Monday, March 30, 2009

Go State!

As Emily and I were coming home from church, we talked a bit about the MSU Spartans' chance against Louisville in the Elite Eight. The game was going on at the time, but we had no idea what the score was. I opined that Louisville was playing better than MSU in the tournament. Louisville had beat Arizona by something like 378-10 in their previous game. I thought that Louisville was capable of blowing out MSU, but MSU was not capable of blowing out Louisville. I said if MSU was clicking they would have the game close with a chance to win it at the end, but that I doubted they would be in control of the game at any point.

When we got back to our apartment a student was running down the hall and he yelled "MSU is up by 13 with 3 minutes left."

Final score: MSU 64-Louisville 52

I've never been so pleased to be so wrong in my sports analysis. Michigan State will be playing in the Final Four in Detroit this weekend.

Sunday, March 29, 2009

Comps, Books, and Comics Forums

We've had a wee bit of a delay since our last post. As happens to everyone, life gets busy.

Emily and I have both wrapped up our last comp exams. I've informally been told I passed mine (on Latino/a Culture and Literature), and Emily has her defense in a week. Emily's comp was on a phenomenon which is called ego-depletion (or in other words, mental fatigue- if you perform two mentally demanding tasks consecutively, performance on the second task will be worse than if nothing had been performed prior to that task). For both of us this means that all we have between us and our PhDs are little things called dissertations.

I received a copy of X-Men and Philosophy in the mail. This was exciting because I have an essay in the book. Emily's name is also in the copyright info, because my essay has a few photos that she took.

This last weekend was The Michigan State University Comics Forum which I helped to organize. The event came off really well, and it looks like we'll be doing it again next year. Our keynote speaker was David Petersen, who is the creator of a comic book series called Mouse Guard, and he gave a great talk. Attendance was good for the keynote, all the panels, and the Artist's Alley.

(Emily's writing now.) We're trying to get a regular go-to-sleep routine for Lizzie, with the end goal being that after this routine is performed at naptime or bedtime, she will go to sleep on her own without fussing. We've found that a key part of this is watching Lizzie's cues and starting the routine right when she gets tired. Otherwise, you can enter the 'I'm so tired I can't fall asleep no matter what you do' zone, which nobody likes. Sometimes it's hard to keep on a routine, especially during periods when all one of us can think about is looming deadlines. However, this past week has been pretty good- specifically, yesterday and today we have put her down for naps and bedtime, walked away, and did not have to return. Part of the routine is reading to Lizzie. Currently, I am reading Pride and Prejudice to her. Hey, it's never to early to start with classics. She needs to know the work that inspired her name. Joe reads her kid-friendly comics such as Owly and Jellaby. This can be fun to listen to because Joe has to describe to her the pictures and what they mean and also what may happen in between panels that is not explicit.

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Lizzie photos for grandparents

Emily's mom has been here helping out with Lizzie this week as I prep for conferences and other paperly obligations, and Emily is working on her last comp. It's been wonderful having her here. She's seen plenty of Lizzie this week, but there are other grandparents who are awaiting a big batch of Lizzie photos, so away we go.

Lizzie still has fantastic hair (we don't style it like this (obviously), it just chooses how it wants to look each day):


Sometimes Lizzie loves Mr. Giraffe:


And other times she wants to devour him:


Some kids go for the traditional thumbsucking, but Lizzie is attempting the much more rarely encountered reverse pinkie suck:

If we wanted we could have plenty of photos of her being fussy, but we choose to mostly use the camera when she is in good spirits. Someday this may give Lizzie the false impression that she spent her early months laughing and smiling and nothing more. As far as delusions go that one's pretty harmless. So now here's a bunch of cute photos. :


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Saturday, March 14, 2009

A mid-sneeze photo of Lizzie

I've always wanted to take a photo of someone mid-sneeze. There's no logical reason I should desire such a thing, so I suppose I'm an enigma. I was quite pleased when I got this photo of Lizzie:

Thursday, March 12, 2009

MSU Comics Forum Poster

Ryan Claytor, a professor at MSU and one of the organizers for the Comics Forum just finished up the promotional poster for the event (click on the image if you'd like to read all the text on the board). I'm quite pleased with this finished product. Ryan's a solid artist.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Monday, March 9, 2009

rackafracka potholes murmurmurmur

Michigan's pothole crop is coming in nicely this year. I'd call it a bumper crop in '09.

One of these potholes (probably one of the front three, not the back few):


did this to our car (our car is named Dobby):


We're not sure which one. Fortunately, those potholes are about ten feet from our apartment. Which is the least frustrating aspects of our adventure.

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Michigan State University Comics Forum 2009

One of the reasons I (Joe) came to Michigan State University was the Comic Art Collection housed in Special Collections of the library. This is the largest public holding of comic books in the world. Michigan State is already known for pop culture studies (The Journal of Popular Culture is housed at the University), and is becoming known for comic book studies as well. In order to promote both the Comic Art Collection and comic book studies the American Studies program is starting an annual event called The Michigan State University Comics Forum. I've been asked to help organize the event. I contacted some comic book creators as potential guests for the event, which was pretty cool. This is only the second year for the event, so it's been a good opportunity to work with some of the faculty to help define the purpose of the event. Also, I was asked to send out a press release to local news organizations and national comic book websites. First time I've ever written a press release. Here it is:

ANNOUNCING THE MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY COMICS FORUM 2009
An Event for Scholars, Creators, and Fans

EAST LANSING, MI (February, 23 2009)- The Michigan State University Comics Forum is an annual event that brings together scholars, creators, and fans in order to explore and celebrate the medium of comics, graphic storytelling, and sequential art. The Michigan State University Comics Forum 2009 is scheduled to take place March 27-28 on the campus of Michigan State University.

This year’s keynote address will be given by David Petersen, creator of the critically acclaimed Mouse Guard. David Petersen won the 2007 Russ Manning Award for Most Promising Newcomer. In 2008, David won the Eisner Awards for Best Publication for Kids (Mouse Guard Fall 1152 & Winter 1152) and Best Graphic Album – Reprint (Mouse Guard Fall 1152 Hardcover).

The event will also feature an Artist’s Alley as well as several panel discussions with academics studying comic books and professionals working in the comic book industry.

The Michigan State University Comics Forum is accepting entries for the 2009 Original Comics Collection. Ten finalists will be chosen from among the entries, from which judges will choose a single winner who will receive a $150 award. Entries will be judged based on their creativity, quality, and storytelling. The work of all finalists will be displayed at the Michigan State University Comics Forum 2009, and be collected, archived, and preserved in the Comic Art Collection housed in Michigan State University’s Special Collections. The Comic Art Collection holds over 200,000 items and is the primary library resource for the study of U.S. comic book publications.

For more information concerning The Michigan State University Comics Forum 2009, as well as submission guidelines for the 2009 Original Comics Collection, please visit http://www.comicsforum.msu.edu/. You can also follow the The Michigan State University Comics Forum 2009 on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/msucomicsforum
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The release was already posted on Newsarama.com, one of the largest websites for comic book news, which I think is rather spiffy.

Sunday, March 1, 2009

I Am Iron Man!!!

With a title like "I Am Iron Man!!!!" you'd probably imagine that this post will be about something tough and manly. Like competing in a race with multiple sporting events or saving the world from a supervillain. I suppose it depends on your definition of tough and manly, but this post is actually going to be about baking and cake design. To some that may be tough and manly, to others perhaps not.

Our church is going to be holding a fundraising bake sale next week to help the youth lessen the cost of summer camps and scout camps. Inspired by Ace of Cakes, one of our favorite shows on The Food Network, we decided to go a little further in the cake decorating department than we ever had before. We wouldn't simply slap some iced art on the top of a classic rectangular cake. No, we would carve the cake into a shape, and use fondant to decorate it (note: I had never heard of fondant before watching Ace of Cakes, Emily says she was familiar with it but never used it (if any one is as ignorant as I was about what fondant, feel free to read the brief definition found here).

Due to our rookie status in the fondant decorating department, we decided to make a version of the cake before the bake sale, so that we would know what we were doing. Also, as novices, we decided to keep it fairly simple, so that we weren' t carving King Kong or anything insanely difficult. Iron Man's mask seemed to be a nice easy first attempt at cake carving. So last week we tested out our ability to make a cake in the shape of Iron Man's mask.

Here's how it went.

Step 1) Bake a cake.

Step 2) Carve the cake.

Step 3) Ice the cake.

Step 4) Lay the first layer of fondant on the cake.

Step 5) Add the supplementary colors.

Step 6) Step back in awe of your cake decorating skillzzzz.