What's Up Wednesdays: Free Comic Books

It’s time once again for the weekly speedlink here on Beyond the Rhetoric. As we look forward to the weekend, 604 Now lists some of the shops in the Metro Vancouver area where you can get free comic books this Saturday. Yup, it’s Free Comic Book Day again and it’s being celebrated in multiple cities across North America. I still have my stash from previous years that I have yet to read.

You’ll need to wake up bright and early to get first dibs on the best comic books this weekend, even if you’re not a morning person. That’s okay. Nick D. feels your pain, because mornings have always been slow for him too. He lives what he calls the slug life in those early hours, struggling with the drowsy kids and working his way to the kitchen for his first cup of coffee. Eventually, maybe after some more coffee, he’ll “get something done.”

Do you have a particularly techie mom in your life? Ray Gruenfelder offers up a cool Mother’s Day gift idea for the moms who enjoy the very best of technology. It’s called the HYPER Pearl and while it may look like a regular compact mirror for touching up some makeup, it’s actually a 3000mAh portable battery pack for topping up mom’s smartphone.There’s also a bright white “vanity ring light” for use in the dark.

Sometimes, you need to venture away from the familiar and comfortable to discover some truly amazing adventures. That’s what Jenn Larsen did with her trip to Laos. Staying in a conventional hotel isn’t much fun when you compare it to staying at a guesthouse where the owner freely offers you “special shake” and “opium coffee.” The “foreign hospitality” of free whiskey infused with coiled snakes and scorpions isn’t something that you’d find at your local Holiday Inn either.

We started this week’s collection with comic books and we’re going to end it on an equally geeky note. Brent Almond has put together his guide to movie robots over the ages, starting with Maria from 1927’s Metropolis to this year’s Ultron from Age of Ultron. Brent has even placed these 20 robots on a matrix with the benevolent-diabolical spectrum on one axis and intelligent-mindless spectrum on the other. I’m a little sad to see Eve from WALL-E as not very smart at all!