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Saturday, April 19, 2008 ( 4/19/2008 05:13:00 PM ) Bill S. WEEKEND PET PIC: What's Kyan seeing as he looks out the front window? One of the neighborhood's feral felines? A road runner with a lizard in its beak? Or perhaps just one of our neighbors, walking their dog and/or little one down the dirt lane? Whatever it is, it must be fascinating . . .  THE USUAL NOTE: For more cool pics of companion animals, please check out Modulator's "Friday Ark." # | Friday, April 18, 2008 ( 4/18/2008 05:26:00 PM ) Bill S. IN SENSURROUND! So my old Central Illinois stomping grounds experienced a 5.2 earthquake thanx to the New Madrid fault today. I remember a decent-sized quake hitting the region back when I was in college at Illinois State: I was living on the 8th floor of Wright Hall, and I was wakened by the 5.3 quake. I remember the feeling of the buildings swaying, and in my half-drowsy/half hungover state (this was my first year away from home, after all) thinking that the winds were really shaking the building pretty good. It was only later that I learned that we'd experienced an event that West Coast residents would've probably shrugged off as just another plate rattler. Reading of today's quake - and thinking about the Midwest winter we missed this year - I'm tempted to write that it looks like we got outta Illinois at the right time. But I know every region has its risks. I'm told, for example, that Safford AZ's hot springs hint at the possibility of volcanic action some day in the future. And there are some who claim that the area's big mountain, Mt. Graham, isn't a mountain at all but a dormant volcano. But perhaps that just apolocalyptic wishful thinking. In any event, I couldn't help wondering how our old house back in Normal IL did today. Still haven't fully let got of the place, I guess . . . # | Thursday, April 17, 2008 ( 4/17/2008 06:00:00 AM ) Bill S. THE APOCALYPTIC JUKEBOX: Watching this week's Criminals Minds ep, it occurred to me: Johnny Cash's "The Man Comes Around" has replaced George Thorogood's "Bad to the Bone" as the go-to soundtrack song for foreshadowing dire doin's ahead. To my eyes-and-ears, the best use of each was in the openings of Dawn of the Dead 2.0 and John Carpenter's Christine, respectively. # | Wednesday, April 16, 2008 ( 4/16/2008 06:56:00 AM ) Bill S. MID-WEEK MUSIC VID: Hey, let's check out a video of that Cure song, "Love Cats"! # | ( 4/16/2008 02:26:00 AM ) Bill S. "CATCHIN' SOME SUN/WE CAN'T GO WRONG." N.C.I.S. makes its play for a Genesis Award with an entry centered on Pauley Perrette's lab tech Abby Sciuto as she attempts to clear a drug-sniffing dog accused of mauling its handler. We all know that – her predilection for speed metal in the lab aside – our Abs is just a big ol' softie, but I'm not sure I accepted all the animal themed music they had her playing in the episode. Okay, The Cure's "Love Cats" is a cool track and believable for the demi-goth girl besides. But Nellie McKay's "The Dog Song"? Nope, don't buy it, not even ironically . . . # | Tuesday, April 15, 2008 ( 4/15/2008 09:33:00 AM ) Bill S.  "WE'D BE MUCH BETTER OFF WITHOUT THE SINS OF MAN STINKING UP THE AIR!" The title hero to the first volume of Shawn Granger's Innocent (King Tractor Press) is not very prominent on either of the variant covers of his first paperback collection. The first, depicted by Kerem Beyit, features the series' secondary character Charles in portrait center as he battles a giant reptilian demon. It's not bad, but newcomers to the series might understandably come to the mistaken conclusion that this hulking baldie is the title Innocent, rather than his second-in-command. So where's our angel demi-hero, brandishing his terrible swift sword? Down near the bottom right corner. Innocent's second "special edition" cover, is even more indistinct. This 'un, a Tony DeZuniga penciled piece, placed a generic big-breasted sorceress in center, with our hero hiding behind her, obscured by the title lettering. I'm not automatically averse to this visual tactic - I like big breasts as much as the next straight fanboy - but I can't help wishing that DeZuniga had more clearly illustrated the book's hero. It's not as if this big-boobed sorceress had appeared anywhere inside the book. The Filipino artist is nowhere to be seen in the book's interior, which features five stories illustrated by a quintet of little-known artists. Too bad, since I would've like to have seen DeZuniga's sturdy brand of professionalism on at least one of these tales of death and retribution. As it is, the inconsistent artwork isn't bad by the standards of indy b-and-w pulp comics, though to my eyes the sturdiest and most easily scannable work is Mannie Abeleda's on "Innocent And the Call Girl." Four of the Granger-scripted tales originally debuted as web comics, though one (presumably the open-ended final piece, "The Sword") is new to this manga-pb-sized print edition. Each piece centers on Innocent, a one-eyed hit angel who seeks violent retribution on killers who might otherwise have gotten away with murder. He's assisted by the big-boned sociopath Charles, who at times reminds me of the twitchy weirdoes Pruitt Taylor Vince often plays, though his interaction with Innocent has more than a whiff of Ben Affleck & Matt Damon's bantering in Kevin Smith's Dogma. "Do you know if someday I'll do something bad enough to be on your list?" David asks the angel in the first story's opener. "Probably," Innocent replies. Now there's a stern employer. Though a few of these entries are played relatively straight (e.g., an overly-convoluted tale of murder on the police force), my favorite pieces are the ones that spice the dire deeds with goofy little details. Thus, in "Call Girl," our story's potential hooker victim is hung upside-down by an improbably huge hotel room full of robed "grey men," who grow more powerful by smashing themselves on the crotch with a wooden mallet. (Yowtch!) In "David Goes Home," the twosome visits David's little old lady mother, who assumes that the duo is a gay couple. ("You people are peculiar about your clothes.") As the threesome continues their little dinner get-together, Innocent has to slip out of the house to deal with a murderous female demon living next door. The panel depicting the horned creature's severed head put me in mind of Rei Mikamoto's over-the-top horror manga series, Reiko, the Zombie Shop. Unfortunately, there are no tease-y schoolgirl outfits to be seen in the entire book, though Granger includes a joke about 'em in the hooker story. Bet it would've made a cool DeZuniga cover . . . # | ( 4/15/2008 09:09:00 AM ) Bill S. SATELLITE DISH OF LOVE: If I've been quieter than usual these past few days, it's mainly because I've been spending too much of my free time learning how to navigate through our new DirectTV equipment. This is our first experience with a satellite dish: in the past, it's been telecable all the way, but the one system that reaches beyond the Safford city limits doesn't offer many of the channels that we prefer (BBC America, Bravo, VS for the Professional Bull Riding*), we dropped the cable package after our introductory six months package lapsed. (Man, we've been down here six months already?) We checked out the two big-name satellite systems and went with DirectTV – and not just because Dish Network has crappy commercials, either (though they do). Kept our cable hook-up for phone and Internet, though, so it's not as if we're abandoning our first service provider altogether. The guy came and installed the new dish later Saturday afternoon. Subsequently, I spent my day of rest getting to know our new remote (hey, it's color coded!); putting together a Favorites list that skips through religion (no BYU!), sports and Pay-Per-View channels; and trying out the DVR so we could set it up for Wire in the Blood later that night. Caught two eps of Torchwood on Saturday, though it looks like we're gonna have to wait for reruns to get the whole back story on James Marster's guest-starring villain . . . *A favorite of the wife's. # | |
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