Before Tink: The Best Super Hero in the World

I needed forget Jacksonville is sometimes just like Hazzard County, GA complete with Boss Hogg and Roscoe P. Coltrane.

I'm glad we still have comic book stores for that. My boy, M, saw my two boxes of old comics, and decided he wanted a couple boxes of comics, too. I thought he should start with one-- to add to his Sonic comic. His mom gave him $5 dollars, and off we went.

It'd been awhile since I've been in a comics store. M would pick up a book, and start to GENTLY flip through it, like I showed him. I hadn't seen the T+, and the A on the covers before! It's probably been on there a couple years. It could be a way to keep the comics industry from being totally stamped out by other people trying to protect my son's soul. BUT, I used it to find a story arc that M could sit through without becoming bored, or ask a gazillion questions I can't answer. ("Daddy, where do super heroes go when they die? If there is a zombie swamp monster under my bed, do you have a super power to get it back into the swamp? Or, at least into the neighbor's backyard? Why not?")

ANYWAY, M's new favorite character is Wolverine. Weapon X is T+ (Teens and over). But, he did find X-Men First Class, rated A for Anyone. He likes all the X-men. He knows their names and powers, thanks to an old video game he found, and a couple cartoons he saw. He managed to sit through 1/2 the first movie, too. I'm sure all his friends swap X-Men stories and make up new ones. I wonder if Socrates and Plato did the same thing regarding the gods and goddesses on Mount Olympus?

My favorite super hero of all time is Storm. (See pic by Aaron Lopresti which I found here.) She's the BEST X-Man. The greatest super hero EVER. She even beat Scott Summers-- WITHOUT her weather-controlling super powers. I had collected a lot of Storm stuff. I still have an empty can of Dr. Pepper with her picture on it. I wonder if my boy will become just as nuts for the X-Men.

M proudly paid the $5 for the comic, and "Dad! I got some cents back!" He took my money, and paid for my comic, too. He's getting so big. I picked up the current issue of Echo, by Terry Moore, who wrote/drew Strangers in Paradise. I opened up Echo, and the love of his art gripped me again. It was like looking at an old friend again. Now I need to get all the other issues of Echo. Dang. Back into the comic obsession...

It did made me smile to take my boy on a comic book trip, though. Dad and boy time.

Say, they just started drawing Pride and Prejudice, for all those Jane Austin fans out there.

Tink on Ice

So, we went to Disney on Ice. Other than Mickey, Minnie, Goofy and Donald, it was okay.

Some random thoughts about the Disney on Ice Show:

When Ariel gets her legs, it got a lot less hotter under the water.

During the Lion King, I still couldn't tell the difference between The Circle of Life and the Food Chain.

The litte girl behind me had no idea what a hyena was, and asked her mom a dozen questions about them, but at the intermission, she pointed at the skating rink and told her mom that was a Zamboni.

During the Pixar's Cars skidding this and that way on the ice, all I could think of was driving in Minnesota winters. I wanted to throw down some sand for them.

Then the Pixie Hollow fairies came out after the intermission. My wife had the good camera, but I thought, what the heck, try the cell phone camera. But every time I try to get a shot of Tinker Bell, she was all white light.

FINALLY, after a dozen photos of Tink and her atomic aura, and at the end of the show, I get a shot.

So, the show wraps up with melding the Pixie Hollow music with the M-I-C-K-E-Y theme... Just to drum it into your head that Mickey is always watching, and owns everything you just saw.

Nothing to blog

So, Somali pirates hijack the Maersk Alabama in the Indian Ocean. The crew stabs a pirate and the pirates leave in a lifeboat with the Maersk captain. The U.S. Navy shows up, and the pirates radio a German ship, the Hansa Stavanger that was under pirate control since this Saturday. But, the Navy wouldn't let them through.

The Hansa Stavanger had a crew of 24 sailors. 12 of them are from Tuvalu.

Tuvalu is the fourth smallest country in the world. They make money by leasing their domain name .tv (it's like the United Kindoms .uk, or Canada's .ca) to folks like NBC4.tv, or china.tv. I mean, a country without mineral resources, nor rivers, groundwater. Or, food.

Speaking of food, the Maersk Alabama that was hijacked: It finally made it to it's destination: Mombasa, Kenya with food aid.

Oh, and the captain? He's from Vermont. They just legalized gay marriage.

Ok. Nothing to blog today.

When Is It Too Much Information?

When I type a capital P, I hold the shift key down with my right pinkie finger, then strike the P with the middle finger of the same hand.

Now, did I really need to blog that?

Pieces from my week

Nothing feels quite like finishing a snazzy pair of socks! And, nothing feels quite like realizing I Kirchner stitched the second sock shut two rows too early. Sigh. Nothing feels like unraveling a toe, and joining in new yarn to get the toe right.

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My boy introduced me to a new little girl in his class (he's 5.5). He said they were in love, and it was real. Well, I guess I won't have to explain eHarmony to him.

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I tried Twitter. I found myself almost caring if Kelly Ripa made her flight back to the U.S. Apparently, she needs sleep just as much as I do.

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The room freshener makes my office smell like a Smurf bordello.

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My boy would not keep his hands out of the ice bin at the movie theater concession stand. So, I used some of Cesar Millan's Dog Whispering tricks on him. They really work! Now my boy knows I'm the alpha dog. He's thinks his mom should get me a better leash.

Unfaded Memories

I remember the first time I saw The Thin Man. I had just got my job back that morning. To celebrate, I spent the afternoon pitching pennies. I won enough to buy a ticket to the theater near my brother-in-law's house where I rented a room. I sprawled out in the middle of a row, even winked at a girl a row behind me. First, the news reel about John Dillinger still being at large, the drought and dust storms, and Hitler's rise. A Betty Boop cartoon, and FINALLY the film. I laughed all the year's troubles away. Heck, we all did. I left the theater convinced all I needed was a snappy wit and a small dog to meet me a swell dame like Myrna Loy.

Well, okay. That's not exactly how it went. I love old movies: Bogart film noir, Fred Astaire musicals, or screwball Cary Grant comedies. My mind makes up a little fake me-history to go along with what I'm watching. I don't know why my brain does it, either. I'd understand it if they were memories of my OWN life, but "memories" of my grandparents' era? Is it to enjoy the movie even more, as if I could be in the original time at a theater when it was first released. Or, is it just a game to cull as much sickly-sweet nostalgia as I can from the movie?

When I hear old Benny Goodman tunes, I'll get sucked back to the days before going to war, the smokey dance hall with the tables shoved close together, yellow bulbs with tin shades hanging from the ceiling to light us, swirling-drunk dances, wringing one more happy memory to warm me through the winters Over There.

It's other people's schmaltz, but I loll in it all the same.