That's Pretty Neat!

As I was checking my referral logs, I noticed hits coming from www.comicbookconventions.com so I headed over there to see if someone linked to me there for some reason and as soon as the page loaded I saw this:



I was the #1 entry in the Other News category! The link was to my rundown of Minnesota's MircroCon that I went to last weekend. I've never been linked to from a news site of any kind so this is pretty sweet for me.

PS: No, there's nothing wrong with your monitor. My computer has a Hulk theme running so that's why my browser is all green. Dorky, I know, but it sure beats the lame-ass cloud background that comes standard with any new computer. Also, the red circle was added by me so you'd know what to look at.

A Few Recently Watched Movies

Pretty much all this week the weather has been utterly not accommodating, so I've spent a good amount of time indoors watching the ol' boob tube. If it wasn't episodes of Babylon 5, it was movies. Interestingly enough, while Kristin has been gone I haven't actually watched that many movies. It was something I always enjoyed doing with her or with a group and since neither have really been available I've never had the urge to watch movies that much. With the spectacularly awesome weather of this week, after a couple of weeks of warmness, I resorted to making friends with the dvd player and catching up the stack of dvd's I'd let accumulate over time.

Last night I popped in Basic while the overcast skies kept me from being outside and going for a run. Samuel L. Jackson has always held a soft spot in my heart. For some odd reason, no matter how utterly atrocious a movie is (Deep Blue Sea for example) I seem to enjoy it a little more if Mr. Jackson is in the movie. Hell, he was pretty much the only good thing about Star Wars Episode II. In Basic he again reprises his role of saving a not all that great movie from becoming MST3K fodder.

There are so many plot twists thrown into the last half hour of Basic that you'll end up giving up on trying to keep up with them and just take up a running count while waiting for the final reveal. I'm a big fan of the plot twist, but not of playing plot twister. Once you reach the end of the movie and what has really been going on is finally revealed I simultaneously rolled my eyes and called bullshit. There is no way that the actual status quo that is established at the close of this movie could have worked throughout the telling of the story. There's just too many pieces that don't quite fit in like they should and if it did go down like the ending wants you to believe then it kind of makes the whole movie seem like it was just pulling the wool over the viewer's eyes. As it is, I didn't hate the movie. It kept my interest and the 99 minutes I spent watching it seem well spent, but to truly enjoy the movie just pretend the last two plot twists don't actually happen. It makes the movie more believable.

A couple of days ago I watched Garden State for a second time. When I initially saw the previews for this movie back before it made its theater run, it didn't look like anything more than another chick flick. I completely ignored its existence until a friend told me it was actually pretty good (and our tastes in movies are usually in alignment) so one night when I was bored I watched it... and fell in love with it. Zach Braff has created a movie that exquisitely details the process of awakening from the zombie-ish state that so many people in this world live in.

Zach's character has been going through life not really living, but simply existing and going through the motions. On a return visit to his home town, Natalie Portman's character awakens something inside of him that has long been dormant. As Zach starts to re-learn what it is to be alive and actually embraces his life, you see his character grow in so many different ways.

A good portion of the movie is swimming in a sea of melancholic emotions, but in the middle of the darkness is uniquely funny moments and a sense of hope and rebirth. I would wholeheartedly recommend this film to anyone looking for something emotionally introspective while at the same time being able to make you laugh. Really, it's a great flick that needs to be seen.

Lastly, at the beginning of the week I took in Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind. I completely expected to hate it, or at least hate the acting since I have no love for either Jim Carrey or Kate Winslet, but both of their characters won me over. The concept of having portions of your memory erased because you no longer want to remember certain things is quite intriguing and Kaufman easily crafts a movie that is bittersweet and thought-provoking.

So what would happen to someone who agrees to have their mind wiped of a memory but in the process realizes he/she no longer wants it done? There's no way to stop it and once the process is complete you wouldn't even remember what it was that you wanted to remember. Such is the case of Jim Carrey's character. You know he is tragically doomed to forget the love of his life, but the entire time his mind is being erased, he tries and tries to remember but you know he is doomed to fail. It's this hopeless drive for love that makes this movie so endearing.

All in all, 2 out of 3 isn't too bad when I think about it, especially considering there really aren't that many great movies that come along. Everything is either gross-out comedy, sappy chick flick, bloody horror, superhero adaptations, or cliched action. There are very few unique movies to come out of hollywood any more, so enjoy them when you find them. I'm really hoping Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is at least watchable, but I'm keeping my hopes low...

Who'd Have Thought?

Wait, didn't we invade Iraq because we thought they had weapons of mass destruction?

Completely Odd Weather

In my 24 years of life, I have never quite lived through a day as weird as yesterday, at least in relation to the weather. In the morning when I went to take my mom in to the doctor it was raining out--not too heavy, but enough to get you good and wet if you were to stand outside for long enough. I drove her in to Austin through the rain and waited for her while it rained and then left to party cloudy skies. The rain had stopped.

When we got home my mom drifted off to her bedroom to sleep since the medication they had given her to counteract her claustrophobia while in the MRI machine also had the side effect of making her extremely tired. I went down into my room to work on a document I was putting together for work. After about an hour or an hour and a half I came upstairs to get something to drink. As I looked out the window the partly cloudy skies had filled back in, quite fully, with billowing clouds that were in the process of dumping buckets of snow on our lawn. I didn't know it, but the temperature had dropped to right below freezing and the precipitation, in making its return, was coming down as snow. It only lasted for about a half hour to 45 minutes, but it was odd nonetheless.

I continued to work from my room in the basement until later in the afternoon when I heard a series of ping on the window to my room. Wondering what it was, I climbed onto my chair to see that outside it was hailing. Not completely believing my eyes and ears I went upstairs to get a better look. Sure enough, there was a small glaze of pebble sized pieces of ice covering our yard. Oddly enough there was no rain accompanying the hail--it was just the hail stones coming down. It didn't last long and none of the pieces were bigger than a pea, but it was still quite interesting.

To say that yesterday's weather patterns were a little bit odd would be putting it mildly. Where else besides Minnesota could you experience rain, snow, and hail all in the same day? I always knew there was a reason I loved this state!

Bloodlined Calligraphy - They Want You Silent CD Review

It is quite rare to see a metal or hardcore band fronted by a woman, especially when you take into account the type of vocal performances that are usually necessitated by being a part of either of the two genres. A feminine voice isn’t exactly all that well suited to growling and barking. If anything, almost 100% of the time that you hear female vocals in a metal or hardcore song, it’s in melodic form, pre-recorded, usually as a part of an intro, outro, or interlude, and used to serve as the polar opposite of the extreme nature of the band’s music. Over the last few years There have been a few semi-successful female fronted bands to shine through—Otep, Kittie, and Walls of Jericho to name the most well known of the lot. With They Want You Silent, Bloodlined Calligraphy have thrown their hat into the female fronted metalcore arena, but don’t expect a lot of success to follow.

While listening to the 10 tracks contained on this release, you’ll be hard pressed to recognize the vocals as coming from the throat of one of the fairer sex. The ferocity of the screaming, yelling, and growling (yes, there are times when Ally French’s vocals sound uncannily like a masculine growl, such as on “I May Have Been Born Yesterday”) is not something you’d usually recognize as coming from a woman. There are a few scant moments when Ally uses her singing voice or talks instead of belting out the lyrics, but the majority of the time she sticks to the same, extremely loud, approach. The few melodic moments were actually very welcome and in the future it would do these guys good to utilize it a little more. On occasion the rest of the band will join in for some gang screams, so Ally doesn’t go at it completely alone, but these moments are few and far between.

The underlying music beneath Ally’s throaty performance is, unfortunately, your standard metalcore approach. The great majority of each song is loaded with chugga chugga riffs that either lead up to a breakdown or a thrash inspired guitar solo. If there were a stronger focus on the thrashy, more intricately natured aspects of their songs and less time spent on setting up breakdowns, I think Bloodlined Calligraphy would quickly turn into one of the must-hear bands in the HXC scene. As it is, though, there’s simply a lot of unfocused metalcore riffing going on throughout this disc which you will eerily feel you’ve heard somewhere else… which you probably have, and also done much, much better.

There are a few standout moments that deserve note, however. “A Variety of Damage” is actually a nice, quick paced, fun track. It moves along briskly with guitar licks leading the way, all the while your foot tapping along in pace. If any song on this disc could make someone spontaneously hardcore dance, this one’s it.

The track “Saturday Night in Dixie” is easily the best song on this disc for no other reason than it’s slightly different than the rest of the disc. It starts out with some basic thrashing followed by a chunk of metalcore chugging, but once the song hits its stride during the bridge, which makes good use of Unearth-esque guitar high-tones, it’ll hit you hard right before segueing into an interesting southern, Pantera flavored ending. If every song on this disc were to branch out in different directions such as on this track, you’d have a killer metalcore disc on your hands, but they don’t. The rest of the release sees them sticking firmly within the bounds of the basic metalcore template that so many other bands have used.

If you really need to get your Christian hardcore on and want to do it to a female fronted HXC band, you could easily do worse than Bloodlined Calligraphy, but like 95% of the metalcore audience out there you’ll probably be looking for something new and interesting in this flooded genre, which is something these guys (and gal) can’t give you.

Freaks Me Out

This morning I had to run my mom into the hospital in Austin for an MRI. She tore her meniscus and the x-rays they took didn't tell a whole lot about what they were going to have to do to fix it so an MRI was the next logical step. Personally, I think it's just another way for the hospital to milk money out of my mom and her insurance.

When I had to have an MRI and an ultrasound this last summer in order to make sure I didn't have a tear in my carotid artery, as I looked over the statements they sent me I noticed that all of my test results were examined twice. Why, oh why, would my results have to be examined twice. They were negative and my arteries were completely fine (they diagnosed me later on with exertion migraines). I could maybe understand having the test results examined twice if the first time through one doctor thought that he/she might have found something and needed a second opinion, but if the results look just fine, what's the point of a second opinion? More frickin' money, that's what. They could double what they were bringing in and give me some technobable reason as to why they needed to do it. I was more than a little pissed when that happened because it meant that I had to pay more out of my pocket as well as my insurance company paying more.

Now while my mom was in having her MRI, I sat and listened to an audiobook that I had on my MP3 player which I brought along. I needed something to keep my mind off of everyone else there. You see, hospitals freak me out, which is why I try not to ever go unless something is terribly, terribly wrong with me. It's so eerie walking into the waiting room and being surrounded by all of these old people you know are just going to kick the bucket in a couple of weeks. Sure, I know, have respect for your elders and crap, but some of the people are just downright scary.

Like today, for example. While I was waiting this old man came in, no one accompanying him, and sat down a little ways away from me. As he sat there, I thought he had died because after a bit he completely stopped moving and his eyes were focused on some point way off in the distance. He didn't move at all for probably 10 minutes. When he did, I was pretty relieved, but then he went back into his statue impersonation again!

A few seats behind the fake dead guy was a hideously gigantic woman. In the waiting room they have chairs with arm rests on both sides and they have benches that can accomodate to people. This lady filled out one of the benches like a normal person filled out one of the chairs. If you remember how Violet puffed up to gigantic proportions in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, you might just get an idea of her size. I can't imagine how people get to be so large. I can understand how some people get fat, but this is beyond fat. People shouldn't get this large unless they're eating junior varsity football teams for breakfast.

Rounding out the cast of creepy characters was an elderly man who I honestly thought might explode. As he sat, he was constantly fidgeting, and when he was up moving his entire body looked as if it would shake itself apart. I felt sorry for the old guy because it must feel like he's living his life in a blender or other such kitchen appliance that causes things to vibrate vigorously.

As much as I enjoy people watching, I don't enjoy the morbidity that it takes on when you do it in a hospital. More often than not I feel like I'm caught in a zombie movie. Hospitals are scary places.

MicroCon Minnesota 2005

I've been to the past couple of FallCon's in St. Paul, but I've never gone to the MicroCon Comic Book Convention that is held in the spring, until today that is. They used to host it at some hotel's conference room so I always assumed there wasn't much there. This year, however, the location got changed to the Progress Center at the Minnesota State Fair Grounds, and since I wasn't really doing anything I thought I'd go for the heck of it. It wasn't quite as big as the FallCon, but there was enough stuff there for me to spend money on. That and I got to meet and say hi to Brent Schoonover, one of the Viper family.

As I said, I did manage to spend a little chunk of change, but not as much as I thought I did (only a little over $50). What I was most stoked to get was the full Midnight Nation run for only $15. I've been loving every issue of J. Michael Straczynski and Gary Frank's Supreme Power so for a while now I've wanted to pick up their previous work which I luckily found on the cheap.

Also on the cheap I found a whole boat load of Superman Elseworlds prestige trades. I actually managed to pick up 7 of them, as well as the 3 issue Superman vs. Predator prestige format series. So far every X vs. Predator or X vs. Alien mini I've read has been crap, but at least the Superman vs. Predator mini has art by Alex Maleev so it'll be pretty to look at. What's interesting is the sheer number of Elseworlds Superman stories I found in the bargain bins. There weren't really any Elseworlds stories of other characters to be found anywhere (although I did find two Green Lantern ones).

What really got me, though, was that I found zero Batman Elseworlds comics. At past cons, there were usually tons of Batman Elseworlds comics to be had. My guess is that maybe they were kept out of the bargain bins this time because of the upcoming movie. I could see retailors holding on to all of their Batman stock in the hopes of selling a bunch of it the closer the movie gets to being released.

As for graphic novels, I picked up a fair share pretty much on a whim from a $1 per trade box. You can't really beat buying books for a dollar a piece, especially when the cover on most of them is between 10 and 20 bucks. In case anyone cares these are the ones I picked up: Terminator: Endgame, Aliens: Apocalypse, Aliens: Hive, Nevada (a Vertigo trade by Steve Gerber), The Truth, Spawn: Blood & Shadows, and Clive Barker's Tapping the Vein.

In keeping with picking up Straczynski material I also picked up the Rising Stars: Bright 3 issue miniseries. I figure I might as well start picking up the Rising Stars offshoot miniseries since I preordered the huge-ass hardcover that collects the entire series. From what I've heard, it's supposed to be great series and as far as I'm concerned Straczynski is a wonderfully gifted writer. I don't care if people hate his Spider-Man run, I still really dig everything he does. Personally I haven't read his Spider-Man stuff, but that's mostly because I'm not the biggest Spidey fan in the world and reading Ultimate Spider-Man is plenty for me.

Speaking of Spidey, I grabbed the 4 issue Spider-Man: India miniseries from some 3 for a buck boxes. I thought it was a novel idea, at least for Marvel, and the art looked pretty so for a buck and 33 cents I'd give it a try. A side note about this series: it must have sold abysmally since most of the retailors there had plenty of copies of it in their bargain bins.

Rounding out my comic buys were some random issues of stuff to fill in runs and a bunch of IDW titles. I don't know how that company stays afloat with their high cover prices. $3.99 an issue just seems like such a rip off so I've never bought an IDW title off the rack. When I see them in the dollar boxes I'll pick them up, but I sure as hell won't pay cover price. In my digging I found an entire run of 30 Days of Night: Return to Barrow and Meeednight Pulp Presents Secret Skull. Steve Niles' writing has been hit or miss with me, but I love Templesmith's art so even if the story sucks at least it's fun to look at.

As for the toy haul for the day, I didn't actually get much. At past cons I've brought home tons of Todd McFarlane figures, but not this time. I only found one that wasn't horribly overpriced or that I didn't already have--Rasputin from the Movie Madness series. A great figure, and wonderfully priced at $3! Instead of McFarlane figures, I found some sweet bobbleheads and at $3 a piece, you couldn't go wrong. I grabbed a Joker one for me and a Superman and a Catwoman for Kristin. The Joker will go in my cube at work with all of my other toys.

In the end, I think it was worth driving 100 miles for, even if I was only there for a couple of hours. Outside of the dealers' stock and meeting with Brent, there wasn't a lot to do there and I'm sure if I would have stayed and dug through boxes even more that I'd have no doubt spent the rest of my money in one fashion or another.

Live Music Archive

It seems that more and more as I continue writing this blog that it has become more and more music oriented. When it started out, it was mainly a place I wrote about college and things that pissed me off. If anything it was nothing more than a glorified journal. As time progressed it morphed a little to encompass some current events commentary as well as the ocassional bit about comic books here and there. Now, in recent months, and specifically the last week or two, I seemed to have focused at least half of my efforts on music related posts, and this is yet another.

I've always been a fan of live music. There is no other way to see how talented a band really is than to see them perform live. A good producer, tons of studio time, and lots of computer enhanced error correcting can make anyone sound good on cd (ie: anyone on pop radio at the moment), but when you're playing live you have to be able to play your instruments and be able to sing. If you're like me and don't always get the chance to go to a lot of concerts, you might enjoy the Live Music Archive.

Within this archive you will find hundreds upon hundreds of concerts by a myriad of different bands. Just for example of what you can find, yesterday I downloaded 3 Local H concerts from 2005, a Story of the Year show from back in 2003, and recent Clann Zu performance. You'd be amazed at how many different bands support the recording of live music and have it stored on this site. I heartily suggest giving it a look.

What Is In Easy Mac?

For the third time in about 2 weeks, I've forgotten to bring in my lunch to work. It's usually just leftovers since we only have a microwave here at work, but whenever I end up leaving my leftovers at home, my dad gets to them for his lunch. It's not that big of a deal, but I get so frustrated with myself for forgetting the food I made at home. Usually I'll make supper the night before and it'll be too much for me to eat in one sitting so I eat half of it for supper and then put the other half in the fridge to warm up at work the next day.

Last night I made rotinni noodles with some spicy marinara meat sauce. Since I'd made about two helpings worth, I packed up half of the meal into a tupperware container and stuck it in the fridge, reminding myself mentally that I can't forget it in the morning. As I went about my evening activities, I didn't forget that I had my lunch in the fridge.

As I awoke this morning I did my normal morning routine and headed off to work. As 11:00 rolls around, which is my lunch time, I suddenly realize that I left my lunch at home. The thought, from out of nowhere, creeps up and smacks me across the face and then laughs at my forgetfulness. As I'm stuck eating easy mac for lunch I can feel my subconscious laughing at me and I can sense my rotinni noodles slowly being eaten by my dad.

Easy mac isn't all that bad of a meal, but it sure can't beat homemade food. One thing that always bugs me about easy mac is the color of the cheese powder. It's like a neon orange color, which is totally unnatural. I can't imagine everything that went into manufacturing a powder that turns into a cheese substitute upon mixing it with water. I can hardly imagine that there's actually anything natural in the powder at all. All of these thoughts are carelessly tossed to the wind as soon as you take your first bite of easy mac, though. It's just so good. For all I know, Kraft could be putting in some type of adictive additive to make me keep wanting more easy mac because I usually have a hard time stopping after just one packet. I always want more, despite the sketchy nature of the ingredients.

Frisbee Golf Course Guide

If you've ever played frisbee golf, thought about playing it, or even wondered anything about it, check out this site. Jared showed it to me today and it is seriously one of the best disc golf resources I have ever seen. Heck, it's one of the better sports resource sites that I've seen. It's amazing all of the work that has gone into detailing all of the courses that are on display.

When browsing through the courses they have online, I found the course that I played on Sunday with Jared. It was really amazing to go through the navigation of the course online and see what the course looks like when the trees have bloomed and everything is green instead of the dead brown it was when we played it.

Looking through some of the other courses listed, there are a few that I'd like to go visit next time I'm in the Twin Cities. When looking through their list of courses I did notice that none of the St. Cloud, Austin, or Rochester courses were cataloged yet. Since they have an open submission policy, I might just have to get ambitious, grab my mom's camera that has the sniper lens, and head out for a couple of games of disc golf.