Death of a comic shop.

This past Saturday, June 26, 2005, All Star Comics and Games of Mishawaka, Indiana, closed it’s doors from the last time.

All Star has become a fixture in our life in South Bend. Comic geeks that we are, the selection of a local comic shop was one of the early agenda items when Amy moved here. At the time, it was All Star Comics and Cards, owned by John – and older (than us, by maybe a generation) baseball enthusiast and run with help from Darrin and Brian (comic and game enthusiasts much closer to our own age). Brian and Darrin have shown us excellent customer service from day one. They managed to learn our names before we got theirs. This was not a singular occurrence. I brought a friend in (to corrupt him by introducing him to the world of Mage Knight products). Darrin and Brian greeted him by name on his second visit. When we had been visiting weekly for only a few months, they, started setting aside books for us that they figured we would want. These were books that we never asked for, never mentioned, and often didn’t even know about. And their instincts were almost always right on target.

About three and a half years ago, John decided that, because of some health concerns it was time to retire. Faced with the choice of entering the ‘real world’ or taking their slacker comic-shop-guy employment to the next level, Darrin and Brian took over the reigns. In early January, 2002, All Star Comics and Games opened under new management in a new (better) location.

Over the past three plus years, our relationship has outstripped retailer/customer. We’ve become friends. Our weekly trips to the comic shop have turned more often into hour long visits (ended usually by one of our desires to put food in our belly). We are really going to miss seeing the guys on a weekly basis.

Sadly, with a mediocre economy, rising product pricing, a game market that bottomed out and no doubt numerous other unknown or unacknowledged causes, business has been struggling for the last year or so. And the guys have had to accept that the time has come to move onto other ventures.

We took some time Saturday night to help them box up what was left of the store (another shop is buying up the remaining stock) and say so long to a good run. We hung out a while, talking about the past, present, and future of the comic industry, the gaming industry, and the industry of our lives.

In memory of All Star, in vain hopes of maybe sparking someone’s interest in the comic book art form and storytelling medium, and inspired a bit by my good friend Curt’s movie reviews at http://curtflix.blogspot.com, I will be starting a second blog, devoted to comic reviews, both of individual books and the medium as a whole. Hopefully I will post to it with more regularity than I do here.

Please visit it (my first post should be up before July 1 hits) at www.comicbookreview.blogspot.com. And if you see a review that interests you, support your local comic shop. Before the go the way of Drive-In Theaters and Soda Fountains.

Gross Anatomy, Medieval Knights, Exploding Chocolate and Baby Doves

We went into Chicago this weekend. So much to share, I'm going with the simple tick off the list method of presentation:

1. Gross Anatomy
Since we were goign to be in Chicago anyway, I suggested we leave early and take in the BodyWorlds exhibit at the Museum of Scince and Industry. BodyWorlds is truely fascinating. If you live near Chicago or Cleveland, I'd highly suggest seeing it... as long as your level of intellectual curiosity outweighs your gross-out factor.

In short, this exhibit of the human body consists of a number of specimens that have been perfectyl preserved through "plastination". So ou get to be witness to a number of real human cadavers, posed in normal, everyday poses, stripped of skin and cross section of muscle, bone,organ, etc. cut away. Some exhibits where whole, some in pieces, some consisted of everything striped away but the arteries (truely amazing).

See some glimpes of the exhibit and get more info at: http://www.msichicago.org/bodyworlds/index.html or http://www.bodyworlds.com/en/pages/home.asp

2. Chocolate (exploding)
Of course no trip to DT Chicago is complete wiht a very expensive visit to Vosges Haut Chocolat - www.vosgeschocolate.com

Vosges produced exotic, wonderously unique chocolate (at exotic, wonderously perilous prices). It turns out that, said Chocolates, when left in a very hot car on a hot summer day, melt just like ordinary chocolates might. except for the green olive oil chocolates, which exploded.

3. Medieval Knights
The impetus of our trip was to see Medieval Knights, for which we had free tickets (Christmas Gift from Mom). It was worth goign to see, but certainly not something to repeat wihtout younglings.Riding stunts and mediocre fight choreography andhammy acting. And decent food messily ate without silverware.

4. A great Ikea
Our hotel was within sight of an Ikea and, having never been to an Ikea, we explored. Fun place, lots of creative, idea provoking, cheap stylish stuff that would likely fall apart in three years. Good thing there isn't one closer, or we'd spend way too much money before learning our lesson.

5. Daddy-o
Drove the extra hour to make a surprise visit to Amy's dad for father's day. Went out for Ice cream (he already had eaten lunch... we could have gotten there in time to take him to lunch, had it not been for the wonderous black hole of Ikea).

6. Coo-Currr-ou
I could have as easily started as ended wiht this. Before leaving Saturday moring on this trip, we discovered that November and February, our Doves, had hatched a baby dove (or at least a breathing pile of sticky feathers). We had decided to name it (appropriately) "June". Upon our return, we found The-Dove- that-would-be-June had a sibling, and since we can't name them both June, we'll likely go with Amy's suggestion of Saturday and Sunday.

Hopefully next weekend won't be as exciting, because the weekend following we have to drive 7 hours to west Virginia for a wedding, so we'll need the break.

My grandparents just turned 50.

That's jointly, not individually. Meaning their 50th wedding anniversary.

We headed up to my parents house for their big celebration weekend before last (yeah, i'm slow blogging it up - sue me). Wanted to head up Friday night, but I had a freelance job that I needeed to wrap up before I left, and by the time I did... I just didn't feel like starting off on a 3 hour drive at quarter to nine pm.


Even though the party didn't start until 2:00, it was important to me that we get their early and help out. My mother was stuck doing the bulk of the work, dispite having three siblings. Some of this is because the party was at her house, and she lives closest to their parents so she ends up shouldering these types of things just out of proximity. Part of it is because some of her siblings prioritize things differently that do we (work-trumps-all, a behavior handed down from grandpa's obsessive genepool and by his example of the 50's macho work ethic- which I think was instilled largely by his parents having grown up during the depression, but this could be a whole other blog).

The party was a huge success. I'm sure at least 80 people showed up. It was great seeing many relatives (and, well, not so great seeing some others, but I suppose that is the way with extended family).

I'm told that Grandpa was doing better than he has recently, which is a bit sad. He has been battling brain cancer, and it is becoming apparent that, dispite his initial string recovery, he's not winning the battle. He barely had the strength to walk into the house, and often times seemed unaware of what was going on around him (which I suppose, really, isn't all that unlike him) and who was talking to him (rarely did he have the strength to put more than two words together in response). The whole event was just too overwhelming for him.

Also exiting and new for the day - uncle Keith (one of the offspring of the couple of honor referred to above) with his new wife. This is a story in itself, which someday I may come back to. For now, I will sum up and let your imaginations wander with this: Nearly no one was told about the wedding beforehand (by Keith). No one knew that, in the past year, he traveled to the Phillipeans to meet his new wife four times. His new wife, Shirley, is younger than his youngest son, Keith, 48, has about 30 years on her. And she speaks english...more or less. There was a much more dramatic way of presenting this information, but I'm tired of typing this and sharing this particular anticdote.

Anyway, after the party was over, we lit up a bonfire and had a bit too much to drink with mom and rex, their neighbors, and Aunt Cindy and Uncle Jeff (who traveled all the way from Korea to be here - OK, partially to start house hunting and what-not. Their moving back timeline has accellerated; Cindy is now in the country for good, Jeff will be wrapping things up over the next couple months).

And there's almost as much news about last weekend...which will probably make its way on here either wihtin the next hour, or a week from now.

Adventures in Tanning

Tony and I got free certificates to our local tanning franchise. Tony would like to be tan while I have come to embrace my pallor. My ancestry is primarily German with a spicing of English and Irish from Mom's family so I do not come by dark skin naturally. Even when I spent large chunks of time outside in the pool or on horseback or running around as a wild child I never really got dark, just a plesant golden color after the burns peeled away. My brother tans beautifully, though. Anyway, the though of exposing myself to UV rays in a can has never appealed. However, this was free. How could I take advantage of the freeness while maintaining my ability to be snotty about tanning? Magic Tan, of course. Magic Tan is the spray on, sugar -based (DSA, I think?) product that our local chain offers.

So, one Wednesday I made my way to one of the franchises near our house. Sadly, this particular branch did not have Magic Tan available. No problem, there's another close by. It was raining, however, and if you get wet from rain, showers or sweat within the first 5 to 7 hours after your spray you rinse part of it away and get blotchy. No Magic Tan for me that day. I went back a couple of weeks later on a beautiful, sunny Saturday after getting my hair cut. After watching the informational video I rubbed on my accelerator lotion, put on my shower cap and stepped into the booth. The spray only lasts for 8 seconds, but I managed to choose the wrong time to get my breath, so got a bit of spray in my nose. I got through the other 3 sprays without mishap (of course, I wasn't facing the spray). I stepped out of the booth, patted off the excess spray and returned home to not do any chores for the next 5 hours.

It worked pretty well. I had quite dramatic tan lines and only a moderate amount of splotchiness which was the fault of my poor standing still technique. Also my fault was the tan line across my forehead. The video told me to put the shower cap along my hairline, but I went into surgeon mode and pulled it down. I'm almost back to my normal paleness, but I may do it again. Tony likes the tan lines.

Speaking of Tony, he chose the UV-in-a-can option. The first time he went, he was pretty careful about his exposure because he does tend to burn. I noticed maybe a little tan, but mostly he had a lot more freckles. The second time he went he actually did have a tan line on his leg. He chose the superfancy expensive option the second time and stayed in beyond the recommended time. He had to sign a waver to do this. He didn 't burn, though. Hopefully he'll share more about his experience in the can.