Fate's Got A Printer Driver
...I think it is time to admit to myself that I am just not a fan of Greg Rucka. Perhaps I should qualify this by stating that Mr. Rucka is probably a very friendly chap and perhaps even a spectacular bocce ball player. I will even go a step further and state that I don't necessarily think he is untalented in the realm of creating fiction. Taking the long route to return to my original point, I think I am finished trying his stories on for size.
In addition to reading a plethora of graphic novels and comics, I try to read at least one novel or non-fiction book alongside. When I stumbled upon the hardcover version of Batman: No Man's Land by Greg Rucka in pristine condition, I had to own it. It has now been over four months since I cracked the 420-plus pages open to begin reading and I'm still barely halfway through. Since I began, I've completed countless graphic novels as well as The First Man by Albert Camus, Paddle Your Own Canoe by Nick Offerman, I Am Legend by Richard Matheson and others. Every time I look down at the dust cover with its ominous looking cityscape, I think about woodworking or starting a petition to release a gaggle of seagulls into a crowded office building.
As a Batman fan, I want to love No Man's Land like no other. As a reader, I want to complete a novel and feel that satisfactory glow of having invested quality time into something with a hefty payoff. But thus far, I just cannot seem to find the grip. I feel like I am trying to read a Batman novel written by Tom Clancy. I felt the same way upon finishing Greg Rucka's latest creator-owned series for Image called Lazarus. The concept sounded really interesting, but the execution felt like what the cover of a Clive Cussler novel looks like to me. Clearly, there's an audience for espionage thriller and for someone who is looking for a new author in that vein, I do believe Greg Rucka will whet your whistle. Me? I am returning to hippos with machine guns and multiple Oppenheimers battling inside the mind of the host.
(Is this my return to You're Breaking Up...What? Stay tuned.)
...Cola recently (well...this afternoon) suggested that I blog about "fate". She is a believer. I am not. She asked that I do this and revisit it in six months. To me, that is too deep of a commitment for me to make on the matter. What happens in six months to the day from right now I run out of Pico De Gallo and need to make an emergency run, completely dropping the ball? What then will become of my desire to own a sex robot?
Fate is defined as something that unavoidably befalls a person or fortune. I have a million questions right from the jump. Does fate imply a controller beyond one's reach? For the God-fearing person, their answer would naturally be in reference to the Father of the Jesus. Just this branch alone leads me to a multitude of follow up inquiries that I will actively avoid to both escape a serious discussion as well as to keep the Flying Spaghetti Monster from feeling left out.
As an attempt to not wax philosophical, I will instead ask of the purpose of a few random events. In one event, I am walking towards the comic book store and a trash ball from space falls from orbit, hurdling towards Earth and crushes me and my copy of Lobster Johnson to bits. In a second event, I am sitting alone in a Popeye's Chicken restaurant. The Regional Manager happens to visit the store as I stuff my face with spicy bits of fused-together floor scrapings and decides my beard grease-laden face is the one that will help the franchise win the breaded chicken skirmish with Kentucky Fried. Finally, I purchase a scratch lottery ticket and become the instant winner of $2,500 a week for life. I hand my ticket to the cashier, get confirmation that I have actually won and I exit the store elated. I wake up the following morning and decide to be brazen. I drive to the office in a foam rubber swordfish costume with intent to somersault into the door, do a spin move, sneeze on someone's microwave meal and announce that I am leaving the company in a yodel. I drive to the office, exit my vehicle and upon walking towards the door, I am mauled by a lion that escaped from the zoo.
So...does fate matter in any of these scenarios? Were these my destinies in each scenario or just strange coincidences? Which moments count as fate and which count as just mundane blips in time? Or is every single second of each of our individual waking lives one long, continuous strand of fate that begins when you flop out of your mother's birth canal and ends cruelly and when you least expect? I tend to feel that there are too many variables involved. Maybe some believe in fate as a method of making sense of why good things happen to bad people and vice versa. Perhaps six months from now, I will have an idea.
Read: Nowhere Men by Eric Stephenson
Listen: Cynic Traced In Air
Watch: The Hobbit: Extended Edition
In addition to reading a plethora of graphic novels and comics, I try to read at least one novel or non-fiction book alongside. When I stumbled upon the hardcover version of Batman: No Man's Land by Greg Rucka in pristine condition, I had to own it. It has now been over four months since I cracked the 420-plus pages open to begin reading and I'm still barely halfway through. Since I began, I've completed countless graphic novels as well as The First Man by Albert Camus, Paddle Your Own Canoe by Nick Offerman, I Am Legend by Richard Matheson and others. Every time I look down at the dust cover with its ominous looking cityscape, I think about woodworking or starting a petition to release a gaggle of seagulls into a crowded office building.
As a Batman fan, I want to love No Man's Land like no other. As a reader, I want to complete a novel and feel that satisfactory glow of having invested quality time into something with a hefty payoff. But thus far, I just cannot seem to find the grip. I feel like I am trying to read a Batman novel written by Tom Clancy. I felt the same way upon finishing Greg Rucka's latest creator-owned series for Image called Lazarus. The concept sounded really interesting, but the execution felt like what the cover of a Clive Cussler novel looks like to me. Clearly, there's an audience for espionage thriller and for someone who is looking for a new author in that vein, I do believe Greg Rucka will whet your whistle. Me? I am returning to hippos with machine guns and multiple Oppenheimers battling inside the mind of the host.
(Is this my return to You're Breaking Up...What? Stay tuned.)
...Cola recently (well...this afternoon) suggested that I blog about "fate". She is a believer. I am not. She asked that I do this and revisit it in six months. To me, that is too deep of a commitment for me to make on the matter. What happens in six months to the day from right now I run out of Pico De Gallo and need to make an emergency run, completely dropping the ball? What then will become of my desire to own a sex robot?
Fate is defined as something that unavoidably befalls a person or fortune. I have a million questions right from the jump. Does fate imply a controller beyond one's reach? For the God-fearing person, their answer would naturally be in reference to the Father of the Jesus. Just this branch alone leads me to a multitude of follow up inquiries that I will actively avoid to both escape a serious discussion as well as to keep the Flying Spaghetti Monster from feeling left out.
As an attempt to not wax philosophical, I will instead ask of the purpose of a few random events. In one event, I am walking towards the comic book store and a trash ball from space falls from orbit, hurdling towards Earth and crushes me and my copy of Lobster Johnson to bits. In a second event, I am sitting alone in a Popeye's Chicken restaurant. The Regional Manager happens to visit the store as I stuff my face with spicy bits of fused-together floor scrapings and decides my beard grease-laden face is the one that will help the franchise win the breaded chicken skirmish with Kentucky Fried. Finally, I purchase a scratch lottery ticket and become the instant winner of $2,500 a week for life. I hand my ticket to the cashier, get confirmation that I have actually won and I exit the store elated. I wake up the following morning and decide to be brazen. I drive to the office in a foam rubber swordfish costume with intent to somersault into the door, do a spin move, sneeze on someone's microwave meal and announce that I am leaving the company in a yodel. I drive to the office, exit my vehicle and upon walking towards the door, I am mauled by a lion that escaped from the zoo.
So...does fate matter in any of these scenarios? Were these my destinies in each scenario or just strange coincidences? Which moments count as fate and which count as just mundane blips in time? Or is every single second of each of our individual waking lives one long, continuous strand of fate that begins when you flop out of your mother's birth canal and ends cruelly and when you least expect? I tend to feel that there are too many variables involved. Maybe some believe in fate as a method of making sense of why good things happen to bad people and vice versa. Perhaps six months from now, I will have an idea.
Read: Nowhere Men by Eric Stephenson
Listen: Cynic Traced In Air
Watch: The Hobbit: Extended Edition
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