Just a couple of quick things:

Happy Birthday, Kim!
Happy Birthday, Dad!

Another article by me. Two more are on their way with a third looming out in the distance.

These extra paid writing jobs have meant less blogging lately, but I'm going to keep posting stuff. Today is comic book day and there is a lot coming out, so I'll probably post the pulls from today, from last week, and some stuff I snatched off ebay tomorrow or Friday for you comic book people.

posted by Travis at 10:04 AM

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Tuesday, August 23, 2005

Last week I posted about how I bought Snake Eyes: Declassified #1. I have not read a G.I. Joe comic in literally 20 years. When I was a kid, I had two G.I. Joe comics that I read over and over and over and over because I loved the story so much. It was so dramatic and sad and cinematic...and it had ninjas! Those two comics were G.I. Joe #26 and G.I. Joe #27, and they dealt with the origin of Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow. When I opened Snake Eyes: Declassified to start reading, I had a brief moment of buyer's remorse. What if they change some of what I already know about this character? What if they retcon all of it to something that sucks? Well, I'm hear to tell you, it doesn't look like they are going to do that. In fact, they appear to be changing very little at all. I started to recognize panels like the ones below (the top one taken from G.I. Joe #26 printed in 1984 and the bottom one from Snake Eyes: Declassisifed released last week.

As you can see, they are very similar. As I read further, I noticed more similar panels and sequences here, here, here, and here. With some of the best stuff of the story left to come, I hope that the new version does not veer off course. I think I still prefer the old version better because it is all told in flashback, so Snake Eyes still does not speak (after he is injured in Vietnam, he is mute) even before he is injured. Giving him a voice and dialogue in the new version is taking away some of his mystique, I think.

posted by Travis at 7:26 PM

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Monday, August 22, 2005

I got another article published, this time for Tom's Hardware. They were interviewing my boss for this article and he related to them a funny story with which I am extraordinarily familiar. The site contacted me about writing it up, and I did. They posted it today here. Enjoy!

posted by Travis at 11:47 AM

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Wednesday, August 17, 2005

I guess the death of a family member took the wind out of my blogging sails. I think I'll be back up to pace in a few days. All went well in Oklahoma, or as well as could be expected. I plan on updating the page I put up for my grandfather with my grandmother's obituary as well as some fantastic pictures and magazine articles I found at the house. I'll do that this weekend. For now, let's move on to something less somber.

Today is comic book day, as you well know. I had an especially large pull this week since I missed last week, and both weeks had some good stuff coming out. I was able to find everything I wanted from last week except Supergirl #0. I'll have to wait on a reprint for that. This week I picked up House of M #5, Villains United #4, Spider-Man: House of M #3, Weapon X: Days of Future Now #2, Lex Luthor: Man of Steel #5, Livewires #6, The Invincible Iron Man #4, The Incredible Hulk #85, Green Lantern #3, Supergirl #1, Rann-Thanagar War #4, and I went completely off the reservation and picked up Snake Eyes: Declassified #1. When I was a kid, I watched G.I. Joe, played with the toys, and read the comics. My favorite comics were the ones exploring the story behind Snake Eyes and Stormshadow, or any interaction between the two. I frequently pick up G.I. Joe comics in the store and flip through them, but I never buy. Snake Eyes #1 might be my gateway drug. Click the thumbnails to see the full-size cover scans.

posted by Travis at 6:48 PM

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Tuesday, August 09, 2005

Well, I've got some sad news. My grandmother Mary Lee Ellet died on Sunday night. She was very old and getting sick, so it is not a complete surprise, but it happened rather quickly. I suppose that is better than lingering and waiting, but still... So I'll be traveling to Oklahoma this week. She's the wife of my grandfather that died in October of 2003. That reminds me that I never updated his obituary for the new site, so I'll do that soon.

posted by Travis at 11:26 AM

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Saturday, August 06, 2005

I've started reading V for Vendetta partly because of the movie coming out and partly because, like Watchmen, it comes highly recommended and is written by Alan Moore. I like it so far and I think the movie looks pretty good as well. I know Watchmen is held in the greatest esteem by comic nerds the world round, but I have my problems with it. I still enjoyed it a lot, but there were things about it that irked me. I'm hoping V for Vendetta will have fewer of those things while retaining the same level of enjoyment.

Today I read a little story called WE3 written by Grant Morrison and drawn by Frank Quitely. This team did the run on The New X-Men that got me back into comics in the first place. WE3 is about three animals that escape from a government super soldier program. I know how it sounds, but it is surprisingly moving, especially if you are an animal person. Also, this is one of the most violent comics I've ever read, so don't go and buy this for the kiddies because it has furry animals on the cover (unless of course you want them to be terrified of household pets for a very long time). There are some really interesting storytelling and style choices used in the book that I liked. I also enjoyed how the story captures a dog's inherent trust of man and a cat's inherent dislike of man. It's good stuff and a quick read. I hope he follows it up. I read a story in Variety or Hollywood Reporter or some other Hollywood news rag about some studio optioning the book for a movie. It could either be really cool or an enormous disaster. I mean, the story is basically Homeward Bound except the animals are killing machines and destroy people during the journey. It's a sad little story, but I enjoyed it.

How about this update pace, huh? I'm going to try to keep it up for a while.

posted by Travis at 11:12 PM

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Friday, August 05, 2005

There's nothing like the ear-piercing, pants-wetting sound of a smoke alarm to get your blood moving. We were upstairs on the computers last night when I heard a smoke alarm go off. Loud, strange noises are commonplace in our area, but a smoke alarm is a persistant and distinct sound that travels up and down the spinal column demanding the body to immediately do whatever is necessary to make the sound stop. So I located the screaming culprit and did the first thing that came to mind; I tried to forcibly remove it from the wall severing it's power source. It took a couple seconds for the smarter part of my brain to remind the primate part that one very specific thing causes a smoke alarm to go off and perhaps a better idea would be to locate the source of the smoke and investigate it. After announcing to Kim that something in the house might be on fire, I ran around the corner to the other side of the wall into the bedroom to find smoke seeping from around the edges of a sculpture we hung on the wall (a frieze perhaps?). Behind the frieze is the breaker box so I took down the frieze, opened the box, and felt that it was hot to the touch. The smoke was slowing down at this point, which caused my brain to process the next instruction: if(FlameVisible() = FALSE), DestroySound(alarm);. I fanned the smoke away from the alarm until it stopped alarming and returned to the bedroom to remove the breakbox cover. This is what I found. Click the pictures for bigger versions.

An electrician has already been dispatched to the house and the repair is under way.

posted by Travis at 3:07 PM

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Thursday, August 04, 2005

Wednesday is comic book day. It's been about a year since I started buying comics again, and I'm still buying new ones every week (I'm still working on the comic-related project I mentioned in that post, just not very often). There is some great writing in comics right now, and both Marvel and DC are working on huge, universe-affecting arcs this summer. Marvel's is called House of M and DC's is called Infinite Crisis. Both feature the big characters, have lots of spin-offs, and are promised as being the greatest thing ever. I'm reading both and they do seem pretty good so far, but I'm skeptical about how much the respective comic continuums will be affected at the end of it all. I get emails from people about what I'm buying and what's good out there, so I'll start posting what I get every Wednesday. This week I picked up Ultimate Iron Man #3, Soulfire: Dying of the Light #1, The New Avengers #8, Justice #1, Iron Man: House of M #2, Fantastic Four: House of M #2, and 1602: New World #1. Click the thumbnails to see the full-size cover scan.

posted by Travis at 11:11 AM

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Wednesday, August 03, 2005

I have a new job...sort of. Our organization recently went through an outsourcing initiative resulting in IT and desktop support being outsourced to a contractor. That means that they gave my job as a desktop support analyst to someone else and gave me a different job. My new job title is Media Computing Analyst, and the two of us who ended up with that title are still working out what that job is exactly. As a desktop support analyst, it was all about numbers; tickets closed, tickets waiting to be closed, tickets pending, etc. Basically, if your work could not be quantified, you must not be working. This new position is more about projects and figuring out how to do things that we don't know how to do yet, which is better. So basically the stuff that I didn't like about my job was taken away and given to someone else, and the stuff I was always trying to get involved in has become my new job. So far so good. I got to leave a fairly curt voicemail greeting on my phone to discourage users circumventing the new system and calling me directly. That felt good. It isn't rude, but it isn't flowery either.

posted by Travis at 2:50 PM

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Monday, August 01, 2005

Some old college friends I haven't seen in a while stayed with us on their way home from traveling, so now I have left over beer in the fridge. I don't buy beer usually because I don't drink it on a regular basis. I will drink it if offered one when it's very hot, or in social situations, but I don't keep the house stocked with beer. The two guys staying with me are Beer Guys. I don't mean that they're big fat guys, I just mean that they both have a sensitive taste for beer. Me? I buy Coors Light, Corona, etc. I'm not picky. I even drank Natural Ice at times. I will try to drink their exotic left-over beer, but I have to bring it in to work and give it away or something during lunch. Perhaps I'll open a Beer Stand in my cube.

Oh, and I saw Fantastic Four this weekend. It isn't as bad as everyone says it is. It isn't particularly good, but I don't think comparisons to Batman and Robin are warranted. I think the problem is the story just isn't well written and the villain lacks a clear motivation. Also, I was expecting better effects from a summer blockbuster movie. It's worth a rental or dollar movie, but full price is a bit much. Once again, I pay so you don't have to.

posted by Travis at 10:05 AM

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