Music and Time

The power of music and memory. That's what I'm thinking about. Music can unexpectedly trigger memory like nothing else. Last night as I was lying in bed listening to one of my music playlists the song "Does it Really Happen?" from the 1980 album "Drama" by Yes came on. Suddenly I was transported back to my high school days playing stickball in my neighbors back yard and cranking out the tunes on the boom box.

This isn't city stickball that I'm talking about. That's more akin to real baseball where you run bases and such. No, I'm talking suburban stickball (also called "Strike Out"). That's where you paint a strike zone (a box with an X in it) on the side of a schoolyard wall. One player bats with a broom stick and one player pitches with a tennis ball. If the ball hits the strike zone then it's a strike. Outside the zone is a ball. The game can be played by just two people and if so there are lines in the "outfield" (usually the parking lot of the school) that if reached by a fly ball designate single, double, triple, and home run. If played by four or more people then they can play the outfield and catch the pop flies. No gloves though.

Pitching is also done differently than in city stickball. I've never actually played city stickball but in all the depictions I've seen of it the ball is lobbed or bounced in to the batter. In suburban stickball, since you are throwing against a wall, the ball is pitched with as much force as you could muster. Sliders, curve balls, and off speed stuff could be thrown as well as the fast ball. Well, my buddy Steve could throw those pitches. I sucked at them.

Sometime in High School Steve and I built our own portable stickball wall. We probably got tired of the hot blacktop of the schoolyard and wanted to play in the grass of our own yards. We framed out a four foot by eight foot wall and covered it with plywood. We stood it up and leaned it back a bit on a couple of long two by fours. After painting a strike zone on the front we were ready to go. We used this portable stickball wall for years. It did occasionally fall forward onto the batter when we didn't get the lean back of it quite right. But usually in the beginning of the game.

One funny stickball incident came from when we got new neighbors who moved in to the left of Steve (my house was on the right). There were a couple of kids our age and they played stickball with us. At that time we were playing so that we'd hit the ball across Steve's yards and into the new neighbor's yard. The new kid's father used to get pissed that the balls were going into his yard (and in his defense sometimes into his new pool but no one was in it) and he'd come out and yell at us and sometimes cut up our tennis balls. His own kids were hitting the ball into their own yard and getting grief for it. They were a little embarrassed over these incidents.

That did get Steve and I to create a new stickball field turned the other way into my yard. I liked that field best. Between mine and Steve's yard was a four foot fence. Any ball that made it to the fence was a single but any ball that was caught before the fence was a ground out. A ball hit over the fence was a double and a there was a tree near the edge of my yard that marked triple territory. There was a six foot fence on the far side of my yard and if the ball went over that it was a home run. Those neighbors didn't mind a tennis ball traveling into their back yard every now and again.

The main quirk of the field was that almost everything had to be hit straight away. There was not much of a left field because that is where my yard ended and behind my yard was a lot of scrub brush. We didn't want to go chasing balls into there so we made that foul territory. A lot of my power was to left so it cut down on some of my hits. Both of us were righties so not many went to right field.

I was usually second best to Steve in stickball most of the time. I maybe won one of three or four. I was always football first and baseball second and he was the opposite. I've always been a good quarterback in football but that is a lot different from pitching. I could make the tennis ball go where ever I wanted it to but that isn't enough to be a pitcher. You need a curve and a change up too. Steve could make those pitches and I couldn't. Hitting a curve ball isn't easy and I had a hard time with it. Steve didn't have to contend with that because I couldn't throw one. Hence his edge in wins. I love playing anyway.

It's odd that a Yes song made me drift back to those days. It's usually Asia's self titled album that does that. It was the summer of 1982 (I always remember that because "Now we find ourselves in '82" was one of the lyrics) and we played that album every day as we played stickball. Good times and music.

Comics I Bought: June 25, 2008

Last week I was a day late to the comic shop and this week a day early. Anyway I'm back from the comic shop this week and I got 2 new comic plus three hard cover collections. Yes there is a hardcover and TPB sale going on at my local shop and I picked these up for about $6.50 each. Not bad:

Fear Agent - 22

Supernatural - Rising Son - 3

The Lone Ranger Volume 1

Squadron Supreme - The Pre-War Years

Iron Man - DoomQuest

And now for a review of something I've read recently.

"Black Panther: Who Is the Black Panther?" by Reginald Hudlin and John Romita Jr.

This is the beginning of the 2005 Black Panther series. I hadn't read any of it before. I had read quite a bit of the Christopher Priest written Black Panther series that came before it. The Priest written series dealt a lot with politics and the fact that the Black Panther is the leader of a technologically advanced African country. Besides the fact that Vibranium (the rare metal found only in the Panther's kingdom of Wakanda) could do anything the writer wanted, which stretched my willing suspension of disbelief, I enjoyed the series. I especially liked the political angle.

This series continues the political angle but I think it fails in what it tries to do. That is unless the writer is trying to get me to root for the villains. Wakandans come of as arrogant and holier than thou in this book. The writer's point is that this is an African country that Western powers can't push around but the Wakandans are as patronizing to the Western powers as the Western powers were to the rest of Africa that they did push around. So why would I feel any sympathy for the Wakandans? They're no better.

It's even mentioned that the Wakandans can cure cancer but don't think the rest of the world is worthy enough to be given the cure. I pretty sure that is considered evil. And I'm supposed to cheer for these guys? I was hoping Klaw would kill them after that. It's like one of those all books or movies that is all about criminals and you have no one to root for. I don't think that is the writer's intention but it sure is the way things worked out for me.

Another strange thing about this book is the use of country's names. Usually in the Marvel universe when there is a country doing bad things they make it a fictional country such as Dr. Doom's Latveria or Genosha from the X-Books. I guess writers don't want to make citizens of other countries look bad. Understandable. In this book the fictional African country of Niganda invades the fictional African country of Wakanda. So how come the country behind the main villain, Claw, is named as Belgium? It's even mentioned that years ago Belgium hired Claw to assassinate the Black Panther's father. What does the writer have against Belgium? Just an odd inconsistency.

The art on the book by John Romita Jr. and Klaus Janson was, of course, top shelf super hero stuff. I got no complaints there. The writing wasn't bad but I think it missed it's mark. The Wakandans should come off better than they did and the political aspect was a little too simplified for my taste. Everyone ended up being a villain to me.

Into the Action

Acting versus reacting. That's the creative conflict that's been on my mind lately. I like acting. Acting on my own. What I mean by that is when I create things, be they stories, pictures, or anything else I like to come up with stuff on my own. I like to make stuff that no one has seen before. Of course I have influences and after all this time of human existence and people making things very little is new but I like to try. I like to create my own world and not react to somebody else's.

By reacting I don't mean being influenced by something or even aping a style but to make something that wouldn't exist without another person's creation. Usually a pop culture creation. Things such as reviews of movies or parody in general. A good example of this is the site that does thirty second recaps of popular movies reenacted with cartoon bunnies. It wouldn't exist without it's source material: the popular movies. It's some pretty amusing stuff and I liked watching them but I have no interest in making something like that myself. Too much reacting for me.

I've been thinking about the choices involved with the things I make. Every artist wants to be able to make living from his art. That's the dream. It only happens to the rare few and for the rest of us it's a puzzle to be figured out. Except it's actually not a puzzle nor is there a recipe to follow but admitting that it's just dumb luck gives me nothing to do. It makes my choices and decisions null and void and removes free will. So I'm going to say success is neither a puzzle with a solution nor pure luck. It's something in between. So that means that my decisions do matter (hey, I'm a dreamer).

The choice I've been pondering lately is the action versus reaction one. One of the short cuts to popularity is to react to something already popular. And popularity leads to financial success. The more people who know about what you are doing the more who will be interested in it and who will reward you financially. That's why companies spend billions a year in advertising. To let people know that they exist in order to get popular and sell stuff.

I have a glass half full/half empty situation. Most of the artwork that I do is of a nature that it will probably not be popular. It's a little too unexpected as it confronts the unknown a lot. As I've been influenced by comics and cartoons my art is made with a line and style that is familiar to people but the imagery is a little too odd. It's not as comfortable as people want it to be. But that's the way I want it. That's what makes me happy and satisfied so that is what I do.

Yet still the influence of wanting to be popular and a financial winner rears its head. As I'm thinking about what to do next with my art I often think of projects that might somehow lead to popularity. They are usually reactive projects piggybacking on to something already proven. None of those type of projects have ever worked out for me. I get bored with them quickly and don't do a very good job reacting to other people's ideas. But at the beginning of them I think I can do it. I think I can divine what is popular and imitate it in my own project and create a success. Then it all falls apart. Popularity is not my strength. Being a weirdo is.

I think a lot of talented artists have this problem. What if your strength, what you do best, what you do well, isn't appreciated by many people? That's why most artists give up and go do something else. They played to their strengths, gave it their best shot, and nobody cared. They never figured out the puzzle that I say isn't there. Popular culture passed them by without so much as a glance. It's a tough world.

If I look around most people are quite willing to react rather than act. Every place I look are books, magazines, web sites, and whole TV channels dedicated to reacting to popular culture. People are quite happy to bask in the glow of and forever dissect their favorite movie or TV show. People devote their energies to them. They use their creativeness to live in a pop culture world that others create. I find this hard to do even when I want to.

So what is the point of all this? I don't know. That's why I'm pondering it. Should I try to be popular and make mediocre work? Should I do what my own weird self wants, do good work, and probably never be popular? My own weird self usually wins out but only when money is not too tight so my mind is not filled with Ralph Kramden get rich quick schemes. Those schemes never worked out for him either.

Comics I Bought: June 20, 2008

I was a day late to the comic shop this week but now I'm back and I got 3 new comics plus a hard cover collection:

Ex Machina - 37

Grendel: Behold the Devil - 8 of 8 (Hey did I ever get issue seven?)

Rex Mundi vol 2 - 12

Spider-Man Brand New Day Volume 1 (HC)

And now for a review of something I've read recently.

"Shooting War" by Anthony Lappé and Dan Goldman

This is a 192 page graphic novel in a square hardcover format. It was originally a web comic which I had never heard of until I read on Amazon that it got them a film deal. This made me curious about the comic.

The basic plot is that the year is 2011 and the Iraq War is still going on and it's one big f-ed up mess. Jimmy Burns is our lead character. He's a left leaning video blogger who happened to catch, on tape, a terrorist blowing up a coffee shop in Brooklyn. This puts Jimmy on the map and make a big news company hire him as a correspondent in Baghdad.

After Jimmy hits Baghdad things go as you'd expect for a left leaning blogger caught in the middle of an Iraqi civil war and trying to report what is going on. No real surprises plot-wise. This doesn't mean it's a bad plot just that the plot is almost incidental compared to depiction of the f-ed up war Jimmy is in the middle of. They do a good job of capturing the chaos and violence of the world Jimmy has stepped into.

This is yet another comic (plenty of movies too) that uses the Frank Miller "Dark Knight Returns" "news to deliver story information" technique in which you have a anchor person telling you things that are going on. I find this technique a little old and tired but since the lead character is a video blogger who works for a television network I guess there is no way around it.

The artwork was all done digitally and often Goldman mixes drawings with photo backgrounds. This is really hard to pull off and I don't think he succeeded at it. But I understand it. This was a web comic which I'm sure didn't pay him well and he was trying new things to speed up the work. I know drawing backgrounds takes a long time so I'm sympathetic. Still the digital photo elements didn't work but I wasn't distracted by them too much. He was trying hard and I appreciate that.

Despite it's flaws I enjoyed this book. It's well scripted and is about something. Even if that something is just that war is f-ed up and bad, which I already knew, it managed to hold my attention. The art while not perfect was interesting. So if you're looking for something different. Something a little more "real" check this book out.

Food Fight!

I'm not a big processed food fan. By processed foods I mean anything that comes in a can, bag, or wrapper that is already cooked and ready to eat. I don't hate it all but I do read ingredients and stay away from the things that have an unrecognizable list of chemicals in them.

I enjoy a potato chip or other salty snack now and again. I don't usually have potato chips around the house because I'll just eat them mindlessly. That salty snack urge is powerful so I only get chips when I actually want some. I go for some sort of natural kettle cooked chip. They're the best. I almost never get flavored chips any more. These days they don't taste like anything but chemicals to me and I feel bad after eating them. They are hardly an invigorating snack.

One of the only canned foods that I enjoy is Stagg brand chili. They have a good list of ingredients and a nice flavor. All other brands of canned chili that I've tried, Bush's, Hormell, Cambell's Chunky, and whatever store's house brand are all bland and tasteless. The supermarket house brand I tried once (I can't remember which) was so bad as to be inedible. Seriously, that stuff was foul. I can't believe they sold it as food. Stagg is the only canned chili I will eat. They have a variety of flavors but unfortunately one of my local supermarkets only caries two of the flavors and the other store doesn't carry that brand at all. And those are the "Super" supermarkets.

Another thing I never have anymore is a snack cake. You know, all that Hostess and Drake stuff. Ring Dings, Ding Dongs, cup cakes, Devil Dogs, or whatever. I was never a big fan of them but now I never buy them at all. If I buy them I'll just eat them and they'll make me feel bad. A snack should give you some "get up and go" and not make you want to take a nap. The only snack cake I still get is the Little Debbie coffee cakes. I still like them for whatever reason.

I am a chocolate fan but I don't go crazy with the stuff. I usually have a bag of 60% cocoa chocolate chips lying about the place. It's cheaper than buying a bar and I only have a little at a time. I can't remember the last time I had a full size candy bar. I never want that much candy at once. I'll get a bag of mini candy bars every now and then. That way I can have a variety of types of candy and only have a small amount. If I'm hungry I'll go grab something real, like a piece of fruit, bread, veggies, or even a piece of chicken and then some chocolate afterwords. Eating candy to fill yourself up is just a bad idea that gets worse and worse as I get older.

In my youth, which ended around 25 or so, I could eat anything and it didn't matter. Junk food never used to make me feel bad. It was just food like everything else. I never ate a lot of fast food, even then, but I noticed it was McDonalds food that first made me feel bad after eating it. Not all of it. But I never get any of their specialty sandwiches. If I ever eat at Mickey D's it's a basic hamburger and small fries. I'm cool with that.

I eat granola bars as snacks. I'm not quite sure where they fall on the junk/processed food scale but I like a lot of different types. The crunchy ones, the chewy ones (as long as they're not too sweet), and lately some organic ones. I've been trying out some organic snack crackers too. I still like a taste of a salty snack but all those flavored cracker are loaded with chemicals and, once again, make me feel listless after I've eaten them. The organic snack crackers have a list of ingredients that I recognize. Pretty tasty too.

I'm also a breakfast cereal eater. Love the stuff. Another thing where I'm not sure where it falls on the junk/processed food scale. I don't eat the really junky sugar cereals. I mostly like Cheerios, Wheaties, Shredded Wheat, Rice Chex, and the like. I might have a small bowl of Apple Jacks or some such as a dessert but I couldn't imagine having it for my breakfast. And my imagination is strong, Grasshopper.

Comics I Bought: June 12, 2008

I'm back from the comic shop this week and I got 3 new comics plus a hard cover collection:

Local -12

Fear Agent - 21

Jack Staff - 17

Starman Omnibus Volume 1

And now for a review of something I've read recently.

Spider-Man "Kraven's Last Hunt" by J.M. DeMatteis and Mike Zeck

Here I am delving into the past again. This was first published in 1987 and I have not read it since then. A lot of people I know who are a few years younger than me have fond memories of this story. I was twenty-one at the time this came out and all I really remember of it was that I never liked it as much as those others did. I didn't hate it I just remember thinking that the authors were trying too hard to make an "important" Spider-Man story.

I was interested to see if my impression of it has changed in the last twenty one years. I must say that it has. I really like reading it this time around. The basic plot is that Kraven the Hunter goes crazy and then "kills" Spider-Man and takes his place to prove he is better than Spidey.

The story is filled with overlapping narrations by four or so characters. I find that an overused technique these days but it is quite effective in this story. It is well written and has quite a bit of style to it. I can see how this story influenced a lot of future comic book writers.

The art is also very good. Once again, I never loved Mike Zeck's work as much as others did but this is a well drawn comic. His story telling is especially good here as his drawing perfectly captures the narration with overlapping narratives of it's own. He also uses repetition of sound effects and scenes quite well. I can see now that Todd McFarlane must have been looking at these stories when he did Spider-Man. Bob McLoeds inks are also first rate.

Overall I have to say that these guys were really trying hard with this story. That's what makes it good. You can tell they were thinking about it. My "trying too hard" memory probably has more to do with me being twenty one and tiring of mainstream super hero books than the actual work. So if you want a good Kraven story masquerading as a Spider-Man comic pick up this book.

Time Slips Away

I'd been doing some drawing today. I was working on yet another not quite fully formed idea for my web comic. In the morning it was some figures for my "Question of the Day" strip. I completed one of those last year but have yet to develop it any more. Like I said they're all in progress. In the afternoon I thumbed through one of my sketchbooks (number five) and decided to work up a drawing that was based on a complex series of shapes and faces. I figured I could finish it in an afternoon. It's after diner and I'm only halfway there.

Boy did I underestimate the time this would take. The drawing is sort of collage like in that it's a series of interlocking heads and faces tied together with lines and shapes. It's un-collage like in that it has to make sense spatially in a way that collages normally don't. That is the tricky part. In the sketch I had most of the faces figured out, there were about thirty of them, but I didn't have the way they relate to each other nailed down. That's taking a lot of nailing. Plus about twenty more faces.

This drawing is also different for me in that it will be finished in pencil. Usually I finish drawing off in ink but I'm not looking for that type of hard line for this. I want something softer. Usually when a piece of art is being printed, such as a poster or an ad in a magazine, the art is done much bigger than the final printed piece. That way the art tightens up and flaws can be minimized as it gets smaller. I was looking at a poster by Jim Steranko where he did just the opposite. He made a small but very tight and hard lined pencil illustration and then had it blown up to be printer as a poster. That gave him the soft edge he was looking for. I'm looking for a similar soft edge. That's why I'm finishing it in pencil.

I'm not finding it east to finish in pencil. I think better in ink. With ink I get a hard edge and it's binary. It's either black or white. There are no shades of grey. With a brush and ink I can also quickly and easily create lines of different or varying widths. Add just a little more pressure to the brush tip and the line gets thicker. Take away that pressure and the line gets thinner. A quarter inch line or a hair line is a flick of the wrist away. With a pencil the thickness of the line is whatever the thickness of the pencil point is. If I want a thicker line than the point I have to go over the line again drawing a line next to my original line. Sometimes it takes three or four strokes to get to the right thickness. No simple flick of the wrist.

Pencil can also get messy. I use a soft dark graphite. Usually a 4B or 6B. That means that if I rub my hand against my drawing I can smear it. I don't want that. I always draw with a piece of paper between my hand and my drawing. That way I'm resting my hand not on the paper I'm drawing on but on another clean piece of paper. The paper I rest my hand on is always a brown piece of paper. I find the contrast in color with the white paper reminds me to be careful and not rest my hand on the drawing. As I turn the drawing to get a better angle I have to adjust the brown paper too. I found that if I used white paper instead of brown I'd forget about it and not adjust it as I moved the drawing. Then my hand would end up smearing the pencil line. That's why it's brown for me. It serves me well.

So I'm not done with that drawing yet. Despite my best estimates since it's something new to me it will take way longer than I though. It will take yet another day. Two full days is a lot longer than an afternoon. Time sure can slip away.

Comics I Bought: June 5, 2008

I'm back from the comic shop this week and I got 3 new comics plus 2 hard cover collections:

Buffy Season Eight - 14

American Splendor Vol 2 - 3

Delphine - 2

Jack Kirby's OMAC: One Man Army Corps

Conan Volume 0 "Born on the Battlefield"

And now for a review of something I've read recently.

"The Facts in the Case of the Departure of Miss Finch" by Neil Gaimen , Michael Zulli, and Todd Klein.

I must confess I've never been a big fan of Neil Gaimen's writing. Not that I thought of him as a bad writer; he just never wrote anything that I found interesting. I read a little bit of his "Sandman" but it never got me hooked. The last thing I read by him was "1602" from Marvel and I though it started out well but then it let me down in the end. So I was a bit skeptical buying this book.

I have been a fan of Michael Zulli's art and writing since that days he was doing a book called "The Puma Blues" in the late Eighties. It was Zulli's name on the cover (and his nice illustration) that made me pick up this book. Oddly as I flipped through it in the store I wasn't too taken with Zulli's art. It looked a little haphazard and messy to me. But I decided to have a little faith in the man and ignore my own misgivings.

I'm glad I did because my misgiving were unfounded. This is another case of comic art that I might not be impressed with as I flip through it but is real good when actually read. Zulli's story telling is excellent and he thoroughly captures the mood of the tale. "Messy" becomes well placed energy upon reading. The order of things isn't apparent when flipping the pages. You have to read them.

"Miss Finch" is the story a a guy and two of his friends (a couple) who ask him to be the date of a woman who the couple knows. It's supposed to be a night out for some dinner and a show but then they end up at this weird circus/sideshow sort of place. We are treated to the show and all sorts of odd goings on as the climax builds to the strange part of the evening that made this night so memorable to them.

This was originally a short prose story by Gaimen published elsewhere. Todd Klein both letters and adapts the script. He does a good job of both. It only runs fifty two pages for a fourteen dollar hardcover but it's worth it. It's a fun little story filled with wonder and imagination. I like that sort of thing.

Stay Short Don't Go Long

Some short stuff for you.

I watched the latest "Die Hard" movie last week. The one that came out in 2007 that a lot of people liked. I found it alternately pretty good and a train wreck. There was the usual "Die Hard" type action that was well done but then it turned into "Spider-Man" at the drop of the hat. Certain action sequences made me laugh out loud and they weren't supposed to. Bruce Willis hit one of the characters with the SUV he was driving and it didn't even slow her down. She must have had super powers in that scene. A bunch of the characters seemed to develop super powers that came and went. There wasn't much consistency to the stunts.

To continue the action movie thing I also watched 2007's "Shooter" staring Mark Wahlberg. It wasn't great and had a bit of a cheesy ending but I liked it better that Willis's outing. Wahlberg is a military sniper (I don't remember which branch) and he gets caught up in a conspiracy with some bad people. There is not much more to it than that but the action scenes were good and the acting was adequate. The plot may have been far fetched but what do you expect from a Mark Wahlberg action flick?

I generally like the American version of "The Office" that's been running for a few seasons now. Not my favorite show of all time but one of the few sitcoms that I watch. I watched the original UK version of "The Office" recently and all I have to say is: boy was that depressing. It's not bad but it's no comedy. It's starts as a bit of a dark comedy and then gets just dark. I actually got depressed watching it. I'm not sure if that was the creator's intention but I found few laughs. Especially in the later episodes.

A TV show that I'm not sure if I like is "Big Bang Theory". I've watched it all season so there must be something about it that I like but it has a lot of flaws. It is a show about four brainiac geeks (there are plenty of non-braniac geeks, believe me) and their hot chick neighbor. Of course the lead geek has a crush on the hot chick but can't ask her out. Lots of anti social geek jokes and references. Some funny and some not. What bothers me is that these are all hard core scientist geeks with good scientist jobs. These aren't the geeks who can't get women. These are the geeks who, in their twenties, sleep with tons of women to get back at the ones who ignored them in high school. They have money, prestige, and success. It's geeks working at the local coffee shop who are undesirable to women. That's the flaw in the basic premise.

I'm still in the middle of reading Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged". I'm not sure if I like it or not. The writing is pretty good as it's written like a page turning novel but sometimes I just don't get it. The best way I can describe the book is that it's "Lord of the Rings" for business people. First off it's about 1200 pages. It's also heroic fiction except the heroes are business people. It's black and white good versus evil like LOTR and it gets a little goofy like it too. I keep expecting the book to make a point besides "business people are noble heroes and the world is stacked against them" but it doesn't. I'm not sure if I'll finish it or not.

I haven't been into video games for a few months now. Sure I don't play near as much as I did in my youth but that's to be expected. I was playing the latest Zelda game on my Nintendo DS for a while but then I hit one part that was really repetitious. That's what always kills a game for me. It killed "Call of Duty 3" for me on the X-Box 360 too. I like a game that a can play for ten or fifteen minutes and then put down. I like to take a break with a game. Not play for hours straight. In most console games you can't save anywhere and come back to that exact spot later. Or you can for a while but not everywhere. Inevitably in a game I reach a spot where I die easily and then it take me fifteen minutes to get back to that spot to die again. It takes multiple times to figure out how to get past the spot but the repetition of getting there bores me and I put the game down. I have the latest version of "Advance Wars" (one of my all time favorite games) ready to play on my DS but haven't even mustered the interest to try it out. I haven't tried my "Marvel Trading Card" game for the PSP either. At least I got them both cheap. Expensive video games are not for me.

Well that's it for the small things that have been running around my brain lately. They are less bothersome than the big things. And more entertaining.