What a great four-day weekend! It was a perfect mix of activities. Among them:

Comics: Plowed through a couple of Showcase Presents (Flash and LSH) and made good use of the hammock in doing so.

Chores: Becky did a lot of work in the gardens, and I helped some, raking up and bagging leaves and mowing the lawn. Plus we put in a PVC drainage pipe near the sidewalk to help keep that from getting filled up and frozen in the winter. I rescued a plastic outdoor table from someone else’s trash pile and cleaned it up, plus someone rescued old bikes we didn’t want from our trash pile.

TV: In addition to our usual episode of Doctor Who, we’ve been getting episodes of the HBO series Rome from Netflix and we watched a bunch of those. Really entertaining stuff!

Games: Although I didn’t make my usual Sunday gathering, I did play some Nexus Ops with Matt and Simon and Jackson, and then Becky and I tried out Ta Yu, which Anthony loaned us. In games of the computer variety, I played some more Diablo 2, and Uvula the Druid is doing pretty well!

Health: On Friday I had two doctor’s appointments. One was for a meds checkup and to see what’s up with my left hand. What’s up is Ulnar Nerve Entrapment, and she referred me to a neurologist to see about it. Thing is, on that page linked there, there are some exercises you can do to relieve it without surgery. I’ve been doing them and glory be if the weird feeling hasn’t gone away! I then had an MRI on my head, since I get migraines and there’s a history of brain stuff in my family. Despite my fondness for comics, games, Legos, and Shriekback, there’s nothing apparently wrong with my brain. However, I’ve got some kind of sinus cyst (ew) that I’m going to see an ENT about. Generally I’m fit as a slightly overweight fiddle.

Friends: In addition to the aforementioned Matt, Simon, and Jackson evening, we also had dinner with Mark and Kristin, and were supposed to see Dan and Jen, but that didn’t pan out.

Bike: And I got a new bike! Nothing fancy, just a Schwinn mountain bike I got from Target, but it should do the trick. Haven’t really taken it out yet, but we may hit Forest Park some evening this week.

A very relaxing, pleasant, much-needed holiday it was!

Do YOU have what it takes to be a Silver Age DC villain? Not just the unifying concept, the name, the costume, and the gadgets, but the unique way of thinking that separates the Mirror Masters from the Clock Kings? Take our simple test and find out!

1) You have a device that can turn lead into gold.

Is your first thought:

a) My monetary worries are over forever!

b) I’d better not use this too much, or I may devalue gold!

c) I’m gonna rob a bank!

2) I repeat. You have a device that can turn ANY MATERIAL into gold. You have just used it to turn garbage cans into gold.

Your first thought?

a) This was poor planning. It’s going to be difficult to convert a solid-gold garbage can into spendable lucre.

b) That was fun, but people are going to get suspicious if I persist.

c) I’m gonna go steal money from a safe!

BONUS QUESTION:

Having a device that can change ANY SUBSTANCE, INCLUDING STEEL into ANY OTHER SUBSTANCE INCLUDING, OH, LET’S SAY, GOLD, how do you open the safe in Question Two?

a) Turn the steel into paper and enjoy the thrill of tearing it open with your bare hands!

b) Turn the steel into oxygen and enjoy fresh air and cash money!

c) “Ah! I think I heard the second tumbler click!”

(All panels are from “The Moronic Crimes of Dr. Goddamn Moron” in Showcase #14 (1958) as reprinted in Showcase Presents: The Flash and His Seemingly Endless Parade of Retarded Nemeses.)

And now, I interrupt the levity.

On Memorial Day, we honor those who have “fallen” and “given their lives” and “paid the ultimate sacrifice” in battle. That is, the patriotic soldiers who were shot or blown up by the patriotic soldiers of other countries.

On this day, let me say this, and let me say it loud.

In America we have this idiotic notion that if we say that the Iraq war is a massive blunder, then the dead soldiers will have died in vain, and we can’t say that.

Not only can we say that, we must. THEY DIED IN VAIN. And you SHOULD get angry about that because THAT IS THE POINT. They died for no reason, for a lie. And they are continuing to die for no reason because too many people don’t get outraged at the lie, they get outraged at the guy saying it was a lie. You should get angry at the people who manufactured “evidence” in order to send the soldiers there. Get angry at how those same people failed to make any kind of realistic plans about how to wage this war. That they ignored countless warnings about the massive catastrophe they were embarking upon. And they continue to keep those soldiers there and hunger to send more because they can never never never take any responsibility for their actions.

And then they tell you that if you say anything about it, you are unpatriotic and hate America and are getting those soldiers killed. So you go along with it. You claim there are good solid reasons for those people to die. And that those deaths are noble and honorable and worthy.

They are not. They are wastes of those peoples’ lives. Lives that could have been better spent in other efforts. Lives that, while not valuable to the warmongers, were valuable to their friends and families and communities.

Stop confusing the soldiers with the war. Stop letting people who couldn’t be bothered to serve in the military themselves tell you about the noble sacrifices of soldiers. The architects of this war didn’t feel that service was worthy of them, yet they insist that you insist it is worthy for others. And because one reckless, ill-planned war is not enough, they now have their eyes on a second target.

In short, you, the war supporter, are sending off men and women to die for no good reason simply so you don’t have to admit you were wrong.

It’s okay to be wrong. It’s not okay to continue to make others die for it. We must stop this war and bring its perpetrators to justice. No one should be allowed to get away with sending people to die simply to feed their massive egos and foolish dreams.

If you truly want to honor those that have died in this war, you will do what you can to make sure no one else dies in it.

Wampa!

The original trailer.

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Time to clean off some space on the hard drive! Thanks for the tip, Andrew!