Month: September 2014

more comics

Well, I had hoped that I’d feel better this weekend, and would be able to get out and enjoy the nice weather, but I’m still a bit sick. I’m on antibiotics now, so I’m hopeful that I’ll be over this thing by next weekend. Meanwhile, I think this is going to be another weekend of reading comics, watching TV, drinking herbal tea, and making lentil soup.

I finished all the single issues of Usagi Yojimbo I had, so I’ve read through to issue #125 now. I will likely continue reading the series in trade paperback form from here on. And I may be buying those collections via Dark Horse’s digital store, rather than in physical form. The digital collections are $10 each, which is a little cheaper than the physical books. I also want to pick up 47 Ronin and Yokai.

I’m not sure what I want to read to while away the rest of this afternoon, but I think maybe it’ll be Classic Usagi Yojimbo, which was probably the first thing I bought via the Dark Horse digital store, a few years ago. I realized recently that I’d bought quite a few things from the Dark Horse digital store, but hadn’t actually read any of them yet!

comics

I’ve been sick for the last two weeks, so I’ve had a chance to catch up on some comic book reading this weekend and last. I finished Essential Avengers, Vol. 3 last weekend, and started Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., collecting Jim Steranko’s work on SHIELD. This weekend, I read the beginning of Mark Millar’s run on Fantastic Four and I’m starting into my backlog of Usagi Yojimbo comics.

I had bought the first few Essential Avengers books at half-price at a con several years ago, on a lark. I wanted to read the first couple of volumes just for the sake of reading some classic Lee/Kirby stuff and just general early Marvel oddball stuff. The first volume, indeed, had some classic Lee/Kirby stuff in it. In the second volume, though, the title settled into a pretty mediocre run, with Lee handing off to Roy Thomas, and with some pretty average and less-than-memorable art and stories. I wasn’t really expecting much from the third volume, but the series really picked up some steam here, with Thomas doing some goofy stuff at the beginning, but getting into some interesting stuff near the end. The earlier issues had some great John Buscema art, and later in the volume, we get a few issues each from Gene Colan and Barry Smith. So now, looking at what’s ahead in volumes 4 and 5, I think I’d like to pick them up and read them. I’m not going to buy them real soon, but they’re on my wish list, once I catch up on some of the other stuff in my backlog.

I stopped buying monthly books partway through Mark Millar’s FF run, so I don’t have the whole thing, but I enjoyed the first part of it enough to order a copy of the second trade, Fantastic Four: The Masters of Doom, so I can complete the run. I’m not quite sure If I’m going to like how it ends, since this trade has gotten some mixed reviews, to say the least. But I’ll give it a chance.

Well, I’ve got a whole Sunday to kill, drinking herbal tea and reading comics, so it’s back to Usagi for me!

Swatch Sistem51

I just got a new “Sistem51” watch from Swatch. I got interested in this watch after reading a review of it on Hodinkee. I like the idea of a reliable, automatic, watch for a reasonable price. (The other automatic I have is my Dad’s old Rolex. And old Rolexes don’t really count as terribly reliable or reasonably priced. Though in my case, it didn’t cost me anything, and it’s been OK since having it serviced a few years back. But I digress.)

I’ve had two other Swatches, one of which I bought in the early 90s and the other in 2003 or thereabouts. Both were their cheapest plastic watches, which generally go for around $60 (or did when I last checked). I’ve replaced the watch bands on both of them multiple times, but they’ve both kept ticking since I bought them, no problem. I just threw out the older one, since the part of the watch that the band attaches to had broken in such a way that I couldn’t attach a new band. (The watch still kept perfect time.) And the newer watch is still working fine.

The Sistem51 is an interesting concept. You can read more about it at the Swatch site or the Hodinkee article, but, basically, it’s a machine-assembled, sealed, automatic watch. So, in theory, it should just keep running for quite some time without any trouble.

The strap on it is leather, but the buckle is plastic, so I have a feeling that I’ll probably need to replace that at some point. But the band itself isn’t going to snap like the plastic ones do. I plan on using this watch as my regular, day-to-day, watch. I’m hoping it will last at least five years before needing a new strap. Maybe when something does eventually go wrong with it, I’ll remember this blog post and write an update.

Windows 8 fresh install

After last week’s successful, but not terribly useful, Windows refresh, I decided to go ahead and just reformat my ThinkPad and do a fresh install. I had to step back to Windows 8, since I have no Windows 8.1 install media, and no 8.1 product key. So that’s a bit of a pain, but I can live with it.

So far, I’ve successfully installed Windows 8, then installed all pending Windows updates, and now I’m doing the 8.1 upgrade from the Windows Store. I started the whole process at around 10 am, and it’s just about 2 pm now, so it’s taken quite a while. But I did run out for a haircut during the Windows 8 install, and out for a walk while the updates were downloading/installing, so I could be further along if I’d stayed home.

Once the 8.1 upgrade is done, I’ll have a bunch of software to install. But I’ll finally have a clean laptop, free of all the Lenovo cruft that got pulled along when I first upgraded from Win 7 to 8. And free of various past Visual Studio installs and other dev tool installs that weren’t easily removed.