Posts Tagged ‘ blogging ’

As you can see, I’m back blogging on my own domain. I know that only a few weeks ago I said I’d quit blogging about comics – and I did. My intent was to let this domain sit with it’s original posts. In the meantime I started www.raisingjack.com – my attempt at what I think is usually called a ‘daddyblog’ but with a slightly geekier bent than most.

It occurred to me that hit-wise I might be better off combining the two sites, since I still have people on rss readers here and I still get a few visits a day regardless of if there’s new content or not.

So…the main blog page (and most of the categories on the menu above) will be my new blog, as reflected by the changed masthead. However…all the old comics/movies/TV/other posts are still accessible above under the ‘Archive‘ tab.

Clever, eh?

So, expect updates (almost) daily from me here – just of a different flavor than before.

Just a very quick post today. I am not a single parent; the Better Half and I co-share virtually everything on the Jack-rearing – but after the past two weeks I am more in awe than ever of single parents.

The Better Half had a business trip to Europe for almost two whole weeks – from Sunday through the Friday after – leaving me on my own with Jack and Lola (the dog).

Well, not exactly on my own, as my brother-in-law was there till Friday the first week, and my niece arrived two days after he left – but for all intents and Jack-rearing purposes, I was on my own. The only assistance they really were (aside from scintillating company, obviously) was being able to stay with sleeping Jack when I took Lola for her night-time walk just before bed.

Which means that I was getting him up, feeding, playing, preparing food, dropping off, picking up, entertaining, doing laundry, putting to sleep, and generally everything else for him as well as the same for Lola. While I certainly don’t begrudge doing any of those things for him (or her, for that matter), at the end of the day I usually got about an hour to myself before I passed out. After all I had to get up early to shower before he woke up and started yelling…

Seriously, these two weeks made me think of what single parents with no back-up from family must go through all the time. It’s exhausting. Hats off.

Apparently the American Academy of Pediatrics have released a report saying that 90% of children under the age of 2 watch some TV every day and would be better off not doing.

Okay, I say. That’s fine. We started Jack on UK-import In The Night Garden when he was about nine months old to calm him before bed. It also kept him in place long enough to drink his milk in the morning. He still watches it, although it no longer has the same hold on him it used to. We also have Sesame Street on in the morning while we get ready for work, although it doesn’t usually hold his attention and he tends to play with it on the background when he’s not pooping/eating/getting dressed/brushing his teeth/tormenting the dog/raising holy hell.

I’ve also already said he loves Toy Story and the like, and if the weather’s bad and he’s bored of playing we’re not above putting it on and letting him watch it.

So while I understand what they’re saying, I don’t entirely think it’s fair. We don’t leave Jack in front of the TV on his own; we’re right there with him watching it. We talk with him about what he’s watching. We certainly don’t use it as a substitute for play – and he doesn’t watch TV at all while he’s in daycare.

We’re both working parents with a limited amount of time to spend with our son. We try to get outside as much as we can, we play as much as we can – but there are times where he simply isn’t that into it and he just wants to chill out.

We also make a point of not watching our own programs while he’s up (with the occasional exception of some news) as we don’t want to expose him to things which are beyond his age range – but believe me, there will come an age where he’s subjected to the full range of Star Trek, Buffy, Lost, BSG, Veronica Mars, Vampire Diaries and many other shows – but at ages where he’s appropriate. Right now, we’ll stick with Sesame Street and In the Night Garden.

Although remind me to post about the social inequalities and rampant sexual and political messages in In The Night Garden sometime….

via Deadline

…at least, his first movie in a movie theater. At home or in the car – thank you, thank you, Steve Jobs and Apple for the iPad! – he’ll quite happily sit through any of the awesome Toy Story movies or Monsters, Inc and laugh away at things he finds amusing, but we’ve yet to brave an actual movie theater with him.

Parents who take their babies and toddlers with incredibly short attention spans to movies are a pet peeve of mine, especially when they ignore the child’s screams so they can watch a movie themselves. It’s annoying, it spoils the movie for everyone else and it’s just plain rude. And, unfortunately, in New York it seems to happen quite a lot.

That said, I get the impression that Jack is approaching an age where he can sit and watch something in the movies if it holds his attention. I’m not sure this will actually do that the whole time, but judging by his reaction to the trailer it stands a pretty good chance…

…plus it’s a movie that the Better Half and I actually want to see – bonus!

I was at New York Comic Con part of this weekend, although for considerably less time than previous years. I skipped preview night on Thursday and went to see Real Steel instead (which was far, far better than it had any right to be thanks to some great performances from the two leads, Hugh Jackman and 11 year old Dakota Goyo, and also due to Evangeline Lilly wearing some very short shorts). Friday I spent a few hours on the show floor before heading home as my wife was coming back from a two week business trip, Saturday I spent most of the afternoon in the IGN Theater for movie and TV panels, and Sunday I didn’t go at all, instead staying home with the family.

It’s probably a good thing, too; the lure of Comic Con is strong when it comes to spending money on things I do not need and have no room for – witness the completely pointless Compound Hulk that I bought Friday.

See? Completely pointless.

However, I do see a point in time where buying these things “for Jack” will be a legitimate excuse as, hopefully, he’ll be playing with them then.

Or if he’s not, I will at least claim he is…

We tend to bumble out of the apartment around 8am-ish on weekdays. I take the dog for a quick walk so she can take care of business while the Better Half takes Jack to daycare (luckily literally around the corner from our apartment). After I drop the dog back at home, take some trash out, give her some water and biscuits, I then walk round to daycare and we head towards work – or at least the subway – together.

One morning a few weeks ago was different; Better Half was taking a day off to prepare for an upcoming work trip (two weeks – which she returns from tomorrow!) so I took the dog out early, then took Jack to daycare – on the way to which he proceeded to melt into a quivering mass of frustration.

He wanted to walk but wouldn’t hold my hand, wanted to be carried but didn’t want to be held, wanted to sit on the floor but didn’t want to stop screaming and crying as loudly as he possibly could.

You get the idea. Even in the doorway to daycare he threw himself down on the mat and cried his lungs out.
It hit me then that I had been in this situation before – only I was the child in question.

Way, way, way back in time when I started going to school – it was called reception in England and I think maybe Pre-K over here in the US – I only went for half days. My mum (or as you Americans say, ‘mom’) dropped me off every morning, said her goodbyes and picked me up to take me home just before lunch.
Not this day. This day she broke the news to me as I was being greeted at the front door by the headmistress that I was going to be there all day. At which point I distinctly remember throwing myself onto the floor, screaming and kicking indiscriminately against all the injustices of the world.

And I took out the headmistress with a well-placed kick to the knee.

I’m hoping that it doesn’t come to that – because I can only imagine my mother was completely mortified – but honestly, I think John Lennon was pretty much right on the karma thing. Only sometimes it’s not that instant.

I’m finally getting the message that sometimes in order to win the big battles, I need to concede the smaller ones.

For example on Monday after a couple of pretty exhausting trips to Central Park Zoo (the penguins and the petting zoo being the main attractions for Jack) and the American Museum of Natural History (dinosaurs, and the stairs in the big room with the whale) I returned home with the boy and hung out for a bit before heading back out with him to take the dog for a walk.

The mistake I made there – and more experienced parents will likely see it straight away – is that in order to hang out, I let him out of his stroller. And he didn’t want to get back in.

Stupidly, I hadn’t even considered this and wasn’t in the mood for a screaming fit as I struggled to strap him back into the stroller – but luckily he gave me a solution by running over with his green froggy wellingtons (or are they called galoshes over here? I never can tell) and trying to pull them on.

A deal was struck and, even though it was in the mid-80F, we soon were out walking the dog. With Jack in his wellingtons.

You know, now that I think about it, I’m not sure if that was a small victory for him or for me.

Lately I’ve been spending some not inconsiderable time thinking about Lego*. It does feel like I may have traded one geeky hobby (comics) for another, but I swear – to myself at least – this isn’t the same thing. For one thing, I’m not actually spending money on it. Yet.

A few months ago while picking up some Duplo for Jack in the Lego store in Rockefeller Center I picked up a couple of those little blind minifig packets that they have.

Then next time I passed I picked up a three pack of Lego Star Wars figures on magnets.

Last week I ordered a little set of Lego Star Wars Imperials on Hoth as it was cheap on Walmart.com and I was getting a few things anyway.

And I’m seriously considering investing in some of the Lego winter sets – like the toy shop, below – to use as a Christmas diorama this year, and then getting a different one each year to add to it.

I envision creating a tradition where we build it with Jack (starting next year or the year after when he might be able to help and not eat the pieces) while It’s A Wonderful Life and The Muppet’s Christmas Carol play back-to-back on loop in the background. Possibly with eggnog and roasting walnuts somewhere. And a big Christmas sweater. And a fire roaring away. And small Victorian-dressed children running around screaming and yet being very polite at the same time.

So, basically, I’ll be having Christmas in the Nexus.

I think…I think I may have a problem.

*I know, I know; Lego should be capitalized. But I think it just looks weird if you do it all the time. I’ll do it in blog post titles, okay?

There’s plenty of things to do with little ones in Manhattan – like, I don’t know, parks, museums, boat rides, subways, etc etc etc – but I do have soft spot for the Children’s Museum of Manhattan. Not only is it a full five floors of activities that keep small minds occupied but, much more importantly, it’s very well air-conditioned.

And so it was that at the height of summer I found myself there on a hot weekend with the Better Half and Jack. As the Better Half went to check the stroller, I headed downstairs to the restroom to change Jack’s diaper. When I returned to the entrance level, Better Half was nowhere to be seen. Rather than put Jack – who was a bit put out and doing that thrashing-around-from-the-waist thing that only toddlers can really do when you’re holding them – down, I stood outside the big room on the first floor, which was full of screaming kids and harried parents, dialed her and propped the phone under my ear.

So picture this if you will: a thrashing, screaming child; a sweaty, harassed me holding said child, a fetching feminine changing bag and my wife’s handbag. And standing next to me, looking at me pityingly, was Laurence Fishburne.

There was a moment, just a moment, where I thought of saying hello. Then Better Half’s phone started ringing inside her handbag that I was holding, Jack started thrashing some more, and a big bead of sweat dribbled down the back of my neck. He looked away. The moment passed, which is probably for the best since all that was running through my mind was how badly The Matrix had aged, how much I hadn’t liked him in CSI, and how incredibly bad he’s been in Predators – although he’ll always be Furious Styles to me.

Anyway, I caught up with Better Half upstairs (at the other restrooms, where she thought I’d taken Jack) and told her about my close-ish encounter. Her first reaction? “Does that mean Gina Torres is in here somewhere?”

Once a Browncoat, always a Browncoat.

This certainly isn’t the post I was expecting to write for my second day of my new blog, but the world is what it is.

Steve Jobs – who died yesterday after fighting pancreatic cancer for over seven years – was an incredible visionary and innovator, not to mention salesman.

President Obama said:

“…there may be no greater tribute to Steve’s success than the fact that much of the world learned of his passing on a device he invented.”

That’s true. And its those Apple devices – not to mention Jobs’ involvement in Pixar story – that will be the legacy that he leaves behind for those who did not know him personally.

As I write this on my Mac laptop with my iPhone next to me, Jack is trying (not successfully) to put a video on the iPad, and I know that these devices form the basis of his future.

One of the easiest ways to occupy him while we’re out is putting a Pixar movie or short on the iPhone or iPad (currently, the Toy Story movies, Monsters Inc and Presto are all guaranteed to get his attention) – but I can already see him being interested in them more, and my mind boggles at the base level of technology that he’ll grow up with – thanks in large part to the innovation of Steve Jobs.

I know this video will be circulating widely on the internet in the next few days and weeks, but it’s worth a watch; Jobs’ commencement speech at Stanford in 2005.

The words which strike home most are these:

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

Food for thought. Not a bad way to live your life. Not a bad thing to raise your children to believe.

RIP Steve Jobs, 1955-2011.

“Eternal Flame” source:XKCD

A new site for a new focus (this being my former home).

I’ve been a father for almost two years now, with my son taking up more and more of my time – and I couldn’t be happier. Yes, it’s necessitated a change in lifestyles and, yes, a change in finances, but every time he laughs, or smiles, or hugs me or his mother I couldn’t be happier.

As a dyed-in-the-wool geek (or possibly nerd, I never really worked out the difference, although I suspect the variance is something to do with pocket protectors, or train-track braces, or chess clubs, or something) some of the things I look forward to most are sharing my interests with Jack (for that is his name) as he grows up.

Those interests? Comics. Movies. TV. Games. Science Fiction. Toys. Star Trek. Star Wars. Lost. Battlestar Galactica. Buffy. Angel. You get the idea…

The ironic thing is that I’m actually cutting back on my biggest geek expense, comics. After more years than I care to count, I’m largely abandoning my weekly trip to the comic store. Oh, I’ll pick up some monthlies still, and some trades (probably via Amazon), and some digital comics via Comixology and other nifty apps, but we’re talking a 95% pull back on the hobby.

So while I’ll encourage Jack to embrace comics when he gets to reading age – or at least an age where he can turn pages without an overwhelming urge to crumple them up – I probably won’t be getting many myself when he does.

Until then, though, there’s always t-shirts:

These days I have less and less time to say about comics – the whole reason I started blogging way, way, back when in the days of yore – mainly because I’m not buying that many comics.

Yes, I’m aware that I say this after the fourth week of buying absolutely everything that DC Comics is putting out – but consider this; I’m not getting any DC #2s this month.

None. At all.

Not because I’m morally outraged by certain books or because I don’t agree with what’s happened to my favorite character in others, or because I just don’t think that others are very good – but simply because there are storage, time, and money issues with me continuing to read everything I want to.

There’s a very good chance that at some point I’ll pick up some trades or digital copies (especially if they’re on sale) or perhaps even back issues in the cheap bins at cons, but for now it’s sayonara.

As for Marvel, I’m down to three regular series – Amazing Spider-Man, FF and Avengers Academy – and a few Spider-Island minis. I’m sticking with FF through FF #12 and Fantastic Four #600, then I’m done. It’s a book that I’ve been with for over 20 years, but Jonathan Hickman’s run has succeeded in sucking all of the fun and adventure out of the title, so enough is enough.

I’ll stay with Avengers Academy since it’s just so damn enjoyable, and Spidey since (a) it’s just so damn good, and (b) it’s Spidey, but that’s my lot.

From other publishers I’ll probably carry on picking up Dungeons and Dragons and Skullkickers at least until I get to a good point to switch to trades, and as much as I enjoyed the recent Buffy and Angel and Faith relaunches, they’ll read better in trades (or not at all).

So that’s it. Two – maybe four – ongoing monthly comics.

It’s difficult to keep a mainly-comics blog going on opinions of things I don’t read (although let’s face it, lots of people do it), so I don’t think that this will survive in its current format. Honestly I’m not sure what format it’ll survive in; it’s not even as if I get to see all the TV and movies I spend half my posts posting trailers for these days.

So…I guess that’s it. Pretty much closing time for the blog. I’m still on twitter so I’ll be around, and I have the seed of an idea for this that may require some rebranding of some kind, but for now I guess I’ll see you in the funny pages.

The best ad campaign on the internet (or on TV, for that matter) is back, striking brown eyes and all.

And while we’re talking about Old Spice, I had to point you in the direction of this, found on the awesome Oddity Collector in answer to a meme:

The Old Spice Man suffers a mid-life crisis – what vehicle do they buy to cope?

Hello Ladies,

I am pleased to hear that every one of your men now celebrates your birthday by cooking you a seven course gourmet dinner with the rare and exotic spices he personally gathered from the rarest and most exotic of jungles – bare handedly fighting his way through hordes of vicious hair-pulling monkeys, confused and hungry Bengal tigers newly escaped from nearby zoos, and the seldom reported tree swinging ninja attack elephants – with the sole motivation of seeing your eyes once again light up with the reflection of his rock like abs and powerful shoulder muscles. And of course, that he does all this clad only in ripped silk boxer shorts and the manly scent of Old Spice Bodywash, and not a lady scented body wash.

It seems my work on this planet is now done, and it is time for me to leave for other worlds which remain in desperate need of my chiseled good looks, deep timbred man voice, and freshly laundered towel to point the way to the Old Spice section of their shower products aisle. Or, in the case of planets already conquered by self-aware and merciless death robots, the Old Spice section of their scented maintenance oil aisle. You may be wondering, do lady robots care if their man robots smell like Old Spice, and not lady-scented maintenance oil? Of course they do.

How will I get to these places? Look up: Before me has just landed a double barreled rainbow, stretching all the way across the sky to the place where I am most needed. Look down: I am riding the rocket powered hover dolphin that will take me there. I am riding this dolphin backwards, to allow you a view of my un-shirted torso as I leave into the cosmos. This is my last gift to you.

Yes, Ladies of Earth, we have come to our moment of farewell. While there was never any doubt to my success in this – or anything else – I can only imagine how heartbroken you are to learn your ears will never again be smoothly caressed by the words formed by my thrumming vocal cords and perfectly shaped tongue, nor your eyes sensually massaged by my almost impossible good looks, nor your nostrils passionately embraced by my powerful and manly body smell.

I can only imagine this, because I am only leaving you, and not myself. But even the barest thought of the possibility has left a hole in my metaphorical chest region, like the hole dug by a metaphorical excavator the size of the galaxy and run on the pure awesomeness power of Tyrannosaurus Rexes and supersonic fighter jets. The only thing great enough to fill that hole will be my memories of you, Ladies, and your brave sacrifice for the good of the cosmos.

And remember, although I’ll be gone in both body and spirit, as long as your man smells like Old Spice and not a lady, there will be one sense in which I will never leave you. Olfactory.

Now, how to get Isaiah Mustafa to read it out…?

I just posted over at John Scalzi’s blog (although I’m not sure how many attended the memorial; I’ve read 26,000, but I’ve also read 14,000) and thought I’d repost here because clearly you need to know what I think.

Essentially I thought that Obama’s speech was well written and well delivered, and for a man that I believe often shows emotion at the wrong time (not enough passion when its needed, and too much anger when he should be restrained) I thought he struck the right balance.

What did weird me out – and I’m not sure if this is due to my reticence as a native Brit – was the reaction from the crowd. That there was a crowd of 26,000 in a stadium for a memorial service makes me itchy in itself; that they were actually cheering and shouting during the remarks just struck me as inappropriate. I noticed that when the camera lingered on victims of the shooting and their relatives, they weren’t cheering. Yes, they applauded. Yes, they looked grateful for the President and other’s remarks. But they didn’t whoop and cheer.

Didn’t anybody tell the 25,500 that didn’t know a victim personally why they were there? That it wasn’t a rally? That there’s a bit of etiquette to be had?

For those that missed it, here’s the White House’s video of the speech (and here’s it’s text):

Did you watch the memorial, thinking you were tuning into Human Target? What did you think of the tone?

No really, I am.

Hope everybody had a good holiday season – as usual after visiting home I end up needing another vacation. No rest for the wicked or, apparently, those that have moved across the Atlantic. So tired that I don’t expect to be up to full blogging again until next week.

Is there a reason behind the Bruce Campbell book cover on the front page of the blog or below, I hear you ask…

Well, no, sadly – except that I really enjoyed his first book and have yet to pick this one up even though it’s been out for years. Plus, it’s a great cover.

And, you know, Bruce.

Oh, and as I received absolutely no entries for the Avengers Academy contest, I take away at least some of the following:

1. Nobody cares if comics get canceled;
2. Nobody like free stuff;
3. Nobody likes free stuff that means they have to spend $3 and 5 seconds taking a picture;
4. Nobody reads the blog.

Tossers.

…or your multi-denominational holiday of choice!

I’m away in the UK after today until early in the New Year (for the first Christmas there in three years), so further updates are unlikely until I’m back. In the meantime, I’m on twitter and facebook so you can always follow me there.

I know you want to.

Finally, let me remind you that the chance to win the first volume of Avengers Academy is still ongoing through 12/31/10. So far, zero entries which makes me sad but my wallet strong.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all!

…one of my best friends (sorry, Ian, not you) became something more. We’d met a year before and hit it off instantly, bonding the first night she joined the firm I worked for over copious amounts of alcohol and, against all odds, Star Trek and Star Wars.

A beautiful girl who (a) laughed at my jokes, (b) liked Star Wars and Star Trek, and (c) was beautiful (did I mention that?)?

Well of course she wasn’t going to kiss me. That would be too easy.

She told me that quite bluntly in the cab we shared on the way home from the pub, and she stuck to it for a whole year despite the fact that I was quite obviously after something more than simple friendship.

Something odd and unexpected happened in that year, though. I eventually stopped pursuing her romantically; I never stopped hoping, but it stopped being the sole basis of our relationship. We both moved on and continued to work together and go out for drinks with friends from work together.

And somehow we became friends. Really good friends. The kind that sit in their respective homes on a rainy Saturday night watching a movie and talking about it on the phone the whole time. The kind that ask each other for advice and can cheer each other up when the other one’s down.

I got a job with another firm a year after we’d met, and my last assignment ended up being with her, and turned into an away job (thanks to a petrol crisis and a wee bit of finagling on my part, I have to say). At the end, when we came back to Manchester and went out for my goodbye drinks with everyone, I finally plucked up the courage (dutch and otherwise) to kiss her. That was all that happened that night, even though she stayed over and hung around the whole of the next day and watched movies and cooked dinner. She was pretty clear that it wasn’t going to happen again, and she was firm about it.

We went out for drinks in the middle of the week and that was still her stance. I was pretty much at wit’s end: clearly that was it, and we were just going to be friends. Luckily for me she talked with her best friend Es on the phone who gave her a metaphorical slap around the head and set her straight.

That Friday when we were once again out for drinks with the work crowd (even though I’d left the week before), she leaned over the table to me and said “I’ve got something to tell you and I think you’re going to like it.”

I did. And ten years later to the day, we’re married, living in New York and have a beautiful baby boy and an awesome dog.

Here’s to the next ten. Love you.

You may have noticed the blog’s been on hiatus the past few weeks. Or perhaps you didn’t.

Bastards.

Anyway, it’s back, fully recharged and ready to go. There may be some changes round here (again) if I get the chance.

Later today the pull list will be back (as pitiful as it is these days), tomorrow Lost from the Start will be back up and running on its regular schedule, and all will be right with the world.

Let me leave you with a question right now – what do you want to see when you check out a blog? Any suggestions for me?

There’s no post here today.

Well, there’s this but there’s no post aside from this.

Not that I haven’t got things to say – I actually *gasp* read some comics last night which were, all in all, pretty damn good.

But there are other things going on.

The game, as Sherlock Holmes (or Henry IV, for that matter) might say, is afoot.