*Inhale*

Apologies.

The first week of Spring classes hit right after my last update, and I've finally been able to dig out from under my pile of "start of the year" problems.

This semester should be a fairly light one for me. After the 10 credit hour + full time job fiasco of last semester I've decided to keep in the single digits and relax a bit. This time around I'm only taking one class on campus:

LIT 227 Pasternak and Solzhenitsyn (3 credits)

I've also decided to start up salsa lessons again. This time I will be taking a West Cost "on two" class. I figure that if I'm going to re-take lessons, I might as well learn something new in the process.

My big problem (no pun intended) is that my balls-to-the-wall schedule last semester left me with no time to exercise, a poor diet, and a class that conflicted with salsa. Throw in the holidays and I've packed on most if not all of the weight I'd lost the previous year.

Still, the next six months of my life will be dedicated to dancing and reading depressing Russian literature. Throw in a couple glasses of wine and my life will be complete.

Unpacking, updating ... and undulating....

I still have to shave.

Do you have any idea how much I despise shaving? I've unpacked my bag from New York. I've charged my cell phone and chatted online. I've played a little Prototype. Hell, I've even swept the front stairs and wiped down my bathroom.

Yet it still looks like there is a wolverine humping my chin.

The day someone creates a razor with unlockable achievements or builds one that resembles a lightsaber is the day I will shave and be happy.



Until then ... shaving sucks.

ECHO (echo echo echo echo....)

It has been a while since I've been here, hasn't it?

Things are looking a bit dusty. There are cobwebs on my profile and half my links are so long dead that they've rotted down to their html bones.

I don't even really know what to say. I feel like Lloyd in The Stand, only instead of a rabbit I've accidentally starved a blog. Not out of malice, mind you. My mind was just ... elsewhere. Got so caught up in things that I plum forgot to leave any lettuce in the cage.

Still, a new year presents new opportunities and I'm starting to feel a bit peckish in the writing department.

We'll see.

Chemical Castration? Seriously?

The UK has officially apologized for their rather disgusting treatment of Alan Turing.

Awesome.

A Conservative’s Road to Same-Sex Marriage Advocacy

Theodore B. Olson’s office is a testament to his iconic status in the conservative legal movement. A framed photograph of Ronald Reagan, the first of two Republican presidents Mr. Olson served, is warmly inscribed with “heartfelt thanks.” Fifty-five white quills commemorate each of his appearances before the Supreme Court, where he most famously argued the 2000 election case that put George W. Bush in the White House. On the bookshelf sits a Defense Department medal honoring his legal defense of Mr. Bush’s counterterrorism policies after Sept. 11.

But in a war room down the hall, where Mr. Olson is preparing for what he believes could be the most important case of his career, the binders stuffed with briefs, case law and notes offer a different take on a man many liberals love to hate. They are filled with arguments Mr. Olson hopes will lead to a Supreme Court decision with the potential to reshape the legal and social landscape along the lines of cases like Brown v. Board of Education and Roe v. Wade: the legalization of same-sex marriage nationwide.

News from the Edge

How does language shape the way we think?

The bit about spacial perception and list-layout is pretty f-ing cool.

Finish it Neil!

This is the best news I've heard in months.

You've probably never heard of Marvelman (Miracleman in the USA) so I understand if you don't share my ecstatic joy.

Marvelman is the best, most wonderful comic you've never read.

In the early 80s, a yet-unknown Alan Moore took a 1940s rip-off of Superman and reimagined him for the pages of a British anthology comic book called Warrior. The story spun out into its own comic, called Marvelman, that eventually changed to Miracleman after Marvel Comics voiced some trademark objections.

The very basic premise of Miracleman was "what would someone with the power of Superman actually be like if he actually existed? How would our world change if a living god walked amongst us?"



Not

so

good

as it turns out

... note the skulls ....



Miracleman is noteworthy for a number of reasons, including but not limited to:

1.) It was the story that really launched Alan Moore's career. Miracleman (and, later, V for Vendetta) brought Moore to the attention of DC Comics.

2.) After Moore finished his run on Miracleman he handed it over to a struggling young writer friend of his, whom no one else had ever heard of, named Neil Gaiman, launching his career.

3.) When Neil Gaiman took over, they brought in a promising new artist named Mark Buckingham, launching his career.

4.) Every "what if Superheroes were real?" story owes it's existence to Miracleman. As does every good Superman story. Oh, and both The Watchmen & The Sandman are built off the the foundation laid by Miracleman. Especially the characters Dr. Manhattan and Morpheus.

5.) Issue #15. Jesus Christ.


Miracleman is also noteworthy for never pulling punches or insulting your intelligence. It is simply an amazing piece of literature that would easily sit beside (or, in my opinion, in front of) The Watchmen, Sandman, Maus & The Dark Knight Returns if it weren't for the fact that it has been commercially unavailable for nearly thirty years thanks to an insanely complicated copyright battle.

I won't go into detail about that one. You could read the whole story here if you'd like, but I would boil it down to "Todd McFarlane is a dick and a hypocrite". Either way, the series has never been reprinted which has resulted what was probably the best work of Alan Moore's career being nothing more than a footnote in comic book history.

So that is what makes the announcement that Marvel Comics now owns the rights to Miracleman so exciting. After nearly thirty years of legal limbo hell, it looks like Neil Gaiman may finally be able to finish his last two story arcs and close out one of the best comics ever written.

Oh, and like I said. Issue #15. Jesus H. Christ....


Best news I've heard in a long, long time.

Oh, and if you're interested in a spoiler, hidden below is a damn fine description of Issue #15 from another blog....

Kid Miracleman

That cover hasn't lost an ounce of its eerie power in 20 years. Miracleman #15 is a lot of things. It's a high point in Alan Moore's career, it's a serious collector's item, and it's one of the most horrifying superhero stories ever published. It's the last chapter in the story of Johnny Bates, a young boy whose mind has been irreperably warped by a secretive government program from which this blog gets its name. Traumatized and living in a group home, Bates manages to suppress his murderous and psychotic alternate personality, Kid Miracleman—until a sexual assault by a gang of bullies wrenches him free. What follows is one of the most nightmarishly graphic superhuman killing sprees to ever grace the pages of a comic book, an orgy of bloodshed and terror that forces Miracleman and his allies to intervene, using any means necessary. Miracleman #15 poses the supreme question for superheroes: when is it okay to kill? The answer is never, but sometimes it's the only way out. For Miracleman, that's the beginning of a very slippery slope. And when Miracleman does put the Kid down like a rabid dog, the comic pulls no punches: he doesn't just kill a super-sociopath—he also kills a scared, broken little boy named Johnny Bates.

(NOTE: Wonder Woman snapping Maxwell Lord's neck in Infinite Crisis is essentially a scaled-down version of this story, not least because Max Lord is to Kid Miracleman as the Hamburgler is to Adolf Hitler. And a post spotlighting Moore's run on Miracleman is definitely forthcoming.)