Let's roll some dice, watch some movies, or generally just geek out. New posts at 6:30 pm ET but only if I have something to say. Menu at the top. gsllc@chirp.enworld.org on Mastodon and @gsllc on Twitter.
I hate the gym. When I say I love it, I’m speaking of it relative to all others, so it’s a very low bar. Other than martial arts, I’ve never really liked working out. This despite blaring music of my own choosing into my ears, which I’d probably be doing if I went straight home. In short, it’s painful (because I do it right) and boring.
Because of the boredom, I noticed myself people-watching. I’m not just talking about particularly attractive people (oh, I do that too), but anyone who enters my field of vision. No one’s complained, but I know that’s really not a good thing to do in the gym. Would you like people watching you when you’re bent into weird positions, sweating like a pig, … well, you get the picture.
To avoid all of this, I stare at the ceiling when I’m working out (unless I’m distracted by my phone, which isn’t possible on the treadmill). I know that if I don’t, I’ll inevitably shoot a glance that will probably not be wanted.
So, nerds, pay attention to the effect you have on those around you. It shouldn’t be about making only yourself feel better.
Today’s post is about a reckless attempt I made to have a Twitter conversation. As I said yesterday, that never ends well. The initial tweet occurred during a quarantine watch party in which I was trying to keep my commentary quick and to the point so I wouldn’t fall out of step with everyone else. As a result, I didn’t have the time to post a string of tweets. All I gave was 280 characters.
Outside of combat, what superhero (in the movies) rides a motorcycle? I can't think of any. Does it have to do with the fact that Venom is an anti-hero? Directors and screenwriters make these choices intentionally. #QuarantineWatchParty#Venom@ComicBook@BrandonDavisBD
— Rob Bodine, Attorney by Day, #Nerd by Day & Night (@GSLLC) October 14, 2020
Of course, that’s the only tweet many people read. Here’s my complete hypothesis in 281 characters or more. Note well that this could be expanded far beyond the superhero genre, but there’s no point in doing that here.
The Hypothesis
Filmmakers are very particular about what they place in their films. If they’re successful, every single element of every single frame of their film has a purpose (an unobtainable goal, I know). There are very few accidents. When I was watching Venom, I noticed that Eddie Brock’s primary vehicle was a motorcycle. As he was destined to become the titular anti-hero, I couldn’t think of another primary character in a recent superhero movie that used a motorcycle to drive to work, visit the gym, etc. Hence, the tweet.
I knew there were plenty of examples of motorcycle use in superhero movies, which was why I asked whether there were examples “outside of combat.” In a fight scene, the motorcycle’s purpose is to create great stunts like sliding underneath an 18-wheeler or picking up Captain America’s shield — even a compact car couldn’t do those — and that’s the effect it would have on the audience. In those scenes, the motorcycle is about defining the action, not defining the character riding it. On the other hand, if the character uses a motorcycle to get to the dentist’s office, it says something about the character him or herself as far as the audience is concerned.
So, you can give Cyclops a motorcycle. You can even give him a garage full of them and have him show them off to a friend. But because he’s a goody-goody hero type, you’ll never see him drive one to the grocery store. Should Cyclops be a tough guy? Maybe, but for whatever reason, they don’t want him to be, and in that respect it’s no coincidence that we never see him ride a motorcycle that way. Having him do so would break his intended character.
None of this is a value judgment; it’s just an observation. I don’t care whether I’m right. I’m merely curious as to the answer. So . . .
Am I Wrong?
The purpose of raising this point was to see if this hypothesis held up. Were the various filmmakers avoiding having the heroes using motorcycles that way? There were several examples of motorcycle use given.
Wolverine
Wolverine isn’t an anti-hero, but he certainly borders on it. In any case, he’s not a goody-goody, sickeningly sweet hero, so his use of a motorcycle wouldn’t cut against my hypothesis very much. That said, there are only two times I remember him using a motorcycle outside of a fight scene. First, in X-Men, he steals one. His use of a motorcycle is technically part of a crime. Second, in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, he was given a motorcycle by the elderly couple he met. It wasn’t something he chose for himself, and very quickly after receiving it, he was using it in combat. As you can see, his particular uses of a motorcycle aren’t going to reverse the way the audience sees him. Side Note: It’s too bad that movie was so poorly received. A series of “Origins” movies for the other X-Men could have been an interesting way to bring origin stories into the cinematic universe after the ensemble movies.
Batman
This was my suggestion, and it’s not a particularly good one. Batman never uses a motorcycle outside of combat, so he’s clearly consistent with my hypothesis. Moreover, he also is as close to an anti-hero as you can get. The only time he uses the Bat Bike (or whatever you call it) is when he’s engaged in vigilantism. As Bruce Wayne, he rode one once in the Dark Knight, but that was part of a crime fighting mission, and it was more about showing his wealth — you never see Bruce Wayne drive the same car twice — then it is about establishing his personal characteristics. Ergo, this is explainable even within the context of my hypothesis, though it’s arguably an exception.
Captain America
At the end of the first Avengers movie, Captain America drove away into the sunset on a motorcycle. This is a clear exception to my hypothesis. Now, despite the nonsense I hear from people every day, one exception does not invalidate a rule. If it did, there’d be no rules, because they all have exceptions. But how could they be exceptions if there are no rules to except?
Sorry. Let me finish. Captain America is clearly an exception, but is there a reason for that? My best guess is that it’s because he’s a man out of time. He was frozen for 70 years. Would a modern audience have a different reaction to a person from the 1940s riding a motorcycle? Would that be expected of someone from that period (whether based on history or the modern viewer’s ignorance)? Does it matter that he’s a soldier? I suspect the answer to all of these could be “yes,” but again, it doesn’t matter. As far as I can tell, he’s still the only clear exception I’ve found or been provided.
Can you think of any others? If not, then the pattern is evident. Only the baddest of boys, anti-heroes, and villains ride motorcycles to market, and that must be intentional. Perhaps one day, one of these screenwriters will shake up the status quo. After all, it’s just a motorcycle.
Now look what you jackasses made me do. This post was way too long.
I don’t make money from this blog, so I don’t really lose anything by giving away the punchline early. Doing your research is critical when buying a car. In fact, it’s so important that this will be a longer post than I like to write.
Some History
The first time I acquired a car with my own money was 1993, and I leased a Ford Escort LX. The LX stands for luxury! For its time, it was surprisingly modern and completely tricked out. I know; “tricked out Escort” doesn’t compute, but it had all the bells and whistles of the day, and both the cabin and the trunk were incredibly spacious. After three years, I decided to keep the car, which I drove until I gave it to a family member in 2002. Since then, every car I drove has been used and at least five years behind the curve.
This suited me just fine, because cars for me have been a “point A to point B” tool and nothing more. Moreover, conventional wisdom has always been that buying new was a waste of money. Two things changed my mind this time around.
First, the car I just traded in. It was purchased at CarMax in 2018. I did so without doing my research and wound with a 2009 Nissan Versa with 29,000 miles on it. This is a surprisingly low amount of mileage for a 9-year-old car, but it’s a lot more than 4 miles. Moreover, it turns out that for $1,000 more I could have bought a 2018 Versa at a dealership. In short, CarMax charges way too much for their vehicles. I’ll provide more data for that assertion in a moment.
Second, someone once told me (via Facebook) that he almost always buys new cars because you never know how the prior owner drove it. I was two out of four in this regard. The Grand Marquis was my grandmother’s car, and my Mustang was driven by someone who was highly unlikely to have mistreated it. Those cars did okay. Despite Nissan’s reputation for reliability, the Altima was a money pit. As for the Versa, within two months, I had to replace the struts, breaks, rear window, mid-pipe (part of the exhaust system), and catalytic converter, none of which was covered by their warranty they talked me into. Fortunately, much of that occurred within a month of purchase (requiring them to fix it), and the rest was fixed at no charge after blowing off a lot of steam at CarMax headquarters. They made all of those repairs, which is great, but only because their profit margin vastly exceeded those amounts. Moreover, the point remains that the car must have been mistreated by the prior owner for it to have so much wrong with it after only 29,000 miles.
Present Day
When I decided it was time for another car, I decided that it would be new. I also wanted something fun. I instantly thought of the only car I ever really wanted: The Jeep Wrangler. Why purchase an overpriced Wrangler with a bad reputation for reliability? Because it’s a Jeep Wrangler, dammit! That said, I’m not doing it out of necessity and desperation. I’m not doing it because of a midlife crisis. Accordingly, I asked the Facebook and Twitter hiveminds for their opinions. My social network is apparently representative of the internet at large because the opinions I got were all over the place.
Still, it was both appreciated and helpful. One particular thing that helped was going to Edmunds. They have a rating system for almost all the cars I considered. I also took some online quizzes to try to match me with what I wanted. All of these led me to some SUV/crossovers and sedans, and in particular those with a high reliability rating. The only two deal-breakers were reliability and all-wheel drive (AWD). As long as a car had those two things, I was willing to look at it.
Toyota
On Saturday, I visited a Toyota dealership and test drove a 2020 Camry and a 2020 Rav4. The Rav4 wasn’t to my liking, which makes sense. I don’t need an SUV. The Camry was good, and with AWD and a lot of bells and whistles, I was looking at $31,763. This in turn led to a lease payment less than what I was voluntarily paying for my current shitbox. (I was paying an extra 70% or so every month to pay down the car debt.) With an Edmunds rating of 7.6, the 2020 Camry was the highest rated car among those anywhere near my price range (though there were a few with 7.8). Seems like a plan, right? But I held firm. I wanted a car that I’d consider fun, and the Camry didn’t feel fun. It was a good baseline, but I wanted at least one more stop. After all, I had two more weeks before I wanted to decide.
Kia
I thought to myself, “Why not a sports car?” I answered my own question: “Because they’re rear-wheel drive.” So I searched for AWD sports cars and found the Kia Stinger. I never even considered a Kia. It just wasn’t on my radar scope, but it had an Edmunds rating of 8.2. I had to give that a shot, so Sunday I went to a Kia dealer near where I work.
My salesman, Mike, led me away from the Stinger. Why get a relatively stripped down sports car, which would incur higher insurance premiums and property taxes, when you can get a sporty sedan with all the bells and whistles? I quickly looked up the K5 as I was getting in the showroom car, and it had an Edmunds rating of 8.3. Once again, Kia outdid everyone else, including themselves. So, instead of the sports car, I was looking at a fully loaded, sporty, fuel-efficient, reliable car that was highly rated, wouldn’t kill me on insurance and taxes, and yet was fun to drive. Also, it was $30,313, which is about $1,450 less expensive than then inferior Camry.
Review
Don’t try this at home. I’ll try it for you.
It’s tough for me to review cars because I largely don’t care (or at least didn’t). I had an instant attraction to the car but didn’t know even half the features it had because I just ignored everything they told me once I knew my few concerns were met. I was absolutely floored when Jose went over its features with me post sale.
I feel like I’m in an episode of Star Trek.
This thing has four warp nacelles!
This car must have phasers. Every single optional feature for this model is included with my car. It’s the only up-to-date car I’ve driven since 1993, and it’s a lot of fun, but let’s start with some serious stuff. It shows me how bad a driver I am. I apparently drift to far to the right, which is a problem with a bigger car. Whenever that happens, I hear a ding and the steering wheel gently encourages me to lean a little to the left. I always knew I was a terrible parker, but that rear camera with virtual guides makes me as good as anyone. I backed into a space at the gym just to test it, and I was perfect. Seriously, that’s a big deal for me. When I’m stopped a light, I can let go of the brake, but the car won’t move. “Auto-hold” keeps your can motionless until you step on the gas. So, if you’re dozing off while stopped at a light, you won’t slowly roll into the car ahead of you or the intersection itself. That’s only happened to me once in my life (with harmless results), but whatever your weaknesses are as a driver, these safety features will help and keep your insurance premiums down.
The integration with my phone is fantastic. No more phone mounts for me! I can set my car to turn on automatically on any day of the week I choose, immediately turning on the heated steering wheel, heated seats, and climate control so that the car is comfortable by the time I get in it. When I would drive my mother’s Jeep Cherokee in the middle of summer, I loved to turn on the seat heaters and surprise the other occupant. I need to give people some rides.
Everything is controlled via the steering wheel, and by the end of my trip home, I already had the hang of it. Surprisingly, the one thing I couldn’t remember how to do, or figure out, was cruise control. I’ll have to get on that.
I went with all the post-decision add-ons that they try to sell you after making the deal. This makes an ordinary warranty (CarMax MaxCare for example) look like a waste of money. For the next three years, I can get all my maintenance done free of charge by having it done at a Kia dealership. As I said, this Kia is down the street from where I work. Easy-peasy.
I want to take a road trip.
Summary
No, this isn’t a sports car.
Could I have visited a third or fourth dealer and run some more test drives? Yes. Would I have found a better car? Maybe. There could be a Mazda out there that would have been a tiny bit better, but that doesn’t bother me. There’s only so much time I had to research, so if I’ve done a reasonable amount of research and found a car that really works for me, then there’s no more I can ask of myself.
Of course, I’m not saying the Kia K5 is for you. That depends on your budget and the feature you need. The point is that, based on all the relevant factors, it’s for me, and I didn’t know it existed until Mike suggested it to me at the Kia dealership. No matter how much pressure you’re under, from either salesmen or your circumstances, try not to buy until you’re ready, and only after doing your research. Also, make sure Kia is part of that research. My experience shows that, within its class, a Kia likely has a higher Endmunds rating than its equivalent for another make of car. I didn’t look at all of their cars, but I looked at a good number of them. My last point is that you should expect to hear a lot of contradictory advice, but listen to your friends’ explanations. Within all that noise is some very useful information.
The only test left is whether it’ll break down in a month or two. It doesn’t matter! They’ll fix it, or Virginia’s Lemon Law (in particular § 59.1-207.13) will require them to replace it!
But I’m not worried about any of that. I really want to go on a road trip. Freaking pandemic.
Last Sunday, this meme crossed my stream care of a Facebook friend.
It’s funny, so there’s nothing wrong with it, but here’s what my Facebook friend wrote as a caption.
2 weeks notice?! Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha
And here was a response from someone I didn’t know.
What 2 weeks? Gine(sic) the moment the check clears.
There are similar responses to the original post my Facebook friend shared. Here’s my response to my Facebook friend.
Good to see that the moment people have that kind of money, they become corrupted by it, losing all sorts of decency as if they’re the same people they always criticize for becoming corrupt.
No, not good. The other thing.
This resulted in a backlash defending the position, which means they weren’t kidding. “But my boss is a bad guy. He deserves it.” First, bullshit. Second, are your coworkers bad guys too? Is everyone you’ve ever worked for and with a “bad guy”? They’d get hit hard by your proposed behavior too.
The reason this bothers me is that it’s inherently hypocritical. The people that responded this way are the same people that rail against the rich as being inherently corrupt, yet they’d violate the social contract the second there were no consequences for doing so. That means they’re morally weak.
Well, I’ve now published 156 posts in as many days. I missed a day, but published twice on 9/11, so my current streak is really 120 days in a row. But much like Cal Ripken, I’m choosing to end my streak. I’m not going to post today.
Oh, shit. Oops.
This still counts as a post, and it’ll probably piss off Kessel Junkie for bonus points, suckers.
For people within a certain range of ages, this was our JFK assassination moment. We remember exactly where we were. I lived and worked in downtown Chicago during the worst year of my life. I was riding the bus to work, and everyone on the bus was talking about it. When I got to work, the news reports (many false) were pouring in. We were told to go home by 11 am, but I left around noon.
When I got back to my apartment in Lincoln Park, I called my friend, Matt, and we headed out to a bar to watch the news coverage together. During our time at the bar, we saw the first tower fall, and then the second. I grew up in the Washington, DC area, so I was calling everyone there to make sure they were alright. Unfortunately, things were so chaotic that even reliable sources of information were being fooled by false news reports (e.g., “They hit the State Department!”). It took about a day for all of that to be sorted out, at least for me (I have what I’ll call “connected” family and friends).
Regardless of how you feel about our efforts against the Taliban and Iraq, it’s all hindsight. At that moment, all of America was pissed off and demanded action.
I started a new job located in Chantilly, Virginia, and joined a gym nearby once it reopened. This means that every single day I drive by the old site of the Game Parlor. This is a tough pill to swallow. I left D&D in 1981 due to the satanic panic. In other words, I left because I was forced to leave. When I finally broke through a particular mental barrier, I returned to the game in 2005. My first game was at the Game Parlor in Chantilly, Virginia, where I created my warmage, Frylock, who would be immortalized both in a mini made for me by my friend, @Luddite_Vic, and also on my license plate.
I played two Living Greyhawk modules, which itself opened my eyes to a larger community that was unavailable when I was a kid. The game had become more popular, and the internet brought us all together. I instantly started making new friends (and frenemies) and found a new social outlet, which I know creates a paradox for the ignorant. Within five years, I had attended my first GenCon and was organizing my own convention, synDCon.
So here I sit on Wednesday night having a thought. I should be playing D&D with a group I recently joined, but I’m not. Why? Because I no longer enjoy playing the game. I don’t play it the way almost all others do, and the way those others play the game simply doesn’t appeal to me. I didn’t particularly like D&D 3.5e but, despite that systemic problem, still played it because of the people. Even though I like D&D 5e, getting to see them no longer is enough to make me sit through a game that just drags for me.
So while I lament not having the Game Parlor, I realize that even if I did (and there were no more pandemic), I wouldn’t take advantage of it. It’s like this: Even if you think very fondly of, for example, 5th grade, you wouldn’t want to go back there with the mind you have now. You’re an adult. You don’t want to do childish things with ten-year-olds as your primary source of entertainment. I’m not saying D&D is per se childish; I’m just saying I’ve moved beyond it as it’s usually played, so I don’t really want to go back there. I just want the idea of finding something like that. Unfortunately, I think I’m too old to expect that to happen.
For my birthday, I’m being lazy and just giving you material others have done. First, here’s a fantastic moment from a fantastic character as played by a fantastic actor.
It’s no wonder that Portals in Avengers: Endgame used a variation of this theme for the entrance of the formerly dusted into the final battle against Thanos.
In yesterday’s post, I voiced my only serious complaint about the MCU: The incoherent power curve. While that certainly annoys me, Avengers: Age of Ultron keeps me from forgetting that the least powerful original Avengers, Black Widow and Hawkeye, were certainly very important to the team. If the choice I was given was having a screwy power curve or eliminating them from the story, I’ll take the screwy power curve with a smile on my face every time.
Hawkeye
Hawkeye was instrumental in stopping Scarlet Witch from tearing the Avengers apart. He was the only one who avoided her powers, and he was the one to convince her, the person that would one day become the strongest Avenger, to join the team in a meaningful way. That was done with a speech rivaling any Captain America ever delivered. This was a believable effort on his part despite not requiring a superpower. Before that, however, he reinforced the message to the other Avengers of what they were fighting for by introducing them to his family. In fact, his non-hero wife, Laura, kept him from losing touch with his own importance. For a team that was falling apart at the seams, this was critical to the believability of the Avengers continuing to work well together.
Black Widow
I’ve written several times about how Black Widow is the glue of the Avengers. Except for Thor, she had significant, on-screen bonding moments with each of the original Avengers (as well as a few others) over the course of several films. This could explain her eventual inability to stick to one side in the Avengers’ “civil war.” With this movie, we saw the development of her most significant relationship, Bruce Banner, and the expansion of her most important one (from a story perspective), Hawkeye. I vaguely relate to Black Widow’s backstory, and how it shaped who she became, in a specific but personal way I won’t discuss; however, I think we can all agree that it’s compelling enough for her own movie. The story became a mission to rescue her, but not really. Far from the archetypical damsel in distress, she instead turned the situation around from the inside, leading the Avengers to Ultron. Without screwing with the power curve, Black Widow contributed in vital ways.
These two characters were as important to the Avengers as any of the others, and neither had a superpower.
Unrelated Note
In a cinematic universe filled with brilliant one-liners, one of my favorites comes from Age of Ultron.
I’m not sure if Natasha and Clint’s friendship is the best thing about the #MCU, but it’s *really* close. Only Steve and Bucky’s rival it. #QuarantineWatchParty#AvengersEndgame
Play What You Want 