Posts from — January 2009

Keanu Reeves and Joseph Lawrence in a buddy action comedy.

Reeves is the hard-boiled mentor, Lawrence the brash young upstart.

Plot? Doesn’t matter.

Title: Whoa.

Think about it for five minutes.

Now voice your assent in the comments.

I have this niece.  I may have mentioned her before.

At around a year old, she started giving people hi-fives.  As a doting uncle, I thought that this was, in fact, awesome, but I wanted to expand her education (read: teach her a new trick).  So I tried to get her to emulate the notorious Obama fist bump with me.

No dice.

However, last Wednesday, when Amazing Spider-Man #583 was released, Alana toddled up to me and, instead of waving or blowing a kiss or hi-fiving me, she giggled and extended her fist toward me.  I punched it, and she thought it was the most awesome thing.  So did I.

Now, I understand why Erik Larsen is so angry with me.  He did, after all, invent fist bumps.  And nieces.  Both in the pages of Savage Dragon.  I’ve infringed on his intellectual property, and that’s not right.  So, Mr. Larsen, I’ve prepared the following statement: “My bad. It won’t happen again.”

Now let’s stop all the grousing and move on.

So, some of you have been lamenting the change of heart that I’ve had following both my damning review of Twilight and my ill-fated attempt to see the Spirit.  A kind, happy Jeff is not a Jeff that some of you want to read, it would seem.

Well, you guys are in fucking luck.

Today, I am a burning obelisk of pure hate thanks to dealing with Microsoft Customer Service.

Last night, I got home and wanted to play some Guitar Hero.  I fired up my Xbox 360 and got the infamous Red Ring of Death that indicates hardware failure.  This happened to me not long after launch and my experience with Customer Service that time was exemplary.  This time?

I went online to arrange a repair on my own, and that’s where the problem began.  I was asked to register my console, and was informed that the serial number of the console was already registered.  I didn’t buy the console used, either; I got it directly from goddamn Microsoft.  Because I can’t register the console, I can’t do anything online, so I have to call.

When I call, I am confronted with an impenetrable wall of automated responses suggesting that I use the Internet to do what I need to do.  It takes way too long to finally talk to a human being who is obviously outsourced and obviously unwilling to deviate from his script, and I have to explain my problem to him at least three times.  He then asks me to walk through each of the suggested fixes that the online troubleshooting guide and the automated phone system have both suggested to me.  He does not address the console registration issue and he won’t tell me how much the repair will cost, just that I need to print a label online and send the console in.  I’m given a service number and told to have a great day.  Which, you know, seems very likely because one of the few things I can do that will occupy my time without requiring me to think is broken and I just spent a half hour on the phone with someone that I want to strangle.

Once I get a confirmation email, I try to print my shipping label, but SURPRISE - the website that I’m directed to doesn’t recognize my service number and/or zip code.  So I now have a broken Xbox 360 which will be repaired 3 weeks after I ship it to them with the shipping label that I can’t print. So yeah, that rocks.

As it stands, I’m going to have to get back on the phone with them, which I’m as excited about as setting myself on fire, wearing footie pajamas to work or reconciling with my ex.  I sometimes feel like the universe consigns me to the most difficult route to any positive resolution. Bullshit like this is why.

As excruciatingly hard as it can be to craft the perfect mixtape for a girl that you desperately want to sleep with, crafting a mixtape for a girl that you don’t want to sleep with is even harder.  It certainly seems at the outset to be easier - just pick a bunch of songs you like and then put them on a tape - but one thing that my life (and Star Wars) has taught me is that nothing will ever be as easy as it appears to be.

If you’re making a mixtape for a girl that you like, song selection is important.  The mixtape is a block of wood and the playlist is a lathe that you’re using to turn out the elegant ups, downs and flourishes of the emotional journey that you’re sending l’objet d’amour on (or, at least, like, hoping to send them on).

Using a lathe isn’t easy.  There’s a reason you have to sign that waiver on the first day of wood shop.

The problem in making a mixtape for a girl friend that you don’t experience painful, unrequited pangs for, is that every song placement, every lyric, every hand clap needs to be analyzed endlessly to ensure that The Wrong Message (TM) isn’t being sent.  That the tone is, “This is some cool music that I like,” and not “I’m giving this to you under the guise of being some cool music that I like, but there’s a secret, Dan-Brown-esque code embedded within this tape that will show you the true and unerring map of my heart.”  The potential for misinterpretation is huge and anxiety-making.

Maybe I should close with a song that is unromantic.  Antiromantic.  Maybe the whole thing should be antiromantic.  “Here’s a tape I made about how little I like you.”  It would probably have lots of Misfits on it, and some old school Metallica.  Some Gregorian Chant.  Some Christian rock about celibacy and how badass it is.  Bits of the Star Trek score.

Maybe I’m overthinking this.

Listen, I know all three of you reading this probably already subscribe to Chris Sims’s blog, but on the off chance that you don’t, you need to check out his latest post, which is guaranteed to crack the Internet in half.  I have no words.  None.

Word to the wise: Chris is talking about the most recent issue of Tarot, which means that the post is extremely unsafe for work.  And for your sanity.  Read it and then come back.

Think about this: Of the ten thousand plus visits that Chris has gotten for this post, at least a tenth of these people have clicked through because someone told them it was “the hottest thing ever.”

Think About It, Won’t You?

So I was out last night and my buddy John and I started waxing poetic about mixtapes.  Not mix CDs.  Making a CD for someone is cool, or filling up a jump drive with music, or beaming a song straight into their brains via nano-powered Song Guns, but it’s not a mixtape.  Sharing music in any format is a soul-affirming experience, but there’s something about the effort involved in crafting the perfect mixtape and producing the actual tape - a much more labor-intensive process than making a CD.

We did an impromptu survey and - shockingly - none of the girls in our group had ever received a mixtape from a boy.  So now we have a project: we’re each going to craft a mixtape for about five of our coworkers and also probably for the waitress.  This is going to mean dusting off the dual-deck tape recorder and buying some blank tapes for the first time in years, but I think it’ll be a fun diversion.  And I’ll probably blog some more about the mixtaping as it’s going on or after it’s done - one of the two.

So, Single Reader, tell me about the last mixtape you received/gave.  What was on it?

I like Matt Wagner a lot.  I like Francisco Francavilla (of Black Coat fame) a lot.  And I love Zorro.  Zorro hits two of my very largest buttons - the Batman button and the swashbuckling button - with equal zeal.  I also like Isabel Allende, and her Zorro novel is mostly fantastic.

So, when Wagner and Francavilla were attached to Dynamite’s new Zorro book, I freaked out a bit,  Especially when Wagner confirmed that he was basing Don Diego de la Vega’s origin on the Allende novel.

I’ve been largely quiet about the book since that time, but when it made Rachelle’s best of 2008 list, I resolved to spread the word about how swashmazing it is.  The book is iconic and awesome.  The action, which is all swordfights and horse chases, feels fluid and effortless.  If I had a scanner right now, I’d share the double page spread of Zorro fencing with Sgt. Gonzalez from issue #8, which is basically perfect.

Zorro is one of those books that is probably not getting the word of mouth because it’s simply too good.  There’s no controversy around it, no infamous creators getting into a kerflaffle with the fans, no severely laughable scheduling issues.  It’s just a good, high-quality comic book quietly coming out and kicking ass.

Wagner has really been doing amazing stuff over the past year (check out his Madame Xanadu mini with some absolutely gorgeous art by Amy Reeder Hadley) and the tubes have been relatively quiet about it, at least in the corners I read.  I guess it’s tough to blog about consistent excellence with any real verve.

So, yay, New Year’s.

Instead of having a fixed resolution, like “stop being so fat,” or “post daily,” I’m going a different route and setting some goals for myself.

1. Read: I’ve been reading superhero comics and genre/trash fiction almost exclusively for the past few months, and I need to indulge my other tastes to keep them from atrophy.
Not that what I’m reading right now is bad, but what I read used to be much more diverse.

2. Write: Blog more. Write a damn book, Jeff.  Don’t get distracted from “Must Love Dice,” the serial fiction piece I’m writing for Grok this year.  Finish one of the many comic book scripts that are currently languishing uselessly.  Find an artist for them, too.

3. Stop being so fucking gloomy.

One of my friends has also nominated 2009 as “The Year Jeff Gets More Behind.”  “The Year That Jeff Is More Promiscuous” is a bit clearer, but she’s amused by the slant rhyme.  I’m not averse to that goal either, truth be told, but I’m not putting it on the proper list.

So, Single Reader, what do YOU want me to do in 2009?  Or, alternatively, what are YOU resolving to do?