Friday, February 28, 2003

Guys- are you fucking supermodels with telepathy? You know the type. They have just met this BEAUTIFUL girl and all the sudden, they are in loooove. They spend a lot of time obsessing over this girl, that they have met once, and totally ignoring the rest of humanity.

Guys, don't do it! It's easy to fall into the trap. She was so nice, she certainly must like me, but don't do it! Many girls (and guys) are nice to everyone. Also, some people are natural flirts. They don't realize that they are giving off such a sexy vibe. Even if you've been talking to this person quite a while, don't do it! That person you are talking to, probably isn't thinking about you.

Some people just like to talk a lot. Not to mention, it has been said that a person knows whether they'd like to fuck you in a very few minutes. Many people may enjoy your company, but not want to fuck you.

For extroverts, the advice is easy. Talk to a lot of other girls to shake you out of the obsession. Keeps you from developing tunnel vision. For introverts, I don't have much advice. Try to take a cold shower I guess.

This advice is pulled out of my ass, so if you were expecting expert advice off of some random site on the internet, you're out of luck.
It's too bad they had to put panties on the cover. Imagine if a normal person saw this DVD. They'd think it was porn, although looking at cartoon panties is much less graphic than half the music videos on TV, which they are glad to let eight year olds watch. But it being a cartoon makes it 'different', I guess, which is ridiculous. Music videos could become hard core porn and they wouldn't get half the flak that anime fans get for ONE appearance of some girl without a top(or nipples). Of course, we have to take into account that the normal person thinks anything is ok if they are told it is by the mass media culture, but still, you'd think they'd have more sense...

Thursday, February 27, 2003

Richard Cory is a great song. Based on a poem by Edwin Arlington Robinson, it encapsulates envy in this pure perfect form. I don't know how many people have problems with envy, but America seems to be a country of enviers. We are always keeping up with the Joneses. I guess this is not a very intelligent analysis. Sorry. I like Wise Up by Aimee Mann today, too. I'm trying to move and do my work at the same time, lately, so it's hard.

Wednesday, February 26, 2003

Near burnout. In my state of mind, this seems a very depressiong cartoon.

Monday, February 24, 2003

Today is an unprecedented good day. My article on Paradise Kiss will be in the March 6th issue of Savant- watch for it! My mommy sent me Sparks: An Urban Fairy Tale (supposed to be a Christmas present, but ended up a late Valentine's) Thank you mommy! They added Vanilla Coke in the school cafeteria, and there is some vague hope of an AIDS vaccine. It is said to have helped blacks and Asians, but not people of other races. What an odd vaccine, but it could help. Yesterday I saw Princess Tutu, and soon, there will be a review here.

Sunday, February 23, 2003

How to save lives- cut off the fucking lights. Damn it, we're going to go and kill some folks over oil, you know. And don't drive the five seconds to the store. Don't waste the mother fucking gas. Yea, you. I know most of you are apathetic to anything that doesn't involve beer and boobies, but that's exactly why humanity sucks. People aren't even willing to do token efforts like turning off the goddanmed lights when the light coming in the windows is so damned bright that you're near blinded off it. I hate college students today.

Yea, there are decent college students who actually do something that doesn't involve getting massively drunk and fucking, but the majority- just write off the youth of America. We're all fucked. Too bad the only people who will realize this are the people who already are awake. If you're already one of the one percent that care about anything besides TV, you're doing something. Nothing that any one can do will make the people who can't see beyond the next weekend care about doing anything in the long term. That's why America is lousy with credit card debt- we can't see beyond the trends of the moment to see whether the shit we're buying will last.

We can't wait, and we can't think. When our society is destroyed because of our own short sight, we'll all be asking what happened. If we all just had a LITTLE more sense, so many problems could be averted, it makes me sick. I'm sure I'm short sighted at times, but at least I try to do something decent for a fucking change. If everyone was mindful occasionally, so much of the problems could be averted. But being mindful is too much work. You have to think.

I'm not saying I'm Ms. Shining Light of The Mother Fucking World, but at least I'm aware that being wasteful is a fucking waste. People who try to help the environment, I applaud you. People who try to help others, thank you. But your efforts can not win out against the majority, I am sorry.

Saturday, February 22, 2003

Nothing to say today. Wallpaper of the week. Planted trees today. Happy Arbor Day. Got a package. Won't know what it is til Monday.

Friday, February 21, 2003

Totally obvious insight of the day: emotions are subjective. I'm sure everyone is saying "Well, no shit, Sherlock", but with the sheer amount of people who try to trivialize others' suffering with "Children are starving in China" types of 'advice, many people just don't get it. I'll start with a simple explanation and go to a complex one.

A basic example would be math skills. I feel less intelligent as a person because I have low math skills. However, it is conceivable that some people could be neutral about a lack of math skills or even proud of it, as if they are cooler because they don't achieve in school.

A more complex example involves September 11th. When those towers came down, many people felt shocked and horrified. They did not go to themselves "Well, I didn't know those people" or 'More people die of the flu than died in that attack". In the press and in the homes of Americans, people felt like that was a singular atrocity. However, the supporters of say, Al Queda may have felt happy at the deaths of thousands and maybe some felt neutral, like Americans often feel if we see a news report of flood victims- Oh, that is too bad, but no real personal sense of horror.

I do not understand why people persist in thinking emotional intensity is controlled by anything rational. I have heard people get into intense arguments about the physics of real breasts versus breasts in computer games. Emotions simply aren't sensible things.
I thought I was too busy berating myself for being a math moron to blog, but no, I found a funny article on the Onion making fun of David Foster Wallace, author of Infinite Jest(I'm on page 751). Yay.

Thursday, February 20, 2003

Today we have a link about why nerds are unpopular!The general theory of this article is that when you put together thousands of kids with nothing to do, a hierarchy is formed, but since high school has no real life referents, the hierarchy becomes formed on useless things like 'popularity'. Also, nerds are unpopular because they divide their attention between popularity and other things.

I agree with this article, but it reminds me of something even more interesting to me. Onii-sama E(often known by the nickname Brother Dear Brother) and Rose of Versailles have some very interesting parallels(although I have seen more Onii-sama than ROV). I was wondering why that was, until I read this article.

The French court and high school have some important similarities. First, power is not conveyed through ability. For example- in Rose of Versailles, the Countess Dubarry has immense influence. However, she gained it through the well.. 'hot beef injection' method. Likewise in Onii-sama E, Miya-sama is able to play games with people's hearts through the fact that she controls the sorority, (which is called one, but is not like what we think of as a sorority- it seems very formal instead of beer drenched) and this doesn't seem to be made possible by any special talent.

Another point is that at the end of Onii-sama E (spoilers) the end of the sorority seems nigh, in a chain of action and reaction paralleling the French Revolution. One of the characters is even named Saint Juste after a person involved in the French Revolution. I have not seen the end of Rose of Versailles, but it seems inconceivable that an anime having Marie Antoinette in such a prominent role wouldn't involve the French Revolution in some way.

Personally, I admire both of these anime, made many years apart, but still having the same energy.

Wednesday, February 19, 2003

Because I watched the last episode of Nadesico, I feel energized enough to tell some strange stories. My favorite strange story lately is about a student at a small private college. He was in South Africa, and he didn't know much about the culture, or even much of the local language. So logically, he decides to go and try to pick up a whore for his report or whatever.

So he goes around, sniffing around in a bad area in a strange city, alone, and encounters this guy sitting on the corner. And of course, logically, he starts asking him where he can get a whore. He then goes off with this guy and walks for about forty-five minutes with a guy who he doesn't know, could have a weapon and is so desperate he offered to blow the dude.

So then this naive kid finds his whore. So he decides to interview her in some strange hotel for a while and then go out and meet all her drug addled racist friends, naturally. I never did hear what happened to him after that, but I'm sure he went on to more totally safe adventures.

The appeal of this story to me is the total moronity of the guy involved. He didn't even use the buddy system or learn the local language, he just decides he can go into the underworld himself. While I'm aware that I'm not a total hardened street smart person, at least I know better than that. I hope this story was entertaining.
Another soul sucking day. Here's a link to some heartwarming. comics. This little daily diary is so nice because it captures such small moments, I guess. Our life is made up of small moments, everyone says. This is not a profound thought, but it's not a day for such thoughts.

Tuesday, February 18, 2003

Not much to say for today. I had a major bad dream this morning which has made me feel really freaked out the entire day. So instead of punishing people for my own bad dreams, I'll give them a nice sexy(warning: tits) link Yum. Sexy girls, not too slender.

Sunday, February 16, 2003

It seems that much work has been done, so I'll rest for a bit. I really like anime music- the pieces I enjoy have a tendency to be very cheery and poppy, but then again, one of the things I like about anime is the great poppy cartoon energy. I really can't quantify this sort of pop energy- it's the type of manic energy you get as thousands of creators compete to get the buying dollars of the public- the material may not push barriers but you get a lot of fun pulp that way.

Thursday, one of the students in my Japanese class did a report on Japanese music videos. I'm embarrassed to say this, but the one thing I took away from this (and the guy did a great job on analysis) was that Japanese pop stars wear an awful lot of clothes to be female pop singers. These girls are dancing around in pants and sleeveless t shirts, for god's sake! I guess I am used to the hyper sexual US videos.

It seems that the PE subject of the week is "Don't fucking get AIDS and die" That's a fun subject. Last week was sex ed, and so coming from that experience, we're sure to have to make skits saying stuff like "Hey, MOM and DAD! I think I'm going to have UNPROTECTED ANAL SEX!" and 'Mom' and 'Dad' telling 'Jr' to watch a porn or something. ^_^; Great stuff here, great stuff.
Wallpaper of the week. Worry worry, I have too much work to blog, so I'll go off saying that 8 is my favorite number. It's synmetrical, which is always good.

Saturday, February 15, 2003

It seems that Salon.com may be going out of business. I have to say I used to like Salon, but was never a subscriber. $30 a year or even $18.50 with ads is a bit much a web magazine. Many real magazines cost less than that a year, and people are used to paying for magazines.

On the web, it seems that that doesn't work as well. There are numerous web magazines out there many that are actually free. However, to me it seems strange how moderntales.com seems to be almost thriving. Then again, maybe salon had more overhead, it is said to have had over a hundred staff members, and probably paid the writers a fixed salary. Also, in the article, it notes that their landlord is asking for $200,000 in unpaid rent. Not wonder even 60,000 people at $6 a month, and ads for everyone else, couldn't save them.

Contrast this with moderntales.com where people subscribe and the cartoonists and moderntales split the cash. So if noone subs, the cartoonists get jack. I guess the 70% goes to cartoonists may be an attractant too, not to mention indy folks like Kochalka, Hernandez and Donna Barr contributing to the site.

Also, a problem with web media in general is perceived value. You have to give people something that they'll pay for. For most web businesses, this has been pictures of blondes with fake breasts doing sexual acts. Business people would say that people buy $5 for a magazine a month, but Salon's $6 a month came at the cost of a magazine's portability, thickness and the ability to use them to prop up chair legs. Not to mention the thousands of other web magazines for free.

However, American comics are $3 for 22 pages. However, on Modern Tales, there are nearly 40 creators doing weekly strips. Not exactly a Shonen Jump esqe bargain( $5 for 300 pages nearly) but certainly better than the market price. However, there are many free online comics. I guess some people may be attracted to Modern Tale's quality control. While not all of them are good, at least most of them look like someone could plausibly think that person could write something half way acceptable and draw something pretty ok, even if they aren't doing it right now.

While this random analysis may not have been very decisive or useful, well, you get what you pay for.
Yesterday, I saw Daredevil. It wasn�t so bad. Spoilers from here on out. What�s with Electra�s lack of clothing? I know we need T&A, but couldn�t they have covered her back? Having your back open just screams WEAK POINT to even untrained people like me! Not to mention, seeing her backbone is disconcerting. I know that anorexia is the look de jour in Hollywood, but surely, I don�t need to be able to count every single vertebra, you know? Also, how did the police know they were fighting on the roof? It�s one thing for the priest to call the police, but really, what police force sends a helicopter on such a call? I did like the sonar images of what Daredevil �saw� through his hearing, and some of the action sequences were ok. It was what it was, and I�m not cursing the $6 I paid to see it.

Friday, February 14, 2003

I never got Valentine's Day. A day celebrating love, but not real love? What's the point of that? I'm sorry, but if you need trinkets and chocolate to celebrate your love, you don't really love each other, you know? Real love, well, I know about it as much as anyone, but in my opinion, it's not cheap. You can't buy it with trinkets. It is paid for with years of hope and despair, of times being supported and times supporting. You don't have to flash it about or try to define yourself by it. It's not really an emotion people get at my age, it seems. It takes a long time to develop, and many people don't know what to do about getting it.

The other problem is that many single people have bought into the idea that the only real love involves bumping uglies. The ridiculous idea that all their loving friends, their devoted parents, etc, don't mean anything if they don't have a hand to hold during some over priced couples activity. Valentine's Day is certainly a good marketing ploy. It makes everyone feel insecure.

Singles feel they are losers without this fake 'love' , and couples wonder if the other person loves them 'enough'. All of this causes massive spending which makes companies happy. However, I say to everyone,(isn't it nice to have the luxury of presumption?) don't set your sights on just or even just limit yourself to this socially constructed idea of 'romantic love'.

Find something real to love. It doesn't even have to be a person. Just don't waste your life wishing after something cheap. It's not easy to just reject the idea, and others may try to put you down for even thinking of anything beyond what is on TV. But these people will be miserable after their 2nd and third divorces, so screw them.

Oh and here'sa funny link about this counterfeit love, and another celebreting the irony of this day.

Thursday, February 13, 2003

Kudos to Pennydreadful Press and Fantagraphics for putting ads in Bitch magazine. It may seem odd to applaud ads, but putting an ad in a low circulation magazine is more than many comics publishers are doing for outreach. Seeing an ad for XXXlivenudegirls (which is actually just a comic about girls who do too many drugs and have too much sex, not about hoes who been having mad sex yo!) or La Perdida, which is about a girl rediscovering her heritage, won't make comics be as big as they were in the '40's, but certainly, it gives comics a better image.

What comics seems to need is a good PR team. Not more crappy superhero movies or more people knowing about Spider man, they need someone to come and say "Hey, dudes, sorry about those skanky superhero shops, here is comics as they really are" and showcase some of the actually good work out there. Yes, I said good work. Maybe poorly written work for hire superheroes do outnumber really well written and incisive work, but then again, there are tons of bad books on shelves, and you don't see bookstores going out of business, do you?

And by showcasing good work, I don't mean just to the same people who already read a zillion comics, I mean to people who have never read a comic in their life. Some people may be like well, Entertainment Weekly is starting a column. A step in the right direction, but it seems to be mostly reviewing spandex books, so basically it's squandering the opportunity that could be afforded. Millions of readers could learn about great work, but NOOOO, we have to hear about Daredevil or whatever.

Dudes, noone besides your own geeky ass selves and maybe a lot of teen boys care about spandex. Get it- people simply don't care about that much about some radioactively enhanced guy to justify spending $3 for twenty-two pages of it! Get that through your heads!

On other comic book related fronts-some guy from Savant wants YOU to read a comic in public. A fairly OK idea, if I do say so myself. I think the pamphlets idea is a bit silly, a lot of comics readers read only graphic novels. They are just so much cheaper and efficient, you can buy them where you buy books, and everyone has a Borders or a Barnes and Nobles in their community, even if they don't have a comic book store. So go out, read a comic in public today. In fact here is a site devoted to the idea.

Wednesday, February 12, 2003

Yesterday it seemed that the network was down and I could not log on. So today may have a lot of entries. With that said, yesterday, I read thisarticle. It's nothing really in itself, just another attempt to make people feel bad about how they are. The whole thrust of this article is "Well, if you aren't having sex, you are hopelessly inadequate."

What's with that attitude in society? If Newton was alive today, people would be like "Well, great job with that calculus thing, but I hear you haven't got laid yet!" What is WITH that? I'll come home, and the first thing that people ask me is not "Are you getting good grades in school?" or "Are you volunteering in the community?" but "Do you have a boyfriend?"

This annoys me because getting an education and helping worthy causes is certainly more important than calling some dude snuggly bear, but people's priorities are so messed up. Of course, like everyone else complaining about this, I am a bit hypocritical. I tend to measure myself by society's yardstick, which totally sucks because say, a society valued activity would be getting drunk. However, I don't like loud noises, am afraid of drunks, and am very shy, so I certainly cannot do such things. But I feel bad if I'm not doing them. So basically my head gets all mixed up in circles.. Uh..this is starting to make no sense, I should shut up now.

Monday, February 10, 2003

I have a quandary here. On one hand, I would like everyone who reads this blog to laugh at this moronic web site, then again, giving morons publicity encourages more morons. I think I'll take the middle route and link the nerve.com article (warning, this site contains some adult content) that I heard of it from.

The gist of this is that some airhead wants fake tits, but doesn't want to pay for them because she's a lazy little skag. Of course, I don't think very positively of this. I mean, dude! If you want higher self esteem, get some skills! Get off your ass and learn some calculus! And if you really are worried about looking better, pay for it yourself! There are millions of folks working at horrible jobs to get what they want, but I guess Walmart is just too good for this skank. No, she has to leech off others. And for such a dumb thing too, when those falsies start sagging, even the dumb ass men who fall for that sort of crap will be moving on to the next hot piece of ass.

I feel really depressed about this sort of thing. One of the reasons that people are always thinking women are less valuable than men is the fact that some women run around trying to spread their legs and use that to become successful. That some women would rather use money to get fake boobs just to impress guys rather than using it for an education, well..that's just plain sad. In America, we could use money to educate people, to feed people, to make people's lives better. But no, we give it to people who are too lazy to even pay for fake boobs themselves. Sad.

Sunday, February 09, 2003

For today's link we have the popular Despair, Inc., taking the depressing reality of things -- one poster says 'Get to Work- you aren't being paid to believe in the reality of your dreams" and selling it back to us at a premium. Man, I love capitalism, and am glad that everything is not so freaking 'positive'.


I'm sure everyone in the entire world has commented on this by now, but we're always being encouraged to think positively, which causes the rest of us to have to scrape the optimistic off of obstacles they just didn't notice. You'd think they'd realize that you can't succeed in life just by trying your hardest, because if that was the case, we'd all succeed, and plus, do you really think CEOs are working harder than people who have two jobs and scrub toilets in one and wipe up vomit in the other? So my opinion on positive thinking is 'bleh'.

Saturday, February 08, 2003

It seems the PE subject of the week is Sex Ed. Last week it was Mental Health or "Remember, if your friend threatens to commit suicide, get an adult!". But seriously, I never got decent sex ed in school. Sure, I got way too much information from my mom, but you have to wonder about the thousands that surely got to high school and sex with little more than "Pet Your Dog, Not Your Date". Tragically, many of them probably didn't even get to college, where some actual information is actually passed on.


Speaking of differences between high school and college, it's interesting to go in less than a year from "Is Osmosis Jones too racy?" to "70's folks getting it ON!" To any high school seniors reading this, no it's not as fun as it sounds. You hardly notice the sex because you are busy writing notes for your two page journal on the narrative implications of the camera angles.


Oh, and a useful link: Skeptical Inquirer. These people hate bullshit mumbo jumbo, and they'll give you facts about why this shit is fake til you stop living in your dumbass new age power of positive thinking world and get some sense. Of course, if you really were like that, you wouldn't actually read these articles. Too long.

Friday, February 07, 2003

It seems the terror warning level has been raised. That could mean anything from we are all in terrible danger to an important White House person sneezed funny. No need to have a panic attack over it,eh?

I am on page 537 of Infinite Jest. It's a big book, about a thousand pages detailing several stories with the biggest threads being one about the ETA, a tennis academy, which I don't remember what the E stands for, some people's adventures in the Boston AA, and Quebecois separatists searching for a video tape that is so pleasurable, it kills. Rather interesting, if a mite self indulgent at times. Deep and arty people say it is about our society's addiction to pleasure, or something, but as I am not such, I'll keep my mouth shut. I myself have had it since Christmas (gift) and have only made it that far. Then again, I read Pink Think,Prozac Nation, and a zillion graphic novels between then and now.

Thursday, February 06, 2003

Now for lovely lovely links! Woman to ambulance operators: Help, I'm dying! 113(Norweigan version of 911) operator : "Stop whining, kids are dying in Africa" Not seriously, but you have to wonder about this sort of ccallousness. While I don't condone it, I can understand why people are callous towards the depressed-our society doesn't really foster an understanding of how things can affect different people differently or even that not all problems can be solved with a big smile and a little elbow grease. However, being callous over a woman calling for medical help, that's a whole different matter.

In lighter matters, plus size fashion show featuring famous daughters of Steven Tyler and Ozzy Osbourne! It's nice to see fashion targeting pretty much most of the older women in our society. While college girls like me may be walking around now saying "Oh no, I'll never be a size 18!" by the time real life catches up with us, we're not going to be thinking about different types of complex carbohydrates, are we? Although, a size 54? I can't imagine someone who was that size, which I guess shows my total lack of imagination. Sorry.
Question/Rant of the Day:

Question of the day- why don't I use my formidable powers for evil? I could have a guy move into my room and lock my roomie out for weeks, or decide that I am horny before important tests, or make everyone think of the idiom 'that's mighty white of you' in my fulfillment of basic requests like not suddenly having some jerk move in for a week without telling you.
I could certainly use the excuse that I'm in a relationship to bully others, to say that I can act on whatever vague impulses whatsoever because self control doesn't mean anything if you're in a relationship, to think that having a guy entitles me to take over others' space and be disrespectful and rude.

But I don't. Why is that? It's called decency and maturity. Yes, I am not brave enough to ask an almost complete stranger if I can live in their room for a few days because you are horny. I am sorry if you don't understand that some people are frightened by things like that. Not to mention the fact I feel like a terribly rude git disrupting someone else's life because you get an itch in your pants and don't have any self control.
However, when my darling comes around, I never use his coming down as a stick for bullying. How is that? Do we actually have self control enough to fuck someplace else? Man, is that even possible? How did we do that?!

So for you roomies who just CAN'T keep their pants up, no matter whether people have tests the next morning or just are shy or just want to exist without having three people stuffed into a room the size of a closet? Well..these are some options that if you had a lick of sense and a basic idea of what decency was you would have thought of already.

1)FUCK SOMEPLACE ELSE! There are motel rooms, cars, other people's rooms(in fact that would teach you self control because certainly your friends are 'cool' enough to be decent to, you two faced lying out your ass bitches) , even the great outdoors to fuck in. Beds ,well, they are for sleeping, and sorry, tests are important, for us people who don't have hyper rich parents, and aren't going to university just for kicks.

2) GET SOME SELF CONTROL! Yes, you can go five minutes without fucking, yes you can! However, sleeping is a basic human thing. No one has ever become majorly debilitated because they didn't fuck enough, or fucked someplace where it didn't disturb others.

3) LEARN RESPECT FOR OTHERS! Yes, not everyone is a joined at the hipper/ total herpes infested slut, thank you. And I would not want you to become the stereotype of college girls, thank you, not all of us are in it for the MRS degree,ok? So when you are demanding that some AIDS infected moron live in the room for days(because it is simply not possible to go someplace else, you know or maybe have some self control), maybe you should think about moving to fucking Afghanistan, I'm sure they have lots of men to depend on for your emotional well-being over there.

I'm sure you fucking airheads are like well, fucking is more important than breathing, but I don't see why you lazy ass sluts don't fuck off. For the rest of you, just try to have a little more discretion before you get fucking slapped in the face, please?

Wednesday, February 05, 2003

Yesterday's update was supposed to be the new issue of Bookslut a very tidy webmagazine about everything printed, almost, from comics to books to magazines. Love that sluttery!
Freaks and Geeks update! It seems that that DVD might happen (well, probably not, but we could always hope). Anyway, the gay web petition here has 5000 signatures, and My So Called Life's gay web petition only had 4,700. So people who love Freaks and Geeks and people who like to sign web petitions alike, keep doing that! It seems that the problem with the release is mostly the outrageous music rights.
I guess that wasn't too interesting, so I'll spend the rest of this post licking my own personal area with self aggrandizing statements about my goals! Here's one! This blog is for large personal announcement purposes! Every day, I'll try to get back to all you readers(yea right) with stuff I think is spiffy! Such as Lea Hernandez's new Rumble Girls! Well, I am an evil sponge, soaking up Rumbly Goodness without as much as a cent for the archives, and they are like two bucks a month, just showing how cheap I am, but the rest of you can subscribe and get all that behind the scenes goodness some have been gushing about or something.
Yesterday I was very upset and couldn't bring myself to blog, because what is the point of griping on a page that noone reads anyway? So I have a double edition, it seems! The Propaganda Remix Project is our first stop- I think my favorite one is either the one that says "know your place, shut your face" or the one that says "help your self to a big piping cup of shut your face" It may not be horribly effective in solving the world's problems to wear a shirt with that on there, although I love the idea of it, but it effectively shows how many people feel disenfranchised, like they don't count because important people like politicians and judges have all the power. Then again, I'm the same person who wants to write a letter about how there shouldn't be logging in national forests! So take that with a grain of salt, will ya?

Monday, February 03, 2003

Dude, comics are tasty for the people. The Feburary Previews catolog is showing a lot of new tastiness, although I never did get the previews system. You preorder the comics beforehand? Huh? I guess I came in too late to really get it, and also, comics are sort of an extension of my book habit, making me wish they'd just say when the book is really going to be for sale instead of having you preorder it months in advance. At least we have Amazon.com now, so I don't have to shop in a comics shop and learn all the confusing previews codes or whatever. Ninth Art breaks it down right here
The stuff I want is a long list. There's soft cover Jimmy Corrigan. I've wanted this for over a year, but hardcover GNs? Yea, how am I going to pay for that? Sweatshop from Peter Bagge,the Hate creator seems to be interesting, but it's a pamphlet comic, so.. Likewise is another tasty comic disqualified for its pamphletness, it's much harder to keep pamphlets neat.
Orbiter has a good pedigree with Warren Ellis and Colleen Doran working on it; I loved Doran'sA Distant Soil. The Spiral Cage is a GN about a guy's struggles with spinal bifida, I am intrigued, but will probably forget by the time it's really out. Also James Kochalka's sequel to Monkey Vs Robot is slated to be out. And this does not include manga. So many good comics, so little time!
I have a horrible chronic problem, a very un-American problem. Yes, I am shy. This is not a problem that is made for the American ethic. It does not really respond to hard work and perseverance. Talking to two more people than you usually do really isn't going to help you on the weekends. It's like running two inches in a year and realizing that you're running a marathon.
You could try to hide behind a facade of 'cool,' but then you'd just be eaten up on the inside. While we Americans love to find a hollowed out corpse, it's not really the healthiest approach, is it? Pretending things don't matter is the surest way to have them balloon into an even worse problem.
Some people say you should take drugs, which I think is bullshit. Isn't it kind of insulting to the people who have been debilitated by the actual disorders that SSRIs treat to just pop pills because you don't have anything to do on weekends? If you were afraid to go outside your door because you are frightened by people, yea, maybe drugs can help. But for the rest of us saying just take a pill is an insult, and a symptom of a rather stupid disease.
The idea that personality quirks are a disease is plain moronic. I mean, what is there going to be a 'dude, I'm pissed off' disease next? Do we need to have pills to shape us all into happy happy conformity forever and ever? Do we even know how dangerous it may be to fool around with people's brain chemicals when they don't even actually need them fooled with?
Using pills when they are needed is great, but if you overprescribe things, it gets to be rather dangerous. Also, many of the doctors handing out these pills are just general practitioners, which opens up another can of beans. I don't want a doctor that knows little or nothing about my personal areas to be working on them, and much less someone who doesn't know about my mind.
We may experience some true problems because of our belief that every problem should be a short term problem and gotten over without any work at all. I hope they are not severe.

Sunday, February 02, 2003

This is this week's wallpaper. A departure from my usual anime wallpaper, but it's time for something different,eh? Space is on my mind more these days. I didn't even know the Columbia was reentering orbit til the accident, to tell the truth. I hear Nasa is in big trouble about this. I wonder if humans will ever colonize some things in outer space? Not in my life time, I'm sure.
The cruelest month is here! I know it's a day late, and April is supposed to be the cruelest month. But how is that even the case? What happens in April? Easter? Nothing wrong with Easter, except for in years past, it has been the only time I've been in the church for the entire year. But in February, we have Valentine's Day. I like the pink hearts and yummy candy part of it, but the horrible social exclusion thing, I can certainly leave. We had a taste of spring here in Atlanta, and Sequential Tart is back with a porn themed issue! It's certainly a good time of year to evaluate how we think of porn, and to plug girl friendly porno comics.
I have been thinking of getting Colleen Coover's Small Favors graphic novel, for a long time now, but it's one of zillions of titles in my comics backlog. Also, when I was living at home, I was shy about having something that said girly porno comic on the cover, and is supposed to be full of sexy licking all around, you know. However, I am free, now, the only worry is how much it costs. ($15 for a 128 page graphic novel is par for the course, but I am really cheap) I have been decided the new hotness for February two weeks before the month began and I still can't think of what I want enough to pay for. Too many choices, too little money.

Saturday, February 01, 2003

It seems that today's post has been eaten. Maybe it was too long, I don't know. I am pissed because it took a great long time to write. Summary: Columbia astronaut's families: good luck with the grieving. Also, we don't have as much control over our fate as we think we do, the past informs the future, and yea, I refuse to be chipper in the face of unfairness. While I'm sure everyone would have been edified by those thoughts, I'll replace them all with a helpful link. Freaks and Geeks was a great TV show, about the lives of teens that weren't the prom queens and star football players of the school. It captured the lives of teens in unpopular cliques in a way unseen since My So Called Life. Of course it was canceled, there weren't enough hot pin up people and wish fulfillment fantasies in it. However, its creators have started a petition (yea, I know, about net petitions and all, but hey, it worked for My So Called Life) to bring it back on DVD. If you like to see high quality shows about teens instead of dreck, sign on here. Thanks.