Three months later, and I'm back. It's been a tough couple of months, both personally and for the world, and they've both affected my ability to write blog entries on a regular basis. The personal stuff is, well, personal, so I won't be talking about it much here. As for the rest of the world.... Over the last few months, I've been collecting a whole bunch of links to news stories about the "war" in Iraq, the steady erosion of personal freedom in the US, and the concurrent erosion of humanity's soul as we (apparently) just sit back and allow this to happen. I would read some news item which would inflame my righteous fury, and I'd record the link and prepare to write a blog entry, when I'd come across another one. And another, and another and another. Pretty soon, I started feeling completely wore down and depressed, and I didn't want to write about any of it because I didn't want to be dragged down any further. I suppose I could have written about comics or TV or movies or whatever, but that seemed trivial and frivolous in face of what our government was doing to our country. So I didn't write about that stuff, either. Plus, like I said, life intervened, and ultimately, it was just easier to set the blog aside for a while.

Today, though, I discovered that my pal Jim has me listed as a blog of note (or whatever) on his own blog site, so I feel sufficiently motivated to get back to work. You know, just in case anybody decides to come check me out from his site. So, without further ado, here's the links I've been saving the past few months...

Sony to cash in on Iraq with "shock and awe" game: This one was pretty irritating when I first read it. The other day, when I heard a car dealership urging car buyers to come in to be "shocked and awed" by their low prices, it all came back. Bad enough we invaded, fought the war, killed uncounded--by us--numbers of civilians based on a flimsy tissue of lies and fabrications that nobody really believed in the first place, and nobody is commenting on now that they've completely turned out to be false. But could we possibly wait, I don't know, an eternity before commercializing it? This is the world in which we live.

Library Public Policy Manual 2004: Like a lot of things in life, we laugh because it's funny and we laugh because it's true. Or because it all too possibly could be. This is the world in which we live.

US soldiers in Iraq asked to pray for Bush: Because, you know, he's in such a tough, difficult place that he needs the hopes and prayers of the people he sent in to be shot at by Iraqi troops based on a flimsy tissue of lies and fabrications that nobody really believed in the first place, and nobody is commenting on now that they've completely turned out to be false. Yeah, they should have been praying for him, sitting safe and sound in the White House, desperately trying to learn to count to ten using all his fingers so he can at least pretend to understand numbers and math as he tries to explain to the country on how tax cuts for the rich will somehow benefit the nation as a whole... Soldiers should be praying for him during that difficult time instead of nervously eyeing Iraqi civilians around them, trying to sort out which ones might be disguised suicide bombers and which ones just hate the American soldiers for coming and and killing innocent men, women, and children without just cause...

You see why I didn't feel like writing anything for three months? It's just so easy to get started, and so hard to stop, and then I just get to feeling angry and tired and depressed. I swear, it's enough to make me hope that this life really is some sort of virtual reality illusion and we're all batteries for the machine. It isn't as if I've turned my back on the world in hopes that it'll just get better on its own. Last week alone, I found myself calling my state's senators in Washington, urging them to vote against tax cuts and FCC deregulation. I just haven't felt like writing about any of it.

And this week I'm on vacation, and I want to relax. I don't want to get all worked up and foaming at the mouth over the latest outrage committed by our government. I want to relax, I want to go see The Matrix Reloaded on my birthday, I want to go to Disneyland, and I want to read a huge stack of comic books. And that's what I'll be writing about this week.

It occured to me while eating dinner (the burger part, anyway) that tomorrow morning marks one week since the destruction of the space shuttle, and I haven't thought about it very much. From the headlines, there does seem to be a refreshing absence of finger-pointing, and maybe we're seeing this for what it is: an expected by-product of the business of tucking a bunch of people in a tiny metal container attached to a massive amount of explosives, igniting those explosive, launching that container millions of miles into the air, and then letting it fall back to the ground. This is a horrible tragedy, and should be examined to make sure it doesn't happen again. It should also serve as a reminder of how many times it didn't happen before, of how many times NASA got it right. It should also serve as a reminder of how heroic these pilots and scientists are, because these are the risks they take every time they undertake these missions to further our understanding of the universe in which we live.

And it's almost time for Farscape, so that's all for now.

Boy, I'll tell you, you can't go wrong with any blog entry that involves George W Bush and a chimp.

Just killing time until Roswell comes on. Got comics from two weeks ago yesterday, and have been working through those at a fairly rapid clip. Particularly noteable: the first issue of Venture by Jay Faerber, writer of the fantastic Noble Causes (fantastic, that is, if you like superhero comics), and the new issue of Global Frequency, which is just a bloody great, bloody action movie. This week's shipment was particularly heavy on graphic novels, including the new Channel Zero book, Jennie One written, but not drawn this time, by the great Brian Wood, who has become one of my faves. Really looking forward to that. In the area of the completely gonzo, there's the first new issue of the new Nevermen miniseries from Dark Horse Comics, written by Phil Amara and drawn by Guy Davis, sort of the Shadow meets Fritz Lang's Metropolis. Then, also cowritten by Amara, there's a new Sky Ape book, which, if previous volumes are any indication, promises to make Nevermen look like a photorealistic documentary drama. Plus a couple of horror books from Avatar Press that promise some serious creep-out moments. Yeah, looks like a good week for comics.

Planning on having a combination of sushi and burgers for dinner tonight, and I'm not entirely sure how that combination will work out.

Speaking of Ed Brobaker's Catwoman comic, there's a nice interview with him about it here, which everyone should read. And then, of course, everyone should go out and read the actual comic, because it's great.

Okay, this week has pretty much been crap. However, things could be worse. I could be living this guy's life.

Just finished reading a great interview with groundbreaking comics writer Alan Moore in the second issue of Eddie Campbell's Egomania. (For folks not in the know, Campbell is a particularly talented Scottish comics writer/artist, who collaborated with Moore on the brilliant graphic novel From Hell, basis for the recent Jack the Ripper movie. But to describe it as just a book about Jack the Ripper is like saying Jane Austen wrote early Harlequin romances...) It's a great piece about Moore's beliefs and theories about magic (which, like all good things, spread much farther and wider into other areas), but far and away my favorite quote is:

"While religions may indeed offer valuable and worthwhile ideas on how one should proceed in one's spiritual journey, there's no obligation to buy the whole package. Take whatever is spiritually useful or sustaining from any system and use it as a building block in the construction of your own. Or at least, that's my Transcendental Tip for Today."

This came via Warren Ellis's mailing list, and I thought I'd pass it on. It's from comics writer Ed Brubaker, writer of probably one of my favorite current mainstream comics, Catwoman. (Seriously, Catwoman. I mean, I always thought he was a good writer, but his work on this book is just incredible.) It's about his new series:

Ed Brubaker has a new series out from Wildstorm called SLEEPER.
This is the premise of SLEEPER:

"You are an undercover agent. Your assignment is go deep undercover
with an organization of pure evil. Imagine that your assignment is so deep
cover that only one person in your organization knows about it. Now imagine
that that person is suddenly put in a coma. You now have no way out.
Even worse, you don't know if you want out."

Ed Brubaker wants you to try SLEEPER. And this is the deal:

"I think when my publisher is willing to spin the wheel by trying
something new by me, like SLEEPER, then I should be willing to
put myself on the line with it, too. So, in the hopes that it will get
readers and retailers to take a chance on it, and because I love this
book and have total faith in it, I'm going to offer a money back
guarantee on SLEEPER: If anyone buys SLEEPER #1 and is
unsatisfied, they can email me at: edbrubaker1@hotmail.com and
I'll send them their 3 bucks back.

"If you like shows like THE SOPRANOS, ALIAS, or THE SHIELD, or
comics like 100 BULLETS or ALIAS (again), then give SLEEPER a try,
because it's right up that alley, I swear."

So take Ed up on it.

Once again, it's been a while. Circumstances beyond my control, believe me, and not pleasant at all. Still not back to 100%, but in the meantime, I cannot urge you strongly enough to check out this article on SUVs and their owners. Just the idea that research exists proving that SUV owners are, for the most part, self-centered, dickless arseholes just fills me with glee. Every time I see some brain-dead frelling moron making a right turn from the left-turn lane without pause, or making an illegal u-turn, or anything else that shows a complete disregard for the safety of the people around them, it's always somebody in one of these big fuel-guzzling, war-supporting monster death coffins on wheels. The article talks about a whole book dealing with the seduction of the weak-minded, image-conscious, no-self-esteem, incapable of earning respect on their own mindless consumers by the automotive industry, even though these useless behemoths are responsible for significantly more road-deaths than any other vehicles, are just as unsafe for the passengers as they are to other motorists, and have poor enough gas mileage that they can probably be singled out as a major contributing factor to our current troubles in the Middle East. (And they seem to be the vehicles most likely to sport an American flag, too. Ah, sweet irony...)

According to today's entry on Neil Gaiman's journal, A&E Home Video are going to release his BBC TV series Neverwhere on DVD this summer. I've seen a really poor video of this series, and while it's nowhere near as good as the book (which reads like the show is an adaptation of it, rather than the other way around), it's still worth seeing. So I'm all excited. This in June, Alias in September (hopefully)... Now if only someone would do the existing episodes of Firefly...

Ghost Ship Found Packed with Rotting Fish
Ah, it's a funny old world...

The Internet was originally created so that academics could exchange information. It was developed by the Department of Defense so that a communications network could survive if conventional communications were taken out in a war. But I prefer to see it used for inspired lunacy like 2000 AD, starring future lawman Judge Dredd, (a much better comic than the lousy movie adaptation starring Sylvester Stallone would indicate). Right now, the strip is featuring Dredd versus the Aliens of the popular movie series, and part of the result is one of the best Gruddamned comic book covers ever!

I have a real post percolating in my brain even as we speak. (Okay, two, actually: the "true meaning of Christmas" thing is still bouncing around in my head, although that might just be saved until next year, for the sake of season-appropriateness. Expect to hear my thoughts about HBO's newly purchased series, Deadwood in the next day or so, particularly as it relates to a couple of recently-viewed movies starring Molly Parker.)

In the meantime, you could do worse things with your time than check out this preview of Warren Ellis's upcoming comic, Reload, which sounds like a pretty cool action movie in comic-book format.

As you can see from the previous post, thanks to my pal Jen, I now have proof of what I pretty much already knew...

I am Nothing!



Which Enemy of the Christian Church Are You?

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A slightly belated Happy New Year! Been enjoying all the days off too much to actually write anything, but a friend just sent me this link. It's sick and twisted indeed, not to mention completely un-PC, but it certainly brought a smile to my face

First, Merry Christmas to all my faithful readers, both of you. (I'd say the more PC Happy Holidays, but, let's face it, it's December 24th, Chanukah has passed, and since everything is closed tonight and tomorrow, we're all pretty much forced to celebrate Christmas one way or another anyway. Expect a longer piece, probably tomorrow, on how the whole "true meaning of Christmas/religious holiday" stuff is a bunch of hogwash, anyway.)

Today, though, I want to recommend a particularly cool comic I just got yesterday: Hawaiian Dick, published by Image Comics. Written by B. Clay Moore and beautifully drawn by Steven Griffin, set in 1953, this first issue tells the tale of Byrd, a former mainland US cop exiled to Hawaii as the result of some sort of unspecified scandal. Working as a PI, he finds himself hired to recover a car stolen from some mobsters working to blackmail their boss. The story is lean and taut without going by too quickly, and the art is just gorgeous, combining pen and ink line art with some beautifully painted colors that bring the setting and characters to life. For want of a better hgh-concept catch-phrase, I'll say it's LA Confidential meets Magnum, PI. I don't know how accurate a portrait of 1950s-era Hawaii this is, but it feels the way you'd expect it to feel. This is the first of three issues, and hopefully we'll see many more stories after that. Check it out! (Or, check out these preview comic strips.)

Saw the new Lord of the Rings movie, The Two Towers, yesterday. Definitely another great installment. I refuse to do the Internet thing of announcing whether or not I thought it was better than the first one, because:

• I hate that sort of NASCAR-type evaluation that insists that it isn't enough whether something is enjoyable or not, but whether it's more or less enjoyable than something else. I mean, the logical conclusion to that line of thinking is that there should only be one thing that people should go to for entertainment, because it is the single piece of entertainment to which all others are inferior, and why settle for second best?


• The Lord of the Rings movies aren't really meant to be individual films, any more than the books are individual stories rather than one really long book published in three volumes because the publisher thought the binding would have been unwieldy if the manuscript wasn't split up. It would be like just reviewing the middle third of a story, and ignoring how the first and last parts put the middle into context.



And finally, what's the point? Anyone who enjoyed the first one should go see the second one, because it's the next part of the story. Anyone who hated the first one should probably avoid the second one, because it's the next part of the story.

I also watched the last (and first) episode of Firefly last night. The first episode, because this is the original pilot episode, the one where the story starts, which Fox had held off showing because they didn't think it would hook audiences. The last, because it's been canceled. (As have Birds of Prey and Robbery Homicide Division.) It's difficult to tell how this episode, "Serenity," holds up as a first episode, because I come to it with the benefit of hindsight. I'm already familiar with, and have affection for, the characters, and I have seen how many of the hints about the future will play out. It's definitely frustrating, knowing that we won't get any new stories about these folks or this setting, barring a miracle. Hopefully, we'll have the opportunity to at least see what we had again, either through reruns on the SciFi Channel or, even better, on DVD.

Speaking of quality telefantasy being canceled, next month starts up the final run of episodes of Taken, the 20-hour miniseries about alien abductions produced by Steven Spielberg, they aren't going to follow it up with another miniseries or regular series. And they do show Stargate SG-1, which has matured into one of my favorites. But it's hard not to be disappointed when they stop making something I enjoy. Particularly when it's premature, like with Firefly,FarScape, or even Birds of Prey.

Speaking of BoP, I was watching this week's episode and saw one of those annoying anti-marijuana ads that have been popping up more and more frequently these days. You know, the ones talking about the evils of the Demon Weed, like how it slows your reflexes and dulls your senses. Which may be true, and are things that potential pot smokers should probably be aware of. What bothers me was that the very next commercial showed what a great time could be had by drinking beer--a substance which slows the reflexes, dulls the senses... And let's not forget that, unlike perfectly legal tobacco cigarettes, marijuana doesn't cause cancer.

Finally, I have come up with my own Star Wars tie-in product, and I post the notion here before somebody else starts manufacturing it: Force-in-a-Box. The great thing is, anyone who is convinced that they just have purchased an empty box obviously doesn't have enough midi-chlorians, and that'll show up in a medical test.

Just another quick one right now: Thanks fo the Giant Colon tour, now everyone in the world can see what it feels like to completely disappear up one's own rectum. (As opposed to everyone who voted the Republicans into power, who already have their heads so far up their own... ah, it's just too easy, and not really any fun today.)

First, please ignore the aborted post from 11/26/02. For whatever reason, I can't seem to delete it.

Second, the last few days, I've been getting an average of seven or eight telemarketer calls a day, according to my caller ID. Plus the usual spam in my inbox. So it's nice to see that someone out there is working on a way to make all this junk mail work for me.