Happy Holidays!

No snarky comments or cynical observations.

Have a Merry Christmas, everybody. Be safe, be thankful, be happy.

Laters.

Now I know I'm old.

I hit 7:30 pm, and my body just shuts down. I just want to drink some warm milk, crawl in bed, pull my covers tight, and sleep like a senior citizen.

I want to work out, but the planet is pitch dark when I leave work. I can't convince myself to join a gym. Not sure how to make the blood run more swiftly through these dusty old veins of mine.

Maybe I need to get an archenemy that can chase me around and try to kill me.

That'd get me out of bed.

My incredible Fear-Of-Death Workout.

Of course, I could just take up tapdancing.

NOT SAFE FOR WORK!

I'm not running a porn site here, but I thought it would be appropriate to post some pics of my unborn baby's genitalia:

That's right, it's a boy. He'd better go to the comic shop with me. He's already got a big strike against him: he's not a girl. His mom has already said she's planning on spoiling him rotten. I guess that's fair, as I've already spoiled our daughter.

Here's a less spicy shot of our new young one:

Reality keeps getting stranger and stranger.

First Person Shooter

Thanks to El Donkeljon.

No clue why this ad was banned, maybe it was all the ultraviolence.

Someone's been watching Spaced.

Check it out.

Comics Rundown 12/4/2005

I hit the comic store Friday. And I never reviewed my pile from the last trip. So let's knock this out.

Fell #3 - This series is solid. I enjoyed this issue far more than the first two. Ben Templesmith's art works. It's all about the faces and expressions in this book, and Templesmith delivers the emotions very subtlely. Jacked-up lives in a jacked-up town. A whacko in a nun's habit and a Nixon mask. People locked in their cramped apartments, terrified. This book probably just unseated Walking Dead as my favorite book. "Jeff, here's the thing. We get trained for this. I have to shoot you in the head." No robot dinosaurs. No spaceships full of super-intelligent monkeys. Just frightened people with knives, stabbing each other.

Walking Dead #23 and #24 - This book has me worried. I think it's been three issues since a zombie got shot in the head. I understand, zombie stories are about the people, and there are relationships to work out. But the pacing in this book has left the zombie standard. It's feeling too safe. The writing is more focused on the characters beating the crap out of each other (physically and emotionally) than undead feeding on fleshy brains. It hasn't been a horror comic for a while. Oh, well.

Y: The Last Man #39 - I don't know why I'm reading this book anymore. Maybe it's just me. I'm not worried about the characters. I don't care if the male subspecies is reestablished. I'm already fairly certain that Yorick is gonna find his old girlfriend. Then he'll find his monkey. I don't really care what's going to happen to the rest of the cast of characters. This book needs to wrap up soon. Or BKV needs to grab this book and beat it violently with a stick until candy comes out. Either way.

Fear Agent #1 - Tony Moore drawing a spaceman killing aliens. Good fun. Unfortunately, this falls under "Nostalgia Comic" in my mental filing cabinet. No new ground is being broken here. Buy it for the art.

Ex Machina #16 - Is Hundred gay? Or isn't he? Can Vaughan drag out the mystery longer? Can he? Mayor Hundred discovers an important... thing from his past! Which... doesn't really change anything. He's still mayor. I'm seriously convinced that Vaughan had a massive brainstorm at the start of this book, and he's bound and determined to squeeze in everything into this series before his four years are up. This makes the book feel rushed. Better than Y.

Invincible #27 - I LIKED IT! Invincible and his Dad versus a Viltrumite hit squad! And I don't see how they can possibly win! Invincible has a baby brother! I really have no clue where this book is going to go. Robert Kirkman manages to keep everything very unpredictable. Unpredictable means fun. Very good issue, yay!

Jack Cross #4 - Still not in love with the art. Sometimes the sequences are confusing, which in an action comic is not cool. Jack is keerazy. He shoots a lot of people. He saves San Francisco. He carves himself up. I think I need to read Warren Ellis' original script to fully appreciate this book, because I can't shake the feeling that I'm missing something.

DMZ #1 - Hands down, coolest cover art on the rack. New Jersey secedes from the Union. Manhattan becomes a warzone. The book definitely has potential (pleasedon'tbe"Escape From New York"pleasedon'tbe"Escape From New York"). I'm also hoping that this book doesn't turn into a "Get Out of Iraq Now" political soapbox. "See, how would YOU like being occupied?" Tell the stories, build your characters, and let your audience draw their own conclusions. Too soon to tell how good this book is going to be, but the premise is interesting.

Standard disclaimer: I swear, I really do love comics.

Have a good week.

Gift idea for ya

Hands down, best present I've received in years:
A stove-top popcorn popper with a handcrank. No kidding.

I got it for my birthday or Christmas last year, can't remember which occasion.

Microwave popcorn has been abolished from my home. Now, my popcorn is prepared precisely how I like it: Fresh, hot, no butter, just a dash (One dash! No more!) of salt.

Oh, baby.

Makes me want to travel back in time and hug every Indian at the first Thanksgiving feast.

If you're stumped on a decent present this Christmas, pick up one of these bad boys. Physical gifts are mere apologies, to be sure, but if you're apologizing, at least do it in style.

We're gonna sit down and watch Rear Window now. Shaping up for nice evening.

It's a sad truth...

... but just thinking about Christmas-time makes me incredibly tired.

Especially if travel is involved. Or shopping. Or doing anything at all.

Everyday life is exhausting enough in my book.

Here's how the perfect Christmas season would go down in an ideal world:
Work would be cancelled for the entire month of December.
All telephones would cease to work for the same duration.
The sun would only come up when you told it to, to allow you as much sleep as you wished.
There would be a channel on TV playing "Tremors 2" all day, every day.
Your kitchen faucet would dispense egg nog if you were running low.
All transportation would take place during sleep. You would fall asleep thinking about who you'd need to visit, and wake up on their couch.
Any Christmas music that has been created within the last 20 years would cause instant nosebleeds and explosive vomiting, and thus banned.
All gift-giving would be entirely replaced by snuggling or interesting conversation, depending on the recipient.
Any time you felt you "needed" something gift-wise, you would be stricken by an excruciating migraine headache.

There. I'm feeling better about Christmas already. Let me know if I missed anything.

When I'm dictator of the world, this is how Christmas is going to go down. If you're not cool with that, you'd better do something to stop me right now.

Important Day

A thousand congratulations to my good buddy Don and his beloved wife America.

Today they brought a beautiful new baby girl into the world.

Two great people just became two great parents.

Best of luck to you.

Today's a good day to be born. I should know.

Days like this just kick Thanksgiving's butt so hard.

Black Friday

I love the ominous sound of that title. Capitalize that sucker. "Black Friday." I half expect a plague to wipe out several million people, while the stock market crashes, and we discover that Hitler never died and is invading Europe all over again. That would make a Black Friday.

Instead we get the death of Mr. Miyagi, crashing Xbox 360s, and people fighting over 27" televisions.

Black Friday is so-named, of course, because many businesses announce their first profitable numbers of the year today. Doesn't that seem crazy to anyone? If there was no Christmas buying-frenzy season, these businesses would be in the red year-round. Man, am I glad I'm not involved in Retail.

So work is silent as a grave today. Everyone's still home. Except me. Makes for a very quiet office. I'll wipe out some tickets, clean up the joint, and find some projects to get into trouble with.

Happy Black Friday to you.

Update?

Um. I guess nothing's really changed in the last week or so.

I'm feeling better, finally.

Work is really busy.

Got a pile of comics on Friday that I should write about.

Beat Half Life 2 over the weekend.

My daughter is hilarious.

Slow steps towards recovery

Well, I'm breathing and moving again. So that's a good sign.

Spent the weekend watching Lost, playing Dystopia, and slamming down Nyquil.

Which seems to have worked.

If you're on Dystopia, let me know. So I can perforate you with my minigun. Go ahead and put that stealth suit on, it won't help you.

Pwnage.

Under attack.

So my body is becoming infested with pathogens. This makes it hurt to talk, breath, and think.

All I'm good for right now is sitting still and doing very little with my brain. Which means I want to watch a film with guns and shooting in it.

I feel bad for my wife, who tries to make conversation with me. Poor lady is stuck all day trying to forge dialogue with a two-year-old whose favorite phrase right now is "Tickletickletickle!"

Wife asks fairly important question. I grunt in response. She asks for clarification. I grunt again, hoping that she realizes that that's all she's getting out of me.

I'm going to weave an impenetrable cocoon about myself and hibernate for a thousand years.

Goodbye.

Worthless Blog Post

Travelling tires me the heck out.

Seriously, I'm falling-over tired.

I've been slipping into a coma since 7 pm tonight.

That's tonight's worthless blog post.

Tomorrow: I'll write something about how I don't like my job, or how some company's policies offend me as a consumer. Or how I didn't like a movie I saw. Or how great some song is.

Or I may go completely off the wall and rant about my love affair with a random sports team.

I'm changing my name to Mike Smith, and I'm only wearing generic clothing from here on out.

Candy Magnet

So last night was my daughter's first go at full-fledged Trick-or-Treating. We figured she'd hit a few houses, get tired of it, and we'd head home.

Nothing doing.

After her second house, she was a unstoppable candy-generating machine. Her cuteness demanded pound after pound of chocolate from a helpless neighborhood.

"Aren't you just DARLING! Here you go!"

Resistance was futile. After a very short hour, my daughter was dragging a full bucket of candy behind her, struggling towards "one more door," squealing and giggling the whole time.

She is a monster. And she must be stopped.

There's no way I'm letting her eat all that candy by herself.

Time to teach the candy magnet a lesson about "Sharing."

A game I really like...

So crosswords are my bane. Reeeeally really hate 'em. Hate 'em.

Play this instead:

Sudoku

BOOM

Ever feel like you're on a freight train headed towards a gas truck parked across the tracks?

That's how I feel right now.

Took a nap

I have my brain back.

Playing with some MySQL, playing with some PHP.

Got waaaay too many ideas for a comic script I'm cooking up.

I'm going to bed early tonight, and I'm going to wake up happy.

I promise.

CURRENT MOOD:

Current mood: mischievous YOU ARE GOING TO DIE

Real estate warning signs

Tom Barrack's selling all of his US real estate.

'Cause there's a bubble.

Duh.

But here's one little gem that stood out. I love being proven right. One of my biggest soapboxes about real estate lately has been the practice of housing construction "futures."

Check this out:
"The slump will show up first in speculative hot spots like Miami and Las Vegas, he says, where condo developers are preselling their projects for what looks like big profits. When they actually build the units over the next year or two, he predicts, they will end up spending more then the units are now selling for.
At that point, says Barrack, the developers will try to raise prices. "But most of these buyers are speculators," he says. "They will either sue the developers to get the original price or take their deposits back and walk away." The developers will then put the units back on the market, and the glut of vacant condos will drive prices down. "It's the busted deals caused by construction costs that will cause the turn in the market," he says. "

And it's not just condos. Out here in Cali (as we Californians never call it. I think.) housing developments have waiting lists years before ground is broken. Houses are "flipped" before the house is even built. That is, a speculator puts a deposit on a lot, waits a bit, and then sells the rights to the lot to the next dummy.

Risky stuff. The real estate market is quickly going to degrade into a roller derby: lots of flying elbows, kicking, and hairpulling. And lots of bodies flying into the stands.

Tom Barrack sells his US RE holdings

Quick reviews

So, how did I like my new pile of comics?
Some disappointments, and some surprising surprises.

Biggest disappointment: Walking Dead #22 - SPOILER - No one dies from zombie attacks this issue. And no one kills any zombies this issue. Unforgivable. Un-freakin'-forgivable. It was like a Romero movie without garden tools.

Other disappointments: Y the Last Man #37 and Ex Machina #14 and #15. Quick disclaimer, I've loved both series up until now. Y is undeniably a very powerful book. Ex Machina is a great departure from the traditional super hero story devices. But I'm developing a problem with Brian K. Vaughn, and it's showing up in both of these books.

Explanation: It almost feels like he's buying into his own hype, and the media frenzy has driven him to try to outdo himself. It seems like both of these series are trying to "push the envelope" of edginess. It feels topical. Yeah, I get it, you're trying to explore tough issues. But particularly with Ex Machina, the topicality gets in the way of the storytelling.

Another sticking point on this issue of topicality. It's not enough just to raise controversial opinions, you have to explore them. You don't have to resolve them, but at least take some decent stabs at it. And Ex Machina tends to fall short on this as well. For example, a few issues back, the story touched on a publicly funded art museum which was showing a racially insensitive painting. The public was outraged, the artist unyielding. Mayor Hundred is faced with a dilemma: side with the public, or defend the artist's First Amendment rights. But instead of Hundred making a call and facing the consequences, the artist voluntarily sneaks into the museum and destroys the painting. No consequences, crisis averted, no solutions offered, on to the next controversy. This isn't the only example.

Grrrrrr. That said, the books are still pretty good. They are important, in that we need more books like them, taking some serious risks. But edginess for edginess' sake is not sustainable.

Now the good stuff.

Invincible #26 - The only "true" superhero book I'm reading. Light antics with punching and aliens. Just fun.

The Amazing Joy Buzzards Vol 2 #1 - More fun stuff, kind of a Mike Allred pop sensibility meets the Gorillaz. And the Beatles films. And Speed Racer. And Hanna Barbara mystery cartoons. No attempts at edginess here, just fun, goofy storytelling. The coolness lies in the seeming lack of effort at being cool. I'm waiting for the animated series.

Best stuff last.

Warren Ellis kicks my trash. I HATE WARREN ELLIS. I hate him more than Neil Gaiman, less than Alan Moore. Curse that Alan Moore. But back to Ellis. Hate'im.

Fell #2 is a nightmare. It's bad juju all around. The story is a gruesome headline, the characters caged animals. Ben Templesmith's art is bleak, and the pages are dense with information. There are no "unused" panels. The story's not for little kids or faint-hearted senior citizens. Ellis' writing is the showstopper here: solid characterization, punchy dialogue, efficient visuals. The decreased page length of the book is actually an asset, i.e. no useless splash pages, etc. If you have $2.00 and you're a grown-up buy the stupid book.

Jack Cross #2. Issue #1 didn't wow me. Some of the art didn't do it for me, although I liked the "24"-ish any-means-necessary tactics of the protagonist. Issue #2 is really engaging me though. The interrogation was cool. Explosions are cool. The car chase and shootout were cool. Ellis' plot is not a far stretch from plausible. I'm liking the book much more after this issue. Still not in love with the art though.

So that's my review of my pile of comics.

Wordy wordy wordy.

In summary: Read Warren Ellis, consider Brian K. Vaughn, and wait for Robert Kirkman to start killing zombies again.

Speaking of comics

No, not really. Just a random observation.

Costco bread tastes like styrofoam.

Just don't do it. Don't buy that Soylent-Green-esque food substitute. It is not bread. It is baked evil.

This has been a Public Service Announcement.

Evil.

COMIC BOOK SHOP DAY!

Hit my local store, and brought the family.

I'm a little ashamed to say it, but I could feel my eyes light up when I saw that the new issue of Walking Dead arrived. Yay!

Grabbed that and some Invincible, Joy Buzzards, Y the Last Man, Fell, Jack Cross, and Ex Machina. Read Fell already.

Kate got an issue of Thunderbolts from the 25-cent bin. She was super-super pumped. She's sitting quietly on the floor right now, "reading" it intently. The kid has trouble with English, but she's already building the visual vocabulary necessary to read comics. It's coming to her very naturally.

Speaking of visual vocabulary for kids, this book is a great one. I grew up with it. It's a children's book, but it's a deceptively marketed comic book. And it's beautiful.

The Snowman

Someday I'll write a whole big column about why this book is the bee's knees.

I have warm fuzzies.

Got home, and took Kate for a walk for an hour or so, looked at turtles and ducks.

Now wifey and I are gonna watch Batman Begins.

I really, really like Saturdays.

I am... a fanboy.

I can't get over how valuable this site is. And how young it is. And how popular it is.

Visit Warren Ellis' site, go to the Starting Out section, and dig up the thread titled: Comic Creator Audio / Video Interviews.

Then, sit and geek out for several hours.

The Engine

More zombies, please.

Sometimes the Onion is amusing:

Zombie Preparations

'Cause everyone keeps asking for this...

This was Mrs. Badger and I before we got married.

If only I still looked like this.

If only.

Pendulum Baby

My kid likes oscillation:












Yeah. I know.

AWOL

I've been away. Been traveling a lot. Back to work now.

Feel very much like a fish out of water.

I know I should be getting my life back to normal, but I've been avoiding my regular routine.

Not sure what I want to be doing now.

I want to be doing something other than what I'm doing at the moment. Perpetually. Unceasingly.

... Wow...

It's happened. They've finally done it.

It's strange, because I was lying awake wondering about this a few nights ago. Because, naturally, it's the sort of thing I lie awake thinking about.

And today, Slashdot brought this gem up.

Scientists have finally filmed a live giant squid in the wild.

So... yeah...

Long week. Tired.

So eventually I need to write about what a strange country Salt Lake City is. And yes, it is a different country.

I have some comics to read and a samurai movie to watch. And then I'm going to sleep.

Bullet... Dodged!

Heard from my Dad today. My brother and his family are fine for now. His house suffered no damage from Rita, and no flooding in his area as of yet. They still have power (!) and his cell phone is still working (!!), which is how he contacted my parents.

So, phew. What a relief. Thanks for all the prayers/thoughts/animal sacrifices.

I hope my brother's case is the norm for most of the folks down there.

Hurricane Rita. Uhoh.

I just found out my older brother Dean and his six kids are trapped in Houston and they can't get out. I thought they were already safe. They've boarded up the house and are going to have to wait it out. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depends on how you look at it, his wife is in Boise, ID right now.

Traffic is not moving, the gas stations are empty, and cars are just running out of gas on the highway. People are just turning around and heading back home. He decided not to risk running out of gas in a minivan with six kids in it.

Positives: They live on the higher end of town, so hopefully flooding shouldn't affect them as much. Also, Houston isn't New Orleans: no levee.

So if you could pray to whatever deity you worship on behalf of my brother and his kids, I'd appreciate it.

The really scary part is knowing that we won't hear from him for days to know if he's okay. Here's hoping we've learned something from Katrina.

Geez.

Sick.

I'm sick.

Don't talk to me.

Don't look at me! Don't ever look at me!

With any luck, I'll be too sick to work tomorrow morning.

Good stuff.

Pretty interesting little story.

I was raised in the country, and I'm living in the big city now.

Helpful hint: the country is better.

Not to knock cities, I've lived in several all over the country. But city life is terrible.

Here's why: Fireflies.

Where I grew up, every summer our yard would be full of fireflies. If you could imagine the most magical place on Earth, that place would have to be our front yard.

Fireflies don't live West of Kansas. They also don't tend to hang out in cities.

If you've got fireflies where you live, I truly and wholeheartedly envy you.

Don't Do This.

Don't do this. Just don't. Here's the recipe for a perfectly apocalyptic Friday night. This will do strange things to your mind.

10pm-12pm - Watch the news, check some news sites, fill your head with imagery of the New Orleans Katrina disaster.
12-1am - Read some issues of Robert Kirkham's zombie comic "The Walking Dead."
1am - 3am - Sit down and watch George Romero's "Dawn of the Dead."
3am - 4:30am - Read some more "Walking Dead" issues, and stare at the Zombie Infection Simulator for a while.
4:30am - 5:30am - Swallow the fact that you're not prepared for a disaster of any kind, hurricane, zombie, or otherwise.

Zombie movies are a good thing. In between all the silly special effects and goofy extras wandering around with bad makeup, they provide a public service: to tell you that sometimes bad stuff happens, and that if something major goes down, you might be one of those victims. You could be one of those poor folks trapped at the Superdome.

Don't be complacent. Do something. Prepare yourself. Take some first aid classes. Store some food up. Learn how to get clean drinking water. Do you know how to build a fire? Read up on some survival techniques, and try them out. Do you have an emergency kit, something that will keep you alive for 3 or 4 days? Go out to the shooting range, at least until you feel comfortable holding a gun.

Don't just change channels and see what's on the WB.

No one's going to accuse you of being a right-wing militant. Not after this week. It behooves you to prepare yourself, and not be a victim. The idea is that you learn these things and hope you never need to use them.

What if it's your city next time?

Me loves the Interweb.

And this is one of the reasons why:

Flying Spaghetti Monster

I'm undecided on the whole Intelligent Design thing. I haven't researched it enough to make an informed opinion.

Either way, this was (to me) very amusing.

Information Overload

I need to go on a diet. My information intake is tremendous. It hit me today that I'm overdoing it. I check tons of newsites each day. I'm on nearly a dozen mailing lists. My cell phone rings incessantly.

What this adds up to, is that I get home from work, and I get nothing done. Or at least, not as much as I could/should.

My name is Badger, and I'm an information junkie.

I've seriously got to trim the fat. Just checking my news site list takes me a couple of hours a night. Burning through my inbox is a neverending chore, I almost don't want to check it.

What I need to do now, is go through my information sources and ruthlessly cut them out of my life. My delicious, wonderful info sources.

Too much interesting content. Too much going on. Too much to keep tabs on.

Anyone out there have any good advice on where to start?

I'm not much on alarmism...

But check this out. I haven't done much blogging on the economic side of things, as I'm completely unqualified for that sort of thing. However, I consider myself fairly proficient at basic math, like addition and subtraction.

So follow my math here:

  Housing bubble will possibly burst next spring

  Oil prices continue to rise (Thanks Katrina!)

  Unsecured consumer debt is at an all-time high

+ Banks to double the minimum payments on credit cards in Oct.

------------------------------------------------------
  A Really Ugly Situation

See? I'm not too terrible at math. You just gotta know when to carry the twelve.

I can't forecast the markets, I'm just a normal joe, but it's a bit worrisome.

My advice is: get your stuff in order. I'm getting an ugly vibe, and I've been my luckiest when following my nose. Build up some savings. Make some preparations. I don't mean digging out an underground bunker and hoarding consumables, but expect some serious economic distress to come down within the year. If you're overextended in your spending, make some changes. If your investments are starting to smell funny, think about moving them into a more secure vehicle.

No one's paying me to say this, I have absolutely no incentive to share this stuff.

Preparing for the worst can't hurt. I've got 10 bucks that says it's gonna get ugly in about 6 months.

Blogger hacks are keen.

Google is such a force for evil. My comments are now poppable. It's keen.

If you've ever liked Vincent Price...

Go rent The Last Man on Earth.

Mr. Price survives a worldwide plague that wipes out the human race and turns them into zombies/vampires. His old friends and dead wife stumble to his door at sundown, calling his name: "Morgan... Come out... Come out!" All that's left for the last man on earth is to turn up his record player, and hope the mirrors and garlic he's hung around his boarded-up house hold out.

Bleak at best, the film is less optimistic about the fate of us puny humans than 28 Days Later, and has an ending that tastes like the end of Beneath the Planet of the Apes.

Good stuff. While some of the dialogue is weak, and the science is hokey ("Perhaps that bite from that vampire bat has made me immune to this plague!") the mood is wonderfully apocalyptic.

It's like watching Night of the Living Dead, only with less chicks screeching and freaking out.

Sidenote: This is supposedly an adaptation of Richard Matheson's novel "I Am Legend." Anyone read it? Any good?

Bye.

Woo!

Yay! SortaRunnerGuy has decided to post semi-regularly!

Yet another innocent victim of the blog meme.

The great part is, whether you like it or not, he's smarter than you. It sucks. Sucks big time.

http://halfamonth.blogspot.com/

Stop what you're doing,

and read this Right Now.

That is, if you read comics, write comics, draw comics, or have ever been remotely interested in comics and their distribution.

The Escapist

One more thing. Thought that gaming and writing were mutually exclusive talents?

Maybe you were wrong.

My new favorite site:

http://www.ssiworld.com/watch/watch-en.htm

I don't know about you, but I could watch this stuff all day.

In other news? My daughter has been swimming more than walking lately.

Finished Transmetropolitan. Warren Ellis is a whacked, whacked man.

Went to the comic shop today. It was a mixed experience. I got League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Volume 1. They were flooded (burst pipe) earlier this week, so all their new stuff on the shelves was destroyed. In some ways it was an improvement.

Do yourself a favor and look over these essays on self-publishing by Dave Sim:

http://www.amptoons.com/howto/sim/index.html#self

Good day to you.

INEXCUSABLE

Yeah, I know. It's been like two weeks without a post.

Busy, what can I say? I'm reading five books at once, I flew out to Salt Lake City for a few days, I'm running myself ragged.

Hey, at least I'm doing better than William Gibson on the blogging.

Lazy, lazy William Gibson.

Actually, he's probably realized how fruitless a pursuit blogging is, and how it's preventing him from his real endeavor: making lots and lots of money.

Which is something else I've been busy at for the last few days: exterminating distractions.

There a series of rituals I go through when I get home from work. How many of them are necessary? None of them, except for kissing my wife and daughter. So I've been methodically determining what these unnecessary tics I fall victim to in my spare time are, and eliminating them. Ruthlessly. With the intention of freeing up more time to write. We'll see if I succeed.

I haven't been to the comic store in a long while, and I'm itching to go back.
Here's my dilemma:

I know there's good stuff in there somewhere, but invariably I pass through the door, and am immediately assaulted by body odor, bad rap music, and insulting comic book covers. I grab a couple titles from creative talents that I hold dear, and run for the door without uttering a word.

Know what? Every time I leave the comic store, I leave depressed. Seriously and crushingly maudlin.

So I don't want to go back the next week. Or the next. Only after a month or two do I forget the major bummer I suffered from the last visit.

I've had a much better experience doing my shopping on eBay and Amazon. My experiences online are consistently composed of the following:
I choose my trade paperback.
I purchase it.
It comes in the mail.
I read it.
I'm very happy.

I'm not saying anything new here, and for that I apologize. But I miss the comic store. I miss getting my socks blown off by covers that begged for my purchase. I miss stumbling onto amazing fringe material that everyone else had overlooked. I miss not being offended.

I don't have any solutions. Maybe there aren't enough people in my demographic to sustain a store oriented towards a more mature clientele.

But for now, it sure as hell feels like going to ToysRUs to buy condoms.

Stranger and stranger

I'm not going to pretend to have any kind of understanding of how things are in Great Britain right now. I'm trying to be empathetic. I can only offer condolences to those who lost loved ones and those who are in pain. The world is full of evil people. Should we go get them? Absolutely. There's nothing more I can say about it. Britain is tough (tougher than the US, I daresay), and I have no doubt they'll hang in there.

Very strange, since I just read V for Vendetta a couple days ago. A mere coincidence, if you believe in that sort of thing. There's no question, V for Vendetta presents a worst-case scenario of knee-jerk reactionism to disaster. But it's not a terrible stretch of imagination to picture a jump to fascism after the series of attacks there.

We're already well on our way here in the States. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a babbling Michael Moore supporter, I'm not waving the flag while screaming for Bush to leave office. But we're getting locked down here in the US. There aren't marches in the streets, or armbands, or book burnings.

But you can't deny the presence of racial profiling. Gitmo looks like a concentration camp. In a few months I'll be carrying a national ID card.

I didn't plan on talking about this when I got up this morning.

Go get a copy of the V for Vendetta trade paperback by Alan Moore and David Lloyd, for the love of Mike. Hit Amazon or eBay or some other publicly traded dot-com survivor.

Today of all days, read V for Vendetta.

England Prevails.

Posts like the one below:

Give me the shakes. We're reaching a magnificent point in civilization.

We've reached the point where we have a choice. We can turn to the media companys and softly mutter:

"We don't need you."

Content is accessible and distributable on an individual basis. The individual is rewarded for his/her efforts directly, no middleman. No commercials. No hype machine. Notoriety based solely on merit.

Firefly is succeeding -despite- what the Fox executives wanted. Media is driven now by the consumer, instead of what a room full of wealthy people decide to shove down our throats.

I'm just shaking my head here. Now to destroy the television companies... Sorry to my television friends.

It's all very William-Gibson.

I'm going to say that again:

"We don't need you."

We Are Not Evil

Finally, someone is getting the right idea:

http://magnatune.com/

Downloads are donation based, and the artist gets 50% of the cut. Stream for free, download for donation.

Stop feeding the monster.

Starve a music exec.

HO. LEE. CRAP.

http://www.scienceblog.com/catfish.html?q=node/8320

Great Jupiter's Ghost. I'm never going fishing again.

I've got something festering inside:

and it feels strangely like an essay about Watchmen.

I just read it again this week. Straight shooting, I'm not an Alan Moore fanatic. But there's a whole list of really good reasons why Watchmen is proof that most comic writers should just slash their wrists.

I breathed an audible sigh of relief when the Watchmen film project was (at least temporarily) postponed. It'd be like writing a symphony about a painting. How the hell would you do it? How do you make a movie about reading a pirate comic? Watchmen was about composition, and each panel of it demanded several moments to recognize all that was going on. The human eye is drawn to what dominates the frame, yet the action in Watchmen is driven by what's in the background. If the film were to be truly faithful to the comic, thirty percent of the time would be dedicated to a few people standing around a news stand.

This is cruel, but I hope it dies on the vine.

So stack that on to the pile of topics I need to explore further.

It's nearly 2 am, and I honestly don't have a good excuse for being conscious right now.

Oh, and for a truly surreal sonic experience:

Dr. Who Theme/Britney Spears remix

'Cause, you know, it's 2 am.

Excerpt from my self review at work:

I'm Freaking Awesome!
I am the Uber-IT guy. If there were a better IT guy in the Universe, it had better be some guy who Died For Our Sins, because I'm the paragon of IT-ness!

...


I love doing self reviews. For the uninitiated, you write a self review of your skills and competencies, and your manager decides whether to give you a raise above or below the national inflation rate.

Usually it's below.

So you get two approaches.
Option 1: You talk yourself up like a spaz, like you're a case study out of a Covey book.
Option 2: You play humble. You play it off like you've got all kinds of room for improvement in the hopes that your manager goes, "Oh, man, this guy is totally underestimating his potential! He's way better than this!" and then he gives you a whopping raise. Helpful bonus hint: This never happens in real life.

Soooo, I tried a hybrid 1 and 2 approach.

Observe:

"I'm a frickin' unstoppable IT god, but I really should work on my interpersonal skills."

"1 pwnz T|-|3 AS/400, U N00Bz! However, I think my organizational habits could use improvements."

and so forth.

Don't say I never helped you. Wait, double negative, let me fix that.

Don't say I ever helped you.

I'm here to help you out.

Pink Carnations by Animals that Swim is the best song in the world.

I'm telling you this because I care.

Memo to Self:

Hmmm... something tells me this blog isn't focused enough.
Now that I've thought about it, here's what I'd really like to cover:

Games
Comics/Webcomics
Finance
Activism
Other Wackiness

Boy, those reaaaaally don't seem to fall under one umbrella. So the question is, do I just go nuts and include everything in this blog? Or splinter into multiple blogs that are more specific, and hopefully more useful?

I'm leaning towards the second option...

I'm telling you, Superman is a Dick.

And now I have proof.

http://www.superdickery.com/

Don't worry, this site is work-safe.

I've found my new dream job...

and it's drawing cool-looking ninja stars.

Without fail, I'll answer a phone call and grab my notepad.

Fifteen minutes later, I hang up, and my notepad is covered with ninja star doodles.

But not just any ninja stars. COOL looking ninja stars.

Now to find a life-sustaining revenue model based on ninja star drawings.

Great stuff. Like Eric Carle after a car crash.

This is fun. What a great idea:

http://www.themonsterengine.com/

Breakfast

So I ate breakfast today for the first time in months. Two pieces of peanut butter toast and a glass of juice.

It's surreal. I have so much energy I'm almost manic. I think my coworkers are terrified.

Breakfast. Go eat some.

I know, it's sad that I have to be this old to figure out the benefits of eating and sleeping.

I don't care what you say:

Google Maps are cool.

If you've got more nifty Google Maps, post your links in the comments. So far I've seen plane taking off, a volcano erupting, a battle in Iraq, and the Stealth bomber above.

Hook me up.

I'm not normally this cruel, but...

This is for all you snake haters out there.

http://flyingsnake.org/

There's a species of South Asian snake that not only can leap from tree branch to tree branch, but can also glide in an amazing display of aerodynamics.

Go to the movies page, and check out the GLIDING movies towards the bottom. While some of the videos are a little hard to see, it's quickly apparent that these snakes are flying like frisbees.

If you didn't like snakes before, I fully expect you to never feel safe in a forest again.

I sense a horror movie coming on. With Jennifer Lopez in it.

This has been a public service announcement.

Oh, good, I'm not the only idiot in the room.

This fascinated me:

A recent study found that the majority of Nobel prize-winning economists are really lousy investors.

Normal investing tasks that ordinary folks have trouble with seem to create the same problems for the academics too.

Now I don't feel so bad.

Lvl 50 Senator LFG

I am so sorry.

(Profanity warning.)

I am weak.

I broke down and bought Guild Wars.

It is enjoyable.

You can only use 8 skills at a time, and navigation is really easy, much like Neverwinter.

All this adds up to the biggest selling point for me:

I can still play while my daughter sits on my lap.

Now to round up my buddies for fight/kill.

Badger

Almost Forgot!

If you don't celebrate Free Comic Book Day,

YOU ARE AN IDIOT.

http://www.freecomicbookday.com/

Tell your friends.

Divided Kingdoms: FightKillRendTearDestroyHurt

Got a call from an old friend today. Way back in the day we helped another buddy start up a Neverwinter Nights server. When it started out, I pumped out a lot of the scripting and started the local thieves guild. For you non-Dungeons-and-Dragons folks out there, this thieves guild was not true organized crime. More on that later, there's a whole array of surreality associated with that part of the story.
We started the server in the winter of 2003. I got burned out with school and scripting after about 4 months. Played for another 6 months or so, then called it quits.

So it sounds like my buddies are turning over the keys to the kingdom.
If you have Neverwinter, definitely check it out. It's called Divided Kingdoms, and they have a rabid, dedicated fan-base. The server is, hands down, an excellent world to play in. A whole squadron of DMs handle plots and quests.

http://www.typhoondigital.com/nwn/

It's about as much fun as you can have online without paying a subscription fee. Check it out. Go get your portable hole.

You Guildwars guys in the back there, hush up.

Turing Machines

jaywalkers move
red blood cells shuttle
forward forward write back read

Photons hit my eyes
the light of her
forward forward write back read

electrons, nerves
amped and sluggish
forward forward write back read

no amount of rain will clean this stain
Pacing away from her I
hear her smile as she bursts into flames
hear her smile as she bursts into flames

excellent posture
forward forward write back read
forward forward write back read

our minds meet
with shuffling feet
forward forward write back read

bleeding shins
counters of beans
Know the two of us are Turing Machines

forward forward write back read
forward forward write back read

There's no stopping us two Turing machines

forward forward write back read
forward forward write back read

It has occurred to me...

That that last post could have appeared on any blog in the entire universe, on any given day. You too can make a completely generic whiney work post of your own!
Here's the formula:
I am at work.
I dislike what is happening at work.
Wah wah wah.

I promise I won't let that happen again. I was a bit distracted.

In other news, I have unleashed an unholy tentacled monstrosity in our kitchen. My purchase of the $19.95 home training course, "Conjuring Hellspawn for Fun and Profit," has proven to be a sound investment.

Now I just gotta clean up this brimstone. How do you get demon slime out of kitchen tile?

Grraaaaahhhh!

Fridays. These are the days where everyone holds off their problems to dump them on me right before the weekend.

So considerate. Sometimes I think I need to pretend like I'm a complete idiot.

Perhaps if I project more of an aura of incompetence, these problems will be avoided.

My life is not a Dilbert cartoon, I swear.

It's Call-In-An-Airstrike-On-Your-House-Day!

Here's a fun game.
1) Go to Google Maps.
2) Punch in your address.
3) Switch to Satellite view.
4) Zoom aaaallll the way in.
5) Feel really creeped out as you realize that you have nowhere to hide.

I can see my house from here!

My Zombie Valentine

Behold:

http://65.127.124.62/south_asia/4483241.stm.htm

Keerazy zombie happenings. The US will fight conventional wars, nuclear wars, wars on terror. But how will the US handle... ZOMBIE WARFARE?!?!?

Every fallen ally becomes our enemy.
Get an ax.

(Updated: Link's dead, I'm looking for a replacement.)

Firefly

I'm not in love with Joss Whedon. I didn't really follow Buffy or Angel. He writes quirky dialogue. Quirky is good.

So I finally got around to pulling down the Firefly 4-disk set from Netflix. I won't go into the maddening history of Firefly's amateur-hour cancellation. It's a show that should not have been cancelled.

I hereby declare that I greatly enjoyed this series. And I'll tell you why.

I can recommend this show without being embarrassed. I've always felt a stigma with "sci-fi" films or TV series. With the majority of these, there have always been elements which I simply felt the casual viewer would be immediately alienated. This is especially true of sci-fi television. Shooting straight from the hip, for the guy on the street, sci-fi is boring. The costumes are generally lame, the characters are unlikeable, and the stories are unintelligible. There was always the fear after recommending a show/movie/anime/comic that the question would come back, "You really like this stuff?"
Normal-guy-on-the-street wants good looking people, shooting each other, with funny dialogue interspersed. It is this market that has made Bruckheimer a powerhouse. This is a huge market that sci-fi as an industry should be exploiting.
Firefly offers this, but adds decent, grown-up storytelling to the recipe. Instead of themes that can be summarized in one sentence (i. e. Stealing is bad), this show offers shades of grey. The character's decisions are morally questionable (oh, crap, just like in real life). People kill each other. Sometimes in fair fights, but usually not. Sexuality is an often revisited topic. Sometimes it's a punchline, but usually it's not.

I guess what I'm saying is that Firefly has mainstream appeal, but it's more sensible than typical popular television. It avoids stereotypes, doesn't offer clear answers, and if there were any fart jokes, I missed them. It's a show for adults.

Go rent this or buy it. Then recommend it to others. You won't be embarrassed.

Addict: Natural Selection

This is a placeholder for a review on the Half-Life mod, Natural Selection. Shoot aliens. Eat space marines. Burn out your mind.
I'm hooked on Combat mode, which moves extremely fast, but has a few major flaws.
I missed out on the whole Counterstrike mania, I've only played CS once or twice a year ago. I was eaten alive by the fellers who've been playing CS forever. I was discouraged, and went back to Return to Castle Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory. Ohhh, RTCW. Delicious, delicious RTCW.
There are quite a few inherent similarities between NS Combat and RTCW:ET. Your in-game rewards are performance-based.

I'm going to stop right here, as I don't have time to finish this right now. Great game, go download it.

Gettysburg

This isn't new, but I love looking at it. It's the first panel of a comic my talented brother and I are working on. It'll be web-based. It will not be a funny webcomic, at least not intentionally.
Behold:




I have no comments about this image.

Build your self esteem!

Play this for a while. I'm no game columnist, but after a while of playing this, I felt pretty darn good.

http://www.tetris1d.org/

Games aren't just about fun, they're about growing as a person.

Memo to self:

Steal the kiddy menus from every restaurant I hit for the next few weeks.

Those things are a cornucopia of creative content. They overload the senses.

Hop-Frog Kollectiv

I won't lie to you, I'm a huge fan of ambient music. I dig primal beats, I'm just wired that way. Sometimes lyrics get in the way of the vibe.

I'm also a huge fan of free music. If I could tie up the RIAA with duct tape, throw them in the trunk of a foreign-made car, and push it off a cliff, I would.

So Warren Ellis popped this up:

http://www.hop-frog.com/Musik.htm

I'm resonating at the frequency of Track 6 of the Jester Devotional.
Track 7 reminds me of playing Fallout 2: A desert, a beat up car, and lots and lots of guns. Music to survive to. If the world ended and you climbed out of a bunker in the aftermath, this would be the soundtrack.

Feel free to disagree if you like.

Blogger killed my words.

I wrote something, then tried to spellcheck it. I'm finicky in that way.

And my words are gone. I can't remember what I wrote.

Odds are good it was unimportant. Most of what I write is unimportant.

In that way, it is very much like the Federal Tax Code.

-Badger