Like Trying to Hide the Daylight From the Sun

I'm grading finals this weekend, so this might not be the last of these you see (or maybe I'll just update this post to avoid spamming) but I had to share some tasty bits.

Regarding the Shakers (18th and 19th century American religious movement that prohibited sex, even for procreation):  They believed that there was no reason why the human race should be extinct.  

Um, honey, I think you got that one backwards.

English colonization of the Americas began in the late 17th century.  (And the student later said that the Civil War was about a hundred and fifty years later, so s/he meant it.)

That first Thanksgiving thing?  Must've happened on Iceland, or maybe in Ireland.  I always knew my ancestors had no sense of direction.

For the most part, the institution of slavery was wholly about economics.

Glad we cleared that up.

The first English colonists came to America to escape the enslaving policies of Catholicism and the Pope. 

Because we all know that the Pope governed England with an iron fist in 1607.
 

So I've been rummaging around in my music collection lately (feeling just a little guilty about hitting 100 plays on the Broken Bells album when several of my favorite artists didn't have a single play count due to new laptop) and clicked on Hot Hot Heat's Make Up the Break Down, which I hadn't listened to in ages.  Reminded of how much I liked them, I went to Wikipedia to find out if they'd been up to anything in the last few years, and I discovered that the artists in question were, in fact, Canadian. Walking among us.  Undetected.

Cue the creation of a new playlist with all of my old favorites: Our Lady Peace, The Weakerthans, Finger Eleven, The Tragically Hip, a few Joni Mitchell and Neil Young songs that don't drive me nuts - hey, I didn't know I had a copy of "The Safety Dance," and why yes, I do want to dance - Bif Naked, now that takes me back, damn, don't have any of my Moxy Fruvous on this computer, I'll have to pick up some when I go home next. 

( But I never hear this stuff anymore... )
Anyways, just wanted to express my deep and abiding love for our giant frozen neighbor to the north.  That's all.

So, my comic book shop just lost its lease.

Other than my fellow patrons and a couple of friends, very few people seem to understand exactly how upsetting this is.  For one, they were a local business which got booted when the mall was purchased by an out-of-town interest, which is a microcosm of everything wrong with the current economy:  let's purchase something at an inflated price and with unrealistic expectations of the profits and then force out everything that made that thing desirable in the first place, while screwing over the locals who have invested in it.  

But mostly, I've spent the last two and a half years becoming a regular there.  I have friends and acquaintances with whom that is our one common interest and meeting spot.  I can find another comic shop (albeit none quite so convenient), but it's going to take another two years to get in the position that I was at this place, and who knows if all the guys from this place will go to the same one I go to next?  It's like losing a community.  A community that's been one of the few bright spots in my Real Life lately.  (I prefer to keep this journal non-emo, but I'm going through a rough spot, and I was The Girl at this shop.  I was showered with awed affection and adoration.  It's a major self-esteem boost, and I'll miss it.)

Bugger.

I love my comic shop.  Nothing came out for me this week, nor had my copy of DW: The Forgotten #4 arrived, BUT, the store decided to get me a birthday present! I am now the proud owner of a Damaged Dalek Thay action figure. 

Also enjoyed ripping apart the genuinely lame new issue of Spiderman with the "Meet the President" mini in the back.  Peter Parker says "redonkulous" at one point.  In another panel, Spiderman has apparently dislocated his jaw.  And the storyline is just sort of crap.  So, yeah, I have no idea what the hell they were thinking.

Okay, back to translating.