Adventures in Pittsburgh!

I meant to post this on Sunday, but I was waiting until I could Photoshop these pictures down to a manageable size. Anyway, the otter and I took a trip to Pittsburgh this weekend to visit our friend Kurt. We spent too much money, but we had a great time.

We got to Pittsburgh on Friday night. Surprisingly, the trip there only takes about 2 hours from North Canton, so even though we didn’t leave until almost 8 PM, we still got there in time to have fun that night. We met Kurt at his apartment, then went to The Squirrel Hill Cafe, or the Squirrel Cage, as the locals call it. There, we had expensive beer and listened to some good music from their juke box.

At the Cage, we met up with a few of Kurt’s friends and made out way to a diner, the name of which escapes me right now, but I’m sure Kurt or the Otter will chime in in the comments section to remind me! The food was pretty good and very cheap; I had a grilled cheese sandwich and stuffed olive leaves, and my bill was less than $5.

The next day, we met Kurt’s friends at the Phipps Conservatory. This was really cool; they had all sorts of plants, from coffee plants to bananna trees to orchids. There was also a room with butterflies flying freely, and there were glass sculptures everywhere.

Otter vs. Ostrich: Who Will Survive?

After the conservatory, we got a bite to eat at an awesome little restaurant which, again, I can not remember the of. We then parted ways with Kurt’s friends and took a tour of the Carnegie Mellon University campus, where Kurt goes to scool and works. It’s a beautiful campus.

Next, we went the Caliban Book Shoppe, mainly to look for used books (I bought Orlando by Virginia Woolf and The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosinski), but the most awesome thing was that I found The Mountain Goats’ The Coroner’s Gambit, Babylon Springs, Sweden, and Nine Black Poppies! My Mountain Goat CD collection is even closer to complete! BOOYA!

Um…but I digress. We also hit a few other little stores before making our way to Paul’s CDs where…I found The Mountain Goats’ Beautiful Rat Sunset and All Hail West Texas, as well as Neutral Milk Hotel’s Everything is! If I ever find tMG’s Full Force Galesburg, I’ll have all the major CD releases!!!

Ahem.

Afterwards, we went out for coffee, then went to Kurt’s friend’s house for a night of Apples to Apples, Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job, and lots of alcohol. Good times.

Before we left on Sunday, we went to Church (for Kelly…I’m unaffiliated.) and for lunch at a local pizza shop (Damn! I can’t remember any of these places’ names!) and then headed out for pur exactly 2-hour trip home! It was good to be back, but we’ll definately go visit again soon!

The otter, my hat, and Pittsburgh.

Operation: Rebirth

Well, the semester is over, so I’m on a three-week, unpaid vacation. I could sleep this time away, but I won’t. Instead, I’m using this time to get into some good habits. Here’s what I plan on doing:

1) Write 1000 words a day. They don’t have to be 1000 words towards one project like NaNoWriMo, but I want to be productive.

2)Eat cereal for breakfast. I’ve been eating Pop Tarts for breakfast every morning, but the gelatin in them is offensive to my vegetarian sensibilities.

3)Spend some time on line this week looking for contests to enter short stories into. I need to get published again!

4)Try again to learn a foreign language. Maybe Spanish, as it would be useful, or maybe Russian, as I have a couple of books in Russian, and I think it would be cool to eventually be able to read them.

So we’ll see if I even accomplish any of these goals, or if I do what I normally do in times like these and veg out in front of the XBox.

I’m going to watch the Watchmen.

Well, I’m going to break down and see it tonight. Until then, here is something so perfect, I had to share it.

If you’ve read the book (or seen the movie, I guess), there are so many in jokes here…I love that Rorschach is a “friend to the animals,” especially to those dogs. My god, that’s funny stuff.

Who Watches ?

I’m not sure how I feel about these. They are the internet promo films for the Watchmen, a movie that I fear will completely bastardize the comic it is based on. The first of these things makes me happy:

The second one has some problems, which I’ll address after you watch it:

OK. First, I’m not buying that it’s a 1970s film. It looks too modern, and it seems artificially aged. the previous film looks like old video…this one lopoks like new film. Also, the CGI key is distracting.

From a plot perspective, I’m not sure what the Commedian is doing there, as he worked for the government after the Keene Act, so he is not a criminal.

The 1st film is nearly perfect, but the second one is trying to hard to be cool.

Still, I’ll probably give the bastards my money when this comes up in march.

A Licky Boom Boom Down.

I finally saw the trailer to the upcoming movie The Informers, and I’m not sure how I feel about it. Movies based on books never live up to expectations, but The Informers is my second-least-favorite Bret Easton Ellis work (My least favorite being Glamorama). Plus, I’ve read that they’ve taken the elements of my second-favorite story in the book, “The Secrets of Summer” out (though I definitely see scenes from my favorite story in the collection, “The Fifth Wheel.”).

On the plus side, the casting seems great (Kim Basinger as the drugged-out housewife…brilliant!!!), and the screenplay was, according to IMDb, co-written by Ellis, so it has that going for it. Plus, his other works, American Psycho and Rules of Attraction, made great movies, even if Rules to make a lot of changes from the source material.

So, I’m excited to be disappointed, I guess.

Anyway, here’s a link to the red-band trailer. NSFW. That’s why it’s the red band, yo!

Disappear HERE.

Christmas Goodies!

I hope everyone had a great holiday! I know I did. On Christmas Eve, I went to my grandparents’ house. I really only see them during the holidays, even though they don’t live too far away. That’s just how we roll in the Nova posse. My brother and his girlfriend were there, as were my parents and my Uncle Mike. It was nice getting everyone together, but I try not to be overly sentimental about family, so I’ll stop there.

On Christmas day, the otter and I had our traditional dinner at the Waffle House, a tradition that started last year when I had the flu and didn’t want to spread it to her family. We exchanged gifts and had great breakfasty-type-food, served to us by a waitress who looked EXACTLY like Punky Brewster.

I know that discussing Christmas presents goes against better judgment, especially after my apartment was broken into this summer, but I’m going to do it. Damn the fates, I say. I’ll only discuss a few gifts here, so if you got me something, and I didn’t mention it, either there was a good reason for it that you already understand, or it is something that I wouldn’t want the interwebs community to read about. Ooooooohhhhhh….secrets!

Anyway, I got lots of giftcards, which will be quickly used on stuff I need. Like more CDs. My brother and his girlfriend got me a gift card towards songs on the Rock Band video game, so that when I visit them, we can rock out with our…never mind.

The otter got me a lot of stuff, but the stuff of interest to the interwebs are the Heroes season one box set, and the book The Courage to Survive by Dennis Kucinich. I also got a new coat, which is keeping my incredibly warm in this..how cold is it…60 DEGREE WEATHER!?! What the hell happened to December? It feels like Spring out there! I also got some new clothes, which I needed desperately!

The otter’s sister got me an awesome DVD of a half-hour long Rube Goldberg device, called The Way Things Go. Jayson, this is the same one we saw at the Akron Museum of Art.

There were other cool gifts, too, as well as money. I’ve spent some of the money on the book The Delivery Man by Joe McGinniss Jr., as recommended by the otter’s friend, Zach.

Besides visiting relatives and getting gifts, I watched Elf on Christmas day, and have spent a lot of time playing Gladius and Jade Empire on the XBox. Good times.

So, how was your holiday?

Adventures in Tremont

This saturday, the otter and I went to Elyria to visit my brother on his birthday. On our way, we stopped in Tremont, just outside of downtown Cleveland.

This was obviously an economically depressed area. After driving through the projects, we made it to a little neighborhood with little houses packed close together. Across the street was a park where a man was selling The Homeless Grapevine for a dollar (I didn’t buy one…there was a crowd of people engage him in political discussion). All over the park and neighborhood were Obama/Biden signs and various other Democratic signs, including many bright yellow ones with “Dennis!” written in big, friendly, black letters.

We walked to our objective, Visible Voice Books. If you’re ever in the area, you should definitely stop there. They have lots of new books at list price, as well as cheap used books. It seems they also have poetry readings, chess games, and themes presentations (they are celebrating Charles Bukowski right now). Not only that, but there’s a wine bar at the front counter. We spent about 45 minutes there, and I bought Adrian Tomine’s 32 Stories, John Darnielle’s Master Of Reality(To replace the one that was stolen from me), and two gifts for my brother (Yoshihiro Tatsumi’s The Push Man and Other Stories and Shotaro Ishinomori’s Japan, Inc.).

After the book store, we went to a cafe, the name of which escapes me right now. The coffee was a little dark but smooth.

Announcements

Just stopping by for a couple of announcements. First of all, I know I haven’t been around much these last 2 weeks. I’m going back to work of Monday (we’re in-between semesters this week), so I’ll be posting more often when I’m closer to an internet connection.

Secondly, my third cartoon for My Very Own Adventure is done. It’s pretty cool in that I not only wrote it, but I did 2 of the voices (under the name Jay Nova, rather than J. Robert Novak…I though the credits were a little Novak-heavy!) Anyway, here it is. Bask in it, folks!

Lastly, I started reading Stephen King’s The Stand. I’m to the part were he introduces Larry Underwood, and so far, I’m not liking this book. The characters are hackneyed, all the references are dated and make no sense for a book taking place in 1990, and it kind of rambles. If any of you have read it, I ask, “Does it get better?” Should I keep reading, or should I abandon it before I’m 600 pages in and still irritated?

Watchmen!

I’m sure that this will be pulled off the internet before long, but here’s the trailer to Watchmen.

NOTE: I’ve read the graphic novel MANY, MANY times, so if I say something that doesn’t match up with the book, I’m being deliberately misleading. I encourage EVERYONE WHO READS THIS POST to read Watchmen.

Here’s what I think:
1) Opening scene with Jon/Manhattan-OK, we’re off to a good start. I like the pause to marvel at what’s happening right before he is torn to atoms (literally).
2)The Owl-Ship (Archie)-Looking good. Actually, this looks exactly like the comic. Color me impressed.
3)Laurie, Laurie, Laurie…what the fuck are you wearing?
4)Nite-Owl kicking the guy looks alright, but a little too 300. Still, the costume doesn’t look to armored, which is what I was afraid of. I can believe I guy could move around in that get-up. Nite-Owl from the book could have never pulled that off.
5)Comedian goes out the window. THIS! IS! NEW YORK!!!!!! (Too special-effecty)
6)Hey Ozy…why so emo?
7)Manhattan scares a janitor, just like in the book. Good, good…
8)Owlship and City…again, this looks just right to me.
9)RORSCHACH!! Burn those muthafuckas! (This is identical to the book. Very nice.)
10)Laurie goes to the Nerd Prom (San Diego Comic Con)in cosplay, apparently.
11)Three Doctor Manhattans are better than one. (He looks great!)
12)Nite-Owl dresses like Batman, acts like Batman, still manages not to look like Batman. I’m down with that, as long as he doesn’t do that through the entire movie. Oh, and he’s too skinny.
13) Funeral looks great. Only our enemies leave roses.
14)Vietnam. It looks like a cartoon (or a stage production). Not impressed. Comedian looks good, though.
15)Protesters, I’m assuming in the 70’s. That’s the only place in the book I can think of that would have firebombs. This would be during the police strike.
16) Nice placement of the “God help us all.” I can’t think of who is saying that.
17)Manhattan! This looks EXACTLY like a shot from the comic.
18)Nice kiss. Nice interaction with CGI, as it looks like he’s really there. Reminds me of Star Trek, the Motion Picture. (NO, I’m NOT a Trekkie)
19)Comedian vs. the guy who broke into his apartment. I can see why the Comedian was considered a badass.
20)Rorschach is a badass, too.
21)So is Ozy. The effects in this fight are OK. I imaging Ozy would fight using lots of effects. I’m not sure what that last sentence means.
22)Don’t cry, Nite-Owl! (I wish his suit were less leathery)
23)TAKE THAT, CHARLIE!!! (This shot looks EXACTLY like the comic. It seems they spent some extra time with the Manhattan scenes.)
24)More 70s riots, I presume.
25)THE DARK RORSCHACH RETURNS. Not a fan of these two shots, though I said the line with him.
26) Again, Manhattan’s stuff looks great. This scene looks different than the book, but it still looks great.
27) I LOVE that they didn’t fuck with the logo.

So, what do you all think?

One Book: The Meme

I’m stealing this meme idea from Bibliomom because, Hell, it’s just a good idea.  She got it from somewhere else anyway…

One book that changed my life

Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons.  This book showed me what a comic book could be.  If you don’t believe me, read this book, and when you get to issue 11, the next-to-the-last page, get back with me.

One Book That I’ve Read More Than Once

1984 by George Orwell.  I was never the kind of kid who went around trying to start little revolutions against "the establishment" or who constantly saw conspiracies on every lunch menu, but this book spoke to me even then.  One lesson I learned from it was the best way to control a population is to invent a threat to it. 

HONORABLE MENTION: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.  I had to read this one twice for school, and both times I put it off until the last minute, so I had to read it in one sitting.  Let me emphasize this: I, having Attention Deficit Disorder, read this book twice, each time in one sitting.  It’s that good.

One Book That Made Me Laugh

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.  If you have never read this book, or the others in the series, do so.  Now.

One Book That Made Me Cry

Blankets by Craig Thompson.  This graphic novel haunted me for days.  When Raina breaks his heart, I feel like she broke mine.  Bitch.

One Book That I Wish I Had Written

Neuromancer by William Gibson.  Definitive cyberpunk.

One Book That I Wish Had Never Been Written.

Malleus Maleficarum by Heinrich Institoris Kramer and Jacob Sprenger.

Also: Seduction of the Innocent by Dr. Fredric Wertham.

One Book(s) That I’m Currently Reading

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. 

Heroes: Saving Charlie by Aury Wallington.

How to Write for Animation by Jeffery Scott.

Students for a Democratic Society: a Graphic History by Harvey Pekar with Gary Dunn.

Legends Of The Gods:The Egyptian Texts, Translated by E. A. Wallis Budge.

One Book That I’m Meaning To Read

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kessey.

TAGGING:
Amuirin
J.A.Y.S.O.N.
Matt
Chris
Mo
and, of course, the otter, though she’ll answer in the comments.