In my grade school days, I kind of lost interest in comic books. My friends and I like cartoons about robots, movies, R rated HBO movies, VHS tapes, GI Joe, Transformers, prog-rock and heavy metal. Superhero comic books just weren’t that big a deal. They were very peripheral. I can’t remember being terribly interested in them in grade school.

Fast forward to high school (88). I was sitting in class and this kid— a year older than me, which meant he was kind of cool— was showing some other kid a comic book he brought to class. They were really interested in it and I got curious and asked what the big deal was. The guy said the comic was the coolest comic ever. It looked different from any comic I’d ever seen. It was thicker, shinier. It looked dark, subversive. The guy said it was comic book about how Batman, when he got old, made a suit of armor and kicked the shit out of Superman.  I was totally intrigued and asked to read it. But the kid said no dice and slipped it back inside a special plastic bag he kept it protected in.

This brief encounter basically altered the course of my life. It wasn’t long before I was buying comics off the rack at the local Thrifty’s and then asking my mom to drop me off at the local comic book store where I’d spend all my paper route money.

I could really escape in those comics. Simple fantasies about power that made you feel powerful. Vivid freeze frame images that could capture my thoughts my imagination. It was like crack. I discovered Jim Lee and had to buy every comic he drew.  Soon I had my first special box to hold my comic collection.  And then I moved on to the Mylar bags. A collector was born.

One of the first purchases I made was “Havok & Wolverine: Meltdown”. This fully painted book opened my eyes to the more painted comic book art style. Soon I was asking for books by Muth, Bolton, Bolland, Sienkiewicz, McKean, BWS. I was looking for more artistic challenging fare.

I was becoming a comics snob. And then I saw it. A collected Watchmen. Not the trade-paperback, but all of the back issues stuffed into two taped together Mylar bags. No one at the shop had suggested I read it. It was just with all of the other collected mini-series in a bin. It wasn’t even marked up. It was cheap. There was something about the cover that looked cool. The blood. The happy face. At the time, I hadn’t even heard of Alan Moore.
The guy that owned the store was an ignorant silver age aficionado (who eventually hired troubled youths to burn down the store for insurance money). The other people who worked there just liked the popular stuff. I asked if the Watchmen was any good. “It’s alright”. I bought it anyway, seemed like a good deal. If it sucked, it sucked. Well, you know how the rest of the story goes. Alan Moore is a Genius. Watchmen is the Citizen Kane of superhero comics and all is well in the universe.

And now we have a movie.

If your life were a soundtrack, what would the music be?

1. open your library (iTunes, winamp, media player, Zen, iPod)
2. put it on shuffle
3. press play
4. for every question, type the name of whatever song comes up
5. new question—press the next button
6. don’t lie and try to pretend you’re cool

— My Soundtrack — >

Opening Credits:
Ramp of Death – Stephen Malkmus (Oh, so it’s an indie film…)

Waking Up:
Wonderful – The Beach Boys (Majestic!)

First Day at School:
Pure Denizen of the Citizens Band – Frank Black (“Dear gentlemen, please let me in”)

Falling in Love:
Cowboy Bob – The Butthole Surfers (Love hurts apparently)

Breaking Up:
Loretta’s Scars – Pavement (Love really hurts)

Prom or Similar:
Heinz Baked Beans – The Who (Oh the pageantry)

Sex Scene:
Ascended Masters Grogshop – Guided By Voices (54 seconds long…about right)

Life’s Okay:
War Paint – Rush (!?!)

Mental Breakdown:
Ooh La La – John Cale (Engine or Sanities might have been a better fit if we’re going with Cale)

Driving:
…And Every Home – Elvis Costello & The Attractions (I don’t see it. Am I driving a convertible?)

Flashback:
Mist on a Monday Morning – The Move (That’s one melancholy flashback)

Getting Back Together:
Bummer in the Summer – Love (Layin’ down the law)

Wedding:
Lazy Day – Left Banke (Drunken Wedding Fight)

Birth of Child:
Tin Soldier Man – The Kinks (“And he’s got a little tin baby, too”)

Final Battle:
Stereo Sanctity – Sonic Youth (Perfect)

Death Scene:
Funny Face – The Kinks (Ooh, that’s a spooky bridge)

Funeral Song:
Punch You in the Jeans – Lonely Island (A beautiful Eulogy)

End Credits:
Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts – Bob Dylan (Thems some long ass credits)

I couldn’t put off the upgrade any longer. First, I bought a discounted HP Pavilion m8330f from woot.com for $500. This computer had an AMD quad core Phenom, decent specs and was cheap. I immediately realized that the Toshiba hard drives that came with it were too loud for my taste (especially with Vista’s constant need to build giant backups and index, index and re-index every freaking byte on my HD…I mean enough is enough, take five) so I pulled and ebayed them and bought a quieter Seagate HD instead.

This fist baby-step began a marathon spending spree. I wasn’t happy with just a new desktop. I realized I now needed a laptop. I’d never had one before, but after being kicked off my girlfriend’s enough times and having my boss tell me he needed that work one to stay at work more often, I came to understand it was time to do the right thing and get my own. I checked fatwallet and thus began a story too long and boring to recount here (TOO LATE). Lets just say I made a hasty decision and gave Dell a shot. I bought a discounted Inspiron 15 directly from Dell for just over $500 and when it came it was a broken piece of shit. I sent it back and they stuck me with the shipping. Fuck Dell. Dell is a shitty company. They make a chintzy & ugly product. I was bamboozled by a low price tag and ended up loosing money trying to escape a bad deal. I learned a lesson. I will never buy from Dell again. And I highly encourage anyone and everyone not to buy from Dell, lest they are a masochist.

So anyway, I decided that I should research a little more and buy from a local store rather than online so I could sidestep the potential shipping issues. I saw the hp’s and though they looked too chromed-out. I was eyeing some Toshibas and some other brands, but then Office Depot put the HP Pavilion DV6-1030us on sale for $600 after rebate. That bad boy was just to tempting to resist. Core 2 Duo, 4 gigs of RAM, HDMI out with sound, n-draft wireless, I was even starting to dig the chromed-out look of the keyboard and touchpad…I pulled the trigger. Going to the 16″ after being used to the 15.4″ was a little weird. Counter-intuitively, the 16″ screen is actually slightly shorter then the 15.4″ because if the wider 9:16 aspect ratio. I soon acclimated (and you will, too).

When I bought the laptop at Office Depot I saw another deal on a wireless keyboard and mouse set, the Microsoft Wireless Media Desktop 1000 for $30. I grabbed it and fell pretty good about the buy. I will say this about the keyboard and really most wireless keyboards that I’ve seen. They don’t make ‘em like they used to. None of them are as good as my old Packard Bell Keyboard. Maybe it’s me, but I like big clunky keyboards. This new keyboard is fine, don’t get me wrong. But why the low profile keys? Why the diminished esc key? I miss having an esc key the size of Texas. I miss having a space bar as tall as the Rocky Mountains. Why does my new keyboard look like it was tested in a wind tunnel? Is wind resistance really an issue in typing? I think not. The other options were those ergonomic waved-out keyboards that look like rolling hills…they seem a little “light in the function keys” for my taste. So I went with the slim line.

And another thing. Why are the scroll wheels on most mouses so freaking loud? I, by luck, purchased cheapy a Logitech Optical Mouse with a silent scroll wheel a few years back. Every mouse I’ve seen, used, or been exposed to since has had a sound not unlike a plastic toy machine gun when rolling the scroll wheel, including this Microsoft one. I was using it late at night and afraid of waking my girlfriend across the room. I decided to relegate the Microsoft mouse to coffee table duty for the big screen TV (in Dual Monitor view) and keep the wired Logitech for my desk.

But was I done stimulating the economy? Hells to the no. I was totally beautified in all ways except for one. My desktop monitor. Here I was still pimping my 19″ Viewsonic CRT flat screen. A true beauty some 4 years ago when I brought her into my life, but times have changed. Everything on my desk was now sexy black. And my monitor was whatever that ugly color computers used to be…off-white mixed with ass. Also the thing was too deep, it took up the entire desk. And it was like God spoke to me…through a Costco coupon book.  A $50 off coupon for the Viewsonic VX2433WM 24″ Widescreen LCD Monitor, bringing the price to $220. After tax and CA disposal fees it came to $260 but there was no looking back, I was fully pimped.

It really is amazing to think that for less than I spent in the mid 90′s (calculating in inflation) you can get a nice laptop and a full desktop setup.

As an appendix I’d like to say there is one final holdover in my desktop setup that dates back to first computer I ever bought. When I went to Circuit City all those years ago, I brought my older brother, a techy of sorts, to help me get the best deal. We tried to haggle with the salesman but he was tough. My brother told him he had to throw in something to sweeten the deal. The sales guy gave me a red foam rubber mouse pad with the Circuit City logo. What a sweetheart, right? Going the extra mile for me. Curciut City, you deserve what you got. Anyway, I still use the mouse pad to this day. It’s going to be a sad day when I retire it.

The moral of this story: NEVER BUY A DELL.