The Top 10 Marvel Movies... Ranked For Your Viewing Pleasure

Over the past month I’ve been in a Marvel binge. Mainly, the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It’s super popular right now, and part of me feels like all these movies that are being made just for me are being sullied by all these other millions of people watching and enjoying them.

I mean, they’re mine. I get to enjoy them, not other people.

Regardless, they’re out there now and part of me doesn’t want to like them anymore. Whatever, I can like popular things.

The point of all this is that phase II is almost complete. And as such, I feel like it’s time for me to weigh in on the MCU by ranking the movies. Yay.

Understand that I’m specifically discussing the movies produced by Marvel/Disney, so there isn’t going to be any X-Men, Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, or other, older iterations of movies here (Like the myriad of Punisher films, Daredevil, Elektra, Howard the Duck, the Ang Lee version of the Hulk, etc).

Without Further Ado, here they are, ranked:

The Flawed:

10) The Incredible Hulk – This says a lot to me that I went as the Hulk for Halloween every year of my life (That I bothered to dress up). Well, there was the year I went as a punk rocker, but that was my first year going to a party instead of trick-or-treating, I thought I was supposed to dress as something more sophisticated. Turns out I was just dressing as a woman, a sophisticated woman, but still… where was I? Oh yes, So it says a lot to me that my dream of actually one day becoming the Hulk, that his rage fueled outbursts were my ideal of the perfect hero, means that I am biased to like this movie more than it has any right to be liked.

Turns out, I do like it. It’s just the least among equals. Or to put it another way, it’s not as good as the rest of the Marvel movies. Ed Norton played Banner without the charisma that Ruffalo did in the Avengers, and the fx was pretty cool, but the showdown between the Hulk and Abomination descended a bit into a cartoon fight after a nice beginning. Nice, not memorable.

I'd read that once Marvel got the rights back to the Hulk, they hired the director (I forget his name) and told him that the release date was in one year. There was no script ready, so they had to go into production as it was being written. In the end I think they movie suffered for it. I worry that Marvel learned the wrong lesson here (which is, 'people don't want the Hulk', not, 'make sure you have a great story to tell')

9) Iron Man 2 – watched this a few weeks ago, I was looking for my copy of Iron Man, but it disappeared at some point. It’s one of the only Marvel movies I have on DVD, and a few years ago I decided to start keeping the Blu-ray movies separate from the DVD movies. I’ve neglected the DVD selection and the kids have moved stuff, people have borrowed things, it’s been lost. But good ‘ol Iron Man 2 was sitting right where it was supposed to be on the Blu-ray shelf, so I picked it up and realized I hadn’t seen it in a few years. I remembered it fondly so I thought I could live with seeing it again.

Like The Hulk movie above, this one has its moments. But also like the Hulk movie, I’m not sure I was on board with the climax. Really, the thing about Tony building an amusement park in honor of his father seemed weird to me. The development of the transuranic element to cure the palladium ailment was cool as an idea, but didn’t work for me narratively. Still, the first 2/3^rds of this movie are pretty great. dug the introduction of the Black Widow, and am happy that Emily Blunt (whom I love) had to drop out of the role at the last minute.

The Fun:

8) Thor 2: The Dark World – By the time this movie came out, I’d already been seeing trailers for Captain America 2 (I think), and had had a hard time focusing on this as anything but a distraction. Despite this movie being perfectly cast, and finally, Thor not looking like a dope with his long hair (it just worked in this movie), I enjoyed this, but couldn’t find anything about it that elevated it beyond what I subtitled this section as: Fun.

And this character was probably my third hero worshiped character in comics (after Superman, then The Hulk – If comics serve as wish fulfillment, then I clearly have a god complex). I never dressed up as him for Halloween, but I probably drew more made up comics with him as the star than any other heroes.

This movie’s villain really let me down, the first movie had Loki, and although I like Chris Eccleston (It’s easy to forget his short run as the Doctor) this might have been the weakest villain of any of the Marvel movies. And the Aether was a poorly defined artifact, I think. I don’t know. I remind you that I liked it, more than either of the previous movies on this list. It didn’t quite give me what I needed to feel like it lived up to its potential.

The Good:

7) Thor – Huh, didn’t mean to put this one next, but I don’t know what else I would put below it. But I do think there is a bit of a separation from Thor 2 and the first one. This one had Loki as the villain, and a better plot. The destroyer battle at the end was so lackluster that I feel like either they’d run out of money for fx, or the director was so bored with the thought of more action that he just said, ‘take 30 seconds and do whatever the hell you want’ to the fx house.

Still, emotionally, this one hit all the right marks. I think it was really good.

6) Iron Man 3 – This one is where I started to believe that Marvel was making an effort to just not repeat itself with its movies. This was a… what? A spy movie? No, but it didn’t feel like a typical superhero tale either.

This was, for me, a very enjoyable flick, a good one. I know some people have taken issue with the misuse of the Mandarin. It didn't really bother me, I tend not to be too precious about things as long as I enjoy the movie. In this case, Marvel did throw a bone to the upset contingent of fans over the Mandrin thing by offering the Marvel One-Shot that dealt with that thorny issue rather well. If you've got 15 minutes and you haven't seen it, I just did you a HUGE favor by pasting it below. You're welcome.

But back to the movie, look, it wasn't perfect. It felt like it was just a tad too long, but damn. It was better than the second Iron Man movie by miles. 

The Great:

5) Captain America - I feel like there is another big step in quality here. The thing about this movie, for me, is that when I first saw it at the theater, I liked it, but didn't find it that special. It was months later, sitting at home, and enjoying it on my telly that I realized its brilliance. I have no explanation for that. Sometimes movies just grow on you. Now I probably pop this bad boy in and watch it about once every two months or so. 

Funny that, as a character, I always struggled with trying to figure out how you tell the story of the ultimate boy scout. I mean, he has no flaws, or if he does, it's that he cares too much, tries too hard, and loves too strongly. But, again, someone figured it out. Chris Evans owns the character so much that I feel like the versions I see of him in the comic are no longer the real 'cap' but instead, the movie versions are. 

Also, I did have plenty of Captain America comics in my collection as a kid, but it wasn't a monthly read for me. Still, within the Marvel Universe, he is venerated by all the other heroes, and everyone looks to him for leadership when the chips are down. I'd follow this guy into battle too (as long as by 'Battle' you mean Pizza Hut or something, it's not like I have a death wish). The movie captures it perfectly. 

I feel like of all the heroes Marvel has brought to screen though, they've struggled the most with his uniform. I liked the one he ended up with through the latter half of the movie. Don't know why they didn't keep that costume for the Avengers movie (where the one they went with looked ridiculously stupid).  

4) Iron Man - The truth is that I probably had less than 5 issues of Iron Man as a kid. I did have the Demon in the Bottle issue, and a two parter where he fought the Hulk. Other than that, I only read him if he crossed over with other titles I read. But I was pretty familiar with him. I did read the Avengers comic every month, and he was always there. A lot of my love for this movie has to do with the casting of Robert Downey Jr as Tony Stark, as soon as I heard about it I thought it was perfect, and then I saw the movie and realized it was better than I thought. 

Dump trucks of money for that guy. No one else can ever be him. Also, the movie was pretty good. I liked John Favreau as a director, and think he made the perfect movie as an introduction to the MCU. 

The Legendary:

3) The Avengers - Hard to believe that earlier this year I might have picked this as the best comic book movie ever made. Now it's only #3 on the list of Marvel films. 

Stupid Costume

That's not to detract from this movie though. It took all these characters that were the leads in their own films and made this giant ensemble out of it. Yes, Captain America's costume became super stupid looking, and Hawkeye did sorta get shafted, and yes, the aliens were a little generic. But this movie worked. And it worked really well. 

Like Captain America, I watch this one every couple of months. And when I do, I get all giddy. True story here. When I was a kid, I used to lay in bed at night and imagine what a live action Avengers movie might be like. I tried to envision what actors and actresses could fill the iconic roles.* 

Aside from the atrociously disgusting Captain America costume, this thing is, literally, the movie I dreamed about as a child. It didn't disappoint. I nearly wept watching it, and can't sit down to watch it without dreaming of a time-travel device that can transport me back in time to show young me this movie. 

See what I mean about that costume Cap wears?

2) The Guardians of the Galaxy - I waffled on whether or not this should be number 1 on this list, but the fact is that I don't really know about how I feel about a movie, really, until it's here in my house and I can watch it any time I want to. After multiple viewings, do the little nitpicky things really start to bother me, or do I just fall more and more deeply in love with it? 

Only time will tell, but like the Avengers, this is a group effort, and proof that Marvel is being as smart as they can about who they let direct their films. I know Edgar Wright, one of my favorite directors, dropped out of Ant-Man, but I can't really gauge how big a blunder than might be until I see the movie. All I know is what I've already seen, and on this, I think Marvel's midas touch is about letting directors make a movie that they want to make. And hopefully learning that lesson from the Hulk movie that wasn't so good. 

Chris Pratt was one of my favorite guys from Parks and Recreation, and putting him in this role was brilliant. It's tone was so different than the Captain America film from a few months earlier. My wife said she spent the movie alternating between laughter and weeping. I can't really comment on the details of the movie, as they all blur together for me right now. But I'm looking forward to watching it repeatedly after it's December release on Blu-ray. 

1) Captain America: The Winter Soldier - Almost a perfect movie. Period. I'd heard somewhere that Marvel is bringing in people who want to make a 'type' of movie, and then letting them use the Marvel characters to tell that story. I don't know how much truth there is to that, but clearly, this was a conspiracy thriller. It could have been told with almost anyone, jamming it into the Cap story was just brilliant. 

It had some of the best action scenes I've seen on film, the violence had emotional beats, and the characters where put through Hell. My only complain is that, again, Cap's uniform wasn't quite right. I liked the muted, combat costume he wore early on, but for some reason, stealing his WWII costume from the museum for the final conflict didn't work as well for me. Maybe because the bright colors didn't mesh with the earthy tones the rest of the flick had. 

Also, his shield seemed to disappear and reappear throughout the movie, but was always painted to match his costume. I found that weird. 

And like a few other of the Marvel movies, the best action sequences took place earlier in the movie. From Nick Fury's street chase, Cap's escape from Shield, or the brawl with The Winter Soldier in downtown... all of them were better than the final fight he had on the helicarrier. The Falcon's part was awesome, as was The Black Widow's... only Cap was a bit of a letdown, although only a bit, it still had high emotional stakes.

Quibbles though. I've watched this movie more times in the past month than I think I've seen any movie since I was in my early twenties. I watched it while on vacation. I've seen it on my phone twice, I watched it at least six times on my television. I just can't get enough of it. 

And there you have it. A long, rambly post filled with my opinions of stuff that doesn't matter. Hope someone else got something out it. I did have fun writing it. 

*In case you just have to know, circa 1985 I would have chosen for the movie version of the Avengers:

The Hulk/Banner - Lou Ferrigno/Michael J Fox 
Thor - Arnold Schwarzenegger
Captain America - Rob Lowe
Iron Man - Steve Guttenberg
Black Widow - Demi Moore
Hawkeye - Bill Murray (because I wanted him in EVERY movie at the time)

Premier Week is NOW!

As of this moment (me typing, not you reading), a new television season is getting ready to premier for most of the major networks. I typically don’t care about that sort of thing. But now I do. I’ve had a bit of a shift in my life over the past year or two. Nothing too major, but my life now has more television in it than it used to.

See, my wife has an incredibly stressful job. It’s a really long story, and not a very interesting one, except to us I suppose. But she really, really gets overwhelmed by her work. So, she spends what few free moments she has trying desperately to unwind. Typically by getting swept away in a television show or movie.

Now, I like TV just as much as the next person, I mean, we have 6 of them. You can’t really hate them if you own that many. We have one in the living room, the bedroom, her office, my office, and both of the remaining kids rooms (I say remaining because they’re getting older, they all don’t live at home anymore).

They’re all big and glorious in their HDness and all that. I’m just telling you that in full disclosure. I’m not a hater of TV. But I am a guy that prefers to read for the most part. As much as I love Star Trek, it doesn’t compare to a great novel. Books are just where my heart is.

But the missus wants to enjoy things with me, not separately. So I have, quite reluctantly, this year, been reading less of the books and watching more of the television. It’s our time to spend together and enjoy something. And it’s been here that I made a startling discovery.

Television is awesome.

And I’m speaking specifically as a concept I thought I invented,* but it turns out I didn’t, so damn. But it’s still interesting, and that is: A show as a novel.

So the missus was actively looking for a show to watch, something to geek out over as a respite from her day job, and I told her we should totally watch this show on HBO called True Detective. It’s a buddy cop show starring Matthew McConnaughey and Woody Harrelson.

This is like me trying to explain True Detective

So we watched. That show affected me in a way that I’m not sure a show really has, ever. It was a novel, broken down into 10 parts, it was slow, deliberate, and reeked of mood. The characters had arcs and the overall plot was tight and there were relatively few digressions.

It blew my mind. This wasn’t a serialized show, like Dallas or Falcon Crest (um, those two came to mind, I’m sure there have been more recent ones), this was a series that had a clear beginning, middle and end, all in a single season of television.

I didn’t know they could do that on TV.**

Then later, after that was gone and I’d spent a few months screaming at everyone I knew to go watch that show, we started on Breaking Bad.

And again, I couldn’t believe it. This was as enjoyable to me as 95% of the novels I’d read. It didn’t have the spec fic elements I’d need to put it at the very top of all time entertainment, but it was close. And I know it had a pretty deep connection with me, because once we were watching the show, I had a hard time reading after that. A book series that I’d started out thinking was pretty good became a chore to read. It was good, until I found something infinitely better. Going back to what I had before didn’t seem so palatable anymore.

Breaking Bad wasn’t as tight of a narrative as True Detective, but it was better, in my opinion. Nonetheless, I’m a guy that has been standing alone, screaming into the night that the masses are morons for wasting their lives watching TV when they can have the most amazing worlds on the pages of a book.

Now, I’m not exactly taking it all back - but I’ve shut up. Some of those scripted television shows are stunning. As good as a great novel.

What does that mean for me? Well, like I said, it’s premier week for the major broadcast networks. As of this writing, nothing has been shown yet, but the missus is a huge fan of the Agents of Shield show (which was, in my opinion, pretty awful for 3/4ths of its first season), and I’m pretty excited to just try some stuff out and see how it goes. Hopefully something great will emerge.

*This should totally be a subject of a post in the future, I have probably around two dozen great ideas, revolutionary ones, the ones that could start a whole branch of philosophy to explore their genius in greater detail.  But all of them, and I do mean all of them, have already been thought of, and explored ad nauseam, since well before I was born. Some of them going back thousands of years.

Stupid people, stealing all my ideas before I had a chance to think them. Every damn time I think I have something new to offer the world, EVERY. TIME. I find out in crushing fashion that I wasn’t the first. Or the most thorough, thinker.   

**Turns out, they couldn’t. It wasn’t TV, it was HBO.

I Missed IWSG But It's Okay... Robots Might Want to Kill Us After All!

Hey all, I swear I was going to post yesterday. I got sidetracked. I don't say that because I expect that anyone was disappointed, but because I have an awful affliction where I feel like I have to make people like me. Studies have shown that people that apologize a lot tend to garner sympathy.

I'm so sorry I wrote that.

Did it work? Do you like me now?

Regardless, I stumbled onto this talk last week on the interwebanets and was pretty floored by the talk. The real quick of it is, we're all about 20 years of being jobless, no matter what profession we choose, and also, robots will most likely want to kill us all.

Great stuff. The vid is about 20 minutes long, but I guarantee it's the best thing you'll see all day.*

In case you didn't watch, because you're crazy. Let me tell you a story. Once upon a time, I read a book, called The Age of Spiritual Machines, by Ray Kurzwell. Any would-be musician from the 80's might recognize the name, because the man invented the most awesome keyboards on the planet. He's the guy that invented the keyboard that had pressure sensitive keys. A pretty big deal, if you ask me. His Kurzwell 2000 was the most awesome thing the world ever produced at the time.

Anyway, inventing musical instruments was just a hobby, his day job was being a futurist. He's the guy that introduced me to the technological singularity as a concept.**

In his book, he produced a piece of prose... hang on while I try to find it downstairs.

Waiting.

Waiting...

Waiting...  ....

Dammit. It's about two hours later and I just got back to my computer. I forgot that I was going to go get my copy of the book to look up the thing. I did, however, manage to go for a walk (my 10,000 steps per day, remember?) , and eat supper, and watch about 5 youtube videos (while I ate, multi-tasking). Basically, I was awesome.

But I forgot to get that book. I decided to see if that passage was on the interwebanets. Couldn't find it. Shazballs.

Anyway, in it, he had a short story printed, entirely written, I might add, by a computer. It was readable. Not blow-you-away-with-it's-insight-into-human-nature-amazing, but readable. The point I took away from it was not 'can I do better than that?' but 'how much better will programs be able to write fiction in the future?'

Well, I read that a very long time ago, now, in the future, where are we? Well, here is a video I found about that (which does seem ironic, because I'm trying to tell a story for those who can't spare the time to watch a different video).

To summarize, it's still early, but we're screwed.


Fiction Prototype from Phil Parker on Vimeo.


*There is no guarantee. I made that up.

** If you don't know what that is, think of the terminator movies, except that machines that fall in love with humanity and just take care of us instead of killing us. Well, that's his version anyway.

I'm No Hero... I'm a SUPERHero

I believe I mentioned last time I posted that I wasted spent most of the spring and summer walking. What I DIDN’T share with you, is that it was there I first discovered I have a gift, or, dare I say, a superpower.

Laser eyes? No. Telekinesis? No again. I can do something much more amazing. Since those are the only two powers I’m sure most people care about, I’ll stop there. Instead I’ll back up for a second and ask a question. It’s really rhetorical, but you know, answer if you want. 

Anyone but me get really excited by the sound of a crunching leaf? Anyone? Not many greater joys in my life than when I step on a leaf and the sound is indistinguishable from biting into a spoonful of Cap’n Crunch cereal.

KRRRRUUUUUUNNNNNCH!

I love it. I love it so much, in fact, that walking with people is apparently no fun for them. I suppose there can be something vaguely embarrassing about going for a walk with a fortysomething year-old man and have to watch him stomp around the street like Godzilla trying to destroy Tokyo. I can’t help it, it’s my cross to bear in this world. And if you can’t accept that about me, well, then you just can’t accept me as a person. Because that’s just who I am.

At this point, I feel it’s my duty to point out that I have a similar, but unrelated, need to kick any pebble I find whilst I walk. There have been a few incidents where a pebble just happened to be placed right near a dried leaf on the street in front of me. It’s then that I learned that kicking with one foot while stomping with the other is really hard to do. I have the scrapes to prove that.

That is not, in case you’re curious, my superpower.

No, my gift, the one that has made me wonder if I should be wearing a costume to hide my true identity, is my uncanny ability to predict which foot I’ll need to use to crush said leaf without being forced to break my stride.

Please, quiet down. I can’t hear myself type over the sound of your collective sounds of awe. I’ll say that line again so you can know it’s true: I can crush a leaf, as soon as I have it marked with my mental map, by just walking over and stepping on it.

Wait, when I rephrase it, it doesn’t sound that amazing. Let me try again:

If I were to see a leaf from, say, 20 feet away, and I was walking and didn’t want to break my stride, I could immediately tell what foot will fall closest to the leaf. I DON’T HAVE TO STUTTER STEP.

*mind blown*

Imagine the world we’d live in if we all had this power. I shudder at the thought. Is this what Superman feels as he walks amongst mortals? I guess only he and I know for sure.

Happy day, world.

How I Spent My Summer (Hint: Being Lame)

What a summer, eh? Way back late last winter, the paying job offered me a fitbit. In case you’re uninitiated, it’s a little pedometer that you strap to your wrist and it will record the number of steps you take per day, how far you’ve traveled, how much you’ve slept, and a few other things that make me feel a bit creeped out.

I mean, I’m not sure what the criminal underworld would do with the knowledge of how many hours I slept last Tuesday, but I’m sure in the hands of the appropriately evil, it could be worthy of an expose on 60 minutes.

Well, the actual point of all this, of course, from my employer’s perspective, is to make sure I’m fit enough not to drive up our healthcare costs as a whole (joke’s on them, my wife carries my health insurance), and one of the big indicators of overall health is body weight.

I’ve spent most of my life being skinny, way too skinny as a kid and teen, there was a brief period in my mid-twenties where I plumped up, but then another decade (almost) of being skinny through exercise and a relatively strict diet.

Then, around the time I started this blog, I kinda let myself go. I stopped exercising and starting eating a relatively horrid diet. I got pretty big. Early last summer (2013) I managed to drop a about 25 pounds by living off of V8’s for a few months. But that leveled off once I determined it was untenable for me to live that way long term.

Cut to late Feb of this year, and these fancy fitbits that they were handing out at work. At the time I’m still 20 pounds overweight, despite having dropped the 25 I mentioned a moment ago. I think, Gee, I can take care of those last 20 pounds now.

So I start to walk, the target is 10,000 steps per day. For a stride like mine that’s just under 5 miles. Given my walking speed that’s about two hours of walking per day. Well, maybe an hour and a half, I’m rounding here for simplicity’s sake.

And to my great surprise, I found that I liked it. Turns out that I get about a mile per day just doing things like walking to the bathroom and piddling around the kitchen at home. The rest is something I’d have to do on purpose.

To rephrase that, the rest is me walking on purpose – for no reason. None at all. At first it was a bit tough, having to remember to walk, even if I had nowhere to go. My dogs appreciated it, they don’t mind walking with no destination. For me, it was a learning curve. I grew up believing that if you start going somewhere, well, there should be a somewhere you're trying to get to. You can’t just go off and wander about aimlessly. That’s the devil’s playground, or something.

Soon, getting 10,000 steps in in a day was too easy. By May I was regularly hitting that many by lunch. Putting in 10, 11 miles in a day wasn’t unusual. If I could only get a time machine and go visit the younger me that said he’d never consider ‘walking’ as an exercise, I’d show him.

So it was great. The spring came and went, and before I knew it I was in the middle of the dog days of summer. August came in with a whoosh and I was still at it. Maybe not quite putting in 20,000 steps per day, but still churning out 10k without a problem.

We’d purchased a fancy digital scale a couple of years ago, to better document my descent into Jabba-the-Huttness. I realized that I’d not weighed since I began my walking regiment.

Wow, six months. I had a routine when I weighed before. Same exact time every day, wearing the same thing, just to take out any possible things that might cause me to get a weird result (Like a big lunch). I had no problem getting ready to weigh in.

I stepped onto the scale last week. Wondering what 6 months of clean living would mean for me. These fancy scales don’t work like the old ones used to. I liked stepping on it and seeing the numbers spin by, slow, go in reverse, slow again, then start counting forward, and back and forth until settling on a nice number.

No, this one sucks. It just spits out a number, down to a tenth of a pound (as long as that tenth is an even number) and that’s what you are.

How’d I do, you ask?

I gained 8 pounds.

Sonuvabitch! I’d been wasting 3 or 4 hours every day, walking in the hot sun, including weekends, and in the rain, and when the mosquitos were out for vengeance, and when I wanted to just stay in and read a book, just to get fatter?

And with that it all came crashing down on me. I’ve been living a lie. Walking isn’t exercise. Younger me was right. It might be exercise when I’m 80, but it isn’t now.

So, whatever.

IWSG: The Blogfader

Hi all, it's been a while since I was here. But it's IWSG, brought to you by the indomitable Alex J Cavanaugh, whose dreams of a day where writers can blubber about all that scares them have come true, at least on the first Wednesday of each month.

This month, like every month, I'm really interested in talking about me. But instead of discussing my never complete manuscripts, or my paralyzing fear of rejection, I wanted to talk about a thing that I think is real, except I don't recall where I heard it from, so it's at least possible I made it up:

Blogfade

It's a term I made up (if you think it's a cool term, if you think it's lame, then I'm just borrowing it - I heard it elsewhere) to describe people like me who just sort of slow down blogging to the point that they're sort of fading into the night.

I'd complained for a very long time about the real world keeping me away from the interwebs for so long that it's tough for me to visit anyone nowadays. But the truth of the matter is that I think I'm at a spot right now where I probably could start blogging again.

But I haven't.

Like a lot of things, I have choices to make with my time. I've dreamt of being a big-shot author for a long time now. I talked about writing for many years before I actually wrote, and it's been about 10 since I wrote my first draft of a novel (A novel, btw, the blog is named after).

And about 5 years ago I decided I was really close to being a super-famous author and decided to start this blog. And in that time I managed to self-publish a few short stories, have one or two appear in the occasional anthology, and that's about it.

I started this as an investment. In a belief that I could commit to this and just make it part of who I am. Now, I'm starting to think this is the sort of thing that I just won't be keeping up for much longer.

I'm going to try to pick it back up. But it's there in the back of my mind, that one day I'll look up and it will have been a year since I posted, or two, or ten. It makes me sad. Especially since I'm not exactly moving on to bigger things.

So, wish me luck.

IWSG: July 2014: I've Invented Time Travel

I haven't posted since mid-May. Wow. Time flies. Let's see if I can remember how to do this.

Back when Geocities was futuristic and AOL was the only internet most Americans knew of, Alex J Cavanaugh dreamed of giving writers across the globe access to therapy. It took a while for technology to catch up with his vision, but now, nearly a century later, here we are.

I watched that movie with Tom Cruise a few weeks ago. The one that's half Groundhog Day and half Saving Private Ryan and half Halo (the video game) and it made me dream of having that do over button that the movie explored so well.

I mean, the do over button is getting killed, so it's not easy, and there's that interpretation of quantum theory that states that we're all immortal (don't ask, it's weird). So it occurs to me that I actually have do over button. I write down words. Those words suck. I get to delete them and try again. And keep writing and deleting and writing those words until I get them right.

It's like I've actually invented time-travel. So, the conundrum: How do you know when you've accomplished the mission? As time has gone on, that has increasingly become my dilemma. I've become stuck in a cycle of writing and rewriting, much like Tom Cruise, and Bill Murray before him.

I'm trapped.

Happy IWSG day, guys.

Z is for… Wait, is this thing over?

Z is for… wait, is this thing over?

I never did a Z post for the A-Z Blogging challenge. I came limping over that finish line on fumes. Apparently just enough fumes to only see the finish line, not actually cross it. But, honestly, sometimes it feels really good to quit things. So, yay.

There were several things I wanted to bring up today, but upon attempting to write them, I realized I had way too many things to talk about. So, after some self-editing, I thought I’d narrow it down to three.*

·         I'M A MEMBER of the IWM group blog, and contributor to the monthly mag. I continue to be, not only impressed with the contributions of others, but so much so, that I can’t figure out why they haven’t kicked me out yet.

For the very first ANNUAL of the magazine, the editors are asking for your best time-travel stories to be submitted to the mag. From the submissions, real money will be given to those stories selected as winning entries. Actual money they can be spent, I’m told. Not soda money either, but $15 for the winner, and $10 for the runner up. So dust off that old time-travel epic and send it on over <Click here for the details>

Although I'm not eligible for prizes, I'll be submitting.

·         THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2 has been out for more than a week. One of the kids in the house (have I mentioned we have a family of 4 living with us now? They’re pretty cool, with our boys being older and never around, it’s nice to have people in the house) watched the last Spider-Man last week with me.

And I suck at reviewing stuff, this is no exception. But like most americans, I don't let my inability to do something interfere with me doing it anyway, and expecting an audience. I feel like that the 2012 flick was a much better movie than the second installment, but am amazed at how, in the second movie, the director so perfectly nailed Spider-Man’s comic book look, character, and gave us the best Comic Book love story I’ve ever seen on film. Marc Webb gets the emotions perfect. The actual action-y plot part though… it’s a bit of a mess, and the more I think of it, the more I feel like all that is frustratingly poorly done. Still, the characters and the small moments make this film worth watching.

·         AND DID ANYONE ELSE see this adorable little film that popped up over the internet recently. Best 5 minutes I’ve seen in a while. Great stuff!

JohnnyExpress from AlfredImageworks on Vimeo.

And that’s pretty much it. The new Rusty has almost no control over his schedule anymore. I’m a tornado of entropy, everything I touch turning immediately into chaos. Anyone who stops by has my sincere thanks.

*ish

Y is for Yo, Check This Out

A-Z stuff. Trying to get done. Caption if you wish

"Keep your eyes up top, buddy."

X is for Xtra Late

Right here at the very end, I'm losing my ability to keep up... is this the end of the month? I don't understand, I have letters left. I'll try to post so quickies until I get to Z.

Oh, and this is the A-Z Bogging challenge. You know, caption the sketch below, make it funny, and use the letter X in there somewhere... anywhere... if you want to.

Recall that our Hairy Warrior is facing down a horde of villainous types as they charge towards him in an apocalyptical type showdown.

"Harry and the Henderson's? Yes, I've heard of it, why do you ask?"

W is for Wesley's Revenge

It's W for me in the A-Z Blogging Challenge. The goal this month is for you, dear reader, to caption my sketch below. Make it funny. Use a W prominently if you want, at this point, I just want funny and don't care much for anything else.

The hairy warrior, alone and on the hill, finds the demons of his past have come back to collect on his past deeds.

"I think the guy you're all looking for is just over the hill... keep running, he's bound to turn up!"

V is for Vulgar Antagonism.

Is it V day? I really have no idea, I know it's not for other people, but I didn't look before I started writing this to see what yesterday was. So, I think it's V.

And as part of this A-Z Challenge, I'm asking you to caption the sketch below. Make it funny, and use a noun beginning with the letter V, if you want to unlock the bonus content (which is much like the normal content, except that it gets called bonus).

For context, this month the hairy warrior has run across a real motley crew of folks he's punched out, now, thanks to the time-manipulator, he's on top of a mountain and faced with them all!!

"Hello, my name is Victor Montoya... you cut off my pet's horn, prepare do die."

U is for The Unconventional Warrior

It's day U for me in the A- Z Blogging Challenge. I am barely treading water with this thing right now. Oh well, it's the home stretch. I'll get there.

I'd actually sketched TWO images for today's post, but the first was so bad I scrapped it and started over. That doesn't happen to me too often. I tend to be relatively consistent in my artsy things, nothing amazing usually comes from it, but nothing so bad I just have to chuck it as too flawed to continue. But it happened this time.

So, today it appears the hairy warrior, weaponless and tired from being whisked through time by the thingy he found a week so ago, has stumbled onto an unconventional warrior. What's going to happen next???

Anyway, remember that I need this CAPTIONED!! Give me something good here. Funny is best, and a noun starting with a U is best, although, if it ends up being an adjective or adverb, that's cool too.

"See?" The Unconventional Warrior screamed into the night, "I can still fit nicely into my old gym pants."

T is for The Unfinished Man

Get it? T was used in 'The' which isn't how it should be done. 

But on T day of the A-Z challenge I ran out of time. But I have the start of the hairy warrior who has been weapon-less since he met the time manipulator. So, just imagine he climbed the mountain yesterday. 

Caption this: make it funny. 

"Check out my Bi's"

S is for Sooo High Up!

It's A-Z day 'S' for me. Sigh. I'm going to have to catch up soon. Anyway, the goal is to caption the sketch below with something funny.

The story so far: The Hairy Warrior smashed a lizard beast over the head with his newfound time-manipulator and found himself in a new place.

Use a noun starting with the letter 'S' for a new level of respect, although not a much higher one, because who can't think of a word that starts with an S?

"Can you see me?"

R is for Righteous Punching

It's A-Z Challenge Day 'R' and it's a caption party.

That's right, all month a sketch goes up, usually involving the hairy warrior, and lately, he's been in a pickle thanks to the time manipulator.

So, caption the image below. Funny counts more than anything, but using a noun starting with an R just shows you're playing in the big leagues.

"My cause is just, your ugliness just proves how evil you are."

Q is for Qill It!!!

It's A-Z Challenge... Day number Q for me. Another letter for most others.

There is a sketch below. I'm asking you to caption it, and to make it funny. Use a noun starting with the letter Q for bonus points... well, actually, using any word with the letter Q is worthy of credit today.

To recap our adventure. The hairy warrior spotted something in the trees looking at him while he fiddled with his time manipulator.

"Ahhh! It's a bug. Squish it!"

P is for Peat Bog

It's day P in my A-Z Blogging challenge... still behind, but I'm trying.

The Hairy Warrior is still playing the time manipulator he found, and is stranded in a bog at some indeterminate time in the long history of earth.

So please caption the sketch below, and make it funny. Using a noun with the letter 'P' will certainly give you some street cred.

"This reminds me of that time my mother told me that I'd grow back-boobs if I didn't stop doing pull-ups. I miss her."