To The Comic Book Guy.com Visitors

I'm sorry that this is not on the main homepage, but I forgot to mention that I am current'y housesitting for some friends, and won't be able to update the site for the next week and a half. That's the bad news. The good news is that I have access to a computer, which means I can still write reviews. The bad news is that I'm on 56k again, so I can't upload any of these reviews until I get back home. The good news is, updates should be frequent for awhile. Oh, and I now have a MySpace account, which I WILL be updating every few days, so check it out if you haven't yet at www.myspace.com/kevintrodriguez!

Again, sorry this is not on the homepage, but this is the only sane way I can post this update. I hope you understand. Anyway, got to get back to working on my book, as the lack of broadband is making it easier to write. Later guys!

Currently Listening To: James Horner - "Casper" Soundtrack

AWESOME!!!

IMAX, Warner Bros to release 5th Harry Potter film on July 13 2007 in US - Forbes.com

Not that I was thinking this wouldn't happen, but seeing as how I just LOVE IMAX, it makes sense that I would be very excited to hear that "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" will be released on IMAX. My IMAX probably won't get it until a month or so after the initial release, but that's okay, it's not like I don't know how the movie is going to end anyway.

Currently Listening To: Erin O' Donnel - Wide, Wide World

Wow!

You see that comic strip above this wonderful body of text? That is an official Garfield comic strip. Know what's amazing about it? Well, how about the fact that it's actually FUNNY?! I guess that old saying is true: Even a blind dog hits the hydrant every once in awhile.

Currently Listening To: Michael W. Smith - "The Second Chance" Soundtrack

It's A Sin To Kill A Mockingbird

"Scout, you can never really understand a person unless you see the world from their point of view. Walk around in their shoes and live in their skin."
-Atticus Finch, To Kill A Mockingbird

The above quote is one of my favorite quotes of all time. It conveys a truth that is very powerful, yet one I find myself easily forgetting. I have three jobs. One of my jobs is delivering pizza. Laugh at you will, but I make $500 or more a week delivering pizza to obnoxious strangers. I've been doing this for awhile now (though I plan to move on soon). When you deliver pizza in a small area for awhile, you get to know some people. There's John the security guard who works at the bank across the street. Everyday he orders a personal pizza to be delivered, and never tips. He always gives exact change. A real cheapskate if ever I saw one.

Then there's Tina who works at the Marriot Hotel on Taylor RD. She always buys a pizza with just one topping and nothing else. Every week she gets either Pepperoni, Sausage, or Ham on her pizza. She tips $5 dollars every time, regardless how long it takes. Once every couple of weeks, I see Jessie at the Barnes & Noble store. This woman is the only Christian I know who orders pizza from us, and we have actually gotten to know each other fairly well. She tells me on a weekly basis of her struggles to talk to her un-saved husband Bill, and I always take time out of my schedule to talk and pray with her. Her manager frowns on us when we pray in public, but I simply replay "Lady, ask anyone who knows me, and they'll tell you I don't care about making good impressions."

The one person who I hate to see though is Joanne. Joanne is some forty something lady who lives in an apartment complex. She is dying of cancer. She's been fighting it for years, but it looks like that battle is coming to an end, and she's not winning. Whenever she buys pizza, I can tell I'll be seeing her a few days in a row, as she doesn't buy pizza unless her doctor orders her to stay in her house. I asked her out of curiosity why she doesn't go to the hospital, and her simple replay is "I hate hospitals. I'm going die sooner or later, and I don't want to die in a hospital." She only buys small pizza's, sometimes a salad, and she always gives me $20 or more tips. I love getting large tips, but it hurts me to see a good person rotting away because of cancer.

I knew two people in my life who died of cancer. I don't want to know a third person. She's been ordering more frequently now, which means she's been stuck at home more and more these days. My biggest fear will be once the deliveries to her apartment stop coming. Working in a food place is not much fun sometimes. You have to put up with stupid customers, dumb complaints, and the pay is abysmal. Yet, over the last couple of years as a delivery boy, I've met people. Most of the people I meet simply pay me and I leave, but every once in awhile I get to actually know someone. You go there enough times, and you learn something about them. Sometimes they share their view on something going on in their life that helps me realize something in mine.

I saw Joanne today, and she looked so weak. She was using two crutches to walk around, and I get the feeling I won't be seeing her too many more times. She gave me a $30 tip today. That worries me. As I look back on this whole situation, I can't help but wonder about life in general. There are so many people out there. Nice people too. I meet some of them as I delivery, and I wonder why I don't know these people in my personal life. And when I meet these people, I desperately want to see things from their point of view, and understand them, so I can pray for them better. Right now I'm going to work on taking some steps to getting to know people better these days. Hopefully when I take those steps to getting to know someone, they'll see me as more then a snoopy pizza guy, but as a person who wants to get to know them better.

Currently Listening To: Michael W. Smith - The First Decade

The Problem With Studio's And TV Sets

Amazon.com: Everwood - The Complete First Season

There has been a disturbing trend in TV on DVD I've noticed recently. As you all know, TV is not worth watching these days. At all. "ER" used to be a forty-five minute motion picture every week, but these days it's more of a prime time soap opera. "Veronica Mars" and "One Tree Hill" are terrible shows that get terrible ratings, but got renewed while "Everwood," a show that is extremely intelligent and got better ratings than the last few episodes of "The Apprentice" got canceled. "7th Heaven" got saved from the grave due to some seven million viewers watching the series finally, but still managed to lose The WB fifteen million dollars. The family sitcoms like "I Love Lucy," "Home Improvement," and "Boy Meets World" is dead.

Heck, scratch that: ALL sitcoms are dead, because we are no longer allowed to laugh and watch stupid (but fun) shows! Men and woman are on all these reality shows trying to win a million dollars by marrying into wealth. There is nothing rated TV-G on TV unless you watch Cartoon Network or Nickelodeon. Sex, violence, and language have go so high, that "The Simpson's" looks like a family show these days (it's not). I mean, gees, is it any wonder TV shows on DVD were one of the best things to happen in a long time? Now we had the opportunity to not only buy some of our favorite shows on DVD, but we could also catch shows that we didn't catch the first time around, or watch shows that never got a chance to find an audience (I've pointing at "Clerks" here).

At first, this was a wonderful thing. The chance to be able to buy every episode of "Home Improvement" (one of my favorite shows) was a dream come true. Story oriented shows like "Smallville" are a dream come on DVD, because you can spend long weekends watching an epic story unfold in your living room. And DVD like the "7th Heaven" DVD's remind you why the show became popular in the first place. Which is why these movie studios are really ticking me off with their new TV show on DVD policy. When this first started, the general idea was that if you started releasing a show on DVD in season box sets, you released the whole series sooner or later.

The reason was because there's an audience for everything. If the series only sold a few hundred thousand copies instead of the million you made, you just made less copies of the DVD come the second time around. On top of that, it was in the studios best interest to keep the sets of a show coming because poor sellers could sell tons in the long run if later seasons were released, and there were deals from stores that would give consumers a deal if they bought more then one season. That is no longer the case. Now the new policy is this: If the show doesn't ship a million copies the first week, then it's not in the studios best interest to continue releasing the sets.

Okay, now that might not be the official policy, but I can't imagine the real policy looking much different. The problem started when TV sets of recent series began hitting store shelves, like "Smallville," "24," and "One Tree Hill." After the first season of "Smallville" premiered, Warner Bros. released the first season on DVD a month before the second season premiered. This DVD sold like hot cakes because of the people who watched the first season, and from the people who didn't watch the first season, but bought the DVD after hearing from other people how good the show was. Then shows like "24," "Gilmore Girls," and "ER" started selling like hot cakes too. The reason was simple: The shows were still being produced.

Since TV shows started break the million units sold line, TV on DVD has been forever changed. Now the studios only want to release shows that can sell one million units in a short amount of time. This policy has put several shows on DVD in danger of not being released fully. For example, let's start with an older show that is a classic, but not a huge classic. The show is called "Mork & Mindy," and this is the show that introduced us to a comedic actor named Robin Williams, who, far as I can remember, became famous for voicing some blue genie in a Disney cartoon. Anyway, this is a funny show. A VERY funny show! It's also from the year 1978. That certainly isn't from the last ten years.

The first season was released on DVD. Despite the fact that there are only four seasons in this show, Paramount has no plans to release any more season of the show. The reason? Because the show "sold poorly." Now, they'll need to forgive me for being ignorant here for a few minutes. I'm not a studio executive, and I know that ultimately a studio releases something with the hopes of making some money on the product, but I have to wonder how "Mork & Mindy" could have POSSIBLY sold poorly! The show is almost thirty years old. No offense, but how many copies of this DVD were they hoping would sell? One million? Two million? Five hundred thousand? How many?

The reason I ask this is because this is an old show, and to expect it to be a million unit seller is kind of crazy. Of course, the other problem is that if fans want to get more seasons of a show released, they are at the mercy of the studios. "Mork & Mindy" fans want to know how many units of season one sold, and how many more would have to sell to get season two released. Paramount has not revealed the numbers to either of these questions, they've just stated that the series sold poorly, which doesn't really help the consumer out much. Another couple of shows that are in limbo are "7th Heaven" and "Party of Five."

Now both of these shows had to sell well enough to make some money, because they both got season two releases, but now the word is future releases have been canceled due to...you guess it; poor sales. But the question remains, how many units did they plan to sell to warrant another season, and how many did sell in the long run? And not only that, has the show has been selling decently over time, or does it only matter if it moves a certain amount of units during the first three weeks that determine whether a show continues to get future releases made? Whatever it is, you won't hear any of these answers answered by a studio executive.

My final example of how horrible this system is is with the release of the first season of "Everwood." Season one of one of the best TV shows came to DVD, but no future releases were made. The reason was that sales for the first set were too poor to warrant continuing the series. During a recent chat when people asked about future releases, Warner Bros. just said that more people needed to buy season one should they make season two. Since then, the season one sets have been selling like hot cakes. No one has any numbers to show how much sets have been sold the past few weeks, but Amazon.com has shown the set in the top ten for quite awhile now.

It briefly went to number 28 on the list when the new releases came out on Tuesday, but then it crept right back up to number 8. Surely this means the set is selling well, yet there is still no word on whether or not they've sold enough copies to continue the show, how much more they need to sell, or whether it's too late anyway, and it doesn't matter how many sets they sell, there won't be any more seasons of "Everwood" released. As you can see, what was once a great hobby has quickly become a big nightmare for fans. I can almost see why some fans wait until a company proves themselves by releasing the whole series of a show on DVD before they buy the sets.

Sure they may be shooting themselves in the foot, but at this point in the game, that almost makes sense. After all, why buy season one of a show, only to find out that you won't be able to buy the other nine seasons? It almost makes buying the first season feel kind of pointless. So what can be done here? I honestly don't know. A boycott won't work, because then the studios just simply won't release anything, and petitions are a waste of time because money does the talking. The main problem is we just don't know how much the studios want to continue producing sets.

It's a problem that needs to be addressed by some big DVD site, and hopefully it will be. Until then, all I know is that my first two seasons of "7th Heaven" and my first season of "Everwood" are begging for the rest of their family, and I don't know what to tell them

Currently Listening To: Angela Aki - "Final Fantasy XII" Soundtrack

Testing

Just testing something out. This post will mean nothing to anybody else.

Books I've Been Reading

As you all know, I'm an avid reader. And not just of comic books. I read novels, self help books, and political books. I've decided to write down some thoughts on some of the books I've been reading.


Deception Point by Dan Brown

Ah yes, another Dan Brown book. I can tell you right now, I'm getting just a little tired of Brown's superficial novels that have shallow characters, lots of action, and totally impossible conspiracies (though the book claims they have merit). This book started out as an interesting political thriller, of which the book became about two men battling to win a presidential election, and using whatever tactics they could to hurt the other candidate. This is an interesting idea for a book, one that I would love to read. Sadly, the book becomes completely uninteresting when Brown switches gears a quarter way into the book and introduces an ALIEN in the story!

No joke, this book goes from being about political power, and becomes about life on another planet. And the book just lost me right there and then. I do read a couple of chapters of this book whenever I have to go to the bathroom, but I find my interest in this book waning. I'm more then halfway done with the book, but something tells me I won't be finishing this journey anytime soon (if at all). Dan Brown has to be one of the most overrated authors of our time.


Bush Word by Maureen Dowd

Switching gears just a bit, I now to an unusual book entitled "Bush World." This is a strange book for me. I voted for Bush. I admit he's not the best president in the world, but I agree with some of his morals when it comes to war, homeland security, and same sex marriages. That said, I did not expect to be so entertained by a book that does nothing but tear Bush apart like he was a toothpick. The writing in this book is pretty good. It's certainly not the best political writing I've ever read. It's better then Michael Moore but not as good as Michael Savage.

Actually, I think Maureen Dowd is on par with Ann Coulter. Both authors write columns that are extreme, sarcastic, and extremely biting. Sometimes the opinions come off as either too extreme, too cartoony, or both, but they are entertaining to read whether you agree with them or not. I don't completely agree with all of Dowd's opinions on Bush or what he's doing, but I can't deny that this is a very entertaining book. Of course, I found this book at the Dollar Tree Store, so I didn't break my back paying for it either.


To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

This book will ring more familiar to a lot more people then the above books will. There is really nothing more I can say about this book that hasn't already been said before. Everyone's read this book, it's critically acclaimed, one of the best books of all time, blah, blah, blah. I will say one thing though: Now that I've read it, I can say that all the praise this book has received is absolutely true. This IS an awesome book! Highly recommended.

This was fun. We'll have to do this again sometime. Oh, and help Save Everwood at www.everwoodonline.com.

Currently Listening To: Starship - Greatest Hits