http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080418/ap_on_el_pr/clinton_obama 

Is this what our country has come to?

http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9885688-7.html?tag=nefd.top

Sad news indeed.

Obviously, making coherent daily posts is impossible for me.  Therefore, I'm going to try to post every week about the various popular culture items that I have sampled.  Basically mini-reviews with a few sentences about each item that is worthy of comment (forgive my misspellings, I am not going to look up names, etc).

1. Eastern Promises
Last night I watched a David Cronenberg gore-fest and a movie broke out.  Personally I'm not offended by movie gore and violence, but most of Cronenberg's movies have some pretty gruesome scenes and this one is no exception. I wanted to like this movie more than I did, as the story had potential.  But Naomi Watts could have been replaced with a cardboard cut-out for all the acting chops and emotion she showed.  Vigo was cool as a bad-add Russian mobster, but other than that it was kind of weak.

2. DC New Frontiers Volume 2
Lately I have been a fan of getting collections of comics rather than trying to get the books as they come out monthly.  I recently (during my trip to Disneyland) got Volume 1 of DC New Frontiers, Darwyn Cooke's retelling of many DC heroes origins.  I really liked Volume 1, even though I thought it had a few shortcomings.  I thought it would have been nice to include a couple pages of glossary of background (maybe footnotes) to call out the various obscure characters.  I know the Golden Age and Silver Age pretty well, but I had to read it a couple of times to get things straight.  Not a huge deal; any comic I have to read more than once is a good value.  I did think that the story kind of fell apart in Volume 2.  The whole John Henry racism subplot just didn't pan out.  It felt tacked on and gratuitous, which it shouldn't have.  It could have been a lot more relevant to the story.  But the main thing that bugged me was the "uber villain"-- the Center.  The build up was a little weak, and the final battle, though better than the final fight with Syler in Heroes, was still pretty lame.  Nonetheless, I'm such a big fan of Darwyn Cooke that I overall enjoyed the comic and will still buy anything he does.  I was talking to the local comic shop guy about it (Comic Stop in Redmond Town Center!) and he suggested I check out the Ultimate Version or whatever that hardcover $90 version is.  Apparently it has some extras that are worth getting... but still no appendix/glossary of obscure heroes...  I think I might get the Ultimate Sandman book though as I have never read them but have heard nothing but good things.

3. Action Comics
Got the latest issue of Action Comics, a continuing Legion of Super Heroes + Superman team-up.  As a big fan of the old Legion, I like the way they portray the Legion in these.  I'm halfway curious to see what Jim Shooter does with the Legion as I understand he's going to work on them again, but... Jim Shooter?  I can't trust him since all the horrible Valiant comics he wrote.

4. Moon Knight
Got the last couple issues of Moon Knight... I like Moon Knight's character concept... not sure if I am going to stick with this, as they keep threatening to do more with the hero registration stuff (which I hated in Civil War), but so far they haven't gone too far along those lines yet.  The new artist (Texiera) is not as good as past artists, but he's passable.


The new comic shop in Redmond Town Center is going to be trouble....

In other news, I am rooting through the crap in my garage in preparation for a big eBay sale.  Lots of Nintendo treasures, and more.  Busting clutter!

Looking forward to seeing the exhibit of Roman junk from the Louvre at the Seattle Art Museum, probably on March 9th.

Am gathering research material on the tyrants of Syracuse (circa 400-300 BC) for a numismatic project.  Found there are several novels about this period (Mask of Apollo by Mary Renault and Arrows of Hercules by L Sprauge de Camp) which I will need to find.

Got a coin of Hiketas from Amphora.  Nice coin and it fits well into my bronzes collection.

Tomorrow is Conquest NW, a great local gaming con.  I'm planning to attend for a couple of days, but still haven't decided what to play...

Usually I like to play RPGs on the first day and wargames on the second day, but there aren't any really appealing RPGs on the docket.  Interestingly there are some LARP activities scheduled.  I've never done a LARP, but the idea is intriguing.  It would complete the geek trifecta to partake, so I may try one. Then again I may not and just play Advanced Squad Leader....

http://www.conquestnw.com

Real-life heroes. They exist.

http://articles.citypages.com/2008-01-16/feature/superheroes-in-real-life/full/

Awesome article! Check out the link to the guy who makes costumes.... hmmm...

It is the "LOLZ":

http://quotation-marks.blogspot.com/ 

Well I finally got tired of driving my squeaky brake having, dump hauling truck and bought a new car.  It's a 2002 Celica and so far it is pretty cool, even if Tin thinks it is part "chick car" (at least it has a manual transmission).  Some guy waiting at a bus actually took a picture of me as I drove by.  The plus is it has a radio so I can listen to KEXP on the way to work.  Well those hipsters play some cool music and I found some new music that I like thanks to them, which of course I downloaded to my Zune for listening during work.  First is Dengue Fever's Venus on Earth.  It's a cool surf psychedelic feast with a Cambodian chick as the singer.  And completely different is Drive by Truckers, raunchy southern rock with nice bleak lyrics just the way I like them.  I downloaded two of their albums, the new one, Brighter than Creations Dark and their first one Gangstabilly.  And then I remembered Clan of Xymox so I had to download some of their records. 

Thanks, car (and KEXP)!

I don't have any yet, but I decided to set goals instead of resolutions.  Resolutions can be broken, ie they have a digital win / fail whereas goals feel more analog and so more appealing to me.  Stay tuned. 

Having worked at a Japanese company for many, many years, I felt like I gained a bit of understanding of the culture and psyche.  It's interesting how people from different cultures are just wired differently at some deep central processing unit level (the microcode of the brain if you will) and I always like reading about things that illustrate those kinds of differences.  I think most of the reasons for the differences go back to years and years of cultural development and history, but with the shrinking of the world, it seems like the gaps between cultures may be getting smaller in some ways.  In developed countries we are all experiencing new technology at the same time, and sometimes reacting in similar ways and other times in quite different ways. 

Anyway, I found this post about Japanese behavior on the Internet in connection with "flaming" to be very interesting.  I need to think it through some more, but the interesting thing to me as I read this is; everything this person posted makes sense to me, but I think most Americans who haven't been exposed to Japanese culture would be scratching their head and thinking "WTF is he talking about?" 

Have a look: http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2007/12/11/japan-flaming-and-the-secrets-we-hide/

I spend too much time playing this game, but only in short bursts.  I get into it for a while, then set a long skill train and do something else for a few weeks.  It's fun.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/28/arts/television/28eve.html


BTW, hate that you need to log in to read the New York Times.

As always there are some things that are still in beta, but the site has some neat features.  I like the Zune Social where you can set up a Zune Card that shows what music you are listening to.  Mine is at:

http://social.zune.net/member/Z+DANO

Rock on, dudes!

DANO

Let me show you it.

http://www.mrpicassohead.com/canvas.html?id=8ca47e6&skin=original

I really meant to post a more lengthy post about my first month at Microsoft / Zune, but I feel like I'm coming down with a cold or something and am a bit tired so it will have to wait.  But it's coming, really it is.

http://lolthulhu.com/

Hey, I'm a sucker for the whole LOL Catz thing, and now this....

http://www.gigposters.com/

I love rock & roll, and posters, so this is a cool mix.  There are some great posters here.

This is one of my favorites:

The real secret to success is me.  Now that I'm at Zune, it is more wanted than Wii, see:

http://www.cnet.com/4520-4_1-6541088-1.html

Heh, still and all it is interesting.  CNet has always been fairly positive about Zune.