we see the movie, we spend the whole trip home in his mom's Lincoln Continental, with our hands outstretched in front of us, imagining the flight along the road in pursuit of an XK 101 nuclear missile.

I had been on the road to weeding out my comic book collection by trading them in two for one at the local flea market, but all of that's over with. I am buying everything I see with Superman in it. I find a new Superman series called DC Comics Presents, with art by Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, featuring Superman and the Flash in its first two issues. I'm reading Starlog Magazine at a basketball game with Superman on the cover. This obsession lasts through spring and into summer. I have Superman The Movie bubblegum cards. I have the Superman soundtrack by John Williams on vinyl. While I listen to it, I sort out the cards in story-sequential order and match the music to the scene. I painstakingly record the soundtrack on my cassette recorder so that I can play it while I'm riding my bike on my paper route. I carry the cassette recorder in my paper bag, hands outstretched in front of me as I ride. It's an endless summer before high school begins and I have to put away childish things...

Yesterday, I plugged my iPod into an external speaker I bought for canoeing and blasted the Superman soundtrack while I rode my bike around the neighborhood. It was all I could do not to stretch my hands out in front of me. It's been 30 years and now I know I will never lose that part of myself. I can feel it again, a youthful exuberance, a hopefulness for the future. Maybe it's starting to get back in shape by riding my bike, maybe it's having a wonderful wife and daughter, and maybe it's having students who actually seem to care this year. It might be a combination of all these things, but right now I feel like I can fly!

So go ahead, Warner Brothers, make your darker Superman movie. Earn your money as you have every right to do. But know that you won't be inspiring any fourteen-year olds to help other people, to overcome adversity, or to do the right thing even when they don't have to. At least I had my Superman movie. I'll have to try to inspire kids for you.

Never Underestimate the Power of the Dark Side

"Like the recent Batman sequel -- which has become the highest-grossing film of the year thus far -- (Warner Bros. Pictures Group President Jeff) Robinov wants his next pack of superhero movies to be bathed in the same brooding tone as "The Dark Knight." Creatively, he sees exploring the evil side to characters as the key to unlocking some of Warner Bros.' DC properties. "We're going to try to go dark to the extent that the characters allow it," he says. That goes for the company's Superman franchise as well."

This quote comes from the Wall Street Journal Online.

Here we go again!

Good Week

My first full week of school was a good one. My students this year seem to want to do well, and I've come up with a new motivator.

I've divided my students up into four-person teams, and I have them compete for points when we review our homework each day. I use a spinner to determine which team gets the opportunity to answer, and each team's leader gets a four-sided die to determine which of the team members is the one to answer. If the student doesn't know the answer or doesn't know which question we're on, we quickly move on. If we don't have homework to grade that day, I check to see who has their materials. At the end of the week, I give a quiz. Students who get 80% or better earn one point for their team, and students who get them all right earn two points. The team with the highest accumulated points wins the week. They get prizes, ranging from candy bars to mechanical pencils to money, and they also get to choose where in the room they will sit the next week.

I treat the whole thing like a big game show, and they seem to respond to it. I will probably make small changes to the rules as we go, and I'll need to mix it up so they don't get bored with it. I'm encouraged, though. It's a good start.

Gen Con

Gaming has been one of my favorite hobbies since 1983, when I first discovered Champions. Champions is the superhero roleplaying game that I played when I met my lifelong friends here in the Michiana area. Essentially you take the role of a superhero in a game of pretend, only instead of running around the yard with a towel around your neck, you sit around a table and use metal miniatures on a map, rolling dice to resolve actions, whether success or failure. There are hundreds of these games, from Dungeons & Dragons to Mutants & Masterminds, to Villains & Vigilantes. Gen Con is the ultimate experience for those who play roleplaying games, board games, even video games. This four-day convention is expected to draw 85,000 gamers this week, and today I was one of them.

My buddy Rob picked up a ticket for me when he was in Indianapolis on Thursday, which saved hours of waiting in line. He drove us down this morning and we walked right past hundreds of people standing in line.

I wanted to see the new Champions Online demonstration for myself. Champions Online will be an MMORPG (massively multiplayer online roleplaying game) that brings the characters that I've been squaring off with for 25 years to our computer screens, and it's being made by the same guys who brought us City of Heroes four years ago.

I got to talk to Steve Long, former attorney and gamer who used to belong to a Champions Amateur Press Alliance (APA) with me and several other Champions players. He bought the Hero Games property some years ago and has developed it well enough that it was snapped up by Cryptic Studios for its next project. He is very excited about this new project, as well as the upcoming 6th edition of the Hero System rules. I don't blame him. The character costume generator alone on this new game is simply amazing. It's quite an upgrade over CoH. You can literally watch the muscle tone of your character change as you move an onscreen slider. It's that detailed! Game play looks very fast, and there are comic book fonts on the screen in both word balloons and captions. Instead of fully painted characters like CoH has, Champions Online characters appear to be drawn with line art with colors that are a little flatter and more like comic book art. It makes for an effective illusion that you are playing in a comic book story.

Champions Online will be released as both an Xbox 360 and a PC game, and if you have the PC version, you can either use a special Xbox controller or your keyboard and mouse. This looks like fun!

I passed by the WizKids booth in time to see a live Heroclix demonstration too. And when I say live, I mean they used living people as the Heroclix! They had actors playing Mr. Fantastic, Spider-Man (shown above), Daredevil, and Ms. Marvel. Each of them had a scaled up Heroclix dial, and a giant board to play on. They had little kids roll giant dice to resolve the actions. What a way to introduce them to the game!

Ms. Marvel apparently had the ability to withstand a giant wedgie. I'm not sure where that ability is on the dial, but she had it for the whole game!

I also picked up a book that I've been waiting for for quite some time. Green Ronin Publishing had advance copies of their Wild Cards sourcebook for Mutants & Masterminds. I'm really looking forward to reading this one!

I also had lunch with two of my teacher friends, one of whom having moved to Tennessee this summer. We ate at Buca di Beppo and had some amazing Italian food. I got to see several of my South Bend area gaming friends and even one of my CoH friends, Ben, who lives in New Jersey. When I got home, I got a huge hug from my daughter, whom I had not seen all day. I brought her back a pink stuffed bear dressed as a ballerina in a purple tutu. She loved it.

All in all, I'd say it was a great day.

Breaking Away

I've had my bicycle for 14 days, and so far it is a total success for me! There were two days last week that I didn't ride because it was in the shop being fitted for our trailer hitch (and I was in Detroit to see the Tigers) and two days this week because school was about to start and I didn't leave work until almost 9:00 PM. Even with just riding for 10 of those 14 days, I have put 51 miles in so far, with a total of about 4.6 hours on the bike.

I'm learning a lot about the neighborhood I live in. There are about five good subdivisions to ride in; the main roads are way too busy for my tastes. One of the subdivisions is called Pheasant Pointe. It has street names that just crack me up. All the street names are either named after pheasants, or the dogs who hunt them. It also just happens to be the home of about seven South Bend and Mishawaka police officers. I see their cars everywhere.

I've only taken Sera in the trailer once so far, but she seemed to enjoy it.

Live Long and Prosper

Okay, I confess. I am a Star Trek fan. I never dressed up at a convention, but I actually won a trivia contest at one once. Yes, I know more about Star Trek than most Star Trek fans. I won a John DeLancie-autographed script of "Q Who,", the episode of Next Generation that introduced the Borg. I have met at least a dozen cast members.

I admit this so that I have a little more credibility when I say that I am excited about this image. This is Zachary Quinto as Spock in the upcoming Star Trek movie. Zachary plays the main villain Sylar on Heroes, and in this picture, he looks like he could be Leonard Nimoy's son.

J.J. Abrams is directing this movie, and if he gives the Enterprise crew as many layers as he has given the characters in Lost, this could be as great a rebirth as the new James Bond franchise promises to be.

You can find this and other images of the new Star Trek crew at this site.

Rainbow Over Comerica

Went to the Tigers game on Saturday night with two friends from school. It rained a little, but then...

Vacation, Part 2

I'm going to skip over the drive from Denver to Utah because Magi has all those pictures on her computer. I was driving, and she's got all the cool pictures right here.

The drive was nothing short of spectacular. After endless hours of cornfields we got to see some amazing scenery.

Once we got there, my dad showed us around. He and Dee have a great little ranch just on the south side of Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah. Dad had to show me his shop, which was the first thing they built. Here, he shows off his car and tractor collection. He's owned a lot of these cars and tractors in his lifetime, but not the 1950s Batmobile in the lower right corner:

He builds and trades guns, too:

Lots and lots of guns...oh, and knives too:

Here, he shows the medicine bag he had made for my late grandmother, whose great grandmother was Mohawk. Yes, I'm 1/64 Native American:

You might have guessed correctly that my father is into Westerns. Here is some of his memorabilia, including a signed photo of Clayton Moore as The Lone Ranger that my brother and I got him some years ago:

And that IS a Cylon helmet containing the Battlestar Galactica series DVD set I gave him for Christmas. Hey, it's good to have varied tastes!

My dad often uses this getaway spot to sleep in the middle of the night. He suffers from spinal arthritis that the strongest painkillers can't touch sometimes, and the only way he can sleep is in a chair. He was in a car accident when my mother was pregnant with me, that is responsible. His breastbone was broken by the steering column and he broke every one of his ribs...from the back. He also broke both legs. He almost died and still bears the tracheotomy scar on his throat. I'm just grateful he gets to spend his twilight years surrounded by the things that he loves.

Next time: The trip to Cedar City! With pictures!

What are the Odds?

Fans of "The Wire?" Anyone?

I saw this on my bike ride last night. What are the odds that there would be a corner like this near where I live? Now if I see a Wee-Bey Street, then I gotta change it up, yo.

The Fun Never Ends...with Wisdom Teeth

Didn't do any biking today because I thought an emergency root canal would be more fun.

Last night, the tooth next to one of the wisdom teeth I had extracted last November came alive around midnight. I was in so much pain I couldn't even lie still. There was decay there caused by the wisdom tooth facing up against it and I had a simple filling put in about a month ago, right before we left on vacation. The doctor said I might need to have a root canal because the filling was so close to the gumline, and as usual, he was right. Murphy's Law seems to run wild with my wisdom teeth. So, after a combination of Ibuprofen and a healthy dose of Sera's Baby Orajel, I was able to get some sleep...but not much, until about 3:30.

This morning, when I felt semi-human, I called the doctor's emergency number and got in to see someone and he wasted no time in shooting my mouth full of painkillers and getting to work. 45 minutes later, I walked out pain-free, but numbed up so much I couldn't talk clearly. I'll have to have the rest of the work done next week, but at least the tooth isn't pounding like it has its own pulse.

If you are younger than 40 and haven't had your wisdom teeth out yet, I highly recommend it. I have had every possible bad side effect that the doctor has warned me about so far, and it's mostly because I waited so long to have them out.

My New Ride

After my recent bike ride around Mackinac Island, I was thrilled. I had discovered a way to get exercise that I really enjoyed. I had purchased the Jeep Overland Stroller for Sera and me to go walking but my lower back was just killing me over time. So to find an exercise that didn't cause severe back pain while being on vacation was a great bonus for me!

When we got home from vacation, I started shopping online for a bicycle. I found a couple that were reasonably priced, but Magi suggested that I visit our local bicycle shop, House of Bicycles. She sure was right!

I hadn't had a bike that wasn't a Huffy since I was old enough to ride a two-wheeler, and my last bike was a ten-speed that I bought during my senior year in college that didn't even make it through a summer before I returned it because the nuts that needed to be turned to adjust the brakes kept snapping. It was not well-made. There have been several advances in bicycles since 1987, apparently.

The bikes I had been looking at had 19" frames, and the one that the owner of House of Bicycles picked out for me to try had a 22" frame. I liked it well enough, but it was black and green, which I didn't really care for. The next one he picked out was even bigger, a 23" frame Raleigh hybrid with a 24-speed Shimano deraileur that was electric blue. He adjusted the seat for me, took the time to explain how and why the seat could be adjusted to way higher than I would have ever done for myself and then helped me pick out the right accessories for it by asking me what I would be using it for.

There's really something to be said for customer service in local specialty shops. I bought my camera the same way from a place in Elkhart. No matter the problem, I can always go talk to a person with expertise who is happy to answer and help me in any way they can. The people at this store are the same way. They guided me in the right direction and built me a bike to last. They made sure that I got fenders to protect my clothes should I decide to ride to work (measured today at 7.5 miles, but along scary roads with lots of traffic--maybe not) and a cargo rack with webbing to keep my stuff from falling off. I got a headlight and taillight, an electronic speedometer/odometer and, of course, a water bottle and mount.

I picked the bike up at 6:00 last night, and by my second ride at 8:30 this morning I had already ridden ten miles, all without pain. I had to have them make one adjustment, raising the handlebars a little so I could sit straighter in the saddle, but otherwise everything has been perfect. It's great to feel the wind evaporate the sweat instantly as I ride. I can ride longer without overheating, my knees and back feel great, and I get my pulse rate up for a good long time. This may be the answer I've been looking for!

Now, does anyone want a lightly-used Jeep Overland Stroller at a reasonable price?

McCain on Education

John McCain, at the recent NAACP annual conference, said the following:

"We should also offer more choices to those who wish to become teachers. Many thousands of highly qualified men and women have great knowledge, wisdom, and experience to offer public school students. But a monopoly on teacher certification prevents them from getting that chance. You can be a Nobel Laureate and not qualify to teach in most public schools today because they don't have all the proper credits in educational 'theory' or 'methodology.' All they have is learning and the desire and ability to share it. If we're putting the interests of students first, then those qualifications should be enough."

I am growing to hate politics. I really am. Putting politicians in charge of education is like putting candy manufacturers in charge of preventing tooth decay. Anyone who thinks that educational "methodology" is not important needs to shut the frak up about education...right now. It's like saying that all you need to do is take a few anatomy courses to be a doctor. Methods courses teach the very structure of the educational system, including ethics, assessment validity, and the essence of cognitive and affective development. Almost every college professor I had possessed a PhD and most of them couldn't teach their way out of a wet paper bag. It's not just about mastering the subject material. It's about being able to convey it to students of various ages with a wide array of pre-existing understanding in an effective way.

It's about teaching, Stupid.