List-Mania: Warren Ellis

Day 111

I have been really trying to keep my geekiness in check but some days these columns just scream out geekiness. And who I am I to stop it completely? Especially when I am having a hard time wanting to blog.

So bear with me or just skip this column altogether because I am going to be talking about comic books and graphic novels. Today I am going to spotlight my favorite writer Warren Ellis.


I first discovered Ellis with his run on Stormwatch and immediately I was impressed. He took a team of just typical superheroes and turned them completely into real people with real situations. It is hard to describe why I like his writing but I will follow him where ever he goes and no matter what he writes. What impresses me is his imagination and how well he grasps human emotion. He can write some impressive hardcore science fiction but yet gives us characters with many layers and personality quirks. Like I said before, I will pick up anything he writes. He can write horror, science fiction, superhero stuff and crime books. And he can mix these genres together and get something extremely fascinating and exciting. I prefer his superhero work but I love pretty much everything he has done. I better stop before I really start gushing. Here are my Top 5 favorite works by Warren Ellis. I have listed the product description along with my comments.

5) NextWave
RRRAAAAAGGGGGHHHHH! Action! Excitement! Explosions! The Highest Anti-Terrorism Effort, or H.A.T.E. (a subsidiary of the Beyond Corporation) put NEXTWAVE together to fight Bizarre Weapons of Mass Destruction. When NEXTWAVE discovers that H.A.T.E. and Beyond are terrorist cells themselves, and that the BWMDs were intended to kill them, they are less than pleased. In fact, they are rather angry. So they make things explode. Lots of things. And that's only the beginning! Starring Monica Rambeau (formerly Captain Marvel and Photon), Aaron Stack (Machine Man), Tabitha Smith (X-Force's Meltdown), monster-hunter Elsa Bloodstone, and The Captain! If you like anything, you will LOVE NEXTWAVE! BOOM!
I love this book because he takes the Marvel Universe (and superhero stuff in general) and makes fun of it. Ellis's dark humor at its best.

4) Fell
Detective Richard Fell is transferred over the bridge from the big city to Snowtown, a feral district whose police investigations department numbers three and a half people (one detective has no legs). Dumped in this collapsing urban trashzone, Richard Fell is starting all over again. In a place where nothing seems to make any sense, Fell clings to the one thing he knows to be true: every body's hiding something.
I love this book because it is not for the squeamish. Ellis takes his stories from real events in life and that makes it all the more creepy. Like the pack of dogs in Detroit to the man that keeps his daughter sick on purpose to the horrifying tradition of hanging baby corpses in your house to ward off evil spirits. Fascinating stuff!

3) Scars
How much of a monster do you have to become to hunt monsters? John Cain has been working Homicide long enough to get hard to pretty much anything; even wrenching personal loss. But everyone has a limit, and today it's gotten too much to bear. Today, he gets assigned something that finally breaks through his defenses - a child killing that hits horribly close to home. Until today, he's been a good cop, a cop who goes by procedure because it's the best way to ensure that scum go to prison. Now, he makes the parents of the victim a chilling promise: he will find the killer using any means necessary. And the killer will not get away with it - no matter what it takes!
This is perhaps the only Ellis work that I have only read twice. This book felt too real and is based on a horror that we unfortunately see every day in the news. Horrifying and heart wrenching at the same time. This book stayed with me for a long time.

2) The Authority
From the ashes of StormWatch (a United Nations super team) comes a new team of individuals who will use their incredible powers and abilities to force the planet Earth to pay attention. Together they are the Authority and they will change the world.
The Authority grew naturally from being a United Nations super response team to a group of heroes that are proactive instead of reactive. They are not afraid to use their power to make the world a better place and they will not let anyone stand in the way. I love Ellis's run on this book because his ideas get bigger and bigger. It starts off with a super villain terrorist that tries to take over the world and they wipe him out. Then the Authority wards off an invasion from another dimension and lastly they fight off the original owners of the Earth.

1) Planetary
This first collection stars a team of super- powered mystery archaeologists who have uncovered evidence of super-human activity that spans the centuries. The team includes the ancient and enigmatic Elijah Snow, hot-tempered Jakita Wagner, and the insane techno-expert Drummer, as they deal with a World War II supercomputer that can access other universes, a spectral spirit of vengeance, and more!
I love this series because it blends everything that I love about Ellis's writing in one place. You get superheroes, crime, horror, action, it homages every genre of comics.

Honorable Mention: Orbiter
In this science fiction mystery tale, Venture, a space shuttle that disappeared ten years ago with its crew of seven, miraculously returns from outer space without warning or explanation. Occupied by only an insane pilot, the spacecraft shows evidence of a remarkable journey through the solar systems. Now, in order to solve the mystery of the shuttle's inexplicable journey and the fate of its six lost astronauts, three NASA specialists are called upon to investigate the alien instrumentation and materials that adorn Venture. But as secrets are revealed, it soon becomes apparent that the shuttle's journey not only took it outside our solar system but to a realm of existence that is unimaginable.
If you love science fiction, I cannot recommend this book enough. Beautiful, haunting and full of imagination. You just gotta read it!

An Evening with U2

Day 110

U2 recently announced that they are coming back to Salt Lake City on June 3rd at Rice Eccles Stadium and I am pretty excited. I was sad that they were not coming during the first leg of their 360 Tour and I didn't think they were going to come back. I missed the Vertigo Tour and I have regretted it.

I have enjoyed their new album No Line on the Horizon immensely and I am looking forward to catching this show live. I don't look forward to scraping up some cash to buy tickets. I don't care where I sit, I am fine in the cheap nosebleed seats, I am only there to hear the music.


This would mark the second time I have seen U2 live. Back on November 9, 2001 I took my sister Jennifer and her boyfriend Justin to the concert along with me and my wife. We first went to the mall by the Delta Center (now Energy Solutions Arena) and got some food and we walked over to see the concert. We were clear in the upper bowl but we still had a good view of the stage. We first stopped by a booth to get some shirts. I bought a shirt for Jennifer for her birthday and I got a cool baseball jersey shirt.


The opening act was pretty solid. It was No Doubt and they were pimping their new album Rock Steady but unfortunately the sound was not that great and we could barely hear Gwen sing. But as far as opening acts go it was a lot of fun.

And then the lights went out and U2 took the stage! Here is the setlist:

Elevation
Beautiful Day
Until The End Of The World
New Year’s Day
I Will Follow
Sunday Bloody Sunday
Stuck In A Moment You Can’t Get Out Of
Kite
Wild Honey
People Get Ready
Please
Bad
Where The Streets Have No Name
I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For
Pride (In The Name Of Love)

ENCORE:
Bullet The Blue Sky
What’s Going On
New York
One
Walk On

I was so happy that they included my favorite song of their new album in New York. That was something that I will not forget. During the song they had two bright spotlights shine from the stage to the ceiling representing the World Trade Centers. And then they showed all the names of the people that tragically died on 9/11.


It was such a fantastic concert. One of the highlights included people watching. Jennifer and I had to laugh at the guy sitting to our right on the row in front of us. He just couldn't clap to the beat if his life depended on it!

I cannot wait to see U2 again and I am excited that it will be an outdoor concert.

Frodo's Parade

Day 109

I am so sorry Jill but I have to blog about this.

My first attempt at a blog was while I was working at WestHost. Blogging at that time was becoming big and our Marketing team was looking into possible blog software. So I installed a blog and began to write. And do you know what my first blog was about? My niece's poor dog Froddo.

MAY 17TH 2004
I wish I had a video camera. Wait, I do have one but I so wish I brought it and was taping this weekend. We were in Richmond for the annual Black and White Parade when I witnessed the absolute funniest thing I have ever seen.


My sister’s dog, Froddo was tied to one of those plastic folding lawn chairs. Right before the parade started, something must have startled him. He took off and dragged the chair with him. As he ran faster; the chair folded up and smacked him in the butt. That really must have freaked him out because he TOOK OFF! The faster he went, the faster the chair spanked him on the butt. It was a sight to see, I thought we would never see him again. He took off right in the middle of the road. I’m surprised that he was caught. The whole street was laughing and laughing. Poor dog. That was the highlight of my weekend though!

Again, I am sorry Jill. But you have to admit it. It was real funny!

When Kristy met Matt: The Big Blue Special

Day 108

When I first started this blog this was the first story that came to mind. It was also the first one that I wrote and I have been waiting and waiting to finally debut it.

Residents of Cache Valley may know what I am talking about but for those unfamiliar with the term, let me explain.

At the local A&W's there is a burger combo called the Big Blue Special. It is named after Big Blue, the mascot for our college (Utah State University) here in Logan. This burger is HUGE. It has three burger patties, tons of lettuce and sauce. It comes with a ton of curly fries and 2 large glasses of fresh A&W Root Beer.

This is where it all happened!

My friends in college would frequent this place to eat and we would all get the Big Blue Special and it was our challenge to eat it all. This also includes the free refill of Root Beer. This would leave us full, so very full. Oftentimes we would sit at A&W's for hours because we were so full. This was our Man Test. You cannot be a man if you could not finish this amount of food. My friends and I conquered it and we would be quite cocky about it, boasting to every one that we were men.

At the time I was dating my wife (obviously before she became my wife) and my friend Lared and I were over at her apartment visiting Kristy (my wife) and her roommates. Lared asked if Kristy would be worthy of me and said that she should partake of the Man Test at A&W's. Kristy is not one to back from a challenge. Her roommates overheard this and they wanted to prove that they could easily pass this "simple" Man Test so we set a date. Tomorrow we would all come over and pick up the girls and head to A&W's for lunch. It was me, Lared, Bear and one of his friends and Kristy's roommates Heather, Emily, Nicole and Stacey.

We told them the test and off we ate. My strategy is to take small sips of the first root beer and have it down the hatch BEFORE you finish your burger. The hardest part is getting all that root beer down. One of Kristy's roommates ordered her root beer with ice cream. I couldn't believe it. Was she just trying to act all macho? Lared and I contemplated that this was mere bravado, she didn't know what she was getting into.

Some of the guys were finishing up and there were just a few girls left over. One girl still had her fries while Heather (this cute little girl who ordered the Root Beer Float) was struggling to finish the rest of her drink. Surprisingly, many of the girls were able to finish the whole meal. I was very impressed that Kristy was able to finish it off, especially since carbonation was something she didn't consume at all. Heather was complaining that her tummy was really hurting so someone suggested that she lean forward on her hands and get on all fours to help take the pressure off her belly. She leaned forward and suddenly, without warning she barfed! It was all ice cream and root beer, it was like someone just tipped a glass. Everyone scattered laughing. I about died.

One of the girl's that worked at A&W's saw the mess on the table and thought she must have spilt her drink (I told you it was only a Root Beer Float) and she grabbed a thin paper towel and started sopping it up. That was too much, feeling like I was going to barf, I went to the counter and grabbed a paper and started to read it aloud. My friend Bear came over to me and put his arm around me and read it with me. Anything to get our minds off of her barfing and off of the girl wiping it up!

One of her roommates stayed right in her chair and continued to eat her fries during the whole barfing incident. She just left the table with her fries and kept pounding them down. Officially everyone finished and passed the Man Test. Heather should have been disqualified since she really didn't eat all her food but we decided she should pass since our rules were ambiguous when it came to if the food should remain in her tummy.


Every time I pass by the old A&W's, I think of this time. For my wedding present, Lared gave me a set of four large official A&W mugs to remember this occasion. When Kristy and I were married we used to visit Lared and his roomies to have Root Beer Float parties too. Those were some good times.

I still use those glasses but only at special times.

Matt at Work: The Affiliate Program

Day 107

One of my favorite things to work on at my last employment was the Affiliate Program. Let me first explain what an affiliate program is for those that are not familiar with them. An affiliate program rewards people with cash for advertising and promoting our company. Basically you can make money off of people by just simpling pimping a service.

When we first implemented this in our company it was exciting and it gave me a good idea. I decided to become an affiliate myself. My friend Zack would order comics through me and then would pay me when they came in. But then I learned that mailordercomics.com had an affiliate program so I signed up. Then Zack would order his comics through a banner on my website and I would get 11% of what he paid. Just by doing almost nothing! This turned out to be quite a lucrative program for me, I would have all my friends order through my link and I would get cash. During the best times I was making an extra $100-$180 just by having a banner on my website. It essentially paid for my expensive hobby. Sadly, mailordercomics.com closed down there affiliate program.

I had this banner on my website advertising mailordercomics.com.

The program that I worked on at my last employment was pretty much the same. Instead of a percentage, we would pay out between $65-$95 per sale. We would make on average around $300 per client so giving back $65 was not a big deal. And we had some great affiliates that would work hard to bring us sales. Some of them easily made thousands a month. It was fun to talk to these guys on the phone and help them out.

Eventually I was given the task to run the day-to-day activities of the affiliate program and I was absolutely thrilled with it. I would run reports, check for fraud and deal with our affiliates exclusively. The affiliate program worked great because it was free marketing. Our affiliates were in charge of promoting our services and then would run with the ball.

My boss then quit his job and it was up to me and my new boss to make sure that the affiliate program was running efficiently. We were the only ones that knew what our affiliates were doing. We were the only ones that had access to our affiliates and stats. And then a small crisis came up. It was tax season and one of our affiliates contacted us to see if we need to send him a tax form so he could report his sales. My friend and I had no clue how to generate the tax forms so we told our CEO about the possible problem.

As an affiliate myself, I did a little research myself. And I found the answer rather quickly. If you made over $500 a year on affiliate sales then you would have to report it. If it was under, it was not required. In looking at our 2,000 plus affiliates only a small handful qualified. My friend came back downstairs after meeting with our CEO and he was basically yelled at. Our CEO was so angry, he thought that he would have to generate 2,000 forms and send them out. I told my friend that was not the case at all. So my friend and I were happy, we could easily figure out what to do next, and generating maybe 10 forms would be easy to do. So my friend happily went upstairs to tell our CEO of the happy news I found. We both thought he would be happy and proud of us.

But that was not the case.


My friend came back downstairs and told me that our CEO thought I was wrong. He said something to the effect of "Platis doesn't know what the **** he is talking about and doesn't know **** about affiliate programs" and so forth. My friend defended me by saying that I have my own affiliate program so I know for sure but that didn't help. He hooted and hollered about how my friend and I are stupid and that he would find out himself. And come to find out, I was right. But our CEO was so stubborn in being right that he offered no apology or any praise that we know what to do.

Then he found out that I was essentially running the affiliate program and he flipped out. And suddenly (after running the affiliate program for about 2 years) I was removed and it was given to someone that knew nothing about it.

I was ticked. They removed the only thing that I liked doing there. And that ultimately lead to my quitting that place.


It was around this time that I seriously began to think of leaving this place. It was the first of many nails in the coffin. I had drawn this picture and placed it on my desk. And I added a nail every time something happened that made me think of the future.

February Day(s) of Reckoning

Day 106

By the way, before I forget. I blognapped Kristy's blog today. She must have forgotten that I helped her set up her blog so I know her password. You can see it here: 365daysofKristy

I know I say this every time this column comes up and I will probably keep saying it but I cannot believe that it has been two weeks already!

So how am I doing?


WRITING:

I am losing it. I am losing focus and I have slacked off writing and editing. I did e-mail a few folks the first half of my novel for them to edit and I am hoping that pushes me forward. I am getting real close to the end though and that makes me happy. And I just edited one of my favorite parts of my novel yesterday. When I look at the big picture and see how much I have accomplished and what I have left, I am satisfied with how much I have done. I only have 17,359 words left of my novel to edit. I have written so far on my second draft 73,173 words! All I have to do in addition to finishing is to write a small conclusion to another chapter I added. And then go through whatever edits I have that my friends have for me and I am done!

READING:

Good news/bad news here. The next book that has been recommended by my friend Steve is 'Then We Came to the End' by Joshua Ferris. I picked this up at the library and I got through the first four chapters but then I had to renew it at the library. And someone had placed a hold on it so I don't have it anymore. ARGH! The book was a little difficult to get into but the further I got the better it became. I liked it because it reminded me of WestHost. Every character that book had there was someone at my old work like them. And the chair... ...Tom's chair was (so far) my favorite part. Maybe one day I will write a book about my time at WestHost.

So until I get that book back, I will have to concentrate on finishing Veeps before the month ends.

Exercise and Eating Right
I skipped yesterday. Kristy and Logan had the day off from school and I don't like to do the Wii Fit with them around. Aside from that, I have done pretty decent. I am down a few more pounds and I am closer to my goal. I also have noticed that I look much better. I still have the ol' love handles but my chest, shoulders and arms have improved. Yes, I am an Adonis.

As far as my other goals have gone, I have not had any time yet. The novel is my focus for now. We'll see how I am in another 14 days.

Pic of the Week: Life with Logan

Day 105

I remember back before we had Logan Kristy and I used to watch VH1's Behind the Music episodes almost every Sunday night. For those that don't know, Behind the Music was a TV show that took a musical artist and we saw their story. How they became a band, what happened to them, what they are doing now and so forth.

I learned two things watching that show. If you belonged in a metal band, someone would die somehow. Seriously, it happened to Def Leppard, Metallica, Ozzy Osbourne, AC/DC and you can count Motley Crue since one of the members was actually pronounced dead before somehow coming back to life. The other thing that I learned was how much family meant to these hard rockers. Every single one of them would talk about how much they love their kids and how that was the best part of their life. And I used to think "Are you kidding me?"

I would love to be a rock star and perform in front of huge crowds and tour. They had it all and their kids were the best thing that happened to them? Seriously?

Then Logan came along and suddenly I realized how right they were. I think one of the best things about having a kid of your own is introducing them to things you enjoy. I have tried my hardest in getting Logan to enjoy what I enjoy. For instance, Kristy is not a fan of hamburgers and I love them. She is more of a pizza person. But Logan LOVES cheeseburgers now so I have him on my side when we decide to treat ourselves by going out to eat.


He is willing to pose for my blog and he likes Banshee! (I'll have to explain who Banshee is in a later post)


He is a New York Jets fan! Poor kid, I shouldn't subject him to that!


He is a big Star Wars fan. He loves watching and playing Star Wars.


He was Wolverine for his 1st Halloween. I'll have a separate blog entry for this. I made a movie with him and it was better than Wolverine Origins.


He can be silly when he feels like it.


He loves cats. Sorry dog people and cat haters. We love cats. But we are not fanatical about them though.


He loves to read and loves the comics I have got for him. I cannot wait till he gets a little older so he can really dig the ones I have.

I guess having a kid is a cool thing.