Oh, right. I have a blog.

Hey.  So...  I am at a conference in Orlando, right outside the gates of Disney World.  I am still unsure if I will have time, money or the inclination to actually go to Disney World while I am here.  I only have about 8 hours to do so, so it would be one park and done.  I keep thinking I really DO like The Magic Kingdom, and I haven't been in a decade.  And its also the most likely place I'd stumble into Donald Duck, so it might happen. 

The conference is actually very nice, and I had a lovely dinner out this evening with some folks from a vendor.  I have literally never seen a swordfish steak as big as the one I ate tonight.  Much like The Old Man and the Sea, in the end, the swordfish defeated me, only with a sad lack of poetry, symbolism or story.

Jamie and I now both have iPhone 4's, and so its been nice to do face-to-face video-conference-style chatting since we're not together.  Its nice to see her while we're talking since I won't be home until Saturday.

I am tired, and so that's all you'll get from me this evening. 

Oh, except this, which is for Nathan as he works his way through a few Sophia Loren movies as he's working on an article.

there's nothing that a little Sophia Loren can't make better

A Potpourri of Random Bits

Off to Sweet FLA

So, tomorrow I am off to Orlando, Florida.  I am attending a small, but nation-wide conference of folks interested in theses and dissertations.  Its a part of what we do at my office, this business of dealing with how universities accept electronic copies of theses and dissertations, process them and put them into internet repositories.

I am actually presenting, which is always fun.  If you people think I like shooting my mouth off here, give me a live audience that can't leave.  The conference is right next to Disney World, but I think its a little creepy for a guy in his mid-30's to spend time alone in the Magic Kingdom, so I will likely be taking a pass on all that.  That said, I LOVE Disney World.  I really do.  Space Mountain, The Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean, the Hall of Presidents, Future World, Donald Duck, Mickey, Minnie, Pluto...  the whole shebang.  Very fond memories of going with my family as a kid, and very fond memories of going with Jamie about 11 years ago.  Wow.  Like, exactly 11 years ago.

So, I have no idea what my blogging schedule will be.

On the plane I'm taking two books:  1)  American Gods, which I've started but not finished, and 2) The Long Fall, which Jason read and it sounds exactly like something I'd enjoy, so...

Flashpoint

I hadn't planned to read DC's summer series, Flashpoint, as it was released, but its starting to sound like if you aren't up to speed when this thing ends, the DCU could be a confusing place for sometime.  I was planning to pick up the Lois Lane spin-off, so I might as well grab the main series.

Noir Watch: Pushover

Pushover isn't a top-flight flick, but its a nice study in building drama and tension and a chance to see Kim Novak in not just one of her first credited performances, but as a leading lady. And, of course, the always weird sight of Fred MacMurray in a noir role.

The story is a small-scale pot boiler about temptation, moral gray areas and what a great idea we can all find Kim Novak.  Novak plays the kept-girl of an on-the-lam bank robber (Lona McLane), and MacMurray a cop (Paul Sheridan) who picks her up awhen he's supposed to charm some information out of her, and see if she can tell the cops where her boyfriend is hiding out.  The two fall hard for each other, and suddenly everything is up for grabs. The two scheme a bit, and figure there's a way to hang onto the dough the boyfriend picked up in his latest robbery.  The cops are particularly hot to find him as, during the last robbery, someone got shot.

...and that was Smallville - 10 final things

This is all spoilery, so if you're way, way behind on the series or actually like the series, I'd suggest you click off to some other place on the internet.  Here, this puppy is very cute.  Look at this.

So, this last Friday (the 13th, no less), Smallville did wrap up.  And we've already talked about our feelings on the program here.  

The show did some things I wasn't sure I'd ever see.  Apokolips, the actual, entire planet, made it to TV, floating in from behind Saturn (the show wrestled with scale with the planet, but... whatever).  We briefly saw a CGI Darkseid, so Darkseid has now made it onto live TV, in a way.  Most importantly, we saw Clark fly.  The FX weren't great, and the first thing Clark did was get some speed in the air and straight up blow up a guy with HIS FISTS*, but he flew.

But...  but...

On the topic of Wonder Woman not getting picked up by NBC

There are many kinds of people in this world and these different people have different sets of tastes.  There are also many kinds of stories in this world, and many ways of telling stories.  Mass media, especially television and its model of "who is watching now (and please don't skip the ads)" doesn't deal with either of these facts particularly well.

don't fear, America.  You will never see the latex-clad Wonder Woman on your TV screens.

I am a fan of the Wonder Woman character (albeit, not as big a fan as some).  I am not a fan of much of the work of David E. Kelley, most famous for his role as the creator of Ally McBeal, but also creator of Boston Legal, Snoops, Girls Club, Boston Public, The Wedding Bells and a dozen other projects.  I will confess that I liked Lake Placid.  I always like movies about giant alligators.

Signal Watch Reads: Superman 711

Superman 711
Written by:  Chris Roberson (with nominal input via JMS)
Penciller:  Eddy Barrows
Inker:  JP Mayer
Colors:  Rod Reis
Letters:  John J Hill
Editors:  Wil Moss & Matt Idleson

insert "gets a real charge out of" or "finds this shocking" joke here

With each passing issue, you can only hope that DC realizes what they've got on their hands with Chris Roberson's Superman. I am certain editors Idleson and Moss know, and I can only cross my fingers and hope that after this Grounded storyline is in the rearview mirror, they have plans to let Roberson bring his magic back to Metropolis.

No Post Wednesday

I got nothin'

Fare thee well, O Smallville

Friday is the final episode of TV's Smallville.

What does one say about a show that's been on the air so long?  That's about 220 episodes of Superman-related broadcasts (and without commercials, I'd guess about 170 hours of Superman-ish material).  Moreover, what does one say when they are a die-hard Superman fan who has watched the program out of a mis-placed sense of obligation and stuck with it just to see it through to the end, like a pet goldfish you know is on his last legs so you need to keep feeding it...?

many, many episodes involved Clark talking at rocks

In truth, the show became so bad it, at some point it became hilarious.  Watching week after week, you can see that the production team simply could not get their @#$% right, no matter how hard they tried.  It's adorable, and it became part of why I tuned in: to see just exactly how this was going to go wrong this week.

Not a ringing endorsement, but it takes on a life of its own.*

One last FCBD pic - Comic Book Joy at Austin Books

Jason took this picture.

I thought I was photo-bombing a pic of Jamie, but Jason was actually just trying to get the front of the store and Jamie was just standing there.

Signal Watch Watches: THOR

There are going to be plenty of straight-up reviews out there of the first really big offering of the Summer Movie Season, so I'll spare you an attempt at all that.

1) Like many Marvel movies, I've only a cursory knowledge of Thor as he exists in comics. As a kid, the character just didn't work for me at all (I thought the same thing about Superman, so, natch), and never really grew interested in Thor. I'm not much of a swords'n'sorcery guy, and I just wasn't interested in the mix of faux-Shakespearean dialect and modern interpretation of myth. I would look at Thor in Avengers, and he always seemed oddly out of place, like seeing Chewbacca show up in an X-Files episode because it's all sci-fi.

2) I think my Kirby-adoration has given me a better understanding of Thor these days, and I've spoken some with CanadianSimon about Thor, and, frankly, I am trying to free up my budget to get my hands on some of the Walt Simonson Thor. It just sounds too good.