Geek Talk

So Civil War has broken out over the Marvel U and I’ve just been seeing it from the eyes of Spider-man because the comic book stores near me all closed up, damn them.

The whole idea behind Civil War is something awful happens in Connecticut involving a few heroes. Some kind of explosion takes out a school filled with kids and a few other blocks. It kind of awakens the US government and they start a registration act, where all super heroes and villains have to register with the US government, or be hunted down. The government views people with powers as walking WMDs. So it kind of separates the heroes. Captain America doesn’t think there should be a registration act. And Iron man is all for it. It splits the American people and heroes apart. Most of the X-men are against the act while Bishop is for it. Reed and Sue of the fantastic four are for it while Johnny and Ben are against it.

And caught in the middle of this is Spider-man. Recently Stark has been helping Peter out (new suit, put May and MJ in stark tower since their house burnt down, things like that) so of course he starts on Tony’s side. But slowly it seems Peter is coming around to the idea that the law is wrong. I think in the end he’ll change sides. I have a few things that back this up. One early image I saw spider-man in the classic costume on the side with Captain America. Another is they’ve said all along that the new “Iron Spider” costume is temporary. So I think he will be switching sides

But then what? Spider-man recently ousted himself so the whole world knows he’s Peter Parker. He unmasked on the news. So if he does betray Tony you really think May and MJ still stick around Stark tower? Will there be some kind of superhero relocation plan? Not for the hero but his family and friends? I really hope they don’t pull a “HAHA I’M NOT REALLY PETER” type move. He’s out there now, what can he do? If everyone knows who is he won’t they target his family? That’s the whole reason he wore a mask to begin with.

It’ll be interesting to watch.

This is a classic spam subject around work. For some reason I randomly like to scan my spam folder and one day this popped out at me: Horny fishermen. I opened up the email in hopes to find something about half naked people with the Gordon’s fisherman jacket on, but there wasn’t :(. I still wish I had printed that out.

So recently I got a new alarm clock. Normally one really doesn’t point out this kind of purchase BUT this one sets itself! I have no idea how it works hence the magical part. I assume is some kind of radio signal that changes it, anyway I was amazed. And it really came in handy when the massive lightning storm knocked out the power, power goes off, comes back on and like magic my clock knows the time. No more flashing 12:00.

Temple of Music
Originally uploaded by digitalburn.

I did my first HDR Image over the weekend and I just figured out flickr can post to your own blog. So I thought I’d try it. I did another and posted it to flickr. Both were from Roger Williams Park.

Maybe not just the X-men, but I think they played a hand in it. This topic popped up at work and I saw a re-run of the comic book special on the History Channel and it got me thinking about it again. The X-men may have played a small role in teaching about racism. I’m sure my parents and many other factors also played a role, but I’m curious if I’d be different at all if I didn’t read those comics at a young age.

The X-Men are a group of heroes in a world that hates and fears them. As the history channel pointed out “they are relevant”. Meaning they can be related to by many groups of people: African-Americans, gays, kids who get picked on at school, almost anyone. I’d love to create a poll that would ask if someone is racist and reads or has read the x-men. Of course just putting those two questions wouldn’t really cut it, you’d have to have a series of questions that would find out if they are racist or not. Not many people would say “Yes I hate everyone”. I may have to set one up just because I think it would be interesting. Problem would be getting a diverse group of people to take it, not just us comic geeks.

It would make sense if I am right. They’re the underdogs you’re always routing for; you always take their side and not the side of the protesting public that wants the X-Men to just die off. Why wouldn’t this translate into the real world? I mean even today I hear other countries just want the USA or other smaller countries to just die off; we don’t have the right to exist. To me that’s just ridiculous. Same goes for this whole gay marriage thing, I don’t understand why this is a big deal. It’s not like gay marriage will stop straight couples all of a sudden. Maybe the rest of the world needs to start reading X-Men.

I found (and by found I mean someone told me about it months ago) this kickin t-shirt site. Basically people of the internets (yes all of the interwebs) submit t-shirt designs, they get voted on and the good ones get made into t-shirts. It’s called Threadless. I do want to create some designs for that, see if any of mine get made. Of course then the wallpaper site might suffer.

So I was watching the All-Star home run durby last night and I noticed the NL had yellow and black uniforms and the AL had black and yellow uniforms. They did this because its being played in Pittsburg, home of the Pirates, I assume (yellow and black are the pirates colors… arr). Why not make it like Red White and Blue for every year? You can change the design to keep it fresh, if you’re afraid of that. I just don’t get why all the all-stars have to be come Pirates for 2 days. And there’s my bi-annual sports rant.

Found a tutorial for HDR (High Dynamic Range) photos. It’s here. I’m not sure I like some of his images, seems like too much. Like someone used the emboss filter in photoshop on them. Some of the photos do work, but others I’m not a big fan of. But now I’m rambling.

I saw Superman Returns last saturday but I’m a lazy bastard so I’ll write about it now! Spoilers ahead! (more…)