Rob McClellan's Blog, page 5

Review: Sportcount LapCounter

The Sportcount Lap Counter -- a long distance pool swimmer's best friend!

Bottom Line

The Sportcount LapCounter solves the problem of tracking the number of laps you swim in a simple, elegant, and unobtrustive manner. Definitely worth the buy for pool-bound long distance swimmers. Available on Amazon HERE.

Review

I am a former short distance swimmer transitioning to long distance swimming. I competed all through my youth and my job, a Navy Diver, keeps me in the water still today. Previously, due primarily to logistics, I made it to the pool about twice a week. However, now I’m at a new duty station and my access to a pool is greatly improved. It’s not unusual to see me at the pool every day, sometimes twice a day. Soon, in order to get my longer yardage days in, it will be three times a day — which I’m very excited about.

My workouts bounce between short, high intensity interval training and long, moderate distance training. And it’s that distance training that prompted me to seek some help in keeping track of my yardage.

When doing interval workouts, my distance rarely goes past 300 continuous yards and the time intervals are easy to track, so it’s pretty rare that I lose track of where I am in the workout. But, the long distance stuff is another matter entirely. I don’t know about you, but when I go past 500 yards, I really start to lose track of where I am. When the workout is a two mile swim (or more), it just gets ridiculous. So, I figured I would get a little help.

I shopped around a bit and found the Sportcount LapCounter at the college swim shop (SuitUp just outside of GMU) down the road. At first, I balked at it. It looked a little big, to be honest. I thought it would feel weird on my finger and mess with my stroke. So, I kept looking. And looking. And looking. I never found anything better. So, last week I went back to SuitUp and bought one. Now, after swimming with it for the past week, I can’t imagine a workout without it — long or short distance!

What I had thought was bulky when looking at it, proved completely inconsequential in actual use. You don’t even feel it, to be frank. Just slip it on your finger when you get in the water and start swimming. The little thumb button is easy to push, but has enough resistance you won’t hit it accidentally. The numerical display is high contrast and visible. And use is simple: press the button to advance the counter, press and hold to clear the counter. The first day I had to remember to press the button, but by the second use it was pure reflex — go into the flip turn, press the button, push off and keep swimming.

Pics

Looks a little clunky on land, but doesn't feel that way in the water.

Showing your typical swimming hand position.

Advancing the counter is simplicity itself.

Wrap Up

If you have trouble keeping track of which lap you’re on, the Sportcount LapCounter will solve your problem! Available HERE through Amazon, or if you’re near GMU, head over to SuitUp.

Music Monday: Nothing but Flowers

David Byrne asked a simple question nearly two decades ago: “Can a song about environmental issues be awesome?”

His answer was the magnificent “Nothing but Flowers.” Recorded in 1988 for the final Talking Heads album Naked, the song explores the human perspective in a post-apocalyptic world without technology. Like I said, a cool song with overtones of environmental activism.

Byrne approaches the song with his usual eccentricity, his lyrics intimating a future narrator talking about the differences between what was and what is — with a brief love story between a billboard and a highway thrown in just for fun.

Standing tall

By the side of the road

I fell in love

With a beautiful highway

This used to be real estate

Now it’s only fields and trees

Where, where is the town

Now, it’s nothing but flowers

Seem a little strange? Maybe. But it sounds fantastic — take a listen for yourself and watch Byrne perform the song live at the Tabernacle in August 2001 on the video below.

Interesting factoid: If you listen all the way to the very end of the video, Byrne talks about how the back-up parts (sung by Kristy MacColl in the production version) were actually written for Selena. He says they did record a version of the song together, but I’ve never been able to find it — if anyone has it, please forward it along!

Thoughts on Green Lantern’s “Coming Out”

Alan Scott as the Original Green Lantern, art by Alex Ross

Green Lantern is gay.

Not Hal Jordan, the popular Green Lantern that you see on the small and big screen, but Alan Scott, the lesser known Original Green Lantern. Obviously, the media, and the fans, have said a few things on the subject. Here’s an article from USA Today, and here’s more from comic news sites ComicBookResources (check out the fan comments!), Bleeding Cool, and Newsarama. The whole story was broke by MTV Geek a couple of week’s ago when they correctly surmised that Alan Scott would be the most likely target of switched sexual identity.

My opinion: I don’t like it. NOT because I’m a homophobic miscreant fanboy who has sexual issues and hates change — far from it. I don’t like it because it was dumb — and, as a fan, parent, and writer I see it as a real lost opportunity.

Controversy

The most prominent reaction to altering the sexual identity of Alan Scott is that it is reprehensible stunt casting. James Robinson, the writer, has said this was not the case and I believe him. I don’t think that was his intent at all.

Is it bad to bring sexual identity into comics? Not necessarily, and, again, that’s not the reason for my objection to this alteration. Actually, I think it’s a good thing. I think comics should reflect society and there is definitely a gay contingent in the world — currently, America is believed to be 0.2% gay (4 million people), so it’s only natural that at 1% of characters in the DCU (and Marvel Universe for that matter) are homosexual. The issue I have is that, prior to this little “New 52″ change, Alan Scott was already an exceptional character of the DCU — he was a father. The only true parent (his children were not adopted) in the entire DCU. And, to top it off, one of his children (Obsidian) was gay.

James Robinson has said that everything about Alan Scott will remain the same as it was previously, just that now he’s gay. I beg to differ. As the current version of Alan Scott was never married, and has no children, this aspect of his character never happened. He is not a widower. He was not a grieving single parent. He was never even a parent. He has no children and now, the only prominent character in the DCU to which the lessons of fatherhood could be explored and applied is gone.

I don’t care that he’s gay. I do care that now he was never a father.

Who Is Alan Scott?

The Death of Jade, art by Ivan Reis

Alan Scott was a train engineer in the 1940′s who, while working late one night, saw a strange object on the rail road tracks. When he came to investigate it, he saw it was a green glowing metal lantern. Saying “Hmm, you don’t see that every day”, he picked it up, put it in his train, and kept chugging. When threatened with a bridge collapse, the lantern (being magically sentient), instructed Alan how to make a ring from it’s metal so he could channel its energy and save the day. From that point forward, he was the super hero known as the Green Lantern. For those wondering, this kind of origin was pretty standard for the 40′s — just go with it.

From his inception, Alan Scott has always been hailed as the perfect man. Tall, powerful, good looking, natural leader, successful at business, hero, wielder of the most powerful object on the planet — and husband and father. Alan’s children were a result of his first marriage to Rose Canton, who later died. As a widower, he raised his two children (boy-girl twins) who were super powered. His daughter, Jenni, had a birth defect (born green as a result of his usage of the Green Lantern), and his son Todd was gay. Alan later married again, this time to Molly Mayne.

DC, to it’s credit, maintained that Alan was a man born in the early 1900′s — all the way up to the current story lines. When you’ve got a magical ring, it’s easy to write off the loss of vitality, and it was nice to have a true father figure as a mentor for so many younger super heroes. Consequently, DC also kept Jay Garrick, the Golden Age Flash, at his original age — though Jay and his wife Joan never had children.

As he aged, he dealt with several of life’s tragedies — a mentally ill son (not referring to his being gay, he actually went insane for a while), and the death of his daughter, Jenni (killed in action defending the universe as the super heroine Jade).

Alan Scott was a character/man who had truly lived. But, now, due to the “New 52: Earth 2 Retcon”, none of that ever happened.

Lost Opportunity

Todd Allen, son of Alan Scott, kissing his boyfriend.

I am much more interested in Alan Scott as a father raising his children. As the father of boy-girl twins that would have been a real treat. I’d like to see a real storyline about Alan seeing his son through the travail of being gay in high school — something I feel would have been far more effective than a million “it gets better” videos. I would like to see him go to his daughter’s ballet recital, navigate her first date, and see her off to the prom.

How did he handle being a single parent and dating? How did he handle the grief of losing his first wife? How does he balance parenting, working, and being a super-hero? There’s a HUGE amount of potential stories here. Stories that now will never happen.

Final Comments

Comics today are a bit adrift. The art is better, the stories longer and deeper — but the subject matter is really straying. As the “dedicated readers” are aging to their thirties and forties, the age gap between long term readers and new readers is pretty huge. The result is a bit of a mess. Story lines are becoming more mature, in some cases even hyper-sexualized, but other titles are still trying to bring in younger readers. TV shows differ dramatically from the written version. The two audiences are so different in terms of maturity that it is exceedingly difficult to sell to both audiences. I don’t envy the editorial staffs of comic companies.

The idea behind the “New 52″ was that DC would wipe the slate clean of all previous continuity and reboot their entire line of comics. This would clear up the burden of previous storylines and provide a fresh start for a new generation of fans to pick up reading comics. So far, the idea has been a successful one. Many old fans are disappointed, but many others are happy because the writers are freed up of all baggage and some great new stories are coming out as a result.

The heroes of “Earth 2″, the alternate version of Earth where the “Golden Age” heroes have been deposited, was the chance to really flex some creative muscle. It was the chance to tell new stories for a new generation of readers using all of the old classic heroes. But, it was also a chance to make old readers happy and give them something they could use to introduce their children to this imaginative hobby. Instead, DC screwed the heck out of it.

The only thing Earth 2 is right now is a giant “Elseworlds” project, where you can really take heroes in a new direction – and they are. Batman beats criminals to pulp with electrified sticks, Wonder Woman is laying about with a sword all over the place, Superman is throwing people left and right, and let’s not even get into the new versions of the Flash and Hawkman/Hawkwoman. Instead of being a bridge, it’s just the next elevation in hyper-everything.

DC would have been far better off, in my opinion, using the older Golden Age super heroes as starting points for a next generation of heroes — their children. I would like to see hero dynasties continue, the struggle between parent and child, the growing and maturity of exceptional children under exceptional parents. They had this before but got rid of (or ruined) most of it. Earth 2 was the chance to rebuild it into a growing new franchise free of the mistakes of the past. It would have been something I’m sure I would have loved to share with my son. Instead, I’m reading him Pokemon comics and some outstanding graphic novels from Scholastic. I would love to read Green Lantern with him, but now I can’t. Sorry, but my son isn’t old enough to fully (or even partially) understand the intricacies of a homosexual relationship. I don’t want him to think of Batman as a thug – he is the world’s greatest detective, after all, and he should remain so. And I think the version of Wonder Woman I’d like to introduce to my daughter is that of the world’s greatest woman — not some harridan war monger overly preoccupied with killing and completely lacking in any previous signs of intelligence and diplomacy.

I like comics, I always have. I like super heroes. But, DC, you are making it increasingly difficult for me to continue to follow this hobby. You’ve also made it nearly impossible to share with my children. And that’s a shame.

Military Ranks

For all those who need a little help remembering what all of the military ranks are, here you go: