The Gates Ombudsman, Wednesday, February 6th, 2008: The catching up edition.

 

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Back at my old Friendster blog, I used to do a semi-regular news review on a quasi-daily basis called The Gates Ombudsman. Since it has been a while since I've blogged, I decided to bring back the format to catch up on things I've missed. But now, we have a snazzy, yet amateurish header for it. Yay!

• Where have I been?: College is a drag on my time. Between classes, homework and reading assignments, I barely have time to write what I am supposed to write, let alone blog.
• Pop Candy starts "A Crash Course in Comics":  Whitney Matheson is a writer for USA Today and a pop culture maven. Think a female version of me, only cuter. And more alternative. Anyway, she has decided to treat her readers the a crash comics course. This first of the four part weekly course hit today, and she gives us 25 essential graphic novels. Can't really argue with the list, although it favors the shoe-gazing, indie books a bit much, but a lot of the agreed essential books are their.
• Another of my Guiding Line colums have been published: Usually, I post this in a separate post, but tonight I am trying to be economical. This week, I cover Scud, the Disposable Assassin #21, Uncanny X-Men #495, Halloween: Nightdance #1, Abe Sapien: The Drowning #1, ClanDestine #1, Midnighter #16 and Marvel Illustrated: Moby Dick #1. Check it out.
• Heath Ledger died of an accidental overdose: He died of a fatal cocktail of a bunch of prescription meds. I wonder if People Magazine is going to a cover story apologizing for the cover story in their February 4th edition in which they make a point to include quotes from "friends" of Heath Ledger saying that he was a rampant partier and depressed over his breakup with Michele Williams. Because that article implied that Ledger was either A) A reckless druggie or B) Suicidal. Now that both those are ruled out, People Magazine should do the right thing and set the record straight. They won't but they should.
• Super Tuesday does not settle the election: I don't know if this is because we have so many good candidates or because all the candidates are kinda, eh? For the record, I voted for Hillary. Heath care is very important to me, and I believe she is stronger on that issue. I do appreciate that parking was on a preimium at the polling place. I am also glad to be living in New York instead of Pennsylvania. Because, usually by the time the primaries reached PA, the race was over.
• Elisabeth Hasselbeck has a "baby blog": The term "gag me with a spoon" is so outdated, but it really sums up what I'm feeling about this perfectly.
• Shaquille O'Neal is traded to the Phoenix Suns: In related news, Shaquille O'Neal is still playing basketball, apparently.
• My second favorite team wins the Super Bowl: I have two favorite NFL football teams. This causes me to be teased mercilessly by my friends. But I came into loving the Pittsburgh Steelers on my own, and love the New York Giants because they were my father's favorite team. It was a bonding experience for us both. I rooted for the Giants with him, and he would root for the Steelers with me. Now that he's passed away, 10 years gone now, I still root for the Giants. Don't get me wrong, there is a hierarchy, Steelers are first, Giants are second. But I am happy that my two favorite teams have won the SuperBowl within three years. And Giants had to beat the Perfect Patriots and the hated Cowboys to do so.
• However, the Super Bowl commercials were lackluster: Yeah, the ads, which some years are the best part of the game, were kind of blah. Especially disappointing were the Bud Light ads. Usually they are solid comedy. Instead they were kind of lame. My favorite had to be the soda commercials. The "Wkae Up" ad was made with Chris Kattan's appearance at the end, who doesn't love to see Justin Timberlake's crotch rammed into a post, and I love that Charlie Brown wins the Coke bottle in the end.
• The Writer's Strike might be over: Yee haw! I just hope the writers didn't give up too much.
• The early release of the 3rd season of SNL depresses me:  You know, when one and two came out in December, I got them immediately after for Christmas. Now number 3 will be released in April? I'm sure another one will be coming in December. Getting one $60 box set for X-Mas was hard enough. Getting two is impossible.

Various and sundry news and notes

I know I havent been posting here all that often. I have been really busy with the holiday, X-Mas shopping and making plans to go back to college. I finally have time to blog today, so instead of posting 15 posts, I'll try to sum up as much as I can here.

 

1. Another reason for me to love R.E.M.: It appears that Peter Buck once worked in a comic books store:

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Yay! I came across this picture through Pop Candy (I think) and it must be from the 1970s, judging on the comics listed. Cool!

2. Bionic Woman, Cancelled?: Rumor is yes. My verdict: mostly good cast, poor execution. I'm not going to miss it.

3. I support the WGA Strike: As much as I am bummed that the Daily Show, Colbert Report and Late Show are in reruns for the last month, I support the writers in this strike. They get .04 out of every $20 DVD sold. They want a boost to .08--and a piece of the internet profits. Since a DVD cost only .50 to produce, I think the studios can afford it. 

4. Fun with eBay: I like looking and the mixed lots in comic books. Mainly because every week there are lots with thousands of books from trhe Silver Age--including key issues--that I like to look at and think "One day, when I'm a multi-millionaire, I will bid on this auction." But occasionally, this category features unintentional humor. Mainly from people who luck into a box of comics, have no idea what they are worth, but think they are worth a fortune. Back in October I came across this auction titled only "Lot of comic books". The starting price was $500. This item description was as follows: "Mixed Lot of Comic Books dated mid 70's through mid 90's.  9 boxes total.  Please contact seller with any questions. " Better yet, here is the photo they ran with the auction:

Ebay picture

So, they don't list what comics are in the lot, except to say they come from the 70's (which might mean they have some value) to the 90's (which are pretty much worthless) without saying how many books are in each decade even, and the picture shows a two boxes of yellowed comics crammed into two random cardboard boxes, and the comics that are bagged appear to be in Ziploc bags, not exactly condusive to protecting the books, and the expect $500 for it? Naturally, it didn't sell.

5. Mephisto offers Peter Parker a deal: I get my comics on a monthly basis, but from what I read on the internet, in this week's Sensational Spider-Man, Mephisto offers to make Aunt May healthy in exchange for Peter''s marriage. And from what little we've seen of the Brand New Day, it appears he takes it.

A lot of fuss has been made about the ending of the marriage, the reasons behind it, and what it all means, but I feel a lot of people are missing a very important point. Spider-Man, all-around good guy, idol of millions, image on thousands of kids toys and clothing, is presumably aboput to accept a deal from Marvel's version of Satan. Think about that for a second. All we need is for a televangelist to seize upon this on a slow news day and this will become 1954 all over again. I am not the most religious man, but if this goes through, Marvel should be prepared for the consequences.