...it's just a jump to the left...
I could probably look up the lyrics and all to one of the Rocky Horror Picture Show's most famous songs, but instead I'll just use it as a handy framing device for this blog post! Ta-da!
So the times they are a-changing here in the DeBord home. Of primary significance is the loss of my job at the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, which I mentioned with such enthusiasm in my previous post. Unfortunately, my position was cut, so the Fellowship bought out my work contract, gave me some compensation for the agreed-upon remainder of my work period, and sent me packin'. I must say, I appreciate them ending the work relationship by essentially laying me off rather than just up and firing me, but the loss of the good pay and flexible hours really hurts. Also, the fact that they didn't give me any sort of warning before they did this kind of sucked. But life goes on.
...and then a step to the right...
In happier news: hey, look! It's the holidays! Since "the holidays" start in late September these days, I'll give a recap of what Shannon and I did for Halloween in addition to what we've got coming up over the next month of holiday festivities.
For Halloween, we basically ended up making the weekend preceding the actual day our time to get festive. We spent basically the whole day Saturday doing stuff like baking pumpkin chocolate chip muffins (sweet lord, they're awesome!), carving a pumpkin to resemble Jack Skellington a la Shannon's obsession with Nightmare Before Christmas, making roasted pumpkin seeds, and watching Halloween movies like Hocus Pocus and Nightmare Before Christmas. In short, it was a pretty great weekend.
So now we're rolling around to Thanksgiving. Shannon and I are planning on having a big Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday just for the two of us, but I'll be leaving town on Friday to go take part in my best friend Eli's wedding. I'm the best man, so I'll be all up in that mess, but Shannon has to work on Friday, so she won't be able to come with. As a result, we spent this weekend kind of doing our post-Thanksgiving weekend Christmas decorating. We put up our Christmas tree, my vast collection of Charlie Brown Christmas ornaments, and the few other things we had lying around. It's not exactly a winter wonderland in here, but we had a lot of fun. Plus, this just gave us an excuse to listen to Sufjan Stevens and Vince Guaraldi Christmas music, so it's totally worth it!
...put your hands on your hips and bring your knees in tight...
I've had some fun in my personal reading lately also. I started rereading Plato's Republic for the first time since I initially read it in my freshman year of college. It's been a strange experience reading it after finishing the Honor's program. I feel like I can actually understand the book much better than I could in my first reading. It's also really weird trying to remember what I thought about Socrates and his arguments in my first reading compared to what I think now. I'll have to post about that after I finish the book, since I'm currently only through Book IV. We'll see what happens.
...but its the pelvic thrust that really drives you insane...
Okay, so maybe that last line doesn't really add to the post...
And so, my friends, we come to the end of another post about the misadventures of Gravitas the Magnificent and the tall dude whose face he occupies. I'm currently on the job hunt to make up for my lost position at CBF, and school continues to have its moments of utter despair and absolute enlightenment. My thesis is progressing slowly; I'm still in the preliminary research stages. I'll post about my topic and perhaps some other thoughts that have been churning around in my noggin sometime soon. But until then, my friends...
Let's do the Time Warp again!!!
18 November 2012
31 August 2012
Connect the Dots: A Year in Retrospect
Another silent year, another random blog post! Yes, folks, after nearly twelve months of silence, I've decided to carry on with this tom-foolery called blogging and give you all an update on life here in the ATL.
First of all, probably the biggest news I can communicate is that I am now happily married! I have the privelege of being wed to Mrs. Shannon DeBord (formerly Pringle for you new readers). We were married on 28 July in Yellowstone National Park, which is where we first met. The setting, the attendants, and the service were all absolutely perfect except for a renegade aisle runner that decided it would be cool to get blown around by the wind. Altogether, it was an absolutely blissful experience.
After going home to work and rest from travel for a few days after the wedding, Shannon and I travelled out to San Francisco, CA for a week for our honeymoon. If you haven't been to the City by the Bay, I must strongly recommend it. Shannon and I had an absolute blast, seeing popular tourist sites like Fisherman's Wharf, Union Square, and the SF Zoo. We even got to ride the historic Cable Cars that are so famous. And let me just say: the food there was spectacular. You seriously couldn't walk a block without hitting some kind of locally owned, crazy delicious sort of restaurant. Shannon and I were particularly fond of a Thai place called Chabaa, where we ate dinner twice during the week, and the Taylor Street Cafe, right downstairs from our hotel room in the Hotel Mark Twain. Folks. Go there. Eat the croissant breakfast sandwich. Then call me afterwards and we will exchange tele-high-fives, because it is seriously that cussing good.
In other news, I'm now in my second year at McAfee School of Theology, pursuing a Masters of Divinity. I've declared myself to be on the Academic Research Track in the program, which basically entails taking the next two years to develop and write a sixty-page thesis in addition to all my other classwork (i.e., I have a penchant for academic self-abuse). I'm doing this because it will help me look good for applying to PhD programs after I graduate from McAfee, and also because it will allow me to really get an idea of what doing academic research for the rest of my life is going to look like. My eventual goal is to obtain a PhD, probably in biblical studies or something of that sort, then to teach that same subject in a liberal arts university. I could let you all know about my proposed topic, but this post is becoming pretty lengthy, so I'll leave that for another post perhaps.
So anyway, on to some miscellany! Shannon and I are now living in an apartment complex in Dunwoody, on the north side of Atlanta, which we like much better than our respective former apartments. Our dog, Seamus, has grown and matured a good bit, but he's still a pup, so he can still get out of all the trouble he gets in by flashing that little puppy face of his. Shannon and I recently started going to Dunwoody Baptist Church, and we think this could be the church for us, which is really exciting because we were on the verge of giving up on finding a church home here in Atlanta.
Also of note, I am no longer working at Caribou Coffee. I enjoyed my time working there, but the hours became somewhat restrictive and difficult to juggle in relation to my school work. I am now working with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship as a Marketing Research Assistant (read: data monkey) and I am really enjoying my time here. The pay and hours are much better, and I am really beginning to get plugged into what the Fellowship is doing. Probably more on that sometime later as well.
Well, I think that's enough for now, friends. I hope you all have fared well this past year and I would encourage you to drop me a line sometime.
Keep checking back for posts, dear Readers, and may the luck of the Valar* be with you!
*25,000 awesome points to the person who is able to identify that reference.
First of all, probably the biggest news I can communicate is that I am now happily married! I have the privelege of being wed to Mrs. Shannon DeBord (formerly Pringle for you new readers). We were married on 28 July in Yellowstone National Park, which is where we first met. The setting, the attendants, and the service were all absolutely perfect except for a renegade aisle runner that decided it would be cool to get blown around by the wind. Altogether, it was an absolutely blissful experience.
After going home to work and rest from travel for a few days after the wedding, Shannon and I travelled out to San Francisco, CA for a week for our honeymoon. If you haven't been to the City by the Bay, I must strongly recommend it. Shannon and I had an absolute blast, seeing popular tourist sites like Fisherman's Wharf, Union Square, and the SF Zoo. We even got to ride the historic Cable Cars that are so famous. And let me just say: the food there was spectacular. You seriously couldn't walk a block without hitting some kind of locally owned, crazy delicious sort of restaurant. Shannon and I were particularly fond of a Thai place called Chabaa, where we ate dinner twice during the week, and the Taylor Street Cafe, right downstairs from our hotel room in the Hotel Mark Twain. Folks. Go there. Eat the croissant breakfast sandwich. Then call me afterwards and we will exchange tele-high-fives, because it is seriously that cussing good.
In other news, I'm now in my second year at McAfee School of Theology, pursuing a Masters of Divinity. I've declared myself to be on the Academic Research Track in the program, which basically entails taking the next two years to develop and write a sixty-page thesis in addition to all my other classwork (i.e., I have a penchant for academic self-abuse). I'm doing this because it will help me look good for applying to PhD programs after I graduate from McAfee, and also because it will allow me to really get an idea of what doing academic research for the rest of my life is going to look like. My eventual goal is to obtain a PhD, probably in biblical studies or something of that sort, then to teach that same subject in a liberal arts university. I could let you all know about my proposed topic, but this post is becoming pretty lengthy, so I'll leave that for another post perhaps.
So anyway, on to some miscellany! Shannon and I are now living in an apartment complex in Dunwoody, on the north side of Atlanta, which we like much better than our respective former apartments. Our dog, Seamus, has grown and matured a good bit, but he's still a pup, so he can still get out of all the trouble he gets in by flashing that little puppy face of his. Shannon and I recently started going to Dunwoody Baptist Church, and we think this could be the church for us, which is really exciting because we were on the verge of giving up on finding a church home here in Atlanta.
Also of note, I am no longer working at Caribou Coffee. I enjoyed my time working there, but the hours became somewhat restrictive and difficult to juggle in relation to my school work. I am now working with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship as a Marketing Research Assistant (read: data monkey) and I am really enjoying my time here. The pay and hours are much better, and I am really beginning to get plugged into what the Fellowship is doing. Probably more on that sometime later as well.
Well, I think that's enough for now, friends. I hope you all have fared well this past year and I would encourage you to drop me a line sometime.
Keep checking back for posts, dear Readers, and may the luck of the Valar* be with you!
*25,000 awesome points to the person who is able to identify that reference.
22 September 2011
Holy craps, you guys...!
So listen, yesterday was a pretty awesome day. For one thing, COMICS! And we'll get back to that. But the other thing that was so awesome about yesterday was that I spent like 3 hours at Shannon's apartment with our dog, Seamus, and he was fan-freakin-tastic! Seriously though, I played with him for like an hour, and I'm pretty sure he's like a week away from learning how to play fetch with a tennis ball. I'm pretty pumped about that because that's the kind of stuff that I really want out of having a dog. Basically, for me, the benefits of getting a dog are as follows:
Companionship + SuperHyperFuntime + Fetch - poop = GET A CUSSING DOG!!!
On top of the SuperHyperFuntimes and almost Fetch stuff, he actually let me know when he had to go outside to use the restroom so I didn't have to yell at him the whole time I was there with him. Hooray for good days with puppy!
In other news, yesterday was Wednesday, today it is Thursday. I- I- I'm so excited. I'm so excited... about the fantastic comics I picked up yesterday. So let's dive right in.
Batman -- Written by Scott Snyder; Art by Greg Capullo and Jonathan Glapion
On the DC side of things this week, I think I found a winner. Batman #1 is one of my favorite picks since the New 52 reboot. Definitely a good part of what made this book so good was the fantastic writing of Scott Snyder, who also wrote the issue of Swamp Thing I read and reviewed last week, which I also highly praised. One of the things I loved so much about the writing of this issue is that it does such a good job of giving you all the detail you need to understand Bruce Wayne's/Batman's history in such a clever and natural way. Listen. In a single page, the creative team lets you know about all of the present and former Robins that have ever worked with Batman, lets you know what they're up to now, and throws in a joke about Alfred have higher security clearance than any of them. Awesome. Other than that, the story just got you really engaged and did a great job of establishing the status quo in Gotham where everything is going to crap but Batman is there to clean up the thugs and Bruce Wayne is there to throw money at it. Because that's how it works. In short this story shows us three things in order to get the Bat-Ball rolling: 1) Batman is a brooding, bad-a**, super-detective with some friends who are also pretty bad-a**; 2) Bruce Wayne has more money than he knows what to do with, so he figures that he might as well use it after all these years to try to make Gotham a better place; and 3) Alfred is still pretty boss. The comic also does a good job of setting up a nice big mystery for Batman to solve and really draws the reader on to want to pick up the next issue. I only read through this issue once, so I didn't have a super detailed look at the art, but so far it looks pretty great. There's a good balance of the darkness and depravity of Gotham without going too over the edge on making Batman look like he's going purely on 'roid-rage. Like I said, this is one of my favorites of the New 52, so go pick it up.
Invincible Iron Man #508 -- Written by Matt Fraction; Art by Frank D'Armata and Salvador Larroca
Moving on to the Marvel side of my picks this week, I'll start with Invincible Iron Man #508. Now, there's a lot going on in this book because it's tied into the whole "Fear Itself" event series, but let me simply say that this is just a solid comic book. Since the Fear Itself event kicked off in April, this series' set of tie-ins have been getting a lot of positive buzz. I didn't pick up most of the titles up until this point because I wasn't really wowed by issue #503 when I picked that up in the first part of April. But a couple weeks ago I decided to read through the intermittent issues since then and really liked what I saw. The best thing about this series right now is that the creative team is really putting Tony Stark/Iron Man through a major sort of faith crisis in that he's actually having to have some sort of faith. Taking a man who is totally reliant upon technology and reason and plopping him in the middle of a war between Asgardian deities that is bound to destroy Earth one way or another sort of makes one think theologically for some reason. Anyway. Great story going on here if you wanna get caught up on it. Not great if you're just trying to pick up something to try out, though.
Hulk Vs. Dracula #1 -- Written by Victor Gischler; Art by Ryan Stegman
Yeah. It's that awesome. I was actually very pleasantly surprised by this comic. I was really just expecting a bunch of vampire jokes and the uber-Fear-hammer-powered Hulk to just smash the crap out of everything, and that part was certainly delivered upon, but the book was a lot smarter than I thought it would be. The art was pleasant, not offensive or kitschy at all. And the story was fairly engaging. I'll probably pick up the subsequent issues just to finish the 3-issue mini-series, but I don't think it will be a chore to read them.
So that's it for this week, dear friends. I hope these comic reviews aren't totally turning you off to checking in occasionally. I'll eventually deliver on some of the other things I said this blog would be about when I restarted it in July. Until then, remember this: the Hulk may be fighting Dracula, but he has yet to surf a Dracula-bot all the way from Dracula's Moon base into a small Midwestern town. Top that, Marvel creators!!!
Leave lots of comments!!!
Companionship + SuperHyperFuntime + Fetch - poop = GET A CUSSING DOG!!!
On top of the SuperHyperFuntimes and almost Fetch stuff, he actually let me know when he had to go outside to use the restroom so I didn't have to yell at him the whole time I was there with him. Hooray for good days with puppy!
In other news, yesterday was Wednesday, today it is Thursday. I- I- I'm so excited. I'm so excited... about the fantastic comics I picked up yesterday. So let's dive right in.
Batman -- Written by Scott Snyder; Art by Greg Capullo and Jonathan Glapion
On the DC side of things this week, I think I found a winner. Batman #1 is one of my favorite picks since the New 52 reboot. Definitely a good part of what made this book so good was the fantastic writing of Scott Snyder, who also wrote the issue of Swamp Thing I read and reviewed last week, which I also highly praised. One of the things I loved so much about the writing of this issue is that it does such a good job of giving you all the detail you need to understand Bruce Wayne's/Batman's history in such a clever and natural way. Listen. In a single page, the creative team lets you know about all of the present and former Robins that have ever worked with Batman, lets you know what they're up to now, and throws in a joke about Alfred have higher security clearance than any of them. Awesome. Other than that, the story just got you really engaged and did a great job of establishing the status quo in Gotham where everything is going to crap but Batman is there to clean up the thugs and Bruce Wayne is there to throw money at it. Because that's how it works. In short this story shows us three things in order to get the Bat-Ball rolling: 1) Batman is a brooding, bad-a**, super-detective with some friends who are also pretty bad-a**; 2) Bruce Wayne has more money than he knows what to do with, so he figures that he might as well use it after all these years to try to make Gotham a better place; and 3) Alfred is still pretty boss. The comic also does a good job of setting up a nice big mystery for Batman to solve and really draws the reader on to want to pick up the next issue. I only read through this issue once, so I didn't have a super detailed look at the art, but so far it looks pretty great. There's a good balance of the darkness and depravity of Gotham without going too over the edge on making Batman look like he's going purely on 'roid-rage. Like I said, this is one of my favorites of the New 52, so go pick it up.
Invincible Iron Man #508 -- Written by Matt Fraction; Art by Frank D'Armata and Salvador Larroca
Moving on to the Marvel side of my picks this week, I'll start with Invincible Iron Man #508. Now, there's a lot going on in this book because it's tied into the whole "Fear Itself" event series, but let me simply say that this is just a solid comic book. Since the Fear Itself event kicked off in April, this series' set of tie-ins have been getting a lot of positive buzz. I didn't pick up most of the titles up until this point because I wasn't really wowed by issue #503 when I picked that up in the first part of April. But a couple weeks ago I decided to read through the intermittent issues since then and really liked what I saw. The best thing about this series right now is that the creative team is really putting Tony Stark/Iron Man through a major sort of faith crisis in that he's actually having to have some sort of faith. Taking a man who is totally reliant upon technology and reason and plopping him in the middle of a war between Asgardian deities that is bound to destroy Earth one way or another sort of makes one think theologically for some reason. Anyway. Great story going on here if you wanna get caught up on it. Not great if you're just trying to pick up something to try out, though.
Hulk Vs. Dracula #1 -- Written by Victor Gischler; Art by Ryan Stegman
Yeah. It's that awesome. I was actually very pleasantly surprised by this comic. I was really just expecting a bunch of vampire jokes and the uber-Fear-hammer-powered Hulk to just smash the crap out of everything, and that part was certainly delivered upon, but the book was a lot smarter than I thought it would be. The art was pleasant, not offensive or kitschy at all. And the story was fairly engaging. I'll probably pick up the subsequent issues just to finish the 3-issue mini-series, but I don't think it will be a chore to read them.
So that's it for this week, dear friends. I hope these comic reviews aren't totally turning you off to checking in occasionally. I'll eventually deliver on some of the other things I said this blog would be about when I restarted it in July. Until then, remember this: the Hulk may be fighting Dracula, but he has yet to surf a Dracula-bot all the way from Dracula's Moon base into a small Midwestern town. Top that, Marvel creators!!!
Leave lots of comments!!!
19 September 2011
Every dog has his day
This weekend, the wonderful Shannon Pringle and I were visited by some dear friends of ours from our time in Yellowstone National Park last summer. They stayed at Shannon's apartment for the weekend, and while I was working on Saturday morning, they convinced her to go to the Atlanta Humane Society to look at puppies. Shannon and I have been looking into getting a dog for a little over a month now, so this wasn't a huge surprise, but when I got off work, I got a call from them telling me to come down to the Humane Society to look at a dog.
When I got there, I pretty much knew that the dog lying in Shannon's arms would be coming home with us. It only took about 45 minutes from the time I got there for us to finish up the adoption process and take our new puppy home. So now I proudly present the newest member of our little family.
Everyone, meet Seamus Took (Pringle/DeBord)! He is a 4-month old Beagle mix and He. Is. Awesome. So far he's been really great, though he still could use some work on figuring out when he's allowed to pee and what not. We got him a crate yesterday and he didn't hesitate before climbing in there and sleeping for like 6 hours. I guess that's been most of what he's done since he got home. Which has been good for us, so we actually have time to hang out without freaking out that he's chewing on something.
So life has been changing rapidly for us these days, but things are going really well. Thanks for reading. Updates on Seamus's growth and life with us will definitely be forthcoming.
When I got there, I pretty much knew that the dog lying in Shannon's arms would be coming home with us. It only took about 45 minutes from the time I got there for us to finish up the adoption process and take our new puppy home. So now I proudly present the newest member of our little family.
So life has been changing rapidly for us these days, but things are going really well. Thanks for reading. Updates on Seamus's growth and life with us will definitely be forthcoming.
14 September 2011
I'm not quite dead yet...
So it's been like 2 months since my last post. My bad folks. I know you've all been wondering, "What could have happened?! Was Jordan consumed by some strange sort of hybrid bear-velociraptor cosmonaut from an alternate dimension?!" Well, fear not, gentle Readers, for not only was I not viciously eaten by aforementioned cosmonaut, but we have become close friends. Her name is Paulette. She loves to cook, watch foreign films about balloons, and travel through space and time in her specially designed Wiener Mobile.
In other news, today I am going to celebrate my blog's glorious return from silence and obscurity by actually delivering on one of the subjects which this blog was intended to cover. Namely, I will discussing a few of the comics I've picked up in recent weeks.
Of course, the biggest story in the comics industry at the moment is the recent reboot of DC Comics ENTIRE LINE of comics (new Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, etc. comics). This is a pretty big deal for comics readers and non-readers alike, since this move was intended both as a way to reenergize the line for long-time fans and to open things up for curious would-be readers. I've been reading Marvel comics pretty much exclusively since I started reading comics in April (especially Thor comics and some Spider-Man and Avengers stuff), but this event seemed like an appropriate opportunity to dive into another line of comics and see if DC had anything I would appreciate. Here's what I've come up with so far.
Action Comics #1 -- Written by Grant Morrison; Art by Rags Morales and Rick Bryant
Now, for one thing, the reboot has been such a huge deal for long-time readers because of comics like Action Comics, which, before the reboot, was one of the longest continuous running series EVER. Before the line relaunched a few weeks ago, Action Comics was well into the 900's! As you can tell, Action Comics is a Superman title, so having a relaunch of the series that introduced one of the most seminal and recognizable of all super-heroes is a fairly big deal. What is fantastic about this comic, however, is that the creative team didn't just pop out rehashed origin book. We're all familiar in some degree with Superman's origin story, especially if anybody has watched about 3 seconds of Smallville. So instead of saying, "Hey, this is where Superman came from, as if you didn't already know." Morrison et al actually gave the reader enough credit to assume he/she could INFER any changes to that origin story by inserting those types of changes in this story about Superman before he was the complete Superman we're all most familiar with. On that note, this story is about Superman's early career as a super-hero concerned more with social equality and the equal distribution of justice to rich and poor alike than he is about stopping giant meteors from crashing into the planet. So we have a bit of motivation for the character, but I think the greatest thing about this comic is that it promises serious growth for the character. We all know what Superman will be like some day, but in this series, we get to watch him become the hero we know. At this point, the best the young hero can do is leap tall buildings and show some exceptional levels of strength. Yet, in the comic, when he is required to try to stop a runaway train, he can't quite accomplish it. Now this may be more of my bias about the complete Superman, but I was never really interested in him before because he was basically a god. It's nearly impossible to defeat him. But this Superman gets overwhelmed by a train. I don't know, but this seems like a character that I want to see developed. Definitely a recommended comic for anyone interested.
Alright, well that was a ludicrously long review of a single comic, so for the rest, I'll just give quick blurbs. Send me a message if you'd like a more complete review of any of them and I might write them up as a separate post. Thanks for reading.
Batgirl #1 -- Written by Gail Simone; Art by Adrian Syaf and Vicente Cifuentes
There were elements of this book that I liked, but there's a lot of history to this character that sort of gets brushed under the rug. Good art, but the dialogue and the captions were confusing at times.
Batman and Robin #1 -- Written by Peter J. Tomasi; Art by Patrick Gleason and Mick Gray
This was definitely one of my favorite books so far. Tomasi is taking Batman in a new direction concerning his memorialization of his parents, but there is still a lot of darkness in the book, especially with Robin, who is Bruce Wayne's son, Damian, in this comic. Damian has grown up under the tutelage of a man basically obsessed with death and justice, so one could understand that he would have a very dark, pragmatic outlook on life. On top of that, his dialogue makes him out to be a total wise-a**, which is pretty awesome. Great, great book with very good art and dialogue.
Batwoman #1 -- Written by J.H. Williams III and W. Haden Blackman; Art and cover by J.H. Williams III
Ok, this book was absolutely brilliant. Snyder has done a great job of incorporating Swamp Thing, who was previously a sort of fringe character for the DC Universe, straight into the mix. The art of this book is really really interesting and fun, and coupled with the writing, makes for an entertaining, yet creepy book that perfectly embodies a sort of horror/superhero genre. Definitely going to be following this one.
Alright, that's all for today, kiddies. For more info on these comics and the rest of the new DC Comics line, go to the DC Comics website. For better informed reviews of some of these comics and general comics culture related news, go to ComicsAlliance.
In other news, today I am going to celebrate my blog's glorious return from silence and obscurity by actually delivering on one of the subjects which this blog was intended to cover. Namely, I will discussing a few of the comics I've picked up in recent weeks.
Of course, the biggest story in the comics industry at the moment is the recent reboot of DC Comics ENTIRE LINE of comics (new Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, etc. comics). This is a pretty big deal for comics readers and non-readers alike, since this move was intended both as a way to reenergize the line for long-time fans and to open things up for curious would-be readers. I've been reading Marvel comics pretty much exclusively since I started reading comics in April (especially Thor comics and some Spider-Man and Avengers stuff), but this event seemed like an appropriate opportunity to dive into another line of comics and see if DC had anything I would appreciate. Here's what I've come up with so far.
Action Comics #1 -- Written by Grant Morrison; Art by Rags Morales and Rick Bryant
Now, for one thing, the reboot has been such a huge deal for long-time readers because of comics like Action Comics, which, before the reboot, was one of the longest continuous running series EVER. Before the line relaunched a few weeks ago, Action Comics was well into the 900's! As you can tell, Action Comics is a Superman title, so having a relaunch of the series that introduced one of the most seminal and recognizable of all super-heroes is a fairly big deal. What is fantastic about this comic, however, is that the creative team didn't just pop out rehashed origin book. We're all familiar in some degree with Superman's origin story, especially if anybody has watched about 3 seconds of Smallville. So instead of saying, "Hey, this is where Superman came from, as if you didn't already know." Morrison et al actually gave the reader enough credit to assume he/she could INFER any changes to that origin story by inserting those types of changes in this story about Superman before he was the complete Superman we're all most familiar with. On that note, this story is about Superman's early career as a super-hero concerned more with social equality and the equal distribution of justice to rich and poor alike than he is about stopping giant meteors from crashing into the planet. So we have a bit of motivation for the character, but I think the greatest thing about this comic is that it promises serious growth for the character. We all know what Superman will be like some day, but in this series, we get to watch him become the hero we know. At this point, the best the young hero can do is leap tall buildings and show some exceptional levels of strength. Yet, in the comic, when he is required to try to stop a runaway train, he can't quite accomplish it. Now this may be more of my bias about the complete Superman, but I was never really interested in him before because he was basically a god. It's nearly impossible to defeat him. But this Superman gets overwhelmed by a train. I don't know, but this seems like a character that I want to see developed. Definitely a recommended comic for anyone interested.
Alright, well that was a ludicrously long review of a single comic, so for the rest, I'll just give quick blurbs. Send me a message if you'd like a more complete review of any of them and I might write them up as a separate post. Thanks for reading.
Batgirl #1 -- Written by Gail Simone; Art by Adrian Syaf and Vicente Cifuentes
There were elements of this book that I liked, but there's a lot of history to this character that sort of gets brushed under the rug. Good art, but the dialogue and the captions were confusing at times.
Batman and Robin #1 -- Written by Peter J. Tomasi; Art by Patrick Gleason and Mick Gray
This was definitely one of my favorite books so far. Tomasi is taking Batman in a new direction concerning his memorialization of his parents, but there is still a lot of darkness in the book, especially with Robin, who is Bruce Wayne's son, Damian, in this comic. Damian has grown up under the tutelage of a man basically obsessed with death and justice, so one could understand that he would have a very dark, pragmatic outlook on life. On top of that, his dialogue makes him out to be a total wise-a**, which is pretty awesome. Great, great book with very good art and dialogue.
Batwoman #1 -- Written by J.H. Williams III and W. Haden Blackman; Art and cover by J.H. Williams III
This book honestly let me down a bit. The cover art and previews of the first few pages I had seen of the book in comics blogs looked really promising as far the art goes, but the artists sort of seemed to give up after a while and it dropped off. The dialogue was pretty good, but there were at least three scenes where Batwoman and her sidekick Plebe were changing into or out of their costumes, thus yielding several panels of side-boob. Not really what I'm looking for, thanks. As for the story, the villain looks really interesting, but I don't think it'll be enough to get more of my money.
Swamp Thing #1 -- Written by Scott Snyder; Art and cover by Yanick Paquette
Alright, that's all for today, kiddies. For more info on these comics and the rest of the new DC Comics line, go to the DC Comics website. For better informed reviews of some of these comics and general comics culture related news, go to ComicsAlliance.
15 July 2011
Gravitas Victorious!
At last, Dear Reader(s), the herculean trial of finding a job has come to an end for our hero, i.e., myself. It took a strenuous month of job hunting through websites, location visits, dead-ends, and frustrations with the seemingly endless incompetence of the management of a certain bread company location, but at last Gravitas has found gainful employment.
To tell the tale of this triumphant hour, we must go back a week. Last week, I was going about my usual routine of doing some job hunting amidst my digital meanderings. I found a couple of new job openings through a job search site I've been using, including a Team Member position at Caribou Coffee (basically a Northern version of Starbucks, for all you that have not seen a Caribou in your area) and a Catering Driver position at Einstein Bros. Bagels. I believe I filled out these applications of Wednesday or Thursday of last week.
Finally, on Friday, I decided to visit a couple of stores I had applied at, just to make sure those locations were hiring and so that the managers might know me better and consider giving me an interview more seriously. I must attribute credit to Shannon for giving me the idea to do so.
Anyway, when I went in to Caribou, I spoke to the manager, and she said she had reviewed my application. She asked me to come in for an interview on Monday, 11 July. I went in for my interview full of a blend of optimism and sheer desperation. The interview went well, and together the manager and I achieved the milestone of figuring out that if I were one animal, I would be a dog! Yay!
Anyway. She told me I would hear back from her by Wednesday or Thursday, so the next couple of days were spent in nervous anticipation. Finally, yesterday I got an email Caribou offering me the job! Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah!
And that, dear Reader(s), is the tale of how I got a job at Caribou Coffee Company, Inc. Also, this job will be baller because (1) they're paying me $8/hour; (2) I get a free half pound of coffee or tea a week as an employee; and (3) I get 30% off of everything in the store!
Thank you, friends, for bearing with me through this over long process of finding a job and then telling you about how I found a job. It's been a blasty blast. Now, I've used far too many exclamation marks in this post, so I think that's it for today.
To quote the slogan of my new employer by way of a farewell: "Life is short. Stay awake for it."
To tell the tale of this triumphant hour, we must go back a week. Last week, I was going about my usual routine of doing some job hunting amidst my digital meanderings. I found a couple of new job openings through a job search site I've been using, including a Team Member position at Caribou Coffee (basically a Northern version of Starbucks, for all you that have not seen a Caribou in your area) and a Catering Driver position at Einstein Bros. Bagels. I believe I filled out these applications of Wednesday or Thursday of last week.
Finally, on Friday, I decided to visit a couple of stores I had applied at, just to make sure those locations were hiring and so that the managers might know me better and consider giving me an interview more seriously. I must attribute credit to Shannon for giving me the idea to do so.
Anyway, when I went in to Caribou, I spoke to the manager, and she said she had reviewed my application. She asked me to come in for an interview on Monday, 11 July. I went in for my interview full of a blend of optimism and sheer desperation. The interview went well, and together the manager and I achieved the milestone of figuring out that if I were one animal, I would be a dog! Yay!
Anyway. She told me I would hear back from her by Wednesday or Thursday, so the next couple of days were spent in nervous anticipation. Finally, yesterday I got an email Caribou offering me the job! Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah!
And that, dear Reader(s), is the tale of how I got a job at Caribou Coffee Company, Inc. Also, this job will be baller because (1) they're paying me $8/hour; (2) I get a free half pound of coffee or tea a week as an employee; and (3) I get 30% off of everything in the store!
Thank you, friends, for bearing with me through this over long process of finding a job and then telling you about how I found a job. It's been a blasty blast. Now, I've used far too many exclamation marks in this post, so I think that's it for today.
To quote the slogan of my new employer by way of a farewell: "Life is short. Stay awake for it."
10 July 2011
Patience...
First of all: Boom! Two posts within 24 hours! Suck it interwebs, for Jordan DeBord's laziness truly can be overcome! Hazzah!
As for the point of this post, I came across an interesting little conundrum this evening as I settled in to the apartment for the night.
As many of you might have surmised, Atlanta--being in the Southeastern United States--is hotter than balls in mid-July! So, upon arriving at the apartment and putting away some stuff in my room, I decided I wanted a nice cool beverage from the refrigerator. I know you can already tell how difficult my life is from what I've described thus far, but bear in mind, dear Reader(s), things are about to get REAL!
So, I proceeded to my local icebox and withdrew the last bottled water from my assigned shelf. And what do I find?! Do I find the water to be cool and refreshing, ready to quench my thirst after a long day of driving to my girlfriend's apartment and taking a nap there for like an hour before watching That 70's Show and eating brownies she made for us?! NO! Instead, the water is frozen almost entirely throughout the bottle, and when I try to open it, what water remains unfrozen overflows out of the top!
What. The. Cuss.
Hopefully by this point, Reader(s), you have guessed that I'm not actually that disturbed by the fact that my water bottle is mostly frozen. But it does bring up an interesting point about what we members of a first world nation consider an issue. I don't intend to be all preachy and what not about how we're actually so fortunate and we need to consider what people in third world countries have to go through just to get a couple gallons of nasty polluted river water, but I wanted to ask you to consider what you are annoyed by in reference to the rest of the world next time you're coffee ends up burnt at Starbucks or your order at McDonald's gets messed up.
Thanks for reading.
As for the point of this post, I came across an interesting little conundrum this evening as I settled in to the apartment for the night.
As many of you might have surmised, Atlanta--being in the Southeastern United States--is hotter than balls in mid-July! So, upon arriving at the apartment and putting away some stuff in my room, I decided I wanted a nice cool beverage from the refrigerator. I know you can already tell how difficult my life is from what I've described thus far, but bear in mind, dear Reader(s), things are about to get REAL!
So, I proceeded to my local icebox and withdrew the last bottled water from my assigned shelf. And what do I find?! Do I find the water to be cool and refreshing, ready to quench my thirst after a long day of driving to my girlfriend's apartment and taking a nap there for like an hour before watching That 70's Show and eating brownies she made for us?! NO! Instead, the water is frozen almost entirely throughout the bottle, and when I try to open it, what water remains unfrozen overflows out of the top!
What. The. Cuss.
Hopefully by this point, Reader(s), you have guessed that I'm not actually that disturbed by the fact that my water bottle is mostly frozen. But it does bring up an interesting point about what we members of a first world nation consider an issue. I don't intend to be all preachy and what not about how we're actually so fortunate and we need to consider what people in third world countries have to go through just to get a couple gallons of nasty polluted river water, but I wanted to ask you to consider what you are annoyed by in reference to the rest of the world next time you're coffee ends up burnt at Starbucks or your order at McDonald's gets messed up.
Thanks for reading.
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