Buses aren't as bad as I remember.

Before I get started, I want to mention that I'm not talking about school buses or chartered trips. I'm thinking specifically about taking a trip someplace and using the bus to get there.

My first bike ride was when I was in 7th grade. My Mom decided to send me on a bus to visit my best friend down in Virginia. In a car, the trip would have taken about 7 hours depending on traffic and all the unexpected things that pop up from time to time.

I was glad for the chance to take the trip. Sure I was young, but I wanted to see my friend, and I was more than willing to make the trip even if it was going to take 26 hours to get there.

(This is a little disconnected from the trip I was going to write about. Let me finish my positive thoughts and then I'll turn around and complain about bus stations.)

Anyway, those younger bus trips were not back to back and I got to spend a week with my best friend and really enjoy my time in Virginia. However, that didn't make either trip enjoyable. A bus is not a comfortable place to sleep at night, and big city bus stations are not nearly as nice as airport terminals. At the airport, someone keeps track of most of your stuff for you, but at the bus terminal, you have to you have to carry everything with you. (This is not fun, especially in the bathrooms.)

Anyway, I recently took an unexpected trip on the bus from Kearney, Nebraska to my new home in Fairplay, Colorado. It wasn't too bad. I left at 2 am and was able to sleep comfortably most of the night and even got a few things done. I was not as impressed with the last part of the trip. The second bus was a mess and made me wish I was on a regular bus.

OK, now let me complain about bus terminals. I don't know why I expected the terminal to have a wifi signal, but I did. I didn't find one that I could access, so I ended up dragging all my stuff down 7 or 8 blocks of Denver trying to find a place to pick up a signal. I did finally manage to find one, but it was not fun dragging my bags all over the city. I'm pretty sure I wasn't the first person to be stuck there for 6 hours waiting for a transfer to happen.

So, for the most part taking the bus isn't as bad as I remember, but there's still a long way to go.

What is up with Asian Buffets?

So, I've been living a nomadic lifestyle lately and I've earen at a few buffets featuring Asian foods over the last month. There's one little thing I've noticed with these establishments that really caught my attention a few days ago.

Why is it that all three of the buffets I went o had so much "American" food? If I'm going to one of these places, I don't expect to see rice crispy treats and sliced oranges. Sure they have fried rice and lo mein and all the stuff that goes along with them, but what is up with this? Pizza and mozzerella sticks and all sorts of things that are hard to eat with my chopsticks.

When I was at the last one, there was an old man who I'm pretty sure just ate plate after plate of orange slices. You don't have to go to the buffet for that. Just go down to the store and buy some oranges. What's the point of going to the Asian buffet if you aren't going to at least eat a little Asian food?

Why I love and hate iTunes (and all things Apple)

So I've always had a love/hate relationship with Apple and the stuff they make. It started in school where we had access to Apple computers back in the Stone Age of technology. (With our first computers, we had to use a tape player to load programs.)

There really isn't much to relate about those days. We basically got to play around with really simple graphics and games (that are very similar in content to what you might get from Addicting Games or a site like that.

We loved our Apple computers because we were able to play games on them and pretend to be hi-tech computer gurus. I still remember doing lots of DOS style programming. We were able to figure out all sorts of basic games to play with the computer including a number guesser and the game that locks your computer in an endless loop.


So that makes it sound like I just love Apple, right? Well, that was the early days of computers and we didn't know any better. Later on, we started working with PCs. I found those computers to be more intuitive and easier to use. The other major problem I had with Apples versus PCs was the lack of a right-click button. I love right click. It's one of my favorite things in the world.

Yes, I know there are all kinds of keyboard tricks to get those same things done, but I'm not sure what they are, and I'm not really excited about figuring them out.

So what about iTunes and iEverything? First, I really don't understand the push to put a lowercase 'i' in front of everything. iTunes, iPad, iPhone, and the like are just annoying to me. I want to be able to just type without having to think about my Shift

key.

I do enjoy my iPod and iTunes. I like the easy acces to content without having to worry about dealing with legal issues on the other end. I'm watching the Jim Gaffigan special right now. I also have all the seasons of the new run of Doctor Who available any time I want to see them.

However there is a big downside to  this. My content is tracked by Apple. I can't just put it somplace and have access to it. If I lose the file, then it stinks to be me. I don't think there's much we can do about the situation though. We'll just have to continue out love/hate relationship until something better comes along.

Top Twelve X-men-Number 7





Nightcrawler



The first appearance of Nightcrawler when the X-men rebooted.

I feel a little bad about this one. I mean Kurt Wagner is one of the best characters ever. However, I have to try to stick to my original criterion (Appeal and importance play equal parts.) and put him right here on the list. Nightcrawler doesn't have the most impressive powers and he hasn't been the driving force of any major story lines. He's certainly been around for most of the big stories, but let's give credit where credit is due.



Let's take a moment to talk about Kurt's background and introduction to the X-men. Even though the original team of X-men was pretty good, the book had a lot of problems like lame villains which included Unus the Untouchable and the Vanisher. The book was put on hiatus for several years and also had a segment of time where Marvel just reprinted old issues to keep the book alive. That all ended with the introduction of the New X-men. This was an attempt by the writers and the company to not only create more interest in the team, but also to address the lack of racial diversity on the team. (The book likes to focus on prejudice and fear of differences, but aside from mutant powers the original team of X-men had no diversity.)

This is when Nightcrawler was introduced. He is a German mutant who is also one of the first truly non-human mutants to play the role of hero. Think about the past choices. First you have Hank McCoy who hadn't even become furry at that point. He just had big hands and feet that could hold stuff really well. You could also consider several 'evil' mutants that were frightening like Blob or Toad, but even they weren't as inhuman as Nightcrawler.

Kurt may not look like your average human, but he is probably the most human character in the X-men universe. He has a passion for life and he has a bit of a split personality. On the one hand, he is a swashbuckling hero who wins the girl, and relishes every moment of the adventure. On the other hand, he is a devout Catholic who strives to serve God even though he looks like a demon. It is a strange dichotomy, but one that works well with the character.

While Nightcrawler is a wonderful character, his role hasn't been as significant. He is certainly always the voice of hope and adventure for the X-men. He was the leader of Excalibur and he used his strategic skills to lead the team, almost always with success.

The injury that took Nightcrawler from the X-men and let him become the leader of Excallubur.

So what about Kurt's biggest moments? Well, he is a major long-term contributor to the X-men, but the writers don't really like to give him a big role in the comic book as a whole. We do get to see Kurt being used in a plot overthrow the Catholic church by setting him up to become the new Pope, and he is always a big part of what's going on in most story lines, but that's about all I can offer you besides what I mentioned before. Hopefully You won't hold that against him.

I want to see They Might Be Giants live

I love the band known as They Might Be Giants. Ever since I heard them perform live on their CD, I've wanted to see them in concert. I've heard great things about the show that they put on and some of the videos I've seen on DVD and YouTube have really been entertaining.

I mentioned in my previous post about TMBG that I really love the lyrics of the band. They are smart and a little vague. There is no clear message in most of the songs so the listener can bring themselves into the interpretation. The band is actually on their 30th anniversary tour at the moment. I was a little disappointed to find out that they will be playing two shows within 2 hours of where I live. This is disappointing only because I will be in Colorado when they are playing. Fortunately, they will be playing in Boulder in November so I can see them then and there if I can free myself.

I'm not sure what my schedule will be like when I get to Colorado so I can't be sure I can go, but I think it will work out. Do yourself a favor and check this band out and see if you can see them live too. Check out the tour dates on the link below.

http://www.theymightbegiants.com/news/they-might-be-giants-join-us-2011-tour-across-america/