So… what are you reading/watching?
I finally picked up Volume One of Ultimate Spider-Man and I’m surprised by how easily it can be updated to 2000 from 1962 while changing only the technobabble. No longer a “radioactive” spider, it’s now one of the spiders from “Project Oz” that bites him on the hand. It’s a reboot that has allowed them to “make official” any number of retcons that they pulled in the 616 universe… and they’ve done a pretty good job.
Volume one is good, but it suffers from origin story syndrome–there’s so much plot the get through, that it doesn’t have much time to focus on the characters.
Volume 2: Learning Curve, is possibly my favorite chapter of USM (thought there are so many amazing stories to choose from)
While out picking up some cheesy chicken sandwiches from our local Middle Eastern cafe, I picked Volume 2 up and noticed that Kingpin was mentioned…
Hoo, doggies. Kingpin is one of the best bad guys in the Marvel universe. Sort of a Lex Luthor when you need him to be one and sort of a Rhino when you need him to be one.
I am halfway through “Homer and Langley” by E. L. Doctorow right now and although it is entertaining, I can’t say it is a must read.
Now, the reason I am here. While I seriously doubt I caused Mr. Cheeks either harm or death, I will try not to say the words that can’t be spoken. Most of the time I can ignore Mr. Cheeks comments because, beneath the forty grit sandpaper exterior beats a decent heart. Have I mentioned before that I lack tact?
I do want to apologize for being such a poor writer that I left you with the impression that the follower’s of Jesus were the bad guys. Like most people who read the bible, I pick and choose the parts that I want to believe in. I don’t for a second believe that Jesus ascended into heaven, but I do beleive he was a great moral philosopher. The man who said, turn the other cheek,(something I obviously fail to do), kick the usurors out of the temple, and maybe something that was a miracle, Jesus convincing the people on the mount to share.
My father in law passed away last Monday and this has been a harrowing week. He was a Methodist minister and one of the few preachers I have ever met that I respected. He was a great husband, a great parent and a great father in law. He also lived a decent and honorable life. He didn’t blame Katrina on the gays. He blamed Katrina on bad engineering and poverty. He did not say take care of the poor and go home to his million dollar house. He lived out his retirement in the house that he grew up in, after he remodeled it by himself. Unlike a Baptist preacher I knew, I never ever ever got the idea that he had a drop of racism. There is a hole where the patriach was and I sit here facing a new reality.
It’s all good, my man.
Reading In the Name of the Wind. Too early into the book to know if it really good or not (3% through, why can’t the Kindle give me freaking page numbers), but it is good enough to keep me reading.
Saw Source Code on Friday and that was better than I thought it would be.
Firestar by Mike Flynn. About a private space program in the vein of Bob Heinlein except the characters are fully developed beyond stereotypes and masks worn by the author to promulgate a pushy philosophy. It’s very accessible and embodies what I admire most in science fiction which is when it doesn’t read like SF.