While I was outside of my apartment today, I checked my mail. Wacky, right? Mailboxes aren’t really that useful in these Internet Times, but I still check in there out of habit and to throw out flyers. It’s a boring chore. But not today! Today I got something of a surprise. I got something worth doing a post on this website!

Anyway. It’s like this. There’s a thing in the mail saying I had a month-old unpaid parking ticket. So far, this seems possible. I’m a delivery driver, I do a lot of illegal parking over the course of the night, but it was strange that I never got a ticket on my window. Then I notice that it says the ticket was issued at 9:27 am! What kind of PDR would I be if I were out and active at that ungodly hour? Certainly that’s not a time I’d be working. If anything, I’d be in bed, hiding from the sun.

But I can’t remember what I was doing on January 18th. What kind of sicko remembers things that far back? Well, I know that I send 75% of my errant thoughts to young Marq, so I open up our text conversation thread and scroll back a month to see what I was up to. It turns out that that was the very day I went out to get my Covid vaccine booster shot! Ah, so I had a reason to be out! It all makes sense again. BUT WAIT! I got my Booster at the Shoppers across the street from my apartment. I didn’t take the car. And anyway, the thing says the ticket was issued on University Avenue.

Still, I deserve a little comeuppance. And it’s only 35 dollars. My financial situation has been improving, this won’t crush me. I don’t worry about it while I work, though I do wonder if maybe I’d managed to get a ticket in my own parking space because someone didn’t know I lived there? And maybe some rebellious teens took the ticket away as a youthful prank? But that’s not on University Avenue. The contradictions are endless.

I figure that I can finally cease my wonderings when I get home from work and log onto the city’s website to look up the ticket. They have my plate number right there, sure, but the make and model shown are wrong. And to make things even more confusing, they’re showing the make and model and colour of my mother’s car. I wouldn’t have been driving her car a month ago, and even if I had it wouldn’t have had my plates on it.

Then I noticed they’ve got a picture. Obviously, I click that.

Sure enough, it shows a car of the same make and colour as my mother’s. And sure enough, it has a license plate one letter different from mine. Where one finds the letter “S” on my vehicle’s plate, there is, quite clearly, a “G” on this imposter.

Part of me wants to just ignore it. I’d love for them to take me to court when they have provided photographic proof that the car in question has a different make, model, and license plate than mine. But instead I’m probably gonna have to stay awake into normal business hours and talk to someone on the phone or something. Almost makes me want to just pay the $35.

I just realized that back when I first watched the Superman/Batman movie (The 7th of April 2016), I sent my thoughts to Marq as I was watching. I have now copied them and paste them below, typos and all, devoid of any context. Just rest assured that Marq didn’t know what I was talking about either. I went in fully knowing the movie’s reputation and about the Martha scene and stuff. I may refer back to these thoughts in a future Superman Thoughts post, but mostly this is just for posterity:

Is there any reason that Bruce’s employee “Jack” who gets blown up isn’t a version of Lucious Fox? I’m not saying that woud be better necessarily, but it seems like it might have been an easier way to play up the importance of the death to the audience of the last few Batman movies.

18 Months Later. One of those time skips that are always ruining comics from what I hear.

There’s no way this archaeologist or whatever is going to be Lana’s father is there?

I’m going to assume Lois is in the bathtub because it shows us how close she and Clark are. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt.

Okay, this is where I’m starting to feel old already. I already don’t know what’s going on. Lois says the people at the hearing are saying something, Clark cuts her off saying he doesn’t care what they’re saying. I genuinely don’t know what they’re saying. Are they unhappy because Superman saved her? Because the terrorists got killed by those motorcycle guys? I’m not sure who is unhappy or why.

Batman brands people? Wasn’t that the schtick of one of the old pulp heroes? Nightraven or something?

Alfred’s really drilling the hatred of Superman into Bruce. Is this movie actually Alfred vs Superman?

So Lex Sr. grew up in East Germany?

At least the movie seems to be okay with using the name Superman, unlike Man of Steel with that damn cough joke I still don’t understand.

Wait, it’s only 18 months from the last movie and there’s already a statue of Superman? He really must have stepped up his game between movies.

Why did Lex just put a candy in a guy’s mouth? I tried to give him a chance, but I’m going to agree with the others who said this version of Lex is not great.

“Superman acted like some rogue combatant to rescue her” is the official problem the government has with Superman? I still don’t get it. Are they just upset that he doesn’t work for them, or are they saying Superman shot all those people? They do know that guns would be pretty unnecessary for him to use, right?

Affleck is one of the three actors I am most frequently compared to, and probably the handsomest of the three.

Gotham and Metropolis are across a harbour from one another? I think there are some Silver Age comics with that setup. But why, then, are they so acting like the heroes are so attached to their particular cities, then? Batman doesn’t fight crime if running water gets in his way? Superman won’t fly across the harbour to put out a fire?

I’m sure if wheelchair guy were being set up to be Metallo, I would have heard of it alredy, so I am sure he is not.

The action scene where Batman fights Superman soldiers and bug guys is absolutely free of quick cuts and shaky cam. I almost feel like someone listened after my opinion of the first movie.

The superheroes acting like jerks and the frequent dreams are more similarities to the Silver Age.

“He is not our enemy,” Alfred says. So, did I misunderstand what Alfred was saying earlier? Going back to check, Earlier Alfred said “Everything’s changed. Men fall from the sky. The gods hurl thunderbolts. Innocents die. That’s how it starts, sir. The fever, the rage, the feeling of powerlessness. That turns good men cruel.” All said while showing images of Superman. I dunno.

Wilhelm Scream. Maybe they are willing to try to have fun? I mean, Wilhelm Screams are lame, but they’re also not super serious.

This car chase scene is pretty coherent as well. Are my memories of how bad the action was in Man of Steel flawed?

Oh, nobody told me the fight was over the fact Superman busted up the Batmobile. He deserves what he gets.

Seems like making a tracking device that blinks on the end that you’re trying to track is just begging for it to get noticed by the person you’re tracking.

“Does he act by our will, or his alone?” Okay, so I guess the whole problem is their uncertainty about his motives.

“The desert was a set-up. Someone wanted Superman to look guilty.” Oh, so they do think Superman shot all those people? Surely Lex could faked heat vision or something?

Ah, Lex’s skinny assistant is Mercy. Nice touch, I guess.

Well, at least they can’t say the movie doesn’t foreshadow its jars of urine.

Also, I guess Mercy is dead.

“All this time, I’ve been living my life the way my father saw it.” “Superman was never real. Just the dream of a farmer from Kansas” No! Jonathan Kent specifically told you to not help people because it would put you at risk! That’s the thing I most hated about the first movie!

So Pa Kent is in the movie after all (dream, I assume). Okay, scene over and he has not offended me. I’ll accept this Pa Kent appearance without complaint.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Lois Lane falling from a great height it one of the least suspensful things ever, so I am glad this one didn’t drag it out. He was there almost instantly.

And then the movie takes a break while Wonder Woman browses commercials for upcoming DC movies.

“If I wanted it, you’d be dead already.” The truest fact about Batman/Superman fights.

Luckily, we flash back to Bruce’s origin again. I had forgotten what had happened there.

Is there a reason that Kryptonian/Human mix is stronger than both instead of somewhere in between?

I hope that the R-rated version of the movie just gives Doomsday some junk.

Okay, Doomsday does get some bony protusions. I’m not big on him flying and heat-visioning, but it does fit this origin.

Bruce to Clark regarding Wonder Woman: “I thought she was with you.” You literally emailed her Bruce. Like two hours ago.

I think Wonder Woman just smiled! I don’t think superheroes are allowed to do that here!

See, if I were Clark, I might have, like, thrown the spear, or maybe even given it to Wonder Woman. I’ll just blame it on being a heat of the moment thing, though.

And here’s my problem with these movies, I don’t care that Clark is dead right now. I have no attachment to him. This version of Superman has barely had a consisteny personality for me to attach myself to. I guess I’m supposed to just transpose my existing feelings for the character onto this version, but I can’t do that. This Clark was never got past the cipher stage for me. This would probably have been helped if there had been a second movie, one that showed Superman becoming the beacon of virtue Lex claimed he was. One that showed why people were willing to build a statue to him. One that had ANY scenes of his relationship with Lois at all. One with Bibbo. Just because.

They shave Lex’s head. That’s something, I guess.

One thing this funeral is missing is mobsters attacking Jimmy Olsen while about three dozen superheroes are about ten feet away. Those were truly the smarted mobsters ever.”

In the interests of obsessively cataloguing every detail of my life onto this site (which I have not been doing well enough lately) I want to report that on Tuesday, I took a night off work so that Marq and I could go to see comedian Dylan Moran as he begins a tour of Canada here in Halifax. I had a good time. Moran’s comedy consists of surreal tangents surrounding world-weary witticisms. In short, it appeals to me very much.

Sadly, though, I feel like the show didn’t sell out the way it deserved to. Looking behind me, I saw an awful lot of empty seats. Kinda made me feel like the city had let him down. I got to thinking, though, I wonder if it would have sold out if the students were still in town.

Now, I hate the students in this city and don’t miss them at all for the summer months, but there’s no denying they are a significant portion of our population here. We should look into finding some way to fill Halifax with a few more people, but ones who aren’t drunken idiots. That’d be welcome.

Anyway, in the unlikely event that someone in Canada finds this post in the next week or so, I suggest trying to get to one of his shows in some other city. In the more likely event that someone stumbles upon this post via a search engine a few years down the line, you’re here because I used the word “Irishman” aren’t you? Yeah, I can tell you are.

I have enough villains sketched and colored to get me all the way through what remains of Supervillain Sunday year! Let’s get going:

Axkiller McGee

There is a group called the Weird Assassins. When a young girl discovered she had the ability to make any kind of ax, from battleaxes to hatchets, appear in her hand at will, she knew she could find a way to make that into a life. Luckily a love of money and a belief that human lives were not worth all that much meant that she could find work among the Weird Assassins, being hired to take on the strangest assassin cases in the business. Unlike many of the Weird Assassins, Axkiller McGee enjoys being a bit theatrical and will try to make her hits in as public a forum as she can while still expecting to get away. That kind of risk-taking has made her a frequent combatant against superheroes, which would normally be a no-no for an assassin, but her success rate means she is still able to find work.

I admit, after I drew this character it took me forever to come up with a name. Once I wrote down “Axkiller McGee” I knew I needed to take a break for a while. So I did. Anyway, I said when I made Killercat that I would probably do more Weird Assassins, and I knew this was a sketch that would fit into that loose-knit collection of killers for hire.

Hypnogre

The portal between Ogretropolis and this strange world called “Earth” is too small for an ogre to get through. But humans seem to be the perfect size for such dimensional travels. Hypnogre is an ogre hypnotist who has taken to controlling the minds of humans and forcing them to do his bidding, smuggling things to and from Earth to create a thriving criminal trade empire.

Full disclosure: Marq came up with the name “Hypnogre” after I complained to him that all the “best” ogre names (ie. Electrogre, Technogre, Necrogre, etc.) were all taken according to Google. The fact that an ogre hypnotist fit so well within my existing creations just proved it was meant to be.

Between work and school and trying to keep on top of SecGov Robots and the next year’s batch of Phone Guyses, I’ve had little time for ordinary posts on the site lately. Well, for one of my classes I had to produce a few “found poems” so I might as well throw them up on here, right? The correct answer is “right”.

Friendspeak (a found poem made from lines of texts between Marq and me)

I have a new phone.
It is one of those technology phones.
Consarnit.
I will still get the message in a robotic voice.
I am in Dartmouth.
Sports Entertainment.
Where will Kip be at?
Plenty of time, I suppose.
Yeppp.
I just now got your song picture.
Huggable angel statues.
A Larry David-looking guy’s car broke down in the rotary.
Traffic is nuts. I will be late.

Trust Us, We Are Human (a found poem made from Spam comments on This Very Website)

Oakland survived a shaky night.
We fix it.
Hardly is it possible to imagine that more such good exists.
I believe it’s just the way you search
within the mirror, not the amount.
What they did to him was senseless.
So do not be much too difficult on your self.
Do whatever you can
plus the relaxation will get the job done alone out.

Precognitive Robot (a found poem made from Kip’s text prediction application, which attempts to determine what you are trying to type before you finish.)

Dissidents,
Fairfax Hoffman’s
beforehand optioned.
Friday.
Sainsbury heights.
Yuri unstated,
Shenzhen good-looking.
Fifth liftoff urged Uhura
watch outright hunch.
Diuretic Puget
degree Nikkei.
proprio pointed
fight.