Zen Pop-Tart

While sleuthing around for more Super Hero news, I ran across this blog entry over at CTV.ca-

Be A Superhero is an Australian website where you can turn yourself into a comic book superhero.

So I decided to check out the web site. Its pretty fun and gives you a PDF file you can download. I entered a fictitious secret identity (like I’m going to tell a computer who I really am) and the website gave back a PDF with a synopsis of my back story and costume. Check it out here.

My back story is now, officially -

ALTHOUGH BILLY JAYMES WAS HAPPY
AS A COMPUTER NERD, HE REGULARLY
VOLUNTEERED HIS BODY FOR TOP SECRET
SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENTS

ONE DAY, DURING A PARTICULARLY
DANGEROUS PROCEDURE, THERE
WAS A FEROCIOUS EXPLOSION!

WHILE RECOVERING FROM THE
DETONATION, BILLY DISCOVERED
HE WASN’T THE SAME MAN. HIS
BODY HAD BECOME A POWERFUL MAGNET.

HE ALSO NOW POSSESSED SUPERHUMAN
STRENGTH AND X-RAY VISION.

WHILE RECOVERING FROM THE
DETONATION, BILLY DISCOVERED
HE WASN’T THE SAME MAN. HIS
BODY HAD BECOME A POWERFUL MAGNET.

HE ALSO NOW POSSESSED SUPERHUMAN
STRENGTH AND X-RAY VISION.

ALTHOUGH CURSED BY HIS
MAGNETISM, BILLY PLEDGED
TO USE HIS NEW POWERS
FOR THE GOOD OF MANKIND.

PATROLLING THE STREETS TO
TEACH THE SCUM OF PORTLAND
ETIQUETTE AND GOOD
DISPOSITION, BILLY IS NOW…

Yes, I’m changing my back story. Why? This one is way cooler. Or as they say, fiction is stranger than truth.

Source

While playing in his back garden with a friend, Riquelme Maciel spotted smoke coming out of the wooden house’s windows and ran to tell the baby’s mother, Lucilene dos Santos.

But Ms Santos was too afraid to enter the blaze, so it was down to young Maciel to step in and save the day - he rushed into the burning house and grabbed baby Andrieli from her cradle.

Over at Shadowdance there is a good podcast interview on the subject of Our Gods Wear Spandex, about the place of the Surperhero in modern culture and modern spirituality.

Was Superman’s arch nemesis Lex Luthor based on Aleister Crowley? Can Captain Marvel be linked to the Sun gods on antiquity? In Our Gods Wear Spandex, Christopher Knowles answers these questions and brings to light many other intriguing links between superheroes and the enchanted world of estoerica. Occult students and comic-book fans alike will discover countless fascinating connections, from little known facts such as that DC Comics editor Julius Schwartz started his career as H.P. Lovecraft’s agent, to the tantalizingly extensive influence of Madame Blavatsky’s Theosophy on the birth of comics, to the mystic roots of Superman. The book also traces the rise of the comic superheroes and how they relate to several cultural trends in the late 19th century, specifically the occult explosion in Western Europe and America. Knowles reveals the four basic superhero archetypes–the Messiah, the Golem, the Amazon, and the Brotherhood–and shows how the occult Bohemian underground of the early 20th century provided the inspiration for the modern comic book hero.

You can listen to the article here (MP3 download) or subscribe to the podcast here.

I found this on my wanders…

So I’ve decided to become a Superhero - if for no other reason than to stop those of you who lean towards EVIL from spreading your hate and malice across the globe. And for those brave souls among you that would join me?

Right now I”m struggling with several of the points that are made in the article. Not struggling against them, struggling to overcome them in my life. The main thing is the money… I don’t make a lot and I have a family to take care of. Unless someone dies and gives me lots of money I have a feeling I screwed there. Maybe I can follow the advice, but it seems a bit dark - Read more

I found this during my searching… enjoy.

Its is just more proof that Super Hero’s are real.

I was searching for something to listen to on iTunes when I found this -

Playing for Keeps is a free novel delivered via podcast in audio and PDF form. It tells the story of Keepsie Branson, a bar owner in the shining metropolis of Seventh City: birthplace of super powers. Keepsie and her friends live among egotistical heroes and manipulative villains, and manage to fall directly in the middle as people with powers, but who just aren’t strong enough to make a difference. Or that’s what they’ve been told. As the city begins to melt down, it’s hard to tell who are the good guys and who are the bad. Read more

Author: Zen Pop-Tart
Tags: iTunes, Novel, Playing for Keeps, Story, Super Hero

I found this one while surfing for other superhero’s like me. It caught my eye.

How to be a Superhero (In Real Life)

So you’re probably thinking, “what the eff is that?” Well, it’s easier to show you than to tell you. You’ve probably seen it before but didn’t know what it is so if you’ve ever seen Casino Royale or the Bourne Identity movies you’ve seen it in action. If not, here’s a scene from Casino Royale with our boy Sebastien playing the guy that James Bond is trying to catch:

and

We all do a little of it as kids in the playgrounds and way back when humans had to hunt their own food we all did it to either catch our prey or to avoid being eaten ourselves. It’s a physical discipline that trains your entire body but also your mind, because once your body is able to do these things, there’s still the challenge of overcoming your fear and learning how to focus on getting past the obstacles without freezing up. Adrenaline evokes the fight or flight response in human beings and for the centuries martial arts have trained us for the fight. Parkour trains us for the flight.

Guys who practice Parkour are called “traceurs” and the ladies are “traceuses.” (The sport was invented in France, but more on that later.) Most of us come to Parkour with backgrounds in total body disciplines, like dance, martial arts, or gymnastics. For me, it was the freedom of unrestricted movement. I’ve been training in martial arts all of my life for it, and Parkour takes all that training and lets you experience the freedom at a level you’ve only dreamed of. The wind blowing through your hair as you vault a fence and take a few steps then jump from wall to wall to scale a wall and drop down the other side… There’s nothing quite like it. Like my friend Maggie said the other day, “It’s all about defying gravity.”

There are more video links on the page.

Just goes to show that almost anyone can move like we do.

I have officially entered the Web 2.0 world, I have a Twitter account!! You can follow / friend me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/zpt

You can also email me at zenpoptart@gmail.com

Next up I’ll tell you how I got my name.

Like most kids growing up, I loved watching my Saturday morning cartoons. Among them the superhero stories. I wanted to be Batman or Superman… wouldn’t that be cool? Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman and the classic, Greatest American Hero. Fast forward several years and I’m watching The Incredibles with my kids. We all *knew* that it was fantasy… right? WRONG!

Like The Incredibles, they are everywhere. Its just that for most of the population, they refuse to see whats there. I’ll admit to being that way myself.

I don’t care how much what I’m going to say here makes you think I’m a lunatic. Its all true. It happened to me only 13 days ago, October 3, 2007.

I was relaxing in the tub surfing the ‘net on my laptop. The laptop was perched on the porcelain edge next to an open pack of brown sugar cinnamon Pop-Tarts and my can of Mountain Dew. I was in state of zen… hot bath, the ‘net and treats. You have got to try that particular Pop-Tart/Mt. Dew combo… tasty. Sorry, side tracked. I had taken a mouthful of Pop-Tart and was going to wash it down with a swig of ‘Dew when I choke. Bad choking, gasping, weazing, the whole bit. I panic and knock the laptop into the water and got one hell of a shock. I think it wouldn’t have been so bad if the laptop wasn’t plugged into the wall. I know, GFI circuits will trip… sure, if you say so. Mine didn’t. The house goes dark, the kids scream , I go dark, and then I wakeup standing next to the tub in the glow from the street lamp outside. My first thought was for the laptop. Odd how the mind works. Anyway, I pull it out by the cord and its toast. This takes me maybe 30 seconds. When I wrap a towel around me and go to open the door the lights come back on, startles me, and I crush the handle in my grip. We’re talking Terminator 2 strength here. Opening the door my wife asks what I did and why I didn’t answer her for the 5 minutes she was calling me while answering the kids questions. I told her I knocked the laptop into the tub. That earned me a stern look and reprimand. All the while I’m thinking, 5 minutes???