Saturday, April 30, 2011

Blogging From A to Z: Z is for...

Z....The End.

The Superhero Alphabet – Aquaman To Zorro

Now that the Blogging from A to Z Challenge has ended....I find this...


Gary put out a call to identify J and Y which were the only ones I did not know.


Originally found HERE

Friday, April 29, 2011

Blogging From A to Z: Y is for....

..."Y-The Last Man".


The first non "capes and tights" comic book I ever bought faithfully.  The premise of Y: The Last Man is simple,  what would happen if every man on the planet was simultaneously and instantly killed by a mysterious plague. Every man except one: Yorrick Brown. The 60 issue series follows Yorrick and his eventual band of travelers as they travel the world trying to find out why Yorrick is the only man to have survived the plague.

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Blogging From A To Z: W is for...

...Watchmen....the comic that blew my 16 year old mind...I can't say I understood it and there are some parts that don't hold up for me when I re-read the trade, but the impression it made on me and the subtle shift in my reading habits persist to this day.

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Blogging from A to Z: V is for...

...Vision....one of my all time favorite comic book characters.  When I started collecting comics, I actively sought out all of his appearances.  When I returned to comics in the last few years, I found out he has become virtually unrecognizable to me as a character.  But I still enjoy reading his older adventures....


Monday, April 25, 2011

The Wilhelm Scream



I should probably hold on to this for "W" in the Blogging From A to Z Challenge, but Topless Robot posted this compilation of 50 years of The Wilhelm Scream and I can't NOT post it!

I have always been vaguely aware of The Wilhelm Scream from its repeated use in the Star Wars films, but had no idea it was used THIS often!

For those of you who MIGHT not know, Wikipedia tells us:

The Wilhelm Scream is a film and television stock sound effect first used in 1951 for the film Distant Drums. The effect gained new popularity after it was used in Star Wars.  The scream is often used when someone is shot, falls from a great height, or is thrown from an explosion.
The sound is named for Private Wilhelm, a character in The Charge at Feather River, a 1953 western in which the character is shot with an arrow. 

Blogging From A To Z: U is for

...Ultimate Spider-Man.


When I returned to comics after my son was born, I had heard about this series.  I had never really collected Spider-Man previously and was intrigued by this take on him.  It didn't hurt that I liked this "new" writer Brian Bendis and the art was pleasing.  I hunted down every back issue and today it is the 6th highest issue total of any comic book series in my collection (with 137 to Batman's 143) and the only one I am still collecting.

Marvel's next big Ultimate Universe event is entitled "Death of Spider-Man" and if it is indeed the case, I don't think I will mind, as this series seems to have gone as far as it can.

Saturday, April 23, 2011

Blogging From A To Z: T is for

...Time Bandits.


One of the first movies I ever saw multiple times in the theater (along with 9 to 5 the previous year, and Dragonslayer during the summer of the same year as Time Bandits.)  I love everything about this movie, from the opening sequence through to the end song and little snippet after the credits.




Friday, April 22, 2011

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Blogging From A To Z: Q is for

...Quantum Leap. 


This was MY first science fiction television show.  Yes, I had seen the Original Star Trek in reruns and had vague memories of the original Battlestar Galactica series.  I did watch some of Star Trek: The Next Generation when it aired, but I lost track of it when I went to college and always considered it part of the original show.  

Quantum Leap was all mine!  I had no one to watch it with nor share it with but it lit the fire for the fantastic for me that continues to this day.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Blogging From A To Z: P is for...

Psych...best hour long comedy on television....a great show that my wife, daughter and I have bonded over...



I think I just hit upon my "theme" (a la Armchair going with a baseball idea) for NEXT year!

Monday, April 18, 2011

Blogging From A To Z: O is for...

Outer Banks.....first trip I ever made with my wife....heading back with the kids in 1 month and 29 days...this is just about EXACTLY where we stay..


Sunday, April 17, 2011

Oh Canada....



The Canada Act of 1982 was was signed by Queen Elizabeth II on April 17, 1982, and ended all remaining dependence of Canada on the United Kingdom.

Saturday, April 16, 2011

Blogging From A To Z: N is for...

...Nightcrawler.  My all time favorite X-Men character.  My favorite version is the John Byrne version from X-Men 94 to 141 but I could not find a decent scan of him!  So I used this one by Alan Davis from Excalibur.  It was a series with great promise that seemed to fizzle quick.  And like so many characters from my youth, when I rediscovered comics in the last few years, Kurt Wagner was no longer someone I recognized.

Friday, April 15, 2011

Blogging From A To Z: M is for...

Mystery Science Theater 3000...one of the first common "loves" my wife and I discovered...We are two seasons away (Season "K" and the official Season 1) from owning EVERY episode!

Happy 71st Birthday Woodie Fryman!

His is not a household name, but Fryman's name shows up several times throughout the Expos' record book. He ranks fourth all time in shutouts (8), fifth in games played (297), seventh in saves (52), ninth in win percentage (.495) and tenth in both career ERA (3.24) and wins (51).


Woodie was inducted into the Montreal Expos’ Hall of Fame in 1995, and the Kentucky Sports Hall of Fame in 2005. On February 4, 2011, he died in his hometown of Ewing, Kentucky, where he was a tobacco farmer, two months shy of his 71st birthday.


Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Blogging From A To Z: K is for

...Kingdom Come.


Straight from Wikipedia:

Kingdom Come is a four-issue mini-series published in 1996 by DC Comics. It was written by Alex Ross and Mark Waid. Set some twenty years into the future of the then-current DC Universe, it deals with a growing conflict between "traditional" superheroes, such as SupermanWonder Woman, and the Justice League, and a growing population of largely amoral and dangerously irresponsible new vigilantes. Between these two groups is Batman and his assembled team, who attempt to contain the escalating disaster, foil the machinations of Lex Luthor, and prevent a world-ending superhuman war.

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Blogging From A To Z: J is for

...Justice League.  Though they appeared before The Avengers, I discovered them after.  Different in my mind than other super-hero teams, in that this team is best when DC's biggest characters are on the roster.  

My favorite back issue finds these days are 1970-1980 era JLA comics....always a good read.

Monday, April 11, 2011

Blogging From A To Z: I is for...

...Indiana Jones.

For two enduring reasons:  Raiders of the Lost Ark was the first movies ever "SPOILED" for me, but the memory of my grandfather doing so makes me happy to this day....



Second, I saw Temple of Doom in a somewhat rundown theater with my two cousins in Brattleboro, Vermont.  To this day I maintain I saw a rat or two IN THE THEATER which only added to the creepiness and unsettling nature of this film!


Saturday, April 9, 2011

Blogging From A to Z: H is for...

...Harry Potter.

The books came out just as I got my first classroom and it really seemed to charge a generation of readers.  I appreciate the movies, as they have become an "event" for my wife and daughter.  I'm actually kind of sad to see the final installment come out...

Friday, April 8, 2011

Blogging From A To Z: G is for...

...golf....a sport I just picked up last year after my father died.  My great-grandfather was the first golf pro at Dartmouth College.  When he retired, they started a yearly tournament in his name.  My grandfather and father played in it for as long as I could remember.  When Gramps died in 2000, my father invited my brother to play with him.  When Dad died last year, my brother asked me to play with him, despite the fact I had NEVER picked up a club, much less played before.  I got clubs and played through out last summer to get ready and played in the tournament in August.  I LOVE IT.  I have played more with these three guys pictured than anyone else.  And the best part is....my daughter already loves it.  I think she will become my number one partner before this summer is up....


Thursday, April 7, 2011

What a day....










This might get lost amidst the A to Z challenge and might come across as just some whining, but this day....Oy.

It started at 4:30 with the toilet starting to run mysteriously.  Annoying.  Woke me up from a very deep sleep.  I get up and turn off the water, figuring I would deal with it later.

I try to fall back asleep but get out of bed at 5:00 thinking I could catch Sports Center and find out how my beloved Red Sox did....missed the top of the hour recap but eventually find out along the scroll that they lost....again.

Getting ready for school and my wife tells me that my ex-wife has pulled a pretty cruddy move and put our daughter in the middle.  Something Nan and I have tried to avoid forever.

My first meeting at school left a bad taste in my mouth but everything starts to change during Morning Announcements, when The Armchair Squid gets one of the principals to "inadvertently" read the lyrics to "Here, There, and Everywhere" over the intercom!  Absolutely brilliant!

The day itself was slightly above average as a whole, but shaky at times.  It ends with an impromptu visit by a School Board member that seems, in retrospect, to have been positive.

On the ride home from school, I see someone lying on the ground, not moving, on the median between two fairly busy roads.  No one is stopping so I pull over.  As I get out of my car and run over to the man, someone else gets out of their car.  As I call 9-1-1, it becomes apparent that the man has passed out and is intoxicated.  We are just over the town line, so the dispatcher I am put in touch with is actually the one in my hometown.  The police arrive and take over the situation.

One of the parent's of one of my students calls as I am walking through the door, but Nan has already told him I am not home yet so I put off calling him back.

After dinner, I decide to balance our bank account quickly before calling back the parent.  When I call up our account, I discover that somehow our accounts have been compromised.  Our money is gone.

Somehow, our debit cards are being used in Minnesota at some mini-marts despite the fact both of our cards are in the house!!

Our bank is a tiny local credit union with no after hours help.  So I call the police and when I give my name, the dispatcher actually comments that she remembers my name because I called earlier in the day!

Long story short, I have to go to our bank tomorrow to sort this out which means a half day of school (at the very least).  I had pleasant phone conversations with my principal (not the lyric reader), my teaching partner (and his girlfriend), my mother and my brother, as well as the parent of the student.

I think I might try to graph the ups and downs of this day, just to kind of sort it all out in my head....

Blogging From A To Z: F is for...

Fantastic Four....this was one of the only comics my two best friends and I all read growing up....John Byrne's era was incredible....and I still have the poster below!

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Blogging From A To Z: E is for...

Expos...if they had been moved to the American League East and/or the strike of 1994 never happened....they'd still be at the Big O.

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Blogging From A To Z: D is for...

...Dad.  

He died almost a year ago.  He and I had come to a nice place before he died.  I really do miss him.

Shortly after he died, this article appeared about him in the local newspaper.


Downtown Personality Remembered With Warmth



By STEPHANIE M. PETERS STAFF WRITER - Published: April 27, 2010

On nice days during the spring, summer and early fall, Peter Mock was a fixture downtown, tending sidewalks and aiding business owners from behind a large sidewalk vacuum, always with a smile.

He quietly and proudly went about a job that for many would be an unpleasant chore. Mock considered it a duty.

"If people ask me why I do it, I tell them, 'For the sheer joy of knowing the downtown is clean,'" he told a reporter in July 2001. "I get asked that question a lot."

Mock died unexpectedly at his home in Clarendon on Saturday at age 60 – news that on Monday stunned the downtown business owners and employees whom he'd come to know.

"Its sudden and it's shocking," said Michael Coppinger of the Downtown Rutland Partnership, which employed Mock. "He will be sorely missed."

"We had been talking about the possibility of having the Partnership take over the maintenance of the train station and having him work year-round," said Bonnie Hawley, of Hawley's Florist and the Partnership. "It wasn't just a job to him. He cared about what it looked like downtown."

A native of Hanover, N.H., Mock owned and operated shoe-repair shops in Rutland and Middlebury prior to taking the job at the Partnership in 2000. In an interview in 2001, he said he took the sidewalk maintenance job as a way to ease the passing of his father and get into shape.

He also expounded on the ins and outs of the job, including the problems that could arise with the hefty, high-powered parking lot vacuum he usually pushed during his five-hour shift, and the one form of litter he wouldn't contend with – "bird doo."

"Peter just had an amazing initiative to do what needed to be done," said Mary Ann Goulette, former executive director of the Partnership. "He took on everything himself, never asked for help and never questioned anything."

Along the way, Mock also lent a friendly face to the downtown, Goulette said. He would greet or nod hello to most passers-by, as well as stop and talk to those who worked in the stores lining Center Street and Merchants Row.

"It takes years to get the kind of rapport with business owners that he had," said Tim Billings, who has managed Clem's Café for the past year and frequently stopped to talk to Mock.

Perhaps one of the merchants Mock came to know best was James McNeil of McNeil & Reedy. The two men first met about 20 years ago, when Mock owned a shop on State Street, McNeil said. In his most recent capacity, Mock would stop to talk to McNeil about everything from buying local, his preference for tea instead of coffee and the brooms he purchased annually at Aubuchon Hardware, to wintering in Florida, which he would do about a week after his seasonal job with the Partnership ended, McNeil said.

"He was just a funny guy," McNeil said. "And he did a good job."

Monday, April 4, 2011

Blogging From A To Z: C is for....Castle

Castle....currently my favorite hour long "police" type show...





==
I am attempting to take part in the A to Z Blogging Challenge. See the full list at Tossing It Out.  There are currently over 1100 blogs participating!


Saturday, April 2, 2011

Blogging From A To Z: B is for Beatles

Beatles....my favorite musicians of all time....


==
I am attempting to take part in the A to Z Blogging Challenge. See the full list at Tossing It Out.  There are currently over 1100 blogs participating!





Here are some of the other blogs participating that I follow:
The Armchair Squid; A good friend in the real world and Master Blogger who took up this challenge with GUSTO!
Tossing It Out; Where this all started!
Calvin's Canadian Cave of Cool; A delightfully quirky blog I stumbled across a few months ago.
Open The Toy; The title says it all..."Toys, Games and Anything Fun!"

whos.amung.us

My Favorites