I'm Sailing!

-
Yesterday, my office had an outing. Not to Main Event where I could play video games in peace, but rather to Volente Beach. Not bad, really. My friend and fellow Analyst Lupita invited me to pilot a jetski she had rented at a nearby marina; after a short hike and a brief ordeal with dogs that sounded much larger thay they appeared to be, I was briefed on how to operate the tiny vessel. Soon we were off and skipping across the waves. I turned past Starnes Island and out into the lake. It was about then that the waves grew larger, and I thought about heading back closer to the marina. There was another hazard, though: another jetskier approaching. Lupita urged me to avoid him, which I did. Then, she told me to go meet him. Of course, all this time, I couldn't see him well, as I was looking forward. I cut the engine, and the fellow motored closer. It was the guy from the marina! He told us he needed to put a plug back in the jetski, as he had forgotten before we left. A touch scary, that. He dove in and fixed us up, and then we were on our way, up another arm of the lake. Soon, though, the white-knuckle grip and wave action took its toll on me, and after a brief pause, I talked Lupita into heading back early. She found another sucke...uh, passenger, and went back out for another hour. I took a nap on the beach.

Popular posts from this blog

Halloween Man vs The Invisible Man, by Drew Edwards and Sergio Calvet

-
The second entry in Drew Edwards’ series of Halloween Man specials, Halloween Man versus The Invisible Man melds emotional realism with the titillating and the fantastical to create a gritty and satisfying adventure. Solar City’s fetish community has been rocked by a series of unexplained deaths when the grand dame of the scene, Claudette, comes to visit her old frenemy Lucy Chaplin, or more precisely, Lucy’s beau, Solomon Hitch. Our hero is reluctant to engage in this sort of heroism; while he’s commonly called upon to thwart the ghastly and creepy, the problem is a mystery, and he’s no detective. While comic book heroes often express token reluctance in order to build suspense, it can usually be chalked up to a gruff misanthropic streak or false humility; in this case, Solomon is genuinely out of his depth and has good reason to defer, only taking the case out of a sense of solidarity with a subculture that is marginalized and sensationalized by the media in the same way he is. The
Read more

A Year on the Strida Evo 3

-
When I resolved to rationalize and expand my bicycle stable, I realized that my trusty, elegant commuter and reliable little folding bike would have to go. Ivy Mike was a lightly modified 2011 Novara Fusion that met all my on-road needs in style. However, when he was in the shop, or I needed to be flexible with my transportation plans, it was Nightbeat, a 2014 Novara FlyBy that took up the slack. In order to make room for a folding mountain bike and a folding road bike to explore the many trails in Austin and the many long organized rides around Austin respectively, the roles of my two steed would have to be met by a single new bike. What folds small for logistical flexibility, has multiple internal gears, disc brakes for wet stopping, fenders, and can mount panniers? I'd been pining after the Tern Verge S8i for some time, but at $2,100, it was simply more than I was willing to spend. I examined its features and picked what I could reasonably compromise on. Hydraulic discs were n
Read more

Halloween Man: Hallowtide, by Drew Edwards and Lucio Inzunza

-
The world of Drew Edwards' Halloween Man is, despite it supernatural flavor and horror pedigree, very down-to-earth. Opponents are dispatched with physical weapons, often of the melee variety, and generally have at least one bloody bite taken out of them by the hero. When greater powers do appear, they may be mysterious, but they're not exactly revered . The mystic who made Solomon Hitch into the titular hero, Morlack, is such a greater power, as well as a lush, a slob, and an all-around horse's rear. While Solomon and Lucy do the heavy lifting of dispatching Spring Heeled Jack, whose powers flow from a source similar to Halloween Man’s, the engrossing part of this Samhain story is the embroidering of the universe in which it’s set. While it’s a small window into Morlak’s lengthy past, it helps round out the enigmatic and frustrating character by  adding a few data points about just where his line between right and wrong is drawn, as well as a better idea where his moral c
Read more