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Month: April 2004 Page 1 of 3

Wow.

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On April 30, 2004

In Blog

One of the Usenet newsgroups I still bother to keep up with is rec.arts.comics.strips. Today, one of the regulars posted a message about a comic he was working on. It’s still a work in progress, but he wanted people who appeciated the form to take a look and give him feedback, good or bad.

So I went to take a look.

Mom’s Cancer will not amuse you. It may not even entertain you. But it will affect you. The author, who is preferring to stay semi-anonymous for obvious reasons, has crafted an intimate, frank, and touching portrayal of what he and his family have gone through during the course of his mother’s treatment for incurable lung cancer.

It is a work-in-progress. It doesn’t yet have an ending. But in the space of time it took me to read the installments to date, I have come to know these people, to care for them, to worry about their outcome. I want to know what happens next. I need to know how the story continues.

This is undistilled Good Stuff. Read it. It’s worth the trip.

Happy birthday, sweetie!

By

On April 29, 2004

In Blog

As I travel through life (For the road is long,and there is yet far to go) I cannot help but think in amazement and wonder how lucky I am that you are walking beside me.

Happy birthday to my love, my sweetheart, my partner, kitanzi

Another Meme

By

On April 28, 2004

In Blog

1.Go into your LJ’s archives.
2.Find your 23rd post (or closest to).
3.Find the fifth sentence (or closest to).
4.Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions

The $8,700 statue, based on the simple toy which involves sticking plastic
arms, feet and facial parts into a potato, has now been banished to a
children’s playground and will later be put in a nearby “Wild West” theme
park.

Just imagine…

By

On April 26, 2004

In Blog

Invent a memory of me and post it in the comments. It can be anything you want, so long as it’s something that’s never happened. Then, of course, post this to your journal and see what people would like to remember of you, only the universe failed to cooperate in making it happen so they had to make it up instead.

This should be all sorts of fun!

Lazy Quiet Weekend

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On April 25, 2004

In Blog

After all the fun of having maebdh7 all to ourselves for a week (more about which later), we’ve had a pretty quiet weekend to rest and relax.

Saturday was about as lazy a day as you can have while actually getting out of bed. kitanzi did grocery shopping, while I did much of nothing around the house. Later, we went for a walk, and watched some TV. (An episode of Blackadder 3 and the special “pilot” episode of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.) The QEftSG episode was especially fun, as you got to look back at the prototype and see the familiar shtick in its embryonic form.

Today, I got up early, then collapsed again for a 4 hour nap. I guess I was more tired than I thought. We did manage to get out of the house long enough for me to shop for a new pair of shoes (aside to maedbh7: no, really, actual shoes) and browse the bargain books at Barnes & Noble.

Reading Report

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On April 24, 2004

In Blog

Haven’t updated book progress lately because, honestly, I hadn’t been reading that much the last two weeks, between a couple of projects I was working on and maedbh7‘s visit, but I have gotten through a couple of books since last time I reported.

  • War For The Oaks by Emma Bull

    Every now and then, you just want to go back to a favourite, and this is easily one of my favourite books ever written, ever ever. I’m a big fan of all of Bull’s work: she has a great ear for dialogue, and crafts characters who are so real I feel like I know them. I’ve probably read WftO a dozen times, and it still feels fresh and new each time. If you’re a fan of “modern world fantasy”, I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

  • Zen And the Art of Travel by Eric Chaline

    When making plans for tourism and trips, I always warn people that I’m a “Zen tourist”. I don’t like scheduling myself overmuch, preferring to following the path in front of me and seeing where it goes. So when kitanzi saw this book, she couldn’t resist getting it for me. I had expected it to be just a collection of Zen quotes and pretty pictures, but the book was evenly divided between said pictures and quotes, travel stories, and practical tips for traveling to odd and remote places. A wonderful, fascinating little book that took me twice as long to read as I anticipated, and left me feeling much richer (and with an itching desire to go somewhere) than when I started.

Early Morning Weekend Conversation

By

On April 24, 2004

In Blog

autographedcat: So, would “Goddesses’ Bodices” be a good name for a band?
kitanzi: I dunno, but it’d be a great name for a lingerie store!

MST3K presents “Dark Dungeons”

By

On April 24, 2004

In Blog

Thanks to gridlore for the link.

Jack Chick is a weird religious nut who draws little comic tracts espousing his own odd version of Christianity. (I’ve never actually met a Christian who had heard of Chick who wasn’t embarrassed by him, to be honest). Most of them are rather unintentionally funny, and one of the most famous of the Chick Tracts in fandom is Dark Dungeons, which targets the evil and Satanic practice of Role Playing Games.

So what do you do when something is so bad it’s unintentionally funny? You send it up to the Sattelite of Love for Mike and the robots to mercilessly make fun of it.

So someone did.

Go read it, it’s hysterical!

Kudos to Plextor

By

On April 23, 2004

In Blog

All too often, when someone writes about an interaction with a tech support organization, it’s to vent. So it’s only fair to write about good experiences as well.

Read More

Maybe it’s just me…

By

On April 23, 2004

In Blog

I don’t want to suggest in any way that the honour and attention being afforded Pat Tillman’s death in Afghanistan is in any way unearned. And I should not be surprised that our celebrity-driven culture latches onto a story in which a “name” is involved.

But I sat at lunch and idly watched as Fox News talked about nothing but Tillman’s death. For an hour. With commentary from a variety of journalists and pundits, and a conversation with his old college roommate and a variety of lauds and repeated reference to the multi-million dollar contract that he walked away from in order to join the Army.

And he should be commended for that, to be sure.

But….every single man and woman who has died in the service of this country deserves just as much attention. Every single soldier in our military is someone’s son or daughter, someone’s brother or sister, someone’s mother or father, someone’s boyfriend or girlfriend or husband or wife. Every single one of them volunteered to go into harms way in the service of their country.

Over 700 US soldiers (and another 100 UK and other coalition forces) have died in Iraq alone over the last 13 months. Every single one of them was as much a hero. Every single one of them. Why don’t each of them get their hour of television? Why don’t we know each and every one of their names as well as we know the name of Pat Tillman?

Maybe I’m just cynical, and maybe I’m just plain wrong, but somehow the whole spectacle that’s being made of Tillman and his sacrifice leaves me with a sour taste in my mouth.

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