Quick Post

With everyone recovered from the H1N1, I thought this would be a good time for that follow-up post. That and I'm bored at work. So without further ado:

REVIEWS!
(Posting from my phone, so it will be image free for now. I'll come back tonight and spice it up.)

First up, Astro City. How did I miss this? This is my first encounter with Mr. Busiek, and now I know what the hype is about. This is a great satire on the superhero genre in general. Can't wait to get more into this series.

Rating: 10/10

Secondly, Annihilation. I haven't finished the series yet, but so far I'm quite impressed. The first volume started off pretty slow, with substandard art. Once you get beyond the issues leading into the event, its quite excellent. Having read the first two volumes, I can say two things: this is the best use of the Silver Surfer since the 1987 run, and this is the first good use of Super-Skrull.

Rating: 9/10

I finally got to read Alan Moore's Complete Wildc.a.t.s. I grew up on the Wildc.a.t.s animated series, and I enjoyed it greatly, so its good to see the series' roots. Sure, its 90s-tastic, but in a good way. Its a really fun and groundbreaking (at the time) book that I highly recommend, even if Alan Moore is the comic industry's "angry old man."

Rating: 9/10

Essential Silver Surfer Volumes 1 and 2. This is a monster. The first volume is written by Stan Lee with art by Jack Kirby. How can you go wrong there? Well, you can't, but there are other problems. Mainly, the writing in the sixties seems to insult the reader's intelligence. What I mean is, instead of letting the art speak for itself, the characters have to proclaim every action. "Behold! The wall falters at the merest touch of the mighty Mephisto!" I'm not putting it down, but it does take away from the experience, and makes for a long read. Volume 2 is from the aforementioned 1987 run, issue 60 of which is why I originally got into comics. Its fun to finally, after all these years, read the story leading up to my entry into the Marvel universe. And the art is very Kirby-esque, which helps a great deal.

Rating: 8/10

That's all I have time for right now, but I will check back in later with my reviews of volumes 1-3 of Incredible Hercules.

UPDATE AND SUCH (featuring all caps)

Heyo, gonna do a DOUBLE POST this evening :)

First up, my weekend adventures. Secondly, as a result of my weekend adventures, I got caught up on some comics. REVIEWS!

So anyway, Saturday evening is when it all started. Emily was feeding Olivia on the way to dinner when she started twitching a bit. It got more and more intense, went on for about 5 minutes, then stopped. Through it all, she never lost consciousness, and even continued to eat. We took her to the ER, and it turns out she has the flu. H1N1? We aren't sure, and it really doesn't matter because the treatment is the same. Anyway, we stayed until Monday evening, just to make sure that it was

indeed the flu that sparked the seizure. All other tests came back negative, so it turns out it was the flu, not something more serious such as epilepsy or meningitis.

This picture breaks my heart. Here she is getting an EEG but she's smiling like a trooper.

So we come home Monday night, sleep in our own bed for the first time in three days, and think everything is A-OK. Heh.

This morning, Emily woke up to sharp pains in her chest and abdomen. Thinking it was nothing, she stepped into the bathroom while I fed Olivia her morning pears. Suddenly, I heard a loud scream from the bathroom floor. I left Olivia in her highchair and found Emily doubled over in the floor gasping for air. Called 911, and the ambulance came and took her to the ER. I stuck around with Olivia, because she is still kinda quarantined, until Emily's mom came to watch her.

Here I will insert one of those heart-breaking moments that apparently parents have to deal with from time to time. The transformation of Olivia's face from happy-go-lucky-I'm-eating-my-pears to pure terror as these strangers came into her house and took her mama away was gut-wrenching. It broke something inside me, and all the stress of the past few days came rushing out. Olivia and I had a little father-daughter cryfest in the living room for a few minutes.

So anyway, Rene arrived, Olivia and I recovered, so I got my tail out the door and to my wife's bedside. When I arrived, she was still in pain, and they've got her doped up on morphine. Like, a small cow's worth of morphine. They did a CT scan and, after several hours of waiting, we found out she has an ovarian cyst. Very painful, and something that, as a man, I will never understand, I'm sure, but not medically urgent. They gave her some pain medication and we came back home.

Here is where I insert another parental moment, as the look on Olivia's face as her mama came home was that of purest joy. I'm pretty glad she's home too. I'm glad both of my ladies are home. I'm sure the exhaustion will catch up with me soon.

So that was my weekend. How was yours?