Categories
Comics

The Hurting

I’m getting a bit tired of Comics blogs, but I feel compelled to link to this untypical post on Tim O’neil’s blog, The Hurting, where he uses the media of his satirical comics remixes to comment on his own life. You can’t help but hear a Radiohead soundtrack in your head when you read this.

Categories
Blather

Candour

You should make your blog more interesting, my brother said, like write about your life instead of posting stupid links.
Except, he says, you should change things a little, so that if someone gets insulted, you can deny you wrote about them, like you could say, no, it wasn’t you, I meant some other brother I have…
Had the pleasure of being woken up by a call from Aya, who heard I was looking for her from Avner, who read it in my blog.
Which would be ironic, except that I think that was my point.
Made Schnitzels, and got to eat them in good company. Also, had my fingers mangled by a struggling dog (they were caught hooked in its collar when it decided to do backflips to shake me loose) and was startled to be asked by my nephew to wipe his bottom (my alarm was unfounded).

Categories
Blather

Phone Awkwardness

Trying to contact someone by phoning them at home: What a bloody primitive 20th century way of communicating.
And since this is Aya, who is not someone I call regularly, and since I have no “business” excuse to call her, there is a certain awkwardness to this. So I rehearse what to say to the answering machine, and as I dial I also think of an opening line if she answers herself.
But then her mom picks up.
(at least I think it was her mom. It certainly sounded like a mom.)
Out, maybe back in the morning, leave a message? Err, no, thanks. Ulp.
Of course by the time I get myself to call the next day she’s already left, and I get the mom again.
What have I learned from this? That he who doesn’t leave a message the first time loses twice:
First, his message is delayed by yet another day, and second, he really has to go through the awkwardness of actually leaving a message, just to prove (if only to himself) that he wasn’t intimidated to do so the first time.
Ah. I also had an observation about people without mobile phones, which are rapidly turning out to be the 21st century’s equivalent of people who live without electricity or running water. It’s that they choose to spend time with the people who are actually there rather than with the people who aren’t.
Another observation is that all these people (Aya, Tarzan, etc.) don’t have cars. A mobile phone is a lifesaver when your transportation is something as unreliable as my own car, which broke down three times in three weeks this September.

Categories
BlogTalk Oddities

Hierarchy of Blogging

The Hierarchy of blogging is like the Geek Hierarchy (published science fiction writers feel superior to science fiction readers who feel superior to science fiction movie fans who feel superior to Star Trek fans who feel superior to… all the way down to writers of furry fanfic or whatever). Here it is the bottom rung belongs to Bloggers who publish pictures of their cats on LiveJournal in Spanish L33tspeak. With a big pink pagecounter (and use lots of smileys.
Link via LMG, which is humble about it’s status as a linklog.
Considering where I end up on this, I should probably give up on climbing and just move down a rung, from Reposts links from BoingBoing.net without commentary to Posts pictures of their cats
LoL.

Categories
Comics

Marvel Comics, 1971

A Rolling Stone article from 1971 about Marvel comics (via LMG) has interesting interviews with Marie Severin (who has some shudder-inducing comments about fans visiting the Marvel offices), Herb Trimpe (artist on The Hulk), Roy Thomas (a fan living the dream), Jim Steranko (a fascinating character who tells about his youth as an amateur locksmith, escape artist and juvenile delinquent. Here’s a very cool fan page for Steranko) and Stan Lee.
I think LMG might have picked up the link from this thread on the Comics Journal board, where someone posed the question when did Marvel jump the shark? and surprisingly, got some interesting answers. (link to the thread via Fanboy Rampage, a blog which provides the invaluable service of reading the comics message boards so that you won’t have to).