What if the coffee isn't in the microwave?

In that case, somebody is in big trouble! That, or Alzheimer's is setting in early because I remember putting a mug of coffee in the microwave to warm it from yesterday's pot. NOTE: Set for ninety seconds, the coffee will not spill over. Set for two minutes, I've learned it most likely will!


This morning as I was getting breakfast ready and the kids were in the process of getting up (they did go to bed earlier than Sunday night post-Super Bowl; because they read one of their Reading At Home days with me and squirmed in the process, I let them stay up until Martha got home from Burger King, which wasn't that long after nine) Sarah asked me the title question and I commented in my head and aloud how existential that was! And since I laughed loud and long, it had to be here.


And while my brain flies scattershot with ideas such as Marvel Comics' assassin for hire Arcade being SO untrusting that even his henchmen Chambers and Locke are robots (Arcade's known for supplying android duplicates of pretty much anybody) and that the second incarnation of the X-Men (beginning with Giant-Size X-Men #1 with Storm, Colossus, Nightcrawler, etc.) could be a great starter for learning other languages (Colossus with Russian, Nightcrawler with German, ... eh, Storm not so much, as she speaks more of the Queen's English, I think) after I've taken a nap and gotten over getting the kids to school some days, I come to the conclusion I need to produce more of my own work. I can be INSPIRED, but I never want it to be obvious that I'm airlifting an idea!


Obviously, Jiro Kuwata was not the originator of DC Comics' Batman (and I just realized as I'm typing this that I'm putting the Big Two up against each other), but the first volume of Batman: The Jiro Kuwata Batmanga (ISBN 9781401252779) that I checked out and read through this weekend does some great things with the character. I mean, he and Robin (the original one) are still in Gotham City, Batman's still Bruce Wayne the millionaire philanthropist -- though I don't remember any mention of Wayne Industries -- but for a Japanese-first audience, the writing and drawing's fantastic. And it translates well, although I got mid-second story before I figured out the sound effects had not been. Got some great new albeit one-shot villains, and it was a good escape for an hour or two.


Often that is all I ask. Sure I have the skills to be critical, but I don't like doing it. Though I will admit Stephen and Kevin A. Stripe's offering The Journey to Paradise (ISBN 0595678351) did give me pause. You're left asking "now what" and not only because of the ending. Two longtime friends get into an argument after attending one of those religion vs. science non-debates -- I mean, both ask us to believe, both offer us proof, both give evidence to affirm themselves but never (really) outright deny the other -- and one of them who's a pastor says that he wishes the world didn't have any science. He wakes the following morning and his wish is granted. Or is it? Yes, the part of the world John wakes up in is devoid of skyscrapers and tablets, but he still has to open his eyes.


And after his village gets ransacked by the population of another one in population and professed faith, John treks to another larger community where his knowledge of ... science he uses to defend his people gets him honored but also soon gets him condemned to death because if the inspiration for gunpowder and telescopes didn't come from God is must have come from Satan, so the archbishop and his advisors deduce) and John is on his way to death ... and then he wakes up. It was a dream?


Not so a dream -- I really need to record more than I have been; at least, the ones I remember -- was getting home with Sarah and Jeffrey last night. Sarah and I dug into the pizzas we were going to have tonight, but there's a pancake dinner than could make up for it if we can get there.


So it is, David