The View From Wisconsin
Just a random set of rants from a Sports Fan from Wisconsin.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Sunday's Fun Day Charlie Brown
With all the re-airings of the various Peanuts movies this weekend, my wife started mangling the "Snoopy Come Home" theme last night. Amazing how so many people can get movie themes so wrong.
Anyways - some not-so-deep thoughts for the post-Turkey Day week:
Anyways - some not-so-deep thoughts for the post-Turkey Day week:
- Why is it that, just as you're about to replace a lightbulb in your car in a remote and difficult-to-get-to location, right before you pull it out of the socket - it flickers back to life? It's bad enough that I have the car that defines "hard to get to that part" (a PT Cruiser), but just as I'm trying to pull the bulb out of the shroud of the cargo lamp in the back of my car - it flickers back to life. I ended up replacing it anyways, since I'm pretty sure the bulb was on the verge of going out - thus it not coming on for most of the time when I had the liftgate up.
- Signs that you like turkey: you have a turkey sandwich for lunch the Sunday after Thanksgiving - and it's not leftovers.
- Strange dollar store indulgence: 2008 Upper Deck MLS Soccer cards. They're somewhat reminiscent of Upper Deck's Victory set for hockey, with the near-trademark UD 200-card "base" set and multiple inserts. For some reason, though, I didn't get a single Columbus Crew card. And no, no Landon Donovan nor David Beckham.
- Matt Schaub cost me a win in my NFL Fantasy Football league game this week - but it's not the end of the world, since I'm leading my "division"by a game and a half. That's the one thing I like about NFL's Fantasy leagues - they divide teams into three four-team divisions, and have the playoffs with the three division leaders and the "wild card" team. I doubt the team in second in my division is gonna lose, as they're up by 41 and his QB is Drew Brees, but a win or tie by my guys next week gives me the division title.
- My two Yahoo leagues are hard to figure; the NQRFPTFL (I think we're already in decade #2, by the way) is a bit jumbled up, but I'm pretty sure, barring a free-fall of some sort, I'm in the playoffs. My public league team... well, let's just say it's a good thing I caught that Kurt Warner was made inactive for the game today vs. the Titans. I'm currently up by just under 10 points (public leagues in Yahoo are apparently figured to the 100ths now), but he has Randy Moss and Mike Bell going for him.
- You just know that Tiger Woods and his wife were arguing about something. That's the ONLY reason why you're pulling out of your driveway like an idiot at 2:30 AM without alcohol being involved.
- A sign that my life is just sad: I did a Twitter "cloud" of words that I used in the last month and the last year on Twitter. My top words: time, times, please, game, night, team and goal. Maybe I should get Timex to sponsor my Twitter feed?
Friday, November 20, 2009
Comic Commentary Update
- A few comments on storylines and such from my regular webcomics:
- Candi Comics by Starline Hodge
- Starline's got the comic on hiatus this week, as she's off to the UK. The storyline focused mostly on Candi's roommate and her date with a celibate UF student. Heh, Tim Tebow must be rubbing off on the populace in Gainesville!
- Dork Tower by John Kovalic
- Our intrepid heroes have been battling the demon of the faulty internet connection and the CAPTCHA wars while the author has been slackin' a bit. And, unfortunately, Igor has seen 2012 - which means he now is going to go nuts over the world ending. (He needs to talk to Cassie - see below.)
- The Dreamland Chronicles by Scott Christian Sava
- Alex has finally realized what he's up against - and what he's got ahead of him. I don't know Scott all that well, but I'm suspicious that Nicole might be showing up in Dreamland in the near future.
- Evil Inc. by Brad Guigar
- Ah, the flashback to when CH was a kid. I think it's obvious that it's only by sheer luck that he didn't end up as an Evil Genius instead of a Superhero. And you have to think that therapists for superheroes would be a growth industry...
- Girl Genius by Phil & Kaja Foglio
- Agatha's finding out what's in the basement of her ancestral home - and it ain't pretty. What's worse is that she's apparently come down with a case of Hogfarb's Resplendent Immolation (note to Agatha: never kiss your patient before you start a procedure, no matter how cute he is). And the cherry on top is, the Castle's AI won't let her kill herself to save them all. So, when's Othar going to show up and really put a wrench in the works?
- Girls With Slingshots by Danielle Corsetto
- Welp... looks like Angel the Bartender and Hazel's ex-boss Thea have hooked up, but Clarice (the librarian/porn store clerk) is left without anyone of her own - and the girls don't notice. And since Maureen and Jameson got married, no one's seen Candy (though she did wander through the pages of Something Positive for a bit).
- Pibgorn at GoComics by Brooke McEldowney
- Ah, we appear to be at the end of the "Pibgorn and the Volcano on 77th Street and Park Avenue" storyline - as confusing as it was. While New York was becoming a breeding ground for demons, thanks to Dru, she and Nat Bustard (aka "The Bogey Demon") were overcoming the powers of everybody's least favorite gameshow host, Tom Torquemada! The faithful anticipate a new roller-coaster ride on Monday.
- PvPonline.com by The Kurtz
- Scott did a little five-piece story ("The Incident") that essentially repeats the old adage of "things are not always what they appear to be." Otherwise... well, PVP is PVP. It bounces from funny to "Huh?" to "Oh, geez" to "OMG!" to "ROTFL!" - and, sometimes it does it within the space of a single comic.
- Questionable Content by Jeph Jacques
- Jeph's been doing a lot of little mini-arcs as of late - Dora meets up with Marten's dad, who then informs Marten he's getting re-married to his new gay lover. They all go out for a night on the town with Faye, Hanners and company. Then, suddenly, we're talking about Marigold and Hanners going to a "NerdCon" at Smif, Faye having an existential crisis over turning down a date with Angus (lucky Marigold), and a rather interesting t-shirt find in the local thrift shop. (Question: how many thrift shops are there in Northampton? Don't they have like a Macy's or at least a Wal-Mart, for cryin' out loud?) Anyways, Steve shows up, looking for the girl who hit on Marten (and then ran into Dora and her broadsword later that same day) - and ends up visiting Tai for her college yearbook. I'm just wondering who the "new character" is... though if my memory serves (and the archives are right), that's her roommate Brianna.
- Real Life Comics - The Online Comic by Greg Dean
- A week of "Inside the Comic Studio", essentially an A&E-like documentary (basically to honor the 10th anniversary of the "Strip About Nothing"). Yeah, I went there - this webcomic is essentially the geek version of Seinfeld. Deal with it.
- Sequential Art by Phillip M. Jackson
- The bug's been slayed, the kids have been saved, and Scarlet's dragging the carcass back to the house. The question, of course, is what they're going to do with it. (Does it taste like chicken?)
- Sheldon Comics by Dave Kellett
- Seriously: you HAD to love the whole Sheldonsoft Offices story arc. I'd argue that Tuesday's strip was a bit too close to home for those of us in the state service; I have yet to see outpatient surgery in a cubicle at work, though.
- As for Drive: the story's starting to progress nicely, and we're actually getting a hint of what's actually going on in the "big picture" of this futuristic setting. Apparently, the baddies don't like it that Earthlings have their space drive system, and they've managed to track one of the ships with "their" drive heading out of a prison planetary system. This one's gonna be neat -and with Dave writing it, you know it'll be awesome.
- Shortpacked! by David Willis
- No, I don't particularly care for The Office, so I have no idea what Ethan would be. Of course, after the whole "Revisiting the old Joyce & Walky universe" thing with Mike and Amber, the little one-shots are refreshing.
- Starslip by Kris Straub
- Ohhhhkay... The whole "Quine Saves The Day" storyline was weird (with InfraRedbeard's return!), but to follow it up with... sensitivity training????? (FACEPALM)
- Times Like This by Thomas Overbeck
- Good, our intrepid time traveler has made the obvious statement - NOTHING HAPPENS on December 21, 2012. Though I have to admit that I never heard of the Roxanne Wars before Matt mentioned it...
- Tux and Bunny by Lorna Appleby
- What's there to say? One-liners, puns and snarky stuffed animals.
- XKCD - A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language by Randall Munroe
- Mr. Munroe's level of GeekSnark gets raised every day - okay, three times a week, but still.
- Wapsi Square by Paul Taylor
- I may need to put this one in a separate post altogether. We're coming up on the attempt at fixing the Calendar Machine - and suddenly Monica's feeling like she's going to be killed. Which, of course, might be accurate, since the instructions for Shelly is to secretly stab Monica during their attempts at fixing the machine... but what or why (or if indeed she needs to die) aren't quite certain.
- Add to this a visit from Shelly's "Conscience" (all her demons rolled into one and made to look like her when she was a little girl), and Monica's bouts with sanity... when's the New Moon, again?
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