I had no idea how to illustrate this entry. After 28 months I still have no site branding to showcase. I’m not in the mood for anything prideful. Please randomly enjoy this outtake from our 2013 road trip — me eating a sundae at the Witch’s Brew Cafe in Salem, MA. Why not.
We interrupt our Wizard World Chicago 2014 galleries to bring you this brief intermission noting the occasion of Midlife Crisis Crossover’s 800th post!
Neither writer’s block nor Hollywood’s siren call nor reckless abandon nor typing-finger tumors have stayed me from my appointed fixation yet. If and when MCC crashes and burns someday, I hope I can think of reasons to blame anyone and everything except myself.
From the Home Office in Indianapolis, IN: Top 10 Ways I’ll Be Celebrating MCC’s 800th Entry:
10. 10,000-word all-star salute to me, myself, and I
9. Have a WordPress “Freshly Pressed” banner tattooed across my chest
8. Reprint a past entry no one else liked except me; grovel for pity-Likes
7. Eight-hour scenes-after-end-credits marathon
6. Saccharine love letter to my wife that makes all other readers nauseous
5. Write epic fanfic crossover “Bunheads Go to Sleepy Hollow”
4. Buy a PS4 and one game; play until my gamer-cred upticks; then go settle every Quinn/Sarkeesian rage-war single-handedly
3. Prize drawing to get rid of all my unwanted DC New 52 comics
2. Live-tweet a Dog with a Blog rerun
And the number one Way I’ll Be Celebrating MCC’s 800th Entry:
Your official 2nd-anniversary notification from WordPress looks like this. Printing, framing, embossing, and/or enlarging to poster size are optional at the writer’s expense.
It’s that time again! Through the grace of God and the stubbornness of me, Midlife Crisis Crossover reached and surpassed its second anniversary on April 28, 2014. I postponed the party because I didn’t want to interrupt my annual C2E2 photo journal marathon at its height, and I fancied the idea of coinciding with this, MCC’s 700th entry. That’s two milestones nailed at one time, both highlighted without passing on the extra costs to You, the Viewers at Home!
For those interested in reliving the creation of MCC and/or time-traveling to key points in its distant past, the following moments are recommended for historical purposes:
* The first official MCC entry, basically a satire of the Indianapolis majority’s unseemly, senseless hatred of mass transit. I spent a full week writing and refining this launch post, researching blogging platforms, and experimenting with the control panel once I’d made my decision. After going live on April 28th, it had maybe seven whole views in its first week of existence. With almost no promotion and nothing in mind resembling a quote-unquote “marketing strategy”, I like to think that’s seven more views than I had any right to expect.
Yep, snow’s here. The above photo was taken just four hours into it, so you can still glimpse asphalt peeking through the tire tracks. Two hours later and safely at home, I’m guessing the coverage is thicker by now.
I expected worse, to be honest, but the great and powerful snowstorm of January 2014, which should be trending shortly on Twitter as #snowpocalypse2014 unless anyone has a clever idea, launched six hours behind schedule in our vicinity. “Better late than never!” said no one I’m ever speaking to again.
Not every moment of the average vacation will lend itself to an attractive headline, a cheery anecdote, or a photogenic souvenir. Even the world’s greatest professional travelers have their share of failures, their horror stories, their occasional awkward faux pas, their incidental doldrums, their best laid plans gone awry. All of those not-shining moments are yadda-yadda’d from the eventual professional article, to the approval and applause of a hundred Likes, a dozen Follows, and a few cents’ worth of ad revenue generated by their hits. Selective anecdotal recounts can turn anyone with a travel budget into Hero of the Beach.
Full disclosure from this humbled amateur with complicated aspirations: Day Four of our road trip began not with entertaining travel heroism, but with ninety minutes of sitting off to the side of I-93 South during Boston’s mid-morning rush hour.
On April 28, 2013, the blog you’re presently skimming celebrated its very first birthday. Strange but true! I would’ve marked the occasion sooner and in a timelier fashion, but longtime readers might’ve noticed I had a hard time shutting up about that blasted C2E2 event for a few minutes. Even though our official six-part photo gallery is completed, I still have at least three posts’ worth of C2E2-related material in store from a different angle. Out of respect to my readers who might not be as enthralled as I am by local comics conventions, a broader, general-audience digression seemed in order. Also, I’d like to mark the occasion sometime before next New Year’s.
It was a singular event that inspired me to launch this humble site out of a combination of frustration and curiosity. (Expect the story behind said event in an upcoming entry. Enough time has passed, I think, that I can share it with fewer sour grapes.) I set forth on this strange journey to discover the answers to a long list of questions for myself, including but not limited to:
1. How many consecutive evenings in a row can I find a reason/excuse to write about something before I stumble and fail?
2. How much am I willing to sacrifice for the sake of writing?
3. Can I start such a project without a preexisting audience?
4. Is it possible to build an audience from the ground up? Not counting spammers?
5. What sorts of writing will I like best? And what kinds might become a dreary chore?
6. Is there a question #6?
7. Can I enjoy myself without being jealous of those who do this regularly for money?
8. Will anyone I know even care?
9. Am I alone in this?
10. Do I really like writing? If not, what am I supposed to be doing with my life?
If my entire comic book collection were in mint condition, one of the more valuable modern-age collectibles would be Amazing Spider-Man#300. Not only was it part of the run that cemented Todd McFarlane as a bankable superstar, it also introduced Venom, who in my teenage eyes became one of Spidey’s scariest adversaries, up until Marvel later saturated the market with tons of Venom miniseries and crossovers. Though he wore out his welcome, I still hold a few fond memories of that era in the field.
300 isn’t the most popular number around — not nearly as well regarded as 2, 7, 42, 500, or one billion. 300 is modest in comparison, but serves a purpose and makes an appearance wherever it’s needed.
The 300th episode of The Simpsons revealed Bart’s secret life as a child star, and guest-starred Tony Hawk and Blink-182. That’s 300 in production order, anyway — in airdate order, it was #302.
The 300th episode of Law & Order: SVU aired October 24th, 2012. Two days later, the 300th episode of DeGrassi aired on TeenNick. If only each production had known the other shared their milestone, they could’ve orchestrated the greatest TV crossover of all time, though it might’ve guaranteed the violent death of a beloved DeGrassi character.
If there were a Mayan Galactus, he would dress exactly like Tomazooma.
One of the first things I noticed when I woke up December 21, 2012, is that I woke up December 21, 2012, a day that The Powerless Who Wish They Were The Powers That Be duly notified us years in advance would not exist. In direct defiance of this premonition, there I was, groggy, breathing, existent, and hearing my wife out in the living room yelling at our dog. None of these things could possibly be happening. Pundits had told me so.
Clearly someone had meddled in the long-term machinations of those pesky Mayans. Who could have saved the day, and all the days after it? Did God smite them? Was their forbidden stronghold located and smashed to pieces by a South American super-hero team? Did a suspicious policeman stumble upon their ringleaders and call in reinforcements? Did their primitive doomsday device slip a cog? Or did their sleeper agents forget to set their alarm clocks for the right time to rise up and decimate?
I was clueless. My mostly ordinary work day failed to shed any light or unearth new evidence to this mystery…for the first half of the day, anyway. At lunchtime I found my answer.
After long deliberation and some preparation, I launched Midlife Crisis Crossover on April 28, 2012, with “The Train Job“, my satirical plan to unite all the incongruous neighborhoods of Indianapolis with a haphazard subway plan that would still be more functional than the marginal mass-transit options of our reality. With that entry serving as my ribbon-cutting ceremony, I committed myself to creating one new piece every day for as long I could keep finding reasons to write and ways to test myself. If I were ever to be serious about finding a purpose for this alleged writing talent, then I needed to knuckle down and see if I could activate it on a regular basis without waiting for other Internet users to provoke or co-opt it.
When I inaugurated this open-ended project as an excuse to exercise my brain on a daily basis, I figured I was good for ten or fifteen posts, tops. Burnout was/is inevitable. 100 posts later, one per day and with three double-shots, it hasn’t happened yet. Setting aside a few short entries (so I’m a sucker for new movie trailers — I do try to offer something beyond HERE IS NEW MOVIE IT IS COOL AM I RITE), I’m surprised at how much processing capacity exists when I’m not just reading, lurking, passively consuming, and living vicariously in various corners of the Internet while other people enjoy themselves actively and sometimes even make a living at it.
I’m marking the occasion in the best way I know how: with a list. Stuff about me, around me, in my head, or otherwise tangential to my existence, all somehow surfacing at once and dying to make the Top 100 Me Factoids of the Month to commemorate this subjective mathematical milestone.
Super-lengthy special-occasion list is GO:
1. I’ve lived in Indianapolis all my life.
2. I’ve been an Internet user/dweller since 1999.
3. I’ve been reading comics for roughly 34 years.
4. My favorite class in high school was a senior-year single-semester creative writing course. Easy A.
5. My entries are usually posted late at night because I’m an evening person.
6. My favorite color is purple, because it’s pretty and less common.
7. My first job was at McDonald’s. I stayed with the company for twelve years, which were worth it in many ways I wasn’t aware of at the time.
8. I don’t care for sports. Mind you, it’s apathy, not antipathy. In Indiana this complicates most attempts at friendship with other males.
9. In my previous blog, 110 entries took me six years to amass.
10. I prefer mayo to ketchup.
11. If you care about astrology more than I do, I’m a Taurus.
12. I don’t do any amusement park rides that turn upside-down or spin at cyclonic speeds.
13. My first comic book convention that utilized more than one conference room was Wizard World Chicago 1999.
14. I spend every Wednesday evening hanging out with my son. Friends and family know better than to interrupt our schedule.
15. Between July 2004 and July 2005 I lost 98 pounds. I’ve gained some back since then.
16. My favorite movie has always been Die Hard, though it’s become difficult in my later years to recommend it to others in good conscience.
17. I’ve seen every single film that’s ever won an Academy Award for Best Picture, from Wings to The Artist. Some of them weren’t worth it.
18. My first car was a 1986 Grand Am lemon.
19. If you want to see me at my worst, put me in a leadership position.
20. My first rock concert was the 1992 Guns ‘n’ Roses/Metallica twofer at the Hoosier Dome. I was more interested in the opening act, Faith No More, who only played for 45 unenthusiastic minutes.
21. In high school my original plan was to become an artist. That changed during my junior year when I realized how impatient I was with my drawing.
22. My car repair skills rank Very Poor for my gender.
23. My most-Liked post to date is part 1 of the two part “Road Trip Clip Show“.
24. I don’t drink. Not even in moderation for recreation among oenophiles. Not even wine coolers or wedding champagne. In America this complicates most attempts at friendship with other humans.
25. I’ve never played any MMORPGs because I know how carried away I would get. If these had existed in my youth, I could’ve easily spent 40+ hours a week on one without remorse.
26. I’ve been divorced once. I filed for bankruptcy the following year. The divorce lawyer was cheaper than the bankruptcy lawyer.
27. My favorite food group is breakfast.
28. I learned to tie a necktie at age 19.
29. My first Internet writing piece was a turn taken in a Usenet round-robin story when I was still a newbie to the newsgroup.
30. I took German in junior high, high school, and college. I remember more of it than I think, and at the oddest times.
31. My favorite Disney movie is Aladdin.
32. Since this blog began, I’ve received two Facebook Friend requests from complete strangers, up from zero strangers for the twelve previous months. I have no idea if that’s coincidental.
33. I still cry at an occasional movie. Examples from recent years include Up and Serenity.
34. So far I’ve visited 26 of the 50 states, plus the District of Columbia and Niagara Falls, Ontario.
35. I saw four of the Friday the 13th movies in my youth, but no longer have any need or desire to complete the set.
36. Have I mentioned my wife’s awesomeness here yet? Consider it mentioned.
37. My nervous habits include chewing on my lip and gnawing on the thumb knuckle where there once was a wart.
38. I’ve read the Bible from Genesis to Revelations a few times, but several more times definitely won’t hurt.
39. A Green Arrow show without Justin Hartley is no Green Arrow show of mine.
40. I prefer “geek” to “nerd” because its consonants can beat up those other consonants.
41. My first entry into a writing contest was a high-school short story called “The Cybernetic Wilderness”, which was sabotaged by a lousy typist whose clumsiness managed to spell “variation” with twelve letters.
42. I once cryptically wrote on a Post-It Note, “Tow Mater / Tow Maine / Tow Backy”. I’m afraid to find out what I plan to do with these thoughts.
43. The first Bible verse I ever memorized was Matthew 11:28 — “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” It’s still my favorite.
44. The Valiant/First C2E2-panels two-parter resulted from a brief nanosecond when comics journalism became an infinitesimally possible option.
45. I met my (second/current) wife in 1987 in high school German class.
46. My son and I have played 11 of the 13 Final Fantasy games. FFII was the indisputably worst; I can’t decide which was best between FFVII and FFXII.
47. I’m terrible at memorizing Scripture because English classes spent years successfully beating the moral “Put it in your own words” into my head.
48. My favorite album is Hüsker Dü’s Zen Arcade.
49. I’ve never touched an illegal drug in my life. The strongest substance I’ve ever taken was arguably Vivarin, once when I stayed up overnight to write a term paper about satire in popular music.
50. My highest-traffic post to date is the complete list of what’s not after the Brave end credits.
51. I had my very first taste of alcohol on my 21st birthday, and not one second before.
52. I had a brief stint as a co-writer of a few Star Wars fanfics, some of which are still online.
53. I’ve attended GenCon twice even though I haven’t played a tabletop RPG since junior high, and have never played a CCG, unless you count Triple Triad or Tetra Master.
54. My first date was at age 19.
55. Persuading family and friends to read this blog seems a Sisyphean task. I expect that’s for the best anyway.
56. I’m not too great with tools or home improvement. In Indiana this complicates most attempts at friendship with other males.
57. The first video I ever saw on MTV was “Since You’re Gone” by the Cars.
58. I’m not surprised Trust Us With Your Life was cancelled. I blame Ryan Stiles for not saving the day. 59. Our dog’s name is Lucky. His previous owners named him before they decided they’d rather have a hamster.
60. I once made a fanfic writers’ email list cry by being too candid about my opinion of their “columns”.
61. My first known comic book was Marvel’s Scooby-Doo #9 by Mark Evanier and Dan Spiegle. The Scooby Gang teamed up with Cap’n Caveman and the Teen Angels against the threat of a surfer ghost.
62. If my TV schedule ever eases up, I’ve been meaning to start The Wire season 4 next.
63. My second entry here, “The Train Job”, was a satirical labor of love that took days to fine-tune before I launched this blog. Unfortunately all the Hoosiers in my life don’t venture into the Internet beyond the boundaries of Facebook, so its target audience will never read it, let alone get it.
64. Last night my wife brought home Chik-Fil-A for supper. She was nearly two hours late because of the lines.
65. When I’m bored in a grocery line, I use the cart’s leg hole closure as a makeshift drum and tap the intro to Primus’ “John the Fisherman”.
66. The first Star Trek actor I ever met was Garrett Wang from Voyager.
67. I refused to touch soft drinks from ages 5 to 16.
68. I dropped out of college. Twice.
69. My mom used to buy me subscriptions to kids’ magazines without even asking me. What kid ever asked for a year’s worth of Cricket or Cobblestone?
70. My favorite pop song is John Mellencamp’s “Small Town”, and not just because he’s from Indiana.
71. Sometimes I worry that if I take a single night off from writing here, the whole thing will collapse and I’ll wake up the next morning to find my writing talent has vanished forever.
72. People are always surprised when I struggle to break it to them gently that I absolutely cannot stand The Big Bang Theory.
73. When my brain is firing on all cylinders, my writing voice tries to find a happy medium between George Will and Dave Barry.
74. Post-Modern MTV and 120 Minutes permanently altered the course of my musical tastes.
75. In 1992 I registered to vote as a Democrat because gas prices had skyrocketed to $1.29 per gallon and the incumbent President was a Republican.
76. On Sundays after church service, I’m on a one-man independent Bible study in which I’m going through Oswald Chambers’ My Utmost for His Highest.
77. In junior high I wrote and drew my own comics. I still have them, but show them to no one.
78. People compliment my reading voice, which I built up by necessity during the years I spent working in a fast-food drive-thru with a terrible speaker.
79. I’ve seen every Best Picture Oscar nominee from 1997 to the present, including a few truly awful ones. I plan to work backward to 1996 and beyond if Secrets and Lies is ever granted an affordable re-release.
80. My Free Comic Book Day 2012 reviews inexplicably attract more spam than any other entries.
81. My Google+ feed is a wasteland where DC and Marvel PR reps battle daily for void supremacy.
82. I thought Ernest Borgnine pretty much ruled the four-hour Jesus of Nazareth.
83. The list of classic books I’ve never read is shamefully not short.
84. I once took second place in a college poetry contest that my poetry professor entered me into, without my knowledge and some weeks after I’d already dropped out.
85. I’m pleased as punch that the Bunheads clip of Sasha dancing to They Might Be Giants’ “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)” is online once again. FOR NOW.
86. I’ve been drunk exactly once, New Year’s Eve 1993. Once was enough.
87. As a child, the only pet I ever owned was a carnival goldfish who lived two weeks.
88. I had no idea which of my high school acquaintances were Christian or gay until long after graduation.
89. I don’t get Pink Floyd. At all. On Earth this complicates most attempts at friendship with other males.
90. This year I subscribed to Forbes on a lark, and now the mailman won’t stop stuffing the mailbox with Republican fundraiser ads.
91. I can’t remember if the first comic book professional I ever met was Tony Isabella or Don Rosa.
92. “Aurora.” was one of the painstaking things I’ve written in years, and is my most widely shared entry to date.
93. I’ve never flown before. Ever.
94. I accept and welcome suggestions, questions, and recommendations that don’t come from spammers.
95. Sometimes I like to think of every purchase as a donation of sorts.
96. In my combined three years of college, I made exactly zero (0) friends.
97. I’m currently reading Chris Hardwick’s The Nerdist Way. It’s funny, constructive, creative, crude, and irksome at the same time.
98. The last time someone recommended something to me, it was Rob Liefeld’s Grifter. I stand by #94 anyway.
99. I’d like to pause here for a little game we like to call “Hoedown”! We’ll call this one “The 100th Post Hoedown”. Take it away, me:
[cue Laura Hall/Linda Taylor intro]
o/~ Thank you if you’re reading, I appreciate your time
I know the ‘Net is busy and this hardly is sublime
I’m sorry that my subject matter sometimes seems so random
Some nights I’m lucky if one reader can understand ’em…
Nerd or geek or in-between, and sometimes both and neither
I can’t believe I’ve kept it up without a single breather
Will I do a hundred more? Forgive me if I fail
Can I dare hit 200 without quoting Holy Grail? o/~
100. I reserve the privilege to expand or repurpose some, all, or none of these as subjects for future entries. Hopefully none of them is a thousand-word paean to the color purple.
If my entire comic book collection were in mint condition, one of the more valuable modern-age collectibles would be Amazing Spider-Man 
59. Our dog’s name is Lucky. His previous owners named him before they decided they’d rather have a hamster.
Midlife Crisis Crossover! 