I’m behind on posting stuff.  But who cares, let’s look at the latest cast announcements for Thor!

Chris Hemsworth	Thor
Tom Hiddleston	Loki
Anthony Hopkins	Odin
Natalie Portman	Jane Foster
Stuart Townsend	Fandral
Tadanobu Asano	Hogun
Ray Stevenson	Volstagg
	???
Kat Dennings	???

Chris Hemsworth as Thor – He was cool as James Kirk’s daddy in Star Trek.  Otherwise, don’t know much about him.  Apparently he’s bigger in Australia or something.  Might be on the young side, but it’s an origin story, so that’s probably a good thing.  And Thor’s nigh-immortal, so why would he be old anyway? Thumbs up!

Tom Hiddelston as Loki – Never heard of him.  Looks creepy.  Thumbs up!

Anthony Hopkins as Odin – Ugh.  I’m tired of him.  He plays the same role in ever movie and the role he plays is nothing like how I perceive Odin.  Thumbs down!

Natalie Portman as Jane Foster – Ugh again.  I’m sure she can play a nurse pining for a god just fine, but I’m tired of her eeking into my geek movies.  Especially since she never seems to appreciate the success she gets from being in them.  Thumbs down!

Stuart Townsend as Fandral – All I know him from is Queen of the Damned but sure, why not?  Thumbs up!

Tadanobu Asano as Hogun – Never heard of him, but he looks like he could be mean and stuff.  Thumbs up!

Ray Stevenson as Volstagg – I liked him in Rome, but they better make him a lot fatter and hairier.  He was also just in a Marvel movie that tanked, but it probably wasn’t his fault.  Thumbs up!

Kat Dennings as ??? – Hard to say when you don’t know who she’s playing.  Lady Sif?  Actually, I don’t care who she’s playing, she always comes off as stoned.  Thumbs down!

I have no idea how this movie is going to turn out.  Kenneth Branagh at the helm is probably a plus.  Not to say that I’m his biggest fan, but at least the movie won’t be silly or gimmicky.  I’m curious how they will accomplish melding a heavily based magic film with the likes of Iron Man or Spider-Man.  Hopefully well since all these people are supposed to join in Avengers, which will be the absolute coolest thing ever if Marvel can pull that off, especially before DC!

Oh and…!

Samuel L. Jackson	Nick Fury

Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury – Another guy I’m tired of, but you can’t argue with the likeness, and I love that he keeps popping in to tie all these movies together.  Thumbs up!

Originally published at kaiserthegreat.com. You can comment here or there.

Went to Austin, TX for work.  Other than layovers in airports, don’t think I’ve ever been to Texas before.  Can’t say I completely immersed myself in the experience.  The problem with trade shows is that after the day is over, I’d rather find a quick and close place for dinner and then crash in my hotel room, rather than spend all my free time in tourist mode.  But here are some things I learned about Austin without really trying:

That thing up there is what’s called a Great-Tailed Grackle.  They plagued the block where my hotel was located.  Like scary plagued.  Only at night too, for whatever reason.  Maybe that’s when they come out to get their breeding on or something.  The first night we got there, we were dropped off at the wrong Hilton (because there are apparently three Hiltons in the downtown area located within five blocks of each other – it’s good to be Paris), and hoofing our way to the correct hotel in the dark and in the rain, we came across a tree that suddenly exploded with Grackles Gone Wild.  Apparently we scared them!  Every night after that, the sky and neighboring trees were filled with them.  Every morning the street and parked cars were painted with their waste.  I have no idea if Daphne du Maurier ever visited Austin, but I’m betting!  Don’t believe me?  Check this out!

Austin, TX loves their Texas Longhorns.  Every building, every street, every time I turned my head, someone or something was sporting a longhorn symbol and colors.  The sports dummy that I am, I didn’t realize the logo applies to multiple sports, so that helps explain its prevalence, but I still don’t see that sort of thing around here, and we have our colleges too.  Texans are really into the pride thing.

Speaking of pride, the two times I was on the freeway I couldn’t’ help but notice that every car had a Texas bumper sticker.  You’re right, I’m lying. It was more like 1 out of 3 cars, but dang!  We get it people, Texas is the most awesomest toughest specialist place on earth!

There are all these big guitar statue things everywhere, painted differently, much like the cows in that other city that escapes me.  I asked a waitress why and evidently Austin is know for its live music.  I did not see or hear any, but it must be true because otherwise the big guitars all over the place wouldn’t make any sense.

This is where I am going to go to buy my bike.  (As soon as I have money and learn how to ride.)

Originally published at kaiserthegreat.com. You can comment here or there.

I got a folder on my server called “zzzfiles” which I use to store a bunch of junk I don’t know what to do with but don’t necessarily want to delete either. It occurred to me today I can just as easily store most of its content on my blog, thereby streamlining my file keeping and allowing the files themselves to (however briefly) see the light of day.

So let’s start with the Micro-Heroes directory. Back when sometime, I used to actively post at ComicBoards.com, and even moderated one or three of their boards.  During that time, the Micro-Hero craze kicked in and I joined in along with everyone else.  I won’t get into the whole history, but you can read about it here.  I will mention that the part about storTroopers threatening a lawsuit was my fault, because I created a Webring for Micro-Heroes.  I think all they were really asking for us to do was drop the Webring, but everyone freaked out and dropped the original template all together.  Oh well.

The following are Micro-Heroes I created, that I managed to keep, in the old template style.  I like the old template much better, way more cookie-cutter than the new stuff.  I think there were a lot more of the old template that I lost, especially in the Green Lantern department.  At one point I was trying to make a Micro-Hero for every known Green Lantern, but now I don’t have any!  I wonder if someone out there saved them?

Captain America

Captain America	Nomad w/ Cape	Nomad	The Captain w/ Stark Shield	The Captain w/ T’Challa Shield	The Captain
Superia Stratagem	Ex-Patriot	Captain America w/ Plasma Shield	Super Patriot	Captain America Jr.	The Patriot
Wing Flappin’ Avatar

Star Trek

James T. Kirk	Spock	Leonard McCoy	Montgomery Scott	Hikaru Sulu	Uhura	Pavel Chekov

Command Uniforms

Engineering Uniforms

Medical Uniforms

Doctor Who - I meant to do all 10, but alas…

William Hartnell	Patrick Troughton

Miscellaneous

Iron Man	Nexus

Originally published at kaiserthegreat.com. You can comment here or there.

The Girl turned 30 this week. Or, as she puts it, she celebrated her first anniversary of being 29. We celebrated on her actual birthday with a little party at our house, so that The Kid could participate. My mom and in-laws were all in attendance. Then the plan was to go to Outback on Saturday, but (insert nefarious mustache twirling here) the REAL plan was for her mother and sister to take her out shopping so we could set up a surprise party at her sister’s house. Totally worked, and she got suckered. I was sure she was on to us, but I guess not, though now her hindsight is 20/20. Good thing I’m an excellent liar! (”Hi honey!”) And even though she has told me she doesn’t like surprises, none of us were maimed or killed, so I guess it worked out. This was my first planning of a surprise party, and while it was not my idea, and I did have help, gotta say it’s not all that fun! Found it to be a big source of stress, actually. Ultimately worth it of course, but I think on her 2nd anniversary of being 29 I’ll plan something out loud. The Girl handled turning 30 much better than I did. I had a real crisis of DC proportions, but she seems to have cruised through it. I guess it helps when you’re pregnant and have bigger things to worry about.

Next day, went to Star Wars: In Concert with my Best Good Friend at the San Jose Pavilion (home of the Sharks).  The crowd was pretty good, though not sold out, which worked for us because we moved up a couple rows to give ourselves some elbow room.  The music was, of course, amazing and it was great to hear it live.  Sometimes the videos set to the music were equally amazing and moving, but sometimes it seemed like whoever made all those up was just mailing it in. But it’s hard to beat a stadium full of persecuted people all loving the same thing, cheering for all the same things that make you cheer.  It’s very energizing!  And unlike conventions, no discernible B.O. that I noticed!  Aside from the concert itself, there were a bunch of Star Wars props in the lobby, but the crowd and lighting were too intense to score any decent pictures.  What was really cool was, even though it was a 7-10 show on a Sunday night, many delinquent parents brought their kids anyway.  It’s awesome to see that something I loved as a kid is still going strong for the next generation and it warms the heart to see a bunch of little dudes holding lightsabers and  head banging to the Imperial March!

I created a site for myself called Desktop Geekery, so that I have somewhere to put the wallpapers I make for myself, instead of discarded them after I get bored.  It’s also my first Wordpress theme.  Even though it looks like the Default them (and essentially is from a style perspective), I learned all kinds of fun stuff about built in Wordpress functions to get it to automatically display the Wallpaper thumbnail and download links the same way for every post.  Ginchy!  Well I think so anyway…

Originally published at kaiserthegreat.com. You can comment here or there.

My Best Good Friend, who thinks he’s lame but who does all these amazing things and goes to all these amazing places and meets all these amazing people (and who NEVER updates his blog about any of it) is currently taking more painting classes from D&D artist legend Larry Elmore.  My Good Buddy loves Larry Elmore.  I’ve always liked Larry Elmore, but there’s something about his work that is often too stiff for me.  I remember when my Good Buddy and I found out that they had reissued the Chronicles Trilogy with new covers NOT by Elmore, he thought it was blasphemy and I thought it was an improvement.  Let’s look:

vs.

The top isn’t bad.  Heck, it’s a classic!  But there’s something more lush and real about the one below by Matt Stawicki, and not just because it makes for a better wallpaper!  It also reminds me of a How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way lesson, where tilting a camera angle is often more interesting and compelling than shooting a scene straight on.

So I’m right and he’s wrong.  What else is new?

I feel like reading Chronicles again.  I wonder if it will hold up?

Originally published at kaiserthegreat.com. You can comment here or there.

Was out deliverying a shipment to Hayward for work yesterday.  On the way back, saw a Toys R’ Us and couldn’t resist.  (Still working on that growing up thing.)  I was actually looking for a “first toy” to get The Dude, but didn’t find anything that struck my fancy.  There was, however, a huge Star Wars section right up front that pulled me in by its tractor beam, and amongst the fairly cool offerings, I saw about three of these:

Stormtroopers are cool.  I get why, even though they are murdering foot soldiers, people want to own their toys and dress up like them.   But this toy is a bit too weird for me.  “Hey kids, now you too can question, torture and burn the Lars family alive!”  Not that we ever saw this scene play out on screen, but we know the end result:

You can just hear Owen telling Beru to get back in the house.  Shiver!

Originally published at kaiserthegreat.com. You can comment here or there.

Went to the fair last weekend.  Was it the Santa Cruz County Fair?  I don’t know, the one in Watsonville.  Went with the family and family-in-law.  Much less crowded than it was last year, and we went on a Saturday as opposed to last year’s Sunday night.  Is the economy affecting fairs throughout the country or did we just get lucky?  Got one of those unlimited ride tickets for The Kid, scored myself a free ride from an attendant who let me go with her once, got my fudge, The Girl got her cotton candy, The Kid got her air brushed hat and met Smokey the Bear, a good, exhausting, three and half hour time was had.

Sunday we spent the day lounging around in recovery.  Watched Jungle Book and 101 Dalmatians.  The Girl and are trying to be more diligent about score all the Disney animated features before they are vaulted.  We even made a list on Amazon of the ones we still need, which is most of them, but at least now we don’t have to have the “do we own that? I can’t remember” conversation every time we see a Disney DVD commercial.

The Girl has been painting artwork and name signs for the kids’ room (odd and scary that “kids” is now plural!).  The Kid has been in a drawing mood as of late, possibly inspired by her mother, so we got her a sketch pad and some twistee colored pencils (mechanical pencils but with color – cool invention).  So now I’m surrounded by people drawing and painting, and I just watch T.V.  What is my deal?

I want to see one of these new-fangled 3-D movies.  We saw Up, but our showing was in 2-D for some unexplained reason, while the theater room right next to it was showing the 3-D option.  Are certain theater screens rigged for 3-D and not others?  It made no sense to me.  Toy Story 1 & 2 are coming out in 3-D soon.  Not sure if it’s fully recreated into 3-D or one of those lame-ish Nightmare Before Christmas 3-D endeavors.  Maybe we’ll take The Kid to see that Raining Meatball movie, but it doesn’t look very good to me.

Originally published at kaiserthegreat.com. You can comment here or there.

They both annoyed me today.

Internet Explorer

I don’t normally use it, but every so often Firefox is a big fat failure when it comes to printing (especially the transactions in my checking account) so I opened it today and decided to stick with it to see how IE 8 runs. Meh, about the same as what I remember. Every page I went to view caused some sort of installation request or gave me to Yellow Exclamation Point From Hell in the bottom left hand corner. The latter doesn’t seem to actually affect the page I’m looking at, but it’s still annoying to see the error, especially on my own site, which I decided to test while I had IE open, and yep, big fat failure. It also didn’t like the flashy social links I had in my sidebar. And you can’t right-click an image to view it! I must be wrong about this, it seems like such an obvious function, but heck if I could find that option anywhere.

Wordpress

I just wanted to swap out the images from my previous post. That’s all.  Is there any easy way to do that? I couldn’t find one.  I manually uploaded over top of the existing images, which works, except it doesn’t’ fix all the thumbnails Wordpress generates for each image too.  So then I installed a plugin that is supposed to update all thumbnails, but it only updated some thumbnails, for whatever reason, so that didn’t work either.   I ended up manually going through and reinserting all the images to that post (which I wouldn’t have bothered doing except I had broke all the thumbnails trying to swap out the images) and that of course wreaked havoc on Wordpress’s HTML Guessing Game program, so I pretty much redid the entire post, at least the table portion.  Oh well.  I decided to switch my theme to Default too, after encountering my site with IE, as mentioned above.  No more Yellow Exclamation Point From Hell in the bottom left hand corner anymore, so that’s good.  It manages to do ordered and unordered lists too.  Kinda on the simple and generic side, but then so am I.  It doesn’t appear to be W3C compliant, which makes me scratch my head (in confusion, not because I have lice), but I don’t think any of the other themes I was using complied either.  Maybe I’ll keep shopping…

UPDATE: Actually now I’m trying the F2 theme.  Whattya think?

Originally published at kaiserthegreat.com. You can comment here or there.

UPDATE: Replaced screen shot photos with 3-D renderings by John Jongsma where available.

Astromech droids are cool.  I want one.  I want them all.  All the R-series models produced by Industrial Automaton , at any rate.   If I had one, I bet I would never have to do dishes again, even though they can’t reach the sink.  Here is a list of all the G-canon astromech droids.  Aren’t they pretty?

R1-G4	R2-A5	R2-A6
Episodes: IV	Episodes: IV	Episodes: I
R2-B1	R2-C4	R2-D2
Episodes: I	Episodes: I	Episodes: I II III IV V VI
R2-M5	R2-Q2	R2-Q5
Episodes: I	Episodes: IV	Episodes: VI
R2-R9	R2-T0	R2-X2
Episodes: I	Episodes: I	Episodes: I
R3-A2	R3-T2	R3-T6
Episodes: V	Episodes: IV	Episodes: IV
R3-T7	R3-Y2	R4-A22
Episodes: II	Episodes: V	Episodes: II
R4-E1	R4-F5	R4-G9
Episodes: IV	Episodes: III	Episodes: III
R4-I9	R4-M9	R4-P17
Episodes: IV	Episodes: IV	Episodes: II III
R4-P44	R5-A2	R5-D4
Episodes: III	Episodes: IV	Episodes: II IV
R5-D8	R5-F7	R5-J2
Episodes: IV	Episodes: IV	Episodes: VI
R5-M2	R5-X2
Episodes: V	Episodes: I

Some stuff to take from this:

• Episode IV is the clear winner in amount of astromechs on screen.  Guess they saw a good thing and went crazy with the paint schemes!

• And of course, of the five series shown on screen, the R2 series is the most prevalent.

• George Lucas named and dictated the design for one of the R4 (can’t remember which one, probably R4-P117) and the props guy said “uh…I think the fans have all these R-series worked out and R4’s have a different head than R2’s” and George Lucas didn’t care and went with it anyway, so now all these R4’s that don’t have a cone-like dome for a head are considered R4’s with R2 replacement heads.  True paraphrased story (probably).  Funny how the fans are always fixing Star Wars for George.
• Aside from R2-D2, I think my favorite astromech listed above is R4-D4.  I love me the counterparts, and he was so close to being sold off to the Skywalker’s over R2-D2.  What would have happened?  Good thing his motivator blew out, eh?  He was also the only other astromech besides R2 to get a toy in the first Hasbro wave, which I had of course.
• R4-P17 apparently has female droid programming.  How can anyone tell?  They look the same and all beep and whistle the same.  What about “her” is female?  What about the rest are male, for that matter?
• Speaking of, R4-P17, R2-D2 and R5-D4 are the only three astromechs to appear in more than one film.
• Aside from the R4 series, it seems like the naming convention for each series has a range of A-Z and 0-9.  If that’s the case, each series can have 260 different droids, leaving quite a few left to be discovered.  Of course, I didn’t include anything from the EU, which I’m sure has already accounted for every fricking model that could ever possibly exist.
• Speaking of the EU, though we only see series 1-5 on the big screen, in the EU there is an R6, R7, R8 and R9 series of droids.
• C-3PO reminds me of my grandmother.  This has nothing to do with astromechs.

Originally published at kaiserthegreat.com. You can comment here or there.

Well, we figured out the sex of the baby. But more on that later!

Had another nice visit with the in-laws. They came down to witness the conjoined birthday party event for The Girl’s nieces. Big pool party at the sister-in-law’s mother-in-law’s house (say that five times fast). Good food, good company, lots of swimming and a weird clown (but then maybe all clowns are weird). Everyone had a good time. This family sure goes all out for their birthday parties, man. When I was a kid, we had some friends over, we had cake, we had presents, and then we were done. I also walked both ways up hill in the snow to school with no shoes, so I guess times are better now.

The Kid started kindergarten. She was initially excited but now I think she realizes it’s a daily learning thing and seems to be dragging her butt a bit more when it comes to getting ready in the morning. At least she’s a fast learner! She’s also kind of evil now, but it’s probably a stage. Not sure what a stage it exactly, but that’s what everybody says when their kids turn evil, so I’ll say it too. I think it means “my kid has realized how dumb I really am and has decided to no longer respect or listen to me and rightly so,” but maybe I should look it up. At any rate, my jokes are rarely funny anymore, my questions must always be answered with an “UGH!” followed by an eye roll, and I catch her plotting on me at fairly regular intervals. Luckily I’m about three times her size, so I’m still sleeping okay at night.

But speaking of kids, the brand new one, that won’t know how dumb I am for years yet, is going to be a boy! At least that’s what the machine operator lady said after pointing to a white speck on the monitor that only she could interpret as testicles. It’s kind of a trip, as I think I was expecting the opposite. I feel like we got away with something, like this was too easy. Everyone wanted a boy and that’s what we got. Is it supposed to work that well? I guess the odds were 50/50, so I suppose it’s not that difficult to accomplish. But still, considering none of my siblings and siblings-in-law have had a boy yet, it’s kind of cool that it’s finally going to happen. At least I don’t have to hear from grandpa anymore about how my brother or I need to produce an heir to his empire!

I just realized there’s no designation for the guy yet.  Not sure what to do about that.  Can’t call him The Baby forever, because eventually that won’t apply.  I should have called The Kid The Girl so that I could call him The Boy, but I used it on my wife instead and there’s no going back now.  Or is there? Hmmm…

Originally published at kaiserthegreat.com. You can comment here or there.

UPDATE: THE LIST IS COMPLETE! w00t!

Chop Shop has a great t-shirt called weRobot that features the silhouette of “51 celebrity robots pulled from popular culture references from literature, film, tv, cartoon, children’s literature, video games and even rock music.”  Of course I want, but more importantly, I wanted to be able to name all 51 silhouettes.  Alas…FAIL, but here’s what I did get:

(Numbers are clockwise from top)

1. Hal-9000
2. V.I.N.CENT
3. Conky 2000 *
4. Rusty the Boy Robot
5. Twiki
6. Robby the Robot
7. Gort
8. Giant Robo **
9. Techno Trousers *
10. Muffit *
11. Voltron
12. Maximilian
13. Optimus Prime
14. Dr. Theopolis
15. Tik-Tok
16. Jet Jaguar **
17. Cylon
18. B-9
19. Astro Boy
20. Marvin the Paranoid Android
21. K-9
22. Huey
23. Wall-E
24. Tom Servo
25. Robot from Robotron: 2084 *
26. Tin Woodman
27. Rosie
28. Mechani-Kong **
29. Robot Santa ***
30. ED-209
31. Bender Bending Rodriquez
32. Kryten **
33. Robot from Berzerk *
34. Crow T. Robot
35. Johnny 5
36. Mega Man
37. Mazinger Z *
38. Cylon Centurion
39. C-3PO
40. Robot from News of the World **
41. The Iron Giant
42. Maschinenmensch
43. The Terminator
44. Big Guy
45. Bomberman *
46. Mechagodzilla *
47. R2-D2
48. Bubo
49. Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robot
50. Tripod from War of the Worlds (how is that a robot?) *
51. Sentinel

* Those I didn’t get on first pass and had to research to figure out

** Submitted by commenter Joe Deeley.

*** Submitted via Facebook by Joel Gregor.

Originally published at kaiserthegreat.com. You can comment here or there.

A buddy of mine sent me this.  See?  It’s not just a clever name, people!  I speak the truth!

Originally published at kaiserthegreat.com. You can comment here or there.

I saw a Spanish FLASH cover on Facebook today, and that was the sub-title. It’s amusing me more than it should. I suppose it doesn’t sound funny if you speak Spanish, but I don’t, so it sounds funny. For those not in the know, The Flash is “The Fastest Man Alive!” so I assume that’s what the above translates too, but according to Babel Fish, it translates to “The Alive Fast Man But!” But online translators tend to suck, so…

Anyway, I came across the cover because I’ve been in a Flash mood today. I had forgotten how much I like that guy (or rather guyS, since there are a billion Flashes, all cool). Before the Great Comic Purge, I collected him fairly religiously, starting regularly with Waid’s run, but then going backwards to volume 1, managing to get most of those as well. One of my earliest introductions to the Flash was FLASH #346. I’m not sure where I got this issue, possibly from the same place I got the other two I reminisced about previously.  While #257 was apparently also in my life, I would have to blame #346 for sparking my desire to collection volume 1 issues, if anything just to see how THE TRIAL OF THE FLASH turned out!  (And if I recall correctly, it turned out oddly, but that’s besides the point.)

Here’s what I THINK I remember about the issue that struck my young brain as entertaining:

• The Flash was on trial for murder.  What the heck?  Superheroes murder?  Superheroes get arrested?  Gah!
• The Flash’s lawyer wanted him to reveal his identity on the stand.  Oh no!
• The Flash has a new face and doesn’t look like Barry Allen anymore!
• His old face got beat up really badly by a mace(?) weilding supervillain, so he got it fixed at Gorilla City.  Superheroes can get beat up? No way!
• The villain Flash supposedly killed shows up at the end with a big splash page, and not only does he have The Flash’s powers, he wears his costume, only with reverse colors!  (My love for villainous opposites officially begins here!)

Of course, it turned out the returned Professor Zoom was really Abra Kadabra, and that one of the fat jury dudes was really The Flash’s supposed dead wife Iris, and then she and The Flash end up moving to the future where they live happily ever after for a few weeks, and volume one of THE FLASH is over.

Here are some reasons to love The Flash:

• The guy has one power (speed), but uses it so diversely that he makes guys like Superman seem like lazy chumps.  Not only does he run faster than lightning spit, but he can shift his molecules to pass through objects and shrug off physical attacks, create whirlwinds with his pinky, absorb vast amounts of knowledge via speed reading and travel through time courtesy of his cosmic treadmill invention (and later, under his own power)!
• Speaking of time travel, he does that.  A-lot.  And I like it because I dig time travel, even if it doesn’t always make sense.
• His roster of villains is second only to Batman.  Heck, they’re so cool, they have a name…The Rogues!  (I didn’t say it was a clever or original name, but still!)  And two of them come from the future (see previous point), so that’s also cool!
• He has his own museum. Quicksilver doesn’t have his own museum.

• The Flash isn’t just one person, oh no…it’s a legacy!  There seems to be a Flash for every generation, from WWII all the way up to the 853rd century!
• He’s so fast, he answers all his fan mail personally.
• The Flash is the ultimately wish-fulfillment.  Both Barry Allen and his prodigy, Wally West, wanted to be like The Flash when they grew up, and they got their wish!  (Both bizarrely struck by lightning in the same lab with the same chemicals, but hey! that’s 60’s DC for ya!)
• He told off Green Arrow once, which is cool because I don’t particularly like Green Arrow.

• Barry Allen ushered in the Silver Age of comics books with SHOWCASE #4.
• The Flash seems more fun than most superheroes, possibly because when you move faster than the speed of light you don’t have to worry too  much about death and stuff.  Not that he hasn’t come close the death, of course, and actually Barry DID die for a good while there, but it seems like most adventures don’t pose much of a threat.  More cerebral challenges, than anything else.
• And my brand new reason, as of today…he’s officially FASTER THAN SUPERMAN!

Okay that’s just a stupid Fanboy reason, but whatever!  Hey, if you’re only power is speed, you’ve gotta be able to beat Superman, otherwise what’s the point of your existence?  It’s also a fresh development that will probably get proven wrong by the next Superman writer to come along, but oh well.

And now for some inexplicable reason, I feel like slamming Superman some more, so here:

And here:

The End.

Originally published at kaiserthegreat.com. You can comment here or there.

It’s hard to maintain a blog when the only thing you’re thinking about is the one thing you don’t want to write about. I wanted to wait the recommended three months before announcing that The Girl and I are pregnant. It was three months as of yesterday, so…The Girl and I are pregnant. Here’s a picture of the little tyke.

Hard to make out, but it looks like one of The Greys to me.  Maybe they’re probing us all the time because we’re like a history lesson to them, or something.  It was easier to make it out on the screen, as it was moving like crazy, which is why the picture has no legs, because it would not hold still long enough to capture them.

I’m still kind of weary about announcing anything because every time The Girl and I feel stable about it, there’s a problem.  But then all the doctors keep telling us if something happens it happens and there’s nothing we can do to cause it or prevent it, so I guess I may as well not waste my time not enjoying what I should be enjoying just in case something happens I can’t do anything about.

So it’s out.  There it is.  Six more months!

Originally published at kaiserthegreat.com. You can comment here or there.

And apparently it was two, at least according to NATIONAL TREASURE, which I watched again last night. Man The Girl loves that movie. Good thing her next husband, Nick Cage, is getting weirder looking in his old age, or I’d be worried.

(So how does everyone else format their titles? Online-wise, I’ve generally done the ALL CAPS THING, but maybe that’s garish and italic would be easier on the eyes, or bold perhaps, or maybe both?  Thoughts?  Maybe it depends on what kind of title I’m typing about.  Maybe I should look it up in that fancy formatting and grammer book I have floating around somewheres. )

Went to a “party” that turned out to be more of a get-together in Santa Cruz with in-laws for The 4th.  Swam, ate a ridiculous amount of food.  Like a TON.  And that was apparently just appetizer because after I couldn’t eat any more, they brought out the actual food. Gah.  But it was good and I didn’t have to eat again for 48 hours, so it worked out.  Went home while it was still daylight and crashed early.  Or tried to anyway, as I ended up tossing and turning on the couch until about 4am.  Didn’t see any fireworks, but that was fine, I’ve seen them before and still had the “joy” of hearing them all night.  Otherwise, uneventful weekend spent with The Girl and no kid, which was nice.  Not that The Kid isn’t nice too, but the mini-vacation felt good.

Listening to the Michael Jackson funeral in the background.  Someone’s talking nice things about him, not sure who.  Funny how the press and famous people have been about trashing the “child molesting freak” for the last decade or so, but now that he’s dead, it’s all about how awesome he is again.  I bet he faked his death and is living on Celebrity Island or something.  Good for him.  Man he was big when I was kid.  I forgot how big.  I used to break dance at lunch in grade school.  THAT’S how big he was.  I have a scar on my thumb from the time I really stupidly tried to cut the fingers off a pair of cotton gloves with a kitchen knife.  THAT’S how big he was.  It’s a trip to see all the old footage and videos and stuff, seeing back in the day.  My uncle was asking a car full of us a couple days after he died whether he was really that big or not (not out of sarcasm or pessemism or anything, he honestly didn’t know) and I got to thinking…um…YES!  I had forgetting how YES he was, but yeah he was everywhere.  He was the King. Oh well.  R.I.P. Michael.

Someone just sang his favorite song SMILE, (I’m betting the format of a song title should be different from a movie title?) which of course is a great song, but I had no clue it was written by Charlie Chaplin.  Please someone revoke my Useless Geek Trivia Knower license.

Originally published at kaiserthegreat.com. You can comment here or there.

God, I almost skipped another month!  What is the point of this thing anymore?  Stupid Twitter and Facebook!  I need to challenge myself to write daily or weekly or something, or come up with something column-like to write about.  Or not care and do what I’ve been doing.  Hmm, that sounds easier!

I have been riding my bike to work lately because we have decided to be a single-car family, in addition to being a single-income family.   My car was sounding horrible and wasn’t worth the price it would probably have cost to fix it, so I donated it to Cars For Kids and got a tax write-off (theoretically).    I was only really using my car to get to work and back anyway, so using my brand new bike that I bought years ago and never used seems just as easier.  I can’t say it’s much exercise, since the distance from home to work isn’t that far, but it does feel nice to get the blood flowing a bit after sitting at a desk all day.  Maybe I should get a motorcycle or something.  Oh wait, those cost money, huh?

In-laws are in town, and the families went to watch The Kid perform at the San Jose Center for Performing Arts with her dance class.  Three hours of show for about three minutes of Kid time, but it was pretty cool, if not a bit long in the tooth.  Those kids are really talented though, and a lot of them could easily go on to dance professionally in theater…or as strippers or something.  (Man! they sexy those kids up young.  Gah.)  Over 100+ people watching the show, and no nervousness from The Kid, so that was impressive.  I’d have been hawking up a liver backstage.  She’s either too young to know better or she’s destined for stardom.  Time will tell.  Afterward, early dinner at the Cheesecake Factory.  Need I say more?

I don’t think I accomplished any of my to-do list I wrote about last entry, so that’s consistent of me.  Working on the garage again today though.  Good thing it’s hot outside!

Originally published at kaiserthegreat.com. You can comment here or there.

Things I Worked On

The account for our wedding site through eWedding.com was going to expire, and rather than renew a site we do nothing with, The Girl asked if I could convert it to a family blog.  I have done so, and she has not used it.  Bug her.  (Have I already plugged this?  I feel déjà vu.)

Things I Am Working On

Running, running, running.  Not sure what the next event will be, but something next month probably, and it will be a 10K.  I can run that now, but I’m pretty slow.  I’m currently at three days a week, hitting a treadmill across the street and following a program I found at Runners World.   I was going more than three days a week, but my right heel kept hurting, and slowing me down even more, so the new schedule seems to be giving me the right amount of healing time for my aged carcass.

Worked on cleaning the garage last weekend.  Got the garbage and donation stuff out, minus funiture.  Have to borrow a truck for that.  Now I just need to sell or organize the remainder.  Almost there.  I can see the ground, at any rate, so that’s a good sign.  Hopefully The Girl will be able to park in there by the time the weather starts frosting up windows in the morning again.

Been updating the genealogy site more frequently.  Love that new Family Tree Maker!

Things I Want To Work On

Drawing, drawing, drawing.  God I’m lazy.

I want to make a Wordpress theme.  I feel ready.

Originally published at kaiserthegreat.com. You can comment here or there.

Went to see Star Trek opening day last week (or course) with  my buddy.  I found, going in, that my enthusiasm wasn’t that high.  I think I mostly went because I didn’t want everyone asking me if I went, and also it just seemed obligatory.  But I was honestly feeling kind of burnt out on it already, what with all the news, trailers, footage leaks, etc.

But after watching it…WOW!  My Trek enthusiasm was revitatalized!  The movie was one awesome moment after another, and me and my buddy were all nerd-giddy as we went over the movie scene by scene in the parking lot.  Seemed like all the other theater goers loved it too, as all the right laughs and shouts of excitment were heard in all the right places.  (Unfortunately, I didn’t see any Klingons or Andorians walking around, but lots of Trek shirts and guys who looked like they don’t get laid much, so the experience still had that nice feeling of home.)

Then…as the days progressed, the flash and pop of the movie started to fade, and the actual plot became more prominant within my brain, and now I realize the movie sucked.  It’s one of those horribly lazy screenplays where nobody earns anything.  I hate those!  But what’s weird, I still kind of like it even though it really did suck.  Maybe that’s the secret of Abrams power.  He’s tricking me into liking it somehow.  Or at least trickED.  I don’t know if I would enjoy it again now that I’m onto him.

But yeah, it’s a really bad story directed really well.  I’ve recommended it to people, even after realizing I’ve been conned.  Not sure why.  Damn that Abrams.  I feel so Lost!

(Get it?  Ouch.)

Originally published at kaiserthegreat.com. You can comment here or there.

WOW,  I think I skipped an entire month.  Perhaps Twitter is ruining my blogging enthusiasm.  So much easier to write a one sentence thought rather than construct entire paragraphs.  Da horror!

So what have I done?  A bunch of stuff.  In-Laws came and went again.  (They still think I hate their visits, but I really do like it because somehow I end up watching way more of the TV I want when they’re here.  Not sure why it works out that way, but I am not going to question it.)  Went to Seattle on business.  Been there once before, and like last trip, ate at the Space Needle and did not have time to hit the Experience Music Project nor the Sci-Fi Museum and Hall of Fame.  Must visit that city when not working someday.  (I managed to peak inside the Sci-Fi Museum when it was closed and saw a huge Gort in the lobby.  Coool!)

But inbetween all that I did something worth doing, for once.  As I may or may not have stated before, a buddy of mine and I agreed to run a 5K, 10K and 1/2 Marathon by September of this year.  We set this goal last September, giving us a year to do it, so of course we’re just getting started now, because lazy is our M.O.  We settled on the Mission City 5K Run for Fun held at Great America.  It was their first year doing this, and it was pretty cool.  You run through the park, which was nice, but then the last half of it involved circling around many a parking lot, which wasn’t as nice, but by then I was so tired I didn’t really care about the ambiance. The cool thing is they close the park down for the runners to enjoy after the event, and the price of admission is included in the race price, which was all of $20, so that’s about as cheap as Great America gets.  Of course, I didn’t have time to stick around and enjoy the park, but perhaps next year I can drag the family with me and make a day of it.

I can’t say I trained for this very hard.  I knew about for a month and started running at the gym a week prior.  (See M.O. above.)  It hurt, but I did better than I thought.  I only stopped once, about half way through it, for about a minute.  Legs hurting me didn’t stop me, a mild asthma attack didn’t stop me, feeling the contents of my stomach crawling up my neck stopped me pretty quick.  There were children present, I didn’t want to scar any of them for life.  After a brief catching of breath and a quick shot from my inhaler (I know ladies, could I be more sexy?) I finished fairly strong.  That is to say I finished #338 out of 560, so not strong strong, but winning wasn’t the goal at all, just completing.  Considering how little I trained, I’m fairly happy with my 12 minute mile average.

Time: 37.23.  Beat that losers!  (Sooo sad…)

Next stop is the 10K.  No plans yet on which one, but I don’ t think I can get away with no training this time, so I signed up at Snaps Fitness, which is a 24/7 gym literally right across the street from my house.  If I can’t make that work, well…that would be sad.

Originally published at kaiserthegreat.com. You can comment here or there.

It smells like comics today. I say or think that often, especially around this time of year. I’m not sure what comes first, me thinking about comics and then the smell, or the other way around. It’s probably the weather. It’s comic convention weather. It’s “riding my bike to the local comic shop after school with my backpack straps digging into my arm pits and my no-longer-needed jacket tied around my waist” weather. Most days I’m cool with my decision to quit, but some days I feel the jones. Days that smell like this, in particular.

So just for fun, here are the first two comics I remember owning: Detective Comics #527 and The Flash #257. (I just realized right now that the numbers are virtually the same, only the first two inverted. Crazy.) I did not buy them. I believe they were given to me by an aunt or some other collateral relative. I also think there were more than just these two, but these are the only two I remember with any sort of clarity. They had a bumpy, water damaged feel to their covers. I remember really digging Batman art, but was confused by why Robin was a blond (didn’t understand there were more than one Robin and the Robin featured in this issue was an up and coming Jason Todd). I also remember thinking the super power of the Golden Glider was fairly weird and no match for the Flash. (But what is?)

Originally published at kaiserthegreat.com. You can comment here or there.