Wednesday, July 27, 2005

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.

Thursday, July 07, 2005

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.

Sunday, July 03, 2005

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.

Friday, July 01, 2005

HO. LEE. CRAP.

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

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