Starter Pack

This is my second attempt at writing a blog. Obviously, the first one fell flat, primarily due to neglect, because I had barely anything I wanted to talk about and I was busy adjusting to several lifestyle changes. Particularly fatherhood. So it's not like there wasn't anything interesting going on. There was a lot of stuff going on.

But nothing I wanted to write about.

Dunno why. Geeks like me usually aren't short of things they want to talk about. But at the time, the thought of putting stuff down on the Internet wasn't so appealing.

Things change though. Suddenly I'm once again dabbling into one or two dozen barely-related activities and interests, and the web provides its welcoming, greedy paws to my random desires to rant and rave about this and that.

Good.

Now that the obligatory self-indulgent whatever is done, here's the stuff I'm presently looking into or involved in:

1. Fatherhood - Last I checked, I still had an adorable hyperactive genius 2-y/o female larva running around. Oh wait, here she is. Yup. Still around. Growing too.
2. 2008 Summer Movie Season - Already seen The Forbidden Kingdom and Iron Man, both wonderfully entertaining films. Indiana Jones is next week. And more is to come, from the nice-to-see to the must-watch: Prince Caspian, Wall-E, Kung Fu Panda, The Incredible Hulk, Hancock, Hellboy 2, and of course, The Dark Knight.
   
3. Shadowmoor - Latest Magic the Gathering expansion. Hybrid spells. Funny mana symbols. A legendary Faerie Queen that eats opposing libraries, makes little faerie tokens, and hits like a dragon. What's not to love?
4. Secret Invasion - Y'know how for each of the two major comic publishers (Marvel and DC), every year they have to put out some huge, epic, universe-altering plot? Secret Invasion is the primary Marvel offering of 2008, and supposedly, it's a plot that's been several years in the making. Quick summary? The Skrulls have invaded. No, wait. They're already here. They've been here for a long time.The tagline of the event is pretty catchy, and very appropriate when shapeshifting invaders are involved. Who do you trust?
5. X-Men - The emo team of the Marvel universe continues to draw me. For a team that hasn't had a stable moment for several years, things are still going from bad to worse. The only upside to their present plight? There's a hint that the team as a whole is moving from New York (that city you might have heard of where about 95% of the Marvel universe resides), to the West Coast. Specifically, San Francisco, CA. Finally, we seem some decongestion.
6. Comics - Yeah, even though the two listed above are my present focus, I still take time to read a lot of other titles. Web archive versions of course. And hell, if I like them, I buy them. I like to think I'm serious about my browsing. Normally though I wait till the relevant storyline gets archived in TPB.
   
7. Role-playing Games - Still running Gotham Knights, my online play-by-post/email RPG. Also presently playing in a muck-driven Amber game (appealingly anime-twisted, for extra flavor). Very much interested in what horribly wonderful or nasty things Wizards of the Coast has done with Dungeons and Dragons, 4th Edition.
   
8. Greeting Cards, Tokens and Scrapbooking - The latest venture of my lovely wife, and one that I willingly got pulled into. We're still gathering materials and paraphernalia. The portfolio of our designs and offerings should be next. After that, we'll be giving out samples and taking orders. I never thought home-made greeting cards would make store-bought varieties seem so lame by comparison.
9. Plant Tycoon - Lovely game. Cute graphics. Good soundtrack. Excellent for stress relief. You grow and cross-breed plants. To get more varieties of plants. Then you do it again. And again. Along the way, you might accidentally discover the particular genetic lineage leading up to one of six varieties of long-lost magic plants. They're wondrous and sparkly and have special effects coz, well, they're magical.
10. Retro PC Games - Because I'm not crazy enough to pay over 40,000php just to be able to get the latest video cards and a system that can support them, I've gone back to playing games that were made when game designers were more concerned about playability and fun than "OMG teh grafix r so awesomez." Presently enjoying Zeus, Children of the Nile, and Master of Magic. Once I've had my fill of that, I'm going into Master of Orion 2 and Fallout 2.
11. Avatar, the Last Airbender - Seriously one of the best animated series ever made, even when compared to Japanese anime. I cannot remember the last time I was this captivated and entertained by a story. Full Metal Alchemist and Full Metal Panic come close, but still fall a bit short. Production and release issues aside, this series is that good. It's good enough to make me want to buy the full DVD collection, a privilege only The Lord of The Rings trilogy and the works of Hayao Miyazaki could claim.

That's the nutshell. I'll break down the nuts some other time.