Time to fix this mess…

Okay, guys, here’s the deal. I’m trying to lose weight. I need to. I’ve needed to for a long time. I’ve got back problems that start with the skeleton, but being a beefy dude like I am isn’t helping. I’m not some amorphous blob or anything, I’m not “Kevin Smith vs. Southwest Airlines,” but if I don’t make some changes, I could wind up that way.

This is nothing new, of course. A few years ago, I started to have some bad chest pains that scared the hell out of me. Turned out it was just heartburn, but the fear was enough for me to clean up my act and start fixing the way I eat. That lasted for a few months, and I lost a good chunk of Blake. I felt better, I looked better, the buttons on my clothes got out of that annoying habit of making a “zing” noise and threatening low-flying aircraft. It was awesome.

But it didn’t last.

When the fear started to subside, my eating habits went back to the Bad Old Days of junk food and soda. I’ve got a real weakness for food. I seek out new flavors and new combinations, but not in any healthy way. New candy flavors, new potato chips, new pizza toppings, new hamburgers — this is the stuff that gets me going. And I have a hard time stopping at just one, too. Portion control may well be my greatest nemesis. It’s hard. Figuring out how much you need to eat instead of how much you want to eat has always proven incredibly difficult for me. So has eating at the right times — another problem I have, as I often have a tendency to skip breakfast and pig out later in the day. I know that’s a mistake, I know that keeping your body on a regular schedule is one of those things your metabolism needs if it’s going to burn off the calories.

Making it even harder, for me, is the fact that this isn’t exactly a project with an endgame. I will never be “finished” this this. I don’t have a target weight, because I don’t really care specifically what I weigh. My target is, “current weight minus enough to stop these problems.” And it’s not like I can stop even then, because I never want to start creeping back in this direction. This is about changing my life and changing how I operate for the rest of my life. Even though I know that 20 years from now, when McDonald’s unveils some new “Juicy Off-The-Endangered-List Bison Burger,” my first instinct is going to be to rush out and try it.

I’m not posting this online because I’m looking for sympathy or pity or — god forbid — advice. Nothing personal, friends, but I already know what I need to do: as Walton and Johnson say, “eat less and move around more.” And while I do appreciate your concern, when a fat guy is sitting around having already eaten his single-portion chicken and salad for the evening, urges still telling him he wants more even though the brain knows he doesn’t, there’s nothing more irritating than well-intentioned friends  telling him how their uncle’s nephew’s sister’s koi pond cleaner took off 55 pounds by inhaling powdered snakeskin twice a week.

I’m posting this to keep myself honest. I’ve tried a lot of times to change things, only to slip up in days because I hadn’t told anybody and no one was going to hold me accountable if I stopped at Burger King on the way home. But if I put it out there, if I say it to the world, then I’ve got it in the back of my head that if I screw up, someone may be disappointed. And for me, that’s a far more unacceptable outcome than anything that only affects me, like potential diabetes. I just want to know someone is keeping track of me, because that will help keep me going.

And if you just plain don’t give a crap about all my personal nonsense, I understand that too. I promise, it won’t be a regular thing here. Just every so often, when I need it. Just enough to keep me honest.

One of those nights…

Hey, folks. It’s been one of those nights here at Evertime Realms. There are an awful lot of things going on right now — some great, some more nerve-wracking. All of them are terribly distracting. So I don’t really have much for you in terms of content tonight. We all have those days.

Hope to have something new tomorrow.

2 in 1 Showcase Episode 161: Put This Comic on the Screen

More and more comic books are making it to the screen these days, both big and little, but no matter how many we see there are still lots of others that haven’t quite broken through. This week, the guys discuss some of the comics they haven’t quite broken through the Hollywood barrier yet. The guys bat around several ideas and share a few suggestions from you. In the picks this week, Mike was into Green Arrow #30, Kenny picks Flash: Rebirth #6 and Blake gives it up for Tiny Titans #25. Contact us with comments, suggestions, or anything else at Showcase@comixtreme.com!

Episode 161: Put This Comic on the Screen
Inside This Episode:

Blake’s Universal Rule of the Universe #65

65. The kindest prank the universe will ever pull on you is give you good news, then tell you not to tell everyone… yet.

Read the rest of the Universal Rules of the Universe right here!

The thing about 3-D

Anybody who knows me will not be surprised to hear that, out of the various superhero movie projects currently in the works, the one I’m most excited about is the in-production Green Lantern film. I think Ryan Reynolds will be strong Hal Jordan, I’m very happy with the screenwriters working on the project, and the concept art that has made its way to the internet has been fantastic.

But yesterday, the confirmation came out from Warner Bros. that, when the film is released next year, it will be released in 3-D. And I let out a resounding sigh. I wasn’t surprised, mind you, I more or less expected this. But my reaction was simply, “Another one?”

I’ve seen a few movies since Hollywood’s current infatuation with 3-D began, and I’ve been resoundingly unimpressed. It’s not that there haven’t been good 3-D movies. There have been a few great 3-D movies. But I’ve yet to see a movie that was better because it was in 3-D. Last year, for example, Disney re-released Toy Story and Toy Story 2, and I rushed out to see them. I wanted to see them on the big screen again, because I love those movies. But I loved those movies before anyone put 3-D glasses on my face, and the 3-D didn’t make me love them any more. A Christmas Carol followed up at the end of the year. That was okay – not great, but okay – but it would have been the same level of okay without the 3-D. I didn’t feel the process added anything to the story.

On the far end of the spectrum, there was Avatar – a film I publically hate. The 3-D was fine, it looked fine against the admittedly impressive special effects, but it didn’t do a single thing to fix the myriad problems with the script. The plot was still hopelessly derivative of a zillion other movies (Dances With Wolves and Pocahontas being the best examples). The characters were still cardboard cut-outs with no nuance or depth to them. And the science was still just plain stupid. (I’m still waiting for someone to give me a reason why a non-mammalian alien race that doesn’t give birth to live young needs breasts. Well, a reason that doesn’t involve giving the internet fodder for Rule 34.)

Avatar was the most extreme example of a film that loaded up the pretty and hoped it would excuse bad writing. But it’s by no means the only example. And as I see more and more of it, I become less and less tolerant. “Pretty” isn’t enough if I don’t like the story. On the flipside, I will forgive weaker visuals if I find the story and characters compelling enough.

Back in the 30s, The Wizard of Oz proved that color was a technology worth pursuing, because it was a story that simply didn’t work without color. It had been done without color, but how many of you remember – or even were aware of the existence of – the black-and-white Wizard of Oz from 1925? Exactly. Color made that story work. And speaking of the silent era, how about The Jazz Singer? Suddenly, audiences used to title cards and a piano player in the corner of the room understood the power of synching sound to the pictures. These movies proved the technology as a storytelling medium.

I’m waiting for a movie to prove 3-D to me.

It hasn’t happened yet.

Fifty to Go (Evercast #15)

This week, I update you guys on the progress of Cross-Purposes, which will be ready to launch very soon (and I could use a hand with some artwork, if anyone’s available). Then it’s time for a little flash-fiction with my new short story, “Fifty to Go,” and I wrap it up with the first ever listener e-mail on the Evercast! Want your own e-mail read? Send ‘em in to BlakeMPetit@gmail.com!

Theme music by Jeff Hendricks. Evercast logo by Heather Petit-Keller.

Send your e-mails to BlakeMPetit@gmail.com.

Blake M. Petit’s Evercast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Feel free to copy it, give it away, and share it with anyone who’d like it. Just don’t change the file, and don’t sell it. We know where you live.

Blake M. Petit’s Evercast by Blake M. Petit is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at www.evertimerealms.com.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://www.evertimerealms.com.

Everything But Imaginary #342: Whose Wave Is It, Anyway?

DC’s new line of First Wave comics envisions a world with super heroes, but no super powers. And they’re bringing together heroes from a disparate number of universes to do it. It’s a cool idea. But why stop with just one wave?

Everything But Imaginary #342: Whose Wave Is It, Anyway?
Inside this Column:

TwitFic 2: Fifty to Go

So last week, I tried my hand at a bit of Twitter-based Flash Fiction. I enjoyed it, and it seemed that a few of you guys did as well, so I’m gonna try another one tonight. If you happen to see this post while I’m writing, you can follow the story right here, or at my Twitter account, @BlakeMP.

Last week’s story, as it turned out, was a bit too long to actually count as Flash Fiction, clocking in at around 1200 words. The accepted limit for FF is around 1,000. While certain ninth graders of my acquaintance would consider writing that much a task worthy of Shakespeare if he had consumed the meaty flesh of Hercules, for me trying to stay that short is a challenge in and of itself. Let’s see if i can do it this time, shall we?

Fifty to Go

Derek had fifty seconds to go, and one way or another, this one would all be over for him. Since the skiers went alphabetically, he was always near the front of the rather large pack, but that didn’t matter. He was racing the clock, and he never believed going first was an advantage like some skiers did. Maybe it was true that many of the pitfalls were more visible, but sometimes, that just made them harder to avoid.

There was no wind today, so the cold didn’t bite that harshly. That would change faster than he could think it over. The buzzer sounded and he pushed himself off into the snow. Air began to whip past his face, slicing into his unprotected mouth. The speed he picked up was incredible, and it would only increase as long as he avoided all the pitfalls.

The first one he saw was a rather sad effort — white sand on the trail. Even “white” sand had enough yellow in it to be starkly visible against the pristine snow. He cut to the right to avoid the sand and almost paid the price by tumbling into a four-foot pit, dug into the snow and very hard to see. The sand-sprinkler had been more crafty than Derek thought. He skirted the edge of the pit and was almost caught in a net dropped from a huge tree on the very edge of the course. He’d picked up enough speed on the curve to avoid it, barely. The next pitfall was easy to avoid, though — spikes buried beneath the snow were too visible to be effective. He went past them, then immediately cut right to avoid the trap he himself had set — a huge belch of flame erupted from a bank, melting gobs of snow, but failing to harm the skier.

He was close to the end now, and he knew he hadn’t even seen most of the traps the other skiers laid out. With four identical sides of the mountain to choose from to set the traps, and to choose again when the buzzer went off, no Demolition Skier ever saw more than a quarter of the nasty things that COULD happen to him. But this last bit, this straightaway, always made him nervous. He avoided a hidden air cannon, and got just a minor splash from the water tower that overturned.

Twenty yards left. Fifteen. Ten.

Suddenly he felt a sharp slap across his ankles and he flipped over, crashing head-first into the snow. The impact knocked him cold, literally, and he rolled to a halt, with just an arm and shoulder crossing the finish line, stopping the clock.

At the edge of the course, Zeringue dropped the tripwire, smiling with pride at how easily the simple pitfalls worked sometimes.

Forty-nine to go.

-FIN-

Thank You, Vancouver!

After two weeks of awesome, the Vancouver Winter Olympic Games came to an end last night, leaving us to wait patiently for the next four years before the games return, this time to to city of Sochi in Russia. Sure, we’ll get the summer games in London in 2012, and I’ll eagerly watch them as they unfold, but if we’re going to be totally honest here, I’ve always kind of preferred the winter games to the summer.

Oddly, I think the reason I like the winter games so much is because I’ve never done any of that stuff. I’ve played many of the games you see in the summer Olympics. I can swim. I lifted weights in P.E. I’ve played baseball, basketball, soccer. Not well, of course, but I’ve actually played them. But growing up in Louisiana, I’ve never played hockey. I’ve never gone skiing. I’ve never glided on a luge, and while I have, on two distant occasions, worn ice skates, nothing I did out there could possibly be considered actually “skating” by any sane observer.

And sometimes, I lie awake at night, silently weeping because I have never curled.

The unknown of the sports is probably what appeals to me. I’m fascinated as I watch the bobsleds race down the tracks. I imagine the feel of the wind whipping past my face on the speed skating track. I think about the incredible endurance needed for cross-country skiing and the pinpoint accuracy of the biathlete. And, if you’ll excuse the pun, I watch the snowboard cross races, and I feel like I’m looking at the coolest game in the world.

I, of course, am far too old and out of shape to ever even dream about competing in the games. (This is not an excuse to remain out of shape, it’s just a glimpse of realism.) But that doesn’t mean that I won’t be captivated watching them as they happen.

Thanks for a great show, Vancouver. Sochi, we’ll see you in ‘14. I’m looking forward to the show.

2 in 1 Showcase Episode 160: DC’s New Crew and More

There’s a new crew in charge of DC Comics, and this week, Blake and Kenny discuss the implications for the publisher, the comics, the movies, and more! Plus, in the chatter this week, True Blood creator Charlaine Harris comes to comics, a couple of high-priced auctions lead to a discussion of comics as investments, the guys chat about the current season of Lost, and Kenny drools over the new DC Universe vs. Masters of the Universe toy line! In the picks, Blake takes Colt Noble and the Megalords #1, and Kenny likes Blackest Night #7. Contact us with comments, suggestions, or anything else at Showcase@comixtreme.com!

2 in 1 Showcase Episode 160: DC’s New Crew and More
Inside This Episode: