Easing in to 44

Okay. Last night SuperGirlfriend and the SuperKids gave me several birthday presents a few days early, along with a small family party, as the SuperKids went back to their decidedly non Kryptonian dad today for two weeks. So I was very grateful to receive a non-fogging shaving mirror (I do all my morning ablutions, including teeth-polishing and face-scraping, in the shower), a pair of very slick wooden bookends with miniature globes in them (that actually revolve), a pair of Simpsons pajama pants, and copies of the new black and white DC SHOWCASE editions of early Superman and Green Lantern stories. (I started to type 'early Silver Age', but while that would necessarily be true for early Hal Jordan material -- the character's coming into being is very nearly synonymous with the birth of the Silver Age at DC -- it might not necessarily be true for Superman, who has an uninterrupted run of adventures going back to the very dawn of superhero comics. As it turns out, though, I'd have been correct; the Superman SHOWCASE starts with a reprint from ACTION COMICS #241, dated June 1958.)

Then today SuperGirlfriend continued with the early gift giving by driving me over to Comic Book World and putting an Armor War clix brick on her plastic for me.

I'll be discussing the Armor Wars brick in detail, and when I do it will be posted up above, but let me get down the rest of today as well...
SuperGirlfriend and I are always a little depressed when the ex comes by to snatch the kids back for his two weeks with them, so we fought that off as best we could by keeping busy. A couple of tables, coffee and end, got brought up from the cellar storage room in hopes of being transported over to the new house belonging to SuperGirlfriend's buddy Patricia. However, the coffee table wouldn't fit into the back of the car, so they wound up on our tiny back porch, where Patricia can grab them when and if she stops by sometime later this weekend.

After that we ran some errands, came home and opened my boosters o' clix, then headed off to watch Good night and Good Luck at the Baxter Avenue Cinema. I'd been looking forward to it a lot, but unfortunately, it was kind of disappointing for reasons I haven't yet fully mulled (unlike the mug of steaming hot cider SuperGirlfriend just brought in for me, which is thoroughly mulled, and expertly, as well, because SuperGirlfriend really is all that and a bag of chips, baby). All I know at this point is, I'm a bit disappointed at the lack of depth to the film. I realize that Edward R. Murrow vs. Joseph McCarthy would seem to be a pretty straightforward good vs. evil tale, but I don't think history is ever simple, and I was hoping for something with at least a little subtlety and complexity to it... something like, say, Quiz Show. It was enjoyable, mind... good dialogue, excellent cast, good performances, competent direction of what was there... but it seemed very lightweight given the material.

Then we did our Thanksgiving shopping. I enjoy grocery shopping with SuperGirlfriend (and, when occasion permits, the SuperKids, too) as it makes me feel very domestic.

SuperGirlfriend has one more, as she puts it, 'tiny little' gift to give me Monday, which is my actual birthday, and she's put together some kind of scheme she won't tell me much about for Monday as well, involving getting other people to mass email me birthday greetings, or something. So we'll see what's up with that when the time rolls around.

I can't close this without giving a tip of the ancient katana to Miraclo Mike Norton, whose blog everyone should read and hang comments on, for providing me with invaluable guidance in how to set up the entries on this blog so that only the first paragraph or so is visible on the main page. Given how long winded I am this is absolutely vital; otherwise my top one or two entries at any given time tend to seem to go on and on forever.