I guess I have Comic-Con to blame for the nerdy fanboyhood that came surging out like a teenage boy's inappropriate response to seeing the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue.
First, I hear everyone talking about Comi-Con 2009 this week, which I have to admit didn't seem to move me one way or another. I like comic books as an artform, and I respect the people who make them, but I never quite drank the Koolaid from a glass; I just snuck a sip here and there when the mood hit me.
Then, I innocently went to Google this morning and saw my all-time-favorite superhero on the Google logo, gracefully materializing the Letter 'L' next to his DC Comics colleagues.
Then I tweeted about the thrill of seeing my longtime favorite hero, and I get added by a Twitter account that covered all things GL. From there I saw the news about the new Green Lantern film slated to come out 2011 and I get all kinds of giddy. I should not, if I really want to preserve some shred of dignity, admit exactly how long and badly I have wanted to see someone do for Green Lantern what Christopher Nolan has done for Batman.
I have been a GL fan since I was still in my single digits. He was a little off the beaten path; everyone else was rooting for Batman, Spiderman, Superman, The Hulk, you name it. Green Lantern was just "B-List" enough to be cool. Plus, I'm a huge fan of certain shades of green and GL green is a VERY appealing to my sense of color and design.
He was also accessible to me in ways that many other name-brand superheroes like Superman weren't. Hal Jordan was a regular guy who gets selected to join the GL Corps and become a hardcore, stylin' superhero. Even Batman, being human, wasn't as easily accessible because he created by all the ugly and unfun events of his childhood. Later in life, I realized how much I liked that one of his biggest strengths was that his imagination was his greatest weapon. GL Power Ring + Creative Visualization = Badass Crime Fighting.
So in a span of ten minutes, I went from nonchalant to excited to positively giddy; all due to Green Lantern and his future exploits on celluloid.
Then it all came crashing down when I read who was cast in the lead. Ryan Reynolds is a fine actor, but he is not who I would have imagined for the role, not by a long shot. I can't see Ryan Reynolds and not think "Van Wilder." So to hear he was cast would be like hearing that Ben Stiller got the role. I'm told he did a fine job in "X-Men Origins: Wolverine," so I suppose I can try to reserve judgement.
But I swear, with God as my witness, if he screws the pooch in the movie I will mail him Ziploc bags full of the product of me eating nothing but green food coloring, feta cheese and kimchi for days until I feel justice has been dealt.
On the bright side, at least Jack Black isn't getting the part.
The following is true. Frankly, I'm not creative enough to make up stuff like this.
[Setting 'Wayback Machine' to 4 p.m. EST]
Phone: <ring! ring!> <Caller ID displays international number>
Me: <Intrigued, picks up phone> Hello?
Man With Thick Indian Accent: "Can I speak to <pause> Mr. Azzdeff?"
Me: "I'm sorry, who?"
MWTIA: "Mr. Azzdeff?"
Me: <confused and wondering if person is attempting to reach another extension at work> "I'm sorry, who are you calling for again?"
MWTIA: "It says here the last name is A-S-D-F, and the first name is A-S-D-F. I'm calling from <pause, stutters out a partial company name> <pause, checks self, stutters out a second partial company name> <pause, and finally remembers who he's supposed to be> I'm with the American Education... <trails off>. You filled out our online form."
Me: <visualizes online form filled with "asdf" being put in every field> <stifles laugh> "I'm sorry, but you've reached a business." <hangs up>
I sat there for a good thirty seconds afterward very amused by what happens when automated information systems don't include some kind of human intelligence as part of the process.
It also dawned on me that having a direct office line that is dialed by repeating the same three digits over again is probably going to lead to more hijinks in the future.
Dear Tivo,
It's been three months since we ended our six-year relationship together and I have to admit that a day doesn't go by when I don't think about you and times we spent together, late at night, on the sofa, with nothing on but the playlist.
I know you already know this, but you were my first DVR. And ever since we broke up, I can't help but measure all my other relationships against ours. You were sweet, funny, good-looking and above all, you were very sensitive to my needs. You were always trying to bring me things you thought I might like to watch together with you. I realize it was a little awkward in the beginning. I still remember the week we watched "The Muppet Movie" together on a lark, and you spent the next month trying to get me to watch episodes of "Barney & Friends" and old re-runs of "Fraggle Rock." Looking back, I feel bad about the number of times I hit 'Thumbs Down' button; I can see how how it might have made you feel.
I also feel bad that I left you for another service. I know it's not fair to ask you to keep trying new things. First it was asking you to open your port to my phone line, then I got you drunk and made you pair with my WiFi network. Pretty soon you were serving me pictures and MP3s off any server in my house without so much as a "Hi, what's your name? Wanna exchange packets?" You did it all, not once thinking about how dirty it made you feel or what you might be forced to see and hear when you started digging into my digital media stash. It was a lot to take, and I appreciate how you did it without once breaking down and crying or asking to take a shower; especially after I made you stream an entire Abba "Best Of" CD that I had ripped.
But I need to try new things, to have new experiences. I when I heard some of the girls at work talking about how they had tried recording two shows at once and how amazing it felt, and how it had changed everything, I knew we didn't have much time left together. I remember your ground rules from our first date; that you were only into cable networks where you knew what to expect, where you only received channels through one video input at a time. You weren't raised to be the kind of DVR that hooks up with any old satellite dish that happens to get 500 channels and find yourself getting double-teamed by "The Daily Show" on Comedy Central and "True Romance" on Cinemax while you try to hold in the tears and the shame.
So rather than make you break your vows, I decided it was best that we part ways. And while I do enjoy the nights I have together with DIRECTV, it's not really the same. DIRECTV gives it to me in so many different ways, but he doesn't make me laugh like you did with the funny little "bloop" noises and your cute little icons. Thumbing through your menus was like a little game we could play together where I always won, no matter what I did. DirecTV has about as much romance and fun as reading a Russian phonebook. Plus, he's always so cryptic. I can never tell what he's thinking, and even little things are like pulling teeth. I realize that sorting a playlist four different ways and having those settings be remembered isn't exactly rocket science, so I don't understand why DirecTV makes me feel bad for asking for it every time I use its boring, boxy remote (not the sexy little hourglass figure that you have on your remote).
I guess what I'm really saying is, Tivo, that I respect your boundries and I don't want to make you do what you don't feel comfortable with. I love you too much to make you change just to please me.
But I am hoping you can do me one last favor, in exchange for the years we had together. Could you come over one night this week? I'd like us all to get really drunk and hop in the hot tub together, and if it feels right, maybe you and the DirecTV DVR can, well... do a little experimenting, preferably without protection.
I promise I would raise your love child and teach it to be the best little DVR it can be; one that doesn't feel bad about itself for dual-channel recording, one what would take all 500 channels across three timezones as a badge of pride and not a mark of shame; it would do all the things you can't or won't. But best of all, it would have your eyes and your smile and that cute little way you know how to sort my playlist, just how I like it.
Call me, please?
Four years: it seems both like a blink and a 30,000 boxcar train of memories.
The last time I updated by blog, Hurricane Katrina had only just happened, the housing market had more bubbles than a flute of French champagne, and every state in the nation glowed in only one of two colors: Blue or Red.
Since the time I let my sad little blog go fallow in the fields of the intarwebz, so much has happened that the summary of events barely does it justice.
I sold my home in Florida and prepared to flee back to the Left Coast and my home turf in the Emerald City. I dismantled what reamined of my life in God's Waiting Room, packed up 2,200 square feet of furniture into a semi truck and sent it off ahead of me while I stayed behind to tie up loose ends.
I spent two strange days sleeping on the moist, freshly-shampooed carpets in an empty shell of a house as I waited for the sale to close, with Gadget and myself doing what we could to keep busy. Finally, on December 8, 2005, I packed up my computers and my puppy into my Jeep and proceeded to drive 3,800 miles in five days on my return home. The drive through Katrina-smeared Louisiana was stark and saddening. Texas smelled of a propane stove from the time I crossed the state line until I reached Arizona. The rest of the trip passed in a blur from Arizona through California, up through Oregon and back into the Evergreen state.
Once I returned home, I spent a good six months acting like a combination of under-employed 19-year-old and grizzled hobo as I refused to do anything that smacked of deadlines, responsibility and maturity. Lots of cereal, even more World of Warcraft, and a nearly constant schedule of dining out.
Little did I know that bigger things were waiting for me while I reprising my twentysomething slackerhood. I rekindled a burning romance with an old flame and before too long, our flame turned into a cozy hearth, a marriage and a beauitful baby girl. Around the same time, I found myself back in the seat-of-the-pants, bootstrap, Top-Ramen-and-Koolaid-budget world of dotcom startups... much the same way that a lot of pub-drinking men in 19th century England suddenly found themselves recruited into the Naval profession.
And much like a 19th century sailor, it took an act of mutiny for me to free myself from the HMS Bounty that I had been press-ganged into -- leaving me with about as much to my name in the process as Fletcher Christian.
But what had been a negative spiral took a very positive turn, including relocating AGAIN back to the East Coast to a brand new job, a great boss and the chance to put a decade of expertise to work in a place that wasn't likely to end up for sale in the local edition of the Penny Saver for dotcoms.
Since then I've turned 40, and am now expecting a second child. The future, as they say, is looking bright (if not a bit grayer around the sideburns, and now with the addition of prescription glasses).
So, here I am. Four years have passed, but the dorkboy in me is still spazzing out like Napoleon Dynamite on Red Bull.
I only hope my children can find it in their hearts to forgive me for the myriad ways I intend to embarrass them on their way to adulthood (and the even longer list of ways I'm sure I will do it without meaning to).
I hope you enjoyed the opening act. And please, ladies and gentlemen... try the veal.
