Saturday Shenanigans

Issue #145: No Kings

How’s it going readers?!? How is your Saturday going?

I was sitting here in my office goofing around on the interwebs and I thought about writing another one of these “regular” posts. It’s Saturday and I thought about scheduling it to post on Monday like I was usually doing with these but I figured, screw it, just do one for Saturday.

So I’m sitting here in my office (as I said). It is my day off from work (I am off on Saturday, Tuesday, and Wednesday). It’s raining here.

I gotta say that I am really sick of my job. I hate working there. I don’t want to complain too much because at least I have a job. It’s just not really what I thought I would be doing at 53. I thought I had completely removed myself from that industry but here I am again. Thanks to the company (sarcastically) that laid me off back in November. You guys suck. I’ve always been able to find work pretty easily but this time it’s just not happening. I don’t know if it is the state of the economy or nobody in my “regular” field of work wants to hire a 53 year old. Either way, it just sucks. Okay, that’s enough complaining and talk a bit about the normal stuff that I put out here.

There weren’t a lot of new releases from yesterday that were really all that interesting. My friend Justin from Punk Lotto Pod calls it the summer drought and I’m inclined to agree because lately, there hasn’t been a whole lot released that really blew my non-existent hair back. Anyway, here are a few things that were released yesterday that were somewhat compelling.

• The Seattle-based post-punk band Casual Hex released the album Zig Zag Illusion II on Youth Riot Records. I don’t remember how I came across this album. It’s been on my albums to check out when they are released for a while. I’ve never heard of the band. This is their 4th album.

• An alternative/pop-punk/indie rock band from Singapore called Subsonic Eye released Singapore Dreaming earlier this week (it came out on Wednesday instead of Friday). Another band I’ve never heard of. It was sort of recommended by the aforementioned friend Justin.

Here is the playlist that I’ve been listening to today (it is themed):

I haven’t done much reading this week. The only things that I read were (most of) the comics on this week’s pull list.

• Absolute Batman #9 by Scott Snyder. I’ve really been enjoying this series. This issue is the start of a new story arc for the series and introduces (as the cover shows) the Bane of this universe.

• Batman and Robin #22 by Phillip Kennedy Johnson. This one continues the story of Batman searching for his son Damian while also trying to solve the Memento murders.

• Supergirl #2 by Sophie Campbell. This one continues the story arc from issue #1 where Supergirl faces off with an imposter.

• The News Avengers #1 by Stephen Segovia. This new comic I think is trying to cash in on the Thunderbolts*/New Avengers movie. It was fine but I don’t think I’ll be continuing this series. I wanted to check out the #1 before I decided to commit my money to it.

• Star Wars #2 by Drew Baumgartner. This issue doesn’t touch on the political side of the New Republic as much as #1. It focused mostly on Luke’s search for some artifact.

• Giant-Size Amazing Spider-Man #1. This one features several stories written by various writers such as Kevin Smith, Chip Zdarsky, Al Ewing, and more. I haven’t finished reading this one but I’ll probably finish it up tonight.

• Robin & Batman: Jason Todd #1 by Jeff Lemire. This new series (I think it might be a mini-series) focuses on the early days of Jason Todd as Batman’s sidekick. I haven’t read this one yet but I’ll probably read it tonight after I finish the Spider-Man book.

Last Friday in the theater I saw the movie Ballerina. It is a spinoff of the John Wick series. I really liked this movie and will probably go to the theater and see it again. It is, so far, my 2nd favorite movie of the year (after Thunderbolts*). If you liked the John Wick series, I highly suggest you go see this.

Last night, I saw the movie How To Train Your Dragon. Decent flick. Strangely, I’ve never seen the original animated version. My son-in-law who saw it with me said that the movie was good but the animated version was better. He did also mention, however, that this was the live action remake of an animated movie that he has seen.

Here are some sports ball updates:

While the Chicago White Sox are still in last place, they have won 5 of their last 10 games and are doing better (winning percentage wise) than the Colorado Rockies so that means that they are dead last in the league. At least that’s something.

The Stanley Cup finals are still going on between the Edmonton Oilers and the Florida Panthers. The series is tied up 2-2. Personally, I don’t have a dog in this fight but I would rather see the Canadian team win.

Tuesday on Rebel Nerd Radio, we talked about the newest Star Wars animated series Tales of the Underworld. We mostly just did a recap of the show and shared our overall thoughts on it. Plus, we talked about what Star Wars characters we felt deserve their own “underworld” tales.

I recently started a new spinoff series of Rebel Nerd Radio where I will be talking with various guests about the Marvel comic book character the Hulk. It’s a patron early access series where patrons can see it first but now it is available on the YouTube channel. On this first episode, I talked with Blue about general Hulk stuff. It was sort of a Hulk 101 for people not familiar with the character.

Speaking of the Hulk, I joined Spencer for another episode of The Comic Den where we did a tribute to the late comic book writer Peter David and discussed his Incredible Hulk: Future Imperfect story.

Hmmmm…….I think that’s all I have for this issue. Oh wait, I’ve also done some stuff that I usually do over at the Radio Unfriendly Substack but I decided to start doing them over here instead just so I don’t have to maintain 2 different Substacks. If you haven’t checked those out yet, go check them out!

Okay, THAT is it for this issue. If you bothered to read this in full, thank you.