Roadside Picnic

The Horsemen game was so-so.  Iowa won 54-44.  Iowa has a very cool helmet design - the team name is Barnstormers, and their helmets have a graphic of old-style pilot's goggles pushed up above the player's eyes.  And there was a bat flying around Rupp!  Poor little guy - I hope he was caught and released back outside.

Saw Hellboy II yesterday afternoon.  Good, not up to the first movie, though.  The elf prince and princess were dead-center in my Uncanny Valley, and they kept me unnerved throughout.  Dinner after the movie was a good time.

My feet are all better.  By Friday afternoon, there was no discomfort at all, and I have learned an important lesson about maintaining a level of activity.  My next vacation from 100 Midland Avenue will involve lots more walking, that's for sure.

The Lexington Horsemen beat the Bloomington Xtreme Saturday night, advancing to the UIFL championship game.  They'll play the Sioux Falls Storm, who are heavy favorites.  The game was very good, and much closer than the final score (67-49) indicates;  Horseman Rayshawn Askew broke Jerry Rice's pro football record for touchdown receptions.

Jon Favreau had a clip from the Iron Man movie at the San Diego ComicCon this past weekend.  I got to see it before it was taken down;  it looks incredible.  Again, Robert Downey, Jr., would never have entered my mind as Tony Stark, but now I can't see anybody else.  In the clip, the armors look incredible - there are three distinct suits, starting with the cobbled-together Gray Armor, a quick shot of a red-and-gold, and then a flight sequence with another red-and-gold suit playing follow-the-leader with a pair of F-22s.  Quick shot of Jeff Bridges as Obadiah Stane, and Avi Arad confirmed rumors that Samuel L. Jackson and Hilary Swank will have cameos as Nick Fury and Natasha Romanov, respectively.  Also, Audi has gotten in on the promotions for the movie - Stark's ride is a R8.

Have handed off the Viking Hat for a while again.  I'm going to spend a few weeks working up something of a setting guide for The Effect.  It has suffered from a lack of direction and definition.  Aaron M's going to take over running in the interim, and I am certain that the game is in good hands, quite possibly even better than mine.

Only ten years after it was released, I finally bought (and read, even, to my shame) Kingdom Come, mostly to prep for the upcoming "Thy Kingdom Come" arc in JSA, wherein the KC Superman appears for a while.

17 days until GenCon.

Picked up this week's comics last night. 

The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born is terrific stuff, even if it's stuff I read ten years ago.  I'm getting to see Roland and Susan meet and fall in love again, and I know that the story is going to tear my heart out and stomp that sucker flat (with thanks to Lewis Grizzard), but it's terrific stuff.  The additional material included in each issue is worth the price of the comic - this month, it's the history of the Deschain guns, going back to Arthur Eld and his acquisition from somewhere of the Peacemakers through the melting down of Excalibur and the forging of its metal into new revolvers.

Omega Flight #1 (of 5).  I think I started getting interested in the Flights back in high school, when I read an article in Time about Northstar coming out.  I picked up a few issues here and there, but mostly followed the comic from afar.  This new series is a post-Civil War story, dealing with the formation of a new Canadian team to defend against the influx of supers coming over from the US.  I like it so far.

Iron Man: Hypervelocity #4 (of 6).  I love this in probably unhealthy ways.  A mostly-sentient suit of Iron Man armor running a copy of Tony's personality, fighting against an intelligent virus, on the run from SHIELD and getting caught up in a too-cyberpunk-for-school subculture of AIs, bots, and various and sundry mecha.

Tonight's the Horsemen home opener.  I have been waiting a good long while for this.  Before the game, though, some productivity is in order.  A little laundry, a lot of words.