When You Come And Get My Check, Will Unleash ...

I was in the shower when Martha sent me the text that is the title of today's post, and I must admit reading it I heard Zeus from Clash of the Titans saying "Release the Kraken!" in my head. And she noticed what Autocorrect (or is it AutoCorrect?) did with that message and in the minute after she sent it she typed, "OK... Instead of unleash.. it should have been please." I chuckled and got the idea, but this is why I will not use Autocorrect.


As I was saying to a new store clerk the other day, just remember that you are smarter than the computer. I know what I mean, even if I have a hard time getting it across sometimes. And you think mixing up your kids' names is bad! At least they're not being taken from me and raised in a Children's Village and the whole family's kept in Compounds and we're not forced to pledge allegiance to the Republic while most of the land has been turned over to animals and designated Human Free Zones.


Such is the premise of the second novel by Glenn Beck with Harriet Parke, Agenda 21: Into The Shadows (ISBN 9781476746821) where the culmination of decades of sustainable development gospel pushed through the United Nations on everybody reaches a slow -- at times extreme, in my view -- decline that one family is desperate to escape from. And the Earth Protectors dispatched to get them back (love the homage that two of them are Winston and Julia) aren't much better off.


But the vast majority of people won't question the system they're born or come into until they're forced to. The vast majority of people are not Bruce Wayne. In the Elseworlds story Batman: In Darkest Knight (ISBN 1563891123) Abin Sur's rocket landed next to Wayne Manor and he got the Green Lantern ring, even though he adopts a disguise similar to the main universe's Batman. Deposes Sinestro, stops the Joker's criminal career before it starts, and Sinestro becomes that arch-enemy.


Crossovers when they're good are very good, and 1982's The Uncanny X-Men and The New Teen Titans which I got to reread last week in a 1995 reprint -- sorry, it's not book bound so no ISBN I saw -- reminded me of my first big intro to DC (I only recognized Robin, and I followed Marvel more in those days). Darkseid's the big bad of the series and he's resurrecting Dark Phoenix using places on Earth where while she was alive the first time expended major power.


The Teen Titans get mistaken for the X-Men when Darkseid's heavies tackle them and when Darkseid's hired mercenary the Terminator (think Slade in the series, the guy whose mask is half-dark half-orange; watching him and Wolverine fight is so worth it!) brings the X-Men to Darkseid's base, Phoenix gets revived, and the villains warp to Earth. AND are overconfident enough to let the restraints holding the Titans and X-Men disappear, thinking they can't stop them.


The fact that Marvel and DC still publish since 1982 seems to indicate they did stop them, but I digress. For the last book I cite here today, I knew about a quarter of what Joey Green cites in Contrary to Popular Belief (ISBN 9781595301826) as "false facts" -- for instance, that fish can live out of water, that George Washington was not the first President of the United States (TRUTH! Look up a guy named John Hanson) but not that ship captains can't perform marriages at sea.


The captain also has to be clergy or a justice of the peace to do that, and outside of the USA has to be done according to the state and local laws where the to-be-marrieds live AND in the presence of a U.S. diplomatic or consular official who'll file the paperwork! That's a lot, just get married at home! And after getting off work tonight my plan's to meet the family (including the one I'm married to, I do remember!) for backyard grilling and this weekend is already being planned to be great!


I can take it a day at a time too, David