Chimu doesn’t seem appropriately thankful.
Posted by NVM on 29 January 2008
Posted in Comic Books | Tagged: batarangs are excellent gifts | 1 Comment »
Posted by NVM on 29 January 2008
Posted in Comic Books | Tagged: batarangs are excellent gifts | 1 Comment »
Posted by NVM on 27 January 2008
Posted in Technology, Without Comment Dept. | Tagged: not the satellite Lou Reed was talking about, Technology | No Comments »
Posted by NVM on 23 January 2008
Sometimes I come across something that feels like I could have written it. To wit, take this blog, which basically nails exactly how I feel about one of the most popular webcomics out there and actually provides some solid criticism of the problem with Kurtz’s recent work. Notice that I’m emphasizing “recent,” because I feel that PvP’s slide into mediocrity has been a recent development. It was good enough to get me hooked on it, but I’m staying on and reading out of inertia (and because I like Kurtz’s art well enough — it’s got a nice, solid line and is a lot of fun when he stretches himself), not because I’m actually enjoying myself day in and day out.
Posted in Webcomics | Tagged: PvP makes me sad too, Scott Kurtz | No Comments »
Posted by NVM on 23 January 2008
This came over Warren Ellis’s badsignal mailing list this morning:
We’re way, way past the point where the internet can be considered “not the real world.” If I’m carrying it around in my pocket, it’s pretty real. It’s becoming, and become, so tightly tied into our lives that it can no longer really be dismissed as either “virtual” or “without consequences.” Treating the net as some spooky fog separate from the real world is just going to exacerbate the difficulties in any attempt to reach out to anyone.
I’d say that the moment the internet started to be used as a medium for the replacement of real-world business and services (amazon.com, e-Bay, etc.), it became real. Or can we tell the mom-and-pop bookstores that can’t compete with the deep discounts at amazon or even Barnes and Noble and Borders, which have both had to adjust their business models to some degree to compete with amazon, that the internet is not a real place and that there aren’t any consequences?
Yes, it becomes slightly murkier in terms of how we interact with people and how we frame those interactions, but sometimes I think the whole “the internet isn’t the real world” bit is almost a luddite-like reaction to something that’s fundamentally changed the way we interact with people in the world and the friction that creates with how we interact with people in our neighborhoods and offices and schools, etc.
Posted in Technology | Tagged: Technology, the Intarwebs are not realz, Warren Ellis | No Comments »
Posted by NVM on 17 January 2008
No comment. (via Blog@Newsarama)
Posted in Comic Books, Without Comment Dept. | Tagged: Comic Books, fuzzy grasp on reality | No Comments »
Posted by NVM on 17 January 2008
Salem’s Animal Control Officer Kelly Demers took custody of the dogs. There were 22 dogs in the vehicle, and three of them were deceased. Officials said that there were no signs of abuse to the animals. Moolic will be allowed to retrieve four of the dogs immediately.
Taking twenty-two dogs to Maine in a van doesn’t qualify as abuse? Then again, had she put the dogs in a carrier on the roof of her van, she could run for president. (I was going to make a joke about four dogs and a Tata Nano, but I really don’t have the heart.)
Posted in Sadness | Tagged: animal abuse, Mitt Romney, unseemly jokes about animals and small Indian cars | No Comments »
Posted by NVM on 16 January 2008
And, lo and behold, what’s in the backmatter of Fell #9? This script excerpt —
And let’s try something. Knock two panels together.
Draw the door, as normal, yes? Now sketch in, over it, a really simple stick figure, which is Fell’s estimation of the guy behind the door…
There’s more in the book, but it was just nice to get at what Ellis and Templesmith were doing all at once. It’s a great issue, by the way.
Posted in Comic Books | Tagged: being right, Ben Templesmith, Fell, Warren Ellis | No Comments »
Posted by NVM on 16 January 2008
It’s Wednesday, so that means it’s new comic day. And it’s mid-January, which means it’s time to inventory my pull list — both to think about what I’m reading and to think about what I won’t be reading soon.
Avatar — Black Summer (mini), Doktor Sleepless
Dark Horse — Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite (mini)
DC — Batman, Batman and the Outsiders, Booster Gold, Brave and the Bold, Checkmate, Countdown, Countdown to Adventure (mini), Countdown to Mystery (mini), Death of the New Gods (mini), Detective Comics, Gotham Underground (mini), Green Arrow/Black Canary, Justice League of America, Justice Society of America, Legion of Super-Heroes, Nightwing, Robin, Salvation Run (mini), Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters (mini)
Image — Casanova, Fell
Marvel — Captain America, Immortal Iron Fist, Mighty Avengers, New Avengers, Punisher War Journal
My first thought is that this is far too many comics. My second thought is “thank God most of them are mini-series that are ending soon.” Still, there must be a culling.
Titles that I won’t remove are pretty easy to peg — the Bat family titles, the four big team books (Legion is new, so that’s kind of a trial), and the two Image books. I’m not pulling out of the minis, as most all of the minis are just about done. That said, save Final Crisis and its two side series and the main books for Secret Invasion, I think I’m done with the minis for a while. They’re exhausting. Countdown will stay, but that’s it for weekly titles.
So let’s look at the titles that are left. Here’s a list, and then I’m going to take them individually — Doktor Sleepless (Avatar), Booster Gold, Brave and the Bold, Checkmate, Green Arrow/Black Canary, Legion of Super-Heroes (DC), Captain America, Immortal Iron Fist, and Punisher War Journal (Marvel). That’s a good handful of books, and I want to cut at least two.
To recap, that brings us to the following (shaky titles in italics):
Avatar — Black Summer (mini), Doktor Sleepless
Dark Horse — Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite (mini)
DC — Batman, Batman and the Outsiders, Booster Gold, Brave and the Bold, Checkmate, Countdown, Countdown to Adventure (mini), Countdown to Mystery (mini), Death of the New Gods (mini), Detective Comics, Gotham Underground (mini), Green Arrow/Black Canary, Justice League of America, Justice Society of America, Legion of Super-Heroes, Nightwing, Robin, Salvation Run (mini), Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters (mini)
Image — Casanova, Fell
Marvel — Captain America, Immortal Iron Fist, Mighty Avengers, New Avengers, Punisher War Journal
Well, it’s a start at least.
Posted in Comic Books | Tagged: Booster Gold, Comic Books, Green Arrow/Black Canary, Iron Fist, Legion of Super-Heroes, Matt Fraction, pull list inventory, Punisher, Warren Ellis | No Comments »
Posted by NVM on 16 January 2008
Maybe I’m a bit sensitive to this, as I’m not at all a Patriots fan, but it seems to me that Bob Kraft is both missing the point and perhaps answering another question and rather defensively at that (boldface mine).
Patriots owner Robert Kraft said the team will honor 14-year-old Anna Grant before Sunday’s game. Grant, a high school freshman from Stratham, N.H., was the team’s representative in a Punt, Pass & Kick competition in her age group, and when she was introduced at the RCA Dome in Indianapolis before the fourth quarter Sunday, she was the only one booed. “Why should a champion be booed?” Kraft said. “She won an intensive competition. She’s supposed to be honored. We will recognize her as the winner on the field. Our fans will know.” Grant said, “It really didn’t bother me at all. People at the game came up to me afterward and said, ‘It’s not you. It’s your jersey.’ “
To hell with champions, the real issue here is that a 14-year-old girl was booed for being in the Punt, Pass & Kick competition. That strikes me as more than a little classless (and embarrassing for the Indy fans). That said, I have no doubt that if the situation were reversed and it was a kid wearing a Colts jersey being introduced at a Pats game that there would be the same result — it’s not that Indianapolis fans or New England fans have no class; it’s that sports fans in general have no class.
As for Mr Kraft, it seems like he might be a bit sensitive about his team’s status as the premier villains of the NFL — I know that Belichick doesn’t care, and I doubt that any of the current players care, but Kraft has always had a good public profile as an NFL owner and the Pats have always had a culture that reflected favorably on him. He seems a little defensive in this quote, and I’m more than willing to frame it in the context of the changing perception of his team among the public at large.
Posted in Sports | Tagged: Bob Kraft, classless sports fans, Fat Albert jokes, football, Patriots, too much oil in the hummus | 2 Comments »
Posted by NVM on 15 January 2008
I was never any good at skiing.
Posted in University | Tagged: academia, Olympics, things I want to tag "Sports" out of sheer perversity | No Comments »