Something cool for a lazy wednesday

h/t Occasional Superheroine

P.S. I swear I will start updating at some point

New Doctor Who!!!

yay!!!

Shabbat Shalom everyone

Hope you all have a fun and relaxing weekend




photo of Washington DC WWI memorial taken by me

Coming Soon: The complete Post-Zero Hour Legion of Superheroes

I have held forth at length in the past about how much I enjoyed the post-boot/post Zero hour Legion. In fact I have been able to piece together a near complete run of the series from the various back issue collections in the comic shops around my hometown. While the actual floppies remain in a full long-box back at my parents house in California, I have recently re-acquired the digital archive and TPB that I have on the Post-boot Legion.

So, beginning sometime in the next week I will begin a full run though/review of the entire 11 year run of the second Legion of Superheroes. There will be some good moments (the DnA Years, the White Triangle Saga, the take down of the president of the UP) with the bad (Lori and Monstress)

I have yet to decide if I will be going through issue by issue of via story arc. I'll decide in the next few days.

The Ghost of Richard Cheney says "Happy Halloween!!!"

From the front door of my parents house

Something cool for a lazy tuesday

Seen hanging from the ceiling of some bar in Adams Morgan

Stephanie Brown is alive!?!?

So I was just looking at a full sized scan of the last page of last weeks Teen Titans. The shot which Rokk of Comic Book Revolution has posted here includes adult version of all of every single Teen Titan.
Now while this future is still sort of the future of the DCU circa a year or two before Infinite Crisis, statements are made in the issue that make it seem like Bart and Kon-el (I refuse to call him Conner) did die in past of the Future Titans (ah the wonders of time travel), and were brought back by Tim.

So this a round about way of showing this image from the bottom right of the page

As you can see there is a certain blonde girl dressed in purple. While the costume is obviously supposed to evoke the Huntress, Helena hasn't been part of any young hero teams since pre-crisis. So who must it be...

What will happen when Tim finds here. We have seen two of women fighting over the affections of Tim Drake.

We will have to see if it happens again.

Also Tim, buddy...pal... we need to discuss your obsession with blondes. I think Star Girl is the only young, blonde super heroine that you haven't made out with.

Something awesome for Sunday

I went to the National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center
near Dulles yesterday. It was pure awesomeness. This is a shot of the S4-71 Blackbird that they have parked there. This bird made it from coast to coast in 60 minutes

Shabbat Shalom everyone

Friday Night Fights

As I begin my return to the Battlefield of blogging, the Legion of Superheroes show you just what will happen if you mess with even one of them

Friday Night Fights are a go!!!

From "The Legion" 16 by DnA, art by Kev Walker

Quit objectifying Green Lanterns

To Ragnell, SallyP and Kalinara:

Leave my boy Kyle alone. It is not his fault that he has a good ass, and it is extremely sexist to continually post pictures of semi-naked Green Lanterns and to marvel at their asses.

Or at least it is as sexist as anyone else commenting about how good looking any of the female superhero's are.

So leave him, and his ass alone, or he will kick your ass, and look good while doing it.

But you can have Hal Jordan, since a) he is an idiot and b) he obviously like to show his stuff off as much as Power Girl (or at least thats what the 500 Million pictures of his ass that you three have posted make it seem like)
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On a completely separate note: Dr. Soranik Natu is, in addition to being smart, and able to stand up to Guy Gardener, really hot (though only really when Gleeson draws her)

Zuda begins

So Newsarama has just posted the first 10 Zuda Contestants here

While some look mildly interesting there is only one which I will actually be reading.

Alpha Monkey
Writer/Artist: Bobbie Rubio/Howard M. Shum
Summary: In a misguided attempt to save his son from the destruction of Earth by a comet (which then happens to miss the Earth entirely) a scientist rockets his son into another dimension. The child ends up on a parallel world ruled by Monkeys! Given unique powers by the planet’s bananas, the young boy fights off invading monsters as the planet’s new defender, Alpha Monkey!

It looks like the backstory will be a nice twist on the Superman back story and that alone...and I really do mean alone (the whole monkey bit is kind of played out) makes it more interesting than the other titles.

[update 10/25: I should note that I will probably be looking at all of them, but that Alpha Monkey is the only one which really jumps out at me]

The SoCal Fires

One of the cracks that I make about Southern California is that, unlike Northern California, the south of the state tends to burst into flames every once in a while.

However, in the two years that I lived in Irvine, the fires never started up, and the only thing that the Santa Ana winds brought us was a warm summer.

This year, however, it seems like most of SoCal is aflame. I had heard about Malibu being engulfed in flame and about celebrities loosing their houses. But then I saw two things that hit the fires home for me.

First of all, the foothills above Irvine are aflame and in an area not a 10 minute drive from where I lived.
Secondly, 250,000 people have been ordered to evacuate in San Diego today. Yes you read that correctly,

Two Hundred and Fifty Thousand People!!!

Check the LA Times for more info

Thousands of firefighters are on the scene and more are probably going to be coming. Of course this is something that the California National Guard would be great for, but they, and their helicopters and probably all in Iraq now.

Oh and Glen Beck thinks that those who are loosing their homes tonight are people who hate America. Glad to see that there are still assholes out there who will make political points out of horrible tragedies like this.
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So to all of my friends in Southern California: Keep safe and I hope that you and your loved ones make it out of all of this one.

Something awesome for Sunday

The 5th Doctor and the 10th Doctor are going to be meeting in the Children in Need charity special. The episode is written by the always awesome Steven Moffat. For more information look to the BBC.

The Countdown to November 16th begins!

Things that make Yonatan a very happy boy

JUSTICE LEAGUE INTERNATIONAL HC
Written by Keith Giffen & J.M. DeMatteis
Cover by Maguire & Austin
Art by Kevin Maguire, Terry Austin and Al Gordon
A new hardcover collecting the classic JUSTICE LEAGUE #1-6 and JUSTICE LEAGUE INTERNATIONAL #7 from the late 1980s! Can an unlikely new Justice League line-up work as a unit to stop terrorists at the U.N., a brigade of Rocket Reds, the Royal Flush Gang, and other threats — or will they succumb to in-fighting and bad jokes?
Advance-solicited; in stores March 12 • FC, 192 pg, $24.99 US

I believe the appropriate response is...fuck yeah!

I went to the White House Yesterday

Well... actually I wondered around the gardens for a few minutes. The White House was having one of the garden tours. But it was still really cool getting that close to the White House.

Plus I got the bits of outside corridor through which the President would walk from the Oval Office to the Residence on The West Wing. If the geography of the White House in real life matches the one on the West Wing, then the picture below is of the Oval Office as seen through the rose garden.

What ever the case may be it made for a very cool Sunday, especially since I hadn't planned on going to the White House. One Hilarious thing that happened was that I saw a couple of White House interns walking past and they were both talking about Jack Bauer.

Today I don't have work, but tomorrow I start a new assignment with AIPAC for a week. Plus I get back my laptop.

This is freaky

THE Right Brain vs Left Brain test ... do you see the dancer turning clockwise or anti-clockwise?

If clockwise, then you use more of the right side of the brain and vice versa.

Most of us would see the dancer turning anti-clockwise though you can try to focus and change the direction; see if you can do it.



Taken from here...plus go there for more information

For me she only moves clockwise. Advantage to being a Lefty I guess

To all the Republicans crying about Graeme Frost

Here is what this Kid said

Well it seems that the Republican party hates the child now and wants to destroy him.

Here is a summery of what has been going on from Kos:

Fuck You HP

Fuck You for selling me a Laptop that has a shitty cooling system
Fuck You for selling me a Laptop in which one of the USB ports breaks after a month
Fuck You for selling me a Laptop where the wireless card stops working after 8 months
Fuck You for telling me that I had water damage on my Laptop and thus I will have to pay you $800 to get the system fixed.

Fuck you for generally treating my dad like crap since the bubble burst.

Basically just fuck you in general.


I am this close to being done with Laptops. Until a system is made that can handle everyday normal wear and tear without turning into a brick...


I have a desktop system back at home that I built myself with my own hands back in the summer of 2003.

It has a Gig of RAM, 160 Gig's of Disc Space, a 120MB Video Card, one of the first DVD+-RW drives a second DVD Player and (because it was $9.99) a 3 1/4 in Floppy Drive


I didn't quite build it correctly .

Somewhere in the construction of the colling system i screwed up and thus the computer is always a lot hotter on the inside than it should be. I have to turn off two of the sensors otherwise that would be constantly beeping at me.

The only problem that I have had with the system is the colling problems.

The only money I have spent fixing the system is replacing, as of last month, all 4 of the case fans ($9.99 each)

I have also added a TV card to the system and was thus able to watch season 5 of Angel even though there hasn't been a TV in my home since 1996. It was also very useful in the Dorms since I was able to watch TV in my room.

In that time period I have gone though 2 laptops.

While I am going to try to get my old Laptop out here (since it only really needed a new battery), the thing I would really like to get is my desktop.

Sigh...

Hopefully I can get something out of HP.

Stephanie Brown

Ah Stephanie Brown, aka the Spoiler aka Robin IV.
I really liked her character (especially when she showed up in Batgirl) and was sad to see her killed (even though I had dropped the Bat-Books around the time she became Robin since I didn't like the new writers is the Post New-Gotham era.)

I do remember her getting savaged on the DC Message Boards back in the day (this is before I found the Comics Blogsphere) and I got the impression that she wasn't much liked.

So I have this question for everyone out there.



When did she become so popular?
I certainty don't remember her being this "big" back in the day.

Green Lantern Corps

Any issue that begins with two planets locked in combat can only be the most awesome thing of the week.
Really there is just so much amazingly cool things going on in this issue that everyone needs to go out and get it now , or for those at Big Monkey who didn't get the issue since they sold out...I guess you can wait till the weekend to get it.

The only only thing that would have made the issue even better would be an appearance by my favorite Green Lantern and one of my favorite/ one of the best female characters in comicdom, Dr. Soranik Natu. She was sooo awesome in the last few issues of GL Corps that her presence is sorely missed this issue.

Also I think everyone should appreciate the fact that the picture below is almost the full cast of GL Corps, missing only Guy Gardener Soranik Natu and Sodom Yat.
While about 1/2 of the cast is somewhat hominoid, much of the Lanterns are anything but. I find that cool.

My mind is Officially Blown.. Google Launches a 411 Services

Can Google do no wrong?

This is just amazing... I mean...wow

MV Pride!!!

Doctor Who, Life and Updates

For Years now I have had an almost complete collection of the Doctor Who novelization that were done by Target Publishing (nothing to do with the US retailer.) In fact I am only missing 4 of the novelizations. Mission to the Unknown and The Mutation of Time (the two Novelizations of the 12 part Daleks Masterplan from the First Doctor's era and The Happiness Patrol from the 7th Doctor's era. Oh and I still dont have two of the "Missing" 6th Doctor stories (The Ultimate Evil and Mission to Magnus) but since they were never actually broadcast they dont count as much. Other than that I have everything, the episode guides put out during the 5th Doctor's era, the Quiz books,I have it all. Hell I even have Turlough and The Earthlink Dilemma, Harry Sullivan's War and I believe I even have the Crossword Puzzle book.

Well as of yesterday, I can tick one off of my list as I received the copy of Mission to the Unknown that I had purchased on Ebay. So, this afternoon, for the first time since the mid-90's I will have a new Target novelization to read. I cant wait.

In other news, my laptop, which was purchased new in January has decided to stop working. Luckily I have a backup of the system and it is still under warranty. Unfortunately, the backup is from early August so the pictures that I uploaded since then are now lost as are the IM logs for the last year. Thank goodness for uploading pictures to Facebook.

Went and saw Alan Alda talk last week. He is a very funny man, and I am almost finished with his first book "Never have your dog stuffed: and other things I've learned"

Current Assignment: Trust for America's Health: Database Creation and Archiving News Articles
Weeks I have been on assignment: 4

Things I have done recently

Saturday: While fasting I played some Heroclix, got my ass kicked

My team in the Starro Tournament was
Abracadabra
Dr. Alchemy
Wonder Woman
The Crimson Fox

the team came in at exactly 300 points and while I was able to take out Hourman in one game and Doctor Light in another, my team really wasn't that good. Hopefully I will get a better team next time.

After that I went to services and then came home and enjoyed eating again.

Sunday: I cooked pancakes for breakfast, saw the National Opera's free telecast of La Boeme on the Mall (which was an amazing preformance), came home and cooked dinner ( a beer and onion stew with chicken and apple sausages) for my roommates.


Monday, just as I was about to begin one new project, I got another one dumbed in my lap, so that took up a day or so extra.


Yesterday I went back to Six and I Historic Synagogue (where I had been for High Holy days) and saw Alan Alda speak. He is a really funny guy, and I got him to sign a copy of his first book. Also I think he would look really good in a smoking jacket and an ascot.

Now I sit at my desk waiting for 5:30 so I can go and get my comics.

The Marvel vs DC Websites

So I go to the DC website to see what comics are out this week and how much money I will be spending. I find the list instantly and thankfully discover that this should be a fairly small week.
I then go to the Marvel website to try and do the same.

It is hard to find the list. It is hidden in a page behind one of the buttons on the top banner called " Comics on Sale." Other than that nothing about the fact that they have any comics coming out at really any point. The website is taken up by the Iron Man movie and a small window about WWH. But that is it. Anything saying that they sell comics is nicely hidden away, while DC, while not putting the list front and center at least puts it front and to the right. You log onto their site and you can tell that they sell comics and which ones are coming out.

I just find that interesting

Good G_D Yonatan wrote a post!!!

Ah the day before Yom Kippur, when all Jews eat massive amounts of food to prepare for the fasting tomorrow.

Anyway it has been like a month since I last posted, ive been up to some interesting stuff, been some interesting places and well... things have been interesting.

At some point this weekend I will make another post about comics, movies and other stuff.

I swear*

Until then work, more food and then going to Synagogue.

Ta for now

-Yonatan



*He says 6 odd hours before he goes to Kol Nidre to have all previous oaths removed.

RIP Luciano Pavarotti

Something awesome for Sunday

Taken from the BBC TV show Dead Ringers

Shabbat Shalom everyone

Hope you are all having a fun labor day weekend

Friday Night Fights

After a few week off of the fighting it is time to begin again.

Friday Night Fights are a go!

Here from JLA 86, Wonder Woman shows how she would really handle a fight.
Sigh...the Joe Kelly/Doug Mahnke era of JLA was so much fun.

Dalek Empire 4 Trailer

This is the trailer to the "4th season" of Big Finish Production's Dalek Empire series.
They are essentially radio plays and the 4th series stars Noel Clark, otherwise known as Micky Smith from seasons 1 and 2 of the new series of Doctor Who.

Plus here is a fan made trailer to the series in general

Michael Vick has found Jesus

He was hiding behind the couch this time.

Why does suddenly finding Jesus (hiding in the garage) make things so much better.
Am I supposed to think, "oh well yeah he was torturing dogs, but now he has found Jesus (watching TV in your Den) , so he must be a wonderful man."

Sigh...thing 4,325 that I don't get about Christianity and their mysteriously disappearing Messiah.

Story can be seen here

Fredo sleeps with the fishes

Gonzales has resigned!!!
{dances happy dance}

here the first bit of the report from Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has resigned, an official said on Monday, ending a controversial tenure as chief law enforcement officer that blemished the administration of President George W. Bush.

The official confirmed a Web site report of the resignation by The New York Times, telling Reuters an official announcement would be made later in the day.

Possible replacements include Senator Orin Hatch and Homeland (in)Security chief Michael Chertoff

Something awesome for Sunday

It is floating around the internets...and is probably from along time ago...but it is still funny.
Even though SPARTA NEEDS NO CAUTION SIGNS!!!

Shabbat Shalom everyone

Had a fun time back in Mountain View over the weekend. I took this at the Mountain View Farmers Market last October.
Have a good weekend everyone.

%$&^%$%& Voicemail

I have been calling Area Agencies on Aging all day long...why wont any of them pick up the phone?

Free Ice Cream and New Comics

It is a good combination

(the free ice cream is at my work)

Something even more awesome for Sunday

Something Awesome for Sunday

While I am back home I went and looked through my collection of TPB's that I had purchased before I went off to college and found:
The Gen 13 Wildstorm Archive: 528 pages, black and white reprints of all Gen13 from the prelude to the first Gen-13 miniseries to issue 13c of the ongoing title, as well as the source book pages on the team. Printed in 1998, years before anyone else thought of doing these phonebook type reprints.

Shabbat Shalom everyone

Shabbat Shalom!
I am home in Mountain View this weekend.
Hope everyone is having a good one.

Friday Night Fights

With a WHOK and a WHAP
It is time for Supergirl to kick some Ass
in this weeks installment of

Friday Night Fights
Featuring some beautiful art from Supergirl #20.

It is amazing...she looks like a real girl. (This is the important thing..she actually looks like a girl, and not a smaller woman) It is very sad that this artist is leaving after three issues. I hope he gets another title soon.

Doctor Who: The Man in the Brown Suit?

"Penniless recently-orphaned Anne Beddingfeld witnesses a man falling to his death in a crowded London tube station. A mysterious, brown-suited man claiming to be a doctor examines the body, but drops a piece of paper that Anne picks up, with a number and "Kilmorden Castle" written on it. A famous dancer is then reported murdered, with links to the tube station victim, and Anne begins to investigate. She discovers that Kilmorden Castle is the name of a cruise boat, and backed by a newspaper magnate, sails on it to South Africa to follow the trail."

This is the descrition for an Agatha Christie novel from 1924. The title of that novel:

The Man in the Brown Suit.

Now who else do we know who wears a brown suit and claims to be a doctor...hmm..
We know that Agatha Christie is appearing in season 4 of Doctor Who. Are they doing a quasi adaptation?
Hattip to Millarworld for more info look to Wikipedia

US News rankings are out today

UC Irvine is tied for 44th place in the Nation in the ranking of all colleges, and it tied for 14th place in Public Schools

So says US News and World Report

GO ANTEATERS!!! ZOT ZOT ZOT

Justice League of America #12 Review

This is the cover to Justice League of America #12This is a picture of a Toilet that I found online

This is what should be done with all copies of Justice League of America #12

Any questions?

Some Comedy on Thursday Night

Nothing beats 50 college age Jews moshing to this song.
Well...some things do..but it was really cool

Comics reviews!!! (flashback part 1)

Countdown 38

Getting better...getting better...almost getting up to 52 levels. The one real problem that I had with this issue is that Jimmy Olsen seems to have aged backwards 5 or so years.

out of 5 Jason Todds





Green Lantern Corps 14:

Pure Distilled Awesomeness. Natu vs Sinestro. Patrick Gleeson art. Does loose one because Moose isn't doing the coloring for the issue and thus the green looses a bit of its sheen.

out of 5 Jason Todds




Green Lantern 22:

Reasons this issue is not as awesome as previous parts of the Sinestro Corps War: Only a small cameo from Natu, Don't hear much from Kyle (only Parallax), no Guy or Kilowog, Hal Jordan still not acting like the "Greatest Green Lantern", but keeps on acting like a silly putz.
Reasons why this issue did have awesomeness: We are not being bonked over the head with tales about how awesome Hal is, Guardians scheming, "Heh. Stupid Earth", since the Anti-Monitor seems to be a hologram and not the actual guy... where is it broadcasting from? Green Lanterns showing up en mass to bail out Hal. All in all a good issue, but I am really look forward to the GL Corps issues more than the GL issues(except for the bits in GL with Kyle in them).
All in all...
out of 5 Jason Todds




Batman 667:

On the one hand, oOo pretty. On the other, did we really need a return to the club of heroes. It might have made as much sense as anything else in the campy era of Batman, but in the modern era, it makes very little sense for the Club of Heroes to have existed. (now i have read some reviews is can sort of see what is going on...eh...)Oh and is Morrison laughing at the whole Red Arrow thing with Little Raven trying to rename himself Raven Red?

out of 5 Jason Todds




Metal Men 1:

Sigh...so fun. This is the sort of title that DC should put out more. It is plain unadulterated fun, and is something that can be enjoyed by kids and adults. Also it would make a great cartoon. Pixar should make a Metal Men movie.

out of 5 Jason Todds