dark future

I recently read the Essential Marvel Team Up volume 2 (as well as the Essential Dr Strange volume 1). They are basically tradebacks reprinting about 25 issues of the old comic books. They are in black and white only to keep the cost down and they are good value – about $20 each depending on your exchange rate. I have some of the MTU issues starting at the end of this volume until the end of the run.
The Ditko Doctor Strange art is pretty neat – the stories seem to have paled a bit by the time lapsed and the lack of color. Most of the stories have him fighting Baron Mordo again and again. It might not have been so noticeable on a monthly issue, but read together, seems a bit repetitive.

The MTU had a story arc where Spidey gets shunted through time to the past and then flung into the far future. Since these stories had been published in 1975, their idea of the future differs from what we are now experiencing.
He first went ahead to 2019 (issue 45) and teamed up with Kilraven in fighting in a New York devastated in the Second Martian Invasion of 2001. He then hopped back slightly to a then-future 1990 (issue 46), where he teamed up with Deathlok to battle mutates.

Your experience with the future may have varied.

dealership delays

Birchwood has had the Windstar in for two weeks now getting the rocker panel fixed. When we called last week to check the status of it I had been told that the part had been fixed and was just waiting to be repainted. They said there were about 20 cars waiting so it would probably be sometime this week.

Yesterday, we came home from the movies to a message on our machine telling us that they were unable to fix the panel and have been having trouble trying to find an aftermarket part to replace it. They mentioned that they might have to order the whole assembly from Ford and have to cut and weld it. Shan will call back later today to find out what’s up. Either they were lying to us (again) when they told us last week that it had been fixed or they had fixed it and someone realized that the fix wasn’t good enough after all.

Either way we’re driving around in a Nissan Sentra. It’s tiny. In many ways it reminds me of the old days of driving around in my old Chevette – except that had more interior room.

The Grey Cup

We don’t really follow much in the way of sports teams. Certainly not baseball, hockey, soccer, or the NFL. I used to follow the NBA about 2 decades ago but haven’t really kept up with all the expansions. We do keep a bit more aware of the CFL though.

We don’t always closely follow the season but do have more of a celebration on the Grey Cup. Granted, we don’t always watch the game, but do like to have a Grey Cup party. It started one year because I was feeling the need for the pomp and food of a sports party. Like a Superbowl party but without having to actually wait through the game in order to see the fun commercials.
We were freshly married and I had made wings, chips, cheese and crackers, veggies and dip and so on with which to eat with the game. It occurred to me that I liked the party and food aspects more than the game itself. The wife had said that if I was going to put out this much food anyways, we might as well have people over.

The next year, and for many years after that, we hosted a Grey Cup party. Most of our friends weren’t into football much either, but came for the food and company. We would play board games and chat. It was a good time. While it sometimes referred to as such, it was never actually an anti-Grey Cup party; we just didn’t always watch the game. This did cause an issue in 2001 as the Blue Bombers (our home team) were actually in the Grey Cup again.

The following year we moved to our new house. Shortly afterwards we took a few years off from the party. With the Bombers back in the Grey Cup this year, we made up the food again but actually watched the entire game this year. It was a close game but Saskatchewan beat us out in the end. Maybe next year we’ll start back with the party again.

boxes full of figures

Another box of love from ebay showed up yesterday. I have gotten two boxes with close to 200 cheap Heroclix figures to fill in some of my many gaps in my sets. I've brought a few more sets closer but haven't completed any more yet.
Ebay is presently dangerous. Our dollar topped out recently at $1.10 US and is now back to par. I've won a few items I've tried off and on for over the last few years to buy. Shipping is still a bit but I'm hoping they will survive the trip. With Christmas coming, I'm trying to pace my purchases.

I had to take the Windstar in for repair. They were supposed to have fixed the rusty rocker panel when we bought it but it looks like it had only been painted over. With the rust module and the repair, it shouldn't have visibly rusted through again in just a month. So that's back in getting fixed.

I love my wife

Today is our 11th anniversary. We have a bit of a flu or cold going through the household, so the wife ended up staying home. I, of course, am well enough to go in to work. Having Monday and Tuesday off is enough incentive for me to make it in today.

We picked up the second season of How I Met Your Mother for our anniversary. “Suit up!” I was thinking back to when we were going out and some quotes from the movies we saw back then. We have a similar, broad taste is movies and a similar comedic sense that’s a little bit off.

“Head! Pants!”and “We’ve got a piper down.” from So I Married An Axe Murderer with Mike Myers and Nancy Travis. It’s very charming and sweet, as well as wickedly funny.

“Yeah, well you’ve got a Captain Hook complex” from One Fine Day with George Clooney and Michelle Pfeiffer, in response to being told that he has a Peter Pan complex.

“Just trying to find our song” from Speechless with Michael Keaton and Geena Davis.

I wasn’t so impressed with Bullets Over Broadway with John Cusack (I’m sure I was tired) but we later loved Gross Point Blank – “No meetings!”

She was good with Highlander but, for some reason (again I blame lack of sleep), she showed me Nightmare Before Christmas and I didn’t appreciate it the first time I saw it. Despite this, she still married me and both us and our kids love Nightmare.
She also reintroduced me into watching the x-files by showing some of the more comedic episodes. The two episodes I had caught from the first two seasons were both spaceship ones – chasing through the woods so I hadn’t been watching.

Once again I marvel at how lucky I am to have someone with which to share such a large part of my life interests. She’s my schmoopy, my lobster, my Lady Red.

Gord died

I don’t seem to be able to post from home so have been unable to update while on holidays last week. The Comiccon went well, got the costume mostly done, Halloween was fine. I’ll update on all that later but I must deal with this first.

At the Comiccon, Shan found out from his daughter Meghan that Gord from Face-Off had died on September 29. We were both stunned. He was 65 but we always remember him as a nice old man. When we used to do the comic shows, he was always there. I recall him as usually cheerful – more ready to shrug and laugh at something than let it get him upset. I used to judge Heroclix at his store back in the day and he was always super pleasant with which to deal. I had seen him get frustrated rarely but he usually was able to shake his head and let it pass.
He never closed – only two days a year and was always making crazy good deals for the customers. Since my office moved, I haven’t been out his way as much lately as I had been.

We will miss him terribly. He was one of the few old men in the gaming community left and definitely the sweetest. His son Rob will carry on running the store. Comiccon had a memorial poster up for him during the convention with his big grinning face by the registration desk.