Firestorm

I've always liked DC more than Marvel, but with this new comic book movie generation, Marvel is definately more popular. With this in mind, I have made it a life mission of mine to inform others of the fantastic DC heroes that they haven't heard of, like Firestorm. 

Firestorm: The Nuclear Man has been around for decades, but seems to get cancelled every once in a while due to lack of interest. My best guess as to why is that politics play too central of a role in the Firestorm story. Being a Nuclear Man, Firestorm is an advocate for demilitarization, using his pull in the Justice League to pressure other countries into disposing of their nuclear arsenals. I remember this arc particularly well, because a Russian superhero by the name of Mikhail Arkadin comes to confront Firestorm, and fuses into him instead.

You see, Firestorm's powers are truly unique. Every Firestorm, (there have been a few) is composed of two people in a single body. The original duo was Ronnie Raymond and Marc Stein, a college student and his professor, one controlling the body, one controlling the mind. This gets interesting, especially in times of crisis, because you have two minds arguing and debating decisions. What results is a character more rooted in justice and fairness than the rest of the League (Supes is the exception of course). When a grey shaded moral decision comes up, you have two smart, good people talking it over, not letting the other do something they would regret. Now, when the Russian Nuclear Man accidentally fuses with the American Firestorm, then shit went crazy.

I encourage everyone who visits comic book shops to pick up a Firestorm trade. I haven't even covered what happened to the Firestorm character in Infinite Crisis, Identity Crisis, WW3, or the Black Lanterns. You have to find out how Ronnie died, how Jason became the new Firestorm, who Firehawk is, and just how much a man made of nukes can contribute to getting rid of nukes. Firestorm is an amazing hero, and one of my faves.

Grand Theft Auto 5

I love the Grand Theft Auto series, and I have been faithfully playing every single installment since #2. I also adore Rockstar's other games like Bully, LA Noire, and Red Dead. I'm about 10 hours into GTA5, with 100 more to go, so I wanted to at least say what my initial impressions are. (I love it.)

Franklin is so far my favorite character, maybe it's because I love CJ from San Andreas so much, or maybe it's because he reminds me of T-Dog from The Walking Dead, but I find myself playing all of my Franklin missions first. It certainly helps that his sidekick Lamar may be the funniest person in the game. My favorite mission with Franklin so far is a kidnapping scheme that Lamar hatches, which goes awry when the kidnap victim points out that Lamar's name is not only on the license plate, but that his assailant is also obviously Lamar, a guy he's known since childhood.

I'm warming up to Michael. His problems seem to be completely self-produced, and I have a hard time feeling sad when the violin plays. His kids are rebelling because he hasn't been present, and his wife is cheating on him, but Michael cheats too, and the first word he spoke to her in the game was cunt. However, he does have a heart, and just recently, he really took a risk and protected Franklin. My favorite Mike mission was the weed alien shootout. Mikey is approached by a man who wants to collect signatures for legal weed, gives Michael a puff, which then sends you on a crazy alien shooting spree, hallucinating with a chaingun. Fun.

Trevor is a lot of fun. I feel like I'm playing as Lloth's avatar (god of chaos). Trevor is so fucking insane, curbstomping rednecks and throwing asian business men into freezers. He seems to commit violence randomly, like the Joker, unpredictable, and so very crazy. In fact, my favorite Trevor mission is like this, when two hicks just sitting in front of a gas station make a passing comment to Trevor that results in a murderous redneck rampage. Trevor grabs a carbine rifle and mows down every sleeveless plaid shirt he sees. He also hates bikers, and that my friends, is a quick way to my heart. I hate bikers too.

I don't have many complaints, only that the political jokes seem really forced this time. Maybe it's always been that way and I'm just older now, (I remember the Australian war in Vice City), but I remember the South Park-style America bashing being cleverly hidden in a rich story, it just feels really obvious this time. Yep, that's obviously a joke about Ted Cruz, and yep, that's making fun of NPR. Other than that and my frustration with Franklin saying yes to Tonya the crackhead are my only two complaints.

I love this game, but I'm hesitant to say it's the best ever in the series like everyone else is doing. Is it the best looking? Yes. The best mechanically? Yes. But remember when Salvatore double-crosses you in GTA3? Do you remember when you have to defend the Scarface mansion in Vice City? How about when Big Smoke betrays you in San Andreas or when you have to beat a man to death with a purple dildo? Remember when Roman died? If GTA5 wants to be the best, then it needs to have one of those game changing moments that I remember forever, and so far, each GTA has.

Apple Picking

I think this picture looks like the cover of a rock album



I miss Chicago dearly, but one of the advantages that Pennsylvania has are places like HopeWell Furnace. It's a national park that preserves the old iron furnace and surrounding town that provided all of the guns for the revolution. They also let you pick apples out of their orchard for a reasonable fee!

Even though the stick is triple his height, Oliver overcame his handicap.

That's an outhouse from the 1700's, Oliver seemed less than enthusiastic.

It was one of the best little family weekends that we have ever had. All I can hope is that Oliver grows up to appreciate all of the national parks around us here in Philly. Valley Forge, Jim Thorpe, and HopeWell make the big move from Chicago a little easier to transition from. Thanks for reading!

The Block Is Hot

Above is a picture I took with my iphone of the house next door to mine. It burned down yesterday. I woke up to a firefighter pounding on my door, and I sat on the lawn with Oliver for an hour, answering frantic questions and watching the spectacle in disbelief.

Nobody died, only a couple minor injuries reported, but there are four apartment units in that house, leaving four families homeless. My pictures don't show it, but there were 14 fire trucks at the scene, and a fire station was right across the street. 

Here's a link to the news report of the fire

Click that link if you want, but this is more than just a recap of a tragedy next door, it's also the reason I didn't post yesterday. They shut my utilities off until the fire was completely defeated. Insane.

Fiscal Perspective

Alex Rodriguez of the New York Yankees makes 50$ a minute. I remember when a popular sports radio show broke down A-Rod's salary and then opened up the phone lines to hear screaming fans, angry at how overpaid this athlete was. Most people feel that athletes are overpaid, and use their extreme wealth as a reason to hate them, or a justification to hold them to sometimes unreasonable standards. I certainly agree that athletes are rich, but if A-rod making 50$ a day upsets you, consider this, Exxon-Mobil makes 1400$ a second. 24 hours a day, everyday.

Exxon-Mobil was responsible for an oil spill in Mayflower Arkansas back in March, which forced 22 families to evacuate their homes. A neighborhood destroyed, people suffering from serious lung conditions due to the crude, Exxon-Mobil was forced to pay a 500,000$ fine. Remember, they make 1400$ a second, 83,000$ a minute. Exxon-Mobil is the most profitable company in the history of the planet earth. It is the reason the electric car hasn't taken off in America. It is the reason our energy policy here is so mother fucking frustrating. It is also the company that rejected the Arkansas Attorney General request that Exxon Mobil pay $4 million to help with clean-up and investigating the cause. They won't pay. Remember $1400 a second? That's 5 million dollars an hour. What the Attorney General requested they pay to help investigate their own fuck up is the amount of money that Exxon-Mobil makes every 48 minutes. That's in profit, not sales.

I always keep information like this in the back of my head whenever I hear an athlete getting torn apart for smoking pot, or when republicans with no empathy start telling me that the reason we are in a financial crisis is because black people are on welfare. Think about how much money Exxon Mobil makes. Think about how many people are in prison for non-violent crimes. Think about how much money cigarette companies make and how much money a legal marijuana industry could make. Whenever a a conversation ever involves money, try your best to have some fiscal perspective. 

Oh yeah, *whisper whisper*. Guess who wrote a budget plan that included $40 billion in taxpayer money to be given to Exxon Mobil annually? This bunny-fucker. And before you right wingers start drooling out some glorious speech about capitalism, it turns out that Exxon isn't going to help pay for housing for the families that they shit their eco-killing-oil on top of. 

Diablo 3

I played the Diablo 3 demo because I have been told by the internet that I should be excited about it. I'm sure that if you ask Blizzard, they would give a hearty, change-jingling laugh from behind their desks made of money and say that Diablo 3 is a gift to us poor console wretches. We should revel in it's glory, for it was orginally a PC masterpiece, cut up and downgraded so that we orphan-dirty Xboxers may at least see what good taste is before returning to our advertisement saturated game boxes. I didn't like it.

I have a problem with single character loot-a-thons. I have never enjoyed them. I didn't like Baldur's Gate, or the first Diablo, and I did finish Torchlight, but only because it was short. Deathspank was funny, but it got monotonous quick. I could play Diablo 3, and probably finish the entire game, simply because of the customization depth, but I wouldn't be moved one way or the other after finishing. It's hack and slash, Diablo players make snooty comments about how juvenile 90's sidescrolling beat em ups are, (specific personal example) and then go onto their computers and do the exact same thing. I need a party. I need true adventure. I need the possibility of something different in the next cave than the last one. 

Syria

I approach this growing question from a couple of different angles. I think about the human rights that have been violated, I think about exactly why we should go to war, and the reasons that we have gone to war in the past. No matter how many different perspectives I have, they all end up with the same answer at the end of lane, we really shouldn't go to Syria.

My first reaction was shock and horror in the viewing of the human rights violations. Regardless of who you agree with, the use of these chemical weapons is an established fact now, it did happen, and they were used by a government to suppress it's own people. Yes, someone should stop Assad and hold him accountable for his crimes. It just can't be us. We are war weary as a nation, and we are coming off of a war that most of us see as unnecessary. We are coming off of a war that we as a people were deliberately lied to about. I believe we are at a stage of human civilization that requires a global consensus before war can be waged. Perhaps the UN is too scared too mount any sort of offensive, but that is our global government, and they said no. Other avenues need to be explored now.

 I also look at this as a skeptic. I believe (like every comic book fan does) that we have a responsibility as the most powerful nation on the planet Earth to protect those who can't protect themselves. We enter many an armed conflict with our leaders spouting some version of what I just said, but I'm not naive enough to believe that we always have the most altruistic of intentions. If we really protect the defenseless, why didn't we intervene in Darfur? Or Rwanda? How about the Armenian genocide, or the endless Israel/Palestine conflict? What about Tibet, or Juarez Mexico? (That last one is just two measly miles from our own border). Those countries and locations have nothing to offer us in return, so their catastrophes went on unhindered. We don't protect democracy or human rights, we help you so that you can help us. Be it oil or a new USA-sympathetic leader that gets installed, America only enters that which will make it stronger. That, I do not support.

Really quick, before I wrap this up, I just want to say something about the huge wave of criticism that Obama is receiving over this. I don't understand why. There should be no embarrassment in the democratic process. A dictator killed his own people, women and children, by the hundreds, with nerve gas. Obama goes to congress and asks for permission to go to war. They say no, so we aren't going. That's how the process works. Now, if we aren't going to war, what are Obama's options? He certainly can't ignore the situation, instead, he is forcing the global and American community to have a debate about this. We are all talking, we are all paying attention, and Obama is the reason.

Peace out, and tomorrow, video games, I promise.

Becoming one with the mountain

So as you read last week, I took the lady and the kid to the Jersey Shore, and we followed that adventure immediately by a trip up to the mountains. Two vacations rolled into one trip, and a much needed battery recharge for all of us. I felt like a dwarf, like Bruenor, or Gimli, staring at the mountain and finding nothing but peace within. 

Oliver and I had many mountain naps.

This is where I got to have my coffee every morning, where I read and finished Neil Gaiman's new book, and where a lot of new blog ideas came from.

So I'm back, vacation over. Tomorrow, politics.

Vacation

If you've been checking Pokedad this week, then you have noticed that I haven't been updating or posting anything new. That's because I'm on vacation bitches, we're at the shore, which won't sound like a big deal to all my Pennsylvania readers, but to my Chicago friends, its the actual ocean, like, the real one.

I've been relaxing on the beach with this piece.

This is the 2nd year in a row that we have gone to the Jersey Shore, and here on the east coast, it's just something that every family does. I hope that we can make this a serious tradition, something other than Christmas to look forward to every year.

Other than the sand though, there was an arcade on the boardwalk, which made me super excited. Oliver made his geeky father proud, experiencing air hockey, skeeball, Cruisin USA, and even Time Crisis. (My 2 year old, shot giant spiders with a rail gun right next to his dad).

Oliver got a hermit crab, and he picked out a Batman shell for it.

Please be patient while I finish my R&R. We are wrapping up our Jersey Shore vacation, and going right to our next destination, the Poconos, for the 2nd leg of our family adventure. Now here, watch this video of Oliver dancing on the boardwalk that I dubbed Lil Jon music over.