Wow, that was such a Monday.
Feb. 8th, 2005 08:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mandolinDon't you hate it when you go to bed early intending to go to bed early but roll around awake for three hours?
This is why I was operating on four and a half hours of sleep yesterday. Let me tell you, it was NOT pretty. I have never been able to operate well on less than seven hours sleep to begin with - I only pulled ONE all-nighter my entire four years of college because I fell asleep at my desk the other two times I came close. Add a status meeting and a How-The-Heck-Are-We-Going-To-Implement-This? meeting for the section I'm in charge of the front-end work for and my brain cells were pretty much dead by the time I left at 2:30.
I did have time to raid the comic book shop on the way to class - the bonus of Cosmic Comix moving to Catonsville is that it's on the way to UMBC. So some comic book thoughts, for once...
1) Amazing Spider-Man #516: I picked up Amazing Spider-Man back in 2001 when J. Michael Straczynski started writing the book, kicking it off with the interesting Ezekiel storyline and the 9/11 issue that even friends who hate comics found touching. Now, three and a half years later, I'm wondering when he's going to quit the book because it feels like he's winding down. I really didn't much like the previous storyline, "Sins Past," largely because of the circumstances in which Gwen got pregnant. (I refuse to believe THAT was consensual. I could not buy it in the least.) The side plot of "Sins Past," with MJ's theater rehearsals, was more interesting and believable, to be honest.
So now we're in the second issue of "Skin Deep," and again, it's all about the side story. I honestly can't tell if we're supposed to feel sorry for Charlie - at first, I thought JMS was trying to develop an antagonist the reader could sympathize with somewhat. But the more this issue flashed back to Peter's covering for him in high school... I stopped feeling sorry for him even BEFORE he threatened Peter's life and suggested blaming Spider-Man for his big screw-up. I agreed with Peter that Charlie should turn himself in just so he would SHUT THE HELL UP.
The good parts of this issue, of course, was not in the main story. The flashbacks were great largely because of the multiple instances of Uncle Ben backing up Peter when it was appropriate - and knowing when to draw the line. Again, it's pretty clear why Peter misses his Uncle still. And I have the rather unpleasant feeling that Charlie's disaster is going to screw up MJ's dress rehearsal. Call it a hunch. I may put this book aside for a while unless the next storyline picks up.
2) Spider-Girl #83: Meanwhile, after more than 80 issues, I still have yet to get tired of Spider-Girl. For a book spawned by a rather implausible "What if?" story (what if the child MJ miscarried lived, but was actually kidnapped by Osborn's cronies?) it remains a fairly solid entry. Even stand-alones like SG #81 have had their fair share of great moments - the new Avengers acting like excited kids trying to get their hero's autograph when May brought her father (in costume, of course) into the compound to try and figure something out was a great bit.
This issue is in the middle of a story arc that promises to be insane - and I can't believe it's only a 3-parter. While Elan continues to annoy the living hell out of me (what is up with all the female versions of Peter's nemeses? At least Lady Octopus wasn't as ANNOYING as Elan!), throwing Venom into the mix - and having it bonded to Normie, of all people - was a move guaranteed to mess with everyone involved. A potentially gimmicky move, but a good one. I give May's latest attempt at a normal relationship two more issues at best. Poor Chris.
I was surprised that there was a good reason behind May donning the black suit again - to divert the Avengers and the Fantastic Five from killing Normie as well as Venom (although really, if you take a good look at Venom and then May in the black suit, it's pretty obvious who's the freaking symbiote). Although it's pretty clear that she's going to have to risk doing what she most wants to avoid - hurting Normie - to take down Venom properly. The fact that Venom's pulled the exact same trick off twice should make this fairly obvious. Frankly, I think Normie would prefer to wind up in critical condition rather than be trapped inside Venom.
Lastly, the question of what's going on with Darkdevil is intriguing enough that I wonder why the heck it's a SUBplot at all. Not only did it bring Dr. Strange out into the open (and made me ever so happy that he's still around - Doc Magus is okay, but when he was introduced instead of Dr. Strange as the Sorcerer Supreme, I was kind of disappointed), but if whatever's happening to him is giving BOTH sorcerers a hard time, it may be as serious a problem as Venom. And since he's the only one who's managed to seriously hurt Venom, we're probably going to see the payoff next month.
Again, after the sprawling "Marked for Death" storyline, I cannot BELIEVE this is only a 3-parter...
3) Green Arrow #46: I actually stopped reading Green Arrow at the end of the "Straight Shooter" storyline, since I was getting a bit bored with the series. I picked it up again with "New Blood" when Dinah got fed up and left, and I'm not too much worse for wear despite a 10-issue gap. Brick seems an interesting enough villain, and Ollie's brawl with him to prove it was still "his town" amused me. As for Mia's discovery that she's HIV-positive... so far, it's been fairly well-played. So far. The only thing I regret about missing so many issues is that maybe they might give me a little more insight as to where Connor and Mia stand - it's not a sibling relationship if that kiss was any indication, but still not quite past platonic.
Liked her intro to the Teen Titans, and I can understand why she doesn't want to tell them she's HIV-positive immediately. However, you know that SOMEONE on the team will have to know for her medical records in case she's ever seriously hurt in action and Ollie's not around to cover for her. I hope that when the Titans find out, that's NOT how it comes out. For one thing, it's redundant because that's how Mia found out to begin with, and it would just be stupid for her not to have that on record for safety's sake. Also, maybe it's the 10-issue gap causing this reaction, but it seemed like Mia got too good too quickly - even taking the year of training with Connor into account. *shrug* Don't get me wrong, I like Mia taking on the Speedy title, but that seemed almost rushed.
...where was I?
Oh, yeah. Class.
So far, I'm liking Database Program Development a heck of a lot more than I did Data Communications and Networking. Dr. Zhou makes sense, her lectures are coherent, and it helps that we're kicking off with the Entity-Relationship Model - which breaks things down into visual representations that I can wrap my head around. I've already hooked up with a group, and the other two guys are pretty serious about this project, which means that a) I don't have to be in charge and b) I won't have to be calling group members while on vacation trying to get their section of the project.
It also helped that after 13 hours of stumbling around like a zombie, my brain finally turned on at 6:30 p.m - just when I figured that class was nearly over and I could start to wind down so I could crash early when I got home.
Finally, as I was packing up my things, I nearly tripped over something that had fallen on the floor of the classroom.
It was a cinnamon shaker.
Not a little packet of cinnamon, but an entire ground cinnamon shaker that you'd buy in the baking needs aisle of the grocery store. It was half-full, and someone had brought it into a computer science class and left it behind.
I have no idea what the point of bringing that in was, but I'm sure you all can speculate. ;)
This is why I was operating on four and a half hours of sleep yesterday. Let me tell you, it was NOT pretty. I have never been able to operate well on less than seven hours sleep to begin with - I only pulled ONE all-nighter my entire four years of college because I fell asleep at my desk the other two times I came close. Add a status meeting and a How-The-Heck-Are-We-Going-To-Implement-This? meeting for the section I'm in charge of the front-end work for and my brain cells were pretty much dead by the time I left at 2:30.
I did have time to raid the comic book shop on the way to class - the bonus of Cosmic Comix moving to Catonsville is that it's on the way to UMBC. So some comic book thoughts, for once...
1) Amazing Spider-Man #516: I picked up Amazing Spider-Man back in 2001 when J. Michael Straczynski started writing the book, kicking it off with the interesting Ezekiel storyline and the 9/11 issue that even friends who hate comics found touching. Now, three and a half years later, I'm wondering when he's going to quit the book because it feels like he's winding down. I really didn't much like the previous storyline, "Sins Past," largely because of the circumstances in which Gwen got pregnant. (I refuse to believe THAT was consensual. I could not buy it in the least.) The side plot of "Sins Past," with MJ's theater rehearsals, was more interesting and believable, to be honest.
So now we're in the second issue of "Skin Deep," and again, it's all about the side story. I honestly can't tell if we're supposed to feel sorry for Charlie - at first, I thought JMS was trying to develop an antagonist the reader could sympathize with somewhat. But the more this issue flashed back to Peter's covering for him in high school... I stopped feeling sorry for him even BEFORE he threatened Peter's life and suggested blaming Spider-Man for his big screw-up. I agreed with Peter that Charlie should turn himself in just so he would SHUT THE HELL UP.
The good parts of this issue, of course, was not in the main story. The flashbacks were great largely because of the multiple instances of Uncle Ben backing up Peter when it was appropriate - and knowing when to draw the line. Again, it's pretty clear why Peter misses his Uncle still. And I have the rather unpleasant feeling that Charlie's disaster is going to screw up MJ's dress rehearsal. Call it a hunch. I may put this book aside for a while unless the next storyline picks up.
2) Spider-Girl #83: Meanwhile, after more than 80 issues, I still have yet to get tired of Spider-Girl. For a book spawned by a rather implausible "What if?" story (what if the child MJ miscarried lived, but was actually kidnapped by Osborn's cronies?) it remains a fairly solid entry. Even stand-alones like SG #81 have had their fair share of great moments - the new Avengers acting like excited kids trying to get their hero's autograph when May brought her father (in costume, of course) into the compound to try and figure something out was a great bit.
This issue is in the middle of a story arc that promises to be insane - and I can't believe it's only a 3-parter. While Elan continues to annoy the living hell out of me (what is up with all the female versions of Peter's nemeses? At least Lady Octopus wasn't as ANNOYING as Elan!), throwing Venom into the mix - and having it bonded to Normie, of all people - was a move guaranteed to mess with everyone involved. A potentially gimmicky move, but a good one. I give May's latest attempt at a normal relationship two more issues at best. Poor Chris.
I was surprised that there was a good reason behind May donning the black suit again - to divert the Avengers and the Fantastic Five from killing Normie as well as Venom (although really, if you take a good look at Venom and then May in the black suit, it's pretty obvious who's the freaking symbiote). Although it's pretty clear that she's going to have to risk doing what she most wants to avoid - hurting Normie - to take down Venom properly. The fact that Venom's pulled the exact same trick off twice should make this fairly obvious. Frankly, I think Normie would prefer to wind up in critical condition rather than be trapped inside Venom.
Lastly, the question of what's going on with Darkdevil is intriguing enough that I wonder why the heck it's a SUBplot at all. Not only did it bring Dr. Strange out into the open (and made me ever so happy that he's still around - Doc Magus is okay, but when he was introduced instead of Dr. Strange as the Sorcerer Supreme, I was kind of disappointed), but if whatever's happening to him is giving BOTH sorcerers a hard time, it may be as serious a problem as Venom. And since he's the only one who's managed to seriously hurt Venom, we're probably going to see the payoff next month.
Again, after the sprawling "Marked for Death" storyline, I cannot BELIEVE this is only a 3-parter...
3) Green Arrow #46: I actually stopped reading Green Arrow at the end of the "Straight Shooter" storyline, since I was getting a bit bored with the series. I picked it up again with "New Blood" when Dinah got fed up and left, and I'm not too much worse for wear despite a 10-issue gap. Brick seems an interesting enough villain, and Ollie's brawl with him to prove it was still "his town" amused me. As for Mia's discovery that she's HIV-positive... so far, it's been fairly well-played. So far. The only thing I regret about missing so many issues is that maybe they might give me a little more insight as to where Connor and Mia stand - it's not a sibling relationship if that kiss was any indication, but still not quite past platonic.
Liked her intro to the Teen Titans, and I can understand why she doesn't want to tell them she's HIV-positive immediately. However, you know that SOMEONE on the team will have to know for her medical records in case she's ever seriously hurt in action and Ollie's not around to cover for her. I hope that when the Titans find out, that's NOT how it comes out. For one thing, it's redundant because that's how Mia found out to begin with, and it would just be stupid for her not to have that on record for safety's sake. Also, maybe it's the 10-issue gap causing this reaction, but it seemed like Mia got too good too quickly - even taking the year of training with Connor into account. *shrug* Don't get me wrong, I like Mia taking on the Speedy title, but that seemed almost rushed.
...where was I?
Oh, yeah. Class.
So far, I'm liking Database Program Development a heck of a lot more than I did Data Communications and Networking. Dr. Zhou makes sense, her lectures are coherent, and it helps that we're kicking off with the Entity-Relationship Model - which breaks things down into visual representations that I can wrap my head around. I've already hooked up with a group, and the other two guys are pretty serious about this project, which means that a) I don't have to be in charge and b) I won't have to be calling group members while on vacation trying to get their section of the project.
It also helped that after 13 hours of stumbling around like a zombie, my brain finally turned on at 6:30 p.m - just when I figured that class was nearly over and I could start to wind down so I could crash early when I got home.
Finally, as I was packing up my things, I nearly tripped over something that had fallen on the floor of the classroom.
It was a cinnamon shaker.
Not a little packet of cinnamon, but an entire ground cinnamon shaker that you'd buy in the baking needs aisle of the grocery store. It was half-full, and someone had brought it into a computer science class and left it behind.
I have no idea what the point of bringing that in was, but I'm sure you all can speculate. ;)
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