Whodathunkit?

Kinda makes sense as my wife was almost named Mary Jane.

Your results:
You are Spider-Man
You are intelligent, witty, a bit geeky
and have great power and responsibility


Click here to take the "Which Superhero are you?" quiz...

Hit or Mist?

As you can see on Mafus' blog that we took in THE MIST yesterday. As an avid fan of King and of Darabont's translations we had high hopes. Unfortunately, things didn't turn out as we'd hoped, but Mafus said pretty much everything I would, so drop on by to read about our woe. (I now realize this title would've worked better if we had actually wanted to see either HITMAN or THE MIST.) Kinda want to read the novella again to set things right in my head and heart about the tale. Oh well. It's like Kurtis Blow said, "Those are the breaks!"


Still haven't accomplished anything creative as of late. The urge has been there, but the time and drive hasn't—close though. So close. I did take out the pencils of an Invincible two-page spread I printed out many moons ago and threw 'em on my drawing table to ink tonight. Need to shake off the rust a bit and maybe some inking would get that artistic fire roaring under me arse. Mafus helped a bit by loaning me a fat stack of ROUTE 666, which I devoured in one sitting. Karl Moline is one talented mofo and if he's not working on a monthly—he should. I was first introduced to his work in FRAY, which I picked up on a whim as a trade a year or so ago. Just a great clean style. His inkers aren't to shabby either, though their names escape me. (Save John Dell, whose name is on the cover.) As is with most things in the comic world the whole story of ROUTE 666 wasn't told. CrossGen went out of bidness I believe Mafus said, which both blows and sucks.

Finished Assassin's Creed Turkey Day night after everyone had crashed. A fun game, but I couldn't see myself playing through it again as I always hunger for something new. Sure, I could've held onto it for a while and delved back in a few months from now, but screw it. There's a couple FPS out there I want, so I traded it in along with three other old games and scored BLACKSITE: AREA 51. Figured it's time to take out some intergalactic bastids. Also scored MASS EFFECT as it's more of a FPS RPG, which intrigues me. That and I had leftover store credit, so I said, "BUCKET!"

One dull blade

Okay. Mafus and I went to see the illustrious SAW IV last night. Afterwards I said it should be renamed SAW ENUFF. Everything good that could’ve been done with the series already has been. The Nacho Ceruda autopsy opening (you even get to see Jigsaw's junk), stale acting (Agent Strong and his tough-guy-DeNiro-arms-out-throwing-tables-punching-the-wall-beside-your-head-schtick), contrived pseudo-victims (“My lips are stitched shut so I can’t talk until I kill you, Mr. Ears Stitched Shut, then I can rip my stitches out and scream.”), to the typical obsessed, “I gotta save everyone,” cop. The whole tying it into the third film "seamlessly" said to me, "Hey, we're out of ideas and need to add a few more minutes of screen time." Just bad, bad, bad. I found myself wishing this movie would end and I’ve watched MANOS twice. TWICE, good people, which means once wasn’t enough, yet this movie was barely viewable once. Ugh. Hopefully, this will be the last as they’ve delved into Bell’s characters “true” origin. Was also surprised to learn it was written by the guys who wrote FEAST, which I enjoyed a helluva lot more.

A few highlights from the film were a couple of “Dead” actors. The police photographer was the young lady who drove Dead Reckoning in LAND OF THE DEAD and the lawyer, Art Blank, was the husband of the nurse in the DAWN OF THE DEAD remake. Not that that helped the movie much, but it kept me looking for other actors I might recognize. No dice though.

That’s all I gots, peeps. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving Eve.

One week later...

Sorry. Nothing new on the creative front. I've started and stopped so many times, but nothing really fleshed out on the paper. Mainly, 'cuz of my torn intercostal muscle. Turns out that I didn't break a rib. I broke down Friday and went to the doc for some x-rays since that pain was getting worse and I wanted to make sure nothing else was wrong internally. The x-rays came back sans fracture and I was then informed I'd gone the intercostal route, which is just as bad as a break. Science-time: Intercostal muscles are several groups of muscles that run between the ribs, and help form and move the chest wall. They hurt like hell when you tear them and take 3-6 weeks to heal. That concludes the science portion of this posting.


In the meantime I've been playing ASSASSIN'S CREED. I bought it on a whim, thinking I'd enjoy it, but not love it. Turns out I was wrong again. I don't think I've had this much fun playing a game in some time. I dare say that I've had more fun with AC than HALO 3. The whole stealthy, blade-in-the-crowd thing has grown on me over the run-and-gun gameplay of the Halo series. I've played probably 10 hours and haven't quite reached the halfway point. Usually a game takes me 6-8 hours to complete. The world of AC is too large to take in 6-8 hours. You've got three cities (Damascus, Acre and Jerusalem), the entire countryside between them and your own little guild's keep. Each city is then broken up into three districts with their own side-quests and investigations, which you can do the minimum of or maximum of. It’s open and free-roaming. Kinda the game that FABLE should have been. We’ll see since FABLE 2 is in the works and I think released next year.

That’s all I got. Wanted to post something as it’s been a week and the holidays are coming up. This’ll be Lilah’s first Turkey Day and we’ll be dragging her around to spread some holiday cheer. Get your bingeing pants on, people. Have a good one, everyone. Stay safe out there.

One more calamity

Just as I finally got over the intestinal virus and looking forward to picking up the health and exercise kick—I crack a rib. I'd like to spin a tale of heroism dealing with a burning orphanage, laser beams, and chocolate puddin', but no such luck. I was just fighting with the cumbersome box holding Lilah's new car seat when I tripped/lost balance and caught my ribs in the one place on the rail where there was a point. Laid on the ground for about five minutes before I could get up, then dragged the box downstairs. Somehow I got the thing installed before shock/adrenaline wore off and it's been painful ever since. What gets me is that I'll bend and expect it to hurt, but get nothing. Then I'll do something simple and lock up in agony. Guess I've got a couple weeks of this fun staring me in the kisser. Ugh.


Watched FIDO over the weekend. Looked like a decent flick and it was, but it just wasn't what I was expecting. Funny and the story had a lot of potential, but too "Leave It To Beaver" at times. (The Lassie joke was excellent though.) That and the father was an annoying prat. Carrie-Anne Moss and Billy Connolly were pretty much the whole show. It was strange seeing Carrie without her Matrix tone and garb. Everyone fit in with the time periodness of the picture and it was well presented, so I can recommend it as a NetFlix, but not a purchase.

Also I hit a small con with Mafus on Sunday. Not the smallest con I've ever been to, but it was nice to meet a few peeps and score a few books—Punishers actually, the arc that introduced Barracuda. Though the elusive Hitman issue 53 is still out there, waiting.

UPDATE: I have scored the elusive Hitman 53 via eBay. All is again right with the world.

And lastly, here's a pic of Lilah with a Hello Kitty hat/headpiece her uncle sent out for her. It barely fits, so we figured we'd snap some shots while the snapping was good. Kinda looks like she's got one wicked toothache.

The picture sez it all

The Missus and I are still reeling with the intestinal virus our sweet little daughter thought necessary to share. Maybe I can get something drawn tomorrow and posted as not to be a total waste of blogspace.

Finito

Here's the Sphinx colored in all of his victorious glory. It was fun, though it took me a little longer than I thought, but that's my own fault for getting a little carried away. Hopefully Mafus will like it (won't know until he gets back in town) and it'll garner him enough votes to score some free goodies. I'll be out until Tuesday as we're off to St. Simon's Island for a wedding.

UPDATE: We made it back safely, though it was a mightly draining trip. I was mistaken it wasn't St. Simon's Island, it was Jekyll Island, which sounded much better to my macabre mind. The weather was beautiful, so was the bride and the island was a non-commercialized haven. I wish I had a drawing to post, but we've all come down with a stomach virus it seems. Lilah was throwing up everywhere last night, I've been upchucking all morning and Angie's blasting from the other end. Good times.