Just call me Uncle Owen
Dec 13At twelve hundred bucks, plus fifteen per day to run, I’m not sure what practical purpose this water-from-air system serves, unless you’re somewhere that craves water. Like, say, Tattooine.
Seriously. That’s the first thing that came to mind. “No you can be a moisture farmer!” And I actually considered it. Then I went back to work.
Real-Life Spider Tracers
Dec 13LA cops are testing a technology that would allow them to zap a GPS “tracer” onto a fleeing suspect’s vehicle and then track the vehicle via computer.
Can the Spidermobile be far behind???
Cheap Thrills on your DS
Dec 12Okay, maybe “thrills” is too strong a word…
Right now Target has the Nintendo DS game Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords available in its clearance bins at the endcaps right in front of the checkout registers. It’s $15.
The best way I can describe this one is Bejeweled meets Final Fantasy. It’s a puzzle RPG. No, I’m not kidding.
The fellas over at Penny Arcade were pretty excited about it, which is what got me turned onto it, and I enjoyed the hell out of it. For a few weeks there, all I seemed to do was quest my puzzling ass off every night after work.
So if you have a DS, or if you know someone with a DS who needs a good gift but who isn’t worth cracking the $20 threshold on gift value, there you go.
Let's help a UK Trekkie.
Dec 11Someone out there is missing a couple of decorative Star Trek wall plates, thanks to heartless burglars. Anyone recognize the property?
(Although if they’re Voyager plates or some shit, I’d probably shatter them before I’d give them back.)
STAR Trek memorabilia are among items recovered by police from a property in Malvern during an investigation.
Although they were found in Malvern, a police spokesman said the items could have been the proceeds of burglaries anywhare in the area.
“We have no indication at all as to where they originate from, but we very much hope that there is someone out there who will recognise some, if not all, of the items, whether belonging to themselves or someone they know,” said the spokesman.
advertisementThe items are set of four small tea-cups and saucers, a brown leather wallet, a small fob watch, a key-ring bearing the name Neil, a 1962 penny on a chain and the two Star Trek commemorative wall-plates.
Anyone who believes they recognise any of the items is asked to call police on 08457 444888, and ask for DC Gareth Llewellyn on extension 60813. Information can also be given – anonymously – to Crimestoppers on 0800 555111.
Blah blah blah comics blah (12/10/07)
Dec 10Why am I doing this again?
Superman Annual #13, The Brave and the Bold #8, and Johnny Hiro #2 all somehow fit together, if I stretch my brain and clap my hands and wish I was a REAL BOY. They are all examples of something that seems incredibly easy being done incredibly well, and that “something” is “smart, fun, enjoyable superhero comics.”
Of the three, Superman Annual #13 is the weakest. It suffers from a deflating lack of momentum brought about by delays, fill-ins, and the general abuse of Kurt Busiek’s gifts to create material that has padded out Superman’s sister title, Action Comics, while Geoff Johns and Real-Time Hollywood Big-Shot Richard Donner attempt to complete their first storyline with the help of one of the Kuberts, I forget which, but he’s late a lot. Were this conclusion to Busiek’s Camelot Falls storyline part of the regular Superman title, and had it run in those pages as part of an ongoing storyline with reasonable gaps between creation and release, I honestly think it would have been a better-written tale. I know it would have read better. As it stands, this is just a big fight between Superman and some slimy monsters, with a bit of self-doubting subtext sprinkled on top. The backup story, though slight, is more of a keeper, a set of pure character moments that define the members of this new “Superman family” for readers.
Johnny Hiro #2 is the least-superheroish, and the hardest for me to review, because I don’t know what to say except that it’s, oh my goodness, so very very great. Our title character works as a busboy in a restaurant, and his chef needs a lobster to serve to a prominent food reviewer, so Johnny steals one from another restaurant, which gets him chased by an unruly pack of rival busboys/ninjas, and he has a sweet girlfriend who loves him a lot. There is an energy here, a willingness to simply BE what it IS without trying too hard to be something it’s NOT, that is infectious in the extreme. It’s an action comic, it’s a relationship comic, it has unexpected fourth-wall shattering interruptions from what I assume is the writer/artist regarding different types of sea life, and it all fits together. It is happy to exist as it is, and doesn’t apologize for itself at all.
The Brave and the Bold #8 is as traditional and basic as it gets when it comes to modern superhero comics. Mark Waid and George Perez deliver the goods, and again, it looks so easy that it must be incredibly hard, when you get right down to it. The Flash “family,” the Doom Patrol, Metamorpho, and the Challengers of the Unknown all have their moments here, and they are who they are; there is conflict and superheroics, and then everything’s somewhat resolved, with a haunting hint of dissatisfaction at the end that adds an unexpected layer of depth to what was otherwise a simple romp.
Now I babble.
