Busty Superhero Chick

2013 calendar again

2012-01-25T13:55:00.000-06:00

After some e-mail discussion, the boss and I hashed out some ideas for my 2013 calendar, and they are below.

The boss is working on ideas for art for the different months of the year, and perhaps a centerfold pin-up. Roughly, here's the ideas for each month (Note: This may change!):

January: New Year
February: Valentine's Day
March: St Patrick's Day
Special art, perhaps of a character and his/her bio not yet presented anywhere else.
April: Easter/spring related (Easter is March 31)
May: Mother's Day, with image of Lucky with her son
June: Summer/beach theme
Centerfold - large full body art, perhaps in flight or other dramatic superhero pose
July: 4th of July patriotic theme
August: vacation theme
September: Labor Day/cookout theme
Special art, perhaps of a character and his/her bio not yet presented anywhere else.
October: Halloween
November: Thanksgiving/harvest theme
December: Christmas

We also toyed with the idea of sponsors, perhaps some comic companies or Facebook groups who might be interested in being in my calendar.

There is also the matter of how to get the calendar printed. One place the boss checked gave a price close to $20 per calendar, which is more than what most people might be willing to pay for a little-known superhero character. Plus, that company also used a spiral center, and we want a stapled center for the centerfold. Finding a printer for the calendar is the most important part, and if that can't be managed for a decent price, then this calendar project may not get off the ground.

As for artists, I'm going to ask artists that we've used before, but I would also like new artists, so if any of you artists out there are willing to do some art for this, let me know and we can see what we can work out. Oh, along with sponsors, we will also give credit to all the artists and provide Internet addresses to whatever site they wished to link with other samples of their work.

That's all for now, but feel free to add your comments or observations as well.

2013 calendar of me: What do you think?

2012-01-23T15:59:00.002-06:00

What would you all think of a 2013 calendar of me? The boss is willing to consider it and even get all new art, but he wants me to gauge interest in it. He's going to have to take into consideration how much art he'll need and what it would cost to produce such a calendar locally, and also the cost to have it sent to whomever may be interested in purchasing it. At the minimum, I think, he would need artwork for each month of the year, plus one on the cover and another on the back cover, which would be 14 total. However, I think it would be cool to have some additional pin-up art as well - or perhaps introduce new characters that haven't had art done of them yet. Anyway, please comment here, or go to my Facebook page and comment there. If you haven't already friended me there, I'm on FB as Andromeda Perseus. If we can get this done, it would be SO cool! :-D

Stop SOPA: It's my Internet, too!

2012-01-18T09:59:00.000-06:00

Good intentions do not always translate into good law. It also goes to show that while the music and film industry will sell out on our morals, values, and traditions, what they won't compromise on is their profit margins, so to hell with the rest of us if it's cutting into their bottom line! Well, we say the hell to you, greed mongers of the film and music industry!

My surprise support for a certain GOP presidential candidate

2012-01-13T09:52:00.000-06:00

First, let me say that I am disappointed that both Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann won't be in the running for president. I am especially disappointed that they won't both be on the same ticket. I really wanted an all-woman ticket! Moot point now.

I know some of my friends want to know who I would be willing to support of the remaining nominees. I'll say now that none of the quite fill the bill of what I want in a GOP candidate. Of all of them, Mitt Romney is my last choice, because he has a history of flip-flopping, and I am afraid that he'll do that again once in the Oval Office.

However, I will just as quickly add that I would vote for him if he is the eventual nominee, because I'd rather take my chances on him than another four years of Barack Obama. If Obama can do this much damage to our country while still having his reelection hanging over his head, how much more damage can he do once that's taken away? Friends, I've said before how I was raised by Marxists. I have seen their thinking and philosophies up close and personal.   What they believe is not pretty nor pleasant, and it will lead to the destruction of the American way of life as we know it.

And for what? Some dimwitted, narrow-minded philosophy that is all lovey-dovey on the surface but anti-humanistic and ultimately nihilistic at its core? The kind of society that liberals want to put into place in our country will ultimately lead to an ugly de-facto tyranny. Again, I've seen what they want to do to the rest of us, and I've looked upon their goals, both short term and long term, and the betterment of our culture and society is last on their list. It would be best to prevent them from getting full run of our country while we have the means to stop them, rather than trying to undo the damage that they WILL cause once in power and once they've implemented all their evil policies into place.

Friends, I don't use the word "evil" easily or lightly, but how else can you describe the sort of utilitarian and dehumanizing philosophies that they want to impose on the rest of us? We are not people to them, but tools for their goals. A means to an end, in other words. This is not to say that all conservatives are holy and righteous, so don't get me wrong.   It's just that the liberals have had the past 4-5 decades to show their good intentions, and they failed in that respect.   It's because their intents aren't good, but self-serving. Not only that, they're trying to get my generation - those born in the 1980s and later - to go along with this. But we can't allow that. We have to stop this now, and we stop it with our voices and our votes.   I'm sure doing a lot of prefacing here, but it's for a reason.

I wanted you all to know what we - my generation, specifically, but everyone else as well - face if we don't get this right. My generation needs to see what's coming, and my generation needs to take matters in their own hands rather than rely on the lies of liberals. My generation needs to be able to see with their own eyes and think with their own brains, and they need to speak with their own voices and vote for themselves, rather than listen to the Rachel Maddows and the Bill Mahers of the world. People like them will lead you astray.

What my generation needs then, is a candidate who can be a sort of "gateway drug" to conservatism, because my generation needs to adopt conservatism to get them away from the path of destruction that liberals are taking them.

That's why I am willing to support Ron Paul.

Ron Paul is an incomplete candidate for me, but his views on the roles of government are what's needed right now. His views of the military and his desire to pull us out of everywhere are a bit of a concern for me, but I'm willing to go along with him than risk the possible flip-flopping of a Mitt Romney, and I also prefer Paul to another four years of Obama. Don't misunderstand me here - this is "support", and not an "endorsement". "Endorsement" implies that I support everything about a given candidate, and I'm not there with Paul, but I am willing to give him my support if he can help turn my generation around and introduce them to the benefits of conservatism.

So what I'm doing here is seeing the big picture by supporting Paul. The path that liberalism wants to continue leading us on will only lead us astray. We need direction, and focus. We need a candidate that will show my generation how conservatism can benefit us individually and collectively.   Once my generation sees that difference, I believe that they will join the right wing in droves.   But someone has to show the way, and I think Paul just might be able to do that.

Another Rick Celes artwork: Meet Megan O'Donnell!

2012-01-11T08:06:00.000-06:00

Before any more time passes, I want to present to you the latest artwork by Rick Celes, as well as the very first artwork of Megan O'Donnell, our resident computer and engineering guru here at the Dept. of Superhuman Studies. I had planned on also posting her bio and other information, but - I'm still working on it. LOL

Don't you just love how calm and in control she looks there? She would have to be, to deal with so many different personality types! All that, and she still finds time to do her nerd stuff!

Anyway, thank you Rick, for another outstanding artwork! What a way to start the new year! :-D

The new year on my blog begins! Er... next week.... :- /

2012-01-05T07:18:00.000-06:00

What a busy past couple of weeks I've had, friends! And on my first week back to work, I have tons to do, so I will resume blogging next week.

And it will be worth the wait, for you will see the very first appearance of the Dept of Superhuman Studies' own engineering and computer genius, Megan O'Donnell! She herself isn't superhuman, but she serves the role that Barbara Gordon did before she became Batgirl again; namely, as the communication center for all the superhuman agents out on the field. So in short, she's our "Oracle".

Not only that, this artwork is done by Rick Celis, the very same artist whose fantastic artwork you saw recently! Trust me, it will be a treat!

And of course, I'll also have more to say on the election and the recent primary in Iowa. Plus, you'll hear my surprise support for a candidate that I bet you wouldn't expect me to support! When you hear my reasons why, you just might agree with me!

Anyway, catch you all here next week, and have a great weekend! :-D

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! WHOOHOOOO!!!

2012-01-01T08:23:00.000-06:00

And here it is, my little nerdlings! This is what I had been leading up to on FB with my countdown this week! The artwork is by the creative and masterful hands of Chris Butler! The rest was Photoshopped by the boss. Thanks, Chris! Wow, so sexy! What a way to bring in the new year!

What a year we all had, and what a year ahead! And according to some people, this might be THE year - the end of the world! Yikes! Well, it might feel like the end of the world come November once we find out who was elected or reelected president! LOL

I thank you all for reading my blog and for friending me on FB. It's because of you good folks that I keep writing, and I hope that you enjoy reading what I write - even if you don't always agree with my opinions. ;-)

So let's get started on this new year, friends! Whoohoo! :-D

Familiar Christmas customs based on ancient pagan rituals? GASSSPPP!!!

2011-12-23T16:36:00.001-06:00

This time of the year tends to bring out the best - and the worst - in all of us. It's also the annual time of the year for various retail outlets and government representatives at all levels (city, county, state, and federal) to commit to saying "Happy Holidays" or "Seasons Greetings" instead of "Merry Christmas" so as to not offend those who don’t celebrate Christmas. Well, I have my own solution to this particular dilemma, but more on that in a bit.

First, I want to bring up a common argument generally brought up by those who hate the Christmas season; and they usually bring it up as a way to "de-legitimize" Christmas - as if bringing this up is supposed to make the Christmas celebrant crash into a heap of shock, daze, confusion, and disappointment, and then they’ll leave Christianity and embrace atheism. That particular fact is that many familiar Christmas customs actually originated from ancient pagan rituals. It's times like that that I really have to bite my tongue to keep from saying:

NO SHIT, SHERLOCK! WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST CLUE?

You all might not know this, but I have a snarky side that I have to fight to control. LOL

Anyway, as I've mentioned before in a recent blog entry, I'm a big lover of history, and these particular facts about Christmas have been known to me since early adolescence. The fact that Christmas originally was about celebrating the winter solstice is the most common argument brought up by these people – however, that fact is not exactly true. What the early Christians were doing was not to look for a covert way to celebrate the winter solstice, but to redirect common pagan celebrations to have a Christian theme to them instead, so that this transition from pagan rituals to Christian ones will be very gradual. Since pagans were used to celebrating at this time in December, then it wouldn't be a great stretch to make it about Christmas instead.

But what really influenced our current practices of Christmas rituals in our country actually originated in Victorian England, and also by retail stores in the late 19th century and into the early 20th century looking to boost their bottom line (those damn corporations and One Percenters at it again!). They basically made the Christmas season, in which the three wise men gave gifts to the infant Jesus, to be a time for gift-giving in general. They were so successful at this transition that we've been paying for it with our dollars and our sanity ever since.

So is Christmas too commercialized? You bet! It's been so bad in recent decades that it's a common source of stress. Heck, even the Peanuts television special in the mid-1960s made reference on how commercialized Christmas was back then! Given that, I'm not only not surprised that some wouldn't be keen on a holiday with so many manufactured rituals (think Black Friday, Super Saturday, Cyber Monday, for example), I can actually agree with them.

Surprised that I would agree? My Christmas-hating friends, you will find that you have a lot of people fond of Christmas who also hate the commercialization of it and of the hyper stress and the manufactured rituals. What really ticks us off, though, is that you will lump us into the creators of the manufactured, commercialized holiday season (notice that I said "holiday" rather than "Christmas". A distinction that I'm about to clarify) with those of us who appreciate the true "reason for the season".

Ah, yes. The “reason for the season”. That would be, of course, the arrival of the Christ child. Without getting heavy into Christian theology (so that I won’t be accused of trying to “evangelize” any of you LOL), Christmas Day is simply the celebration of Jesus’ birth. His birthday, in other words. And before anyone starts telling me that we don’t know the real date of his birth – yes, that’s true – so chill out! So why December 25th? Well, since we don’t know the true date, then a date had to be picked so that we can all celebrate it!

It also happens to be 9 months after the Catholic feast of the Annunciation of the Lord. And well, pregnancies tend to last 9 months and all that. Yes, we don’t know the true date of his conception, nor do we know whether his mother Mary’s pregnancy lasted the standard 9 months, or if it were shorter or longer than that. And yes, as previously stated, December 25th was picked likely to coincide with the pagan celebration of the winter solstice – but NOT to celebrate it! Thing is, friends, what mattered is that Jesus came into the world, and the other details aren’t necessarily important. So whether Jesus was born on December 25th or May 8th, the most important fact for Christians is that he was born.

Having said all that, I do believe that the celebration of Christmas needs to be more "Christ" centered; and not so much "holiday" centered. So those of you who aren't Christian and are pissed about all the trappings that are actually products of Victorian England and the marketing campaigns of retail outlets, be sure to direct your anger in the right direction. You just might find more Christians agreeing with you than you expect.

And finally, my solution to the whole "Merry Christmas" vs. "Happy Holidays/Seasons Greetings", I say that those who trouble themselves over what to say should do this: Say all of them! What I mean is, say the following:

Merry Christmas
Happy Hanukkah
Holy Ramadan
Happy Holidays
Seasons Greetings
Happy Festivus
And all the rest!

Any marketing departments worth their salt can find ways to utilize this in creative ways. It *can* be done.

And with that, let me wish you all a very Merry Christmas! Don't forget as well that if you want to give me a holiday greeting here or on FB, be sure to tell me "Merry Christmas", because that's my preference. Heck, it's on my blog banner! LOL

Just so that you all know, I will be taking a break from blogging for about a week, and I'll see you back here early January. However, I will definitely still be posting on FB. In fact, watch my FB page starting on Monday for a special treat! I think you'll like it!

Take care, everyone! I hope you get lots of prezzies!

New artwork by a new artist! Meet Rick Celis!

2011-12-22T13:55:00.000-06:00

Okay true believers! It's time to reveal a new artist for yours truly! Meet Rick Celis! Isn't this work incredible? Time to reveal how this got started. This was a combination of the boss' desire for commissioned artwork to have a more "comic book" feel to them, instead of the standard pin-up, followed by my idea of giving him a line to use as the basis of the artwork.

The challenge to the boss was that he had to craft a scene around that line, and give that description to the artist. And then the artist, not knowing what that line was going to be, made the scene based on the boss' description.

He described the scene as just after I got walloped by a real strong bad guy (or lady!) and I flew into a concrete wall, leaving cracks where I struck the wall. I am then shown just after I hit the wall, and glaring back at the villain, uttering that line.

Below is the same artwork with my line included:

Isn't this just amazing? I love how Rick captured that instant perfectly! This, friends, is how it goes when the artist nails the tension and drama in a comic page of art! Look at all that Rick captures here! I got smacked around, but I'm ready to give it all right back, and more! YEAAAHH!!! Bring it on, bitches! LOL

This is one of the reasons that I love comics. And I love it even more when I'm the one being depicted! Ha! Loveitloveitloveit!

Thanks, Rick! Nicely done!

No shit, Sherlock!

2011-12-21T08:34:00.000-06:00

This is my first stab at making this kind of poster. What do you think? :-D

Busty Superhero Chicks for Breast Cancer Awareness?

2011-12-19T17:27:00.001-06:00

A quick word of warning - clicking on the following link might be NSFW if someone isn't aware what it's really about. This is in case you have one of those psycho drama-queen feminists that finds sexism around every corner and in every shadow, because if they happen to be looking over your shoulder when you click on it, they'll see busty superhero women fondling their boobs. (!)

Once you're in the clear, check out this story about a site called Superheroes For Breast Cancer Awareness. What they're actually doing, of course, is the classic breast self-examination for lumps. Your psycho drama-queen feminist co-worker should recognize the hand gestures for that, but if you're a dude looking at those images just as she's looking over your shoulder, then she's probably going to take it the wrong way. They're like that.

Anyway, so what do you think? Do you think that this will help the cause of breast cancer awareness? Hm. I kinda wonder how effective this would be, since they're fictional characters? As far as I know, there hasn't been a prominent superhero woman that has gotten breast cancer. Would that be a little too much "realism" for the average comics readers if that happened?

I'm still debating this, and I'll get back to you later, but do let me know what you think.

Lucky Shot again as done by the art goddess, Rocio!

2011-12-16T16:17:00.000-06:00

Word of warning, y'all! When Lucky Shot is looking at you with this pose and facial expression and her glowy blue eyes...

...IT'S NOT A GOOD SIGN!

This means that you're about to go down and unconscious in a matter of seconds, or you will have to be very, very, very, very good - and you'll go down and unconscious in a matter of a few more seconds! Even though she is 5 foot 4, she is also one of the best at utilizing her power, her martial arts skills, and her strength that is almost double the strength of the average human woman her size and build that engages in regular intensive exercise.

She's also one of the few people in my life that has the guts to stand up to me on a regular basis! Oh, and don't tell her that I told you this, but inside that hardass exterior is a sentimental softy! LOL She would have to be, to be the loving mother that she is to her son!

Anyway, this artwork is brought to you by the enormously talented Rocio Zucchi, whom I have promoted to art goddess!

Thanks, Rocio! You're awesome, GF! Whoohooo!!!

More artwork coming tomorrow and next week! Whoohoo!

2011-12-15T07:49:00.000-06:00

Hey, everyone!

One more piece of excellent artwork by Rocio Zucchi is coming TOMORROW!

You will love it like you've loved the rest of her work!

And coming next week will be a new piece of artwork by a new artist! I promise you that you will think this one is way, way cool! It's an action pose like you would see in a comic, so this one is going to be FUN!

So stay tuned, true believers! More artistic excellence is on the way!

w00t!

God Week: Being a believer in God means rebelling against your human nature

2011-12-13T09:34:00.001-06:00

Last time I had discussed the belief in God, I had made the comment that those who believe in God are actually rebelling against their own human nature. Now I will explain a little more on what I mean by that.

But first, a little kudos to a couple that I am often critical of, and that’s my own Marxist parents. Despite their wrong-headed beliefs about politics and the world in general, I give them credit for one thing: When they said that they would allow their children to forge their own paths, they truly meant it – even when it meant that one of those kids would eventually take up views contrary to their own. Despite our many disagreements, they are always respectful of my conservative views even if they wholeheartedly oppose them. Boy, was I ever a test of that particular philosophy - and they lived up to it! So, based on their example, I am respectful of their views in return. Heck, I recently admitted that I admire their styles of protest, and would even imitate their style if I ever lead an Occupy movement. If that ain’t a compliment, I don’t know what is!

Another example I learned from them is that just because you are being respectful of someone else’s views doesn’t mean that you can’t occasionally be vocal about your own views! As hard as it is to believe, you can be both loud about your views and still be respectful of the views of others. They did it all the time, and I try to do the same. Mainly, what I learned is that passion for one’s views is no sin, but actually a virtue; for if you don’t have the passion to fight for your beliefs, then why do you believe in them? That’s a lesson that I try to pass on to others. There ya go, Mom and Dad! A public compliment from me to you! :-D Luv ya! <3 <3 Mwah! <3 <3

The reason that I’m bringing up my parents here is because they are atheists, but despite that, atheism wasn’t what they tried to force down my throat. They did tell me of the “dangers” of believing in God, but they still let me decide the matter for myself. Mainly, I think they realized that God is very prevalent throughout our society and our culture, so there was not going to be any avoiding him unless they completely isolated me from the world - which was the last thing that they were going to do. So instead of trying to deny that he exists, they instead tried to give reasons as to why believing in God can often lead to heartache and disappointment. It was their reasoning that I would eventually see it for myself.

Well, I did see that for myself. I did indeed see that believing in God can lead to heartache and disappointment. Ha! I bet you didn’t expect me to agree to that, did ya? However, believing in God can also lead to joy and inspiration. The trick is on how you do this. What I mean is this: it all depends on what you believe God is, and what you expect him to do. Last time I had made mention of the term that I’ve heard atheists use in reference to God, and that's as a “magic genie in the sky that grants all your wishes.” If that is someone’s idea of God, then yes, it’s definitely a recipe for heartache and disappointment. But God is no genie.

Now, what I’m about to present here is my own take on God, and this is based on my own research of history (one of my great loves) and the “footprints” he left along the way in the parade of history, as well as my own experiences. He is there, if you know what you are looking for. Let’s take two examples of people who left their marks in history. One is Genghis Khan, who is alleged to have many descendants in the world because he had a very large harem, and because his sons also had very large harems. Because of that, Khan’s “footprints” are everywhere around the world.

Another historical person with footprints all over the world is Jesus Christ. Before I continue, I know some of you are probably thinking “Uh oh – she’s about to go preachy on us and evangelize her Christianity on us.” I know this, because I know how you guys think. LOL Anyway, I’m bringing Jesus up not to “push” him on you, but to discuss him from a historical standpoint, so I hope you bear with me and hear me out before dismissing me outright, because otherwise you’ll miss a point that I’m trying to make. I also know that some of you deny Jesus existed, but for argument’s sake, let’s say that he did. And for the record, I believe that he existed – which I would have to; otherwise, why would I call myself a Christian?

With that out of the way, let’s look at Jesus Christ. He died young – aged 33 – and left no descendants. Unlike Khan, he never traveled far from the country of his birth. And yet, his thoughts, his words, and his examples are still being lived and discussed to this day. Granted, some of his followers are not doing as good a job in following his examples as others are, but that’s true for any sort of organization; that is, every organization has its zealots and its slackers.

On the one hand, Khan left his “imprints” on history, and yet, what has that done for us – beyond the factual curiosity of a large number of descendants? There is no Ghengishan religion based on his thoughts and his actions. This is because Khan did not see what he did as something that was going to change the world for the better. Instead, he was looking out for himself. Well, he got his very large harem of women and the many children that came out of that, but once he died, he was dead, and no amount of mass copulation was going to change that. He lived according to his human nature and got what came out of that: many moments of physical pleasure for himself, and a large amount of descendants that came from it.

Contrast that with Jesus’ example of love and selflessness. He wasn’t setting out to leave a large number of descendants like Khan did, but instead to leave a large number of followers. And his message of selflessness contrasts with human nature, for it’s our nature to look out for ourselves first. His message of selflessness is difficult to follow – even for his followers – but at the same time, true believers can see how society as a whole can benefit from following his message of love and selflessness.

So how can a message of selflessness draw so many followers – especially in contrast to Khan’s much easier message of following your human nature? What is it that is so appealing to his followers that it quickly spread from his home country to all around the world in a relatively short amount of time? Friends, that’s what I’m still trying to figure out.

And yet, I can’t deny the results. I also can’t deny the appeal of his message of love, despite the difficult standards of selflessness that comes with it. Despite this difficult standard, I can see why this message is appealing, because I can reason out the positive results of what would happen if everyone puts the welfare of others ahead of themselves. In summary, to me God is no genie, but instead is the person of Jesus Christ and his message of love and selflessness in the service of others. That's a deity that's a lot more accessible than some distant spirit in the clouds.

So getting back to my initial statement, being a Christian in the true sense of the word is to be a rebel – a rebel against your human nature of selfishness. So in that light, it can be shown that Christianity is actually “progressive” in the true sense of the word, because progress is what would arise out of serving others before yourself.

Now contrast that with what today’s “Progressives" desire; which is actually REgressive, because they seek “doing your own thing”. This should sound familiar, because that’s what Genghis Khan did. Doing your own thing is the same thing as satisfying yourself first, and with the same results as what Khan got. I leave you with these questions: Has society benefited from liberals' message of "sex, drugs, and rock & roll"? How is such a philosophy better than a philosophy based on selflessness in the service of others?

-----------------------------------------------------

My apologies for this extending into another week, but this post initially was longer, and after looking it over, I chopped off a big chunk of it and will save that part for later, because it’s actually more of a Christmas message than a discussion of what I brought up during my God Week. There’s other things that I wanted to bring up, but I’ll save those topics for another time.

New badass art of me by Rocio Zucchi!

2011-12-09T17:44:00.000-06:00

Yesterday you got a sneak peek at the latest artwork of me by Rocio Zucchi. Below is the rest of it! Waahoooo!!! Awesommme!

Don't you just love this pose? Flexin' those biceps, baby! Strong *and* sexy at the same time! Man, I'm running out of words to describe her work!

Rocio, I will say this, though... It's no longer enough to say that you are an excellent artist. Nope, now I gotta call you an art goddess! :-D

Thank you so much! I don't know how I forgot this before, but you are now officially in my sidebar of cool links! --------------->

One more by Rocio coming next week, friends! :-)

It's still okay to wish me Merry Christmas!

2011-12-08T19:56:00.001-06:00

Did you happen to notice my new blog banner? Yes my friends, it's time for my annual assurance that it's okay to wish me Merry Christmas!

Nope, no need to throw out Happy Holidays or the vague and unusual Season's Greetings! I am perfectly happy with you wishing me a Merry Christmas! In fact, I prefer it! I promise you that I won't get offended!

Oh!

Oh, wait!

What's that artwork you see in my blog banner?

Well my little nerdlings, that answer comes tomorrow!

Whoohoo!

God Week: Did you "get" the Tommy story?

2011-12-07T19:47:00.000-06:00

There is a saying used in reference to the belief in God that goes "For those who believe, no explanation is necessary; for those who don't believe, no explanation is possible." I bring up that quote, because that's what came into my mind when I first read the story about Tommy that appeared in my previous blog post.

For those of you who believe in God, then you were likely moved, maybe even to tears. With the belief in God, then death makes sense - that it's not the end, but just the beginning of a different phase of life. Although life after death is usually called "the afterlife" (because it's after the death of the physical body), it's more accurately described as "eternal life". That is to say, our bodies are mortal, but our souls are immortal.

For those of you who don't believe in God, you probably shook your head in disbelief. You might have even said that Tommy's response was actually a natural human response in a time of great emotional stress - to reach out to someone "on the other side" so that death does not look so frightening. For this crowd, death is the end, and that's it. There is no otherworldly paradise, and there is no magic genie in the sky who grants all our wishes. There is no heaven and no hell, and at our death, we simply cease to exist.

The idea, the concept, the belief in God and his existence shapes our lives and our thinking, and that applies even if you don't believe in God. For my part, I do believe in God. Being raised Marxist, it wasn't always that way, of course. So what got me started on the path of belief in God? A couple of things. For one, it was just plain ol' teenage rebellion to tick off my atheist parents. But another was because I was such a student of history. This allegedly non-existent entity has managed to shape our world in ways that no human person has managed to do.

A study of the belief in gods seems to suggest that it is part of our human makeup to seek something beyond us; something beyond the day-to-day humdrum patterns of our everyday lives. After all, back then, in the days before much of our knowledge of medicine and biology came about, death came early and often. Death was so early and frequent that families had to have a lot of children in the hope that some of them would survive infancy - infant mortality rates being so high back in those days.

Think about that for a minute, to a time that a woman could have like 8 babies and 6 of them die before they turn a year old. And perhaps one of the remaining two – or even both - is sickly for the rest of his or her life. Also, think about what they didn’t know about basic personal hygiene like brushing your teeth, or cleaning and bandaging their wounds before they become infected. And also think about how human wastes were dealt with before the days of indoor plumbing. Given all this, it’s no wonder life spans were so short!

With such rampant disease and death, how to you make sense of it all? What's the point if death was going to come quickly, either by war (another constant in ancient times) or disease? It's very easy to fall into that trap of "the futility of our existences" mindset.

From the atheist standpoint, there is no sense to it all. Our lives are what they are, and nothing else. And if history shows anything, it’s that we can accomplish anything if we put our minds to it – no need to pray to a “supreme being” to make it happen. The atheist side would also say that the lot of humanity improved because of men with drive and vision, who were able to see beyond the here and now and had the courage to think on how things might be different.

And yet, these men weren’t driven to improve the lot of humankind in the name of atheism. If anything, atheism doesn’t encourage helping your fellow man, but instead only looking out for yourself. Ayn Rand is a classic example of this type of thinking. If an atheist helps anyone besides themselves, it’s to eventually benefit themselves later on. If this life is all we have, then what benefit is there to such ideas and charity and philanthropy?

Before I get comments from atheists about this, this is not to say that there aren’t atheists who give to charity and philanthropy; just that such selfless ideals aren’t generally part and parcel of their usual type of thinking. In fact, some atheists embrace atheism precisely to get away from that societal expectation (usually based on some religious belief) of “helping your fellow man”. If there’s no God, then there’s no sin, and if there’s no sin, then there is no need to worry about eternal punishment in some fiery pit called hell.

So in light of that, looking out for yourself not only makes sense, it makes the only sense if this one life is all you got. And from a human standpoint, looking out for yourself is completely natural, because in a sense, we all do that. It really takes a special insight to be able to see beyond yourself. In light of that, being a believer in God and embracing the idea of selfless acts of charity and philanthropy are actually counter to our human nature. So in a very real sense, believers in God rebelling against their own human nature!

For next time, I'll explain what I mean when I say that believers in God are rebelling against their own human nature - at least I'll try to explain it from a Christian perspective, since I am not as familiar with the Jewish, Muslim, or the other faiths of those who believe in God.

Today starts God Week: A story about Tommy

2011-12-05T08:10:00.000-06:00

In the past few days for some reason, I've been involved in a lot of dialogue with family, friends, GFs, and on FB regarding God, religion, and spirituality in general. That got me thinking that, with the start of the Christmas season, I might devote a week to discussing God and various religious topics. So with that, I am starting God Week as of today!

Interesting and perhaps a bit ironic that someone like me would discuss God and religious topics, given that I was raised by atheist Marxists! (Have I mentioned before that I was raised by Marxist parents? LOL) Yes, even those raised by Marxists think about God and his effect on our world at large. My take on God is that I believe in his existence. I will certainly cover this more as the week goes on. However, let's start God Week with the story below.

The story below was forwarded to me from the boss, who got it from someone else. Since it's long, I'm going to limit today's blog post to just this story. That will allow you time to read it, and to think about it a bit before I discuss my thoughts on Tommy and the story.

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John Powell a professor at Loyola University in Chicago writes about a student in his Theology of Faith class named Tommy:

Some twelve years ago, I stood watching my university students file into the classroom for our first session in the Theology of Faith. That was the first day I first saw Tommy. My eyes and my mind both blinked. He was combing his long flaxen hair, which hung six inches below his shoulders.

It was the first time I had ever seen a boy with hair that long. I guess it was just coming into fashion then. I know in my mind that it isn’t what’s on your head but what’s in it that counts; but on that day I was unprepared and my emotions flipped.

I immediately filed Tommy under "S" for strange ... very strange. Tommy turned out to be the "atheist in residence" in my Theology of Faith course. He constantly objected to, smirked at, or whined about the possibility of an unconditionally loving Father-God. We lived with each other in relative peace for one semester, although I admit he was for me at times a serious pain in the back pew.

When he came up at the end of the course to turn in his final exam, he asked in a slightly cynical tone: "Do you think I’ll ever find God?"

I decided instantly on a little shock therapy. "No!" I said very emphatically.

"Oh," he responded, "I thought that was the product you were pushing."

I let him get five steps from the classroom door and then called out: "Tommy! I don’t think you’ll ever find him, but I am absolutely certain that He will find you!" He shrugged a little and left my class and my life.

I felt slightly disappointed at the thought that he had missed my clever line: "He will find you!" At least I thought it was clever. Later I heard that Tommy had graduated and I was duly grateful.

Then a sad report, I heard that Tommy had terminal cancer. Before I could search him out, he came to see me. When he walked into my office, his body was very badly wasted, and the long hair had all fallen out as a result of chemotherapy. But his eyes were bright and his voice was firm, for the first time, I believe. "Tommy, I’ve thought about you so often. I hear you are sick!" I blurted out.

"Oh, yes, very sick. I have cancer in both lungs. It’s a matter of weeks."

"Can you talk about it, Tom?"

"Sure, what would you like to know?"

"What’s it like to be only twenty-four and dying?"

"Well, it could be worse."

"Like what?"

"Well, like being fifty and having no values or ideals, like being fifty and thinking that booze, seducing women, and making money are the real ‘biggies’ in life."

I began to look through my mental file cabinet under "S" where I had filed Tommy as strange. (It seems as though everybody I try to reject by classification God sends back into my life to educate me.)

But what I really came to see you about," Tom said, " is something you said to me on the last day of class." (He remembered!) He continued, "I asked you if you thought I would ever find God and you said, ‘No!’ which surprised me. Then you said, ‘But he will find you.’ I thought about that a lot, even though my search for God was hardly intense at that time. (My "clever" line. He thought about that a lot!) But when the doctors removed a lump from my groin and told me that it was malignant, then I got serious about locating God. And when the malignancy spread into my vital organs, I really began banging bloody fists against the bronze doors of heaven.

But God did not come out. In fact, nothing happened. Did you ever try anything for a long time with great effort and with no success? You get psychologically glutted, fed up with trying. And then you quit.

Well, one day I woke up, and instead of throwing a few more futile appeals over that high brick wall to a God who may be or may not be there, I just quit. I decided that I didn’t really care ... about God, about an afterlife, or anything like that. "I decided to spend what time I had left doing something more profitable. I thought about you and your class and I remembered something else you had said: ‘The essential sadness is to go through life without loving. But it would be almost equally sad to go through life and leave this world without ever telling those you loved that you had loved them.’ "So I began with the hardest one: my Dad. He was reading the newspaper when I approached him."

"Dad". . .

"Yes, what?" he asked without lowering the newspaper.

"Dad, I would like to talk with you."

"Well, talk."

"I mean. .. It’s really important."

The newspaper came down three slow inches. "What is it?"

"Dad, I love you. I just wanted you to know that." Tom smiled at me and said with obvious satisfaction, as though he felt a warm and secret joy flowing inside of him: "The newspaper fluttered to the floor. Then my father did two things I could never remember him ever doing before. He cried and he hugged me.

And we talked all night, even though he had to go to work the next morning. It felt so good to be close to my father, to see his tears, to feel his hug, to hear him say that he loved me. "It was easier with my mother and little brother. They cried with me, too, and we hugged each other, and started saying real nice things to each other. We shared the things we had been keeping secret for so many years. I was only sorry about one thing: that I had waited so long. Here I was just beginning to open up to all the people I had actually been close to.

"Then, one day I turned around and God was there. He didn’t come to me when I pleaded with him. I guess I was like an animal trainer holding out a hoop, ‘C’mon, jump through.’ ‘C’mon, I’ll give you three days .. .three weeks.’ Apparently God does things in his own way and at his own hour. "But the important thing is that he was there. He found me.

You were right. He found me even after I stopped looking for him."

"Tommy," I practically gasped, "I think you are saying something very important and much more universal than you realize. To me, at least, you are saying that the surest way to find God is not to make him a private possession, a problem solver, or an instant consolation in time of need, but rather by opening to love. You know, the Apostle John said that. He said God is love, and anyone who lives in love is living with God and God is living in him.’ Tom, could I ask you a favor? You know, when I had you in class you were a real pain. But (laughingly) you can make it all up to me now. Would you come into my present Theology of Faith course and tell them what you have just told me? If I told them the same thing it wouldn’t be half as effective as if you were to tell them."

"Oooh . . . I was ready for you, but I don’t know if I’m ready for your class."

"Tom, think about it. If and when you are ready, give me a call." In a few days Tommy called, said he was ready for the class, that he wanted to do that for God and for me. So we scheduled a date. However, he never made it.

He had another appointment, far more important than the one with me and my class. Of course, his life was not really ended by his death, only changed.

He made the great step from faith into vision. He found a life far more beautiful than the eye of man has ever seen or the ear of man has ever heard or the mind of man has ever imagined.

Before he died, we talked one last time. "I’m not going to make it to your class," he said.

"I know, Tom."

"Will you tell them for me? Will you . . . tell the whole world for me?"

"I will, Tom. I’ll tell them. I’ll do my best."

So, to all of you who have been kind enough to hear this simple statement about love, thank you for listening. And to you, Tommy, somewhere in the sunlit, verdant hills of heaven: "I told them, Tommy . ... ...as best I could."

New artwork! Whoohoo! Chibi Shamrock

2011-12-02T08:19:00.000-06:00

Hi! I'm back! And it looks like all this month, I'm going to be posting all new art! Wow, what a Christmas gift, eh? Well, let's get started, because I'm so excited! First up is a chibi style of The Shamrock. Ain't it awesome? You know, I love that visor!

I've discussed The Shamrock before, who is actually code-named "Seamrog" by the Dept of Superhuman Studies, since Marvel Comics already has a "Shamrock". But if I called her Seamrog here in today's blog entry, then you wouldn't get that she's an Irish-themed superhero until you looked at the artwork below!

As stated before on my blog, we at the DSS so far are letting Seamrog do her thing so long as she sticks to stopping burglars and robbers and the like. Also as stated before, she doesn't seem to be superhuman (and thus not an issue for the DSS to investigate) - just a regular human running around in a costume playing hero - and so long as she doesn't get herself hurt or killed, I'm willing to let her be for now. She just seems to be in it to see her name in the headlines, so let's hope that she's not in the headlines for the wrong reason one day - that is, to report on her untimely death. This is why I generally discourage regular humans from taking up the superhero life. If you want to defend the general population from the bad guys, then join the police where you can do that legally and officially. :-)

Anyway, this outstanding artwork was brought to you by the artistic hands of Rocio Zucchi, who has made the most recent artworks that have appeared on my blog. And she's also going to be the artist for the next two coming up. Trust me, you'll love them just as much as you loved this one. :-D

Have a great weekend, all!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

2011-11-24T07:59:00.000-06:00

A Happy Thanksgiving to you all, today! I hope you have fun and good times, today. :-)
I'll be gone from my blog for probably a week, but I'll still be on FB, so see you there.

Review: Mummerman

2011-11-23T13:39:00.001-06:00

In recent days, I have had an epiphany: I came to the realization of just how important it is for us all to support the independent comic makers, because they represent the very spirit of what it means to be a fan of comics. Sometimes the Marvels and DCs of the world forget that. They forget that comics are for the fans, because they'll make these grandiose and complicated boondoggle storylines that are more for themselves than for their fans. That's why we need independents, so as to remind the big guys as to whom comics are made: The fans. One such source is the War of the Independents line that I brought up previously on my blog.

Another such source is the movie that I'll be reviewing today: Mummerman.

I had to think about how to review this movie, because some of you might judge it by comparing it to multimillion dollar movies like Iron Man or Captain America. That would be an unfair comparison, because the funding that went into the making of Mummerman was much, much less. It's a movie, in other words, that was made by an independent filmmaker.

Another thing to keep in mind is that when you hear what this movie is about - namely, that of a regular joe who is a fan of comics suddenly deciding to adopt a superhero persona - the most likely and inevitable comparison would be to the recent Kickass. I hesitated to even bring up the movie Kickass here during my movie review, but I figured that the comparison was going to be made anyway, so I thought that it would be best to just deal with that from the get-go.

But folks, this isn't Kickass, nor is it Iron Man or Captain America. What you see is a movie of a comics nerd made by comics nerds. I'm prefacing all this for a reason, so that you won't come away with high expectations of an Iron Man sort of movie, because it's not. In many ways, it's better than an Iron Man movie, because the actors, writers, and the rest of the crew are more closely attached to the final product of a regular comics nerd taking his dream into action. So for this movie, take off your movie critic goggles and put on your comics nerd goggles, because that's how to see this movie: From the perspective of a comics nerd.

And as usual, I'm about to discuss the movie and it's contents, and if you don't want what's in the movie Mummerman spoiled for you, then

****STOP READING NOW!****

You have been warned!

One critique that I would have of the movie is that it starts out a bit slow, but then it picks up steam once it finds its footing. This could be explained by the fact that this was their first attempt at this kind of movie, so they had to feel their way around, and I think they accomplished that by the end of the movie. Another critique that I have would be that it needs to emphasize less that Mummerman (MM from here on) and the people around him are goofballs, and more on the story of a comics fan taking on the role of a superhero.

Before this is taken the wrong way, let me say that the "goofball" parts of the movie are part of what makes it fun to watch. However, the scene in which MM drives his car backwards to chase some bad guys is trying too hard to be goofy. Let me contrast this with "goofball" done right: In the scene in which MM drops off those same bad guys that he was chasing to the police for the very first time, MM suddenly tries to do a disappearing act a la Batman when they momentarily turn around. However, all he did was duck behind some air conditioning vents, and the police commissioner even points out "I see your foot".

Another example of goofball done right is the scene in which MM swings a la Spiderman to knock out the bad guy, but then ends up getting tangled so that he is dangling upside down - a la Spiderman in the scene in which Mary Jane pulls his mask down far enough to plant a kiss. The woman MM rescues also pulls MM's mask down to do the same thing. This scene works in MM because he isn't trying to be like Spidey - he just got tangled up - something that just might happen to a goofball trying to be a superhero. I can easily see similar superhero movie references being made by MM in future movies, but in his goofball way like he did here - maybe even a Kickass reference at some point!

I think the only way the MM filmmakers can learn the balance of goofiness is just to keep making movies. Or perhaps they can take a page from The Guild and have 8-10 minute episodes, and 12 episodes for a "season". Over the course of its five seasons, The Guild got better at storytelling, and learned how to end each episode with the right sense of "cliffhanger" to entice you to look out for the next episode. The Guild likewise went overkill at the start on emphasizing that everyone was batshit insane, but got better about balancing that in the later seasons, so I could see a similar learning curve going on here with MM "seasons".

Anyway, like I said, MM had a slow start,but a good finish. Towards the climax, the movie's pacing got crisper and more focused, and this made it such that you had to stay glued to your seat to see what happens next. Probably my favorite scene is when MM had just gotten beaten within an inch of his life and literally crawled out of the motel room where he got the beating, and at that point, his friend pulled up and took him away. As this scene was playing out, I told myself "Please don't mess this scene up by going goofball!", and they didn't - and the scene ended the way it should have ended. It was a strong display of friendship and the risks that good friends will go through to help each other.

And this actually leads to what I believe is the strong point of the movie. Throughout the movie, both MM and his buddy work with each other in the pursuit of MM's dream. In a real sense, this movie was more about friends supporting each other through thick and thin, even in the pursuit of their crazy dreams, than it was a superhero story. In this movie, you also saw an important role that friends can play for each other in that they ask the tough questions like "Are you sure about this, man?" Friends, in other words, should be able to apply "tough love" when it's called for.

My favorite part, however, was when MM was questioning whether he should even be pursuing his dream anymore. This was just after he had gotten that beating from the villain in this movie, a serial rapist. Such questions are what all superheroes end up asking after the first time they get such a beating. After such a beating, the hero has to ask himself or herself just how much they "want" this - that is, the role of hero. After all, if they continue down the "hero" path, then this won't be the last time such a beating will occur - and it could literally be the death of them one day. There's also the question of the toll that it takes on the loved ones of the heroes - like MM's mom, who stressed so much that she fainted and had to be rushed to the emergency room.

MM (the movie) hit this particular moment perfectly. MM (the hero) then came to the realization that "the calling" sometimes makes you push past your preferences and even your fears because someone else is in danger. In this case, the woman he rescued before had been kidnapped by the rapist, and MM donned the costume again (after having thrown it away) to ride to the rescue by pounding the crap out of the villain. I had to say that even though I knew what was coming, the scene played out perfectly; right down to MM just continuing to hammer the guy with his fists once he was down - no doubt working off the anger he had not just at the villain, but at himself for failing to stop him the first time.

It was then, as well, that MM truly felt the great feeling that comes from coming to the rescue. Moments like that are what makes being a superhero worth all the pain and suffering that they go through. It's a tough, tough life, because not only will you be saving loved ones, you might also be risking your life for total strangers. And one day, you might fail in your task of rescue - and even die. Or worse, someone else dies because you failed. The risk/reward is a difficult balance, and it's why superheroes often pair up or form super teams, because only other superheroes know what they go through.

MM seems to have learned that first lesson, and in the process, discovered that he passed that first and important task of getting back on that horse after he had fallen off. I have a feeling that in the possible future movies of MM, he will be learning other lessons from the hero life, but will continue to pass them as well - in his own goofball way, of course. :-)

On a scale of 1 to 10 in which 1 is a bomb and 10 is THE bomb, I give MM an 8. There's two reasons for that mark. For one, I think the movie makers did a good job in closing out the movie and leaving the possibility open for future movies. And the other reason is to give incentive to score even higher. This was a good start and I think this same group will get even better.

Below is the trailer for the movie:

More Occupy notes: Even Occupiers will be shopping on Black Friday

2011-11-21T08:57:00.004-06:00

This is going to be a short week on my blog, folks, because of Thanksgiving. I'll post today, and I'll try very hard to finish a movie review on Wednesday, and then I'll be away from my blog for probably a week because of Turkey Day followed by Black Friday and other stuff that I got going on this coming weekend. But fear not, I'll still be posting to Facebook!

Today, however, I must add some more commentary on the Occupy movement; mainly because it's so hyped up and it so epic fails on its goals for reasons that the movement's supporters can't see. For starters, let's take the fact that it's hyped up by the press-that-does-not-have-a-liberal-bias-despite-appearances-to-the-contrary. Look at it this way, friends....

If the Tea Party had all the rape, murder, assaults, vandalism, defecating in public, fornicating in public, child molesters in their groups, lice, ringworms, and other acts of defiance against public decency and disrespect of law enforcement, then the press would call the Tea Party the worst thing since the House Un-American ActivitiesCommittee. Actually, the press does that now, but not because the Tea Party does all those things that Occupy does, but simply because many members of the press are liberal, and thus opposed to the Tea Party's mostly conservative-leaning ideas.

Contrast that with how the press covers Occupy. While any negative act by one member of the Tea Party is used to label the whole group, the negative acts by members of Occupy are explained as the works of individuals, and that it does not reflect the Occupy group as a whole. Tell me that this does not reflect a bias on the part of the media.

On top of that, consider the ironies that the press lets Occupy get away with that wouldn't be gotten away with had the Tea Party done similarly ironic things. For instance, consider that "members of the 1%" celebrities come a-calling mainly for the publicity, and yet these celebrities continue to benefit from the wealth they obtained in our capitalist society. Consider also the rapper who tried to hock in on the movement without giving anything to the cause. Also consider the irony of Occupy Oakland's deposit of $20k into Wells Fargo; a sum that most "members of the 99%" have never seen all at once at any time in their lives. Had the Tea Party gone to the Communist Party of America for donations, you know the press would be all over it like a dog on a tree!

Ah, but the greatest irony is yet to come, friends! Come this Friday - aka Black Friday, the official Capitalist Holiday of the USA - the very same hordes of Occupy and Occupy supporters will be streaming into the stores and websites to take advantage of the sales that will be going on at that time. Thus, again, taking advantage of one our benefits of living in a capitalist society. Some will even go to the stores when they open at midnight on Thanksgiving day! Whoever said that irony was dead hadn't taken into account the Occupy movement!

Yes, I comment a lot on Occupy both here and on FB, but it's because their actions reflect on my generation; making us look like a bunch of clueless boneheads who aren't even aware that they're being bludgeoned to death with the Irony Stick of Doom! I know we are better than that! So what I do is tough love, gang. We gotta start somewhere when it comes to being in the public eye, I suppose; I just wanted a better start than this. A LOT better. I just hope that enough of my generation will see what we are doing wrong, so that next time we can apply these lessons on our next foray into the public eye.

Right now, though, I'm gonna have to live with gritting my teeth in frustration at all these acts of stupidity! Arrgh!

War of the Independents again: Now I'm psyched!

2011-11-16T16:05:00.000-06:00

A week ago today I had reviewed War of the Independents #1, and my main criticism was that there were too many characters trying to get your attention, and also that it didn't make sense to have superhero-style characters and cartoony characters all together.

Well, on the WotI FB page, I heard from one of the creators that they are indeed going to make the rest of the issues as I had suggested in my previous blog entry about WotI. There's even going to be an issue of the super ladies, and I am very curious on how that one will go. Sheesh, I wish I could be in that one! LOL Anyway, now that I know of the upcoming format, I'm officially psyched! You go, dudes! Bring it on and make it happen like I know you can! :-D

Now if I ran an Occupy rally....

2011-11-15T08:20:00.000-06:00

Regular readers to my blog and my FB page know that I'm conservative, and they know that I think the vast majority of the members of the Occupy rallies are a bunch of lazy, overprivileged bums looking for an excuse to drop out of their otherwise overindulged lives and look like they're doing something good for a change. It just bugs me that they're doing it all wrong. You might be asking: How would a conservative know how to protest in the right way?

Well, kiddies, I happened to be trained by a couple of pros who put the "pro" in protesting: My own Marxist parents! Yeah, they knew the fine art of protesting, and could run circles around this bunch of coddled trust fund babies. While I opposed most of what my parents believed in, it doesn't mean that I can't appreciate the methods that they used in protesting. I know what to do well enough that I could lead an Occupy rally if I wanted to. So, here's what I'd do:

First, I will LEAD the rally - none of this "leaderless" bullshit. I make the rules, and if you don't like it, form your own rally of a bunch of clueless boneheads that would asphyxiate themselves trying to punch their way out of paper bags.

Second. No electronic devices of any kind will be used in my protest. If I see a cellphone being used, I will crush it with my super strength fist. If I see an iPad being used, then I will break it in half over my super strength knee. If I see a laptop being used, then I'll stomp on it with my super strength foot. If I see any other handheld entertainment devices like music players, or gaming toys, then I'll throw it - literally! - into the next county with my super strength arm. You will be focused on the task of protesting and nothing else. I MIGHT tolerate radios and boomboxes, so long as they aren't played loud. Break this rule and my fist will go through that boombox.

Third, there will be no law-breaking. No vandalizing, no spitting at police or other similar thuggery. You break the law, and I will drag you MYSELF to the police station. You will grasp the concept of a peaceful protest, or you will find your ass in jail faster than you can say nanosecond. I will enforce the safety and security of our protest myself, and I am a mean and vicious bitch to those who cause trouble. Mess with me and the only thing you'll be Occupy-ing is a jail cell. Don't doubt me on this.

Fourth, there will be a time to arrive, a time to depart. There will be no overnight camping to cause the police any more work than they are already doing. This is also for the safety of our protesters.

Fifth, the only sort of entertainment will be poetry readings other creative written works, or the musical instruments that you bring. Learn to create writings or songs for the group that describe our cause and our goals. This will also teach how to have face to face discussions and encourage interpersonal dialogue - very important if you're going to be stumping for a cause.

Sixth, there will be no blocking of businesses, especially independent businesses (that is, non-franchise businesses). Most likely, that one place is their lifeblood, and not only will we not hinder the regular day to day business that they do, we will even patronize them if we can and if they are down with our cause. This is especially the case if they are a restaurant. If we use their bathrooms, then we will buy our food there.

Seventh, you will know the reason for our protest by heart, and you will be able to explain it to anyone who asks. That's how we create sympathy for our cause. Send any difficult people to me, especially if they happen to be a member of the media.

Eighth, any signage must be approved by me. If you bring anything vulgar or repulsive, then I will make you tear up that sign into small pieces and literally eat it. By eating it, you will learn not to bring vulgar or repulsive signs next time. And you will learn my standards of what I consider vulgar or repulsive.

If we do nothing wrong and/or illegal and the police still come to arrest us, then you will learn the art of passive resistance. Do not create an excuse for the police to take you down. If all goes well, then bad police behavior will be captured by the press, and that will end up aiding our cause.

It sounds like I have a list of "Don'ts", but what this will do is help unify the protest group by eliminating a lot of the distractions. In the process, it will make our message that much stronger. I want this group to get to the point that you will be encouraged to bring your children because of the positive example that this will set.

Mainly, the protesters will understand that there is a difference between a peaceful protest and the destructive violence of a rabble. What you see in these Occupy protests are done by amateurs who think that their forms of "protests" allow them to set their own rules in their own little communities all while sponging off the greater community at large. No, this is not a protest group but a bunch of lazy, spoiled brats looking for excuses to continue their lives of no self-restraint or self-control.

So in summary, what my protest will encourage is "comm-unity", which is in contrast to the rabble of Occupy rallies, who are a bunch of individuals all shouting in order to be heard over the others, which results in none of them being heard.

I hope you can see the difference now that I've explained it, and I also hope you can see why my method is much more effective and efficient in getting word out on the cause. This will easily lead to others jumping on board for the cause. See? My parents taught me well in this respect!

Not an Onion story; this is fer realz: Occupy Oakland deposits 20k into - Wells Fargo!

2011-11-10T08:18:00.000-06:00

This is one of those stories that conservative blogger Michelle Malkin would call "snortalicious". "Snortalicious" is a contraction of the words "snort" (as in "snort derisively in laughter") and "delicious" (as in "delicious irony", like today's story).

Today's snortalicious story, and probably the most snortalicious story for a long time to come, is this one about the Occupy Oakland group depositing $20k into Wells Fargo, one of their bloodsworn enemies:

Occupy Oakland Attacks Wells Fargo, Then Deposits $20,000

See gang, this is the kind of education that your taxes are paying for. Scary, ain't it? And yet, it's also hilarious, since it's these liberal types that are always harping on how stupid the rest of us are and how brilliant they are. Apparently, they are so brilliant that they think the "rules" don't apply to them, including the irony of their depositing that much money into one the very banks that they've protested.

Okay, I have to finish with this:

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!

Comics talk: Fear Itself, DC's 52 reboot, and War of the Independents

2011-11-09T13:44:00.000-06:00

Lately I’ve gotten heavy into the political talk and not so much on comics talk, so today let me try to balance the scales a bit.

Marvel’s Fear Itself storyline.

Fear Itself was one of the better blockbuster storylines that Marvel has done in recent years. Ever since the dreadful Civil War, I tend to be leery of Marvel’s blockbusters, but this one helped redeem their cred a bit. If they keep this up, then they could get back into my good graces. :-) I pretty much ignored the tie-ins, as I usually do with the tie-ins to the blockbuster storylines of both of the big comics companies, because tie-ins to me are what 3D is to the movie industry: A pretty and unnecessary accessory.

However, I did read Fear Itself: Home Front, because I was curious to see how they would play out the whole story of Speedball and his return to the city that was the scene of his fall from grace a few years back. This was nicely done and the responses from the different characters – especially from the woman who lost a child from the tragedy that triggered the Civil War storyline in the first place. Without giving away much of what happens in the story, let’s just say that her response to his assistance redeemed him a bit in her eyes, but she still can’t forget that she lost a son because of him. “Forgive, but not forget”, in other words; which is completely logical. Kudos to Marvel for this one.

DC Comics 52 “reboot”

I’m still reserving judgment on this. While there is a kind of novelty to rebooting familiar characters, I’m still not sold on what they’ve done so far. My thinking is “why fix what’s not broken?”, especially in rebooting the whole line of comics, instead of testing it out as an “alternate universe”. I guess what’s tainting my thinking is their recent Brightest Day series – one so bad and convoluted that I stopped buying them, representing the first time I’ve ever stopped reading a limited series before it was done. Those who know my love for comics know that this is a rather shocking development on my part! My fear is that they are taking what they did with BD and expanding it to the whole DC franchise. I hope I’m wrong about it, but if the whole of DC gets infected with this BD virus, then I might have to stop reading DC altogether – which would be an even greater shocking development. Let’s hope that it doesn’t come to that!

War of the Independents limited series

I really wanted to love War of the Independents, since it’s a collection of characters not with the “Big Two”, but what should be its strength is actually its weakness. There’s just too many characters to keep up with! Plus, having superhero characters together with cartoony characters like Gumby just doesn’t make sense. Granted, it’s a comic book and pretty much anything goes – “suspend your disbelief” and all that - but the overabundance of characters means that too many characters are trying to get your attention, so it ends up that none of them do.

Also, the different styles of art virtually with every page can sometimes get jarring, and it’s really a distraction from the story flow. Anytime you have to remove yourself from a story to notice something like that is not good. I do appreciate the effort and I am totally down with the idea and concept – I just think it needs to be worked a little differently.

You all know that I am nothing if not opinionated, so here’s my take on what they might try another time: Same idea, same concept, but try to create stories of characters that are similar; for example, pair Gumby with Usagi Yojimbo, Bone, Cerberus, Milk, Cheese, and the other cartoony looking characters. Have one of the artists used to drawing in this cartoony style to do the artwork.

Then another story can be done in an oddball style using Too Much Coffee Man, Zippy the Pinhead, The Flaming Carrot, and perhaps Megaton Man, The Tick, and The Maxx; again by an artist used to drawing in that style.

Yet other stories could be built around the superheroes who have certain common themes, like the ghost/zombie/otherwise undead, or those built around a patriotic theme, or perhaps an all-girl story. Tying them all together can be an overall theme, perhaps all of them saving the universe in their own, special way.

Anyway, by using this pairing up method of the similar style characters, it gives each of them more of a chance to show what it is about each of them that appealed to their fans, and in the process, perhaps they can attract new fans. With a little organization, this can really work, and pulled off in the way that I think it can be done, it could do well enough to make the big guy comic companies at least take momentary notice. With that, you guys would have your own little Occupy moment in the comics world, and that would be an Occupy movement that I could totally support. :-)

To the Occupiers: From me to you with love! An Occupy logo!

2011-11-07T08:09:00.000-06:00

Unlike most liberals when it comes to the free speech rights of conservatives, I believe that liberals have free speech rights. They have every right to go out there and do their Occupy thing. And I've said before that I love liberals. I really do! So why am I so hard on them? Call it tough love. :-)

However, I also believe that if they are going to spread their message, then they should at least be honest on what they're really about. With that, I asked the boss to craft this little logo for me to represent what the Occupy movement is really about. And now to explain the symbols!

The first symbol, of course, represents President Obama. This sort of "uprising" is what he really wants to do, instead of dealing with the nuances and minutiae of our legislative system to get his desired goals made into law. Right now, he has to actually work to get this done, and he has to accept compromises, which makes him look bad in the eyes of his fellow anti-capitalist leftists.

The next two symbols are the classic Communist hammer and sickle, and the letter U with SSR in it are in reference to the old USSR, the birthplace of the Communist movement. This, folks, is what the Occupy movement is really about. These people want to substitute our legal system with the old, archaic, and so-last-millennium Communist philosophies that has failed everywhere it's been tried - including the old Soviet Union. But for some reason, these old-school leftists think that they can get it right this time.

And the pie is basically to represent what they believe will happen when things go their way. Their pie-in-the-sky delusional fantasies, in other words, of a free and open society where we are all equal and we all love each other and no one has more than anyone else, and there is no longer any pain and misery and suffering because we have legislated it out of existence.

The exclamation point is what it looks like - an exclamation point! It's to symbolize the passion of the movement - wrongheaded as it is. Somehow they believe that if they shout "OCCUPY!" then everyone around them - the "99%", - will totally gist on what they're about and join them in an uprising of the worker against the oppressive capitalist system. All while benefiting from the fruit of our capitalist system of course, with their iPhones, laptops with Wi-Fi, iPads, and so on - and totally oblivious to the irony of it.

So to my liberal friends out there, feel free to utilize the freedom of speech that our country provides; just be honest about what you're truly promoting, and you can do that by using this logo. One stipulation however: You must not profit from its usage. Get some rich liberal One-Percenter to fund the creation of t-shirts, bumper stickers, etc, and tell them to hand it out all free. To make any sort of profit from its usage would betray the spirit of the Occupy movement, after all!

Now go out there and Occupy!

Liberals: Let's make a deal. I'll support your cause that corporations are not people if...

2011-11-02T09:02:00.001-05:00

I've written on this blog and posted on Facebook long enough that I think most of you will have a pretty good feel for my style of writing. You all know that when it comes to the issues that I feel strongly about, I'll try to utilize all the passion, wit, wisdom, intellect, and powers of observation that my heart and soul can muster.

Liberals, you know how I've taken on your sacred cow issues and attacked them like you do Republican presidential candidates. However, what if I were to take all my passion, wit, wisdom, intellect, and powers of observation to use *in favor* of one of your sacred causes? Imagine me tearing into this issue with all the fervor that you see me take on your other hallowed delusions! Wouldn't that be awesome - to have me fighting for your cause with the full brunt of my intellect going all out like a pit bull on a steak?

Okay then! Time for me to make a little deal with you on the issue of: the personhood of corporations! You know you hate that and how it benefits the wealthy and privileged in our society. Now, I can make arguments against the personhood of the corporations and be very good at it - so good that you WILL link my blog posts to your own blogs and Share and Like them on Facebook. You know that I'm very capable of this!

And I promise that I'll do this on one condition: To gain my support on your cause against the personhood of the corporation, you must support my cause FOR the personhood of the unborn. Think about that for a minute before you reject it out of hand. If you favor the personhood of the unborn, you will greatly strengthen your own argument against the personhood of the corporation. If you'll allow yourselves to truly ponder this with the open mind that you say that you have, you know that I'm right.

The unborn are living persons that you will eventually see, hear, touch, and love. Corporations can never be that kind of person. The personhood of the corporation is legislative mythology, while the personhood of the unborn is grounded in fact - despite the denial of its personhood also being brought about by legislative mythology. Funny how that worked out for you guys, isn't it? In the process of manufacturing the argument against the personhood of the unborn, you inadvertently created the means of establishing the personhood of entities that exist only on the boards of the stock exchanges on Wall Street. What a bit of irony to bite you in the ass, eh?

As you can see, I've already started, and I can go much, much further in crafting arguments in favor of your cause - if you will only support me in mine. How will I know that you've accepted my deal? When I see you guys doing Occupy Planned Parenthood! Otherwise, I won't believe your "conversion" to my side. But you've seen the skill of what I'm capable of doing when I got my heart set on something, so I'm hoping that your desire to see the end of the "personhood of the corporation" will be such that you'll consider my offer. In the process, you'll see that I'm absolutely right about your arguments against the personhood of the corporation being strongly bolstered by your acknowledgment of the personhood of the unborn. And as an added bonus, you'll get to see me kickin' ass for your cause! :-)

It will be only after such a revelation that you will see that by agreeing with my deal, you won't be "making a deal with the devil", but instead "siding with the angels". To be honest, knowing liberals like I do, I don't expect any "takers". But who knows - you may surprise me. And I hope you do! :-)

Happy Halloween!

2011-10-31T12:36:00.001-05:00

I hope you all have a scary, scary time tonight! As for me, I'm going to my local Occupy rally dressed in a 1776 American minuteman outfit and wearing a tricorne hat with teabags hanging off of it!

Bwahahahahahahahaha!

Thin and Curvy blog

2011-10-31T08:32:00.000-05:00

Just had to mention a blog that I'll be keeping an eye on, because it discusses topics that I've brought up before, but it's dedicated to the topic rather than as a once-in-a-while post that I do here. I'm going to post it to my sidebar as well.

Thin and Curvy

The hypersexualization of women in comics

2011-10-26T12:35:00.000-05:00

I think discussing the issue of the hypersexualization of women in comics in a blog titled "Busty Superhero Chick" is probably a good place for such a discussion. :-)

Let's go ahead and start with an explanation of the name of my blog. First, it's meant to be something easy to remember, and I think it is. Next, it's also a play on you guys and how you generally like your superhero women - with big boobs. :-)

As for the issue of hypersexualization of women - in short, comics are largely geared to male readers, and the artists tend to be male - so basically it was an inevitability that women would be drawn in such a way as to have proportions that were impossible for a woman to have in real life. Having female artists helps somewhat, since they would be familiar with what would be realistic and unrealistic in regards to women's body proportions, but the expectation of skimpy or otherwise degrading costumes is such that it's what they draw as well.

And since this question is likely going to come up - what about my costume? Isn't it rather skimpy as well? And the cleavage hole isn't exactly what most women would wear in their everyday clothing. First, keep in mind that it is a superhero costume, so it's supposed to stand out from your regular everyday attire. Also, I cover up more than most. You'll note that most of my legs are covered, and my arms are covered entirely. Initially, the costume design was going to have me wearing just shorts for bottoms, but we decided that the skirt adds a nice feminine touch. I still wear the shorts that were intended all along, it's just now worn under the skirt. As for the cleavage hole, it's meant to be a distraction - and the smiley face an additional distraction as well as being a memory device. So as far as superhero costumes go, I think it's rather conservative, especially when compared to the sorts of costumes that are out there.

For instance, look at the Phantom Lady. Her top is basically glorified suspenders! She's a "wardrobe malfunction" waiting to happen. Every. Single. Time. she goes out to do her hero thing!

Then there's impossible proportions, such as Rob Liefield women. Most of his women have such strange, oddly proportioned torsos and limbs, and those impossibly tiny pinched-in waists!

And speaking of impossible proportions, consider the character Red Monika of Battle Chasers and her enormous boobs. For a real woman to have such proportions, her boobs would literally have to be the size of watermelons! Try strapping two watermelons to your chest and then see if you can get anything done - much less the expected superhero action stuff!

So yes, the hypersexualization of women gets very bad. No woman can look like these superhero women - not through exercise and dieting, not through surgery, and certainly not through the combination of both. I'm not sure how to say this without sounding like some mushy feminist, but these kinds of depictions sets unrealistic expectations of how women should look, both to boys and girls.

And yet, consider the market. Very few readers, both male and female, want superhero women who are fat and ugly. In order to attract - and keep - readers (who again, are mostly male), then the writers and artists need to make the female heroes attractive and their costumes flattering ("Flattering" can be done without being skimpy, BTW).

There's also the question of their personalities. How tough and badass can a superhero woman be and still be womanly? When is she a woman, and not just a man with a hot bod and boobs? You understand what I'm saying with that previous sentence? What I mean is, if she walks like a man, talks like a man, can kick ass like a man, then what makes her a woman? And yet, do you guys really want a "real" woman for your female superhero character?

That is, do you want her to be complaining about her "female problems" such as periods, cramps, hormonal imbalances, yeast infections, and the like? Do you want her to be whining about her relationship problems with her significant others, her parents, her GFs, etc? How much female "whinyness" are you willing to put up with? Not much, I would bet. My guess is that you would say, "I have that in real life with my wife/girlfriend/etc! Why would I want it in my comics?"

So that presents a challenge to both the writers and the artists. It's a balance to find the right amounts of what would be considered realistic vs the expected exaggerations of the superhero elements in a typical comic book story. In other words, the unrealistic is expected in a comic book story.; after all, how many women do you know in real life that can lift fully loaded semis over their heads? But I would also say that reading comic books isn't so much about seeing Wonder Woman lift boulders over her head and the reader expecting to be able to do the same with the right about of dieting/training/exercise; instead, the story is about the message that comes from the story.

We read comics not to learn how to imitate the super abilities of the heroes, but instead to absorb the lessons that are taught from their experiences. Perhaps that's what the writers and artists should be concentrating on when it comes to the female characters - that is, what lesson will the reader come away with about humanity in general, and if applicable, women specifically?

I tend to believe that most of you won't be interested in stories in which hypersexualization is the message. Yes, there's always going to be the weird perverts who get off on these hypersexualizations, but there aren't enough of them for most comic companies to make the kinds of profits that eventually finance blockbuster movies. Instead, I think that most of you want good human interest stories with clear, understandable messages about the human condition, as well as giving the message that "with great power comes great responsibility" - which applies not just to those with super powers, but all of us.

There's always going to be the hypersexualizations of women in the comics, but as a free-market advocate, I believe that those comics are always going to inhabit the margins of comic book sales, while the more realistic depictions of women are always going to be the bread-and-butter of comic sales. So fear not, my friends. But it also doesn't hurt to have the occasional reminder that these hypersexualizations exist, especially when these reminders come from men. If it gets to the point that you guys can see it, then it must be pretty bad! LOL

I was trying to think of some way to end this particular blog entry, but instead, I think I'll leave this open-ended in case I get some responses from you all.

Occupy Stormwind!

2011-10-19T17:35:00.001-05:00

Yes, that's right, the "Occupy" movement has reached the fortress city of Stormwind! I'm here in Stormwind as my level 75 human hunter reporting from the mob at Stormwind's entry gates. I'm now talking to Ella Anderson of Gilneas, one of the founding members of the Occupy Stormwind Movement (OSM). So Ella, what are you and your group protesting?

Ella: The fact that the Alliance has been leading our good men and women into many battles costing us untold numbers of lives and taking a severe drain on the economy! Our military forces are in the Outlands, at Northrend, in the various battlegrounds across Azeroth, and now we're sending our soldiers to fight in the Firelands! When does it end? Why can't we make peace with the Horde and all work together?

Me: The leader of the Horde, Garrosh Hellscream is not exactly a peaceable man - in fact, he hates the Alliance equally as much as King Varian Wrynn of Stormwind hates the Horde. How could peace be made between two equally hot-tempered leaders?

Ella: That I can't say, except to ask: Are they even trying? It's like all the citizens of Azeroth are pawns in their little game of enormous egos! But we are pawns only so long as we allow ourselves to be pawns! We now want more control over what happens to our lives! (turns to the crowd behind her): Free Azeroth! Free the people! The citizens of the world demand to be heard! (roar of approval).

Me: But what about the recent actions of the dragon Deathwing, and of the mysterious Twilight Cult? How can King Wrynn deal with these problems while trying to satisfy the demands of OSM?

Ella: That's just it! The answer's always the same! Throw our lives away so as to protect the pocketbooks of the Alliance's robber barons! Who needs the Horde's greedy goblin cartels when we got our own greedy owners of the war industries? Do you know how many orphans our constant wars create? Do you know how much less life and coin we would be using up if we could at least work with the Horde?

Me: So the answer is...

Ella: The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind - the answer my friend is in the winds of change! And that change is that the people won't stand for being used and abused by its leaders any longer! No more "For the Alliance" or "For the Horde"! It's now "For the people of Azeroth!"

Me: So what are you going to do if an invading Horde force comes down the road here?

(Voice from the crowd): You know, we should totally connect with members of the Horde so that they can start an Occupy Orgrimmar movement!

(Another voice): Yeah! I bet they're even more pissed at Garrosh than we are at the king!

(Yet another voice): Ella, you should totally get with Jaina Proudmoore about this! She knows Thrall, and I bet she can convince Thrall to join our cause!

Me: Wait, so Jaina is part of this?

Ella: Not officially, of course, but she keeps up with our cause.

Me: Anything else you want to mention before I log off?

Ella: Yeah! We also want to protest the utter unoriginality of all the "mom" jokes in Trade Chat! Dudes, can't you come up with better insults than to constantly be ragging on the moms? And rape isn't funny, no matter what context you try to put it in! Don't refer being wiped in a battleground as being raped - just say that you got your asses kicked! And last, no more [Anal] jokes in Trade! Damn, that's so juvenile!

Me: Well, good luck with that. Trade Chat is pretty much a subculture. I'll report more on this story as it develops. Now to log off and go back to reality - by logging on to Facebook! See you there!

This has been Andromeda the level 75 hunter reporting from the gates of Stormwind!

Zombie month update: I need more zombies!

2011-10-18T08:19:00.000-05:00

There's still time everyone, but I need more zombies if I'm gonna have a zombie apocalypse at the end of the month! I didn't want to do this, but if I have to, I'll bring out the "big sad eyes". O-O

The boss did offer a suggestion that I'll go ahead and mention. If you don't want to have a depiction of yourself as a zombie, then how about as a zombie hunter? What would you look like if you were the classic movie version of a zombie hunter? That might be as fun to do as making yourself into a zombie! :-D

Either way, I hope to see some art from you all. :-)

(practicing her "big sad eyes" in the mirror)

Clues for the clueless demonstrators of Occupy Wall Street (and for free!)

2011-10-17T09:06:00.001-05:00

After one month, the dirty, horny dumbasses of Occupy Wall Street still don't have a clue as to what they're protesting! It's unbelievable that such an allegedly wired and social media-connected group of protestors still don't know what they're doing there! Don't you people read your own damn Twitter page?

Well morons, let me help you out! Here's What The Wall Street Protesters Are So Angry About

Take it to heart and memorize it, so that you don't sound like an idiot when the press asks what you've been doing for a month other than being a public health hazard with your month-long drinking, doping, f**king, defecating, urinating, etc out in public!

Now don't say that I never did anything for you!

What Mayor Bloomberg should have used to chase away the Wall Street Occupiers:

2011-10-14T16:52:00.002-05:00

John Lennon the conservative?

2011-10-12T09:27:00.000-05:00

This article asks the question if John Lennon was a closet conservative.

Not only that, he rewrites some of Lennon's songs to reflect this possible conservative bent, including a remake of Imagine.

Well, I did that already! And I think mine version was better!

Challenge to the artists! Oscar the Grouch moves to Wall Street

2011-10-11T07:35:00.000-05:00

Okay, I am issuing a challenge to the artists based on the photo art above, which I got from a FB friend.

Imagine this scenario: Oscar the Grouch hears that there is now tons of trash on Wall Street because of the Wall Street Occupiers, so he decides to move there. Upon arriving, the potheads there see him and in their stoned state, believe that he is a marijuana bush. My challenge to you is to capture what happens next in a cartoon or artwork. >:-D

If you take up my challenge, post it to your FB page and let me know. I'll then post it here.

Stupiddist prowtestilers evar!

2011-10-09T11:19:00.000-05:00

Not only are the Wall Street Occupiers clueless, they're also stupid!

Werst portessturs evah!

Elizabeth Warren gets pwned!

2011-10-07T11:01:00.000-05:00

From this news story: Elizabeth Warren, Scott Brown spar over nude photos

But I put it in a nutshell for you guys. >:-)

Vegan and pro-life? Why the hell not?

2011-10-04T12:51:00.000-05:00

If there were ever a liberal group that could eventually be swung to the pro-life side, it would be vegans and animal-rights activists. It's a very short leap in logic that if it's wrong to slaughter animals for our consumption, then it's wrong to slaughter unborn children in the womb.

This blog entry is coming out of a discussion with one of my vegan GFs, who's always trying to work me into adopting her dietary lifestyle. I have been countering with trying to get her to adopt my pro-life views. We are at an impasse, because I can eat a hamburger with no guilt and still believe that we must end our massive slaughter of unborn infants, while she can see the abortion issue as a "woman's decision" and not blink an eye to the end result of a life snuffed out before it takes its first breath, and yet she can be moved to tears with mere images of emaciated and caged animals.

She accuses me of an illogical inconsistency because of my views of the unborn and their inherent value of life, and yet not be moved as she is with the slaughterhouse imagery that are often part of the discussions we have. Not to sound flippant, but cows make damn fine hamburgers. Yes, it SOUNDS flippant, but I am actually making a point. My point is, we are a meat eating society - it's ingrained in our history and our culture - so her cause is an uphill battle. VERY uphill.

It's so uphill that when she embraces the logical inconsistency of being vegan and yet pro-choice, it undermines her credibility of just how much she values life. What her actions are saying that life is valuable and sacrosanct so long as it's animal life. Human life, meanwhile, is ours to use and dispose of as we see fit. While she may genuinely feel that responding with "I support a woman's desire to make decisions about her own body" is a perfectly legitimate response, it's actually a cop-out from an opportunity to demonstrate just how much she values life.

In other words, her arguments about the worth of animal life would be a LOT stronger if she also had the same burning desire of the worth of unborn human life. When I type that out, it seems kinda goofy that anyone couldn't see that logical flaw of viewing animal life as sacrosanct and not human life, but for her, she doesn't see it. Now don't get me wrong about her - she's a beautiful and wonderful person; otherwise, she wouldn't be one of my GFs!

But, so long as she is unable to see this contradiction, then she will be undermining her arguments with meat-eating prolifers like me. I think I have a pretty good idea on what you're thinking: Maybe if I become a vegan, then she'll become prolife. Trust me, it won't work. As embedded as being a carnivore is in my psyche, her pro-choice views are even more embedded. That is, I can give up meat much easier than she can give up her pro-choice views - so radically liberal is she.

No, if this is going to work and she is going to change the hearts of steak-lovers everywhere, then she'll need to make the shocking conversion of becoming a prolifer, and I mean full-bore, marching-at-Planned-Parenthood prolifer - and not a mere "I personally oppose abortion, but..." types, because "personally oppose" prolifers are in truth de facto pro-choicers.

The thing is, while she is in the process of adopting prolife views, she will find that she loses absolutely nothing in regards to her vegan views. In fact, in light of what she'll come to learn along the way, she'll find that being prolife and vegan is not only entirely consistent, but actually go hand-in-hand - it will actually complete what she believes about life and its worth. She will then see that if she is going to be changing hearts and minds, then she must be willing to view the lives of babies as beautiful and wonderful - just as much as the cuddly little forest critters or little lambs and baby chicks that are often stock imagery for vegan literature.

GF, you asked what it would take to win me over to your side. Well, here ya go. Do this, and you will win me over to your side. Now my question to you is this: Is your dedication to the animal rights cause deep and true and strong enough for you to venture exploring the pro-life side of the abortion debate? I promise you that it will be worth the struggle. :-)

And who knows - you might even change my mind one day on the vegan issue.

Zombie Apocalypse! Interview of a Zombie

2011-10-03T09:20:00.001-05:00

Yes, dear friends, the Zombie Apocalypse has invaded my blog! And through the magic of reckless use of the time/space continuum, I shall now interview - Zombie Me! Say hello, ZM!

ZM: Hrrrr... He-hellooo...

Me: As most of you might imagine with zombies, ZM has a bit of a difficulty speaking, so bear with her! She's trying! Now ZM, I understand that the only reason that you're not eating my brain right now is because you just ate, am I right?

ZM: Y- yesss.... Just ate Mi-michael Mmoore's brraainnzz....

Me: Ew. And how was that?

ZM: Hi-high fat content. But oth-otherwise, juicy... because it - it was barely used...

Me: And I understand that you favor the brains of liberals because of that, right?

ZM: Y-yess... Lib-liberalzz don't use - brainzz much.... And... liberalz brainzz...easier to get to...

Me: Why is that?

ZM: B-because they're so open-minded... their brainzz fall ouuut....

Me: (rimshot sound) So let me ask, how did I end up like you? Because of my super strength and healing, I'm very hard to injure, much less kill, so what finally did me in?

ZM: Hrrr...

Me: Or is this one of those things that I shouldn't know, because it would affect my future?

ZM: Future... already affected... by meeting meee nowww.....

Me: Ah, good point - and a moot point too, I suppose...

(Note: To speed things up, I have consolidated her next few responses as well as eliminated her "hrrrs" and long pauses, as well as eliminated my constant prodding for her to continue)

ZM: It was December 2012, and the country was celebrating the recent election of Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann. The liberals went insane, and many fled to Canada and Mexico. Others were so outraged that they managed to shut down YouTube several times with their endless video postings of their rants. To discuss the election results, Elizabeth Hasselbeck invited me to be her guest on The View. Also invited by the other hostesses were Janeane Garafalo, Matt Damon, Alec Baldwin, Michael Moore, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Al Gore, Hillary Clinton, and many others. Hasselbeck was allowed to invite only one guest while the other hostesses were allowed to invite as many as they wanted, so me and Hasselbeck smelled a set-up, and we were right. We were only a couple of minutes into the show before all the exits were suddenly sealed shut with thick metal plates and then we were mobbed. I punched a hole in the wall for Hasselbeck to escape, and then I stood my ground as long as I could before I was taken down. As it turns out, some of these well known liberals are superhuman, which is how they killed me. John Kerry, who has the ability to turn people into zombies, felt that it would add insult to injury to zombify me, so he did. It never occurred to him or any of the others of what a superhuman zombie could do, and I ate the brains of most of them before they could escape. The zombie apocalypse started from there, and has spread since then.

(We are now resuming her normal speech patterns)

Me: Wow. So in the process of retaliation for the 2012 election results, the liberals all got together and ended up making things worse. Sounds like the usual MO for them!

ZM: Hrrr... hehe....

Me: So if I'm invited to The View next December, I should decline, and then tell Elizabeth Hasselbeck to call in sick that day.

ZM: Y- yesss....

Me: Well, thank you for coming, Zombie Me. I need you to stick around for the rest of this month during my Zombie Apocalypse promotion, so let me think of where you could go. Hmm...

ZM: Hrrr... brainzzz....

Me: Yes, I imagine you must be hungry now after all that talking you did. Well, we can't exactly have you start another zombie apocalypse here in your past, and certainly not before Sarah Palin gets elected! Tell you what: I'll snap a pic of you to post in my blog, and then send you back to the future. (snaps pic)

ZM: Brainzz....

Me: Yes, dear. I'm working on it. Ah! Here we go! I'll plop you right into a meeting of the National Democratic Convention! Lots of unused liberal brains there!

ZM: Hmmm... Yummm.....

Me: Yeah, I thought you might like that. I would wish you well, but how well can a zombie's existence be? I guess I wish you - lots of brains to eat! See ya! (zaps ZM back to the future).

Well, there you have it, folks - a glimpse of the future that might come to pass! And at least now I know not to accept an invitation to The View!

And a great thanks to Rocio Zucchi for that most excellent artwork of undead me! I thank her for being able to draw her while ignoring the smell of undead flesh! I don't know how you did it without gagging, Rocio! Here's her deviantArt site to check out the rest of her stuff!

I hope I get a lot of you guys to join in on the fun this month! :-)

Coming Monday: There be ZOMBIES!!!

2011-09-30T09:04:00.001-05:00

Yes, folks - coming Monday will be a month-long

Zommmbieeee Apocalypse!

And you get to join in on the fun, too!

I encourage all of you to have yourselves made out into zombies and post these pics of yourselves on your FB page, and to use them as your profile pic! Each time one of you does that, I'll post it here on my blog and as an album on my FB page. What about me? Glad you asked! :-D

On Monday, to kick off BSC Zombie Apocalypse Month, I will be posting an artwork of myself - as a zombie! YES! I will be Zombie Andromeda! It will be done by the wonderfully talented Rocio Zombie - er, I mean Rocio Zucchi, who brought you the most recent excellent artworks of me and Lucky Shot. I just got the zombie artwork of me, and friends, I promise you -

You. WILL. Love. It! It is the epitome of awesomely excellence!

So starting on Monday through the month of October, and inspired by the Rocio monster masterpiece, I ask you all to make zombie artwork of yourself, or you can call up an artist friend of yours, and - Go Zombie!

My preference would be that you have a full-body artwork done of yourself as a zombie, because....

...on Halloween....

.... the boss is going to make a panoramic artwork....

... of all of us as zombies!

So that means that I'll have my own Zombie Apocalypse! I'll be posting the finished work here on my blog, and on FB. :-D

I really hope you guys join in on the fun, because it would be so cool!

Oh man, I can't wait 'til Monday! I gotta at least give you a sneak preview of Zombie Me! Here it is!

I vant jur brainzz.....

Y'all know I'm conservative, right?

2011-09-29T09:17:00.000-05:00

One of my GFs said to me earlier this week that I would get more readership if I weren't so outspoken about being conservative. And you know what? I don't doubt that. But I gotta be me. The way I figure it, if I put my views and attitudes on my blog and on FB the way I would in real life, then the reactions of others will tell me something about them. So far, I've gotten a lot more FB friends than I ever expected to get; especially since I'm writing as a superhero character. That tells me something, I think.

Even though my readership is small, I do have readers, and I gain new FB friends at a rate of at least 1 or 2 a week. Not bad for someone writing as a superhero, eh? There has to be a reason for that - I must be connecting with you all in some way, shape, or form; and especially when you take into consideration that a lot of my readers are liberals - and they know I'm conservative!

Why would a liberal want to friend someone that they know is conservative? Well, part of the reason could be because I am also a comics nerd, and comics nerdery runs the gamut of political ideology. Another reason, I think, is because they consider me something of an oddity: a conservative with a brain. I say this, because I've been told this by people I know in real life. :-)

How conservative am I? Well, I favor the death penalty, for one. I also have voted GOP for every election that I've been able to vote in (except the very first time, when I voted Democrat because I felt I had to. I was young and felt that that was what I was supposed to do. After that, I decided that I will vote the way I want to vote, and not in the way that someone expects me to vote- which is the way it's supposed to be, anyway.).

I am also a free market capitalist, and am a believer in "Drill, baby, drill" in order to create jobs here and to increase our oil production here to reduce our dependance on foreign oil. By the way, I also want these oil companies to take every measure possible to minimize the impact that their machines have on the environment, and to also arrange that they will remove their machines once they're done so that the surrounding environment can get back to the state it was in when they came.

I am also pro-life. I think the unborn is human from the moment of conception, and deserves our protection just like anyone else would get our protection from others who would seek to do harm. I am also totally down with defunding Planned Parenthood, because they are not a government agency, but an establishment in the private sector, and as a free market capitalist (as well as being a pro-lifer), I believe they should sink or swim on their own efforts instead of being propped up by the government teat. If PP's supporters want to keep it financially viable, then let them open up their wallets to help. Or ask Warren Buffett, since he feels he's not paying enough taxes. Or, if PP is really that concerned that women get the reproductive service that they offer, then let them provide those services for free.

Oh, and the clincher. I am a total advocate of the Tea Party. If that doesn't convince you of the extent of my conservatism, then I don't know what else will! LOL I could go on, but I think now you get the idea of how conservative I am. :-D

Another reason I am outspoken about my conservatism is because I am concerned about my liberal friends only getting one side of the picture when it comes to conservatives and what they are like. For example, what do you think of Sarah Palin? If your sources for Palin and her personality are the likes of Keith Olbermann, Bill Maher, Rachel Maddow, and Joe McGinniss, then your impression of her is that she is a dim-witted, egotistical, power-hungry bitch. I hope now that I've listed those names, you can see how your attitudes towards Palin are likely slanted by them. Just imagine if you got all your info on Michelle Obama from Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. Based only on their input, do you think that you would have a fair assessment of the woman? So why should you limit your assessment of Palin on those who hate her? From an intellectual standpoint, is that the right and fair thing to do?

Anyway, for my liberal friends, according to your sources, now that I admitted to being a conservative, why aren't I the sort of racist, sexist, bigoted, homophobic sort that you've heard about? Maybe I am an exception? Maybe, but I assure you, I am not. If the only kinds of conservatives that you've met so far are of that racist, sexist, bigoted and homophobic stereotype, then you seriously need to broaden your social circles, because conservatives run the gamut of society. Some of us even love comic books! :-D

So I am outspoken on my conservatism here and on FB so as to challenge your views of conservatives and conservatism. And if you are truly intellectually honest and open-minded, not only would you be open to having your views of conservatives and conservatism questioned and challenged, you would even welcome it as yet another opportunity to further your knowledge and wisdom overall - and you also certainly wouldn't want to be known to be harboring any prejudices, especially based on misinformation from biased sources. Yeah, I know you guys pretty well. :-)

So there ya have it. Come what may, I am conservative, and outspoken about it! Hear me roar!

RRRRROOO (coughcough) AAARRRRR!!!

Woot! We got a Post Office Box! Now we're talkin'!

2011-09-19T09:09:00.000-05:00

About a year ago, I had listed some rules for doing reviews. Here's the link: Rules for reviews

Back then, I had asked the boss about getting a post office box so that people can send me stuff. Well, he finally agreed to give me a test run, so if you want me to review your stuff, you got six months to convince the boss on why he should hold on to the post office box beyond the six months he's giving me for this test run, so let's have at it!

I am also going to add another rule here: I will not review porn, bondage or any other sort of erotica, so don't even ask. It's because of this that I am requiring anyone interested in me reviewing their products or works to e-mail me first so that I know what's coming, and then I can tell the boss to look out for it when he visits the PO Box (The boss picking up the stuff will also be how he'll know how much I use the PO Box).

If I am sent anything unsolicited, then it will be a judgement call as to whether I'll review it, but your odds are better if you tell me in advance. And why wouldn't you let me know in advance anyway, if you want me to review it?

Also, be sure to let me know if you are allowing me to keep the work or product, or if you want me to send it back after I review it. If you want me to send it back, then you are REQUIRED to include a box, envelope, etc, WITH SUFFICIENT POSTAGE to mail your stuff back to you. Otherwise, I will not send it back. Remember, I'm too cheap to go see movies when they are in the theater, so why would I be generous and mail your stuff back when you haven't covered the cost of the return postage?

As noted on my review page, I'll be fair and honest in my reviews. If you have any questions about any of this, then let me know.

One last note: I'll also use this PO Box for artists who want to send pin-up art of me or Lucky Shot. I would love nothing more than to be collecting comic art of me! Whoohoo! If you do that, then I'll have the boss scan it so that I can post it to my blog. As with the stuff to review, let me know in advance that you're going to sent art to me, so that I can let the boss know to look out for it.

I hope this works. I'm so excited! :-D

Al Gore 24/7! Whoohoo!

2011-09-13T08:07:00.000-05:00

Starting on Wednesday, we are going to be treated to a 24 hour Al Gore-athon of him telling us that we need to be more environmentally conscious! Whoohoo!

Hey, Al! You want us to be more environmentally friendly? Why don't you set the example and do something about your fucking energy hog of a house???

Among liberal circles, hypocrisy is hypocrisy unless one of their own does it.

Finally, Komrades! A revolution I kan join!

2011-09-08T17:10:00.000-05:00

Finally! It iss revolution that Komrade Andromeda kan join!
It is People's Cube! It is so cleverly done that the Left would appreciate it if they weren't so hateful to those who disagree with them!

I love it! I'm already a fan!

Long live Glorious Revolution!

Time to retire moniker, "Ground Zero"?

2011-09-07T08:46:00.000-05:00

NYC mayor Mike Bloomberg says that perhaps it's time to retire the moniker "Ground Zero". While we're at it maybe we should just forget 9/11 even happened. Perhaps all the pain and suffering and horror of that day was just a fanciful movie in 3D that we somehow believed happened for real. Never mind, friends. There was no 9/11, so there is no need for a "Ground Zero". Move along. Nothing happening here...

While we're at it, let's retire other monikers that only serve as reminders of other - unpleasantness.

Let's dispose of the moniker "Ban the Bomb", because it reminds us of the unpleasantness of nuclear Armageddon. There are no nuclear bombs. Why in the world would anyone make such dreadful devices, anyway?

Let's also get rid of the moniker "My Body My Choice" because it reminds us of the unpleasantness of abortion. What woman would deliberately end the life of her unborn baby, anyway?

See how silly his logic is? Words have power. Words have strength. Words can move, motivate, and inspire (in good ways and bad). The moniker "Ground Zero" was borne out of that horrifying and tragic time. I say that the phrase is not stuck in the past, but is alive and present to us today. Consider the words spoken by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. No, I don't mean "A date which will live in infamy", but "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

He spoke those words way back in 1933 as part of his inaugural address. That is almost 80 years ago, so should we say that those words are stuck in the past? No, actually, they are timeless. They are as true now as they were then.

While Roosevelt's words are those of hope while "Ground Zero" is a reminder of something tragic, both of them were borne out of trying times. Roosevelt spoke those words when the country was in the depths of the Depression, so they have that in common.

Bloomberg states that he wants to retire those words as the first step in moving on and start the process of rebuilding. But to retire"Ground Zero" is to take the first step in trying to revise what happened on 9/11/01. I'm not saying that Bloomberg is deliberately trying to reinvent history, but his actions will have that result.

No, let's not retire "Ground Zero". Let's remember the pain, agony, and tragedy that occurred on that horrific day. It's the least we can do for those who lost their lives on that day, and for the families and loved ones that were left behind. For them, Ground Zero will always be as fresh as that terrible day 10 years ago, so for their sake, let's not put aside the term and pretend it never happened.

And by all means, rebuild. But let "Ground Zero" serve as a reminder of WHY we are rebuilding.

Comics Talk: Flashpoint #5 and Justice League #1

2011-09-02T10:57:00.000-05:00

In today's Comics Talk, I will discuss both Flashpoint #5 and Justice League #1 since they came out together earlier this week on Wednesday, but before I continue, time for the obligatory:

***WARNING!**

Spoilers ahead!

If you have not read Flashpoint #5 and Justice League #1

and don't want what's in it spoiled for you,

then STOP READING NOW!

You have been warned!

Okay, first things first, I enjoyed them both. FP#5 had an interesting twist in that it was not the Reverse Flash that had caused all the chaos that had been going on for the whole FP limited series, but instead it was the result of something The Flash (Barry Allen) had done; which was to go back in time to save the life of his mother so that she lived to see her son Barry grow to adulthood and to succeed. However, this one act caused a series of events to change how his "universe" had turned out, which ended up turning it inside out from what Barry had remembered.

He still remembered how things were, but even those memories were slowly being "retconned" to reflect the changes in the universe. So his mission was to fix things back the way they were before he forgot how things used to be. So Barry had to fix things by going back in time to stop himself from fixing things. Confused yet? LOL In other words, he stopped himself from saving his mother. This meant, of course, that his mother was now dead when she was supposed to be (when he was about 10), but in an odd little twist, he still remembered the times he spent with her when she did live to see him grow to adulthood. Don't think too much on this; it'll mess with your head LOL

What this is, ultimately, was a reboot of the DC Comics franchise on par with the one they did waaay back in 1985 with Crisis on Infinite Earths, which sought to clean up a lot of continuity issues by having all the various "earths" - Earth One, Earth Two, etc. - compacted to just one Earth. So this time around, all the major characters will be meeting each other for the very first time in an environment that seems to be DC's answer to Marvel's Ultimate universe, with the exception that what DC is creating is their "mainline" universe rather than an alternate universe like Marvel's Ultimate line.

So - is this whole universal reboot idea gonna work? It's a very large change to the franchise, and thus it's a big risk. I think it might increase sales in the short term, but how things eventually turn out will depend on what they end up doing with the characters. And that's where my fear comes in. I'm afraid that they are going to make a kinder, gentler, more PC universe that's more in line with liberal ideology than with making a good story.

I got concerned about this when I heard the "women wear trousers" rule that was supposed to take place in the new universe. It made me wonder what else they might do to the women to make them and their attire less feminine. Whenever discussions come up about making characters more "relevant", it's not generally a good thing, because it's almost always code for making them more liberal. In other words, I feared the whole lot of the DC superhero ladies becoming a superhuman branch of the National Organization of Women. If they become a bunch of the stereotypical whiny, "empowered" feminists, then I am dropping DC faster than Keith Olbermann at a Tea Party rally! Or at least until the next franchise reboot! LOL

I did notice that Wonder Woman lost her ugly pants. Well, I mean that she now wears her bikini bottom again. Not only that, it's not the wedgie-wear that had been drawn on the super ladies in recent decades. While I may not desire bland costumes for the super ladies, I likewise don't want something that is more suited for a prostitute. Practicality when it comes to costumes is not a bad idea. For example, low heeled boots for super ladies are practical. Fighting in high heeled boots is a great way to either break off the heels in a fight or to twist your ankles. But just because something is practical, it doesn't mean that it needs to be ugly!

I also find it odd that DC initially had WW in pants because it was "practical", but she still had that strapless top. Strapless tops may be sexy, but they are mucho impractical. It's way too easy for some supervillain to simply flip her top down so as to distract her. Well, now she is back to the bikini bottoms, but she still has the strapless top! LOL I am going to use how they depict WW as an indicator to the direction that DC is going to go with this new reboot idea. If WW becomes an advocate for Planned Parenthood, then that will be a clear sign that DC will be going down the path of its ultimate demise. Trust me on this.

As for JL#1, I found it hilarious when Green Lantern was asking Batman what his powers were. Then when he figured it out, he blurted "Don't tell me that you're just a guy in a bat costume!" Making me laugh like that is a good sign. :-) My only complaint is that they made the book too short. Something that is meant to be the starting point of a franchise reboot should have been a double sized issue. Otherwise, I think JL#1 was a good starting point.

So if you haven't bought Flashpoint #'s 1 thru 5, then I suggest buying them this weekend before the new stuff starts showing up starting next week, and I also suggest getting JL#1. They will be a good point of reference on where DC is now, and we can refer back to them once the franchise starts going down the road. And then we can see if they deserve our lauds or our jeers.

Man, I love comics! :-D

No, no, no! Not Generation Vexed!

2011-08-29T09:44:00.000-05:00

I've mentioned before that I want our generation to name ourselves, and not some outside generation! Therefore, tell them that you will not accept Generation Vexed! Geez, that's just a variation of Generation X, so it's not even original! So I ask all of you of to reject outsiders' attempts to label our generation! And especially a negative and unimaginative designation!

Instead, let's use my suggestion, the Worgen Generation! Now that's way cooler than being known as "vexed"! (derisive snort)

Review of the movie Captain America

2011-08-17T20:01:00.000-05:00

Okay, let's get this off the bat first: Yes, Captain America was worth seeing in the theaters. :-)

Overall, it was a fun ride, and definitely a comic book feel to the story. I really enjoyed it. You sense a "but" coming, don't you? Well ... maybe that's coming. ;-)

But first, the obligatory

***WARNING!***

Possible spoilers ahead! If you haven't seen the movie Captain America and don't want what's in it spoiled for you, then STOP READING NOW! You have been warned!

First, let me say that I loved the 1940's scenery. It was gorgeous! It was probably my favorite part of the movie. Also, it was a refreshing change to see a movie that didn't eventually devolve into anti-Americanism; something that I feared would happen in a movie titled "Captain America", in which a Hollywood director might feel the need to add the obligatory anti-American jab just so that he didn't lose cred with his fellow anti-American colleagues in the film industry.

Well, it was indeed respectful of the era! And good for them! It was also interesting to see Tony Stark's (aka Iron Man, of course) dad in the movie. Oh, you know that they had to tie in CA to Iron Man! LOL Anyway, I really enjoyed the way they told Cap's story, and I also appreciated the fact that they didn't make his sidekick Bucky a teenager. While it may make a good story in the 1940s, no self-respecting superhero would ever put a child or teenager in the kind of danger that being X superhero's sidekick would bring. Remember, some of these supervillains are downright evil, and they'd think nothing of torturing or killing kids, especially if they know they are X superhero's sidekick!

Really, the only reason a superhero would take on a teenage sidekick is for themselves, and not for the sidekick. But if a given superhero needs the ego boost that having an adoring sidekick brings, then they shouldn't be in the hero business. Bit I digress...

All in all, I think the movie was great, and overall, on a scale of 1 to 10 in which 1 is a bomb and 10 is THE bomb, I give CA a 9. It would have gone as high as 9.5, but the use of the 3D was totally unnecessary, and thus it earns a demerit from me, as all movies do when it's made 3D solely for the purpose of leeching out more money from us moviewatchers. See, this is why I generally refuse to go see movies when they are in the theater.

However, there is a little bitty hope that I could tack that .5 back on, and it wholly depends on what they do with Cap in the next movie with him. Before I continue, consider the fact that when Marvel Comics first de-iced Cap, it was a mere 20 years after WWII. While there were certainly quite a bit of social, technological, and many other changes over the course of the 20 years, it's nothing like the kinds of changes that have occurred from 1945 to 2011, which is when Cap was de-iced in the movie!

That has to be taken into account. That is, they can't go all PC on Cap and have him accepting of all the changes that have come about since WWII. I'm not saying that they should make him some sort of racist, sexist and homophobe, but to consider that Cap is a product of his age, and coming to terms with all that has changed in society is going to take a considerable amount of time. In other words, the writers SHOULD explore his attitudes in such a way that doesn't intentionally make him look bad or ugly, but that should still be uncomfortable.

For example, he can reflect that women in the 40s who dressed like the women he sees in the 21st century were usually called prostitutes. Given time, he can adjust to the changes, especially in the way that women and minorities have progressed, and he can even say something along the lines that "It's good to see more and more people sharing in the American Dream."

The writers also might make mention of Isaiah Bradley, another Captain America of the 1940s, and reflect on how the government had engaged in ethically and morally questionable research into creating the super soldier formula. It would also be a legitimate way for the director to get his anti-American dig into the movie. I may be conservative, but I was as shocked as anyone when the Tuskegee syphilis experiment became publicly known. We should all be reminded of the limits of what our government should and shouldn't do, and mentioning Isaiah Bradley can be a very good way of doing that.

If the movie writers do indeed include my ideas and suggestions, then my friends, you will witness the very first time I changed one of my movie ratings! And believe you me, I will be very glad to change it! Even if they do make the next movie in 3 effin' D!

It's a quest from God!

2011-08-16T15:10:00.000-05:00

Hey, y'all! The universe has gone World of Warcraft, and you all just got a quest from God! With a questgiver like God, how could you refuse? I wonder what quest he has for you? :-O

New Rocio Zucchi art: Chibi Me and Lucky Shot!

2011-08-12T09:01:00.000-05:00

I tried to decide which of these chibi artworks to post first, but I loved them both so much that I'm going to post both of them! :-)

They are both by the wonderfully talented Rocio Zucchi, who has also provided the most recent artworks that I've posted to my blog. Enough talk! Let's look at the chibi art!

Isn't it AWESOME???!!!??

The top one is my coworker at the Department of Superhuman Studies, Lucky Shot, whom I told you about previously. Her eyes are a glowy blue because, my little nerdlings, you are seeing for the very first time how her power looks when it's active. As said in her bio, her power functions as a sort of radar much like Spiderman's "spider sense" (but Lucky does not say "Lucky Shot sense tingling!"); so as long as her power is active, her eyes glow blue like that. This is also the first time you are seeing her in costume. What, you were expecting tights, a cape, and underwear worn on the outside? Nope, unlike me, Lucky does her fighting from the shadows, so a bright, gaudy costume would not help her. Also, like my costume, her attire is made of Alloy Cloth, which is virtually indestructible.

The artwork below is me! This is one of the few times you are seeing me out of costume. And to Rocio, I must say that I love the earrings you designed for me! Mucho cute! I wish I knew how to make stuff like that, because I think they'd be cute earrings in real life. Anyway, isn't this a great pose? I just can't get over how talented and creative these works by Rocio are. I love my cute facial expression, the pose, the outfit, and even the wrist strap with my initial. (girly squeal sounds!)

I really, really love seeing how different artists draw me. I seriously can't get enough of that. And when it's someone like Rocio - man, it's like Christmas when I open up the art file and see the artwork for the very first time. Ha! I love it!

Thank you so much, Rocio! You are super awesome! Be sure to visit her deviantArt site, my little nerdlings! :-)

Paper or plastic? The solution to the great environmental debate of grocery bags

2011-08-08T06:56:00.000-05:00

Many moons ago, grocers gave you paper bags to cart your groceries home. For decades, that's how things were done. Then some whacko environmentalists decided that paper bags were bad for the environment because they have to cut trees down to make them, and cutting trees down is bad for the environment because then there are less trees to absorb carbon dioxide, which then builds up in the atmosphere, which then helps to widen the hole in the ozone layer, which then makes things hotter for us down here on earth. And before you know it, we'll have hell literally on earth!

So plastic bags were invented, and they were as convenient as a Swiss Army Knife!  Probably the most recycled item on the planet is the plastic grocery sack! I bet you can think of the many ways you used those sacks just off of the top of your head. However - uh oh! - they're bad for the environment as well! So bad, that some cities are attempting to ban them! They're bad because they are mostly non-biodegradable, which is bad for the environment, because they sit in our landfills almost forever, which makes that land such that trees won't grow on it, which is bad because then there are fewer trees to absorb carbon dioxide, which then... well, you know the drill by now...

Well then, pardner, it would seem that paper bags are the solution after all, because paper bags are biodegradable! Oh, wait! No! Bad idea! Trees have to be cut down to make them, and we went through all that in the first paragraph! Weren't you listening??

One solution to this dilemma had been a "third way" in the form of the reusable cloth bags, but there has been the problem that they can accumulate bacteria, because they are used to carry food, and the food bacteria can build up after many uses. Plus, many of the cloth bags are made in China, and as we all found out, China puts lead in everything from cloth grocery bags to dog food, because it cuts down on the cost of manufacturing them. Well, they gotta get rid of all that lead somehow, and if they can make some money off of it in the process selling them to us gullible Americans, then all the better! Pretty sneaky of those Communists to be thinking like capitalists!

Okay, I have a solution for all this. It's so simple that you'll kick yourself for not thinking of it first!

My solution is this: Require that all fashion designers everywhere to design our pants and skirts to have HUGE cargo pockets!  In fact, just have a row of cargo pockets to wrap around the whole waistline of the pants and skirts!   It will be like Batman's utility belt, except the pockets will be designed as part of the pants and skirt! You can have the smaller pockets on the front so that you can still sit down, and the larger ones - for 1 gallon milk jugs or 2 liter sodas - on the sides and back.

The pockets can be designed to have insulated interiors to insulate you from the hot and cold grocery items, and also so that you can wipe them down aftewards to reduce bacteria build-up. To help with all the weight of these groceries, designers might try to bring suspenders back into fashion.

Yeah, it may look a little silly walking around with very loaded pockets, but I have a solution for that as well: Get some celebrities to do this first. If you get Justin Bieber to wear such pocket-laden pants, then you'll already have tween girls screaming for such pants. And if you get Kim Kardashian to wear those, then damn, you'll have the dudes scrambling to buy them as well, because then they'll think that they'll be babe magnets! And with the tween and young dude market setting the trend, the rest of us will follow.

Being a evil, nasty, free-market capitalist, I would try to get a cut of the potential profit into this idea of mine, but I am so concerned for the environment that I'm offering my idea to the fashion designers for free, which is why I am posting it to my blog where it can be read.  The resultant cleaner environment will be thanks enough, and as a superhero, I tend to do a lot of my helpful work for free anyway.

One last note: Can I encourage some of you artists to create some pro bono examples of these fashions? You can use Justin and Kim as your models. I ask pro bono, because we are doing this for the greater good. Think of the environment, you guys!

Ah, I feel good! :-)

Inspirations for my costume

2011-08-06T07:48:00.001-05:00

On Facebook, one of the friends of the artist, Rocio Zucchi (who did the recent artworks that you've seen here on my blog) asked if my costume was a cross between Power Girl and Mary Marvel (both of DC Comics). That gave me the idea to discuss what inspirations went into my costume.

One is She-Ra, the sister of He-Man. The other is Isis, a DC superhero from the 70s. However, I can see how PG and MM can be seen as influences. Below are pics of all four of them, and you can see how they would have an influence on the design of my costume.

Three of the four are basically white costumes with a white skirt, while the main influence of PG's costume on mine is the cleavage hole, and we both have that hole there for the same reason: As a distraction. And it works! LOL The smiley face is my own idea, as an additional distraction, and also as a memory device. How many superhero women do you know that have a smiley face on their boob? LOL Yeah, I'm thinking like a marketing capitalist, here! Remember, I AM a right wing nut job! Hehe!

Anyway, there ya go. Now that I've posted them below, you can see how they would indeed have an influence on the look of my costume.

New Rocio art coming starting - well, hey! TODAY!

2011-08-01T07:56:00.000-05:00

The more observant of you noticed yesterday that I changed the profile pic of both my blog and my Facebook page. What do you think? It was brought to you by the very talented and creative Rocio Zucchi, who also created the most recent artworks that I've posted. ANDDDD.... more to come!

Anyway, I really, really like this profile pic. Very soft, and very pretty, and lovely doe-eyes! :-) That's me on a good day! LOL

Just don't piss me off, or you'll see .... my other side. Mwahahahahahaha!

Thanks again, Rocio Zucchi! You got quite the skill, GF!

The other artwork by Rocio Zucchi! WHOOHOOOOO!!!!

2011-07-26T13:27:00.002-05:00

Okay, guys....

CHECK

THIS

OUT!!!!

Ain't this awesome??? I SO love it! Like last time, this most wonderful and creative work comes from the creative hands of the lovely and talented Rocio Zucchi!

What Rocio has done is captured my love of unaided flight. Yes friends, of all my superhuman powers, I love flying the most. Sometimes, when I'm up in the air like that, I'll tumble around just to feel the breeze blowing through my hair. Rocio has taken that particular moment -

- and frozen it! AWESOME!!!

Ha! Now would be a good time to answer some questions that I've had about flying. One, I don't know exactly how it is that I fly. Superhuman scientists have studied the phenomena of a flyer's ability to fly to theorize how those without wings or visible means of propulsion (like rocket or jet engines) are yet still able to take flight.

Part of the answer to that question seems to lie in the other trait that is common to all flyers, and that is that we all have some sort of telekinetic shield surrounding us when we fly. It's semi-permeable, which it would have to be so that we could breathe while we fly, but there's enough there to protect us from the rigors of unaided flight - specifically wind resistance. While flying, the wind I feel is not nearly as strong as it should be when flying at the speeds that I do. It should feel like a hurricane, but instead it feels like a gentle breeze.

The existence of this telekinetic shield seems to indicate that flyers fly by a limited form of telekinesis; that is, we move ourselves with our minds. The really odd thing about this is that there are almost no true telekinetics (TKs from here on) who can fly like I do! For some reason, true TKs can move all kinds of objects with their mind - even multiple objects at a time - but when it comes to moving themselves, the most they can do is move themselves like chess pieces on a chess board. It takes a great deal of their concentration to lift themselves up, move themselves, and most importantly, to set themselves back down *without* injuring themselves. TKs have to practice a lot when moving themselves (and others) without causing injury.

Superhuman scientists theorize that the reason flyers can fly with their limited form of telekinesis while those with true TK can't fly is because a flyer's telekinesis is solely dedicated to flight, while a true TK's power is not. This means that when I fly, my flight power takes over like a sort of automatic pilot. For a true TK, however, to make themselves move through the air, they have to be actively concentrating on themselves the whole time to keep themselves aloft. Now imagine trying to do that to go long distances.

Ah, and one more thing: Flyers seem to have a sort of radar that tells them how fast they are going and how far away from the ground that they are. This seems to also be related to their limited telekinesis, and it's important to have so that we can fly, change directions, adjust our speed, and most importantly, to land. All that takes practice, by the way, and my first few landings, I hit the ground like a meteor! Fortunately, my flight power's shields protected me somewhat, although I did get bumps and bruises (which my healing power took care of).

True TKs, however, do not have that radar, so they can't sense how far away they are from the ground. Yes, TKs have sight, but sight is a poor judge of distance in the ways that matter. The best way I can explain it is that TKs can't "feel" the distance between themselves and the ground, while a flyer with their limited telekinesis can, via the "radar" that comes with their power. So the higher up that TKs lift themselves, the greater the difficulty it is to land without injury because of their inability to sense the distance from the ground that they are, so "hopping" is the most that TKs will generally do, and only when necessary.

This should take care of most of the questions that I've gotten about my flight power. Thanks again, Rocio, for another excellent work of art! Now to take to the skies! WHOOHOOOO!!!!

Challenge to the artists!

2011-07-21T15:59:00.000-05:00

Below is an idea that I challenge you artists to create! Make something cool and I'll post it on my blog and praise you on my FB page! Here's the idea:

Do something combining Angry Birds and the Red Lantern Corps, whether it's the Angry Birds being presented a red ring, them being in the RLC, or whatever. You're the artists; use your imagination! If this idea works out, then I may think of other stuff to challenge you with! I'll be a muse! LOL

Now get drawing!

New art! Check out mini-me! :-D

2011-07-18T22:25:00.000-05:00

Ain't this great? It's a chibi version of me, engaging in my favorite activity: reading comics! Whoohoo! This outstanding piece of artwork is brought to you by the wonderfully talented Rocio Zucchi! She's an artist for various Manga works such as Shaman and Death Knight, so go check them out!

When I first set my eyes on this, I loved it right away! She's just so adorable! And not only that, there is another artwork coming by this artist! I promise you that you'll love it just as much as this one, if not even more! You'll see what I mean. :-)

Rocio, thank you thank you thank you for this most excellent piece of artwork! It's all kinds of awesomeness!

Review of the movie, Zombieland

2011-07-16T22:51:00.000-05:00

Zombieland is a nerd movie! LOL

Being a nerd myself, that alone is enough for me to watch it! But gee, there's other reasons as well!

However, before I continue, let me add the obligatory spoiler warning:

***WARNING!***

Possible spoilers ahead! If you haven't seen the movie Zombieland and don't want what's in it spoiled for you, then STOP READING NOW!

You have been warned!

Main thing to like, though, is that there be zombies! Lots of them! One debate among zombieologists is whether zombies would move fast or slow. One theory is that they would move slow and plodding because, having risen up out of the grave, they aren't exactly in shape to be bouncing around like ninjas. These are dead bodies, after all, and they are dead for a reason.

Zombieland (ZL), however, takes a different tack, and it's one that I think makes more sense than reanimated corpses. The zombies in ZL are infected with what would be a human form of rabies; that is, they are the victims of a mutated mad cow disease and become like dogs with rabies in that they go mad and are no longer in their right minds - so the only "cure" is killing them. This also means that these zombies aren't dead, just diseased, so they are the fast-moving zombie types. This thought-out concept is logical and adds to the fun and to the fear factor of the movie.

Did I say that a zombie movie was fun? Yes! Even though it is a horror movie, there is humor peppered throughout, and I imagine that if any of us were in such a situation, we probably would indulge in that sort of gallows humor as well.

Word of warning to those who might be sensitive to such things: There are a lot of scenes in which human bodies are being shot with various caliber of weaponry, so of course there are a lot of exploding heads and bodies. But who watches a zombie movie and doesn't expect those kinds of scenes? LOL There is also a lot of colorful language; f-bombs and the like. I don't think it necessarily adds or takes away from the movie, but I think if you're in the midst of a zombie apocalypse, then the fact that someone is speaking in colorful language would probably be low priority as far as the problems that need to be dealt with in such circumstances. ;-)

My favorite part of the movie happens to be the nerd lead character. He doesn't turn from a WoW nerd into a full-blown action hero - he stays a nerd, with all the shortcomings and foibles that go with it! Why should that change just because a zombie apocalypse has sprung up? Still, the circumstances of dealing with all that goes with a zombie apocalypse forces him to deal with his personality shortcomings in a logical and even humorous fashion.

There is one scene that I could totally relate to, because it's what I would probably be most concerned about if a zombie apocalypse actually hit! It would really, really irritate me if I could no longer shower on a regular basis! The two female leads had to remind each other to not say the S word so that they wouldn't be reminded of that! But enough about female vanity...

Anyway, I thought the movie was well thought out and I liked how each of the nerd's zombie rules would pop up to the side as each example presented itself. Even Bill Murray's appearance was great! There was only one scene that I have a complaint about, and that was towards the end of the movie, in which it looks like the ladies were about to drive off again with the car!

By this time, they had driven off two other times with the car. After being fooled twice, don't you think that the dudes would know to - keep the car keys to themselves??? Fortunately for the movie producers, that is the only complaint I had about ZL. :-)

Again, just a caveat that there are many scenes of zombies getting shot and blown up, so if you're squeamish about such scenes, then this might not be the movie for you. Also is the previously mentioned colorful language. Otherwise, I think you'll enjoy this movie as much as I did, because it lived up to the expectations that I had of it for a zombie movie, and more!

So, on a scale of 1 to 10 in which 1 is a bomb and 10 is THE bomb, I give ZL a 9! Yeah, I think it was that good!

Coming next week will be my review of The Kings' Speech.

Movie Review: Remember Me

2011-07-06T17:58:00.001-05:00

Over this 4th of July weekend, I watched 3 movies! Those of you who are regular readers to my blog know that I am notoriously cheap when it comes to movie watching, because I don't want to reward Hollywood by paying their outrageous fees for their unoriginal, formulaic crap! However, thanks to a special deal, I was able to rent 3 movies for $2! w00t!

I am now about to review the first of the 3 movies I watched, and that is Remember Me, which has the vampire dude from the Twilight Series, Robert Pattinson. (pausing to allow the ladies to sigh). I rented this movie because I had told a FB friend *a year ago* that I'd watch it. Who knew that a whole year would pass before I got around to it? LOL I didn't forget, GF, I've just been that busy! Anyway, before I continue, time for me to state this:

***WARNING!***

Spoilers ahead! If you have not seen the movie and don't want what's in it spoiled for you, then STOP READING NOW!

You have been warned!

And what an ending to spoil if you happened to read this before watching the movie! Okay, on to my review!

First, I think Pattinson did a great job of making you forget that he's the vampire dude from the Twilight series. He showed the right amount of emotion for each of the scenes, including one scene in which he was pissed with himself for being pwned by the father of his girlfriend. But I found the scenes with his little sister to be especially touching. He conveyed his brotherly love for her in a way that was sweet and goofy, and yet didn't delve into sugary. Pattinson's looks alone will probably be enough reason for most of the ladies to watch the movie, but his acting adds a nice additional reason to watch. I think this movie is worth watching at least once just to see him in a role other than as a vampire.

However, I am close to saying that his acting was wasted in this movie. There are three things that bother me about it. For one, it begins and ends in one of NYC's subway stations, which ain't necessarily a bad thing, but I'm not sure how that ties into the overall plot of the movie. Those scenes seem to serve only to tell us that "This is NYC" and that's pretty much it.

Next is the most irritating part of the movie for me, and that was the evilness of Pattinson's character's father in the movie. I get that the dad is a hard hearted ass; what I don't understand is why. The only reason that dad seems to be considered evil is because he is a wealthy CEO of a company. No reason or explanation is given as to why he is that way with his family; we are supposed to just accept it.

It gets especially bothersome later when he suddenly has a change of heart at the end of the movie, and also at the end of the movie when Pattinson's character happens to catch his dad's computer running a screensaver of pics of his kids at different ages. Oh, so he wasn't such a bad guy after all! Hnngh! It would have been better if the writers had made dad a complicated character instead of this cardboard CEO villain, and it might have even been shown as a trait that he shares with his son.

However, the ending is what I am still debating as to whether it works for this movie. At the end of the movie, while Pattinson's character is waiting for his dad in his office, we suddenly discover that dad's office is located in the World Trade Center. On September 11, 2001. Yes, he happens to be in the towers during the terrorist attack, and we discover that he was one of 9/11's victims.

I've been wrestling with this, and I am of two minds on it. On one hand, the ending seems artificial and contrived; like the director said, "You know what? I'm tired of this movie. Let's just kill him off in the 9/11 attack." On the other hand, the ending does kinda convey the horror of the 9/11 attack. How many life stories were ended in a similar way? On the one hand, the ending seems exploitative, but on the other hand, it does show that you never know how your life will end.

I think what might help this movie is to have a sequel, set 10 years later, and update us on how the little sister has handled losing two brothers; including one who was killed in the worst terrorist attack in US history. I understand why the advertisements for RM couldn't say: "This is a 9/11 movie", because that would have given away the ending, but now that it's been established, they can work it in to the plot of the sequel. It doesn't have to be political in any way; in fact, it can be instructive in helping us understand what the loved one of the 9/11 victims went through - and continue to go through - in their losses.

And it can neatly tie into the first movie in this way: In RM, the little girl lost one brother to suicide when he turned 22. She also lost her second brother at age 22 in the 9/11 attack. This movie's plot can reflect that she is now about to turn 22. So what happens? Does she also die in some sad, tragic way at age 22; or does the movie end when she turns 23? In any case, a sequel can help tie up some plotholes and loose ends, and also convey a message about how life goes on, even after the worst terror attack in history.

On a scale of 1 to 10 in which 1 is a bomb and 10 is THE bomb, I give RM a 7.5. It might have been at least an 8.5 if the writers had done some explaining as to why dad was a hard-ass jerk, but Pattinson's acting helped save my rating from being lower. If the producers of RM make a sequel along the lines of what I described above, I just might revise my ratings upwards. :-)

Coming soon will be my reviews of The King's Speech and Zombieland.

Epic Rap Battles of History: I'm a fan!

2011-06-28T10:53:00.000-05:00

This is an example of how I wish I had listened to my GFs sooner about something that they knew that I would love. In this instance, it's Epic Rap Battles of History! One of my GFs has been pestering me for months to watch them, and finally I did.

Okay, they're probably NSFW, but they are freakin' hilarious! I watched them all! It's hard to pick my favorite, but if I had to, it would be Sarah Palin vs. Lady Gaga.

Here are some other epic rap battles that I hope they consider. Feel free to suggest others!

Where's Waldo vs. Carmen Sandiego
Marie Antoinette vs. Queen Victoria
Smurfette vs Tinkerbell
Winston Churchill vs. Julius Caesar
Amy Winehouse vs Britney Spears

More to come for sure! :-D

A new ability for Power Girl's boobs?

2011-06-19T20:02:00.001-05:00

What the hell is this? Power Girl's boobs are now some sort of - lightning rod? They're boobs, not some sort of electricity insulators!

DC, this is Power Girl, not Captain freakin' Marvel (or Shazam, as I think they are calling him nowadays. Legal stuff, I believe)! If you read the story, you see that PG does indeed take a lightning bolt to the chest, so the cover is not just some sort of artistic license taken. I know you're supposed to "suspend your disbelief" when it comes to comics, but c'mon! I would think that taking a lightning bolt to the chest would hurt even her!

Just sayin'...

This whole Anthony Weiner business really has me wondering about you guys.

2011-06-15T18:11:00.001-05:00

Only you guys can tell me this, because sometimes your thinking patterns escape me. I speak, of course, of Anthony Weiner and the scandal that he is in. What would possess a man to shoot pics of his junk and send it out electronically where others can see it? Can one of you explain that for me, please?

And while we're at it, can one of you explain why men like Anthony Weiner thinks that women want pics of their junk. There was even a PSA about it, but I forgot the name of it. Anyway, if any of you can explain any of this, then I would appreciate it.

Dianisis and Foreskin Man: Leftist superheroes!

2011-06-10T06:44:00.004-05:00

San Francisco now has two superheroes!

One is Dianisis, the other is Foreskin Man! Seriously!

If you watch Dianisis' video, you'll see that it's horribly bad! Just look what she does to the first "villain" (made out at a poor man's Dick Dastardly): She fills a trash can with water, throws him in it, and... slams AND holds the lid down with him in it! In other words, anywhere else other than a cartoon and that person drowns! And it doesn't get any better after that. (By the way, is that really a condom over the Washington Monument? Yeesh!).

And I just don't know what to say about Foreskin Man - other than that I'm surprised that such blatant, anti-Semitic, Nazi-era works could seriously attempt to be sold as "mainstream" today - and in this country. Geez, the "hero" dude is even a blue-eyed blond "Aryan" type! I mean, DAAAAAMN! Go to the site and click on the link for one of the comics. Bad enough, dudes, that just about every bad Jewish stereotype is thrown out there, but at the end, what does the alleged "hero" do? He does what would be considered kidnapping outside the liberal world!

Egads, these are horribly bad. And it's amazing considering that a lot of comic book talent and cartoon animation out there is liberal; given that, I have to ask: This is the best that could be done? There's a joke or snide comment that could be made about the fact that they both hail from San Francisco, but I'll refrain from saying it. However, I think what these two should do is get together, join up with Captain Condom and form the Leftist Justice League! They already have access to comic publishing and video production, so they're good to go! I might even buy it out of a "train wreck" sort of perverse fascination!

My prediction about the upcoming Palin film

2011-05-27T15:40:00.001-05:00

Friends,

I've told you many times that I know my liberal friends' thinking inside and out, having been born and raised by Marxist parents. Thus, here is my prediction of how the media will respond to Sarah Palin's upcoming film (**especially** if it helps rocket her popularity among the voters):

It will be compared to Leni Riefenstahl's film, Triumph of the Will.
And if you try to cite Godwin's Law to those who compare Palin's film to Triumph, they'll just dismiss you with "This is different!"

You watch. I'm going to be right about this. :-)

New artwork of me! Totally awesome is an understatement!

2011-05-23T13:58:00.000-05:00

Wow, guys! Check this out! Isn't this totally awesome? I love it love it love it! This is so great! WOW!!!!

This outstanding piece of work comes to you via the artist Pasquale Qualano, who has done work for Marvel Comics! Also kudos to the colorist Ylenia di Napoli and that excellent example of how the lighting and the coloring of the artwork adds a whole other layer to how the final piece comes out.

It goes to show that each step of the comic art is done by artists. From the initial sketch, which sets the framework of the artwork, to the finalized pencil sketch, to the inking, and to the coloring; each person is an artist in their own right. Put together, and you have examples like above.

Okay, I'm going to stop talking now so that you can take a minute to click on the art and look it over so you can check out the detail. Go ahead. I'll wait. :-)

So what did you think? Ain't it grand? Many, many thanks to you, Pasquale! I provided a link to your site so that others can see your other artwork, and to show that you also do sculpture! You are one talented dude, amigo! Ylenia, if you have a link to some of your artwork, I'll gladly provide that as well.

Oh! And thanks, Pasquale, for showing that what I wear on my legs is armor!

It is armor, people! It can't be simple cloth boots because of all the abuse I take during one of my battles, and also when I land. The boots need to be sturdy enough to take the impact with the ground; otherwise the soles will rip right off and then I'll trip and land in a rough tumble! And yes, I've done that before! It's why we worked on the design of the boots that I now wear!

When I first took up blogging as a superhero, I never imagined how much I would enjoy all this artwork of me. The different interpretations of my look have been absolutely fascinating, and I love every artwork. It also gives me an idea of what artists' models (and in a sense, the models of photographers) feel when they see themselves captured in image. When it's a work of art like the example above, there's a certain pride of having been part of that.

Thanks again, Pasquale and Ylenia. :-D

Dear Amy Myers: You're being used to ridicule female politicians!

2011-05-18T05:19:00.003-05:00

Today's blog entry goes out to Amy Myers, the 16 year old that is the center of recent news stories calling out Michelle Bachmann to challenge her because of her mistake of where the famed "shot heard round the world" was fired. According to this article, Myers is now running for class president. I doubt Myers or Bachmann will ever read this blog post, but what the hey - I had to get the following off of my chest.

-------------------------------------------------------

Dear Amy,

First, let me wish you well on your pursuit of class president of your school. Awesome! Best of luck! :-D

And I do hope Michelle Bachmann takes up your challenge, as well as all holders of office. They ALL should have a good knowledge of our country and its history. However, in the pursuit of Bachmann, you need to know that you are being used in a way that I am sure that you did not intend. I say this because in the article linked above, you state that you were angry that so many of the most visible female politicians were seen as fodder for jokes and ridicule.   I'm afraid that this is not quite accurate.

Women like Sarah Palin and Bachmann are not being ridiculed because they are women, they are being ridiculed for being conservative - who happen to be women.   What you are noticing is that the critics of such conservative women are taking what would be called cheap shots at them, and it is a cheap shot because they are ridiculing them in ways that they would not ridicule men - or even women who are politically liberal - by taking shots at their looks, their clothes, or even their children.

Had you publicly challenged Nancy Pelosi or Elena Kagen, then you would have been a non-story to the press. No one in the national press takes cheap shots at Pelosi or Kagen, because they are politically liberal, and they don't tolerate anyone else taking cheap shots at them, either. And they certainly wouldn't report on some 16 year old teen from New Jersey publicly challenging them over a factual mistake they made, no matter how bad the mistake was. My dear, publicly criticizing liberal women just isn't done by the press.

Criticizing politically conservative women is a whole 'nother matter, however. In the eyes of the left-leaning (and they are left-leaning, no matter how much they deny it) press, conservative women such as Palin and Bachmann are fair game for all manners of crass, crude and unprofessional insults. Not only that, they are not above using you as a potential opportunity to further humiliate Bachmann. It's why you haven't heard from Bachmann yet; because she doesn't want to give the press the satisfaction that they successfully prodded her into responding to you.

Not only that, to take up your challenge would end up hurting her in two ways: One, she kicks your butt. Then the press will say, "Oh, look. Big mean Bachmann takes it out on a poor defenseless child!" (and they WILL call you a child in order to make Bachmann look even worse. Then there is the second way, in which you defeat Bachmann. Then the press will say, "Oh, look. Bachmann is so stupid that she can't even win against a child! Therefore she shouldn't run for office." Either result is a losing scenario for her.

Truth be told, Amy, all politicians make the kinds of mistakes Bachmann made.   For example, back when President Obama was campaigning in 2008, he claimed to have visited all 57 states in the country (and with one still to go!). I think that kind of factual error is actually greater than Bachmann's historical error, but again, all candidates make these kinds of mistakes. The reason? They're all human. Even the female candidates. So if President Obama can be forgiven for momentarily thinking that we had 58 states, then I think Bachmann can be forgiven for an historical error.

Ultimately, though, what this shows is that the liberals share the same fear that they say conservative men have, and that's the fear of powerful women. As you run for office at your school, you might encounter that fear from others as well - and not just from boys but from girls as well. Just know that you are not alone. Know that women such as Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann, and Hillary Clinton encounter this all the time.

The way to counter this is not to run away, because that's what they want you to do. Instead, stand tall and proud, because that's the best way to fight off bullies. And yes, those that would take cheap shots at powerful women like Palin and Bachmann are indeed bullies. Bullies ultimately are cowards, because cheap shots are what bullies use against their targets, and bullies are also not above using others to do their bullying. This is why I am asking you to not be used by them.

However, I am not going to ask you to retract your challenge to Michelle Bachmann, but instead to expand your challenge to any lawmaker willing to take you on. That would show that you are a woman with guts! Just be prepared to not be a story to them any longer, because then you will no longer have a use to them for their bullying tactics (because again, no one challenges one of their own liberal kind). But at least you will have stood up for yourself and freed yourself from being used by them.

So stop being a tool for bullies, Amy. Instead, be a force for good and righteousness by standing up to those who would use you for their own selfish ends. Once you take this lesson to heart, then you will have taken an important first step in being a true leader in our society; something our society will need in the future. God bless you on your strength and courage, Amy Myers. Stay on the right path, and good things will come your way. :-)

Turning "Skeletoes" into Phat Lewtz for Nerdz!

2011-05-16T09:30:00.000-05:00

Over the weekend my friends, inspiration hit me!

When I was out shopping for shoes, I happened to see some shoes called Skeletoes, which are basically running shoes meant to replicate running barefoot without being barefoot. Why would someone make such a shoe, much less wear it? Well, according to the theory, feet were meant to be bare. Shoes actually hinder the muscles and tendons of the feet to develop as they should, but not everyone can go around everywhere barefoot. Thus, some wise guy came up with Skeletoes, which attempt to replicate going around barefoot.

So, you might ask, what inspiration hit me when I saw these shoes? I'm gonna tell ya! You'll love it!

Now, it's no secret that a lot of you nerds out there are out of shape from all your teching and gaming and comic reading and other such nerdery. Still, my little nerdlings, you do need to take care of yourselves - if for no other reason than to keep on teching, gaming, and reading comic books! So how do we get nerds used to a sedentary lifestyle to take up some physical activity? Here's where the inspiration comes in!

Take these Skeletoes, make them skin colored and with hair on the top and call them Hobbit Feet! And then promote them as Phat Lewtz for Nerdz! This might inspire the pudgy little nerdlings into trying them out, even if they run around in costume to complement the shoes. Yeah, there's the risk of the sight of a lot of nerds running around dressed as hobbitses, but at least you're getting them out of the house and exercising, right? And with exercising, we all know that half the battle is getting your ass out there and exercising. Well, now the nerds will have some motivation to go try them out! It's win-win, if you ask me...

Sigh... I feel that I've done a great thing for mankind and nerdkind. No thanks are necessary - the satisfaction of a job well done is gratitude enough. :-)

Now go out there nerds, and tone up those feet! (and don't forget to shower after exercising....)

Coming soon: New blog banner! Also, have you seen the new Thor movie?

2011-05-09T18:08:00.000-05:00

Well... it's on the current temporary blog banner, and it's also the title of this particular blog post. So...

...do I really need to repeat myself a third time? LOL

I promise you guys, you'll love the new blog banner! :-D

In other news, did you guys get your free comics on Saturday?

And did you go check out the new Thor movie? I didn't go see it because you all know I hate to pay for movies if they turn out to be crappy, and that's especially so if it's in 3-D! Why in the world would a crappy movie be any better if it's in 3-D?

Anyway, so far I've heard mixed messages on Thor. What about you guys that have gone to see it? Is it worth my hard-earned superhero money, or should I go beat up the movie producers?

Tomorrow is Free Comic Book Day!

2011-05-06T08:08:00.000-05:00

Just a reminder to you, my little nerdlings, that tomorrow is Free Comic Book Day!

You like comics, right? And you like free stuff, right? So what's better than free... comics!

Head to your local comic shop tomorrow and get in while the gettin's good! :-D

And if you want, tell them a busty superhero chick sent ya! ;-)

Q&A: Am I a god?

2011-04-29T07:26:00.004-05:00

I decided to answer the following question, because it's been asked more than once, and that question is: Am I a god?

No, this isn't in reference to that old Ghostbusters movie scene in which the answer is supposed to be "YES!" (that scene was hilarious, by the way. I love that movie). Rather, it's in reference to my status as a superhuman.

The thing is, in my "universe", it's theorized that the "gods" of ancient myth were actually superhumans, and possibly the same group of superhumans who went traveling about the world, because there are a lot of commonalities in the creation myths of many ancient human societies all over the world. However, that has never been proven to be the case.

The current going theory of superhumans is that we are an offshoot of humanity rather than the next step up in the human evolutionary ladder. This is theorized because we have very low numbers and our reproduction rates are very low. It's so low in fact, that if it weren't for our special abilities, we probably would have died off a long time ago. In a sense, our powers are artificially preserving our existence on the evolutionary march of history when most offshoots would have ceased to exist due to their very low birth rates.

Thus, this makes us different from "metahumans" (also known as "mystery men") of the DC Comics universe and "mutants" of the Marvel Comics universe in that while superhumans seem to be a large and growing part of their respective universes, in my universe, we are regarded as an evolutionary dead end (this theory is not universally accepted, of course). So being an evolutionary dead end is rather different than being a god, wouldn't you say?

The issue of our status on the evolutionary ladder is still being debated, and things could change if there is an uptick of the superhuman population. It could also be that our numbers are so low because there might be some out there who don't know that they have a superhuman ability. A superpower is not always as obvious as super strength would be. Perhaps in the coming years when superhuman physiology is better understood, then we'll have a better idea of our evolutionary status. But I doubt we'll be raised to the status of gods again. :-)

Death Panel 2.1? As Palin would say, "You betcha!"

2011-04-14T10:53:00.000-05:00

This article can try to explain that Obama's new deficit reduction plan won't become "death panel 2.1", but don't fool yourselves, folks. In order for all that the author is describing to work as he's describing it, a lot of people have to do their job right, and if the government has trouble keeping those damn air traffic controllers awake, then how can we expect them to run this program in the way that the author describes? Somewhere along the line, some lazy bureaucrat is going to cut time and costs to leave people out of necessary medical care, and we'll have a de facto "death panel" as a result. Socialized medicine, under whatever guise it comes in, is an epic fail, and I'll keep saying it until it sinks in.

My thanks for all the birthday wishes!

2011-04-13T15:00:00.002-05:00

On Facebook, I tell ya, I felt the love! Thank you all for the birthday wishes! You're the best! :-)

My take on federal funding of Planned Parenthood

2011-04-12T18:06:00.001-05:00

It's time now for me to give my take on whether federal funds should go to Planned Parenthood. For those who know me, they probably assumed that I am against it, seeing as how I'm pro-life. And they would be right! What they don't quite know is how I can be opposed to something they consider so paramount to a woman's rights; especially a woman's right to choose (which always means "choose abortion" and not giving birth).

Well, it's simple, as I'm about to explain. This fight over the federal budget is over what gets cut and what doesn't.   Cutting federal funding to PP is a no-brainer, and after I explain why, you should be on board with me on this regardless of where you stand on the abortion issue.   So here's my take:

PP is not a federal agency nor a department of the federal goverment; it's a for-profit entity.   That is, they're in business to make money. Lots of it. Were my liberal friends not so lock-step with legalized abortion, they'd see how PP is exactly one of those evil blood-sucking profit mill corporations that they hate so much. This fight should be a no-brainer to them, but so far my efforts have proven futile in trying to show that to them.

There is another reason to oppose giving federal funds to PP: One of the arguments to fund PP is that they provide women's services not related to abortion. BUT, isn't that what Obamacare is going to do? For my liberal friends I ask this question: Isn't giving funds to PP for services that one of their cherished government clinics could provide demonstrate a lack of faith of what Obamacare can do for those women? You believe in Obama and his health care initiative, don't you? Well, if you support precious public funds to go to PP instead of Obamacare, then I have to question your faith in Obamacare.

Consideration also must be given to this question: Theoretically, PP - because it is a private institution - can turn anyone away. Has any news media checked on them to see if PP turns away any women in poverty? Has any news media checked their books to see how they spend our tax money? Theoretically, since PP is taking federal funds, then they have to open their books for our inspection, just to make sure they are on the up-and-up. And recall that transparency was one of Obama's promises; so I say it's time to shine the light on PP and what they do with our funds. I challenge any of the news media to look into how PP uses our money. If you have that much faith in PP, then this should not be a problem for you.

If, however, they investigate PP and discover that they are misusing our funds, then it's all the more reason to see that our funds are taken away from them and put into Obamacare so that the women in poverty (that are alleged to be the reason for keeping the federal funding of PP) will receive the medical aid that they need.

So, my liberal friends, if you are truly honest with yourself, you'll have to admit that I'm right about all this. So why are you just sitting there? Call your local news media and have them look into PP's books! There are women in poverty out there whose very lives could depend on your efforts to find out the truth!

This has been a FMFLLFs update.

Comics Talk: Marvel's Fear Itself

2011-04-11T22:38:00.000-05:00

Over the weekend I purchased the first two issues of Marvel Comics' Fear Itself (one series is titled Fear Itself while the other is titled Fear Itself: Front Line)

My dread fear: I am so afraid that Marvel is going to make this another Civil War; that is, something that has an enormous buildup and a total flop as an ending. Civil War was such a disappointment for me that it was outdone in epic fail-ness only this year by DC's horribly bad Brightest Day (BD was so bad that I quit on the series!).

After having read both FI and FI:FL, I am cautiously optimistic so far on how this will turn out. Make that VERY cautiously optimistic. CW started out well enough, so that's why I have this hesitancy with FI - I don't want to be that disappointed again.

I think the direction that this series will go will largely depend upon who is selected as "worthy" for all those magic hammers that have dropped out of the sky.

So for now, I'll reserve judgment until we find out this stuff. Stay tuned, folks, and be prepared to hold your nose in case this turns into another stinker! LOL

What's next? Incorporate my boobs?

2011-04-08T10:29:00.000-05:00

I've been asked enough times in the past couple days to comment on the website, Incorporate My Uterus, that I'm going to do that now.

First, before anyone starts "correcting" my "misunderstanding" of the point that the website is trying to make, let me say now that I get the point, so don't waste your time. :-)

Yeah, I get that a lot; others - specifically liberals - trying to "clarify" things for me as if I were stupid when I don't fall in line automatically with whatever belief system is being touted or cleverly expressed, as in this Incorporate My Uterus campaign.

The thing is, when I was a teen and well into my adulthood, I was told over and over how critically important it is that we don't let men reduce us women into just tits and ass. Whenever we are reduced to objects or body parts, then we lose our identity, as the line goes. And yet, as demonstrated in this campaign, it's apparently acceptable if liberals reduce us to body parts.

So with that, my take is that when liberals reduce us to body parts, then they only show themselves to be hypocrites. Either it's wrong all the time to be reduced to body parts, or it's not. There can be no exceptions made just because the one doing the reducing happens to be one of the "good guys". I am more than my uterus, just as I am more than my tits and ass.

So my response to the creators of this campaign is this: Stay consistent with the message of respecting the whole woman, because it goes for you just as much as it does for those you oppose. No matter how cleverly done a campaign may be, reducing a woman to her uterus is just as bad as her being reduced to her tits and ass, and all the creators will have accomplished is to make asses of themselves.

My blogging may be cut back for awhile

2011-03-29T19:46:00.005-05:00

Hey guys, Sorry I haven't posted much lately, mainly because my real life has gotten that busy.

Trust me when I say that it's a "good" kind of busy, but it's also the kind of "busy" that's eating up a lot of my free time - including finishing up tons of drafts of my blog entries. Just so you know, I enjoy writing this blog. Very much, actually. But the demands on my personal time are getting to the point that I can't set aside the kind of time necessary to keep up the kind of pace that I want to be posting here, which is roughly 2-3 times a week.

So with that, I must consider the unfortunate possibility of curtailing my blogging drastically, because I don't want the quality of my posts to suffer by trying to write in a hurry. And in case you're wondering, there is a very slight possibility that I might have to stop blogging altogether.

Just so you know, I don't want that - I want to continue writing, so let me ask you all something about what I can do. Would you be willing to accept a very curtailed blog posting schedule? We are talking maybe 2-4 posts **a month**. There might be times in which I might be able to post more than that, but judging by what's ahead for me in my real life at least through the summer, I will be lucky to get out 2-4 posts a month.

Maybe - MAYBE - in the fall, things might slow down for me where I can return to my regular 2-3 posts a week, but that's too far ahead for me to predict right now. I can offer this in exchange: Since posting to Facebook doesn't eat up as much of my time, I can try to increase my FB presence there.

I do enjoy the commenting on news stories and the like on there. Will this work for you all? If you haven't already friended me there, then look me up as "Andromeda Perseus" and drop me a friend request.

I do thank you all for reading my blog. Again, I do not plan to stop blogging, but I will have to curtail how much I post here. Hopefully an increased presence on FB will make up for what I cut back on posting here on my blog.

Anyway, do let me know your thoughts on this, either here as a comment or on FB. Thanks! You're the best! :-D

NOW baby boomer feminists get it! Well, sort of...

2011-03-24T10:50:00.008-05:00

This article tells a lot of what I had been saying in the third part of my Worgen Generation blog post. It also demonstrates the failure of feminism and its alleged intents of helping young women to be strong and independent. After about 40 to 50 years of basically owning the conversation of women and women's issues, feminists have failed in the most important way in that they failed to instill basic common sense into today's young girls and women. Let me highlight one particular passage from that article to illustrate an important point that I want to make here:

"So here we are, the feminist and postfeminist and postpill generation. We somehow survived our own teen and college years (except for those who didn't), and now, with the exception of some Mormons, evangelicals and Orthodox Jews, scads of us don't know how to teach our own sons and daughters not to give away their bodies so readily. We're embarrassed, and we don't want to be, God forbid, hypocrites."

So you see what's going on here? The mom in this article is demonstrating a classic Baby Boomer trait in which she is more concerned about herself and how she'll appear to her daughter than being concerned with doing what's right for her daughter. Over and over in that article she mentions regret over how she lived her own youth and that she wishes she hadn't given "it" away.

Wait, give what away?

Did you catch that?

Did you notice she alludes to "the word" without actually saying it?

Know what word that is? Wanna take a guess?

Well, it starts with "v".

Another hint: It's considered a four-letter word nowadays even though it has 9 letters in it.

If you said "virginity", then good for you! Basically, this article is an argument for waiting until marriage before having sex, but it tries desperately to avoid saying that directly.

So as to not sound like a prude, of course.

But if her own life experience has told her that she would have been better off waiting until marriage, and if her own friends' experiences also say the same thing, then why not come out and say it? And why not try to encourage their daughters to not make the same mistake?

Oh, that's right. They don't want to sound like prudes. Avoiding even the appearance of prudery trumps logic and common sense.

Look, I could say here again the arguments and reasoning as to why waiting until marriage makes the best sense for young women, especially in how they relate (and procreate!) with young men, but no doubt you'll tune me out the very second that you read my words, no matter how much sense I make in creating my argument. So instead, read that article again, and then again, until you see that the author is making the argument that waiting until marriage to have sex makes the most sense for young women. If you ask her, she'll deny it, but if you read in between the lines, you'll see that that's exactly what she's saying.

And maybe one day, she'll even admit it to herself.

But probably not before her daughter has an unplanned pregnancy. \:-(

Real Life Superheroes and The Code of my world

2011-03-18T18:11:00.007-05:00

Earlier this week on FB, I had mentioned this website, the Real Life Superheroes. They are a group of real people who have taken to wearing superhero-styled costumes and going out to fight crime. In other words, they are living the lives previously seen only in comic books. So the question is, is this a good idea?

Well, I say that no, it's not a good idea. While superheroing is cool in the comic books, trying to do that in real life is taking the law into their own hands; that is, it's called vigilantism. It becomes a problem because each person has a different idea of "justice".

No society can possibly function if everyone is out trying to impose their idea of "justice" on the rest of us. If our society is going to advance in any way, shape, or form, then we all must try to abide by a set of agreed-upon set of rules so that we can concentrate on other things. If there are any problems with the agreed-upon set of rules, then that society can try to work it out.

There are, of course, some variances and subtleties that I'm leaving out (mainly in regards to living in an oppressive regime), but that's because they aren't necessary to the basic argument that taking the law into your own hands is generally not a good idea.

By the way, in my "universe", only those who work for the government's Department of Superhuman Studies are allowed to don costumes and fight crime in the traditional comic book sense. Regular humans are especially discouraged from wearing costumes and fighting crime in the comic book tradition because of a group of superhuman supremacists known as The Code.

The "code" of The Code refers to the genetic code that gives superhumans their powers, and like all supremacists, they believe that thier "community"; that is, the superhuman community, is above regular humans. They reject the current theories of superhuman scientists that say that superhumans are an offshoot of humanity rather than the next step up in human evolution.

Anyway, one of the core beliefs of The Code is that only superhumans can wear costumes and live the lives as depicted in comic books. Silly I know, but they think that only costumed superhuman can possibly come close to living up to the ideals shown in comics. Governments at all levels, from federal to state down to nearly all larger cities have laws forbidding humans from wearing superhero-styled costumes - not to oppress them but to protect them from The Code, who get so offended by humans wearing such costumes that they will punish them. If the costumed human is lucky, then the Code member will simply rip the costume off of them, but some members of The Code will use their powers to torture or even kill humans in costume.

In case you're wondering, The Code tolerates me wearing a superhuman costume because I'm superhuman, but they view me as a traitor because I work for the government. I've been in a constant battle with them, going back and forth with them trying to kill me because I work for the "oppressors of superhuman kind" and them trying to recruit me into their ranks. Same goes for Lucky Shot, my co-worker. In fact, one of the few things me and Lucky agree on is that we both can't stand The Code.

I'll try to write more on The Code another time, because they are a very interesting topic of study. Have a great weekend!

My take on the new Wonder Woman costume...

2011-03-18T18:04:00.003-05:00

In case you're wondering what I think of the new Wonder Woman costume for the upcoming TV series, I can sum it up in three words. Ready?

NOT

LIKE!

It's horrible! The bustier is tolerable, but lose the damn early 1990s pants and those ugly blue boots! Why didn't they contact me about this? I would have told them what would work best!

My initial impressions of the upcoming series just took a dive, gang.

Blech.

Busy week this week, so - see ya next week

2011-03-09T10:06:00.001-06:00

Just an FYI, this week is going to be pretty busy for me, so I won't be posting again until probably Tuesday, when I have some time off. See you then!

I'll still be on FB, by the way.

Why the "Worgen Generation?" Part 3 of 3

2011-03-04T13:15:00.002-06:00

And now we come to the third and last part of why I think we should name our generation the "Worgen Generation".

3.) The use of the worgen also reflects something about our upbringing, and to better explain that, I have posted a page from the current comics series "Curse of the Worgen" (this is from issue #3) at the bottom of my post. Please read it before continuing, then come back here.

***(continue here)***

In WoW lore, the city of Gilneas is a kingdom of humans that had shut itself off from the rest of the world in order to protect itself from what it saw was the increasing evils of the world (in this case, the world is named Azeroth). The good leaders had noble intentions, but such isolationist actions rarely succeed, and eventually the city found itself being attacked by a race known as the Forsaken (who belong to the aforementioned Horde), a group of undead zombies who have managed to regain their sentience.

Not only that, the Gilneans also found themselves attacked from within, by wolf-like creatures that eventually came to be known as worgen. The worgen curse is passed down by being bitten by a worgen, so eventually nearly the whole city was infected with the worgen curse, including its king, Genn Graymane, who had initially kept this secret from his subjects until later.

The worgen curse was brought to Gilneas by a night elf druid (night elves are a part of the Alliance) named Ralaan who is entirely convinced of the rightness of his "cause", which is to introduce the world to what he feels is the blessing of "Goldrinn" (a wolf god in WoW who is the source of the ability to turn into worgen). Becoming a worgen also means taking on and abandoning yourself into a primal and feral fury. Ralaan claims that becoming a worgen frees the mind from the inhibitions that we tend to impose on it, and he evens goes so far as to call it enlightenment and the thought processes while under the influence of being a worgen as "purity of thought". To run wild, in other words, is to run free, and that's what he wants to share with everyone.

Does this sound familiar? This is basically the bill of goods that our baby boomer parents and liberal leaders have fed us all this time - to abandon ourselves to our basic and carnal urges. They have fed this to us because they have fed this to themselves, believing somehow that releasing ourselves from our inhibitions and freeing ourselves to our various lusts will open our minds and broaden our horizons. Some of them got so caught up in their perverse definition of "enlightenment" that they abandoned certain other responsibilities - like to their children. But rather than feel guilty about abandoning their parental responsibilities to us, they instead tried to assuage their guilt by indoctrinating us into their hedonistic lifestyle.

Before you think I'm exaggerating here, think about your upbringing. First, consider that legalized abortion became available for our parents, who at the time were in the process of abandoning themselves to their lusts and urges, and as we all know, being pregnant tends to get in the way of hedonists practicing their "craft", and we just can't have that, can we? And who were these little obstructionists? Us! Our generation lost a great deal of our number - one third of us, according to some estimates - because the majority of those who got abortions simply didn't want to put up with the inconvenience of having and raising a baby. Sucks to be us, right?

Those of you of my generation who are reading these words were the lucky ones. However, our troubles didn't end there. Our generation also happened to be the ones that were latchkey kids; that is, you pretty much had to wake yourself up to get yourself ready for school and you had to walk yourself to school in the mornings and you had to walk yourselves back to an empty home and had to prepare your own meals. Why? Because your parents (if they were still married to each other) were gone early in the morning and often returned late at night.

How many of you also spent a great deal of time in daycare? How many of you spent a lot of time with your grandparents, or aunts or uncles? How many of you were *raised* by your grandparents, or aunts or uncles? How many of you have had multiple step-parents, and step-sibling, and half-sibling? How many marriages have your parents had? And most importantly, how many of you have been told by your parents that they are doing all this "for you"? Oh really? The multiple marriages and the mix-and-match families was for our benefit?

I wish that these parents would at least have the honesty to admit that they did all this for *their* benefit, and what was best for the kids was actually an afterthought. When they did do things "for us", it was actually to benefit them in some way. Also consider this when many of you were teens: How many of you knew a friend or had a friend who knew a friend whose parents were willing to buy them cigarettes, booze or drugs? I knew quite a few. Why would these parents do such a thing? This will probably also sound familiar: They wanted to be their children's"friend". I'm not a psychologist, but if I were to hazard a guess, I would say that this was their subconscious way of making up for their lack of parenting skills. But what kind of parent makes up for their absenteeism by handing their child a pack of cigarettes or a bottle of booze?

On top of all this was the fact that in school, we were subjected to all the stupid educational "theories" to come down the pike, and we were made the subjects of every stupid social experimentation they could come up with - all for "our own good", of course! I can't tell you how many times I watched friends of mine suffer needlessly because of the stupid selfish and hedonistic philosophies that our parents and teachers followed simply because that's what their contemporaries did. In other words, they were all being conformists in their nonconformity. You would think the irony would have smacked them in the head at some point!

Anyway, to wrap this up: We were a captive audience, much like the citizens of Gilneas in their walled city, because these people were our parents and our teachers. They followed their own "Ralaans" and their ideas of releasing yourself into your primal and carnal lusts as enlightenment. We were made to follow in these philosophies because we were raised - no, make that indoctrinated - into it much like the citizens of Gilneas who were infected with the worgen curse, so a bunch of us ran wild like the worgen did in Gilneas. This is why I say that we are worgen. We are the Worgen Generation.

But there are worgen who fought the feral passions through help and through magic and medicine that helped control those passions. They regained their self-control even as they still possessed the wolf-like body, but it's a battle they will have to fight for the rest of their lives. Much like we will have to fight our demons. But friends, we can do it, and we must do it. There is a night elf priest in the comic named Belysra who felt guilt over her role in the worgen infestation of the Gilnean population, and made up for it by helping Gilneans who are cursed as worgens to control their feral passions. I want to be our generation's Belysra.

The comic page below is the point that I want many more of us to get to - the realization that we have been misled by false prophets and that we have to take it upon ourselves to bring us out of the sort of "enlightenment" that they have promised. We may have been "cursed" by people who should have been our providers and protectors, but it doesn't mean that we have to stay "cursed". But first we have to open our eyes to the problem. Only then can we get to the point that the worgen is at in the page below.

So friends, let's take control of our lives and our destinies, and let's start by controlling the name by which we refer to ourselves: Let's be the Worgen Generation. May our howls be heard the world over!

Why the "Worgen Generation?" Part 2 of 3

2011-03-02T07:51:00.002-06:00

Today continues my discussion for calling ourselves the "Worgen Generation". Part 3 will come Friday.

2.) The use of worgen also reflects how we communicate with each other. To my knowledge, our generation is the first to make such extensive use of online communication. That can be done in the game of WoW, obviously, but we also make use of text-messaging, Facebook, and tweeting. We are the first to live, play and communicate in these virtual environments. I know there are concerns that by being in the virtual world so much, we are losing interpersonal skills, but I say that this does not have to be the case.

We have seen in recent weeks what technological interpersonal communication can do by the recent protests in the Middle East to help organize and protest the various countries' leaders. But this had been done a couple of years back in Iran and after that in the Tea Party movement in this country. We had utilized our technological skills to good use, and thwarted "the powers that be" by being in communication with each other beyond their control. They can, of course, cut off cellphone and Internet usage, but we had already lit the fuse of uprising by that point and have already created alternate forms of communications by that time.

In fact, compare our technological form of protest with the forms of “protest” the Baby Boomers used - that is, “sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll” – and see which had a more substantial and instantaneous effect. While our parents “tuned in, turned on, and dropped out”, our generation is toppling leaders – even leaders that have been established for decades. Leave the boomers with their drug-addled brains, venereal disease, dusty LPs, and “misty water-colored memories” of the way they were; we’ll take our technology and the societal changes that we can actually see taking place in front of our eyes, thank-you-very-much!

It's important to think of that: We had bypassed the usual methods the "powers that be" of controlling the message and content by being in contact with each other in these very personal and yet very open methods. In the past, a person of power who wanted to control the message would dump loads of money to various message outlets like the media. Now, however, we can be tweeting with each other in a matter of literally seconds, and we will have already spread our message to each other long before the person in question even knows what we've said.

In a sense, you can even say that we have our own language with "textspeak". For instance, most of my generation knows what this means virtually instantaneously: OMG! CYBI? IWL, AYS? LOL! I'm sure that most of you older folks can eventually figure out what I said, but I bet it took you a lot longer than the folks my age. The benefit of textspeak is that we can translate it faster than you can even if you happen to intercept our messages.

It can be said, really, that each generation speaks its own "language" that the previous generation doesn't understand, so why should we be any different? The benefit of being so adept at interpersonal technological communication is that we are readily available for each other - literally just a Tweet away! We can be in touch instantaneously with a lot more of our friends faster than you can be in touch with yours even your speed-dial! :-D

In closing, let me say that: All your communication base are belong to us! >:-)

On Friday, I will discuss the last point of suggesting the "Worgen Generation". See you then!

Why the "Worgen Generation"? Part 1 of 3

2011-02-24T16:41:00.009-06:00

Last week I had introduced my suggestion to name my generation (generally, those in their 20's who mostly were the children of Baby Boomers), and I suggested the "Worgen Generation" so that we named ourselves rather than allow ourselves to be named by someone else - especially by those of another generation.

Thing is, folks - it's been said that our generation will be the first to not outdo the previous generation, and I've said before that we don't have to accept that as a foregone conclusion. We don't have to live up to this self-fulfilling prophecy just because someone else says so. No, I think we can be the "Best Generation" despite whatever obstacles that others may put in our way. Below is my first reason for suggesting the "Worgen Generation". The second and third reason will come Wednesday and Friday respectively.

1.) "Worgen" as I'm using it here comes from the game, World of Warcraft. The worgen are a race of humans who have the ability (or more accurately, a curse) to become werewolf-type creatures. For those of you who do not play WoW, basically, WoW is a fantasy online game in which you do battle against various villains and against the opposite faction in a "Lord of the Rings" style setting. Worgen belong to the Alliance faction (the opposing faction and the one I had played is the Horde). There's a lot more to WoW than what I'm describing here of course, but that is it in a nutshell.

Anyway, my use of the worgen reflects our generation's gaming pasttime. Yes, previous generations had the video arcade games, but to my knowledge, our generation is the first to use it to the extent that it is now; that is, to the extent that gaming is as much a part of our social life as other forms of socializing, like bowling or miniature golf for young adults of the past. Technology has become a part of our lives like the Hi-Fi record players of my parents' generation.

On Wednesday, I continue with my second point. See you then!

Adrianne Palicki as the new Wonder Woman? Hmm...

2011-02-22T08:47:00.002-06:00

I've been asked over the weekend about what I thought of the news that Adrianne Palicki will be playing Wonder Woman.

At this point, I'm going to wait before saying anything, because one, I want to see what Wonder Woman costume she is going to wear, and two, I want to see what the writers do with the story. Palicki herself is certainly the right height at 5-11 and she seems to be physically fit for the role. Time will tell, however, if she will be this generation's nerd goddess like Lynda Carter was back in her day.

A symbol for our generation?

2011-02-18T08:18:00.000-06:00

I've mentioned previously about our generation; that is, those of us in our 20's who are the children of Baby Boomers. Something I've been considering ever since is this: What shall we call ourselves?

Yes, I know we've been called Generation Y (because we are the generation after Generation X), and also the Millennials because we are the first generation to be adults in the new millennium, and even sometimes called the Baby Boomlet since most of us are the children of Baby Boomers.

However, I say that we reject whatever name others may want to call us; especially names that try to identify or associate us with another generation. We are our own generation, dammit! Let's instead control our own destiny and chart our own course, and we start that by coming up with our own name.

And of course, I have an idea for a possible name! Or perhaps it's more accurate to say that I have an idea for a symbol for our generation. And that symbol is the worgen race of the MMORPG, World of Warcraft. How does the Worgen Generation sound? Why the worgen? That answer, my friends, will come next week. :-)

Remember Vasquez from the movie "Aliens"? Well...

2011-02-17T05:30:00.004-06:00

Earlier today a GF sent me a link to a website of the actress who had played Vasquez on the movie Aliens. Her name is Jenette Goldstien. Here is a pic of her from the movie:

No doubt you're wondering why my friend would send me a picture of Vasquez. It's not related to the role the actress played in the movie, but to what the actress is doing now. You ready for this? (Okay, to you dudes: You might want to make sure your monitor is not out in public where someone you might not want to see this will be able to see it. This is not a NSFW situation, but... well, you'll see what I mean in a bit.) Here is what Jenette is doing now.

At last! Someone who knows what I go through! :-D

Maybe, just maybe, I'll pay that lady a visit. :-)

Joanne Siegel, the model for Lois Lane, passes away

2011-02-16T10:16:00.003-06:00

I posted on Facebook about the passing of Joanne Siegel, who was the model for Lois Lane and also the wife of one of Superman's creators, Jerry Siegel. I want you guys to notice something about how Jerry drew Joanne as Lois. Check it out!

Here's an excerpt from the article below, and there's a point that I want to bring up afterwards:

"Shuster’s drawings reproduced her hairstyle and her facial features, though in the most famous of the original drawings, Lois is considerably more voluptuous than her model was." “Joe might have taken a few liberties,” Ms. (Laura Siegel) Larson said with a laugh."

Laura Larson, by the way, is the daughter of Jerry and Joanne.

Anyway, check out the drawing below. Know what this means? It means that comic book artists have been drawing women as busty since the beginning! You guys are incorrigible, you know that? LOL

Are liberals close to "getting it"? Not even close!

2011-02-15T10:16:00.006-06:00

This Salon article gives the merest of glimmers of hope that at least a few liberals are close to grasping how arrogant and elitist they are. The article's author, Michael Lind, at least seems to have an idea of how bad they are right now, but he's not there yet, and that's evidenced by this paragraph from the article:

"It makes liberals look like snobs.
Since the '60s, conservatives have managed to recruit populist voters by claiming that the intellectual elites look down their noses at them. By theatrically sneering at less-educated politicians and media loudmouths, progressive pundits seem to prove that the left consists only of snobbish members of the college-educated professional class making fun of the errors of people who did not attend prestigious schools."

So close, and yet still not there! Here's the disconnect: Liberals look like snobs precisely because...

...they ARE snobs!

Only until liberals know and understand that they **are** wholeheartedly and complete snobs and elitists will they be on the road to overcoming their blindness and get back to understanding the problems of the "little people" that they claim to be the champions of.

I often use this example of their disconnect: Liberals are often the champions of public schools and public transportation, and yet they wouldn't be caught dead sending their kids to those schools, nor would they use public transportation. Thus, since they are unaware of the current state of public schools and public transportation, they are not "invested" in seeing them improved, because they are isolated from the problems of those who must send their kids to public schools. They likewise are isolated from the problems of public transportation; preferring instead to purchase the latest in electrical cars that are well out of the price range of most of those "little people".

Liberals then, are basically intellectual alcoholics; that is, they are drunk on their own perceived level of intelligence. And like regular alcoholics, they won't be able to fix the problem until they admit that there is a problem, and that problem is that they are elitist snobs. Liberals cling to their diplomas in the very same way that alcoholics cling to their bottles - that is, it's a crutch from facing reality. Until liberals can set their diplomas down and see the world as it truly is and see how lacking they truly are in helping to champion the causes of the "little people", then they will continue to be distant and aloof from the problems of the rest of us. Hopefully they can awaken to their blindness before an Egypt-type uprising deposes them. Unfortunately, I see little hope of that at this time.

So close, Michael! So close! Hopefully you'll get it next time! :-D

Since this post is made out of love for my liberal friends, I'm going to classify it as a FMFLLFs post (For My Fact-Loving Liberal Friends), because the fact is that they are snobs. Luv ya! Mwah!

Happy Valentine's Day! What I love...

2011-02-14T09:45:00.005-06:00

In honor of Valentine's Day, today I am going to list what I love!

<3 <3 <3 <--no, those aren't boobs, they're hearts!

By the way, this list does not pretend to be comprehensive. I'm just going off of the top of my head, here. I may add others later.

I love:

* Shopping! For those who love shopping, no explanation is necessary, for those who don't, no explanation is possible. ;-)

* Comics! Always have, and probably always will. :-D

* Being a superhero! Nothing like punching bad guys and saving the world, and not necessarily in that order!

* Strawberry shortcake sundaes! Mmmmmmmm!!!

* Football and baseball!

* Having big boobs! Yeah, they're heavy, they tend to get in the way, stuff falls into my bra a lot, people tend to look there instead of up here (pointing to face), they stretch out my tops.... uh, what was my point again? Oh yeah! Big boobs! Awesome! :-D

* Liberals! Even if they do drive me nuts! But I drive them nuts as well! LOL X-D

* Blogging! Meesa <3's writing as a blogging superhero!

* My readers! Sometimes you guys and gals can really make my day!

* Facebook! Who knew that I had so many "friends"? :-)

* Artworks done of me! During my whole experience as a blogging superhero, seeing the many different interpretations of me as done by many artists has been the most enjoyable part of it! And hey, I would love more artwork from you all, especially by those who haven't done artwork of me yet!

* And yeah, I <3 flowers. :-D

That's it for now! More is likely to come, and probably on Facebook.

Don't you guys just feel the love?

Have a Happy Valentine's Day! <3 <3 <3

Obama's health care plan: Coming soon in a comic book!

2011-02-08T12:55:00.004-06:00

Yes, that's right, folks! Since we're too dumb to understand why Obamacare is the best thing since Karl Marx invented Communism, now some brilliant genius is going to explain it to us all - with pictures! And you can bet your superhero costume made with unstable molecules that I'll check it out and review it here! ;-)

Man, and here I thought nothing that liberals do would surprise me - I gotta admit that this surprised the hell outta me! OMG! They're now going to explain it to us with pictures! PICTURES!! I can't believe this! And if we STILL don't want Obamacare, what are they going to do then, huh? Since we'll be so stupid as to still not want Obamacare even when it's explained to us in pictures, can we then get one of those waivers that others have been getting? :-D

The libs have hit rock bottom, and have now started digging! LOL X-D

The Superhero Buzz!: Wonder Woman coming to television?

2011-02-04T13:41:00.004-06:00

Time for another The Superhero Buzz! With the exclamation point!

According to this article on the Huffington and Puffington Post (of all places!), a new Wonder Woman TV series might come out this fall! I like the idea, and I hope they try it. However, I also hope that they try to do WW in the tradition of Lynda Carter, and not their previous attempt of Cathy Lee Crosby. The former is a nerd goddess, while the latter is of interest only to those looking to see what else has been tried to put WW out in the entertainment media. And what an awful outfit! I have some hesitation, however, because of this line in the article:

"The show will allegedly involve a somewhat 'realistic' take on the Amazon warrior, with Diana being a CEO by day and a vigilante at night."

Egads.

It sounds like they're going to go with the Cathy Lee Crosby version instead of the Lynda Carter version! Have they learned nothing these past few decades? I'll reserve judgment until I know more details, but this attempt at "realism" gives me jitters, because most writers of TV shows are of the liberal or very liberal slant, and "realism" to them generally means some politically correct sermonizing crap, and if that's the case, it will fail faster than a $1 bra.

In case you're wondering how I would like to be presented in the entertainment media, I think I want something along the lines of a Pixar movie - computer animation, in other words. Superhero stories are basically tales of myth along the Greek or Roman lines, and I think computer animation would capture that style of storytelling the best.

Anyway, this has been a TSB! report! Have a great weekend!

New blog feature! The Superhero Buzz! Today: Who is Super K?

2011-02-02T16:01:00.004-06:00

Okay, folks! Today starts a new feature for this blog, and it's called The Superhero Buzz! With the exclamation point! :-D

What TSB is, is my intrepid investigative reporting on rumors or upcoming news on the superhero scene! I'm hoping that eventually, comics companies big and small, franchises and independents, will look to me to report on upcoming events or to stir up interest on new and exciting personalities making their way onto the superhero stage. As you folks know, us super folks tend to be larger than life, and who best to report on those larger than life than the busty one herself! I'll don my press fedora with the press card tucked in the hatband (hmm... I might need some artwork of that!) and get cracking on these news stories so that you know who's who and what's coming up!

Today we start with this lovely young lady known only as Super K!

Holy cow! Who is this hot little number? Rumor has it that she is to be a love interest for a certain El Gato Negro! But who is she? What are her powers? Where did she come from? And will the sparks fly for these two right off the bat? Your investigative journalist intends to find out!

OMG! WTF?? AYS?!? LOL!!!!

2011-01-29T16:11:00.003-06:00

A rare Saturday post, but I just had to comment on this story!

It is referring to Sarah Palin's Facebook comments in response to President Obama's State of the Union address. She says in the first paragraph, and I quote:

"The President’s State of the Union address boiled down to this message: “The era of big government is here as long as I am, so help me pay for it.” He dubbed it a “Winning The Future” speech, but the title’s acronym seemed more accurate than much of the content."

The acronym in question is, of course, "WTF", which stands for "What the F(udge)?" (You thought I really was gonna say "fuck", didn't you? LOL). What I REALLY love is one of the comments in that linked article above, which says the following, and I suggest that you read it aloud in a condescending and pompous voice so that you can get a sense of how pompous it sounds. Ready? Put on your "pompous ass" voice now!

"Serious presidential candidates choose words and perform actions carefully. Serious presidential candidates from both ends of the political spectrum realize that there is little to be gained and much to lose, from cheap shots and sophomoric humor."

HAAAAAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! I love it! Did you or did you not sound like a pompous ass when you read that? Why do I say this? Well friends, imagine if Obama had made this WTF reference to a Palin speech in which she had some expression like "We the Few" or somesuch statment. Do you think the media would be talking about his "cheap shots and sophmoric humor"? HELL NO! And if you think so, then you haven't been reading my blog long enough!

Here is what they would have said, and I can write it pretty much word-for-word:

"Obama demonstrated once again his grasp on current issues and his great understanding of the young and technologically connected generation when he devastated a statement by Sarah Palin, who is still stinging from her previous comments of "blood libel" in regards to the gunman in Tuscon, Arizona, in which one of her attack ads had a crosshair on the district of Rep Gabrielle Giffords who is still recovering from her injuries she suffered on that day. In a speech made yesterday, Palin made reference to "We the Few" in regards to the conservative political newcomers in the House. President Obama had this response: 'She dubbed it a “We the Few” speech, but the title’s acronym seemed more accurate than much of the content."

Not only that, Rachel Madow and the like would have been constantly running his response on their shows, and Saturday Night Live would have had a skit in which an actor portraying him would be using these text acronyms while texting people he knows. See? Do I know these liberal nutjobs or what?

Okay, back to my weekend! :-D

Oh, BTW, be sure to turn off your "pompous ass" voice now, before someone kicks your ass for talking down to them in a pompous voice....

Comics Talk: DC's Brightest Day and Marvel's Chaos War

2011-01-28T09:33:00.003-06:00

I began the month with comics talk, so I'll go ahead and end it with comics talk. :-)

Before I start, let me go ahead and put my spoiler warning, because I’m going to discuss the following recent comic books:

Brightest Day #18
Chaos War #5

If you haven’t read these books yet and don’t want what’s in them spoiled for you, then

STOP READING NOW!

You have been warned!

Those of you on Facebook saw me call DC Comics’ Brightest Day storyline as: Worst. Storyline. Ever.

That is, at least so far. In my mind, it’s actually surpassed Marvel’s Civil War in regards to high level suckitude, and judging by what I’ve seen in the most recent issue, I don’t see a lot of hope for improvement. In fact, I give up on this series; I’m not buying any more issues, because I so badly do not want to see a very disappointing ending and know that I spent good comics money buying it when I could have bought something more entertaining and inspiring – like Mickey Mouse or The Smurfs.

What exactly don’t I like about it? It’s going nowhere! Blackest Night, at least, was entertaining, even if they got carried away resurrecting every freakin’ dead hero and villain ever created by DC. But Brightest Day has had no focus, no direction and no logic to what it’s doing with the resurrected characters. And geez, I am so sick of seeing the stupid, dumbfounded expressions of shock on the resurrected characters just about every damn issue. I thought there was some point as to why these particular characters where resurrected by the White Lantern entity, but so far I have not seen it. Instead, we are treated to more and more plot twists that do nothing to help explain or clarify what is going on.

The recent issue of BD#18 was it for me. In it, Hawkman and Hawkgirl had completed whatever goal that the White Lantern Entity had set out for them to do and they were rewarded with the Entity’s “Life Restored” command. They were finally able to get their life back, and they were free to live as they had always wanted to do over the thousands of years that they had been living. And as might be expected for lovers, they were about to engage in some passionate love-making. So what happens? The Entity comes in and disintegrates them! I was there yelling “WTF??” I mean, seriously man! WTF??!!?

This is an especially insane and even cruel way to end their lives when you consider that the resurrected bad guys of Reverse Flash, Captain Boomerang, and Max Lord were all able to go on with their lives once they completed the goals that the Entity set out for them! It was then that I also knew what I had to do: I had to blog about it! LOL So gang, I am done with Brightest Day. I am saving my money for other comics.

As for Chaos War #5, at least it didn’t stretch on forever like recent comic company “blockbuster” storylines have done as of late. And the ending, in which the Chaos King was tricked into a parallel pocket universe to complete his goal of totally absorbing the universe into nothingness, kinda made sense. But it also made you wonder why anyone didn’t think of that sooner. Consider that you had Bruce Banner and Amadeus Cho, two of the smartest people on the planet, who didn’t think of doing that until the end. Pocket parallel universes have been well-known and even visited by Marvel characters for ages, so it’s not like it was a brand new concept to them. I mean hell, they even knew about the parallel universe that they sent the Chaos King to!

After the gang finally puts the Chaos King away, Hercules – who had been given a promotion of sorts by being elevated to a “skyfather on steroids” - gave up his powers in order to put things back the way they were. The extent of his gift was such that he is now mortal and powerless. So basically, what this makes the ending is a "deus ex machina" - in other words, kind of a cop-out giving the kind of buildup that had been going on to get to this point. Oh well, it was still an enjoyable read.

Have a great weekend! :-D

Salon.com is one of my favorite websites, and here's why...

2011-01-21T09:22:00.006-06:00

Probably my favorite site as a source of documented proof of the dementia that liberal thinking can take is Salon.com! I swear, reading some of the lines of reasoning that goes on in some of those articles is like watching a train wreck in slow motion. And I use the train analogy for a reason, because their trains of thought are often that: train wrecks!

Even in Salon.com articles that try to sound more centered as opposed to very left wing, a quick glance to the comments section demonstrates that even their readers have the same sort of train-wreck-in-slow-motion thinking. But oh! Friends, that's not even the best part of it! The best part of it is not so much what they cover as what they don't cover! It's there that you get a true taste of where their thinking lies.

If you do a Salon search for "Palin", you'll get three pages of recent articles about Sarah Palin. BUT, do a search for "Gosnell", who is Dr. Kermit Gosnell, the abortion doctor who recently was in the news over his atrocious abortion clinic, you get one recent article on it (as of the time I wrote this blog entry). One. Further down in the archived search results, you two more articles, and you also see this same line repeated: "Dr. Kermit Gosnell got rich off of his "house of horrors" clinic -- now he faces eight...", which means it's referring to the same line in one of those articles. You also see a lot of references to Raja Gosnell, who is a movie director.

Yes, I know what some of you will say: Palin is a public figure while Dr. Gosnell is not. However, Gosnell's inhumane barbarity goes to the very heart of their support of legalized abortion. Here we have a man allegedly "helping" women exercise their "right to choose" and they are paying for it with their health or their lives. So I ask, why isn't this man discussed more on Salon? Why is the "dimwit dingbat" Palin occupying so much of their web space, while this monster is not? And Dr. Gosnell isn't the only example of a horrible abortion doctor, so why doesn't Salon do one of their classic exposés on the abortion industry?

You know, I was going to continue a point, but I think what I'll do instead is stop here and see if Salon makes any more articles about Dr. Gosnell over the weekend and compare that to how many Sarah Palin stories that they make over the same time frame.

Check Salon.com for yourself over the weekend and make your own comparisons, and then I'll report back on either Monday or Tuesday.

Have a great weekend!

FMFLLFs: Environmentally unfriendly CFL bulbs!

2011-01-18T10:03:00.008-06:00

Today is a double-duty post; that is, I am doing both a BSC-PSA (Busty Superhero Chick Public Service Announcement) and a FMFLLFs (For My Fact-Loving Liberal Friends), because not only am I trying to help my dear, sweet liberal friends with some nice, juicy facts that they eat up like a cop eats up donuts, but the following information will also benefit the rest of you; which is why I am making this a BSC-PSA. In truth, what follows is not so much new news, but a reminder of something that you might have forgotten. And that would be regarding the so-called "environmentally friendly" Compact Fluorescent Lamps - also known as CFL bulbs.

CFLs are meant to replace the regular incandescent light bulbs (I'll just call them ILBs), because in theory, they are supposed to last much longer and with less energy, and so as the theory goes, you use fewer bulbs. However, CFLs have a dirty little secret that should be mentioned a LOT more than it is now: These bulbs contain mercury. Yes, the same mercury that is hazardous to your health. While some articles try to state that what mercury is contained in CFLs is much lower than what is contained in your average mercury thermometer, it is still enough that a broken one is a big health hazard.

If you've read the linked article, you see that the doctor had no clue as how to treat someone with mercury poisoning. My suggestion to you, dear friends, is to check your local ERs and other emergency personnel to see what their policies are regarding mercury poisoning, and if they don't have a policy, then ask them why the hell not, since so many CFLs are in the market. And also consider that this problem will only get worse once the Feds ban ILBs in the next couple of years and we'll have to switch out to the health-hazard-yet-somehow-environmentally-friendly CFLs. While most sites try to assure that there will be little environmental problems so long as the CFLs are disposed of properly, don't fool yourself into thinking that that the vast majority of Americans aren't going to dispose of them just like they do ILBs - by throwing them away in the regular trash, where they'll get crushed and break anywhere along the way from the house's trash can to the landfill.

Being creatures of habit accustomed to throwing away dead light bulbs as we have been doing for decades, it may take years to break us out of the habit of disposing CFLs in the trash just like we do ILBs. In the process of being indoctrinated into using CFLs "for our own good", there will be literally hundreds of thousands - if not millions - of CFLs in our landfills. Okay, let's play the numbers game, which my liberal friends so much love to do.

According to the articles linked above, the average CFL bulb has about 4 milligrams of mercury. I did a quick search to see how many light bulbs are sold in the United States in a given year. Once source stated that there were 2 billion of all types of light bulbs sold in 2005, so we'll use that. So once we are required to switch over to the CFLs, imagine that 2 billion CFLs will eventually make their way into our landfills. Before I continue, I know that my liberal friends will say that there will be fewer light bulbs in landfills because they last longer, BUT, until such time that the majority of us learn to dispose of CFLs "in the proper way", I can betcha that many CFLs will make their way to the landfill and sit there for years before our "great leaders" are forced to recognize that millions of CFLs sitting in our landfills leaking mercury is not good for the environment - not to mention to our health!

So friends, I say why wait until that fateful and terrible day in which a future leader has to publicly acknowledge the problem and endeavor to fix it? Why not proactively prevent the problem in the first place by preventing these health hazards from getting to our landfills in the first place? Damn, I'm trying to protect the environment here from mercury poisoning - my liberal friends should be all gung-ho on my side with this! If that's not enough, then consider that some evil corporation will be looting a nasty profit from our misery because he will have successfully bought off politicians to push these things in the market despite their obvious flaw.

So the sale of CFLs has all the sorts of stuff that should make my liberal friends gleefully froth at the mouth in anger over (by the way, "gleefully frothing in anger" is a unique liberal trait, which means that they aren't ecstatically happy unless they are pissed over some real or imagined "outrage" to inspire them into action - for which most of them means ranting in blogs and tweets): There is a flawed product that is a danger to the public but whose flaw is being passed over because some rich, greedy bigshot has bought off politicians so that they look the other way while they rake in the blood money while we are poisoned. A recipe for action, my friends!

Now that I have provided some nice, juicy facts for you, my dear liberal friends, why delay any longer in getting these monsters off the market and getting that ICB ban overturned? You DO love the environment, don't you? And you don't want some greedy CEO to swim in tons of cash while thousands of us deal with the effects of mercury poisoning, do you? Call your leaders today and demand action!

This has been both a BSC-PSA and a FMFLLFs announcement!

Review of The Guild Internet videos

2011-01-08T18:56:00.007-06:00

Last time I discussed The Guild, it was the graphic novel. Here's my review of it.

Today I'm going to review the Internet series that helped launch The Guild in the first place. Right off the bat, I want to say that I really, really enjoyed it. Over my Christmas break, I watched all four seasons, usually watching a whole season in one sitting. As with my comments last time in regards to the graphic novel, I think watching The Guild is a great reference source to understanding the mindset of gamers; particularly World of Warcraft gamers; although The Guild series does not mention WoW because of copyright issues (and which is something I wish Blizzard, the company that owns WoW, would work out, because there is a lot of WoW-themed humor that this series misses out on).

Before I continue, it is time for me to mention the following:

******* WARNING! ********

Possible spoiler alerts ahead! If you haven't watched the Internet series, The Guild, and don't want what's in it spoiled for you, STOP reading now! You have been warned!

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

As I somewhat subtly hinted on Facebook, there were things that I didn't like about it, so let's get those out of the way right now. For one, I think the writer, Felicia Day, tries too hard to establish that all the guildies (of the guild called the Knights of Good) are batshit insane. Not only are the guildies batshit insane, but so is virtually anyone else that appears in the series. It gets tiresome to have that particular point re-emphasized constantly with the regular cast and with anyone new who appears. The only one who seems to be normal - although a bit annoying as only little sisters can be to their big brothers - is the little sister of Bladezz (whom I was told is the actual little sister of the actor. You can see the resemblance!).

Another thing that I didn't like is something that I didn't like of the graphic novel, Kick Ass (my review of it here), which is the depiction of what would be called child abuse in real life made out as entertainment. I didn't like the way Bladezz, the guild's teenage rogue, was harassed and cyber-stalked by the adults of a competing guild. In real life, such adults could be incarcerated for such behavior. Yes, yes, it's just a story, but again, I do not want the trend of child abuse being made into entertainment to continue. It sets a very bad example that child abuse is acceptable in certain circumstances. My least favorite part of this particular storyline is when one of the members of the rival guild, who is a cop, came out of Bladezz' house saying that he just banged his mom. It's times like this when I'll say "bleh" and flash a thumbs-down.

Also in very bad form is the constant depiction of Clara's inattentiveness and even abandonment of her three very young children (all under age 4, I would guess). The point of the humor here is that Clara is so addicted to gaming that she neglects her children; however, that particular point is presented to the point of overkill. Enough already! One time she even left her kids in the car while she had lunch with her guildmates. With so many stories of children being hospitalized or even dying after being left in a car, this simply isn't funny.

Before I get comments that exaggeration is one of the focal points of the humor in The Guild, let me respond by saying "I get that". I get it, and I even appreciate it - and when it's done right, it's done very well. Sometimes, however, the exaggeration is overdone; as if the writer was trying to squeeze out every possible exaggeration out of one scene before she moved on to the next scene with even more overkilled exaggeration.

As harsh as I've sounded so far, at least this is the worst of it. The good parts were very good, and it's what made this series very enjoyable.

The best parts, however, also happened to be the best parts of the graphic novel, and that is the depiction of the guild's online life. Here, the writing is its freshest and crispest, and it hits all the right notes at the right times - and it is also here that the exaggeration works the best. Probably the best way I can put this is that exaggeration when used to depict the guild's "real life" feels forced and even (here's that ugly word!) formulaic, while exaggeration when used to depict their online life works naturally and flows easily and fluidly.

It was also in the scenes of the online life that got the most laughs out of me. In future episodes or graphic novels, I would like to see what Felicia Day can do with a story that takes place wholly in the online world, with only references to their outside life without actually showing it. Originally, I thought that it might be fun to see their avatars as cartoons or computer animations, but that last episode in which the guild was shown in their avatars' costumes and inside their new gloomy and fortress-like guild hall (Season 4, Episode 12), worked perfectly, and this is how I think future representations of their online life should be depicted.

It worked perfectly, because it perfectly represents how we see ourselves in our online lives. That is, we aren't just the avatar of a hunter or warrior or shaman; online role-playing games are fun because we see ourselves in those little worlds. It's also probably a sign of my generation that we connect and socialize via technology; whether through online games, or Facebook, or tweeting, or the other means of which we connect instead of face-to-face.

So does The Guild represent my generation and how we connect and socialize with each other? I suppose that it could be true in a very real way. So what does that say about us and our socializing skills? Are we doomed to be unable to relate to each other except through technology? Is this need for technology to just talk to each other mean that when we do venture out into the real world, we end up as the cartoony exaggerations that is shown in The Guild?

I say that no, we aren't doomed to living cyber lives. Cyber socializing is a tool, but it is still not a substitute for the real thing. And what this cyber socializing does for us is makes the use of technology to gain access to information as natural to us as listening to Beatles albums was to our baby-boomer parents. So while some may see technology as a trap, I say that it does not have to be that way if we don't let it. Instead of being known as the generation that got lost in the cyber forest, we can be known as the generation that mastered it.

Ha! I love that The Guild helped inspire such contemplation, and it is why I enjoyed the series so much. On a scale of 1 to 10 in which one is a bomb and 10 is THE bomb, I give the guild a 9. If Felicia Day takes my suggestion of a whole episode or graphic novel in their cyber world and is able to master it like I think she can, then I might actually issue my first ever 10. Boy, do I look forward to that!

And now in closing, please join me in dancing to what was my favorite video out of this whole series, a music video called Game On! Oh man, I loved this so much that I played it several times with the sound turned up, and danced along! It was so clever and catchy! As Zaboo would say, "Awesome'd!"

New feature for this year: FMFLLFs!

2011-01-04T17:34:00.008-06:00

Last week, one of my commentators asked for my New Year's resolutions. I'm still working on those, but one is to help out my fact-loving liberal friends to see the errors of their ways by way of my blog and Facebook. But first, do understand a few things:

One, I have liberal friends. I really do! Some of them have been my GFs for years. They are my friends even though they know I am a right-wing conservative nut-job who loves Sarah Palin. Why are they my friends? It's not like I'm trying to keep them - they just hang around me even when I state views that they are against. But hell, I stick with them too, even if they mouth liberal statements that I disagree with. I guess you might say that my relationship with them is... complicated. My guess, though, is that they must be attracted to the residual aura of my Marxist upbringing. I bet they wished their parents were as Marxist as mine.

And two: I love liberals. I really do! Why otherwise would I have them as friends? And why would I accept as "friends" those on Facebook whom I don't know but are obviously liberal? Anyway, I love liberals so much that I am going to give them something that they themselves love: Facts! I love them so much that I care what happens to them, and I care how they treat themselves. With that, I am going to give them what they love the most, so starting today and recurring on a semi-regular basis will be something that I'll call: For My Fact-Loving Liberal Friends, or FMFLLFs for short. Okay, let's get started! I'm so excited! Whoohoo!! Here you go, my fact-loving liberal friends!

HHS is paying Google with Taxpayer Money to Alter 'Obamacare' Search Results.

Holy Guacamole! Here we have a government department paying THE search engine of the Internet with OUR tax money to alter search results to pop up Obamacare for all kinds of searches related to Obamacare (well, except for searches related to 'Obamacare' and 'repeal'. There's no pleasing some people!). What do you make of this, my fact-loving liberal friends? Are you going to tolerate this obvious abuse of our hard-earned funds? Would you have tolerated the Bush administration using tax money to alter search results of "weapons of mass destruction" to pop up the Bush administration's official government line on the existence of WMDs?

I hope you are as outraged and offended as I am, my liberal friends, because I know you love facts. I knew you would be, because I care about you and I want to you be exposed to these kinds of facts that you won't get from your usual sources of such information. Didn't I tell you before to utilize a diversity of news sources to find those facts that you so love? And diversity is good! I know! My Marxist parents told me!

Anyway, now that I have told you this fact about your HHS department, I hope that you will utilize whatever forms of public expression that you use to get out this info so that we can all contact Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to stop using our tax money to shill for her boss!

Ahh, I feel good! Doing the right thing warms one's soul...

More to come, my liberal friends!

Book Review: Felicia Day's The Guild

2011-01-03T06:12:00.001-06:00

Last time I ended the year with comics talk, so it only makes sense to begin this year with more comics talk. This time I'm going to review Felicia Day's graphic novel, The Guild. The book is based on her wildly popular Internet series of the same name, The Guild. If you haven't watched the videos or read the book, then just know that both of them are largely about the social interactions between people who know each other through a World of Warcraft-style game. I had purchased the first issue of the comic, but never saw the ensuing issues until I saw the graphic novel on the shelves earlier last week. Since I enjoyed how the comic started out, I purchased the graphic novel so that I can see how the rest of the story played out. Before I continue, I must note the following:

******WARNING!******

Spoilers ahead! If you haven't read the book and don't want what's in it spoiled for you, then STOP READING NOW! You have been warned!

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

With that out of the way, now I can continue.

Overall, I enjoyed the book, because I think Day captured the feel and the environment of a WoW-style guild to perfection; namely, that of the differing personality types coming together and seeing real life through a WoW lens by living vicariously through their gaming avatars. Some disclosure: I have seen very few episodes of The Guild on YouTube, so what I know about it is based mostly on the graphic novel. I'm letting you know this, because what I'm reviewing is the book, and not the YouTube series.

Anyway, when it came to depicting the social interactions of her guild, Day was spot-on. Nailed it to perfection. I literally LOLed at some of the stuff she brought up. However, I was disappointed in the story of Cyd Sherman's (the protagonist in the story) life outside of the WoW-styled game. I hesitate to say the following term because I don't want to make this sound as bad is it's about to sound, but I think I should just go ahead and use the term that defines my opinion of the writing in regards to the protagonist's real life: It was so formulaic.

What I mean is that the story of the poor little bright, intelligent and witty young woman who keeps wondering why her life is so screwed up is so done to death. Cyd Sherman as she is depicted in the book is a modern-day Cathy from the comic strips. The only thing Cyd didn't do was go AAACCKKK!!! I actually flipped through those scenes the first time I read the book just because I already knew what Cyd was going to say and do, and I wanted to get back to her depictions of the guild and guild life. However, to be fair, I went back and read the parts I skipped the first time around, just in case I was wrong. Unfortunately, I was not. I predicted what Cyd was going to do before she did it, and for the most part I was on the mark.

Okay, enough bashing of the depiction of Cyd's life outside of the guild, because as I said, I don't want to make this book sound as bad as I seem to be making it sound so far. On the contrary, I enjoyed the book very much, and I highly recommend it for your reading enjoyment. I will also go so far as to say that Day's book should be used as reference to understand the phenomenon of cyber social interactions (which is unique to our day and age); especially when it comes to online role-playing games. If this book hasn't already been used as a source for some grad student's thesis on cyber social interactions, then that grad student should do it. That's how highly I think of this book.

I must also mention how much I liked the idea of drawing Cyd's real life and her virtual life in different art styles so as to reflect the differing lives she is living. Note also that her cyber self has big boobs! LOL But most importantly, her depictions of her guild mates is so much like how it is in real life that it is no wonder that the YouTube series was such a hit. In that regard, the book was a faithful translation to what Day was doing in the YouTube series. Oh, and I especially like the fact that she has not one, not two, but three female gamers! Just in case you're curious, when I played, I was most like Tinkerballa. Ha!

So on a scale of 1 to 10 in which one is a bomb and 10 is THE bomb, I put Felicia Day's book The Guild as a 9. Despite my criticisms above, I think it is that good.

Busty Superhero Chick

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Stop SOPA: It's my Internet, too!

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Another Rick Celes artwork: Meet Megan O'Donnell!

The new year on my blog begins! Er... next week.... :- /

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! WHOOHOOOO!!!

Familiar Christmas customs based on ancient pagan rituals? GASSSPPP!!!

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No shit, Sherlock!

Busty Superhero Chicks for Breast Cancer Awareness?

Lucky Shot again as done by the art goddess, Rocio!

More artwork coming tomorrow and next week! Whoohoo!

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New badass art of me by Rocio Zucchi!

It's still okay to wish me Merry Christmas!

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Today starts God Week: A story about Tommy

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Now if *I* ran an Occupy rally....

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What Mayor Bloomberg should have used to chase away the Wall Street Occupiers:

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Stupiddist prowtestilers evar!

Elizabeth Warren gets pwned!

Vegan and pro-life? Why the hell not?

Zombie Apocalypse! Interview of a Zombie

Coming Monday: There be ZOMBIES!!!

Y'all know I'm conservative, right?

Woot! We got a Post Office Box! Now we're talkin'!

Al Gore 24/7! Whoohoo!

Finally, Komrades! A revolution I kan join!

Time to retire moniker, "Ground Zero"?

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Review of the movie Captain America

It's a quest from God!

New Rocio Zucchi art: Chibi Me and Lucky Shot!

Paper or plastic? The solution to the great environmental debate of grocery bags

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New Rocio art coming starting - well, hey! TODAY!

The other artwork by Rocio Zucchi! WHOOHOOOOO!!!!

Challenge to the artists!

New art! Check out mini-me! :-D

Review of the movie, Zombieland

Movie Review: Remember Me

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A new ability for Power Girl's boobs?

This whole Anthony Weiner business really has me wondering about you guys.

Dianisis and Foreskin Man: Leftist superheroes!

My prediction about the upcoming Palin film

New artwork of me! Totally awesome is an understatement!

Dear Amy Myers: You're being used to ridicule female politicians!

Turning "Skeletoes" into Phat Lewtz for Nerdz!

Coming soon: New blog banner! Also, have you seen the new Thor movie?

Tomorrow is Free Comic Book Day!

Q&A: Am I a god?

Death Panel 2.1? As Palin would say, "You betcha!"

My thanks for all the birthday wishes!

My take on federal funding of Planned Parenthood

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