Asleep Beneath The Quantum Stars

I awoke to the wrong Monday yet again. I keep missing the Monday I'm meant to have, always finding the wrong one, the one that took a wrong turn at the quantum gate, that isn't meant for me. Still, we have learned to make do with one another.

I drifted through the pre-dawn depressive gloom, a spectre in search of something worthwhile to haunt. Past the trees and their cut down suicides, past the bedrooms where she spent the night staring at the ceiling, past the basement where he keeps the photos of the woman he should never have left, her obituary still in his hand.

Another day. Another day. I hung some hope at the end of it, and began to trudge towards it.

HodgePodge Lodge

I always wondered about this particular warning. Now I know what would happen.

It's Sunday afternoon, and drudgery awaits. Laundry. Cleaning. Doing all the work I thought I would have Doombots doing by the time I hit my forties. Damn it! Where are my Doombots? At this point, I'd even settle for Twiki.

And this just creeps me out. It's all CGI, but still gives me the damnable willies.

What else? Oh, I finally watched Justice League: The New Frontier. I adored it. I hadn't read the original comic series, so this was all new to me. This is nothing less than a love letter to the Silver Age, and I admit to being a little misty-eyed at the end. I recommend it to all of you, especially Jim Dandy and Sonny. I think Sonny will not stop smiling for the entire thing.

Also received a free comic this weekend. When I say 'free', I mean in the 'The First One's Free' sort of way drug pushers employ the word. I mean, I have no idea why he would think I would find this at all interesting:



Still, I did read it, and have to admit it was far better than I expected. The art is fully painted, and were I one to notice such things, I would say the artist has a way of depicting beautiful women that draws the eye. If I noticed those sorts of things. The story is more adult than I expected, but with costumes like that, how could they not be?

Well, enough procrastinating. There is drudgery to be endured. But before we go, I have to add this. If Jim Dandy is going to be digging up Galaxina to remind us how long ago our teenage years were, I have only this to add:

In Which The Writer Ponders His GamerTag

....among other things.

I was asked to do some work for a local magazine the other day. Return to the Column Hobby Horse, as it were. After pondering it for a few minutes, I felt such a wave of nausea competing with the phantom pain of future migraines that I have decided to not do it. I think all columnists should have a sell by date. You get up, you do your bit, rail against the bastards you need to rail against, then get out before you become something you hate. Before it becomes rote, before you start employing the same old tricks over and over and over again. I've done my columns. Now I'll just try and do something else.

Like come up with a decent GamerTag.

Once you purchase an XBox 360, you're asked to come up with a GamerTag. This is your name that everyone can see and snigger at when (and if) you hook up to XBLA. My first choice--SephirothRulz--was sadly taken. Probably by a fourteen year old in Omaha. So then I looked at other 'Tags out there.

Frankly, it leads me to despair.

Many names look as if the player suffered a cerebral embolism whilst typing. There are legions of random letters thrown together that perhaps only make sense to twins who haven't spoken to anyone outside of each other in 22 years. Others are simply variations on proclaiming how tuff they are. How hardcore. How dey Kingz of pwnage. And it leads me to hope that they are indeed fourteen year olds in Omaha, because if this is the work of a grown adult, I'm praying for a meteorite strike. But not in Omaha, since they're really fond of their Final Fantasy there.

So I'm thinking of going with something cute. Like PoodleKitten. Or SoftVelour4U. Because if you're going to be the Kingz of pwnage, you should at least make your victims feel very uneasy about it.

How NOT To Clear A Reading Pile

The Reading Pile isn't getting any smaller. I'm starting to panic at the size of it. I went through a phase for a few years that whenever I got a bit down, I would go out and buy new books. Since I'm a depressive sonofabitch, I now have an awful lot of books and magazines, the majority of them unread. I think things would have been better had I just gone whoring or drank myself into oblivion, since there would be less clutter.

(I went into the basement the other day, and to my horror, found three years of Asimovs and Analogs, most of them still wrapped in the plastic they were mailed in. Augh!)

So what do I do? After clearing two books away, instead of piling onto the next one in line--which is Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch--I glance up at the shelves--at the read books--and pull down Treasure Island.

Thanks, Robert Louis. You just had to write a book that, once I'd opened it, I had to keep reading. Thanks a lot. Buddy.

Clearing The Reading Pile

I really have to hand it to Guild Wars. Last week, the drops from monsters included 'Shamrock Ale' and 'Four Leaf Clovers'. While using the Clover was fairly dull, if you drank enough Shamrock Ales, the screen turned green and blurry. This week the festive drops are 'Chocolate Bunnies' and 'Golden Eggs'. If you eat an Bunny, you get a new talent for five minutes: Sugar Rush. This allows you to race around at an accelerated rate of speed like a two year old after three boxes of Smarties. Very funny. The little MMO that could proves again why it can.

Been clearing more books off the ever growing Reading Pile...



This was my first Ian Rankin 'Inspector Rebus' novel. Outside of a rather unbelievable villain, I enjoyed my first trip with John Rebus in the ancient city of Edinburgh. I know many people who swear by Rankin, among them a retired Scots electrician who carried a Rebus novel with him as he hiked through Algonquin Park over a two week period. Rankin is a very good writer, so good in fact that I really don't want to know how old he was when he wrote this. I have enough self hate as it is.



I needed a Star Wars fix, so I tore through this one. One day, I'll sit down and point out all the things that were wrong with the 'New Jedi Order', but for now, I'll just say Michael Stackpole makes the best of a bad situation. His battle scenes are fun, and to the series' credit, the focus is less on the oldies like Luke and Leia and more on new (and more interesting) characters like Corran Horn and Jaina Solo. Jacen Solo continues to fester as a crap character I'd like to kick and kick hard. The death of Chewbacca (one of the many things wrong with this series--oops!--wasn't getting into that today)leading Han to go on an alcoholic binge was realistic, even if no one else in the book seems to mourn his loss at all.



I actually really liked the Sinestro War. The idea that Sinestro's goal was to have the Lanterns kill (and break one of their most treasured oaths) was actually interesting. And now, aware of how the playing field has changed, the Guardians have created essentially their own police force to keep the now able-to-kill- Lanterns in line: the cyborg Alpha Lanterns. The watchmen now have their own watchmen.

While it was a bit unsettling to see Corps without Johns or Gibbons at the helm, Sterling Gates does a fine job of giving us backstory of one of the Alphas. The geek in me likes their chest emblems, which look like floating lanterns in some sort of liquid, a 3D image that seems to go deeper into their mechanized chests than seems possible.

As for the Alphas, I am curious as to why the Guardians would use Manhunter technology, since we all know (at least, those of us who spend waaay too much time thinking about it) how well this has worked out in the past.

Both this and Green Lantern continue to be good reads. It's so nice to see someone actually planning a storyline out for a few years, instead of just to the next big summer crossover.

Hugo Nominations 2008

...have been announced.

As usual, I haven't read any of the novels, because I suck. I see Greg Egan is up for another award, but I still haven't finished my doctoral thesis in quantum physics yet, so I wouldn't get past the first paragraph of anything he wrote before my brain imploded.

Nice to see Doctor Who up for two, with 'Blink' and 'Human Nature'. And sexy Torchwood gets a nod for 'Captain Jack Harkness' as well. All that, and the CBC still dithers and dicks around about actually showing the shows they co-produce. I love Canadian cultural snobbishness, don't you?

While I'm not a lover of Trek, I was interested to see that Net only New Voyages getting a nod. And Razor as well. Nice choice all round.

P.S.--I just finished watching Star Trek: World Enough And Time. Very impressive. Easily the most enjoyable Trek I've seen in years. It's over an hour, so pour yourself a coffee and get a comfy chair.

Some Books Just Won't Finish

Finally finished Revelation Space this morning. It's taken me more than a month to get through this, and at times, I really thought I never would. Which isn't to say it's a bad book, because it isn't. It's just that there are those books you start that the world conspires to ensure you will never finish, or have time to give it the attention it needs. And that was my time with Revelation Space.

Reynolds does an admirable job of world building, or should I say, space-building. I liked the idea that there were only so many spaceships in the galaxy, and no more--the race that made them simply got bored of doing so, so what was out there was it. I also liked the acknowledgment that traveling across huge galactic distances will take decades out of your life. Reynolds also creates some very believable aliens. And the big reveal at the end pays off.

What I didn't like was the focus on some of the politics in the book, especially on Resurgam, an outpost world. Everyone there was pretty much unlikeable, and I could care less why they were shooting each other. As well, it took me a long time to warm to anyone in this story. Perhaps actually liking main characters is passe among some science fiction writers. I wonder if that's a holdover from the cyberpunk phase, where everyone was a bastard. By the end, Reynolds had lightened some of his characters, so you actually did begin to root for them. But early on? Yikes.

Still, Reynolds' imagination is a joy, and I'll probably head back to his RevSpace universe again. But for now, I need something a little lighter. Something like....this.

There's Awesome. And Then There's...

Scream is showing a Mothra marathon tonight. I knew I got up for something today.

But there a few things I never really got about Mothra. I mean, of all the monsters from Monster Island, Mothra seemed the one Most Destined To Have Its Ass Kicked. One good radioactive blast from Godzilla and poof! There go the wings, and suddenly a half million pounds of bug are hurtling towards Tokyo. And yet everyone in Japan still loves Mothra, even though she is the Monster Manifestation of the Peter Principle.

Another thing: am I the only one who felt cheated when only the larvae version of Mothra was onscreen? Those scenes felt interminable, and slightly disgusting. A giant wormy thing that can shoot white stuff out of it's end...not really my idea of a monster. At least one I want to see fight.

And then there's the little twins. The ones who sing, and seem to have a contract stating that they must be in every film made in Japan that stars giant, underachieving nocturnal light zapper fodder.



I just don't get them. They sing like Enya, which I didn't know was big with moths. Maybe Enya has an army of moths that do her bidding, like making people buy the same album over and over again. Maybe this the entire Mothra series is a clue to the mad schemes of an Irish songstress, a conspiracy so dire that they started to hide clues in movies made years before Enya herself was born.

Still, a giant moth beating down cities. Consider Wednesday justified.

Dave Stevens Gone

Dave Stevens, the creator of The Rocketeer, has passed away after a battle with leukemia. He was only 52.

I fell in love with The Rocketeer at first sight. Stevens' love letter to the pulp era was gorgeous. Even the movie, which many people deride, I found to be enjoyable. And like many others, it was through Stevens that I first encountered Bettie Page. For that alone, the man has my thanks.

Thanks Dave, for making me nostalgic for an era that ended long before I was born.

Happy Birthday, Chuck Norris!

Of course, Chuck was never actually born. There has always been a Chuck Norris--we just haven't been evolved enough to see him. As a race, we weren't ready for his utter awesomeness until the late Sixties. Then he appeared, but he's always been with us. Always.

In fact, when God said, "Let there be light," Chuck said, "Say please."

Guild Warzing

Oops. I've just heard that there are some problems with some Wiis trying to run Super Smash Brothers Brawl. Apparently, it's down to some systems not being able to read all the tons of info on the discs. There will be a few screaming children across North America today, I believe.

I was planning to grab my copy today as well, but have come down with a bitch of a cold. This cold and accompanying cough has thrown my back out as well, so now I'm a hobbling old man, watching my wife shovel the laneway while I moan inside.

Got back into Guild Wars last week, and spent most of last night trying to level up my Necromancer/Mesmer. The comparisons to dear old WoW are there to be made, of course. It's undeniable that Guild Wars is a more beautiful game, partly down to a better use of daylight effects (it can get cloudy, for instance)and a more realistic approach to design. Warcraft utilizes a more animated look to its designs--which isn't to say it isn't beautiful as well--but I am finding myself being lost in the details of the monsters and buildings in Guild Wars lately. Generally in melee, I never take my eyes off the respective health meters, but I've been caught looking at the details of monster design and buildings when I really should be firing up my next spell.

The crafting aspect of Wars took some time to get used to as well. You just can't buy new armour or weapons like you can in WoW--you have to have salvage items alongside the purchasing gold. I thought that would just make upgrades all the more frustrating, but it doesn't--identifying and salvaging the loot you acquire to get what you need appeals to my OCD geekiness.

As well, you can cast a giant disco ball in Wars and boogie beneath it. That alone sells the game.

Also played more Oblivion. Closed my first Oblivion gate, more by luck than skill. Spent Friday night breaking into homes and stealing from the sleeping inhabitants (they actually turn over in their sleep, often scratching themselves--such dorky detail!). Just like in Morrowind, I'm getting hammered at Speechcraft, with everyone I meet thinking I'm a waste of space. "Stop talking!" they demand. Or my favourite: "What a waste of time."

Not that I ever get that in the real world. Oh no.

But Where's Quislet?

It's a decent time to be a Legion fan these days. I mean, you have two to choose from!

Been going over some Legion forums and checking out sales charts on both current versions of the my favourite future super team. So what do we have?

In Action Comics right now, we have what I call the Levitz Legion--the 'adult Legion' I remember from the Eighties. My Legion. Geoff Johns is doing a superb job with this story,giving the entire book a true Legion feel. And it has Dawnstar. Gary Franks does a very, very good Dawnstar. That alone makes this title worth picking up. And the sales seem to reflect this--Action Comics # 861 sold 56,000 copies. Pretty solid. Still, Buffy the Vampire Slayer outsells it, which I type only because I never envisaged a point in my life where I would do so.

Over in the other Legion--the titular Legion of Super-Heroes--we finally have a writer there who isn't trying to reinvent the wheel only to make it a more cooler wheel. Jim Shooter may have his detractors, but since I've never had to work for him, I'm not one of them. He is a solid writer, and after the stumbles and disappointments of the WKRP version of this Legion, it's nice to actually feel like I'm reading a proper Legion book again. The sales aren't as great as Action, coming in around 33,000--but that can be attributed to Johns' star power and the steady core of fans who buy anything with Superman in it. Sadly, it's still the WKRP Legion, but Shooter writes it as if it's the Levitz Legion. I can almost imagine him asking to do his own, proper version, being told 'no', then just doing his best to ignore the whole 'teen rebellion' aspect.

You see, I don't think Waid and Kitson ever really got it. The Legion isn't about irony. It isn't about Ultra Boy banging Triplicate Girl. It's about a super powered team of friends who border at times on the ludicrous, but are all the more awesome for that. Look at Ultra Boy, for example: he's a guy who has all of Superman's powers, but can only use one at at a time. That's ludicrous--if you take as a base that having all of Superman's powers at all isn't. And that's why it's awesome.

Same with Stone Boy, one of the worst...I mean...more challenging Substitute Heroes. A guy who can turn into rock, but doesn't do anything after that. Or Arm Fall Off Boy. Or Chlorophyll Kid, who thinks he can talk to plants but can't. That's the Legion. Having Saturn Girl's people lose the ability to speak because they're telepathic isn't. That's just ludicrous, with no fun factor involved.

And that, dear readers, is why the WKRP version of the Legion never failed to gel with me. Mark Waid--who I admire as a writer--tried to hammer the Legion into something it isn't.

For now, we have Geoff Johns and Jim Shooter, who do get it.

Me, I'm just enjoying it while it lasts.

A Banner Day

I really need to get a corporate job. This doing physical work to supplement my artistic endeavours is really starting to blow goat balls. My knees are starting to hurt and after being faced with a bathroom a half inch deep in vomit today (teacher had a reaction to her medication--I'll say she did), I think the glamour of this job has finally begun to fade. So if Electronic Arts, Lucasfilm, DC Comics or Lady Isabella's Man Whores are reading, I'm open to offers.

On top of that, I managed to wipe the memory of my MP3 player. I installed the Who adventure, and in the process, took out the other 342 songs. "Darn," I said. "Drat it."

But I am enjoying Jonathon Coulton courtesy of Jim Dandy. And I did see this movie.
A pure geek joy. Go watch, come back, and we'll compare favourite lines.

The Girl Who Never Was

It's been awhile since I listened to any Big Finish Doctor Whos, but with their new download system in place, I thought I'd give them another go. (Having them shipped from England often got very expensive, and as much as I love the good Doctor, dropping fifty dollars for a ninety minute radio play is something you don't do twice.)

I'm happy to report that The Girl Who Never Was
was well worth the $15 I spent to download. It reminded me of how much I loved the Eighth Doctor radio plays, and again how unfortunate it was that Paul McGann's only screen time as the Doctor was in that horrible 1996 movie. McGann is a very good Doctor. For geeks like myself, he was the Doctor for many years, since he was the focus of the BBC novel line. Yes, he only made the one film, but it was the Eighth Doctor who went through so much in that novel line, from Faction Paradox, the Compassion saga, the horror of Fitz Kreiner, the Sam/Dark Sam stories...of all the Doctors, it can be said he suffered the most.

(Which is why I was happy to see a nod to McGann in the current series, when we see the Tenth Doctor having sketched him in Human Nature.)

Once again, McGann provides another great Doctor here in Girl. It's been noted that for a show about a time traveller, Doctor Who rarely tells stories about Time. Here, we have a Time addict's feast, with paradoxes and different time lines running alongside one another. Both the Doctor and his companion Charley battle Cybermen aboard the same ship, separated only by about sixty six years in Time. It's also Charley's last adventure, after four years of travelling with the Doctor. It's good, solid Who.

As for Charley, those who think that the Rose/Doctor love affair was new...umm...sorry. No. Charley and the Eighth Doctor were in love with each other for years before a blonde shopgirl ran into a leather clad Doctor in a department store. In fact, were I a sad geek, I would point out that perhaps it was the love between Charley and the Doctor that led to the Ninth Doctor bonding so quickly with Rose. Both are young, both are blonde, and both are as sarcastic and quick as a fox with a winning poker hand. But I shall refrain.