A few years ago I walked into a comic shop and asked what was good. The guy handed me the first TPB of Invincible, saying it was easily the best superhero comic being made at the moment. So I bought it, read it, and though it was good I wasn't blown away by it. I decided to give it another chance since my library has 3 huge Ultimate Collections of it. Now I see what the guy was talking about. Turns out I just need to hold out one or two more issues for things to really pick up.
What else. I also read a collection of Alan Moore's DC stories, pretty cool, especially for mid-80s. What was really cool was this one story about Abin Sur, Hal Jordan's predecessor as Green Lantern of Space Sector 2814. In it, Abin goes to the planet Ysmault where the Empire of Tears is banished. He meets Qull of the Five Inversions, crucified with a Green Lantern pin. Qull tells him a prophecy in which "the weaponers of Qward, Ranx the Sentient City, and the unspeakable Children of the White Lobe" rise up against the Green Lantern Corps. Sodam Yat will perish and the planet-form Green Lantern Mogo will be the last to fall when Ranx explodes a blink bomb within his core. Pretty much the outline of the Sinestro Corps War arc that Geoff Johns wrote more than 20 years later. I thought that was pretty cool.
Speaking of which, I'm trying to read the Blackest Night arc but getting it all in order from the library is tricky, though I do own the Green Lantern Blackest Night hardcover. I'm not even sure what order they all go in. On the plus side, that's the worst of my troubles.
Also I read Aliens Omnibus Volume 1. It was kind of . . . hit and miss. Oh well. I put in my Aliens DVD to watch while I run on my treadmill but my iMac's DVD player has been quitting for no reason lately. Plus I need a new mouse. Plus my iTunes is in need of an upgrade so I can upgrade my iPod touch and run my iPad off it. BUt in order to do that I have to upgrade my OS X which costs $130. PLus I need more RAM. And an external hard drive would be nice. So really, rather than spend $100 here and $200 there, might as well just wait a bit and buy a new iMac. Right? Right! If only all my troubles were so easily solved. Like, which friggin Blackest Night edition needs to be read first? It doesn't say! So stressful.

I know it's early in the year but I think Buck 65's new album, 20 Odd Years is the year's best. Zombie Delight (the video for which may or may not appear up above- update, nah it doesn't work so instead here is Paper Airplane) is a fun song but actually the rest of the album is more serious. Well mostly. A Leonard Cohen cover with Jenn Grant kind of vibe.
Also I really like Mother Mother's new one. Kind of a terrible name to have in the Age of Google since their homepage only shows up on page 200,000 or so. Oh here it is.

By sticking to the basics I was actually able to make a decent supper for my family for once in my life. Bacon and egg sandwiches on fresh buns from Cobbs bakery. Pretty good. Only one fire alarm but it wasn't even really my fault, the buns were too thick for the toaster and they were burning on the heating elements. This is the fourth week of a brave new era where I make supper once during a set of days off.
The first time I looked in a recipe book and found one that sounded good, some sort of shrimps-on-a-bun with a sauce and everything. So I made it just like the recipe said, but the shrimps were all cold and clammy and nobody liked it very much at all.
The second week I started flipping through recipe book at 4:30 that afternoon, only to discover that all of the good ones required prep work the night before! Who knew? So Michelle gave me a free pass to go get something from Dairy Queen. Pallas somehow knew what I was going to do because she ran and got her shoes and said "Daddy, Pallas go McDonnos!"
Last week was also quite delicious. It was a sort of ginger beef stirfry. So yummy! It also required some thawing and prep work the night before. I was in Hinton working overtime so I asked Michelle to do that part. You know, get the meat out of the freezer for me please honey. Yeah but you also have to make the marinade sauce the night before. Oh . . . would you mind doing that too? So all I really had to do was boil some rice and dump all the stuff in a frying pan.
That gives me a great idea for a recipe book, all the recipes would go something like this:
Step 1- get your partner to do all the work the night before.
Step 2- take all the credit!

My buddy Jon sent me a link for a fanfilm of Batman vs all the usual suspects, pretty fun.
Which reminded me of this fan-made Superman cartoon:



And then I recently watched the Planet Hulk animated movie on DVD. Did I ever tell you how much I truly loved the Planet Hulk saga in comic book form? The movie necessarily simplifies it a lot, but is still faithful and as a bonus, ends on a happy note so if you like you can just leave it at that or read the comic that continues on to the inevitable tragic ending.

So I been working a bit of overtime lately. Sundays are doubley good because you get doubley pay. Your always a little apprehensive about going for OT. For one thing you'd way rather have the day off. Especially when it's Spring Forward night and you have to get up at what feels like 4AM. Then there's a whole nother crew that you don't really know, that's kind of weird. I just pretend it's a based-on-real-life movie where none of the actors quite look like the people they're playing. And you generally get put on the oldest, decrepitest piece of equipment out there.
But yesterday was pretty much the best shift ever. Yeah, I was on 17 truck, which isn't quite as old as me but it's older by a few years than, hmmm, the fall of the Soviet Union. But I didn't haul a single load before first coffee, through no fault of my own. Shovel 8 was down. Actu8ally I did haul 1 load off of shovel 9 but I got stuck and had to dump it right there and was sent out of that pit. Goal disallowed! After coffee 8 came back up but 10 went down so all the trucks were diverted to 8. I got 4 loads from then until second coffee. Four goals in the second period of a hockey game is not so bad but in mining, not so good. After coffee I got stuck again and so I hauled only two more loads, off of 22 loader which was also having issues. And that was my day thanks for the big bag o' cash!
I got to read quite a few comic books this week, not only yesterday but also when i was on 22 loader on my own crew. You just load three trucks and send them on their way and then sit there for an hour and a half. Got caught up on some old Walter Simonson Thor, that was good stuff. Essex County was really cool, you might remember Sara Quin championed it for Canada Reads. What else. Some Hulk. I love Hulk so much. Usagi Yojimbo.

A new set of Star Wars steampunk mashups is making the rounds. Cool, eh? The artist is Bjorn Hurri. I think he owes a bit to Sillof, though, don't you?


Steam Wars Boba Fett by ~sillof on deviantART

I know this cosplayer as definitely influenced by his designs:

Alla time putting out fires. This one was just a little one, but it was definitely on fire. My friend Tim was taking an ancient 100-ton watertruck down to the shop to get it fitted with a Wenco GPS tattletale system. Why an old sumpsucker like that needs a GPS system is beyond any logic mortal man can fathom but whatever. I was in my Kress zooming down a hill towards him and I saw sparks. So I called him on the radio to say there's sparks, there might be fire but it might be just his gridbox or something(yeah Tim you got sparks, not sure if you're on fire, no, doesn't look like it), as I got closer I saw there was definitely flames coming out of his wheel motor (You have to stop Tim. You're on fire), so I skidded to a stop and then I put the fire out. One and a half extinguishers, pretty piddly really. All in a night's work. On the incident report, on the part where they ask what actions can be taken to prevent this from happening again, I wrote, "Oh I dunno. To be honest it's a lot of fun putting out fires so let's not change anything." My foreman made me cross that part out.
A guy on my crew, buddy of mine, his house burned down earlier this week. No one in his family was hurt but they lost everything. Crazy. Definitely not fun and games anymore. I can't even imagine and don't want to imagine it happening to my family.

When I'm on nightshift I'm always a step behind, so those of you who care probably are already all over this, but yesterday was a big day for George RR Martin fans. A full official trailer for the HBO series was released, starts airing next month already!



And then on top of that a release date was finally set for A Dance of Dragons. July 12th. Not that it's actually finished or anything.