It’s been six months since our first post on MLD and I thought it would be fun to talk about some of the experiences we’ve had and milestones we’ve reached.

We’ve had hits from around the world, which is always incredible to me.  Seeing pageloads from all over North and South America, Europe and Asia is pretty cool.  Still waiting for Australia, Africa and Antarctica, along with 10 states.

While we haven’t gotten as many comments posted here as we’d like, there has certainly been a great response and great support from the people reading the site.  If you’re hesitant to post your reactions here, don’t be.  You’re among friends who would love to hear what you think.

Some of the feedback we have received has helped with a lot of our site updates and changes we’ve made to our navigation since we started out.  Hopefully, you can find anything you’re looking for when you’re on the site, and any suggestions are always welcome.

The searches that have been used to get here are probably the most fascinating part of the site to me.  Countless people have found us searching for “floories” along with “male nudity”, “tearjerkers“, “how to roast peppers for human consumption” and various spellings of “Djurjevic“.  Of course there’s always the odd search for “pocky” every now and then.

Thank you for the attention you’ve paid to MLD.  It’s great to know that there are people out there enjoying what we’re doing.

It’s Wednesday and that’s big day for comic book fans everywhere.  This particular Wednesday, I can’t wait to get my hands on the next chapter of Marvel‘s X-Men/Dark Avengers Utopia crossover.  To explain why, here’s some recent history.

Some yahoo “super heroes” filming a reality television show blew up 600 people in Stamford, Connecticut.  The government responded by requiring all costumed heroes to be registered and licensed in order to operate.  Some heroes agree (Iron Man) and some do not (Captain America) and a super-human Civil War breaks out.  The pro-registration side wins out and Iron Man becomes the director of SHIELD and all things related to registration.  His 50 State Initiative to put a team of heroes in every state is the perfect opportunity for a group of shape-shifting alien religious zealots to infiltrate and take over.  They believe the Earth is theirs by divine right and Stark is unable to stop their Secret Invasion.  In the heat of the battle  to drive back the alien hordes, Norman Osborn (the once and future Green Goblin) delivers the killing shot to the invaders’ leader and is elevated from his position leading a team of super villains seeking rehabilitation (right…) in the Thunderbolts program, to Stark’s replacement as master of all things super human.  In order to solidify his Dark Reign over the Marvel Universe, Orborn creates his own team of Avengers to back him up and forms a cabal with some heavy hitters (Doctor Doom, Namor, Loki, The Hood, and Emma Frost) to control the world under his watchful eye.  In the meantime, the Scarlet Witch went crazy and used her magic to reduce the powered mutant community to about 200 individuals after altering the world during the House of M.  The remaining mutants became in that moment an endangered species and Cyclops gathered all the willing in San Francisco to create a safe haven under the protection of the X-Men.

Emma Frost and Norman Osborn had an agreement.  She keeps the mutants quiet and he’ll leave them be in their new home.  Only they didn’t stay quiet, and now Norman is bringing in his Dark Avengers to regulate.  Chapter One of Utopia shipped last Wednesday and was a wild start to this confrontation and Chapter Two is available today in Uncanny X-Men #513.  I highly recommend it.

This week (and part of last week) MLD’s web expert and I have been adjusting, tweaking and remodeling a lot of the site. To say this has been a distraction would be a gross understatement. We’ve changed the navigation, added more information about who we are, and tried to make the overall experience of visiting the site more pleasant.

None of this could have been done without Cory’s help, and we both learned a lot in the process.  Let us know how we did.  Look for more revisions as the months go by, and of course come back for our regular updates and postings.

Long before we had this outlet to discuss the distractions in our lives, I spent four months consumed with a Marvel Comics crossover event called Messiah Complex (also check out this).  Drawing together four different titles and running weekly, I couldn’t wait for each installment to arrive.  I even started going to the nearest campus comic shop I could find on lunch breaks to get each week’s issue.

In April, Marvel launched the sequel to this event called Messiah War running through X-Force and Cable (which began (actually were relaunched) in the aftermath of Messiah Complex).  While smaller in scope and published less often, Messiah War has been satisfying so far (we’re currently at part five of seven) and I can’t wait to see where it’s all heading.

While continuing the story of the mutant child/possibly savior/possibly destroyer Hope, Messiah War has also managed to incorporate classic X-Men characters and concepts including: Archangel, Apocalypse, Stryfe, Deadpool, The Vanisher and of course time-travel.  Well worth checking out the issues currently in print (or reading once it’s collected) if you’ve ever enjoyed epic X-Men action.

It occurs to me in rereading my reviews from yesterday that perhaps they would provide more value if I had placed the relative “like” or “dislike” into some sort of scale like everyone else in the world who reviews things does.

So what I’m going to propose is using a scale of 1-5 to rate the level of distraction that the movie, comic, music etc. provided. I figure the higher the rating the more welcome the distraction. Now lowly rated items may still be very distracting, however just not in a good way.

So what about:
1 – Your parrots screaming along with Rock Band 2. (What?  You don’t have that problem?)
2 – Christian Bale’s Batman voice.
3 – A bee hanging around your blanket during a picnic on a summer day.
4 – The troll guy who holds the locker room door during Sixers games.
5 – Porn being slipped into the Super Bowl during the best play of the game.

Just throwing it out there. This may still need more consideration.