Tag: comics

New Father Brogging, #029

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It would have been pretty easy for me to do nothing but write about beer all month long and call it a day, but that would’ve been kind of a cop out as far as dutiful brogging is concerned.  Beer is nice, and I’ve been enjoying the fares from Deutschland, but there are still plenty of things on my mind that warrant words, no matter how much I may feel unmotivated to write about them, and when the day is over, it’s more important to me to write out my thoughts than to be lazy, even if it feels kind of forced; this is how seriously I take it to write, sometimes.

Anyway, in this new dad brog, there is one update and there is one observation.  As for the update, things have actually been going fairly smoothly since the last time I wrote about my adventures in fatherhood.  My daughter and I have a fairly consistent routine that’s been making life not too difficult for either of us for the most part, and the days are flying by like leaves in the winter air.  I wake up at 6:30~ish every single day, regardless of if it’s the weekend or not, mythical wife feeds baby, and then I entertain baby until first nap in which I then either really get to work, or if it’s the weekend I nap or sometimes get my jogging out of the way if I’m feeling up for it.  Our nanny takes care of kid for the next four hours on weekdays, or I spend time with her on weekends, and then it’s off to bed by 6:30~ish, to which mythical wife and I try to have some time for ourselves.  Repeat x infinity

However, as we’ve crossed the nine-month mark, naturally nothing stays the same forever, no matter how comfortable it’s been.  And in this particular case, whenever we run into any sort of issue, I can punch it into Google, and the precise query I intended to look up is automatically filled, reminding me that there has been absolutely nothing my kid has done or I have experienced, that millions of parents out there have not already seen.

As indicative in the photo above, that’s my child, standing in her crib.  As her little body and brain have been developing, she’s decided that immediate sleep isn’t something she necessarily needs anymore, and has decided to sit up, and pull herself up to her feet and just kind of hangout in her crib, instead of sleeping.  99% of the time, she’ll spit out her pacifier, piss herself off, and begin crying then wailing, then screaming, which prompts me to have to up and try to reset the whole scenario all over again, before she calms down, I walk out, and then she repeats it 3-4 times, burning us out in the process.

It seems evident that she herself is working things out and is playing a daily game of how many shenanigans she wants to pull in her crib between two naps and bed time, and how much she actually wants to sleep, because since behavior has begun, no two sleep sessions have been alike in how much she fights, how much she wanders around independently and how quick or long it takes before she actually goes out, and for parents like me that like routine it’s been occasionally frustrating.

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Advent Beer #13: Schwarze Tinte by Tölzer Mühlfeldbräu

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Can I just first say that I’m sick to death of these fucking southern winters where we have like a week of 20-30 degree weather, the heat is pumping, everyone is nice and cozy in their hoodies, sweaters and blankets, and I’m forced to drip faucets overnight, so my shit doesn’t freeze, but then days later we’re back up into the 60s, touching 70, and I’m forced to turn the air conditioning back on because my kid is waking up from being too hot.  Especially when I’m looking at the forecast of the upcoming week, and it’s supposed to plunge back down into the 30s in like two days.

It astounds me but it doesn’t how people actually believe climate change doesn’t exist and then it makes me think about Storm from the X-Men and how her character must be written these days, in the age of climate change and the earth itself fucking with her powers on a regular basis.  Makes me wonder if up in Westchester, Storm’s phone is always blowing up when people are getting pissed about the seasons not acting like the seasons they’re supposed to be, and trying to get Storm to fix it.

Anyway, it was just yesterday that I posed the question, does Deutschland even do stouts or porters, and then today’s can answering the question, immediately.  Schwarze Tinte, didn’t even have to add the “collab stout” for me to realize that this was probably going to be a stout, with a can design that looks like it was designed by Scott Hall, adorned in black with gooey drippy patterns on it, that I would have to imagine that this had to be a dark beer of some sort.

It pours out looking like a cola, and is a lot lighter bodied than I’d imagine from a stout, but the flavor hits just right where it’s stout-y but doesn’t have that hard coffee-like bitter note at the very end and instead phases out leaving my mouth feeling sweet, but not really syrupy.

Needless to say, this ranks in the upper third of my subjective rankings, and my knee-jerk reaction was to place it 3rd overall.  But compared with Turbo Prob, the Noble Pils clone that I was very enamored with, when push came to shove, and I was presented with both options to pick one, I still think I’d pick Turbo Prop over, since I feel like that was a beer that can really be had at any time of the year, where my personal preference for stouts and porters, are that they’re best in the fall and winter, but not nearly as desirable come warmer weather.

Then again, I’ve been in a t-shirt pretty much all day today, so it’s been pretty obnoxiously fucking warm for 12 days away from Christmas.

But it turns out Deutschland does do stouts, and to no shocker, they’re pretty good at those too.  Prost!

Current Rankings:

  1. First Coral (#2)
  2. Kirta (#5)
  3. Turbo Prop (#6)
  4. Schwarze Tinte (#13)
  5. Perlenzauber (#9)
  6. Loncium Vienna Style Lager (#12)
  7. Jubiläumsbier 333 (#7)
  8. Zwönitzer Steinbier (#4)
  9. Grandl (#11)
  10. Hell (#1)
  11. Tannen Hell (#8)
  12. Tradition (#10)
  13. Käuzle (#3)

Jessica Jones S3: The Insufferable Adventures of Trish Walker

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Despite the fact that I personally would rank Jessica Jones to be on the lower tier of the Netflix Marvel Universe, as long as it has that Marvel nameplate at the front of it, I’ll still inevitably watch it.  Considering the fact that I’ve watched everything from Daredevil, the Defenders and even Iron Fist, I had to do due diligence and finish up with Jessica Jones; especially since this was truly the swan song last of the Netflix Marvel series, thanks to Disney starting their own service, this was really going to be the last time we’re probably going to get to see any of the Defenders any time soon.

Overall, I didn’t much care for season 3 of Jessica Jones.  Frankly, it could barely be called Jessica Jones, since 90% of the season revolved around the insufferable Trish Walker and her ascent into becoming the ultra-lame Hellcat, although they don’t actually use the name at all throughout the show, except for one episode title that most people don’t actually read while they’re in the throes of binge-watching a show.

Don’t get me wrong, despite my general ambivalence for the season as a whole, I still recognize the show as still having strong writing, with fairly complex and intriguing storytelling, it’s just that I didn’t like particular character(s), but ultimately the goal of storytelling is to elicit some sort of response from the viewer.  By that regard, Trish was written very well, because it was extremely easy for me to dislike her and all her insufferable traits as a person.  But it was almost delving into X-Pac Heat, to where I was just getting sick of the character, but not quite to where I was willing to walk away from too much Trish.

But I digress a little; if not for Trish becoming so insufferable, it probably doesn’t help the story arcs of Malcolm or Jeri Hogarth, because ordinarily they’re pretty pedestrian characters on their own, but seeing them after 15 minute chunks of Trish bullshit makes them welcome reprieves, and storylines worth caring about, that is, until they collide and intertwine with Trish eventually.

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Avengers: Endgame and the obnoxious evolution of hype

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Disclaimer: I may or may not say things that might be interpreted as spoilers for the movie.  But then again considering the fact that I am still offline, it could be weeks or literal years before anyone other than myself sees this post.  Always good to maintain good brogging etiquette though.

So mythical fiancée and I went and saw Avengers: Endgame today.  It’s been two days since the formal release date of the film, but because Hollywood ticket sales data is weird and loves to fudge things to make profits sound way more impressive than they might actually be, it could be anywhere from three to four days since other people of the mostly public world has been watching it.

Typically, this is the type of film that I don’t exactly make such an effort to see so immediately after its release.  Frankly, I didn’t even see Avengers: Infinity War in theaters, and didn’t actually watch it until it started to be available for home releases.  But as a person who was raised heavily on comic books, and as someone who actually read the actual Infinity War/Gauntlet/Crusades comic book arcs, it was still something that I’d be interested in, and despite the fact that I’m not exactly a opening night/special screenings kind of seeker, I’ve still kept up pretty well with just about all of the films of the general Marvel Studios Phase 1 series.

However, because the world is so connected and locked into the internet these days, and damn near everyone is attached to social media in some way, shape or form, I felt somewhat of an urgency to watch Endgame on the earlier side of the spectrum, solely for the fact that I recognize that the citizens of the internet, be it through news and pop culture websites, or through social media itself, are completely incapable of not spoiling things, and waiting to watch anything runs the serious risk of having anything and everything spoiled for you, by people on the internet who just can’t shut the fuck up.

So, we went and watched Endgame.  2-4 days after its initial release.  And it was good.  A solid film that tied up just about every loose end that was unraveled throughout the last 11 years of Marvel Cinematic Universe.  Lots of comedic moments here, some very serious moments there, some slightly eye-rolly fan service moments occasionally, and a few nods to the actual comics, which nerds like me probably recognized.  As I said, it was a solid flick that was fairly enjoyable, and didn’t feel like the three hours that many bemoaned was going to be a test to all viewer’s constitutions.

But do I think it lived up to the hype that the internet artificially created over the last few months?  Absolutely not.

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Does Batista get his job back too?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

About as surprising as celebrities that pay to get their children into college: Disney reinstates fired and disgraced director James Gunn for Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 3

I think the only real question marks that come remotely close to being something of surprises, was when this was going to occur.  Considering the firing, which if you need a refresher, revolved around the fact that James Gunn was smart enough to tweet jokes about pedophilia, rape and other inappropriate subject matter on Twitter like a decade ago, which naturally stays on the internet for eternity, was unearthed, and therefore Disney shitcanned him; even though he received a tremendous amount of support from the entire Guardians cast, namely Dave Bautista who threatened to walk away from the series as if he thought anyone thought he was completely indispensable.

Naturally, the firing was as stupid as American politics, because really, who hasn’t said stupid shit, much less stupid shit on the internet at some point in time?  It’s just the fact that James Gunn was in an elevated position societally that made him a target for the trolls that actually spend time looking for inflammatory things once said to bring to surface because that’s the kind of world we live in now which totally sucks.  But Disney being the gozillion dollar company it is, seemed to think they can’t afford to have someone who made a careless innocuously insensitive series of tweets when he was young and stupid, felt that they had to do it anyway.  Did everyone also conveniently forget that Walt hated Jews?

Anyway, I understand why Didney did it, but it doesn’t change the fact that I thought it was stupid.  Naturally though, stupider is the obvious news that Didney brought Gunn back, which kind of also sends mixed, but also negative messages out to the inquiring public: namely the fact that by bringing Gunn back kind of says that Didney condones insensitive jokes about pedophilia, rape, the Holocaust and 9/11.

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A Morbius film sounds pretty bottom of the barrel

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Just a few days ago, I saw Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse.  It was fantastic.  I felt it captured a lot of what the series has been trying to convey over the last decade, that Spider-Man was more of an idea, and not so much exclusively Peter Parker, and that it’s entirely possible for absolutely anyone, regardless of race, gender or any other difference, to be, a Spider-Man (or woman).

Even more amazing was the fact that Into the Spiderverse was a creation under the Sony Pictures banner, with no affiliation whatsoever to the Marvel Cinematic Universe under the Disney overlords; because it was actually good; unlike the Tobey Maguire Spider-Man sequels, and although I have little interest in watching it, I heard Venom was a turd too.  Needless to say, it’s impressive that Sony actually created something of significant quality with the Spider-Man property, because they’ve demonstrated a surprising ineptitude with it previously.

Without question, into the Spiderverse is the crown jewel of Sony’s collection of Marvel films released, and if they’re smart, they really stick with the formula of creating quality animated films.

So with that said, I just found out that Sony is releasing a spinoff film, based on another Spider-Man villain: Morbius the Living Vampire.  Much like the Venom film, it doesn’t seem like there’s any real tie-in to any Spider-Man properties, and honestly, I have no idea what Sony thinks they’re doing by releasing stand-alone films about Spider-Man villains without actually tying them into any Spider-Man storylines.

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Happy trails, Stan Lee

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

For all the years that I’d attended Dragon*Con, I always said that I needed to just bite the bullet and pay for a meet and greet with Stan Lee.  I’d shared elevators with him, and once was next to him while we, and a bunch of other onlookers watched as Marriott security tackled a drunk guy dressed as Captain Jack Sparrow as he was trying to elude them; he made a wisecrack about how he must’ve had too much rum, before walking off.

But I still wanted to get an actual good picture and a few seconds to meet one of the true godfathers of the comic book industry, a man that is unquestionably on the Rushmore of Comics.  And as a fan that favored Marvel over all others, there was really no greater name in the existence of comic books other than Stan Lee.

Over the last few years, as the passage of time aged Stan into his 90s, I proclaimed more often about the closing window of how I should do the meet and greet.  And then when Stan’s wife Joan passed in 2017, a little bit of urgency crept in.  Every nerd and/or comic fan on the planet knew that Stan Lee was not going to live forever, but considering he himself was in his 90s and that his wife had passed, that window was closing just a little bit more quickly than we’d all hoped.

Then there was the health scare not long afterward, and then the formal announcement that after the year, he would no longer be doing any more conventions or shows in general, and we all as fans definitively knew that the window was closing, and fast.  I knew immediately that Dragon*Con 2017 was my absolute last chance to try to meet the legend.

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