Tuesday, April 18, 2006

A Happy Crying Niece, My Day In A Nutshell, And Cool (To Me) Ideas

My niece Jourdan recently moved out of her parents’ house to share an apartment with a friend of hers.
Shortly after that, she called my sister up and asked if she could make use of her dad’s laptop.
The laptop had been bought before he headed off to Iraq so that he’d have a means of staying in touch while he was away.  Given that it was a top of the line system, it was extremely pricey.
They let Jourdan take it with great reluctance, as a war zone is a much safer place for an expensive piece of electronics than the apartment of two teenaged girls, and my sister contacted me to see if I had a spare computer I’d be willing to donate.
I was going to send Munin, my “kitchen computer,” since I could replace its functionality with Gungnir (named after Odin’s magic spear), my Tablet PC.
However, I am working towards eventually getting Red Hat Certification (I’m taking a Red Hat training class next month), so I want to have a system that I can install Linux on.
I don’t want to do it on Hugin, my main system, and Gungnir’s hard drive is pretty small, so that leaves Munin.
Only, it doesn’t, if I’m going to get rid of it.
Also, the thought of wiping out the hard drive to get it down to the bare essentials and set it up for someone who’s less of a power user than I am was a bit of a pain, as was the thought of boxing it up and hauling it somewhere to ship it away.
So I decided to see if I could find a cheap but decent system that I could buy for her.  I ended finding a good deal at Dell that was made even better by the discount that employees of my company get from them.
It’s not a great system, though it is actually better than Munin (except that it has a CRT monitor rather than an LCD) and there are a few things she’ll need to pick up for it, but it should be sufficient for her needs.
A little while ago she called, as it had arrived.  They’d kept her in the dark about it, and made bets as to how she would react.  My sister bet that she’d cry.  She was right.
In any case, it made me feel good to know that I made her happy, though I told my sister not to let the other kids get any big ideas.  Of course, it’ll be a while before any of them leave home, so maybe I’ll be able to similarly help them out when the time comes.
For lunch today Brian and I went to this place downtown that’s basically just a little stand that has an outdoor dining area.  We opted for that rather than the previously agreed upon Fridays, as it’s a very nice day today, much nicer than the rainy, cold mess it was yesterday (though it did clear up and get fairly nice later in the afternoon yesterday).
Part of the way through lunch his beeper went off for an apartment fire.  He broke out his scanner and listened in, and after we left he swung by the firehouse to pick up his gear before dropping me off, as he was going to head over to it to take some pictures.
I’m sure he’ll have some up on his journal if you’re interested.
After he dropped me off I went for a four mile walk.
And that was pretty much my day, though I neglected to mention that I did go grocery shopping this morning, which was about as exciting as it usually is.

Just Throwing It Out There Department:

Every so often I think of things that would be really cool, but over which I have no control or even influence.
What this usually means is that I come up with ideas for characters and intellectual properties that don’t belong to me.
For example, years ago I came up with an idea for a Superman storyline in which Wonder Woman offers to serve as a surrogate mother for Superman and Lois after it’s determined that Lois would not be able to carry a half-Kryptonian child to term.
There are a lot of reasons why the story as I envision it could never happen, such as the powers that be at DC Comics saying “No.  Fucking.  Way.”
However, that DC would never be bold enough to take a chance like that is only a secondary reason why it could never happen as I envision it.  The primary reason is that I don’t write Superman.
Further, it’s extremely unlikely that I will ever write Superman, or any comic book, for that matter.
Still, the fact remains that it would be a cool storyline full of possibilities, though I doubt that I’m the only person that ever thought of it.
Anyway, my point is that I have some ideas that I think would be really cool, and though I’m in no position to make those ideas a reality, I’m just sort of throwing them out there in the hopes that someone who can do it will.
(And yes, I do recognize that if I worked really hard and followed my dreams and did whatever I needed to in order to make my dreams reality, and yada yada yada, it’s at least theoretically possible that one day I could be in a position to bring my cool ideas to life, but for the purposes of this entry that’s neither here nor there.  And seriously, how likely is it that I would work hard to make my dreams reality?)
Of course, I recognize that there is another problem, in that there is often a vast distance between what I think is cool and what actually is, but what follows here, I think, closes that gap pretty well.
Then again, these cool ideas are only “cool” within a geek context, so consider yourself forewarned.
Cool idea number one:  A new animated series on Cartoon Network centering on Justice League Unlimited member The Question.
In the comics, The Question has never really been much more than a visually interesting character.  20+ years ago, when DC Comics acquired the rights to The Question and the various other Charlton Comics characters (Blue Beetle, Captain Atom, et. al), Alan Moore developed a plan for a groundbreaking series using these characters.  As the end result of the series would be such that the characters could never be used again, DC asked him to create his own characters so that the Charlton characters would still be available should DC decide to incorporate them into the DC Universe.
Alan did so, but the new characters shared definite similarities with their original models.  That groundbreaking work of Moore’s became Watchmen, and the character that was originally going to be The Question became Rorschach.
Clearly inspired by what might have been, the creative forces behind JLU turned The Question into a sort of Rorschach-lite:  all the paranoia and conspiracy theories, half the psychosis and homicidal tendencies.
The end result was a very interesting and engaging character (Greatest Question moment ever:  In a throwaway scene, we find Q in a dark, cold warehouse looking through some containers.  He opens one, breaks out his camera, and says, triumphantly, “Aha!  Just as I suspected:  32 flavors!”)
Add in the strangely compelling – and utterly unexpected – relationship with disgraced JLU member The Huntress (ably voiced by Amy Acker of Angel), and you’ve got a winner.
I think it would be a lot of fun to explore the dark, hidden recesses of the Animated DC Universe.
So if you’re reading this, Cartoon Network, get to work.

Cool idea number two:  A Lord of Light movie.
Actually, three Lord of Light movies.
I’m not the first person to think of this, as there was a movie in the works in 1979, apparently, with comics legend Jack “King” Kirby approached to draw up some concept art.
(As an aside, I can totally picture the kind of stuff Jack would have come up with, as can, I’m sure, pretty much anyone familiar with his work)
With special effects at the level they’ve achieved now, this could be spectacular.
And even though it’s only one book, and much, much shorter than any one of the LOTR books, it’s got more than enough content to fill up three movies of their scale.
If handled correctly, a Lord of Light trilogy could actually deliver on the promise that was made by the original Matrix.
Of course, to be done properly it would have to be a labor of love, meaning that whoever brought it to life would have to have a deep and abiding affection for the story and the characters.
Beyond the fact that this could be an amazing set of movies there is the fact that Roger Zelazny deserves some damned recognition (and better treatment from Hollywood than he got with that piece of crap Damnation Alley movie), and I will close this section with another cool idea:  read some stuff by Zelazny.  There is, thankfully, plenty to choose from, and even the worst of it is better than most of the crap out there, and the only person you’re hurting by not reading his stuff is yourself.
Here is my recommended Zelazny reading list:

Jack of Shadows – It’ll piss you off, but you’ll still love it.
Roadmarks – A road that allows you to travel through time.  Good stuff.
Dilvish the Damned – A collection of stories featuring a hard-luck hero.
And of course, Lord of Light – On another world, far in the future, the Buddha leads the battle to take down Heaven.

There’s more, but this stuff I consider “essential.”
Anyway, for those of you who can, go forth and bring my cool ideas to life.  The rest of you have your homework assignments.
I’ve got something else to “throw out there,” but this entry has been more than long enough, so I’ll save it for later.

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