Waste Not Doc Nebula spun a post off another article concerning, essentially, Must-Read Comics. (An article he'd been pointed to by Tony Collett .) As my casual reply (left in the Comments there) ran on longer than a comment likely should I've decided to post it here, too. Why? It feels as if I'm getting more mileage out of it - it's been a while since I've written anything about the medium - and maybe it'll help nudge me closer to writing something about comics recently bought and read. For the most part this is a comment on Doc's entry, and so will make references accordingly. I may take five minutes to make it slightly more friendly to someone just reading this part, but no more than that. I continue to resist coming up with a Top 8, 10 or 100 list of comics, knowing that my tastes shift over time and I almost always tailor recommended reading lists to the person I'm addressing. So it is that I won't be attempting to make up such a list here. T...
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Sunday Ramble Still not finding myself strongly communicative. However, I know the week will soon swallow me whole so a little more - even if bits and pieces - before that. A lazy, grouchy, late and fitful start to my day, it's mainly been domestic tasks. Cleaning, laundry and cooking. I see that Ralph Nader has declared he's entering the presidential race (I'm not going to link to "the story" because it's all over the place and has been unfurling as the day's gone on and he's been making appearances and responding to more questions), both to point out the dangers of a McCain presidency as being one of endless war, and lobbing criticisms at both Clinton and Obama for what amounts to betrayal of a substantial portion of what was at least once thought to be the Democratic Party's base. And, however much I may worry about votes being drained off... I cannot fault the man for the move. Maybe his hectoring and highlighting will shame something ...
Time, She Flies! A little bit of non-sequential catching up. Fellow Legendaire Tim Tjarks is in nearby King of Prussia for a work assignment. I hadn't seen Tim since July of '02 - the last time I was in the Chicago area when he and his family opened their home to those Legends members past and present who could make it. He was able to have some time off from it this weekend we got together for a late lunch/early dinner. Tim didn't have a preference, and as he'd been eating in the immediate area I drove out near where I work and we went to El Cancun. We ate, caught up a little, discussed gaming, comics, touched on politics, and drank more than enough iced tea to test our aging bladders. Afterwards I took him on what could barely pass as a tour - more just a matter of riding around while talking, having to stop at work to let some of the iced tea out - for a while before dropping him back off at the hotel. It was nice to get to see him again. The past week a...
Decisions, Decisions Who gets to make them? So little time and energy seem to remain to me each day, and so a great many subjects go by the boards without even cursory comment. With this year's primary elections becoming increasingly... interesting -- it feels bizarre to be this far into the process, especially after seeing Super Tuesday become Super Duper Tuesday, without nominees being all but anointed by their parties. We're finding ourselves being educated about odd little specifics and vagaries in the Primary process. Many have only recently had reason to learn that Republican delegates are assigned at the state level in a winner take all fashion (the way they are for everyone in the general election) while the Democratic delegates are assigned proportionately, which on the one hand certainly feels more democratic but also makes it likely that in such a divided race as we're seeing between Clinton and Obama this could go the distance, all the way to the Democrati...
Hope vs Hack? Sam Smith's Morning Line captures some of what I've been seeing as I look over Super Tuesday's results. Here's the piece: MORNING LINE : A CHOICE BETWEEN OBAMA AND TROUBLE SAM SMITH, PROGRESSIVE REVIEW - The most important part of what happened on Super Tuesday is that now the Democrats can't fail to nominate Barack Obama without seriously hurting themselves. The Obama campaign, justified or not, has brought out a stunning number of normally apathetic or discouraged voters. The Clintons are about as exciting as Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz reruns. Those who love them will always love them, but they tend towards the older crowd and no new constituency has been built. If Obama wins, the Clinton crowd will fall in line, but if Clinton wins an uncertain but impressive number of seldom voters may say to themselves, "I guess it doesn't work," and just stay home. Combine that with Obama's excellent showing in the red states and with whit...
One For Hope Oh, it's trite and simplistic to put too much into a speech, a song and a feeling, but with too much in the way of packaged, calculated, bloodless passion (if any at all) from candidates, I can't bring myself to shoot down what seems like a genuine, JFKesque message of hope and pride. The video itself isn't really a great match for my musical tastes, and I worry how alienating all of the Black faces will be for some people, but I'm trying to keep locked on the message. Here in PA, our primary isn't until April 22nd (ludicrous) so aside from discussing it I'm relegated to the status of bystander as Tuesday's huge spread of elections approaches. ( Here's a handy, interactive map of the primary contests one can check out by state or date.) There is no one on the Republican side of candidates I could conceivably vote for. None of the independent candidates I've seen have appealing platforms upon inspection. I never just sit an electio...
Sunday Morning Concert No theme I'm conscious of (though there was a strong 90's theme among the early ones I'd tracked down), save that these are songs I wanted to hear this morning, some of which I don't run into frequently. Everything's from the past 15 years; I'm not in a terribly nostalgic frame of mind at the moment. The mix was originally more varied, but between the time I found some videos, embedded them here and posted this they were pulled from YouTube. I started just by finding out that the song from the new Apple commercials was Yael Naim's New Soul. Probably not destined to be anything like a favorite for me, but it's something new (at least to me) so why not place it here? Elliot Smith: Waltz #2 , accompanied by a photo montage put together by a fan. Lemonheads: It's a Shame About Ray Radiohead: Karma Police Meat Puppets: Backwater Fastball: The Way (What the video has to do with it I have no idea...) The Postal Service: Such Great...
Behold: The Unpaid Shill I just enjoy their commercials. Since the only positive connection I have with tomorrow's Superbowl (aside from it generally being a good day to go take in a movie) would be any interesting commercials, it seemed like a good point to post this. The first and the final three are the ones I really like. The others are there for something closer to completeness. Nefarious Alliteration (not my favorite, but not a bad start) Acronym I Acronym II Message More direct (and better) Swiss Addicted Little effort's been taken to put these in any order, other that noting that the last two are the latest I've seen.
29 While yesterday was the unremarked 4th anniversary of the start of this blog, today was the 29th anniversary of a first date all those years ago. The four of us went out to an early dinner today and had a fine time. Not much else to say for general consumption -- I mainly wanted to note the date. Later this year will be our 23rd wedding anniversary. Here's one that Crypt Leak sent me late in the day Feb. 2nd of '07 :