Month: May 2008

I read this comic called Fables which is a modern day telling of all the old fable characters you know and love and how they live in New York City.  We’re talking Snow White, the Big Bad Wolf, Prince Charming, Red Riding Hood…all different characters from all fantasy stories end up living together because there’s an enemy taking over ALL their lands back home.

I read an interesting article today about how the creators are going to use Peter Pan soon and how they are unable to do so at the beginning because he was not public domain in England (whereas he was in America).  But now that Peter Pan is public domain, they can use him in their stories.

I find it interesting to think about characters from folklore stories being copyrighted.  I suppose everything that is created can have a copyright.  It is strange to think about something entering public domain and able to be used in any manner someone wishes.

While it isn’t a stretch of the imagination in terms of characters in a story, think about when the Beatles music will enter public domain within the next decade…their music will be able to be put into films or albums and used as public domain.  We can mashup their songs with other songs, creating remixes, morphing it into something altogether different, and altogether legal to do.  It will be an interesting shift.  I would like to think that copyright would have a minimum time of living as long as the creators are living.  I think it would be strange to see my work entering the public domain.

Microeconomics is coming along well.  After the first day with my laptop in class, I realized that I would need superpowers to be able to draw graphs on the fly in that class so I have now resorted to paper and pen to scribe the complex linear graphs that he puts up on the blackboard.

I feel that I have gone back in time with this class…he writes stuff on the blackboard and here I am writing it out on a piece of paper.  You may laugh and say “Isn’t that how it is always done?” but I will have you know that this is the first professor in the past three years who has NOT used PowerPoint slides in their class.  I will also admit that I feel that more information is actually being input into my brain as I write down the notes, whereas with the PowerPoint slides, I simply stare at them and remember that I will have to study them for the midterm.

The professor definitely glazes over some mathematical functions and in the syllabus, it is noted that you need to possess a ‘thorough mastery of algebra’ to succeed in the course.  99% of the time I am on the ball, but that 1% creeps in around 2 hours into the course when my brain can’t follow what he’s doing and I really have to stare at the board to realize what he has skipped over.

It’s not too bad though, but we will see at the midterm next week.

– In other news, Mike is going to have a guest spot on this website to talk about his newfound love…Le Roi du Biere which is a beer store in Aylmer.  He ended up saving big money by going there to purchase beer and we may actually start stockpiling some in our basement over the summer in order to save some cash.  Stay tuned for his thoughts on it!

– Filed under “It was too good to be true”, Aunt Lois let me know that the comics we were supposed to get are unknown at this point as the guy she was getting them from is going to peruse through them and pick out which ones he wants to keep.  In the end, I can’t blame the guy.  I wouldn’t want to be giving up all my comics either.  Here’s to hoping that we don’t end up with some ALF comics!  We shall see what we end up with!

– Vero has now left town to do a whirlwind tour of Ontario.  First stop, Barrie where her friends Emilie and Ryan have purchased a house.  They will prepare for their friends wedding shower in Hearst this weekend.  Filed under “It’s so good, and it’s still true!” category, Vero’s grandmother has given her the keys to her car as she doesn’t need it anymore.  So if all goes well, Vero will be driving back to Ottawa in her new wheels come Monday!  I am excited.  Getting a car is a sweet deal.  I still remember the car my parents bought me after I graduated.  That led to an exciting summer of freedom.  Even though I complained about that summer when it was happening (Summer of ’01 when I had no job and was out of school), I still remember that car allowing me to go to the beach, or to go to Kingston to visit Eric and Annie, or to drive back home once in awhile.  Even though it broke down in the fall, it was still the best gift I could ever receive (pending these comics that may end up on my doorstep, of course!  Ha ha).  If it hasn’t been mentioned here before, Vero ended up finding a job and will start in a few weeks.  She is super excited, I’m super excited and all is well in the world.

– My sister and John have found a sweet apartment in Kapuskasing to live in.  It is Mike’s sister’s/husbands old place.  It is probably one the better apartments I’ve seen in town so I’m excited that Maureen and John ended up grabbing it.  I guess if they are moving in a few weeks, that means that Mike’s sister is also due to be moving into their new house in the near future as well.  Exciting times for all!

This posting is dedicated to the best aunt ever, Aunt Lois.  Please note that if you are my aunt and are not Aunt Lois, but are still reading this posting, you should ignore the first sentence, as well as this one.  Just start here:

(Aunts, Start Reading Here, Unless you are Aunt Lois.  You can read the above sentence.)

It’s been hinted at in these pages, but it’s never really come out and said in its entirety:

I dig comic books.

I love everything about them…the artwork, the running storylines, the one-off storylines in a single issue (mostly in the older comic books), the feel of them in my hands, the old advertisements that give you a chuckle over the years (Hello Charles Atlas!), the iconic characters (Spidey!)…

There is a stigma attached to collecting reading comics books (hello Geek!) but I have realized that I should set the record straight considering an opportunity almost slipped through my grasp and I would have never seen it unless Aunt Lois knew of my love for comics (even to this day).

I remember my love for comics started when I began collecting baseball cards.  From Grade 7, Charlene was into baseball cards.  I thought it would be cool to collect them.  Vero always asks me about why I love collecting things…I think it’s all about the hunt.  It’s the satisfaction in trying to find that ever-elusive card to add to the collection.  I still remember when Claude, Benoit and I were hunting down some Matrix action figures back in the day and we went out of way to find them.  I still remember buying the entire series of figures I already had to obtain the one I didn’t have only to sell my doubles to Benoit afterwards.  It wasn’t until Claude told me later that he enjoyed the hunt more than the piece of plastic sitting on his shelf.  I couldn’t agree more.  In the case of comic books, it’s different though as I do enjoy reading just as much as the hunt.

Once I realized that baseball cards weren’t of any real interest to me, I remember seeing some Marvel Comics collecting cards at Gizzy’s.  Marc and I each bought a pack and we were hooked.  There was a picture of a superhero and then in behind was a story about them, their stats (Strength, Intelligence, Endurance, etc.) and what issue they first appeared in.  This is what got me hooked on comics.  I knew I had a few comic books back home but I never realized that they contained iconic characters.  I still remember going back and reading Web of Spider-Man #36 and realizing that I was reading an inconic character.  Spider-Man.  I must have received this comic book for Christmas one year and had just thrown it onto the shelf.

A little tangent…can I first point out that my real love of comics came from Archie comics?  Maureen and I had TONS of Archie comic books.  We loved them.  I also loved the fact that there was a person along my paper route who gave me their comics for free when they were done with them.  That was the best tip I could ever receive.  If you scour our house even now, you will notice that some of them have my name in them, some of them have Maureen’s name in them, and then some of them have the word “Both” in them.  We would still read each other’s but I suppose I didn’t know the real meaning of the word ‘share’ back in the day.  But I digress…

Anyhow, Marc and I started buying comic books at Gizzy’s.  I think we just started picking up issues of what seemed interesting to us from the trading cards.  Spider-Man, X-Men, etc.  Marc was into the Fantastic Four so I got a taste of them from his comics.  Then I discovered Wizard Magazine which was a comic magazine and that let me in on the world of comic books…the new and hot comics, the upstart artists, the great storytellers of old.  They also had price guides in them which made me realize that these comics make actually be WORTH something some day.  I kept them in pristine condition.  I remember going to Toronto and buying bags and boards for my comics for the first time.  I would put stickers on the front of them and put the up-to-date price on them and each month I would adjust the price if the comic had increased/decreased in value.  I had my own little comic book store going on in my bedroom and I loved it.  Dad even built me a box one time to store my comics in because they were getting too unwieldy.  It’s quite funny to think that in hindsight, the early 90s were the WORST time to collect comics as there was a boom of investors wanting to collect so the market is saturated.

I had amassed quite a large collection in the five years that I had been collecting.  But then college came.  With college came two factors that stopped my comic collecting: 1) It was an expense that I just couldn’t handle. 2) The girls don’t really like a guy who collects comic books, do they?  With that, the comic collecting had ended.  I must admit that it wasn’t too hard of a decision to do in 1997.  The 90s had been wrought with gimmick covers and special edition this and exclusive that, that the stories just weren’t that interesting to read.  In fact, I had stopped buying the Spider-Man even before stopping altogether.  Years later, I realize that I wasn’t the only one…there were many people who had left reading Spider-Man in the late 90s because the stories had become so horrible.  It just wasn’t fun to read them anymore.  The comic book industry had tried to become a business and they crashed hard.  Marvel Comics actually declared bankruptcy back in 2001 I believe.  This was before all their blockbuster movies started coming out.

For the past decade, I had picked up an odd issue here and there.  If I saw a sale on back issues, I would go through the boxes and pull out $1 issues.  If I went to a comic book convention, I would look for any old issues that may fill the gap between the past ten years that I haven’t been collecting.  But it wasn’t anything extreme.  Maybe I would walk out with a dozen comic books and give them a read to see what was going on.

It wasn’t until a few years ago where I realized that people had been putting old issues online and that I could read comic books from the Internet.  This opened up a new world of possibilities for me.  I had only heard of the legendary issues from the Sixties when Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four were starting out.  I had never actually READ the stories before.  Nowadays, it’s a little easier to get a hold of someone’s scan of an old issue and read what happened.  It’s definitely not the same as holding the book in your hand and flipping through it and seeing the advertisements…but it was a start.

Last year, I was at a comic book convention here in Ottawa and really wasn’t feeling into it but then I stumbled upon this guy who offered a subscription service.  It was quite the savings compared to the cover price (it all has to do with the fact that legally, if you subscribe to a publication, you can get some savings, otherwise you pay the full price at the store.  I decided to jump on board and try it out.  It didn’t cost me anything to sign up and in the end, he said if I didn’t care for it, I could leave at any time.

After a few months of receiving comics, I realized that I had missed a love of my life for very long.  I enjoyed reading them.  I was bewildered at some changes they had made, but happy for others.  The artwork was great, even greater than before, the stories were once again captivating!  The comic book had come back from the dead!

Then I started thinking about rebuilding my collection from my ten year absence.  Ebay is my friend in this case.  If you search long and hard enough, you may stumble upon a really great deal.  For instance, I ordered a set of X-Men comics back in the winter which covered a good 6 of the 10 years I had given up on comics and I got them for less than a buck an issue!  This was an incredible find.  Right now, my focus is to rebuild all my collections whenever I find a really good deal (and I have some spare cash!)

This is where the story gets a little more interesting for those who had fallen asleep reading this.  I had mentioned to Vero a few days ago how I wish I could really get a hold of older issues…when the stories were really powerful and there was a lot more put into them compared to the crap you read in the late 90s.  Early Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, the Hulk, Captain America…all the old heroes.  I remember a story of someone down in Gaspe who had thrown out a bunch of comic books they had found in the attic.  In my head danced these heroes flying into the gutters.  What stories had been lost over time?  I told Vero that it would be like winning the lottery if I randomly got a phone call saying “I heard you are interesting in comics.  I found a box of them, would you like them?”

Fate must have heard my call as Aunt Lois emailed me today and said “I understand that you are still collecting comics and are still looking for some.”.  Boy, am I ever glad that she got the hint from the blog entries over the past year.  I haven’t really come out and said “Yes, I’m back in and I’m going stronger than ever!  I’m getting new ones, I’m getting old ones, my bedroom is littered with them.  Vero is sick of it!”  Turns out that Aunt Lois has a friend who is letting some comics go and Aunt Lois wondered if I would be interested.  I don’t know what there is to be had, but I am so excited to see what there is to read.  She already mentioned some old Hulk, Iron Man, Spider-Man, Fantastic Four issues.  These are the old stories which art by Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko…stories written by Stan “The Man” Lee, Chris Claremont…all the greats.  You think meeting Sean Connery is great, I think reading a comic written by Stan Lee is great!  Uncle Gary just cracked open an old Fantastic Four issue and wrote some text from the beginning of it…it sounds amazing!  Even to give these a read in person, that’s all I care about.

At this point, my long term goals are to fill up the decade I missed in collecting and then start looking into the pre-90s stuff.  Unfortunately, it’s just such a costly venture…I don’t really care if the issues are in mint condition though.  I would rather just have the issue to read so in the future I’m going to start simply looking for really good deals and if the condition is not so good, so be it.  At least I get to read the stories that developed these characters.  But even then, it’s all about the hunt…

So I just wanted to take this opportunity to point out to the masses that if you ever hear of anyone getting rid of their comic books and you can’t think of anyone who would enjoy them, think of me!  I can’t wait to peruse what these mystery boxes may have!  It’s a dream come true.  Thanks Uncle Gary and Aunt Lois for thinking of me when these boxes popped up!

After talking with Mom last night to thank her for being the greatest Mom I’ve ever had, I was chatting with Dad and he was asking how he could about downloading a song.  After a few minutes, I realized that it would take awhile to get Limewire to go through the firewall so I’ll call him back later on that.  But then out of curiosity (because Dad isn’t known for a super passion of music like Troy or I), I asked him what song he was trying to download.

He starts off by getting all excited and saying how he LOVES this song and that over the years he has heard it but he never knew who sang it.  This perked up my ears.  Dad was talking about loving a song?  Where does this passion stem from?  I was really getting excited to hear his story about this song.

He then says how he was in Canadian Tire and heard the song and it was playing on some screen and he wrote down the songtitle at the end of the song.

That song’s name was Thunderstruck.

WELL.  That was amazing.  I told him that it was one of MY favourite songs as well and that I would send him the entire Razor’s Edge album for him to listen to as it is a classic.  It felt good to share some love for music with Dad.  I wonder if Dad remembers that Mike, Danny and I went to see AC/DC in Toronto and saw Angus Young do his stuff while playing that song.  Heck, they may have even opened with that song if I recall.

I think I’m realizing that even though Dad doesn’t speak about music or know band names or whatever, he still has good taste in music.  I still remember sitting in the backseat on long trips in the summer and listening to a song with the lyric ‘microwave oven’ (I now realize that we were in fact listening to the Dire Strait’s Brother in Arms album).

This Father-Son moment was brought to you by the miracle of the telephone.

On Sunday I awoke with an inner drive of ambition.  I bounded out of bed and realized this was to be the day that we get some stuff accomplished around the house!

I went downstairs and put the fear of God into Mike when I asked what he was doing for the entire day.  You could see the wheels spinning in his head while he tried to come up with an excuse to get out of any work that would be happening so we could just remain in his prone position on the couch watching Veronica Mars.

In the end, I sugarcoated the event in my head and downplayed it enough to convince him to come to Home Depot with me.  We rented a carpet cleaner as well as picked up some grass seed and fertilizer.  I don’t know much about lawn care but I know that my lawn looks horrible!  I don’t know why.  There are patches everywhere!  So I decreed that I would no longer have a lame looking lawn.

I also decreed that I would no longer have a dirty carpet.  There is definitely some wear and tear near the front step when you walk into the house…I’m assuming it is from everyone who likes to put their foot up a step to tie their shoes.  While this irks me because they get their grubby shoes all over the carpet, it is a fact of life and that is why they created the carpet cleaner.

After a few mishaps in putting the solution and water in the wrong area of the carpet cleaner, I finally got it running and it was a breeze to operate.  The entire upstairs was done in an hour and I worked my way down the stairs with the handy hand tool.  It worked surprisingly well considering the amount of dirt that was on the stairs from everyone walking up and down them for the past three years (has it been three years already?!).

I took a break for lunch where Vero had prepared some delicious burgers for us.  I sat outside with a beer and absorbed the beautiful sun before heading back in to get the job done.  The spot at the front step came out well and we ventured into the living room with the carpet cleaner.  Mike took over for this portion and I took over to do the couch cushions.  Unfortunately for me, after I was nearly completed the couch cushions, I noticed that there really wasn’t much soap coming out of the nozzle.  I opened up the bucket (which is usually foamy) and noticed dirty water.  Turns out that Mike had forgot to add the soap on the last fill up!  Oh well.  I was too tired to redo all the couch cushions but at least they got a nice rinse.  I also washed the futon mattress that was upstairs and left all these items outside to dry in the sun.  I had also read on Lifehacker that if you want your couch cushions to get all fluffy again (or was it pillows?), you should just leave them in the sun for the afternoon and gives them new life!  I didn’t notice much difference so maybe I’ll have to leave them out the entire day.

I then ran over to Eric’s place to borrow his seeder.  Let me tell you, that thing comes in handy sometimes!  I definitely owe him a beer for it.  I raked up the yard, spread some seed, spread some fertilizer and watered the lawn.  Hopefully it takes effect but I know it will take a good four weeks to see any results.  I’ll just have to remain dilligent in watering the lawn.

In the end, I got a lot accomplished which impressed me.  Vero and Mike were a great help also in the event and I thank them.  The living room looks never cleaner (although with my unorthodox method of cleaning, all items that were in the living room, are now on the kitchen table.  That is my next target.) and the carpets are spring fresh.

I always like being on the inside of a tip…like how Coldplay is coming to Ottawa in the Fall.  You know no one else knows about it because none of the newspapers have this news.  It’s like I’m in a secret club or something.

The optometrist appointment was a success.  It turns out that I can still read the letters on the board at 20/20 so he told me I have nothing to worry about.  It turns out that I used to have Superman vision (as he called it) after the surgery years ago.

That being said, he did give me a very light prescription in case I wanted to wear glasses while driving.  Other than that, he said I have normal vision and shouldn’t be worried about it.  He did recommend that I start coming in every two years for a checkup rather than waiting the eight years I did before.  😉

I’m stoked that there is nothing overly wrong with my eyesight but at the same time, it is odd that my eyesight has fallen from Superman proportions to normal Clark Kent vision.  The surgeons did say that over time, my eyesight would get worse with age which is something they can’t prevent.  But it’s strange to think that my eyes would degrade in an eight year span when I am still fairly young.

Either way, this is the body that I’ve been given and I’m glad that I still have 20/20 vision and I’ll start looking for a pair of glasses.  I believe Dad once said I can get a really cheap pair at the Pharmacy instead of buying some at the optometrist.

In other news, I think I have sworn off fish and chips for awhile.  I went to the Aulde Dubliner for Trish’s birthday dinner and I felt extremely full after the fish and chips last night.  It probably didn’t help that there were some nachos at the table beforehand.  But I really am not impressed with the fish and chips at any establishment lately…I prefer my fish in one giant chunk…as in, no batter.  Nowadays, it seems like there is 80% batter and 20% fish.  Ah well.  Perhaps I will stick with the wrap next time.

Sue Johanson is finally retiring and I say it’s well deserved!

For those of you who are not familiar with Sue Johanson, she had a call-in TV show back when I was a teenager (and perhaps back when YOU were a teenager) called the Sunday Night Sex Show.  It was quite entertaining.  I still remember when a bunch of us were sitting downstairs in my parents basement and we were flicking through the TV channels and stumbled upon this fairly older woman talking about sex.  To a teenager, it was mindblowingly hilarious but at the same time, this probably educated a lot of us in matters we were too afraid to talk/ask about.

Everyone’s favourite part of the show was probably her toy chest (although Wikipedia says it’s called her “Hot Stuff Bag”…I don’t remember that) but I personally loved when she would pull out these little wooden figures (like the ones artists use to pose into different positions) and she would….pose them into different positions!  Hilarious.

My fondest memory of Sue Johanson is when we were watching it one night and she was talking about activities you can do in the bedroom and she had this one thing she called “Hide the Weenie.”  We were all bewildered and wondered what this was all about.  A year later, Sue Johanson made her way to Queen’s University for a Question/Answer session and Eric rushed over to the room and asked her the question and he shared the answer with us the next time we all got together.  I always have a good laugh when thinking about Eric rushing over to ask that question.

I actually saw Sue Johanson on The Hour a few months ago and it was quite entertaining.  However, I’m pretty sure she mentioned that she was only airing her show in the United States now as she felt that Canadians had enough sex education over the past generation and that there was a severe lack of it in our neighbours to the South.

That being said, if you want to see her final show ever, it is airing this coming May 11 (day before Mother’s Day people!).  I don’t know if Canadians can still get the show anywhere or not, but if we can, please let us know!

Thanks to Sue for all the great years of educating people on sex.

Exuberant thanks goes to James for passing on this most excellent website concerning moustaches in the nineteenth century.  This reminds me that my annual moustache growing should be coming up soon to prepare for the month of August.

http://mustachesofthenineteenthcentury.blogspot.com/