News for the Week of December 4, 2008
Rick’s Writin’s
Recently, I've been bothered by my back being out of wack, and it's been
causing shooting, electrical shock type pains through my lower back and
weakness in my legs. To the point of it's taken me five minutes just to
get in and out of bed. It gets so that you're afraid to move because you
want to avoid the jolt of pain. I've never had a back problem, and used
to not really believe folks when they complained or shirked work because
of their back. I get it now. I wouldn't wish it on anyone. My intention
was to write about my back and how I got lucky and avoiding a potentially
very serious injury in a bad fall I had this past week. I will get to
that, but first, I have a matter more important on my mind. I'm at Fred
Meyer's this morning, shopping for milk and hopefully their deli's breakfast
bake, a delicious blend of sausage, biscuits eggs, cheese and gravy all
jumbled up and baked (No such luck...all gone. Sorry Paula). I'm shopping
along and come across a nice looking girl in probably her late twenties
and her boyfriend. The girl has a... VERY spectacular rear asset. We're
talking, truly, truly, one of the best I've ever seen. I won't go into
more detail, but trust me, SPECTACULAR! (You can ask me for more detail
in the shop) Her boyfriend walks off to find something and leaves her
alone. Here's my dilemma: Is there a gentlemanly way, gentlemanly is key
here, to mention to a total female stranger that they have a major league,
jaw dropping attribute, without coming off like a drooling old man prevert?
(mispelling intended). I had the opportunity as the boyfriend was gone
(I'm not dumb enough to think about mentioning anything with the boyfriend
standing there). It would be meant totally as a compliment of admiration
and not as a crude lewd comment. Can it be done? Or, as I did, do you
just have to admire with your eyes and keep your yap shut? I'm mean, what
if this woman works out hard, or whatever. Wouldn't she like a true compliment
given in a friendly gracious fashion? I don't mean "Ho...those buns
of yours are so tight you couldn't pull a needle out of them with a tractor"
type comment. I ask again guys and particularly gals...Can it be done?
Now, back to my brush with death. Thursday, on comic day, I got a break
to go out and walk Ollie. We go around the back of the building as there
are some woods that he likes to root around in hoping to find critters.
He's romping and snuffling and I'm watching him through a chain link fence
they have along the back of the property. I'm holding onto the fence,
peering over the little privacy slats they have running through the links,
when all of a sudden I lose my footing and fall straight over backwards
and land very hard to the ground. Hardest I've ever fallen, that I can
remember. I'm laying there, pretty stunned and then start to do my injury
assessment. Hand broken? No, but four chipped up fingernails. Legs? Ok,.
but, hmmm? missing a shoe on one foot. What the hell? Head, no blood,
so that's good. I start to move around and check the rest and all seems
okay. So what happened? and where's my shoe? I get up and see that where
I was standing there is a water meter or something in the ground and the
cover to the meter is missing. Inside the meter hole is my shoe. I had
to have stepped into the hole and lost my balance and my foot got caught,
so down I went. After I have time to think about all the what ifs. What
if my foot hadn't come out of my shoe? I could've broken or messed my
leg up very badly. I might've landed differently rather than straight
on my back and hit my head, or worse, snapped my neck. If I'd have hit
and cracked my head, could I have gotten up to get help? If not, how long
would I have laid there before somebody found me? All sorts of broken
things could've happened, so I was very lucky. And, after getting back
to the shop and working, I noticed my back didn't hurt as much. I didn't
quite believe that, but sure enough, whatever was wrong with my back must've
got popped back into place when I fell. It definitely feels much better.
How's that for a silver lining?? Comics time..
Two helpings of Final Crisis and the next step in the Secret Invasion
story highlight this weeks offerings. The fifth part of DC's and writer
Grant Morrison's convoluted Final Crisis (#5 of 7) event arrives along
with The Question and her Final Crisis Revelations mini (#4 of 5). Part
five of Crisis is supposed to be when lots of action and things happen
to advance the story, so I hope it delivers. I'm for most all things DC,
but I think it's been a mistake to have Grant Morrison on this big event.
I'm alright so far with his Batman RIP, though that was confusing too
and I'm a veteran Batman reader. If the idea for FC was to get lots of
readers new and old really into a DC story event, then Morrison, with
his penchant for using obscure characters in main story roles and how
he lays out and tells a story was a mistaken pick for the writer. In Detective
(#851), we have the first of a two part story dealing with how Gotham
City herself and her citizens are dealing with the loss of their caped
protector. What's a commissioner (Gordon) to do? This story will continue
in Batman #684, which is NOT the next Batman issue but the one after.
Batman #683 later this month will finish the RIP Last Rites story from
Batman #682 which came out this past week, but was a bit late. Other DC's
of note: Action Comics (#872) heads toward the end of the New Krypton
story, which I still haven’t gotten to, and Green Lantern Corps
(#35) moves us closer to and helps set up the big "Blackest Night"
story coming in the next couple months that has most all Lantern fans
just about wetting themselves for. On the Marvel side, Secret Invasion
Dark Reign is a one-shot that concludes the Sercet Invasion story proper
and sets up the next chapter called...Dark Reign! There is also another
main story branching from Secret Invasion and that'll be War of Kings.
Kings will tend to be in the X books, while Dark Reign will stay in the
Avengers, Ms. Marvel type books. There's the second of this month's What
if? books (Hey, I already talked about What ifs!) this one a Captain America:
Fallen Son. What if Steve Rogers Cap didn't die after Civil War, but instead
it was Tony Stark Iron Man? That's the What If. Lastly there's the Hulk
100 Project, with proceeds going to the Hero Initiative charity. The book
features the 100 covers of Hulk #1 including the Red Hulk that various
artists donated to be auctioned off for the Hero Initiative. We had ten
of those original works auctioned off here in Seattle last year at Emerald
City Comic Con. You may remember there was an Ultimate Spider-Man book
of the same type a while back. One final commercial...check out the new
dollar boxes in store. Do not snooze or you will lose. Til' we meet again..
Paula’s Picks
I’ve been seeing a lot of Spirit ads on TV lately. It comes out
Christmas Day so they’ve been using Christmas music in the ad. It
looks pretty cool, but I don’t get the Spirit wearing converse shoes.
It’s just weird. I’ll end up watching anyway. Frank Miller
does some pretty awesome movies.
I don’t have much to write about this week. I didn’t get much
sleep last night due to sugar induced insomnia fueled by too many Jelly
Bellys before bed. But I do want to say, No, Rick, you cannot say something
about a girl’s behind without sounding like a pervert. Ever. Not
even in a newsletter. Especially not in a newsletter.
I’d like to remind everyone that there’s still time to fill
out your Holiday Wish List! Our Holiday Wish is a gift registry that you
can fill out at our shop. You can fill out up to 10 items and get discounts
on those items. The first item gets 25% off, the 2nd and 3rd items get
20% off, the 4th, 5th and 6th items get 15% off and the last 4 items get
10% off. The items can be in stock graphic novels, single issues, back
issues, comic sets, special priced variant issues, trading card sets and
action figures. Once you fill out the list, be sure to tell all of your
friends and family about it. When they pick up something off the list,
we mark it off so there are no duplicate gifts.