Beyond My Geeky Life

  If you are looking for a fun read and a way to show support for me as a writer, please check out my story, 'The Hidden Parliament', for free on Amazingstories.com If you enjoy it, please spread the word. https://amazingstories.com/2026/06/the-hidden-parliament-by-ian-brazee-cannon-free-story/

One of the popular comic book websites did a list of the most popular superheroes and put Spider-Man as number three. Number two was Superman and number one was Batman. Needless to say, I highly disagree with that claim. Now some may claim that I am biased on this issue. I have made it clear that Spidey is my number one and that I am not really a fan of Superman or Batman, but in this I am being honest and looking at trends. Here is why I am saying that Spider-Man is the most popular superhero right now. First off, the Spider-Man based movies (Not the Spidey's villains' films that have just been bad) have been hugely successful. All ten of the Spidey films have been big hits, even my least favorite one Amazing Spider-Man 2. More recently they have had five insanely successful films in a row, with Spider-Man: No Way Home coming close to 2 billion dollars worldwide gross. The sequels films that are coming out this year and next are highly anticipated. Second, go out to a mall rig...

The following is the first Tales from Georgie and Armand’s Place story. It is a promotional piece of flash fiction that will always be available for free. If you're a fan of Georgie and Armand's Place, please share this as many people as possible to spread the joy. Tales from  Georgie and Armand’s Place: The Bounty Hunter By Ian Brazee-Cannon Based on Characters and Concept  Created by Bryan Hineser “I have a feeling today’s the day,” Rolin Lea’Vitt thought to himself as he scanned over the crowd of diverse beings hustling about. This was Lea’Vitt’s fourth day of staking out the Nona’He Mountain Lobby. The entrance area was an overwhelming wall of an extraordinary variety of hundreds of doors, each opening to its own world, lined in rows stretching up to dizzying heights. Stairways connected them all, leading down to the spacious, yet comforting lobby floor which was dominated by a mural of precious stones depicting a black and a red dragon resting on the top of a snow-cover...

  Just watched the 'Final Destination' films. While I did enjoy the mindless, brutal crazed methods of death in them, they used two concepts that truly bug me in films. The first one is the rules that there is no logical way for anyone to know. I think the worst example of this I have ever seen is from the movie 'Cool World', where somehow everyone knows these rules regarding the cartoons' interaction with the 'real' world characters. There is no logic at all as to where they world have learned those rules, since there has been almost no interaction between the two worlds. In the 'Final Destination' films, most of the rules we are given are 100% pure speculation from the characters. Pure assumption, but we are supposed to believe these are the real, solid rules. The suicide or killing someone to take you place in death have no evidence at all they would work. The second issue I have is how no one seems to be affected by the horrors they witness. We d...

 I'm going to start this post with an apology to George Carlin. I love his comedy. He was a brilliant and funny guy. The issue at hand is his reasoning, as he wore only completely black outfits was because he didn't want to be a walking billboard. And I do agree with his reasoning and the truth of it. It was his way of expressing himself and I will always applaud that. I myself have no problem with being a walking billboard as long as it is for something I have a passion for. It is how I choose to express myself, having my interests on display for others to see. I personally believe that is actually a healthy thing to do and would encourage everyone to do that for whatever their passions are. Time to make your guesses as to my reasoning. Being as geeky as I am, I have lots of geeky T-shirts and wear them regularly and have found them to be great for getting fans of the same things I like, to interact with. Most of my shirts seem to catch people's attention and get a direct ...

Anyone who reads this blog regularly knows that I am a collector and that I do not collector for value but for pleasure. Recently I joined a comic collecting page of Facebook. So far, the majority of the posts I have seen there have been people saying 'I just bought this for ($$$). Is it worth that price?' It is the kind of thinking I have never understood. The simple truth is, if you were willing to pay that amount for it, then it was worth it for you, and that is really all that is important. I do understand that as one builds their collection, they want good deals and are hunting for bargains. However, once you've paid the money that is you deciding if it is worth it, a good enough deal for you to spend that money on. Worrying that you might have spent more than needed if you would have done more looking, is not going to change the fact that for you it was worth it when you bought it. I have overlooked so many cool pieces because the price being asked, even if it was a f...

 Looking through my drive, I ran across a folder of articles I wrote years ago. I did sell a couple of them. There are a few good geeky ones that I am going to post here. So here we go with one written 19 years ago. Looking back, it is interesting to see just what the impact of Star Wars has been on my life. I was born in 1974 and would have only been two and a half when the first movie came out. In my mind there never was a time without Star Wars. Even to this day I sleep with a Star Wars pillowcase (Yes, I am thirty-one years old, married, have two kids and still sleep with a Star Wars pillowcase) and cannot think of a time when I have not. I still have that first pillowcase in fact, and I must have used it for at least a dozen years before it just got too worn out. It is just something that has always been there for me, even at times when I was not fully aware of it. As a child it was just there. I had the toys and saw the movies and watched the TV specials an...

Originally I was thinking of writing a post about the show 'Stark Raving Mad'. A great short-lived show with an incredible cast. For whatever reason it has never had a video release and is not streaming anywhere. It turns out the only way I was able to find to watch it was YouTube videos. I highly recommend you find the show and check it out, as it is still brilliant comedy with Tony Shalhoub and Neil Patrick Harris. Then today I learned that the site SFcrowsnest did a review of 'Open Mic Night at The Nexus', a collection of my short fiction. ( Open Mic Night At The Nexus by Ian Brazee-Cannon (book review). - SFcrowsnest ) "However, the tone is mostly light-hearted, gentle, playful, and not aggressive. I enjoyed the book and hope Mr. Brazee-Cannon keeps writing." -  Eamonn Murphy Good reviews are of course always a welcomed thing to received, especially when it is from a true stranger with no connection to you at all. It feels great to know there are people ou...

 This last year has been rough for me on many levels. The hardest hitting event was the sudden passing of my father a few months ago. It did mess with the holiday season. I am helping my mother go through things so she can move into a smaller apartment. The biggest element that needs to be dealt with is my father's books. Even after he downsized his collection about fifteen or so years ago, he kept a good amount based on certain factors. Going through his books has been an experience. There were also some interesting personal correspondences between him and several notable authors. My mom is keeping all the autographed books for now, including two Robert Heinlein autographed novels, to have them appraised. He had gotten a lot of autographs over the years. As I go through them, I am pulling out books that he had recommend and we shared an enjoyment of. His favorite author was at one time Roger Zelazny (Not sure if that had ever changed). His favorite novel of Zelazny's was '...

This post is an update to what is going on with my writing. On Dec. 16th, you will be able to pick up a collection of my short fiction, 'Open Mic Night at The Nexus'. https://www.amazon.com/Open-Mic-Night-at-Nexus-ebook/dp/B0DNNVY92Z/ This collection is a great way to see my progress as a writer, starting with the first story I sold going all the way to my more recent writings. All the stories have been tweaked and improved, with one brand new, never before published story in it. For some award news: My story 'A Break from the Routine', was awarded Silver Honorable Mention from Writers of the Future for 4th quarter 2024. If you have read 'Georgie and Armand's Place Under Siege', then you should be familiar with Prof. Gunn. This is a stand along story of his. I really love this story, so I will be working hard to find a home for it. I am ending the year on a good note with my writing. Thank you to everyone for your support.

Stress is a normal part of life.  I have anxiety issues myself. Life can hand you the big stresses, which is where I'm at right now. Over the last few days the one thing that has helped me relax the most has been to just lie in bed and read some comics. I have a good pile of them right now, so I expect to be using this therapy regularly for a week or so with new-to-me comics. That's all I have for this post.

Yesterday I was at Mile High Comics as they celebrated the 50th anniversary of their first store opening. It was nothing huge. The owner, Chuck Rozanski, did what he really enjoys doing, reminiscing about his adventures in selling comic books for over five decades before everyone had cake. As I'm about to turn 50 myself, I find the closeness of age amusing. I have been a regular customer for over 35 years, when they opened a store in walking distance of my house. Before that I had been a customer whenever I got the chance, but that was the hands of my parents at the time. I think I have been to most of the Mile High Comics stores that have existed over the years. Now they are down to one store, but it is an amazing store. Worth a visit for anyone to just walk in and experience how truly overwhelming the place is. Me and My Boys At an author signing event While it has slowed down, me and my boys have been to a good deal of events there, including a wedding. I held my one and only bo...

It has been a while since my last post, but here is a good short one. Deadpool & Wolverine is a great movie.  Highly enjoyable on so many levels. It does an unbelievable job of taking looks straight from the comic books and making them work. For me one of the coolest scenes was when they did the cover to Uncanny X-Men #251, which is at the top of my list for best cover ever. Had a t-shirt of this cover and wore it until it was heavily tattered. It really is a powerful image. In the film we get to see from other angles, and it is amazing. The rest of the film is great, I'm just focusing here on one aspect that I really geeked out on.

With the truth that everything can be a collectable, I often enjoy seeing what kind of things pick up in popularity for collecting. Right now, one of the more interesting collecting fads is novelty popcorn buckets. The old popcorn buckets, which I do have few of, were just your basic bucket with whatever franchise printed on them. In recent years that has changed. Popcorn buckets have become far more interesting and collectable. As far as I can figure out it all started at theme parks, Disney and Universal Studios. But due to the fact that people were not too aware of them, there was not the big demand for them. When I learned there was a Millenium Falcon bucket at the time we were planning to go to Disney World, I knew I had to have it. I've picked up a few others as well. And while they were collectable, it was not that big of a thing. Even after the same kind of popcorn buckets started showing up in movie theaters, people picked them up as just fun things. Then came D&D Hono...

I worked in the toy department at Wal-Mart for several years and even after I moved from the department, I still had people hunting me down because they knew me as a serious collector. My first piece of advice for anyone wanting to collect, is make sure whatever you collect you have a passion for. One big thing so many people do not understand is that most pieces in anyone's collection are not worth much and no matter how one tries, there is never any guaranty of value. If you do not have a passion or interest in what you are collecting, then you're gonna be upset when you collection has no value. This is what happened with Beanie Babies and now there are a huge amount of people who collected the Beanies Babies because of preconceived value. Lots of people are now stuck with hundreds of worthless Beanies Babies that no one is buying or interested in. And since these people only collected thinking of it as an investment, they have a bunch of the things taking up space that they ...

It seemed as if Disney was keeping all the Bantha milk limited to only being on sale at their theme parks. Now my guess is they have imported enough Banthas to Earth so they can produce enough Blue Milk that it can be found in the corner grocery store. It is amazing to me that it took over forty years for someone to see the value in marketing Blue Milk. As with anything seen in Star Wars, there is money to be made off us fans with putting that kind of stuff on store shelves. We got a half-gallon here and it we all like it.  A few years ago, during a trip to Disney World we got to try both the alcoholic and non-alcoholic versions, and my guess is you can find a few other mixed drink ideas using Blue Milk as the base on-line. There is an appeal to me for fun, novelty foods and I know I'm not the only one. So now Disney needs to keep it going and get enough thala-sirens here on Earth so we can also get the Green Milk in the stores as well.

The following is the introduction to the first collection of fiction I self-published, 'My  Delusions of Godhood'. This is a collection of my older fiction, if you are interested in seeing my style from about 20 years ago, the collection is still available here: Amazon.com: My Delusions of Godhood   Introduction, The title of this collection (My Delusions of Godhood) is based off my general belief that all writers suffer from of a basic need to play god. We create worlds and universes, give them our own rules of physics and logic, then we create life in those worlds and manipulate that life as we see fit for entertainment purposes. Our creations laugh and cry or live and die by our whims.  We play god with every story we write. I am also fairly sure we enjoy it, otherwise we wouldn’t keep doing it. I openly embrace my god complex. After creating the title for this collection, as I gathered up the pieces of fiction I wanted to include, I noticed about half of th...