Hype for Heroes Convention

Alrighty, here's all the information I've got on my second convention of the year, Heroes Convention.

Heroes Convention is located at the Charlotte Convention Center, 501 S. College St., in Charlotte, North Carolina. It's on June 30 through July 2, 2006. TORC Press represented by myself (well, I would hope I'd show up) and the infamous Brother Buzz will be in attendance. I don't know what my actual table number is yet, but I do know that we are situated in the Indy Island section. Our table will be the one with the big Clown face on the banner. Stop by and say Hi, and if you're in the mood, buy some stuff to help support the cause. We'll be selling all of our comics (with special Convention Prices for Multiple Books), as well as Cheapo-Minis, and TORC Press T-shirts. Plus, all comic book purchases will net you a free sketch.

Regardless of whether you're into TORC Press or not, if you're a comic book fan, and you live in the greater North Carolina region, make sure to check out this show. From everything I've seen, it is going to be a killer. Hell, I'm almost more excited that Los Bros Hernandez are supposed to be there than I am about being there myself. I've still gotta decide what issue of Love and Rockets I want them to sign. So, come out, see the show, and make sure to stop by the TORC Press table and score some crazy comics. Dig it?

Comic Book Eras

Man, Comic Book Historians are a lazy bunch. Comics have been around since at least the 40s (possibly as early as the 20s, I just called Comic Historians lazy, but I'm too lazy to look up when "The Yellow Kid" debuted), but the only Eras that have been defined are The Golden Age (which runs from the beginning of comics until the 60s) and the Silver Age (which runs from the 60s until ?). In my opinion, almost every single decade in Comic Book History has some sort of quality that defined at least the mainstream. In fact, here's my list. Feel free to debate my choices.

The Beginning through The 40s: The Birth. Comics are born as the bastard child of books and newspaper strips. Over time, comics gain their own independant identity and become a form of art and literature that is different from other forms of art and literature. Will Eisner, among others, begins breaking the rules of newspaper strips to further give comics their own look. The Superhero is born (Superman is, technically, the first Super powered Hero, although if I remember correctly, he wasn't actually the first Masked Hero character to appear in comics) further giving comic books their own defining quality.

The 50s: The EC Era. Superhero comics almost universally die off and are replaced by numerous other genres including Horror, Crime, War, Western, Sci-Fi, and even Romance comics. The biggest company during this time period is EC Comics which not only produces the most lurid comics, but also the most high quality in terms of art and writing. Unfortunately, this is the McCarthy era, and comics come under the scrutiny of Government Censors due to Frederick Wertham's dreaded book, "Seduction of the Innocent". The Government doesn't actually legally do anything to comics, but EC's competitors use the Government as an excuse to create the dreaded Comics Code (BOOO!!!) which pretty much kills off EC.

The 60s: The Return of the Superhero. DC resurrects its old Superhero comics and reinvents many of its classic characters. Timely/Atlas transforms into Marvel, and armed primarily with Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, unleashes an onslaught of comics on an unsuspecting audience. Super heroes return to the forefront of the mainstream, and thanks to Marvel's formula of creating down to Earth heroes with feet of clay, Marvel develops a stranglehold on the industry.

The 80s: Comics Grow Up. Comic Book Writing and Art becomes more sophisticated. A number of epic, groundbreaking works come out during this time period, including Alan Moore's Swamp Thing, Watchmen, and V for Vendetta, Frank Miller's Daredevil and Dark Knight Returrns, and John Byrne's X-Men, Superman, and Fantastic Four runs. The idea that comics were more than just for kids begins to actually take hold.

The 90s: The Boom and Bust. The speculator market is born, and suddenly everyone starts thinking that comics are a worthwhile investment. Comics become a big money item, and Marvel, DC, and the various independants begin cranking out comics by the truckload. Seven of the top Marvel creators form their own company, Image, and suddenly everyone thinks that they can form their own comics company. Hundreds of new comic book companies are launched seemingly every month. Companies start coming up with various gimmicks to ensure that people will buy their books. Unfortunately, no one really worries about the quality of the actual comics, and with some rare exceptions aside, most comics put out during this period are little more than flashy crap. Eventually, the Market falls out, and suddenly NO ONE is buying comics. Hundreds of comic book companies bite the dust, and Marvel goes bankrupt. Hundreds of comic book stores close, and Diamond becomes the industry's primary distributor.

The New Millenium: Comics as Movies, Movies as Comics. With the speculator period at an end, most surviving comic book companies have come to the startling conclusion that they have to produce high quality books in order to survive. A wave of successful Comic Book Movies gives the industry a new lease on life, and many companies begin farming out books specifically designed to be made into movies, with varying degrees of success. Marvel pretty much specializes in this approach, most noteably with their incredibly cinematic Ultimate line.

So, notice anything missing? Yep, I skipped the 70s. Why? Because nothing important happened in the 70s. Marvel and DC rested on their laurels. The only thing of note was that Jack Kirby produced a bunch of killer books that had virtually no commercial success and all got cancelled. Further proof that people in the 70s sucked.

Weapon of Choice

I haven't done a post on the technical end of comic book creation in awhile, so here we go.

My tool of choice to ink with is a Hunt Crowquill #102 Dip Pen. It's nothing fancy, and can be acquired from the Dick Blick Big Catalouge in the Inking section, or from most Hobby Lobbies in the Caligraphy section. It's also simple to use. Hold pen like you would any other pen. Dip in ink. Draw.

The Joy of the Crowquill is the amount of precision and control that the pen provides. You wanna draw eety beety lines? A fresh Crowquill can do that. And you only need one, instead of a veritable arsenal of different sizes of fairly expencive brushes. With a Crowquill, it's all about the pressure you exert. Want a really thin line? Use a light touch. Want a fat, yet controlled line? Put a little extra pressure on it, and Bingo, you've got a thicker line. A Comic Pro I talked to back in my early days said I should ink with a brush instead of a pen, because you can't get a variety of Line Values with a pen. Bullshit. You just gotta know how to use the pen right.

And the cool thing about the Crowquill is that even though the pen has a very limited life as a precision instrument (I can usually ink about two pages with a pen before the lines start getting unintentionally thicker), you can still use it after it's past its prime. I use pens that are just starting to lose their precision to draw pages that don't require a lot of control (like, say, a Walt and Sped page) or to draw a page where a thicker line is warranted (like, say, a page where someone's getting ripped to shreds and blood is flying everywhere). When a pen has really gone to crap, I can still use it to ink pages where I am using my "Ugly Style", such as a Broken Tea Cup story, or this new story that appears in Drifter's Rhapsody. For a Broken Tea Cup story, I want the thing to look chaotic and uncontrolled and messy, so I typically use a pen that's really worn out.

When a pen has gotten to the point where it's almost completely useless, that's when I relegate it to Lettering Duty. That's right, the same pens that I use to ink virtually everything else are the same pens that I use to Letter the book as well. A worn out pen insures that the lettering will be nice and dark, and therefore will (in theory) be legible even after the pages have been reduced, scanned, and printed.

And, really, a Crowquill is what I use to ink just about everything. I only use a brush to fill in large areas of black (I use a bruch a lot in my Cosmic Fool stories) or when I want a very loose, uncontrolled, fat look (aka my Bojangles stories). If you would like to see what kind of mayhem I can unleash with a single dip pen, then I invite you to swing by www.torcpress.com/comicshop.html and score a book or two. Hey! I got a little hype in there too.

Slammiversary Run Down

So, after last weekend's ECW PPV, many of us were filled with genuine hope for the future of Pro Wrestling. Those hopes were promptly dashed when ECW debuted on Sci-Fi. The first ECW show was a mess, full of too many commercials, too little wrestling, too many recaps, a vampire, the world's most unsexy striptease, and, apparently, I missed out on the Sandman beating up on a Zombie. Ugh. Unfortunately, the competition, TNA, did little to raise my hopes with their Slammiversary PPV this weekend. The blame can't be placed on the performers, but instead on whatever moron booked this calvacade of awkward match ups. Let's do the rundown, shall we?

Team 3-D vs. the James Gang was a fairly decent brawl. It would have been a great brawl if Team 3-D hadn't been stuck in the ring with a pair of (calling them has beens is a bit on the polite side if you ask me) has beens like the James Gang. Seriously, Kip James is actually worse at brawling than he is at wrestling (which is really sad if you think about it). The crowd, for some reason, was chanting "This is Awesome!" We were chanting "This is mediocre!"

Bobby Roode and Scott D'Amor vs. Rhino was a big old bad of ho-hum. All three guys are great performers, it's just that this match didn't click for some reason.

The X-Division 6 Man Elimination Match was the BEST MATCH of the NIGHT, hands down. This is what TNA is supposed to be all about. Every performer in the match was exempelary (spell?), the spots were dead on, and the match lasted just long enough. Sanjay Dutt was the definitive MVP of this stellar match, but I'm not taking anything away from Sharkboy, Petey Williams, Jay Lethal, Alex Shelley, and the recently returned Shin-Low Ki. The entire night shoulda been like this match.

Chris Sabin vs. Kevin Nash on the other hand. Ugh. Take one of the greatest wrestlers in the world today (that's be Sabin, for those of you uninitiated) and put him in the ring with a broken down has been who can't move (that'd be Nash), and you have a recipe for crap. Poor Sabin.

Christopher Daniels & AJ Styles vs. America's Most Wanted was pretty good. Again, the problem with the matchup lay in the fact that you have two of the best in the whole world (Daniels and Styles) taking on two guys who ain't (AMW). Still, Daniels and Styles still were able to turn this one into a Near Barnburner. Also, the guys operating the cameras in TNA need to be kicked in the head for screwing up the end of the match. It's called a WIDE SHOT, dinguses.

Jim Cornette was revealed to be the new face of TNA management, to absolutely no one's surprise. I wonder if he'll still run with ROH or not? Anyone know anything on that? Anyway, Cornette delivered one of his standard killer promos and moving on.

Samoa Joe vs. Scott Steiner was EXACTLY AS BAD AS WE ALL KNEW IT WAS GOING TO BE. Everyone thought that Joe was gonna beat the living hell out of Steiner. Instead Joe was restrained the whole match, while Stiener managed to drop Joe squarely on his head with a poorly executed Suplex. Oh, and it was pretty obvious that Steiner was terrified of getting a MuscleBuster, which is why he didn't get one. BOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!

King of the Mountain. The most ridiculous match in Wrestling History. This match was a mess, littered with two many has beens and not enough good spots. Of course, what do you expect when the only performers who are worth a damn in the match are Christian and Abyss. That's three other guys who suck. Oh man, when (Spoiler Warning!) Jarrett won the match, the entire Impact Zone started throwing water bottles at the guy and Booing quite loudly. I kinda thought they were gonna riot. At the last second Jim Cornette snatched the belt away from Jarrett, so we're just gonna have to wait and see where this goes.

All in all, big old bag of disappointing.

Nacho Dog

So, my buddy Tate had puppies. Waitaminute. That doesn't sound right.

Let's try this again. My buddy Tate's Dad has a dog and it had puppies. That's better. Anyway, I wanted a dog. I'm sick of being lonely, so I was like, it's this or Russian Bride. So, I got a dog. Her name is Audrey (5 Coolness Points for the first person who can guess what this is a reference to, and for the record, Tate, you have no excuse for not scoring CPs on this one.), she's an eety beety leetle Rat Terrier pup with black and brown fur. Right now she has taken up residence in a corner in my kitchen and looks terrified of pretty much everything. Hopefully she'll survive the week. I'm not known for my skill at caring for living things.

As if to prove this point, no less than an hour after picking her up I bolted for Vincennes with the Crew to watch Nacho Libre. So, how is it you ask? Not bad. It's Jared Hess's second full length film (his first was a short called Peculia, his second was the ever sweet Napoleon Dynamite), and it definately suffers from Sophomore film syndrome, never quite achieving the heights that Dynamite did. Having said that, the flick has its moments (the climax had us laughing pretty good). Jack Black is surprisingly restrained throughout (well, by Jack Black standards he's restrained...), although the film seems to find every excuse neccessary for the Tenacious D frontman to take his shirt off. Also, it's pretty funny listening to Black trying to maintain a Spanish accent. At one point he definately sounds like he's doing an Italian accent. All in all it's a decent popcorn flick that should give you a chuckle or two. Word of advice, though. Wait a week. That theatre was Crawling with annoying, loud mouthed teeny boppers who couldn't go more than a minute without checking their cell phones. Bad mojo.

Random Notes with a side of Fries

So, I have these Concrete Deer in my front yard that came with the house. In typical Joseph fashion, I painted em up to look like Skeletal Deer with Burning Atomic Hearts. They've been outside for three years now, and the paint is starting to fade. I'm trying to decide whether to A) Not worry about it till next year, B) Touch up the paint job, or C) Give my Deer an entirely new look. Just something I'm pondering.

The debut episode of ECW on the Sci-Fi network on Tuesday was a huge let down. Only two matches? Say what? A seemingly endless string of poor formatting choices, coupled with an overdose of commercials pretty much ruined the opening broadcast. I'm not giving up hope on the new ECW just yet, but Paul and Co. better get their heads out of their asses real quick.

So, I read online what the big revelation/plot twist is in Marvel's Civil War #2. I'm not gonna spill the beans here, but, if you're wondering what my take on the matter is, let's just say I'm ambivilant, and I'm glad I don't read alotta Marvel comics nowadays. What they've done is definitively something that can't be undone, so we'll see what fan reaction will be like.

Not just a huge amount to blog about today. I liked the movie "Everything is Illuminated".

ECW One Night Stand (It Didn't Suck!)

Last year's ECW One Night Stand was a nostalgic, seemingly final, fond farewell to the greatest wrestling company that ever was. So, when another ECW PPV was announced for this year, we were all somewhat skeptical. When it was also announced that ECW had been "resurrected" under the auspices of the WWE, well, then we really got skeptical. The PPV was last night, and, long story short, not only did it NOT suck, it really showed some promise for the future of the new ECW offshoot of the WWE. Here's the rundown.

Taz vs. Jerry the King Lawler: Not really a match, mostly just an excuse for Taz to choke out the King. Let's move on.

Kurt Angle vs. Randy Orton: As part of his move to ECW, Kurt Angle has now developed a new style of wrestling that's eerily reminescent of the Ultimate Fighting style (which, in many ways, is now the WWE's top competitor). Angle used this new style to pretty much maul Orton for the almost the entire match. What little offence Randy was able to execute seemed limp by comparison. Long story short, Kurt eventually slapped on the Anklelock, grapevined the leg, and Orton tapped, leading to a round of "You Tapped Out!" chants from the crowd. Great match (although Orton gets zero credit for it. He got carried the whole match).

Rey Misterio Jr. vs Sabu: Why was the crowd booing Rey? The dude is one of the best wrestlers in the world. Don't boo him. Anyway, this match ruled. Flying bodies, flying chairs, and broken tables. Kick ass all the way around. The ending was a bit of a let down (they called the match because both wrestlers were "ahem" unable to continue), but everything up to it, including a Flying DDT through a table suspended between the ring and guardrail, ruled.

The FBI (Little Guido, Tony Mamaluke, and Big Guido) vs. Tajiri and Super Crazy: This match was great too. There was lots of great grappling, lots of hard striking, and lots of high flying. The only downside was after the FBI won the match, the new ECW version of the Big Show (insert groans here) came down to the ring and mauled the FBI. Tell me again, why exactly is the Big Show in ECW? Anybody?

Edge, Mick Foley, and Lita vs. Tommy Dreamer, Terry Funk, and Beulah McGillicutty: I had lots of reservations about this one. Foley is supposed to be retired, Funk is now in his SIXTIES, and Dreamer hasn't wrestled since last year's show (well, he wrestled a little bit before this show, but that don't really count). Throw in the fact that Edge sucks and that the ladies were something of an impromptu addition to the match, and you have a recipe for disaster. Imagine my surprise when I witnessed one of the best matches I've seen this year (that didn't take place in an ROH ring, anyway). Violent, brutal, ugly, and totally freaking awesome on all fronts. There were barbed wire boards, lengths of barbed wire, barbed wire baseball bats and 2X4s, and even a little fire. Blood was shed, and Funk had to be cut out of a barbed wire board in the end. Not surprisingly, Edge won the match in the most heelish way possible, pinning Beulah. Killer match.

Masato Tanaka vs. Balls Mahoney: An unannounced filler match, that was still quite good. Balls broke a steel chair over Tanaka's skull.

Before the main event, Eugene (ugh) came out, killed some airtime, and nearly got Caned to death by an obviously inebriated Sandman. Moving on.

Rob Van Dam vs. John Cena: Welp, one match had to suck. Too bad it had to be the main event. Van Dam worked his ass off to make the WWE's Golden Boy look like Superman. Unfortunately, Cena failed to take the opportunity to shine. The crowd hit it right on the money when they chanted "Same Old Shit" at Cena. After several agonizing minutes of Cena blundering around trying to make the crowd not boo him, Edge came out of nowhere and speared Cena through a table (Actually, Cena took such a lousy bump, that in many ways, Edge speared himself through a table). RVD then recovered and hit Cena with the 5 Star Frog Splash and pinned him to win the title. Hooray!

So, what's my hopes for the new ECW? First, I hope that the quality of matches remain at least this high, or get even higher. Second, I hope that Dreamer and Funk don't kill themselves. Third, I hope that if ECW is going to serve as a makeshift WWE training camp (like the rumors are saying), that the up and coming talent will actually have to wrestle like they're in ECW. Fourth, I hope CM Punk is brought in and let loose. If that happens, then ECW will truly be the brand to watch.

I Quick Review Lotsa Stuff

In Theatres:

X-Men 3: It's quicker just to say what's NOT wrong with this flick. Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellan, and Kelsey Grammar are all excellent and fit their roles like a glove. There's some good fight scenes. Everything else is crap. What a disappointment, especially after X2.

On DVD:

Ultimate Avengers: The Movie: Oy vey. Speaking of crap. Cut rate animation, a tepid, confusing, convoluted story, and worst of all, the flick can't decide whether this is based on the Ultimate Marvel Universe or the Regular Marvel Universe. Sigh.

Sarah Silverman: Jesus is Magic- Silverman's stand up routine is pretty much a long string of shock jokes. The problem is this: I hear far, far worse stuff at the average poker night. Hell, I make up far worse stuff. Once you've heard Bro's infamous "Trash Story" there's really not just a huge amount that can shock you. Bah.

CQ- This odd little flick is a little hard to describe. It's set in France in the 60s, and is about a film editor who accidentally becomes the director of sci-fi flick set in the hi-tech world of 2001. The odd part is that the director believes he's being seduced by the fictional female lead of his movie. Interesting, clever, and kinda funny, plus it's got Jason Schwartzman in it, which is always cool. Worth a watch.

The Three Burials of Meliquades Estrada- It totally sucks that I didn't get to watch this in a theatre. Awesome film. Tommy Lee Jones and Barry Pepper are excellent. The story rules. The cinematography is to die for. Dark, funny, strange, sad, beautiful. Highly recommended.

COMICS!!!!!!!

Punisher #34- I love the story on the new Punisher arc. Love it. Unfortunately, the art is kinda crummy. (This is where we can all get into a long winded debate about how the guy who's doing the art for this book is an actual pro, whereas I'm just some schmuck with a book no one's ever heard of, so what room do I have to call his art crap. But seriously, the art sucks.) Still, the story is so good I can forgive bad art. Oh, and here's one of the best villian lines I've read in a long time: "Trouble with doing the Right Thing, Si: What you end up with is the satisfaction that you did the Right Thing. As opposed to what you were giving up, which was anything you wanted being a phone call away."

Punisher: The Tyger- An early tale of the Punisher with a series of flashbacks giving us details on Frank Castle's childhood, as well as a few bits of Castle in Nam. Great stuff that really delves into the Punisher's character.

BPRD: The Universal Machine #3- Some background information on Johann and a little more detail on the possible resurrection of Roger. This issue kinda treads water.

Fury: Peacemaker #5- Fury and company get pinned down inside a German fortress with a very important hostage. I'm not really enamored with this series, mostly because the story is kinda slow and the art is kinda murky/hard to follow (I can't tell which characters are which half the time). Still, I'm this far along, might as well finish it up. (Ironically, I didn't pick up the last issue of Ultimate Extinction. Of course, it's worth mentioning that that series did nothing except repeatedly piss me off...)

Annihalation: Silver Surfer #3- Galactus! Lots of Heralds! New Cosmic Beings! The Silver Surfer gets an Upgrade! HELLS YEAH! Ahem. I liked this issue a bit.

Batman: Year 100 #4- This series is better than any action movie I've wathed all year. This series is better than Batman Begins. This series is probably better than all of the Bat books combined. It's four issues, prestige format, full color. I can't recommend it enough.

Shonen Jump Highlights: Luffy fights a Whale. Just another reason why One Piece rules. Oh, and over in Naruto, the title character finally figures out how to summon giant frogs, and he summons a doozy. As usual, One Piece and Naruto are why I buy Jump, with the other features being sorta like very enjoyable side dishes.

Bummer City

It used to be, back in the Olden Days, that Flora, IL (a short jaunt from Clay City) had at least two video stores. Having two to three video stores meant that you had a certain amount of choice when it came to video rental. Hell, there used to be a place called S&L Video that had a thing where you could rent six old movies for five nights for five bucks. That's a hell of a deal. Course, S&L is closed. Circus Video is closed (and has been turned into a bar that is currently owned by a former classmate, and is also the site of my ten year high school reunion. Of course, I HATE bars, and I'm not exactly fond of the better majority of my former classmates, so it shouldn't come as much of a surprise that I'm skipping that little shindig...). That video store in the pink house is closed (actually, I called it the Salmon Video Store back in the day). All that's left is Movie Gallery. Which may explain why I don't rent all that much anymore.

Clay City used to have two grocery stores. Now we have none. In fact, it's pretty disheartening to see all of the empty storefronts throughout town. There's been talk of closing the local school down and consolidating with other communities. If the closing is ever approved, it will not only see the end of many, many local jobs, it will probably also signal the end of Clay City as a microscopic rural community, and transform it into a full on Ghost Town.

I mentioned that Sinking Ship Comics, the only comic book store within an hour of where I live, has closed. I'm still recovering from that. Wednesday went from being the best day of the week to the most depressing.

And now, we can add another one to the list. Amy's Kitchen/Wild Wolf Games and Gifts, a Restaraunt/Game Shop in Olney, IL will be officially closing its doors on June 16. I suppose a store devoted to gaming out in a no man's land like Southern Illinois was a bit of a risk to begin with, but I liked having a place where I could kick back, relax, and indulge in my love of Strategy Gaming. Plus, the food was excellent. And soon it will be gone.

Everything has a life cycle, so I suppose I should accept it when businesses that I frequent close up shop. Doesn't mean I gotta like it, though.

Xango Tango

Saturday, after the birthday party, Boolah, Fitch, Tate, and myself went to Flora to El Parasio for a bite to eat. El Parasio is an authenic Mexican joint run by authentic Mexicans, and something of a go to place to eat when we're in Flora. We get inside, and we're looking at the dry erase board on the wall, which contains the days specials. The board says, "New Dessert! Xango-$3.50!" Boolah says to me, "Hey Joe, those Xangos are just like the Apple Chimichanga at Applebees." To which I reply, "Yeah, I know. You mentioned it last time we were here."

Now, an Apple Chimichanga is indeed a scrumdiddlyumptuous dessert. It's apples and cheese cakey filling wrapped in a thin pastry and covered in cinammon and sugar. Most places also serve it with ice cream and caramel. Parasio serves it with ice cream, caramel, chocolate syrup, and whipped cream. But no matter how enticing a "Xango" sounded to me, I had one thing on my mind, and that was flan. So, while Boolah's thinking, "Xango. Xango. Xango." I'm thinking, "Flan. Flan. Boobies. Flan."

We get sat down. We eat. All is right with the world. The waiter comes over to see if we need anything else. Boolah orders his Xango. Now, remember the part where I said the place was run by authentic Mexicans? Boolah goes, "I'd like a Xango, and don't put any of the ice cream or whip cream or chocolate syrup on it, okay?" The waiter goes, "You want a Sopapilla?" Uh-oh. Boolah doesn't want a sopapilla, that's an entirely different dessert. Wonder if Boolah caught it? "Yeah, that's what I want," Boolah says. The waiter and Boolah continue trying to figure out what the hell they are each talking about, and when everyone is satisfied that things have turned out properly, I order my flan and Fitch orders a Fried Ice Cream. The waiter leaves, and I immediately go, "Dude, you do realize that you're probably not getting what you ordered, right?" Boolah, looking vaguely dejected replies, "Yeah, we'll see."

So, our Desserts arrive. I get my flan, Fitch gets his fried ice cream, and Boolah gets a Fried Tortilla shell, covered in Butter, Cinammon, and Sugar, drizzled in Caramel and Chocolate, served ala mode with mounds of Whipped Cream. Yep, Boolah not only got a Sopapilla, but he also got a sopapilla with all of the stuff on it that he didn't want on the Xango.

What did Boolah do wrong? Well, kiddies, he violated the first two rules of eating at an ethnic establishment where the staff has a limited grasp of English. Rule #1: Always make sure the waiter knows exactly what you want. If the waiter looks confused or repeats something alot, you're in trouble. It's best to have a menu handy so you can point to what you want while you're saying it. Rule #2: Never try to get a custom order. It's a waste of time. So, now you know, and knowing's half the battle.

Cardhed

Man. I played a lot of cards this weekend. I played cards after the birthday party on Saturday until midnight. Then I played cards on Sunday after a Baptism until 10pm. And the funny thing is, I did pretty okay. Out of something like, 5 games of cards (5 may seem a bit of a low number given the sheer amount of hours we played, but believe me, our games can take awhile) I won a game of 7 Card Stud, a Money game of Omaha (most of my winnings went to buy a pizza for myself and my card playing comrades), and I placed second in Texas Hold 'em and another round of 7 Card. Most of it was luck, but there was a bit of inherent strategy when it came to reading my opponent's hands and sniffing out when people were bluffing and when they weren't.

There was plenty of joking around, as usual. I'm not gonna reprint anything here, cause, well most of it was in the absolute worst of taste. Still, one of my favorite moments came during the Omaha money game. Bro had gotten very little sleep on Saturday because he was several miles away practicing with a side band of his. So, here he was, groggy, trying to play a money game. So, Bro and this kid we know (well, he used to be a kid, he's 21 now...) are the only ones left in the hand. It's the last round of betting, and the kid goes all in. Now, Bro stares at the inordinate amount of chips in the pot. Stares at his hand. Stares at the pot. And all this time he's got this, "What the hell?" look on his face. Because Bro was groggy, he wasn't hiding his cards very well, and I just "happened" to see what he had. Bro was sitting around with a FULL HOUSE, but was so tired, he couldn't figure out whether or not to call. Eventually, he did call, won the hand, and gained a signifigant amount of chips.

A Normal Oddity

It's pretty weird that a guy like me has friends that are happily married and have a kid. It's really weird that they invited me to the kid's One Year Birthday Party. The town wierdo/recluse milling around a party full of respectable people. Of course, the rest of the crew will be there, which means I'll at least have a couple of scraggily looking long hairs there as well.

What the hell kinda gift do you get a one year old?

In other news, I think we're playing cards afterwards, which is cool. I actually won a round of Seven Card Stud the other day, which means I've probably thrown my luck straight out the window. Should be a fun weekend regardless.