Last week brought us issue 6 of Secret Invasion. I’ll say this for Secret Invasion, they seem to be doing a good job of keeping the momentum going with releases.

To be honest, I found issue 6 a bit disposable. Whereas issue 5 felt like everything was back on track again finally, this issue seemed to largely serve to setup yet more big splash scenes. I don’t mind that for this issue, but if issue 7 doesn’t have a lot going on (and as the penultimate issue, I’d be surprised if it didn’t), then we’ll find ourselves back in the same situation as in earlier issues in this series, where one or two small things happening, doesn’t really seem enough to justify a whole issue.

We also finally get pay off for the Cap/Thor tease a couple of issues ago. Except that its basically a couple of panels with Thor commenting that Bucky isn’t Cap, and Bucky retorting that Thor’s supposed to be dead.

There’s also another reference to the Wasp, hinting back to the Hank Pym issue of Mighty (?) Avengers, and you get the feeling that whatever they’ve done to poor Janet, its going to be pretty nasty.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m enjoying Secret Invasion:The Event, but in many ways, the main mini-series seems to be in place largely for all the spin-offs to jump off from. Unlike Final Crisis, in which the story seems to be pretty well contained in the mini-series, Secret Invasion seems to require the tie-ins more to get more enjoyment from the larger storyline.

Singing the praises of Peter Tomasi’s work is a regular feature in this blog, and the latest issue of Green Lantern Corps is no exception.

If I was to make one complaint, then it would be that this arc felt a bit short. After the mammoth ring quest arc, the quick capture of the quintet was slightly jarring, but since we’ve got the Star Saphire arc kicking off next month, I won’t complain.

In truth, I’m looking forward to this next arc a lot. I liked the changes Geoff Johns introduced in the Green Lantern arc and I’m pleased to see them being picked up again. Not to mention, it’ll be nice to have an issue where the Sinestro Corps take a back seat. If you consider how much of this book was spent putting in place things for the Sinestro Corps arc (like Ranx) and now dealing with the fallout, I’ll be glad to see other factions in the Blackest Night getting some focus. Especially since I’ve been really enjoying the Red Lantern buildup over in Green Lantern.

This title was still good fun. I like the character of Saarek, and can’t believe I didn’t twig to how he could play into the Blackest Night until he was approached by the scarred guardian. There’s something going on there and I imagine it’s not going to be good for Saarek.

Nice to see Tora turn up on Oa as well. Nice and unexpected since our focus had been on Guy counting the days till their date

I downloaded the Wordpress app for my iPod Touch a while ago, but I’ve never gotten around to testing it out.

So here we are. A bit of a pointless post, granted. But this app does seem like a nice way of blogging on the move. I especially imagine it’d be useful at conferences and conventions.

So this week brings us the penultimate part of Secret Origin.

I’ve been very hot and cold on this arc. The initial issues didn’t really work for me, and it wasn’t until Sinestro turned up that I started getting into this story. This issue is another great part of the Sinestro/Hal story. We continue to see them bond as good friends, as Sinestro forces Hal to take a good look at himself. Leading to a poignant scene between Hal and Carol as Hal’s forced to admit he’s never been there for his family, and making piece with the memory of his Dad.

There’s some good comedic interplay between the two GLs as well. The power battery scene from the preview is a great laugh, and helps to build the respect these two have for each other.

The only real problem I had with this issue is when Hal manages to save Sinestro by overcoming the yellow impurity. I’m really unsure where Geoff Johns is going with this. I preferred the Parallax retcon when the idea was that it was just accepted there was a yellow weakness, and no one could overcome it. Given that Hal overcame it here, you’re left wondering why he never overcame it again and got closer to figuring out what it actually was. I’m inclined to think this was something best left as it was. I have to wonder if its meant as an analogue to Emerald Dawn’s scene where Hal absorb’s the power of the central battery. An indication of just how good a GL Hal will become.

The issue ends with Hal and Sinestro recalled to Oa, as Sinestro’s lingered in sector 2814 too long and must face disciplinary action. There’s been no hint as to what’s actually going on on Korugar, and I must admit, I hope that it doesn’t come up in the next part. Whereas Emerald Dawn II had Sinestro being discovered shortly after he meets Hal, given the new relationship between them, I think it’d be more fun to leave that part of the story for a follow-up. Let’s have Hal and Sinestro as comrades in arms for a few months. Potentially, it could play that Sinestro’s dictatorship of Korugar comes about as a result of his run in with Atrocious and the Blackest Night prophecy.

Overall, I suspect I’ve probably been a bit harsh on the early issues of this arc. I think that re-reading it, I’m going to enjoy it a lot more and that part of my bad reaction was that I felt that it was going to be too much of a diversion from the Blackest Night build up and I’d have preferred looking forward rather than back. Of course, as it turns out, this series is a key part of that build up, and I’m left a fairly silly-looking fanboy

I’m a glutton for punishment I think. I’ve blogged about this before, but I’ve been having another crack at getting the wifi to work on my laptop under Ubuntu again.   I really can’t figure it out.

With ndiswrapper, I get my broadcom card’s drivers installed.  Near as I can tell, this definitely works.  The blue light comes on, and I can get my laptop connecting to my wifi either unencrypted, or using WEP.

However, I use WPA on my LAN, and I’m not particularly wanting to compromise it’s security.  And it seems to be at the WPA authentication that everything’s falling apart.  I’ve tried both ndiswrapper and the fwcutter drivers automatically installed by Ubuntu.  I’ve even borrowed a kernel-supported wireless PCMCIA card from a friend, and that had the same problem.

I’ve tried different distros, broadcasting my usually-hidden SSID (and that was a story within itself), and nothing seems to work.

At this point I’d be suspecting my router of being Linux unfriendly, except that my Xandros-powered EeePC talks to it no bother (after installing some of the updates).

Its been really doing my head in.  I’ve tried both the gnome network manager, and last night I tried wicd (which, having now played with it, I actually think is a bit nicer than the Gnome version).  At this point I’m wondering if manually configuring my wlan settings by hand is the way to go…

I reckon tonight I’ll need to sit down, note my network card details etc, and put a post up on Ubuntu Forums pleading for help.

Well, the big surprise news from the last day or two (at least to me), was the sudden surprise announcement of the beta for the new web browser from Google, called Chrome.

Based on the WebKits rendering engine and boasting improved performance and stability by launching each tab as its own process, I was suitably intrigued, and being a sucker for these kinds of beta tests, was quick to grab the beta first thing yesterday morning.

So far, I must admit, I’m very impressed. The cutdown interface takes a bit of getting used to, but focuses your attention on the webpage you’re reading. A welcome change in these days of being flooded by toolbars for various things. The fully draggable tabs are incredibly cool as well. The way they undock and re-dock with the main window is very smooth.

However, the main thing, is the speed. Its helluva fast. There are various benchmarks floating around, but basically it smokes even Firefox3 by a considerable margin. Despite its beta tag, its also been pretty stable for me as well. I’ve been using it since yesterday morning, and so far no crashes.

Its been a strong year for new genre shows from the States. Granted, some didn’t survive their first season, but still Journeyman, Terminator and Chuck have all been really solid offerings.

Coming a bit later than the others is The Middleman, originally conceived as a television show, before being launched as a comic series, things have come full circle with the show finally being made.

Wendy Watson is enjoying a normal day at her temp job at the genetics factory when a monster escapes from the lab and attacks her.  She tries to fend it off but is rescued by a mysterious man, who goes on to recruit her as his new assistant.  It turns out that the kind of alien warlords and insane scientists that comic books love also exist in real life, and its his job to stop them.   He’s supplied with an impressive array of advanced technology, but he doesn’t know where it comes from.   He’s just the Middleman.

This is a brilliant show.   Daft as a brush and not afraid to show it.   The show follows Wendy as she goes into training to become the next Middleman, working alongside the current one.  This involves her dealing with the aforementioned insane scientists and alien warlords, as well as dealing with the impact her new job has on her personal life (her friends think she’s working for a temp agency), while receiving training from the likes of Sensei Ping in the art of being a Middleman.

If I had to compare this show to another, its probably the closest (and most successful) we’ll get to an American version of the Avengers.  There’s a very similar vibe coming off of it (although this show played more for straight out laughs than the Avengers was).

Definitely one to check out.  I hope this enjoys a long run.

I’m a sucker for buying new games for my mobile phone, and so I was pleasantly surprised this week when I checked the New Games section, and found a G1 Transformers game available.

Its a cracking wee game. Its a turn-based strategy game, whereby you have to use your Autobot units to complete a set objective which could be capturing power stations, or freeing your comrades from a Decepticon prison cell. You’ll have different units based on G1 Autobots (Bumblebee, Ratchet, Metroplex, Optimus Prime and more), all of which have different stats for moving, combat etc.

I’ve been having great fun playing it. And the good news is that there’s a demo available online here.  If you’re interested, then check it out.

I’m sure we’ve all had days we’d have rather spent like this

Another show I’ve been really enjoying every week, but not really mentioned here, has been the new series of Gladiators. While it took some time to bed in during the opening episodes, by the time it got to the quarter finals it really picked up steam, with the Gladiators personalities starting to establish and them showing how much more comfortable in the events they’d become.

Its been good fun to watch, and I’ve gotten really into it, although I do feel it suffers slightly from the added adverts we have these days, which means one less event, and less mike time for the Gladiators themselves. However overall its been a lot of fun, and I’m really looking forward to the second series.

To wrap up the first series, Sky decided to bring back some of the original Gladiators and have them face off against the new Gladiators. Added to this, they boosted the length of the show, which allowed another event, as well as lots of time for mucking about and post-event interviews. This really added to the atmosphere of the show, and really added an element of fun to the proceedings. It was great to see the classic Gladiators again, although it was such a shame Hunter had injured himself prior to the recording and couldn’t compete more. Still, he absolutely destroyed Spartan in Duel (that first hit looked painful).

Wolf was on great form. His hair may be shorter, but he still gets what the audience want. His big fight with Oblivion was worth the wait, and had me in stitches as Ian Wright jumped in to try and separate them before ending up red carded by John Anderson. I’m really pleased to hear he’s coming back full time for season 2 in his new “Team Manager” role. There was a great sense of fun in this special that they need to build on in the main series.

It was interesting to see the Gladiators running the Eliminator as well. Atlas managing to hold onto the cotton reel was impressive, but then got promptly blown out of the water by Predator on the hand bikes. And Lightning really demolished the monkeybars, although Tempest really showed how fast she can be as she nearly caught her on the Pyramid.

Great fun, and makes me hopeful that season 2 should be really good now they’ve had a season to settle in. I hope they tweak the eliminator though. I’m not keen on the water start (removes most of the benefit in the head start) and the cotton reels are just a bit pointless.