Alex Rodriguez and the game that used to be Baseball

I'm sure many of you know the whole debate about steroids in baseball and how badly it's damaged the sport in the last few years, so I won't go into the details. More recently however, the admission by the so called superstar Alex Rodriguez that he used, has been kind of disturbing to me. There's been all this talk about whether or not to strip his records from the books. Personally, I don't think that's a good idea. 1.) Baseball is already damaged enough from all of this kind of crap. Taking away records and stats is only going to open up a world of pain and hurt for the sport. 2.) I think the only way you are going to stop this crap is to kick them out of the league. Every time someone does drugs or gets arrested, the league just slaps them with a fine and says okay..you're free to go. That is such crap. Also, as for as the fans' view of the A-Rod situation, at first they were mad, disappointed, even sad. Now, they could care less that he did it. It's as if it never happened. Again, from the fans this time, a slap on the wrist. It's getting ridiculous. They can ban Pete Rose from the Hall of Fame for gambling, but using steroids is just a fine or a suspension. I love this sport. There's no other sport like it, but all this crap is ruining it for fans. I am looking forward to the upcoming season. I just don't want to deal with having to listen to the steroid crap anymore. Especially since they don't do anything significant to those that use or who have used in the past. So, on that note, here's to the new season and...GO RED SOX!

Oscars...meh.

Okay, so I just got home from an Oscar party. All I can say is that I'm getting really tired of the Academy picking a no-name movie, regardless of what it should/should not win, to win every freaking category it gets nominated for. Really? Come on. I understand that you want to point out that it was a good movie, but it doesn't need to win for every single nomination (with the exception of one of the sound awards). I'm so disappointed that they made it so predictable after the first hour. The only good thing about the show was Hugh Jackman's hosting. His opening was awesome. I was very disappointed when they did their whole in memorandum sequence. No Heath Ledger and more importantly no George Carlin? Wow, way to applaud a classic actor/comedian. You can show Isaac Hayes but not Carlin. I can understand not showing Ledger, just for the fact that about 10 minutes before, he won his Oscar. I'm sure there are countless others that passed that were not shown as well, but this kind of annoyed me. By the way, you should have heard the whining in the room when Ledger won...funny stuff considering who else was nominated. Well I won't keep you with my rantings. I'll post tomorrow with my first all sport related post. Goodnight.

Academy Awards

Sunday marks the return of the Oscars. The 81st Annual Academy Awards. So far, it seems like it's just gonna be a mediocre show. Not a lot of huge stand outs this year. Sure there's the favorites: Slumdog Millionaire, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and WALL-E. Over all though I thought there were only a couple of great movies in the past year. Now, I know this is gonna sound a little bias but, I though the best picture of the year was Dark Knight. Nothing else I saw came close to this movie. I know people would argue this with me to death, but this is just my honest opinion. I liked several other movies as well, but I loved Dark Knight. Now, to be fair, I haven't seen a handful of the movies nominated. I have my own thoughts on who will win and who won't. I'll start with the Best Picture Nominees. I will probably have to go with Slumdog Millionaire on this one. The Academy is a sucker for the underdog. However, I've read several articles about how people were boycotting the Oscars because WALL-E wasn't included in the Best Picture category. For Director, I think I'm going with Slumdog Millionaire here as well. I really thought of all the categories, I thought Dark Knight deserved this one. Or more to the point, Christopher Nolan deserved this one. Best Actress..Kate Winslet. Best Actor...Sean Penn. Best Supporting Actress...I'm gonna go with Viola Davis for Doubt. Just a gut feeling. Now again, for Best Supporting Actor, it's gonna sound bias again but, Heath Ledger should win. I've had a few people already tell me that if he wins it's just because they feel sorry for him. That's a load of crap. He deserves it. The Joker was the best portrayed character on film this last year, hands down. I've seen Tropic Thunder and I like Robert Downey, Jr., but am I the only one that thought this movie was terrible? Granted Downey's role was the best in the movie, but that doesn't mean it was Oscar worthy. Anyway, there's my rant about Ledger. Well, that's most of the big categories. If you watch the show, good luck with your pics. I know I'll be keeping track of mine. I'm out.

Movies...

So, I just caught the new TV spots for the new Wolverine movie. I'm kind of worried now. I had high hopes for this movie being that the last X-Men movie was crap. About the only movies I am looking forward to this year, so far, are Watchmen, Transformers 2, and Harry Potter 6. There are a hand full of others that I really hope will be good. Like G.I. Joe, Wolverine, and Dragonball (which I know looks really bad.). I will probably see them all at some point. I just hope they're good.

Speaking of movies, has anyone heard anything on Fanboys? Coming from a huge Star Wars fan, this movie looks great. I can't wait to see it. I'm also looking forward to the Family Guy: Blue Harvest sequel titled Something, Something, Something Darkside. Gotta love Family Guy. 

I recently switched the way that I pick up my comic books. I no longer run to the comic shop every week. I now order from Diamond directly, which has it's ups and downs. On the plus side, it's way cheaper, and it saves gas. On the down side, I have to wait until the end of the month to read everything. Bummer. It's all good though. Like I said, it's easier on the wallet. Anyway, the point being I have to wait until the end of the month to read Thor #600. I really, really, really, want to read this story...this and Green Lantern. 

Well, off to work I go. Going to see how the new closing hours work. I'm out.

TV is the devil!

Where to start...I'm so addicted to television shows right now it's not even funny. I find myself re-watching some shows just to recall a comment from a current episode. Take Lost for instance. I started watching Lost at the beginning of season 2 and have been watching it ever since. They are now on season 5 and I find myself going back to season 1 to clarify things. Watching the whole season all over again! Don't get me wrong, I love the show, but man does it suck you in. Other shows I find myself re-watching are Justice League, How I Met Your Mother, Heroes, and Smallville. In my defense with Smallville, I think I'm watching the old ones because the new ones suck. As far as Justice League goes, there is a shortage of awesomeness on TV right now when it comes to animation. I grew up with G.I. Joe and Transformers, even He-man. Those were awesome in their own time. More recently, the comic book cartoons have been less than amazing. In the 90's leading into the 2000's though they were great. Starting with Batman: The Animated Series. This show reinvented the comic book for TV. It was and still is the best cartoon of the genre. Using the same style and voices, the show carried over into Superman: The Animated Series and Justice League/Justice League Unlimited. No other comic book animated series even comes close to these. Hence the reason I'm watching them again. Newer shows, like Batman:The Brave and the Bold, just aren't living up to my expectations. However, the new Wolverine and the X-Men cartoon looks promising. Back to my point, I probably have been spending at least 4-6 hours a day watching TV in the last month. Straight. No wonder I'm fat. I just veg in front of my TV for hours on end. I love TV as much as the next guy but, I cannot wait until baseball season. Outdoors here I come!!

Blackest Night

It's no secret that my favorite comic book character is Green Lantern. Not just any one Green Lantern but all the Corps. I do have my favorites (Hal Jordan and Guy Gardner), but I love the Corps. Which brings me to the title of my lovely post. Blackest Night is an upcoming story in the GL comics that is considered to be a huge prophecy regarding the fall of the Corps and the universe. Up until now, it's been mostly a tease. It all started back in 2004 with Green Lantern: Rebirth. Which brought back Hal Jordan from the dead and relauched the popularity of the Corps. It talked about the powers of emotional spectrum of the universe and even had glimpses of things to come. For instance, in the first couple of issues, the appearance of the Black Hand. Whose significance I'll get into later. Basically here's the Rebirth story in a nutshell. It's about Hal Jordan, redeeming himself with the Corps and overcoming Fear, which is one of the powers/colors in the emotional spectrum, in the form of Parallax. An entity that possessed Jordan for a period of time and is the Living entity of Fear. After defeating Parallax, Jordan helps rebuild the Corps. Again, subtle things are brought up in the series. The re-emergence of Sinestro, Hal and the Corps', greatest enemy. Who's power ring has ties to Fear and Parallax. Sinestro is also defeated, and he retreats from the Lanterns. 

From there the story starts to unfold and carry over into the Green Lantern monthly titles. Showing the rebuilding of the Corps. The second part of this story lies within the Sinestro Corps War series. After Sinestro is defeated in Rebirth he retreats to his home planet and starts his own Lantern Corps, the Sinestro Corps. Before I go any further, let me throw in a note. I mentioned that a big part of this story revolves around the powers/colors of the emotional spectrum. The Green Lanterns are in the middle of that spectrum. It goes as follows; the color green, the emotion of will power, sits in the middle of the spectrum. With a light side and a dark side of emotions that are on either side. On the light side we have blue/hope, indigo/compassion, and violet/love. On the darker side, we have yellow/fear, orange/avarice, and red/rage. Okay back to the good stuff. So, the Sinestro Corps relies on fear as its weapon and they begin recruiting an army to take out the Green Lanterns. Among its members are Parallax (now inhabiting the body of GL Kyle Rayner), Superman-Prime, and the Cyborg Superman. A war ensues. During the battle, the Guardians of the Universe (leaders and creators of the GL Corps) decide to rewrite the sacred Book of Oa. They begin to make new laws which start the path to Blackest Night. The first being the use of lethal force against the Sinestro Corps. Two of the Guardians are against this and they are expelled from the Corps. The Guardians also reveal the prophecy to the earth lanterns; Hal, Guy, Kyle (free from Parallax), and John Stewart. In which  they foretell of five more Lantern Corps arising, each based on a color/emotion of the spectrum. After the Corps are established the War of Light comes into play. With all of the Corps being destroyed leading to the Blackest Night. At the end of the battle, one of the Guardians sacrifices himself to defeat Superman-Prime, another is scarred by the Anti-Monitor, while Sinestro and several other members of his Corps are arrested. Afterwards, the Guardians realize that the Blackest Night will happen and put their second law into effect. Ganthet and Sayd, the two Guardians that were expelled, are seen creating a blue power ring to start their Corps of hope. The Anti-Monitor is shown on a distant, dark planet after getting blown half way across the galaxy, being imprisoned into a huge Black Power Battery.

On to the beginning of the Blackest Night. Back on the dark planet of the Black Power Battery, panels are shown that tease a proclamation stating "the armies of fear and willpower must come together, because across the universe, the dead will rise." Showing also a corpses hand coming out of the ground wearing a black ring on its finger. The symbol of which is the logo of the villain Black Hand. Other teasers have been shown like the Black Hand discovering the Black Power Battery on the dark planet. So, with the knowledge of the Black Lanterns being fallen heroes, villains, and other DCU alum, the rumors began to fly as to who would show up as a Black Lantern. Already announced/teased are Aquaman, former Firestorm Ronnie Raymond, Earth-2 Superman, and the Martian Manhunter. Meanwhile, in the GL titles, the other Corps start to emerge along with the Green and Yellow Corps. The Violet Lantern Corps appear in pages of GL Corps as the Star Sapphires now using rings and batteries. The Blue Lantern Corps shows up a short while later with its first member Saint Walker. The Red Lanterns show up in both titles in an arc entitled Rage of the Red Lanterns. So far, the Indigo and Orange Lanterns have only been teased. 

This series looks to be a huge and successful story for DC and a huge push for the Green Lanterns. I love this series mostly because of Geoff Johns. His writing and Ethan Van Sciver's art. This series has become the Star Wars saga of the DC Universe. So, by all means go read these stories. I highly recommend them.

Kicking the whole thing off

So, welcome to my first ever blog. I guess it was a long time coming. Here I will comment on all things me. Movies, music, life, comics, friendship, love and sports. So, without further delay...

Today, or rather yesterday, I realized that I really want to go back to school. I don't know where or what I want to take, but I know I don't want to do retail the rest of my life. Now, I went to school 10 years ago for a degree in Commercial Art. However, I obviously am not using that degree. I really want to get back into drawing. I also have found a new love of photography. Hence the reason for not knowing what to take for classes if and when I go back. Maybe a litlle of both will do. Who knows. I am currently working for Barnes and Noble. Probably the best retail place I've ever worked for. It just isn't what I want to do. Decisions decisions.

For those that know me, I am and always have been a huge baseball fan. I, like so many others, am eagerly awaiting the upcoming season. My Red Sox are looking to be as impressive as ever. With the baseball season comes softball season. I play on at least 2 teams during the summer, sometimes more. I grew up around the sport. What can I say. I also coach a fall team as well. As I await the season, I've come to realize that I am way out of shape. So, guess what I'll be doing from now until May? 

Well, I've rambled on for long enough for one night. I'll be back soon.