Friday, February 29, 2008

Leap Year

It's leap year! This happens what, every four years?

Leap year is kind of a funny concept to me. Our "year" is fairly precise, but off by 6 hours so we have to "make up for it" every few years. In the old days, imagine realizing that your calendar was off, then telling everyone you needed to add a little more time to things?

See you in four years.

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Hibachi in New York

Are there any hibachi places in Manhattan besides Benihana? I am looking for a place that has that style Japanese grill show and isn't in Brooklyn. I'd rather not travel an hour to get to Ginza in Park Slope or Arirang.

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Shooting Down a Satellite

Apparently one of our old satellites is about to drop down into the atmosphere, and so to protect our interests (and our people?) the US Government as decided that the best thing to do is shoot this thing down with a $10M missile.

My first reaction to this news is surprise that we have the accuracy to hit a satellite with a missile. Apparently there is a "10 second window" that they will have to make the right shot.

My next reaction is wonder. If a satellite falling to the earth is dangerous as debris, what happens if we miss the satellite? Then the missile gets detonated high above and the satellite falls? Can the missile miss and hit something else? Is the satellite debris dangerous too?

My final reaction is cynical. Are we really doing this to protect our secrets and prevent damage, or are we just doing this for posturing and to show off to the rest of the world that we can shoot down satellites because we're the USA. On the one hand this seems like an expensive way to do this. On the other, it's pretty cheap compared to starting a war.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Geek Break: Comics Coming Up in May '08

Let me take a moment to geek out and briefly mention some comics coming up in May '08. You can find the complete solicitations for Marvel in May '08 here, and for DC here.

Solicitations are the little previews each company gives to retailers so they can figure out what to order in the upcoming months. Based on the little snippets of text that these provide, I will make some broad judgments about the books that have yet to even come out. It may not be fair, but it's fun.

Marvel Comics

First, it looks like Marvel is really going all-out in May. They have been doing very well sales-wise against their Distinguished Competition, and May looks like they really are going to try and stick it to DC yet again. Just look at some of these major #1 releases:

Avengers / Invaders #1 (New mini-series with Alex Ross and Jim Krueger of the highly popular Earth X, Justice)
King Size Hulk #1 (Jeph Loeb, Art Adams, Frank Cho)
Marvel 1985 #1 (Mark Millar)

I once read somewhere that the editors can basically predict how well a book will sell if they know the creators and characters in the book. These three books above will almost certainly perform well - probably in the 100K+ mark, which is pretty rare these days. Add that to Marvel's already near 100K+ books:

Secret Invasion #2 (Brian Bendis, Lenil Yu - not yet 100K but probably will be)
The Dark Tower: The Long Road Home #3 of 5 (Stephen King inspired book)
Fantastic Four #557 (Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch)
Thor
New Avengers
Amazing Spider-Man

Marvel will probably have 8-10 of the top 10 books for the month at this rate.

Now for some brief book by book comments:

Ultimate line - Ultimate FF #54, Ultimate Iron Man 2 #5, Ultimate Spider-Man #122, Ultimate X-Men #94. Ultimate X-Men has a new writer, Aron Coleite from Heroes. Fans of Ultimate X-Men are hoping that he got a lot of this work done during the WGA strike and there won't be any delays. I used to buy all the Ultimate line titles, but now I buy none of them. There's just no reason to. The continuity is just as confusing, and the books are no longer fresh or inspiring. The creators are not particularly big names and it just seems stale. Word is, there is a re-boot on the way, but it's hard for me to care.

Amazing Spider-Man #558-#560 - Out of protest from One More Day, I don't buy this book. The more I think about that, it's silly, but I'll stick to my guns for now. Anyway, from what I've heard even though the creative teams sound great, it hasn't been groundbreaking and so it's just as well, considering it comes out three times each month now.

Avengers/Invaders #1 - While I am sure this Alex Ross / Jim Krueger miniseries will be great, I am going to pass on it, and if word is that it is good, I will catch it later. Frankly, golden age characters don't really interest me.

Alan Davis Covers - Black Panther #37, Secret Invasion: Fantastic Four #1, New Exiles #6, Clandestine #4. Alan Davis wrote and drew interiors for Clandestine, but he's randomly doing covers for the other books. That's great news, but kind of strange that they're all popping up this month?

Captain America #38 - I'm getting it, who cares what the solicitation says. It's been really interesting.

Fantastic Four #557 - Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch continue their 16 issue story arc on Fantastic Four. I read the first issue of this, and it was nice, but it wasn't as awe-inspiring as their work on Ultimates. Maybe I have Millar fatigue? Or maybe I've been here before, as Millar wrote Ultimate Fantastic Four. Something about this doesn't feel fresh and new, which is how I usually feel when reading a Millar title. In my opinion, having "Ultimate" creators working in mainstream Marvel U really takes away from the Ultimate Marvel U. Especially in Fantastic Four, where from what I can tell, the only difference between the two is that in mainstream Marvel, Reed and Sue are married with children. Otherwise, they're essentially the same characters.

Invincible Iron Man #1 - Iron Man, a character with a movie coming out, gets a second series for the first time. I don't read the current book, which in December was #62 on the charts at about 38K. That doesn't strike me as a particularly good sales figure, and is the character really that popular? On the other hand, Thor is a top 5 selling book these days, so I guess anything can happen.

Marvel 1985 #1 - A Mark Millar project that he has been hyping up a lot. I think I'll wait for the trade. Same goes for Kick-Ass #4, his creator owned, Icon series with John Romita Jr.

Secret Invasion #2 - The BIG EVENT of Marvel's 2008 summer. Apparently there are Skrulls impersonating all sorts of heroes throughout the Marvel U. It's been teased at for a while, and building up for a long time. For some reason, I just can't get interested. Leinil Yu is doing the art, and I like his work. I like plots that are intricate and have been building up for a while as well. Surprise twists are good too, but I just can't get excited about this at all. I'll read summaries about this one on the Inter-Web. There are the requisite tie-ins and spin-offs for this as well (Secret Invasion: Fantastic Four, New Avengers, Mighty Avengers, Captain Britain and MI: 13).

Thor #9 - I'll say it again - Since it came out, Thor has been selling over 100K a month, more than any of the X-Men titles in that period. I can't believe it.

X-Men Titles - I'll only put the ones I'm interested in. There are a lot of X-books these days.

Uncanny X-Men #498 - still the flagship. It's been decent but I can't help thinking they're waiting for #500 to come up.

X-Men Legacy #211, #212 - I don't know what to make of this title, formerly known as X-Men. I'd have to think that changing the name of the book to X-Men Legacy marginalizes it and will actually be bad for sales.

Cable #3 - I'm curious about this since it directly relates to the big recent crossover, Messiah CompleX. But not interested enough to start picking this up.

X-Force #4, Wolverine #65: Both these books have stories where Wolverine goes after the villains who got away in Messiah CompleX. While I don't really care too much about Wolverine appearing in too many books, something funny happened here. After the crossover, Cyclops and Wolverine had two conversations. In one, he said, "Go after Mystique" (a story in Wolverine). In the other, he said, "Go after the Purifiers" (a story in X-Force). Finally, Wolverine can be seen traveling around Europe with Nightcrawler and Colossus, lamenting the end of the Messiah CompleX story. I'm really not that nit-picky about this kind of continuity but it seems a little too much.

Wolverine: Origins #25 - Supposedly this should be the halfway point of this title. I stopped buying it a while back because I didn't enjoy it. But I like the character of Wolverine so much I can't help but wonder what happens in this book anyway.

Logan #3 - Brian K Vaughan of Y: The Last Man concludes his tale of Logan. I'll wait for the trade.

X-Men Divided We Stand #2 - an anthology of stories about random X-Men scattered about. I'll probably get it but I'm not too enthusiastic.

Punisher #57 - Garth Ennis wraps up his MAX run on the Punisher. I haven't gotten this recently but I'm sure it's still good fun.

DC Comics
I was really enjoying DC Comics until the recent mess that has been Countdown. Suddenly, there's too much confusing stuff going on. Also, I'm not a huge fan of the multiverse. I get a ton of stuff by Geoff Johns, but I'm starting to fear fatigue of his material (like I did of Brian Bendis). I don't think it will happen, but I'm still afraid.

DC Universe #0 - The issue following Countdown to Final Crisis #1, by Johns and Morrison with a bunch of good artists. It's 50 cents! Of course I'm getting it!

Final Crisis #1 - The big event for DC Comics this summer by Grant Morrison. I'm really looking forward to this, and really hoping it makes DC a bit more streamlined and orderly. Like most Grant Morrison stories, I'm guessing it will start off as amazing and interesting, yet somehow at the end, I'll be 50% really confused and 50% amazed.

Tangent: Superman's Reign #3 - Tangent comics was a throwaway concept in the '90s that got revived with the recent multi-verse. I can't imagine people being excited about this enough to buy a twelve issue series!

DC / Wildstorm: Dreamwar #2 - Ten years ago, this book would have really interested me. Now, I am ambivalent. The Wildstorm Universe has really taken a beating in those ten years, and once again, I can't get myself excited about this.

Batman and the Outsiders #7 - I've gotten a few issues of this series, but I don't find it that entertaining. I am going to give it a little longer rope because of all the editorial changes that went on before it started.

Booster Gold #9 - A great book for fanboys that was sort of like the DCU version of Quantum Leap. Then this past week an issue came out and it made my head hurt. I like the idea of reviving Blue Beetle to join Booster as "the greatest heroes nobody ever knows" as they secretly fix time behind the scenes, but I don't know if Beetle will be around forever. Geoff Johns says he's leaving with issue #11. I hope that whoever writes the series beyond this will not take it to hokey territory, because time travel can become a monster if you don't try to control it.

Batman #677 - Grant Morrison is writing Batman and people say they love it. I hardly understand it. I have a theory that when people in the arts see a movie or read a book they don't understand, they immediately say how amazing it is. I think that theory applies to recent issues of this book. Really nice Alex Ross covers for this book and...

Superman #676 - I thought James Robinson was taking this book over, but I guess that will wait until later in the year.

Detective Comics #844 - Paul Dini has been writing this series with stories that are self-contained. It's been above average for the most part, but nothing to get too excited about. I'm on the verge of dropping it...

All-Star Superman #11 - A great book by Grant Morrison and Frank Quietly. This is the penultimate issue. While it's been entertaining, this All-Star line has certainly been disappointing for DC. I believe they are going to put this title away once these creators are done.

Action Comics #865 - Action Comics has really been a fun run when Geoff Johns is writing it. Yes, Adam Kubert delayed the title with Richard Donner but the book looked nice. I did not enjoy Johns and Eric Powell on the Bizarro story, but this Legion story with Gary Frank has been great. Johns has been hinting that 2008, Superman's 70th anniversary, will be a huge year. Let's hope so!

Superman / Batman #48 - Once a flagship title for DC, this has fallen into obscurity. I've heard good things about this recent arc, but not good enough for me to sample it. This title used to be a good way to get a Superman and Batman fix all in one, but since I buy Superman's solo book, Batman's solo book and Justice League, this seems irrelevant.

Green Lantern #31 - I had never bought Green Lantern regularly until the end of last year. Geoff Johns is doing a great job with this, and Ivan Reis is a very impressive artist. I even went out and got the hardcovers for the issues I didn't have. It's on the upswing as well, with a huge event planned for 2009.

Green Lantern Corps #24 - While I don't get this, it seems like this title is intimately connected with the main Green Lantern book and laying the groundwork for the "big event" in 2009. I must confess; I either skim it at the stores or read the summaries online.

Justice League of America #21 - I really liked Justice League Unlimited, the animated show that Dwayne McDuffie worked on, but I don't enjoy his Justice League. He has stated publicly that editorial is affecting his ability to write, and I wonder if that is why I have not enjoyed this lately.

Justice Society of America #16 - The hints have been dropping that Kingdom Come and this storyline will be integrated. It's been a little slow to start, but I think the criticism online is a bit much. I am still on board and wondering where all this is headed. It's the 5th book this month by Geoff Johns that I'll be picking up (DCU #0, Booster Gold, Action Comics and Green Lantern).

Wonder Woman #20 - Gail Simone, a fan favorite just finished her first arc on this book. It was nice, but I didn't find it amazing. I think it comes down to the fact that I just don't find Wonder Woman that interesting.

Y: The Last Man Vol 10 - The final trade paperback for Y: The Last Man is coming out in JUNE! UGH! I thought these were May solicits? I am so afraid of the ending of this story being spoiled for me. In fact, the finale came out a few weeks ago and I am amazed that it hasn't been spoiled yet. June 18 cannot arrive soon enough. This is my most anticipated book for 2008 so far.

Ok, I think my fingers are bleeding from all the typing.

Sunday, February 17, 2008

Iran So Far Away



I haven't watched SNL much lately but maybe I'll check it out a bit more often. An amusing parody.

Sunday, February 10, 2008

Conan and Colbert Feud

One good thing to come out of the WGA strike is the Conan / Colbert Feud.

Originally, Conan suggested that he had given Stephen Colbert a "bump" by having him on the show. He also noted that he had Chuck Norris on the show, and that was another reason for Mike Huckabee's bump. In retaliation, Jon Stewart pulled out a clip from his old show showing a bump he gave to Conan O'Brien, thus taking credit for all the bumps.

These videos are a bit redundant but make sure you see the fight which is hilarious.

Conan appeared on the Daily Show and Colbert...




...and the fight concluded on Conan


Another summary here:

Thursday, February 07, 2008

Syringes and "The Play"

Apparently Roger Clemens' former trainer, Brian McNamee, says he has physical evidence that Clemens used steroids - including syringes with traces of steroids and hGH and Clemens' DNA. I don't really understand a few things about this. First, who keeps syringes after using them? Second and more importantly, how can they tell how old the syringes are, and whether or not the blood and steroids were somehow associated with them at the same time? For example, what is the difference between a needle / syringe that was used to inject steroids that has some blood on it, and a needle / syringe that was used to inject someone with something else, and then had steroids put into it? For that matter, since blood should only go into the needle, why not mix and match needles and syringes? It still sounds like a lot of "He Said / He Said."

The Eli Manning to David Tyree play that seemed almost miraculous during the Super Bowl should just be nicknamed "The Play." Right now, everyone knows what that refers to, so why not just dub it so? We already have "the catch" and "the escape followed by helmet catch" is too long a name. The local papers all have contests to "name the play."

Wednesday, February 06, 2008

Super Tuesday

Politics here - I am becoming increasingly worried that if John McCain wins the Republican nomination, he will win the Presidency. I don't like the prospect of putting the "first" woman or "first" African-American to the Presidency in a time of perceived crisis - we are involved with two wars and the economy is tanking. I have a feeling that most people will gravitate to the more traditional "old white man."

Also, it's very interesting to me how McCain is portrayed as "such a liberal" yet supports many conservative positions. At the same time, the conservative talk machine is completely against McCain and Huckabee. I don't really understand why or how all this came about, but I do find it interesting to see people assail Huckabee for not being conservative despite the fact that he has a huge following among Evangelical Christians.

Stomp You Out

I'm no Giants fan, but I'm really glad they won last Sunday. However, Michael Strahan's "stomp you out" speech was not only difficult to understand, it was pretty ridiculous. It made me sick of Michael Strahan again.



Not to take anything away from the Giants, but if you think about it, they had a ton of breaks before the Super Bowl, not to mention during it. Think about how they nearly lost in Dallas, the fumble recoveries in Green Bay and the fortunate plays in the Super Bowl... I guess when things are going your way, even the lucky stuff breaks that way too.

After Justin Tuck's great Super Bowl, I would have thought I'd see more "Tuck Rules" T-shirts. Then again, since the tuck rule game was eight years ago, it's basically forgotten.

Tiki Barber kept yapping away before the Super Bowl saying things like, "With every heroic story there has to be a foil, and I'm convenient for that. I am the (expletive) foil in a Shakespearean play."

"Love me or hate me or be indifferent about me, that doesn't bother me," Barber said. "But when you don't respect who I was as a player, that hurts ... For people to discredit what I was as a player is disingenuous at best and malicious at worst."

"I tell you the truth, even if you don't want to hear it," Barber said. "If you want to vilify me for being honest, you have to hate me then."

He also took credit for saving Tom Coughlin's job.

Tiki Barber needs to realize that his obsession with the spotlight is what has caused the Giants fans to hate him. Had he not announced his retirement mid-season last year, or written a book and criticized the current coach and QB, nobody would care. Fans would have appreciated Tiki's performance, but there was something about his comments that was more like he was betraying his former teammates. He would not have been this "foil" had he not offered up his opinions unsolicited (and in a book, no less). He must also have been (aside from his brother, Ronde) one of the only players to have had active media involvement while he was still a player (he was a local sports anchor and on WFAN). Nobody wants to see a player already working on the next career.

Monday, February 04, 2008

Tiki Interviews Eli

For the Today show, Tiki Barber had a feature where he interviewed some of his former teammates.



Tiki Barber was mentioned quite a bit over the last two weeks and at some point, it might be interesting to write about how a guy who played so well has become so unpopular.

Wow

I can't believe it. The Giants have won the Super Bowl!

-Have you ever seen so much pressure on Tom Brady?
-The Patriots committed a surprising number of false starts.
-Why did the Patriots go for it when they had the chance for the 49 yard FG?
-How lucky were the Giants on two plays? First, the Tyree catch from the Manning escaped sack. Second, the fumble that got batted away from Bradshaw, while it was a penalty, it could have easily been a turnover.

What an amazing game.

Sunday, February 03, 2008

Pats = Champs

I'm guessing it'll be something like Patriots over the Giants 40-24 in a game that seems closer than it is, but in reality the Giants never had a chance.

Friday, February 01, 2008

Why Do Americans Hate Congress?

Oh I don't know... Maybe because Congressmen spend more of their time on stupid PR-related stunts and less time on things that affect people's lives.

Today's topic: Senator Arlen Spector wants to know why the NFL destroyed the confiscated video tapes from the New England Patriots.

Why?
Who cares?
Isn't this a waste of time?
Why?

Let's see what the Senator had to say (quotes taken from the NY Times article):

---
“That requires an explanation,” Specter said. “The N.F.L. has a very preferred status in our country with their antitrust exemption. The American people are entitled to be sure about the integrity of the game. It’s analogous to the C.I.A. destruction of tapes. Or any time you have records destroyed.”

“It’s the same old story,” Mr. Specter said. “What you did is never as important as the cover-up. This sequence raises more concerns and doubts.”

“I don’t think you have to have a law broken to have a legitimate interest by the Congress on the integrity of the game.” He added: “What if there was something on the tapes we might want to be subpoenaed, for example? You can’t destroy it. That would be obstruction of justice.

“It’s premature to make any suggestions until you know a lot more about the matter. We need to know what’s on those tapes.”

---

I realize that the NFL is a multi-billion dollar business, and is very popular among citizens, thus draws much attention from Congressmen, who love to curry favor with the public for simple things. Even taking this into account, comparing the NFL destruction of the tapes to the CIA destroying interrogation tapes is either seriously overrating the importance of the NFL or giving very little weight to possible human rights violations.

Now, what exactly is Congress accusing the NFL of covering up? What could they possibly discover from this line of investigation? The Patriots were accused of breaking the rules and cheating, evidence of such was found, and they were punished. Spector clearly does not want the tapes to see if the Patriots were punished unfairly, he's saying the NFL is hiding something.

This whole thing stinks and it makes me so irritated I can't even gather my thoughts clearly.

Last thought: Maybe they should be checking out ExxonMobil, who also in today's paper, have been noted to post the highest profits ever for a US corporation, despite the fact that we are also heading towards a recession. That doesn't seem suspicious to anyone??

In the words of the famous Charlie Brown, "AAAAARRRRRRGH!"