Russellmania.com

Paul is my Friend!

09.01.2010

Way back 5 years ago I found out through the glory of the interweb and eBay that I had been emailing (and buying auctions from) Paul Kupperberg, writer of my favorite 80's comic book, Vigilante. Over the years since I've seen Paul's name pop up every once in a while. He was an editor for Weekly World News, the WWE Kids magazine, and is currently working on Archie Comics. During one of my "let's type some random names in Facebook and see what happens" moments, I found a fan page for Paul Kupperberg. I joined up, but all you can really do on a fan page is post links to other articles about a person. Relatively useless in all actuality.

After the fan page search I managed to track down Paul the Man! He has over 2100 friends listed, so this must be the place for fans too. Or maybe he's just really likable and actually knows 2100 people? I shot off a friend request and anxiously awaited a response.

The next day I found out me and Paul are friends. We're buddies! Now if I just don't turn into Ralph from the local comic shop and talk about the intricacies of 20 year old story lines.

Permalink books/comics random

My nerd points are wide, not deep

08.31.2010

A while back I was talking to Josh, my brother from another mother, at Haven on a Saturday afternoon and made a comment of how I don't feel as much of a nerd as many others I see in the comics & gaming circles. It was then he told me that I've spent my nerd points wide over a large selection of topics & hobbies, while most people spend their points deep into relatively few subjects.

Comic nerds are a special breed. Those with there points deep into the Comics Nerd class are special indeed. Years ago I learned not to go to a comic shop on either Wednesday (new release day) or Friday (too many nerds day). Today was Tuesday, so I thought I would be safe. I needed to go to The Deep to investigate some trade paperbacks.

For those of you with 0 points in the Comic Nerd pool, trade paperbacks are collections of individual comics from a series or storyline, usually anywhere from 6-12 issues. If you don't want to keep up with a story from month-to-month, trades are the way to go.

Over the past year or two I've amassed some Green Lantern trades and don't really know what order to read them in. I don't have everything for the story lines that intertwined, so I asked my local comic shop professional which trades I needed to read, and in what order, to get up to date. That's when Helpful Comic Nerd Who Helps Run The Register popped in. HCNWHRTR (Who I'm going to call "Ralph" from here on) was the same person 3 years ago who was walking around telling everyone the details of whatever collectible card game they happened to be looking at. I thought I had asked a straight-forward question - "What books do I need and in what order?". For a normal bookstore this would be met by people scurrying around and creating a stack of books for me to buy expediently. Not in a comic shop.

For the next 20 minutes I heard - while getting some books, checking out, walking out the door, and getting in the car - various details of the story line, minor and major characters, effects on the canon history of the DC Universe, and what were the current effects of what happened in a storyline form a year ago. While most people that work (for an hourly wage) don't go into this much detail, the volunteer workers for damn near every comic shop I've set foot in seem compelled to do this. I don't know why, but it's the key sign of all of your nerd points going in the comics bucket.

I'm not sure what, in Josh's view, makes my nerd point spending wide. I've always thought of myself as a nerd. Comics, Star Trek, computer games... these are at the top of my list. Maybe these days it takes more to be a hardcore nerd. I've met other types of nerds. Theater nerds (the ones that act in plays, not going to the movies), bicycle nerds, motorcycle nerds. The list goes on and on. I need to get more specialized. I don't think I can ramble on for 20 minutes about a comic book storyline, though.

Permalink books/comics rambling

Slient Nights. And Days.

08.26.2010

It seems I've had nothing to say over the past couple of weeks.

Hmm.

It's been hot. Painfully hot. Maybe that has something to do with it? It's started to cool off a bit, so maybe I'll get talkative, or is it type-ative, again?

Permalink random

The end of the World Sauna Championships?

08.09.2010

Continuing my trend of what's happening with current events, I saw that Vladimir Ladyzhensky, a Russian competitor in World Sauna Championships, had recently died. Not just died, but died during the World Sauna Championships! If you're like me, the first thing that popped into your head was "what is a World Sauna Championship?"

It's sitting in a hot tub. At 230° to begin with.

Although the Championships (there are men and women categories) have been around since 1999, the accident which caused the death of Ladyzhensky and injured Timo Kaukonen may bring the competition to and end. While it's easy to poke fun at people seeing who can sit in boiling water the longest, how different is it from the endurance stunts performed by Criss Angel or David Blaine? Makes we want to go beat the train across the tracks! Blindfolded. Tied to the tracks. In a tub of boiling water.

But the water would only be at 229°.

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