The Hunger Games - The Movie

A decent conversion from book to movie although the final battle scene didn't quite live up to what I remembered in the book.  Good characterization although Peeta I thought was better looking than what I thought in the book.  I thought he was more wimpy so to speak.  Either way it will be interesting to see how the trilogy plays out on the big screen.

Comic Splat - Week 13

Moon Knight #11
Who has Ultron's head?
His head is like a ping pong
Crazy Moon Knight wins...

Captain America and Bucky #628
Thankfully over
Most confusing story ever
A good ending though

The New Avengers #23
A double agent
Skaar disassembles bad guys
Avengers clean up

A vs X #0
Mega event on
Scarlett Witch, Hope in the end
Future of Mutants...

Haiku Wednesday

Spring Skiing

Bizarro skiing
Feels like I'm in a slurpee
Prefer to drink it!

Immortal Iron Fist Volumes 1 & 2

With Iron Fist playing a role in New Avengers hard to believe this character was on the scrap heap for so long.  Really can't ever remember him in the late 80s when I started reading comics.  I believe is stand alone book ended in the 70s so basically just an unknown.  With that I lunched into the tell and was duly impressed.  Great story and great character.  As with any new introduced character trying to figure out what the backstory can be a challenge.  With these books they did an admirable job catching us with the character.  Either way he has moved up into my Top 10 list of favorite characters.  Which are:

10.  Elektra

9.  Wolverine

8.  Daredevil

7.  Black Widow

6. Silver Surfer

5. Iron Fist

4.  Captain America

3.  Spider-Man

2.  Jean Grey

1.  Cyclops (He Was Right)

Comic Book World - The "52" Event

Six months ago DC Comics did the unthinkable and rebooted their entire comic book line.  Gone was the countdown to Action Comics issue 1,000 and gone too was the countdown to Detective Comics issue 900 (although I will bet you that DC will reboot the numbering system some day just like Marvel has done in the last 20 years on some of its flagship books).  The purpose of the reboot was to clean the slate.  Start fresh and try to unburden the characters that have picked up so much baggage over years of different stories.  DC claimed that such daunting character histories were the cause for new readers not wanting to step into the mess and that these histories were the cause for stagnation with the characters.  As a long time reader of comics I would agree with their assumptions.  

While a few years back Marvel (maybe DC) decided to try and condense stories into 5 - 7 single books telling a more condensed tale.  In year's past oftentimes there was no discernable pause in any story and they simply ran on for ever with lots of dangling plotlines that may or may not be ever told depending on how long the author stuck around.  Claremont and the X-men was a perfect example of this.  I remember early on I stayed away from the X-men for this very reason.  It was a daunting task to take up an issue and then be blasted with 40 years of continuity.  Yikes but once you did take the launch it was fascinating to spend the time and catch up with these characters.  To me comic book are men's soap opera.  Instead of daily updates we get monthly updates.  Comic book characters are a rich history for those willing to take the first step.  Before I go any further I should state that I am a Marvel guy through and through.  DC characters just never did much for me.  Maybe they were too iconic, maybe with their age there was no stories left to tell, or maybe one too many authors had mired the character into how they exist today.  Either way DC decided it was time to clean house and start over.

With that I took DC's reboot as a fascination.  I did pick up some of the series just to see what  it was all about.  I stayed on for about three months but ultimately nothing really changed for me about any of these characters.  They still didn't make me care.  Because of the magnitude of the event I decided to analyze  what the "52" event meant to the comic book world.  I looked at the data generated each month with comic book sales (found on comic book resources website).  Not for sure how it works but it tracks the Top 300 books sold (or purchased?) each month.  I started this endeavour a few months before September 2011 and so was able to track back to May 2011.  This isn't a marketing pitch just my own desktop analysis.  Data below (Top 300 Comics tab) shows that for the four months leading up to "52" an average of about 5.8M books were sold by all publishers (Yes there are others besides DC and Marvel).  In September with the launch of "52" this number increased 25%.  About a 1.5M more books were sold.  Six months later (actually it only took 3 months), the freshness of "52" has wavered and basically we are back to status quo.  

So a bunch of people initially splurged (oohh issue #1 might be worth some money someday). But perhaps another reason comics have come back to pre "52" levels is that December, January, and February might just be down months in the comic book world?  Expenses and debt probably lead to less comic book buying...So I can't say that "52" has totally died but 6 months into this, comics sales have flatten out again.

Digging a little deeper what did "52" mean for the big two publishers?   Looking at the DC and Marvel tab you can see that DC typically sold about 2.0M copies each month with Marvel doing about 2.7M.  In September DC spiked to 3.4M copies and all these copies sold practically accounted for all of the increase in the Top 300 (so much for getting non comic people into the stores and buying something else that might catch their eye...).  Marvel really didn't see a downturn so that is good.  Marvel readers didn't short their list to pick up new DC titles either.  As you can see though "52" excitement clearly waned after three months.  Data above is not the complete picture as DC still sells non-52 comics such as the Vertigo line but in comparing I decided to just look at the 52 books that comprised the relaunch while the 4 month average clearly looked at all of their offerings.  Bottom line is that this is not a complete comparison but interesting all the same that readership really hasn't stayed with new stories and different takes on characters.  While Marvel on a month to month basis has seen a reduction in their copies sold but part of this can be explained with less books being offered during these months.  Overall while the bump in books sold helped DC it really didn't mean anything to Marvel from a readership point.  Really the only thing that can be said now is that Marvel no longer can claim the Top 10 books for sales as currently 10 of the relaunch DC books have gobbled up the high end of sales.

Which brings me to the final point.  In the last tab "Individual Book Effects" I was able to find 18 books that DC relaunched that could be compared to their prelaunch sales. Effectively these are DC's core books such as Batman, Superman, Green Lantern, and Justice League.    Republishing these as number 1 and rebrandishing the line resulted an average increase in readership from per "52" sales to "52" sales by 160%.  Justice League went from an average readership of 44,500 in four months preceding September to 171,000 copies sold for "52".  This was pretty standard across the board for all of the core books.  Even Birds of Prey doubled there readership with the relaunch.  Obviously though DC was hoping that this event would completely revitalize the DC brand.  Looking into sales of books after 6 months one can start to see the fall out.  Some of the core books are still looking good as Justice League is still selling 135,000 copies but four books which had previous sales marks are actually less than before the "52" event.  And this is only 18 of the 52 books.  Thirty-four other books using marginally less interesting characters and basically we find that the reboot really hasn't done anything at all on the grand scale.  In couple of months DC is already booting 6 of the new "52" with 6 new reboots.  Sure the core 10-15 books have really done well but you have to think that these books got the best writers and artists thus really getting to the point of what I think the comic book world needs and that is good writing paired with good art.  Pretty simple formula but it seems the big two consistently throw out stuff that just waters down the entire medium. Sure comics are a pretty cheap form of entertainment but at $2.99 to 3.99 a pop something has to give and declining readership and worth just seems to me we need more than "Events" to save the medium.  This article also shows the sad future of what the medium is becoming.

So there you have it.  Interesting to see what the X-men vs Avengers does this Summer...

Comic Splat - Week 12

Justice League #7
A new story line
Centers around someones love
Who is Steve Trevor?

Amazing Spider-Man #682
Spidey's summer thrill
Battles the Sinister Six
With bunch of new suits?

Invincible Iron Man #514
What is his angle?
Iron Man accepts power drain
His foes have him now

Haiku #5

Haiku #5 was a recipe from The Best of Brew You Own magazine and was an Anchor Steam Clone.  My desire was to brew something known so I could do a taste comparison.  It was made with the following ingredients:

1) 2.0 lbs 2-Row, Rahr

2) 0.2 lbs Crystal Malt (60 deg L) **As you can see from the color I obviously used the wrong malt**

3) 0.4 oz German Northern Brewer Pellet Hops (9.6%AA)
4) 1/2 tsp Irish Moss

6) White Labs WLP820 Octoberfest (Liquid) [change]

Used StarSan sanitizer.

The Mash

Heated 2.5 quarts (10 cups) of water (refrigerator water which is carbon filtered) to 160 deg F.  Add grain and mixed.  Cooked for 60 minutes at 154-160 deg F.  With 5 minutes to go raised temperature to 168 deg F for 5 minutes.

The Sparge

Heated additional 4 quarts of water (refrigerator water) to boiling then transferred to gallon fermentation jug.  Set up the strainer over the second pot and added the hot grain mash.  Then poured the heated water from the jug over the grains and into the second pot.  Once done recirculated the wort back through the grain once more into the original pot.

The Boil

Heated the wort until it began to boil at approximately 210 deg F.  This was done with just the middle heat on the inside burner on my stove.  Boil lasted 90 minutes with 0.2 oz of Hops at the 60 min to go for the boil then added 0.1 oz at 15 minutes and then 0.1 oz with 0 minutes to go.  Also at 15 minutes to boil added Irish Moss.  Tasted the wort and it was very sweet.

The Fermentation

Placed the brew pot into the sink with ice allowing the temperature to decrease to 70 deg F.  Allowed the mix to settle this time using the principle of stirring it until the sediment formed a cone in the center of the brew pot.  Siphoned from the edges into the fermentor.  After the fermentor is full, the yeast was added and throughly mixed to aerate the liquid.  Note:  Liquid yeast is designed for 5 gallon batches.  This time did not shake the yeast but opened slowly and mixed with a tooth pick.  Still difficult to determine exact amount of yeast was added.

The yeast began fermentation and a fairly consistent burp began.  Primary fermentation lasted for about 36 hours.  Transferred beer to the basement and put in the airlock.  Allowed to sit for 2 weeks.

The Bottling

Used bottling sugar and dissolved this in 1/4 cup of water, I siphoned the beer into a pot and then bottled into 4 x bomber bottles (~650 mL).  Allowed to sit for another 2 weeks.

The Tasting

Opened and tried on 3/18/12. Good carbonation.  See photo.  Good flavor although not the Anchor Steam taste I was expecting.  Flavor was kind of nutty.  This nutty flavored deepened in later bottles I drank.  

Oops used the wrong grain

A light and nutty flavor

Have to try again

John Carter (of Mars)

For a movie that was marketed horribly, marginalized, and destined for failure, I actually thought it was pretty good.  A fairly decent translation of E.R.B vision.  Hard part for the maker's is to make something original from a work that has been stolen from to make many of the modern day sci-fi classics.  Anyone who likes Slave Leia only has Dejah Thoris to thank. 

It is unfortunate that it is unlikely this world will be revisited.  A shame because there is a lot of good material still out there.

Haiku Wednesday

Bald Eagle

Majestic, Regal
A King in his own kingdom
Bald is beautiful

Neil Gaiman - Odd and the Frost Giants

Odd little book I picked up.  Actually a very good little book.  I thoroughly enjoyed it.  Have to wonder the fascination that Gaiman has for Odin and the Gods...in summary:

"There he meets a fox, an eagle and a bear, the latter with its paw trapped in a tree. Odd aids the bear, and learns that these are not normal animals, but the gods Loki, Odin and Thor. The gods have been transformed and cast out of Asgard by a Frost Giant who tricked Loki into giving him Thor's hammer, granting him rule over Asgard and causing the endless winter."

Comic Splat - Week 11

Conan the Barbarian #2
Battle on the Sea
His ship lost but he fights on
The Queen wants new King...

Avengers #24
Osborn just burns out
Adaptoid tech doesn't hold
But Hydra is still here

Captain America #9
Sharon's got this one?
She learns how to make Steve whole
But Falcon is down...

Powers #9
The Golden Ones done
A signal sent to outer space?
Walker will kick ass...

Punisher #9
He's got a partner
A female marine no less
That's Rucka fetish ;)

Joshua Foer - Moonwalking with Einstein

My token out on the limb non fiction book for the year to follow in the footsteps of Gladwell, Ariety, and Talib.  Fascinating account of a journalist who decided not to just write about the memory Olympics but to actually take the steps to compete and  in the end actually he does quite well.  Bizarre competition but a fascinating account of memory, techniques, and what memory is.  Tried for the life of me to remember names of people I meet and it is still hard.  Problem is coming up with a something that sticks long enough for it to pop back up when I re-meet them.  Also I wonder if the playing card deck memorization would help at all in a game like Bridge where card remembering is actually quite important if you want to be good. 

Page 166, "memorize decks of playing cards in much the same way, using a PAO system in which each of the 52 cards is associated with its own person/action/object image.  This allows any triplet of cards to be combined into a single image, and for a full deck to be condensed into just 18 unique images (52 dived by 3 is 17, with one card left over)"

Page 268, "What I had really trained my brain to do, as much as to memorize, was to be more mindful, and to pay attention to the world around me.  Remembering can only happen if you decide to take notice."

Page 281 - Notes Section,   "Papyrus, the literal bulrushes of the biblical "ark of bulrushes" that carried the baby Moses, was also called byblos, after the Phoenician port of Byblos where it was exported- hence the "Bible"

States Run In - Number 43

The 49th State and the 43rd State I have run in only missing (Rhode Island, New York, West Virginia, Delaware, Oklahoma, Indiana, Michigan, and North Dakota)

1.  Maine (Portland)
2.  New Hampshire (Hanover)
2a.  Vermont (Hanover)
3.  Massachusetts (Boston)
4.  Connecticut (Branford)
4a. New Jersey (Hotel looking over NYC)
5.  Pennsylvania (Pittsburgh)
6.  Maryland (Annapolis)
7.  Virginia (Bull Run?)
8.  North Carolina (Charlotte)
9.  South Carolina (Columbia)
10. Georgia (Atlaesnta)
11.  Florida (Orlando)
12.  Alabama (Huntsville)
13.  Tennessee (Knoxville)
14.  Kentucky (Uncle's House?)
15.  Ohio (Rittman)
16.  Mississippi (Jackson)
17.  Illinois (Chicago)
18.  Louisiana (New Orleans)
19.  Arkansas (Little Rock)
20.  Missouri (I-70)
21.  Iowa (Des Moines)
22.  Wisconsin (Milwaukee)
23.  Minnesota (Mankato)
24.  Texas (San Antonio)
25.  Kansas (I-70)
26.  Nebraska (Omaha)
27.  South Dakota (Rapid City)
28.  New Mexico (Albuquerque)
29.  Colorado (Denver)
30.  Wyoming (Yellowstone)
31.  Montana (Missoula)
32.  Arizona (Phoenix)
33.  Utah (Salt Lake City)
34.  Idaho
35.  Nevada (Las Vegas)
36.  California (Rosamond)
37.  Oregon (Portland)
38.  Washington (Seattle)
39.  Hawaii (Honolulu)
40.  Alaska (Ketchikan)

Ketchikan, Alaska

Rugged wilderness
Bald eagles, salmon, and rain
Catch me if you can

Haiku Wednesday

Trees look like shipwrecks
Winter's harsh punishing wind
Allows renewal

Comic Splat - Week 10

Fatale #3
A forever dame
A lost secret manuscript
Evil sunglass men...

Manhattan Projects #1
More conspiracies
Not bombs but secret projects
Bad Oppenheimer!

Amazing Spider-Man #681
This get a big zzzzz
A filler story alert
Ends of the Earth next...

Ultimate Spider-Man #8
Aunt May not happy
There's a new spider in town
Who is this new guy?

Winter Soldier #3
Cyborg prime minister
Framing the real Doctor Doom
Crazy plots indeed

J.K. Rowling - Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

Simply re-read after a few years to my youngest.  Funny to go back and pick up things that you might have forgotten as well as knowing how everything ends.  Can of cool although if only we did have time to re-read things over the years.  Too many books not enough time!