Whatever Happened to Mary Lou?

I was talking to my buddy Ron today and as is typical for men of our advanced ages, we waxed nostalgic about a variety of things from our youths, from music to games to fads, back to games, a quick segue into movies, and then back to games for the finale.

Yes, we like our games.

However, as we talked, a thought occurred to me. No, not the one about tying a rope to a monkey and then giving the monkey a brick so you could make a ‘monkey-brick flail.’ The thought was ‘whatever happened to Mary Lou Retton?’

Note: If you gave the monkey two bricks, you could then have a ‘dual-wielding monkey-brick flail.’ I do realize that this would be impractical. You would probably need to put little handles on the bricks so the monkey wouldn’t drop them.

Some of the younger readers might not remember Mary Lou Retton. She won the individual Gold Medal in the ’84 Summer Olympics in gymnastics, the first non-Eastern European to do so. She was, to put it mildly, ‘America’s Sweetheart’ and was all-over the place for about a year after the Olympics. She then slipped off the national stage (not literally) and became an answer in the Trivial Pursuit Sports category.

Anyway, whatever happened to her? According to Wikipedia, she got married, had four kids, and seems to have a pretty normal life. I must say, I was a little disappointed. In all honesty, that’s just too normal. She was a Gold Medal winning Olympic athlete and the first woman to grace a Wheaties box, something amazing and totally improbable should have happened.

I prefer to think that after the Olympics, she was whisked away by a race of cute, slightly nerdy aliens who needed her to lead them in battle against another, tyrannical alien race who’s name probably contained a lot of ‘x’s and ‘z’s. Though confused and bewildered at first, she rallied and used her unmatched gymnastic ability and gratuitously placed uneven bars and pommel horses to lead them to victory and teach them a lesson about friendship and proper nutrition. Though offered the position of ‘Queen of the Universe,’ she turned it down to come back to Earth and just be a normal girl (who happens to be able to backflip at speeds that would make Superman dizzy).

Actually, that might have happened. If ‘80s movies taught me anything, it’s that pacifistic alien cultures always need an Earthling to come save their bacon.

Cheers,
-Jason

3D Zombies

Some students at Georgia Tech and the Savannah College of Art and Design have made something really special.

Watch it here:
http://technology.todaysbigthing.com/2009/06/17

This is really something. It could have fascinating applications in medicine, science, and all sorts of fields. Or, granted, it could also be used to kill tons and tons of zombies.

One day, my kids'll be whining about 3D games being boring and I'll say something to the effect of 'In my day, we had Atari 2600s! We had tanks made out of 17 pixels and we were happy to have 'em!'

Technology is a wonderful thing :)

Cheers,
-Jason

Most Things Do Not Explode Without External Help

The title of today's blog has nothing to do with the actual blog, it's more a public service announcement.

Why I felt I needed to make such a public service announcement is a mystery, even to me.

So, another long, yet curiously fast, week is over. I accomplished a lot, but don't really remember much of it. I'm pretty sure I called my boss a 'fiend from hell' at one point, but I'm also pretty sure he took it as a compliment.

On the home front, issue #6 is rapidly coming to a close. I believe we only have five or six more pages to go and the first 6 issue arc will be done. This, of course, means one thing:

Graphic Novel.

Yes, we will be producing a graphic novel of the first six issues. We're not sure exactly when that will be available, but rest assured it will come out.

Also, the San Diego Comic-Con is coming up!

Leigh and I will be there and ideally, Leigh will also be accepting the '09 Russ Manning Award. Stay tuned for more info as it becomes available.

Have a safe and fun weekend!

Cheers,
-Jason

Pillow Talk

Okay, first of all, get your mind out of the gutter. This blog is not about that kind of ‘pillow talk.’ This blog is actually about pillows. The thing is I fear I’ve done something wrong.

You see, I purchases new pillows a month or so ago. I had been using the same pillows for pretty much my entire adult life. They were flat and hard and that’s just the way things were. I then stayed at a hotel and much to my surprise the pillows were fluffy and soft, not unlike laying one’s head down on a curiously immobile sheep.

I should point out that I’ve never actually slept on a sheep. Not a live sheep, at any rate.

So, anyway, I decided to buy some new pillows.

NOTE: No, I’ve never slept on a dead sheep either. That was just there to see if you were paying attention (it was undead).

I made the trek to the ‘Linens’ section of the department store, a forbidden place to one such as myself, seeking pillows to buy. There I discovered that pillows range from amazingly expensive to dirt-cheap. Not knowing what else to do, I bought mid-range pillows and took them home.

They were all fluffy and comfortable for a while, but now they’re just as flat and as hard as my old ones.

This makes me wonder: Am I doing something wrong? Is there some sort of pillow maintenance I need to do? Do they require fluffing? Washing in cold with a tumble dry? The sacrifice of a white chicken every full moon?

Somehow, I don’t think I need to buy new pillows every few months. That just seems odd. Wait, maybe that is what I’m supposed to do? Maybe everyone else is buying pillows regularly and silently judging me for not doing so?

To sum up: my new pillows are flat. I don’t know if this is normal.

Help?
-Jason

Two Things

First of all, I would like to rectify the situation from last Tuesday.

If you recall, I mentioned our Super Fan who traveled by bus to see us at the Olympia Comic Con. She mailed us after my blog and actually told us her name:

And so, without further ado, our Super Fan #1 is:

Oh, carp.

Wait, I know this.

Just kidding. Diane is her first name (I'm witholding her last name for privacy's sake). Here's to you, Diane! Thank you for being, well, you. Thank you, as well, for braving the wilds of Washington Public Transit to come and see us.

NOTE: 'carp' is not a typo. I originally mis-typed it, but then thought it was funnier that way. So, yes, it's on purpose. I also habitually spell (and say) 'voila' as 'viola' for the same reason. Eventually, I'll use 'Viola, carp!' in a sentence and my life will be complete.

The second thing:

Parkour.

This went around work the other day and is amazingly cool.


I totally want to do this. I realize I will probably hurt myself (a lot), but 'wow.' I hear there's a class in Bellevue. I may have to check it out.

What am I saying? I will check it out. It looks like too much fun to pass up.

Cheers,
-Jason

A Hell of a Week

It's been a long, long week. I've been so busy that I literally sit down in the morning and don't get up except to eat, go to the bathroom, or chase someone down. No screwing around. No inane conversations. Just a constant stream of things to be done.

I even said a bad word today (it rhymed with 'duck'). There was this thing that I proposed doing that, if I say so myself, was brilliant. Just as it was coming together, reality decided to butt-in and make it completely non-viable. It was then that I said the word I mentioned earlier.

I ended up glaring at my computer for a minute while I thought furiously about how to salvage my wonderous plan. I think I said another bad word (it mostly rhymed with 'fit.').

Nothing came of my glaring and I ended up saying a third word (which rhymed with 'tartar sauce.')

However, I eventually did figure out a solution, so my plan was saved. Now I just need to get through tomorrow and I can have a nice relaxing weekend of killing stuff in WoW.

Cheers,
-Jason

Fire Bad!: Part 2

So if all it really takes is dying by violence or extreme negative emotions at death, the list of possible triggers for ghostly behavior would be massive.

You have:
Violence
Extreme Anger
Heartbreak (if the romance novels are to be believed)
Daytime Television
Political Ads
Car Wrecks
Someone ninja-looting your epic during the big Ulduar raid
Calling tech support
Tax Season
Etcetera.

It just seems like it would be far too easy for haunting to occur. And as long as we’re exploring that line of thought, how come you never hear about caveman ghosts? People have been dying violently for thousands of years, yet you never hear about ‘that cave in the hills where a ghostly voice wails ‘Fire Bad!’’

In the US, it’s always Civil or Revolutionary War dead or the odd Indian Burial Ground. In Europe (as far as I can gather) it’s haunted castles. Yet caveman, who by definition lived short, brutal lives, never seem to become ghosts.

It’s puzzling. You’d expect every other cave or rock outcropping to be haunted, but there you go. And I have yet to hear of a haunted shopping mall. People probably die there every year, but you never hear about the ‘Cinnabon of the Dead.’

I would totally visit the Cinnabon of the Dead.

Cheers,
-Jason