ohtani's jacket

He only wrote the first series.

This may be the worst All Blacks team of my lifetime. I've seen bad All Blacks side before, but they weren't losing by record margins.

Haven't got to Night Force yet.

I also finished Hellboy: Wake the Devil. I still don't get the appeal of Hellboy. I'm sure it gets better later on, but the writing isn't very strong in the first few series.

Finished Daredevil: End of Days. I'm not sure if this book is still canon. It was at the time it was released. Anyway, Daredevil is killed by Bullseye in the first issue, and Ben Urich goes on a long crusade to uncover the meaning of Daredevil's final word ala Jerry Thompson in Citizen Kane. The series has some ugly, but visual striking, artwork by Klaus Jansen and Bill Sienkiewicz. Unfortunately, the meaning of Daredevil's final word isn't that interesting, but it's a decent coda to Bendis' work on the character.

I finished reading the complete 1960s Doom Patrol run. It gets a bit inconsistent towards the end, as most runs do when they're coming to a close, but remains a much beloved series. I still maintain that the backup origin stories are better than the lead features. In fact, I'm not sure the lead stories ever live up to their true potential. I'd be hard pressed to name the best story over the course of the entire series. They all blend together into a stream of wacky Silver Age goodness. In that respect, I don't think you can compare Drake's work to what Lee & Ditko or Lee & Kirby were doing. It's clearly a better series than second tier Marvel, but it's the characters that are the hook more so than the stories. Kirby's OMAC starts off with a brilliant first issue, tapers off after that, and goes out on an absolute whimper. That first issue is phenomenal, though. Fleisher and Aparo's Spectre is a lot of fun waiting to see what gruesome way the Spectre will kill the bad guys this month. It's a shame that DC didn't have the balls to keep publishing it. Make sure you check out the Wrath of the Spectre series to read Fleisher's final three stories. I read a couple of Gene Colan projects from the 80s. The 80s wasn't really the best time for Gene Colan work, but I was hoping to find some gems. First up was the Phantom Zone mini-series he did with Steve Gerber. I'm not entirely sure what the point of having a Phantom Zone mini-series was. It's entirely unrecognizable as a Gerber story, aside from some of the mystical elements. Superman is strangely aggro once he's released from the Phantom Zone. There's even a scene where he laments the fact he has a code against killing. It was interesting seeing Colan draw Superman, and some of the other DC superheroes, but largely pointless. Nathaniel Dusk seemed like it had more potential, as a pulp detective story is right up Colan's alley. It was okay, but I didn't like the coloring. The Shadow is not Bill Sienkiewicz' finest work. There's a reason why people don't talk about Bill Sienkiewicz' Shadow work. In six whole issues, there were only a handful of panels that impressed me, and the story is confusing as hell. Jonah Hex: Riders of the Worm and Such is much worse than the first Vertigo Jonah series. Felt completely pointless to me. I didn't appreciate the crude humor at all, even if I'm sure the West was more than likely full of it. Truman's version of Jonah is really ugly. There are times in the Fleisher run where Jonah would get filthy, and was in need of a bath and a shave, but he was never as grimy as Truman's Jonah. But again, it's an aesthetic they were going for. I did love Truman's old 1800s style photographs, though.

The All Blacks play South Africa tonight in Mbombela. It's the first time New Zealand have played in South Africa since 2018. Ian Foster has allegedly been told the All Blacks need to win one of their two tests in South Africa for him to keep his job. It's rare that the All Blacks are this big of an undog against the Boks. Frankly, I think we're on a hiding to nothing.

Well, it all stemmed from a throwaway line in Breaking Bad that Cinnabon reacted to on Twitter. Don't forget, he had the chance to get out of Nebraska when he was ID'ed by Jeff, but he told Ed he'd take care of it himself.

Well, I, for one, want to know what happened on the phone call.

They didn't introduce the award until his final season.

Man, I am gutted. I didn't think it would hit me this hard.

You think the Walt and Jesse scenes are in the Gene timeline?

I liked the episode, but I can imagine a lot of people didn't. I wonder if that's the last we'll see of Gene.

Ian Foster survives for now. Two assistant coaches were thrown under the bus, and NZ Rugby pinched the forwards coach from the Crusaders, who ironically are coached by the man everyone wants to replace Foster, Scott Robertson. The All Blacks are flying to South Africa in a week or so for their first tests in the Republic since 2018. More losses on the way!

Something that keeps gnawing at me -- shouldn't Mike and Gus be upset at Kim for drawing attention to herself?

I kinda didn't love it. I'm hoping there's more to it than that.

Cinder and Ashe is another worthy Jose Luis García-Lopez side project from a time when DC was releasing a slew of mini series to the direct market. The artwork was nowhere near as gorgeous as Twilight, but it was a different genre. Conway has a reputation as a bit of a hack, but I thought he did a deft job of weaving together the narrative on this series, incorporating the use of numerous flashback devices to provide a backstory for the series while driving the central narrative forward. In fact, it felt more a leftover pitch from Conway's TV work than a regular comic script. The only fault I found with the series was the Master of Kung Fu style yellow coloring for Asian characters. I would have thought that was completely unnecessary in 1988.

He should resign. That's what Wayne Smith did after Australia broke New Zealand fans' hearts in 2001, and he's a much better coach than Foster's ever been. EDIT: Forgot to congratulate Ireland. Been a better team than us since 2016.

I'm gonna miss Lalo.

Even if we beat Ireland, I really want Ian Foster gone.

Rugby was the winner on the day.

I kind of want to see Kyrgios win Wimbledon just to see the tennis establishment lose its mind. People used to give Federer crap about how he won the majority of his Grand Slams against a weak field, and once he began being challenged by Djokovic and Nadal, he started losing, but where are the players challenging 35 and 36 year-old Djokovic and Nadal?? At this rate, they're going to succumb to injuries rather than younger players.

Ireland showed enough outside of the second quarter NZ blitz to show they can win the second test if they cut down on their errors. I will admit that the New Zealand backrow played better than expected. The result was somewhat of a surprise. The scoreline flattered the All Blacks a bit. I still feel that New Zealand gives the opposition too much possession. We live off turnover ball and our attack thrives in broken play, but our losses in recent times have shown the folly of relying too much on turnover ball. England played dumb rugby, and Wales weren't brave enough, as usual.

Remember the days when 378 was an insurmountable four innings target?