Author: Andrew Huey

NYCC 2018 – one month away

New York Comic Con is just about a month away. I bought my tickets back in June, and got tickets for all four days this year. (Last year, I only went on two days.)

I also bought a ticket for the Harry Potter: A History of Magic exhibit at the New York Historical Society, for Friday of the con. This isn’t related to the con, but just happens to open on the same weekend. There may be a few other related (or not exactly related) events that I’ll try to get to during the con.

I dithered a lot on whether or not I should book a hotel room. I’d pretty much decided against it, and was going to just take the train in each day, but then changed my mind this weekend. So now I’ve booked a room for Thursday through Sunday. That’s a bit of a compromise, since I was initially looking to get a room from Wednesday night through Monday, so I’d have the room for all four days of the con. But hotel rooms in Manhattan are expensive, and three nights is easier to justify than five nights. So the plan now is to take the train in on Thursday morning, drop my stuff off at the hotel, go to the con, then come back and check in later in the day. Then, I’ll check out Sunday morning and leave my bags at the hotel, go to the con, then pick them up later and take the train home Sunday night. Here’s hoping that all works out and doesn’t backfire in some way.

The excuse I used to talk myself into paying for the hotel is basically that I haven’t taken any other significant vacation this year, and the year is almost over now. I did stay in NYC for two nights in March, when I went to see Cursed Child, but that’s about it. So three nights in October won’t kill my checking account, and it’ll be a nice break.

I’ve started looking at the panel schedule for the con. There’s a lot going on! I kind of wish they had a downloadable PDF of the schedule. The interface they have for browsing it isn’t great, and their site is pretty slow. (The auto-playing video in the page header isn’t helping.) I do like that you can add panels to a personal schedule, and then print it out later. (I may have spoken too soon on that… I remember being able to print out the schedule last year, but I just checked and I don’t see any easy way to do it now. So I may be adding a bunch of stuff to a schedule that I can only view online. Ugh.) Well, either way, there’s plenty of interesting stuff going on, so I should be able to have a pretty good time.

SSD upgrade, part one

Amazon’s same-day delivery got me my new Crucial MX500 SSD at around 6pm yesterday. It came in minimal packaging: no screws or cables or anything useful, just a 7mm to 9.5mm spacer (which I don’t think I’ll need). I found a spare SATA cable in my random cable box. And I managed to figure out a somewhat questionable way to mount it in my PC case with a single screw, temporarily. If it was actually an old-fashioned spinning hard drive, this would be a risky way to do it, but for an SSD, it should be fine.

The PC recognized the drive with no issues. I then installed the Acronis software from Crucial and cloned my old drive to the SSD. That took about two hours. (I’d assumed it would take much longer. And it probably would have, if I’d hooked up the drive via USB instead of mounting it internally.)

After that, I opened the PC case back up, unplugged the old drive, and plugged the new drive into the SATA 0 port on the motherboard. After that, I buttoned it back up and booted it. Surprisingly, everything worked. I’m really suspicious about that, since these things rarely go without a hitch. But hey, maybe I got lucky, just this once…

The next task is going to be mounting the drive correctly, with the bracket I ordered yesterday. So I’ll probably do that Monday night, or at some point during the week. And after that, I’ll hook the old drive back up, reformat it, and start using it as an internal backup disk. I’m hoping to do that next weekend.

So far, the drive seems to have done what I’d hoped for: The machine boots faster and everything loads much faster. If I don’t hit any snags, I may actually allow myself a moment of satisfaction and perhaps even happiness! (Well, maybe not happiness.) I’m hoping that this upgrade allows me to hold onto this PC for a couple of more years. I’d like to see it last until 2020 or 2021 maybe.

Finally upgrading to an SSD

I’ve been thinking about replacing the old hard drive in my desktop PC with an SSD for quite some time. I bought the PC in 2016, from Costco. It’s a Dell XPS 8900, with a 1TB 7200RPM SATA drive in it. Other than the old-fashioned spinning hard drive, it’s a reasonably powerful machine. But I think the hard drive is really slowing it down.

Until recently, 1 TB SSDs seemed a bit too expensive, so I thought about sticking a 500 GB SSD in it, using that as a boot drive, and keeping the old 1 TB drive for “miscellaneous data” (photos, music, video files, etc). But thinking about all the grief involved in doing a clean install of Windows 10 on the 500 GB drive, then reinstalling apps and moving stuff around, sounded like too much work.

It looks like 1 TB SSDs have finally come down to a price that seems reasonable to me, so I went ahead and ordered one today. I got a Crucial MX500 from Amazon for $189. I’d looked at it earlier this year, and it was $250 then. I thought about it at that price, but didn’t talk myself into it. I guess $189 is finally low enough to push me over the edge and get past my indecision. I also ordered this mounting bracket, though I’m not sure I need it. And the drive was eligible for free same-day shipping, so I should have it today. (The bracket won’t show up until Monday though.)

So my plan is to hook it up tomorrow and image the old drive to the new one. I figure that should take all day. I’ll use the version of Acronis True Image that Crucial includes with the drive. I have an external dock I can use to hook it up via USB, or I can try to mount it internally, if that’s possible without the bracket. Then, maybe Monday night, I’ll try to boot from it, with the old drive unplugged. If that works, then I’ll give it a couple of weeks and see how it goes. If everything is OK, I’ll plug the old drive back it, format it, and use it as a backup drive.

I’m wondering if Windows 10 is going to give me any grief about having moved to a new drive. I’ve occasionally heard tales of people having issues when they try to transfer an OEM copy of Windows 10 to a new drive, even if they’re using it in the same PC. If I do, I guess I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.

Verizon confusion

I’ve been on a 3GB data plan with Verizon for a while now. I often get pretty close to that limit, but I haven’t gone over it, so I’ve just stuck with it. This month, though, I got the notice that I only had 10% left, and there are still 9 days left in my billing cycle, so I decided to look into upgrading to a plan with more data. (Going over would have cost me $15 for one additional GB.)

Well, it turns out that Verizon has a plan that gives me 5GB of data for about $5 less than I’m paying now. And I can chop another $5 off if I switch my account to auto-pay. (And there’s rollover data too.) When I saw this, I was almost certain that there had to be a catch, but as far as I can tell, there isn’t one. I was just on an older, more expensive, plan, and I guess Verizon saw no reason to let me know about the cheaper one. (And, in fact, if I’d taken the easiest path to upgrading, it would have been to another old plan that would have gotten me to just 4GB for $5 more a month.)

So if this all works out, I’ll have enough data to do a little music streaming at work maybe. That’s a nice thing. I still think there’s probably a catch somewhere in the fine print…

comic book indecision

I feel like I should be posting about something other than comic books, since that’s just about all I’ve posted about lately, but honestly I’m not really moved to post about anything else right now. I have a couple of ideas for programming-related posts, but it’s Saturday and I’m not thinking about work today. So, more comic book stuff.

Since my last post, I’ve gotten my first shipment from Westfield. I didn’t really expect to get anything until the end of this month (August), but I ordered two comics that shipped in July, so I got a July shipment. I’d rather they held those two books though, since it cost $7.80 for shipping, and the two comics only cost $6.53 total. But, oh well, the next shipment will have a better comics/shipping cost ratio.

Also since my last post, I found out that my local comics shop has started using ManageComics.com to manage their pull lists. If they’d had that in place a month ago, I might not have jumped back to Westfield. They used to use Comixology’s pull list service, until it was discontinued earlier this year. And I had been kind of hoping that they’d use Diamond’s Pullbox service when it becomes available, since that sounded like it would probably be a pretty smooth way to handle things. Well, if things don’t work out with Westfield, I’ll probably go back to the local shop and give the ManageComics thing a try.

I just placed my August Westfield order (for comics shipping in October). I ordered all of my usual books, but then had to decide on whether or not to order any of the new Sandman Universe books. I read Sandman: Overture last weekend, so I’m experiencing a little bit of Sandman nostalgia right now. So I picked up the Sandman Universe one-shot at the comics shop this week and read it. I think I’m a little bit interested in The Dreaming, but not the other three titles. All four books look good, honestly, and if I had a lot more spare time and money, I’d pick them all up. In the end, I decided not to pre-order The Dreaming. When it comes out, I’ll check the reviews, and maybe pick up the first couple of issues at the comics shop before committing to it.

I also read the first arc of B.P.R.D Hell on Earth last weekend. Back before I stopped buying comics regularly in 2009, I was a regular reader of all the Hellboy and B.P.R.D. comics. I’ve since filled in some of the stuff I’ve missed via Dark Horse Digital, and read a little bit of it. I really wasn’t sure if I wanted to jump into Hell on Earth. It’s a long story, and it looks to be fairly bleak. But I liked that first arc, so now I’ve ordered the first two hardcover collections, (Volumes One and Two). I don’t think I’m going to start buying any current B.P.R.D. comics though. I’m going to try to stick with trades/digital/hardcovers/whatever. I’m not sure if buying the hardcovers was a good idea, really. I probably should have waited for the next big sale at Dark Horse Digital. But hey, I got both hardcovers at a good discount.

Speaking of nostalgia for stuff I was reading 20+ years ago, I see there’s a Cerebus comic in the catalog this month too. It’s a one-shot, apparently, and looks like it might be funny, but I’m not ordering it. I’m definitely not ready to jump back into the Cerebus vortex! This is an example, though, of some of the difficulties with trying to buy comics these days. I would never have seen this at my local comics store. And, even with Westfield, it wasn’t in their printed catalog. I only stumbled across it because I noticed Aardvark-Vanaheim in the publisher list on the web site.

Beau Smith has a column up at the Westfield site that’s kind of relevant to all this indecision of mine regarding comic book buying. Relevant quote:

Be conscious and particular of where you are tossing your money. Make sure you throw it at what YOU want to read about. Make purposeful choices. Be entertained and informed.

I’m going to try to remember that. I should wrap this thing up and get back to actually reading comics now.

buying comic books is complicated

For the last couple of years, I’ve been visiting my local comic book store once a week and picking up a few books. I started doing this around the same time DC’s Rebirth started, in 2016. I was originally looking at it as an experiment to see if I could get back into buying and reading regular superhero comics again, after a fairly long break. Well, I found a few books I liked and I stuck with it for quite a while. A few things happened recently that got me thinking about whether or not I wanted to stick with it though. Some changes in creative teams on the books and stuff like that.

I thought about jumping off the “weekly comic store visit” bandwagon in January 2017, and wrote a lengthy blog post about that, but I decided to keep going to the local store, and I stuck with most of the books I was reading. Well, I’ve now somehow managed to talk myself into switching back to getting my comics from Westfield Comics again. I placed an order with them today, for comics coming out in August and September. Maybe switching to Westfield will cause me to spend more money on comics, or maybe it’ll be less money. (Placing just one order per month, and seeing the total for the month all at once, might lead me to manage my comic book budget a little better.)

My plan is to stick with Westfield until the end of the year, then reevaluate. I might then give up entirely on monthly books again, or switch to just getting stuff digitally from Comixology, or go back to the local store. I don’t know. The thing I need to watch out for is my tendency to build up a ridiculous backlog. I think I should set a rule that if the pile of unread comics gets taller than me again, I need to stop buying them altogether.

SDCC day one

As I said in yesterday’s post, I am not at SDCC. But I am following the news. Or at least some of the news. So here’s a post with links to a few things I found interesting today.

Spotlight on Maggie Thompson panel: The panel I would most like to have attended today. I was a long-time subscriber and reader of CBG, and it’s nice to see Maggie get a spotlight panel. I learned a lot about comics (and a bunch of other stuff) from Maggie and Don Thompson, and I really miss CBG. (The linked article from The Beat is a little… off. I get the feeling that maybe it was written in a rush, at the back of the panel room, and uploaded to the site without any editing. Oh well. This is one of the reasons I miss CBG so much: well-written and well-edited articles!)

The Comics Journal returns to print: Not exactly SDCC news, but related, and probably timed to coincide with SDCC. I never subscribed to The Comics Journal, but I did pick up a number of issues, back when it was a regular monthly magazine. TCJ always seemed a little too self-important and serious to me, but they ran some great interviews and articles. The new print magazine will only be coming out twice a year, though, so it’s not going to be quite the same as it was in its heyday. But it’s still a welcome return.

Doctor Who Series 11 Trailer: Yeah, I’m looking forward to this! The Doctor Who panel today would be my second choice for “panel I would most like to have attended.”

DC Universe streaming service: I’m curious about this, but not sure I want to pay $8 per month for it. The Titans trailer is… interesting. I’m not sure what to think about it really. It could be a great show or it could be a train wreck. Hard to tell. You can pre-order a one-year membership for $75 right now, but I’m not sure I’d do that without having more of a clue about the new shows.

Grant Morrison on Green Lantern: This is a book I’m going to want to read.

Not at SDCC, preview night edition

Once again, I’m not at SDCC. Sigh. Tonight is preview night, and there are a few things going on, but maybe nothing too exciting (to me, at least). I see that they’re actually closing Harbor Drive during the con this year, which has got to be a pretty big deal. (They probably should have started doing that a few years ago, honestly.)

I’ll be keeping an eye on the news from San Diego during the con. There’s usually some interesting and fun stuff, and I could really use a break from serious news right now. The Union-Tribune has a landing page up with links to all of their con coverage. The local coverage of the con is usually pretty interesting. (They even have an article up about recreational marijuana use for con attendees! Pair that with the free Taco Bell, and you’re all set.)

I’ll probably also be spending some money over at Comixology this weekend. They generally have some pretty good sales going on during the con.

Email Newsletters (and the ever-present backlog)

I’ve blogged in the past about the ways in which I’m trying to shape my news/information consumption. One of the things I’ve been trying to do is get more info from email newsletters and less from randomly dipping into the Facebook/Twitter/Reddit fire hose. I have a “read/review” folder in my email where these newsletters get filed (based on some rules). Then, in theory, I read them. In practice, I’ve usually got about 400 emails in that folder, unread. I dip into it on weekends and read some stuff, but I never really catch up.

I discovered something interesting this weekend, so I thought I’d write it up. I subscribe to several newsletters from the NY Times. One of them is their “NY Today” newsletter, which has news and information for stuff related to NY (and sometimes NJ), daily. My current backlog has me reading stuff from April right now, so a lot of stuff in that newsletter isn’t too useful. But, on Friday, I wanted to check some stuff about what was going on in NYC this weekend so I thought I’d open up the current one and read it. When I went to the top of the read/review folder, I couldn’t find it, or any other NY Times newsletters. (And I checked my spam folder, and they weren’t in there either.) It turns out that I stopped receiving all of them in early June. I went to my subscription page, and I showed as still subscribed to everything. So I decided to fire off an email to customer support. I didn’t really expect much from that, but I figured that, as a paying subscriber, maybe they’d get back to me with something useful. Well, surprisingly, they did. It turns out that, apparently, if you’re not actively clicking links in the email newsletters, their system automatically stops sending them to you at some point. I’m a little unclear about how that actually works. The way they phrased it, it sounded like you’d be dropped if you haven’t clicked a link in a newsletter in the past 90 days. But I’ve clicked plenty of links within the last 90 days, though they were mostly in newsletters that were more than 90 days old. So maybe you need to have clicked a link within the last 90 days, in a newsletter that’s less than 90 days old?

Anyway, I found that interesting. I resubscribed to a couple of newsletters, so the backlog will start building up again, but I’m not going to resubscribe to everything I’d previously subscribed to. For one thing, their system requires me to go through that annoying reCAPTCHA “prove you’re human” stuff every time I subscribe to a newsletter. And that’s gotten more and more onerous lately. I’ve notice that it’s less annoying if I do it while not connected to VPN. (I guess that using a VPN makes me more likely to be a robot?)

I really think that the Times should hook their “paying subscriber” info into their newsletter system and just let the fact that I’m giving them money every month be enough evidence that I’m human. (And maybe also exempt me from that 90-day timeout thing.)

This has all got me thinking about news consumption in general again, and maybe tweaking things a little more. But that should probably be a subject for another blog post, on another day, since I think I’ve wasted enough time on this stuff today. I should go outside and get some fresh air.

U2 in Newark

I went to see U2 at the Prudential Center in Newark last night. I’ve been a fan of them for a long time, but had never seen them live. It was a little weird, since the friend I was supposed to go with couldn’t make it, so I went by myself. My seat was in the very last row of one of the “nosebleed” sections, basically as far from the stage as you can get. I’m glad I went though. It was a very theatrical show, with a lot of video stuff and big ideas and a loose narrative of sorts. (Maybe a bit of a muddy narrative, but still, points for effort.) Here a link to the set list. Lots of stuff from the new album, and a handful of “greatest hits.” That worked for me: I like the last two albums a lot. And I don’t mind hearing them play the older stuff either.

There’s some stuff in the show that could induce a little eye-rolling, but if you check your cynicism at the door and give them the benefit of the doubt, you can come out of the show feeling pretty good about things. It’s a been a rough week, news-wise, and U2 doesn’t shy away from addressing that in their shows, but it all ends in hope and catharsis, if you let it.

I do feel like this is probably the only time I’m going to see U2. I’m getting old enough that going to a show like this takes a lot out of me. I limited myself to water (no beer), left early so I could catch the 11pm train, and used earplugs, and I’m still feeling a bit messed up today.