Time for a Random Post About My Favorite HVAC Company: Advantage Air

There isn't much to report today, so I figured I'd make a post about my favorite HVAC company ever, Advantage Air. No, this is not a paid post. I just felt like expressing how pleased we are with Advantage Air and had nothing else on my mind, so let's talk about it today! Advantage Air helped us when we moved into our new house and had repeated issues with the AC in the Summer due to our unit being old. Then a day before Christmas one year the heat stopped working, they still were able to help us and there was no extra charge for it being the day before that big holiday. When we got a new unit they gave us a great price and we have used them for maintenance since. They always put customer service first, being thoughtful and helpful.

Here's a single example of many when they impressed us: One time the AC wasn't running that great and I called to see if someone could come out. They said they were happy to send a person, but asked if they could save me the cost by having me answer a question about the most common issue--had I changed the air filter lately? I had not, and I felt stupid. I changed it and the house cooled immediately. They didn't want to just take my money, they wanted to make sure I was actually helped and was a satisfied customer, yet another occasion they were amazing. Not that I mind their techs coming out, any employee we have ever worked with is amazing. Back when I did Yelp (before I quit it due to moral concerns with people abusing the site to get free stuff among other issues), I wrote a glowing review of Advantage Air. I quit Yelp years ago, however, so why not brag about Advantage Air here on my blog now?

Should you live in the Saint Louis region, Advantage Air can help you with all your residential (or commercial) HVAC needs. I'm clearly quite a fan of the company, having dedicated a blog post to them, so I'd recommend them for anything you might need assistance with. Again, this was not a paid post and Advantage Air is not even aware I'm writing this post (and will only know about it once I send them an email about how I wrote it). I just felt like giving a shout-out to Advantage Air because I wanted to write about something today and one of their occasional email newsletters they sent recently about what the company has been up to had them on my mind! Check them out, and if you live locally give them a try!

Wait, I'm Not the Only One Who Had a Loud PS4?

I thought maybe I was unique, or too sensitive. My PlayStation 4 sometimes just seemed so loud. Watching DVD movies wasn't too bad, but games would make it holler. Apparently, it is a known concern! It turns out PS4 consoles can be pretty loud, but there are ways to address it. One big one is to dust them--something I learned the hard way once when my PS4 quit reading discs at all and it turned out all the dust inside it had ruined that part (a common occurrence too).

There are other steps you can take that are more in-depth, but just dusting the darn thing can help it. Having noticed how much it helps, make sure you dust it. Also, sometimes games just make it loud, there is little that can be done about it if you're playing your games off a disc as opposed to a digital download. That's just life, but at least we aren't alone in battling a PS4 that sounds like an enraged vacuum cleaner.

A Much-Needed Victory for Reproductive Rights

I have been an advocate of abortion rights in the past. After losing our pregnancy due to the baby not being viable and threatening my wife's life--necessitating a D&E--I have been even more outspoken when it comes to being pro-choice as if some states had their way we would not have even been able to save my wife's life without being prosecuted as criminals. For that reason, I can only be very thankful the Supreme Court today struck down an unconstitutional law that would have basically made it impossible to get an abortion in Louisiana.

Plenty of states keep trying to chip away at abortion rights and seeing the Supreme Court put its foot down was encouraging. The fight is not over as there is still case after case, but this was good news. Thank goodness for John Roberts, a more conservative justice appointed by George W. Bush, but who has sided with the Liberal justices in a number of key cases lately (resulting in 5-4 decisions such as this one) because he realizes these cases aren't simply political, they are about the law and the law protects the right to choose. He has still ruled a number of ways I disagree with, but I'll take what I can get in this current political climate.

News That Excites Me: A Moon Knight Ominbus is Coming!

Marvel and DC often do special collections of their comics. One of these is a big hardcover known as an omnibus that collects a ton of comics featuring a specific character, team, or run of comics. Plenty of these have come out in the past and will in the future too, but what caught my eye was some months ago it was said there would be a Moon Knight omnibus. Well, it has now been officially solicited in the latest edition of, "Previews," magazine that we will be getting the, "Moon Knight Ominbus HC Vol. 1." I am pumped!

It will have all of the earliest Moon Knight comics from his initial appearances in, "Werewolf by Night," to popping-up in other stuff like that Hulk magazine or the Marvel Preview magazine, getting his solo tale in, "Marvel Spotlight," and of course his own series proper. I especially like it is labeled as being the first volume as that clearly means more will be on the way. Personally, if they made big ol' omnibus editions of his stuff into the modern era I'd be perfectly happy. These big books ain't cheap--this one will be $125--but it isn't due to come out until January of 2021. I've got plenty of time to put some scratch aside and eagerly await this big book of goodness.

June 2020 News and Links for This Hot and Humid Summer

We're All Hot and Tired

It's hot, that's for sure.

I'm physically and emotionally exhausted this June, and one thing I like to do when I need a break is read the good ol' internet. With that in mind, I have some interesting news and links to share. It's a good way to beat the heat and humidity when we can curl-up with some neat articles.

Commence the New and Links!

The 2020 Eisners had some really questionable voting issues so they shut it down and are going to do the whole thing over again. I applaud them for doing this, but it obviously shouldn't have happened in the first place.

Currently, in the realm of both comics and video-games, there are a lot of people being revealed as harassers and predators. Polygon's Charlie Hall has a good piece providing quite a wide-ranging overview which has also been updated as necessary.

Because 2020 couldn't get any more insane, we have a massive dust cloud from the Sahara currently coating North America and giving everyone respiratory problems. At least it makes for beautiful sunrises and sunsets, right?

Another creator great sadly has passed. Joe Sinnott passed at the age of 93 and has far too long a history in the realm of comics for me to even begin to summarize.

Trump and his cronies like to complain everyone is too sensitive, but then they go and hop-on their own social media app called, "Parler," which is as miserable and nasty as you'd expect. They always end up back on Twitter, or else they wouldn't be able to complain about how they feel Twitter persecuted them for inciting violence and lying.

DC offering a 1:450 ratio variant cover for, "The Three Jokers," is just silly. Stores will have to order 450 copies to get one of that cover, making it something only massive retailers will bother with and then have to sell at a big mark-up to cover all the issues they may be unable to sell.

"Cyberpunk 2077," continues to look quite interesting, especially as multiple gaming and entertainment sites have had a chance to play it some. It got delayed a bit more from September into November to make sure its polished, so here's hoping it is a snazzy as we hope.

Shigeichi Negishi arguably invented Karaoke and is still alive at 95 and has his original, working model he can show-off. As someone who has enjoyed making a fool of himself singing "Superfreak," on stage for a mildly amused crowd I owe him thanks for the good times.

Finally, due to the fact he wants to undo everything Obama accomplished, Trump is trying yet again to undo the Affordable Care Act, also known as, "Obamacare." You'd think the multiple times he's failed before would convince him to stop acting like a moron, but this is Trump we are talking about, all he can do is act stupid.

Stay Cool and Relax

Aren't we all creepily excited to enjoy our AC?

Throughout this Summer heat make sure you work to just stay cool and get some relaxing in. 2020 is basically halfway done, and even though it feels like the longest year ever, we've got this. At least, I keep hoping we do.

Two Creators I Like Are Making a Comic for a Property I Know Nothing About

I'm a big fan of writer Kieron Gillen and artist Jacen Burrows. I've followed Gillen from his early, "Phonogram," comics to, "Uber," "Young Avengers," "The Wicked and the Divine," and so forth. Burrows has made a ton of stellar comics with Avatar Press in the past and was the one thing I liked about the otherwise terrible Bemis run of, "Moon Knight," that features Burrows drawing skills. Hearing Gillen and Burrows are teaming-up for comic sounds fantastic! Oh, it's a, "Warhammer 40k," comic. Now I'm lost.

"Warhammer," is a popular tabletop game set in a fantasy realm and, "Warhammer 40k," is its futuristic iteration. It has space marines, space Orks nad all kinds of crazy stuff. There have been some video-games set in both the fantasy and 40k Universes but I've not played them or the tabletop games. I know basically nothing about, "Warhammer 40k," but apparently Marvel acquired the license to it and is going to publish a comic set in that World with the talents of Gillen and Burrows, so I'm gonna read it. Even if I have almost no clue what is going on, at least it will look stellar and be well-written. Maybe I ought to look up some Wikipedia stuff in the meantime.

"Hardspace: Shipbreaker," Looks Like a Delightfully Relaxing Game of Deconstruction

Currently in Early Access (e.g. it isn't officially done but is playable), "Hardspace: Shipbreaker," is a very relaxing game where you break-down old spaceships. There are no crazy alien invasions or wild gunfights, you just float around in space using all your tools to carefully take apart ships that have been floating above Earth for centuries. You save the valuable parts and dispose of the junk whilst being careful not to blow anything up what-with still active pressurization in some ships, half-full fuel tanks, and the like. I've often seen it described as, "Zen," along with pretty humorous thanks to some commentary on how you're working for a big corporation that is basically cleaning-up a mess other corporations caused.

My computer isn't nearly powerful enough to play, "Hardspace: Shipbreaker," but perhaps once it is complete it will see release on a console such as the PS4 or Nintendo Switch. With the positive early buzz, it'd make sense to have it possible for everyone interested to play it once it is finished. I'd for sure like to give it a try because it looks serene, beautiful, and fun.

Dash--A Great Comic Series--Has a Kickstarter Currently for its Collection!

In past posts, I wrote about how much I enjoyed the series, "Dash," by writer Dave Ebersole and some skilled artists (Delia Gable, Vicente Rico). Published by Northwest Press, it follows the story of a 1940's detective who was a beloved hero cop until he was outed as gay and fired. Now Dash has to solve a strange mystery full of dark ancient magic while navigating life as a gay man in an era where that was a crime. It was a stellar comic with a mixture of humor, great character moments, and quite a twisty and wild plot. Now it's being collected in a trade paperback that people can fund via Kickstarter!

You can get yourself a copy of this, "Gay Noir Graphic Novel," and enjoy it too in a fully collected form with some new stories too! It's a great read regardless of your sexuality, but it is fantastic to have a story that explores life for marginalized characters in a time when they were rarely discussed (at least in any kind of manner that wasn't derogatory) or allowed to be visible without risk of physical injury or insult from others. Between the fantastic story, lovely art, and how this collection will have some new stories, I'm excited for this Kickstarter and have already backed it myself! You can do so too via this link!

The (Now Former) Executive Director of the CBLDF Had a History of Sexual Assault

The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund is a non-profit organization that helps provide legal assistance and money in comic-related cases. Should someone be prosecuted for making or selling a comic that is judged, "Obscene," or if a person is sued for making a political comic, the CBLDF is dedicated to defending them. It sounds great, and as far as I knew the CBLDF was a solid organization. Then again, I clearly know very little as more and more harsh truths come to light lately about people in the comic-book, "Scene." Apparently, the Executive Director of the CBLDF, Charles Brownstein, was/is a sexual predator. He had a history of sexual assault that the CBLDF apparently was aware of and which had begun coming to light as public knowledge recently/was being talked about more openly. This resulted in many people pulling their support for the CBLDF and now Brownstein has resigned from his position/ he may have been forced out, it is unclear.

This is a huge mess and the CBLDF is rightfully receiving a lot of flak. Their public statements about all this have been vague and barely addressed the issue at hand too. The CBLDF has done a lot of great work, but this is a huge fiasco for sure. I do hope the agency can recover and rebuild as it helps a lot of people, but man, this is an ugly look for it currently.

"The Last of Us Part II," Sounds Too Depressing For Me Right Now

"The Last of Us Part II," is a game that looks like a gorgeous and engaging follow-up to the first game--which I loved. I have zero desire to play it. Now, there has been some stupid controversy over how it features LGBTQ+ themes with main character Ellie engaging in a relationship with a woman, and there also apparently being an openly transgender character. This has resulted in some morons trying to review-bomb the game. I'm actually happy the game features a diverse cast, so that has nothing to do with me lacking a desire to play it. Basically, life lately has been hard with a lot of personal pain in the past six months. Plus, the stress of COVID-19 piled on losing a pregnancy and loved ones and depressing movies or games have appealed to me a degree less. Pretty much any news I see about ,"The Last of Us Part II," discusses it being relentlessly dark, dreary, and harsh.

"The Last of Us Part II," is a game that I did look-up some spoilers for after seeing some writing about how miserable the plot gets with lots of death, sadness, and brutality. I also read some spoiler-free or spoiler-light reviews such as one by Riley MacLeod of Kotaku that observed the game makes players feel, "Like shit." Polygon's Maddy Myers covered how the game has players engage in horrific brutality while basically remarking over their shoulder, "Look how bad you are, you should be upset." Folk say the story is interesting and the graphics are amazing, but everyone also adds that you'll feel like you took an emotional gut-punch when you play, "The Last of Us Part II."

The game does look great.

I, at times, struggled with the first game's bleak outlook and that was before everything we've been through lately. When I hear how this sequel just piles on players more harsh and upsetting content, it just makes me think that, "The Last of Us Part II," is too depressing a game for me right now. With all the stuff my loved ones and I am going through, things that provide a fun escape are more what I'm after. I need trashy reality television and games that are more silly and fun. At this moment I don't need something as heavy as, "The Last of Us Part II," but when the time comes I feel I'm emotionally ready for a game with such themes, I'll surely give it a try. Just not right now.