Election, NaNoWriMo, Annihilation

Election, NaNoWriMo, Annihilation

We had a local election this past Tuesday. It was a small one for mayor and city council seats. The ballot didn't even fill a whole page. Everybody i voted for lost. Even in the race for the "At Large" council seat, where the top three vote-getters get a seat, i picked all three losers. I think it's kinda funny.

NaNoWriMo is going very slowly right now. The idea i had suddenly got very boring when i started putting it to paper. So now i either retool it extensively or start over with something else.

This week i started reading Annihilation V1, and so far i'm liking it. The first section is the Drax mini. The small-town Alaska setting is cool, but maybe that's b/c i have that sense of Romance for small towns, though i've never chosen to live in one. I don't think i would have liked this story as a monthly comic. It would have felt sparse, plot-wise. But collected, it's a satisfying little prelude/setup to Drax's involvement in the bigger story.

I knew nothing of Drax before reading this. There are a couple of flashbacks that show his old costume, which i recognized from comics i've seen but never read, so i vaguely know he was involved in some of the "cosmic" Avengers stories from the 70s. That's all fine though, b/c this story doesn't depend on any of that. What background you need to know is told here, and the rest is new.

Now i'm at the part where the Annihilation Wave enters the scene, and the action rachets way up. It will be interesting to see how the various minis collected here flow as a unit. Will the pacing be choppy, or balanced? How much will the tone vary? What effect will different creative teams have?

Yet Another Meme

I plan to have some reviews up Saturday, but here's a meme that I stole and then altered a bit.

The "4 Things" Lists

4 jobs I've had in life:
1) bookseller at B&N
2) copywriter
3) software QA
4) tutor

4 places I've lived:
1) NE Arkansas
2) SW Arkansas
3) NW Arkansas
4) Piedmont North Carolina

4 favorite foods:
1) Thai
2) Mediteranean
3) Mexican
4) Pizza

4 places I'd rather be:
1) Hanging Rock
2) Outer Banks
3) Downtown Hot Springs, either on Art Hop night, or a summer Saturday Afternoon
4) Peppers Pizza, Franklin St.

4 movies I can watch over and over:
1) Anchorman
2) Rushmore
3) The Apartment
4) Paper Moon

4 t.v. shows I like to watch:
1) Deadwood
2) Newsradio
3) King of the Hill
4) 30 Rock

4 websites I view daily:
1) juno mail
2) newsarama
3) yahoo mail
4) blogs

4 computers I've owned:
1) Current offbrand PC
2) dell PC before that one, now running Linux
3) Packard Bell PC before *that* one, now in attic
4) a word processor, fate unknown

4 podcasts I listen to weekly
1) Secret Identity
2) Jordan Jesse Go!
3) History According To Bob
4) On Point

4 comic books I loved as a child
1) The Brave & The Bold
2) Micronauts
3) Fantastic Four (John Byrne years)
4) All-Star Squadron

4 comic books I love as an adult
1) Fables & Jack of Fables
2) Scott Pilgrim
3) Madman
4) Dynamo 5

4 good books I've read lately
1) The Rise of Silas Lapham, by William Dean Howells
2) The Road to Serfdom, by F.A. Hayek
3) The Jugurthine War, by Sallust
4) Borderland: A Journey Through the History of Ukraine, by Anna Reid

4 bands I've seen live
1) Matthew Sweet
2) Juliana Hatfield
3) Sonic Youth
4) Bob Dylan

4 favorite albums
1) Girlfriend, by Matthew Sweet
2) Leave Them All Behind, by Ride
3) Keep It Like A Secret, by Built To Spill
4) Goin' Up, by Freddie Hubbard

4 things to do around here
1) Tate Street Festival
2) Ren Fair
3) Blues Festival
4) Stellarcon

4 funny-sounding place names
1) Possum Grape, AR
2) Pickles Gap, AR
3) Toadsuck, AR
4) Climax, NC

4 'yo momma' jokes
1) what's the difference between yo momma and a washing machine? when i drop a load in the washing machine, it don't follow me around for a week
2) yo momma's so nasty, she'd give sour dough yeast infection
3) yo momma's teeth are so yellow, when she smiles, traffic slows down
4) yo momma's so fat, she plays hopscotch like this: new york, chicago, l.a. ...
#1 stolen from Tina Fey on 30 Rock, #2-4 stolen from In Living Color

4 funny things my mom used to say
1) hard headed henry harris - what you got called when you were stubborn
2) bossy the heifer - what you got called when you were bossy
3) you'd argue with a sign you painted yourself - my retort: if i painted it, it'd be right
4) ___ is slower than Christmas

4 Southern linguistic eccentricities
1) "if it'd been a snake it woulda bit ya" - said when you find something in an obvious place
2) snakedoctors - one of my granpa's name for dragonflies
3) "Lord willin' and the creek don't rise" - expressing assurance that something will happen or get done; self-conciously religious people will respond to this with "if the Lord's willin', it don't matter if the creek rises"
4) "gave him down the road" - yelled at someone over a slight, foul-up, etc. never been sure exactly where this one comes from