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I know, even by the standards of this blog it's been a while. But I've got a pretty good reason. If I had to get excuse notes for blog absences from my doctor, I'd have no issue getting this one.

With the end of last month, I went through a very big change in my living situation (and dealing with that change took my attention away from bloggery for the month and a half leading up to that). The important thing now though is that all is well and starting to look up.

In the meantime, given that in this new situation, I so far haven't been able to get Internet (though I do have a plan for that within the next few days) except for one company's "free trial" wireless offered for 15 minutes every 2 weeks, you think I'd go all "All work and no play makes Dave a dull boy" up in here. But I've turned to two sources for diversion while my master plan (detailed below) takes shape... comics and games.

First off, DarkHelm's old Nintendo 64 collection was just going to be given away to the thrift store. Given that I still play my N64 (mainly for WWF No Mercy), I volunteered to go ahead and take the collection instead, making me the proud new owner of:

• Mario Kart 64
• Hexen 64
• Cruisin' USA
• Zelda: Ocarina of Time
• Gauntlet: Legends
• Turok: Dinosaur Hunter
• Turok 2: Seeds of Evil
• Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion
• Killer Instinct Gold
• Super Mario 64 (my N64 actually came with Star Wars Episode I: Pod Racer instead, making me one of the few N64 owners not to own this.)
• Diddy Kong Racing
• Mortal Kombat Trilogy
• Quake 64
• Doom 64
• Banjo-Kazooie
• Shadows of the Empire
• F-Zero X
• Hyper Asteroids 64
• Pokemon Stadium

• Starfox 64
• Star Wars Episode I: Pod Racer
• Goldeneye 007
• Perfect Dark

I also achieved quite the momentous achievement the other night in Pokemon Pearl... I caught them all, or at least all of them available to me. The final Pokemon was known as Tyranitar, evolving from Pupitar all the way up at level 55, which was a frustrating process. Right now, I have all of the Pokemon in my possession except for one called Munchlax as I evolved my Munchlax into Snorlax so I could have a Snorlax with Metronome, a move that randomly uses any other move after having fun with a Snorlax with Metronome in Pokemon Stadium. Getting another one will be no problem except right now, my Internet plan won't work for my DS. I'll have to get one of those USB adapters that plugs into a computer and broadcats a signal for a DS and a Wii, and Wal-Mart isn't carrying them right now. Now the only Pokemon left for me to get are the three last legendaries. Darkrai was released via a special giveaway weekend that I had no way to get to, but I have to think there will be an alternate way of getting him made available. If not, I'll come across someone someday to unlock him in my Pokedex. Shaymin I don't think has been officially even announced here in America yet. Arceus definitely hasn't.

I also beat Final Fantasy XII. Great game, but lots and lots and lots and LOTS of exposition. I thought it amusing, and this is a very minor spoiler alert, that of the six main characters in your party, only one doesn't turn out to be someone really important in the world, someone related to someone really important in the world, or in one case, both. I think my favorite part of the game was when I had to go around a town repeatedly pestering people who didn't care that I was someone who I really wasn't.

I've also been spending time with Madden 2004 and NCAA Football 2004 in parallel (the last year I have both games for) trying to develop a career mode where I import draft classes. As well, I'm spending a few minutes a day in Animal Crossing: Wild World again now that I have all the weeds cleared from my months of non play. It's an interesting game in that you really only can play it for so long in a day, and when you play it during the day effects gameplay (like the store is closed at night). Sometimes the game will even have you make agreements with characters to meet them later. Not just a few minutes later so you can meet them in the same play session, but at least an hour or two, so you have to note it down and basically make an appointment with the game. If you miss this meeting, the consequences aren't very harsh though. AC:WW is, from what I hear, a port of the original Animal Crossing from Gamecube just with touchscreen interaction added and with the opportunity to unlock classic NES titles removed.

All this gameplaying will definitely curtail once the big plan starts though... and here that is, for the first time in public outside Facebook.

I'm going to be heading back to substituting. I've been told they really need people and there should be no issue at all with re-hiring me for that. But that's just phase one. Substituting just isn't viable long term. It completely dies during December and summer.

The plan with substituting is to save up. And then use that to take advantage of an opportunity I was approached with a few months ago to teach ESL in South Korea. The airfare is reimbursed (which is the main thing the saving is for. I don't pay the people placing me, otherwise, my scam radar would be going off). The pay is $2,000-$3,000 a month (paid in South Korean won, and tending more towards the $2,000 side, natch), there's free medical insurance, and if I am employed for a full year, I qualify for a bonus of one month salary by South Korean law.

It's a big step, but it definitely would enable me to start paying off some debts and start making some monetary progress.

In the meantime though, it's the waiting game, as substituting won't need me until the regular school year begins late next month. But it's an exciting time when you have a plan.

I had been working (between dealing with some real life stuff) on an entry on Countdown, but NFL news has forced me to put that on the back burner, at least for now, and post some more about a story I had been covering.

The "Spygate" story took an interesting turn, or reached an uninteresting end depending on who you hear from. Former New England Patriots video assistant Matt Walsh finally had his long-awaited meeting with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell. Walsh did not turn over a tape of the St. Louis Rams' walkthrough before Super Bowl XXXVI. He denied through his lawyer ever claiming to have one, only claiming to be linked to the story through media speculation. He did turn over 8 tapes of illegally taped offensive and defensive signals that the NFL is maintaining are what the Patriots admitted to and what was covered by what seems to be the increasingly slap on the wrist punishment of a $250,000 fine against the Patriots, a $500,000 fine against coach Bill Belichik and the loss of a first round draft pick that turned out to be the 31st overall (which would have been the 2nd and 3rd round picks had the Patriots failed to make the playoffs. The Patriots had the 7th overall pick anyway due to a trade the previous year). Among those taped signals were signals from the AFC Championship game immediately preceding Super Bowl 36. Walsh also said that while he didn't tape the Rams' walkthru, he did observe and was quizzed about it in a 10 minute conversation by a Patriots coach. This, the NFL stated, was not consistent with what the Patriots told them before, and they said they would follow up on it. A few days after the Walsh meeting with Goodell, the Boston Herald, which broke the story on the alleged taping of the Rams walkthrough in the first place retracted it.

Now, first off, on the side of the Rams walkthrough allegations. I'm not enough of a conspiracy theorist to believe that the Herald retracted a true story because of external pressure. If there was a retraction, there was obviously enough doubt put in its veracity that they thought they would lose a court case. Goodell claiming there isn't a tape is one thing, since after all, he was essentially taking the Patriots' word for it, but the people who brought the charge in the first place changing their story is another thing. People have criticized Matt Walsh for not being more forthcoming that he didn't have such a tape, but given that he had this evidence that he wanted to get indemnified for and then get off his chest, it would have been really stupid for him to come out and say he didn't have that piece. It is interesting that he is claiming that he did pass on information about the practice (did he pass on information about other practices as well), and was also involved in ticket scalping. Knowing the NFL, it is very unlikely that this would come to any more than a fine though, even though any illegally derived intelligence would of course help (why else would they do it?), and it was a close game.

But the main damage of the whole expectation of a walkthrough tape when there never was one is that the majority of sports journalism is acting like the Patriots are cleared now and this should go away when the Patriots were involved in 8 years of cheating. Their entire run during this decade is irrevocably tarnished, and when it comes time to examine the Hall of Fame credentials of Bill Belichik and perhaps even Tom Brady, I can't see how this can help but come up. The most heinous piece of evidence provided by Walsh is of that AFC Championship game from the 2001-2002 season. And even though we only have Belichik's word for it, some people are presenting it as absolute fact that these tapes weren't used in the same game they were taped in. And if this kind of tainting of a victory happened in collegiate, high school or even foreign professional ranks, the affected wins would be wiped from the record. But we have some kind of phobia about doing that here. Since we have direct evidence of New England blatantly cheating during the AFC Championship game, I definitely say forfeit the game and award the AFC Championship to the Steelers. Of course, this would also create a situation where if a team forfeits one round of a tournament retroactively, they forfeit all subsequent rounds, so the Lombardi goes to the Rams. And sure, you might say that that's just bias talking because I'm a Rams fan, but Woody Paige of the Denver Post and the ESPN program Around the Horn expressed the exact same thought, and he'd have no bias towards the Rams.

Now at this point, the NFL clearly wishes this would go away, and I wish I could report every single thing because it actually gets funny. The NFL says something dismissive of the affair as if they're winding down and Senator Arlen Specter verbally smacks them around and gets them back on the case. Such was the case when NFL spokesman Greg Aiello termed Walsh's tapes "consistent with what we've already seen" before there could be any chance to review them, and when Goodell said "I don't know where we go from here". Despite the the latter remark, the league took umbrage with Specter's call for an independent investigation into all of this, and insisted they were following up.

At this point, I welcome an independent investigation. Yes, there are more important things in this world, like the state of the economy, and the war on terror and all that, but government is not limited to doing one thing at one time. Nor would any of us appreciate it if we had our house robbed and the police told us they had to solve every murder in the country ever before they could help us. The NFL has really displayed a "foxes guarding the henhouse" mentality to all of this, as if the last thing they'd ever want to do is have the team with the most Super Bowl success of the last decade be exposed as cheating frauds. Given how much time and money America as a whole invests into this product, both indivdually and through things like buying stadiums to lure teams, as well as the fact that the NFL has an anti-trust exemption, there is a vested public interest in making sure that the games aren't fixed.

So you think you can stone me and spit in my eye? So you think you can love me and leave me to die? Oh, baby. Can't do this to me, baby. Just gotta get out, just gotta get right out of here.

It is interesting where they're going with this whole "Regal on a power trip" angle on RAW. It was nice to see that they did do some work this week on taking care of a couple of flaws in the story. First, having Vince come out and endorse Regal. Otherwise, the question was begged of just what did Vince think of Regal proclaiming himself as the most powerful force in WWE when up until now, that's been Vince. The second storyline fix actually came from Randy Orton's boring monotone promos (proving that even they can occassionally be good for something) when at first, he said he supported Regal's decision from last week, and then when Orton's match with C.M. Punk was stopped, Orton was upset and claimed to be going to confront Regal (although the omnipresent and apparently omnipotent WWE cameramen were unable to show us this confrontation).

This fix was needed, as last week's result seemed to make little sense. Because he was interrupted by Kennedy, Regal decided to terminate the Triple H-Orton championship match. But this match was Orton's contractually mandated rematch. Because of this, Orton lost out on his rematch privelege (at the time not knowing in the story when or even if he'd get another title match), and Triple H retained his title. Thus, we have a heel committing a heelish action that helps a face and hurts another heel. And yet, according to reports, and seemingly confirmed by the beginning of RAW this week, Triple H was the one angry with the result, and Orton was fine with it.

I've probably examined this before, but let's examine two similar plotlines in wrestling history, and how one had logical consistency and one did not. In 1999, Vince McMahon "defeated" Triple H for the WWE Championship when Stone Cold Steve Austin interfered on McMahon's behalf. In no way did or could McMahon have won on his own, indeed, the match consisted mainly of Triple H pummeling McMahon. Austin interfered not to help McMahon, whom he has famously feuded with, but to humiliate Triple H, causing Triple H to lose the WWE Championship to the most ridiculous challenger possible. In recognition of this, McMahon forfeited the title without defending it a single time, citing his unworthiness to hold it.

Compare this to a similar situation in the Vince Russo-scripted WCW in 2000. WCW Champion Diamond Dallas Page and "celebrity" David Arquette fought "wrestler" Jeff Jarrett and Eric Bischoff in a tag match with the special stipulation where whichever participant got the pinfall would win the WCW Championship. Arquette ended up pinning Bischoff, leaving Page in the unique situation of losing a world title in a match his side actually won. Even more confusingly, despite losing the WCW Championship, Page celebrated this development with Arquette. Had Jarrett still been the champion (Page had actually just won the title on the Monday Nitro show just prior to the Thursday Thunder show this match had taken place on), these logical errors wouldn't have been there. As it was, a seemingly more fitting response would have been for Page to attack Arquette or demand an immediate 1 on 1 "rematch" or something like that, not celebrate. Arquette's heel turn at the next PPV just made things more confusing.

But back to Regal, as long as they keep things logical, it's all good. But they also need to worry about not annoying viewers by prolonging these shenaningans. And they need to answer the question in storyline of "How do we know Regal won't pull the plug on a PPV?"

Some other quick bits:

• I laugh at those not realizing that Mike Adamle is now sucking on purpose.
• I'm digging this Jericho/Michaels stuff, because they can go so many ways with it now. Is Jericho realizing that he was wrong and was being a jerk? Is Shawn faking? They could heel turn Jericho still, pull a fast one on us and heel turn Shawn, or heel turn neither and make a great tag team out of them or something.

It's just no good anymore since you went away. Now I spend my time just making rhymes of yesterday.

Yeah, I know, it's been a while. And yeah, I know, I've said that before. Before I get too far into the festivities, it's time for stats. Over the 30 day month of April, 142 visits came from outside my home county. This averages out to 4.73 visits per day, a sizable jump from last month's 3.06 visits per day. Visitors represented 29 states, as well as Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, France, Japan, Taiwan, Austria, Germany and the UK. South America jons Africa in its snubbing of my blog.

Now then, even with jumping ahead to the present on my comic reviews, I've fallen behind again, as you can see. A big problem is that when I try to do the reviews all as one sitting, the reviews alone can take me 1-2 hours to type up (depending on if I'm doing other things while doing the review or not), since a lot of times I have to reread the comic as I'm reviewing. And any extra content in the blog entry was in addition to that. It was getting to the point where if I didn't feel like putting in all the effort of doing a week's worth of comic review, I wasn't blogging at all.

And now, there are some Real Life (tm) events going on that could be significantly limiting the amount of blogging time in the future. Hopefully, these events will be taking the form of exciting opportunities, so I'm sad to say I'm giving up on including regular comic reviews in this blog. However, comic discussion will remain a significant part of this blog. And you might even seen an occassional spot review here and there if something really sticks out.

Other than that, what's going on? In World of Warcraft news, one of my favorite in game events has rolled around again: Children's Week. During this event, you can start a quest where you temporarily take charge of an orphan from one of the orphanages in the major cities of the game, and give him or her a chance to see some of the major sights of the world. After you've run the orphan around, you get your choice of three minipets. The quest (or quests for high level characters, as they can do a 2nd one in the expansion area of Outland) are also worth it for reputation with certain factions in the game. Many of my characters already had two pets from the original quest and were simply taking the third pet. Next year, they'll be taking the "Curmudgeon's Reward" of 5 gold rather than a pet.

Finally, DC's weekly series Countdown ended its 52 week run recently, and I'll be going more into this in the future, but let's just say it really didn't live up to the standards set by its predecessor 52.

More to come soon....

Ever get into that rut where you let something lapse for a while, and because you let it lapse for a while, that lapse is preventing you from getting back to it... yeah.

First off, we're at the beginning of a new month, that means user stats.

95 visits came from outside the home county, and I can already tell this is going to sting. March has 31 days, so that comes out to 3.06 visits per day, down from 3.34 last month. At least 15 states checked out the shenanigans and goings on, as well as visitors from France, Jamaica, Argentina, Hong Kong, the UK, Macedonia, New Zealand, South Africa, Canada, Austrailia and Germany.

You know, I've been very impressed with just how much both Facebook and MySpace have helped me hook up with old college friends over the years. I was on MySpace first. I had an account there for years, for some reason, and never did anything with it. Then one day on a lark, I decided to look up the old alma mater, and there were a bunch of people there. So I decided that since I had MySpace, I didn't need Facebook, but tried it one day out of boredom, and found a bunch of people there too. Right now, I'm at 46 friends on MySpace, and 44 on Facebook. And yes, I know some people have tons more. Not all of those are college friends, and some people are friends on both sites, but just to take a look at my activities in school and who I've hooked up with again....

1994-1995: I worked in the school cafeteria. Two of my fellow employees are on Facebook.

1995-1996: Two of my dorm unit mates are on Facebook. Three people I worked with on Junior Class Council are on Facebook (all of them had to find me on there, since my last name hasn't changed since school, and their's has). One person I worked with on the Associated Men Students Council is on Facebook. Two of my fellow student radio broadcasters are on MySpace, as well as the radio station itself.

1996-1997: The same two dorm unit mates ended up in the same unit with me again this year. In fact, one of them (who I've mentioned before in this space as a total in-joke to myself, only he found it by Googling his own name) ended up serving on ASB council with me the next year. We were the two candidates who won via runoff election, and we were in the same unit. I could have also listed the guy as working with me in the computer lab. One of the people I worked with on the Associated Men Students Council I led is on both services.

1997-1998: From the ASB Council I served on, three members are on Facebook, and one other member is on MySpace. From the Social Life Committee that I led, one member is on Facebook, and two members are on MySpace. 

1998-1999: I worked on the school paper: The two editors (who, despite the way my tenure with the paper ended (which may be known to those who peruse my page beyond just the blog), I have absolutely all the respect in the world for) are on Facebook, one of my fellow columnists is on MySpace, and one is on both services.

And that's just people I have direct connections with. There's a lot of people I just knew and enjoyed talking with. I'm just impressed that my Facebook friends total is set to exceed my MySpace friends total despite the MySpace account being a lot older.

In any event, I am a bit behind on comic review, so let's hit that. We're up to March 12th, 2008:

DC:

Batman Confidential #14: MUST READ. Batman fights The Wrath and realizes that this is a new man in the suit. When Batman asks this guy why he's doing what he's doing, Wrath says to ask Gordon about a date that exactly coincides with the date Bruce Wayne's parents were shot. Wrath gets away when Nightwing gets involved in the pursuit and Wrath creates a situation where Batman has to stop chasing him and save Nightwing. When Batman asks Gordon about that date, Gordon won't answer... because we have to buy the next issue.

Booster Gold #7: MUST READ. Rip Hunter, Daniel Carter, Rose Levin and Skeets are in the time stream in a time bubble. Rip spills about how Rose will be the mother of Daniel's children (shouldn't that be dangerous? Say I just met a woman who I was destined to fall in love with and have children with. Given that information blurted right off the bat by a time traveler, I might get nervous and have second thoughts about the relationship) and says that Booster has created a time storm and destroyed the universe. In an alternate present, Booster and Beetle are stranded on a world controlled by OMACs. They end up visiting an old friend, get betrayed, but find out that war has created some very strange bedfellows. We also find out one of Booster's allies in the quest to bring Beetle back was a traitor, and one of Booster's past problems is coming back to haunt him.

Countdown to Final Crisis #7: CHECK IT. The group thinks they've arrived back on Earth, so with the Jasons, Jimmy, Holly and Harley heading their separate ways, the rest of the group heads to the Justice League for help with Karate Corpse. Only the Justice League doesn't recognize them. Firestorm bursts back in to tell them that his house is gone and he apparently doesn't exist, so Ray sneaks to the teleporter and teleports them to safety. Firestorm gets the bright idea to head for Cadmus for the equipment they'd need to synthesize an antidote for Karate Corpse, and there, they meet up with Jimmy again, who headed that way after learning that Habitat was gone. Holly and Harley show up after Harley apparently figured out somehow that this Joker wasn't her "Puddin'". Re-Todd was too "busy" to show up. They get into the ruined remnants of Cadmus and Dubbilex figures out the obvious about Karate Corpse. It's not spoilers if it's obvious. And with no connection at all to current events, here's an origin of Bane for you.

Countdown to Mystery #6: CHECK IT. This time, we get the Eclipso story first. As Bruce Gordon, Crispus Allen and for some reason, Crispus Allen's ex wife wander around a nuclear disaster site in Russia retconning the Eclipso Diamond, we get a Birds of Prey crossover as Huntress stumbles into a trap and gets ambushed by the Eclipsed Plastic Man, Dove and Creeper (despite Dove's seeming death at the hands of Killer Cloud a while back). Huntress gets Eclipsed too and goes after the father of one of her childhood friends who murdered his daughter and beat the rap for it. In the Dr. Fate story, with the help of the book store owner, Kent Nelson learns more of the history of Dr. Fate. Returning home to his hotel, he gets engaged in another mystical battle, and then ends up making a big decision, though one that probably won't stick.

Gotham Underground #6: CHECK IT. The Suicide Squad attempts to bust Great White out of Arkham so they can transport him to the prison planet, but when he taunts Bane, Bane tosses him down a few stories, making him unable to survive the trip. But, this does make him able to tell the whole story to Matches Malone, Batman's undercover persona. In the meantime, Penguin's myriad goons are all dressing up as different supervillains to go kill Johnny Stitches. Nightwing is undercover, and of course he gets shot by Vigilante... as he's fading out from blood loss, he seems to see someone we thought we'd never see again.

Green Arrow-Black Canary #6: CHECK IT. Unable to believe in the awesomeness that is Killer Cloud, Green Arrow and Black Canary are off to frame some innocent airship for the murder of Connor Hawke. An undercover op goes all sorts of haywire when our titular heroes (no, that is not a remark about Dinah's chest, look it up.) mention the word airship. In the meantime, the innocent airship waits for Dinah to say it isn't going to just fly up behind them to do just that to get back for this slander being spread around about it. This leads to a motorcycle-airship chase (in which Ollie learns the glue arrow didn't help, Ha!), and since Winick can't make the airship be homosexual or have AIDS, he takes things in a sillier direction.

Green Lantern Corps #22: CHECK IT. We take a break from the main action of the Alpha Lantern story arc to see an Alpha Lantern in action, Boodikka returns to her home planet to reprimand her sector partner (and in fact, her sister) for ignoring the orders of the Guardians and neglecting her duties as a Green Lantern in not reporting for training. The Guardians actually come up with a neat solution.

JLA Classified #54: PASS IT. We see the end of the JLA's "epic" battles with Titus, both in the past and the present (which is also now the past). Whenever I see Titus' name, I think of that short lived Fox show. The book is basically a double book long fight scene, and you know what I think of those, unless they're done really well. This had a moment here or there, but eh. Plus both JLAs seem rather unconcerned that Titus' fate was a bit more brutal than simply cuffing him and sending him off to jail for trial (by necessity, sure, but still...)

Salvation Run #5: CHECK IT. Joker's guys run a supply raid on Lex Luthor's guys. It turns into a faceoff where Joker has a gun pulled on Lex, but Deadshot has a gun pulled on Joker, until Joker's guys show up... and until Catwoman is captured and everyone's got a mad on at her. To save her skin, she outs "Blockbuster" as really being Martian Manhunter. They're not inclined to listen to his logic that he can't help them get home if they kill him. We see the real reason why the villains are on this planet. And Vandal Savage needs YOUR hot criminal chicks!

Suicide Squad: Raise The Flag #7: CHECK IT. Rustam's back, only this is the daddy of the last one. Flag has no problem having it out with him. Deadshot is temporarily blinded in one eye by the combination of infrared lens and fire sword. Eiling and Thinker pull their plan to betray the Squad, and Windfall dies heroically and controversially, saving the Squad from Chemo/Thinker. Blackguard dies more ignomiously. Plastique announces she's not switching to the General's side after all. Back at base, Faraday kills Thinker and wakes Waller up in a classic way. Flag beats up Rustam and steals his magic stuff. Deadshot tries a cunning plan to overcome his depth perception lack.

Superman #674: CHECK IT. Clark shows off the rebuilt apartment that Chris accidentally destroyed. Then he goes and actually acknowledges Mon-El's existence, so you know he's going to figure into the story. After that, a metahuman named Paragon is loose. He has no powers of his own, but when near another metahuman, he mimics and amplifies their powers, so near Superman, he's a more powerful Superman, so of course, that's who he goes after. Clark tries a desperate plan, and then another complication arises.

Superman Confidential #13: CHECK IT. In analysis of a fight with Superman, Toyman sees that it seems his machines were being interfered with by a hypersonic signal and deduces the existence of some type of signal for Superman. Of course, at the same time, Jimmy is feeling like he isn't being taken seriously, so to allieve that, he's going to go get himself in trouble. But at least this time, Mexican wrestlers weren't involved.

Wonder Woman #18: CHECK IT. Odd issue, first Wonder Woman shows up at Nemesis' hospital bed with gifts announcing her intention to court him in the Amazon style. He scores a nectarine pit and a gold bracelet with thorns and ribbons. Yay? After this, a Khund (which according to the Legion of Super Heroes Cartoon is pronounced with an "uh" sound. I always pronounced with an "oo" sound myself.) vessel lands. They want to wage war... against Wonder Woman. Boot to the head! Hup! Go! Hup! Hup! Once Wonder Woman establishes that she can beat them all up, they want to take her to Khundia because they need a favor. There's a statue there to honor Diana, but they prettied her up a bit, made her more Khund like, since she can't help her hideous appearance. Etta Candy is also on the Khund homeworld to help in this mission to fight this Ichor. But she finds that the Ichor has its own protector.

Marvel:

Amazing Spider-Girl #18: CHECK IT. As Ben Parker is getting an operation to restore his hearing (he lost it when he advertently was in the way when May used sonics vs. Carnage), May is being held captive by a group of villains fighting over who gets the disk with all of Kingpin's files on it (a subplot started way back in issue #1). Hobgoblin's psychic henchman Mindworm tries to betray him, so Hobgoblin frees Spider-Girl in his own self interest and the two of them team up against the villains. This whole subplot takes a twist ending, and May's relationship status changes.

Amazing Spider-Man #553: CHECK IT. Freak (the junkie who stole from the shelter where Aunt May volunteers) has mutated due to shooting up with stem cells stolen from Dr. Connors and is promptly shot by a member of the NYPD. This, of course, doesn't end his fledgling super villain career, and another New York mayoral candidate is in jeopardy. In the meantime, Peter feels guilty about having to shoot unflattering pictures of his friend's father, and Jonah gets a copy of the new DB.

Avengers Fairy Tales #1: CHECK IT. We retell Peter Pan here, with the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver in the roles of Wendy and John, Captain America as Peter Pan, the Wasp as Tinkerbell, and Hawkeye, Black Panther, Thor and Iron Man playing the roles of the Lost Boys. Klaw gets typecast into the Captain Hook role. These Fairy Tale books are always odd, but interesting reads.

Avengers Initiative #10: CHECK IT. A clone of MVP is rampaging throughout the camp, now calling himself KIA, killing everyone he blames for the death of the original MVP. He has the Tactigon, the weapon once attached to Arsenal (and thus, the weapon that killed MVP), a weapon that can become any weapon imaginable, so this is bad. Gauntlet is speaking in an alien language and seems taken over by his own alien attachment as he fights KIA. The Scarlet Spiders, also being MVP clones, try reasoning with him and one is killed. Baron von Blitzschlag relays a desperate plan to Cloud 9, Hardball and Komodo, but they get stopped by a very surprising group.

Fantastic Four #555: CHECK IT. This hot chick Reed used to be with before Sue comes back into his life. Turns out this company she and her husband are with have determined that the Earth is doomed within 10 years, and it's too late to stop it, so she wants Reed to help with this project for a replacement Earth. I'm really trying to figure out if this is supposed to be happening now or in the future, since the Four have slightly different costumes and look older, plus if Earth is going to be uninhabitable by 2018, that really should be something that other Marvel titles should be concerned about.

Mighty Avengers #10: MUST READ. Attempting to arrest Doom while he was mucking about with Time Portals has sent Doom, Iron Man and That Crazy Sentry back to comics of yesteryore. Marvel does a terrific job here making the past sequences look like an old Marvel comic, right down to little ads at the bottom of the page. I also like Iron Man's computers freaking out because they can't find satellites, mobile signals or the Internet. Doom realizing That Crazy Sentry is a few munchkins short of a Power Pack made me laugh. Doom, of course, knows someone who has a time machine...

QUOTES OF THE WEEK:

Freak: "This is all your fault, you @#%$&!"
Spider-Man: "My fault? But you're supposed to blame the President for all your problems!"
-- Amazing Spider-Man #553

Slapstick: "This is my Super Soaker. There are many like it. But this one is mine! I call her Shirley."
-- Avengers: The Initiative #10

Ant-Man: "What's all the beeping?"
Taskmaster: "It's an emergency call to arms."
Ant-Man: "You gonna answer it?"
Taskmaster: "Nah."
Ant-Man: "I hear that. Hey. I got two episodes of 'Chuck' on my iPod."
Taskmaster: "Y'know something, Ant-Man, your'e good people."
-- Avengers: The Initiative #10

Wrath (thought narration): "A compliment? From him? May as well spit in my face!"
-- Batman Confidential #14

Booster: "Oops."
Beetle: "Oops? We've got a thousand robots trying to kill us and all you can say is oops?"
-- Booster Gold #7

Beetle: (disguising the Bug as an O.M.A.C.) "There's nothing of interest here. I am just another O.M.A.C. Move along."
-- Booster Gold #7

Booster: "You're brilliant. Did I ever tell you that? Like Batman brilliant."
Beetle: "Whatever's going on, we'll fix it this time. Together. Blue and Gold. Like the good old days."
Booster: "Better than the good old days."
-- Booster Gold #7

Huntress: "I'm not like the happy fun superheroes that play nice. I try really hard not to spill blood anymore, but you never know when I might backslide."
-- Countdown to Mystery #6

Black Canary: "That was all kinds of stupid."
Green Arrow: "Them or us?"
Black Canary:"Both."
-- Green Arrow/Black Canary #6

Speedy: "I don't know, guys. I'm not sure how you could explain away a four-hundred pound Austrian arms smuggler and his gun moll being able to kick their asses and leap out of a four-story building."
Black Canary: "We could say we do Pilates."
Green Arrow: "Yes. Talk about how my core is in amazing shape."
-- Green Arrow/Black Canary #6

Green Arrow: "I'll try and limit it to yelling at people who aren't 'family.'"
Black Canary: "Thank you. We both know that's a whole lotta crap, but I appreciate the pretense."
-- Green Arrow/Black Canary #6

Dr. Doom (about That Crazy Sentry): "He reacted too strongly to that spirit reversal spell. He's not a well man."
-- Mighty Avengers #10

Dr. Doom (about Mastermind making everyone forget That Crazy Sentry existed): "Isn't Mastermind dead?"
Iron Man: "This was a while ago."
Dr. Doom: "Still, you have to admire the achievement."
Iron Man: "You are a horror."
Dr. Doom: "A lot more people hate you than hate me."
-- Mighty Avengers #10

King Faraday: "Amanda! You are not dead, you hear me?! This whole thing has gone into the toilet and you're not going to saddle me with it, you hear?! Wake up, you *****!"
Amanda Waller: "I'm going to assume there's a good reason you're slapping me around, Faraday. What's going on?"
-- Suicide Squad: Raise the Flag #7

Amanda Waller: "Did you shoot Cliffie?!"
King Faraday: "He shot me first!"
Amanda Waller: "You had to kill him? He was the only one who knew how to make this electronic mumbo-jumbo work!"
King Faraday: "Amanda, you could never trust him again! He tried to fry your brain!"
Amanda Waller: "I know, I know. I just kinda liked Cliffie, is all."
-- Suicide Sqad: Raise the Flag #7

Lois Lane (to Jimmy Olsen): "This is stupid. I'm not going to get the story by talking to you."
-- Superman Confidential #13

Superman (in thought narration, after Jimmy uses the signal watch on a minor matter *again*): "One more time and I'll take back the watch."
-- Superman Confidential #13

Nemesis: "What... what about the courting rituals of *my* people?"
Wonder Woman: "What, of the midwestern American male species? Do you really want dinner and a movie, and to meet my parents?"
-- Wonder Woman #18

Nemesis: "Hey, wait! 'In the manner of your people...!' But all your 'people' are of the female persuasion...!"
Wonder Woman: "Aren't you the observant one?"
-- Wonder Woman #18

Khund: "She watches the MTV, I'm afraid."
-- Wonder Woman #18

Wonder Woman: "You stay back, Etta."
Etta Candy: "I will so do that thing."
-- Wonder Woman #18

Hopefully it won't be as long until I see you next time as it was for this time. After all, there's karaoke tomorrow night, and I need to let you know how that goes.

So Cal is where my mind states, but it's not my state of mind.

I am loving going to karaoke again. When the original guy at the place I go moved on, and I stopped going to the lady that replaced him because of the factors described in the last entry, I tried going to other places, but they were either abandoned (and karaoke really isn't that fun if no one's there) or scuzzy. This place, even though it is still a bar, is still classy.

The first night I was there, there were actually a few people there who remembered me from years before. One even asked me what took me so long in showing up, since they've apparently been doing it there for a year, and I just didn't know. I've had quite a few people compliment me there, including a number of girls. One guy said I reminded him of Jack Black. When I asked if that was a good thing, he said it was. Another guy said I should be fronting a band.

The karaoke jockey they've got now is a lady who seems pretty nice and has a good setup as well as a pretty good selection of songs. Sister Christian by Night Ranger sticks out as one I always wanted to do but never found anyone who had a karaoke version of it until now. Unfortunately, there are quite a few holes too. I've considered maybe making a list of all the songs I would like to see, since all pros are always on the lookout for new music.

But it is fun going there and regularly owning the place.

In the meantime, even with skipping to the present, I am falling way behind on comic reviews again, I had better catch up.

Here's March 5th, 2008:

DC:

All New Atom #21: CHECK IT. Ryan is concerned that Ray Palmer's experiments are what has caused Ivy Town to become the weirdness magnet that it is. To prove it, he decides to take a blood sample of himself and shrink into it, trying to find tachyon residue. Instead, he finds something else, which looks suspiciously like the Morticoccus virus from Countdown. Then he really screws up.

Countdown: Lord Havok and the Extremists #5: CHECK IT. Actually a pretty fun series, since the Extremists are very thinly veiled Marvel pastiches, and here, they're going through their Civil War. Wikipedia can help people figure out who fits into what role. This issue is mostly an origin for Dr. Diehard who in terms of powers and character is mostly Magneto, but has quite a but of Charles Xavier in his history (tried to use Xavier's "teach them to fit in" philosophy, rather than Magneto's "take the world by superior right" philosophy).

Countdown to Adventure #7: CHECK IT. Animal Man discovers that his powers now extend to, basically, mimicing any animal in the universe. Starfire gets her powers back. Can they save Rann with Adam Strange and the two wives? Also Forerunner discoveres a space shuttle from one of the 52 Earths, has a crossover with an issue of Countdown from like 10 weeks ago, fails, and has sex to celebrate.

Countdown to Final Crisis #8: CHECK IT. First Darkseid and Solomon the Monitor play Heroclix. Then Ray Palmer, who was spying on their Heroclix game by pretending to be a Heroclix decides to go tell all the heroes what he's learned. They all argue. Should Karate Kid live or die? Should Jimmy Olsen confront Darkseid? Finally Solomon gets sick of it all and sends them away.

Detective Comics #842: CHECK IT. Close to a MUST READ though. In a bit of a coda to the Resurrection of Ra's Al Ghul storyline, Batman's noticing something odd about the armor he got from Talia. Specifically, while he's wearing it, he feels compelled to be more violent than usual. Can there be more to this suit than meets the eye? I really do like these little one shot detective-skill emphasizing stories in Detective.

Green Lantern #28: MUST READ. The first Red Lantern gets his power. Atrocitus of the Empire of Tears is full of rage at the Guardians at his imprisonment and decides to get his revenge on the greatest Green Lantern... Sinestro. He's been out of touch lately. The main attraction here though is the murder trial of Laira, a Green Lantern who used the Guardian's directive enabling lethal force against members of the Sinestro Corps to summarily execute Amon Sur (Abin Sur's son) after he had already surrendered. There were some who actually tried to take Laira's side in this, but killing prisoners who surrendered is, indeed, murder. The new Alpha Lantenrs are a big part of this story as well. They are converted Green Lanterns, made into half Manhunter to serve as an Internal Affairs division for the Green Lanterns. Despite Boodikka being a fellow "Lost Lantern" with Laira, she is the one to proclaim Laira guilty and pronounce the sentence to be expulsion from the Corps. In a nice touch, the language in which the Guardians write in the book of Oa is Interlac, from the Legion of Super-Heroes, as they write their first law in (Lethal force against the Sinestro Corps has been authorized.), and add a second. Don't feel too bad for Laira though, she gets a new job.

Infinity Inc #7: PASS IT. Right now, Infinity Inc. is very close to being off my read list. I really liked the whole Everyman plotline in 52, but its just not working here. Most of these kids are constantly going to therapy and that's not really interesting at all. And half the group has really sucky powers. How exactly will ability to change from one gender to another at will ever help in a situation? And the guy who can split into multiple copies of himself... let's just say Triplicate Girl pulled it off by having a large supporting cast and by being *interesting*. This issue wasn't as bad as the others, but see damning with faint praise. I'm really hoping it'll get better because I liked the first Infinity, Inc. as well.

Justice League: The New Frontier Special: MUST READ. Three stories from the time period as the new DVD movie. In the first, Superman is ordered to go bring in Batman. Batman has prep time. Hilarity ensues. In the second story, Dick Grayson and Wally West drag racing together ends up turning into the two of them teaming up to take down Communist saboteurs and saving JFK, who coins the term "Teen Titans" in describing them. What is it with retro Titans stories and JFK lately. In the last story, ultra feminist Wonder Woman decides to go to a Gotham bunny club and tell the men the error of their ways. Black Canary tags along for giggles. The highlight of the story comes when Diana takes off her flaming bustier and beats the men with it. That's not a joke.

Nightwing #142: MUST READ. Nightwing is continuing to pursue whoever is robbing graves of heroes and villains. When he captures one of the monstrosities these people are using, it falls over dead, so he enlists the help of Dr. Mid-Nite. He identifies the DNA of Afrrican fauna, leading Dick to a certain conclusion. So Dick decides to pick up some supplies and enlist a little help. With the new creative team, the writing has gotten much better and this has become a much more enjoyable book.

Raven #1: CHECK IT. I kid you not, the cover here boasts that Raven is, and I quote, "finally in her own emo series". Raven has a dream that someone at her high school gets shot. At school, she discovers that the dream was a premonition, and will happen in a few days. In the meantime, an Army shipment of a dangerous cargo goes wrong when one of the soldiers removes his protective headgear and undergoes random emotions as he becomes homocidal We get a lot of backstory on Raven, as you might expect. Emotions also run random at Raven's school which she blames herself for, but there seems to be something else there.

Supergirl #27: CHECK IT. Supergirl has put her foot in it. While evacuating a collapsing building, she promised a child he wasn't going to die, and it turns out he had a terminal disease. The parents were angry, and rather than just explain that she meant dying from the building, Supergirl said "You know what, you AREN'T going to die. I promise." Just then, time seemed to stop and a guy tried to kill her. When an only mostly frozen Superman thwarted that, Supergirl and future guy found themselves in the future. Apparently, by saving the kid, it became a catalyst for a major change in humanity itself that this guy was trying to prevent. But not everyone is unhappy with the status quo.

Teen Titans: Year One #3: CHECK IT. While it's been sort of funny watching heroes smack around their young proteges, it's time to put an end to it. the team gets together and decides to outnumber the adults, as well as not go after them with their own proteges, since they'd be too familiar with them. Robin breaks thsi plan when Batman is the last remaining uncaptured hero, as it's going to take all 5 of them to stop him (though really, couldn't Wonder Girl break him in half if he's being too evil for prep time? Kid Flash should be able to defeat him pretty easily too.) Highlight of the book is Wonder Girl breaking out an anime powercry, especially when Aqualad enjoys the exposure to water.

Marvel:

Amazing Spider-Man: #552: CHECK IT. A junkie named Freak tries to rip off the donation box at the soup kitchen Aunt May volunteers at in order to pay for his latest hit. Unfortunately for him, Peter is helping out at the time. Even more unfortunately, he loses the cash box, but gets away and finds Curt Connors' lab to hide in, mistaking a stem cell experiment for drugs. Oops. Other stuff happens too.

QUOTES OF THE WEEK:

Head: "Watching was Charles the Dominator of Family on TV -- submission of Nicole Eggert!!"
-- All New Atom #21

Sinestro: "Predicting the Guardians is like predicting the weather when it is already raining."
-- Green Lantern #28

RIng: "Laira of Sector 112. You have great rage in your heart."
-- Green Lantern #28

Catwoman: "Don't get all weepy on me. That trinket is no gift. You owe me seventy thousand *and* dinner at The Strand."
-- Justice League: New Frontier Special

Batman (narration panel): "Mister America attacks the hill with his face. I rifle into the cave hoping for a nice soft wall to crash into."
-- Justice League: New Frontier Special

Nightwing: "You idiots have any idea what granite tastes like?" *shortly before swinging two muggers into the outside wall of the police station*
-- Nightwing #142

Nightwing's letter to Batman: "Bruce - Borrowed the jet and a few other things -- have them back soon. Your pal, Jimmy Olsen."
-- Nightwing #142

Have a happy Good Friday, and always be a fan.

And they were dancing. And singing. And moving to the grooving. And just when it hit me, somebody turned around and shouted "Play that funky music, white boy!"

Me, I'm going to be hitting karaoke tonight. It's at the place I used to do karaoke years ago. I'm hoping it will go well. After the guy who used to do it left, they had a lady replace him. A lot of the people who went immediately stopped going. I gave it a chance, but this lady lacked a certain piece of equipment that compensated for the volume that the singer was singing at. People who know how to sing tend to sing much louder than people who are unsure of themselves. The lady needed to keep the volume high for the non-singers so the singers were coming through way too loud, so they ended being asked not to sing too loud. This included me, and I tried to comply, but it made me uncomfortable and threw off my performance, so I stopped going. Later, I heard they stopped offering it.

As anyone keeping track on my DVDSpot.com page (which is most probably no one) can see, I've started watching Tombstone, the 3 disc Undertaker set again. It's kind of fitting that I'm watching it this month, as after I got it, I actually ended up giving it to my mother as my last Christmas present to her, since she liked Undertaker even more than I did (her ultimate idea of the perfect RAW was Undertaker beating everyone up.) I then ended up getting it back after her passing, but it's nice watching it and remembering the good times with her. Next Thursday is the 2 year anniversary of the official date of her passing, and on that day, I plan on watching The Legend of Zorro, a DVD she bought that month, and may or may not have gotten to see. I've never been able to bring myself to watch it, and I want to on that day just to remember her.

In other me news, I got my 2nd level 60 character in World of Warcraft recently. This one was only 14 months after people cared about level 60s, as opposed to Boffo who was 3 months late. The surprising finisher was my Night Elf Hunter Iridiscia. Can I get to 70, or even 68 before the Wrath of the Lich King beta? We'll see.

In the meantime, here's some up to date comics reviewery from February 27th, 2008:

DC:

Action Comics #862: MUST HAVE. Geoff Johns is perhaps the most awesome writer DC has right now. He's bringing the awesome in Green Lantern. He's bringing the awesome, at least for now, in Booster Gold. And he's bringing the awesome in this book. In the 5th chapter of "Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes", Superman continues to aid this odd kinda-sorta pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths version of the Legion. They decide to try to rescue their friends from the "Justice League" and Earth Man, and Superman decides that they're going to need the help of the Subs. That would be the too-cool-for-you Legion of Substitute Heroes who crash a bus into the League's satellite and attack as a diversion. If you love the Legion at all, this book just reeks of incredible, even if a lot of it is a fight scene.

All-Star Batman & Robin #9: CHECK IT. Hal Jordan has issues with the GD Batman, so he decides to have Robin paint the inside of a safe house and the both of them entirely yellow to render Hal's ring useless as they argue it out. We find out that Batman has covered his tracks as regards being accused of kidnapping Dick Grayson. Would you believe Hal gets his butt kicked by Robin? And you probably won't believe what happens from there.

Batman #674: CHECK IT. As Bat-Mite (or hallucination thereof) looks on and comments, the Batman impersonator who both captured Batman and restarted his heart dumps a ton of exposition on us as to exactly who he is and why he exists. But even though this guy apparently saved his life, Batman needs to escape and stop this guy. And Gordon needs to find out just how the GCPD is involved? Can both succeed? And what about Bruce's secret identity after he just disappeared during a parachute jump with his new girlfriend Jet a few issues back?

Blue Beetle #24: MUST READ. On the Reach ship, Jaime's been stripped of the scarab, leaving him powerless (and naked). On Earth, Reach forces have just destroyed Jaime's family's house. But apparently, before it was stripped, the scarab left Jaime with something because he seems to be familiar with how to work things on the ship, and he has a definite plan for how to stop them. On Earth, Jaime's family has survived their house's destruction, and pretty much everyone from the supporting cast of the last 23 issues shows up to help save them. John Rogers' writing is excellent, both humorous and exciting.

Countdown to Final Crisis #9: CHECK IT. On Apokolips/Brother I, Desaad spills that he's been behind all the misery dropped on Trickster and Piper, and it was all a plan to get Piper there. Karate Kid is being slowly dissected by Brother I to get at the disease he's carrying. Jason Todd is observing all this, and Kyle, Donna, Ray, Mary, Harley and Holly are all going to find Jason and whatever he's found. Whew. Jason manages to find and free Firestorm, and Ray re-dons the Atom costume. Ray also finds Karate Kid and recognizes his disease, which is probably a good thing. But Brother I does something bad to our heroes and things look grim. Piper gets his revenge. All this and the origin of... Black Manta? OK...

I did have some confusion here given that in Batman and the Outsiders, Batman is trying to prevent Brother I from regaining extraterrestrial assets, and here, he IS Apokolips. Then again, last issue, Mary Marvel freed a bunch of gods who were captive on Apokolips, making quite a few people wonder how the gods could both be captive on Apokolips and helping Freddy Freeman with his trials in The Trials of Shazam.

Then again, Kyle Rayner started appearing in this title in the middle of the Sinestro Corps War while he was still possessed by Parallax. After the Sinestro Corps War, he continued to simply hang around in Green Lantern Corps, never leaving to go hop around parallel universes as portrayed in Countdown.

Crime Bible: The Five Lessons of Blood #5: PASS IT. As we wrap up this miniseries, Renee goes and finds this Flay guy who threatened her loved ones (or her version thereof, Renee seems kind of low on traditional family anymore). He wants a big fight where the loser dies, and the winner gets control of this cult that he just happens to have... right here. Renee doesn't like either of these prizes and wants what Hiro-san is bringing down in the box... unfortunately, Hiro-san brings the girl Renee cheated on Kathy Kane with a few issues back and if she doesn't play with Flay, the chick dies. Oops. So they have a fight. One of them wins, but we really don't have an ending to this story, and I hate that in the ending to a mini.

JLA Classified #53: CHECK IT. In flashback, in what's a flashback story to begin with, the classic JLA fights Titus, a being who believes himself to be a god. Despite the JLA having severe alpha male issues, they get Titus down. When they demand his surrender, he laughs and replies with a surprising offer. Will the JLA be tempted? If not, what will Titus do?

JSA Classified #35: CHECK IT. Alan Scott poses a question to Wildcat "Why do you still put on the costume?" He doesn't want Ted to quit his role as a trainer of heroes, but he doesn't need the costume for that, and he doesn't seem to wear it much anymore anyway. Ted says he'll think about it on a trip he's taking to Gotham. He stops by a gym he used to own. He's recognized by the new owner there who was such a fan of his boxing career that he kept the name "Grant's Gym" on the place. He takes on a couple of the young boxers in the ring, and after he beats them, they decide to meet him outside and discuss the matter with a pipe and a few friends, and leave him laying. But doesn't Ted have a friend in Gotham?

Legion of Super-Heroes #39: CHECK IT. Projectra enters her old apartment (she lost it because the destruction of Orando has left her destitute), using her power on the guard outside, only to meet Saturn Girl's mother, who warns her to behave. On Triton, Saturn Girl's team finishes their mission. Under New Beijing, Colossal Boy, Ultra Boy and Element Lad track down an infestation of Venusian Muskshrews. In Legion HQ, Light Lass and Phantom Girl worry about Lightning Lad being overwhelmed as leader, but is somebody taking care of those duties for him? And a Legionnaire does something bad.

Teen Titans #56: CHECK IT. This issue could get the title "Kid Devil's Worstest Day Ever". After messing up during a fight against former Blue Devil/Booster Gold villain Shockwave (so obscure that he doesn't even have a Wikipedia entry) and getting yelled at, Kid Devil returns to Titans Tower as all the other members leave. Out of boredom, he makes the ill-advised decision to invite a bunch of fans to a party. The party quickly grows out of control (points for having a guy yell "Your mom!" at Batman over the communications system. Quintuple points for Jaime having the ultimate "What Would Ted Kord Do?" moment and letting out a classic "Bwahahahahaha!!!!") Then KD's day gets worse...

Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters #6: CHECK IT. We're introduced to Neon, a new hero, and given his origin, but no real detail is given on his powers or why the elder Ray is going to him for help. But the elder Ray decides to try on Neon's origin for himself in a desperate effort to get some help against Red Bee. A scientist tries to enlarge a group of shrunken people, but instead makes a mass blob group mind thing. I hate when that happens. In the meantime, the Freedom Fighters fight the Red Bee. Human Bomb breaks free of her control, but she still has Uncle Sam in thrall. A last minute entrance prompts the "To be continued" message.

Marvel

Captain America #35: CHECK IT. S.H.I.E.L.D. agents brainwashed by Red Skull's minion Dr. Faustus have opened fire on protestors at the White House in an effort to discredit and stall Tony Stark and S.H.I.E.L.D. But is that the end of their plan? With an even more rabid crowd against S.H.I.E.L.D., their only way to keep an eye on the mob is Bucky America. Things, of course, get worse, and it's up to Bucky to act.

Marvel Zombies 2 #5: CHECK IT. Most of the zombies have suddenly lost their hunger. They now remember that they're heroes and want to make things right. However, the remaining humans don't really trust this sudden conversion. To make things worse, the one zombie that doesn't lose his hunger is The Hulk. Now there's no time to doubt the sincerity of the non-hungry zombies as it's Hulk vs. everybody. Can Hulk be defeated? Can zombie and human live in peace? Big twist ending here.

New Warriors #9: CHECK IT. Night Thrasher has been disappearing during fights without giving a reason, and when the Warriors are left in the lurch and almost die against the Alpha-Clan only to have Thrasher show up and activate a "Ghost-Mode" rendering the Warriors intangible (that they didn't know about), Jubilee is mad. She considers quitting. Kaz tells Thrasher the team is getting suspicious and Thrasher tells him that he has a plan that he'll need Kaz's help with. Will Kaz go along? Is the plan the truth?

Spider-Man With Great Power #2: CHECK IT. In this mini, which seems to be going along the lines of "What if the wrestling promoter didn't rip Spidey off, causing him to ignore the robber who then shot Uncle Ben", Peter is pursuing his wrestling career as Spider-Man. Sadly, the issue is Bonesaw-free. The wrestling, unfortunately, is causing Peter to sleep through class (and making it so Liz Allen can't copy his tests. For shame, Liz.) We even have the web fluid being developed as a gimmick for the matches (which I'm pretty sure would get you disqualified). Life is great for old Pete!

Thor #6: CHECK IT. A lot of the book is taken up with the wacky adventures of the Asgardians and the Oklahomans. We learn fun facts like Asgard has no sewer system, they simply toss it over the side. But for the most part, the Oklahomans seem fascinated by the Asgardians, and the feeling seems intriguingly mutual. At the end, Thor comes to a momentous and risky decision.

March 5th's reviews are just around the corner, plus I'll tell you how karaoke went. Tune in next time!

Ugh, it's this month again. Those of you who know me, if I seem to be a little on edge, you know why.

Anyway, a new month, such as it is, does call for page stats. For the month of February, 97 visits came from outside my home county. With that odd thing called Leap Year, February hath 29 days, for an average of 3.34 visits per day. That's down quite a bit from January's average of 4.45 visits a day, but nowhere to go from here but up. Visits came from 22 states. Foreign visitors came from the United Kingdom, Finland, Canada, New Zealand, Poland, Denmark, Austria, Guatemala and Peru. Africa continues to snub me, and convinces Asia to do the same this month. Same to you guys.

There's been a little page work to update you on. As you can see, the BoffoBlog graphic has gotten a facelift to reflect my current appearance in the game. As what I'm wearing now is an endgame epic, this is likely to stay in place for quite a while, unless I go ahead and upgrade to another epic. Otherwise, it will stay in place until the Wrath of the Lich King expansion. As well, on the Boffo's Realm of World of Warcraft page, I finally decided to replace the old "character select" banners with new ones, given that the old banners were getting more and more slow to load and unreliable to even show up at all due to load on the system. With the old ones, when they were requested, each time, data was requested from the WoW Armory character database and they were generated dynamically. With these new ones, they are generated dynamically each week, or whenever I request, and the rest of the time simply stored as normal graphic files, so they load much more quickly and reliably. And I like the look a lot better too.

With the month containing the evil, evil holiday Valentine's Day behind us, it's reminded me of how, in my history, there have been women I've been involved with that have turned out to just be awful people. These women have ended up being selfish, having no problem with lying, have broken promises with utter and callous disregard, and some have even taken it to the level of being treacherous. And the sad thing is that I'm not alone in these types of experiences. But I've had some suggest to me that this is the way women act, and that I just have to get used to it.

(And before anyone gets any wrong ideas in their heads, I should disclaim that I'm not attempting to re-dig into any old feuds on here, and if anyone thinks that's what I am doing, if they knew who I would and would not include in my description above, they might be surprised.)

In examining whether these multiple experiences are really what women are like, there are other sources. Not every relationship with a woman becomes or even approaches romantic involvement. To start with the easiest example, my mother was one of the most honorable people I ever knew. And through her, I knew other women of her generation that were honest and forthright.

But Dave, my invisible debater argues, that's not the same kind of relationship structure. And I say granted, so let's move on to the next step.

In college, I had a pretty large number of female friends. These relationships were usually platonic. Some were extremely flirtatious. And there was everything in between. Only one ever reached the point where the woman behaved as I described above, and that was after we were spending so much time together it was almost like we were together. The rest of my friends always behaved very honorably. A number of them have either found me or I've found them again through MySpace or Facebook, and they're still honorable.

There seem to be a limited number of conclusions that can be drawn:

1. All women really are crazy, it just comes out when you become boyfriend-level close to them, and is totally hidden before that: I'm sorry, but this seems really silly to me. Crazy people really aren't capable of hiding that they're crazy. Look at rabid anti-game lawyer Jack Thompson, who should be able to appear sane in front of non-gamers otherwise.

2. The problem is somehow with me: Certainly, this is a possibility if a large number of people have a problem with a single one, but I don't think so. I'm far from the only person to have this kind of issue (note the people telling me it's something that I have to get used to with women), and there's women who run into legitimately bad news men a lot. Plus, growing up in an environment where you're told everything IS your fault, it makes you self-examine a lot, and while I don't claim to be perfect, I can't find any substantial fault that has brought this issue on.

3. All women aren't crazy, I've just hit crazy ones: I choose to believe this is the answer to the dilemma.

I just turned 35, but in my optimistic moments, I'd like to believe I'll still find Miss Right, because I believe God has a plan for my life. If I choose to believe that lying and selfishness is just how women are and I should tolerate that, then I am choosing to settle, and I could be cutting myself off from Miss Right for an inferior woman who got there sooner. I have high standards, but ultimately, it's because I'm dealing with the prospect of choosing someone to be with for the rest of my life. 

Sure, there's a chance that it could end up no one and I'll end up alone (and there are bad times when it seems like that's the most likely option), but that would be preferable to settling and ending up stuck with a bad person.

I'd like to officially welcome Facebook to the family of partners where this blog is simulcast. I'd provide a link, but with the way Facebook is set up, until and unless you're my friend on Facebook, you only see a fairly small picture of me if you try to access my profile. Luckily, unlike certain other people, my shot is a headshot, so it's pretty easy to tell it's me. Some pictures on there simply can't be made out until you actually do become the person's friend and can see the photo at a larger size.

I'm very impressed by the number of people from my alma mater that I've managed to find on there (or who have managed to find me). While not everyone on my Facebook friend list is a Point Loma alumni, the vast majority are. As well, Facebook is pretty active. In all the time I've been on MySpace, I've only racked up 45 friends (given that I am fairly selective about choosing only people that I actually know, and 3 of those don't even count, being 2 celebrities and my college radio station). In the relatively short time I've been on Facebook, I've already racked up 36 friends.

I actually got to visit San Diego and Point Loma again some months back. It was very odd for me since I hadn't been in the area since moving away in December of 2001. There was a lot that was the same, but there were a lot of new buildings as well out in San Diego as a whole. I laughed when I found where our hotel was since it was on a road typically used to reach the college, and I must have passed that hotel a couple hundred times easy during my college career bicycling back and forth.

When I brought my best friend and his mother to Point Loma, we made sure to drive down around Goodwin Hall. That place was my home for a long time. I actually stayed my whole college career (counting regular school years only) in that dorm since I liled it so much. I used to joke with the Resident Directors that maybe they should get my Social Security number and claim me as a dependent.

The other part I was sure to show off was the Student Commons, since I was there at the beginning (when the building was brand new, I was part of the first ASB council to have offices there). Some of the current ASB was actually there, even though this was a Sunday, and the current Executive Secretary actually had a brief chat with me.

I found out that the structure of ASB had changed. ASB has a Vice-President now, and that person occupies the office I did as Activities Director. The current Activities Director is situated in a cubicle (like Student Relations and Student Ministries are) that was formerly used for Student Ministries storage. The Secretary was amused when I told him that he had the office he had because I didn't like the idea of a windowed office and arranged a trade with the Secretary of my council.

Above the doors, I saw the solution to a problem that I had been wondering about. Old ASB council's pictures are displayed above the offices. Ours is still there, but there is only so much space. Basically, they rotate the pictures out. Come a certain date, our picture comes down and the only reminder of our council will be our president's name in a list of presidents.

On the way out, I saw something I know I shouldn't have been shocked by... but I was.... children, impossibly young children.... and they were students... on my campus. It didn't feel right. I know my friends have all gone on to bigger and better, but the people replacing them on that campus shouldn't be *that* young....

Should they?

I guess Thomas Wolfe was right... you can't go home again.

Anyway, I've made a decision on the comics.... digging at the backlog just seemed to be getting me in deeper and not getting it done. So for right now, I've skipped ahead and gotten the current week done. The goal is to keep up with that. I don't want to totally abandon the backlog, so you will see classic catch-up reviews in here from time to time. But I figure the current stuff will be what's most interesting, and it'll let me focus on other stuff too.

So with that in mind, here's February 20th, 2008:

DC:

Batman and the Outsiders #4: CHECK IT. Batman's new Outsiders are on their first mission along with new member Green Arrow. But after recent events in his titles and minis, he's a little peeved at the League of Assassins, and knows that Batgirl was the leader of one of their factions. So things are not well. In the meantime, you'll never guess who the *next* new member of the Outsiders is. Plus, the two mysterious strangers meet up with Batman, and we still don't know who they are.

Batman Confidential #13: CHECK IT. With a "Policemen of the World" convention in Gotham, someone who looks a lot like Batman is gunning them down. Alfred and Bruce (along with people on a comics discussion board I frequent) seem to know exactly who it is, and it's making Bruce sullen and uncommunicative to the just turned Nightwing Dick Grayson. But that guy is supposed to be dead. Will Bruce let Dick help? Is that guy really dead?

Birds of Prey #115: MUST READ. In plotline A, Huntress and Lady Blackhawk pursue Killer Shark, who had this tendency in his run-ins with the Blackhawks before to drug Lady Blackhawk and make her think she was his consort Queen Shark. Zinda is just a bit peeved about this. You can probably see where this is going. In plotline B, Babs is continuing to watch over Misfit while trying to figure out just what did happen to Tabby Brennan, and Black Alice decides to join the team. The two girls fail to do anything remotely resembling getting along, and it's pretty funny stuff.

Brave and the Bold #10: CHECK IT. We continue the multiple random team up tales in one issue format, under the bigger arc of the Challengers of the Unknown reading the Book of Fate. In one, Superman has been summoned back in time by Merlin to help the Silent Knight kill a dragon. In the other, the original Teen Titans are guests at Aquaman's wedding and Aqualad is a bit of an overreacter.

Checkmate #23: CHECK IT. Checkmate's had a deep cover agent in Kobra for a while now, and all of a sudden he drops cover to transmit a list of over 7.4 million names. Obviously, he needs to be pulled out and Checkmate needs to find out what that list means. They *could* use their own agents to pull him out and get them killed, or ask Superman really nice to do it, even though he doesn't really like Checkmate. And of course that list... it's not exactly a Christmas card list...

Countdown to Final Crisis #10: CHECK IT. Mary, Holly and Harley find a huge vault that Mary says the gods are inside. Apparently the gods say to try saying Shazam. When she does, she's transformed into a white-clad Mary Marvel (with either a silver or grey bolt). When Harley mouths off, the gods give her and Holly powers too. Red Robin tries rescuing Karate Kid, but when he refuses to blow up Una-OMAC, Jason blows him off and leaves. Granny runs away from the girls and meets the God Killer instead. Desaad tries to tempt Pied Piper, even removing the exploding handcuff with Trickster's dead hand still attached, but something bad interrupts this. All this, and the origin of Harley Quinn.

Death of the New Gods #6: CHECK IT. Mr. Miracle is doing all sorts of freaking out assuming Orion is the New God killer, and using his Anti-Life Equation Power to try to kill him, and Superman when he intervenes. Eventually he paralyzes both of them with the power and uses it to make them speak only the truth, but Orion still confirms his innocence. As Miracle apologizes, Orion leaves, finds the God killer, and goes into combat with him, apparently being vaporized in the attempt. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Miracle and Superman find the second Source Wall, made of all the God Killer's victims, and the God Killer's identity is revealed.

Flash #237: PASS IT. As Wally is dividing his day between superheroing and interviewing for jobs he isn't qualified for, Linda has brought the kids to Metropolis for a scavenger hunt, with items including Superman's cape. The pain continues when the kids stumble across Livewire, being villainous for really no good reason. Now, Livewire, when left off in Action and Blue Beetle, had actually helped Superman save the world, and was at S.T.A.R. labs voluntarily to explore what the source of her powers was, so you think somewhere at DC, it would say "Livewire's not available as a villain anymore.", maybe on some internal wiki or something. I was waiting for it to turn out she was in on some lesson for the kids, and it never went that way. Is it too late to Superboy-Prime punch these kids out of existence? Or to bring Bart back?

Justice League of America #18: MUST READ. A group of super criminals have broken into JLA headquarters in order to... immediately surrender? It seems their plan is to ask the JLA for sanctuary from them so as to not get sent to the prison planet depicted in Salvation Run. This doesn't make Amanda Waller overly happy (frankly, what does?) and sets up a nice little chess game between the Suicide Squad and the JLA. The title gets bonus points for remembering that Vixen and Bronze Tiger are a former item. The backup story concerns Red Tornado's decision on whether to attempt a risky return to a body or just be happy in the JLA HQ computer.

Robin #171: CHECK IT. Robin's seeking this new street vigilante, Violet, while seeing someone who looks suspiciously like Spoiler out of the corner of his eye at nearly every turn. In the meantime, he's falling asleep on dates with Zoanne. My favorite bit is when he's undercover at a therapy group, he uses the Alvin Draper alias, even though Conner had told him before it sounds totally made up.

Shadowpact #22: CHECK IT. The team manages to get back together in Myrra, the Nightshade Dimension and come up with a plan to stop the Unbound. Basically, to stop their ability to spread a depressing and evil message with such magical clarity that it converts people to their side, Enchantress manages to construct an equivalent good magical message out of Nightmaster's morality. Will this plan work? One of the team won't be going home. Highlight of the book is finding out that the Enchantress *always* carries a roll of duct tape on her. "Don't you?"

Superman-Batman #46: MUST HAVE. In their quest to rid the world of Kryptonite, Batman and Superman decide to start focusing on the "varietals", such as red, black and gold kryptonite. They detect an odd reading that keeps seeming to move. The latter is explained when it tracks to the Oblivion Bar, the magical watering hole that serves as HQ for the Shadowpact. When an object in there is opened at their request, it contains a pendant that is identified as the "Ach-Om Rashay". Superman nearly immediately feels a compulsion to remove his protective suit to touch it and passes out. When he comes to, he is acting very bizarrely... one might say HIGHLY bizarre. While the Justice League attempts to keep him under control, Zatanna informs them that the magic amulet did have a counter component that is rumored to remove the compulsion caused by the amulet. Bereft of better ideas, Batman and Zatanna set off for the amulet. The writing just sparkles here, and you get some points for including Batman and Zatanna's past beyond the mindwipe (which is NOT mentioned here, an indication that Bruce has truly forgiven her for it, as mentioned over in Detective.)

Superman Confidential #12: CHECK IT. The Luchador scene on the cover only reflected one brief scene in the book. The main story in the book is a Toyman origin, as well as a signal watch origin, as Superman builds it so that Jimmy can keep himself out of trouble. You know, I could have sworn we had just established in a recent Action Comics story that Jimmy built the watch.

Wonder Girl #6: PASS IT. Diana shows up, and the Female Furies make an abortive attempt to take Cassandra as they flee. They fail in this. People talk for the rest of the book. That's pretty much it. This really could have wrapped up in 5 issues, but at least no one went to a concentration camp.

World of Warcraft #4: CHECK IT. The Night Elf Broll, and the amnesiac human, now going by Lo'Gosh after his incredible win in the Dire Maul arena have escaped from their slaver, and are looking for their Blood Elf compatriot Valeera, who unbeknownst to them, has already escaped and is trying to follow them. Broll decides a good next move would be to return to his family's home for rest. Unfortunately, his family lives in the disputed territory of Warsong Gulch (which, in the game, is one of the Battlegrounds on which Horde and Alliance fight it out constantly), so there'll be no rest there.

Marvel:

Amazing Spider-Man #551: CHECK IT. A bunch of cops want to hold Spider-Man for questioning regarding a series of serial killings where the corpses are turning up with his Spider-Tracers on them, but he has no time for this, since the new villain Menace, who seems to be the newest successor to the Goblin line of criminals (and who has a shock of red hair, but this may be a... red hair-ing) is terrorizing the mayoral debate. He gets rescued by New York's registered hero Jackpot (also a redhead). Spider-Man ends up really really promises he'll give up if the cops help save the mayoral candidates. Will the Registration and training process be enough to avoid catastrophe? And is Jackpot who she says she is?

Mighty Avengers #9: CHECK IT. The Pro-Reg sell-out Avengers are attacking Dr. Doom's castle in Latveria in retaliation for the attack last issue where a bunch of people in New York turned into Venom, even though it seems Latveria didn't launch the attack deliberately. At the end, Tony learns it's bad to attack Doom when he's playing with certain toys.

The Order #8: PASS IT. This issue kind of left one going... huh? One member turns into liquid and another lies in them, and then they're some kind of fused thing that manages to beat the bad guys threatening them and return to The Order. When they get unfused, it turns out they were having a form of sex, and the girl's powers are lowered, but the guy, formerly paraplegic, can walk again. In the meantime, the Order is being threatened by a bunch of robots they don't really know about yet, as well as the Black Dahlias, who may have made a huge mistake in turning off Mulholland's powers.

Next time... more pure Dave. Won't that be fun?

A minor development in this Spygate case. Former Patriots video assistant Matt Walsh's lawyer has let it leak to the media that his client purportedly possesses video tape evidence to back up his allegations. As Walsh is assumed to be the unnamed source who video taped the Rams before Super Bowl XXXVI, this might very well be a "smoking gun" if Walsh and his lawyer are telling the truth. The hang up right now is that the NFL's offer of indemnification is dependent on Walsh "telling the truth" and handing over any materials obtained illegally. Walsh wants unconditional indemnification as he says it's too easy for the NFL to simply say he failed to tell the truth even if he did. The NFL says unconditional indemnification is unreasonable.

The main problem is if this goes uninvestigated or swept under the rug, everybody loses. Pats fans will, of course, refuse to believe it and try to tell everyone that we have to believe in "innocent until proven guilty", but that's a dictum for courts or other bodies with subpoenas and other investigative powers. There's so much smoke from this that the Patriots already look guilty in the minds of a lot of people, especially given what has been admitted to. It's especially hurtful to the players who may very well be innocent and only doing what the coaches were telling them to do (which would dramatically decrease the number of people needed to keep this a secret). Patriots players were actually booed at the recent Pro Bowl, and next year could be an utter fiasco for them at visiting games. It could be a large mess, and all parties involved need to work to get it cleaned up ASAP rather than try to hide it, even if that means changing the results of past games if the winners of record cheated to get there (a result which should only happen if there's direct proof though).

As stated before, I've been feeling kind of nostalgic lately because I've signed on for Facebook, and managed to find a bunch of people I went to college with. (I'd link my profile here, but Facebook won't let you see it unless you're already my friend. But if you are, you can get to see what kind of music I'm listening to on my computer.) Some of them have had to find me, because my memory can be a little wonky at times, and they give you tiny tiny pictures to work with and women have this odd tendency to change their last name after a while.

At any rate, it got feeling very nostalgic about a certain infamous karaoke machine.

My love for karaoke was well known around that campus already. There was one incident in my 2nd year there where I was serving on the Associated Men Students and Junior Class Councils (I was a transfer student, but unfortunately, not many of my units transferred to anything helpful). I basically was the Junior Class Rep on AMS Council and the AMS Rep on Junior Class Council, meaning I basically represented both councils to each other. Around Halloween, rather than anything named after that holiday itself, AMS puts on a festival night called Samedi Gras, which was our biggest event of the year. The AMS President told those of us who were on Class Councils to be sure to tell them we were being reserved by AMS that night and wouldn't be available, which I did.

Halfway through the night though, the AMS President goes ahead and relieves me and tells me to enjoy the night. I go and find the food booth my class council had set up, and they're fine and don't need me either. It turns out though as a total afterthought, one of the dorms had set up a karaoke booth, and there were no customers. I set up shop. About two or three songs later, I had pulled a crowd of about a hundred people. Around that time, the AMS President comes through the crowd to find out exactly what the hubbub was... and tells me to keep doing that.

Flashing forward about a year and a half and I was just finishing up my own term as the President of the AMS. The job had a small stipend that came with it and that stipend was basically "mad money" for me to spend on something nice for myself since I also had a part time job taking care of expenses. I headed down to the local Target, where all the students from Point Loma shopped for various and sundries, and saw it. A Memorex SMW-45N dual cassette karaoke machine. I thought about getting the CD model, which would have allowed for TV hookup and on screen lyrics display, but I wouldn't have been able to also afford karaoke music with it, and it's a good thing I got music with it.

Having purchased the machine, and possibly having a huge cat-and-canary and grin on my face, I then had the fortune to run into a group of Resident Assistants from the Freshman Women's dorm. Since I was pretty universally known on campus, they recognized me instantly. Seeing the machine in my hands, some laughed, and some said "Oh, no."

The leader of the group asked "Dave, how did you intend to get this back to campus?" I replied that I had brought my bicycle. "No, Dave. Try again." was the response. They cordially responded that they had a truck, and that while it'd be illegal to transport me in it, they could take the machine back to campus for me and I could pick it up later, which I did. However, word spreads fast on a small campus, and that very night, the Resident Director of the Freshmen Men's dorm contacted me. He was also the Staff Advisor to the Freshman Class Council, and he had heard of my wonderful new toy and was asking me if they could use it for an activity. I was bound by politeness to agree, but wanted to go ahead and be the one to operate it, being how it was all new and I had a system for it. Privately, I was a bit perplexed, since the week before the scheduled activity, I was running for the position of ASB Activities Director. If I lost that election, as I had the two years previous, it would put me in the odd position of running an activity just after having lost the race for Director of Activities. But, if you happen to know my history at all, you'll know that I finally won one of these things.

And it came in handy a couple of times during that last year. For a brief period, I was both incoming Director of Activities and outgoing AMS President, and had our last AMS activity, using the machine as a portable PA system. Had I brought my music, I would have been able to fulfill the request of the owner of the pizza place we were at to bust out some karaoke. We had karaoke with it during our Freshmen Preview, and during later activities as well (given that it was a very low cost activitiy).

After I was out of office, I was the main one using it again, and was lucky enough to be in a dorm unit that really loved it when I did it. One night in particular, I opened my blinds and did a song, and my dorm mates requested another one, and I kept going. The important thing is that since my lights were on and my window was closed, I could not see outside of it due to reflection, but people could see in. When I had finished four songs, I came out of my room and there were 75-100 people in the courtyard listening to me.

As a final hurrah for the machine's Point Loma use, it was actually borrowed by the participants of Point Loma's Lead Week 2000 for student leaders for the 2000-2001 school year. Although I couldn't go along on this trip, it was returned safe and sound to me.

The machine finished out its service basically acting as amplified sound for my computer and other devices. It finally needed replacement in that capacity due to bad connections to its speakers. But I've never been able to bear to throw it out. Too many good memories. This has just been a sample.

A lot of good memories in general down in Point Loma.

This story I've been following regarding the New England Patriots allegedly taping the St. Louis Rams prior to their meeting in Super Bowl XXXVI has been picking up more and more steam as time goes by. Not knowing my sizes or my favorite colors (if the layout on BoffoBlog's main page isn't a clue, they're black and green), Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania instead decided to have his meeting with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell on my birthday. One interesting fact has already droppped: The Patriots have been illegally taping since Bill Belichick became their coach back in 2000. This isn't an allegation. This is known to be true. Belichick has claimed that he didn't know what he was doing was contrary to the rules and that he thought the rule was that you couldn't tape a game and use it during that game, or something to that effect. Absolutely no one outside of Patriots fans and Roger Goodell believe this. So for seven years of cheating, the Pats have lost 1 draft pick (it would have been 2 lesser ones had the team not made the playoffs) and the team is fined $250,000. Belichick himself was fined $500,000. It seems all the more inadequate now.

Specter says he's been very troubled by the idea that the punishment was handed down before the Patriots handed over all the evidence (and that the NFL didn't gather evidence themselves), and that the evidence was very quickly destroyed by the NFL after it was collected, which is a good point. In other news, a former Rams player has actually taken the step of suing the New England Patriots and the NFL for $100,000,000 over this. I don't think it will get very far. When I first heard the name of former backup safety Willie Gary in connection with the suit, even I asked myself "Who?" and I'm a pretty avid Rams fan. Even if all these allegations are completely true, he's going to have a hard time proving that much in damages. Gary was pretty much the definition of a role player, only playing for the Rams in 2001, and only appearing in 7 games.

I remain convinced that if these charges are shown to be true, the only fair thing to do would be to retroactively forfeit all the affected Patriots games. One of the affects of this would be to change the possession of the Super Bowl 36 trophy from the Patriots to the Rams. In a discussion with some "fans" over the matter, they felt I was being unfair to the AFC over the matter because had the Patriots lost earlier games in the AFC playoffs, then teams that they had eliminated could have conceivably beaten the Rams, and cited that if anything was fair, it was to vacate the title. I responded that while their idea was true, we couldn't replay the tournament, and the Rams had the best claim to the title, having actually made it to the title game, and cited precedent of other tournaments where forfeiture of games after the fact still left a winner, and it was whoever was next in line in the tournament. Plus, Wednesday's revelation put in a new angle on it. If the Patriots cheated constantly throughout the past 7 seasons and *all* their games are thus in doubt, then the entire AFC playoff structure, and to a lesser extent even the NFC would have to be declared invalid because different teams would have made it if the Patriots would have gone 0-16 each year and their opponents all won. So we go with the simpler solution, just as other sports do.

To cover all angles of this, as I have been, the Pittsburgh Steelers, who played the Patriots a number of times, including the AFC Title games in the 2001-2 and 2004-5 (with New England winning both) have stated publically they don't believe the taping influenced the result of the game. I would honestly say the most likely cause of this is wanting to come off like good sports, perhaps fearing nothing will come of it anyway. It seems obvious that if your signals and/or practices are taped and your opponent knows what you're going to do, it has to affect the game. That's why it's illegal, and it's why New England was doing it anyway.

Marshall Faulk has summed up what's likely to be the sad reality of all this though, as reported by Bernie Miklasz in the St. Louis Post Dispatch: "My question is, why does it matter? It won't be investigated, and nothing will happen," Faulk said. "The Patriots will get to keep the Lombardi Trophy, and their rings. I mean, think about it. Think about the shield we're talking about. That shield being the grand scheme of things. The NFL understands big business, and it understands what this whole Spygate thing means. So if anything comes out that Matt Walsh wants to, or if he has any evidence, I'm sure it won't make it to Congress, nor will Matt Walsh."

It's a pretty cynical attitude to take, but an understandable one. As someone who noticed and protested 49er cheating, I can well understand the idea that the League turns a blind eye to cheating in the name of image. That said, one wonders if the genie is out of the bottle as far as that's concerned. Has enough image damage been done that ignoring this will look worse than dealing with this. Plus, Specter, regardless of if one thinks this is a good or bad thing, isn't going away quite yet.

And at this point, I think that's a good thing. Ideally, the League *should* police itself. But what happens if the League is rewarding cheaters by simply sweeping the problem under the carpet and letting them keep their ill gotten gains? Then the League itself is part of the problem, and utterly failing to police itself. And you have an entity that has an anti trust exemption and uses it to make billions perpetrating fraud on the public... and even urging those who get screwed over by the cheating to help keep the secret.

And in the meantime, you would have... ironically, Vince McMahon over in the other corner. Why? Because he can say "Hey, we had this little football operation called the XFL running in 2001. And it failed in part because of the NFL getting to act as a monopoly. But at least our game was honest." (which is ironic given that the other operation he runs is rigged and pretty freely admits it.)

I was going to have some college nostalgia considering a karaoke machine that achieved legendary status back at my old alma mater, with this topic based on the number of old college friends I'm hooking up with again on Facebook, where you too can learn what music I'm listening to on my computer, but this little update turned into a whole entry all its own.

I'm back, and just a week out from my birthday. I'm about to be old.

Following up on my entry from yesterday, there are another couple of common arguments from Patriots fans in this that I've seen before. First off, that all teams commit actions similar to the Patriots' actions here. This is usually followed up by a sneering condescension that if we weren't so naive, we'd realize this. To this, I can only say find anyone making any kind of serious allegations against other teams and if they're on the same kind of level as the Patriots here, we'll investigate them just as thoroughly. But to apply the example to the real world, a lot of people who break the law justify it to themselves by telling themselves that everybody does it. For example, tax cheats are convinced that everybody cheats on their taxes. It's nothing but justification, and also a logically fallacious argument (the "tu quoque" variety of the ad hominem argument. Look it up.)

SI.com's Peter King has reported an example of the other big kind of common response from Patriot fans. Despite the inadequacy of the penalty for the earlier violation, Patriots fans want everyone else just to forget about it and move on, and become angry at those who do not. And why not? If the penalty was any lighter than it was, it'd be a complete sham, so Patriots fans basically got everything they wanted out of that incident. Of course they'd want to move on. As I've experienced and tried to relate before, someone getting everything they want is not going to complain or otherwise make waves. They are going to do everything they can to keep that status quo maintained. Re-examining Spygate could only lead to questions being asked like "Was the penalty sufficient? Was further cheating going on? Did the cheating affect the Super Bowl wins?" None of those are questions that benefit Patriots fans to be asked, despite their benefit to sportsmanship, honor and the game as a whole.

A third common response, and kind of related to Coach Vermeil's response is that they "didn't need to cheat", so they would have won a fair game anyway, and thus, basically, no harm no foul. This was especially used after the first Spygate when the Patriots won the ensuing game vs. the Jets by a score of 38-14. All I can say is that by committing cheating, you are admitting de facto that you need to cheat, even if you eventually win 100-0. There's no other reason to cheat besides needing to.

I'm sure the big thing that caused a stir amongst my questionably existent readers was the suggestion that if, after a thorough investigation, these charges are shown to be true, then Super Bowl XXXVI should be retroactively forfeited by the Patriots and the trophy awarded to the Rams. It's a huge step, I know. But if these charges are true, I think it's what you have to do. Otherwise, the message you're sending is that you might as well cheat, because if you get away with it, you'll win a Lombardi Trophy you'll get to keep even if you're caught later. And there's not really much else the NFL can do that would balance the scales for that. Fines, no matter how huge, won't do it. Suspensions for the coach won't do it. Loss of draft picks? Ask some of these teams that have never won or even been to a Super Bowl, and I'm sure they'd happily lose multiple years worth of draft choices for a Lombardi trophy.

There is precedent for retroactive forfeit, just usually not on this level. In the 2001 Little League World Series, Danny Almonte's team was forced to forfeit all its games in the tournament when it was discovered that his parents falsified documents and that he was too old to play. In High School, there are incidents of games forfeited after the fact all the time due to it being discovered that players on the team came from outside the school's district (for one example). I'm not sure of an example of a college game where it's been forfeited after the fact, but I'm sure it's happened sometime. And of course, the Olympics or other such events typically makes athletes who test positive for drugs return their medals. For the pros, it's a bit trickier. Basically, because they are professional, so the circumstances that would create a retroactive forfeit would be exceedingly rare. Typically, any kind of accidental violation is caught well in advance, but that's not what we're dealing with here. Basically, what I would imagine happening is that the score would be changed in the history books from 20-17 Patriots over Rams to 2-0 Rams over Patriots (to my knowledge, forfeits are usually scored as the winning team getting one unit of the lowest score possible.)

The major problem is that out of the last seven Super Bowls, the New England Patriots have been in four of them and "won" three of them. If it's discovered that the Patriots cheated in Super Bowl XXXVI (and thus making it pretty likely they also cheated in Super Bowl XXXVIII vs. the Carolina Panthers and Super Bowl XXXIX vs. the Philadelphia Eagles), the NFL has a huge problem on its hands. I'm talking potentially bigger than the Black Sox Scandal. This might end up being more than poetic justice for Rams fans, this might be sports history in the making.

It does seem the NFL is doing more than just denying things now though. According to ESPN, they're striking an indemnification deal with Matt Walsh, the former video assistant for the Patriots, who says he has information on this matter. Such a deal would provide him protection against loss, usually financial, which is most probably what we're talking about here, as saying what he knows would probably violate a non-disclosure agreement and allow the Patriots to withdraw any pension he might be pulling from them... or perhaps they might sue him. 

In any event, it will be interesting seeing where all this goes. One can still argue both ways about whether Congressional involvement is a good thing ot not, and I can see both sides, but at least one thing is for certain. They won't be able to sweep this under the rug.

Though I do maintain this hope: If it is found that, indeed, the Patriots did cheat for Super Bowl XXXVI, and the NFL does not declare the game a forfeit and hand the trophy to the Rams, if I were the Rams, I would gather the old team together for a special ceremony sometime, hand out rings, and declare that even if the NFL won't recognize it, that they are the champions for that year.

I'm back, and I'm pleased to inform you all that I have just finished negotiating a final peace between Triangle Man and Particle Man. They shall fight no more, and everybody wins.

Another month is in the books, and we were on the air (at least technically) for most of it, so it's user stats time. 138 visits came in January from outside my home county. Divided into the 31 days of January, that comes out to 4.45 visits per day. That's down slightly from 4.97 in November (remember that December's stats weren't run due to being down for a lot of the month). Visitors came from 23 states, and foreign visitors came from Canada, the United Kingdom, Italy, France, Australia, Serbia and Montenegro, Brazil, Austria, the Phillipines, Switzerland, Saudi Arabia, Ireland, Indonesia, India, Turkey, Norway, Colombia, Romania, Germany, Qatar and Iceland. (phew!) Even with all this international activity, I'm denied the continental sweep again by the lack of African visitors. Maybe I should become an expert on Egyptian history and make a page on it.

I've managed to do some of the side projects on this page I had to do. A lot of MiSTing Heaven's overhaul is done. One of the things that amused me is that I kept copyright dates on that page (quite probably with no legal enforceability behind them) and they revealed that I started that page in 1995, and hadn't upgraded it since 2001. One scary thing about that is that one of the "Author's Pages" on there was accidentally overwritten with a copy of my author's page. The Pokemon Roster is a lot more up to date, as I'm getting close to only needing 20 Pokemon to fill out my roster of all officially revealed Pokemon ever. And there's no more old e-mail address on this page.

For those of you who care about f'ball, you'll note that in the big game, the New York Giants beat the heavily favored New England Patriots 17-14 after the Patriots were the first team to go undefeated during the regular season after the NFL adopted 16 game seasons (in the Super Bowl era, only the 1972 Miami Dolphins have also accomplished this, going undefeated during a 14 game season and going on to win Super Bowl VII). There seem to be a lot of people happy about this. 

Why? Because a report came out last Saturday in the Boston Herald naming an unidentified source alleging that the Patriots video taped their opponents' final walkthrough practice before 2001-2's Super Bowl XXXVI. Earlier this season, the Patriots were found to have videotaped signals of their Week 1 opponents, the New York Jets. For those not familar with WHY this is bad, video taping of this sort is *strictly* against NFL rules. Coaches need to be able to send in signals for plays, or even be able to draw up plays and have those plays surprise their opponents, otherwise they are at a huge competitive disadvantage. For the Week 1 offense, the Patriots lost their first round draft pick for this year (had they failed to make the playoffs, this would have been lowered to their second and third round draft picks). As well, the team was fined $250,000, and the coach $500,000. The NFL then quickly destroyed all the evidence it asked the Patriots to hand over, without anyone else ever seeing it, so no one else ever knew just what was taped. A lot of people found that decision questionable, and the punishment to be very mild. The ultimate proof that the punishment was mild was that Patriots fans laughed at it because they were getting the 49ers' 1st round draft pick this year anyway (the 49ers traded their 2008 1st round pick and 2004 7th round pick for New England's 2007 1st round pick).

Now why does this recent bit of news concern me so much? Guess who the Patriots' opponents were for Super Bowl XXXVI? That's right, my favorites, the St. Louis Rams. And I watched that game. Without the idea that the Patriots were cheating before the coin was ever flipped, it was already a travesty of justice. Both of the Patriots' touchdowns happened on plays with blown calls. The first, a Patriots defender clearly roughed Rams QB Kurt Warner as he threw an interception returned for a touchdown. The second, the Patriots' WR landed with one foot in bounds, landed bodily out of bounds, then the other foot came down. As well, the Patriots' defenders were absolutely mugging the Rams' receivers all day. Finally, on the "game ending" field goal, the NFL itself later admitted that 2 seconds should have been left on the clock for a subsequent kickoff to the Rams. There was a rule change the next year to account for it, and who knows what could have happened on that play.

Of course, the online Patriots fans I've seen have been singing a very familiar refrain. "Jealousy" is a very common argument. There's mistaking of the jurisdictional argument of "innocent until proven guilty", necessary before someone is punished by a court of law which has subpoena ability to find such proof with stating that something LITERALLY did not happen because we have no proof. I have no personal proof of how a microwave works or Australia exists but they do. And it's pretty much a refrain of all the same tired responses I heard in the NHS forums. Certain people's "fandom" takes the shape of investing their self worth in a "winner", so any attack upon the validity of that "winner", no matter how justified, is seen as an attack on that fan's self worth and they react in kind to make the attacker stop saying these things.

For the NFL's part, they've commented that they've been aware of these rumors for months, and that they don't believe there's anything to them, because there was nothing about it in the material the Patriots gave them... and even better, the Patriots *told* them it wasn't true. (of course, one journalist has already pointed out that the Patriots' material only went back to 2006, so of course it wouldn't include any material from any Super Bowls.) And of course, the Patriots themselves utterly deny it.

But this isn't going away quickly. Ex-Ram QB Kurt Warner's take on all of this is that basically while God is in control and bigger than any cheating, that game was pivotal in the careers of himself and others, and that the League's investigation of all this wasn't as thorough as it could have been, and he'd like some answers. Expect Warner to get fined. The Rams themselves, as well as former head coach Mike Martz (whom a lot of the fans turned on after that "loss") are both withholding comment for now. A former Patriots video assistant named Matt Walsh has hinted that he knows a lot more about all of this story, but can't talk unless directly asked by the NFL or Congress.

In the interest of equal time, I will point out that former Rams coach Dick Vermeil has come forward and said he didn't believe the Patriots' spying, even if true, gave them an advantage, but I have to think that in making a comment like that, he has to be thinking of the example of Don Shula. Shula was the coach of the aforementioned 1972 Miami Dolphins, and a coach for several years afterwards. After the first "Spygate" (as the Jets taping incident was called) scandal, he made reference to the idea that should the Patriots go undefeated during the season (as they almost did), then they should have an asterisk attached to the record with a notation at the bottom of the history book pointing out that there was this incident of cheating, and there was this huge public backlash against him because the public perception was that he was only concerned about maintaining the '72 Dolphins' place in history. As well, Vermeil wasn't there. He was with another team then.

The biggest example of why this won't go away is this is no longer just an internal NFL matter. Congress Arlen Specter (R-PA) has expressed concern and wants to meet with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell over Goodell's handling of this scandal. Some online have argued that Congresspeople shouldn't concentrate on this when there's war and all these other problems, but I've never felt the presence of bigger issues is in and of itself a reason to completely ignore littler issues. By that logic, the police should completely ignore robberies because robberies are not as serious as murder. Once we have every murder ever solved, we can work on the robberies. That said, does this merit Congressional attention? Steroids were an issue because of the problem where children saw this as the only means to acheive success like their sports heroes and they already were a factor in high schools. Here, you don't have that same issue of child health risk, but the NFL is a multi-billion dollar industry with exemption from anti-trust laws. That places a good deal of lawmaking interest in it already. If it turns out it's a crooked game, then the American public is being defrauded. And sure, not all of the American public are football fans, but a significant portion are.

And that said, the NFL's handling of this whole thing has been rather suspect. You have a slap on the wrist penalty and a rush to destroy the evidence without anyone else seeing it on the first infraction. And now, the NFL is automatically declaring the Patriots innocent solely because they and the evidence that they provided say so. This needs to be thoroughly and publically investigated. And while this will never happen, if they did indeed cheat before the game even started, there can be only one appropriate punishment: retroactively declare Super Bowl XXXVI to be forfeit by the Patriots, and award the trophy to the Rams.

If the Rams were found to be cheating in this manner prior to Super Bowl XXXIV where they beat the Tennessee Titans, then I'd say the exact same thing. Declare the game forfeit and award the trophy to the Titans. I'd also stop being a Rams fan. Something about integrity.

OK, you may be asking what gives if you've been checking in regularly. First a long disruption in service, then when we do get up, a period of nothing, then a message posted on January 2nd that seems to be postdated, as frequent visitors may have been here after January 2nd and not seen it.

Here's what's up. My friend who provides this space and bandwidth overcame the issues that knocked this page off the net totally, but once we got back up, for some reason, the live version of the page wasn't picking up the changes I was making to the location where I upload my changes to. The only things that were changing were items that depended on outside sources for updates, such as the "buttons" on my Realm of World of Warcraft, and What Dave's Watching (which is hooked up again, and I'm trying to remember to turn on the program when I'm watching regular TV, which is the only thing it's hooked up to) So when I tried posting a blog entry, it wasn't picked up. This also delayed simulcast of the entry to Our Oasis and MySpace as I didn't want them to trump this space.

But for now, it seems all the kinks are worked out. In the meantime, changes are afoot. Our gracious benefactor of space of bandwidth has provided me with a counter, which should be up on at least this page by the time you read this. The July-December 2007 archives of this blog have been moved to their own page for faster loading for people just interested in the new stuff. All files on this page have been changed in extension from .html to .php to enable PHP scripting to work (such as the counter provided).

There's other things in the cards as well. Dave's Wrestling Match Database is getting a makeover to increase readability, navigation and upgradibility, as I still really like the idea behind it, but one of the ways it suffers right now is it comes off as a big wall of text. I'll let you know when that goes live. The older pages on this site like MiSTings Heaven, EHCCGPP's ST:CCG Page and Dave's Point Weekly Archive need to be looked at to make sure they don't have problems like I found that many of them still have a "comment" link to one of two e-mail addresses I no longer use (when I'm currently no longer leaving my e-mail address on this page at all for security reasons). MiSTing Heaven needs some information updated and one page is broken. The Pokemon roster... let's just say I've been a little busy in that game.

I've got a big double dose of comic reviewery for you today (which I need to step up on in order to catch up with), but I wanted to talk a bit first about a recent comics event.

Now, I wasn't doing this gig when Marvel decided that Gwen Stacy slept with Norman Osborne and he was her babydaddy. I did rant when Marvel flat out had the wrong side win the Civil War (as written by a writer convinced that people who like video games are "pedos", and then repeatedly backtracks into the lame "joke" excuse when people call him on it). I really wasn't happy when Captain America was killed. Now Marvel has dropped a little something on us called One More Day. Now, in the course of my reviews, I don't like spoiling comics, but this is outside reviews, and at this point, you've either already heard or don't care.

One More Day was set up thusly: In the process of his pro-Registration mania, Tony Stark convinced Peter Parker that it'd be a great thing to reveal his identity at a huge press conference. Peter did so. A bit later, Peter decided he was on the wrong side and decided to correct that mistake. This caused him to have to live life on the lam with MJ and Aunt May. While doing so, Kingpin put a hit out on him. The assassin tried to shoot him, but he ducked and the bullet hit May.

Now for a while, Peter and MJ have been doing everything they can to help May (while not going to jail, since that would not help May). But nothing's worked and it looks like she's going to die. Suddenly, the couple is visited by Mephisto. He can help them, he says. And he doesn't even want Peter's soul, because it's no fun when someone gives up their soul for a selfless reason. Instead, what he wants is Peter and MJ's marriage, because disrupting a love so pure and holy will hurt "his enemy". He tells them to make their decision by midnight the following night, at which time either May's life or their marriage will end.

The next night/issue, he meets them again. MJ ends up whispering something to Mephisto that he agrees to. And she agrees to the deal. And so does Peter. Just to be mean, Mephisto shows them the daughter that they'll never have now, and poof. Peter wakes up in May's house as she's offering him wheatcakes. And things are different.

How different?

• Spider-Man never publically revealed his identity. He just hasn't been seen for the last few months.
• There's a new female Initiative approved hero patrolling New York, a redhead codenamed Jackpot who refers to everyone as "Tiger" in thought caption... mm hmm...
• Peter and MJ have some kind of rift between them. Peter comments that he doesn't know if she'll ever forgive him, but we don't find out what for before he's interrupted.
• Harry Osborne is alive again.
• A mechanical web shooter is glimpsed underneath Peter's sleeve (his powers had recently evolved so that he was shooting webs out of natural shooters, a la the movies)

The problem here is that Spider-Man, one of, if not the, premiere hero in the Marvel Universe, has just made a deal with the devil. I know it's not a cool concept on the Internet, but surveys have consistently shown that the vast majority of Americans (and the international readers who would read American comic books) believe in God. And of those, the sizable majority are Christian. You've just offended a very large chunk of your audience. Granted, not many would be offended to the point of being totally happy before this point and leaving solely over this, but it has to be taken into account.

Moreover, the fact that this is a deal with the devil makes this an incomplete story. Two things should happen now (at least one of the two should), but neither will because Marvel's sole objective was editorial mandate that "We hate the marriage and we need to get rid of it any way we can."

1. Evil has won for now. For good to win and make it a happy ending, the circumstances have to be reversed, Peter and MJ have to fall in love all over again and re-marry, proving that true love conquers all, including Mephisto's evil. Won't happen because it overrides the basic point of the story.

2.