12 - 2005 | ***Dave Does the Blog

The triumph of evil

An interesting collection of the Top Ten Villainous Moments in Comics, “the ten most memorable moments in villainy” that had “the greatest impact on the stories, the characters and us…

An interesting collection of the Top Ten Villainous Moments in Comics, “the ten most memorable moments in villainy” that had “the greatest impact on the stories, the characters and us as readers.”

Not sure that I could come up with a better list. Numbers 10 and 9 are relatively small potatoes, but the rest are pretty significant. I’d have probably put the destruction of Coast City in there, myself, but I can see why they’ve subsumed that into the Death of Superman storyline.

(Warning: Needless to say, there are honking spoilers in this, including one at the top of the second page that had me blinking, akin to actually explaining what Rosebud is, or what’s going on at the Bates Motel — sure, everyone who wants to know should know by now, but, still, one just doesn’t talk about some things!)

Rules is rules

Many congrats and all that to the Time “People of the Year” — Bono, and Bill & Melinda Gates — but I’m tired of Time using the category so flexibly…

Many congrats and all that to the Time “People of the Year” — Bono, and Bill & Melinda Gates — but I’m tired of Time using the category so flexibly so as to avoid any hard decisions. If it’s Person of the Year, then make it one person — not Persons, not job category, not a profession, not a machine, but a person.

Since 1990, we’ve had George Bush, The American Soldier, The Whistleblowers, Rudy Giuliani, George Bush, Jeff Bezos, Ken Starr and Bill Clinton, Andy Grove, David Ho, Newt Gingrich, John Paul II, The Peacemakers, Bill Clinton, Ted Turner, George H.W. Bush (listed as two men, coyly enough). So we’ve had 16 covers, of which six were some sort of combo.

If they can’t do that, then they should rename the damned thing. “Top Ten Newsmakers” or something. As it stands, it’s gotten meaningless, or just an excuse for an interesting (and overpublicized) cover story.

(via J-Walk)

Bookmark this for next year …

Doing Secret Santa drawing via the Internet. Yes, there are sites that make it easier — and given how complex it is to get everyone in our Secret Santa Circle…

Doing Secret Santa drawing via the Internet. Yes, there are sites that make it easier — and given how complex it is to get everyone in our Secret Santa Circle into the same room, that might be something worth keeping in mind. The sites have various feature, including controlling who can or can’t get other folks’ names, confidential inquiries for t-shirt sizes, controls to make sure folks don’t get who they had last year, party RSVPs, etc., all tagged off of e-mail addresses.

Sites suggested (since the Yahoo article will no doubt be long gone by then): Elfster, Guesslist, and Drawnames.

It actually all sounds remarkably clever.

(via GeekPress)

Christmas Watch 2005!

And the latest breaking news from the Christmas Watch 2005 situation room! GIFTS: Concerted late-night effort on Sunday punched us through about 95% of the gift-purchasing. Of course, with Christmas…

And the latest breaking news from the Christmas Watch 2005 situation room!

GIFTS: Concerted late-night effort on Sunday punched us through about 95% of the gift-purchasing. Of course, with Christmas but a week away, that means either paying extra for shipping or getting late presents. My estimate is that we’ll have about half our gifts arriving in time for gifting on Christmas Day, and about 85% by the time of the Ks Christmas Party the following Friday (which is the other big surge). Still need to find gifts for some of the young-uns, but I’d say we’ve at least done what we can for the moment.
In the “not our fault” category, gifts for the local friends gift exchange tonight are going to be at least half printed out, since Amazon’s ship date has slipped to later this week for most of them. Alas.
CARDS: Didn’t get the address list printed off before my trip so … no progress. Very Rrg. Going to take a last-ditch effort over the next few days.
DECORATIONS: No progress. Katherine’s a bit disappointed. Me, too.
TRAVEL: Need to get packed, but I have the home gifts sorted out between what’s going and what’s staying, and our travel out for the holidays is usually packing-lite on the way out (on the way home it resembles planning for Hannibal’s assault on the Alps, but that’s not part of Christmas Watch 2005).

This has been an update from Christmas Watch 2005!

The Evil of Narnia

Because, of course, it’s all neo-paganistic allegory for sun worship and witchcraft, purveyed by the Devil’s wisest fool, C. S. Lewis: Clive Staples Lewis has been perhaps the single most…

Because, of course, it’s all neo-paganistic allegory for sun worship and witchcraft, purveyed by the Devil’s wisest fool, C. S. Lewis:

Clive Staples Lewis has been perhaps the single most useful tool of Satan since his appearance in the Christian community sometime around World War II. With his strong belief in non-denominational Christianity, which he termed “mere Christianity”, and his apparent orthodoxy in doctrine, the influence of his pen has reached across many years. When the light of God’s Holy Bible is focused upon his writings, however, his heresy and outright love of Satan comes into bold focus.

Though a highly acclaimed and widely published “Christian” author, when judged by his own words with the King James Bible it becomes clear that he was indeed a fool in the most extreme sense of the word, yet a very subtle one that was and is extremely useful to his father the devil.

Or, to better set the tone:

John F. Kennedy, C.S. Lewis, and Aldous Huxley all died on the same day. They all went to the same place.

Kennedy went to hell because he trusted in the Roman Whore.
Huxley went to hell because he trusted in himself alone and his hybrid Eastern mystic notions.
And, Lewis went to hell because he invented a new god, and he ended his life a Taoist.
We will prove it here.

One of my regrets in life will not to become so famous as to become a target for whackos like this. I suspect I’d find it vastly entertaining.

(via Fred)

I want a girl, just like the girl, that married dear old Dad …

Warning #1: You can never be quite sure who you’re talking to on the Internet. Warning #2: If you meet someone on an Internet chat or dating site that seems…

Warning #1: You can never be quite sure who you’re talking to on the Internet.

Warning #2: If you meet someone on an Internet chat or dating site that seems to be amazingly compatible with you, perhaps it’s … genetics.

Warning #3: If you get caught up in the immediate shock of discovering that your computer date partner of six months was, unexpectedly to both of you until you showed up for a real date, your own mother, and a cop wanders up and tries to cite you for being on a beach after curfew, don’t blurt the whole thing out to the cop, such that it will get written up and splashed all over the newspapers …

This has been a public service announcement from Mr. Unsolicited Advice.

(via Randy)

A picture is worth a thousand airbrushes

A marvelous Flash example of how magazine cover model photos are, quite likely, 95% artificial. Makes me wonder why they just don’t CG the whole thing and leave it at…

A marvelous Flash example of how magazine cover model photos are, quite likely, 95% artificial. Makes me wonder why they just don’t CG the whole thing and leave it at that.

(via J-Walk)

Chrissie Robin?

Disney is replacing Christopher Robin in an upcoming Pooh TV series with a “tomboyish girl.” “We got raised eyebrows, even in-house, but the feeling was that these timeless characters really…

Disney is replacing Christopher Robin in an upcoming Pooh TV series with a “tomboyish girl.”

“We got raised eyebrows, even in-house, but the feeling was that these timeless characters really needed a breath of fresh air that only the introduction of someone new could provide,” Nancy Kanter, of the Disney Channel, told USA Today.

Disney says that the series will target preschool children. “The young character will elicit physical, cognitive and emotional responses from the viewing audience and will also address them directly,” said a spokesman.

The series is an attempt to increase Disney’s share in the pre-school market, worth an estimated £11.9 billion, the company said this week. Industry observers consider the new character a clever move.

There are no bad characters, only those not used properly. If Disney’s not been able to get Christopher Robin to “work” in their productions, thrashing about to find a new character doesn’t seem very productive.

(One problem they may have had is either (a) not being consistent as to CR’s accent, or (b) not being consistent about CR’s presence at all.)

For his part, Mr Tucker thought the new character a huge error. “All of the stories are based on Christopher Robin’s questing relationship with the characters,” he said. “They’re built around a boy who arrives and puts things right, like little boys do.”

Perhaps — but, then, the connection between what the books are about and what the Disney productions are about has long been tenuous, and only moreso over the years.

Ah, well. Probalby just as well we never got a Disneyfied Lord of the Rings.

Gay couple demonstrates they are just as deserving of marriage as straights …

… by demonstrating they can screw it up, just like straights. A lesbian couple who entered into the nation’s first same-sex civil union are splitting up amid allegations of violent…

… by demonstrating they can screw it up, just like straights.

A lesbian couple who entered into the nation’s first same-sex civil union are splitting up amid allegations of violent behavior. Carolyn Conrad, 35, asked a court in October to end her relationship with Kathleen Peterson, 46.

[…] The two had been together for five years when they were legally joined in Brattleboro minutes after Vermont’s civil-union law took effect on July 1, 2000. Two years ago, the couple were offering relationship advice on the gay-rights Web site.

Of course, gays still have a long ways before they managed to catch up with straight divorce statistics.

By the end of 2004, a total of 7,549 same-sex couples had entered civil unions in Vermont, the first state to offer gay couples nearly all the rights and privileges of marriage. There have been 78 dissolutions.

Pikers. A measly one percent …

So very Not Safe For Work

BoingBoing runs a story of an interesting collection of old photos … Photoset of vintage porn photos taped to the outside of boxes that once held rolls of 8mm film….

BoingBoing runs a story of an interesting collection of old photos …

Photoset of vintage porn photos taped to the outside of boxes that once held rolls of 8mm film.

Purely from a perspective of historical comparison, allow me to note …

Quite a few more cigarettes in those days (which look to be, based on the hairstyles, the 60s-70s).
A lot less silicone.
A lot more hair. And I’m not referring to the bouffants.

Daisy, Daisy, give me your antlers true …

Katherine’s Daisy Christmas Party on Wednesday. Kitten’s the one in the back row, second from the left, looking sort of uncertain about the whole antlers thing ……

Katherine’s Daisy Christmas Party on Wednesday. Kitten’s the one in the back row, second from the left, looking sort of uncertain about the whole antlers thing …

A gift for the blogger on your Christmas list

Give them a gift certificate (or an IOU) for Iconize Me! — or even just send them an appropriate photo, and let the artists there turn it into an artistically…

Give them a gift certificate (or an IOU) for Iconize Me! — or even just send them an appropriate photo, and let the artists there turn it into an artistically rendered set of graphics perfect for posting at a web site. It costs $40-50, and the results look pretty darned good.

Why capital punishment is problematic

While I felt neither sympathy nor inclination to question the execution of Tookie Williams earlier this week, another case I just ran across demonstrates the biggest problem with capital punishment in this country — the relative ease by which miscarriages of justice can occur and the frequency thereof. While I fall into the camp that believes capital punishment, per se, is a legitimate action by the state, I continue to be convinced by cases like Cory Maye that there are far too many bad applications of it to allow it to continue at the present time.

Indeed, the only “lesson” that seems to be taught by the Maye case is that if cops burst into your house on a no-knock drug warrent, and you’re frightened for the life of yourself and your daughter, don’t do anything to protect said lives (like shooting at the mysterious intruders) — especially if you’re black.

Let’s summarize: Cops mistakenly break down the door of a sleeping man, late at night, as part of drug raid. Turns out, the man wasn’t named in the warrant, and wasn’t a suspect. The man, frightened for himself and his 18-month old daughter, fires at an intruder who jumps into his bedroom after the door’s been kicked in. Turns out that the man, who is black, has killed the white son of the town’s police chief. He’s later convicted and sentenced to death by a white jury. The man has no criminal record, and police rather tellingly changed their story about drugs (rather, traces of drugs) in his possession at the time of the raid.

Mistakes happen. Sometimes there are tragic results from those mistakes. But when that turns into further intentional miscarriages of justice, it points to fundamental problems that need to be addressed before we allow ourselves (as the state) to kill people because of it.

Everyone Loves Treo

I was really amazed by how many people — not just in the office, but at the airport and on the plane — I saw carrying Treos like mine, or…

I was really amazed by how many people — not just in the office, but at the airport and on the plane — I saw carrying Treos like mine, or heard Treo standard sounds, etc.

A very popular device, it seems. Which is, to my mind, a fine thing.

Still need to do some setup on Margie’s. Maybe in my copious free time …

Home again, home again …

Managed to get out of the office a bit early, so I managed to get to LAX in time to sign up for stand-by on the 6:30 flight, rather than…

Managed to get out of the office a bit early, so I managed to get to LAX in time to sign up for stand-by on the 6:30 flight, rather than just wait for the 8:30. That actually paid off, so I got home a couple of hours earlier than planned (though still too late for my taste, and in a middle seat way back in steerage).

My new “Premiere” status worked out quite nicely, thank you, letting me bypass the longer security line at LAX for the shorter one. Lah-dee-dah. The person in front of me was being grilled, however, by security, who had discovered she’d been given a cheese knife/plane as a Christmas gift while on the trip (possibly — I didn’t hear the whole explanation — as an unopened gift where nobody thought to say, “Hey, is this going to cause Marcia problems when she tries to get through security at the airport?”). Security was not amused, but they were trying to stop short of beating her with truncheons as a possible terrorist.

While changing my pants in the restroom, I discovered someone — quite possibly the gent who’d been in there right before me doing something similar — had left their cell phone sitting in the toilet paper dispenser. So … should I leave it there? What if someone comes along and steals it? So should I take it somewhere? To whom? And what if the owner comes frantically back, looking for it? And what, just hypothetically, if it’s really an explosive device designed to look like a cell phone?

Hrm.

Eventually took it with me, held openly in my hand (in case the owner was rushing about). I tried to stop a TSA gent walking in to the Men’s room, but he waved me off (nice security interest there, dude). I looked around and didn’t see another TSA uniform or security guard, so I took it over to a nearby United gate counter and gave it to the gent there, who accepted it quickly (but not in a panic) and with a thank you.

No boom, from what I can see this morning. I hope its owner was able to find it.

Stood around in baggage claim for-evah (since I was stand-by and it was a full flight, there was no overhead bin space left for my little rolling bag). Wandered through the very cold parking structure to find my car, drove home listening to some great UFO mania, ate some toast (having not had a chance to get dinner), and hit the sack. Alas, full work day today, and too much work to blow it off.

Fortune Ate

Two fortunes from fortune cookies at P.F. Chang’s: To help a friend is to help yourself. Good news is on the way….

Two fortunes from fortune cookies at P.F. Chang’s:

To help a friend is to help yourself.
Good news is on the way.

More meeting excitement!

As we advance boldly into an exciting afternoon … this post enabled by airblogging.com….

As we advance boldly into an exciting afternoon …

this post enabled by airblogging.com.

The classics are that way for a reason

I’ve loved the original SimCity since I first played it on my Mac SE/30. Simple, straightforward, endless fun. Though later versions added in additional building types, elevations, and other factors,…

If only this free online version didn’t require ActiveX …

(via Les)