The Adventure Begins...

Every good adventure has a background. This is the background of Saturday’s adventure.

On the last Friday at work before Christmas, my phone buzzed with a text message. It was Amy, George’s wife. This was a rare but not impossible occasion so I was curious indeed. She wrote to mention that she’d just ordered tickets to go to the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. They had a Star Wars exhibit that was running until early January and she’d gotten tickets for the last Saturday that the exhibit was open. A moment too late she’d considered that I might want to go along as well. Did I?

Despite the fact that I’m not a Star Wars fan, I wanted to go. Watching George’s reaction inside would be worth the trip. Besides, I hadn’t been to that Museum in… far too long. In general, the Museum would be fun.

It is not uncommon for me to go on otherwise family trips with the Gentekis clan. This is especially true now that there are three children. This way the children don’t outnumber the adults. That helps more than you’d think. It’s not a deliberate part of the decision making process when I’m invited to come along but it’s a good reason all the same.

One problem with this situation is that Amy had accidentally double-booked herself. She had plans to go to Delavan (a small town about an hour west of Milwaukee) that night. Since our tickets for the Star Wars exhibit were for 15:00, we would have to run from the Museum right to Delavan in order to get her there in time. George’s excellent driving skills would easily get her there.

Of course, the biggest problem with the whole concept of going to the Museum of Science and Industry is that it would involve going to Chicago. Nothing good comes from Illinois. Not literally of course but, you know, they suck. It’s a good-natured distaste of our Mid-West ‘brothers’. It’s good-natured until you go there anyway.

There’s nothing quite like going to Illinois to make you never want to go there again.

RIP TTT

Last week I found out about a loss 'in the family'. While at the Milwaukee Public Museum I found out that they closed down the 'Temples, Tells and Tombs' exhibit. Permanently. Poor Djed-hor; homeless again.

Perhaps a side note before I continue: I usually go to the MPM at least a couple times a year. I have a membership. I can tell when things have been moved or changed. I'm a fan. It annoys me that there doesn't appear to be a website dedicated to documenting the general phases and changes of the museum; the sort of thing that would help me better recall my childhood memories of the place. I'd do it but I haven't the documentation. I do have a fuzzy memory but that's not much to go on.

For instance, I remember Djed-hor, our resident mummy (man I hope I'm spelling his name correctly) first residing on the first floor in an area that I believe was called 'The Rise of Civilization'. It was a thin, narrow area that covered thousands of years of history in maybe 100 yards. You started with mummies and by the back of it you were playing with a telephone display. As I recall, it didn't link to anything so, once you reached the end, you had to turn around and walk back the way you came. The area is now the Rain Forest exhibit and connects to the Third World exhibit (pre-history, dinosaurs and glaciers, that sort of thing) so you don't have to turn around like before.

The Third World was assembled in the middle 80's as I recall. The Rain Forest was set-up after that, opening in the early 90's I believe. As construction started on the Rain Forest, the 'Rise' exhibit was reassembled in a generic way on the second floor. I have a distinct memory of being in that area and seeing the humpbacked whale skeleton hanging from the ceiling (the skeleton that currently hangs in the entryway on the first floor, it was covered with lights for the holiday season) so it was being used as a catch-all area at the time. Since nothing else has been changed recently on the second floor, I have to believe that this was the exhibit area that would become 'Temples, Tells and Tombs' as well as an area for touring exhibits.

This would have opened in the early 90's. I have a video tape from a trip to the Museum from December 1992. As I walk into the area, I can clearly hear myself react in surprise, which tells me the exhibit was new to me then. It covered the periods when Egypt, Greece, Rome were world powers as well as having some stuff on the Middle East in general. The exhibit stayed largely unchanged during it's existence so that old tape is still a reasonably accurate document of the exhibit. In October 2007 when I visited the MPM, the exhibit was still open. Last week it was gone to provide more space for the touring exhibits.

Worse yet is that some of the cases from the exhibit are waiting to find permanent homes. The Roman Soldier is in the main entry area on the first floor. Our friend the mummy is sitting in the entryway to the Africa exhibit on the third floor now. There was an empty corner and he was crammed into it. It looks temporary so I can only hope it is. The fellow looks sad and homeless now. He's a squatter.

Tune in next time to more memories of the Milwaukee Public Museum. ;)

When Did I Get All Old?

Today's during-the-Packer-game lunch had some spicy food. Chief amongst these were some buffalo wings that were not immediately hot but warmed up nicely after a few moments. I'm not a big fan of hot that's hot for the sake of being hot as I prefer flavour to heat but these were good. I only had a couple or three. Ate too much, drank too much, went home and took a little nap.

Now my tummy is not so comfy. Worse yet, I'm not good company, even for myself. I don't remember this being a standard reaction to hot food so when did I get all old?

Ow.

Deep in the Tape Archive

Been digging extra deep in the tape archives of late in an attempt to convert as much of the old footage to DVD before it disintegrates. Some of it is close and barely plays back. Some of it doesn't play back. Some of it looks shockingly good for 15 year old tapes in SLP mode.

I ran across a couple tapes today that made me think 'Why am I bothering with this tape?' I mean, if I haven't watched 'The Stand' since the original broadcast, why bother keeping the tape? I'm not very interested in Stephen King's work anyway. I've also got a copy of 'Braveheart' from laserdisc. If I decide to watch that movie again, would I do it from tape? Nope. I'd probably spend the $7 to buy it or, better yet, borrow it from someone that has it.

You could probably make an argument against most of the tapes in the archive. I can't watch most of this stuff regularly and there's so much of it. Why bother with any of it? To that I answer with the 120 Minutes I'm currently watching/dubbing from 1995. I just got to see the Mighty Mighty Bosstones play live. Forgot I had that. That was nice.

Moments like that are why the archive exists and needs preserving. Most of it does anyway.

All Tied Up

I'm not sure who created the tie as an article of dress clothing but I'm going to guess it was a woman. As it's not a functional item, merely decorative, and uncomfortable, it strikes me as the sort of thing that would be created by a female out of revenge for all the frills and uncomfortable garments that they've often worn to look fancy. "The men look too comfortable," I'm sure one said. "Let's find them something so they'll squirm more."

"Why should I wear this extra piece of cloth?" that first man wondered aloud. "It's not covering up anything that's uncovered. It's just gives me an extra item to try matching the rest of my outfit and I'm already not good at that. What's the point?"

"It looks nice. It's pretty," he was reassured. "You want to look nice don't you?"

"I'm already married; I don't need to look any nicer than I do."

"You'll be a trendsetter. You'll become more important. It's important to me that you do well."

He grumbled, feeling his position quickly erode away. "Well, can I just loop it around my neck, kinda like a scarf?"

"Ye...No. No that won't do. You must knot it properly so it looks organized. You learned all those knots while in the Navy; isn't there one of those you could use to make it look nice?"

He choked. "This is really uncomfortable."

She smiled. "That's how you can tell it looks nice. It's like medicine; you can only tell it's working when it tastes horrible."

"I guess."

"Let's go. You'll be the talk of the town!"

I think the thing I hate most about ties is that I can't tie them. I like to think I'm a reasonably intelligent man but the method to make this work still eludes me. Even with pictures and instructions.

Stupid ties!

My Quest is (nearly) at an End

I cannot remember a time in my life without Godzilla. I have interests that I remember vaguely starting at one point or another and some interests that I remember starting with a certain point (like when I first saw the cover to ‘Doctor Who and the Cybermen’ and I became very curious about what it was) but, like the Muppets, I only remember the Godzilla switch being in the ‘on’ position.

I don’t know why this would be. The Muppets make sense as I know I watched Sesame Street so having early memories of them makes sense. My parents have no real fondness for Godzilla so it’s not like they’d have the movies on constantly. Is it just that I don’t remember the trigger point? That I don’t recall the moment when the normal childlike fascination with dinosaurs turned into a fascination with their fictional descendant? I suppose it’s not important when or why it started, the important thing is that the interest is still there.

When I was younger, I’d read about movies, knowing that I’d never have a chance to see most of them as I didn’t have cable or a VCR. Once I got a VCR, I started collecting tapes of things but knew I’d never get to see the Japanese versions of the Godzilla movies. When I started finding fansubbed bootlegs of the Japanese movies, I figured there was a chance I might be able to see them eventually. In the early days of DVD, there were only a handful of quality Godzilla DVDs amongst all the public domain junk. Now there are legitimate versions of most of the Godzilla films available on DVD that feature both the original Japanese versions of the film as well as the American edits. Wow.

After picking up the recently released Godzilla Collection (Classic Media’s box set of their previously released DVDs as well as two disks currently exclusive to the set) I looked at my shelf of Godzilla films and was shocked to realize that I have nearly all of them. There are a couple of the later films that I don’t have in the versions I’d like and a few I don’t have at all but I’m seriously close to having a copy of every Toho Godzilla film (yes I’m being very specific with that statement in order to indicate the fact that a certain film isn’t in the listing).

This is weird. My quest is almost at an end. I didn’t expect that would happen. Ever. Now, if they’d only release a quality widescreen version of ‘Godzilla vs. Megalon’ I’d be all set.

They've got what now?

I just saw an ad for McDonalds offering their new sweet tea.

McDonalds is offering tea.

This... this creeps me out.

Puttering around

A couple weeks ago I was helping my buddy George move his family. He’d borrowed a big truck with a lift gate on it and his young sons absolutely loved the fact that this thing went up and down. Any time we needed to move it, they wanted to ride on it. They would have been happy if we’d done nothing but raise and lower the gate while they were on it. They stayed camped out on the edge of the gate so that they wouldn’t miss the opportunity for a ride.

This all made George nervous as they were always near one edge or the other. If not that, they were in the way. He worked to communicate this to them but received the innocent confused “Why?” in response. Recalling similar events from my childhood, I replied something to the effect of “When you’re younger, all you can see is the fun in a situation. As you grow up, you tend to see all the bad things that could happen.” It was strange to have words come out of my mouth that sounded intelligent, patient and lacked sarcasm. I didn’t know I had it in me.

Anyway, that’s how I feel about traveling. I like being other places but traveling by myself to other places makes me nervous. I tend to focus on all the bad things that could happen. Last weekend I drove up to Stevens Point to visit my friends that live there. It’s not that long a drive; only about two and a half hours. Preparing for it, all I can think of is flat tires and engine trouble. I chew gum with speed and agitation the whole way there. In all the times I’ve driven up there, I’ve never had a problem. I figure I’m due.

Making the situation more nerve wracking for me is the fact that I tend to go up to Point in late Fall early Winter. It’s generally cold. It becomes a tension modifier. It’s one thing to have the car break down; it’s another thing to anticipate a breakdown in freezing temperatures.

A few years ago, I flew to Japan to visit friends. Due to the length of the trip, I made my peace with myself before departing, just in case I didn’t come back. I decided that I could ‘live’ with the idea of not surviving the trip (hey, planes crash, it happens) but I hoping I would because I didn’t want my friends to feel guilty, as if I was dead because I came to visit them and it was their fault. Everything went well.

When I travel with people, I don’t have the same concerns. I think it’s because the weight’s not just on me. If the car breaks down, I’m there with someone. We can distract each other while waiting for help or work together to fix the problem. It’s not all on me anymore.

So, long story short, I had a good time in Stevens Point with my friends. Even with the snowstorm on Saturday that made driving interesting as we went to dinner. No snow on Friday and we got pizza. Saturday it snows and we go out. Aren’t we dumb? Wait, don’t answer that.

It was almost an 'urge to kill rising' moment

A true test of one’s patience is to be in a busy grocery store, standing in the self-checkout lane and watching people try to interface with the technology in front of them. They keep these things very simple so you’d think that someone that was apparently able to successfully dress themselves and drive to the store could figure it out without a great deal of coaching. That is not always the case.

Part of the problem is that some of the people who try to do this don’t appear to be comfortable with technology in general. If you can’t program your VCR yourself, don’t bother trying the self check-out line. I refer to the older woman that was in front of me yesterday. She looked very confused the whole time and had no real idea what she was looking at on the machine. I felt bad and tried to help her out a little. It’s entirely likely that she couldn’t read the screen clearly or had issues following the voice prompts but, if that’s the case, why get in that line? That’s the decision that confused me. It really wasn’t that much shorter than the other lines.

That was the unfortunate part of the process. I gravitate to the self check-out lines because they are shorter. I took a chance on them once when the store wasn’t busy and learned what I had to learn then. A crowded store is not the time to line up to take a chance like that. Especially when then slows down the rest of the line. That’s just not nice to the rest of the group.

I mean, I got English Muffins to buy…

Loved to Hate that Phone

The mobile phone that I’ve had for the past couple years has never worked very well. The research I’d done, both online and with people I knew that owned said phone, indicated that it was a solid model phone. I always had issues with mine. The original phone I received got stuck in a loop rebooting about nine months after I bought it. The warranty replaced it and the replacement worked okay for a month or two until it started to flake out in the same way the first phone had done. As it continued to function well enough to use, I decided to put off replacing it until my service contract ran out. I’m also willing to be nice and argue that the model phone may have been good at one point and I lucked into getting a few crummy items from near the end of the production run. It could happen.

Sunday night the screen went dead on the phone. This was nice as it prevented me from seeing text messages or my phone book or seeing what buttons I’d hit on the phone, you know, all those things that make a phone really functional. Had I received a call, I could still answer it but I didn’t receive any. Monday night I stopped in the AT&T store nearest the house and picked out a new phone. As part of the swap-over, they were able to transfer my contacts from the old phone to the new phone. This pleased me.

When I got home I realized that they had only been able to swap my numbers from the SIM of my old phone. All the numbers I called the most were saved on my actual phone, you know, the one with the broken display. This was a problem.

A-ha! In the months soon after getting the now-broken phone, I’d gotten a copy of the mobile tools application from an intern friend of mine. While cleaning up the night before, I’d seen the cable I’d need to connect the phone to my computer. After a few minutes of searching, I found the cable, found the application, reinstalled it to a computer, attached the phone, downloaded the drivers for the modem in the mobile device and opened my phonebook. Bam! There everything was laid out before me. There may have been an easier way to do it but, since the phonebook in the new phone is laid out slightly differently than the old phone, I just reentered all the data by hand.

There’s a moment of panic when you lose your phonebook. Events years in the past had conspired to save me in a moment of crisis. Hooray the past!

Just something twisted in my brain I guess

Why have I been treating old bootleg tapes with the respect due a prerecorded tape? Is it the bulky plastic case that makes them feel special? They're not. They're just a dub of an old tv broadcast or converted PAL tape. Mostly worthless.

Now that it looks like I've fixed my DVD recorder, they're not even that.

It's not every man that can pull off a Decorative Vegetable

Busy, busy, busy.

Helping my buddy move his family out to Brookfield. Trying to get my back in shape again. Working to clean up the homestead (aka, reducing the piles that grow). And writing, let's not forget the writing.

I got to the end of yesterday and was unclear as to why I was in such a good mood (who said whiskey! I heard you, whoever you were, you'll get nothing past me). I was sore, not so much from helping the Gentekis' move but more from wrestling with the three children for a couple hours. I forget sometimes how children don't run out of energy. I do. Best workout you can get. While sore, my back didn't hurt as it has for the past month or so. That brightened my day. The Children in Need Doctor Who special helped as well.

I guess it's all in the attitude. I was starting to feel very down late last week but a day or so without hurting (in that way) and I can feel more like myself. Good times...

TV is dead and Movies are on life support

A possibility due to the writer's strike:

The writers win the advances they are seeking. (Considering there are reports indicating that the union is the most united they've ever been, it's quite possible that they'll get what they want.) However, the delay in the television season due to the length of the strike negatively impacts ratings. Popular shows return with weak ratings. New shows that networks had reasons to hope would become franchises wither and die upon their return. The younger demographics are the hardest hit as 'the kids' have found other things to do. Network television as we've know it dies quickly rather than slowly (as expected) as the former powerhouses become havens of 'reality' programming, repeats and rebroadcasting programmes originally found on the internet.

Movie producers, now having less money to gamble with, gravitate further towards remakes of older movies and televisions shows, pumping out less creative product by the moment. The bubbling independent movie scene (aka non-union workers) becomes more visible again. The more commercially creative of these are soon courted by the surviving studios to become union and join them. Some do but many chose to remain independent, releasing their new works on-line for donations from their viewers.

It's not impossible. It's largely what I believe is coming with or without the strike. The strike may just speed up the process. Not unlike Radiohead's influence on the breakdown of the influence of the music labels.

It may not be that bad a thing.

Bad driving

You'd think with me being on vacation this week I'd have more time to blog. But I don't.

I think every driver on the road occasionally does something stupid on occasion. It stands to reason that at some point you'll be in an unfamiliar area, misread a sign and make a left turn where you shouldn't. That's my excuse for what happened Monday morning and I'm sticking to it. Luckily there was no oncoming traffic and I was able to fix the situation promptly. I'd feel worse about it except when I was leaving a half-hour later I saw someone else making the same mistake.

Some people can get away with a sight amount of interference when they drive. I'm not an expert driver (not like George or my buddy Nate that I haven't seen in forever; those fellows can drive!) but occasionally I'll take a phone call or eat while I'm driving. It's not a good choice but I've done it. The other day I saw a woman driving on the freeway while on the phone. She was also apparently in a hurry cause she was going far too fast and having issues staying in her lane. These are bad choices.

I don't really have a moral to this story or anything. I just think Americans take driving as a right and not a privilege sometimes. That's a problem.

I'd think about this harder but 'Kenan and Kel' is on Noggin right now. I've never seen the show before but it's very good and is distracting me. It has remnants of the 50's comedies I love so. Later.

Smasher grabs the stick

The other day I went to the public museum for this thing. I knew that I could walk around in the hood without having to show my wrestling license every few minutes and there aren't many times I can do that so I take advantage of them when I can. I grabbed a bag from the stash of pretzel rods and headed off.

I got addicted to pretzel rods when I went to work for Junior in the 80s. He told me that the cigars I usedta smoke weren't kid friendly enough and suggested I switch to pretzel rods in public since I had a habit of gesturing with the cigar during a promo and I needed something for that. It worked out well. I stopped smoking altogether which was good. No matter what else he and I may have had happen between us, I haveta thank him for that.

I wore my 'LWO' shirt instead of my normal one. I worked for WCW for a year, appeared on television a whole, what, five times maybe, and have this shirt to show for it. They hired me for the nostalgia effect and wanted me to not have the pretzel rod in my mouth when I talked. Idiots. I did get a year to do little else but recuperate so that was nice.

Anyway, I went to the museum to walk around, have some fun, entertain the kids a little, nothing fancy. Occasionally a kid would see me and his eyes would light up with excitement. It made me happy to know that I was brightening someone's day; that someone saw the faded star that I am and was still happy to see me.

Every single onea them kids called me Rey Mysterio.

Now, I know we both wear hoods but they look totally different. Besides, he's a little guy and I'm a big outta shape bruiser from the old days. We aint twins.

I suppose I should be happy they thought I was someone who's a big name. It could be worse. Still, it stung a little to be forgotten. I aint wrestled in a long time and I'm aint in any shape to start again but, for a moment last night, I wanted to get back in the ring and show them who the Smasher is and what I can do.

But I shouldn't.

Chivalry is dead

The following story is true. Some of the names have been changed to protect the ignorant.

As I stumbled free from the embrace of the weird inflated trap, I realized that I was also free of the house, the house of fear and horror. Despite the fact that I was heading down a dirt ramp, I did nothing to slow my pace. It seemed logical to me that, while I had escaped the house, I may not have yet escaped the inhabitants of that house. I didn’t slacken my speed until I’d caught up with George and Amy. There, some distance away from the house, we could safely giggle and discuss the creepy joy we’d experienced while waiting for the rest of our group.

I watched as the next group emerged from the house and was confused slightly when that group was not the remainder of our friends. I was also confused by the lack of attack upon exit. It was such a perfect location for a surprise that I could not understand using it.

A few moments later, another group emerged and this was our friends. They loudly laughed and giggled the remainder of their fear away. Then, suddenly, my theories were proved correct. From the shadows of the exit sprang a masked individual with a loud running chainsaw. Relaxation was replaced by one last blast of fright. With a burst of ‘feet don’t fail me now’, young Larry ran, instinctively abandoning the young lady that he had accompanied through the house in order to protect her. In the moment of truth, he had failed in his task, leaving her to the madman’s whims.

Chivalry is dead.

What If?

We all play the 'What If?' game at some point. 'What If I'd lived in this city instead of that one?' 'What If I'd gone to this school?''What If I'd moved out sooner/later/not broken up with/etc?' It can be a useful tool to see where you want to move forward with your life.

The weird part about it is that we're not very good at the game. Certain changes aren't accounted for and other variables cannot be calculated. For instance, I've been typing up a story I wrote in middle school. It was set in the future which is now the past. It's interesting to see what I predicted, how little understanding I had of certain things (like technology) and that all my friends in the story are people I knew at the time in middle school. It was as if I expected to know those people the rest of my life. That said, I do still have contact with people I knew in middle school. In the past couple weeks I realized that I'd bumped into someone I was pals with in middle school. Neither of us realized we knew each other at the time. Weird how that works sometimes.

I guess my point is that we (or at least I guess I do) generally expect certain things to remain constant. Certain good things in our lives shouldn't go away so we don't, or can't, picture those changes. Friends moving away, buildings burning down, businesses closing; these things shouldn't happen to the good things in our lives but sometimes they do. It's not the change we want but sometimes it's the change that happens.

Last night we played 'What If?' a few times. 'What If we all move to Colorado?' 'What If George had played high school football?' 'What If Katy and Eric's son marries George and Amy's daughter?' Looking forward and looking back. What would change? What would be the same?

I have the feeling of great change yet ahead of me. Change in and of itself doesn't bother me like it once did. I hate change for the sake of change, changes made in an effort to 'look busy'. At least one big something is going to change for me soon, perhaps a couple somethings. There's rumblings afoot and I've no clue to what level it will alter things. That's the problem with rumblings. They are indistinct by nature.

One thing I have no interest in letting change is my writing and by that I mean that I have no interest in stopping. It would be too fundamental a change and I don't like what I 'see' of that me. If that means this blogging thing stays weekly for the time being while I work on everything else, that's not a problem for me.

I wonder what's going to happen. What Then?

Change and not a Moment Too Soon

Within the past couple weeks, Radiohead announced plans to release their new album under a 'pay what you want' plan, Nine Inch Nails announced freedom from their music label and Madonna signed with a concert promoter rather than a traditional music label. The music industry is seeing some big changes and the traditional music labels are on the outside of the process for a change.

The interesting thing to see out of this 'pay what you want' concept is how much money will these bands state they've made off this model. How will it compare to what they made under the music companies? In a store like Best Buy, a big new release might be $11 -$12 bucks but the average CD is $13-15. In the mall (why would you go to the mall to shop for music?) they tended to be $17-18.

How much of that went to the artist? I remember reading the breakdown at one point but can't recall what it was anymore. I know it's not much. Maybe $2 a CD? If I download an album from the artist and kick them $5 via Paypal, it's still cheaper than iTunes to me. I feel happy, the artist feels happy (technically they just made a $3 profit). Win-win. Most of that money went back to the label to pay for the recording studio time, video shoots and any other money the label advanced them so it's likely that, in most cases, the band never saw any money from CD sales. It sounds like a modern day form of indentured servitude.

Every year I go to Irish Fest with the goal of buying at least one CD while I'm there as the artists come with disks. I know they'll be $15-18 but I do it anyway. Why? These bands tend to be on smaller labels. I always feel I'm helping that band directly as opposed to feeding some big corporate machine that will use my cash to promote the winner of some reality show as a performer. Given the chance to easily download the tracks directly from the artist and know that my money is going right to them... how could I not want that?

I have the feeling this is going to turn around faster than people think. There will still be CDs in stores for awhile now (most people aren't that technologically comfortable yet) but the power of the recording industry will disappear quicker than they expect. Look at the Catholic Church one hundred years ago and compare it to today. They're still around but it's not the respected powerhouse it once was.

I also think it will create more jobs than it displaces. A big corporation has to keep things streamlined for their stockholders. A band will need a tech guy or two to run their website and make sure the downloads happen cleanly and the money comes in safety. Some bands might team up to do this but they'll have the option of doing it on their own terms. Whatever they pay that tech guy or team won't even come close to the amount of money one CEO that hasn't liked music since 1957 makes in a year.

On the whole, I think that's a good thing. Viva la revolucion!

Something to do tonight

Took a day of vacation Friday. Got busy as right away as possible (object in motion tends to stay in motion) and managed to look through a good chunk of the video tape portion of the archive, looking for tapes that could be removed as they had been upgraded to DVD versions. Didn't pull out too many but found a few that were close. There's a lot of interesting stuff in there that I tend to forget about. Converting the stuff that will 'never' see a DVD release (or stuff I don't mind having but won't pay for) is a project I'm already testing. I'm curious to see if I can encode them as files for storage rather than burn them as video DVDs. Well, most of the stuff anyway. Most of it was recorded in SLP anyway so it's not great quality items.

Took a walk and Friday night activities were called off. Watched a movie that's been waiting to be seen for a few years. It ('She-Devils on Wheels') was okay.

Ended up sitting around most of Saturday. Friday's walk had tightened up my back. Not enough stretching. Managed to loosen it up enough to be comfortable again. Saturday night's plans were also called off. Finally left the homestead to get some snacks that I still haven't touched, got some Wendy's and then curled up at home with another movie ('The Astro-Zombies') which was less than okay. Very padded. I got some typing done during it so that was okay. I've got 25 pages on the long version of the 'Fresh Fiction for Friday' tale and it's nowhere near done.

Now it's Sunday. Did some outlining for the long 'FFfF'. Batman's on the TV and the Packers play the Bears tonight. Just waiting for the fun to start. 'Quiet' weekends aren't always a bad thing. I've got next Friday off as well. I'm looking forward to that weekend and hoping it's not overbooked...

Too many comics?

The past few weeks have been a combination of being sick and busy. Once my time and energy started to come together again, I returned to some of my less taxing projects in an effort to keep things moving. I started sorting and bagging my comics to put them away into storage. I soon realized that this was a stupid project to pick up for being ‘non-taxing’ as comic book long boxes are heavy when they’re near full. Geeks don’t need dumbbells when they have long boxes to move back and forth.

Negotiating around the stuff in the archive to get to my comics, a thought occurred to me that I never thought I would have: I may have too many comics.

To a comics fan the reason why I never expected to think that thought is obvious: there is no such thing as too many comics. From simply a space perspective, I seem to have hit a limit. Realistically, I probably hit that limit and passed it a couple years ago. There are two basic solutions to this situation: get more room to store my books or get rid of some of my books.

Indeed, the situation is more complicated than those simple options. There are specific issues or stories that I possess in multiple editions. I made a comment along those lines to my buddy Al the other day. Discussing the storyline ‘Doctor Who – The Iron Legion’, I know I have at least three copies of it: the original ‘Doctor Who Weekly’ issues, the colorized American reprints of the eighties as well as a high quality reprint from just a couple years ago. It’s being recolorized and reprinted again. Since its Doctor Who, I’ll probably buy it again.

Do I ‘need’ multiple editions of a story, as good as it may be? No, probably not. This is the sort of thing that seems to hit more often with DVDs; having multiple special editions that contain sufficient different content so the temptation is to possess both versions.

To the non-collector mentality, all this sounds foolish I’m sure. Why own a DVD that you can rent and return? Why worry about multiple editions when it the story that’s important? Have it once, if at all. Just understand that I am a collector, it’s a sickness and I know it. It’s all stuff that generates happy chemical reactions in my brain.

Lumped into all this is the rise of digital comics, scanned copies of books that are available in legal and illegal versions. I could replace most of my collection with digital copies. Would I rid myself of the physical copies of my books if I did? Honestly, in most cases I’m sure I wouldn’t. There’s a special feeling to having some of these originals that doesn’t come with having a nice reprint or a digital copy. I have legal digital copies of the first 500 issues of the Amazing Spider-Man. Does that compare to having issue #60 from the sixties in my hand to read? No. There’s a feeling, a history, a scent even that comes from that physical item.

At the same time, there are a number of books that I could comfortably replace with digital scans, a nice reprint or only having one copy. The big question is: Does that situation already exist with some books? Is there anything I could clear out for space? Hopefully.