geekent’s stuff’n things

21/05/2009

[...consumed anew #109 - 111] Justice League Quarterly #1 - 3

Filed under: ...consumed anew — Tags: , , — Graig @ 9:06 pm

For five years Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis led the Justice League to one of it’s most legendary runs, a time which saw B-listers become fan favourites and superhero deconstructionism take a much less serious turn. After two years (and strangely enough, two title changes) Justice League spawned a second series, Justice League Europe (with Gerard Jones standing in for DeMatteis after a few issues), and in its fourth year, another series emerged for the team to write, the ongoing 80-page giant Justice League Quarterly, appearing, as the title would suggest, every four months.

jlq1_thumbThe debut issue follows the recently-resigned Booster Gold as he’s enticed by a public relations firm into starting a new super-team financed by corporate sponsors, The Conglomerate. The team consists of Gypsy, Vibe’s brother Reverb, and a half dozen other unknown rookies. They cause an immediate stir as they go on a crime-stopping and humanitarian spree, creating tons of press, appeasing their corporate overlords, and royally annoying the Justice League. But soon the corporate sponsors start requesting the team protect their interests, sending them out on “jobs” that may or may not be on the level, one creating an international incident, requiring the United Nations to call in “their” team, leading to the inevitable conflict between the two teams. Though there’s lots of space for story and character building, Giffen and DeMatteis don’t fully utilize it to build up the Conglomerate, instead still focussing primarily on the Justice League (it is their title after all) and their reaction to the new competition. Booster and Beetle have their confrontation and Max Lord confronts his opposite on the other team, someone intimately familiar to him. Chris Sprouse provides some solid art (though the colouring doesn’t hold up very well) and it remains a smart and enjoyable read.

jlq2_thumbIssue #2 reveals the long anticipated origin of Mr. Nebula and the Scarlet Skier (the thinly veiled analogs/parodies to Marvel’s Galactus and Silver Surfer). Unable to escape the confines of Earth’s atmosphere, the Skier is stuck playing sidekick to unfortunate Green Lantern G’nort. Mr. Nebula, somewhat depressed about his latest planetary rearrangement (instead of eating planets, Nebula redesigns them), decides to hunt down the herald who abandoned him, sending out probes to locate his whereabouts. When the Skier discovers a probe on Earth, warning bells ring and he calls upon the Justice League (well, those active on roster: J’onn J’onnz, Ice and Crimson Fox) to help ward off the near god-like being. Just looking at these two issues, it epitomizes what I like about the Giffen-era Justice League… the first issue is about people, while this issue’s main story is just goofy, but both work, and work well. The late Tom Artis was the Mr. Nebula artist, and while I always found his work a little awkward, he does a solid job with the storytelling. The back-up feature finds a hysterical and ingenious face-off between Fire and Ice and Flash rogues Captain Cold and Heat Wave. Art by Adrian Aw is clean, attractive, and would later be known as the solid inker “Buzz”.

jlq3_thumbIssue three is a great one, featuring alternate-dimension Walt Disney analog Mitch Wacky teaming up with Justice League handyman (err… alien) Kilowog to develop a time machine/dimensional portal so that Mitch can go back in time in his dimension to before the Extremist annihilation can happen and stop it. They succeed in traversing time and space, but due to some alien technology, they arrive there only about six inches tall. The activation of the space-time transfer alerts the rest of the League (all members present for a conference) and they send a team off, led by Mitch’s fellow alternate-dimensioners Blue Jay and Silver Sorceress. The adventure finds the mini Killowog and Mitch taking the controls of a Mitch robot and heading for that dimension’s superteam (a thinly veiled Avengers) where more hijinks ensue. Eventually Mitch realizes that he can’t change what already happened… but the team still finds themselves trapped in another time and place from home. It’s a humorous adventure but with serious heart to it. There’s a bit of everything in this one, including terrific art by Mike McKone and Guy Gardner traversing the innards of General Glory’s dog.

After this issue, the series stopped running complete stories over its massive length and instead went the anthology route. Giffen, DeMatteis and Jones contributed sparsely as the focus shifts away from the team to ancillary characters like the Global Guardians and various super-villains. I seem to recall the book losing its luster after the “Breakdowns” storyline in the main titles that ended Giffen’s run. Dan Jurgen’s follow-up run on the series just didn’t inspire the same interest in peripheral characters. I think, perhaps JLQ was even the more enjoyable series. I’ll be giving the rest of the issues another peek.

30/04/2009

[...learned #110 - 118] mr. fixit

Filed under: ...learned — Tags: , , , , , , , , — Graig @ 8:31 am

My Dad’s here helping me rewire the lighting in the house. I’ve had a little education in wiring but he’s helping me do it proper as opposed to, well, I wouldn’t think of doing it myself, so I guess he’s saving me the expense and hassle of hiring someone. Thanks Dad.

what we’ve done
- replaced the wiring and outlet upon which the fridge is operating (it was on knob and tube as well as being on the same circuit as all the house’s lighting). We placed it on its own breaker as well

- went into the attic, where we discovered that they vented the bathroom fan into the attic (a big no-no) and that they’ve insulated around the eaves (another no-no). We knew before that the roof joists were warping, but we didn’t know that there were a few gaps in the roof, boards obviously having broken when they were reshingling. We patched the holes already and will deal with venting, bracing and insulation when the electrical is done.

- knob and tube comes out from one breaker and forks off, like tree branches about the house. We figured out which branches affected which lighting, and we separated them (the kitchen, far and middle bedrooms and bathroom lights were on one, all the rest on the other). Eventually though, we realized that it didn’t matter where we separated them, we’re clipping all the K&T and replacing it.

- in the attic replacing the wiring, we also were replacing the light boxes, which required removing the old light boxes. The way the old boxes were placed was on hanging brackets nailed into the joists, under the plaster ceiling. Without completely marring the ceilings we used a reciprocating saw to cut them out. We also had to make most of the holes bigger to fit the new boxes, and do a bit of fancy work to get all the new hanging brackets in place.

- we dropped a string with a weight down the clear gap alongside the chimney from the attic to the basement and hoisted up the wire from there to the back bedroom. Then we fed some wire from the back BR to the bathroom, from the bathroom to the mid-BR, from the mid BR to the master BR, from the master to the hall light. Each of these also has a wire feeding to the switch.

- before we could feed to the switch we had to figure out where the switches were in relation to the light boxes (following the old wiring gave us a clue, but since K&T are clamped via porcelain holders within the walls, you can’t just pull the old wiring out and use the same path). New holes were drilled. We also had to remove the old boxes from the walls and replace them (it’s very difficult to fish new wire through an existing box, it’s easier to do when you have the box out of the wall). I realized that with plaster walls you have to make a big enough clearance space to pull the box out without touching or else it will catch and pull off big chunks of your wall (learned the same thing in replacing the light boxes).

- the hall lights, downstairs and upstairs, have a switch each downstairs and upstairs so you can control either from either floor. In replacing these we needed to buy some three-wire, as it requires an additional connection each. We also had to drill a big fist-sized hole into the dining room ceiling to find the path where the wiring for the hall lights goes. We did find it perfectly.

- we’ve taken, at this point, countless trips to Rona, Home Depot and Canadian Tire, as I didn’t have a stud finder, #2 square head bits or screwdrivers, wiring, face masks, coveralls, saw blades for the reciprocating saw, boxes, hangers, and a half dozen other things. Wiring, dad says, has gotten much more expensive because the price of copper has gone up.

- after the wiring, we need to do some plastering before we put the fixtures back up, and make the circuit live. We’ll have two circuits, one for upstairs, and one for downstairs. The living room, since it has an ornately textured ceiling, we’re not going to replace the ceiling light, so we’re going to figure out wall sconces instead. The front porch light we’ll need to figure out how to get up the wall from the outlet (since there’s insulation in the way) and outside to hanging bracket, since it’s finished and not easy access.

- when you’re dealing with wiring, you have a ground, a neutral and a hot, you need to know how these connect differently when doing lighting or outlets. A single outlets can have its receptacles wired together or individually, I’ve learned, depending on the power draw needed.

22/04/2009

[...about me #110] unfunny

Filed under: ...about me — Tags: — Graig @ 9:53 am

Had about an hour to kill after work yesterday as the wife and I were heading out to a Flight of the Conchords gig, and I came across this post from Roger Ebert about jokes and joke telling. Like a good opening act, the post (and it’s hundreds of comments) warmed me up for the main show (as did Eugene Mirman on stage, who had a killer bit about God being a 10-year-old boy with aspergers). As I was walking to the venue with Aden I was trying to entertain her with some of the many new jokes that I learned, and I realized, I’m not great at joke delivery… or remembering jokes. Rule #1 broken.

I find when something is funny I don’t remember it right away, because I’m too busy laughing at it. It sometimes takes a half dozen exposures to a joke or catch phrase or funny bit for it to sink into my memory in such a way that I can use it. People like my great friend Ryan and my grand old roommate Jeremy are both really damn good at picking up on the funny things the first time and segueing them back into conversation at just the right moment. I’m often envious of this ability. Even my wife’s able to do it, recently reiterating a bit from SNL that I hadn’t necessarily picked up on.

Anyway, as I failed somewhat miserably at retelling some jokes, and my wife politely laughing, I attempted to come up with some jokes of my own (my delivery still sucked, though, and my wife aptly groaned at each of them). Far from refined yet, however, I think they’re funny:

1)
My wife just showed me a pregnancy test she took and the result was positive.
I asked her “should we keep it?”
“No point,” she said, “it’s one-time-use only.”

2)
I met a set of twins at the bar the other day.
One of them told me she had one leg longer than the other.
I asked if that’s how I tell them apart.
“No,” her brother responded, “I’m the one with the beard”.

One of the things I’ve seen on improv shows is quick-witted comedians coming up with alternate variations on the same joke, two, three, four times over. It’s likely the rapidness in which they do it that makes it funny, but Demitri Martin also “remixes” his jokes and I find this also quite amusing.

1)
My wife told me she took a pregnancy test and the result was positive.
I’m still waiting for the upside.
(It’s Dangerfield-esque but I’m no Rodney)

2)
I met a set of twins at the bar the other day.
One of them told me she had one leg longer than the other.
I asked if that’s how I tell them apart.
“No,” she said, “one’s attached to my left foot, the other to my right”.

It’s not that I’m an unfunny guy, but I’m more a personality funny than a joke-telling funny. Usually when I’ve been drinking.

21/04/2009

[...consumed all new #110] Little Britain

Filed under: ...consumed all new — Tags: — Graig @ 11:19 am

I remember Joany espousing the brilliance of Little Britain years back, but for the longest time I never managed to watch the show. I even had the potential of seeing them live whilst in London back in 2006, but I didn’t know then what I was missing. I caught a few episodes of LB on Showcase last year and both Aden and I warmed to it immediately, the Scottish Inkeeper and the Lady-man two immediate favourites. Despite Ricky Gervais’ Extras being a strong polemic against the LB style of humour (recurring characters and catch phrases), when it’s done well, as it is here, it’s absolutely valid comedy (the I have to wonder what Gervais thinks about his show-within-a-show catch phrase of “Is ‘e ‘avin a laugh?” catching on as a pop-cult saying). Anyway, it’s a far sight funnier than the Catherine Tate Show.

With our new digital cable package, we get BBC Canada and BBC Kids, which means we’re getting increased exposure to some BBC programming (although at this point the only thing worth watching seems to be LB, and it appears to be on sporadically). We’ve been eyeing up LB boxed sets on DVD, but they’re not cheap and there’s a lot of them (seasons 1-3, the live performance, the across the pond, and the new HBO “Little Britain USA”). Ah, not to fuss though, rather than be a collector, I should just enjoy some things as I see them.

[...i ate #110] strawberries and old cheddar

Filed under: ...i ate — Tags: — Graig @ 9:50 am

I don’t know what makes a strawberry sweet and flavourful, but the latest batch of strawberries we picked up from one of the Bloor West Village fruit markets (in the paper container, no more non-recyclable plastic clamshell containers for this family) are absolutely delicious, and when I bore out the stem and stuff it with the 6-year aged white cheddar I picked up from the grocery store yesterday, wow, flavour overload.

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