The Walking Dead

I wonder how many of you enjoy the tv series The Walking Dead. I also wonder how many of you knew it started out as a comic book. I don't really watch tv at my house, only at friends or relatives houses. When The Walking Dead became a tv series my daughter was very excited about it as she reads the comics along with me. But after the first season she kind of gave up on it, prefering the comic to the tv series (yay for reading!) But I told her it was going to be different and that you had to keep the two seperate, and enjoy each individually. I enjoy talking with a coworker of mine who really enjoys the tv series, and I always compare it to the comic books and what happened in the comics was different than the tv and vice versa. I've only rented the first season, so all I know of the second season was from what my coworker said. But did you know that in the comics Rick's son Carl killed Shane before they left Atlanta, not out at the farm like in the tv series, and not because he was a zombie either. In the comics, when they found out that if you die normally you come back as a zombie, Rick left the group to go back to Atlanta and dig up Shane where they had buried him. Rick sees Shane as a zombie and cuts off his head. In the third season of the tv series I'm guessing they get to the prison as that was the last image of the second season (acording to my coworker). All I can say is, don't get too attached to Lori and her new born, but then again, like I told my daughter, you have to keep the comics and the tv seperate, maybe they'll survive the attack by the Governor, but then again, maybe not. And Michonne is deadly with that sword, I wonder how true they will stay to the comics and at least hint off screen at what the Governor does to her, and if they do that then they would have to at least hint off screen what she does to the Governor, but that might be too graphic. And I also have to wonder if they'll put into the tv series what the Governor does to Rick. I don't mind being a season behind, patience is a virtue I keep telling myself. So by the time I've seen the second season, the third season should probably be close to airing. Enjoy!

The Fringe Benefits Of Being A Lead

So, my job decided to promote me kind of into the lead position they had passed me over for earlier that I had mentioned in my first post about going back to school. My supervisor being the kind of guy that he is, gave me a sink or swim on the computer aspect of the job; ordering Master Production Records, ordering temporary employees, opening and closing the shop floor order, and taking care of the production report. It's a good thing I'm a fast learner and took plenty of notes and had support from the third shift supervisor who would stay over late (he does anyway to talk to this one girl on the line) and from the second shift supervisor who would come in early to help me out with any questions I might have had. I must say though that being a supervisor, or lead as it were, in my department is very boring. There is about a total of an hours worth of work that needs to be split up throughout the day. Include with that a half hour lunch and I have six and a half hours of fuck off time I need to kill. Now I understand why the supervisor is hardly ever in the room and he's always somewhere else talking to other supervisors or whomever. I kind of tried to do the same thing, but because of my own personal work ethic I find it hard to go into another department and bullshit with others distracting them from thier own job. Maybe my supervisor talks to others who have the same amount of fuck off time as he does and it doesn't interfere with job productivity. But those are the people that he knows. The people that I know work on the line and don't have that luxury. So my first week went well, a few curveballs were thrown my way that I feel I handled fairly. I have one more week to go before my supervisor is back from vacation. Ah, the fringe benefits of being a lead.

Not All Comicbook Movies Require Spandex

So how many of you are enjoying the last decade of comicbook movies? Comicbooks have come to the big screen before that, sure, but few and far between and mainly DC's Superman and Batman. It really started to snowball with Spider-man and X-Men. Then with Ironman and Batman (again). Now it seems each year they throw two or three comicbook movies at us Thor, Captain America, and Green Lantern hit us last year, and Avengers and the third Batman movie are slated to hit us this year. But I don't want to talk about those kind of comicbook movies. I want to talk about the comicbook movies you may not have known were comicbooks. The first successful of these non-traditional superhero comicbook movies in the last few years would have to have been the movie 300. 300 Spartans versus the entire Persian army. I love that movie. Another was the vampire movie 30 Days of Night, where the entire town of Barrow Alaska is overrun by the bloodsuckers. Another successful comicbook movie was Sin City, depicting a few of those stories in one movie. Did you know that the movie Red featuring Bruce Willis was based on a comic? The comic is awesome by the way, but completely different from the movie, you gotta keep them seperated (Offspring reference). Another Bruce Willis staring comicbook movie was The Surrogates, I still need to get that one on dvd. Not to say any or all comicbook movies are good, to each their own. I remember reading The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen and then couldn't believe the crap they made into a motion picture. If any of what I've written inspires you to read the comicbook version, do yourselves a favor and read The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, they're collected into volumes one and two and are brilliant. So hopefully I've showed you that not all comicbook movies require spandex.

Might As Well Be On Mars

I've always been fascinated by Mars and astronomy in general. I particularly enjoy reading stories about outer space, particularly those that were written around the turn of the twentieth century. Edgar Allen Poe had written a short story about taking a hot air balloon to the moon. A favorite author of mine E. E. "Doc" Smith wrote a space opera back in the 30's and 40's collected currently as Chronicles of the Lensmen, which last I heard they may be making into a film. Yesterday I went to see John Carter with my daughter and brother. I find it fascinating that these stories by Edgar Rice Burroughs were written so long ago when we new absolutely nothing about Mars. I have yet to read them meself, but now after seeing the movie, it may inspire me to sit down and enjoy them. Being a novice writer myself I have my own Mars story plotted out but have yet to take the time to finish writing it. I like other movies based on Mars as well. My first memory is of the movie Total Recall. There have been a few others since, but none really captured the same feeling of Mars like that one. Until John Carter came out. It takes a different approach to the story. Instead of colonizing Mars like in Total Recall or in space trips to Mars like in the other few that come to mind. John Carter goes with the theme that a civilization is already on Mars, having evolved similar to our own. Their are humans on Mars but also four-armed green men. You could generalize the genre as almost a western on Mars, but their are flying ships in it as well. What I found truly fascinating about the movie was the fact that John Carter has almost super-human powers, because of the difference in gravity between Earth and Mars John Carter is stronger and more agile and able to leap for almost a quarter mile or so. It was entertaining seeing  the character adjust to this new-found gravity as every step he took made him fly dozens of yards through the air. I see a franchise coming from this John Carter movie and expect another movie to hit theaters in a few years as Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote several stories featuring the characters.

I'll leave you with a favorite song by Alice Cooper "Might as well be on Mars http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCmBb1JSr4c

Body Canvas, Art or Graffiti?

My daughter got half her head shaved today. No, I don't mind it at all. I think it looks awesome. I encourage her to express herself. Although the things she chooses to express herself with are not what  I would do. She has her ears gauged, and she dyes her hair every once in awhile. I find it different from how I expressed myself when I was her age. I was writing a drawing to get out the feelings inside, although some things shouldn't have been let out. If I were to do now what I did back then I would've been suspended and/or sent to seek counseling. The only thing that has me concerned about my daughters expressionism is that she wants to get a tattoo, and that is such a permanent thing. I know you can get tattoos removed but that costs even more money. I only just got my first tattoo last year, and yeah I'd like to get more, but not impulsively. These kinds of things need to take much more careful consideration. A young man might want to get a tattoo of skulls and such. But fast forward ten years, twenty years, do you still feel the same as you did? Is it something that you're still going to be proud of? My daughter has all of these wild ideas for tattoos, but it makes me take a step back and look at the big picture. Is this something that is going to have relevance later on in life? Yes, the body can be a canvas, but the picture will always be the same. Is this a perceived timeless piece of artwork, or a spur of the moment act of graffiti? Although I must add that some people get "safe" tattoos; the butterfly, or the frog, or the name of a loved one that has passed. A tattoo with significance. What about you? What kind of tattoo would you get? Or are tattoos not your thing and you are happy with how you look?