• Iron Man is an excellent comic book movie (which makes it a pretty good movie overall). It feels very much like a faithful attempt to compress 20 years of storylines (the origin, the Armor Wars, Pepper Potts, and the cessation of armaments manufacturing by Star Industries) into a single storyline with a strong influence from the Ultimate Marvel universe.

  I believe it is the Marvel equivalent to Batman Begins, and it sets a pretty high bar for “faithful to the original” and “a work all its own”. I cannot say enough about Robert Downey Jr. totally nailing what Tony Stark should be. I wish the character was this well written and cohesive in the comic books, because for 15 years Marvel editorial has had him written like he’s still an anti-communist businessman (read: defunct in the modern world).

  It feels like a love letter from John Favreau to the days when nerdery was something to shun.

  Assuming none of this means anything to you, that means “go see it tonight”.

• DC Universe #0 makes me both excited and wary of the looming Final Crisis. I am not immediately offended by the idea of Barry Allen coming back during a Crisis, but at the same time I don’t give a flying fuck about “Superman” Prime forming an anti-Legion. Beyond the recent run in Action Comics, the Legion bores me to death. At the same time though, the idea of Evil (capital E on that one) winning the “eternal battle” seems like it could be a fun ride (in the hands of a competent writer, which Morrison is).

• After Blue Beetle #25 the creative team switched around, and Jai Nitz took over from John Rogers and I wondered if things could possibly come together the way they had for the last 10 issues or so.

  After reading the special spanish-language edition issue #26 I have to say I am suitably impressed enough not to drop this book. Their take on a latino family reunion mirrored almost every single paternal family reunion I’ve been to form the point of view of both Jaime (JAI, not JAMI, blanco nino!) and Traci Thirteen. High marks all over for what could have essentially been nothing whatsoever more than a throw-away issue.

• Sapporo brand bagged or cup ramen noodles are a delicious three-minute snack that only leaves you feeling a little gross afterwards (as opposed to Nissan or Maruchan, which leaves you feeling very gross afterwards).

• Muse’s 10 or 15 minutes on Live From Abbey Road was an excellent example of how a little bit of after-the-fact mastering and mixing can produce great results from live performances. The live takes on “Knights of Cydonia” and “Starlight” were excellent.

• There is a new arrival in our drive way.

  

  She doesn’t have a name yet (though she does have her skull sticker and 600 miles from 3 days of driving already) but she is the most sensible shade of red I’ve ever seen on an automobile. Also, I am fairly certain it is not a Skrull.

–

Ryan McKern: i need to find a name for my new car.
Jon Yu: you name your cars?
Ryan McKern: you don’t name yours?
Jon Yu: why would i name my car?
Jon Yu: it’s called “my car”

is like a blackface minstrel show to me.

As seen across the street from my apartment when walking to the local 7 Eleven.

I’ve been busy not being busy. In the interim I decided to hack apart a wildly simple theme to redo this nonsense of vanity posting yet again.

Witticisms? Nothing lined up this month. The funniest thing that comes to mind right now (which is about as funny as Dane Cook when he’s not allowed to move like a retard) is that today I watched someone dismiss Ruby (as a language) offhand while flipping through The Ruby Cookbook (O’Reilly) as there was no one page disclaimer regarding Ruby and SOAP; It would likely have read “Don’t bother” if it was in there. I suppose one should save something for the second edition.

This may or may not be of relevance to anyone but me and Colin, but the debut LP (See You In Magic, Swami/Vagrant Records) from The Night Marchers feels like the logical culmination of a musical evolution stemming from Rocket From The Crypt, Drive Like Jehu, Hot Snakes, and The Sultans. Not so much Pitchfork. Overall I give it a solid B+ as a rating. It’s no “The State of Art is on Fire” but not many records are these days.

–

Collin: yeah it’s a bit vanilla
Ryan: i am aiming for vanilla
Ryan: i am aiming for one step above plaintext and three steps below “fancy”
Collin: ok thats frozen milk with a drop of vanilla

My friends, always so supportive.

This used to be my car. Now it is the worlds most motorized paper weight.

I hope they can fix it; I have three payments left on it and I’d really like to enjoy a few months without car payments.

Update

Megan2K has been declared a total loss as of Friday, April 11th. Memorial services will be held this following Monday the 14th at a car dealership to be named later.