Saturday, October 20, 2012

Overheard at the Comic Shop

"So, characters that are female or gay men get the butt shot?"

Saturday, April 28, 2012

Take Your Child to Work

With George Lucas's insistence on updating Star Wars every few years, it's just a matter of time before he realizes that with so many of the characters under masks, he can pretty much re-write the dialogue of the movie to keep with the times. What I expect to see coming to a theater near you…

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Doctor Who tartans

A while back a book about Scottish tartans inspired me to try my hand at creating some originals of my own. For inspiration, I turned to Doctor Who, as the distinctive costuming, especially in the original series, seemed to naturally lend itself to visuals that were both recognizable but different from the source material.

I've got them set as rotating desktop pictures, so one can "regenerate" into the next in proper order. There will eventually be at least one for each Doctor (maybe I'll give a shot at companions next), but as they've been in the works for well over a year, I figured waiting until all of them were complete might mean they're never actual seen by anyone else. More to come as they're done…


The obvious element to draw from for Four was his scarves. The more recognizable multi-colored above, and the later Tom Baker years below.



Five might be my favorite so far.


Six. A tartan within a tartan. I don't know which is uglier; the inspiration or the tartanized form. (Yes, that's a word.)


Seven. From the original series, the McCoy ones are probably the ones that I'm least familiar with. I'll update this if something doesn't strike me as quite right after I watch them again.

Sunday, December 11, 2011

Missing Doctor Who episodes found!

It seems Doctor Who fans are getting an early Christmas present. The BBC announced that two classic episodes, William Hartnell's Galaxy 4, episode 3, and Patrick Troughton's The Underwater Menace, episode 2, were purchased by a film collector some 30 years ago, and recently returned to the BBC.

Monday, December 5, 2011

Kindle

I just bought Fahrenheit 451 for my Kindle Fire. Now I can toss my dead-tree version.

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

"No Whip"

Occasionally I'll hear people ahead of me in the line at Starbucks order their beverage without whipped cream, and I wonder what the fuck is wrong with them.

Saturday, January 22, 2011

Better Experimental Joke

I just seeded a Pandora station with John Cage's 4′33″ and now it keeps redirecting me to my other browser windows.

Experimental Joke

I just seeded a Pandora station with John Cage's 4′33″ and now it keeps crashing.

Sunday, September 5, 2010

Tag a Friend

Facebook's new "Tag a Friend" requests are starting to worry me a little bit…


Sunday, August 8, 2010

Community Supported Agriculture

Some time back, I made it a point to start eating healthier and more responsibly. Mostly this took the form of cutting out anything with high fructose corn syrup; focusing on buying fresh foods, rather than anything from a box or a can (when a fresh option was available); and eating store-bought organic produce and meat (or at least, in the case of the latter, meat that may not have been certified organic, but was from a source that used responsible growing methods). But it wasn't until I read The Omnivore's Dilemma that I realized that there was much more that could be done to improve my carbon footprint. True, buying organic reduces oil consumption to some degree (in that both fertilizers and insecticides tend to be petroleum-based in non-organic farming), but that food still needs to be transported to where I live. (In the case of a significant amount of organic produce in the United States, that means across country, from California to New York.)

The solution seemed fairly obvious: join my local CSA. I had already been made aware of the Community-supported agriculture movement by a friend, who had been a member of her local CSA for a few years, and while it always sounded interesting, I had never felt the urge to join. However, it seemed the perfect way to act upon my values, so I decided to give it a try. CSAs vary, but usually, when one joins a CSA, a share is purchased before the growing season. Then, each week throughout the growing season, the CSA's farm provides each member with a box of fresh vegetables and/or fruit. (In my case, I pick up my share from a local community center.) There are many benefits to joining a CSA. While there are some downsides, I think they are far outweighed by the advantages.

The positive aspects of joining a CSA:
  • Since the source is local, produce is guaranteed to be fresh, picked just a day or two before you receive it
  • Overall cost tends to be much cheaper than buying equivalent organic produce in a supermarket
  • In my experience, the quality of the food tends to be better than even the organic produce that I've purchased in stores
  • You're helping to support your local economy
The downsides of joining a CSA:
  • Depending on the CSA, there may not be any choice on what one receives each week. However, if one is open to experimenting with new foods, this can be a positive aspect. I've discovered a few foods that I like, but never bothered to purchase from the store before, as I didn't know what to do with it. Being handed such a food encourages one to experiment with new recipes. Still, if there is something that I already know that I don't like in my week's share, my CSA orders a few additional shares that are used as swap boxes, for those that would prefer to trade away an unwanted item.
  • Just as one benefits from the abundance of a farm, one also shares in the risk. If the growing season is affected negatively by bad weather or other situations, it may lighten what one receives
Finding one's CSA is fairly easy in the U.S. Local Harvest will help to narrow down one's choices to what's convenient in your area. There are plenty of other sites that focus on CSA options in more specific areas.

Eventually I intend to break down what the contents of my weekly produce share would cost at local organic supermarkets or produce stands. For now, I will share what's in my weekly box. Info on the first few weeks coming soon…

Sunday, December 27, 2009

He won't be back this way 'til 2010…

You know you're getting old when the futuristic dates in the pop music you loved as a kid are just around the corner.



I probably thought this video was really cool back then. I do still like the song.

Friday, December 25, 2009

Merry Christmas…

…from Chiron Beta Prime

Friday, October 2, 2009

Fighting the Last War

I went into Home Depot today for 2 things: a can of turpentine (for thinning my oil paints, and cleaning my brushes), and a package of single-edge razor blades (for a variety of purposes, but right now, for helping to remove the labels from some empty wine bottles—I like to save the pretty ones).

I found a clerk on the floor, and asked him where I could find razor blades. He pointed me to a corner of the section, and told me he would me meet me over there in a minute. Confident that I could find them without additional assistance, I headed off towards the corner to find what I needed, only to discover the real reason why the clerk told me he would meet me there; the razor blades and related supplied were locked in a cage.

I can't imagine they were locked up for theft-prevention purposes, as, understandably, a store might do with their more expensive merchandise. (A package of 100 blades ran about $12.) They don't carry the blades to the register for you, and there is plenty of other merchandise of a similar size and cost that is unsecured on the shelf. The only feasible explanation that I can think of for locking them up is that the 9/11 terrorists used box cutters to take control.

When the clerk rejoined me, I pointed out what I wanted, and as he unlocked the cage, the following conversation took place:
"Do you have any ID?"
"Yes."
"Can I see it?"
"What will that prove?"
"That you have ID."

Satisfied that I did, in fact, have ID, by a cursory glance at my driver's license, which I did not bother to remove from my wallet, he retrieved my requested items from the cage, and I was off to find my can of turpentine (which, along with other highly flammable, was not similarly secured), and then to check out. I didn't bother to stop to show the door clerk my receipt.

A few thoughts:

Mohammed Atta had ID. I wonder if he got it so he could shop at Home Depot
• I hope terrorists don't find out that you can buy razor blades in supermarkets
• Things are going to get a lot more inconvenient if MacGyver ever turns his back on his country

Monday, September 28, 2009

Thank you, Ron Moore

When I first started watching Battlestar Galactica, the dialogue reminded me of sitting in a church. Now, church services remind me of Battlestar Galactica, which has greatly improved my church experiences.

Monday, August 24, 2009

Hamburglar



How is it that the Hamburglar can manage to get hold of…
• A hamburger tie
• Red gloves
• A pimp hat
• Some nifty Converse All-Stars
• A domino mask*
• A cape*
…but he can't find new clothes to replace his conspicuous prison outfit?


*He and Robin must shop at the same store†:

†Assuming, of course, they're not the same person. I've never seen them together.

Monday, June 22, 2009

Buffy vs. Edward Cullen?

It could only end one way:

Friday, June 5, 2009

Brian Blessed as Odin?

Brian Blessed is rumored to have been cast as Odin in Kenneth Branagh's Thor. My initial reaction was "Well, duh, who else are you going to cast in the part?" No official word yet from Marvel. (Most of the web discussion of this casting lead back to blog Bleeding Cool as the origin of this info). But man, how cool would it be to see Brian Blessed's Odin and Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury on screen yelling at each other.

Sunday, May 31, 2009

Archie Is Getting Married?

When I first heard the news that Archie was finally going to choosing between Betty and Veronica, I was a bit shocked…to find that Archie was still being published. After 65 years, one would think that the stories about a lone normal teenager have pretty much been exhausted. Sure, there are characters (Superman, Batman, and others) that have been around longer, but mostly, those characters with a similar longevity are more identifiable as icons before they are as people. You can get away with tweaking the personalities of Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent so they don't appear outdated to the reader, because their alter egos are timeless. The same doesn't hold true for teenagers. To keep up with the times, and have your main character appeal to the same demographic in a new generation, you would have to alter the core of your character so much that it would unidentifiable when compared to the original version. A quick glance at current Archie comics suggests that that has not been done. Which makes me wonder just who is reading Archie these days.