I was invited (after much begging) to be on the Geek Syndicate podcast this week. Had a blast. Here is the first part of that.

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Yes, in less than seven days the Widget starts Girl Scout camp and I get to have a normal work day again . . .for 4 weeks anyway. Then August arrives and my work day gets stupid again. But for four glorious weeks I will be happy. Or as happy as I am capable of being anyway. read more »

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From the V-2 Rocket entry: “Over 3,000 V-2s were launched during World War II against Allied targets, resulting in the death of an estimated 7,250 military personnel and civilians. An estimated 20,000 inmates at Mittelbau-Dora died constructing V-2s, making the V-2 perhaps the only weapon system to have more deaths caused by its production than its deployment.”

Another way to look at it: the Nazis developed the equivalent of a gun that killed ten workers at the gun factory every time it was fired.

I really need to track down a good biography of Von Braun. There’s a horrible Faustian quality to his entire career. Dude just wanted to develop reliable space travel, but he had to pioneer what would become the most devastating weapons platform known to man to get there.

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North Carolina is hot. I cannot emphasize this enough. Including the word “North” in its name could be construed as false advertising, were state names subject to FDA regulation or any sort of truth in advertising laws. The word “North” is inextricably associated with words like “snow”, “Santa Claus”, and “Holy Shit it’s fucking freezing up here.” When some one says “North” to you the first image that pops into your mind is not one of an atmosphere so humid and thick that you can see it. So unpleasant that the very act of breathing becomes painful as your lungs are simultaneously seared by the heat and drowned by the 99% relative humidity. read more »

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In a bold move that stuns no one, Marvel is bringing back Cap.

Well, duh.

I first caught the news from Geeks of Doom, where they report the following…

In an interview with Marvel, Brevoort said that from the moment of Cap’s death, they’ve been planning the story of his return.

I mean, everyone knew this was going to happen, it was only a matter of when. So, y’know, being disappointed about another “dead” character coming back makes as much sense as being disappointed that water still flows downhill.

Still. I’m disappointed.

I dunno. To me, killing Cap off was a ballsy move and that made it interesting. He was a character that Marvel had tried and failed to make relevant for years, possibly decades, and they finally got him a solid run with an acclaimed creative team and A-list sales, and what do they do? They kill the bastard. That’s hardcore anti-cookie-cutter thinking. But bringing him back so soon just turns the whole thing into a by-the-numbers marketing decision that we’ve seen a hundred times before: “Hype death, ride that wave for a couple years, hype return, ride that wave for a couple more, figure out the next big hype event by then, keep doing this until the sun dies.”

I have no doubt that Team Cap can make good comics out of the whole thing, they certainly have so far and there’s no reason to suspect they’d stop now, but I just don’t care any more.

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