A trait that She-Hulk and I share in common - besides big boobs!

I see in the cover below that Marvel Comic's She-Hulk and I share something in common. Well yes, big boobs for sure. Uh, yeah - the tight and revealing attire, that's another. Hmm ... you're right, there's also the height, long hair, and curvy figure. Hmph! Okay, look! She accidentally ripped the door off of that taxi! When I was still getting used to my super strength back in college (which was about the time that my strength was REALLY starting to develop), I used to rip car doors off a lot. I felt sorry for my poor dates!

A USA Today article of GenY and religion

Yesterday, the USA Today ran an article on GenY and religion; basically saying that while we may not be as associated with organized religions as the generations before us, it doesn't mean that we aren't religious. Didn't I describe myself in just that way in a previous blog entry?

Some of you may wonder what I do for certain holidays like Christmas and Easter in which special services are conducted. I will usually go to a local Greek Orthodox (which is what my family had belonged to historically, although my parents had long dropped out of the practice of religion by the time I was born) or Catholic church. I am not unfamiliar with the practices and customs of the Greek Orthodox Church (GOC), but having not been born and raised in it like my parents were, I don't understand some of why they do what they do, and why they believe in what they believe.

Yes, I know what some of you are thinking; if I want to understand it, then I should join it. One reason is demonstrated by the example that someone once gave me: Two persons may be in a car on the road, but the driver undergoes a different experience than the passenger does. The passenger's mind may be free to wander and take in the sights passing by, but the driver has to stay focused on what he or she is doing, or they both won't make it to their destination. And yet, the driver has a different kind of freedom that the passenger does not: The driver has the power to determine where they are going and how they get there. A passenger is like the church shopper who never joins, while the driver is like the church shopper who makes a commitment to join.

The GOC might be a logical start for me, and yet, my parents left that church for a reason. However, they left it because they are of the radical left-wing Marxist mindset of religion being the "opium of the masses", so their views are hardly objective and analytical (If you don't know Marxists already, then trust me, they are unreasonable and illogical people). I must confess that there is a mischievous side of me that wants to join the GOC just to piss off my parents. However it's one thing to adopt a conservative political ideology as a form of teenage rebellion, but another matter entirely to join my parents' former religious faith just to spite them. After all, joining a faith out of spite to someone is not a good reason to join it!

So anyway, I am still looking as stated in my previous blog entry linked above. It is interesting to see that my experiences regarding faith and spirituality are common in my generation. I have - well, faith! - that we will find our way one day, and it will be after some true soul-searching to find our way. This actually leads to how the baby boomers complicated matters for us, but I'll save that for a discussion for another time. I'm working on a blog entry somewhat related to this anyway. :-)

Q&A: My opinion of beauty pageants

This article got me thinking that I should go ahead and voice my opinion of beauty pageants, especially since I've been asked before on this topic. Okay, let's go ahead and make this official:

Q: What do you think of beauty pageants? - from several questioners

A: To be honest, I'm not sure how I feel about beauty pageants. Granted, the winners end up getting college scholarships for the most part, but for doing what, exactly? Given the term "beauty" pageant, one must assume that the winner is more beautiful than the rest, but c'mon! The idea and concept of "beauty" is very subjective - "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" and all that.

And also consider that all of these beauty queens - all of them! - are made up to look that way. Maked-up to no end, enough hair spray for one pageant than most of us would probably use in a lifetime, not to mention the plastic surgery and boob jobs and so forth that sometimes is done, and tape to create cleavage and to hold articles of clothing in place (no 'wardrobe malfunctions' for these ladies!) makes for some very artificial women. Heck, if we really wanted to judge their beauty, let's see how good they look without all that makeup, hair spray, surgery, tape, etc. If they still look attractive, they win!

My main concern is the message that beauty pageants seem to send to young girls. Sincerely without trying to sound snide, the message seems to be "You are a piece of meat, and how well you decorate yourself and perform for the judges will determine the winner." I wouldn't go so far as to say that they are whoring themselves, but still, with all that women have accomplished in recent decades, the idea and concept of "beauty" pageants seems not only outdated but archaic. We are now doctors, lawyers, college professors, engineers, military leaders, CEOs, and so forth, so in contrast with these women of accomplishment, beauty pageant contestants seem almost an insult.

Even though it sounds like I'm totally opposed to beauty pageants, I'm not there. Not yet anyway, but I'm close. They are being given college scholarships after all, and not being whored off as prizes to men of privilege and wealth. So in short, I guess you might say that when it comes to beauty pageants, I'm agnostic; that is, not fully there as far as being a non-believer, but that my doubts outnumber the benefits that I believe that beauty pageant contestants gain from being in those pageants. I hope that makes sense.

Chris Evans to play Captain America!

Okay, I can accept Chris Evans playing Captain America in a movie. Oh yeah, baby....! :-D

Also, according to the article, it looks like several movies are planned with him, and also with Robert Downey Jr. aka Iron Man, and then the whole Avengers! Man, it's a great time to be a comics nerd - now and in the near future!

translation questions

Hey, guys.

A couple of comments came to me in what I think is an Asian language, but I don't know which one, so I don't know what translator to use. I am not proficient at all in Asian languages, so I don't know Chinese from Japanese from Korean, etc., so what should I do?

For my Asian fans especially, please let me know what I can do. I want to read and respond to your mail, but I have to know what I'm working with here before I can do that. Well, at least I THINK you're my fans! LOL For all I know, you're insulting me and my writing! Anyway, any help you can provide will be most appreciated.

In fact, this goes for my fans that write me in other languages such as Spanish, and I think Italian and French. It's real cool to know that I have an international following, and I don't even have a comic book yet! Anyway, I guess I should ask if there is a website that will know what language a given text is and translate it for me.

Somehow, someway, I want to communicate with my international fans. We got the technology and the software programs for this now; it's just a matter of figuring out which programs to use and how to make them work. I wish one of my powers was languages! LOL

Occupational hazard of being busty

The comic strip below (titled Wapsi Square) literally made me laugh out loud because I can so relate to what Monica, the busty woman in the strip below, is going through. Boobs this size should be held in check with a bra, because as I had told someone before, for me to go braless is to let loose a pair of runaway rubbery watermelons on the rampage.

Folks, boobs this size literally move independently of me if I am not wearing a bra. I move one way and they shift to the other, and that's a lot of weight to shift in the opposite direction! Remember how I mentioned before about the cleavage hole in my costume being there to distract? Well, if I went braless, it would be VERY distracting - to me, especially! I do not want to be in the position in which I am fighting my boobs as much as I am fighting the bad guys!

So as entertaining (to say the least!) as you might find a busty superhero chick fighting without a bra or some sort of support built into the costume, it is very inadvisable for such women to do so, especially if it interferes with the woman doing her superhero job. Ah, the joys of womanhood... ;-)

Superhero men don't have this problem! LOL

The Weekly World News comic! LOL

I came across the above comic, and boy is it nutty! In its universe, there is actually a bat boy and alligator man and all the kinds of strange creatures that you see on the front of WWN! I'm still not sure where the book is going other than to stereotype conservatives, but it's been a fun read. I'll let you know how it goes.

Lawn care. Seriously! LOL

In the course of this blog, we've gone from the fantastic in dealing with the comics and movies, and we've also dealt with large scale social and political issues. Now for something a little more "down to earth". And I mean that in the literal sense. :-) hehe

Okay gang, this is the year that I tackle my lawn problems! For once in my life, I want to have a beautiful lawn that I can stretch out on during beautiful days! Here's the problem, though...

I live in an older neighborhood, which is beautiful and has lots of shade, but I have the greatest difficulty growing grass consistently all over the yard. The abundant shade is part of the problem, and the other problem is the abundant weeds. I can't tell you what kind of grass I have, nor the kinds of weeds, because I am not that in-the-know with grass and weed species. I just know grass from weeds.

I would ask the boss about this since he knows a lot about a lot of stuff, but lawn care ain't one of them! Trust me, I've seen his lawn! LOL (no offense, boss!)

The kind of grass I want is the thick, cushiony, carpety kind that I've seen by some banks and other such buildings that have meticulously manicured lawns. I want grass that I can run barefoot on! As for the weeds, weed-pulling has to rank as one of the most boring of tasks, so is there anything I can do to get rid of them besides uprooting them?

Any help you can provide will be greatly appreciated. Maybe I can make this a semi-regular part of my blog to go along with comics and politics! :-D

The racists Dan Rather and Harry Reid

Sorry to get all political here, folks, but there's something that I need to get off my chest (no pun intended). The recent news reports of Dan Rathers' "watermelon" statement and Harry Reid's "Negro dialect" statement demonstrates the double standard that exists in the news media when it comes to questionable statements by Democrats and Republicans.

I dare any of you to deny that had George Bush or - heaven forbid! - Dick Cheney said either of the above statements, the news-media-that-does-not-have-a-liberal-bias wouldn't be trying to explain it away as "Bush being Bush" or "Cheney being Cheney", they'd instead be calling for their heads! Also, had Rathers and Reid both been conservative Republicans instead of liberal Democrats, the report on the story would be completely different.

Part of the reason why the news-media-that-does-not-have-a-liberal-bias is failing while conservative news media is booming is because of this inconsistency and double standard when it comes to reporting on prominent figures in the news. Plain and simply, the ideology of the prominent figure determines what kind of coverage they will get whenever they do something stupid publicly. Liberal prominent figures get endless explanations and excuses while conservative prominent figures get nuked.

Until the news-media-that-does-not-have-a-liberal-bias changes its ways and reports like it's supposed to, then they will continue their downward spiral into irrelevance.

Generation Y: The worst generation? Don't you believe it!

“Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen."

“Never give in, never give in, never; never; never; never - in nothing, great or small, large or petty - never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense”

“We are masters of the unsaid words, but slaves of those we let slip out”

“Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.”

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”

“If you are going through hell, keep going.”

“It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.”

– Winston Churchill

********************************************

My favorite subject all through my schooling – from elementary all the way through college – was history, but especially American history and world history. I absolutely love studying the past and finding out how people did things back then and why. By studying the past, we also learn a lot about ourselves and how we have evolved since the times of our ancestors – and especially, how we have not changed since those times. There is a whole lot of wisdom in that old saying, “Those who do not know their history are doomed to repeat it.”

Another one of my loves should come as no surprise to regular readers of my blog: I love superhero comic books. The titanic tales of heroism in the face of danger have always captivated and fascinated me. Even though most of the superhero folks have superhuman powers, the best stories about them were about just how human they really were. Plus, certain heroes embodied certain values that I still live by to this day.

For example, Superman embodies that you should use your talents for the greater good. He got this value system from his Midwestern farmer parents. Spiderman’s classic line of “With great power comes great responsibility” came to him the hard way, after he had lost his uncle after failing to stop someone when he could have – and that person ended up being the one who killed his uncle. Captain America believes in the best of everyone he meets, and he believes in the American dream. Those around him can’t help but be bolstered by his infectious optimism.

When I was a little girl struggling with my personal problems related to growing up, I found solace in my history books and my comic books. The tales from history and the comics showed me that I was not the only one who has problems, and that the solutions to our problems often could be found from within. The very best people in history were not those that had the most money or the most power, but those whom had a strong moral center, and who were able to maintain that center despite the most trying of times. Winston Churchill, whose quotes are above, is one such example.

All this is preface for what I’m about to discuss, and that’s in regards to my generation, often referred to as “Generation Y”. In a previous blog entry, I had stated that it could be said that my generation is the worst generation. I’m now about to explain what I meant by that, and I will explain it by paraphrasing one of Churchill’s quotes above: “Generation Y is the worst generation, except for all the rest.” Yes, my fellow GenYs, we have the potential to be the best generation if we want it bad enough.

Mind you, this term is not meant to supplant the generation that lived through the Depression and fought in World War II. That generation will always be the Greatest Generation; it’s virtually impossible to match the accomplishment of a generation that grew up in poverty and with a spotty education, and yet went on to literally save the world by fighting the Axis empires.

What I mean by “Best Generation” is that we GenYs have the potential to accomplish so much that we can transform the world – not by intent, but as a result of the potential for good that we can bring about if we apply our talents in the right way. That is, we will accomplish this not by deliberately trying to change the world in some grand master plan, but instead, it will come about because we work on the individual level. “In order for nations to change, men must change”, in essence.

The problem for us comes from learning what “the right way” is, and the biggest part of that problem is the fact that our parents are, for the most part, the generation known as the Baby Boomers(BBs). Before I continue, let me explain something here: I am not so much trying to make this blog entry as yet another example of the current generation blaming the one before; rather, I will try to demonstrate that a quick read of history will show that the BBs were largely not a good source to go to when it comes to finding examples of the right ways of doing things – and in some instances, they were quite the opposite – so opposite that you could probably find out the right thing to do by doing the opposite of what they tell you to do.

It is said that our generation is destined to be the first generation that will not be more affluent than the generation before. If that’s the case, then I think a large reason why would be the failure of our BB parents in raising us, for if we are the products of our upbringings then who brought us up? However, I refuse to accept that we are fated for failure. While we had no control over the circumstances of our birth, we are fully in control of how our lives progress from this point on. Given that, if we GenYs do indeed end up less than our BB parents, then we’ll have only ourselves to blame.

In conclusion, don’t let anyone tell you that our generation is doomed to be less than anyone else’s. Our failures will indeed be our own, but so will our successes and I hope that we plan on succeeding in our lives, not failing. There is no reason that we need to live up to a self-fulfilling prophecy just because someone tells us that we are destined to fail. Instead, let’s use those words against our critics as motivation to prove them wrong. If we prove them wrong, then we’ll all benefit. That, actually, should be incentive for these “gloom and doomers” to make sure that we don’t end up less affluent than the BBs, because if we go down, then everyone else is going down with us.

I had intended to make this entry a very long one, but after further consideration, I will instead break this down into parts so that we all have a chance to discuss the other points that I plan to bring up in the coming days. Basically however, my points are going to be roughly based on Churchill’s quotes above. I will stop here to get some input and feedback from the rest of you before I post my next statement, which will probably come sometime next week.

Change in format for tomorrow's post

The good news is that tomorrow's post is still coming. However, after letting my boss check it over and edit it (which I ask him to do for many of my longer posts), he suggested breaking down my points into other, future posts in order to allow more discussion from you guys on each point than would be brought about if I posted it all at once.

So with that, what comes tomorrow will be an introduction. After that, I'll make other posts related to some points that I want to make, and then let you guys talk about each point of you want to. After I have run through all the points that I want to make, then I'll have a closing statement. I hope this works in the way I am hoping it will work. See you guys tomorrow!

Power Girl's cleavage hole: Now Magog gets it

In the #6 issue of DC Comics' Magog vs. the JSA appears the scene below. See folks? Magog gets it. Even when he knows why Power Girl has that cleavage hole in her costume, he still can't help but be distracted by it. It works, guys! Your horny side will betray you - even when you know what we're up to! :-D

Plans for this week

Hey, all.

I just wanted to let you know my plans this week, because it's going to be sparse postings. I'll have a post tomorrow, but not again until Friday. The reason? I am going to seriously make the effort to finally answer my statement when I said that my generation was the worst generation!

So what did I mean by that? I don't want to just answer that here, because there was a reason I said it the way I did, and I don't want to spoil a point that I hope to make. I know I had said in the linked blog entry above that my answer was going to come "next week", and now it's been almost a month!

Anyway, one post tomorrow, and not again until Friday as I try to finally get this done! And I hope no freak Texas snowstorm or any other adult type resposibilities pop up like it did last time! Arrrrgghh!!

Bear with me, guys! I promise you that it's coming!