Comic Con!

So GQ and I are leaving tomorrow on a jet plane heading to San Diego for Comic Con 2012. If you're not hip to it then the best way to describe it is a gathering of Pop Culture - TV, movies, comic books, video games, toys and more.  Here's some shots of my first time two years ago - SDCC 2010.  


The Girls are staying behind with Grandma & PopPop hoping to get some good Cousin time in, and hopefully see the new Ice Age movie.


This is my second time going, and I'm excited SUPER EXCITED! When I got back from my first time one of the teachers I work with asked me how it was, and as I started to blather on about it she asked, "You want to live at Comic Con, don't you?" And you know what? I do!


So, I've got to finish packing and try to print out the schedule so I can read it on the plane and make sure I have enough batteries for my camera and clean my man room in case the dog/house sitter decides to sleep down here b/c it's the coolest room in the house (both types of cool).


I'll be posting stuff as often as I can.  If I don't come back it's because Comic Con doesn't make you sign something like they do at Disney World stating that "I acknowledge that I do not now, nor will I ever, reside permanently in the Magic Kingdom." and I've found a way to enter that world and not come back.


That wouldn't happen. I'd never leave the Girls, Marley and The Puppy Without a Name behind. GQ? She'd move in too if she could, so if one of us goes, we both go.


Speaking of GQ, she's just released her second novel this year (I KNOW RIGHT?!?), FanGirl! You can get to it here - FanGirl!
I'm amazingly impressed and proud of her.  It's a great story.  Much different from Wraith, her first novel.  It is in the YA field, and not yet available as a paperback or in Nook format, but both will be forthcoming.


Okay, peace out y'all. I'm going to finish packing and then be too excited to sleep.

Two Books Not Reviewed

I just finished reading two books, How To Be Good by Nick Hornby and The Fault In Our Stars by John Green. After reading so many books on my Kindle, well my Kindle app on the iPad it's kind of nice to hold a real book. 


Similarly to how I did not review The Avengers because there were already so many great reviews of it, I am not going to review these books.  I'm just going to give my thoughts on them.  I was going to review them, but I have a problem being too wordy, and this would have been too long, and blah blah blah.

How To Be Good  

For those of you not familiar with the name Nick Hornby, he is the author of About a Boy and High Fidelity.  Both of these have been turned into movies starring Hugh Grant and John Cusak, respectively.  Hornby is a British author and his books are very British. I totally love this, but then again I love many British things; although not the food.  Anyway.

I like the book, but the ending is a bit of a downer, and that caught me off guard. Overall I'd give it a B-. If you really liked the two I just mentioned and are looking for a similar book you're not really going to find it here. If you've never read Hornby before this might not be a bad starting point and then go to his others.  Here are some real reviews of it, if you're interested. 

British review from The Guardian

The New York Times On The Web review

The main thing I took from this story is that wanting people to do more to make the world a better place is all good and fine, but there's only so much you can do to change people.  I know GQ lives with this problem living with me and my recycling habits obsession. Reading this story has made me realize that I can do all the recycling I want, and encourage The Girls to do it, too, but trying to make someone do what I think is best doesn't really work.  Same thing with the character David in this book.

He wants the world to be a better place and begins to impose his desire on his family, regardless of how this makes their life more difficult than it already is.

I can see how this is similar to how people feel when others are wanting them to give more money or time, recycle more and waste less, etc.  Of course these are things that everyone should  do, and most are things everyone  could  do, but forcing people to do those things typically only makes you feel better.  A lot of the time it will make the others feel hostile toward you or whoever is doing the forcing.

The Fault In Our Stars

I love John Green's books.  I think John Green is an entertaining, funny and original author. He has a Tumblr that has some good stuff on it. Plus he and his brother have a very funny video blog. 

Again, not going to review it because you don't have that much time to read all my words. I give it a solid A. Here are some real reviews.

Really Ravishing Review

Good Reads

Here's what I love about John Green, and all of my favorite authors really: The characters.  I am able to connect to them immediately.  I may not always like them, although I did very much so in this story, but I can always find something with them that I can relate to.  

The main characters in this story, Hazel and Augustus, are great.  The side characters are as well. Isaac, their friend is one of my favorite minor characters I've read in a long time.

This story deals with cancer and cancer victims. This includes their family and friends.  Because John Green writes YA and juvenile fiction the characters are of course young. All three suffer from one form of cancer or another.  

Since the story is from Hazel's point of view you don't necessarily get a great point of view of the parents, but you the hopelessness they feel because of what their children are suffering is pretty evident.

I can't even begin to imagine how devastating it would be to have a child with cancer.  My mom is a breast cancer survivor. She was diagnosed with it when I was 12, I think, and I was not told a lot about what was going on.  I used to be bitter about that, but now I understand that it would have freaked me out completely and just given my parents one more thing to worry about.  

Having a parent with cancer is one thing. Having a child with it, or any other disease is another, and I am amazed at the strength parents have to deal with it, and hope and pray it is something that GQ and I never have to deal with.

I'll be honest. I cried a little reading this book. Luckily I was at the pool sweating in the crazy heat so the few tears that escaped were probably just another salty liquid streaming down my face.  Wearing sunglasses helped too, I'm sure.  Actually, it's not too unusual for me to shed some tears if a book is really good.  If you know me you know I'm a pretty sensitive guy.  Medication helps me not be a quivering mess of a sensitive guy.  

So, there you go. Two books. One just okay and one really great one.  If you're looking for something to read you won't have wasted your time with either of them.

Happy Reading

Three Things

                            Someone's Got It Worse Than You

Several things have made this clear to me recently.  I am a pretty optimistic guy, but I still get bogged down sometimes thinking - gah! This SUCKS! Luckily though, I am also a fairly reflective guy (a recent acquirement, reflection).  

So, as I was sitting in the Emory University gymnasium the other day after three or four hours I was all, Man, this is going to be TERRIBLE.

After the 11th hour I was still thinking that, but then I noticed that there were LOTS of other people that had been there as long as I had.  Then as I was leaving after 12 hours I noticed that some of those people were STILL there and weren't going to be able to leave for at least another hour.

Add to that the fact that it was 106 outside and I got to spend all day in a very air conditioned building with the Girls cheering them on, I decided that it wasn't all that bad.

                                       Orange Juice With Pulp

You know what they don't sell in stores? Orange Sauce. It would be like apple sauce except it would be made with oranges. They don't sell that. Do you know why they don't sell it?  Because it would be GROSS!!!!

 

Recently I was on a trip with some friends and we bought some OJ, and we weren't paying attention because that's what we do - Not Pay Attention, and we got the OJ with "Lots of Pulp". It was very disappointing the next morning as I was pouring my OJ to see orange sauce come sludging out of the container. I tried to drink it and it nearly choked me it was so thick with pulp.

The container has a picture of a man and a little girl.  The man is laughing as the little girl drinks her juice.  I'm sure it's supposed to be the dad having a good natured, early morning laugh with his daughter as she enjoys her juice, but really what it comes down to is more like this:

                    Uncle Larry laughs at Becca as she drinks a glass of sludge.

My buddy decided to try and strain it with the coffee filter.  My initial reaction was great! Ugh, that's going to be the worst tasting OJ in the history of ever. But, he was taking the initiative where I would have just not drank it.  He poured some in and it just sat there. Do you know why it just sat there instead of filtering through the filter? Because it was 99.8% pulp and 0.2% juice.

I decided to go with this plan, and I scooped out spoonful after spoonful of orange sauce so the delicious pulp-free OJ could go into the container. 

It took forever.  However, I am proud to say that I was able to get three big glasses of OJ out of it. And it didn't even have a coffee taste.

Orange sauce. Gross.

                                           Super Heroes

The Avengers. The Amazing Spider-Man. The Dark Knight Rises.

The first one has already proven to be awesome (over $1 billion worldwide - that's INSANE), and in my opinion, the other two are going to be awesome also. I don't think they'll do as good as The Avengers, but the Batman one could.

Anyway, I've been reading some articles on what super heroes should have their own movies. I won't go into the whole list, I'm just going to focus on the one that makes me scratch my head in wonder.

Dr. Strange.

You're probably not familiar with Dr. Strange.  He's not your typical super hero.  He is The Sorcerer Supreme. So he does magic The Magik. You wouldn't understand The Magik.  I don't.  Captain America doesn't.  The only one that does is probably Dr. Doom and people from other dimensions.

So there's all this talk about a Dr. Strange movie.  I don't know why. I really don't.  I love super hero movies, but I wouldn't go see Dr. Strange. Even though the one picture I've seen of speculative actors to play him would be my celebrity doppelganger, Patrick Dempsey.

The Fandom says they also want a Justice League movie.  The Avengers movie got made, so why not a Justice League?  Because that would just be a copy cat knock off, that's why.  Marvel spent years building the roads and bridges that lead to The Avengers. If DC was going to do an JL movie they would have had to started several years ago.  

As it is now, they can't even get Superman out.  Henry Cavill's going to be too old to do a sequel, not to mention a JL movie by the time they get it out. Plus there's the whole thing of Batman. He's part of the JL, but it's Batman, not The Dark Knight.  This Batman has to work with people.  I can't see The Dark Knight working along side Superman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, Green Lantern, & Aquaman.

So, DC, I don't know.  They probably just need to focus on getting Superman out so they can keep a franchise going once Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight series comes to an end.

In Their Sites

Here's the thing; sometimes you encounter people that no matter what you do, no

matter how much you stay out of their way they have you in their sites. There's not an

explanation that works, there's not any way around it. It's just so.

Of course there are always reasons that they have for keeping you in focus. The

problem, well, one of the problems is that there are always more interesting things to

look at or focus on. Seriously. However, they don't want to focus on those things, they

rants want to focus on Y.O.U.

What can you do about this? Nothing. Abso-damn-lutley nothing.

I've tried. You've tried. We've all tried.

So what is it about you that's so damn fascinating? Should you even worry about that? I

say you shouldn't. You've got your thing going on, they're the ones that clearly are

lacking enough actual excitement in their life. You carry on. Does that make it easier?

Unfortunately it doesn't. I wish it did, but it doesn't.

Some people are better than others about ignoring it than I am. They're lucky. Or.

Maybe they're just used to it. Whichever, I could use some of their ability.

Of course, there's always the possibility that you aren't the one their focused on. Boy,

that'd be quite the kick in the pants. Oh, who am I kidding? Of course they're watching

me. And you. Definitely you. Awesome attracts attention like nothing else.

Don't Box Me In

The Family recently spent time with someone that made me think about the boxes we find ourselves in. Different people want us to fit into different size, shape, or types of boxes, but really we are in charge of  that , or at least, we should be.

When I was a kid I know that an empty cardboard box was about one of the best things I could have to play with. I'm pretty sure this holds true for kids today, too.  I know it does with The Girls. The possibilities are endless as to what that box is and what it can be.  Calvin and Hobbes 

I have gone out of my way to bring boxes home for the Girls to play with and the reaction has always been similar: excitement. It's exciting to think about the possibilities of what they can do in the box, what they can put in the box, where they can put the box, and so on. Crayons, markers, tape, scissors, glue and more change those boxes to ANYTHING they want them to be, and I love it.

When we grow up though the box changes. It becomes a metaphor. It changes from what can't it be to what YOU are supposed to be.  Think about it, you probably have a job description. That's a box that you are in. Unfortunately the possibilities are more limited with it than they were when you were a kid. Not always, I know, but a lot of the times they are.

Our lives and how we live them are also Boxes, and most of the time we have complete say as to the size, shape, and type of Box we have. 

Most people respect your Box. You make your choices and you live with them. Everything's all good until someone tries to make you fit into the type of Box they think you should be in, or vice versa.

As I said, we recently spent time with someone who has a very rigid Box. EVERYTHING is where it should be at all times, and if it isn't it get puts there or it Becomes An Issue. He likes to impose his Box on others with little regard to what others' Boxes may be like.  In his mind all Boxes should be the same; there's no need for other sizes, shapes, or types of Boxes. In his mind there are a finite number of Types of Boxes.

We heard several times how someone has a "problem" because he or she didn't fit in a certain Box. This person feels so strongly about this that he gets MAD and cannot discuss why it might be okay for their Box to be different. It's not really up for discussion.   "That's ridiculous." or "That's just sad." were two of the phrases we heard to describe someone else's Box. These weren't people that were trying to force him to accept something else. These people don't know, or care what he does, or what his Box is like, but that's not the way it is with him. This, of course, is wrong, but getting him to see this is futile.

Me, I try to keep my Box as open as the cardboard boxes from my childhood. I don't always succeed. It's flexible so if I push against a wall it bends out. With a really good Box there's a really sturdy foundation that will hold it together even with some pushing.  My Box has gotten broken a few times from pushing on a wall too hard. It has a bunch of tape on it keeping it together, but it's good. I like it.

How about your Box? Do you like yours? Do you think others should have a Box like yours, or are you okay with everybody's Box being different?

The Girls often have different ideas of what the cardboard boxes I bring home will be, and sometimes those ideas change rapidly over the course of a couple of days. A lot of times they're different from what I think the boxes could be, but that's what's great about cardboard boxes. 

What their Box will be like as they get older is similar; it is a limitless possibility and it may not always be what I think it could, or should be. My job is to try to make sure that their foundation is strong enough to allow the walls to bend out far enough without breaking.  Or at least provide them with a good roll of tape.

 Don't Box Me In

Micronauts!!!

Micronauts. That's what this post is about.  If you're not familiar then you may want to spend some time on the link back there.  Or this one Mego Micronauts.  Of course, you might not care, which is completely beyond my understanding, but we all have our hangups  I suppose.


So recently Coco and a friend were playing in my room while I was wasting skads of time on the Internet busy working at my desk.  They were exploring my Top Shelf Items.

• Simpsons toys from fast food restaurants
• Vintage McDonalds mini-racers
• Captain America puzzle
• Ralph Malph
• Lucha Libre Wrestler collections
• Micronauts Pharoid
• GI Joe

They were fascinated by the Micronauts.  Rightly so.  So they asked about them, and I proceeded to tell them all about these little guys and how much time I spent playing with them when I was their age. They were hanging on every word of my story demanding to know more about them, so I Googled it and found the sites above, as well as this one - More Micronauts

I spent almost an hour pouring over these sites and looking at all the toys that I had as a kid remembering how much time I spent playing with these little guys.  I think I've mentioned before how I may have been spoiled with the amount of toys I had as a kid, but none of them ever went to waste. I PLAYED all the time with my toys. Probably much longer than I should have. (hello 12 year old Thomas playing with action figures).  I don't know how I managed to end up with so many different sets, but I suspect that they were not as popular with most kids and that my mom got them at the JC Penny Outlet Store. I don't care. It was awesome, and they kept me entertained and happy for years.


Anyhoo, about 8 years ago I sold 99% of these things to former students of mine.  Students that were of a similar mindset to me at that age.  I did not want these beloved toys going to Goodwill to sit there, neglected, or picked up by a collector who wouldn't play with them.  

It was great. Showing the kids which parts went together, and how you could interchange so many of them. It made me really happy to know that they were going to get a new life.  Just like Woody & Buzz did at the end of Toy Story 3 - 

That's good stuff right there.  


Here are some pics of the ones that I kept.

The Evil Antron

Membros

Antron and Membros have glow in the dark brains!

Pharoid. It's a case that hold the Micronauts.

This is the one that I have left. He's a Space Glider

The chrome coating has faded off a little bit of his gliding wings.

I always thought that this guy looked like Parker Stevenson from The Hardy Boys TV show

Water Dog!

This weekend we took Marley down to West Point Lake to see my brother's family and my parents. It was also a chance to see if he would be a water dog or not.  If you're not familiar with what a water dog is, it's just a dog that really likes to go in the water; swim, retrieve, jump, leap, etc.  It's a pretty awesome thing.


My old dog, Jimi, was a water dog.  He loved to fetch sticks from a lake. He'd do it as long as he had energy. Our other dog, Janis, was not a water dog.  She wanted to, but she had a very traumatic introduction to water as a puppy.


Living in Athens during college GQ and I had access to many different parks with different lakes.  We took Jimi and Janis to one of these when Janis was still a puppy.  As we were walking along the edge of the lake we saw a guy throwing a ball for his dog out into the lake on a dock.  We walked out onto the dock to watch and to our surprise Jimi took off after the ball and the other dog, leaping off the dock. Janis, being in awe of Jimi also took off.  She didn't really leap off the dock though.  She just fell in head first and sank pretty much immediately.  Luckily the water was really shallow, but the stage was set for Janis' relationship with water.


After that  scary experience she was understandably very wary of water.  From that day on Janis would approach lakes, streams, creeks, etc as a demon that could only be vanquished by biting the hell out of it. 


When Jimi was doing his water thing Janis would lie in wait for him to get to shore then POUNCE on him taking the stick and running triumphantly back to us to throw it again.  This scene would play out until Jimi got tired of getting the stick at which point he'd just go lay in the water while Janis would run back and forth looking for another stick within her reach.


So, it's been a while since we've had a water dog.  Marley definitely fits the bill.

We had to do a little bit of luring to get him in the water, but once he got in he was hooked.  He loves to fetch the ball anyway, so adding this variation to the usual was very exciting for him. Except for one part.


My brother's dog, Bandi, is also a water dog.  

You could even say an extreme water dog and it would not be hyperbolic.  Bandi will LEAP from the dock to retrieve her ball after hearing, "Ready? 1,2,3!"  She'll sit there looking back and forth between the ball and whoever threw it waiting. WAITING!!! If she's really impatient she'll take off once you get to "Ready?"  So poor Marley had to sit there and watch Bandi time and time again get the ball that HE REALLY WANTED. 


Unfortunately, Bandi wanted it more and was willing and able to go to the length of launching herself to get the ball while Marley would run back and forth on the dock barking his fool head off. So badly he wanted to be able to jump in and get that ball!  He was shaking with excitement and nervous energy. IT'S JUST SOOOO CLOSE, BUT I JUST CAN'T DOOOO IT!!!!! 


It's okay though because it's just his first time, and seriously, when you're competing against a flying dog there's only so much you can do.  By the end of the day we had two balls; one we'd throw out into the lake for Bandi and the other we'd throw close to the shore so Marley could run down the dock ramp to the muddy shore, swim out to the ball, then turn around and bring it back to us.  This worked fine unless we threw Bandi's ball farther than she was willing to go.  Then she'd go after Marley's ball, and poor guy, there wasn't much he could do then. We're looking forward to getting him so more time in and around the water this summer.

The other things we discovered about Marley are that when he's wet he looks REALLY skinny and his hair gets REALLY curly.


If you've never checked to see if your dog is a water dog then I highly recommend it.  The entertainment value of your dog goes up a good bit if it is.  Of course if they're like Janis (poor Janis) then the entertainment value is there too, but for an entirely different reason.