Hopefully, this ends up summing up the transition between years pretty well…
Here’s how 2019 ended, the last card I pulled from a box I got from Marc at Remember The Astrodome right at the end of the year…the rest of the really generous trade was MUCH more exciting (Thanks again, Marc!), and I’ll very likely circle back to some of it soon, but sets gotta get finished, even goofy ol’ 1989 Bowman (I never seem to find those $5 factory sets when I have money to burn on 1989 Bowman), and sometimes, you just gotta take your Wally Joyners where you can get ’em. He was the last face that emerged from the box, so he gets the honors for 2019.
As the year began, I got another really awesome box of cards from Kerry at Cards on Cards, and this was the top card in the package, when I opened it.
Kerry got me pretty covered on ’19 Vlad Juniors and a bunch of other stuff, so thanks again, Kerry!
As I mentioned, I did hit 100% on No Man’s Sky’s trophy achievements in April. I had a lot of help on the “Reach the center of the universe in Permadeath mode” part. I found someone who had been alive in that instance for over 2 years, and had a base built 1 warp from the center of the universe, and they sent me an invite to their game after friending me. Before that, I had probably invested over 100 hours in my various attempts (though I’d probably be able to do it again, and more efficiently, if I tried now), and got close a few times.
I returned to Second Life after a fairly extended hiatus in April, wrote about it in May, and events, if sporadic, continued at my club there, Heck, throughout the year, and will continue in 2020. I’ve also been DJing periodically at Vegetal Planet and The Velvet, and DJed at SL16B, Second Life’s 16th birthday party, on June 25th.
I don’t buy a lot of Marvel Legends, but I couldn’t pass on The Black Knight.
Picked up an IKEA DETOLF display case for a corner of what we call “the study” in my house. Fit perfectly, and helps me display some more things like this…
From left to right, bottom row: ceramic dog bank that’s been photographed and used as Heck’s mascot since it opened; Zimot Industries cowboy riding a duck sculpture.
Finally made it to the Basketball Hall of Fame with some visiting friends in April. The museum was mid-renovation, which I didn’t know at the time, and it seemed like a significant section was closed off, but we still had fun…
…and I got to see some other old friends.
First-run movies watched in April 2019 (1): Avengers: Endgame (I have really mixed feelings about the story directions and deviations of course they chose for various characters, to put it mildly, but I still think it’s amazing to see live action, George Perez-level super-hero crossover events done well. (I haven’t watched the Berlanti-verse Crisis On Infinite Earths yet, so I can’t speak from a position of authority on that one, but obviously the budgets are very different there.)
Comic books cancelled or ending in April 2019 (1): West Coast Avengers (Marvel Comics). This was another great series that I really wish more people had picked up on. Lots of fun, a great new take on a few older concepts, and I wish it had more time. Jeff the Shark forever!
I was a little late to this party, and had to track down some back issues in a hurry, but The Green Lantern (I linked to DC’s site, but c’mon, go buy it at your local comic shop) is both the best Green Lantern comic book and the best Grant Morrison comic book in ages. Liam Sharp’s art, kinda intense ideas about human anatomy aside, is terrific, as well. It’s basically like Judge Dredd in outer space with Hal Jordan instead of Judge Dredd. I got in on it in February of this year. The first 12 issue, 1 annual “season” is done, and is collected in 2 trade paperbacks if you can’t find the individual issues, and they’re finishing up a three issue interlude series, Green Lantern: Blackstars this coming month, before going into Season Two #1 in February.
I actually got out the TSR Marvel RPG stuff in March, and rolled up 4 characters (creating them near-entirely from cues my dice rolls gave me, and taking few if any mulligans) that I have done nothing with since. I should go back and look to see if there’s anything good there. I also need to find people to play Marvel with me, as it’s still my favorite RPG system of all time. Is anyone here interested in trying to navigate an online Marvel game on Roll20, assuming their data breach didn’t scare you off?
I got some art in 2019. This is one of the earliest pieces from the current iteration of Zimot Industries, though I own a few other pieces of theirs. As fantastic as this sculpture is (and it is truly one of my favorite things that I own), it was just the beginning for Zimot. Just go look, and buy some stuff.
I posted about the 1989-1990 Topps Senior League Baseball set back when I got it in March, but it was one of the highlights of my card collecting year, so here’s the Dock Ellis card again.
Sometimes, in the dead of winter, weird stuff happens…
First-run movies watched in March 2019 (1): Captain Marvel (I enjoyed it, and am looking forward to more.)
Television seasons binge-watched in March 2019 (1): Punisher Season 2 (I also enjoyed this, but I’m sad that it’s over. Hopefully, Disney rethinks the cancellation of the Marvel Netflix stuff and puts it on Hulu or something.)
As some of you will remember, I collect Mego action figures, and got a bunch of them in 2018, after the company relaunched. Finding Megos in the second half of 2019 would prove to be tough (I got beat out on a bunch of pre-orders because I didn’t have the money handy to grab certain things in time), but I had some nice successes in the first half of the year.
…and, from the vintage side of things, Dr. Zaius! My first Ape!
I hit 600th place in February…
…and got my 5000th win not long after.
Comic books cancelled or ending in February 2019 (1): Mage: The Hero Denied (Image). 2019 saw the finish of several stories in fiction that I’ve been following for most of my life. I started reading Mage as a kid who didn’t get half of it in 1984, but wow, was it cool. It was supposed to be a trilogy of 15 issue story arcs that finished up probably around 1990. For one reason or another, it took Matt Wagner almost 3 extra decades to get to the finish line. From the perspective of a person who hasn’t read the first 2 arcs in 20 years, the ending was satisfying, but not extremely satisfying. The first arc was always going to be a lot to live up to, and that was kind of the case with the second arc as well, but it was really nice to spend time in the world of the characters again. I have a lot of things that I actually haven’t read yet ahead of doing this, but I want to sit down and read the entire story sometime soon, and see how I feel about it all after doing that.
Matt and his son Brennan are doing a nice job with Matt’s character Grendel at the moment (though I come at it from a different perspective than most other people reading it, because I’m actually not super-familiar with Grendel; one of the things ahead of a re-read of Mage in my reading queue is the pile of early Grendel stories I’m starting to find in my travels), and I recommend that book.