For those of you going out this Saturday to pick up the free stuff on Free Comic Book Day (or if not but you like free stuff) TwoMorrows Publishing is offering a free magazine on May 6th, also. I recommend Back Issue if you're not sure what to get.

This week's Five for Friday list at Comics Reporter is five favorite fight scenes. Check the link to see if I made the cut with these choices:

1. Miracleman vs. Kid Miracleman, Miracleman #15 --This is the knock down, drag out, lay waste to the area type of fight you expect when 2 super powerful beings clash. None of this "fortunately, they hit an abandoned building and no one was hurt" bs you get from Marvel or DC. The outcome is horrific.
2. Batman vs. Superman, Dark Knight #4--Hi ho gee-dee Silver, indeed.
3. Rorschach vs. Big Figure, Watchmen #8--"Hurrm. Never disposed of
sewage with toilet before. Obvious, really. Two-nothing. Your move."
4. Mongul vs. Wonder Woman, Batman, Robin and Superman; Superman
Annual #11--"I know...that your society makes distinctions on a basis of gender and age. Perhaps, then, you could advise me...Which of you would it be polite to kill first?"
5. Superduperman vs. Captain Marbles, Mad--"C'mon, les fight, les fight"

It's on tonight, 11:30pm Eastern time. Set it up to record and thank me later, kids.
Read this if you're still not convinced.

One of the shows in development at Sci-Fi is Caprica set 50 years before the events in Battlestar Galactica, the people of this society are dealing with a technology breakthrough that marries artificial intelligence with a mechanical body to create the first living robot, a Cylon.
No word on if they'll scale back the Saturday night mutant monster/bug movies, though.

Having come from a similar line of work, I can vouch for this list from scifi.com of top 5 things you should never buy.
And yes, this is the 600th post of the blog. Go me!

From Tammy, a meme where you go to Wikipedia, insert your birthday (excluding the year) in the search box, and list three events, births and deaths that occured on your birthday. So without further ado, for November 20th:

Events

• 1820 - An 80-ton sperm whale attacks the Essex (a whaling ship from Nantucket, Massachusetts) 2,000 miles from the western coast of South America (Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby-Dick was in part inspired by this story).
  
• 1955 - Bo Diddley becomes the first African American performer to appear on The Ed Sullivan Show. Apparently Sullivan was infuriated when Diddley sang his self-titled song instead of Tennessee Ernie Ford's hit, "Sixteen Tons".
  
• 1962 - Cuban Missile Crisis ends: In response to the Soviet Union's agreeing to remove its missiles from Cuba, U.S. President John F. Kennedy ends the quarantine of the Caribbean nation. (a year before my birth, and a year and two days before--)
  
• 1982 - Andy Kaufman was forever voted off of Saturday Night Live by a live phone poll.
  

(Like Tammy, I picked four in a category. Like Tammy said, sue me, there were a lot to pick from here.)

Births

• 270 - Maximinus, Roman Emperor (d. 313)
  
• 1925 - Robert F. Kennedy, U.S. Attorney General, Senator from New York State, and brother of President John F. Kennedy (d. 1968)
  
• 1956 - Bo Derek, American actress
  
• 1963 - Timothy Gowers, British mathematician and Ming-Na Wen, Macau-born actress (same year as me)
  

(Again, you get extra. Deal.)

Deaths

• 1316 - King John I of France (d. 1316)
  
• 1910 (N.S.) - Leo Tolstoy, Russian novelist (b. 1828)
  
• 1973 - Allan Sherman, American comedian (b. 1924)
  

I went to see Margaret Cho perform over in Muncie Monday night. The good thing was that it was a free show, the bad thing was that I gave Ticketmaster $2.25 in service, handling and screwing-me-over fees that turned out to be unnecessary (at least I didn't pay $20 bucks to get my ticket, since they went "on sale" 7 days before the show, they didn't have the regular delivery option. I opted for the "will call" so I could pick it up, and figured given it's Margaret Cho, and the show is free, I thought I wouldn't have a chance of getting a ticket day of show. More on that in a minute)
I decided to leave a few hours early and soak up the college atmosphere, which is something I used to do at my alma mater for a year Indiana University. Unfortunately, it's been over 10 years since I was last down there. Fortunately, it's only a little over 40 miles to my destination from where I live. Even better was the fact that gas is 20 cents a gallon cheaper there than it is in my neck of the woods. After a stop at Wally World for some household restocking and an abortive stop at Books A Million at the Muncie Mall (unfortunately, they were stocking the shelves for a May 4th opening and the doors were open due to it being an abnormally warm and sunny day) I went to BSU.
Parking around universities is problematic (a euphemism for "no free spots anywhere close or convenient") The visitors garage was set up where you would go to a kiosk, input your parking slot, and insert money for the amount of time you estimated you would park there. Different from the attendant taking your ticket on the way out and paying for the actual time there. Bet it also nets them more money that way, too.
I had been interested in looking around up there before the show mainly because I had been there before a few times over 20 years ago, most of those visiting a friend named Kenny Trulock. It was one of those trips where I was first introduced to Little Caesar's Pizza and the two for the price of one that they ran so prevalently. We were also introduced to the "zawich" where you fold two slices of pizza together into a sandwich and eat it together. Most times, that's how the wife eats her pizza. Anywho, I was interested in seeing different places around the campus. Some of the more interesting ones were The Wizard's Keep, a gaming store with another set of doors inside the main door that look like castle doors. You descend down to the basement where the store is located (reminding me of the comic shop I patronized at IU) According to Yahoo Yellow Pages, it was also a comic shop, but other than Knights of the Dinner Table (that I had all copies of, and hey, it takes place in Muncie) it was all sorts of gaming stuff. There was also White Rabbit, which is different than it's namesake at IU in that it is wholly a used bookstore. Unfortunately, I didn't do more than a cursory glance around the place. This is different than my days in Bloomington where I would peruse these types of stores at least once a week. Have the years, where I've accumulated most of what I want that's out there, combined with the Internet's ease of obtaining information and books you would want dimmed my interest in these types of stores? I hope it was a case of anxiousness about wanting to see what all was out there and the upcoming show instead, I would hate to think that part of me is dead.
After having some sweet and sour chicken at a chinese restaurant nearby (I was in the mood for it, but the sweet and sour sauce was the kind that tasted like mostly ketchup) I went to join the line of people wanting to get into the show (it was general admission) Before and after joining the line, I noticed the box office window was still closed. Suddenly, the group got up and got close to the doors. I noticed some of them had tickets. Someone else in a similar situation as me went to investigate and found out the doors and the box office would open at 6:30, a half hour from that point, also an hour before the show. We got in line in front of the box office and waited. I got my ID ready to claim my ticket. However, when they opened, they just handed out the tickets, making the whole Ticketmaster transaction an all-around waste. I decided that it was better to have a ticket reserved and ready in case they were all given out, than to come up there and find none available. I mean, what else can I do? If I could get my $2.25 back from Ticketmaster, no matter how much work it would be, I would do it on general principle.
Even with the other people waiting to get in before me, I managed to get a seat in the middle of the aisle 12 rows from stage. I brought my PSP to pass the time.
When the show started, the opening acts were The Gay Mafia a rapper whose song was a hair above my old fart head, but enjoyable. Then there was Bruce Daniels a comedian that was so entertaining, I don't want to use gay as an adjective for him any more than I would describe Margaret Cho as a Korean comedian or Jerry Seinfeld as a Jewish comedian. (I don't know if you can tell, but I had difficulty writing that last sentence to effectively communicate to you) Yes, he talked about being gay, but I still found it funny even though I'm not (I've never been part of a group to enjoy most enterainment, unless it's "Ellen"-style militant) One thing he said about gay marriage (which falls into the "Learn to say ain't" school of thought) which is best as I can recall that (he) pays taxes but is denied the same rights as other people. (yes, please click on both of the previous links to explain the concept of "learn to say ain't", but basically it's about boiling your ideas down to what really matters. For instance, health care in the U.S. Saying "It's wrong for you to lose your house if you kid gets cancer" works a lot better than statistics, data, etc)
Then he introduced Ms. Cho. Like most everyone, I was excited when she came on stage and rose to my feet. As usual, she was entertaining and funny, even though I had seen some of the material before on her last DVD "Assassin". One joke that was new to me was about the argument against the "morning after" pill, that it promoted promiscuity. Her reply was that that didn't promote promiscuity, MySpace did. She also talked about giving up on dieting and conforming to what others thought she should do to become beautiful, that she decided she was beautiful, and others would think that because she did. Another good message that should get out.
The best part of the show was how comfortable I felt being there. I'm not gay, and I'm not a college student, but it felt good being with other like-minded individuals. I would much rather be part of that group than some of the churches and others that some people think are more right to be, not to mention this country the way it is now.

I was going around the 'nets today and came across this quote by Terry Pratchett that sums up my thoughts on conspiracy theories:

"...and then [Sam Vimes] realized he was wondering if the attack on Goriff's shop had been organized by the same people, and whether those same people had set fire to the embassy.

and THEN he realised why he was thinking like this.

It was because he wanted there to be conspirators. It was much better to imagine men in some smokey room somewhere, made mad and cynical by privilege and power, plotting over brandy. You had to cling to this sort of image because if you didn't then you might have to face the fact that bad things happen because ordinary people, the kind who brushed the dog and told their children bedtime stories, were capable of going out and doing horrible things to other ordinary people. It was much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone's fault. If it was Us, what does that make Me? After all, I'm one of Us. I must be. I've certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No One ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We're always one of Us. It's Them that do the bad things."