Radios Appear

When someone undertakes something for fun, or out of passion or deep commitment, the end result is often, I think, more reflective of them personally.

This is generally true of Free Software, and in the Free Software universe, I think this is sometimes even more true of documentation—you're not obligated to write it, no one's paying you, few people enjoy writing docs, so if you're doing it at all, it's because you believe.

So the writers' personalities and convictions show through just a little bit more, Like this bit from Dave Rolsky with whom I am slightly acquainted. Contained within Moose::Cookbook::Basics::Recipe10 I ran across this gem:

Brilliant.

that as my grandfather was dying, I was probably talking about him—my dad had mentioned that he stopped eating at the beginning of the week, so it wasn't like I didn't know it would be soon.

Still, for class yesterday, I had had a notion to talk about something else, and gotten it all planned out in my head, and when I sat down that all pretty much went out the window, and I really ended up talking about my relationship with my grandfather.

Well, not directly, because that would have been boring as shit for everyone in the room—but as I talked about the way that we each have the opportunity to form the narrative of our own lives, I was thinking about all the choices I've made, and I've seen how a lot of the ones I've made recently—the more conscious, considered ones—have been made out of a desire to be warmer and more open and more fluid, none of which are what are attributes immediately called to mind when I think of my grandfather.

Which is not to suggest that I don't love him, but I was always intimidated by his presence when I was younger, and by the time I was old enough that I could have gotten past that, well, it was too late.

I do envy my sister's kids a little, though—they are all having a great opportunity to have close, long-standing relationships with their grandparents, and I think they will value that immensely as they grow older.

So, over Memorial Day Weekend, instead of getting together with people (well, there was some of that) or cooking a bunch of food (though there was some of that, too), I organized my comics.

I am embarassed how many I have—I have, somewhat unfortunately, gotten back into the habit of reading them, and damn if they don't pile up. But for the last couple of years, I have not been in the habit of keeping them organized. Things got shoved in boxes or stacked up on boxes or generally just hidden and neglected. Finding things was a non-starter unless I was feeling absurdly energetic.

So I got them all organized this weekend (which is also the first step in trying to divest myself of a lot of them).

Having, for the first time in a long time, the ability to go back and re-read things in a continuous stream that I had previously only read in short temporally discontinuous bursts, I've been re-reading some stuff. Since I go to the trouble to pay $20/month for the virtual server to host this blog, it seems like I should use it, so I may review some things here.

Fables, by Bill Willingham¹, was the first thing I read through. It's taken me a couple of days to get through the 80+ issues.

The good news is that I liked it—sometimes it's easy to lose that basic perspective when you're taking something in a couple dozen pages at a time separated by weeks.

In terms of storytelling, it doesn't really hit its stride until the second story arc, where it becomes obvious that it's not going to just be a lighthearted romp. And it doesn't find its emotional core until Storybook Love. But Willingham, with consistent artist Mark Buckingham, have come to work as a great team.

And I have to give props to Willingham—there are elements that he planted within the first dozen issues that are just now coming to fruition; characters I was utterly unaware of have suddenly become monumentally important—though, I have to admit, I feel like the current storyline ("The Great Fables Crossover"—and yes I think they are being ironic with that title) is a bit of a diversion from what seemed to be developing. I'm confident that in the end, it will all at least appear intentional.

Anyway, I would recommend this to pretty much anyone. There are people in tights, but they're medieval, not superhero, tights.

¹ I should mention that I remember Bill Willingham from back when he used to do illustrations for TSR—in fact, I think I have a couple of comics from the early 80s that have ads he illustrated on the back covers.

The only tenet of which should be, "Two people who love each other should be allowed to marry." Maybe two tenets, the other being, "Be excellent to one another," which has its plusses, too.

At which point, the opportunity to have same-sex marriages becomes one of religious freedom. To restrict such marriages becomes a first-amendment issue, which carries more weight than equal protection, apparently.

Of course, I would hope that many heterosexual couples would also want to get married in the First Church of Fabulousness—it being fabulous, see—but, you know, they, too, could exercise their right to choice.

Just a little shy of two months ago, I noted that I really, really liked the looks of the Kindle 2, etc., but that I simply could not in good faith allow someone else to hold my content hostage via DRM.

No doubt people scoffed at the possibility. Two months later, it happened to someone.

And I'm sure as hell never buying one.

Via

but certainly not in recent memory.

The news that it's ceasing print publication and trying to make it as a web-only publication really doesn't impact me at all. But Mark Evanier linked to a post from Lee Goldberg about the magazine that includes an amusing anecdote about covering the premeire of "The Living Daylights" while writing for the magazine:

Can't beat that.

Something new for the feed reader.

Complete with video of Rachel Maddow (yes, that one) making a cocktail.

Listening to Blue Oyster Cult's "Cities on Flame", I realized that the reason all of these older albums I love have comparatively wimpy-sounding drum tracks is because the drummers are too good—to make a big goddamned noise, you have to hit so hard that you lose any notion of subtlety.

John Bonham is arguably the prominent exception. Even when he's beating the crap out of his kit—on "We're Gonna Groove", for instance (though listening back to it, its drum track is less in-your-face than I imagine it to be)—he's still got a very subtle way with timing.

I happened to catch Don Johnson's Heartbeat while surfing by VH1Classic's nostalgia programming. The only reason I stopped was because I had totally forgotten who played guitar on it:

Warning, this might not be worth it to find out.

This is brilliantly bad. Right down to having Bubastis actually speak.