Bite of Reality
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My Favorite Comic Book

by Tovias on April 6, 2011 at 00:30

When I was a kid I read every DC Comic I could get. Most of the time this involved hovering at the comics rack at the local grocery store while my mother did her shopping. It was before Diamond came on the scene in the 80s. Way back in this ancient time comics were easily found in pharmacies, grocery stores and just about anywhere you'd look.

After Diamond started to take over and limit the outlets where comics were sold my comic buying and reading in general started to slow significantly. My rural hometown didn't have a comic shop and the town that did wasn't the town where we shopped on a regular basis. I remained a fan of comics and would read them when I could, but for the most part I relied on reading comics my friends would bring to school or the ones I'd receive as gifts on birthdays.

After high school I finally had a job and a car and my comics life changed forever when I drove to the nearest comic shop and found Action Comics Annual #3 written by Roger Stern, pencils by Tom Grummett and inks by Phil Rodier, Doug Hazlewood, Carlos Garzon and Brad Vacanta. I was immediately captivated by the alternate timeline story of Superman becoming President of the United States, being offered membership in the Green Lantern Corps and really making the job of his Secret Service detail really easy (or impossible depending on your point of view).

The Dave Gibbons cover was enough to catch my eye, Superman taking the presidential oath of office (from a female Chief Justice no less)!  The writing was excellent, the art was great and overall this was and still is one of my favorite comics. From this one book I started my new collection. In the following weeks I would scour the boxes of old issues of my favorite titles and pickup many of the issues I had missed in the previous decade. Getting this restart in collecting led me to meet  and receive a signed Green Lantern ring from Martin Nodell, co-creator of the original Alan Scott Green Lantern (and also creator of the Pillsbury Doughboy).

It's funny that this issue touches on the idea of how small events can radically change the future, turning left when you originally turned right leading to a completely different fate. That's exactly what this book did for me. Picking up this one book changed the next two decades of my life and I think I'm happier for it.

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shocked

Earthquake in Japan

by Tovias on March 11, 2011 at 14:02

I'm sure most of my regular readers are aware of the recent 8.9 magnitude earthquake that has occurred just off the coast of Sendai, Japan. This is the largest earthquake to ever hit Japan in recorded history and the seventh largest in the world since we've been records have been kept.

So what do we do? We do what we always do, we post about it online, but while you're tweeting and Facebooking today why not take a minute and make a donation to the Red Cross relief effort?

Your gift to the American Red Cross will support our disaster relief efforts to help those affected by the earthquake in Japan and tsunami throughout the Pacific. On those rare occasions when donations exceed American Red Cross expenses for a specific disaster, contributions are used to prepare for and serve victims of other disasters.

And while you're at the Red Cross website why not consider becoming a volunteer or finding a local blood drive? These are the folks that show up at every major disaster and try their best to make things livable for the victims. Got some bad karma you need to offset? Maybe this will tip the scale back into your favor a little. Or maybe just do it because it's the right thing to do?

Thanks for taking the time to read this. Whether you can donate or not how about we keep the folks over there in our thoughts today and spread the word about helping?

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happy-speak

Product Review: Apple Magic Mouse

by Tovias on February 28, 2011 at 09:52

Since getting my iMac a couple years ago I've pretty much used Apple products for all of my computing needs. The iMac came with a USB Apple Mighty Mouse. I quickly upgraded to the Bluetooth version but both were limited by the same problem, the scroll ball. In theory the scroll ball was a great idea. I could scroll and pan in any direction (even diagonally) and I could use it as a third button. The problem (with both) was that after a month or two of heavy use the ball would become gunked up and stop working.  I found several ways to clean it but it would always get gunked up quickly and stop working.

Then I received the Apple Magic Mouse for my birthday. This is, in my opinion, is 90% of the way to being the most perfect mouse I've ever owned. First, the troublesome, gunkable scroll ball was gone. Now the mouse featured a Multi-Touch surface that allowed me to scroll just by moving my finger across the surface of the mouse. With no moving parts there was nothing to gunk up!

The Apple Mighty Mouse featured two side buttons that allowed you to activate certain features on the Mac, these buttons are not present on the new Apple Magic Mouse. I've heard a few people complaining about this removal of functionality but honestly, I'm glad to see them go. I was constantly pressing by mistake when I would hold the mouse "wrong". They were set to activate the Exposé feature which is also accessible from a keyboard shortcut that I prefer.

The Apple Magic Mouse, as with most other Apple products, is designed to be visually appealing. Its streamlined form factor definitely pretty. It's a little more thin than the Apple Mighty Mouse and this has prompted complaints that it's not a very ergonomic design. I have to admit that after several hours of heavy use the muscles in my hand tend to hurt a little more than when I've used other Mouses (Mice, Meese?) for similar periods of time. It may have just been the hand muscles needing to adjust to being used a new way because I haven't noticed it lately.

Also, you'll need a clean surface. More than once I've had to clean the laser port on the bottom (generally by giving it a good blow) when a piece of lint or desk trash would get stuck and block the laser. This has led to me keeping my desk less cluttered so I don't feel this is too much of a negative.

The one negative that I do want to mention is a problem not exclusive to Apple. It's my complaint with the vast majority of wireless devices; batteries. Years ago I had a wireless mouse (I believe it was from Targus). The best thing about it was that it was rechargeable. When the battery was low I could plug it in via the provided USB cable and continue to use the mouse while it charged. Currently I'm going through two double-A batteries every five weeks or so. I know Apple has recently introduced rechargeable batteries but I already have rechargeable batteries, however I don't want to deal with batteries. The only design difference I would suggest for the Apple Magic Mouse would be take away the double-A batteries and make the mouse a solid unit with rechargeable batteries. Just add a USB port on the mouse that would allow me to use the mouse while it charged. That would, for me, make-up the remaining 10% of perfection and  I'd never need another mouse.

Batteries aside, I'd highly recommend the Apple Magic Mouse to any Mac user. It might take you a little while to adjust to holding it "correctly" so as not to give yourself Carpel Tunnel, but if you're using the Apple Mighty Mouse it's well worth upgrading.

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Sometimes, Just Because

by Tovias on January 29, 2011 at 01:48

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.

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