My New Years Pledge

My blogger pledge for 2008 is to add the following six blogs to my blog roll and make them part of my daily reading.

Logtar's Blog I've seen Logtar lurking around my blog for a while and seen the occasional comment here or there. I had the pleasure of meeting him and his lovely wife at tonight's blogger gathering. The guy was wearing a Green Lantern t-shirt!




We shared a brief geek moment talking about the upcoming Justice League of America movie,


the Green Arrow movie "Super Max"

"Super Max” is Goyer’s take on supervillain incarceration in the DCU [DC Comics Universe - xo]. Revolving around a wrongly convicted Green Arrow being whisked away to the super max prison for out-of-control heroes and villains (where he's forced to face a number of inmates he put there), Goyer says the flick—which he’s developing with writer Justin Marks—isn’t just a Green Arrow film.

“He’s Green Arrow for the first 10 minutes of the movie, and then he’s arrested and his secret identity is revealed,” says Goyer, who also has plans to do a graphic novel or miniseries that would tie in to the possible film. “They shave his goatee and they take his costume and send him to prison for life, and he has to escape. It’s like ‘Alcatraz,’ and he has to team up with, in some cases, some of the very same villains he is responsible for incarcerating in order to get out and clear his name. Of course, tons of people try to kill him while he’s in there. We’ve populated the prison with all sorts of B and C [i.e. lesser known and more obscure - xo] villains from the DC Universe. For the fans, there will be all sorts of characters the hardcore comic book junkies will know, but they’re all going to be there under their human names and no one is wearing a costume, but there will be a lot of characters with powers and things like that."

The inevitability of an eventual Worlds Finest movie.


Logtar's blog doesn't really have anything at all to do with super heroes or comic books. But I just decided I like the guy and since he does actually write well, I'm going to make him a regular read. You should to.

Next up is Meesha over at Kansas City with a Russian Accent. Meesha describes his blog as the "Rants of Russian-Jewish-American". As a former resident of Reagan's Evil Empire, he has a unique perspective that is both valuable and entertaining. His political views are a bit more to the right than I would expect, but that's OK. I got to meet him briefly at tonight's blogger gathering and was present at that historic moment when Meesha called Dan from Gone Mild a "Commie". It was all good natured ribbing! No nukes were armed or targeted! But it was an historic moment! Being declared a "Commie" by an actual Russian Jew can only boost Dan's pinko street cred! Look for him to add that quote to his banner! I expect great things from Meesha in 2008.

The Random Ramblings of a Midtown Miscreant. I'd seen his comments here and there before. I think I even visited his blog before and thought "Nice. I like it." But I never went back. Until, at tonight's blog meet Dan told me that the MM was taking his blog to another level.

"I walked out of the Federal Prison in Rochester Minnesota almost 10 years ago, got on a bus with a shoebox and a trash bag of belongings and came home to midtown Kansas City. The reason I originally started this blog was in part to write about those wasted years. I thought I would try my hand at writing about day to day trivial stuff, and work my courage up to writing about prison and what led me there. So that’s where I am at. I realize that not everyone will be interested in this subject matter, and some may get all judgmental and stop reading altogether.

That’s okay, I never set out to be a widely read blogger. I write to pass time, attempt to be humorous or to get things off of my chest. I know it is a cliché, but writing is cathartic for me.
If you ever wanted to know what prison is like without experiencing it first hand, and who could blame you, then you may find some of the stuff I will be writing of interest. There wont be long diatribes about how I got screwed over by the system, I didn’t. There wont be excuses or claims that I’m a product of my environment. There wont be a shifting of the blame, I take full credit for all of my misdeeds.

I will still make lame attempts at humor, I will still dazzle you with marginal writing skill, but with an occasional trip down a memory lane that most people would wisely never choose to travel."

That level of honesty, combined with plain ol' good writin' deserves your attention. I know it will get mine in 2008.

Plastic Sax. This is another Happy In Bag blog (all of which are worth the daily attention of anyone interested in music and wonder). This particular blog focuses on jazz in Kansas City. Jazz is as much a part of Kansas City's DNA as Tom Pendergast, Harry Truman and the Union City Massacre.


Jazz is the soundtrack of Kansas City's history. No active blogger knows more about the musical landscape of Kansas City, past or present, than Happy in Bag. If you love music and Kansas City, you should be reading him every day.

And buy this book!



Beneath The Ginko. Kanga is Spyder's husband. He's a bit of geek, but that's OK. They are (or at least used to be) members of the Society for Creative Anachronism and actually have official titles and offices there.

I just own a cool sword.


Kanga could actually show me how to use it properly without amputating one of my own appendages. That's priceless.

He's also a proud and shameless gamer and an absolutely INCREDIBLE and meticulous, modeler.


I've put together plenty of scale models in my youth. Mostly WWI and WWII war planes and historic spacecraft. Especially this one...



But I never, ever, even owned an airbrush or came close to the level of artistry that Kanga exibits. This is an example of his award winning work.


There is an entire school of artistry in model painting that rivals the touch and dexterity of neurosurgeons. It just amazes me.

How small a brush, how steady a hand, how good eyesight, how much patience do you need to produce something of this quality?


Unbelievable.

Call them nerds if you want, but the talent and skill required to produce works of art like this far esceeds the the level of intelligence needed to switch on a football game, nuke a bag of popcorn and repeticiously pop open cans of beer.

Lastly, is Farmer Bob. I keep tripping across his blog in links from other blogs. I've finally decided to make a special effort to link to him directly and regularly because he cracks me up.



That's just wrong. Seriously.