more sillyness

opening bold words and a silly silly (silly) link.

mmmm, that tastes BAD...

Maybe I have a dark sense of humor, okay, probably. I have always liked comics, but after going to an independent comics convention, I realized that I don't rival the true comic geeks of the world.

But I like what I like, at least. And I like
Steven he's a little boy with a strangely two-pointed hat, a gun, and a taste for beer. Drawn by a guy named Doug Allen since the late 70's, Steven books are distributed by Fantagraphics and the strip is featured in scads of independent papers across the country. If the guy who writes Red Meat has never read Steven then I'm a drunk cactus.

you are losing it...

It's just a great week
for funny!

your heart on the way to destruction...

Cool tools can be used for pointless purposes. Which makes my heart happy. [Thanks to Jordan for the pointer].

my stick figure can beat up...

it's like Shaolin Circus Atari or something.

this just in...

Not to make this whole site referential to Taylor, but I have to simply link to his summary and pointers to all your base are belong to us phenomenon which is (as Billy Crystal once said of midget wrestling) "with all due respect, the greatest thing in the world". He explains it better, although what the "31137 crowd" is I guess I'm just not hep enuf to know. Watch the original and then make sure to check out the techno remix link. The animation is actually from a Sega video game

what was the Buzz all about...

This morning, killing time that can ill-afford to be killed, I ended up doing a bunch of surfing on the track & trails of MTV's Buzz (from the early 90's). Interesting that. It was a huge influence on Taylor, Shvatz & I in college. Rapid fire tele-collage-vision with a solid conceptual basis (a one-word theme per 30min. episode, a global view, statistics and interviews, and a shaky handheld camera). The research yields interesting facts, and a few parallels n' stuff. Anyway, here's the report, then I have to get to Tentacle work:

First off, Buzz is not listed on imdb.com, even though director Mark Pellington seems to now be a successful video/movie director. Further linkage reveals he graduated from UVA the year that I graduated from high school (whatever that means, but it was interesting to learn). His new film sounds like a sci-fi thriller, sounds very on the X-files vibe in fact.

There's an interview with Pellington where he talks about making his second film Arlington Road now that I understand more what narrative filmmaking is about..., hm, it's interesting, cuz Buzz was a non-narrative work. It must be interesting to work your way back into more traditional forms. I guess I do that a bit now when I'm writing story type stuff, having gone through a more kinda language-poetry aware (I won't say influenced, though in a general sense that's true) phase.

One more connection of a different sort, both of his films debuted at Sundance film festival, which Taylor & Anna went to this year. Once again it impresses me, that fact that we're walking the same ground we were worshipping from afar less than 10 years ago. Which is cool, and something I've given a fair amount thought to recently. And will be the subject of post here a few days hence....

you think your throat's sore...

I'm tired. I've had sickness all week. 3 days out of work. Things are dizzy, busy and sorta sad/frustrating right now. Didn't look at world news today until about 9:30 when I learned about the bombings of Iraq. I knew Snippy was going to do that. I really don't like that guy.

I'm thirty right now. How many of you, who are within 5-10 years of my age, remember growing up with the assumption that the world would end by a nuclear blast in out lifetime? Raise your hands. [Looks like about... 64% (+or - 8%) about what I figured.] Cold wars bite my shiny metal ass. They aren't sexy or heroic, or funny or romantic or even tragic, they're just stupid. What is it good for?

The legacy of republican presidents in the last couple decades (and their faithful vices) speaks for itself, as, unfortunately, does George W. Bush. And speaks for all of us in fact to world leaders and other people with weapons. I don't trust this guy to talk to telemarketers, let alone world leaders. Don't get me wrong, Clinton definitely is a dicey character in some regards, but the fact is that at least some of the time he is conniving on our behalf. Bush is working exclusively for who put shoved him into office--less than the majority but have the lion's share of the wealth. The ones who spell USA with a capital $.

Maybe he's not the only one who's jumping the gun. Maybe it's not that bad. But it sure smells like it to me.

In brighter news, The Tentacle Sessions series which I co-produce will celebrate its two year anniversary (and the start of our 3rd year) on Sunday. The guest is the incredible Hal Robins, who is a gifted cartoonists, brilliant historian of popular culture and unpopular oddities, and one of the founders of the Church of the SubGenius. I've been reviewing a lot of SubGenius stuff recently, and you know it makes you wonder. It really does.

it always happens to the nicest superheroes...

congrats to taylor, anna, and company for theiraward-nominated [look under high bandwidth] site. When we were growing up (i.e. were in college) our (future) alma mater was abuzz and agog about having Phoef Sutton as an alum; he was impressive (if not famous) for writing and producing a popular tv show. I wonder when taylor's gonna go lecture about becoming a success in the new media world? <requisite ironical jab> Of course, nowadays, he wouldn't be speaking to the English & Theater departments about the Web, he'd be talking to the Business Majors.</requisite ironical jab>

Either way, we've come a long way from reading Mondo and watching Buzz. I think we're actually doing that stuff now. wheeeeeee!!

the night i got blog....

not bad for the first night. played with the format a bit, added the links on the left,
played with colors, but I'm not set on 'em yet. It is coming along though. very nice. I like this!

you're not alone...

I've decided that no one will see this for a little while. I need to fool around with the design template some.
This is a great opportunity, because usually I'm not design-y. I don't know where to start. But with blogger
I've got a solid little design to start with that I can slowly rip-apart from the inside(!). I love that.

Normally I just get frozen trying to decide what font to make it. Not because I'm incredibly picky about fonts
but because I don't know them well. Between not knowing what I like in a font (we can't all be 6rady) and not
knowing definitively what fonts are standard on people's machines, I just get stymied and don't do anything creative.

But blogger's template gave me a font to start with and I can just proceed from there and go back and change
it when I'm moved to. And I'm even using style sheets--woohoo! Something else I never get around to
fooling with--I am finding that it is much easier to edit existing style sheets than to write them in the first place.
Anyway, I'll need to read up on the wacky things.

this is going to be fun.

But, like I said, no one will see it for a while, until I'm comfortable with the design and there are a dozen or so
posts up. I mean, it's kinda like when you buy a cd or dvd player, but you only have 1 or 2 discs. You'd be here
every few minutes waiting to see if I had posted anything new. Okay, maybe you wouldn't be. But I would!

blogs i blog when I blog what i blog....

Lemme say that the major examples of bloggy goodness in my life are Captain Cursor and Morford who really need to meet up at some point in person. Other notables are da and nadav. They cool. All them. And then there's Julie who was a the proto-blogger. Read them, too.

the first time is usually disappointing....

Well. I did it. 2001, the year I got a cell phone is now also the year I gotta blog.



Now I can talk to you anywhere, anytime. If only you will listen. Whoever you are.



hello whirld, my name's mikl-em.