Spring, Birthdays, Rodeo, Aquarium, Dogs and Home

This weekend we went to Spring, TX, the place I lived from grades 1-3 and then 10-12 (I lived in Austin for grades 4-9). 

In many ways, the Spring area has changed since my days of cruising the streets in a red 83' Honda Accord with a mildly embarrassing array of music available from the tapes scattered on the floor of my car.  It was the edge of Houston at the time, with cow pastures in several directions from my house.  Where people in movies fear urban toughs, I was always much more concerned about getting cross-ways with someone in "Rocky Mountain" jeans and a hideously ugly cowboy shirt with a shotgun rack in his pickup. 

Now, I lived in a fairly standard-issue suburban home in a fairly standard neighborhood, and while it would have been cool to have been raised under more exotic circumstances, I don't begrudge it.  Heck, I grew up in a school that competed with the same school and same neighborhoods that inspired Win Butler and Arcade Fire's Grammy Winning album, The Suburbs (I hear ya, Win).

Those cowfields have long ago been sold to developers and turned into tract homes, been replaced with odd corrugated metal buildings housing everything from antique shops to a wide variety of churches to a place I watched an ex-flame get married. 

We were in Spring to celebrate the KareBear's special birthday, and so I was delighted just to be along for the ride.  For the first time since I was six years old, I attended a rodeo (along with my folks, their pals, Jamie, Jason and Amy), and despite my reservations, I confess its an interesting sport and I have to admit that those cowboys have guts that I do not.  Also saw singer Billy Currington play a set. 

your author reacts to figuring out how they get the bulls to jump around like that

Somewhat like any trip I've made to Cabela's sporting goods just south of Austin, the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo is a bit of a reminder that people come in all different stripes, including the un-ironic Rodeo and Country & Western enthusiast. Out there are many folks who know all the words to Country's version of Top 40, have a wardrobe full of western wear, and who spent their youth in the FFA.

I was also impressed that the rodeo focused on kids and academic scholarships.  While my school didn't have much of an agriculture department, our colleagues down the road at Texas A&M are a global power in all-things ag related, as are the good folks at Texas Tech University northward in Lubbock.  So, there was no small amount of Red Raider and A&M Aggie pride on display, as well as a sort of calf-herding competition for scholarships (which is a heck of a way to get a scholarship, but I am not here to judge).

Almost two-decades since the grand old days of yesteryear, now those same folks that used to make me a little twitchy in Spring just seems like folks in hats and different musical preferences, and I like to think that means I'm less of a judgey jerk than I was circa 1993.

Afterward, we had a lovely dinner at Houston's novelty restaurant The Aquarium.  I know the place isn't exactly a foodie's paradise, but if sea life is interesting to you on both the plate and in a tank, then its worth visiting at least once. 

Jamie is the Jacques Cousteau of touristy dining

The place houses fish as large as Grouper and contains sharks in this enormous aquarium right in the middle of the dining room.

All in all, it was a good time.

Dogs stayed at the Austin Pet Ranch, an absolutely great pet resort on 1826 on the way out to Driftwood.  They have been retrieved, but after two days of running around in the big pens they have at the ranch, Scout and Lucy are now both crashed out on the sofas, where I hope they will remain until tomorrow morning.

Let us all wish a happy birthday to The KareBear, and we'll do something similar next year. 

Happy B-day, Ma!

So, apparently there's life out there in space

So, apparently NASA is saying that they've found the fossil evidence of alien life in a meteorite.

You can read the article here. 

So, upon realizing what I was reading, my immediate reaction was a sort of weird, physical thing where my body went cold and I felt sort of nauseous.  You get this, right?  I mean, these findings don't just suggest, but they are fairly significant evidence - there is something else out there.  Even single-celled warbly things are something.  Our planet is completely covered in single-celled warbly things, so it makes sense that there are chunks of Earth flying through space with bits of amoeba and flagellates embedded somewhere in the rock.

Now, of course you sort of have to believe in fossils to buy the evidence, and given the current state of things, it seems more likely that someone will cut this guy's funding and/ or burn down his home and office rather than suggest that fossil evidence means anything, but I tend to be completely amazed that scientists (the people who spent their lives dedicated to figuring this stuff out, and not you - the person who saw this thing once on the Discovery Channel), are going to go ahead and put their names in with this review.

Completely amazing.

Oh, right, I have a blog

Hi.  Its just totally not coming this evening.  I'm not even going to spend the ten minutes looking for an amusing picture to talk about.

So here's Roy Rogers and Dale Evans.

At the risk of practically inviting you people to rob my house, I'm out of town starting tomorrow. We're headed to Houston for some birthday festivity-having fun in honor of The KareBear.  Apparently, this year's birthday fun will include a trip to the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.  I am kind of excited about the opportunity to see the cows, which probably sounds weird.

We'll be back in Austin on Sunday.  So Austinites... please hold down the fort while we're off roping burros or whatever one does at the rodeo.

Ma Kent to be terribly attractive in new Superman film (Diane Lane)

So, this is an odd bit of casting. According to Bleeding Cool, Diane Lane is cast as Martha Kent in the upcoming Superman movie.

Math isn't my strong suit, but I believe Lane is about 46 years old. Which... I guess if Snyder is casting her as Martha finding little Kal-El, that's still a shade on the youngish side. And while Lane says many things to me - Aging Midwestern Farmer's Wife is not at the top of that list. And "Kindly Old Lady" is just absolutely nowhere on that list, and I checked five times.

I will never say anything against Ms. Lane, but this...



is not this



nor this


Now if you wanted to tell me Diane Lane is Lara.  Fine.  She looks like a being from a highly evolved race of very good looking space people.
Snyder - doing his bit to reinforce ideas about Hollywood and "women of a certain age".

Well, I guess we'll see where he's going with this trainwreck soon enough.

Now, Smallville did cast Annette O'Toole as Martha Kent, but they made it pretty clear that the Kent's were not an older couple in the TV show.  And, hey, O'Toole was Lana Lang in Superman III, so you have to give props where they're due.

He's using his X-Ray vision to look at  her brains

Anyway, Movie Industry, this sort of thing is why we tend to think you're kind of dumb and people over a certain age quit seeing movies at some point.

comics and a new superblog

In case there was any confusion - I am not on hiatus.  I took last night off after reporting on the passing of Jane Russell as I was reading and had nothing to ad.

I was reading X'ed Out, a newish comic from Black Hole creator Charles Burns.  I quite liked the book, but only figured out in the last few pages that its not a self-contained volume, and only the first in a series.  That's quite fine, as I was pretty well hooked by Volume 1.

yes, this is about the world's worst Easter Egg hunt

Also read James Sturm's much-hyped Market Day.  The book is definitely worth checking out at some point, but, frankly, I think nothing was going to live up the hype that this book received last year upon its release.  I don't want to take anything away from the book, because its a lovely story and well crafter, but...  sometimes a book is just exactly in that space where the former-English majors just sort of lose their lids as the creator hits on all the right sweet spots that tell the reader "this story is meaningful".

yup, it is exactly about what you're thinking its about

Mostly I just thought it was a well written book that used the comic medium and Sturm's style and the immersive world of the character particularly well.  Otherwise, it sort of fell into the "yeah, that's about what I'd expect" sort of book I figured from the solicits and reviews.  Its a good comic, absolutely...  X'ed Out may just be a little closer to my personal wheelhouse, so reading the two on top of one another might not have been fair.

After suggesting I read it for, oh...  three years, NTT was kind enough to send me a copy of Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, Vol. 1.*  I don't read much (ahem: any) manga, but even I know (a) the name Miyazaki is synonymous with good comics and (b) a thoughtful, lovely comic when I see one.  I'm only partway in, but so far, so good.

giant monster: check. flying device whatzit: check.  flashing weaponry: check. - what's not to like?

A new Super-blog?  It seems that there's a new Superman-themed blog out there in the world, hosted by a gentleman named TomO.  Let's give a warm welcome to Superman 101 (aka: Superman Daily)!  (Daily? Man, pace yourself...  Its a marathon, not a sprint.)

TomO has already blog-linked me, or whatever we're calling it these days. I take this as a sign that I am Tom's personal hero, and somewhere out there, he's built a small shrine to your host, The League (I've already got a motion for a restraining order on him started, just in case).


*We're always happy to take a free comic!  Just, you know, not whole crates full at once.  JimD.

Goodnight Dune now a complete children's book

found by @chris_roberson

I think this looks about right for this crowd...

A while back I linked to an image that was a pretty clever idea/  just a joke called "Goodnight Dune".

Well, its the 2010's, so of course, somebody actually went and made it into a book.

Here.

I strongly suspect Harms will now wish he had children.

"The Rack" is Back?

Looks like our friends at webcomic The Rack might not have shut down after all, and that they may have just been on break.  Good news!

You may recall we eulogized the abrupt end to the series here a few weeks back.

Looks like the characters are set up in a new shop with a new focus.  Now may be a great time to jump on board.

Welcome back, Church and Birdie!

Taking a break

even Superman chillaxes every once in a while

I posted plenty over the weekend. Scroll down and catch up.  Feel free to send in questions.

Jane Russell Merges with the Infinite

It appears that film icon Jane Russell has passed at age 89. 

Russell is most famous for her roles in The Outlaw and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (I have only seen the latter).  Curiously, I only added The Outlaw to my Netflix queue on Saturday night while watching a different movie and wondering why I'd never seen The Outlaw, a movie that had censors and moral watchdog groups bleeding out of their eyes.

apparently being this much woman in 1943 was too much for some people

Russell's performance in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is every bit as good as that of Monroe, in my book.  Check her out in "Ain't There Anyone Here for Love?"

Godspeed, Ms. Russell.

Quick follow up on Alison Brie post - Prosopagnosia

I have decided that I have a very limited form of a rare condition called Prosopagnosia that may or may not be directly Allison Brie related.  Apparently that's a condition where one has a hard time telling faces apart.

You can read up on the condition here.
 
So I've decided I'm not an idiot, and that its a genetic issue or some such.  I declare my Brie-blindness a medical condition. You now owe me sympathy or something.

Curiously, some of the photos one finds when Googling Alison Brie mean I will most definitely remember who she is a bit better.

Found this article courtesy the Twitter feed of artist/ writer Phil Jimenez.