Mission accomplished

Folks, I'm really trying to get this blog back on track. And this might not be the post that does it, but since today I achieved a big milestone in my (apparently very underachieving) life, I figured I'd share. I finally found an affordable copy of Condorman on DVD.
Seriously, this was one of my faves as a kid. Oh, it's a real zinger of a movie. The Phantom of the Opera flies around in spandex (well kinda). So it's not a real cinema gem, but when you're 8, that doesn't really matter. Point is, Disney decided to release it in their "just as great as Columbia House" DVD program, and lots of copies are appearing on the web, completely free of the entanglement of monthly automatic shipments. Lucky me.

The great comic read of 2009, part 1

I've been reading a lot of comics lately. This is a troubling bit of info because it simultaneously means that I've got a lot of room for a woman in my life right now, and that I stand very little chance of filling that room. Hrrrm...

But, since misery loves company, and I've got plenty of room for that right now, here's a short recap of some of the titles I've devoured:

DC: The New Frontier - Fantastic book, really great artwork. Imagine the Super Friends thrown in to reality, down to the pajama-like uni's and drawn by a follower of Jack Kirby. Having loved comics from a kid, there's something really satisfying about all of this.

Spider-Man: Blue - The first of several books on this list by the creative team of Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale, wherein Spidey relives the events preceding the death of his then-girlfriend, Gwen Stacy. Remember her? She was the cute blonde in Spider-Man 3 who enjoyed a happier fate than her penciled counterpart. This is a character piece, moved along by a lot of inner monologue, so don't expect a lot of butt kicking. Overall, I'd recommend it.

Superman: For Tomorrow - Um... I don't really read a lot of monthly comic books anymore. I prefer miniseries, because there's less commitment and they're pretty much self-contained. As much as I loved the pithy footnotes from the editor that provided the roadmap to backstories, I don't love them now. Or I wouldn't, if they still existed. But, this story needs them. I shouldn't have to go to Wikipedia to figure out what is going on. I bought this mainly on the strength of the artwork (Jim Lee, a childhood hero), but the storyline is a bit confusing. My recommendation: don't bother.

Superman For All Seasons - I wanted to finish off this installment (yes, there will be more) with a Superman story that is about as far removed from For Tomorrow as you'll find in this list. Another Loeb/Sale collaboration, For All Seasons is about as pure a Superman story as you could imagine, and is one of those rare occurrences where all the elements play an equal role in telling the story, all the way from the writer to the colorist and on down. I read somewhere that a reviewer faulted this book for not having enough action. I'm guessing that reviewer is also the kid who said that he didn't get what was so great about Super Mario 3 since the graphics were so bad. Well, I guess you can't please them all...

Tune in, same bat-time(ish), same bat channel for more rambling thoughts on things you're most likely only mildly interested in.

Boring...

Has my life been boring lately, or what? Turns out all I've got to report are these two semi-humorous photos. Enjoy.

Please Mr. Kemper?

Looks like my favorite Root Beer company has a few new flavors out. I wonder if the good old folks at Thomas Kemper will send me some... I'd be happy to give them my opinion. I'm not holding my breath, though. They've been pretty nice to me already. Hopefully they'll have some of he stuff when I head back home for the annual summer visit.

Notes from the L Train

Funny. I just hope they don't bang my shins with that on the subway.

Burgers

Now I like a good burger, and I like a healthy conversation about the best burgers in town, but I don't think I'd try to have one of those conversations with one of the guys from this article. It's interesting to hear their thoughts on some of the burgers I've had around town - I agree with them about Rare (I'm not a fan of the too-big-for-your-mouth burger), I can't say anything about Peter Luger other than that I know a lot of people who will disagree with the fact that it's a disappointing steak house. And as for Burger Joint and Shake Shack (they ranked the first one high and the second one low) well, let's just say that my last few Burger Joint trips haven't matched the experience of going the first time and that I think they're putting a bit of a "sell-out" label on the Shake Shack. But then again, what do I know?

Oh man, oh man, oh man...

Channeling Lincoln

A while back, Jeff decided to celebrate Lincoln's 200th and was kind enough to invite me to hone my photographic skills. Here's the results, good, bad and ugly. I'll let you decide.














To the ladies who were there: you are lovely, but the pictures of you all were bizarre and I didn't do anything with them. Sorry. Jeffrey has copies and maybe they will show up over there.

May I have the "explicit" version please?

After downloading all of the Conference MP3s and deciding that it would be easier to manage them if they were in my podcast directory, I've noticed that the Church marks their podcasts with the "clean" flag in iTunes. I wonder if they realize that this suggests that there might be an "explicit" version as well.

I want my conference with the "shucks!" in place!!

Sometimes my history teacher was like this (maybe)

Some of my friends are working on a little project, but it looks like they might have some competition.

Note 1: There is some strong language, so consider yourselves warned.
Note 2: Yes, I'm coming late to the game on this one, but I'm still gonna share.

Final bits with penguins, mostly

Last day. Sunday. Since I wasn't in Church, I spent some time with other people in suits.

The penguins have some pretty nice digs. So do the humans.


Truth be told, watching penguins is not much fun. What was more fun was getting to drive on the wrong side of the road for a bit until we got to our breakfast locale, where I sat on the patio eating my muesli and fruit and watched this:
After breakfast the boss man caught his plane back to NYC, and Alpna and I headed over to the aquarium. For such an amazing place, Cape Town's aquarium was a downer.
We still had about 24 hours left in Africa, but I'm not going to lie, I was tired. The rest of the trip was spent either haggling with street vendors or sipping hot chocolate in street cafes. After a month of traveling to different parts of the world, I was ready to go home. I almost can't believe that I had the chance to visit such an amazingly beautiful place, but since I've got the pictures to prove it, I guess I will.

Middle bits with whales

Cape Town was the trip that just kept getting better. Saturday (I think it was Saturday) we headed off to Hermanus to watch some whales.



Even without the whales there's plenty to see.

I mentioned before that we flipped out seeing a whale from really far away. Turns out in Hermanus, if you go at the right time you can see lots of whales really close up.

That's the boss man trying to catch a whale with an iPhone. Pretty sure iHarpoon isn't in the app store yet.



I had a blast photographing whales for hours on end, but I also had some fun photographing the whale watchers as well.




Even The Stig got in on the action, apparently.
After a hard day spent with the whales we continued along the coast while the sun set.
Eventually we found a beach and planted ourselves. The place was really nice, with some mist rolling in from off the water.




Eventually, the sky set on fire, and we made the drive back home.