The Aviary

And then, I guess I fell off the internet. I mean, I've been reading my flist and all, but haven't really wanted to post anything. But here are some things:

- This is the Week of Birthdays for my family - Dad's is today and Katie's is tomorrow. So we celebrated Dad's last weekend (concurrent with Father's Day) and we'll do Katie's this weekend. Dad's was fun - we went to Port Townsend and hung out in a park and threw frisbees. We even had a bunch of little boys come and ask if they could play, so we taught them how to throw frisbees too. We are none of us any good at it, so our teaching may not have been productive, but we had a good time.

- I have been reading some Marvel comics. Mostly Daredevil, which I am thoroughly enjoying, but I'm also rereading Alias. Which was the first Marvel comic I ever read, probably around 10 years ago. I enjoyed it then but I think I'm getting more out of it now since, y'know, I know who some of the other character are. (My exposure to Marvel comics prior to the MCU consisted of a few cartoons, Alias, a friends continuing to try to get me interested in the X-Men. Protip: this has never worked.)

- In other, more ridiculous comics news, I'm gonna talk about Fourth World things. So, as you may know, one of the fannish things I do is make fanmixes. Mostly just for me, as they are always mildly ridiculous. I have an Apokolips fanmix, because of course I do, have you met me? It's pretty good (though there's at least one song on there that's tonally wrong but I keep it because it makes me giggle.) I keep thinking I should try to make a New Genesis fanmix and then I realize that all the songs I want to put on the New Genesis fanmix are absurd. Seriously, among the songs that would definitely be on the mix are In Time from Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, We Don't Need Another Hero from Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome and Donovan's Universal Soldier. I'm not even kidding.

( - No, man, We Don't Need Another Hero is actually a wonderful Mister Miracle song, you don't even understand, it is perfect. I have this whole big incoherent explanation for this, which includes tangents into how Scott is the ultimate embodiment of the Life Equation because of his absurd domestic sitcom life, comparing Scott and Orion's respective destinies, and also ranting about how everything involving the New Gods post-Flashpoint is wrong and terrible*, but I will spare you. No one actually needs to listen to me talk about Fourth World. There's a lot of flailing involved. Scott just wants to get beyond Thunderdome, you guys!)

- These are all pretty happy things, but I am actually currently kinda depressed. I mean, I will still absolutely do the animated flailing about Thunderdome thing, but there's kind of a grey flatness underneath it, which sucks. I mean, I'm pretty sure it will eventually go away but, y'know. There we are. Oh well.

- I think I will now go read more comics.






*It continues to be wrong and terrible and yet I keep reading it, what is wrong with me?

Things:

- My mom went to a tea shop in Poulsbo that I haven't been to yet and bought me this tea that is almond cookie flavored. And it does, indeed, taste just like a drinkable almond cookie. It is amazing. I think I am going to have to go to this shop and buy everything they sell.

- I was seized this morning with the urge to rewatch Blakes 7. I can't think of any reason why that would be a bad idea and anyway, I need a new knitting show. So, the only reason I am not watching Blakes 7 right now is that I'm at work. Cursed need for employment!

- We have this sort of vague Adult Winter Reading program* going on right now that's mystery themed and I have to do a week-long mystery display next week. So far, my coworkers have done mysteries set in foreign countries, romantic mysteries, and mysteries about food. I am running true to type and doing spec fic mysteries, so I've been placing holds all afternoon. I'm calling my display "It Came From Beyond the Mystery Section" because I am nothing if not ridiculous. (While doing this, I have discovered that my library doesn't have a copy of The Demolished Man, which is obviously unacceptable.)

- Yesterday, my shelving story started out being about some sort of robot separatist colony and then I eventually realized that what I was doing was essentially telling myself the plot of The Dispossessed with added robots. So maybe I should reread that some time soon. I do still kinda like my separatist robots, though.

- And then, a man named Steve Rogers called to sign up for a program we're having this weekend. I am now imagining Captain America attending our little Kingston library mystery event. It is a happy-making thought.







*There are no prizes.

Things:

- While driving to work today, I found myself behind a car with an "Agent Coulson Lives" bumper sticker. I don't know who you are, sir or madame, but you are officially my favorite person in Kitsap county today.

- The thing about being home alone is that it means that, if I want to spend extensive periods of time knitting, I can do so uninterrupted. Which is why the pair of socks I started last week is nearly finished. I'm pretty pleased with them: the cabling turned out pretty well and I've now learned how to knit an afterthought heel. (Like most things that I learned to do in crochet first, it is more fiddly and difficult but looks better.) Alas that it is not quite cold enough to start wearing handmade socks.

- All that knitting requires knitting tv. I have been rewatching Justice League, which is still immensely fun. I have also been reading comics about the Flash. Here is what I love about Flash comics today: ice skating themed supervillains. I have not actually read a lot with the Golden Glider, but her existence fills me with joy. Mostly, I like the Rogues in general. I find myself charmed by the idea of a group of supervillains who have basically all said, "Screw taking over the world - I just want to rob banks and watch hockey." Because, let's face it, that is exactly the kind of supervillain I would probably be - clever enough, but not particularly ambitious. Though, in my case, the hockey would probably be replaced with sci-fi tv.

- You could tell that school had started at the library today, because we already had kids coming up to the desk and asking for school supplies. Ah, September. (Also, the thing where school here starts on the Wednesday after Labor Day continues to confuse me. Why would you start school on a Wednesday? I mean, I suppose starting on a Tuesday makes just as little sense, but it's the thing that I grew up with and thus is Correct, right? Heh.)

Continuing to read 60's Avengers comics.

I have to say, I really love (and by "love" I mean "find incredibly hilarious") the Avenger's continuing tendency to go, "Oh, hey, you tried to kill us! Do you want to join our team?"

You guys, I'm pretty sure that is not an effective recruitment strategy.

I took today as the last day of my vacation, in order to recover from my trip. Since I had a day off at home and nothing pressing to do, I went to see The Avengers again. Because why not, right?

Okay, so here is a weird minor problem that I have that I am going to share with you, and I have it with the Earth's Mightiest Heroes cartoon as well. Does anyone else occasionally find themselves yelling "Melee weapons!" at Hawkeye while watching him fight? I mean, total badass and I like watching him fight stuff and I know that you obviously want to have at least one dedicated ranged fighter in your party but for gods' sake, you give the ranger a sword as well as a bow. Melee weapons - often useful.

Now I kinda want the fic where the Avengers all play D&D. Someone should write that.

Things I have thought about today:

- The degree to which I hate the AR reading program cannot adequately be expressed in words.

- Sometimes, I regret that I couldn't listen to some of the music I have now when I was a teenager. I was not and am still not a radio listener, so I didn't start getting properly exposed to music that was not my parents' music until I got to college and discovered Napster. Good times. However, this meant that, mostly, I expressed my teenaged angst via Broadway musicals. In retrospect, that is a little embarrassing. I mean, Sweeney Todd is acceptable because I still express a lot of angst in the form of "I will kill everybody"*, but the rest of it was just kind of sad.

- Although my normal reaction to fannish obsession is to make up stories, they come in two different kinds. About fifty percent of the time, I can make up proper fanfiction. The rest of the time**, I end up with serial-numbers-filed-off vaguely original fic that's heavily based on the fannish obsession. Apparently, the Avengers are the latter. Which means that I have spent the last several days making up superheroes. I don't have, y'know, plotlines yet or villains, really, but I do have pretty awesome superheroes. (They are all ladies. Because shut up, that's why.)

- I have a plan for tomorrow. That plan is to do absolutely nothing except watch tv and read fanfiction and probably knit. It is an excellent plan.

- Does anyone else spend ridiculous amounts of time trying to figure out where to put footnote asterisks in relation to other punctuation? It worries me.






*I do not actually want to kill everybody.

**Well, not quite. Every once in a while, there's a fannish obsession that I can't manage to do either with. Sherlock Holmes is one of these, for some reason. I can't write actual Holmes fic and filing the serial numbers off makes it unsatisfying. Fortunately, there is no lack of Holmes fic out there, both published and on the interwebs, so I make do.

So, tonight I went to see Thor.

( Spoilers. Also, y'know, random stuff about heathenry. )

So...I continue to read old Avengers comics.

It is more than a little disquieting the way that Wanda and Pietro keep being drawn as though they are about to kiss. See?



Freaky.

So. I have been reading Marvel comics. I plan to blame bethos for this, I think. Specifically, I have been reading really old Avengers comics, because the internet allows me to start from the beginning and I am kind of an obsessive completist nerd sometimes. They are surprisingly fun, if somewhat overfull of exclamation points. And it's kinda neat reading comics where I don't really know the universe well at all. I keep being surprised by things because they are not the way the DCU is. For instance, wow, everybody lives in New York, huh? Which is, y'know, really New York. It's bizarre.

I am terribly confused by the fact that the Hulk speaks in complete sentences. It's like the flashback in Watchmen where Rorschach uses pronouns - weirdly unsettling. Ultimately though, I care about Rorschach and could not possibly care less about the Hulk, so the effect is somewhat different.

Anyway. The real reason of this post is so that I can post this one panel. It is from Avengers #4, and is for bethos. I find it unaccountably hilarious, and so I share it with you.



I kinda want to make that speech bubble into an lj icon. I have no idea what I'd use it for, mind, but it would make me laugh.