Busy

I've been busy. Crazy busy. Work has been taking up so much of my time the last couple of weeks. I've really had time to do nothing. I've barely got time now, but I can't NOT post a picture of Honey Boo Boo Child from Toddlers & Tiaras.

Earth-2

Somehow, my enthusiasm for two of DC Comics' upcoming new series started dwindling away today upon the release of the cover images for the first issues of each book. On the plus side, it looks like Earth-2 will also have a Batman, a Superman and a Wonder Woman. Yeah, that's about all I can find for a plus side based on that cover.

And this... Where the hell is Power Girl's tit window? I hate redesigned costumes just for the sake of having a redesigned costume. Don't fix it if it isn't broken.

Tyrone Wells - More

I downloaded a sampler from him via the noisetrade.com site a few weeks ago and forgot about it. Until today. He's my new favorite singer.

Mister Microphone

Ken and I still walk around all the time saying, "Hey, good looking, we'll be back to pick you up later!"

Title Goes Here

I'm feeling pretty bloated right now. I do this to myself all the time. I'll eat dinner, but before it can settle in my stomach, I decide I'm still hungry and get a snack or more of whatever I just ate. And then the food settles, I feel enormous and pissed off at myself. I only had a sweet potato for dinner tonight. I wasn't feeling too hungry and that was more than enough to fill me up. Or so I thought. So I fixed a bowl of yogurt and granola. And now it's all settled and I feel gross and I feel annoyed with myself.

Yesterday marked a sort of milestone for me. I've been both meat and candy free for the last three weeks. I mentioned earlier that I wanted to reduce the amount of meat in my diet. As much as I love meat, it bothers me when I think about where the meat comes from. I think about my cats and how in some cultures it's appropriate to slaughter them and eat them. It just freaks me out and makes me sad when I think about stuff like that. So three weeks ago I decided to cut back on my meat consumption. I didn't intend on going cold turkey, but that's how it's turned out. I'm going to try to make it an entire month. It's been pretty easy so far to do this. Mostly. The only problems I've run into are when I'm dining out. I guess I never realized exactly how much of a typical restaurant menu is meat based. I've found one or two things on each menu to eat, though, and I've been pretty happy with what I've gotten (except you, Wolf's 111. Please try to have some portabella on your portabella sandwich, m'kay?)

I stopped eating candy the day I stopped eating meat. That has been a bigger battle for me, truthfully. I love candy. I find I eat it constantly at work. But it's so bad for me and it's especially bad for my weight. Since I haven't been able to get to the gym as much, I'm really trying to make an effort to keep my eating in check. If I'm going to overeat, at least I'm overeating something that isn't nearly as bad for me as a bag of M&Ms. I find I'm thinking about candy all the time. But, I haven't faltered. I have a bunch of candy in my desk at work and I haven't touched one piece of it. I am chewing sugar-free gum, though, but I'm not counting that as eating candy. It's been my saving grace. Whenever the urge hits me to eat some chocolate, I pop a stuck of gum in my mouth and the urge passes.

So that's my dietary news. I'm really proud of myself for the last three weeks. I never thought I could do it. I just have to get through the weekend and I've made it four weeks. And then the pressure is off. Or is it? I find that I get very competitive with myself. When I stopped drinking soda, I just wanted to do it for a week. And that week turned into a month. And that month turned into 100 days. And that turned into six months. I didn't want to break my streak. It's been over four years since I last had a soda and I no longer miss it. I no longer dream about drinking soda. I no longer crave it. And I feel so much better physically since I ditched it. I'm thinking the same is going to happen with meat. I already feel great. I don't know if it's directly related or if it's all in my head, but I really do feel good.

William Fitzsimmons "It's Not True" Official Video

I just discovered William Fitzsimmons via the Noisetrade.com website. You can get a free sampler of his music there. I've discovered a bunch of artists there that I'd never heard of before. Anyway, I don't know how I missed William Fitzsimmons in the past, but the last week or so I've more than been making up for it.

DC Comics' Batman Beyond Writer's Commentary #0

I really like the idea of having a writer's commentary video podcast talking about current comics. I hope this does well enough that other writers will hop on the bandwagon and start doing these.

Another Toy Post

I've been spending a lot of spare time in my office organizing, straighten and all that jazz lately.  I don't know if it's because it's winter now and it's okay to do indoor chores or if I'm sick of the office not being 100% the way I like it, but I've been doing it and enjoying the hell out of it.  

I've talked before about the problem I have with collecting action figures.  I'm obsessed with them and I have entirely too many.  And I keep buying them.  They make me happy and ultimately, that's all that counts.  I figured out a way to display more of them with little effort.  I wanted to build a riser to put on top of my bookshelves, but Ken actually found a nice piece of wood that will act as a riser without having build anything.  With that in place, I set out to start unboxing a lot of toys.  Specifically, the ton of DC Universe Classics toys I have.  This is a line of toys I really, really like, but kind of jumped into collecting them a little late.  I can be a snob about things and action figures is definitely something I was snobby about.  I'm a huge fan of the DC Direct line of toys.  Most of them look so nice and there's a lot of care put into them.  When the DC Universe Classics line of toys came out, I didn't think they looked as nice as the DC Direct ones, so I avoided them.  It wasn't until much later that I finally came around and fell in love with the line.  I've been trying to play catch up with them ever since.  There are 20 waves of figures out (22 if you count the two waves of Green Lantern Classics).  Each wave consists generally of 6 figures (or so) and each figure comes with one piece of a bonus figure.  You collect the all the figures in that wave and you can build an extra figure.  Because I've opened only a few of these figures, I've never had a chance to build my bonus characters.  Until now.  And I have to tell you, I had a blast.  They scale of the bonus figures is larger than the standard figures in the line.  And they've chosen characters who are generally bigger in size as part of this line.  Here's what I've managed to assemble so far..

Stel.  This is from the Green Lantern Classics set.

Arkillo from the Green Lantern Classics set.  I'm still missing the Kyle Rayner figure from that set.  So Arkillo has two left legs for the time being, until I can track down a Kyle.

The Anti-Monitor

The Ultra-Humanite

Trigon

Validus

S.T.R.I.P.E.

Bane

My favorite one, so far.  This is Apache Chief from the Super Friends cartoon.  He's awesome!

I have a bunch of figures from some of the other waves, but no enough to complete any more characters.  My partials include:

Kilowog.  Poor guy is just a leg and nothing more.

Darkseid.  He's got an arm and two legs.  Better than Kilowog.

Giganta.  This one I'm particularly anxious to build.  She's awesome.

Atom Smasher.  At least the three parts I have for him all connect.

Despero.  Just one arm.

Kalibak

The other Collect And Connect figures are Metamorpho, Gorilla Grodd, Solomon Grundy, Metallo, Chemo and Imperiex.  I'm always on the lookout for more of these figures and now I've got extra room for them.

My Childhood

Dynasty Bitches Back Together!!

My love for the tv show Dynasty is no secret. No secret whatsoever. It was my favorite show back in the 80s and it still ranks way the hell up there. I'm currently watching Season 5 on dvd and loving every minute of it. I'm to the point right now where a very pregnant Krystle fell down the stairs after having a fight with Blake. Newborn baby Krystina survived, but she's facing an uphill battle, including needing a total blood transfusion. Amanda, Alexis' secret daughter, just arrived in town and is trying to find her real father. Claudia is jealous of the relationship she thinks Steven and Bart are having. The show is so damn good.

Anyway, I'm also a huge fan of the current Snickers ad campaign. I love the Betty White commercial and the Aretha/Liza commercial. In Britain, they just release a new ad featuring Joan Collins and Stephanie Beacham. As much as I love Alexis, I love Sable infinitely more. She always had the best lines and her delivery was spot on. I've watched this commercial more times than I can count. Love love love it!