Saturday, August 16, 2003

Last post of the day. Here's what I've managed to dig up on the 'net today.

Diamonds are a microchip makers best friend, or could be, if they weren't so "rare". If only we could manufacture perfect diamonds to use in microchips... and, incidently, in jewelry if we wanted to bankrupt the corrupt diamond mogul De Beers. link via alas a blog

Great before and after satellite images of the blacked-out area at the NOAA website. via Slashdot

Mark Evanier has a math problem for pollsters. Gotta love it. He also continues to go insane.

Fred Hembeck has posted his own power outage story on his website... but it's not what you might expect. Then again, this is Hembeck, so I'm not sure what anyone would expect.

Here's a thought, if you think you will be offended by Mel Gibson's new movie, instead of giving it free publicity by protesting it, why don't you just not go see it? I seem to recall my mom telling me when "Last Temptation of Christ" came out that it was probably not a good movie for someone of our religion, so we would quietly avoid it. The key word is "quietly". If you make a big deal about avoiding it, then people will go see it just to see what the fuss is about. As an added bonus, if you quietly avoid it then you can go see it without guilt if you later learn you were wrong about it.

A somewhat frightening post on turning tables about how a mistake by a kid in an airport caused a sensation among troops in Iraq.

Snopes is right on top of a scammer spam that I got this morning. It helped that I don't have a Citibank account, so I knew it was spam right away...

Tomorrow: Another sketch for my sketchbook! And hopefully a couple of reviews, if I finish writing them.

posted by Tegan | 8:52 PM |

Amazing Spider-Man #56/497: Wow. I wasn't expecting an entirely different angle on vigilantism. And yet, here we go again, getting more than expected from this book. Only thing missing is someone playing "thump". Wow.

Aquaman #9: Oh what I wouldn't give for a better artist on this book! Guichet is competent, but not inspired. There is a great story surging out of these pages, but the art is holding it back. As for the story, with Manta as an uncertain ally, and Tempest taking on other chores, and Vulko battling Atlantis from within... this whole series has taken a turn for the better, and I'm just enjoying the ride these last three issues is going to provide. Oh yeah, and there's a great bit between Sweeney and an unexpected guest star. By the way, the cover is great. It's by Ethan Van Sciver.

Still to review: the Batman Archives (haven't finished it yet), Miranda 2 and 3 (just arrived in the mail, review of #1 is here), and The Aquaman Chronicles #10, which has a lot more in it than I realized. Next week's books, if they all come, are: Batman Adventures, Birds of Prey, Cinnamon, JLA Scary Monsters, and Arrowsmith. Finally, a small week.

posted by Tegan | 12:56 PM |

Another night, another pain-filled wakefulness when I really need to be sleeping. Tonight, like last night, dinner is re-visiting and trying to escape. I've been able to hold it, but the sensation is not pleasant.

Hubby-Eric caught the giant brown spider that kept telling me to go to sleep, and evicted it to the outside of the house. Maybe I'll actually be able to sleep when I finally get to bed.

Good news! Jill Thompson's Scary Godmother cartoon is available on DVD! Buy it at Amazon.ca. Or you can buy the VHS. If you order through one of these links, hubby-Eric will get a tiny credit from it.

Mark Evanier has gone completely around the bend this time. Poor guy. "Pick up a copy and read it for yourself." indeed. Somebody call the nice guys in white coats.

The results of Phil Foglio's 24 hour comic are up, and they aren't pretty. Well... judge for yourself. WARNING: Naked Chick! (Actually, it's not too bad for a comic he made in 24 hours without pre-planning the plotline).

Will Pfeifer's latest column is on comic book movies... er, no, how about comic strip movies? And a mention of SCTV.

I'm immune. To the blaster worm, that is. At least this first go round of it. See, I'm still running Windows 95, and it doesn't bother with abandon-ware like Win95. I have, however, spotted it bumping up against my firewall, which I thought was both odd and scary. Worms that go bump in the night.

posted by Tegan | 12:23 AM |

Friday, August 15, 2003

Ok, last entry for the day. Sunburn pain is causing me to fail simple reading comprehension, and I keep seeing giant spiders around the house who are telling me to "go to sleep, we don't bite"... Google "Fair and Balanced".

Olsen Ross joins my blogroll for being Fair and Balanced. Modulator joins my blogroll for being Fair and Balanced.

Sunburn is caused by the sun on my fair skin, which wasn't balanced by the sunscreen because it washed off in the water slide at the water park. I had some Moose Tracks ice cream for lunch, that was fairly balancing. Aquaman is fair and balanced. You heard it here first. I need to go make my bed. It hasn't been fair nor balanced lately. If we let the possum in to live with us, would that be fair but unbalanced? I hope my fair and balanced sister sent off my packages for me today. One is going to California, where the recall election will be conducted fair and balanced, and one is going to Iraq, where our soldiers must balance their lives and be fair.

How long are we gonna stay "Fair and Balanced" as a blogosphere, anyway? Until the suit is dropped/lost? Until we get tired of it? Til the end of today? Anyone?

posted by Tegan | 6:18 PM |

I've been unable to sleep through the pain of my sunburn, and my writing and thinking skills have now deteriorated to the point that I don't trust myself to cover any web news. I was up at 2:30 am this morning, surfing the web aimlessly, when I heard a soft sound to my right, like someone setting down a piece of paper or something. When I looked, there was the biggest brown spider I'd ever seen, looking right at me, from his perch on one of my books. He turned, crud, he's fast and I decided it was time to go to bed. I carefully navigated my way around the spider... it didn't move, and to bed. But it was no use. Between the pain, terminal itching, and a new nightmare of giant spiders crawling over my skin I was utterly unable to fall asleep, and instead restlessly lay there until hubby-Eric woke up and I could turn on the news.

I was surprised to learn that the power was still out on the East coast. From what I know of the power industry, most of the power should have been restored, I thought. Until I learned that whatever caused the outage had triggered certain failsafes... generators shut down to protect themselves from it. Whoa. That's pretty serious. While listening to the various theories on what happened, I formulated my own sleep-deprived theory of some mad scientist in Canada turning on his power-hungry device and draining the grid by accident... wait, didn't that happen in a Superman movie?

Anyway, for a first-hand account of the events, once again Elayne Riggs has the goods. And she's even fair and balanced about it.

Update: By the way, if you wanted a list of all the Fair and Balanced websites, the best list is here at Blah3.com.

Update: Incredible first-hand account of being stranded in a subway train. Read it. Wow.

Update: READ THIS ARTICLE, it tells about how power gets to your house, in an easy-to-understand way. It also explains why the power is still out in parts of New York. I knew all the information in this article, but I still found it a very good read.

posted by Tegan | 11:58 AM |

This is the most important post of today, so I will lead off with it. Thus, if Comcast gets attacked by a giant network eating worm again I will have already posted it: Happy Birthday Christine!

That said, I can get on to the unimportant stuff:

Here is the actual text of Fox's "Fair and Balanced" attack on Franken. I particularly like this bit: Franken has recently been described as a "C-level political commentator" who is "increasingly unfunny." FNC is supposed to be a news channel and they don't put a source for these wonderful quotes? Shame! Franken has physically accosted Fox News personalities in the past, and was reported to have appeared either intoxicated or deranged as he flew into a rage near a table of Fox News personalities at a press correspondents' dinner in April 2003. Um, ok. Sordid gossip is "news" for whoever wrote this thing. Besides, we want details, folks, details! He is not a well-respected voice in American politics; rather, he appears to be shrill and unstable. Right. Unlike FNC. One commentator has referred to Franken as a "parasite" for attempting to trade off of Fox News' brand and O'Reilly's fame in the Preliminary Cover of his Book. Well, yes, but FNC have done their absolute best to help him along, now, haven't they? Defendants' use of the Trademark also tarnishes the mark by associating the mark with Franken's sophomoric approach to political commentary. Yeah, FNC was doing well enough tarnishing the mark on their own! I'm not particularly enamored with Al Franken, but this suit is such a pathetic sham, it's embarrassing to watch... which means that all of us will be paying very close attention to it.

I got the above link via Mark Evanier, who is still on about The Dick Van Dyke Comic Book, and has even set up a new section on his site for these mysterious books. Hmmm, twelve issues. Pretty good for a book that never actually existed.

Speaking of unfair and unbalanced, here's the follow-up article by the Dallas Observer to the Castillo case. You may recall, they covered the case back when it was still in infancy. I'm curious, if that comic book is so obscene, why is it still listed on Amazon.com, and therefore available for purchase even in Texas? Yeah, yeah, I'll shut up now.

The Leaky Cauldron is reporting that Steve Kloves, the writer who adapted the first three Harry Potter books to film, has been asked to condense the 636-page Goblet of Fire into a film version of only 2 1/2 hours. That'll be a job. Again, I say we'll just have to wait for the definitive TV mini-series in another couple of decades.

I want to mention WildGuard again. This is a comic book for which you get to vote for members of the team. Go, check out the website. Todd Nauck is a great artist (and I should get his permission to post his sketch and thus promote his book even more, hmmm). Anyway, go and vote. There are profiles of all the possible team members, and the whole thing looks fun.

There were some good comments on Metafilter about the power outage yesterday:

"Unconfirmed reports of a plague of locusts heading from the south."
"The grid was taken down by the 50-foot tall Son of En-Ron! Someone call Godzilla and Gamera! We need their help!"
"How exactly was Gray Davis responsible for *this* power crisis?"
"Let's make some babies."
And best of all: "I welcome our new Amish overlords."

Via the Bitter Shack of Resentment

You may have noticed that I've added a few links to my blogrolls. First up is Legomancer, who is eerily similar to me in many ways. I also added Mr. Hassle's Long Underpants for her interesting stories on working in an emergency room. She may think that she lacks "imagery" in her posts, but her matter-of-fact stories are just as strong writing as the others she admires. I also added a link to the American Library Association and to the ALA Banned Books Week page. Down below in the politics section, I've added Blah3.com, mostly because their amazing coverage of the Fair and Balanced Movement got me to read the blog, and I liked it. I continue to update my memorial page for the coalition soldiers who have died in this Iraq war.

Angry memory of the day. I was in the band during High School (I played clarinet, sousaphone, trombone, and bassoon at different times). This event had to have happened in my Freshman year, because I remember having my clarinet with me, and I didn't switch to sousaphone for marching band until later. We were going to a football game, I think, and I was in my uniform. The uniforms were brand new that year. The band was still fundraising to pay them off. It was early evening, and there were very few people around as I walked to the school to get a ride to the event. I was in a bit of a hurry, as I didn't want to be late. When I got to the track at the high school and was starting to cross it, a dog came racing out at me. It attacked me, growling and barking. I kept my clarinet (in its case) between me and the dog, spinning around as the dog continued to attack. Then I saw the dog's owner, a kid who had been harrassing my little sister, standing with a friend, both laughing their heads off at me. If I hadn't been in that lovely, expensive and brand new band uniform, I would have gone after the kid if I could have. I shouted at him to call his dog off, but he just urged the dog on. I got more and more angry, but there was nothing I could do. Even then I didn't want to hit the dog with my clarinet case, as I was afraid it would break the case and damage the clarinet. Not to mention the fear that if I missed, the dog would manage to get in and damage the uniform. I wasn't that frightened of getting bitten, but that was a factor too. Finally, just as I had decided to hit the dog if possible, a rock came flying out of nowhere and hit the dog in the head. Another rock followed, hitting the dog in the side. It yipped and took off, and I turned to see a very angry jogger approaching the no-longer laughing boys. They took off running after the dog, and I deflated. The jogger came up to me to check if I was ok, and after assuring him that I was, I hurried on to the event. I regret to this day that I didn't call the police on that kid, with that man who saved me as my witness. But I figured it was just a fight between kids, and not worth bothering the police over... and I didn't want to be late. Later on, that same kid managed to provoke my little brother into a fight, then took him to court over the "injuries" he got (which were, exactly none. But little bro got a hanging judge). If I had reported the dog attack, perhaps that would have helped my brother later on.

Why the angry memory? I don't know. I've been replaying a lot of painful memories in the hours I am sitting around awake with my shoulders stinging and throbbing in sunburned agony. As the latest layer of skin peeled off, the layer underneath it was just as badly burned as the first layer, and hurts twice as much as it is exposed to air. Maybe my subconscious figures if it can get me worked up enough about the past, I'll stop feeling the current pain. Considering how lousy I feel over a week after first getting the sunburn, I suspect that I would've been put in the burn unit of the hospital if I had gone in. It's just as well, I have no health insurance at the moment.

I have to wonder if anyone is still bothering/has the time to read my whole blog, as I've been spitting out an amazing amount of text thanks to the sunburn.

posted by Tegan | 12:13 AM |

Thursday, August 14, 2003

Ruse #22: A bumbling adventure with Simon's almost hapless adversaries against... Simon's house. Both funny and odd, especially when you add in the mystery figure stalking the house.

Green Arrow #29: Another issue of Ollie in over his head, but not letting it bother him. Boy, does this guy attract girl trouble, or what? This is a decent arc.

Still to review: Amazing Spider-Man and Aquaman. And maybe the Batman Archives, should I finish it in time to include it in a rapid review.

And remember, tomorrow is "Fair and Balanced" Day! Be sure that everything you write tomorrow is at least a bit fair and maybe a lot balanced.

posted by Tegan | 3:34 PM |

A shout out to Legomancer, who wrote me an e-mail to let me know how eerily similar we are. It's worse than you thought, though, as I'm also into role-playing games (though I don't play them much anymore), I work in a Math shop (Math 'n' Stuff), and have been married nine years, which doesn't quite match your ten, but comes close.

I was going to try and avoid mentioning the Castillo case again, but there is finally a dissenting opinion that isn't based in "It's obscene so it doesn't matter" (which is only a step away from: "It's not Christian so it doesn't matter" or "It's about politics so it doesn't matter"). Houston attorney William J. Dyer points out that Castillo's attorney failed to object when the prosecuting attorney brought up the proximity to a school, a subject that had already been declared irrelevant. Thus, Castillo's lawyer is at least partly to blame for failing to do his job. I agree. I don't think it invalidates the comics community's outrage at the decision, but it does mean that there are lessons to be learned from it. And, yes, I know that Ampersand at Alas, a blog is also dissenting, but he's in the "It's obscene so it doesn't matter" camp.

As long as we're talking law, the Volokh conspiracy has a bit on the Tony Twist case.

A little bit more on Fallen Angel #2: Yes, I completely missed the possibility of who "Thomas" was. Until I started comparing him to Matches, I didn't even think of it. Still, it makes a lot of sense, and works for a book that is still not entirely within the DC Universe.

There's been a bunch of posts in various spots recently wondering why Manga does so well in the United States. My own humble theory? Manga isn't all superheroes, so it appeals to wider audiences. Just a thought.

I somehow missed this Jill Thompson interview on Pulse. Also at Comicon.com, there's an interview with Scott McCullar, Green Arrow fan who helped a bit with my Aquaman page.

Here's the candidate Californians ought to be voting for... via The Volokh Conspiracy

As long as they are over there fighting for us, why not cut their pay? Why aren't Bush and Congress raising a fuss over this massive morale killing cut? Anyone?

posted by Tegan | 1:12 PM |

This late night/early morning blogging is getting to be a bad habit. I just hope once the pain subsides I'll be able to get back into a normal sleeping pattern. Staying up all night listening to the sound of possums outside is not the most calming way to live. At least it's led to some interesting blog entries lately, as just about all I could do without causing myself immense pain was to sit and surf the web. This would have been different if I enjoyed watching TV some more, or if I'd managed to get myself interested in one of my video games. But instead, I've had several days of steady blogging, and I'm pretty sick of it. Anyway, on to some comic book reviews, as that's been a welcome change from web surfin' for the last few hours:

JLA #84: Ok, I've not been fond of Joe Kelly's JLA. It's been just readable, with spots of brilliance. I don't know what he's leading to in this arc, but it's better than the last few issues. I'm afraid the killer bit of this story is in one line uttered by Batman: "Yes... I can still feel joy." Overall, the issue is far from wonderful, but not too bad.

Fallen Angel #2: Just what is Lee? She's obviously being set up as an entity that you shouldn't cross, but beyond that, what? Still intrigued, but I'm not sure what I'm reading. This is an off-balance book, and I'm not certain I like where it's headed.

H-E-R-O #7: Yeah, I can see people doing this if they got their hands on the device. In fact, it's such a natural for this day and age, I'm surprised no one else has done a story similar to it so far (at least that I've read). This is an interesting book. I'm eager to see where this plotline goes.

Still to review: Ruse, Green Arrow, Amazing Spider-Man, and Aquaman.

posted by Tegan | 12:27 AM |

Wednesday, August 13, 2003

Salam Pax reports that G, his friend and fellow blogger, was beaten by US troops. His article in The Guardian is also expressing disgust at how Iraqis are being treated.

Fascinating article on the Insolvent Republic of Blogistan about ectogenesis, or artificial wombs. The argument eventually turns to abortion, and I may have to write a long entry on what I think of it sometime, if anyone expresses interest. But of more interest to me, as a person who has a potential problem with her womb, is the possibility of a baby being able to live if my womb should fail. While I'm not at high risk, stories like this do make me breathe a little easier.

Am I the only one who thinks Mark Evanier is now losing his mind over the Dick Van Dyke comic book?

Mark Evanier also has some more nonsense from Texas up. In this case, it tells of some schools that had "zero dropouts". Yep. Pull the other one.

Heh. Yoda am I. What character do you be, hmmm?

Powers #33: So, we were promised that the... odd... story in Powers #31 would be worth it. I'm thinking that maybe Bendis is delivering. Yeah, I'm still not totally sure about it, but I'm very intrigued by the implications he's spelling out. Looking forward to seeing what he does next. And, hey, it's pretty rare to see a comic book with NO ads these days.

Superman/Batman Generations III #8: A storyline that bounces around through time, going forward and back, is hard enough to follow. Add in more time travel goofiness, and it's next to impossible to follow, as I noted about last issue. However, this issue seems to gather some of the threads up in what may be an attempt to draw near a conclusion. Whatever the reason, this issue read better than the last few, and could almost work as a standalone.

JSA #51: I didn't care for the last two issues. This was more of the same. The actual ending to the story is a big Dr Fate battle, so it wasn't nearly as confusing. It just wasn't interesting.

Still to read and review: Ruse, Aquaman, Fallen Angel, Green Arrow, H-E-R-O, JLA, Amazing Spider-Man, and the Batman Archives.

Sunburn update: Still itching, peeling, and a few remaining blisters growing and weeping. I'm leaving enough pieces of dead skin around the house that I hope no mad geneticist gets in... lots of samples for cloning here. The worst part is the itching. Even a touch of moving air causes me to double over in a mad desire to scratch already raw skin.

I just want to point out that I somehow made the list of top 100 Blogshares players today. I'm not sure how it happened, and I'm relatively sure it won't happen again. Oh, but there was a brief moment of glory! Nevermind that I don't have a controlling interest in my own blog.

posted by Tegan | 7:37 PM |

Very disturbing news about CrossGen's business practices on Elayne's Blog (if the archive isn't working, go to the main blog and look for August 13, 2003 and the title "Double Crossed"). If this situation isn't resolved soon, I think I may be forced to drop some CrossGen books off my pull list. Certainly any book that has been on the bubble would be gone. I applaud Robin Riggs for keeping this situation confidential as long as he did, and I think it was the right time to come forward and let people know what was happening.

Hubby-Eric's Blog is up and running now, with hopefully daily updates of how his new job is working out. Today's entry is about getting fingerprinted and getting his neat little plastic ID card.

No reason for this image. Maybe because it's coming out today.

You ever wonder about that light night show that just has a bunch of colors and a loud beep? Wonder no more! TV Land has the inside scoop on the show "Bars and Tones" that all of us have seen, but most of us know very little about. Be sure to read about the episodes, and the romantic lives of the actors (poor Yellow Bar!). via Mark Evanier

Allison Mack's blog (really an extended ad for Kodak) has some interesting pictures of Allison and cast members. Click on the "Gallery" links to see them.

Quite possibly the nicest ever cease-and-desist letter. This one is from Journalista via Rich Johnston.

posted by Tegan | 11:03 AM |

New Harry Potter artwork from Marta Department of Mysteries II. See other images are artdungeon. Lots of spoilers for the book in there, so go at your own risk. Her newest art can be found at her livejournal.

More letters from soldiers in Stars & Stripes: Here and Here.

And here's a bit about this blog. I know I'm not fond of this kind of entry, so I'm sorry I'm posting it, but there's some junk I need to say. Please feel free to skip this crap if you aren't interested in self-pitying, self-referential nonsense.

One: This is my web log, so it contains my opinions. Feel free to disagree, but realize that it takes a whole lotta work to ever change my opinion on many subjects. You can write comments that disagree, but if I think you are wrong, I'm going to say that, and you may not like it. It makes me look a bit nasty in many cases, I know, but I tend to dig in and get truly obnoxious when I think people are missing my point. It's not personal. Really. I may say some nasty things, but they are directed at your attitude and opinion, not at you. And that leads me to point Two: I am not a "nice" person. While I try very hard to respect everyone, I can be a monster when I let go of that. And I've done that recently, while arguing about the Castillo case with Rich. I told him to "go burn a book", and while I feel that the underlying principles support my side of the story, I think I went way overboard in arguing with him. That's why I wrote my Ramblings on Censorship post. To fully explain my side of the story. But I never apologized to Rich, and I would not blame him if he never visited this blog again. It's a bad thing, when you have only a handful of readers, to insult and drive off the ones who are most likely to expose you to another way of thinking. So that leads me to my Third and final point: I know this isn't much of a blog. A "Slimy Mollusc" as Truth Laid Bear puts it, nowhere near the A-list of blogs. I'm gratified to have any readers at all. Heck, I'm surprised to have any readers who aren't my immediate family. I'm sorry when I offend. It's an easy thing to do in this arena. I apologize to those who I've antagonized with my pitbull attacks. I cannot say I won't do it again, as it's my nature, but I'll try to continue to work on being reasonable instead of loud.

posted by Tegan | 12:24 AM |

Tuesday, August 12, 2003

Looking at all the "Fair and Balanced" weblogs, I spotted Legomancer.net. Naturally, I had to check it out, being a big LEGO fan. I'm pleased with it, and I think it'll be on my blogroll soon.

By the way, Friday is "Fair and Balanced" day on the blogosphere. All you bloggers who want to participate must simply use the phrase "Fair and Balanced" throughout the day, sprinkled in your daily thoughts. Go to it, folks! Let's see some creative uses of the phrase.

I got a letter today from my fellow Aquaman fan who is soldiering in Iraq. I've been sending him the latest Aquaman comic book along with the Sunday Funnies. I need to send him another package of cookies to share with his men. And members of the Aquaman mailing list have been sending him various comics and DVDs also. Anyway, he sent a nice letter with a little souvenir enclosed: a Five Dinar note complete with Saddam's image on the front.

Now, you must understand. Patrick couldn't have made me happier with any other item he could have sent, as I have collected (idly collected) foreign currency for many years. I was delighted to learn, when I married my husband, that he had (among other neat items) a Japanese Peso. Thus a tattered old piece of worthless currency will have a neat spot in my collection of other tattered old worthless pieces of currency, and I'm left just a little happier. I'm quite fond of worthless currency.

Mark Evanier is continuing his fun with the non-existent Dick Van Dyke Show comic book. In fact, he's beginning to make me doubt my certainty that the thing never existed. He also mentions the Baseball Prospectus article on Pete Rose, which has also been reported on ESPN, and which Major League Baseball firmly denies. Interesting.

I let a friend borrow Leave it to Chance: Shaman's Rain to see if her son would like it. After reading it herself to make sure there was nothing she objected to (there wasn't, she loved the book), she left it out on a table but didn't mention it. Sure enough, the child took the bait: when she got up this morning he was reading it. She'll be reporting to me how much he likes it soon. Wahoo! Another one hooked!

Whoa, is this true? Here's another sighting of the same story, but it seems a little far-fetched to me. Aren't there laws against libel and slander that would cover this situation? See, after a little more research, I found that FOX didn't like a report on growth hormone being used in dairy cows. Instead of simply squashing the report to protect themselves from the wrath of advertisers, they ordered the reporters to change the facts and omit sources from the story. When the reporters refused, they were fired. Wow. So TV news is allowed to lie about important health issues, according to the Florida Appeals Court. That explains an awful lot. via Geek and Proud

If you live in California, you should check out these great Japanese commercials starring Arnold Schwarzeneggar. via the Insolvent Republic of Blogistan

The Pulse at Comicon has posted their own photo albums, here's the first and here's the second. And Comic Book Resources also has their final photo parade up. I don't know why I link to these. Anyone who's not a fan will just think we're all geeks if they check them out.

Dennis Kucinich continues to guest-blog at the Lessig's place, and he's actually answering questions posed by readers. As long as he doesn't compare himself to Harry Potter again.

MSNBC is trying to frighten those of us who live in the shadow of Mount Rainier. Won't work, guys. We know the danger. At least, all the natives do... all of us who were here in 1980. By the way, "Rainier" is pronounced "Ray-Near" around here (not rainy-er, ug!). Just like "Spokane" is pronounced "Spo-Can", not cane. Oh yeah, and there is no "R" in "Washington".

And lastly: an update on the state of my sunburn. Uninterested readers should skip this paragraph. Blistering and weeping continues on both shoulders, and has started in very small blisters on my chest. The blisters become incredibly painful when they start to weep, causing me to weep with them. All the rest of the sunburn is now peeling and itching, leading my husband to remark that I'm a very appealing woman as he rapidly retreated from throttling distance. I once again must give thanks that I wasn't wearing a bikini, as I would probably not have survived the experience in that case.

posted by Tegan | 10:13 PM |

Fox News is suing Al Franken for using the words "Fair and Balanced" in the subtitle of his book. Next up they will be suing anyone who uses the word "and". What little respect I had for Fox News went away when they became Bush Cheerleaders instead of a news outlet. Now they are below even that level of disdain.

BTW: I know my blog is anything *but* fair and balanced, but I can't resist joining the bloggers who are changing their names to "Fair and Balanced" in protest. It's just too amusing.

There's a great cartoon at Salon.com about the Castillo case. Yeah, you gotta watch a commercial to see the whole thing if you aren't a subscriber already, but I thought it was worth it. via Neil Gaiman

Possibly in response to retailers being more vulnerable after the Castillo case, Peter David is warning people about the slightly more explicit content of Fallen Angel. Despite not being in the Vertigo line, PAD says the book is for mature readers.

Mark Evanier is having fun with a non-existent Dick Van Dyke Comic. After confessing to faking the cover of the "first" issue, he's put together covers and plotlines to the second and the third issues.

There's a bit on the NASA page about the possibility of predicting earthquakes using data collected from space. Right now the predictions tend to be a little vague, like: "a 62% chance of a major quake (magnitude 6.7 or greater) hitting the area sometime within the next 30 years", so anything would be an improvement. via slashdot.

Snopes.com reports on the Blaster Worm, which apparently had something to do with the major outage at Comcast.

posted by Tegan | 11:45 AM |

It's getting near to 1 am, and I just had a little (very little) adventure outside. I heard something out there, but I figured it was just the house settling or some other minor noise. But then I heard it again, so I went to the back door, and there was definitely something right outside the door. So I did what any sensible woman running around at midnight trying to catch up on her internetting would do. I turned on the outside light, duh. And there it was, sneaking off into the jungle of the back yard. Our Possum. I'd never actually seen one move before this. The one time I saw him before, he was frozen in apparent terror. So he moved off into the yard, and I thought I will never get a better chance to make absolutely sure he isn't camping out in our crawlspace again, so I threw on a robe, grabbed the flashlight, and went out to check the hole.

Now, we had covered up the hole into our crawlspace awhile ago after we were sure he was out of there, so I was expecting it to be still covered. And it was, except that something had been tearing at the outside wall near the hole, and had moved some of the paving stones we put over the hole. It's clear that he wants his pad back. If I had been up to it, I would have checked all the other vents going into the crawlspace, but it was past midnight and there was a huge possum somewhere in the yard behind me, so I just went back inside instead. I figured out, when I closed the door, what that noise I had been hearing was. The door shifts a little once it is closed. If something were to push at it, say in the spot where there's a duct-taped over cat flap, then move back, it would make exactly the same noise I was hearing. Forget about the crawlspace, the possum wants to move in upstairs with us!

Anyway, before I down some more painkiller and rub my arms with aloe, here's some gems from around the web to enjoy:

Here's another Hembeck-ized cover with Aquaman on it. In the bit below, Hembeck goes to little effort to make fun of us Aquaman fans. And, for Neilalien (thanks for the mention, bud), here's a Dr Strange Hembeck-ized cover, and another pin-up of Dr Strange. Oh, c'mon, just check out the whole lot at Hembeck's Classic Cover Redos Site.

Here's a bad math problem. There are two problems with it. The drawing is impossible, and the problem itself tells the test-takers to look at the drawing. Oops. And this problem was on a standardized test. Not good. (I think I got this at CalPundit)

Billmon links the name of the newest Ashcroft Act to 1984. I gotta agree with Billmon. Don't these people ever read?

Presidential candidate Dennis J. Kucinich is guest blogging at Lessig's Blog.

The political cartoonist who was questioned by the FBI because of a political cartoon (in which he depicts "W" as being executed by "Politics", referencing a famous Vietnam era photograph) has responded the way political cartoonists ought to respond, with another cartoon. Via the Cagle Blog

posted by Tegan | 1:03 AM |

Monday, August 11, 2003

Comcast has been down since 10 am this morning, a 13 hour outage, so I haven't been able to write much of anything today. Sunburn is still driving me nuts, blistering and weeping on my shoulder now, peeling everywhere else. Well, I least I get to post the most important message when it's still the correct day here on the Pacific Coast:

Happy birthday, Dad. There's not really that much difference between 27 and 72, I'm sure.

posted by Tegan | 11:22 PM |

Through my pain-wracked insomnia, I've been randomly visiting a number of blogs, looking for an elusive something. I wish I could tell you what I was looking for... maybe just a frequently updated blog that spoke to me and told me stuff I don't already know. I found a lot of the same old stuff. People talking entirely about themselves, people talking entirely about politics, people using profanity instead of creativity. There is nothing more boring than an angst filled 20-something's blog with a barrage of swear words and little else. Still, I found a couple in the ... three hours I've been at it. And it's distracted me mostly from the pain. Maybe I'll even be able to get to sleep now.

I found an interesting blog on life in Japan, but it hasn't been updated in awhile, as the blogger is "home" in New Hampshire. Network Edge is a good tech blog, I'm just not geeky enough to be its audience. I adore the description of Pointy Sticks: "Watch an ordinary house-wife melt down and poke at people with her knitting needles". It almost makes me imagine my mother blogging. Then there's Mr. Hassle's Long Underpants, a blog by a "female emergency medicine resident training at a rural Level 1 trauma center" parts of which you should not read if you are eating or have just eaten.

Seen any good blogs lately?

posted by Tegan | 2:04 AM |

Sunday, August 10, 2003

Oh my goodness, Fred Hembeck, the great artist, has done his own version of one of my all-time favorite comic book covers! Just click to get the Hembeck version.

He's also Hembeckized the cover to Aquaman #22. This is good stuff, folks. You've gotta click to see the Hembeck version, but it's worth it. And, if you are a fan of other characters, he's got a nice bunch of other cover re-creations there. Very cool.

posted by Tegan | 10:24 PM |

Yup, good Aquaman reference in Fox Trot this week. Many thanks to Tom Galloway for the heads-up.

WizardWorld Chicago day two photo parade at Comic Book Resources. They also reports on the DC Panel, including some much appreciated news of the Elseworlds line. And Newsarama reports in with their view of the DC news from the con, as does Comics Continuum.

So Pete Abrams of Sluggy Freelance doesn't think that too many readers will understand his Sunday Strip "The Cylon King". Maybe he's right, but I found it pretty funny. I used to watch Battlestar religiously.

Elayne Riggs has a great review of Tom Tomorrow's new book up. Unfortunately, despite my interest in the book, I can't really afford it at this time. Ah well. It's on my wishlist, if anyone ever decides to actually use that to buy me stuff.

You want to know how the troops are holding out? Read these letters to Stars and Stripes. link via Atrios.

Here's a scary blog entry. Go to View from Iran and scroll down to "Sunday, August 03, 2003: The Wedding" and read about the right to party in Iran. Or not. This blog is an amazing Western viewpoint of Iran. Fascinating reading.

posted by Tegan | 12:10 PM |

Starting today I'm going back to Haloscan as my commenting system. A bit wishy-washy of me, I know, but I really didn't like quite a few aspects of Squawkbox, although they were generally ok. Their downtime record was no better than Haloscan during the period I tried them out, but Haloscan has some better options, so I'll just return to Haloscan. I plan to donate to Haloscan as soon as I've got some pennies saved up, too, since their service is pretty darn good for a free service.

Older comments that were made on Squawkbox have not been lost, though it will look like they are gone on the front page. I plan on archiving them like I used to archive the Haloscan comments. We'll see how it goes, and how much effort I actually decide to put into it.

posted by Tegan | 12:11 AM |