Comics, everybody!

Over the past couple of weeks, the buzz around Edgar Wright leaving the production of Ant-Man, surely Marvel’s most risky film project yet, after being with the project since 2006 over what appear to be creative differences over the direction the studio wanted to take the story, has been interesting, yet still pretty discouraging, because so many of us geeky types have been really interested to see what Wright (known for small-scale classics such as Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World) could bring to this C-list Marvel mainstay, who is, admittedly, a rather ridiculous concept.

Not having any sort of insider knowledge, I can kind of imagine the issues here; Wright’s definitely a visionary guy; his work has a distinctive style, which could definitely benefit a relatively obscure character like this, and that was probably a big selling point back when he championed the project. In the meantime, though, Marvel Films has become larger than the individual projects – a quirky Wright Ant-Man might no longer fit with the interconnected world they’ve managed to grow since. It might be the best move, it might not. I’d still love to see a Wright version of the project, but I could understand there being concerns. Many are still pretty worried about switching direction so radically so late in the development process (the film’s already been storyboarded and cast, it’s set to go in front of cameras in the next couple of weeks), and rightfully so.

Anyway – Saturday brought news that a new director has been appointed after a couple of uncharacteristically public misfires. That choice? Peyton Reed, who has produced many well done (if somewhat workmanlike) films, including Down With Love and one of my personal guilty pleasures, Bring it On. He was also originally in the running to do a 60s-based Fantastic Four film, which was a great idea, though got sidelined when the rather lackluster films from a couple of years ago got made instead.

I’m actually kind of okay with Reed at the helm – he does good work which would fit with an existing “house style”, can handle comedic material (which this movie almost certainly involves, given it’s history with Wright, and the involvement of Adam McKay being teased), and he’s enough of a seasoned professional to shoot this thing quickly and efficiently enough to make the 2015 release date and still produce a quality product (if not the auteur film Wright would have made), which I think is what Marvel’s really looking for.

All that said, I really kind of like the quickie plot summary Marvel recently released:

Armed with the astonishing ability to shrink in scale but increase in strength, con-man Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) must embrace his inner-hero and help his mentor, Dr. Hank Pym (Michael Douglas), protect the secret behind his spectacular Ant-Man suit from a new generation of towering threats. Against seemingly insurmountable obstacles, Pym and Lang must plan and pull off a heist that will save the world.

It’s not totally in line with established comics history, but it hits a lot of the rightnotes with Scott Lang’s (the second canonical Ant-Man) traditional story arc. Plus, I’m a sucker for a well-made heist movie, so call me cautiously optimistic on this one.

Last week was pretty much the week from hell. Among other things, I was saddled with leading a work project I wasn’t expecting when I came in Monday morning, though I’ve been kicking the project’s ass, and been granted the auspicious (and somewhat questionable) title of Test Commander. Sadly, I haven’t been issued a badge or anything, but I did make this one for myself:

The weekend, however, was somewhat better. I got a chance to rest a little bit on Friday, which I needed desperately, and spent the day Saturday on top of a mountain with a bunch of friends, for this summer’s first expedition into the Blue Ridge to hike a bit of the Appalachian Trail.

Here we are before setting off. See how fresh-faced and energetic we seem so early on a Saturday morning!

I’d done this particular section before (Thornton Gap to the Byrd’s Nest shelter and back, with a stop off at Mary’s Rock), though it’s been a while since I did the Mary’s Rock ascent, which is about a mile and a half straight up. Sadly, I set the pace for our group – slow and steady on the ascent – as a favored the ankle I twisted a while back taking a bad step around a pile of toner cartridges in the office (First World Problems), and also because I’m a little fat, old, and slow at the moment.

In any case we survived the roughly eight mile round trip (with an almost 2000 foot elevation change each way) with minimal difficulty, engaging in enjoyable (and occasionally ribald) banter for the duration, and encountering one vicious, bloodthirsty snake (which may be a slight exaggeration), eventually celebrating our success with libations and cheese at The Culpeper Cheese Company, which has become our traditional post-expeditionary rally point. Highlights this time were The Drunken Goat (cheese) and Apocalypse Ale Works’ Lustful Maiden (not cheese).

All was well and good, except for the aches of age I’m still feeling in my calves two days later. I’m doing my best to fight off the unstoppable force of aging, but I’m slowly losing ground. I was in worse shape (and at least 20 pounds heavier) when I last tackled this particular ascent (and there were four inches of snow on the ground at the time), but adding another couple of years of wear and tear on the body is feeling pretty damned apparent right now.

Sunday I spent a little time playing some country music, backing up my buddy Steve Wyse for a couple of tunes along with another ephemeral version of the Down Home Dharma band, getting chance to stretch my lead guitar skills a bit (luckily, the solo breaks didn’t extend past my 45 seconds or so of competency, so I didn’t embarass myself too much), and having a good time doing it. If you get the chance, I highly recommend checking out Steve’s current band, Cha Cha’s Cadillac, for some great country-punk rockabilly music.

So yeah, that’s what I’ve been doing lately. I’m hoping this week is quiet, unless the noise involves guys tacking up vinyl siding on my house, since order ought to be getting in from the factory soon. I’m actually pretty impatient for this business to be over with.

I spent all last week breathing in drywall dust thanks to construction at the office. Thus, I spent most of the weekend sacked out on the couch watching campy 80s movies and cracking the new Dresden (very good so far…you should read it).

I’m required to do some actual work this week (both for the day job and for Antimatter*), plus I have to learn a couple of country songs for the weekend.

I hope my lungs can handle it.

___________________________

*- I’ve mentioned this before, right? I didn’t? Sorry. Anyway – Antimatter Press is a small e-press run by some friends of mine who recently brought me into the fold to help create neat things for all you folks to read on your newfangled e-readers. We have many interesting things in the pipeline that I’ll talk about here as they come up, but right now, I’m having a good time learning about my place in the machine (including learning the mechanics of turning manuscripts into something that looks pleasing on your device), and getting really excited about the cool stuff we’re working on, including Unseaming, the new short story collection from Mike Allen, which you can read about on the antimatter site. Check out that cover art! It’s amazing, as are the stories within. Be ready with your wallets when this thing hits in October!

Weekend: exterior light fixtures. bicycle. card games. guacamole. laundry. measurement. renfaire. burritos. Not particularly unusual.

Random thought: The Bourne Legacy works surprisingly well if you pretend that it’s basically a pre-Avengers solo Hawkeye movie. Just replace Treadstone/Outcome with some Black Ops fork of the Super Soldier program or Department H, and add a scene at the end with Nick Fury walking on to recruit him into SHIELD. The chem effects explain how he was able to keep up with Asgardian gods, gamma monsters, and guys in powered armor better than his comic childhood as a carny trick shot performer would (not that such an origin isn’t awesome), and Renner’s portrayal of “Aaron Cross” (an obvious alias) is totally consistent with Clint Barton.

Who cares if he never picks up a bow in the movie? I want to believe.

…you kinda had to be there.

While news of same-sex marriage bans being struck down across the country isn’t exactly an uncommon headline these days, the decision in Pennsylvania yesterday is of particular significance to me. While I mostly consider myself a Virginian these days, having spent nearly half my life here, and having lived in my current residence in the Richmond suburbs longer than I’ve lived in any other single place in my entire life, Pennsylvania is the place where I was born, and although I haven’t felt particularly at home there in a long time (in large part due to the regressive attitudes historically displayed in the vast wilderness between the two major metropolitan areas), the events of the Keystone state will always draw my attention.

The news that the Constitutional ban on gay marriage in PA has been struck down is particularly gratifying, in part because it shows that the prevailing tides of tolerance in this country have finally started cracking the conservative bastions of my youth, and that dear friends may finally have their perfectly normal, loving and committed relationships recognized the same way mine is. Also, I’d be lying if I didn’t take some personal satisfaction in the schadenfreude inherent in the fact that Judge John E. Jones III, who issued the ruling, was endorsed in his placement to the Federal Judiciary by none other than perhaps Pennsylvania’s most well-known homophobe, former Senator Rick Santorum.

It’s honestly gratifying to see things changing. It was also rather gratifying to note that my facebook feed, which still contains several folks in Pennsylvania who regularly spew forth with all kinds of conservative Glenn-Beckian froth, was completely free of wailing and gnashing of teeth 24 hours after the announcement of the ruling. I’m sure I’ll see some in coming days, but I take solace in the fact that people are either finally coming along, or at least have the decency to remain quiet in the homophobia.

Personally, I’d love to see some of the language from Judge Jones’ ruling become appropriated as a rallying cry for the movement, as his words were particularly eloquent:

We are a better people than what these laws represent, and it is time to discard them into the ash heap of history.

The times, indeed, are changing, for the better. However, like in other states, the issue isn’t entirely settled. If you’re of a mind (and I hope you are), you might check out Equality Pennsylvania to get involved and see this process through to the end.

So really, it was flying to Atlanta, but the history major in me leapt to Sherman’s march, and I felt like pissing off some Confederate sympathizers who might be reading, because that’s what we Damn Yankees are wont to do. So there.

In any case, when we last left the ongoing narrative of my life, I had arrived in Atlanta, and was eating breakfast at the hotel before heading into the Atlanta office for several days of workshops, requirements validation, and software testing. As the office didn’t require us until after lunch, my travel companion and I worked from our hotel rooms for the morning, then met up to grab some lunch at a busy shopping center nearby before heading over to the local office.

Upon arriving at the office, we retrieved our bags, finding them somewhat lighter. Seems both our laptops were missing, along with my companion’s brand new iphone. In spite of the extreme unlikeliness of us both forgetting our laptops and losing a phone (which we’d used earlier for GPS), we attempted to call the phone with mine (off – straight to voice mail) and returned to our hotels to confirm that, however unlikely it might be, that the computers weren’t there.

They weren’t. Laptops and phone were gone, stolen from a locked vehicle in a crowded parking lot adjacent to two busy restaurants. Welcome to Atlanta.

We both took this pretty well, considering (well, my travel buddy was rather distraught over the phone, understandably), and sort of feeling like we could use General Sherman marching through to burn buildings and bend some rails around trees in vengeance, we made reports to our security officers and the local police, who were quite pleasant and confirmed for us that the car was indeed locked (the lock was forced), thus absolving my companion, the driver and keeper of keys, of any lingering guilt, and obtained loaner machines from the local office to get us through the week.

Theft aside, though, it was a pleasant and productive trip. I was made to feel welcome by people who I’d never met in person (we all got along swimmingly, having spent hours on the phone together over the last several months), I felt useful and comfortable within the familiar embrace of the software development cycle process, was impressed by the way this particular project was being managed, and ended up sitting through the same briefings three times for different audiences, but ended up not minding too much because of the pleasant company.

Also, having posted a brief line of bitching to facebook, I ended up reconnecting with an old college friend in the area that I hadn’t seen in somethng like 18 years, who, through serendipitous circumstance, works about five minutes from where I was staying. We had a nice evening catching up over local brews and pretty good food at a local pub. Thanks, Erik, for the hospitality and local guide service – hopefully I can reciprocate the favor some time soon.

Otherwise, I didn’t really get to see that much of Atlanta (though it looks like I’ll be getting to know the area pretty well over the next year, between business travel and other potential commitments) due to work and various running about to address issues rising from the unfortunate theft of my employer’s property, but I did make the effort to see the one local landmark that every Atlanta resident, to the person, told me I had to see: The Big Chicken of Marietta, who was kind enough to pose for photographs:

I greet you, dear reader, from the suburbs of Atlanta, GA, while I eat my breakfast this fine balmy (and pollen-laden) morning here in the Capital of the Peach State, which I will likely get to see very little of over the next couple of days, unless one counts the interiors of hotel rooms and anonymous office park conference rooms as tourist destinations. Knowing there are whale sharks just a few miles from here that I won’t be able to visit because working hours cross over pretty much completely with aqaurium operating hours is more than a little heartbreaking.

But that’s today. Yesterday was half a day at the office and another half inside the domestic airline system, which was relatively mundane, all told. Boeing 717 seats (especially the middle one on the right side) are kind of tight, but my rowmates were both pleasant (and small, so my shoulders didn’t bump into them too much), so it wasn’t that bad. Sunday was likewise the usual, aside from my facilitating a surreptitious plan for breakfast in bed for the mother of my children, and a nice lunch out with friends.

The rest of the weekend was a bit more interesting, stressful in the sense that I wrote a really big check on Friday afternoon which will lead to my house looking much prettier (and maintenance free) on the outside in the next couple of weeks, but probably reducing stress long term thanks to increased property values and significantly less maintenance. Also, it’s going to be green – which is calming; just ask the hallways of various hospitals and psych wards (though my house will be much less institutional, one would hope).

The big fun, however, was on Saturday. I had a gig. Once again, Scott and Kirsten of The Blibbering Humdingers, Cary NC’s premier wizard rock ensemble, were kind enough to let me sit in on bass for a couple of sets at a show in Northern Virginia, where we rocked the nerdy t-shirts off of a room full of dedicated fans in the company of other fine acts such as Jared twg, Hawthorn and Holly, and The District 13 Cowboys. We all had a great time, I once again managed to sound somewhat proficient on the bass guitar (even on tunes I’d not actually played before), and there’s slightly-more-than-idle talk that we might do this all again soon (in a really, really cool venue!) if all the details can be worked out.

(in this photo, we’re doing an unrehearsed song I’d never played before, so of course I’m glancing down at the ipad to catch the chord changes. Rawk.)

And that’s what I’ve been up to. Exciting, huh?

I was supposed to be in Atlanta this week. I’m not.

When people say “the last minute”, it’s usually a somewhat embellished description of events. In this case, it’s kind of embellished as well, but only by about three or four hours, and when we’re talking airport time, it doesn’t get much tighter than that, so relatively speaking, this one’s pretty literal.

Strap in, friends, for a story.

After a whirlwind week of meet-and-greets, rehearsals, and an eventual quick, unanimous decision for something that never happens quickly or unanimously, Colleen’s year-long volunteer commitment came to a successful end, and there was much rejoicing all around. Our Sunday was pretty long, with us leaving the house before 8am and not returning home until well after 9pm. It was exhausting, but kind of nice, as there was some steam blown off and toasts made to bring this crazy part of our lives to an end. Upon our return, we convinced the kitten we hadn’t abandoned her after all (she forgave us), and I packed a bag and removed all airport contraband from my laptop case, then finally made it to bed, convinced I was going to hit the office in the morning for a few hours to clear out the inbox, grab my ticket confirmations, and get on a plane before lunch.

When i got to the office, I found, buried amongst the usual crap, a short message, sent late Sunday afternoon (when nobody was in the office and most don’t have access to email anyway) indicating that the event I was supposed to check my bags to travel to in a couple of hours was postponed for technical issues, and that we’d try again next week.

Not cool.

So, with about two hours to spare before I’d have to check in, I managed to cancel my reservations. Luckily, I ran into the spouse of the person I was traveling with during a fortuitous morning fire drill, because she didn’t know of the cancellation (she wasn’t planning on coming in before the airport). Bullet dodged there.

Now, I’m not really going to complain about being home for a week, especially this week. I’ve not been feeling that great anyway (a couple of busy weeks with little downtime will do that to a person), and I have a sit-in bass gig this weekend, so I could use a little more time to practice the tunes so I don’t embarass the band. Still, I’d managed to shift completely into travel mode, and having to shift back rather abruptly throws a person off.

So, as it stands now, I’ve been working locally and sleeping at home all week, fighting to find flights for next week (for some reason, things next week are tight – at least my travel companion and I will be on the same flight home), and figuring out if this thing’s actually going to happen at all, and trying to get myself rested enough to function normally again.

That’s my story. It kind of sucks, but it’s the glamourous life I lead. Aren’t you jealous?

…this particular phrase just popped into my head at random this afternoon. I shall now share it with you:

My own stools, Sir, are gigantic and have no more odor than a hot biscuit.

Haven’t seen this particular movie in years, but the image is *right there* and it made me laugh.