R.I.P. Power Girl

As many of you know, I dabble in comics from time to time. With DC's New 52 launch, I've picked up a few books with the intention of long-term reading: Batman (excellent), Catwoman (on the fence), Wonder Woman (good until they changed creative teams), and Animal Man (amazing). Around the same time, IDW started publishing a reboot of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and it is WONDERFUL. Then, even more recently, IDW started a new Danger Girl series. So you could say I'm down with the comics right now. But for the previous two years, the only comic I read was DC's Power Girl series.


This is PeeGee as drawn by Amanda Conner, who as far as I'm concerned is the only artist who should be allowed to do so. This picture illustrates everything I like about the character: she's brash, tough, willing to punch first and ask questions later, and she has a unique body type among all the DCU women. Power Girl is a little heavier than your average Starfire or Black Canary. Her breasts are bigger, her hips are hippier, her figure is more hourglassy. And, for the most part, she's always been portrayed like this.


Her costume has always been pretty consistent, aside from some bizarre and ill-advised changes, like this one:


That is HORRIBLE. I cannot unsee it, and there's a similarly terrible costume that's white and gold and it's a full body suit and I'd rather not talk about it. I blame the 90's. But the traditional Power Girl costume has been a white one-piece bikini, blue boots, blue gloves, a gold shoulderpad, and a red cape.


Oh, and a "boob window." Although she hasn't always had it (scroll up a bit), Power Girl's costume usually includes a hole where Superman's symbol would be, displaying her not-inadequate cleavage. I certainly don't mind this, and most readers probably don't, but unfortunately, Power Girl has come to be defined by this "boob window" almost as much as her short blonde hair and color scheme. And it's been the source of some amount of scorn: Power Girl's cleavage gets an undue amount of hate, especially in the face of characters like Starfire:


And Catwoman:


Power Girl's suit seems downright conservative by comparison, but her rack is bigger, she's bigger, she gets an undue amount of hate.


Look away, kids! It's a healthy-looking woman with superpowers!

Anyway, the point of this post is that after Power Girl's solo title disappeared after 27 issues and DC did a "soft reboot" of the DCU, Power Girl was nowhere to be seen, presumed dead. Ironically, she had survived all the previous reboots, and in fact one of her major story arcs (in JSA Classified) basically makes fun of all her origins and powers. But she survived through it all, and we were sad to see her supposedly go in the New 52.

Spoke too soon.


She's back--or rather, some version of her is back. She and Huntress will be starring in a new series out in May called World's Finest. That's supposed to be Power Girl on the left.

Say it with me now: What. The. Hell.

She suddenly looks like June Cleaver. Her entire costume has changed from the iconic colors and, yes, cleavage, to something about as generic as you can get. They've exchanged her striking blue boots and gloves for gold boots and gauntlets. I'm not sure how her cape is staying on. This is the most shabbily designed superhero outfit I've seen in a long time. Now, just to refresh your memory, this is what Power Girl has looked like for about fifty years:


Oh my gosh, she's been with Huntress before, too. But whereas Huntress' costume and color scheme have been largely unaffected, Power Girl drew the incredibly short stick. My working hypothesis is that, in an effort to expand its readership to, I dunno, more women (?), DC decided to cover up everybody's favorite Earth-2 Supergirl, shrink her down to a more waif-like form, and halve her cup size. Oh, and give her a haircut that would look dated in 1965. And in the meantime, DC is doing this to their other superheroines:




If you couldn't figure out who that last one is, I don't blame you: it's Harley Quinn. No, I'm NOT kidding. Figure THAT one out. Now then, what's especially vexxing is that all of these character redesigns are a part of the New 52, so three of the DCU's characters are getting really sexed up, but Power Girl, who for whatever reason got a lot of flack for having cleavage, is being scaled back WAY too much. See why I'm confused? I'm confused. Yeah, close the "boob window," but why are you changing HER ENTIRE COSTUME? It's no longer iconic--it's unbelievably generic. None of that costume says "Power Girl."

I'm incredibly disappointed that my favorite super heroine is getting the shaft because of overcompensation on DC's part, and it's unfair to her. Power Girl is big, beautiful, and proud of it. DC is doing the character an incredible disservice, and I am very disappointed. Rest in peace, Power Girl, you deserved better.


Sidenote: My Art Evolved (!) friends are you to give me grief if I don't list some image credits. I'm FAR too lazy to searching through comic archives to see who the illustraters were for the comic art here, but thanks to Glendon Mellow, we know the grey-background Power Girl is by DeviantArt's own Pyrotech07...now known as Pat the Wanderer. The bottom picture is my favorite picture of Power Girl EVER, and it's by the incomparable Bruce Timm.

So credit where credit is due.

Depressing News Stories

This is depressing.

This is also depressing, for a different reason.

Discuss.

Ceratopsian Volume: Continuing Trends

I'm not even gonna bother posting that same picture. New Perspectives on Horned Dinosaurs, a book we've all been waiting for since 2008, has been pushed back again from April 5th to June 2nd. Yeah, we'll see if THAT'S the magic date. You know, Indiana University Press has a big sauropod book coming out in August. Perhaps we should say August 2012? Just sayin'!

Big Boss died. I have no idea how.

Explain this one to me, dear readers.

Tonight, I checked on Big Boss, my wonder gecko, and was concerned because he hadn't been eating...in almost two weeks. I tried picking him up, and he squirmed a little but was otherwise compliant. This is highly unusual. He would normally be halfway to Timbukbu by the time by finger brushed up against his side. Anyway, I pick him up and start picking shed skin off his toes and legs that he hadn't gotten to yet. He was not putting up a fighting, just chillin'. So I get to his legs and notice that his vent (butt) has a kind of scabby thing stuck in it. That means he's impacted. So I sterilize my tweezers and try to pick it out. Again, he's not totally into it, but he's not going crazy, either. However, it's still hard work because Big Boss isn't having a great time. So I do what I used to do with Liquid--stick him in the fridge for a few minutes to cool him down.

So I do that. Big Boss comes out still sort of moving, but half asleep. I flip him on his back and get to work on the impaction. I actually manage to get a bit out, but it'll take more work. When he starts to wake back up, I give him a break and stick him back in his tank. Naturally, I start reading online about how to dissolve an impaction. Hey look--let him stand in a warm pool of water for about ten minutes. So I fill a shallow dish with warm water, get Big Boss out again, and put him in the water. Again, he's not struggling.

Then the trouble starts. While he was initially standing in the water, he quickly goes limp. The second his nose hits the water, I pull him out. This lizard is completely limp. No idea what just happened. The end of his tail is twitching, though. I put him back in his tank under the heat lamp and let him lay there. A few minutes later, I check back. He's changed positions from laying on his belly to a rather unnatural sideways tilt. I continue to watch, and then the freakiness happens: his body convulses uncontrollably--I can't tell if he's half-paralyzed or having a seizure. These convulsions are very short but occur once every few minutes. It becomes pretty obvious that his brain is not turned on right now. Eventually the convulsions stop and his body goes stiff. He's dead. I actually suspect he died in the bath, and the ensuing convulsions resulted from background electrical activity. Think about a lizard tail that's dropped--it flips around for up to an hour after it's separated from the body.

So here's my question: What the heck happened? And don't say metabolic bone disease (MBD) because he's a fat, active, healthy gecko aside from this impaction, which I suspect wasn't more than a week old. Any ideas? I'm sad, but I'm also just plain curious. I'm suspecting a heart attack or a stroke, but can lizards get heart attacks and strokes?

Not Dead Yet!

Happy New Year, Merry Squidmas, and all that jazz. I've been woefully neglectful of this blog over the past ten days, and I apologize for it. Between the holidays, the layoff, and my Quest for Reemployment, things have been understandably slow. I'm sad to report that the Big Interview I was basically set to nail did not go as planned. The job I was interviewing for wasn't really the job they were interviewing ME for, if that makes any sense. I left confused. I will hear back from them at the end of the month, and I instantly started shooting off resumes to other companies.

I'm relieved to say that I've interest has already been generated. I've signed up for unemployment benefits to cover the downtime, and I was relieved to hear that, since my last day was the 1st, my benefits run through the entire month. After that, I get very cheap COBRA benefits (like very cheap).

Other than that, I've been gaming pretty heavily. I got a lot of games for my birthday and Christmas, so I'm slowly slogging through my backlog so that I can get to the new material. I've been reading Scott Sampson's excellent Dinosaur Odyssey and doing an awesome feathered dinosaur puzzle. I got Gamera the Brave for Christmas, and Scott, we've gotta watch it together, buddy. You and Raven should come over sometime. We'll make food and watch daikaiju.

Job Hunt Update

I've sent out lots of resumes only to find that nobody is calling me back. I blame the holidays. Those in charge of hiring are either on vacation or just taking time off. I've applied for unemployment in the very real possibility I won't have a job in January, though I do have one veeery promising interview lined up for December 30th (I know, right?). The other, much scarier possibility is that my job skills are not in demand, and the jobs I want are not the jobs I'm going to get. Sinking to a lower income level is NOT something I want to do. It's also possible that every company that would hire me is going through a hiring freeze, as my company is doing right now. I suppose the scariest thing is that no job interview is a guarantee of employment, and that this interview is taking place literally two days before they punt my carcass out the door at my current job.

NOT a lot of wiggle room there. More as it develops...

Dangerous Ltd. is Either Very Stupid or Dishonest, or Both

Our friend Matt Wedel over at SV-POW wasn't treated very well by Dangerous, Ltd. These are the people who brought you Clash of the Dinosaurs on the Discovery Channel. The show itself is pretty bad, as I've said before, and you've probably read on other blogs. However, they quote mined Matt when it came to that old, dead myth about pelvic brains. That shit's not cool, and here's why: It's not just misinforming the public (which is bad enough), but it also puts Matt's reputation and credibility on the line. That's called slander, and it's a crime.

So, what to do, what to do? Well, the first step is to read Matt's account of the situationHERE. The next step is to email some of THESE PEOPLE and politely, succinctly, discuss your concerns. If you're thisting for further justice, you should know that Dangerous Ltd. is owned by Zodiak Entertainment. You can tell Zodiak that you're displeased with how their subsidiary is treating its interviewees HERE. Finally, you can tell the Discovery Channel that they should probably know better by emailing THESE people. I urge you all to, at the very least, email Dangerous Ltd.

Matt is considering legal action, and I don't blame him. Matt, best of luck to you, sir. If there's anything else I can do to help, just ask.

Blogobituary

Sable, 12 or 13, was put down at the vet tonight. She died, like Liquid, from a whole bunch of things: cancer, terrible arthritis, and the beginnings of liver disease. She'd also been almost completely blind for about a year. It became more and more painful to see her limp around the house and develop a very throaty pant (which is indicitive of pain). I can't help but wonder if she knew the end was coming--she wasn't eating as much these last few days, and stayed outside much longer than usual, just laying in her dirt patch. After the deed was done, the vet made an impression of her front paw in clay, which is nice.

For my wife, Sable was the best dog in the world, and she was very close to Sable. Sable herself was very independant and didn't necessarily see us as her owners as much as people she lived with. The second treats were made available next door, she probably would have easily lived with our neighbors without skipping a beat. But she loved walks and head-scratches, and we'll both miss her terribly.

Sable is survived by her roommate, Ozzie, and the humans who loved her very much.

Blogobituary

Liquid Gecko (right), four, died last week of systemic infections that may have included cancer. Both eyes were horribly infected with green pus and a tumor-like growth appeared behind his left eye. Minor sugery to the area revealed nothing inside but white tissue. He may have also been compacted, but it's hard to tell. I put the poor lizard down by refrigerating him for a half hour, then moving him up to the freezer. He hadn't eaten in months and was visibly declining. I suspect he was days from death when I "helped him along," but I didn't want him to suffer any more. He is survived by his brother, Solid (center) and his cousin, Mr. Fat (left).

His corpse was buried in the backyard and marked with a paint stiring stick. Hopefully his body will have skeletized by next summer. The one good thing to come out of the saddness is that I'm no longer losing sleep worrying about the little guy.

In times like this, I find myself selfishly hoping Liquid is going to some abstract "better place." That Big Terrerium in the Sky, as it were. It's useless to speculate on some higher plane, however. I suspect that humanity creates afterlife myths to comfort the living and remember the dead, but the reality may very well be that we become the very dirt we were born from. Those with unshakable faith know that white clouds and angel wings await them beyond death, but I have no such luxury. Death is hard for me, not only because I will miss the individual who I've lost, but because I worry about what it means for me. I cannot, and will not, entertain ideas of an afterlife of which there is no physical evidence. I may as well waste my time hoping dragons exist. Maybe they do, but until one is found, I'm going to worry about more worthwhile endeavors.

The bad news? We may...probably will...lose Sable tomorrow, too.

Water: The Magical Cure-All

Homeopathy kills a child. Now, I'm not surprised that this happened (or happens). What I'm curious about is the motivation for such irrationality. What drives people to seek out bizarre, unproven, "mystical" treatments for maladies that are perfectly treatable with real medicine? Humans have a talent for cognitive dissonance. Even if all evidence points to the contrary, Jenny McCarthy still believes (and that's the proper term) that vaccinations cause autism. Holocaust deniers still believe that Hitler did not, in fact, kill a bunch of Jews. AIDS conspiracy theorists believe that AIDS is a government-created disease meant to thin the population and/or get rid of homosexuals.

But here's my question: why do people believe this nonesense? What is the draw? If I can explain something in perfectly reasonable terms in a way that's clearly observable, why does that not suffice? Why does mysticism have to play a part at all? Look, here's an example. Let's say that one of your friends believes that keeping a dryer sheet in your pocket will keep mosquitoes away. That's an attractive proposition, given that Alaska's mosquitoes are the size of songbirds and darken the skies with their numbers during the height of summer. So you try this. It does not work. You rub the dryer sheet all over your head and neck. Still nothing. You pack several dryer sheets in your pockets. Nada. The mosquitoes don't care. You know what does work? Mosquito repellant, easily purchased as the grocery store for like two dollars. It's a little like suntan lotion, although there's a spray-on kind, too. The point is, repellant works, but the dryer sheet does not.

But your friend still believes that dryer sheets work. Why? When all evidence to the contrary demolishes one's belief, what is the point in retaining that belief? This question applies to a great many subjects including conspiracy theorists, members of the BAND*, homeopaths, religion in general, this guy, and many more.

So I guess my question is this: why do people believe crazy things when they have absolutely no evidence to back those claims up? And why, when contrary evidence is introduced, do they hold on to those beliefs, often with a tightened grip?

*Birds Are Not Dinosaurs

Pardon My Irritation

The whole Best Buy snafu has gotten me thinking. I must share my newly acquired wisdom to others. This wisdom may be accompanied by massive doses of cynicism.

1) Never, ever order anything online using the cheapest possible shipping method. Your most affordable choice at Best Buy Dot Com is $3.00. Your package should arrive about two weeks later. It will not. Rather, it will appear at your door roughly five weeks later, as I discovered to my horror. Your package will travel not via plane or truck, but tortoise. Yes, your book, movie, or video game will be strapped to the back of the common desert tortoise (Gopherus agassizii). This hearty terrapin, the successor of the horseback rider of the Old West, wanders the American southwest more or less at its leisure, stopping often to sleep, eat, and simply stop moving (it's a turtle, for Godsake). At some point, this turtle will more or less accidentally reach Washington State--a miracle, considering that Gopherus agassizii is a desert tortoise. The tortoise will then be tripped over by a United States Post Office employee, who, noticing the now-decrepid package, will pluck said parcel from the tired tortoise's shell and toss it onto a passing barge.

This barge only leaves the port twice a week (no, really). Its course takes it all over the world, including, I suspect, Antarctica. Its last destination will always be your house. Always. The package will be delivered to your house long after you've forgotten what it was you ordered, or even that you ordered anything in the first place. Thus, it's a nice surprise to see a package on your porch at all.

So fuck you, Best Buy Dot Com, for lying to me about when my package would arrive. Their estimate suggested that my package would arrive between August 12th and August 18th. That's damn good, considering I ordered the thing on the 7th. But hey--why would Best Buy Dot Com lie? If they knew it would take longer, or even if they didn't, wouldn't it be better to suggest a later date, thus ensuring a happy customer? I mean, if you think it's going to arrive in three weeks, why not say four? And besides, if you said four, I might be more inclined to pay the higher shipping fee, which brings me to point #2.

2) The United States Postal Service is inefficient and money-grubby. These are the people who require up to 48 hours to "process" anything. From what I've been told, processing amounts to slapping an address sticker on a box, then scanning that sticker's barcode into a computer. If you don't give the USPS enough money, they will strap your package to the back of a fucking tortoise. How much money will it take to upgrade that from late-surviving anapsid to actual flying vehicle? Oh, not a whole lot, just a 500% increase in shipping cost. That's right, kids: If I want my package to arrive in a timely manner, a manner which some might consider reasonable, I get to shell out $16 instead of $3. So here are my options: $3 for absolutely shit, or $16 for acceptable. And God forbid I would want my package the next day. That would cost $25. And because Best Buy lies to me, I should probably add at least a week to those approximate times. So, in all fairness:

Option One: Your package moves from one end of the United States to the other at the speed of a glacier--Three Dollars.

Option Two: Your package is tossed into the cargo bay of an airplane and probably arrives at your doorstep in about two weeks--Sixteen Dollars.

Option Three: Your package is given the direct-flight treatment, or at least as direct as you can get in the airports these days--Twenty-five Dollars.

So here's my question, USPS: In an age where we can put a man on the moon, grow genetically modified foods to end world hunger, split the atom, and cure terrible diseases, what year do YOU think it is? I guess mail trucks are great, but it's not a huge step up from those horseback riders from yonder days. How much of the process is automated? How much more automated could it stand to be? And why have my stamps risen in price so dramatically within the last few years? Between the forty-six cent stamps and the sixteen dollar shippings costs, I expect a whole lot better.

But perhaps I'm forgetting that the United States Postal Service is run by the Federal Government. There's even a "Postmaster General," a job I imagine does not require any sort of advanced degree or that much time in the office. So maybe I shouldn't be that surprised that the USPS is so inefficient and lazy--it's handled by the United States government.

Fun Fact: You know why we don't get mail on Sundays? According to Wikipedia, churches noticed a drop in Sunday mass attendance because some of their convent worked as mail carriers. And because Sunday is the Day o' Rest, that's not allowed. Our government, always happy to blur the line between church and state, buckled under the pressure as a soda can would a vehicle tire.

This is the part where I suggest that my readers abandon the USPS as much as possible. There are plenty of other mail carriers out there. UPS, FedEx, DHL to name a few. And I have consistently found that those three are far faster and more competant than the USPS. Sure, there are exceptions. It doesn't cost you an extra dime to send back a NetFlix movie or recieve a magazine in your mailbox. But if you have packages to send, just don't use the USPS.

So, to conclude, Best Buy Dot Com is run by lying liers who lie, and the USPS is a broken, worthless system. And no, I still have not recieved Soulcalibur IV. And as of tonight, at least, it has not yet reached Anchorage. But hey, who's counting?

Alaska: The Eighth Continent

Listen, dear readers, to my tale of woe:

So, on the 7th, I ordered the special edition of Soulcalibur IV from Best Buy online. I did this because (1) I'm a sucker for anything that says "special edition;" and (2) nobody in town had the special edition in stock. In fact, to this day, it's difficult to find the standard edition in Anchorage. At any rate, I paid the $2.99 shipping charge because it was that or a $16 shipping charge. My choices were a bit constrained. This is something I will never, ever do again.

My order confirmation suggests that my package will arrive between the 12th and the 18th, which I, perhaps stupidly, believe. Thus the days ramble on with no Soulcalibur in sight, and eventually I come to accept that my game will not arrive until the days leading up to the 18th. Note that it's the 18th today. At any rate, I take to perpetually checking the status of the package's journey online. This epic trek began somewhere in Ohio, where the game was moved from Best Buy's warehouse to Cincinnati, and on the 9th, it was "processed."

And there it stayed, as "processed," for the next nine days. I was ready to call and yell at somebody this morning when I noted with glee that, as of today, it had been processed and shipped from Washington state. But I could get no further information from the tracking website, and I could reach no human voice on the phone. So I ran to the post office today in hopes of finding more information.

They were able to tell me that the package was shipped by boat, not plane, and the trip from Washington to Alaska could take as long as a week. And I imagine, as I am now extremely cynical, that the trip from the Anchorage harbor to my mailbox could take another week. Hell, maybe they'll dock in Seward, then drive it up to Anchorage. There's gotta be a slower way. Maybe toss my package on a canoe and let the mailman explore the streams and rivers between Seward and Anchorage, stopping every so often to rest, eat, sleep, and hike between the waterways. I have resigned to the idea that I will not be playing Soulcalibur IV until I return from PAX. In September. Thus, by casting my expectation that far forward, I will not be disappointed but pleasently surprised to find the package on my front porch before that date.

A similar problem has held up my fossil cat book. Of the three books ordered last week (longer?), one of them was on backorder, but rather than send that book separately, Barnes & Nobel wisely held on to both of the other books, choosing instead to send all three at the same time. This package will not be sent out until August 26th, eight days from now, and two days before PAX. I was hoping to take this book with me on the plane!

So I'm now torn about ordering ANYTHING online. The company can be extremely slow to ship the order out, and when it IS shipped out, the United States Postal Service is extremely slow to deliver it. Haven't we gotten the point in our development as a society that we can move a package from one end of the country to the other in less than three to five weeks? We can put a man on the moon, but a cheap, reliable mail delivery system is beyond our grasp.

But here's the real icing on the cake: Mike Gamin, one of my NWR colleagues, shipped me a DS game to review called Izuna 2 (it's not that great). Mike lives in New York, which is seemingly farther toward the opposite end of the country than Ohio. Mike sent this game after I'd ordered Soulcalibur, and Izuna 2 arrived last Thursday. I don't think he spent more than $5 on the shipping costs. Does two freaking dollars make that much of a difference? And is there really no other alternative than "slow as a one-legged dog" shipping ($3) and "we'll get it to you within the week" ($16) shipping?

So yeah, frustration is setting in. My expectation is not being met. It's not like I don't have any games to play during the waiting period (actually, I've got quite the backlog), but worrying about it isn't doing me any favors, either. I don't even care about the game anymore. I care more about getting the damn thing and putting it out of my mind, if that makes sense.

Backlog: Call of Duty 4 (PS3), MGS4 (PS3), Odin Sphere (PS2), Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly (PS2), Fatal Frame 3: The Tormented (PS2), Super Mario Galaxy (Wii), Virtually all of my Virtual Console games (Wii), Professor Layton & the Curious Village (DS), Space Invaders Extreme (DS).

I can't think of a subject line for this!

Holy Mother of I Dunno What. Here's a question for you: If God is loving and kind and all that good stuff, why does S/He let this kind of shit happen? Why weren't all those crazy people in that crazy cult taken out by searing bolts of lightning?

Well, maybe the baby really was a demon. I guess that's entirely possible.

More on the BCS

If any of you were wondering more about the Blue Collar Scientist's untimely passing,
look no further. I warn you, though, it's tough to read--especially if you knew the man.

Blogobituary

It would seem that my friend Jeff, better known as the Blue Collar Scientist, has passed away after battling a mysterious cancer. His blog will continue to appear on my blogroll for all to see and remember. My thoughts to out to Jeff's family and friends.

And now may as well be as good a time to announce this as any: When he told Scott Elyard and I of his diagnosis, Jeff asked that we take up the Anchorage Skeptics mantle. It is a position we happily accepted. The Skeptics will not go quietly into that good night! Fear not--among other plans, an Alaska Museum of Natural History tour is in the works. Fellow Anchorage Skeptics, keep an eye out for emails. I'm sad to say that Jeff had planned on attending the meeting, which is tentatively scheduled for mid-August.