This Week’s Haul

Comic books I bought the week of 2 April 2008.

  • Action Comics #863, by Geoff Johns, Gary Frank & Jon Sibal (DC)
  • Countdown to Final Crisis #4 of 52 (backwards), by Paul Dini, Sean McKeever, Keith Giffen, Jamal Ingle & Keith Champagne (DC)
  • Metal Men #7 of 8, by Duncan Rouleau (DC)
  • Clandestine #3 of 5, by Alan Davis & Mark Farmer (Marvel)
  • The Twelve #4 of 12, by J. Michael Straczynski, Chris Weston & Garry Leach (Marvel)
  • The Boys #17, by Garth Ennis & Darick Robertson (Dynamite)
  • Project Superpowers #2 of 6, by Alex Ross, Jim Krueger & Carlos Paul (Dynamite)
Action Comics #863 Action Comics this week wraps up “Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes”. It’s been a strange nostalgia trip for us 70s Legion fans, starting with “The Lightning Saga” and now this one.

To summarize, as a boy Superman was recruited by the Legion – a group of teenaged heroes who live in the 30th century – to become a member, and to give him a sense of belonging to a group of his peers. However, this isn’t the Legion of his 30th century, since that’s presumably the group currently being published in Legion of Super-Heroes. Rather, this is the Legion whose adventures were published in the 1950s through the late 80s. Only in this world Karate Kid never died (instead he gets to die in Countdown to Final Crisis, but that’s another matter), and the Magic Wars never brought the 30th century to its knees, and thus the Five Years Later stories never happened. Rather, Superman grew up and stopped going to the 30th century. And the Legion grew up, too, without him.

In “The Lightning Saga” a few Legionnaires came back to the 20th century to bring the Flash back to his time. Karate Kid and Starman stayed behind. And then Brainiac 5 contacts Superman and brings him into the future to help overthrow the future Justice League, a group of former Legion rejects led by Earth-Man, who can absorb the powers of other heroes. The rejects have convinced Earth that Superman was a human like them who fought for human rights and that they should kick all the aliens off of Earth – a bummer for the Legion since they’re mostly aliens. When Superman arrives he finds that the sun has been turned red, so he loses his powers, and that other planets are preparing to stage an all-out war against the xenophobic Earth.

All of this is pretty silly, and it gets sillier in this issue, which features such elements as a complete disregard for the speed of light, and Superman gaining and losing his powers instantly depending on the sun’s color (I thought Superman acted more like a solar battery rather than the sun acting like a magic on/off switch like it did in the 1950s, but admittedly I don’t follow too closely). From a structural standpoint, it’s never clear why Superman needed to be involved in this story at all, as he has only a marginal effect on the outcome (besides throwing the final punch). Thematically he witnesses what happens when his name is used to evil purposes, but a thousand years down the line there’s not a whole lot he can do about that.

I sound like a sourpuss, but despite the continuity confusion and story silliness, I actually enjoyed the story and it was consistently near the top of my reading stack each month. Johns may have written a very loose story, but I was genuinely interested in what the heck was going on, and it features plenty of rah-rah heroism to make it actually feel good. Plus as a fan of the Legion from the 1970s, I enjoyed seeing “my” Legion back again; their backstory may not make any sense, but by-and-large they acted like the Legion I loved, and in a way that’s more important. So as self-indulgent, ultimately-meaningless stories go, it was a fun read.

I’m conflicted about penciller Gary Frank’s art. His style has evolved over the last 10 years from a clean-lined cartoonist to a strict realist, rendering his figures in careful detail. However, he’s another artist who rarely draws backgrounds, which means his panels are often missing a sense of place. The cover of this issue (at left) is a good overview of his style in all these regards, actually. Still, he does have a strong feel for facial expressions and draws some nice action scenes which keeps the story moving along. (He also draws a terrific Dawnstar.) Overall it’s a net win, although I think if he fleshed out his panels a bit more then he could move up into Dave Gibbons territory as an artist.

I guess this Legion will next pop up later this year in something called Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds, which might explain why there are all these Legions running around. Or not. Still it’ll be drawn by George Pérez, and that’s enough to get me to check it out. (There’s an interview with Geoff Johns about it here.)

Countdown to Final Crisis #4 As I feared after last week, Countdown to Final Crisis undoes all of the ballsy moves they put in place in the last few weeks by revealing that it all happened on an alternate Earth. So Karate Kid and Una die for nothing (not that their presence in the book ever made the least sense at all), we we’re not back to the silly Dark Mary Marvel stuff, which also makes no sense.

Who thought all this was a good idea?

I Knew Know Knew Books…

Last weekend we dropped into Know Knew Books, one of the notable used bookstores in the area. Last fall they’d been having a “Going out FOR business” sale, which confused the heck out of everyone, but the bottom line was that they were selling a bunch of their inventory to clear space to do some remodeling and then bring in some new stock. Or, at least, that’s what they told me, and apparently that was the plan as of last summer.

Well, they didn’t do any remodeling that I can tell. Maybe they replaced a bunch of the bookcases, but whatever they did it wasn’t evident to me. What they did do was repurpose a bunch of the shelf space to display…

…toys and action figures.

I’ve never seen so many Star Trek action figures before. And superhero action figures. And various other action figures.

The selection of books seemed to be basically the same. When I first moved here, Know Knew Books seemed to have a really good selection of collectible books and hard-to-find paperbacks, especially in the science fiction and mystery sections. In recent years their stock has made the (perhaps inevitable) slide towards a collection of random and fairly uninteresting (and presumably hard-to-sell) paperbacks, as I found fewer and fewer gems there. And they had basically the same stock, only less of it.

After Debbi and I stepped out of the store we looked at each other and said, “That was really weird.”

I’m not sure what happened. Did a new owner buy them and decide to take them in a different direction? Did they decide they needed media tie-ins in order to bring in more sales and browsers? I have no idea, but it sets a completely different tone for the bookstore – that it’s not truly a bookstore anymore – and its makes me less enthusiastic about making my periodic pass through the store in the future, since I have no interest in such toys.

(For what it’s worth, I find that Recycle Book Store in San Jose is much like what Know Knew Books was when I first moved here.)

Real, Live Baseball

So a month or so ago I bought some tickets to some baseball games, including to today’s Red Sox vs. A’s game, which was supposed to start at 7:35. But, uh, a few weeks later I received a phone call and a postcard informing me that the game had been moved to a 12:35 start time. You’ll notice that today is a Wednesday. Gah. To be fair, the time was moved so the Sox could fly back to the east coast before midnight. Fair enough. Fortunately, both Debbi and I were able to take the day off to go to the game. Whew! I only went to one ballgame all last year, and I want to make a better showing this year.

Debbi pointed out that we might have better luck parking at the Millbrae BART station with its huge parking garage than in the east bay, plus afterwards we could go to the excellent Brother’s Deli for dinner. Sold! So we drove up and caught BART to the Coliseum. Along the way we met a fellow who was in from Boston and was going to catch the game himself. Nice guy, we chatted about the Sox and gave him some advice on getting a ticket (which mostly consisted of “where the good seats are” and “where the ticket office is”).

We got there in plenty of time and found our seats in the second deck basically right behind home plate. In fact, we had a view like this:

Hazy Morning
It was a light and cloudy morning…

I do enjoy my ballpark food, but along with rising ticket prices, park food is getting more expensive, too. The Coliseum features Round Table Pizza, which I enjoy pretty well for chain pizza, but their pizzas seem to be getting smaller even as they get more expensive. So I may be switching to sausages soon.

The A’s are in a rebuilding period now, having traded Dan Haren and Nick Swisher in the off-season, so they’re not going to be very good (although not as bad as the Giants). Consequently, the stadium attendance resembled 1999, when I first moved here, when Red Sox fans seemed to outnumber A’s fans. Here’s a sample. Keep in mind that the Sox’ colors are red and dark blue, while the A’s colors are green and gold:

The colors of baseball fandom
Sox fans are red, Sox fans are blue…

The game got under way just a couple of minutes late, and it was a pretty exciting game! Jon Lester – cancer survivor and World Series hero – pitched for the Sox, while the great but oft-injured Rich Harden pitched for the A’s. The Sox kept collecting baserunners, but just couldn’t bring them across the plate, and at the end of the 6th inning the game was still scoreless. (The ump’s strike zone seemed to be ridiculously wide, which had something to do with it.)

But Harden had been pulled at the start of the 6th, and the top of the 7th began with Kevin Youkilis rapping out a double (quite a heads-up play as he was running all the way and just barely beat the throw), and David Ortiz followed with a home run to right field. The Sox added 2 more in the 8th off 5 consecutive singles (4 to shallow left field), and Jason Varitek capped the scoring with a home run in the 9th. Meanwhile Lester cruised through 6-2/3 innings, and two relievers closed out the game, as the Red Sox held the A’s to 4 hits and shut them out 5-0.

The forecast was for rain today, but we never got more than a light drizzle – hardly even noticeable – and it was cool and pleasant. It also turned out to be “foul ball day” as dozens of the things peppered the infield stands, including this one which came right back at us as I was taking this photo, landing a few rows in front of us:

Low bridge!
Low bridge!

We were also amused that whenever the A’s brought in a reliever, the infielders and outfielders would each gather and stand around chatting. I guess they were just killing some dead time like anyone does, but I rarely see it happen so regularly.

Pitching critics
“Do you think that curveball makes his butt look big?”

That photo’s also great because of the Sox baserunner in the background working out a problem with his laces during the dead time.

All-in-all a great day at the park, and the Sox are now 3-1 on the season. We headed out to BART and took the train back to our car, looking forward to our dinner plans… only to find that Brother’s Deli closed sometime late last year! What a bummer! They’d moved from Burlingame a few years ago and although their new digs were nicer, they seemed to have a lot of trouble attracting customers, and I guess it caught up to them. Parking around downtown Millbrae could be a challenge sometimes, too. Alas, I’ll need to find somewhere new to order meat blintzes. I’m going to miss them.

Hard to believe that our bonus day off is over already! Back to work tomorrow. Fortunately it’s only for a 2-day week…!

Opening Day

Yesterday was opening day of baseball season. Yeah yeah, there was a game on Sunday, and the Red Sox and A’s played a two game series in Japan last week, but most teams opened the season yesterday. And thanks to that Japanese series, the Sox and A’s play the other two games of their season-opening “series” in Oakland this week.

The first of the two games was tonight, and I certainly was coming home to watch it; even with the Red Sox being the defending world champions, I don’t get to watch enough Red Sox baseball out here.

I came home around 6:40 and threw the TV onto the baseball channel just for the heck of it while I prepared dinner. After a minute I realized all I was hearing was crowd noise, so I went out to look at the TV, and realized that they were showing the entire pre-game ceremony without commentary or commercials! So they introduced the Red Sox, and introduced the A’s, and held a moment of silence for Joe Kennedy, who passed away due to heart disease last November, followed by the national anthem. I was impressed, it was almost like being there for opening night.

The game itself was excellent, with Sox pitching holding the A’s to only 3 hits, and A’s defense holding the Sox to only 2 runs despite 9 hits, and the Sox prevailed 2-1. There was even a botched call at the plate (giving the Sox a run) and a botched home run call (taking one away from the Sox).

The long dark time is over – baseball’s back!

Robert Charles Wilson: Spin

Review of the novel Spin by Robert Charles Wilson.

Spin
Spin

Winner of the 2006 Hugo Award for Best Novel, Spin is the second novel I’ve read by Robert Charles Wilson. The first was The Chronoliths, a nifty idea which I thought fell short on both the plot end and the character end. Spin has its flaws, but it’s all-around a far superior novel.

Spin has a framing sequence taking place in the far future, but the main story begins in the near future when three lifelong friends, the narrator, Tyler Dupree, and the twins Jason and Diane Lawton, are entertaining themselves one evening while the Lawtons’ parents are throwing a party. Suddenly all the stars go out, even more suddenly than in a famous science fiction short story. Actually, Earth has been suddenly enclosed in a membrane which filters perceptions of the outside cosmos, letting through enough sunlight for life to survive and blocking out most everything else.

Jason grows up as his father E.D.’s right hand man, helping run a powerful company to learn what the membrane – called the Spin – is, and how mankind can free itself from it. Diane instead joins an apocalyptic religion and retreats from her family and friends. Tyler gets a medical degree and becomes Jason’s doctor and confidante. They soon learn that the membrane is protecting Earth from the effect of speeding up the passage of time, so that 100 million years pass outside the membrane for every year that passes on Earth. That works out to about 3 years every second, which naturally leaves everyone concerned that the universe will actually come to an end in their lifetime. Yet this leaves the questions: Who’s done this to us? Why? Why haven’t they shown themselves?

I think that Spin aspires to consider humanity’s reaction to being placed in this incredible and fatalistic situation through the eyes of its characters, but it rarely really considers the gestalt of humanity’s reactions: There are occasional riots, periods of resignation, the seemingly-obligatory religious fervor, and an awful lot of coping. Only this last is really handled in much depth, as the technical challenges are considered (the Spin, after all, cuts Earth off from all its orbiting satellites), and some of the decisions that people make when faced with the end of the world – albeit one which will come years or decades later – affect the main characters. But our heroes – who are mainly Tyler and Jason – are too privileged and isolated to really have more than a distant view of how most of the world is dealing with the situation.

Consequently the bulk of the book is a chronicle of its characters lives, as seen through Tyler’s eyes (and occasionally through Jason’s words). Jason is obsessed with doing what he can to free humanity from the Spin, and he feels the weight of his task – not to mention his relationship with his power father – on his shoulders. Tyler is more of a strict observer, Jason’s friend but also his inferior, haunted by his romantic feelings for the distant Diane, but unable to really contribute directly to Jason’s projects. Still, his position makes him an important witness to many of the remarkable events that occur during the story. Neither character is especially complex – indeed, Wilson takes pains to note that Jason is something of a one-note character by his own choice – so the book doesn’t entirely work as a character drama. There are periods of dramatic interest, but I think the book drags at times as it tries to pace out the characters’ lives, but their lives outside the Spin aren’t all that interesting. It’s only as they relate to the Spin that they really have meaning. (While this is, strictly speaking, a criticism, to be fair Spin isn’t any worse than most SF novels in this regard; it’s actually somewhat better.)

Fortunately the science fictional plot picks up plenty of the slack. You may think I’ve given away the big surprise in explaining what the Spin is, but there’s a lot more in here revolving around Jason’s efforts to find a way to break free of the Spin, including two clever ideas for “gaming the system”, making the Spin work for humanity rather than against it. It’s not hard science fiction per se, but it mixes some traditional science fictional ideas with some more modern ones and comes up with a fairly novel concoction. The reason behind the Spin is indeed explained, and not only was it not at all what I’d expected it would be, but it makes sense, turning out to actually be a high concept behind all the mystery. It’s pretty rare that a novel can pull that off without seeming cheesy, and despite its flaws Spin is never cheesy.

What isn’t explained is why the membrane is called “the Spin” by the characters, as it doesn’t seem descriptive of the phenomenon.

Overall this is quite a good read. The best SF novel of 2006? Well, that’s always a tough argument to make, but certainly I’ve read worse Hugo winners. I may be a bit jaded at times, but this one has a satisfying conclusion and several moments of “whoa, that’s cool”, and that’s a pretty good foundation for any novel. The sequel is Axis, which I suspect heads off in rather a different direction.

Fitzy’s Special

An exchange while eating my home-made tacos tonight:

Me: I could make these more often, you know. They’re scrummy!

Debbi: “Scrummy?” Is that, like, scrumptious and yummy?

Me: Yup.

(pause)

Me: It sounds better than “yumptious”.

The taco recipe, by the way, comes from an ex-girlfriend. “Fitzy’s Special”, she called it. It’s ground beef, refried beans, browned onions, and spices, served in tortillas or taco shells. If I ever hear from my ex again, I’ll have to tell her how much Debbi loves it. (Okay, maybe that wouldn’t go over so well.)

The tacos are one of the few things I cook which I can make in 30 minutes or less. A lot of recipes I make take several hours, especially the Indian food which takes 30-60 minutes to prep, and then 2-3 hours to simmer. It’s scrummy, too, and makes several meals’ worth of food, but I pretty much have to make it on the weekends.

Gee, I oughta make some sometime soon!

This Week’s Haul

Comic books I bought the week of 26 March 2008.

It’s a small, all-DC week!

  • All-Star Superman #10, by Grant Morrison & Frank Quitely (DC)
  • Countdown to Final Crisis #5 of 52 (backwards), by Paul Dini, Adam Beechen, Keith Giffen, Jim Starlin & Rodney Ramos (DC)
  • Countdown to Adventure #8 of 8, by Adam Beechen, Allan Goldman & Julio Ferreira, and Justin Gray, Fabrizio Fiorentino & Adam Dekraker (DC)
  • Legion of Super-Heroes #40, by Jim Shooter, Francis Manapul & Livesay (DC)
Countdown to Final Crisis #5 I’ve been trying to resist commenting on Countdown to Final Crisis until it wraps up, but I can’t resist this one: The Great Disaster arrives (a concept from Kirby’s Fourth World series from the 70s, which as I’ve said before I think are silly and forgettable at best), and it’s because a member of the Legion of Super-Heroes came back from the 31st century, decided to stay, and happened to be carrying an advanced virus (“morticoccus”) which causes humans and animals (and Kryptonians, it seems) to mutate into murderous monsters.

Huh?

There are still four issues to go, plus the inevitable Final Crisis series coming up, but this whole series makes basically no sense to me. Not only have many of the plot threads been seemingly-irrelevant to the main story, but the time travel element introduces logical difficulties which the story has made no effort to explain.

While there’s a certain fascination to watching the fall of the “real” DC Universe, and the audacity that it’s being handled in such a straightforward fashion – when the series involves time travel and parallel universes, it seems all too easy for them to write this one off in a few glib panels. While I suppose it’s remotely possible that this drek could be woven into a sensical story in the last 4 issues, it sure seems unlikely.

Countdown to Adventure #8 The best of the various Countdown-related comics has easily been Countdown to Adventure. Of course, it’s not the Countdown-related elements that I enjoyed; rather, it’s the unrelated material which is entertaining.

The Forerunner half of CtA has been completely pointless. She was a pointless character to start with, and is only more so here: A supremely-skilled combat expert and the last survivor of her race, she finds reason for being at the end of this tale, but since she’s pretty much a total cipher as far as her personality goes, that basically renders the whole thing, well, did I say pointless?

The headlining story is by far the reason to check out this series: The “mystery in space” characters from 52 – Adam Strange, Animal Man and Starfire – deal with an infection brought by them to both Earth and Rann which turns people into violent slaves of a religious demagogue named Lady Styx. It may sound silly, but it’s very much in the tradition of the Silver Age yarns from which Strange and Animal Man hail. All three characters undergo some decent character tests along the way: Strange is deposed as protector of Rann and replaced by a psychopathic fellow Earthman, leaving Strange wondering what his reason for living is, since he’s unable to support his family as a civilian. Animal Man’s marriage is strained after his year-long absence in space. He and Ellen are letting Starfire live with them until her powers return – if they ever do – and Ellen worries that her husband is thinking of leaving her for the statuesque alien babe. Of course, it all turns out all right in the end, but it was a fun read.

Adam Beechen does a good job guiding the story, and while Allan Goldman’s art is a little unpolished, it’s dynamic enough to work, and reminiscent of Norm Breyfogle at times.

I guess the characters will return in this summer’s Rann/Thanagar: Holy War, although unfortunately I find the Rann/Thanagar warfare to be pretty tedious by this point; not only is it an old idea (dating to the late 70s) but it’s addressed in little bits here and there without much sense of ever moving forward. I fear that the character bits which made CtA enjoyable will be completely lost in that series. Still, that’s no reflection on this series, which I’m almost sorry to see come to an end.

Fantasy Baseball 2008

Ah, another year of fantasy baseball. Last year was extremely frustrating, since I came out of last year’s draft with what I thought was one of the best teams I’d drafted in this (very competitive) league, and then my pitching imploded and various other things went wrong. Mid-way through the season I decided that if I didn’t finish in the money that I’d drop out of the league. I ended up finishing 7th (out of 16 teams) which was the last spot in the money, so here I am, back again!

As always, the draft was held at Chris’ house down the street. I got there at 11 am to set up the wireless, which ended up going flawlessly – it worked the first time! Internet connectivity was actually great, and the draft went very smoothly. We were doing each round in about 25 minutes for the first 10 or so rounds, and it speeded up after that. It took us a little less than 9 hours to do the whole draft, which is about average. A long day, but it’s a lot of fun – which is why I do it!

Pos Player Team Round/
Pick		 Age Comments
C Gerald Laird TEX 14/218 28 My catching really stinks.
C Dioner Navarro TBA 15/234 24
1B Albert Pujols SLN Kept 28
2B Kelly Johnson ATL 2/26 26
2B Ron Belliard WAS 19/296 33
2B/SS Erick Aybar LAN 18/281 24
3B Miguel Cabrera FLO Kept 25
3B Melvin Mora BAL 20/310 36
SS/1B Carlos Guillen DET 1/10 32
SS Jhonny Peralta CLE 6/90 25
OF Corey Hart MIL Kept 26
OF Chris Young ARI Kept 24
OF Josh Hamilton CIN Kept 26
OF Jacoby Ellsbury BOS Kept 24
OF Jason Kubel MIN 16/250 26
OF Carlos Gomez MIN Kept 22
OF Melky Cabrera NYA 22/345 23
SP James Shields TBA Kept 25
SP Joe Blanton OAK Kept 26
SP Jeff Francis COL 3/42 27
SP Hiroki Kuroda LAN 4/58 33 A new Japanese import, reportedly an extreme groundball pitcher.
SP Zack Greinke KCA 5/74 24
SP David Bush MIL 7/106 28
SP Kevin Millwood TEX 9/138 33
SP Edinson Volquez CIN 10/154 24
SP Paul Maholm PIT 23/356 26
SP Zach Duke PIT 23/364 25
RP Rafael Soriano ATL 11/170 28 I have the all-Rafael bullpen!
RP Rafael Betancourt CLE 12/186 33
RP Rafael Perez CLE 13/202 26
IN Carlos Gonzalez OAK 8/122 22 The key prospect in Oakland’s trade of Dan Haren to Arizona.
IN Gio Gonzalez OAK 17/266 22 One of the prospects in Oakland’s trade of Nick Swisher to the Chicago White Sox.
IN Brent Lillibridge ATL 21/323 24
IN Matt Antonelli SDN 21/334 23 Heir apparent to second base in San Diego.
IN Justin Masterson BOS 23/368 23 Well-regarded sinkerball pitching prospect.

My biggest regret of the draft was not taking Kurt Suzuki when I had a chance, as that left me with the true dregs for my catching slot, without even much upside. I also regret just missing out on prospect Brandon Wood. But those are fairly small regrets; overall I was pretty happy with how it turned out. I expect I’ll have a middle-of-the-road pitching staff with some upside, and a potent offense. My team is generally young (which is typical of my teams in recent years) so it could be better than I project.

It takes a fair amount of luck to win this league, not to mention a better pitching staff than I usually have. But I still have a fun time putting the team together. Hopefully the dice will roll more in my favor than they did last year.

Low Variance

Poker last night was fun. Lee hosted, which meant we spent some of the evening trying to seduce his cats (and then trying not to get clawed or nipped by his over-stimulated cat).

I had a blah evening on the poker side, never being down or up more than $4 at a time (we play with 5¢/10¢ blinds). We did play with a new wrinkle, giving each of us a special randomly-select hand – from cards no higher than an 8 – and if we showed down the winning hand with it then we’d win 10¢ from each other player. Mine was 8-3, and I managed to win one pot with it. Watching people play crappy hands makes for some very strange play, since it’s not clear why they’re playing so weirdly, when it turns out they’re just trying to see a showdown with their pair of 3s.

Otherwise I decided to make a few wacky plays, but ended up missing the flop too often to make it worthwhile. And most of my best hands got folded to preflop. So it was basically a grind-’em-out evening for me.

Bex had the most dramatic evening, losing her buy-in and then coming back to almost even by the end of the night. Moreover, she made a downright heroic call of Andrew’s all-in on the turn in one pot, showing A-K against Andrew’s A-T on a Q-J-x-x board to win. Andrew couldn’t believe she made that call. She was getting 2-to-1 so it was a good call if she thought he might be bluffing 1 time in 3. Moreover, she had a chance to hit her straight or top pair, so really he needed to be bluffing only 1 time in 4 or even 5 for it to be a good call.

Of course, I wouldn’t think Andrew would be bluffing there 1 time in 5, but that’s me. I’m not the one who won the huge pot!

We also tried to come up with peoples’ “indian poker names” (a la Dances With Wolves). A few we came up with:

  1. Folds to Pressure
  2. Calls Too Often
  3. Raises with Nothing
  4. Grinds For Hours

The fact that there was whiskey available to sample may have had something to do with this silliness.

But silliness is half the point of social poker anyway!

We Got Him

Yesterday was my friend J.’s 40th birthday. J. is on a pretty close-knit team in my department, but they also have this comically adversarial relationship with each other, playing practical jokes on each other and so forth. J. had made the mistake of letting slip when his birthday was, so yesterday at 2 pm his cow-orkers D. and L. gathered a bunch of people together and we all surprised him by walking up to his office singing Happy Birthday. L. even bought a cake and got it inscribed “Happy Birthday Old Man!” 🙂

J. is someone who appreciates some good verbal abuse jousting, so we made sure not to let him down on that front. It’s almost too easy since D. and L. are both recent college grads. At one point D. and J. were sitting in adjoining chairs and I said, “It’s like you two are the ‘before’ and ‘after’ pictures.”

Tonight hopefully I can further celebrate J.’s birthday by taking some of his money at poker!

But seriously, J. is a good guy, a fellow science fiction geek, and I wish him the best. Especially if doing so means he won’t pull the same thing on me on my 40th!