Friday, September 24, 2010

Lucky Shot bio to come next week

Hey guys.

I had hoped to post Lucky's bio today, but the boss is still editing and fact-checking it for consistency with what he plans for the character (by the way, can we really call it "fact" checking when we are dealing with fictional characters? LOL) Anyway, he assures me that he'll have it back to me in time to post early next week. He's a busy guy, and it was a pretty long entry, so I should have kinda expected this.

Anyway, have a great weekend! :-D

Andy

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Boobs on Sesame Street!

The singer Katy Perry is in a skit with Elmo on Sesame Street, but the skit got pulled! Why? Well, they SAY that the dress was "inappropriate", but I think it was because the dress showed cleavage! A lot of it! Once again, boobs cause trouble! LOL

Ha! I guess this means that I'll never get invited to Sesame Street! ;-)

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Red Hulk is now a wimp!

Check out the cover of Hulk #25, out today!

Back when we didn't know who the Red Hulk was, it seemed like no one could beat him. Now that we know it's the Hulk's old nemesis Gen. Ross, everyone seems to be kicking his ass! LOL

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Book "My Lie" is revealing in a way the author did not intend

I’ve told you all before that I’m the child of Marxist baby boomers. Yes, somehow this child turned out to be conservative! How that happened can be partially explained in this linked article. Before you continue, please read it and also read this.

Meredith Maran, the author of the book, is a classic example of what happens when you become so open-minded that your brains fall out. A book that I might have been interested in for one reason has now had that reason changed because of what I read in those two articles. At first, I thought it was going to be a book about one woman’s regret over the shocking error in judgment she made in regards to her father. Instead, it looks to be a book to describe how she was actually the victim here. First, she was a victim of her father’s molestation, which ended up being not true. Now she is the victim of a collective mindset that overwhelmed her better judgment and caused her to jump on this molestation bandwagon. In other words, “the devil made her do it”.

Before I continue, allow me to insert the disclaimer that just because many of the claims of molestation have ended up being false does not mean that there is no molestation by fathers to their children. Certainly it does exist, and those who commit such reprehensible acts should have their asses in jail for the rest of their lives.

But as you read on in the article, her liberalism shows forth, and it was then that I understood the true root of her problem, and it’s one of which I have a personal familiarity with because I grew up surrounded by such thinking: She is one of the classical proverbial liberal sheep. What is a liberal sheep? Glad you asked! Liberal sheep all believe along the same liberal lines uncritically, without ever examining whether their views are right, and even when proven wrong, they stick together like – well, sheep! You can usually identify a liberal sheep by the condescending way they talk about anyone who disagrees with them. They will also be puritanical towards conservatives and any of their foibles, but bend over backwards when one of their own commits wrongful acts. A classic example of bending over backwards to protect one of their own is Roman Polanski. Remember how the liberals came out in droves to defend this scummy asshole that drugged and raped a 13 year old? Whoopi Goldberg actually said that it wasn’t “rape rape”!

Another example of this is the stem cell research debate. Most of the time when you see news coverage about the Catholic Church and stem cell research, the headlines almost always say “Church opposes stem cell research”. My friends, this is simply not true! What the Church opposes is only one kind of stem cell research, and that is the research that utilizes embryos. Thing is, despite embryonic stem cell research being high on promises (so high it qualifies as a con job), they have cured nothing. NOTHING! Oh, you’ll be told of all the wonderful things that it can do, but it hasn’t done any of that, and from the looks of it, it never will.

Only the non-controversial stem cells (adult, placental, etc) have proven to do the kinds of things that embryonic stem cell researchers had said that embryonic stem cells would do. The results of these non-embryonic stems cells are such that if only this unhealthy obsession over embryonic stem cells could be dropped, then there’s no telling what kind of progress could be made, especially in freeing up research grants earmarked for embryonic stem cell research and to transfer that funding to something that actually works. And yet, talk to any liberal and they will rant and rave how the Church is holding up stem cell research. I can present the evidence to the contrary to them, but as soon as they are done talking to me and are back in the company of their fellow libs, they are back at it, bitching about that “anti-progress” Church.

The thing is, friends, Maran still has not seen the root of the problem, and that is evidenced by this excerpt from the article:

“Recent American history is rife with examples of the damage done when millions of people become convinced of the same lie at the same time. Choose your favorite fiction from this list, or add your own.

The George W. Bush "victory" in the 2000 election. The list of books that Sarah Palin allegedly banned from the Wasilla Public Library. The persistent rumor that her youngest son was actually her daughter's child. The allegations of Barack Obama's foreign birth, terrorist associations, reverse racism, and socialist tendencies -- first promulgated to prevent his presidency, later used to derail it.

How many and how much have we lost in the seemingly endless War on Terror, triggered by the fictional connection between Saddam Hussein and the 9/11 attacks? The phrase "Weapons of Mass Destruction," invented as a cry for war, has become shorthand for cynical political manipulation and the mass, willful suspension of disbelief.

President Obama's efforts to provide Americans with health care were nearly defeated by the myth that if the program were enacted, "death panels" run by government bureaucrats would decide whether Granny lives or dies.

Gay people's right to marry (my right to marry) is still being denied in most of the "united" states, ostensibly to protect the heterosexual nuclear family from destruction, and -- wait, it gets more incredible still -- to keep American children from being recruited to homosexuality in their classrooms.”


OMG! Look how many liberal values are in that excerpt! Friends, if she was wrong about the molestation issue and if she admits to being caught up in a “herd mentality” when she was out writing about it, then who’s to say that she isn’t caught up in that same herd mentality now with the views she holds above? And again, I am personally familiar with liberal herd mentality. In my mind, this excerpt throws the whole focus of the issue in the book from one of personal remorse and regret over a past sin to yet another attempt to stump for liberal causes. In light of that, it makes me question whether she really is remorseful over what she did to her father. Yes, I know the book is supposed to be about her admission of guilt. But if that’s the case, then why even bring in these liberal causes?

Why not just stick to the script? Why go off into this ideological tangent? It’s because she is a true “liberal sheep”, and such people can’t help themselves. Such people aren’t capable of preventing themselves from “stumping for the cause” whenever they write about anything, even if it’s a recipe for biscuits. So Maran’s book is indeed enlightening and eye-opening; just not in the way that she thinks. It also proves to me once again why I abandoned the liberal “faith of my father” for greener intellectual pastures. To think that I could have been one of them! It still makes me shudder thinking about how close I came!

Monday, September 20, 2010

What an interesting weekend!

I can't tell you the details of what went down this weekend, but I will when I can! I just don't want to spoil the surprise! As much as I want to post the surprise, it will be for the best to just let this play out. Patience, my little nerdlings!

So what did you guys think of Lucky Shot? Her bio will be posted later this week. I also have another couple of characters coming in October. Such fun!

Thursday, September 16, 2010

The lady's name is Lucky Shot













(Art by Chris Butler)

Real name: Michaela Saez
Code name: Lucky Shot

Age: 27
Height: 5 foot 4
Weight: 125 lbs
Hair color: Dark brown, reaches to center of back, but usually pulled or tied back.
Eye color (unpowered): brown (powered): almost totally white
Family: Father, mother, both living, names unknown, divorced. No known sibling. One son, Joachim, age 3. Other, unidentified extended family.
Marital status: single, never married.
Educational level: 2nd year in college; goal is to obtain a law degree to specialize in the defense of superhumans.
Political ideology: liberal
Ethnicity: Hispanic

Strength level: Michaela has at least double the standard level of strength and stamina of a similarly-sized normal human woman who engages in regular intensive exercise and weight training. Part of Michaela’s elevated strength is explained by her healing power, which is about double the normal human healing rate, and that she weight trains so extensively.

Combat skills unrelated to her power: Michaela is specialized in several martial arts, both hand-to-hand and in many martial arts weaponry. Her weapons of choice are usually her two 2-foot batons with weighted tips, as well as various sized throwing stars. However, she is also equally skilled in many other weapons. Due to her increased strength, she moves faster and jumps higher than most opponents are used to seeing a woman her size running and jumping. Michaela’s martial arts skills alone are often enough to take down most opponents, but in addition to utilizing her powers, she becomes virtually unbeatable.

Superhuman powers: Michaela’s powers are still being studied, but what is known so far is enough to impress even the superhuman scientists who have seen many types of superhuman powers. She has ocular bioluminescence (OBL) when her power is activated, which means that her eyes glow. The brightness is enough to be visible even in daylight, but not enough to allow her to see in the dark. The function of the OBL is to allow her to visually see pathways and trajectories of both whatever targets she is aiming for, and for whatever happens to be coming to her, thus it functions as a sort of radar.

Michaela also has the most sophisticated sense of touch ever known in any superhuman. For example, by touching an exterior wall of a house or building, she can obtain the layout of the structure just by the vibrations that she feels, along with sensing people and larger pets. This ability is limited of course, but it’s extensive enough to allow her to “scan” a two story house and its contents. With concentration, she can extend her “scan” to a building the size of a standard drug store; in such instances however, whatever she gains in expanding her “scan”, she loses considerably in the detail of what her normal “scan” would pick up.

This scanning ability along with her OBL allows her to visually see an image in her mind of what her sense of touch is picking up, so she can get a pretty detailed image in her mind of the contents and people of the building she is scanning. In the case of larger, multi-story buildings, she limits her scans to one floor. On missions for the DSS, she is often sent in first to scope out the location, and decisions on courses of actions are based upon what she discovers.

Her heightened sense of touch and her OBL combined also help her in another way that is critical to taking down even the strongest of opponents. When she lays her hands on her opponent, she is able to “scan” their body. Her “scans” then gives her detailed information of the person she’s fighting; especially in the way of locating weaknesses in their body. Since scanning even the largest of bodies is still much less effort than scanning a building, this process takes less than 3 seconds, and she’ll have more than enough information on them to take them down in the quickest way possible. Once she’s scanned a body, she never forgets that body’s “signature”, even if that person is disguised at a later time.

The drawbacks to Michaela’s power is that, once she turns off her OBL, she needs about an hour for her eyes to lose their hypersensitivity to light; thus without her very dark shades, she’s virtually blind. The reason that this happens is because while her power is activated, her pupils dialate, and when she turns off her power, her pupils need time to return to their normal state. She carries one pair of shades all the time, and also a back-up pair of athlete’s goggles that are tinted to shade her eyes.

Michaela's powers are vulnerable to any illnesses she may get. Fevers can cause her to see false images. Fortunately, with her healing abilities, she is rarely sick, and even when sick, she recovers fairly quickly, but in the times she is ill and her power is affected, she can be very difficult to deal with because she sees images and perceives threats that aren't there. Her OBL works much less effectively in low light or total darkness. Her eye's glow is not sufficient enough to compensate for low light environments, so in such times she will rely on her sense of touch, which is less effective in tracking her targets than her OBL is in visible light.

And last, Michaela hates flying, not because she has a fear of flying, but because her radar powers go insane once she’s in the air. Since flying is not natural to her, her power activates once she’s more than a few feet off the ground, and her mind is bombarded with information and images of how she can be seriously injured or die from a fall. Thus, she’ll nearly always refuse Andromeda’s offers to fly her to battle, opting instead to ride her bike.

Michaela in battle: Michaela is very skilled in battle tactics and strategies, so much so that she is often directing others during the course of the battle. Her familiarity with her teammates and their skills and personalities is such that she will direct them to where they will do the most good. Sometimes she will get a little reckless, but it's almost always her that is doing the risk-taking. If she directs anyone else into a potentially risky situation, she'll let them know in advance. She will not tolerate stupid risks in the course of battle, especially if the risk taker goes off of her battle plan, and if that person survives the battle, they will have a serious tongue lashing waiting for him or her afterwards. Superhuman scientists theorize that Michaela's skill in battle tactics is partially related to her power, but they have not yet determined in what way.

Next week (or after that) will come a brief bio of Michaela.

Monday, September 13, 2010

Webcomic / product / etc reviews

Wow, guys... sorry to be away so long. Things just went nuts on me. I'll explain that more later. Right now I want to hit upon something that has come up from time to time, and that's the question of whether I'll do various kinds of reviews. Let's just go ahead and hit on a few ground rules, and understand that I will most likely add to these rules as the situation dictates.

First, all my reviews will be fair and honest. I'll occasionally be blunt, but I won't ever be ugly about it. If I do end up reviewing whatever, do know that I will give you a fair shake.

If it's an actual product that you want me to review, then somehow it needs to get to my greedy little hands. If I do get enough serious requests for this, then I'll ask the boss to look into getting a post office box.

As for the kinds of stuff that I'm likely to review, it would be stuff like action figures, movie DVDs (or Blu-Rays), comic books or graphic novels. Note that I prefer to review superhero themed merchandise since this is a blog related to the superhero genre, but it's not necessarily limited to that.

Something that I COULD consider reviewing is costumes (superhero, LARP, etc), but I'm not sure on how good a judge I would be on such products. For example, a given costume may not look good on me, but it might look great on someone else, and vice versa. Given that, would it be fair to the costume company if I gave a bad review just because their costume didn't look good on me? Most of the time, costume sizes are made to fit as many sizes as possible. Understand that I'm not dismissing the idea of reviewing costumes - I can give it a shot - but just keep that caveat in mind.

In case I'm asked to review non-superhero themed products, like house-cleaning products, clothing (non-costume, of course), shoes or other items, then just understand that a review of your product done by a blog largely about superheroes might not carry a lot of weight.  However, I will just as quickly add that I am not likely to turn down free jewelry, clothes or shoes - especially very nice free jewelry, clothes and shoes! Actually, the only non-superhero product that I could review here that might still make sense for this blog is - can you guess? LOL - bras! Anyway, I'm open to anyone who wants to send me free Pradas, if they think a glowing review from a blog named Busty Superhero Chick will help their bottom line! :-D

Other things that I wouldn't turn down on reviewing would be stuff like laptops, iPads, digital cameras, and other cool electronics. Hey, just because I deal mostly with superhero stuff doesn't mean that I have to be stupid about it! LOL Seriously, if you want me to review your electronic product, I will at least give it a whirl. Heck, if a given laptop makes my blog writing a breeze, I will certainly comment favorably on that. Reviewing the latest in wired technology would certainly fit in with this blog.

And speaking of superhero stuff, something that might come up might be reviewing art materials. I'm no artist, so this is the sort of stuff that I would forward to the boss to try out with specific instructions to draw me. I think that would be a fair test of such items. This also applies to computer graphics related hardware or software. Anyway, should such art materials or computer graphics stuff come my way, I will have the boss draw me and then I'll post the finished product here. That will be a fair test of the product.

As for reviewing websites and especially web comics, the main thing that you must do is have a finished site! I can't review something that isn't completed yet, unless you just want commentary on what looks good and what could still be done. As for webcomics, make sure you have a good number of comics for me to judge your strip by. 5 or 6 strips isn't a good measure of a webcomic's direction, so if I don't review your strip right away, then it's because I'm waiting on you to add more. Again, please note above that I will be fair, but honest and possibly blunt, but I won't be ugly. Most likely if I don't give a glowing review, I will at least offer some constructive criticism, and how well you take to constructive criticism is actually a good measure of your maturity and of your dedication to the quality of your work - so take none of my comments personally, because none of it will be meant personally.

As for written works, it will depend entirely on how long a work that I'm being asked to review. As many of my readers have seen these past couple of months, time has been a scarcity for me, so the longer the work, the more time it will take for me to review it.

Okay, I think this blog entry is long enough, but at least it's a start, and at least I've laid down a few rules for future reference. Feel free to ask me about anything else, though.

Friday, September 3, 2010

Upcoming changes to my blog?

This is from my Facebook page, but since some of you might read my only from my blog, I decided to put this here as well:

(Beginning of Facebook post):

Sorry I've been largely absent from my blog this week. I've just been wondering if I should make some changes. I will still do comics and such, but I was wondering if I should do more of other stuff as well, like more of my Q&A, and more political discussions. Most of you know I'm a conservative anyway, and yet I still have readers. This note continues below.

(Continuation of Facebook post):

Yesterday's story of the hostage situation at the Discovery Channel HQ and the gunman's psychotic screed of a demands note made me wonder if I should hit political issues more. There are many times on my blog that I wanted to hit on politi...cal topics but held back because my blog is largely for comics. Again, I'm not trying to get away from discussions on comics, I'm just trying to expand my list of topics that I discuss. I hope by now that you can see that I'm not a stupid person, and that I am a conservative by choice. Hell, anyone raised by Marxist parents would have to have become a conservative by choice! Anyway, with an upcoming midterm election, I would like to hit more on my take on issues, especially since the conservative angle is often garbled and misrepresented by the allegedly unbiased media. I am also trusting that my liberal fans will be true to their often-stated claims of being "enlightened and open minded" and try to have discussions on the issues as I bring them up. So guys, what do you think?

I know it's said that there are two things that you don't discuss: religion and politics. And yet, we can't escape it - whether it's a scientist saying that God did not make the universe or a presidential candidate offering a familiar Communist value of "spreading the wealth" (Obama during his first talk with "Joe the Plumber"). And besides, those for whom are so set in their ways that they can't tolerate hearing different opinions are the most in need of hearing different opinions. The quick, easy, and ultimately lazy way of trying to have a "national dialogue" is to not "dialogue, so I hope to be a small part of starting that dialogue.

I had considered starting a second blog, but if I am inconsistent in my postings with one blog, then why would spreading myself across two of them make my postings any more consistent? And besides, I checked with the boss, and he's okay with testing the blog into this new direction.

Again, I'm not going to stop posting about comics - that will still be the main focus of this blog - all I am trying to do is give myself more topics to talk about, and thus hopefully make my postings more consistent. Feel free to comment on what you think of all this. Have a great weekend!