A Trip to Monterey

Today we drove down to Monterey and Pacific Grove for the day. Originally we were going to spend the night and then Debbi was going to walk the Big Sur Half Marathon tomorrow morning, but she’s been having problems with blisters on her feet and was concerned she might not be able to finish in the time alotted, so she decided to punt this time. But she still wanted to pick up her registration packet – including the nifty shirt – so we drove down anyway.

I don’t quite go to Monterey often enough to be able to find my way around without a map, but at least I have a better idea of how long it takes to get there than I once did. Actually, we got there in pretty good time, and found the registration site without any trouble. Then we walked through downtown Monterey (which is smaller than I’d remembered, which probably means we didn’t walk the whole thing) and had lunch there.

We then drove over near Cannery Row and visited some book stores over there. It turns out there’s a branch of Bookbuyers on Lighthouse Ave.

After that we did a drive along the coast in Pacific Grove, which is truly one of the most beautiful coasts I’ve ever driven along. We stopped for a walk at one point, and I took a few pictures:

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On the way back into town we stopped at the Monarch Grove Sanctuary, and it’s early in the season where monarch butterflies overwinter in Monterey. Just when we arrived we were fortunate to see a swarm of hundreds of butterflies near the observation area – apparently not a common occurrence! Sadly I didn’t have my camera ready, but I did later snap one decent photo of a lone flier:

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We may need to go back closer to the height of the season.

We did some window-shopping on Cannery Row and even got ice cream at a Ghirardelli shop there (which I hadn’t known existed). We decided not to go to the aquarium this time around, instead just seeing the rest of Monterey. (Besides which, the aquarium seems to have gotten awfully expensive – over $20 per person!)

It was surprisingly warm and sunny down there, which made for a nice day of walking. A fun time!

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This Week’s Haul

Comic books I purchased this week.

  • 52 #25 (DC)
  • Hawkgirl #57 (DC)
  • Jack of Fables #4 (DC/Vertigo)
  • Justice #8 (DC)
  • Planetary #26 (DC/Wildstorm)
  • Seven Soldiers of Victory #1 (DC)
  • New Avengers #24 (Marvel)
  • Castle Waiting #2 (Fantagraphics)

52 has a clever cover with three young trick-or-treaters dressed like three of the main characters of the series. It otherwise has a bunch of pointless action sequences, except for one scene where Ralph Dibny (the former Elongated Man) is given a short tour of a place in hell where abusers of magic have been consigned. It’s pretty convincingly chilling.

I started buying Hawkgirl when it changed from Hawkman since I thought there were some interesting things they could do with the character. But writer Walter Simonson hasn’t done any of them, and artist Howard Chaykin mostly just draws the character in cheesecake poses. It looks like Chaykin has left with this issue, and it’s probably time for me to do the same. This whole series has been pretty disappointing, despite some great art in the first two years by Rags Morales.

Jack of Fables is a spinoff from Fables featuring the Jack character from various stories. He’s cocky, egotistical, and trapped in a forced-retirement home for fables. His escape plan gets put into motion here, and it’s a hoot so far.

Justice is Alex Ross’ latest work for DC. Co-written by Jim Krueger with art by Doug Braithwaite and Ross, it’s been tremendously disappointing, feeling at best like a warmed-over version of Grant Morrison’s JLA. It involves a group of villains learning the secret identities of the Justice League and waging all-out war on them. Sounds pretty ho-hum, huh? The secret reason why the villains are doing this is revealed in this issue, but it’s still not very exciting. Only four issues left.

One of my favorite series of the last 10 years is Warren Ellis‘ and John Cassaday‘s Planetary. It started out as a clever sort of homage to various pop culture characters of the last century, but developed into a very clever melange of story elements. Our heroes are “mystery archaeologists”, mapping the secret history of the 20th century. Elijah Snow is a man without a past, who learns who he really is, and who the powers behind the throne since the 1950s are. The whole story comes – rather unexpectedly – to a head, here, and I suspect it concludes next issue. Erratic publishing schedules have dampened my enthusiasm somewhat, but I’m still gonna miss it.

Seven Soldiers of Victory is the long-delayed conclusion to Grant Morrison‘s epic about seven heroes who will save the world without ever meeting. Like most of Morrison’s stories, it’s long on ideas and short on character. The conclusion is also very short on sense; I think Morrison tries to be too subtle for his own good sometimes, and this is one of those times. On the bright side, the art by JH Williams III is absolutely beautiful.

New Avengers continues spotlighting individual Avengers in the midst of the Civil War event, this time covering The Sentry, who is basically Superman-in-the-Marvel-Universe. I think Carla’s assessment is about right – don’t bother. Of course, I feel that way about the Civil War generally.

Castle Waiting continues Linda Medley‘s fun series about life after the fairy tale ends. I’ve forgotten what was happening at the end of last issue, but this is an amusing look at the early life of one of the main characters. Lady Jain (whose source story I can’t place) is gradually having her past revealed, and we know it comes to no good in the end, but the telling is arresting.

Daylight Savings Time Without A Saving Throw

The official Dreamhost blog notes that computers will need to change their algorithms for handling Daylight Savings Time starting in 2007.

No, really.

I had heard about this change, but hadn’t considered the implications to the computer industry. Not to mention everyone who’s used to their VCRs and PDAs and other electronic gizmos adjusting their clocks for DST automatically, and whose software is unlikely to ever be revved. (Cell phones are less problematic since they seem to already get the local time via a server uplink.)

Next up: Congress passes law instituting a return to the Julian Calendar.

(In case my entry title baffles you, here’s the entry for saving throw.)

Mifflin Street Co-Op May Close

When I lived in Madison, I lived 4 blocks away from the Mifflin Street Co-op, and I shopped there regularly. In particular I liked their selection of spices and the gourmet chocolate chips they carried. (I tended to skip the Mifflin Street Block Party, though; but you can see some photos of the 2005 party.)

Apparently the co-op may soon close its doors, which would be a real shame.

One feature of the co-op was the impressive mural on the side of the building. Here are more pictures of the mural.

(via AgentXpndble)

Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall

Review of the graphic novel Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall, written by Bill Willingham and drawn by various artists. Published by DC Comics.

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Fables:
1001 Nights of Snowfall
  • Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall

    • by Bill Willingham, Todd Klein, Charles Vess, Michael Wm. Kaluta, John Bolton, Jill Thompson, Mark Buckingham, et. al.
    • HC, © 2006, 144 pp, DC Comics, ISBN 1-4012-0367-1

Released last week, this graphic novel features characters from the ongoing Fables comic book series, but you don’t need to be reading the series to enjoy it!

The premise of Bill Willingham’s Fables is that the homelands of many classic fairy tales have been conquered by a mysterious Adversary, and many fables have escaped and are living in our world in New York (city and upstate). The framing sequence here sees Snow White sent as an ambassador to a Sultan in the middle east, to warn him that the Arabian fables’ lands may be next. Instead, she ends up playing the part of Scheherezade and telling the Sultan stories of her friends’ lives in their homelands to stave off her execution.

The framing sequence is charming, but as an illustrated text piece it drastically underutilizes the skills of Vess and Kaluta (I had similar misgivings about Vess’ illustrations in Neil Gaiman’s Stardust). But it’s the tales that Snow is telling that make up the meat of the book.

The book leads off with John Bolton’s piece, which is about a couple of very-well-known characters (no, it’s not a big mystery, but I won’t spoil it for you), and is the longest and best piece of the book. Bolton has been one of my favorite painting comic book artists and has been for years (for instance, I love his work in Gaiman’s The Books of Magic), and while his stlye has evolved, his sheer skill is not diminished; his work here is gorgeous, and unlike some painters, he’s also skilled at laying out a graphic story. (Some artists – to my eyes – seem to draw some stiff pictures that just don’t flow as a story; Bolton does not have that problem.)

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1001 Nights is sort of a primer to Willingham’s overall approach to Fables: Start with some well-known (or not-so-well-known) fairy tales, and either explore the ramifications of the story by considering what happens after it ended (or before it began!), or put it in a world with other such tales and meld them together into a larger whole. So here we see the early life of the Big Bad Wolf (appropriately drawn in a rough, wild style by Mark Wheatley), and a nasty witch of some reknown (in an eerie style by Esao Andrews – one of several artists here I’m not familiar with). While these contortions tickle the geek in me due to their cleverness, they’re also just good entertainment.

The witch story, actually, is the one story in the volume where I wasn’t fond of the artwork. It’s the one story illustrated by two artists: Andrews and Tara McPherson. In the case of each artist, it’s the stiff poses and relative lack of detail that turn me off. It’s not that their art isn’t expressive, bit it didn’t feel as fully-realized as that of the other artists.

The thread running through most of the stories is that this is backstory for the characters in Fables, and we get many different pictures of characters fleeing their homelands when they’re conquered. Such tales are typically grim, but “Fair Division” – featuring Old King Cole – is charming and heartwarming despite this, which is fitting considering its main character. It’s also wonderfully drawn by Jill Thompson, an artist whose style changes almost every time I see her work. Sometimes it like it and sometimes I don’t, but she brought her “A” game to this yarn, and it’s a fine bookend to Bolton’s story at the front.

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Whether or not you read Fables, you can enjoy this volume. It’s pretty to look at, fun to read, and worth coming back to. (But I wouldn’t blame you if you decided to wait for the paperback.)

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Early Season Fog

Very foggy out this morning – quite a surprise considering it was over 80 on Saturday. My recollection is that we don’t usually get foggy days until much later in the season, but I could be wrong.

Saturday we went into the city. On the way we stopped on the peninsula to eat at Brothers Deli, one of our favorite lunch joints. It recently moved from Burlingame to downtown Millbrae, into what looks like a newly-furnished venue. It’s the same yummy food, though (I like the meat blintzes).

Our main goal was to go to Borderlands Books so I could pick up the copy of Alastair Reynolds‘ new collection Zima Blue and Other Stories. We took BART from the Millbrae station just because I’d never done it, but it’s definitely slower than going to Daly City, where there are a lot more trains to catch, so that’s probably the last time for me unless they start running more trains. I can report success on getting the book, and I enjoy walking along Valencia Street in the Mission district because of all the quirky shops to glance in. But Borderlands alone makes it worth the trip, even when their hairless cat isn’t in residence.

Sunday we vegged out and watched football and baseball. Neither of us was feeling all that motivated to do much. I made some small tweaks to the FP template and did a bunch of reading.

The cats are doing well. They spent most of the weekend sleeping. I wonder if their kitty-drugs wear them out, even beyond being sick. Blackjack is getting his energy back and is behaving a little more normally. Roulette I think is just mad at us for giving her medicine every day – she hates it and struggles to get away. Blackjack fortunately is an easy mark for the medicine; for all I know he might even like it!

Hopefully they’ll be back to 100% by Wednesday. And that we’ll have dodged the bullet without Newton and Jefferson catching it.

World Series Preview

I was chatting with Subrata yesterday about this weeks’ World Series, where his Detroit Tigers face the St. Louis Cardinals for the third time in history. I think the Tigers are pretty clearly the favorites, but I think the Cardinals can win if they accomplish two things:

  1. Their front three pitchers – Carpenter, Suppan and Weaver – pitch well.
  2. Their hitters beyond Pujols and Edmonds can manage to hit Detroit’s pitching.

Suppan has been on a tear for the last 3 months, and Weaver has been decent while pitching for the Cardinals, and good in the playoffs in particular. But neither are sure things. Both men need to continue to dominate for the Cardinals to have a real chance.

I think if that happens and the Cardinals’ legion of also-ran hitters (plus Scott Rolen and his bum shoulder) can step it up, then they should win. Otherwise, I think the best they can hope for is a close series that anyone could win.

But really, the Tigers have better pitching and better hitting (no surprise, since the Cardinals I think had the world regular-season record of any World Series team in decades – maybe ever), and they play one more game at home (the dubious “home field advantage” which barely exists in baseball), so it’s quite possible that they’ll just dismantle the Cardinals (like the Red Sox did to a much better Cardinals team in 2004).

Mainly, though, I think it will be a fun series. Which, when your team isn’t in it, is what we all wish for anyway, right?