Ten on Tuesday

Here's the old Batman Comment
Key wall, prior to it falling into disrepair.

1. Most of last week and a majority of this week is all about getting my class room ready for the onslaught of students come August 9. This means that I get to unpack all of the books and make my desk look like my desk again. It's also high time that I redo or update my "teacher walls," since it's been a few years since I initially committed to putting some thought into them. Most teacher walls feature a collection of student work or are based on a specific piece of literature. I decided to instead make them a reflection of myself since I'm a narcissist and a few students each year say they look cool. My Spider-Man wall is largely intact, as it features motivational frames of Marvel superheroes that my wife found at a .99 cent store. However, the Batman wall with my comment key and the Brave Times based News Flash wall are both getting makeover. I'll post pictures when everything is complete.

2. Spider-Man (the dog) achieved a milestone today by staying in the house alone for an extended period of time. Besides our dog being the normal, everyday jerk that he is also appears to suffer from this weird separation anxiety, the origin of which I couldn't begin to explain to anyone. He just tends to freak out if either myself or Angela leaves and he's aware of it. To combat these howling episodes since we moved into our house, Spider-Man (the dog) goes outside whenever we leave the premises. It's an attitude held over from our apartment living days; in both places where we lived with Spider-Man (the dog), we've received letters from management about his howling. Granted, it was one time (from each place), but it lead us to do whatever we could to prevent the world from ending. Home ownership has chilled everyone out, our dog included, it seems. I left him twice today: once for about two hours while I went to get my car serviced, and the second time when I went to work and then the gym afterward. Nothing was destroyed nor were there any accidents upon my return. He did, however, refuse to leave my side the rest of the night, much to the amusement of my wife.

3. My general rule of thumb is to keep up with two books at the same time, one physical book and another on my iPad. I recently finished The Bell Jar for my physical book and am still working my way through A Clash of Kings, the second thousand page entry in the Song of Ice and Fire series. The problem is that I don't know what physical book to read next, despite having plenty of options to choose from at home. Something light would be nice, prior to the school year beginning.

4. Instead of doing a full rundown on the absolutely cursed UFC 133 card, I'll just say that my brain says Rashad Evans will win but my heart is rooting for Tito Ortiz. This is a combination of Rashad being hateable in every way since he's trying to garner sympathy for himself despite being the one that chose to sit out a year and a half in order to avoid the position he's currently in and Tito being on a roll having beaten Ryan Bader at UFC 132. It might also have to do with the fact that Tito winning at the last pay per view allowed me to cash in on a little wager while attending the show in Las Vegas, so the Huntington Beach Bad Boy did me a solid. The least I can do is back his play against Rashad.

5. In the pages of Ultimate Comics Spider-Man this week, we find that the newest character to take on the mantle of the webslinger is Miles Morales, a fellow of mixed race heritage (Hispanic/African-American descent to be exact). This is pretty cool, and the impetus for it started last year when Donald Glover, from NBC's Community, started a Twitter campaign to cast himself in the role of Peter Parker in The Amazing Spider-Man. While Sony went with Andrew Garfield, Glover's idea of an African-American Spider-Man does raise some interesting questions. What in Spider-Man's make up as a character makes him white? Except for the fact that Stan Lee and Steve Ditko originally chose him to be white, nothing does. He's a poor orphan living with his aunt in urban New York. Describe someone with those qualities nowadays and Peter Parker is the last person that would come to mind. Add to the fact that Spider-Man's costume covers him from head-to-toe, unlike Batman or Superman, and it allows anyone to envision themselves as Spidey, which is an important aspect of the character. I have a near complete run of Ultimate Spider-Man, and this news has me really excited to see where the story takes him.

6. Qdoba always feels like a much lighter meal than Chipotle.

7. My iMac currently runs on 1GB of RAM, so I'm contemplating purchasing some more (4GB) and installing it myself. While I'm very Internet savvy, I've never been too tech savvy, so I hope that YouTube video I saw showing the step-by-step process of how to make the switch doesn't steer me wrong.

8. The toughest part about going back to school is trying to get my sleep schedule back under control.

9. That CM Punk shirt I was so hyped up about before is now available for pre-order, and I'm wondering if I should buy that instead of the RAM for my computer. THESE ARE ACTUAL THINGS THAT I CONTEMPLATE!

10. Unfortunately, while CM Punk and his shirt are still the best in the world, WWE pretty much did what they always do and caused me to lose interest in the angle. It's too bad, too, since Summerslam is taking place at the Staples Center on August 14.