My oldest is going to turn 5 over the summer and she loves getting mail so I sent her the TMNT Krang Lab and she got it today.  Its her first real Lego set and she was so excited when a box came from her.  Once she saw what it was she was beside herself.  We put it together this afternoon and played with it for a while.  One of those moments that I will cherish for a long time.  I also hadn't put Legos together in quite some time.  It was a lot of fun. 

You name-changers make my heart swell.

The only place on the whole internets where I have ever considered doing it, actually did it and felt like it was the natural thing to do.  And it just speaks to what is going on around here.   

Another friend of mine has a good method he uses when he's on the fence with a title. If he's on the fence he will skip an issue or two. If he feels compelled to go and get those issues he does it. More often, he ends up forgetting about the book and then, poof, book dropped.

The guys on a recent episode of iFanboy were talking about this method as well.  I know I have missed issues, most recently I just forgot to order issue 4 of Captain America, and picked up issue 5 that came in my box and new something was up.  I have so many comics sitting in my to read pile, I didn't notice at the time the box came in that the issue wasn't there but I ran to the lcs to get it, becuase I did want to keep up with it.

But I think this is a good barometer of those books on the fence and I am going to give it a try.  Right now I could use to trim some more books I think.  And for the most part, this is the best time as a comics fan to miss something since you can either find it in back issues, buy the trade or just download it digitally if you decide you want it later on.   Lots of options to choose from.

06:08 PM | Thursday, August 14, 2008

Total Time Spent Online: 33 days, 8 hours and 52 minutes

Geez, some of you guys should get a life  
 
I started off as Nemesis Enforcer but then decided to protect my identity by going with the internet guise of Jeff B.   

I cannot wait until next year's draft!!!

Seriously, even though I was exhausted after the draft, I wanted to do it again.  I got to stay up and watch my boy Bumgarner throwing darts at the Dodgers and think about the draft.  There were so many angles and things to consider, now that I got my first one out of the way, I am looking forward to the next one.

I am starting a new local ff league here due to some issues with my existing one and its a clean slate which is sweet because I am recommending we go auction for it.  Which will be fun since I feel like I am much more comfortable in that environment with the player pool moreso than baseball and can't wait to see how that works out for us since all I do is S drafts in football.

What a great RAW.  I am excited for Sunday night.

I am done with Cena, I used to not mind the guy but he just annoys me now. I certainly like the image and what he portrays for young kids but as far as listening to him talk now, he grates on my nerves.

Bryan is one of the best technical wrestlers imo and Ziggler is one of the best heels out there, I love to watch his matches.  He sells everything to the nth degree.  His boy though, looks like he needs some work.  My wife was watching that part of the show with me and was like "whats up with that guy" since the Big E part looked so awkward.  I just said "yeah, he's new...if you can't tell"  Also, he needs a new finishing move.  Big guys like Kane seem to fall on top of him.  Doesn't seem like an impactful move to me, it looks like he is almost pinning himself.

I will say this every week, where oh where have all the good tag teams gone?  Actually don't even give me good right now, just give me a tag team match that doesn't involve divas or mixed matches.

I fully expect the Shield to win at 'Mania and for some specatcular implosion to occur on the part of Shaemus, Big Show and Orton.  Looking forward to the fireworks.

WTF is up with the yodeling from Cesaro?   He went from this badass rugby strongman to becoming a joke.  Not sure what that is about.

I could listen to the Rock doing his thing like that for a long time.  He controls an arena like few others.  Fun to watch.

Punk really went there.  I was stunned and laughing at the whole thing at the same time, especially at the end when he rubbed it on himself.  Good stuff. 

As I said before, can't wait for Sunday, should be fun.

For me it's not a specific issue, but the Green Lantern book has been that way.  I keep looking at my pull list and saying "man it's been like 10 years, I'm tired of Green Lantern."  But once I read the next issue my enjoyment is right back up to where it used to be.  I know Johns has fallen out of favor with a lot of people, but I still really enjoy his writing quite a bit.

I agree, I happen to really like Green Lantern right now and have it enjoyed it for quite a while. Sure all books have peaks and valleys but GL, imo, was one of the top books out there for quite a while and now it may not be in that lofty spot anymore but it is still written and drawn superbly.

Sometimes I think we as comic fans have a mob mentality (yeah I know really?) when it comes to certain creators and start piling on when we think something is passe or not cool anymore.  Johns seems to be in that boat right now for some reason.  It's not like the guy woke up one morning and forgot how to write but people are sure treating him that way.

I had a BLAST last night.  My first auction and it lived up to the expectations I had for fun and also difficulty.  While I think it hurt us that 2 teams were on autopick and boosting up the bids, I was still surprised at some of bids going out from the live participants.  Now I have no frame of reference for auction prices but was going off of a couple of cheatsheets I downloaded and the bids going out were higher for the most part at the top end of the draft.

I am sure reviewers would say I overpaid for several players, but felt at the time that I needed to pay a premium to get some of the top guys or I would be left out.  I am not crazy about my pitching staff, especially having 2 Giants at the top end of the rotation but it is what it is.  I love my outfield though so its a balancing act.

Some thoughts in hindsight:
1) Love the auction format and hope we keep this an as option for future EOC leagues
2) Everyone needs to show up so bids aren't skewed
3) 1.5 hours into the draft I was blown away by how many good players were still left (and how little money I felt like I had)
4) If I had to do it again, I would definitley be more conservative.  I thought Lester was a steal (amongst other players like Alex Gordon) but could not comfortably bid on them and still fill out my roster at that time.
5) There is clearly an art to the nomination that I need to get better at, between throwing out players that you don't want, or throwing out $1 players that you do and try to sneak through, I love that subtheme of the draft that isn't there is a normal draft.
6) In the end, auction style drafts put full accountability on the owner for the shape of the team.  No "I drafted 9th and never got a shot at him" or "he went the pick right before me" arguements.  Your team is as good as you are with your money and your bidding.  You can go from thinking you got a steal, to seeing a player ranked 1 or 2 spots below that guy go for a fraction of what you paid for your guy and the go from thinking you got a steal to thinking you may have overpaid.  It is really interesting and fun to balance those feelings/expectations as the draft goes on.

I read a lot of comics as I am sure most of you do.  And my pull list is always in constant flux as I am evaluating all the books I read and making sure either new titles or those that might be piling up for several issues are still worth my time and money.  And there are those times when you read a book and feel like it is making its way to becoming a drop and boom, there is an issue or two that just sucks you back in.

I had that moment today while reading Secret Avengers #2, a new title from Marvel Now.  I really enjoyed Remender's run on the book and when it relaunched, I bought #1 to check it out.  I thought it was ok, I've enjoyed Nick Spencer's writing and like the covert ops aspect of the book but figured it wouldn't get much past that for me and then boom,  Issue #2 comes along and (no spoilers, he's on the cover) they throw Taskmaster into the mix  and set up a cool story with A.I.M and now I want to see where issue #3 goes and it is being added to my regular pull list.

:angrilyshakingfist:  Damn you creative team.   

So has this happened to anyone recently?  What was the book and issue?  What was it about the issue that made you stick around for more?

[From DCBS]

From DCBS

AVATAR PRESS
Fashion Beast #8

DC COMICS
Action Comics #19
Animal Man #19
Green Arrow #19
Green Lantern #19
Swamp Thing #19

FANTAGRAPHICS BOOKS
50 Girls 50 And Other Stories HC  (Getting from Amazon)
Taint The Meat It's The Humanity And Other Stories HC (Getting from Amazon)

IDW PUBLISHING
Locke And Key Omega #4 (Of 7)

IMAGE COMICS
Spawn #230

MARVEL COMICS
All-New X-Men #10
Deadpool #7
Indestructible Hulk #6
Thanos Rising #1 (Of 5)

Well alright, sounds like a plan.  Looks like the family will be making the across state trek with me. My wife and kids will be seeing the sights while I hit the con.  I may take my oldest on Sunday for a little while but that is up in the air.

Looking forward to getting rowdy, I mean, meeting whoever is there.

Monsta, I will definitely be stopping by your table once I get my bearings and figure the place out.

downloading now. can't wait to listen.  will chime back in with my thoughts once I am done.

So after hemming and hawing for too long and missing out on the Detective page from Jock I wanted, I picked out this Gabriel Hardman page to make myself feel better.  

Great episode guys, it felt like it flew by.

It was good to hear some Marvel talk as I know it is its not in everyone's wheelhouse right now but I feel like there have been some great things to come out of Marvel Now including Thor, All New X-Men and Hulk.  Sometimes I think it is just as hard if not harder to take a book with decades of history and continuity and turn it on its head and give it a fresh spin.  I think Marvel did a much better job of that, even though it is still early with their Marvel Now initiative then DC did with the new 52.  My Marvel reading jumped on a monthly basis due to these new titles and I am really enjoying them.  Its a shame that DC couldn't keep the momentum from their relaunch.  Waid for me is in the argument for top writers right now. Daredevil has been insanely good, Hulk is fantastic, his first issue of Green Hornet just hit the shelves, he's got Thrillbent going on, the Rocketeer with Samnee which was great.  He is doing what I think a master at his craft should do, hitting home runs in multiple genres with multiple characters.

Oh and I had the Flying Dog Pearl Necklace beer Chris mentioned a couple of weekends ago.  I had some reservations about it reading that it was brewed with oysters but gave it a try.  They added a saltiness (I guess you could say) to the beer but unless someone told you and you tried it blind, I don't think you would know it was brewed that way.  It was a tasty beer.  Not sure how many of them you would want to drink in a night but as a one-of, it was good.

Are any EOCers planning on meeting up somewhere?

I am debating going, this would be my first con and its probably about time I went to one, and if I did, I'd like to meet some of my fellow forumites in person. 

I just try to stress READING to my 8 yr old nephew.  Read anything I tell him but always be reading something.

This.

I love reading.  It is as simple as that.  And I met and married a writer/english professor who loves it just as much as me if not more.  Our house is filled with books. Our daughters rooms are filled with books, some of which are comics.  At age 4, my oldest has certainly more than I did at that age and sometimes she is in the mood and we read My Little Pony, Tiny Titans, Owly or Johnny Boo or sometimes she is in the mood for something else.  We have already seen the impact on our little one who just grabs books off the shelf and flips through them then brings them over to us to do the same.  I can't imagine not raising my kids in that environment.  I feel like I have already seen positive impacts on my 4 year old's vocabulary and imagination.

My daughter will never have the same interaction with the medium that I did.  I grew up reading comics, road my bike to my lcs and had a small group of friends that I could talk about them with.  But at the same time she is exposed to comics and comics characters in a much larger scale through multiple mediums and at a much younger age.  She asks me to play Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles with her (and has asked for TMNT comics), which usually involves us jumping around doing ninja tricks (she recently told my wife and I she wanted to be a ninja when she grew up), she also gets excited when my dcbs box comes if she knows her new My Little Pony book is in it.  She is interested in other shows that I watch that are a little too old for her like Green Lantern. 

So I am not sure if she will continue with it as she gets older, but for right now, its something we can share together and have a lot of fun with.  And for me as a dad and a comics lover, that's all I can ask for.

Sampsa, you are in my thoughts and prayers. 

It has been 5 years already  

I guess its about time to start contributing around here.

Can't wait to listen.  ohhh Fringe talk, I just watched 3 episodes last night as I try to blast through 5 seasons on my kindle.  I am loving that show.

Hmmm, currently:

Chew
Locke & Key
Fatale
Mind MGMT
Manhatten Projects

all time
Need to think about it