You might like these guys: http://comicsalternative.com/category/Podcast/

I believe that's their remit: to cover non superhero comics from various publishers, large or small.  I haven't listened to the show myself, but I've heard one of the hosts on Bob and John's Previews episodes, and he was well spoken and knowledgeable.

Oh, no doubt, but in my live draft leagues I stayed as far away as I could from anyone connected to Biogenesis...

That was smart, but I have to admit I wasn't even considering that.  I doubt most people were.  Fortunately for me, I didn't end up with anybody on that list.

Considering what some publishers have done in recent years (EA/Origin, Blizzard), requiring you to have a constant internet connection just to play the game you paid for, a once-every-24-hours DRM verification doesn't sound so bad.  I mean, it does, but it's not as far down that road as larger publishers would seem to prefer.  Google "SimCity debacle" or similar if you didn't hear about that.

As many of you have pointed out, Steam essentially requires this as well (although the offline mode doesn't have that 24 hours limit), and that's how I play most of my games these days.  It's definitely difficult to let go of the idea of game ownership, having a physical game that doesn't rely on the maintenance (and existence) of a server outside of my control.  I also play old games frequently; the games I've played most lately were both released in 1999.  I don't care whatsoever about voice commands and waving my arms around, so Kinect is pointless to me.  All of this is moving me further and further from the console guy I gradually became, back into the PC guy I grew up as.  At least with PC, there are still sites like GOG, where the games are DRM free, and once you download it, you own it.

Not in these leagues (I didn't join early enough) but, nothing like autodrafting braun, gio gonzalez and nelson cruz...

That's bad luck, for sure, but can you blame autodraft?  Those are some pretty good players.

I know this isn't exactly the point, but customers shouldn't need to communicate in barber terms.  Then they'd be barbers.  People should communicate in human being terms, and barbers need to know how to translate that into barber terms.

Any good scary movies on instant watch to recommend?

Don't know what you've already seen, of course, but among those that are actually more scary than gory or entertaining:

Rosemary's Baby
House of the Devil
Let the Right One In (original)
Funny Games (original)

and of course Birdemic   Scary for a whole other reason

DC had a chance...maybe a beggar's chance, but a real one...to re-invent themselves back when the new 52 launched as a company that offered a diverse lineup of genres, and wasn't beholden to the superhero genre for 99% of its revenues and profile.  Instead, they opted to shuffle the deck chairs, so to speak, and become less adult friendly than they had been for years; certainly since the beginning of Paul Levitz and Karen Berger's association with DC.

In so doing, they alienated fans like myself, who never read DC for their superhero books (and yet own more DC books, by far, than any other publishing company), and ultimately bored most of the people who wanted to try out the shiny new thing but quickly found it to be the same old thing.

[The Last Of Us]

Oh boy, reviews of The Last Of Us are pouring in:
http://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-3/the-last-of-us

CAN'T WAIT

I will now utter some words that have never crowded against my lips before, much less passed through them:

I wish I had a PS3. 

I've been on a strategy game kick lately.  I've never been able to get into strategy games, really, mostly because I'm not very patient, and I haven't taken the time to learn their "language" in the way I do for, say, RPGs. 

So far, it's mostly Crusader Kings 2, which I'm just starting to not feel utterly lost in, and Alpha Centauri.  Also, King of Dragon Pass, which is a RPG/Strategy hybrid with a great setting, and I highly recommend it if you like such things, and have an iOS device (I'm playing it on PC, but it's an old game that got new life when they put out mobile versions a few years ago.)

I might mix in some HOMM 3, Civ 5, and/or King Arthur at some point, since I own all of those already.

Does it increase the value of the book to you?  Then do it.  Have them personalize it.  Create some memories.

If you're thinking about resale value, no, I probably wouldn't.  Condition, and (especially) the fact that it's CGC graded (I'm assuming you mean CGC and not PGX) mean far more to its resale value than signatures would.  You'd have to re-submit if and pay to have it graded again, which would likely more than cancel out any additional value you'd gain.

Also, just a forum related note: this should probably go in the buy/sell sub forum, or at least the Bullpen.  The Monkey Room is for non comics related stuff.

Yeah, for people who don't read the books, "The Red Wedding" is probably the most or second most talked about scene from the books (the other, to my knowledge, wasn't shown on the TV show) to date. I was actually rather surprised how unspoiled so many people were. Even knowing what was going to happen, I have to admit that I felt it definitely riveting (to me) to watch.

Like most scenes on this show, regardless of what liberties they've taken for this version, it's all staged and acted very, very well.  I don't react out loud to much that I watch, but I did this time.  Things like

the expression Caetlyn's face hardens into following her scream of anguish

take the dramatic and emotional weight to another level, a level only a tiny percentage of television shows reach even occasionally.

fuck

Yeah.  I guess I should have been ready for anything after season 1's ending, but still.... fuck.  I'm very glad I haven't read the books before watching this.

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?   

Page 1:  A green mist descends on a large metropollis

Pages 2-21 Everybody turns into crazy shit and fights everybody else in an orgy of mayhem and destruction

Page 24  A cockroach crawls through the remains of a large metropolis

Alec B would probably never call himself an expert, but he's up there too.  You could form a panel of experts.

I have nothing bad to say about Tony Harris.  Er, today.

If you scan them and keep the print originals, nobody can say boo.  If you scan them and sell the originals, you're duplicating, which is technically not okay, but I doubt most would judge you too harshly.

If you scan them and then distribute the scans, well, I think you know you might as well put on the eyepatch.

Love that show, though it went into a pretty long arc I really didn't enjoy, but righted the ship later (kind of).

I may be in the midst of that arc now... I hear that season 5 kicks ass, though.  It's good enough still for me to keep on trucking.

For the first time, or a rewatch?

First time.  I did the Buffy thing last year, also for the first time.

I just remember the first story in there being about a train and meat. It was creepy as hell. I need to finish that collection off ASAP.

Ha!  "Midnight Meat Train", yes.  Most of his short stories are good.

I've never heard good things about Clive Barkers novels though. Have you guys ever read his longer fiction?

I only enjoy his YA novels, The Thief of Always and the other one with the vaguely Arabic sounding name.  I found his other novels terribly boring.

I've always wondered at the level of emotion people can reach or can be led to as it relates to fear. I have never been scared of any book or any film/tv for that matter. The fact that I'm participating in a form of  entertainment never escapes me, and fear just isn't an emotion I feel when reading or watching something.

For sure, something things are just disgusting or visually off putting in general (in the video medium) but that's less fear than it is simply identifying something is fucked up or reprehensible or disgusting (typically used in recent horror films that I consider spectacularly void of any merit).

I enjoy many novels classified as horror novels,  but none of them scare me.

I'm pretty good at putting myself into the frame mind to be scared, shutting out outside distractions (or inside ones, from my own brain.)  Being in the moment. That works better for film than prose, for me.  Neither scare me often, although games can, probably because of the interactive element.  I made myself so tense for so long that I felt ill when I played Fatal Frame.

Should an artist be doing art for anyone but himself? Arguably, that's when the best art is created.  As opposed to creators that just pander to their audience.

e
L nny

The fact that he's not keeping it TO himself seems to imply that he wants others to connect to the work in some fashion, so a little of column A, a little of column B.

I mentioned this on the podcast we did together, but Strange Eons by Robert Bloch really creeped me out.

You know, now that I think about, I haven't read very many scary books.  They're not novels, but a lot most of Clive Barker's short stories are scary.  "Dread" freaked me out.