Prohibition party? Sounds lame

I was taking a look at the third-party presidential candidates and I saw that there is apparently still a Prohibition Party.

A political party working toward the prohibition of alcohol irritates me. Being a proud Colorado native, beer is a way of life. From the annual Great American Beer Festival to the numerous high-quality microbreweries in town, there's a reason why Denver's the drunkest city in America, Colorado Springs is third and Aurora is 19th.

But I do admit, presidential candidate Gene Amondson has a good sense of humor about it.

My reading list for the week of Aug. 20

I've seen many a' comic book blogger do this with their weekly pick-ups. So here's what I picked up off the racks this week (and you'll quickly notice that I'm a big Marvel fan):

My usual

Incredible Hercules #120
I randomly picked up this book a few months ago after I found out that Greg Pak was writing it. Since then, it's been one of the ones I look forward to picking up every week. In this issue, Hercules and the rest of the God Squad venture into the Skrull gods world to do battle. Pak hasn't disappointed me with this series, so I don't expect a letdown this month.

Review: 3-1/2 out of four stars
Pak and crew continue their witty, banter-heavy tales of Hercules in this latest issue. It's been one of my favorite pick-ups and this one issue the trend. There's nothing like watching Herc and his God Squad stomping into the Skrull gods' home and rumbling.

Uncanny X-Men #501
Aside from my brief indulgence of "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures" in 1990, "Uncanny X-Men" was my first true foray into the world of comic books. Although it's been a few years since I've read them consistently (I think I left off around issue #350), it's always held a special place in my heart. I started reading them again starting with #500 when they moved to San Francisco. Old villains return, new heroes make their appearance. Seems like a good start. Writer Ed Brubaker is apparently one of the hotter names in the business, so I should feel confident that he treats the mutant team well. I'm not sold on artist Greg Land's photo-referencing heavy style — the characters kinda look static — but I can't do anything about that.

Review: 2-1/2 out of four stars
Brubaker is setting up his X-Men crew in San Fran. The gist of this issue introduces the reader to who the main players are going to be for the foreseeable future. Wait — that's what he did in issue 500. He does introduce a mutant-hating group that goes around physically assaulting mutants, but aside from the attack on Pixie, there's no action. It's a decent read, but I'm waiting for more.

Marvel 1985 #4
Writer Mark Millar's story about how characters from the Marvel Universe are somehow appearing in a young boy named Toby Goodman's world is one of the more interesting concepts that I've read in a while. Supposedly there's a tie-in with two of Millar's other storylines right now — "Fantastic Four" and the Old-Man Logan story in "Wolverine" — that's supposed to introduce some new bad ass villain. I need to pick up the past few "Fantastic Four" issues to see what's going on.

Review: 2 out of four
This issue spends its time setting up something big for the next issue. Things happen, but nothing significant enough that would make substantial ground between the last issue and the next issue. Meh.

My impulse buy

Captain America #41 Monkey variant
I like Captain America and I like monkeys. Put them together and it's a no-brainer for me. I'm not really sure what's going on in the series right now, but I've read on other blogs that the storyline is interesting. Whatever. I have a comic with Captain America as an ape on the cover. That rocks!

My usuals that have been dropped

Squadron Supreme 2
Don't get me wrong, issue No. 1 was pretty interesting. It's an look at what DC and Marvel characters would be like in an alternate world. But No. 1 didn't interest me enough to drop another $3 for a comic that's just OK.

Batgirl
Same reason as above. It wasn't bad, but I didn't care enough to pick up a second issue.

What I'm planning on picking up next week

Kick-Ass #4
This is simply the best comic out there right now. Period.
New Avengers #44
This has the best tie-in stories to the Secret Invasion books.
Ultimate Spider-Man #125
A model of consistancy. These are always well written.
Wolverine #68
Old-man Logan goes to part three. I'm curious as to what happened to Wolverine that made him a passive sissy.

What I may pick up, but can't decide

Daredevil #110 Monkey variant
It's Daredevil — as a baboon! How can I go wrong?

Obama's latest endorsement

I'm still holding out to hear what the Hulk has to say.

Downey shows his allegiance

Robert Downey Jr. amuses me.

When Moviehole asked him about his thoughts on "The Dark Knight," this is how he responded:

“I'm like, 'I get it. This is so high-brow and so f---ing smart, I clearly need a college education to understand this movie,'” the actor ranted before adding, “You know what? F--- DC comics. That's all I have to say and that's where I'm really coming from.”

I guess you could say, Make His Marvel.

More Olympic-sized thoughts

Perfection personified
Sweet Jesus.

Michael Phelps went eight-for-eight and broke Mark Spitz's 36-year-old record of seven gold medals in one Olympics.

But he only broke seven world records doing it.

If he had a couple more days, I'm sure he would've finished the games with a dozen golds.

Damn, it feels good to be an American today.


Kings of the mountain Spain, who were considered to be one of the toughest opponents to the U.S. in basketball, were stomped, 119-82.

The Americans have always had far more talent than any other country, but what's different this year than the 2004 team is that they are unselfish. They have three pass-first point guards, but the fact that their star players are willing to let others take over when they're not on their game is helping them destroy the competition.

Oh, and playing defense certainly helps.


Queens of the mountain I can't forget to mention the women's basketball team who have been stomping through their bracket, too. How you turn a four-point halftime lead over Spain into a 40-point drubbing is beyond me.


Dropping the torch
The 100m dash, once a sport dominated by Americans, concluded with only one medal by the U.S. — a bronze by Walter Dix. Tyson Gay, who hasn't been in top form since pulling his hammy during the trials failed to even advance to the finals.

On the women's side, all three Americans made it to the finals, but all failed to medal.

Props to Jamaica for dominating the events. Their women swept, while Usain "Lightning" Bolt got the men's world record with ease. Not bad for a guy who just started running the 100m this year. Scary.

Spain's Chinky-eyed surprise

Recently, ads ran in Spanish newspapers featuring their men's and women's national basketball teams posing with their fingers pulling their eyes back. Then pictures of Spain's tennis team doing the same thing were found.

Good job – there's nothing like mocking an entire race of people with your Chinky-eyed "tribute."

Who's bright idea was that? Who thought it was a good idea to make a stereotypical gesture and not think that people wouldn't be offended?

This isn't helping your country's bid at the 2016 Summer Olympics. Especially when guard Jose Calderon, who also plays for the Toronto Raptors, makes idiotic ramblings on his blog.

"We have great respect for the Far East and its people, some of my best friends in Toronto are originally Chinese, including one of our sponsors, the brand Li Ning," Calderon wrote. "Whoever wants to interpret it differently is completely confusing it."

In short, because he has friends who are of Chinese descent, it makes this perfectly acceptable.

Bull crap.

It's the same excuse used by countless others who try to justify their racist actions. And that's what this is: a racist action.

I don't care if they meant it in jest and they didn't mean to offend anyone. The fact of the matter is, it did offend people, so they need to own up to it.

And Pau Gasol's half-assed apology doesn't cut it.

"It was something supposed to be funny or something, but never offensive in any way," Gasol said to the press. "I'm sorry if anybody thought or took it the wrong way and thought that it was offensive."

Saying you're sorry if people took it the wrong way isn't apologizing. Just ask the editorial staff at The Campus Press for Max Karson's lame article earlier this year.

Gasol and the rest of the Spanish basketball teams and the tennis team need to do a real apology for doing something that was juvenile and idiotic. Will it erase what they did? No, but it would be a start to moving forward.

Olympic-sized thoughts

After a disappointing start by the American men's singles players — two of the three lost in the first round — first-time Olympian James Blake took down Roger Federer to advance to the semifinals.

Not bad for a guy who coming into the match had a record of 0-8 against Federer.

Online Escape: Bowser's Minions

Online Escape: Les Simpsons en Francais

Philippe Peythieu does the best foreign Homer voice.

Proud to be an American

I love the Olympics — I always become hyped up and über-patriotic when this event comes around.

There's something about cheering for national pride when it comes to physical competition. Yeah, there are great stories from other countries and I suppose it's fun to cheer for the underdog, but it's much more fun seeing the U.S. smash the competition.

My favorite American storylines:

Michael Phelps going for eight gold medals
The kid's a beast. I don't see him losing any of his individual matches. It's up to his teammates to keep this dream alive — just follow Jason Lezak's lead.


U.S. Men's Basketball reclaiming their top spot in the world
For years, the U.S. dominated the game of basketball. But the world finally caught up over the past 10 years — this was particularly evident in the last Olympics where the U.S. lost three games and finished 3rd. But can they really lose with Melo, Kobe and LeBron?


Who will be the next U.S. boxing star to come out of these Olympics?
I miss the days when winning gold medals meant a springboard into professional boxing for U.S. amateur athletes. Will there be another Oscar De La Hoya or Roy Jones Jr.? (he should've won that final match). The last gold medalist, middleweight Andre Ward, has been under-the-radar when it comes to the pro game.


Can Tyson Gay bring back the sprinting trophy to the U.S.?
He ran the fastest time anyone has ever run during the trials, but will he be fast enough to take down Usain Bolt?

I bleed red, white and blue, but there is one other country I root for: Vietnam. I still have my ethnic pride and, to be honest, Vietnam doesn't have much of a chance to compete for anything, so I root for them.


And sometimes they surprise me. Vietnamese weightlifter Anh Tuan Hoang, left, took the silver medal in the 56kg division this weekend. It was Vietnam's second medal in any Olympics.

More than meets the eye

I saw this shirt when I was in Chicago this past weekend. It amused me.

Golden Boy and the PacMan

Manny Pacquiao vs. Oscar De La Hoya.

This is one of those fantasy match-ups that fans bicker over because there's no way it would ever take place. Pacquiao is a lightweight (135 lb.) who started his career at 108 pounds. De La Hoya began his pro career at 130, but found most of his success around 147 pounds.

Both are elite fighters. De La Hoya was regarded as one of the best pound-for-pound fighters in his heyday. Pacquiao is arguably the best today.

But a match-up between these two would be preposterous, right?

The big rumor in world of boxing is that Oscar is in negotiations to fight the "Thrilla from Manila" at 147 pounds sometime in December.

Holy crap.

Now basic reasoning says this would be a ridiculous mismatch. De La Hoya is 5'10-1/2" — that gives him a considerable size advantage to Pacquiao's 5'6-1/2" frame. Oscar hits harder than anyone Pacquiao has ever faced. Even though he's 35, his double left hook still packs a big wallop.

But what isn't being considered is that De La Hoya is moving down in weight — something that's much more difficult than packing it on. In an ESPN story about the fight, an expert said that Oscar may lose the wrong kind of weight trying to go down.

Plus, he hasn't been down to 147 in more than seven years.

And in his last fight, Pacquiao came to the ring weighing 146 after weighing in at 135 the day before.

I'm looking at this like the De La Hoya/Mayweather fight. It was at 154 pounds, but Mayweather came in at 150 and won the fight.

(Though I feel that Mayweather didn't do enough to win the title from De La Hoya, but that's beside the point)

But what's different from the DLH/Mayweather fight is that this one should have more action. Pacquiao doesn't shy away from trading with his opponents and neither does Oscar.

Online Escape: How to tell folks they sound racist