I’ve never really given much thought about what I would consider the perfect crime. I’m not exactly ambitious so it probably wouldn’t extend much further then trying to purchase comics for my collection without Anna’s knowledge. She watches the movies and the Wii games like a hawk after all, so if I want to buy something perfectly crappy without having to listen to her grumble to me about it comics are really my only legitimate avenue of deception. Hey, I already feel guilty about buying Spider-Man comics, I don’t need her adding to my own self-imposed lecture.

Now sure, I found the whole Brand New Day storyline interesting at first, as writing out Mary Jane was the kind of huge shakeup that might recover the comic from the truly terrible Civil War storylines I had previously suffered through. But the whole concept has quickly stagnated, resulting in what now appears as nothing more then a blatant attempt at erasing everything J Michael Straczynski had written over the length of his tenure.

Now I know JMS wasn’t exactly popular with the Marvel fanboys. I mean really, attempting to add more depth to a character that was over 40 years old was simply unacceptable. Marvel and its fans simply would rather have numerous Spider-Man books that follow a basic plot by numbers arc rather then suffer through something that might actually result in a new experience for both the character and the reader.

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Well my little sister’s wedding went off with nary a hitch resulting in a pretty positive family get together for all involved. My father somehow managed to stay controlled throughout the proceedings, which considering his was giving away his baby girl is quite the feat. Sure he lied during his toast about not crying during the wedding ceremony, this was in an effort to squash the rather large pool circulating about taking bets on just how quickly he would cry, but other then that small misstep he was shockingly composed the entire weekend.

During the reception Meghan and Jake (the newlyweds) had a nice change of pace by eliminating the tired cliché of clinking glasses to have them kiss. Instead, they asked for the guests to tell a story about either or both of them, and while I chose not to tell a story at that time, I thought it might be fitting to tell a story about Meghan during this review. Trust me, it somehow ties together with The Mirror Crack’d. (more…)

I committed a bit of a faux pas recently, I bragged on an Internet message board at how punctual I have been with my reviews. While I’ve had a few complications in finding the movies I want to review, I’ve been pretty good at getting the film watched before the weekend ends, thus giving me a day or so to write my flowery prose. Then Netflix went and shipped me a copy of Alfred Hitchcock’s Stage Fright, rather then Michele Soavi’s StageFright.

This, as you probably assume, this caused a bit of a dilemma. First off, what the hell do I do for a movie review? Do I pick something different? Or should I just review the film they sent me? But more importantly, how do I write an intro for this?

You see I wanted to write about how I dragged a small group of people to a beer tasting out in St. Louis Park that was taking place at a new specialty beer store that was opening called The Four Firkins. The store was devoted entirely to imported beers and domestic specialty brews. They were having their Grand Opening on Saturday, and to celebrate several local breweries were giving out free samples for people to try. And while Summit is probably the best known of the breweries that were present, I was going because Surly was giving out samples.

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