Perhaps I’m out of line in my thinking and I welcome the opinions and advice of other people who choose to share it.  But until I hear a compelling argument that life really ISN’T what you make of it and that dreams really CAN’T come true, I’m going to hold on to those “foolish” dreams of youth.  I’m going to keep dreaming of being a voice actor for animation and practicing that talent daily.  I’m going to keep on singing, even if I have to emulate other people in order to sound good.  And I’m going to keep on writing in the hopes that one day I sell a comic book or a TV series because if I give up on those hopes…if I give up on those dreams…I might as well be dead.  They keep me going, they keep me young, they keep me vital, and they keep me sane.

It’s 10/10/10, people.  Time to grab life by the horns and wrestle it to the ground.

The next text said “It won’t take long, only about 30 minutes. But don’t tell anyone.”  Puzzled, I asked if everything was ok.  He then sent me a text saying that he wanted to have some fun.  Perhaps it’s my naive nature that prompted me to ask “What kind of fun?”  The response?  ”Umm…duh!”

First and foremost, I’m in a committed relationship.  I love Dean and he loves me and we plan on being together forever. The thought of cheating on him makes me sick to my stomach. Second, the guy that was asking me, we’ve been friends for four years, since I started working at my current job. He’s a very funny and sweet person, or so I thought. And he’s as straight as the day is long. I don’t understand what was going on, I personally don’t know that I want to know what was going on.

This has happened before with someone I thought was a friend so I have to start wondering what, specifically, about me screams “whore.”

I hate being a grown up. Everyone seems so concerned with sex and the act of “getting some” and I get berated for maintaining my childlike wonder about the world. Sure, I’m cynical most of the time, but if you saw my room at home you would think a kid lived there. There are model ships from Star Trek, Megazords from Power Rangers, video game posters on the wall, and a collection of anime that’s a sight to behold. I don’t understand why people keep trying to taint my world with their perversions and distortions of reality.  I want to go back to a time when sex didn’t matter and when you really could take people at face value.

I just had to get that off my chest. I don’t think that I’ll be talking to this guy anymore. I don’t want to get him in trouble because I do or at least did consider him a friend so I’ll keep his name to myself. Who he is isn’t the point of this blog entry, it’s about trying to get people to turn a mirror to themselves and take a long look.  Are you what you appear to be?

In the months since I last updated, Dean and I finally moved in together. Some people acted shocked that we waited so long, others didn’t understand why we were moving in together to start with. I don’t really feel the need to defend our decisions to anyone. We waited as long as we did because I didn’t feel comfortable just jumping into living together. We aren’t working on a fly by night thing, we are working on building a solid foundation for the rest of our lives. In many ways, waiting as long as we did was a good thing. We are both in better places than we were a year ago, we are more comfortable with each other, and yes, we are even more in love than we were a year ago. It’s something I can’t really describe…it’s a love that grows and changes every day to make it that much stronger than it was the day before.

In other news, Dean and I are planning a trip to Florida to visit the Happiest Place on Earth. This should be fun…Keith vs. the Happiest Place on Earth. Part of me is really excited, part of me not so much so. I just have such a blackened heart that I don’t know if I can actually enjoy it like Dean will. That’s not going to stop me from trying, though! Maybe I’ll get to have my picture taken with a Power Ranger.

Speaking of Power Rangers, Disney has decided not to do a new series this year. They have, instead, chosen to “remaster” the original MMPR. Their idea of remastering is super-imposing cheap effects on top of the series that actually detract from it. It gives it a cheesy Batman 1966 vibe. I watched a few episodes and then stopped…it’s just not the same.

Finally, I’ve come to a conclusion about friendship. It’s great, it’s a wonder to behold, and other platitudes such as that but when friendship becomes nothing more than a venting session, it’s no longer friendship…it’s called therapy. I’m not a therapist, I have no desire to nurse people through their problems especially when I give advice (when asked of course) and said advice is completely ignored creating new problems. That’s not healthy…it’s self destructive and I know a little bit about self destructive behavior. That doesn’t mean that I love you any less as a friend, it just means we need to get back to what made us friends in the first place.

I think that’s going to do it for this edition. Time for me to get back to it.

Whatever happened to originality? I read a synopsis of Stargate Universe and it sounds just like Battlestar Galactica…only set in the Stargate continuity. They couldn’t come up with a more original idea?

Where does the time go? It seems like just yesterday it was Friday and it’s already Monday. I don’t understand why the week has to move so slow and the weekend so fast.

Maintain orbit… I’ve found (as recently as yesterday) that I need to learn to keep distances. I try to attach too quickly to people, this can sometimes lead to confusion and annoyance. From now on, I’m not going to be so desperate with my friends.

Alone… I like living alone. I like being on my own. I don’t want to do it forever, but I’m enjoying it for the time being. I take that back…there are times that I love it, and times that I don’t.

Well, I think those were all the synaptic misfires I had roaming through my head at this time. I guess I should get back to work.

So, then, why do I feel so lonely?  Why do I feel as though each and every day is a struggle to not feel alone. Even when surrounded by people, I feel isolated. It’s a feeling that I lie and say I find great comfort in but the truth is, I don’t. I isolate myself for the sake of others. I don’t want to annoy people at all.

Maybe it’s just the sleepy talking, I don’t know, but I feel alone. Maybe I’ll figure it out someday, maybe I won’t. At this point, I have no clue how to fix the problem or at least make it go away.

There is a problem with lies and deceit. Once you deceive someone and lie to cover it up, there must be more lies told to cover up your actions. Even when your actions aren’t directed at anyone in particular, there is always collateral damage…other people who get caught in the crossfire or hurt peripherally by your actions. While your actions may be explainable, they are never excusable.

The price of deceit is a high price indeed.

I’ll admit, I was both excited and terrified by the prospect of this film.  I had read the original “Death of Superman” trade many many MANY times over where I could almost recite it word for word.  The story fascinated me as it was the death of a major hero.  I still remember the final image of the comic, a crying Lois holding Superman’s lifeless body as his torn cape billowed in the wind like a flag in the background.  It was iconic and an image that remained with me for a long time.

My fear wasn’t that they wouldn’t the comic justice, it was that I wasn’t sure HOW they would adapt it.  The story was long, it spanned every Superman comic book as well as Justice League America.  It had guest appearances out the rear end by almost every major character in the DC Comics Universe at the time.  Plus there were events that were specific to that time period such as Lex Luthor not really being Lex Luthor but a younger clone that couldn’t really be duplicated without some form of explanation.  Then there was the Reign of the Supermen story line that introduced 4 men claiming to be Superman: The Eradicator, Superboy, Steel, and a Superman cyborg.  Just…too much to compress.

The producer’s way of compressing everything?  They didn’t.  The story for Superman Doomsday takes the Death and Return of Superman story arc and boils it down to it’s essentials.  The finished product bares little to no similarities to it’s comic book counterpart.  In a way, this was good but, also, in a way this was bad.  I understood from the beginning that parts of the story would have to be excised, but I never realized how much or how little resemblance the movie would have to the original story.

In the film, Superman and Lois are getting serious about each other, even having rendezvous at the Fortress of Solitude.  Lois wants more from The Man of Steel…like to know his real name but Superman just isn’t willing to give up the last piece of his privacy.  In essence, he is unwilling to give himself totally to the woman he claims he loves.  She knows who he is, she alludes to it constantly that she knows he’s Clark Kent and even comments on how the closer the two of them get, the farther away Clark Kent is.  (In the movie, Clark is taking a field reporting job overseas.)

Meanwhile, Lex Luthor is scheming…as usual.  He has an excavation crew digging up a space ship that crash landed long ago.  When asked how deep underground they were, one of the excavation crew responds “We’re deep…like before Christ deep.”  While trying to open the space ship, they unlock a recorded message in an alien language.  Failing to understand the message, they crack open the space ship and unleash Doomsday who is destruction given monstrous form.  Lex realizes that the alien message must have been a warning while he hears the excavation crew being slaughtered and dispatches Mercy Graves to cover up that Lexcorp was ever there to begin with.

As Lois and Superman continue to argue over relationship boundaries, Doomsday carves out a path of destruction on his way to Metropolis. (Why he is drawn to Metropolis is never really explained…he just is.)  He begins smashing up the town and ONLY when he reaches Metropolis does Superman’s robot (HE HAS A ROBOT?!) informs him that the city is under siege and the people are in danger.  What follows is an impressively choreographed fight between Superman and Doomsday as the helpless citizens watch.  As is common knowledge by now, the two fight to the bitter end, the final blows so hard that it kills both Superman and Doomsday.

The citizens of Metropolis and the world mourn the loss of their greatest hero including Lex Luthor who psychotically screams “Why did you leave me?!” The story lags a bit for awhile as it shows the impact that Superman had on those around him and how his death has affected everyone until Lois becomes the damsel in distress…again…while trying to save a bus load of children from the Toyman.  Superman shows up to save the day but he seems different, changed some how.  It turns out that Superman is actually a clone, created by Lex Luthor.  As strange as it sounds, Lex Luthor needs Superman…without him, Lex has no reason to exist.  All the while, the real Superman, thought to be dead, is recovering in The Fortress of Solitude.  Turns out he was never dead, his heart slowed down while his body regenerated…or some crap.  To be honest, this part of the movie screamed contrivance.

Back in Metropolis, Super-Clone discovers he’s a clone and goes mad with power.  He kills Toyman so that he can’t hurt anyone again, destroys the Super-clones, and nearly kills Lex.  The military gets called in to take him out but it’s futile.  The real Superman shows up, yet another well choreographed fight ensues, the day is saved, and Superman has a mullet.

As you can tell, by the end of the movie, my patience had worn out. The story was hackneyed, the plot points contrived, and there were STILL too many things going on at once.  The screenwriter (The Batman’s Duane Capizzi who shares a story credit with Bruce Timm) had a good basic story to draw from but became mired in all of the plot points he felt compelled to put into the movie.  Did we really need Jimmy defecting to work at a tabloid?  Did we really need the side story of Lois wanting to get closer to Superman? Or how about the borderline perverse relationship Lex had with Superman?  In a TV series or if this had been broken into two films, yes…because there would have been time to explore these things, but in this film?  No.  This film was too short to support all of the story they tried to cram into it and the whole film suffered.  What results is a mess of a story that doesn’t work well.

The voice actors in Bruce Timm’s previous DC Comics efforts (Batman:  The Animated Series, Superman, Batman Beyond, Justice League, Justice League Unlimited) have always been a highlight for me as Andrea Romano generally knows how to pick her cast and get great performances from them so when I found out that she was working on this project, I was excited by whom she might be casting. I was, however, equally let down by who she picked and how they performed.  I’ll start with James Marsters as Lex Luthor.  I’m a fan of Marsters, I loved his work on Buffy and Angel but he didn’t have the right voice to suit the character on screen.  Marsters has a youthful voice and the character model for Luthor looked to be in his 40′s.  Adam Baldwin played Superman and, for the most part, did an ok job but he paled in comparison to George Newbern or even Tim Daley.  His line deliveries were a bit flat and he didn’t seem to emote very well in pivotal scenes.  Anne Heche as Lois Lane…what can I say.  About half of the time, she excelled at the role but there were other times when it sounded as if she was holding back for some reason.  When she let loose and embraced the character (like her dialogue during the final battle) she was a damn fine Lois Lane.

Overall I could only recommend this movie to hardcore comic fans and even then, I’d have to caution them that it’s not very good by even those standards.  If more time had been spent developing a better script or if this script had been broken into two films, this may have turned out to be a better film.

Rating:  Meh

We didn’t come from money, in fact, we rarely had any while I was growing up.  We could never afford to own our own property and, thus, always lived in trailer homes on either my father’s parents or my mother’s parents land.  (Mostly on my mother’s parents land.)  I’ve never been a “city boy”, in fact, this is probably one of the reasons that I can’t stand crowds of people still to this day.  I always lived on a farm and, from an early age, was bred to understand the value of working for what you get.  I had to take care of the cows, horse, chickens, goats, dogs…making sure they were all fed and watered and generally content.  I also had to gather the eggs from the chickens which sucked because there were usually snakes in the hen house eating said eggs.  I had to make sure the yard was clean and mowed on a consistent basis.  I also had to help dad and Papa bail and haul the hay several times during the summer.  It was a job I loathed, but looking back, I can’t really say that it was too terrible.  They needed the help so that’s what I did.  If a cow broke a fence, I’d have to go out and help repair the fence with my father and Papa so that we could prevent future break outs.  There were so many things that I had to do.

I’m not saying all of this to whine about how hard I worked, in fact some of my fondest memories were had on that farm.  It’s part of my past…a part that I miss a great deal.  I loved living on the farm, taking care of stray animals, taming them, making friends with them.  In those days, video games and stray animals were my only friends.  I also loved taking care of the cows and horse.  They were just like pets to me…except for Maggie the cow…she was a bitch.  Frances the horse later got out of the fenced in area and lived up next to my Grandma and Papa’s house.  At this point she was 23 and had no desire to run wild.  She stayed around the house, never straying, until she passed away.  She was such a friendly horse.  Never saddle broken, only ridden bareback.  In a lot of ways, she had the life that every horse would long for.  Not forced to be ridden, but free to roam and be free.

I’ve known a lot of loss in my time because of being raised on a farm.  We gave our animals good homes and kept each one healthy until they died of natural causes.  Only in the leanest of times did we ever have to have a bull slaughtered for meat.  It made the meat very hard to eat.

This entry probably seems very disjointed, but it’s where my head is at currently.  I’m missing the farm but that farm doesn’t exist anymore.  There are no more walks down the lane to the bottom fields.  No more adventuring to the “island” as we used to call it across the creek.  No more playing in the barn even though Papa told me not to.  And no more animals for me to care for.  Maybe that’s why I try to take care of everyone all of the time.  It’s what I’ve been trained to do all of my life.