December 25, 2003

Singapore Supplemental- Ryan's post

hello this is sam's cousin ryan i just wishing everyone out there a merry christmas and a happy new year

now reading: Communism: A History (Modern Library Chronicles)- Richard Pipes

thecomicman spoke @ 09:32 AM |

Singapore Day 1-2: Christmas Eve and Day

so, after eating roti prata for breakfast, Sam, ET, and i went shopping. i didn't get anything for myself because i'm still watching my spending. ET and Sam got some fun stuff for themselves. we shopped at Orchard Road, which is a huge shopping center. after the shopping, there were some drummers outside playing some very cool music. then we went home, where i met eighty percent of Sam's family. there were lots of uncles, aunts, and cousins, and her brother and sister. i remembered all the cousins' names (much easier to do when i have faces to match the names), a feat in and of itself, considering how many of them there are.

Christmas Eve is celebrated very strangely in Sam's family. first there was eating, then carol singing, then Sam's mom passed out all the gifts. all the family sat on the floor and heckled her. after all the gifts where passed out, then everyone opened them. i myself got a watch from Sam's mom and dad, and a silver Boba Fett and a homemade picture frame from the cousins. then i passed out from being so tired.

the next day, we had leftovers from the night before for breakfast. then, we had roti prata for lunch. then Sam, ET, and i went shopping again. we went on this cool tram-like thing (called the LRT), which took us to a flea market of sorts that was outsided of a mall. then we got on the subway (called the MRT), which took us to a bigger, better mall. this mall had a bunch of stationery stores in which ET went kind of nuts. then we found a comic book store, where i went crazy. i bought the New Mutants mini-series for twelve Sing dollars, which translates to about eight US dollars. pretty cheap, eh?

then we came back home and played around with Sam's little cousins, Lynnette and Ryan. then we had dinner, which was steamboat: a fryer surrounding a broth. pork, beef, chicken, prawns, and crab were some of the things that could be fried on this steamboat. then i bought some chrysanthemum tea for two-fifty Sing.

that is all. more later.

now reading: The Sandman: Endless Nights- Neil Gaiman

thecomicman spoke @ 09:28 AM |

December 23, 2003

Singapore- Day 0.5

quickly, the things i've done while here so far:

driven from the airport in a taxi.
watched a bit of MTVAsia (where they played OutKast and Evanescence).
watched the Packers-Raiders game.
had breakfast at McDonald's.

this place is very foreign.

ps: get this, they drive on the other side of the road... and they have trees! i'll keep you posted.

now reading: Victories and Sacrifices (Star Wars: Clone Wars, Vol. 2)- Haden Blackman, John Ostrander, Tomas Giorello, Brian Ching, Jan Duursema

thecomicman spoke @ 10:35 PM |

December 09, 2003

why am i awake!?

i stayed up all night last night doing a ten page paper (that turned out to be only eight-and-a-half pages) on detective pulp. i haven't done this in almost two years and now my sleep schedule's all fucked up and i have to work 'till a godawful hour tomorrow night.

aside: dammit! i just misspelled 'hour' like four times, each one containing vowels that don't actually go in it!

in other news, there are only two more cup/speed packages to beat on Mario Kart before i unlock five more cup/speed packages. once those are beat, i'm pretty sure i'll have beaten everything.

only one week 'till 'Return of the King!' and then only one week after before i go to Singapore! woohoo! this is, of course, after five finals. stupid finals.

Mark Millar and JG Jones signed at the store recently, and they both rocked. they were super cool guys who talked to everyone about everything. Mark gave comics away (yeah, that's right, i call him 'Mark.' i'm 'in' now), including a hard-to-find 'Superman is Commie Trash' #1 (actaully titled 'Superman: Red Son'). it's okay, at the end of the series, Superman learns the error of his ways and realizes democracy is better. plus, not as many people were killed in Superman's Communist 'utopia,' like in every other madman's attempt. but back to the point, Mark is Scottish and has an excellent accent and JG likes football (we talked about why the Jets had a crappy year). and they both drank Guiness at the table. showing up to the signing drunk is gauche (like my pal Frank), but getting drunk at the table is super cool. just kidding, they didn't get drunk. that was held off until the after-party, which was held in some pub downtown. they talked about up-coming projects (including some things i'm sure they were supposed to not talk about), and generally were all-around cool guys. these guys have been, by far, the best guests we've had at the store.

with the sole exception of maybe Phil Jimenez, who's coming back on the 18th to sign. he's a cool guy too, who talks to me whenever he's at the store hanging out. and i think his crush (or whatever) on me has gone away. although, i hope he still gives me an awesome sketch, like the last one he gave me of Donna Troy. the book buyer (who gets lots of sketches from everybody [Mark, a writer, gave him a sketch]) was very jealous at my superior sketch from Phil. so jealous, he tried to steal it. that jerk.

okay, i'm done rambling. just one more thing though: my California friends have started blogging as well, and i've put the people i know of in the links area. they are: Julie, Abby, and Amy aka Jules, Abby, and amySnott. go pay a visit and get a glimpse of the people i used to hang out with. not to say i wouldn't now, but they're all so goddamn far away.

aside: that last 'goddamn' was added because i felt i hadn't cursed anywhere near enough on this post. so, yeah.

fuck.

now reading: Halo And Sprocket: Welcome To Humanity- Kerry Callen

thecomicman spoke @ 05:40 AM |

December 02, 2003

Super Soldier Steals, Sneaks, and Stores Subconscious Superficially or, The Fantomex of the Opera

Fantomex blasted his way into hearts of X-men fans everywhere in New X-men #128, showing up in the new X-Corp building in Paris bleeding and wanted by French authorities while Charles Xavier and Jean Grey dealt with her recent manifestation of the Phoenix. claiming to be an art thief and, more importantly, a mutant, Fantomex mistook Xavier for an embassy of some sort and asked for asylum, something Xavier as an American civilian cannot legally provide. Xavier however taught those French a thing or two about arrogance and told them to back off, lest he sic some mutant security on them. fearing he was talking about the German teleporter Nightcrawler, the French quickly gave up.

there was some talking, a ride in a UFO to Fantomex's house, and a huge explosion in the Chunnel before Fantomex fessed up. he wasn't really an art thief, and that wasn't really a UFO they had just ridden in. he was Weapon XII, and the UFO was actually EVA, his nervous system with its own machine-like consciousness. and that explosion in the Chunnel was Weapon XIII escaping. after sending a few second-string X-men in the Chunnel (including Rictor, Darkstar, and Multiple Man) and letting them get totally owned by Weapon XIII, Fantomex, Xavier, and Jean went in. Fantomex got ahead of them and tried to take on XIII by himself. as far as i can tell, Fantomex is quite agile, very nice with guns, and has a pretty high threshold of pain, but nothing compared to XIII's ability to take over peoples minds and use them as an army. first up in his mind control was Darkstar, whom Fantomex quickly shot and killed. then XIII just started taking over regular folk trapped in the Chunnel. they overpowered the man in white before Xavier showed up. he took over a lot of Multiple Men to match the civilians XIII had and then a big ol' brawl started. then Xavier took advantage of XIII's preoccupation with the slaughter to shut its mind down. not the most ethical way to go about it, but hey, he can walk now so fuck off. and it didn't matter anyway because once your mind was touched by XIII, it ceased to exist. yup, all those civvies were dead anyway, as was Darkstar.

when asked why XIII was unable to take his mind, Fantomex replied that his mind wasn't in range to take. EVA was flying over the French countryside while Fantomex and co. were in the Chunnel.

Fantomex didn't show up for a few issues until he caught up with Wolverine in the Middle East of all places. Logan was rescuing a Muslim mutant named Sooraya (i'm told that means 'dust' in whatever language that is), when Fantomex showed up and told Logan he knew how Logan could find out about his past. this thread was left unresolved for about year while Cassandra Nova tried to kill the Earth using the Shi'ar Empire.

Fantomex showed up again after Emma Frost was shot and Cyclops had fled the mansion when Jean found out about his mind-cheating (he and Emma were doing it in their heads). Wolverine tracked him down at the Hellfire Club where Scott was enjoying a strip show and some liquor on Sebastian Shaw's dime. actually, Logan didn't track him down so much as accidentally bumped into him while Logan tried to relieve himself of the stresses of being an X-man at Shaw's club. but Logan didn't let the opportunity get lost. he got Scott drunk and tricked him into helping him and Fantomex break into the Weapon Plus program. that's right, Weapon Plus. see, that 'X' in Weapon X wasn't actually an 'X;' it was a ten. well, sorta.

intermission.

get some candy, it's crunchy,
get some popcorn, you're munchy,
get some green mints, they're pasty,
check out the snack bar, it's tasty!

end intermission.

back in the days of World War II, the American government wanted so bad to create a super soldier that they experimented on their black soldiers. Isaiah Bradley was the only success. he was Weapon 0, although that's not what he was known as at the time. with the success of their Super Soldier Serum, they created Weapon I aka Captain America. between Weapons II and IX, the program shifted its focus from Nazis, to Commies, to mutants. it also changed its name from the Super Soldier program to the Weapon Plus program and retroactively gave all its previous experiments Roman numerals. then came Weapon X: Logan. no previous Weapon had ever escaped the compounds (nor were they staged in Canada previously to this), but Logan surprised them. he was a mutant, and could heal from wounds very quickly. at first they were happy with this because this meant he had a greater shot at surviving the adamantium bonding process. however, they forgot to account for his rapid healing when administering tranqs. Weapon X escaped. because of this failure, the Weapon Plus program fractured. half of them continued making bigger and better Super Soldiers as the new, streamlined Weapon Plus Program in the United States. the other half continued capturing, coercing, or paying mutants to build an army in the Weapon X Program in Canada. in the short run, Weapon X was a much better program, showing fast results in Maverick, Deadpool, Garrison Kane, and many others. Weapon Plus meanwhile tooled quietly and patiently making better weapons that the X program could only dream of.

present day: Fantomex, Logan, and Scott are assaulting Weapon Plus. they break into the World, a self-contained biosphere where everything is controlled by computers, including the laws of time and physics. this is where the wepaons are trained. Fantomex grew up here and pretends to have a French accent just to be annoying. he has found out that the program has just scrapped Weapon XIV and Weapon XV is still on the operating table. he thinks this a perfect time to take down Weapon Plus. they formulate a plan and it all goes to hell because of three very important things: 1) Scott is suffering from some crazy kind of performance anxiety and can't seem to get his optic blast to work, 2) AIM has broken into the World (how these idiots managed to find out about the place is beyond me), 3) Weapon XV has woken up.

Weapon XV wipes the floor with everyone and then escapes into outer space. the trio follows him in EVA to the Weapon Plus satellite. they find a table reminiscent of the JLA's, with colorful names for all the Weapons on the chairs. the plan was to make them into a super team to rid the world of mutants (even though half the 'team' was comprised of them). Weapon XV and Wolverine tussle while the station counts down to auto-destruct. Scott and Fantomex hop on an escape pod while EVA gets taken by Weapon Plus satellite security. Scott and Fantomex escape. the station blows up with Logan, XV, and EVA still on it.

that's where we're at. hope this helped you Whir.

now reading: Catwoman: Selina's Big Score- Darwyn Cooke

thecomicman spoke @ 12:17 PM |