Miscellania R.I.P. Fletcher Hanks Jr. via Newsarama. Guy was the son of a Golden Age artists. He was 90. And died from the complications of a car crash. Read on, peeps. This guy was awesome. Rest in peace, indeed. Man declared dead, says he feels 'pretty good' via CNN Goes to show what science and medicine doesn't know. How Hitler Would Have Rebuilt Berlin via Time Yeah, yeah. I waive Godwin's Law on this one. All kidding aside, the evil that was Adolf Hitler holds a decidedly morbid fascination for me. That someone that blatently evil can hold sway over so many people says so much for the psychology of the human race. Plus all the nifty conspiracy theories surrounding him! And finally... DC's Pulp Heroes Annual series covers again, via Newsarama. Those of you who are avid comic fans remember these wonderful covers for 1997's annual line. They were painted by various artists and were all based off of '30's pulp novel covers. Some were even direct ho
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Happy Belated Zombie Jesus Day! There's a lot out there I just don't get. From Cracked.com I found the "10 Lamest Dinosaur Names". Which in and of itself, wouldn't be bad. I mean, there's odd names. But nothing, to me, beats Erectopus . Yep. Erectopus. I wish I was making that up. There's just... something wrong with that? How wrong you ask? Well... do an image search. Aside from Chuck Norris (Which... kind of bothers me in an obscure way...), there some... interesting imagery from Japan. Which is less surprising and more disturbing. I'm a big admirer of Japanese culture, but some aspects of it are a bit odd. Thankfully, Safesearch does block said image, but Cracked had it posted. And I cannot unsee it. Brain Bleach didn't work. Oh why didn't it work...
Musings How often do you sit in front of your computer not really knowing what the heck to do? The worst part is when this happens at work. So, I'm deciding whether or not to make the jump to a Mac. I've got a nice refund from Uncle Sam coming, so I know I'm picking up an iPod Touch, but I was looking at the prices of a low-end MacBook, and was surprised. Now you might be asking why a low-end? Well, this is more like a transition machine rather than a main machine. Kind of a way to test the waters for me. The only thing that *really* keeps me on Windows is City of Heroes and iTunes. iTunes of course runs on a Mac, so that's no big, but CoH is a stumbling block. However, I know CoH is more than playable in Wine on Ubuntu. Mac is a flavor of Unix (FreeBSD to be exact), so I don't see why I couldn't get Wine to run on OSX. Though, I will look for more native solutions, I don't foresee too many issues with this. Otherwise, I'll just keep my duel-boot Ubuntu/
Dresden Files. Link Seriously. One of the better series being published at the moment. Some of you may recognise it from the short-lived Sci-Fi Channel series. While the Sci-Fi series was... okay, it couldn't hold a candle to the books. Which is usually the case, in my observations. Wow. That sounded really pretentious, didn't it? Anyway, if you like urban fantasy with a slightly hard-boiled and noir-ish feel to it, do yourself a favor and try the Dresden Files. Storm Front is the first book, and you might be able to find it at some reseller shops. Otherwise Amazon generally has used editions, but they are usually are in bookstores. And they've just re-issued most of the early books with new trade dress, and a new book will be out in April in hardcover. I just finished the most recent book in soft cover White Knight , and they just keep going. In fact, after reading the preview for the next one, I may have to break down and grab it in hard cover. Which I rarely do, save J
So, I like conspiracy theories. They can be fun and scary. BUT. Gary Gygax took his name from a mythological figure? REALLY? How many mythological figures are named Gary anyway? But seriously, trying to link one of the fathers of modern role-playing to the mythological figures of Gog and Magog? Some people have way too much time on their hands. And yes, this is coming from someone who blogs for no particular reason. :)
Yeah, yesterday was full of sucktitude. I spent most of the day in a sleepy haze, and ended up working an hour overtime because I just couldn't concentrate. I think I went to bed at 9 last night. Y'know, when I was a kid, I used to get so pissed about having to go to bed at 10 every night! But I'm not tired! And yet... I'm 31 now. I can barely stake awake on my own after 10. It's amazing what happens as you get older. Also, been toying with the idea of trying out Adobe AIR for development. Found a nifty Twitter client, called Twhirl , that works fairly well. I don't know. Every time I look at something for development, I keep going back to Python, which is an awesome language.
I am SO not a car guy. That doesn't mean I can't appreciate the neat or, in this case, damned odd... I went to grab some soda for lunch. As I was driving down the road, as you do in a car, I was passed by this old car. Like I said, I'm not a car guy, but being an amateur history buff, I know the major styles of cars over the years. This was VERY boxy, so I figure '40s. Safe assumption. Except, I noticed a (seemingly) non-sense bumper sticker. Then it clicked: that looks like the weird plates you see on European cars in the movies. So, y'know, it's GOTTA be right! *cough* Anyway, once that clicked, I was coming alongside the odd vehicle and noticed something even stranger! THERE WAS NO DRIVER! Okay, so there was a driver, but in the passenger side. Freaky. I know I'd probably have trouble overseas on the roads, because I'm used to the heathen way we drive here in the States, but to drive in a European, or at least British, style car over here from the pas
There's... an up and down to being a pet "owner". In quotes. Yes. I'm one of those crazy mo-fos who wonders who owns who. Well, last week, my cat Rydia (Yes. I named her after a game character. Shutup.) Was acting listless, and kinda limp. Well... it scared both me and my parents. So, they took her into the vet and the vet told us that she most likely had a fatty liver. She was also dehydrated. So for the past week, we've been injecting saline solution under her skin for hydration, giving her antibiotics and a few other pills for the liver. And force feeding her. Oh man. That's an adventure. I won't be sorry for that to be done. But, hey. It does need to be done, and one of the pills needs to be taken with food... but it's really a good way to loose a finger or three. All day yesterday was kind of scary though. She didn't move much, and seemed more than content with just laying with me and purring. Which sounds "awwwww" worthy. Except m
Fridays might actually be one of the hardest days of the week to get through. This is coming from someone who absolutely despises Mondays. With the fiery passion of a thousand burning suns. Yeah, that much. Fridays move ever slow slowly, and I tend to have to fake being busy most of the day. But don't tell that to my boss. So, anyway. On lunch today, I had to stop at a Walgreens near my office, so I decided to pick up some index cards so I can do some "line for scene" exorcises this weekend. What is that, you may ask? Well, it's an exorcise to help work out major areas of plot in your writing. I got it from author Holly Lisle , who does some wonderful writing workshops at her site. The Plot Clinic she has that guides you through that exorcise was well worth the ten bucks I spent on it. Overall the Clinic was such a help, that I plan to use the exorcises to go through the book I'm currently trying to write. Hence the index cards. It should be interesting.
Pics from Warner Brothers themselves Wow, so I never expected to see it happen. It's cool and all... The Comedian looks... pretty dead on. I saw the photo and I asked myself if it was a painting for a second. I'm not overly thrilled with the whole leather thing that seems to permeate comic book movies since X-Men, but I get why they stay away from spandex. It does tend to look rediculous on real live people. This is still a year away, and something could still derail it, but Watchmen is rather revered in the comic shop chain I frequent. In fact, the original owner had something we dubbed "The Watchmen Speech" which he would lever on anyone who asked him to reccomend a book. Of course, he also had this idea he called "The Relic" that sounded a lot like Captain America that he insisted was NOT Captain America . Man... I still miss Jef...
NIN THEMSELVES post their stuff to Pirate Bay and other P2P sites. Granted, I think I've heard maybe one of their songs. Still, this is a huge step forward for music artists. If this works, and there's no reason why it shouldn't, this goes a long way to show the RIAA and its ilk just what it's been doing oh so wrong. And considering the hubbub that the RIAA has been keeping all the "profits" from suing everyone and their grandmother (literally), I think this may be the impetus needed to get rid of them and start using a model that ACTUALLY pays artists. Which... still needs TONS of work. I mean, let's be honest here. If you can get something for free, you'll do it. That is a generalization, but all too true. But I think NIN has the right idea here. I think I'm gonna grab the albm when I get home. If I like it, I'll buy the rest.
Wanna-be Writing Adventures
How many of you out there are wanna-be writers? Recently, I've been trying to really get more done. I've been reading a few books on writing, two of which are from Holly Lisle. Holly is one of my favorite writers, and her workshops are completely worth the ten bucks. I've been trying to get serious about writing for years. As most wanna-be's I've got reams and reams of notebooks and notecards just full of half-developed ideas and partially written stories. Also like many wanna-be's the prospect of professional publication scares the carp out of me. I've been scouring the net for writing podcasts like Mur Lafferty's "I Should Be Writing" and "Writer's Talking", where Mur frequently guest stars. There's a few I have bookmarked and haven't gotten around to yet. What about you? And wanna-be tales of woe? :)