Any Given Sunday

Yeah, I neglected posting yesterday. As it stands, as an amendment to my previous declaration of needing to do daily posts. My Sundays are usually a pretty big drain on my creative muscles as it is, so I think Sunday will be the day I skip blogging the most often. Every other day though, hold me to it folks.

So, wishing a very Happy Birthday to Aimee's little man, Cameron!

Nerdgaming went fairly well this week. I actually succeeded in writing out more plans than were necessary, leaving me pre-prepared for the next session, as they (in a good way) dawdled their way through part one of the two parts I had planned out. And an npc cameo by my old Elmer Fudd voiced gnomish wizard added to the enjoyment as I set the group out on the first stages of their next, and likely last, adventure.

I'm having a bit of difficulty fully waking up today. I'm wondering if my old fatigue problems are returning. I also need to get my annual oncology appointment scheduled. I'm already a little over a month late doing it. It still blows my mind a little that my surgery was only three and a half years ago. What blows my mind more? In fewer years than that, my Lash will be a teenager. I am getting old.

Dungeons and Dragons

I've been very lazy with my gaming group this past year, "winging" almost every game session with minimal notes, if any (not that I'm not an expert at winging it; they've enjoyed a fully emotionally and intellectually engaging campaign thus far). Now, though, that they enter penultimate act (most likely anyway) of this campaign, I find it's necessary that I not wing it. It's time for a great amount of structure, which is often both my least and most enjoyable aspects of campaign-making, adventure planning, world-building. Face it, when you've as much practice and success at winging it, it's sometimes more daunting to go back to not winging it (that ADJ's gaming group has a gigantic player-made bible to follow for their home campaign leaves me in awe. Of course, I also lack the long-term full-on commitment to fellowship and gameplay as a group that she has, which I'm sure must help. Too many of my group seem to "show up" to games only when the fancy meets them, or when there isn't a football game, or whatever. They're my friends, beloved all, but it can still be really fucking frustrating to craft a campaign that includes plans for all, only to have a key player decide they'd rather spend the second, third and fifth months lerning to knit. This is actually my primary reason for winging it as much as I do: not enough commitment.).

I find myself now, the group mostly consistent and committed, if ultimately small in numbers, sending them on the brink of a stage in the campaign I did plan as possible, but never really expected to find them moving to do: an act of planar exploration and attempted deicide that, regardless of the outcome, will vastly effect the tenor of my game for the remainder of the campaign, and for all of those that follow.

So I find myself today with a rare Saturday off, a wall of books surrounding me, and a need to plan. . .

Let the nerdcore rise up. . .

Sunday Bloody Sunday

Not a lot of great and interesting things to blog about (wait, no, there's lots and lots; don't want to suggest that y'all won't enjoy my ramblings); part of me is blogging at the moment because I want to shuffle that last post on off of the main page here (and I may just temporarily change my template settings to do so). Not that I regret saying any of it; I just don't want the drama overpowering the reading experience here at casa Peterson on the internets.

As for that last post, thanks for the responses, on and off line. Drama has increased as I expected it would.

A lot of energy on the job search this week (as much as can be had with Rael in tow). I've apps and resumes at jobs ranging from working in a funeral home, as a personal secretary and even a return to bad old Round Table Pizza. Brian mentioned trying to get his dad to hire me and I'm hoping that pans out actually, as I'll still have weekends and evenings free.

The kids are all doing fantastic. Did I ever blog about how I once ran into Lash's 2nd grade teacher (who was just done being his 2nd grade teacher as it was summer and shortly before my surgery) out at the bars and that it really disturbed me because it forced me to see and interact with him out of context? If I haven't I won't elaborate this time, but let me know and I will later. Anyway. Friday night I went out with Chrissy, Chris and Brian in order to further celebrate Chrissy's birthday with her and while we were at the Banshee, we ran into Lash's 2nd grade teacher, who is now one of Aeia's 2nd grade teacher's and that same uncomfortable teacher out of context feeling came out again. Chrissy, bless her, tried to save me by letting him know we had to go, and as we turned to leave he grabbed my arm and drew me back in. All he does in these run-ins is gush about how great my kids are, which is very nice to hear--I'd just rather not hear it at the Banshee.

Saturday we skipped HeroClix so that Denise and I could spend a little extra time together and then we spent more time with the Taylors than we usually do on Saturdays. I over-broke my new diet to eat two of the most fantastic burgers with swiss, mushrooms and alfalfa sprouts I've ever tasted. That night was Dark Tower Deadlands and I pulled off getting John's character killed (I actually didn't want to kill the character, as I enjoyed GMing it, and more so because right before the game I'd joked to John that I was going to kill his character because Chris had commented that Deadlands wasn't as deadly as he'd expected it would be).

We also played spoons, which is lame.

Today was Denise's D&D game. Chris had a new character because his last one got itself killed by Drew during his visit (grin) to California. Chris kept inadvertently shooting the party members with his bow instead of the monsters (blasted cover bonuses!), bringing them to near death many times (not me, as I do my best to refuse to engage in combat at all, even from the back of the group). Despite (or not?) all this, Chrissy's character got eaten by a frog (as she was going down she said I could eat her, so after helping kill the frog by beating it with a towel-wapped bar of soap I did just that and then made myself a pretty new halfling skin coat).

That's the extent, mostly, of the fun excitement for now. I got season one of Dexter in from Netflix thi week so I'm hoping to spend a few hours enjoying that over the coming week.

Standard Lines

Tomorrow, the kids return to school. Aeia is much more excited about starting 2nd grade than Lash is about starting 5th. I'm hoping a new teacher will prove more attentive and helpful to his recurring bully problems. Me, I'm looking forward to having a couple weeks of relative calm in the mornings while the kids are in school.

Denise and I have done some significant talking and things are better.

Nerdly updates: last weekend in Brian's Deadlands game, my harrowed Mormon blessed character reached the clearing at the end of the path when I miscalculated the blast radius on some dynamite I used to save the party from some Confederate tanks. Ah well, I did it for the lulz. My new character is going to be a blatant homage to Jake Chambers from Dark Tower. I haven't played a straight-up gunslinger in a while.

Yesterday was the end run on Denise's epic level campaign. We won, systems of government were restructured, oppressive slaving regimes were quashed, etc. and etc.

I've completed all of the main & faction quests in Elder Scrolls IV. Once I get in the video game mood again, I'll probably start exploring Gun and see if I can learn to love the 1st person shooter if it's set in the western genre. Cross them fingers.

Rael is becoming more and more kid and less and less baby. He's fun. Witness and participation in many kids' lightsaber duels now has him going up to people, lightly smacking them and squaking "die." When in the pool, if he can splash you, which he loves, he'll bop his head from side to side and let out a very teasing laugh-song.

I have three more months of DC comics to catch up on before I have to decide if I'm really going to wait until Denise recommences Drawing of the Three before I recommence Order of the Phoenix. Let's all devote a little energy to hoping she'll buckle before I have to consider going back on my resolve.

Is it weird that I'm really looking forward to the release of the straight-to-DVD White Noise 2, starring Nathan Fillion when I hated Keaton's White Noise 1 so very much? The sequel looks a lot better organized, and I greatly prefer Fillion's acting. Not that Keaton's bad, just not my preference. After watching all of Wonderfalls last week, I'm really jonesing for a big influx of writers, directors or actors I most love for their previous association with Joss Whedon projects.

Our dishwasher broke so Lash and I had some shared quality chore time today as I washed and he dried. Chores yippee. And I tackled some of the ever-encroaching clutter in the living room.

Chris returned from the Army last Thursday for the unforseeable future and Chrissy was nice enough to let us hang out with him early, Saturday past instead of Saturday next. I'm glad of it. Thanks Chrissy. It was nice to get to catch up and see him.

I need to decide what I want for my next tattoo in the next week. Probably something not too large or elaborate this time. I need to set myself up with an exercise schedule. I need to redouble job search efforts lest I end up a 33 year old crew member at McDonald's. I need to see about taking another leave of absence and hopefully saving enough moolah to get back to, and finish, my Master's Degree in the spring semester.

Surely I'm forgetting things, but I'm tired and you're forgiving.

Read a Book

Brian's introduced me to the following two hilarious Youtube videos. I think they're keen; one's a video originally from the BET channel, the other I believe is a mock ad for Smirnoff Ice Tea.

Enjoy.

My last week went all right. Our friend Terry (previously, I may have referred to our friends "the lesbians;" Terry was half of this unit) finally came out of the closet as single again after keeping her broken relationship from us for a year. In her new openness at singledom she's become a lot more social again and on Saturday coerced me into going out for a couple drinks with her (hoping she would meet someone naturally). While out we ran into the Comic Shop Girl that one of my friends is completely crushing on, and her roommates. The night ended up being very fun, with skipping, dancing and plenty of innuendo (I'm having difficulty washing off where one of Comic Shop Girl's roommates wrote "sexay" on my arm).

Sunday was the second session of my new nerdgame session run by me. Everyone still seems to really be digging on it, which is refreshing. We've needed refreshing for a while; having just single GM nerding the past year was a drain on my creativity that I hadn't realized until I offered to take one of the sessions over again. Now everyone's having fun in all the sessions again.

In last night's Deadlands game at Brian's we've inadvertently set up a situation where we cause the Confederate army to blow up the Mormon army (we're on neither side, even though my character is a Moron Blessed). He left us cliffhangering that so I can't know for sure until next time.

Otherwise I've been just trying to enjoy my days spending all this time with my kids.

Meanwhile, I want to thank Chrissy and John for all the work they put in helping me get our Mustang back on the road--and on the same day we officially retired the van for all eternity. And want to thank Terry for being my ride back into town from delivering the van to the dismantlers.

I also want to thank my mom for sending me a birthday greeting on my birthday that primarily was a message about how horrible a son I am to her. It didn't bring my day down at all. Fuck you very much, ma.

I hated Transformers even more than I thought I would. So much so that I actually look forward to seeing Harry Potter.

Photograph

Brian requested that I remove this video as he doesn't want to be on the internet and I'm not computer savvy enough to edit his face out of the video. So, sorry folks, the lightsaber duel (along with the background discussion of single 40-something lesbians) is gone (still on my hard drive if anyone wants).

Good

I am so bored right this minute. It will surely pass: I have a book, disk of comics, dvd and a film on laptop all vying for my attention. Just a bit worn out from grocery shopping followed by play-with-my-kids.

So far, while I canceled the cable on Friday and turned in all the equipment, they haven't physically turned it off yet which is nice for Rael because he gets to enjoy his morning cartoons a little longer.

Speaking of morning, I just realized I've forgotten to take my daily meds. Brb.

Denise reports that she woke up from a nightmare the other morning and I was laughing in my sleep. How dare my subconscious be happy without me? I feel like it's being unfaithful.

Having reduced myself to nearly nothing comic book-wise, I'm now selling portions of my original art collection (minus the beautiful Legion page Adj got me and will have to be pried from my cold dead fingers) and a few other goodies to gear up for a bit of bill assistance and the big July HeroClix tourney schedule.

Asshattery: our Sunday edition of Brian's Deadlands game was disturbed, and ruined, by the untimely arrival of his ex-roommate (who is still technically his roommate 'til the first, even though he's already completely moved his stuff and owes them lots of money) with a crowd of his peeps to throw a drunken party in his now empty bedroom. Normally, I'd say the guy's an ass but he's still paying for the room so whatever, but since he left without paying his bills, whatever Brian and his remaining roommate ended up doing to him, I'm certain he deserved. At any rate, it drastically shortened our Sunday night nerdgaming.

Yesterday was Rael's second birthday. We did cupcakes and presents (more to show the other kids that Rael is equally important to us; Rael still isn't really of an age where he gets anything out of having a party)., as the pics in my last post attest.


And while Claire Danes' pretty bum isn't the only reason I love Shopgirl, it definitely ranks in the top five reasons. Revisiting this film shortly after coming down with a terrible bout of heat stroke at HeroClix is about all I did with my Saturday this week.

Veronica

I'm in an Elvis Costello mood, hence the post title. There shall be no actual Veronicas spoken about herein today. Sorry.

Sometimes, post titles being song titles, the posts will just be titled to fit the mood of the music I'm listening to, but usually I'll work to be sure that either the title of the song (post) or the content of that song actually have some sort of resonance for the content of the posting. I'm also going to jukebox the music here when I remember to so that you can enjoy my musical moods as you read along.

There was some nerdiness to be had this weekend. We did a little HeroClix. Saturday night was my twice monthly Deadlands game; it was a good deal of fun for me as a GM, even if they didn't get a whole lot done (which is always ok for me as long as it's fun, dig) but they did reach the waystation, putting them just about halfway through my Gunslinger homage.

Rereading some of what I've typed above, I realized that I copy these posts to my Myspace blog as well (as Ian and others are Myspace peeps now and don't come here for the bloggy goodness) and so some of the things I wrote above, e.g. jukebox, and in some of the previous posts don't make a lot of sense for those readers.

Too bad for them.

All right, Drew has started the inevitable asking of our naming plans for mystery child #4 and I feel like being a bit of a tease. Since we tend to give the kids at least two middle names, I'll preview here for you today the second middle name for mystery child #4.

If MC4 is going to be a boy, the 2nd middle name will be Apocrypha. If MC4 proves female, the 2nd middle name will be Leora.

On Friday, Chrissy accompanied me to get the tires replaced on the Mustang. While driving (yes, driving. It runs! Woot.) to the tire store we discovered that the 'Stang needs a new radiator now too (and I have some question about the brakes). I'm so thankful for Chrissy, she's been such a help & blessing. The plan is to try and pull a good one from the junkyard and replace with it.

Well folks, I think I'm going to sign out here. Heroes just finished TiVoing and I don't want anyone to be able to spoil the season finale for me before I get the chance to watch. So watch it I shall.

Happy Heart

I had a pretty good weekend, folks. How about you?

I didn't get much headway with the paper grading (still 30-something to get done by tomorrow evening), which probably has at least a little bit to do with contributing to the weekend going well.

Saturday I wasn't able to get the kids and myself out to HeroClix because I spent the day with Chrissy working on the Mustang. Thanks so much to her generosity and hard work we've got the alternator, serpentine belt, battery and battery cables replaced. It runs again, woot! Now I just need to pay its tags, replace the tires, the vandalized windshield wipers and have all its fluids changed and checked and we'll be set with a car that'll get us through the summer. So long as I pass all my classes this semester, my student loans in September'll be going toward something new and more suitable to a large family.

Thanks again, Chrissy.

We went to a birthday party, had some barbecue, played a couple hours of cards and thus ended Saturday.

Sunday the kids and I surprised Denise with breakfast in bed. Had a little us time and came to an agreement on the name should mystery child #4 prove male (we're still haggling over the female version of mystery child #4). Then we did the usual weekend nerdgaming.

And now I have the coming week to look forward to: papers to grade over the next two days, finals today and Wednesday, hoping to be able to pay the aforementioned tags (cross fingers for low late fees) and get the 'Stang finished this week. . .

Onward and upward.

Triumph of the ill

Not much exciting has happened since my last post--lots of nerdgaming, a movie. . .

I was in need of a kid break this weekend and since the kids had a birthday party to attend, I got my wish--they went birthday partying and I went to HeroClix and got the game's insidious hooks into John. Plastic clicky toys are the new Magic cards. Meanwhile, Denise and Chrissy were dealing with a boatload of raging children and I don't envy them.

Nerdgaming this weekend was an exercise in players trying to kill off their characters without success. In my Saturday Deadlands game the players finally finished the shoot-out in Tull. Robert's character fell victim to a shotgun while Denise's came very close. John, who wanted to off his harrowed gunslinger had no luck in that endeavor whatsoever.

Thankfully, Brian's realized that Deadlands twice a week is a bit extensive, so soon we'll be doing his Deadlands game on weekends alternating from mine, but not this weekend. This weekend we played as normal on Sunday evening. Robert, not a fan of his character, tried his able best to killed off--and he succeeded when I blew up the French Foreign Legion's ghost rock mining slavery operation. But but butbut. . .he drew a joker and came back a harrowed, so now he has to work to kill himself off again. Hee hee.

Adrienne's the only one who'll care about this one: I was very happy to miss the Amazing Race finale. I think seeing uber-sexist Eric win the thing would have made me throw up in my mouth a little bit. Not that any of the final three made for entertaining reality television.

Oh, and have you seen emo-Spiderman yet? I swear this movie makes every single character in the marvel universe (except JJJ) to look like a pussy. Everyone emos up and gets their angsty tears on. Even Sandman. How does a man made of sand make tears? Venom cries. Peter cries half the movie (and in ultimate emo fashion, the moment he turned supder-emo he changed his hair to reflect it--I felt like I just watched Spider-man getting mind controlled at a Panic! At the Disco concert. I was waiting for him to start cutting himself). Let's leave out a comment on how MJ is a useless twat who does nothing to try and save herself when she gets in trouble, what the hell was up with her manipulative jealous bitch tirades (when she wasn't being emo herself)? It felt like the movie was written by a high school kid with issues and a mad hate for strong women. It had its good moments, though. All of the Sandman fight scenes and effects were great. Bruce Campbell was great. All of the Green Goblin fight scenes were fun (especially the one in the Osborn domicile). Too bad they weren't enough to make me forget emo-Spidey and his gawdawful dance numbers.

We Used to Be Friends

So last night we finally had the return of Veronica Mars from its mid-season hiatus. Knowing that it's now filmed beyond the initial buy for the season I'm starting to have higher hopes for its survival--of course history tells me that this feeling of hopefulness over good tv shows (Angel, Arrested Development, Brisco County Jr., Love Monkey, Grosse Point, Firefly. . .) means I'm killing it. So instead I have feelings of great dread. Maybe that will work. Anyway, besides feeling as if it was way out of character for Veronica to respond to Piz the way she did, I was really happy with the episode. The scene of Veronica at the elementary school was priceless. I don't want to say more in case Krissy hasn't watched it yet.

Just how many sharks are there in the ocean for Lost to jump?

Right now I think the plan is still to see Spider-man 3 on Sunday, I need to call and verify with Krissy on that one, and timing of Saturday's birthday party. This looks to be a fun-filled weekend filled with different fun from normal. Oh, and Saturday is Free Comic Day so go to your local comic store and get your kids some free comics. The Legion of Super Heroes of the 31st Century is a perfect choice for those with the younger kids. I have my own comic rant to get out but that one will have to wait. I need to make sure we're still Deadlands-ing on Saturday too.

La la la la la.

Oh, tomorrow is the big day for Travis. Best to you, bud. We'll be keeping you in our thoughts.

Wild Wild West 2

Speaking of Deadlands, last Sunday night was the most recent installment of Brian's Deadlands game where I played the Sino-Irish Kung Fu Cowboy. Yeah, that's right, played.

Chien O'Malley died and other long-time nerdgamers will surely commiserate over just how apalling it feels when your character dies in extremely lame ways. In my case, my unconscious character bled out at a time when his compadres could easily have taken care of him. Our battle freshly done, my guy passes out, bleeding to death. Both of our healer types, including our magical healing type, rush to another player to heal him when all he had was a minor head wound. In the minute it takes for magical healing to do its thing, my dude bled out and died. So lame. So lame.

What's lamer is that in the past I had wanted to kill him off and move on to something new and now that I'd reached a point where I liked him and wanted him around a bit longer, his pardners chumped out on him.

Wait'll they get a load of my replacement, a Harrowed Mormon Blessed. Insanity must ensue.

Wild Wild West

50 Book Challenge #11: The Dark Tower Book 1: the Gunslinger by Stephen King.

So I've begun to re-read this series (again). If I were Denise, this would be my Harry Potter. I'm not going to wax poetic on what I think of the novel (love it); if that's what you're after just search this blog under the terms "Fuck Stephen King, Fuck Him in his Fucking ear" (or just click the link--see how I enable your sloth?) and you should find my thoughts put forward rather plainly.

Looking over my books, I'm noticing I'm missing one of the last three and only hope I hadn't loaned it to anyone who doesn't live in Chico anymore, as happens way too often to me. I initially thought "maybe Ian has it," but that was idiotic of me because he certainly has his own copy of the whole good and damned series all his own. And so I go back to brain-wracking.

Anyhow, I re-read it this time with a goal: nerdgaming. This Saturday is the Deadlands game run by me where I move to incorporate a lot of themes Y the Last Man, Dark Tower and anything cinematic that fits my needs (last session was a twisted 300 homage). My players who read this won't remember what I'm talking about when I say I plan to send them to Hambry this weekend, but I am and that's why I've jumped back on these books at this precise moment in time.

White and Nerdy

Figured I'd start these long overdue updates with some far out nerdiness reporting. Let's start out with plastic crack nerdiness:

Two weekends back, Bandito, Lash and I went down to Roseville in order to participate in two, count 'em two, HeroClix pre-release tournaments. At these, participants buy three boosters of the as-yet to be released HeroClix edition and form teams with them to face off against other folks' teams. Additionally, all participants get rare purple-ringed figures for showing up, and the top few get more prizes. But really, just do it for the fun of playing the latest set before the regular joe gets to.

By the way, I'm on a school computer and lots of the keys stick so if there are lots of typos, more than usual, it's all their fault.

At the first tournament, I was able to make an awesomely powerful team and I totally dominated the first two rounds of the tournament (there were 5 rounds at tourney #1). Rounds 3-5 my dice refused to roll higher than a five (on two dice) ever, so I lost often and lost badly (but was not a sore loser). Lash had lots of fun, but won none of his matches. At the 2nd tourney we fared just as poorly, but Lash did win one.

Last weekend was the Hero Clix marquee tournament for the new set (again, each participant buys three boosters to build teams from--winners get limited edition figures and all participants get limited edition pogs--this set was the o.g. Wonder Twins.). This time around I was all about the smack-down and took first place (and got a pretty little plastic Supergirl in her black "brainwashed by Darkseid" costume and Lash got second place (out of eight) and its prize of see-through Detective John Jones.

As for the new set, I got enough from my case to build two complete sets and am selling the second on eBay hoping to recoup some of the costs of the case to begin with.

Now on to role playing nerdiness:
Right now Denise GMs two separate D&D games (running them on alternating Sundays). One has a large group, the other a smaller group. Chrissy's oldest son and Lash get to play in the small group, which we keep much more kid friendly. We have this one long-time player, in both groups, who's been long known to ALWAYS get exceptionally good rolls whenever anyone isn't looking or when her character's life depends on it, or when she makes characters, or always. And she absolutely sucks at the role playing aspect of role playing games. Still, I generally feel that, if that's how she has to play in order for it to be fun for her, and it isn't hurting anyone else, just ignore it and simply reward the other players better. Lately Denise has been getting more and more openly irritated with her and I sense a bit of an explosion on the horizon. Le sigh.

Every other Saturday I GM a game at Casa Taylor. On nights where Bandito is able to make it, we play my Exiles themed superheroes game, and on nights when he doesn't make it (as of last week) I GM a Deadlands game. Both games are fun and have a good group. Terry (the gal above) is not a member of either. In superheroes they're currently in the DCU during Zero Hour (colliding through different comic companies due to a Galactus incident that sent them to Invincible's corner of the Image U.) and have no idea what they're supposed to do because their deus ex machina (aka the Tallus) is on the fritz due to the reality shifting nature of Zero Hour. They had a lot of fun dealing with multiple Batmen and Robins; next time they get Superman and his enemies in Metropolis. Anyhow, this weekend was the inaugural Deadlands-when-Paul-ain't-here session and it went very swimmingly. They don't realize it yet, but I'm adapting a lot of pot elements from Y the Last Man and one of my favorite tv shows and putting them in a tumbler with two parts horror and shaking.

Lastly, our pal Brian is popping his own GM cherry by starting his own Deadlands game on Sunday evenings with his roommie/cousin, cousin's girlfriend (very very nice breasts, and I'm not even a breast man), a couple of his other friends and me because I know the rules in-and-out and can help him when stuck on something. He has always been such a character in the games he plays with us. His GMing takes this to the Nth degree and it's a tad surreal. It's been great fun so far, but runs too late into the night. I'm playing a Chinese-Irish kung-fu boxer.

Last week one of those players wanted to get into some long discussument over whether Cyclops or Wolverine would win in a fight. Like I give a fuck (though I'd want Wolvie to gut that family-abandoning, wife-murdering, adulterer Cyclops all over Graymalkin Lane).

Speaking of comics not to give a fuck about:
Almost everything from Marvel Comics.

So they "killed" Captain America. Come on, people, they won't keep that one for long. It would be like killing Superman. Personally, I'm just tired of seeing panels of Captain America (Civil War #7), Ultimate Captain America (Ultimates 2 #9 or 10) and Iron Man (Civil War: Frontline #11) crying like little sissies.

Brian K Vaughn's finished his run on Runaways. Sigh. I'm really going to miss him; he's grown to be one of the most consistently good writers in comics over the past few years (of which there are so very very few--him, Kirkman, Willingham, Seagle and sometimes Whedon & Giffin, and if he could write on time, that Young Avengers writer.) Now Whedon's going to ake over Runaways. Given what I like about Astonishing X-Men (his other regular book) I have high hopes, though I already miss the kids being stationed in California (he's moving them to super-hero central: NYC) and Whedon's first issue isn't even in my hands yet. I also worry that Whedon's spreading himself too thin (something that plagues a lot of comic writers who also do films or tv--thankfully Vaughn's spreading himself too thin only makes his TV shows suck--Lost--and not his comics) with Astonishing, Runaways, Buffy season 8 and the Wonder Woman movie.

Speaking of Vaughn again, Y the Last Man, the best comic produced today (I challenge you to prove otherwise), ends in less than a year. That will leave me with one good book at DC: American Virgin. That and anything with Black Adam tearing people in half for the murder of his wife and brother in-law.

Last week I picked up my comics and only had 4 books, so I commented "wow, small week this week" and the shop owner snapped at me that it was actually a really big week, but now that I've dropped almost everything it just seems small. Wah. Comics are effing expensive; too effing expensive to waste money on when they start to suck. It took me a long time to ge to this point, and now I only get like 1`2 books a month.

Where'd You Go?

Not much to say right now. Have spent good amounts of the last week sick again. Sigh.

This weekend was filled with HeroClix pre-release tournaments (more on that later) and nerdgaming (also more later, including the all-new Deadlands group).

Just want y'all to know we're alive and well, and I'll be posting tomorrow or so.