The Future is Here and it looks a LOT like the Past... WHOLE FOODS DELIVERY

Number Three Son, who writes his own blog over there under AW FISH, does my yard work because I can’t handle the hills while my wrist still recovers. He started this last year working out a business agreement and he did such an amazing job I pestered him into doing it this year.

Besides doing a great job (and I mean it, neighbors come over to compliment the yard work) it gives us a chance to hang out— I usually make him breakfast or lunch and we sit and chat it up a bit. We already see each other upwards of 3x a week but he’s genuinely someone we like hanging out with— we are very close. On this past Sunday visit he mentioned to me that he got a Grocery Delivery from Whole Foods and I was interested because as an Amazon Prime member I get discounts there and I’ve also gotten a lot of push from them to try the “new” 2 hour Whole Foods Delivery.

Now I hate shopping but I like Whole Foods. Yes, it’s not the cheapest grocer out there but the staff is trained well, the store is super clean and they have a nice variety of products, so you get what you pay for. Veronica was making a Chicken with Spanish Rice dinner so I jumped on the Amazon app on my iPhone and started scrolling through the Whole Foods section and added stuff to my cart. Now to give you a heads up, I initially did this on my iPad through the Amazon app and got some nonsense AFTER I had filled the cart that you needed to do this on either your iPhone or in a browser so save yourself a step and go right for your phone or browser.

Here’s how it works; You browse through the categories and add items to your cart just like all other online shopping, and if you hit $35 worth of products you get free delivery. You choose your delivery window, if you need it faster you can pay $5 more and get it within an hour, I opted to go the cheaper free route since dinner was already in full prep.

It might be an issue for some but a tip is built in to the app for the driver. I tip the guy who pumps my gas so I’m a-OK with tipping, but not BEFORE you provide me with whatever service you are doing. This time around I took a leap of faith and tipped before but going forward I’m going to see if there is an option for tipping after. If that milk is warm the tip is gonna suffer.

I ordered bananas, an onion, some Turkey Pastrami, french bread, peanut butter, a pound of Tilapia (white fish), some Guacamole and chips and a half gallon of whole milk. I placed my order at 545 and chose 6pm-8pm as my delivery window, then got a text saying my order was being picked. You need to stay near your phone because you will get a text if something is out of stock and they offer a substitute. In my case they were out of French Bread so I OK’d Sourdough bread instead.

Within 15 minutes I got the notice that my order had “shipped” — I had visions of UPS dropping off a beyond warm milk and some fish the following day when I got the usual Amazon map which showed me where my delivery was and how many stops away it was. I looked to be the fourth stop on my driver’s list— hopefully they keep the AC cranked in the car.

At 615pm the driver pulled up to my house, they do “contactless” delivery which just means they are going to place the bags on your front steps please don’t breath on them and then you get another text saying your delivery is here make sure you put the stuff in the fridge.

The order was right although I’d accidentally ordered 2 guacamoles (I don’t know why I make so much) which was a perfect appetizer for the Spanish Chicken we were going to have. The peanut butter was that horrible organic stuff that is so liquidy it’s like baby food, but that’s on me.
The milk and the fish were both cold and everything was nicely picked, although the bananas were very green. Next time I’ll see if you can choose a color option on them, otherwise I’ll probably leave bananas off my list and brave the stores to get my own.

It struck me that if you want to figure out the next big business thing, look to the past— because Grocery Delivery is nothing new, in fact its a throwback to the old General Store days.

I’m a fan, I’ll use the service again.

Convention Report Jet City Tacoma Washington, Part III: The Show

The Cast of BUCK ROGERS

Convention Roundup from a Previous Show…

Jet lag’s a funny thing, sometimes it hits you sometimes it doesn’t. Veronica was up and showered before I was but I soon followed suit and then stumbled my way down to the hotel breakfast, which was a Starbucks Bistro— which means they had a grill and hot food. I ordered my breakfast and sat down with a coffee- at the next table over was a large all American looking man and a little person— it was Buck Rogers himself, Gil Gerard and his robot pal Twiki, Felix Silla. Felix also played Emperor Penguin in Tim Burton’s BATMAN RETURNS as well as dozens of other well known characters.

When I was a kid I watched BUCK ROGERS, I think it was on Saturday nights- and even though it wasn’t as good as Star Wars in the days before DVDs you took what you could get. One of the episodes featured original Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon Buster Crabbe in a guest role. I dug the show.

Veronica joined me, we finished up and headed over to the show. In the lobby we ran into Gil Gerard again, I hadn’t interrupted him while he was having breakfast, and I said hello to him and told him he looked great. While Veronica took the ten flights of stairs Gil and I rode up in the world’s slowest elevator and he told me about a new Buck Rogers show he was producing, sounds like it’d be good.

I rejoined Veronica and we set up at the show next to Ben Templesmith, an artist whose work I like very much, while down the row from us was Rick Hoberg who was the last Batman Artist for me. I stopped reading Batman Comics in 1986 when he left the title.

The show opened and we chatted it up with a few fans and signed a few books. This was a medium sized “old school” show— old school meaning it was mostly all comic books. Also set up at the show was our good friend Jay Yee of Harley Yee Comics— we said hello and made plans to have dinner together.

The show provided us with a handler who brought us water, coffee, snacks, lunch and pretty much anything else we needed. The chairs at this show were amazingly comfortable. Most convention halls have cheap folding chairs which do a number on your back, these were great.

The first day wrapped up at six. Veronica had a headache and opted to leave about 4:45 to go back to the hotel, I handled things at our booth and closed up and met her in the lobby before we headed down the block to TheKoi for dinner.

TheKoi is a modern Japanese restaurant with classic styling including a huge Drum in the entrance. Our waitress was exceptional— a good waitress knows exactly how to joke with you and when to move along. Jay and his two helpers Doug and Nell arrived and we ordered drinks and appetizers. My first drink was a Tokyo Whiskey and my second was a Gin Based concoction— I don’t normally mix drinks but I wanted to try both. I ordered Monkey Ball as an appetizer which was out of this world. A fresh mushroom stuffed with crab and cream cheese and then Panko coated and fried. For a meal Veronica ordered a huge plate of sushi and I got Chicken Teriyaki.

Service was excellent, the company was too, Doug told us some hilarious stories and was planning to head out to an all night party in Seattle after dinner.

Continued Next Week.

BOND TUESDAYS: QUANTUM OF SOLACE (2008)

QUANTUM OF SOLACE Directed by Marc Forster with Daniel Craig, Olga Kurylenko, Mathieu Amalric, Judi Dench and Giancarlo Giannin. Released Nov 14, 2008 1hr 46min

CASINO ROYALE, the previous entry in the series was the longest Bond film on record, and it’s even longer when you consider this film is essentially CASINO ROYALE Part II: But With Less Card Playing. Bond wants revenge for things that happened in the previous film and we’re starting to realize there is a massive secret organization behind much of what’s happening in the world and they’ve infiltrated MI6, the British Secret Service. This time around they attempt to assassinate M and Bond takes this very personally.

Daniel Craig’s second outing at Agent 007— the Craig Bonds are certainly many things, but they really lack the fun of the Connery Bonds and of course thankfully the silliness of the Moores, but this one is starting to show that the cold hearted intense James Bond of the novels isn’t as interesting as the adaption with Connery in his prime in something like GOLDFINGER.

Having said that, I enjoyed this one VERY much, it’s faster paced than CASINO ROYALE and it’s got more action scenes so if you want a great summer movie this is a fantastic pick.

• BOND THEME: A somewhat poppy Alicia Keys and Jack Black but it has a bit of an edge to it.

• BOND VILLAIN: Dominic Greene is a psycho environmentalist and he fights like a vegetarian, which is very refreshing.

• GRADE: A solid “A” - What can I say? I liked it better than the critics did.

Comic Art Fans Spotlight

From Doug Cenko’s Gallery

Every week my good friend Bill who runs CAF selects 10 or so works from the week that he really likes and then he shows them on Thursday night during his live show. Well I’ve filled in during a past show and I really enjoyed it so I’m going to do my best to pick three pieces here as often as I can. Check out CAF yourself to see more great art.

The first piece is by Doug Cenko himself and featured in his own gallery— I love this cartoony style and wish modern comics used this type of work more.

From Comic Link’s Gallery

Next up is a Ross Andru Spider-Man page from the early 70s— Steve Ditko is the definitive Spider-Man artist for certain, but I grew up with Ross Andru so his lanky version of the wall crawler is what lives in my head.

From Mark Thelosan’s Gallery a piece by Mike Mignola

Lastly this great Mike Mignola Baba Yaga piece— Mike’s masterful use of heavy black areas to define shape and shadow is unrivaled and makes his work stand out. These relatively simple pieces are very expensive because owners don’t want to let them go.

Those are my picks for this week. Maybe I’ll branch into more as we travel down the road a bit.

Convention Report Jet City Tacoma Washington, Part II The Flight

Classic Look back at one of my favorite shows— and I think this was the flight that got me to stop flying Economy…

I don’t know what it is about Delta Airlines, it could be the surly flight attendants, it could be the fact that their planes just feel smaller. I suspect they’ve squeezed in a few extra rows. They offer First Class (which isn’t much better) Comfort Plus which is the next 6-7 rows on the plane and then Regular Seating which is the equivalent to third class steerage in the Titanic but with slightly less livestock.

For the flight out to Washington I had a window seat— now I have an occasional bought with Claustrophobia, but I can’t explain why, how and when it kicks in— it’s not all the time, but when it does I’d suggest you get out of my way. It’s happened in a tiny hotel room in New York City with extremely narrow hallways. It happened when I sat in the interior of one of those deep round booths at a Jewish Deli. It’s happened once on a plane but that was on a long flight to Japan before I learned the joys of upgrading. On this flight at about hour three I suddenly felt like I was trapped on an overly warm plane when the guy in front of me dropped his seat all the way back putting the TV screen I was watching about six inches from my nose. Our seats DIDN’T recline, we hadn’t thought this would be a big deal but now trapped behind this guy, Veronica next to me and a woman who was working on her overly large laptop in the aisle seat I had to get up.

I basically climbed over both of them and ran up the ridiculously narrow aisle to the bathroom at the back of the plane where I splashed cold water on my face for a minute. I stepped out and stood in the crew area, took off my sweater and tried slowing my breathing to calm down. The flight attendants were busy reading magazines so I poured myself a glass of water and looked back down that aisle of twisted mangled bodies— all of whom were desperately trying to get comfortable.

It was exactly like this (substitute the prison guard with a flight attendant);

Knowing when I get like this I could bring the plane down, Veronica graciously switched seats with me for the rest of the flight and I managed to suffer my way through the remaining two and a half hours. When we landed Veronica looked over at me and said “I’m taking the train back.”

We made our way to our bags and our ride, provided by show organizer James. He was a friendly sort and he drove us the 30 minutes to our hotel which was located directly, and I mean directly, across the side street from the convention center. It was a big suite, very comfortable and we showered and went to bed.

Continued Next Week

So What Do I Collect-- Comics Wise?

I collect mostly Golden Age Comics— in fact I’d say that’s pretty much all I collect. I started waaaaaay back in the early 1980s with a copy of BATMAN #14 from my good friend Paul Howley who ran the greatest comic book store on Earth, That’s Entertainment, in a tiny space on Chandler Street here in the Woo. Paul if you have any pics of the old shop please send them over!

My focus is not on BATMAN per se, but as you can see I have some multiples of several— if I see one at a good price I’ll scoop it up.

The yellow cover in the middle is a BATMAN #14 (two of them actually)

So what exactly is a GOLDEN AGE Comic book? Glad you asked!

Comics have been around since the early 1930s* when publishers first started producing reprints of comic strips— this is where the term “Funny Books” came from— because they were reprints of the Funny Pages from the Sunday Comics. There is debate as to where the first comic book is published. FUNNIES ON PARADE was published in 1933 featuring reprints of comic strips like Joe Palooka and Mutt and Jeff— it’s hard to image today how important newspaper comics were to people of the day— today DILBERT is published as a tiny little gag strip in the throwaway section of a newspaper section— there was a time when people rushed out to get a paper because they needed to know what was happening to DICK TRACY today. But I think it starts with the first full color all original content of NEW FUN #1 from National Comics (now known as DC Comics) in 1935.

The industry takes off with the 1938 publication of ACTION COMICS #1 which features the debut of Superman, ironically the story is cut up and pasted comic strip design because that is how creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster planned to sell him— only to be rejected by every comic syndicate and comic publisher.

The Golden Age continues with characters like Batman, Captain Marvel, Captain America, The Black Terror, Catman, The Flash, Hawkman, Aquaman, The Human Torch and The Sub Mariner soon filling newsstands with colorful adventures. Comedy is well represented with Archie Andrews, Wilbur and a whole host of comedy characters. Bob Hope even gets his own series. World War II finds many back issues destroyed during paper drives bringing up the value as available copies are harder to find.

With the end of WWII in 1945 Comics enter into what is known as The Atomic Age, superheroes continue but they are no longer as popular and Horror, War and Romance titles take the lead. The creators of Superman sue the creators of Captain Marvel for plagiarism and the suit is settled out of court leading to the end of Captain Marvel (whose sales often dwarfed Superman’s).

As the 1950s come to a close comic book sales dwindle, SUPERMAN becomes more popular than ever thanks to his syndicated TV Show with George Reeves, but overall publishers are struggling. Congress considers the dangers of Horror and Crime Comics creating a nation criminally minded children and the Comics Code is enacted which bans pretty much anything that made comics popular in the first place.

DC Comics continues to chug along with a relaunch of Green Lantern and The Flash in what would be known as The Silver Age of Comics— they even put characters together in a redo of their popular Justice Society feature that appeared in ALL STAR COMICS during the war and rebrand it as The Justice League— at a chance golf game between the DC and Marvel Comics publishers its remarked how well this new Justice League is doing, and the publisher goes back to his sole employee Stan Lee and tells him to come up with a superhero group for Marvel to publish and the Fantastic Four soon usher in the Marvel Age of Comics.

The Bronze Age of Comics comes in around 1970 with a more sophisticated level of offerings notable with the first comic book version of CONAN THE BARBARIAN. Batman gets away from his camp roots of the popular Adam West TV show and is once again depicted as a loner when they send Robin off to College and bring Batman back as a night creature.

The Copper Age of Comics comes in around the mid 1980s with the introduction of prestigious graphic novel formats which mimic the way comics are done in Europe (with respect and quality production). The Pixel Age comes in with the introduction of digital comics and today comics are called The Modern Age which seems like a poor choice because where do you go from there?

So there you have it, the ages as defined by many of us.

Starting next Wednesday I’ll be spotlighting comics in my personal collection, I’m not sure why anyone would care but then again I’m not sure why anyone reads this blog in the first place.

• Important to note that scholars often city 1837s The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck or the 1987 Yellow Kid book, I disagree because the formats were different and more like picture books.

The Complexities of an Opinionated Idiot

I drive my youngest son crazy because he says I’m all over the place with things I do and do not like. I say he has a difficult time understanding my opinion in the first place, which is completely understandable, because I don’t always understand it.

Take JetBlue Airlines.

In a post last week, written probably two years ago I wrote how I was fully on the JetBlue bandwagon, that they had better leg-room, friendlier air assisters or whatever we call them now— and I was until I wasn’t. That opinion on JetBlue came after flying cross country on Alaska Airlines, Delta and JetBlue in a single year. Of the three JetBlue was the best.

I’ll quantify this with one annoying trait JetBlue had, may still have, I don’t know— the bottomless snack concept. They keep them up towards the front of the plane where I sit and every other minute someone is opening and closing the cabinet door to grab some more snacks. Even on a six hour flight seeing someone grab 3-4 bags of Corn Chips or Cheese Woggles and gleefully run back to their seat (and I’m talking adults not children) is king of disturbing. That door opening and closing gets old quick. Let me give you a piece of advice— and I’ve been working on my diet, for the record I’m 170lbs now— which is 9 lbs lower than high school— sitting for six hours and consuming nothing but carbs is a bad idea.

Regardless, between the time I signed up for a JetBlue Card and earned 90,000 points and I wrote that blog about how much I like them, I flew First Class on American Airlines and United. Game changer. When I tried to upgrade my seat on my next JetBlue flight I was unhappy to see they didn’t have First Class (they call it MINT) on many of their flights.

Between the lack of First Class which makes flying bearable— it’s well worth it my friends, especially if travel is for you like it is for me, deductible— being the first one on and off the plane and getting a level of service when you have a Air Server or whatever we call them now devoted to only 8-10 people makes a HUUUGE difference.

So my son, you see that’s the complexity of trying to understand an opinionated idiot.