The Case of the Sinister Expenses Yeah, another Heroclix post. What did you expect? The new set came out Wednesday and my case arrived today. Go away until I decide to write about something of interest. The good news is that the case is still delivering a complete set -- plus many and sundry extras. The bad news is that matters of quality control have slipped. In some instances to sundry one can add sundered , as a few boosters had the pieces jammed into the bottom of the box with conspicuous force, almost ferocity. Just a couple instances of it saw it going beyond bent cards, but one flight base was snapped off and another had been markedly bent . Never saw that before. I've recently learned that over in China, where Wizkids' manufacturing is subcontracted, work shifts among various factories. When we saw the jump in quality that accompanied Fantastic Forces it was, we were told, the result of moving to a new factory. When things slipped in the packing for Icons we were tol...
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First Sinister Step (Tedious Heroclix post) Mostly just names and numbers, with some comments likely added along the way. You were warned. Wednesday saw the street-level release of the latest Marvel Heroclix expansion, Sinister . As I'd made arrangements for the bulk of my purchases of the set months ago, I opted not to go buy any straight-away, as my retail-bought brick would be in my hands by Thursday morning and a case via delivery service on Friday. All early reports indicated relatively strong character clusters within bricks, so that many characters might not appear at any level in a given brick, while another one might appear in multiples and across two or more levesl, so one might end up with 5 Falcons and no Deathloks or Spider-man pieces. As with the bricks for Collateral Damage and Armor Wars before it, the distribution has apparently been determined at the case level, so what made its way into a given brick can be an odd concentration. A brick might contain most of a...
The Ol' Switcheroo I swapped Wednesday night for Thursday night. The plan that was developing during the week was that I'd likely put in a long Wednesday at work, then get out at a more reasonable hour on Thursday and aim to take in Superman Returns. Late in the standard workday Wednesday, though, I realized I was simply not being productive. So, I wrapped up a few absolute essentials then headed home. A move I'll likely curse myself a few times for Thursday, but it's done, so I tried to enjoy what I could. Tammy , in a move characteristic of her (which is to say it was a completely unecessary bit of generosity) sent a tin of homemade "Swedish Nuts" our way as a thank you for a tip on a program to clean up their recent pop-up problem. That I didn't suggest it days earlier is still a point of shame for me. No excuse, I simply stopped thinking. So, back to the switch: Yes, that means the kids and I (and one of their friends) took in Superman Returns Wednesd...
Stripes of Madness Damned bizarre nightmare early this morning. As is usual, most is now forgotten and what's there is in fragments. I hadn't remembered at all until some quick chain of references triggered the last bit, just before I woke up and immediately turned my attention to turning off the clock radio. The final scene saw my mother - looking easily a couple decades younger - leading the way through some cluttered house and down a hallway. There was some sense of imminent danger about the place, though I can't recall where it was nor how we came to be there. We were obviously trying to move quietly and carefully. I was following about six or seven feet behind her. Suddenly, she turned and started to run back in my direction. I started to back up, but was also looking beyond her, down the hallway for what she was reacting to and not moving backwards very quickly, thinking I would let mom pass and see if I couldn't deal with whatever she was running from. Even if I ...
Spidey?! Webslinger's being framed internationally! An 17 year-old in the UK has been mugging school children while dressed as Spider-man, and another Brit, this one in Hong Kong, has used his Spidey costume to paint a scarlet letter on a former, would-be girlfriend . Zorro and Santa Claus had their reputations besmirched, respectively, by these two, too. I suspect neither was quite as frightening as this one, though: This image's one from an interesting assortment of improvised Spidey items found here .
God's Prostate: A-OK It's Monday. I don't know about vinegar, but there's plenty of piss. It's a mighty stream He's dumping on us here in Southeastern PA this morning. I was up early, taking care of some items around the house (including cutting some steaks into strips, doing the same with onions, and preparing a marinade for them to soak in in the refrigerator so they're ready for me to cook tonight) before heading off to work. Last I looked out it was overcast and gray (an unfortunately common sight of late) but not raining, so when I opened the front door to find more falling water in the air than air it was a little surprise. Nick, who woke up feeling much better yesterday -- albeit not waking up until early afternoon, and I drove back to visit my mom yesterday. Tuesday she's finally being released from the physical rehab facility and will be moving in with my eldest sister and her husband for the next stage. There are some problems that are worrying...
TV Tips on the Waning Weekend My gray, no-go weekend's about to kick into high gear in nearly the 11th hour, so this'll be a fast post. If you have the Discovery Channel (better still, if you have the bank of their specialty channels) watch for Addicted To Oil: Thomas L. Friedman Reporting . (It premiered last night, but we caught it today and it's almost certainly going to be re-run.) While it's received some criticism for glossing over some details most of the omissions I saw were more a function of time constraints than bias. Some of the issues related to ethanol production using esssentially waste and weed grasses were touched on by me in a post back in mid-May , more specifically this NPR audio piece that addresses many more of the specifics of this non-corn, no pesticides and farming source of ethanol. Aside from that, tonight at 10:30 Eastern, Cartoon Network will launch the second season of the marvelously entertaining (at least for those of us who are comic...
Saturday slips The day's flying and isn't what I'd originally planned, though that isn't necessarily anything terrible. Worn out by elements in the week, I suppose, I seriously slept in this morning. Nick isn't feeling well and has been sleeping much of the day, too. So, I shifted the general plans for movies and a visit to my mom to Sunday, and I've mostly been knocking out time around the house while thunder rumbles and downpours of rain have come with greater frequency. It's a good day to be indoors and low key. I'll still have a light shopping trip to do today, and more serious cleaning around the house than I've done thusfar. The rest of this post is Heroclix-based, so stay or move on as appropriate. Today's mail brought two of the Heroclix LE's I was expecting, bringing important elements to two teams. I'm going to briefly look at each by comparing the LE to the nearest point value version in the REV. For the Teen Titans, I picked ...
Shadow Wars Hidden battles in small-scale, very personal wars - the world's full of them. Once one knows a single participant in one there's some degree of involvement. Apologies to the newcomer for all of the vague references -- indeed, if you don't know who and what I'm talking about then this should be of no interest to you and you should seek something else out. I'm neither in the mood to assign code names to people nor to use their real names for the sake of easier storytelling. Back on June 17th someone I'd only known through some comments on various blogs and a few posts on her own blog became a focus because this was a fairly new, online persona for the current girlfriend of a friend's ex.(Whew! A briar patch!) Much was made of it, and as a result the person was about to shut down blog operations. She dropped me an email to let me know the blog would soon be gone, and why. I'd enjoyed such comments as she'd made, and the focus of her own blo...
Big Time Okay, this is a crass, brief post. Those likely to be offended by sexual matters should just pass it by. I believe I've spotted someone whose future career might ideally be in a donkey show, considering what she found to be "blissful" and "orgasmic." Okay, actually the article is somewhat informative and provocative, and while I've been in delivery rooms for all the action twice, I've never had my feet up in the stirrups, so I can't draw on personal experience for what's being claimed here. I'm just following my initial reaction.
Civvies This is largely a follow-up post to last week's post on Marvel's Civil War arc. Finally getting a little breathing space I got around to checking on Dwight Williams' Livejournal page , (I do keep finding myself liking elements of the Livejournal structure...) where he'd picked up the topic nearly a week ago. Dwight, aside from being an illustrator and storyteller, has also been a comics fan for most of his life. He's the sort of comics fan I have always been at heart, even though the realities of the comics biz in the past 20 years have beaten a great deal of it out of me: A fan who cherishes the details and histories of the characters. Aside from anything to be found in rumor threads or among those with advance info (and I generally stay away from such messageboards as I'm paying enough for the comics to want to keep their contents fresh when I read them) there's no new info since Marvel didn't put out any Civil War tie-in comics this week. N...
By the hair of my chinny chin chin Thanks for all the well-wishes this week, between those in the comment thread of the previous post and in emails. It's ending on a more up than down note, but the big issues for me remain suspended in the air for at least another week and a half. A great deal of other work was accomplished this week, but unfortunately little of it was on the issue(s) plaguing me and too little of it was really appreciated. Some progress has been made, but I'll need to truly dig into it early next week just to solidify a framework. I did take care of my evaluation for my assistant, and in turn sat down with the Prez to go over that with him. I know that by Thursday of next week I'm going to be sliding into the mindset of the long weekend to follow, so the time through Wednesday will have to be used exceptionally well. Unless something goes awry I'll have (as I know I've mentioned before) my retail-bought brick of Sinister in hand (along with the ...
The Week To Beat If I can manage to get through this week -- and by "get through" I don't mean the usual run, duck & cover, repeat scramble through endless, muddy foxholes waiting for an armistice to make the situation go away -- with an achievable path in place in the workplace... I'll have some hope for the first time in far longer than I care to consider. If I can do that -- though at this stage I don't know exactly what I'm going to be able to pull off -- then by the time I hit the weekend (always supposing something else doesn't go horribly wrong) I'll be looking ahead to a very nice stretch of days, going through July 4th. So, if it's your wish and your way, wish me luck, inspiration and protection. This may be a quiet week for me on the blog.
This little piggy is an offense to Allah! Seemingly feeling they're in a contest for silliest religious objections, Turkey has thrown Winnie the Pooh off its public TV station . Why? Piglet . They reportedly tried cutting Piglet's scenes at first, but he was in too many of them. Seriously, what someone thought was the harm in little Piglet is beyond me. Were they afraid a friendly, somewhat effeminate cartoon pig was going to around the appetites of Turkish children? Oh, how about a cartoon instead?
Are You Now, Or Have You Ever Been..? (Mainstream comics catch-up: Marvel's Civil War over the past three weeks) As noted in a post yesterday , my latest Westfield package arrived Friday. That brought me comics I'd ordered which came out over the past three weeks, back through June 1st. Also as noted yesterday, I decided (not that it was a new decision, but hopefully one I'll stick with this time) to take a few minutes to at least note something about each of the series I'm picking up. This is with the idea in mind that if they're not worth commenting on or, worse, I'm finding myself ashamed to be associated with something then why is it on my list? Obviously, if there's a good deal going on in a given issue and I'm interested - positively or negatively - it'll be considerably more than a few lines on each. (A quick look, pre-publication shows that I should probably spend at least 15 minutes checking this and editing/condensing it, but my Saturday i...
Just Imagine the Scene (and Smell) If the AC Breaks Crypt Leak passed along a fluff piece about a record-setting gathering this weekend, as 2500 Furries converge on Pittsburgh for Anthrocon 2006 . Today's high in Pittsburgh will be 91 ° F. Now, I'm sure that some of these people are just in it for innocent escapism, and almost regardless of what they get up to, so long as it's not injurious and is consentual, it's their business. Still, there is an underlying thrust of sexuality with this variety of dress-up types, a vibe that I seldom see from the comic book convention dress-up types and have never seen in the Star Trek fan shots. I don't recall any other fan community petitioning Oxford University Press to include a fan-specific term for sex while in costume/character . Even a Google Image search of "furries" generally gets this theme. Seeing this I have to recall the 2001 Vanity Fair piece I linked to last year ?
Friday A sunny, not terrible day. School finally out, older son Travis came with me to work today. My assistant is on a campground down in Tennessee, at the Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival , for a sort of bluesy Woodstock, so I thought I'd bring in an extra pair of hands for some help. That's worked out fairly well, as I had Trav process bulk samples, run some sieve analyses at various stages, run some points on a few tests, do some clean-up, etc. for $5/hr. We picked up some drinks and things on the way in so there was a stash to hit through the day. Lunch out at nearby Olympia restaurant (a Greek, family-operated pizzeria) and more work after that. A good day's experience for him. There was something of a holiday feel around work today as people were coming and mostly going seemingly at will, and a great many people were already mentally down at the ballpark for the annual company outing to see a Phillies game. No, I'm not going. My latest Westfield pack arriv...
Clix Fix Nix Two weeks from yesterday the next Heroclix expansion, Sinister , will be hitting comics and gaming shops. As I rolled the set over in my mind again I was moved towards a decision. While my enthusiasm for the character selection in the set remains high, my disdain for many of the stat, power and team affiliations (generally lacks thereof) saw my anticipation of the set weaken. Oh, I'm still in for more than a pound -- my long-ago prepaid brick (shrinkwrapped unit of 12 boosters) will be in my hands two weeks from now, and most likely the case I ordered months ago will follow the next day -- (Hmmm... brick Thursday, case Friday, Superman Returns most likely first thing Saturday, and that part of a weekend where I'll be taking the following Monday off and then having Tuesday, July 4th as a holiday... a potentially fun stretch to look forward to if something doesn't step in to spoil it.) -- but too much information has taken much of the magic of the set for me....