Leaner

I remember when the only comic book title I ever bought was The Amazing Spider-Man by David Michelinie and Todd McFarlane. I also bought back issues of The Incredible Hulk by Peter David and Todd McFarlane. Yes, say what I will about him, but Todd was the one creator who really and truly got me into collecting comic books nearly 20 years ago.

Those early years were fun; buying up stuff that I liked, waiting every month for the next issue (and in the case of Amazing, once every two weeks, considering that it shipped fortnightly in the summertime).

As time went on, though, I still collected, but the sense of fun that I got out of it was gone, replaced instead by a growing need to just buy comics for all kinds of reasons that weren't necessarily connected to my enjoyment of the stories. It was subtle at first, but by 1998 I was buying comics featuring characters I couldn't really give a damn about because I'd read about it in Wizard or something like that. For a long stretch I bought Spider-Man's monthly because it was the only book featuring him, regardless of how disappointed I was by the content.

My meager collection of Spider-Mans had grown into several titles, mostly from Marvel but from a lot of other companies as well, only a few of which I liked enough to read more than once or twice after buying them. This trend continued into the new millenium at which point I was picking up comic books almost out of compulsion, with the exception of some titles that I truly enjoyed.

Last year, with the advent of Marvel's Civil War, it became clear to me that the landscape of the Marvel Universe would be radically changed for the next couple of years, which rather made me leery of what the future held. The last time Marvel made a promise like that, the Clone Saga of the 90s was born.

Not only that, but the first half of 2007 seems, from all indications, to be devoid of any creators whose work I follow on characters that I love. Mark Millar is apparently taking the year off, as is Steve McNiven. It seemed as good a time as any to just stop collecting for awhile, at least after all the miniseries I started last year have finished, and so I stopped picking up new titles.

I then got into buying diecast collectible cars, and in the process of doing so, came to a realization.

My toy car collection is small; I only have about 35 to 36 of them, as opposed to over 500 comic books that I have accumulated over the years, but there was one crucial aspect I noted about the collection that made me realize something about my comic book hoard.

For the most part, my car collection only consists of about three or four makes of car. They are mostly Shelby Cobras, Ford Mustangs, and other related cars such as the Shelby GR-1 and the Ford GT. There are a few Ferraris and a couple of Mercedes supercars as well, but overall, there is a consistency to it, a focus on collecting very specific types of cars that I hadn't known since my very first days of collecting comic books.

So I ended up asking myself why I had accumulated so many comic books, apart from the fact that quite a bit of time had lapsed since I started. Did I really like all of the stuff that I bought?

After going over most of them in my mind, I had to conclude that the answer was no.

And so I made the decision to sell a chunk of my collection. It's not because they are or aren't particularly collectible; it's not because I'm trying to cash in on speculation I might have made years ago. In fact, most of these things I'm selling pretty much at value, which puts me at a loss considering inflation. Some of them, I think, are actually pretty valuable but I'm not really trying to make any money off them. (Well, with the exception of the stuff I've put on e-Bay, which I'm selling at their value as stated in Wizard and other authorities on comic book prices. I figure: if someone's going to make money off these things' appreciation, it should be me first of all, and let the others recoup it should the issues continue to appreciate; but that's a relatively small segment of my collection.)

The point, really, is to reduce my collection to the stuff I'm really passionate about. I've always considered myself a selective comic book buyer, and I was therefore shocked to see how much stuff made it into my collection that I wasn't all that crazy about.

What am I keeping? Well, a good three-fourths of my collection will remain very much intact even if all my hoped deals push through. I'm not just keeping the well-worn, newsprint 80s comics that started my collection but a whole bunch of other things as well, stuff I really got into, like the first two years of J. Michael Straczynski's Amazing Spider-Man run or Mark Millar's Spider-Man series, or Frank Miller's The Man Without Fear miniseries. Memorable stuff.

I honestly hope to be able to sell everything I've set out to sell, not so much because I could use the space or the cash (although of course both are most welcome) but I'd rather these comic books find a home with someone who can truly embrace them, someone to whose collection they won't feel like unwanted flab.

My toy car collection is a joy to me because just about everything in it is something I really and truly wanted to buy. I want my comic collection to feel that way again, too.

List of Comics For Sale

Well, as of writing, many of the comics I was offering for sale are now spoken for, but there are still a few good ones left over that I'm offering. These are books that are going on ebay (at quoted prices), but which I'm willing to part with before then if someone makes me an offer I can't refuse...

In no particular order, they are:

Aria #s 1-4. Price: P500

(For the uninitiated, Aria is basically the story of Kildare, a thousand-year-old daughter of the Faerie, a race of immortals that traces their history to the beginning of time or something like that, and is based in England. It's basically a fantasy comic set in contemporary times, with a really, really hot (thanks to ultra-detailed Filipino penciler Jay Anacleto) girl as the lead character.Think Sandman but with boobs. Big ones).

Aria/Angela #s 1 and 2. Price: P200

Kildare of Aria teams up with Angela (from the pages of Spawn) to take down a mystical charlatan terrorizing England, or something like that.

Death: The Time of Your Life #s 1 to 3 (with a bonus: the last issue of Death: The High Cost of Living). Price: P450

This is a complete miniseries (except for the bonus issue) and a sequel to High Cost of Living. It features Neil Gaiman's signature gothette in a rather touching story rendered by artists Chris Bachalo and Mark Buckingham.

Batman #s 608, 610, 612-619. (Individual issues priced differently depending on which character guest stars).

Completists may balk at my calling this the Hush storyline since I'm missing two issues, so I'm offering these as individual items (unless someone makes me an offer for all of them I can't refuse). Anyway, complete or not, these issues boast some of Jim Lee's best artwork. EVER. As always, writer Jeph Loeb panders to his artist (and the artist's legion of fans) by having Lee draw most of Batman's rogues gallery. Veeery nice.

Wolverine: Enemy of the State (issues #20-25). Price: P1000.

This is a complete six-issue set. It's Marvel's premier badass at his most brutal! With a story by Marvel wunderkind Mark Millar and mainstay John Romita Jr. Basically Wolverine gets possessed by the Hand and takes on S.H.I.E.L.D. and several high profile Marvel heroes, including his very own team, the X-Men. Blood and guts galore.

Astonishing X-Men #s 1 to 12. Price: P3000

In #12 issues writer Joss Whedon revitalizes Marvel's merry mutants (and one in particular) with two six-issue arcs lavishly drawn by John Cassaday (Planetary).

X-Men #s 1 to 7. Price: P1000.

Yes, that X-Men, the one by Chris Claremont and Jim Lee, featuring the first issue that sold 7 million copies. Very nice art.

Uncanny X-Men #s 284, 285 and 286. Price: P300

Three issues by Jim Lee (plot and some art) and Whilce Portacio (most of the art chores), scripted by John Byrne and Scott Lobdell. More or less a complete storyline.

Heroes Reborn: Iron Man #s 1-3 by Whilce Portacio Price: P400.

Pretty good, and with a movie on the horizon, these may even go up in value.

Spawns #8 and #9 Price: P300.

This was the time that Todd McFarlane had different writers take turns scripting the book. Issue #8 is by Alan Moore and issue #9, which features the first appearance of Angela, is by Neil Gaiman.

Wildcats #1s, 3, 4, 8, 9, 12, 13 and 36. (Bonus: Savage Dragon #12 by Jim Lee) Price: P600

Some nice Jim Lee art, and...

Wildcats #1-3 featuring VERY good art by Travis Charest. Price: P480.



I may add some more titles once I've put up my eBay store, and those wanting pictures will have to wait till I do. In case anyone's already interested I can meet up at Robinson's Galleria or SM Megamall or Shangri-La, after office hours of course, and with a whole days' advance notice. Cash on delivery, please; I won't ship to any provinces because I can't guarantee the condition of the comics if I do.

As stated before, my contact information is the following:

e-mail: apelspapa@yahoo.com (or apeltala@gmail.com)

cell: 0922-8036749

Comics For Sale

For anyone interested, I am planning to sell off some of my collection of comics, for which I have offically run out of space.

I'm selling a lot of these things at bargain prices (not all of them, mind you, especially the ones that have exponentially multiplied in value since I bought them, and which I will only sell to those really interested), lest I be accused of trying to scalp/speculate.

Here's a sampling of the stuff I'm putting up for sale:

Jim Lee's Batman: Hush

Other assorted Jim Lee/Image Comics (Wildcats, his two-issue run on Gen13, Divine Right)

the entire run of Todd McFarlane's Spider-Man (except for issues 3 and 4) (Bargain rates)

I'm also offering the X-Force/Spider-Man crossover (Bargain rates)

Todd McFarlane's Spawn issues 8 (written by Alan Moore) and 9 (written by Neil Gaiman, first appearance of Angela)

Generation X.

Several issues of Peter Parker: Spider Man (Bargain rates), a 1999 re-launch (including a rare sunburst variant cover). and some issues from the Amazing Spider-Man 1999 re-launch (pre-J. Michael Straczynski).

There's other stuff I'm not really putting up for sale but which I may be convinced to part with for the right price.

Anyone interested may contact me at 0922-8036749 or 4370024. For a more detailed listing e-mail me at apelspapa@yahoo.com and I'll send you the list and suggested prices.

Why the Tesla Roadster Represents the Future

I am a car fan. I wouldn't call myself a "nut" because that would connote that I know the ins and outs of cars. I know enough to distinguish electrical from fuel related problems, but I don't exactly know what to do about them. And I love collecting diecast cars (though I think that's been covered in just about every other post here for the last three weeks).

I love watching Formula One races. I love the adrenaline, the high-pitched whine of the V8 engines hurtling across the track.

All that said, I look forward to the day when internal combustion engines are phased out, or at the very, very least drastically reduced in production and use (phasing out, I think, is not something I'll see in my lifetime), and I think the Tesla roadster, the world's first electric performance car, is the vehicle to bring us closer to that day.

As anyone who's seen the documentary Who Killed the Electric Car? knows, in 1996 General Motors of America launched an electric car, dubbed the EV-1 (for electric vehicle, prosaically enough) in response to a legal mandate by the California state legislature that a certain percentage of their production line be emission-free. Through arm-twisting and intimidation that went all the way to Washington (if the film is to be believed), the Big Three car manufacturers and the Oil Giants basically put so much pressure on the State legislature that they eventually relented, amending their mandate to say that they would only require electric cars if there was a demand for them. Through manipulative marketing, the big three and particularly GM killed that demand. They sabotaged one of their own products because they thought it would hurt their bottom line.

Enter Tesla Motors (named for Nikolas Tesla, a scientist who made spectacular inroads in the use of electricity,) a company determined to make the world's first electric performance car.

Tesla's approach to making this car was a holistic one; it wasn't about just slapping an electric motor into an existing chassis; it was about engineering a brand new car from the ground up, and getting the best people in the business to do it. They did this absolutely right, hiring the Lotus engineers from Britain to basically design the bodywork and chassis, thereby guaranteeing a well-handling and visually stunning car. In addition, they hired a Formula One engineer (whose name escapes me to the point that I'm not even sure it was mentioned) to design their car's two-speed transmission.

The results speak for themselves: the car generates about 250 bhp and apparently very high torque, a top speed of 130 mph (which is electronically limited), and the clincher a 0-60 mph accelaration of 4 seconds. That's supercar territory, faster than most Lamborghinis.

Oh, yes, there is the bit about it getting something like the equivalent of 135 miles to the gallon, which is something no existing supercar could possibly do in its maker's wildest dreams.

Thus far Tesla has sold the first hundred of these at a hundred grand a pop.

It may seem strange to sing praises of a car that I'll probably never get to drive, much less buy, but I think it's an important step towards adopting a truly cleaner and greener lifestyle (which won't come a moment too soon considering global warming is hitting us hard this year with the projected weather being the hottest in over a decade).

I know that, despite its limited numbers, the Tesla will succeed where the EV-1 failed, for a number of reasons, the most important one being that it is made by a company that wholeheartedly believes in it, not one which made one begrudgingly, out of a sense of obligation, and it is from this that all other reasons are derived.

The second reason (a derivative of the first) is that this car is unbelievably sexy. Any sports car fan knows that Lotus knows its sports cars, from the legendary Esprit to the more conservative Elise, the chassis and bodywork of which shares many elements with those of the Roadster. And SEX appeal is something electric or even hybrid cars have never had, especially the EV-1, which looked like a shitty 1950s Fiat. One can tell that Tesla wants this car to turn heads as much as GM wanted their EV-1 to have people averting their eyes. Selling cars these days, especially to sports car fans, is all about sex appeal, really. An engineer can design the most aerodynamic car imaginable, but if it isn't sexy, the execs at his car company will trash the whole thing, saying that it won't sell. GM knew this, and so does Tesla. The difference is what they do about it.

A third reason is that they're selling the damned things. GM only put its EV-1s up for lease, and even then the demand for it was insane. The way I see it, it doesn't matter whether you sell this car to millionaires or huddled masses. The important thing is that it gets out there, into the hands of a consumer that can own it.

In fact, selling them so exclusively, with the right spin, can have marvelous effects in the long run; the roadster can acquire the status previously only accorded to the most exotic of European sportscars. Rich people can buy them, making Tesla richer and driving the price of the technology down. The basic trickle down effect of all this, though it may take more than a couple of simple steps, will, down the road, really open people's eyes to a whole world of possibility.

I liken this effect to those that can stem from the fact that Audi came up with a diesel-powered car that won the 2006 24-hour Le Mans tournament for the first time in the history of the event. More than anything, this victory will really open up the possibility of mass-producing diesel engines for cars and not just for trucks, which is good considering that diesel engines are more receptive to cleaner biofuel than gas engines.

All that's needed is for magazines like Motor Trend to give this car the thumbs up, or to have auto-journalist icon Jeremy Clarkson declare how spectacular the Roadster is, and it's on its way to superstardom, taking the whole concept of the electric car along for the ride.

Of course, I'd be first in line if they suddenly came up with diecast models of this thing...

Check them out at www.teslamotors.com. Whether or not you're going to buy one, it warms the heart to know that the future looks this good.

A Rude Awakening

Joining a diecast forum, I figured it was all about sharing one's passion for his hobby with others similarly inclined. Of course, there are trades and deals and exchanges made, but I never figured someone would try to scalp me on the forum.

Well, somebody had a go at it, all right.

It was my fault, I suppose, for parading as my "sig" my two favorite diecast finds: my twin Shelby GR-1s, calling them "my greatest finds." Well, I was barely a week on the forum and somebody tried to peddle me a black GR-1, one of the two I don't yet have, saying "if you like, I can sell it to you for P300" which is basically what I paid for the first two cars.

I would have leapt at his offer, were it not for the fact that I almost immediately sensed that he had not paid that amount for the car he was trying to peddle, and was basically trying to make money off me.

I'm clearly not stingy when it comes to diecast; in less than a month I've spent what may be considered an unconscionable amount just acquiring the things, especially in view of the fact that I have two kids to take care of.

But the thought that even on this forum where everyone is clearly passionate about this hobby, someone would try to peddle something to me at what clearly seemed like more than what he paid for it (otherwise I really doubt he would have let me have it) just rattled me. It left me pissed off, more at myself than anyone else for wearing my heart out on my sleeve and being such an ostentatious jerk.

Of course I politely declined, more out of principle than anything else. The funny thing about it is I don't feel the slightest tinge of regret at having done so.

Incidentally, when Theia broached the sinister (and admittedly quite paranoid) possibility that this "seller," whom I didn't know from Adam, was nothing more than a charlatan posing as a collector who would stick me up as soon as we met, I smacked my head and said "I hadn't thought of that!" Well, it is the kind of thing one could expect after showing off his two cars and saying "does anyone have the black and red ones?"

Maybe the guy was the real item; maybe he wasn't. It doesn't really matter. I rather loathed the idea of paying even a peso more for that car than he did, but more than that, I hated the way he made the car sound so...disposable. "I have this but I'm not really interested because I'm into another line of cars, but you can have it for what you paid for the others (even if that's not what I paid for it)."

Most of all, I balked because the whole thing just went against the spirit of the hunt. As someone who trawled literally over thirty stores to find a Shelby Cobra, I didn't really feel like handing my money over to someone who sounded suspiciously like a scalper. I feel bad enough having bought two of those overpriced Hot Wheels Ferrari F430s.

God, I feel like such a fool. At least I changed my sig to something a little less showy (a nice 2005 Ford Mustang GT, with the text "stangs rule!") If anyone tries asking me how much I paid for the cars in the sig I'll just tell them all I had to do was sleep with the proprietress of the store...lest someone say "tell you what, why don't I give you mine for the same price?"

Things I Wish I Were, Part 2: Top Gear Journalists

In commemoration of this blog's 2nd anniversary, I've decided to revisit an old theme I touched upon in one of my earliest posts: what job would I like to have other than the one I have now? Meaning, if I wasn't a lawyer, what would I like to do? Back then the answer was "film reviewer" which was accompanied by a long rant about the people I felt got paid too well and got too much exposure for what I essentially felt was a job anyone with half a brain (or my brain, anyway) could do.

This post will be different in that while I have utmost respect for the people who actually have this job, I STILL WANT IT!!! These three gentlemen would Richard Hammond, James May and Jeremy Clarkson, the hosts of "Top Gear."

Back when I used to know this show's schedule, I followed it religiously. It was, at a time, absolutely my favorite show and one of the very few things I even watched on TV next to the Formula One races and the odd sitcom now and again. I haven't been able to follow it for many years now, but was gratified rather recently to see many, many of the reviews that I'd missed on youtube.com. God, but I love that show and intend to start following it again.

It's not the sight of a bunch of guys driving the wheels off some of the most extraordinary automotive machinery ever built (though in some cases, the cars can be quite ordinary, as this show is something of a consumer-guide) that makes this show such a joy for me. It's the acerbic wit that accompanies their every drive. Each and every tour of duty is accompanied by remarks, whether good or bad, which are quintessentially and uniquely British. Forget Simon Cowell, these Brit critics are in a league of their own. This is a show that simply will not translate in any other culture, and attempts to do so (such as the local 'Top Gear' magazine) are absolutely laughable.

Do I think I could do their job? Could I possibly carry the wit and the verve that they pump into just about each and every test drive, while hurtling along at 150 miles per hour? If I tried hard enough to burst some blood vessels in my brain, I might (and provided I was able to write my stuff beforehand, because I don't really know how they do it), but whether or not I could do their jobs as well as they do I still nonetheless want them, because in many ways driving these cars on Top Gear is even better than owning them. How so?

Well, on the show, these gentlemen get to drive these cars, whether they are performance cars or street cars, to the absolute limit under the best possible conditions. Sometimes they drive them through airfields, sometimes along racetracks, sometimes along winding country roads, but in every instance, they appear to have the roads all to themselves. Any millionaire who's had to plod his Ferrari through rush hour traffic would probably love to be able to do this. They don't have to pay for the gas used up, or the wear-and-tear that their exertions on the car inevitably exact. They do get paid to drive to the limit and just, well, talk about it, sometimes while they're driving. It's all the fun of driving a performance car with none of the headaches! (Though of course I'm sure they're not allowed to crash the car, even some of them have on occasion).

I'm happy driving my weenie little Kia Pride to and from work day in and day out, and to the mall or some other getaway on weekends, but given the chance I would absolutely leap at the opportunity to drive all sorts of cars, and talk about the experience of driving them, for a living.

Happy Anniversary!

This blog turned two years old yesterday. Wow, how time flies! I've covered lots of ground in this blog: politics, movies, comics, life, love and now my latest thing, diecast cars. All things considered, my posts have been pretty hobby-heavy, with comics taking up a good percentage of the posts and now my current hobby doing the same. I guess I should probably diversify, though I've already opened a brand new blog, kidztuff.blogspot (kidstuff was taken) just to share anecdotes about my kids and possibly preserve them online for posterity (at least until blogger goes offline, which I hope is never). And well, heck, this is my blog. I don't have any particular train of thought impelling this post, so I'll just jot down some random thoughts:

I am fighting the urge to head back to my Greenhills nook and buy something again. It hasn't even been a month since Christmas day, when this all began, and yet I've spent a small fortune on diecast cars. I won't go into specifics, but suffice it to say that at the height of my comics collecting, I didn't spend as much on comic books in six months as I have spent in the last four weeks. I've gone from enthusiastic to excessive to prodigal in practically no time at all. While this hobby is certainly engaging, it's simply got to go on hiatus for awhile.My hands are trembling.

There's some buzz in the F1 fan community about the launch of the 2007 cars and driver line-ups. The first race of the calendar, the Australian Grand Prix, is still a good two months away but people are already getting excited. I launched another blog devoted to F1, jimarroyosf1.blogspot, but all things considered maybe I'll just scrub it and post my f1 thoughts here, if only to add variety to the things I talk about. I don't know. Reigning world champion Fernando Alonso made quite a splash with his new look for his new team: white-and-red Mclaren overalls and a new buzz-cut in contrast to his blue -and-yellow Renault jumpsuit and long hair. Ferrari staged a relatively low-key launch for their 2007 car, but most of the other major teams, including world champion Renault, have yet to officially unveil their cars for the year. I won't make any predictions just yet but the first Michael Schumacher-less F1 year in over 16 years looks like it's gonna be a doozy.

The reports that one of Abu Sayyaf's top people is dead may come as a relief to some, but to those of us who know that where there is poverty there will always be brigands of one form or another it's just another dead body. Still, one has to congratulate the normally sensationalist, doom-and-gloom media for actually putting something positive in the headlines for a change.

The weather's a little chilly these days; truly the January and February chill are upon us. These are easily the coldest months in our calendar and it doesn't look like 2007 is going to be any exception.


Okay, enough soundbites. They're giving me a headache. Time to get back to work.

Apparently, GREENHILLS is the new Greenhills

I once wrote that since its renovation, Virra Mall seems to have lost its edge as a place to find really great, hard-to-find toys. I thought I had happened upon the "new" Virra Mall when I walked into Makati Cinema Square a week ago, only to find out that there was only one collectibles shop there. There are still some pretty good places at the new Virra Mall, like the one behind A Different Bookstore (the name of which escapes me), Best Toys, and Special Toy Center (which sells mostly military stuff but occasionally good die casts, at a very high premium).

Well, last week I also joined a die cast collectors' forum (where I found out that contrary to my initial belief, they really are nice guys and not a bunch of one-upping, hoarding e-bay scalpers like I feared they might be) and well, they pointed me to a nook I had missed, near the Giordano store in Shoppesville.

Apparently, Shoppesville is the new Virra Mall (and for all I know, they might have been even better than Virra Mall all along). I counted FOUR diecast stores all in one spot brimming with Hot Wheels, Jada, and even AutoArt stuff. I almost swooned at the sight of all of them. I didn't really have time to look through everything, but...WOW. I ended up buying the black Hot Wheels Shelby GR-1 I had passed up last December, sadly for a bit more than I would have paid for it had I bought it the first time. I didn't want to have to pay even more for it down the line, obviously.

I will have to resist the urge to go back there for at least another three weeks because I've spent a bit too much on diecast this last week alone. (Any more and I might end up at some meeting saying: Hello, my name is Jim and I'm a collector...) but at least I know WHERE to go, besides Ram's in Festival Mall and RNC in Market! Market!, when I want good diecast stuff.

All things considered, though, I was still more impressed by the stuff available at Ram's Festival Mall (even moreso than the stuff at Ram's in Greenhills).

My Holy Grail (with a little note to eBay hawkers.)

Now it can be told: yesterday, I experienced one of the greatest triumphs I have ever known in the short span of my collecting diecast cars.

I found my Holy Grail, the item I had passed up last December only to find it gone the next day. I found the item I had combed seven (or was it eight?) SMs, four Rustan'ses, four Robinsonses and about a dozen hobby stores besides looking for: a Big Time Muscle Shelby Cobra 427 S/C in 1:64, colored silver with two big black stripes down the middle. I found it just after I had given up hope, having spent the weekend looking for it in Fairview, of all places. I found it at Robinson's Galleria, which is right beside my office, which is strange considering I had already looked there without success.

Life is just full of irony. In the end, I didn't even have to go to all those malls and stores all over town (though in the process I made some phenomenal finds; in going back to RAM's I ended up finding a Ferrari F430 Dropstars, which is so hard to find it practically attained the status of Unicorn as far as I was concerned, and it was in the course of my search that I found the red and white Shelby Cobra 427s, so all things considered there were some high points in the search besides its eventual culmination).

This is the joy of collecting; expending time and effort to find something and to finally, finally have that effort pay off. Would I have felt as gratified if I'd found the item somewhere far flung like Dasmarinas, Cavite? I don't really know, and I don't really care. The point is that I paid for it what I wanted to pay for it, and even though there were a lot of other extraneous expenses (gas, fare, parking) involved, these were expenses of the hunt, which, more than just adding another toy to the pile, is what makes collecting truly worthwhile.

It gratifies me now to go back to eBay and see those psychos selling the item for $12.00 or something ridiculous like that. I feel particularly smug when I log onto eBay Philippines and see the schmuck trying to hawk a pair of blue and silver Big Time Muscle Shelbys for P800.00. That's a mark-up of 100% on each car, assuming he divided the price between the two of them. It gratifies me when I see that no one's taken him up on his price so far. It means no one's interested in getting ripped off by some avaricious scalper who probably bought out all of the Shelby Cobras in his general vicinity so he could sell them for a fortune online.

For people like this I have two words: fuck you. You greedy bastards give collectors a bad name and should be ashamed of yourselves for trying to take advantage of people trying to pursue their hobby, especially by posting hype like "Very Hard to Find." It's not the price you put on the cars that pisses me off; hell, I shelled out P500 the other day for the F430 I was fairly sure I wouldn't be able to find anywhere else, even online. It's that you thought you could get away with doubling the price of cars that you probably got at P200.00 each. In my search I probably spent easily more than the price you were asking for just looking for those cars, but at least I didn't hand the money over to you, thereby rewarding your speculation.

I know that's the way the world works: he who has rare items can jack up the price all he wants, but these people are just like those assholes who charge an arm and a leg for those crappy 1:64 Hot Wheels Ferraris, with one crucial difference: their product is still on the market at its original price. There are still Shelby 427 S/Cs in SM malls scattered throughout not just Metro Manila but the whole country, and while they're out there, nobody is going to pay such a ludicrous price (which is just a STARTING BID). So unless this guy is willing to go to far-flung places like Batangas or Pampanga, or hell, even Baguio, just to make sure these items are really out of stock, he shouldn't try to pull a fast one on people. Heck, I know for a fact that there are actual collectors (not scalpers) who have some extra Cobras in their larder who are willing to unload them for a lot and I mean a LOT less. They know that the collector community can be a very pleasant one and shouldn't be trying to cut each other's throats with ridiculous prices.


THIS is the greatest victory a collector can aspire for: to find exactly what he's looking for and pay exactly what he wants to pay for it.

A Review of the Penultimate Civil War Issue

It seems strange to review a comic book so soon after I have announced to anyone reading that I'm on the verge of giving up comic books in favor of a new hobby, but having picked up my subscription copy of Civil War #6 just today (several days after its actual release, which should tell you something about how serious I was about not being as interested in comics as I used to be), I can say with certainty that I really and sincerely enjoyed it.

In a nutshell, everything comes to a head as Captain America's anti-registration squad (with new recruits Spider-Man and the Punisher) breaks into the pro-registration squad's Negative Zone prison, setting the stage for the big, final throwdown between the two factions. That's pretty much all I can say without spoilers.

While it seems to be highly fashionable among comic book (read: Marvel) purists to bash the whole series as out-of-character, a big gimmick, and similar such snipes, just as it was en vogue among many DC fans to tear Infinite Crisis a new @$$hole a year ago, and while I've certainly taken my own shots at the series (particularly in issue #4) I really think those die-hard naysayers should really just get bent.

The story is entertaining. There are no more holes in it than there are in a lot of movies that have worked on many levels. The script is engaging, the pacing is good, and the art is consistently stellar (though one can spot the chinks in McNiven's armor here and there; I guess the pressure of drawing the miniseries of the year can really get to anyone).

The story also works as an allegory, especially considering the recent news that Bush and his cronies in the White House are now authorized to open people's mail, thereby hitting home how scary it can be when the government can poke into every private citizen's last nook and cranny. It's like real life has caught up with the events in this story.

I know that Civil War is really just a jumping point for an all-new, all-different Marvel Universe which I won't really partake in for the most part, if at all, but really, this series really has had its moments and will, in my opinion, be well remembered by fandom in years to come.

Now I'd really like to see how this ends!

Some Realities About Collecting.

There is a lot about diecast collecting that makes it a lot less attractive than comic book collecting. I haven't quite lost my resolve to continue with this new hobby (considering I've picked up a few more items today, undoubtedly over the objection of my wife and probably my wallet down the line), but there are some hard lessons I'm continuing to learn about this thing. Allow me to enumerate some of my frustrations:

1. There is a lot less predictability in collecting these things. It's not as though one can plunk down x pesos and say "I want to subscribe to the next dozen really cool hot wheels cars." One can check out the latest releases on the web site, but it's not as if any of the stores that carry these things will reserve a chunk of cars that I like for me. Pre-ordering doesn't seem to be part of diecast merchants' culture. And it's not like I can write Mattel (though I am writing the smaller company whose cars I have bought, which I happen to consider the crown jewels of my growing collection). So I still have to go trawling, which, while it can be fun, isn't something I can do all the time.

2. Because I don't really know the ratio of distribution of certain items, I don't really know what's "rare" or not other than by how hard a time I am finding something. At least with comic books, they're more up front. I hate getting suckered in by the alleged "collectibility" factor. I bought a couple of Hot Wheels toys today because they boasted the "Faster Than Ever" copper-colored wheels as opposed to the normal silver-spoked wheels. They were nowhere on my priority list (which after several days of searching is nowhere close to being checked off), but because I knew that "Faster Than Evers" were supposedly "hard to find," I bought them both. Sure, I feel smug about paying the normal rate for supposedly "rare" cars and sure I felt smug about glancing on eBay and finding out how much these things go for, but the truth is that I wasn't in the market for them in the first place and now I just feel like an idiotic speculator. I shouldn't deviate from the rule: buy only what I really want, not what I think I can eventually sell for more, or something like that. My comics collecting streamlined after I junked that line of thinking (and I have yet to sell any of my comics, despite a couple of ad postings I've done over the years). This early, I've already succumbed to the temptation to collect for the sake of it, and not for the love of the cars. Well, no more, not if I can help it.

3. I hate walking into a collectibles store early in my search, finding nothing, and then searching the rest of the mall/emporium only to find that I have already searched the only collectible store around. Today I walked into Makati Cinema Square thinking I had found the new Virra Mall, namely a firetrap of dimly-lit, nook-and-cranny stores brimming with hard-to-find gems (a title the real Virra Mall lost when it went all clean and commercial looking), only to learn that only gun fanatics would feel that way about the place. There was only one collectibles store in there and while their stash was impressive, they still didn't have what I was and am STILL looking for.

Ultimately...

4. I HATE NOT BEING ABLE TO FIND WHAT I'M LOOKING FOR!!! My holy grail eludes me still, after several days of trawling nearly a dozen department, toy, and collectibles stores. For a collector, most of the thrill is in the chase, and should I ever find this item without paying a fortune for it on eBay (which I pray to God never to have to do), I will truly be gratified. Finding this item may even trump the twin Shelby GR-1 discovery I made last Christmas day.

Still, this hobby is proving increasingly involving; while the easiest response to the "what makes this better than comics" question may be to call them apples and oranges, I will say that there's something about collecting three-dimensional works of art, which is what a lot of the cars in my collection are, albeit diecast and mass-produced, that's really special. All things considered though, I never really want to go into a "diecast trumps comics" diatribe or anything like that. Comics will always be special to me, whether or not I'm buying them on a regular basis.

I guess this love-hate relationship I'm developing with my new hobby goes to show I'm in pretty deep...

Menaces to Society and Themselves

As this blog approaches its second anniversary, I find myself with new and improved things to throw tantrums about. Sure, the last three or four posts or so may have been devoted to gushing about my new hobby, but for so long as human beings in general and Filipinos in particular continue to misbehave, there will always be a tantrum waiting to be thrown.

Like many Filipinos that drive, I find myself peeved by the legions of assholes that I have to confront on the road day in and day out. When I opt for the public transportation, I cringe at the behavior of drivers of both public and private vehicles on both major or minor roads.

Up until recently, my pet peeve was the tricycle driver, followed at a distant second by other public transportation drivers, cops and other various scumbags. My loathing for the tricycle driver needs no explanation to anyone who's ever spent a day behind the wheel of a car in Metro Manila. They are basically the scum of the earth.

But in the last few months, I've become aware of a new piece of rolling trash cluttering our streets. I'm talking about the scooter driver.

Apparently these scooters, which seem to be some kind of love-child of the "Honda Trendy" of old and an actual motorbike are available at highly affordable prices or plans, as a result of which suddenly every other Filipino seems to be driving one, whether or not they really know how to drive.

And these guys are a thousand times worse than tricycles for a number of reasons. First of all, unlike tricycles, they appear to be everywhere. Tricyles operate only in certain types of areas and on certain types of streets. You will almost never see a tricycle along EDSA, for example. On a regular day you will see several of these motherfucking scooters puttering along EDSA. Second of all, they are a lot faster and narrower than tricycles, which often carry several times the weight the motorcycle to which the cab was attached was meant to carry. These things are actually pretty zippy, and can blow by you before you get to look into your rear view mirror. This is potentially quite dangerous as a lot of these scooter drivers are fond of passing wherever their scooters can fit. What happens when the driver wants to make a right turn? It only becomes their problem when they smack right into him.

Third, they are coming onto the scene quickly and in such large numbers that it's hard to develop a driving strategy to deal with them. After so many years of driving one derives a sense of predictability to the way they operate, and develops a way to deal with it, whether it's simply letting it slide or mastering the art of savagely cutting them off (which I do whenever it's feasible). With scooters, however, as stupid as their drivers are, it's hard to peg down their personalities other than that they seem to have absolute contempt for road rules. Their unpredictability makes them extremely dangerous.

At around five in the morning I was driving along Santolan when I saw a crowd huddled around an old Toyota Corolla. It being very early in the morning, I had no problem passing the parked Corolla and heading on my way, but not before I saw a crumpled scooter just under the Corolla's front fender. The driver of the scooter was almost certainly seriously injured at best, and dead at worst. The sad thing of it is, having seen the way these guys drive, I found myself not feeling the slightest bit of sympathy for whoever the guy was, whatever might have happened to him.


Scooters and their utterly reckless drivers present a real problem to motorists of all kinds, and I honestly believe this needs to be addressed.

Victory!

Whatever happens down the road in my current quest to collect the coolest 1:64 diecast cars I can think of, today will truly stand out as a milestone.

Today is the day I stuck it to those bastard e-bay hawkers and collectible stores and paid exactly what I wanted to (as opposed to what I was willing to) pay for collectibles I've been drooling over almost since I started this hobby.

I followed my rules, especially the rule about instinct, and now I am reveling in my glorious acquisition...three of them!

I am so happy with this little moment of triumph, I may even take a little break from trawling toy stores for awhile and follow other pursuits after office hours...

...or maybe not....hehehe...

Strange New Territory

Having spent the better part of my adolescence and all of my adult life collecting comic books to one extent or another, I developed a certain set of instincts and habits based on the shipping patterns of the stores from which I bought comics. Some of them were sensible, some of them are quirky, and some of them would make normal people cringe with embarrassment at the thought of how weird I could be.

I am now exploring a new realm, planet die-cast, if you will, and in a scant two weeks I've learned a number of hard lessons that's making me wonder what I've gotten myself into.

To maintain the planet analogy, planet die-cast is a strange, far less hospitable planet than planet comics. Its resources do not seem anywhere near as abundant, which is strange considering that there are tons more toy stores than there are comics stores, and the inhabitants seem a little more predatory. In short, more than the last "planet" I lived on, this one seems a more about survival of the fittest.

While I'm not even sure about most of the "lessons" I've learned of late, Ithink the one thing I can take to the bank is that the most important thing about collecting, especially when I have a specific line of toys/model in mind, is that I have to pay attention to my first instinct. It served me well when I snatched up those two Ford Shelby GR-1s, the like of which I have not seen anywhere since that day, except online and I will only go there when all hope is lost.

The one truly sensible rule of thumb seems to be: if I like something, and I think I can afford it or will be able to pay the credit card bill when it comes out, then I should, without hesitation, buy it. Rule One: on this planet, apparently, to hesitate on what looks like a good purchase is to die. I'm still banging my head on the wall over the last time I hesitated, which was barely three days ago.

Rule Two: it's every man for himself. It's not that I know anyone collecting the same stuff I am, but I'm not about to tell people what I'm looking for lest someone buy the item out then try to hawk it on eBay for three to four times its original value. I've had that happen too...

There are a couple of other rules I've formulated in my head, but for one thing, I'm not sure exactly how reliable they are and for another thing, to talk about them would be to violate Rule Two.


Gentlemen (and possibly some ladies), it's on. Planet Die-cast will soon have a new species of predator.

My One Peso (Two US Cents at the Current Exchange Rate) On Daniel Smith's Transfer of Custody

I'd like to say a few things about the current brouhaha over USMC Cpl. Daniel Smith being moved from the Makati City Jail to the US Embassy.

1. As horrible as it is to admit, it actually does state in the VFA that pending the finality of the decision, the soldier shall remain in US custody.

2. This provision existed seven years ago, when the VFA was first foisted on us by ERAP's government. The current government had next to no leeway in dealing with the Americans, thanks to that provision.

3. When it comes to kissing the Americans' asses, the government's batting average is 1.00000. It's not a new thing, and considering how bad Filipinos' collective memory seems to be, maybe we should remember that.

So please, let's not turn this into yet another tired, old "let's get rid of GMA" platform.

My admonition to the Court of Appeals; put this baby to bed, so we can finally see this fucker rot in the godforsaken hellhole that is Bilibid, or wherever they're moving the prison now.

On Inducing Collectibility

As a comics collector, one of the things that really peeved me was the practice of some comics to ship variants in different ratios to the regular edition of a comic book. The most common variant is the variant cover, but sometimes they would do variant black-and-white cover and interior books. Naturally, because the stores would have a hard time acquiring these things because they would have to order more, they end up charging more, and as a result I have never been able to afford a single variant since Marvel reintroduced the 1:x ratio of variants.

Now that I am venturing into the world of collectible toy cars, I've noticed something rather irritating, at least in the local collectible store scene. It's one thing for a toy to come out in toy stores, sell out, and then reappear in collectible stores at a premium because they're so damned popular. What appears to happen here, though, is that before a 'hot' toy ever even hits the shelves of Toy Kingdom or even the new Toys 'R' Us, they've been snapped up by collectible stores and marked up quite ridiculously.

The single best (worst?) example of this practice is the 1:64 Ferrari F430 by Hot Wheels, which came out in September this year. As early as May I found myself watching out for it. When Toys 'R' Us opened I spotted their Hot Wheels poster which advertised their upcoming products, and the F430 figured quite prominently.

That toy never hit the shelves, but apparently went straight to the collectible stores. Whether this is because the collectible stores intercepted these products at the Harbor, or went to the toy stores and bought them all out on the first day they came out, I really don't know, but I hated having to pay almost three times the price of a normal Hot Wheels car for a replica that isn't even that well done. I much prefer my Mercedes SLR Mclaren by Maisto and my Ford GT by Dub City, both in 1:64, both done with spectacular attention to detail (though their doors still won't open, something which is apparently a thing of the past in small cars, sadly).

I recently found out that the going rate for a normal 1BaddRide car, which is apparently a brand new product in the Philippines, is P199.75, the same rate that Dub City 1:64s go for, and that the two cars I bought that started my whole collector frenzy were marked up by P100 each. The store where I bought them had that luxury, considering that the damned things weren't available anywhere else. The collectible store strikes again.

I don't know if this an arrangement between the toy distributor and the collectible stores or the toy stores, but I wish they wouldn't do it either way. If a toy is likely to be "hot" then let it sell out, like the "Cars" toys did earlier this year and then jack up its price on the back market, like a lot of internet peddlers are.

I do know that some really nice items have turned up on the toy store shelves to get sold out in a twinkling, like the SLR McLaren 1:64, as well as the Ford GT 1:64, both of which I acquired at the going rate, and neither of which I have seen since (especially the Ford GT). If these items turn up in collectible stores sometime in the future at marked up prices, then I'll at least know that regular joes at least had a fighting chance to buy them.

Given that this practice of the collectibles people isn't exactly illegal, there isn't actually any stopping it, but what I am hoping is that rich collector types take their business elsewhere, getting their toys from Hong Kong or online or something. It's time collectors did something to really screw these bastards selling their P300 F430s, who, rather than wait for items to sell out and truly become rare collectibles, are trying to buy them out outright and induce a sense of "collectibility."

Well here's the thing: just about every collectible store, even that anime/manga store which sells collectibles on the side, has these P300/P250 Ferraris, so really, they aren't rare at all. AND they go for less than a dollar online, without shipping costs. However, if, as collectors are wont to do, they buy SEVERAL Hot Wheels/collectible cars online for a dollar or so each and pay shipping, they'll effectively still save money! Just a thought, really.

On Exploding Extremities

I went through a firecracker phase when I was a kid. To put it simply, I viewed it as a rite of passage. I was convinced that learning how to blow up firecrackers was part of growing up: that I wouldn't be a proper Filipino male without it. One of my grade school classmates had blown off his middle finger playing with firecrackers, but I just wrote that little unpleasant detail off, for some reason. I exploded firecrackers for maybe about two or three years, after which it quickly lost its appeal.

I'll admit there was something thrilling about blowing things up, but nobody had to scare me away from it with images of bloody stumps where fingers or hands used to be. I just really got bored with it, especially after firecracker prices climbed. Essentially, you're just watching your money blow up with that crap.

I don't know if it's because of callousness or just out of disgust with the Filipino's borderline irrational need to make loud noises, but sometime ago I found myself feeling absolutely no sympathy for the young (and sometimes not so young) men who would turn up on the front page of the New Year's Day edition of the newspaper with their hands or fingers blown off. I mean,as far back I think as the Ramos administration, the government has tried to ban firecrackers every year, especially considering that the triangular ones are made by kids in sweatshops in Bulacan. EVERY year they do this, and yet EVERY year a segment of our population feels the need to defy the ban.

So no, I really don't give a shit whenever I find out that someone who patently ignored the authorities' admonition not to use something that could potentially maim or kill them has used that something and has in fact been maimed. My sympathy goes much more to those who are hit by stray bullets, especially considering a lot of them are young children minding their own business.

There are so many wonderful ways to celebrate the New Year. A nice dinner, a party, or time with the family. Heck, why not just give Christmas gifts all over again? It would probably cost just as much as stocking up on those ludicrous firecrackers.

This afternoon, my family and I hope to escape the idiocy of the noise and the smoke, so I am whisking them off somewhere I hope we won't really be affected by it.

Yeah, so I may be a wimp, but at least you won't ever see me on the front page on New Year's day with a maimed hand. A bullet in my head, maybe, but...well...

Happy New Year anyway.

Confessions of a Diecast Toy Car Lover Coming Out of the Closet

It all started about three years ago, when on a stopover on the way either to or from (I forget which) my in-laws' house in Cavite, in a town some 55 kilometers from our house in Quezon City, my wife and I spent some time in Alabang's Festival Mall.

A comic book collector, I knew that there was a Comic Quest there and I determined to find it. As anyone who has been there would know, Festival Mall is one of the bigger malls around, so finding a store on the topmost floor took some doing for someone who had never been there before.

When I found Comic Quest, I was surprised to find it tucked in the middle of three other stores, none of which carried comic books as their stock-in-trade but instead collectibles of all sorts: action figures, statues, and die-cast collectible cars.

That Comic Quest never became one of my staples: I only ever bought two or three issues. But from then on I always enjoyed going back to those collectibles stores. I liked looking at the Marvel Legends figures and their variants. I liked looking at the McFarlane toys, especially the ones based on movie scenes. I also liked the Neca toys with remarkably well-sculpted likenesses of the movie stars they were modeled after.

But nothing enchanted me the way the way the diecast toy cars did. I didn't much care for the 1:64 Hot Wheels that were practically littered throughout one of the stores (RAM collectibles, for anyone that's curious), because they weren't really big on detail, but I was particularly enchanted by the more detailed cars made in larger scales. Of course, the best to look at were the 1:18 cars, especially the Ferraris. I loved looking at all of the gorgeous replicas of both Formula One Ferraris as well as the various production cars as new as the Enzo and as old as the 250 GTO.

But there were cars in some smaller scales, namely 1:24 and 1:43, which were also quite easy on the eyes.

I am proud to say I found a way to truly and sincerely motivate myself to haul ass all the way to my in-law's every few weeks.

I also found myself heading to Uncle Johnny's Hobby Shop (those little toy car kiosks in SM North EDSA and Megamall), even though I never really gave them any business. Just looking at the things scratched my itch. I wasn't a collector yet.

However, I found myself wading into collector territory earlier this year. With some of the first paycheck from my new job last May, I bought myself a 1:18 replica, made by Maisto, of a Mercedes SLR McLaren, a car I instantly fell in love with when its commercials played during the 2004 Formula One season. Shortly thereafter, I bought a Maisto 1:64 SLR McLaren.

Still, I was not a collector.

The itch became stronger earlier this year, when my sister-in-law popped up at our house and invited my son out for an afternoon. When they came back, it turned out she had bought him two little "Hot Wheels" toys, specifically, a yellow Corvette and a silver Ford GR-1 Shelby Concept Car.

The 'Vette was generic enough, but my curiosity was piqued by the Shelby Concept Car, the like of which I had never seen before. I Googled the thing like crazy and loved what I saw. I immediately felt that Mattel had not done the car justice; it was a thing of beauty.

In the course of Googling, I happened upon the Ford GT, another beauty of a car, and before I knew it I bought myself a 1:64 toy made by DUB City, which left a little to be desired but which was quite attractive nonetheless.

But I still didn't consider myself a collector, even though I went absolutely green with envy when some collector proudly put on display in a glass case over at SM Toy Kingdom, his complete collection of DUB City Ford GTs, in both 1:24 and 1:64 scale.

Then, life caught up with me. All kinds of things happened which kind of made me forget about collecting or even just ogling toy cars.

Things settled down not too long afterwards, and I soon found myself on the brink of giving in to a long pent-up desire...I just didn't realize it yet.

It started just before Christmas came around. For some reason, I felt I just HAD to have a small Ferrari F430. Unfortunately, because Hot Wheels apparently has exclusive rights to make Ferrari toys, I had to content myself with buying their version, which, incidentally, is unavailable in most toy stores, and only available in these specialty stores like the ones I love to visit in Festival mall, at two or three times the price of a regular Hot Wheels car. I bit the bullet and paid the premium for the little thing. In the course of my searching for that Ferrari (which proved surprisingly rare in Greenhills that day), I stumbled upon a charcoal black Hot Wheels Shelby GR-1 concept (as opposed to the now beat-up silver one my son owned). It was marked up, but not as much a Ferrari, and the saleslady confirmed it was hard to find. I know I had never seen it anywhere else. Despite its rarity, however, I passed on buying it.

I still did not consider myself a collector. I had been Googling off and on for diecast replicas of Shelby GR-1s, but unable to find anything other than the Hot Wheels model, or a yet-to-be-released 1:18 model by high-end toymaker AutoArt, I just didn't have the heart to buy anything that didn't truly capture the GR's unique blend of beauty and ferocity.

Then, Christmas season rolled around, and suddenly, my son was swimming in Hot Wheels cars. His godmother, my former law school classmate, gave him two, one of them a Shelby Cobra Daytona (and it was thus that I discovered the roots of the Shelby GR-1 Concept). His godfather, upon learning that he wanted Hot Wheels for Christmas, funded a little shopping expedition that I carried out, picking out what I hoped would be some durable Hot Wheels cars. I also took the chance to shop for about four other kids between the ages of three to six, and it was thus that I really, truly immersed myself in both Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars again for the first time in my entire adult life.

I found myself impressed by the way Matchbox had maintained their quality, even after having been bought out twice, first by Tyco, then indirectly as Mattel purchased Tyco. In the midst of my shopping I ended up buying a Matchbox Porsche 911, the only one in the store. I finished shopping, and not long afterwards my son's cars were wrapped and ready to go.

This time I was truly smitten. I was about to cross over from toy car ogler and occasional buyer into full-blown nascent collector.

I ordered two Hot Wheels "Dropstars" Ferrari 360s online, which should arrive sometime next month. After trawling the internet, I also found a number of Matchboxes that I really wanted to to buy, but I decided to go up close and personal and buy them at one of my favorite haunts.

On Christmas day, after the visit to my in-laws, I made a beeline that evening for my favorite row of stores, determined to start my collection in earnest. I wouldn't even know just how earnest until I set foot in RAM's collectibles.

Having been to something like two dozen stores in Greenhills, the store in Megamall and a number of other, smaller stores in a couple of other malls in the Metro Manila area, I can say with certainty that RAM Collectibles, which sits right beside Comic Quest in Festival Mall, has the widest car collection of any specialty store I have ever seen.

And so I searched the store's huge collection of 1:64 toy cars of several different models and manufacturers (mostly Hot Wheels) in search of some rare Matchbox cars, only to be disappointed. I had also hoped to find the rare black Hot Wheels Shelby GR-1 I had passed up in Greenhills only days before (and which had been promptly snapped up by some other eagle-eyed collector shortly thereafter), but to no avail.

I was about to content myself with an old Jaguar XJ220 which went for a measly PhP 70, together with a much pricier Ferrari 360 I had spotted sitting in a glass case, when I found a much greater treasure. As I handed both the toy cars and my cash to the saleslady, I looked around one last time, my eyes eventually falling on a rather low shelf with some unobtrusively placed toy cars made by a relatively obscure manufacturer, an Arkansas-based company called 1BaddRide.

One could say it was destiny as upon going through these cars, I finally, after months of searching, found not just one but TWO stunningly-rendered replicas of a Ford Shelby GR-1, one in silver and one in blue, supposedly done in 1:64 scale but which look a lot more like 1:55 or even 1:50. I ended up shelving the Ferrari 360 (which was not rendered anywhere near as well as the two other cars) and buying both Shelby GRs, spending PhP300 on each one. As pricey as they were, I didn't feel the slightest tinge of regret, especially after a quick online search showed me that each of them went for as much as $7, without shipping. The euphoria I felt upon fulfilling a quest that had been going on for the better part of a year was...incomparable!

NOW I am a collector.

This time, I know it's for real, as I am now on the verge of giving up collecting monthly comic books altogether, as I explained in another post. I hope to complete all four Shelby GR variants made by 1BaddRide. After that, maybe I'll save up for the AutoArt edition, or complete the 1BaddRide collection of sports cars, which includes C6 Corvettes and Mustang GTs. I don't know yet when I'll buy my next car, or how often I'll buy them. I don't even really know what my collecting style/trend will be, whether it will be by toy manufacturer (e.g. Hot Wheels, Dub City, 1BaddRide, etc.), or by car manufacturer (all things Ford, all things Ferrari, etc.). I DON'T EVEN KNOW!!!

All I know is that if I had my way right now, I would be the 40-year-old virgin of the diecast sports cars set (anyone who's seen that movie would know what I mean).

I don't think I could have gotten into this any earlier than just recently, considering that the Shelby GR-1 only just came out, but now that it's started I can see this going on for awhile.

I don't see myself ever collecting real-life supercars, but I will certainly be content to buy these babies. At least they don't poison the air my children breathe, and--who knows?--maybe they can even make a mint selling them on e-bay some day in the future (but only after I'm dead).

Oh, to get in touch with my inner child/diecast geek again!!! Ooooooohhhh...

Hobby-Jumping

Anyone who knows me, as well as anyone who reads this blog, knows that I am a comics collector. I am more avid than some, and less avid than others, but the point is that to a certain extent, I have, for nearly the last twenty years (off and on) needed my monthly comic book fix, even to the extent that I'd buy them even if I couldn't necessarily afford them.

2006, though, has been a strange year for me as a collector. There's a lot of stuff I've liked, but just the same, as the year grows to a close I find myself leaning more and more towards retiring from collecting comics, at least as monthlies.

The first reason for this is as collectibles, comic books just don't have the same appeal as they used to, particularly with idiotic concepts like "graded" comics emerging, and the return of the variant cover, which stores automatically price at as much as five times as much as a regular comic book even when they just come out. Another good thing about not rushing to buy monthlies is that I no longer have to worry about an issue getting sold out. Even bookstores carry trade paperbacks, so I won't have to trawl comic stores to find an issue that I missed.

There's also the problem of storage, given how inherently flimsy comics are (even the cardstock ones), it's not as if I can just shove them into a bookshelf as I can the trade paperbacks (of which I have about six or seven by now), and I'm quite simply running out of space, not only in my long boxes but in my house as well. I'm running out safe places to put the darned things (and when one has a one-and-a-half year in the house, that is quite important).

Third, as much as I love good stories and art, I hate late comics. I'm not a fill-in advocate, but I'd still rather read a story without long intervals in-between issues. People who bought the hardcover of Joe Quesada's Daredevil:Father for example had a much more coherent and pleasant reading experience than the poor schmucks like me who waited the two and a half years for him to finish the six issue miniseries. I don't really travel in comics-reading circles except for two or three friends tops, so it's not as though anyone will spoil crucial story points for me.

Finally, and this is something I've come to discover lately, I really don't like being disappointed by a storyline mid-arc. It happened with Civil War, and even more recently, in a title I was sincerely enjoying, namely Ed Brubaker's Criminal. Without giving away any crucial plot-points, let me just say that what started out as a very engaging heist story is playing out in an extremely by-the-numbers fashion, with a crook with a heart of gold getting in trouble, running from the bad guys, and sharing the obligatory sex scene with the only female in the story's landscape. If I were to peruse this in the book store, I wouldn't have bought it.

I'm finishing the comics I started this year even as they spill into next year, but for the first time in nearly two decades of collecting, I'm starting to re-think my collecting habits. I won't be so pompous as to say that I've outgrown comics, because really, I still enjoy good stories, but picking up new "floppies" every month is just losing its allure, really.

Besides, and by way of an epilogue, after months and months of walking into hobby/collectibles stores and ogling the several different brands, makes and scales of diecast vehicles, I finally got it into my head to buy a couple, and the rush I felt upon buying a toy car I'd been tracking down for months was something totally new to me, even after years of collecting. I'm still giving the matter a lot of thought, but I'm seriously considering shifting hobbies...

Thing to Be Grateful For.

I won't lie; it's nice to receive presents. As a gainfully employed, married thirtysomething, I have come to expect to receive fewer and fewer gifts other than a couple of tokens from my officemates and family (I don't exactly go slinking to my godparents anymore), and part of me misses that. I loved getting toys when I was a kid, particularly because they were bright and colorful and came in big, lovely boxes (for which I am grateful considering that if I were a kid now most of them would probably come in considerably less enchanting clamshell cases). Maybe to satisfy my jones for big and colorful I'll start asking for coffee-table books.

Still, I have to admit that my appreciation of the intangible, not-so-obvious blessings in my life seems to have developed over the years, more in spite of my personality quirks than because of any growth I may pretend to have achieved.

I am grateful this year for so many things that went right. I'm grateful for my wife and her loving support, for my two beautiful children, and for so many other things as well. I'm grateful that, when my daughter was sick, I had the money for her medical needs. I'm grateful that when I wanted to send my son to school, and pay for his field trips, I was able to do that, too. I'm grateful that when the typhoons milenyo and reming hit, my family was safe and sound.

I am grateful that my family, meaning my wife, son and daughter, love me as much as they do, even when I'm not necessarily lovable.

Most of all, I am grateful for the singular knowledge that no matter how bad things got for me (and this year was pretty trying in some ways) there was always something I could be grateful for. Even when I absolutely refused to acknowledge it, there was always palpable, irrefutable proof right smack in my life that God still loved me.

I know it may sound all born-again-charismatic-fundamentalist to those who know me, but the truth of the matter is that I wouldn't have made it through this year with my sanity intact if it weren't for the fact that God walked me through every single trial (and I don't just mean the kind that lawyers attend) I faced.

It's so easy to measure a year's success by one's achievements, whether it's an exam passed (like the bar), a debt paid, an amount of income earned or some material possession (like a house) acquired, but even without any of these things one can have had a full, and fulfilling year that doesn't depend on any of the more traditional parameters of success. It's kind of hard to see that sometimes when things don't necessarily go as one plans, but when one acquires a better perspective of things, everything can really fall into place. It's just a matter of being willing to embrace the good one has instead of pining for the good one wants.

This Christmas, I'd like to offer a prayer for the people who aren't able to take solace in that knowledge that they are loved by God. Whether it's because they're materially, spiritually or emotionally impoverished, these are people who need God more than anyone else, and I pray that they find God in one form or another. We all deserve some happiness this time of year.

Fill-In Artists

It can be hard to publish comic books on a monthly basis when the artist involved is extremely meticulous about his work. When confronted with this kind of problem the publisher has either two options: delay the release of the latest issue, or replace the artist with someone else.

Much ado is being made of the fact that comic books these days are late, whether by a week or by six months, more often than not on account of the artist taking a long time to draw the book.

I, for one, am grateful to Joe Quesada for deciding not to go with fill-in artists, even if it means making the fans wait and possibly risking sales dropoffs. This is not me talking as a Marvel Zombie, but rather as someone who has been burned a few times in my collecting "career" by stories not finished by the artists who started them.

I'm not really peeved by the notion of one artist finishing the art that another one started. I'm not a purist like Jeph Loeb who declares he wouldn't enjoy Civil War if Marvel replaced Steve McNiven with an equally high-profile artist such as Mike Turner. What bothers me is the fact that fill-in artists are almost invariably inferior to those they replace. One never sees an A-lister pinch-hitting for another A-lister. You will never see Jim Lee stand in for Joe Quesada, or Lienil Francis Yu step up for Bryan Hitch. Why should they, when the company would be so much better off having them work full-time on their own titles?

I guess the best way to illustrate (pardon the pun) my point would be to cite the two most irritating examples of how my enjoying a story is utterly ruined by a fill-in artist:

1. From 1999 to 2001, Joe Quesada trudged through his final six issue story arc on Daredevil. The book shipped late on a regular basis, and at one point he had to put in a fill-in issue which wasn't really part of the story but rather a parallel to the main story going on. One would think that this meant that, by hook or by crook, Quesada intended to finish this story. Alas, it was not to be, as Quesada was appointed Editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics, and the resulting workload just proved too much for him to cope with at the time. He handed the artistic reins over to the extremely mediocre David Ross, whose work I have not seen since and am none the worse for it. Although David Mack's "Echo" storyline wasn't what I would call groundbreaking, it was certainly enjoyable and did boast some impressive action sequences, which Joe rendered with a lot of flair. Ross, who was so obviously a last-minute replacement for Joey Q, captured none of it in the one-and-a-half issues he drew. To Marvel's credit, they had the same inker and colorist work over Ross' pencils to try to ensure some sense of continuity in the art, but they just couldn't save an inferior product. It gratified me, years later, when Joe Quesada did his Daredevil: Father series from start to finish, even though it took him over two years to finish six issues.

2. Easily the worst, most insulting fill-in, that I have ever seen in my nearly twenty years as a comic book collector, is the replacement of one of my one-time favorite artists, Arthur Adams, on Mark Millar's final story arc of The Authority, back in 2001. Back then, I did not know much about Millar, much less that he would pretty soon write some of my favorite Marvel stories ever. I only picked up issues #27 and #28 of The Authority for one reason: Art Adams' pencils. The guy had been a favorite of mine since childhood, and I figured that, given Wildstorm's track record of letting artists take their time with their pencils, I was in for a real treat. Sure enough, these issues did not disappoint, and I daresay that Adams turned in some of his best work since 1985's Longshot, especially with the able assistance of inkers like Tim Townsend. Disaster struck, however, when for one reason or another Adams did not complete the three-issue storyarc, which instead was finished off by a British artist named Gary Erskine, whose art seems like that of a poor man's Steve Dillon. Now, I understand there are people out there who appreciate the guy's art, but it felt like an affront to tail-end what was shaping up to be some of Art Adams' best work ever with the work of someone who was nowhere near where he was in terms of sheer talent. It affected the story, too, which essentially touched on how G7 took down the Authority for questioning the way they ran the world, and how the Authority fought back. Swift, the winged member of the Authority, was brainwashed and then humiliated and paraded around as the trophy wife of a really evil G7 autocrat. Adams' rendition of this thoroughly evil character, while somewhat caricatured (like Millar's writing) was nonetheless wonderfully effective. I wanted this guy to die, and I got the hint that he would from a look on Swift's face towards the end of issue #28. In issue #29, however, when Swift chucked the guy's severed head on the floor, he basically didn't look anything like the villain Adams drew. Imagine the makers of Die Hard replacing the pitch-perfect Alan Rickman with another, inferior actor during the close-up scene where he's plummeting from the L.A. skyscraper to his death, and you will have some idea of how cheated I felt. Suffice it to say, I didn't buy this piece of shit, and to this day, I only have parts 1 and 2 of Mark Millar's final work for Wildstorm.

There are some other annoying examples, like Ron Lim replacing George Perez on Infinity Gauntlet, and Tom Raney replacing Steve McNiven on Ultimate Secret (from which Marvel has apparently learned its lesson: what Steve starts, he must finish), but the bottom line remains the same: fill-ins suck. Having two A-listers collaborate on a book from the beginning is not a bad idea, but it almost never works out that way, and I, for one, would really rather wait for the complete work of the artist I paid to see rather than an invariably lesser artist just tying up loose ends.

So whether it's Civil War or this Batman miniseries Art Adams is supposedly drawing for Jeph Loeb, or the sequel to Marvels that Jay Anacleto is drawing, I say to Marvel and DC, let these guys work at the pace they're comfortable with, don't breathe down their necks, and most importantly, don't replace them, because ultimately it's the work, and the fans who read it, that suffer the most.

The Borat in All of Us

I was actually planning on writing a double-review of Happy Feet and Borat, but after having just heard about the racially-charged outburst Michael Richards (a.k.a. Seinfeld's Kramer) directed towards a patron of the comedy club where he was performing, I feel that the film Borat is of particular moment and that Happy Feet really does feel rather silly in comparison.

The film Borat, which is the brainchild of star and creator Sacha Baron Cohen (of Talladega Nights fame), is brilliant in that in manages to effectively tackle a very serious issue, bigotry, without resorting to the usual harrowing imagery or story conventions. Apparently, bigotry can be the subject of a comedy, and it does work from a narrative perspective.

The movie's first triumph is how it turns the whole fish-out-of-water convention which we saw essayed by the likes of Robin Williams in Moscow on the Hudson and by other actors playing U.S. immigrants. This man who is new to American soil is not charmingly naive as most mainstream Hollywood immigrants are portrayed: he is racist, sexist, homophobic and insensitive to those who are mentally deficient. Cohen touches all the bases here, and plays the character with aplomb besides.

Borat is a Kazakhstani news reporter sent to United States to learn more about it (hence the movie's much longer actual title, Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit of Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, or something like that), and his research is supposed to take him to New York. However, while in his hotel room, he watches Baywatch on TV and ends up driving across America in an ice cream truck with his producer (whom he tricks, naturally) to meet her. And it is here that the film's real odyssey begins.

It seems that Borat has resonated considerably with audiences in America, the very people of whose prejudices it pokes fun. I think this is of particular relevance because the truth about people, and not just Americans, is that we are, for all our pretensions to the contrary, still very much like Borat at heart. We all still harbor prejudices, many of them irrational, towards people who are different from us, whether it is because of their skin color, sexual orientation, religion or even their socio-economic status.

Michael Richards' outburst, as well as Mel Gibson's drunken rant have demonstrated that bigotry is hardly the monopoly of the redneck (a similarly pejorative, discriminatory term), and that Americans cannot blow off the lessons that Borat has to teach, considering that deep down, in some or possibly even many of them, a latent racist/sexist/homophobe still lurks.

Borat pretends to be a screwball comedy, complete with the most gross-out nudity you will ever see in your life, easily surpassing the sex scene of the obese in Sideways, but its agenda runs considerably deeper than that, and the satire, when you think about it, is really rather scathing. It essentially holds up a mirror, which, while primarily meant for Americans to gaze into, is there for everyone else to see, as well, and while it's not necessarily comfortable to look at, it sure is funny.

Farewell

There isn't much I can say that hasn't already been said, with much more personal knowledge and insight, about the death of one of Philippine journalism's last true icons, Philippine Star Publisher Max Soliven. I am among the many who mourn his passing. While it's only in the last few years that I started reading his work, which spans several decades, I found him to be one of the better writers out there.

I only hope that young, or aspiring journalists and writers can live up to his legacy of sardonic writing and biting wit, as well as his insight into the state of Philippine affairs. Arguably, at 77, he could have had a few years left, but seeing as how he died of natural causes, it was simply his time to go.

Rest those weary hands, Mr. Soliven. You've earned some well-deserved rest.

Tangkilikin ang Sariling Atin!

A little over ten years ago I was thrilled when, riding on the crest of the wave that was the American comics industry (which eventually crashed on the shore with horrific consequences), a group of Filipino fanboys steeped in comics lore and full of talent attempted the monumental task of creating their own comics universe. These were people influenced more by X-Men and manga than by Kenkoy and Darna, so there was some assurance that their characters wouldn't laugh "hi hi hi" or cry "hu hu hu" but what was additionally fortunate was that these creators were college kids or fresh out of college at the least, who had a wonderfully hip and distinctly Filipino sensibility which they attempted to infuse in their comic books. Thus was born the Alamat universe.

Due to financial and time constraints, the only books that ever made it past Alamat 101 which was supposed to be the sampler anthology of various stories of the new universe were Batch 72 and Angel Ace with the other creations not getting very far thereafter. In fact, when the comics phenomenon crashed, Alamat followed suit, although it had not gotten that far off the ground to begin with, but not before Gerry Alanguilan was able to come up with the seminal series Wasted, which, whatever his intentions when creating it, seems to have evolved into the Watchmen of Filipino comics.

Fortunately the new millenium saw Budjette Tan and some of the architects of Alamat like Arnold Arre try again, launching a short-lived Batch 72 series as well as a series of graphic novels and anthologies, almost as if to say "we're still alive and kicking...sort of..."

With comics sales and exposure on the rise again courtesy of the rising sales of "event" books like Civil War and Infinite Crisis, it seems that the Alamat crew have yet another shot at glory and are making their case this time with another wave of comics, like Gerry Alanguilan's Elmer, which I reviewed in an earlier post, and some new stuff from Budjette Tan and a relatively new collaborator, Ka-Jo Baldisimo, like the ongoing Trese and the one-shot The Last Datu. In addition, an incredibly talented artist, Ian Sta. Maria, has now joined the fold, debuting his talent with the hyper-detailed Ultracops, which he is also co-writing with Bow Guerrero.

Now, having bought each and every issue of the Alamat comics I just enumerated in the previous paragraph, I must give my honest and objective assessment that these books are not exactly the best reads around.

For one thing, they can be rather derivative in some places, most evidently in terms of Ka-Jo Baldisimo's artwork which screams manga on many, if not most panels, although it's quite evident that he has talent which I feel could flourish if only he would develop a more distinctive style. The Ultracops' Digmaan, with his cybernetic arms and scarred face looks disconcertingly like Marvel Comics' Cable, and seems to have the war-freak personality to match (although I must say that Digmaan and the rest of the Ultracops are drawn better than a LOT of titles currently featuring Cable).

The dialogue, in addition, can be kind of clunky, especially when Tagalog is inserted. Now, I don't want to discourage the writers from infusing the national language into their dialogue, because that is one of the things that makes these works distinctly Filipino, albeit in English for the most part, but for some reason, the transition doesn't really work. Maybe I'm just not used to it.

Nonetheless, I enjoyed myself when reading all eight of these issues which I bought all at once for roughly the same amount that I would spend on two American comic books. These little "ashcans" restored a sense of fun to comics and a simplicity to enjoying them, as opposed to comics like Civil War, where the real-world parallels kind of smack me on the head. And for all of the influences, they still feel genuinely Filipino, particularly Trese. The writers and artists still have a way to go before their storytelling abilities can parallel that of their more experienced counterparts overseas, but the heart is there and so is the potential. They can't be expected to develop as writers if nobody reads their work and gives them feedback.

I was sad to see Alamat flounder in the 1990s, and so I am giving them all the business that I can, even though normally I am not a fan of "ashcans" (the only format Budjette and co. can afford to print them in), because this is the only way to keep the dream, that of a thriving, healthy Filipino comic book industry, alive.

On Casino Royale

In the proud tradition of the remake, the sequel and prequel comes...the reboot. Trust Hollywood to add yet another species of regurgitation to the already insufferably long list. The "reboot" is a term of the computer age, aptly used to describe a new movie in an already-existing franchise which is being used to reinvigorate the said franchise. "Remake" is no longer an appropriate term because in this case the franchise is basically moribund, rather than actually dead. Planet of the Apes for example, was a re-make, while Casino Royale, the latest James Bond movie, is a re-boot. A re-make essentially re-tells the story told by the original movie, usually adding a contemporary twist. A re-boot acts like the original movie and everything that transpired therein never happened, and does not necessarily tell the events of the original movie.

Here's a little bit of trivia for anyone interested: while Batman Begins is undeniably the most successful "reboot" of a popular film franchise, it is not the first. That dubious distinction goes to The Sum of All Fears, based on Tom Clancy's popular Jack Ryan series of novels, in which Ben Affleck was cast the Ryan role previously essayed by the much older Harrison Ford and Alec Baldwin. That movie, while a commercial success, didn't exactly set the box office on fire, and it was therefore the latest Batman movie that effectively institutionalized the reboot.

The producers of James Bond were right to tap into this relatively new concept. Over the last forty-four years, James Bond has gone from satire to farce to cartoon. While I loved seeing Pierce Brosnan drive his silver Aston Martin across an icy wasteland in the last Bond movie, I won't deny how silly the film's central premise (about a satellite that can wipe out all of the mines between North and South Korea) as well as various action set pieces were.

In this film, the Bond folk are true to their word that there will be no gadgets and no megalomaniacs out for world domination. There is, however, still lots of action, most of it quite brutal, more in the vein of Matt Damon's Jason Bourne movies than any 007 film of the last twenty-five years or so. This James Bond, played by the much reviled newcomer Daniel Craig, feels like an honest-to-God killer, which is basically what his character is.

As an action film, this film does not disappoint. There are awesome action sequences, like the extended chase across a construction site between Bond and an extraordinarily athletic black guy who could give Jacky Chan a run for his money in the stunts department, as well as shoot-outs and slug fests galore. Arguably, one advantage of an ugly Bond is that getting his face smashed up is not that big a loss (hehehe).

In all seriousness, though, and to reiterate an earlier point, Craig is enormously effective in creating the franchise's new atmosphere of a darker, more brutal 007, in no small part because of his looks, but also owing to his acting, which, while not exactly Oscar material, is still quite good. Craig's Bond is every inch a killer, not some ridiculous movie star (a la Roger Moore, whom I never liked, even though I grew up with his movies) pretending to be one. Not only that, but this is a killer who lets us into his head.

The re-boot really rears its head here as Bond's entire history is revamped and set in the present day. Judi Dench's M suddenly becomes the M that hired him, rather than the replacement M she started out as in 1995's Goldeneye. Effectively, there never was a male M.
There are some other details that get whitewashed, too, like the origin of his misogyny, which was explained at some point in the past. Well, without giving too much away, let's just say that according to this new, revised canon, his eternal mistrust and objectification of women stems from something one woman did to him. Still, just as Batman Begins shed off all the unwanted cheese that had built up from two Joel Schumacher movies, the Bond production team has successfully shed the corniness from several decades of bad flicks.

At the end of the day, while Craig is surprisingly impressive as the new James Bond, this is still director Martin Campbell's movie. Just as he gave the franchise a badly needed shot in the arm 11 years ago with Goldeneye (which also featured James Bond "in love" contrary to all the hype that we the movie viewers had never seen this happen before), so he masterfully reinvents the franchise here. A lesser director (name any other from the last dozen Bond movies) could have sent the franchise crashing and burning, especially with an ugly Bond.

And it was refreshing to end the movie without him bedding some barely legal nymphette like some D.O.M. from hell. It was a nice change of pace.

The End is Near...But It Doesn't Have to Be

I borrowed the following passage, paraphrased it, actually, from Punisher: The End, a comic book written by Garth Ennis featuring an aged Punisher wandering around a post-apocalyptic earth, dealing death to the businessmen and capitalists whose greed essentially brought Armageddon about.

"Once upon a time there was a bunch of evil fucks. Nobody knew it, because they were so good at keeping it quiet, but this particular bunch of evil fucks ran the world. And they made the world a cruel and terrible place. They ran the great industries that poisoned the air. They started wars for profit. The money they made could have fed and healed the population of the world twice over, but all they could think to do with it was hoard it. Eventually they came to believe there was nothing they couldn't do, so one day, eventually, they pushed the planet's luck too far."

And this summarizes the trajectory the world is on with its own destruction. Greed drives the large industries to plunder the world's resources, whether oil or mineral, to sate the desires of the very, very few at the expense of the needy many. Oil companies, arms manufacturers, car companies, to name a few, are among those who are really behind the last few wars, mainly because they stand to gain the most from them.

As a child of the seventies and eighties, I'm familiar to an extent with cold war paranoia, with the residual fear carried over from the fifties that the long standing detente between the then super powers the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. could escalate into a nuclear holocaust. I even saw a couple of movies and T.V. miniseries (told from the American point-of-view, to be sure) expounding on the idea of that paranoia. Most of George Romero's zombie movies (and their clones) of the 70s and early 80s seem to have a common nuclear holocaust story thread running through them. Of course, this rather contrived conflict fueled the need for an arms race, and had a whole industry thriving with the need to develop newer, more expensive weapons of mass destruction.

Today, in this post-glasnost environment, there doesn't seem to be as much concern over the world being engulfed in nuclear fire, but the sad thing is there are so many other things that can end mankind's existence, like global warming, for example. The funny thing is that because this genuine threat is not something that the major American capitalists can make money off of, they aren't using their puppets in the government to push any paranoia about it, leaving it instead to the activists.

And so the denizens of the first world (read: right-wing America) continue to drive around in their SUVs and to live like hedonists, mindless of the future, secure in the knowledge that Dubya is keeping them safe from terrorists by putting their soldiers in Iraq. After all, aside from terrorists, what is there to worry about?

I find it funny how people hail works like Dawn of the Dead as wonderful satire and turn movies like The Day After Tomorrow into blockbuster hits, but at the same time seem completely oblivious to what it is they're trying to say. It is as though they think the apocalypse is sometime away, and that there's nothing to worry about.

Americans seem hell-bent on driving their SUVs, even if their government has to colonize--excuse me, democratize--a whole freaking country for them to be able to continue to afford it. Granted, oil certainly isn't the only issue that drove the now floundering Bush administration to send troops to Iraq, but does his government seriously think people are stupid enough not to realize it's one of the MAJOR reasons?

The saddest part is that science and technology has caught up with us and we as a race now have all kinds of alternatives to finite resources like fossil fuels. Solar and wind power are ours to harness, and the technology for doing so efficiently can only continue to improve. Hybrid electric cars are proving to be eminently drivable, and the recent documentary Who Killed the Electric Car? just goes to show that at some point we can do away with internal combustion engines altogether.

Whenever the next war does come around, it's not likely to be fought over any ideology, but over control of the world's rapidly dwindling resources. Take a look at the last two wars that America entered, both under a George Bush. They can sentence Saddam Hussein to death a thousand times on television, but they still won't fool anyone with half a brain as to why they really started those wars.

We can stop those wars by tapping into resources that aren't scarce, that are available for everyone, so that there's no need to fight for anything. We just have to put our collective foot down against the evil fucks currently running the world.


I'd like to congratulate the American people for taking the first step towards taking some of the power away from the aforementioned evil fucks by voting their puppets out of power, but instead, all I have to say is: WHAT THE HELL TOOK YOU SO LONG?!?