Clark, if there's one lesson I've learned from you ...

Why do so many sites make it so difficult to make web pages look good?

More places should look at tumblr because of its wide selection of themes and then letting users make their own and have it offered. I hadn't even realized there were so many options before this weekend, I usually just pick one of the featured templates but so much more there.

And now that I have a much more refined knowledge on html/css I can tweak things to my liking.  Anyway, this all came about because I decided to do a much needed overhaul of my lj design, and I was just disappointed by the lack of resources for customization, especially compared to Tumblr.

Of course this probably has more to do with LJ & DW being older designs but I spent way too much time just searching for flexible templates to alter for my liking. Thankfully I found one that gives me the ability to have a two column design and a header without much fuss. Probably the last design I'll use here on LJ unless they have some vast system improvement because it will be easy for me to customize the colors and change the header for whatever theme I want.  Which at the moment is Glee-ified because that show owns me right now.

I found myself going over so many lines of html that after fixing my LJ I only halfheartedly started on my DW page. I'll probably save that for the next weekend. It just kills me that changing my tumblr theme took .. maybe 10 mins... while all this takes hours upon hours.

Which reminds me, did LJ get rid of the automatic uploading of mood themes? The link I had bookmarked has since been deleted so I had to put all that in manually which took forever.

Saw it this afternoon. Was unexpectedly spoiled yesterday on tumblr with a pic of Tom Hiddleston's spoiler tweet (DAMN LOKI). Still think its crazy the buzz for this movie. I wonder how much of this has more to do with Robert Downey Jr who seems to be box office gold since the first Iron Man.

Trailers wise. Frankenweenie looks cute. Brave looks awesome. Prometheus looks interesting. Some Shia Labeauf/Tom Hardy movie looks curious. Battleship I have no interest in and I don't know. No TDKR or TASM. SAD.

( Spoilers! )

One of my desktops from April:

This was a kick-ass Stephanie Brown Batgirl cosplay done by one of the dangerousladies girls( I believe Jenn who also does a great Supergirl) who do some awesome cosplay.

I didn't do it this month but as I was changing wallpapers for May I got to thinking about uploading a folder that would just contain all the wallpapers I use (or their original images aka before i resize/crop for my dimensions) for anyone to dl if they are interested.

Wonder Woman #1 - I love the art (Cliff Chiang) but I will say the first half or so was a bit confusing with the lack of dialogue. I liked the action and the last bit with Diana, Hermes and Zola made up for the confusion earlier. An interesting start.

Supergirl #1 - I loved this issue. Don't know how I feel about the metor containing Supergirl going through the Earth's mantle but whatever. I liked her confusion, thinking it was a dream until the sun came up and she knew something was wrong. And then the ending page, perfect first issue.

Red Hood and the Outlaws #1 - I don't like the changes made to Kori that she can barely tell the difference between humans and has no care about the "group" she was with before. It's an understandable conceit and probably done so to help buffer any dislike of Kori's sexual proclivities but ugh, Kori/Dick was one of my favorite pairings and for her to be frolicking with Roy and Jason, its like a nightmare in that aspect lol.

Nightwing #1 - It'll take a bit to get used to Nightwing being red colored but I liked this first issue. The whole I have to be different than Bruce gotta be in some loft in the bad part of the city is getting a bit old, I feel like Dick is moved to a new place with every writer that takes over. Especially when having access to the Cave and the mansion is so handy, or even the penthouse with the bunker underneath it, it seems a waste to shelve all that. I do like the return of Haly's Circus and the continuing of Dick's tendency for redheads, and even the hired merc with claws is interesting.

Catwoman #1 - Not bad. I'm not a fan of Guillem March's art, disliked it on Gotham City Sirens so the fact that it has followed Selina to her own book I'm a little disappointed. I also am less thrilled by the fact that Winick is the writer and that he just had Selina brutally kill a guy. I don't mind bringing back the thief, grey aspect of Catwoman but that seemed a bit much. Hot and Heavy with the Bat, at least they kept one thing consistent lol.

Birds of Prey #1 - Interesting first issue. Again like the Batman & Robin book with Bruce/Damian, I'm a little confused and disheartened by the coldness between Dinah/Babs. Outside of that, I'm all for the book, and I'm glad that reporter wasn't going to be a continual presence because his perspective just wasn't needed. This could be Dinah's solo book in the way that Green Arrow/Black Canary never was.

Batman #1 - By far the main Batman books seem to be hitting all cylinders. Snyder just does the Bat Family so well and I love seeing the Bruce Wayne side of things along with Batman, sometimes Bruce is forgotten by other writers and all that you get is Batman. The last page twist didn't do much for me but I am sure it's going to be a great mystery to be revealed. Also love Vicki Vale. Also Capullo's art is a nice change of pace, love it!

Flash #1 - One of the first comics I read of the new DC52 and I have to say one of the things I love about the reboot is freeing up the locked in relationships (I like Patty Spivot and seeing Iris West in a more Lois Lane type role). The art by Manapul is amazing (and I have to say the seams that have been added to a lot of the heroes costumes I like a lot) and the story seems interesting with so many clones? of Barry's friend.

Teen Titans #1 - Solid first issue. I really don't get some organization getting the jump on Tim unless he meant to let them so he could find out who he's dealing with, and I'm intrigued to see how Cassie is different. Kid Flash ... it depends on who he is, there's much confusion there but I do wish they'd build the team first before sending  Superboy after them but I guess .. if he is going to be part of the team it makes sense.

Batman: The Dark Knight #1 - Not as great as the other two Batman books but pretty good. I like Finch's art, and Jaina Hudson seems like an interesting new character. That internal affairs guy I could care less about and I am intrigued by what happened to Two-Face.

Aquaman #1 - Masterful first issue, you can tell that Geoff Johns just gets it. I like how they confront the misconceptions/stereotypes built up about the character and his frustration/anger about it. And monsters from the sea, I am excited about the series.

Superman #1 - Probably the downside of freeing up relationships, it just feels weird for Lois to be with someone else. As long as they don't turn Clark into a morose voyeur like Superman Returns I can live with it for awhile. A lot happened in the book, maybe too much but I can understand wanting to try to set up the world and get going as fast as possible. One positive note, not one mention of Luthor.

And that was it! All through the pile of books I've had sitting on my coffee table for a good six months at least. Apologies for filling up so much commentary on 8 month old stories.

Here is where I will talk about comics that came out uh .. 8 months ago? Yeesh. I am so behind. Once I get through this pile I'm skipping ahead to January releases. Busy Busy Busy.

Detective Comics #881 - I really wish there had been more time to explore the Dick as Batman story. I think Snyder is one of the few writers who wrote Dick well and didn't just try to turn him into Bruce-lite. I also would have liked to have seen more between Dick!Bat and Barbara/Jim Gordon, which was some with this story. It's a great dynamic.

Batgirl #24 - It's a shame that the story was rushed to a quick end but I love Steph so it was a nice wrap up. I also liked the glimpses of what she saw under the influence and I loved the Nightwing-esque outfit in one and the one where it looks like she is a mom with I will pretend is Tim's kid since I loved those two together.

Batman #713 - A great story telling the balance between first Bruce!Bat and Dick!Robin to then Dick!Bat and Damian!Robin.  I love the parallels between the two and how Waynes seem to grow best working with a Grayson.  Not a better duo than a balanced Batman & Robin.

Justice League of America #60 - Now this is a depressing issue. I was always a fan of this incarnation of the group given that it had the next generation Dick, Donna, Jade, Kara, Jesse, etc. leading but Robinson wrote some way out there stories and honestly Bagley's art really set the book back. He just did not fit with the characters. One of the things I enjoyed greatly was seeing Dick and Kara interact, the crush aspect and all it entails.

Action Comics #904 - Okay, I'll be honest I remember very little about the Reign of the Doomsdays but I did think a previous issue had resolved everything with Luthor failing so this was a little weird to see them all fighting again. Everything was just okay, nothing special. A nice little speech by Lois at the end but I feel like that is something that is too often repeated in Superman stories this days, reminding him that his goodness is why people do what they do for him.

Teen Titans #100 - Extra-sized issue, nice sprawling battle.  Also enjoyed the appearance of the Source Wall, using it to trap Superboy-Prime. And one of the things I've always liked about a teen team book is the possibility for ever changing relationships, like this one had a little tease of Conner/Rose but of course Conner screws up by not seeing it at all and going in a complete different direction. Love the art at the end, reminds me how much I enjoyed the future Titans arc that happened so many years ago.

Wonder Woman #614 - Outside of that weird Witchblade-esque moment in the beginning with the sword, it was nice to see Diana finish her odyssey and return to the life she remembered.  Touching end with Hippolyta remarking the end of this era.

Looking forward to starting the pile of #1 issues I have left. Will save for another post. NEXT STOP THE DCNU.

New month means my monthly ritual of randomly selecting images I've saved on my hard drive to spruce up the desktops of my computer. Here's what I had on my screen in March:

On my PC main screen was a Po/Tigress hug from Kung Fu Panda 2. An OTP that blindsided me.


On my MBP screen was a Chloe/Clark aftermath moment from Season 3 'Magnetic' where they kiss to distract the doctor from the real reason they were in the office.

Since it's nearly the end of the month I just realized since moving back over to a PC as my everyday computer after Christmas I had not continued to share my desktop wallpapers over the months. Which I shall do now. Since I use two monitors regularly, I go with the theme of a group shot on the bigger TV and a solo shot on the main monitor. I'll interchange every month to highlight my favorite of the two. If you want the wallpaper let me know. :)

December was Clark/Chloe from Smallville Season 1.


January was Yoko from Gurren Lagann.


And this month's is Morgana Pendragon from Merlin.

Another sign in that I've been somewhat derelict with my LJ, I am starting to go through my email and answer back comments that I meant to, days, weeks, months ago. LOL. But I'm doing it now, SO THERE.

Does anyone need/want a dreamwidth invite? I have quite a few that I haven't shared before just sitting in my email inbox. I don't know if its still needed to start an account but if you do then let me know. :)

Shock here but I decided to take a web development night class this spring and it has me itching to do some transforming to my LJ and DW journals, which I gave up on doing a long time ago. So I was wondering if anyone knows of a site that details what needs to be left in the code for the journals to still work that way I can really try to manipulate the look/feel.

I doubt I'll ever have time to make icons like I once did so it's back to scavenging through communities for icons. Anyone got any recs of big icon places? I should probably do a search through DW too for communities to follow, last time I did that was back during the old LJ exodus of what 2 or so years ago?

(Well I did it. Sure I'll get the hang of it as I go on. It is challenging talking to yourself with the intent for others to listen.)

P.S. Unfortunately it seems that I can't embed the audio player here on DW/LJ so I will just have to leave a link to the MWC tumblr post that has an embed for the episode. I am currently in the process of submitting to iTunes.

http://merlinwatchcast.tumblr.com/post/18062867300/mwc001

Every journey has a first step ... and for the initial voyage of the MerlinWatch podcast, Adrian covers award shows, DVD releases, along with a look back at Merlin's first episode "The Dragon's Call".

RT: 33:41

While I'm on a gaming topic, I thought I'd mention that I noticed two weeks ago that sometime over the last few months DC's MMORPG, DCU Online has gone free-to-play, meaning you just download the game (18GB) and then you are off playing on your PC.

Anyway, being the big DC fan that I am I've been interested in playing it since it was announced years ago and Jim Lee pretty much stopped doing interiors for a year or two just to work on the designs of the game and by far the artwork of the game is FANTASTIC.  The presentation for the game, with all the voices they chose and the believable storyline created to legitimize why there would be all of a sudden a bunch of new heroes in the DC world, it was a fun intro to watch.

There was plenty of customization options in the character creator, and like any game with a creator I ended up taking a good hour plus to create my hero, Heraldic Titan.  I've only gotten through the first bit of the game but I'm having a good time with it.  I'm not really a PC gamer, growing up around consoles and outside of school not interacting with a computer till my teens so I do get a bit of that repetitive tedious feeling when I'm having to type keys and then somehow control the mouse with only two hands... I really want a controller in my hand and I think if I had purchased the game and had a subscription to it I would have to get a controller for me to really enjoy the game the most.

That said I am interested in continuing the story and interacting with the DC heroes. And maybe if I enjoy this enough it will give me enough reason to try the Star Wars MMO The Old Republic.