Loving the Wireless

  • by Drew

The Black Friday season introduced me to low-priced Blu-Ray players with on-board wi-fi. Low, low prices were enough of an enticement to finally step up to the next level in video technology, plus I can stream Netflix on every TV in the house. That includes the one in front of my eliptical.

Now I won’t go into the problems with streaming because we are stuck with Cablevision. While I’m perfectly satisfied with the quality watching Spongebob and Portlandia via streaming Netflix, the Cablevision connection fails time and time again. And believe me, it is neither a Netflix fail or an in-house wi-fi fail. Cablevision fails time and time again. It’s tough living in the country, absent alternative high speed internet options.

Nevertheless, I’m loving these wi-fi Blu-Ray players. For awhile we considered another WII or even a Playstation or Xbox to add streaming video to a different TV in the house since we were initiated with our WII. But the Blu-Rays were way cheaper, and let’s face it… even with three kids in the house, we really don’t need another game system. Soon enough the kids will be wanting something else.

Hopefully the next system will come with maid service and SAT prep. Hey, a guy can dream, right?

Gift Shopping Redux

  • by Drew

I saw lots of electronics on sale this year. TVs up the yin yang, and super-cheap Blu-Ray players leading the charge. Decent prices on lower-end laptops here and there, though I’ve seen a lot better in the past. Some jewelry sales, though the good stuff never seems to waver. Precious metals hold their value no matter what, right? I mean, you can always find bargain basement gems because an occluded yellow diamond was inflated to begin with, but you’ll never see a near-flawless diamond making it into the bargain bins.

Not a lot of booze on sale and flower discounts were almost non-existent – at least in this guy’s circles. Some movies and music on sale, but certainly not across the board. It seems the studios pick a handful of titles to rock out on, and everything else holds steady.

The best toy sales were early. By Black Friday and all the hoopla leading up to the last minute shopping, sales were frequent, but the price dips were rarely that impressive. I say buy early and get a heck of a lot more bang for you buck.

So speaketh the king of clearance.

Holly Jolly

  • by Drew

So we went out for a little family dinner tonight at a chain restaurant with free kids meal coupons. Tis the season and all that. And for the most part, it was a lovely dinner. The kids were well-behaved and even the baby ate like a champ. Everything was tasty, the service was great. Not much to complain about at all.

Unless you’re me, that is.

Here’s the deal. They sat us at a table next to 5 women, clearly co-workers. Four of them were massive. Seriously. If there’s a halfway point drawn on the floor between adjoining tables, they totally destroyed it. I literally could not sit on the side of table that was next to theirs. Even if I could have somehow slithered into my seat without pulling it out, I would have had to such in my gut the entire me. For reals.

That, of course, has become so commonplace these days that in and of itself it would not have warranted writing about. It was the fifth woman, who seemed older than the others, and who was the only one at the table not at least 100 pounds overweight.

It started because her scarf was thrown on one of the chairs for our table. When the hostess brought us over, she politely asked the woman if it was her scarf. The woman glared at her and said “yes” in that challenging tone that suggested she wasn’t going to move it. She did, though, and glared at us as we sat down. Seriously. She got hostile because she had to move her scarf.

Did I mention that all five women were wearing reindeer antlers on their heads? And I won’t even get into some of the horrible things the old skinny one started saying about the infant at a nearby table who was a little loud. Just chattering excitedly and such. No shrieking, no screaming, no crying. Just being a kid. And boy did it piss her off.

If you’re going to go out for margaritas with your chunky-ass coworkers in reindeer antlers, don’t you think you would be leaving the humbug at home?

Head Gear

  • by Drew

When I first started working on the script for the upcoming next issue of Skateboard Heroes, I wanted to do some stuff with kids on bikes. It was a way to get some of the boys’ friends involved, and also a logical pool of antagonists. Kids on bikes would of course be natural foes of kids on skateboards. No brainer, right?

Thing is, I wanted a decent old school BMX style helmet with full face coverage. Mostly because I wanted to have a potentially unlimited pool of villains, and I didn’t want to have to buy scores of helmets or secure the services of dozens of kids. With some face coverage I coulld easily make one kid play the role of 10 or 12.

It proved difficult to find a helmet within my customary budget of EXCEPTIONALLY little, though. I tried bike helmets, motorcycle helmets, toy plastic things…you name it. I even considered a welding helmet. Finally, after much searching, I ended up with a World War II style motorcycle helmet with vintage-looking goggles.

The thing is, it is a fully padded motorcycle helmet for an adult. It actually looks great on kids because it covers their entire heads. On me, however (because I did hope to press it into service as my own safety helmet) it has a sort of Dark Helmet from Spaceballs vibe. All the interior padding makes it perch way high on my head. And it is BIG.

Oh well, there’s always Halloween.

Road-worthy

  • by Drew

We were recently asked to consider a Skateboard Heroes signing event at a local comic shop. Sure we’re small-time, at least right now, but it seems like a lot of fun. The boys can get kitted out and we’ll sign some books, sell some t-shirts. Great stuff. But where’s the potential for taking this to the next level? I mean, most events like this that I’ve attended are either with major writers with dozens of books to their credit, or with artists who do sketches.

We’re lesser known, obviously, and our art is photographic in nature. I can’t exactly sketch something out. Maybe we won’t be going on the road in a tour bus after all – cancel the rv insurance quote.

Then I had an idea. with a camera and a laptop loaded with Photoshop I can snap fans with the Heroes themselves and then edit it in true Skateboard Heroes fashion. If I bring a decent printer I could actually generate some fan art in about the same amount of time it takes a comic artist to do a head sketch. Hmmmm. I am starting to see the potential for some real FUN!

With a little help…

  • by Drew

The Skateboard Heroes have added a bunch of new photos to the Friends of the Skateboard Heroes (FOSH) page. Check out the sketches from New York Comic Con 2011, various signings and events at the greatest little comic shop in the Hudson Valley, Alterniverse, and random chance encounters on the streets of America. Well, not so much the last one, but… some cool drawings by some awesome creators nonetheless.

Stay-cation

  • by Drew

I hate that word, but it pretty much sums things up these days. I just took a week off from work, mostly because I had to burn up some time. The thing is, with a family of 5, there is almost nothing to do. Two of the kids are in school, and half of the mornings and most of the evenings involve driving one or more of them somewhere and/or picking them up. I barely got anything done around the house. Just way too much going on.

It would be lovely to get on one of those family all inclusive resort type trips, you know? Then again, I don’t know where the 10 grand or so is coming from.

Blast!

another brick in the fence…

  • by Drew

Working on the newest installment of Skateboard Heroes I can’t help but think about the 70s in California when empty pools were one of the things that led to modern skating. It’s pretty cool, really, to think that taller fences or crazy ultra modern electrified pool barriers might have wiped out the movement before it started. It’s a pretty depressing thought, isn’t it? There’d be no half pipes, no Tony Hawk, and no Tech Decks. Man, I love those little boards. I ride so much better with two fingers than I ever did on legs.

Counting Calories

  • by Drew

Careful consumption is top nof the list these days. On top of the 40+ minutes daily on the old elliptical, I am extremely careful about those nasty sugars and carbs. Maybe that’s why the ridiculously obvious decline in the state of the average American’s health is so morbidly apparent, so much moreso though a scant few months ago.

Maybe you’re not one of them, but I guarantee you know someone who is. It makes me think of those old stories about tough situations – sometimes a top law school, sometimes Army Rangers or something like that, but always the same basic anecdote. The guy at the front of the room says look to your right and look to your left, one of those people won’t be here when we finish.

Update it – look to your right and look to your left, one of those people is slowly dying because of the crap we let them consume. Why aren’t there more people going for Dietician or Nutritionist jobs? You’d think there’d be a massive call. Yet it is virtually impossible to find someone who isn’t just towing the Washington lobbyist driven FDA line. I mean, really, do you think an organization that takes direction from politicians with virtually no input from people in the medical profession has anything really valuable to tell you about healthy eating habits?

You may think it’s an expert in nutrition that is telling you how much bread and grains to eat, but the tragic reality is that the folks at Wonder Bread have way more say that any expert – or rather, any non-Marketing oriented expert.

bf now

  • by Drew

Black Friday is almost upon us kiddies. Any big deals on your minds? I’m all about the electronics this year. Probably not going to buy anything, but it really is fascinating to see last year’s $2000 TV going for $300 this year. The new model at $2500 has like an extra button or something.

My real interest is with storage media. Last year I bought a 1TB external drive. It cost the same as a 500 GB portable model which was, I must admit, exceptionally portable. But seeing as how my big clunky non-portable drive was still smaller than the walkman cassette player I used in High School… yeah, I’ll take big in this case. The extra storage is sooooo worth it.

I do see alot of people interested in software. Dashboard product for one. But me, like the non-development masses, it’s plug and play all the way.

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