Will with Donkey, April 2004

Saturdaze potential: Blessing of the Bikes, saying hi to Jeph and Ryan at the MoCCA Festival. I’m not sure if anyone else from the TopatoCo crew will be there. Or anyone from the Slongo crew. Even if I do not get up early enough to do these things, you should.

Last year’s MoCCA marked the day Joescott ensured I’d be living in New York. Those dudes are true bros. Also that indian food was pretty bomb, and I didn’t have any money, but everyone let me gruffle on some naan. Months later, Diana would tell us weird sex stories about her boyfriend.

• jondowning85: man i shouldn’t have started watching Avatar…getting so many ideas for d&d
• edbury: it’s like me and this yaoi
• edbury: ideas ideas ideas
• jondowning85: …
• edbury: a dark stranger slips into your tent at night, simon
• edbury: 32 vs will?
• edbury: you find his presence… welcoming
• jondowning85: i don’t like where this is going
• jondowning85: at all

Since this post is mainly about comics anyway, I might as well tell everyone that Hark, a vagrant is basically what would happen if Maggie had a gnarly history fetish. Which she might. I dunno. Can we not talk about this, please?

syn march bigan thritty dayes and two

Heart Gunshow. Related: The newest PFSC is about Teej.

Update – People Who Got Me Today:

• Joe, Giulia

This is one of those posts that’s all about the lynx.

Google and YouTube are doing their things today, which is just Google doing its thing I guess. Lego Matrix is actually better in TEXTp.

Wizards dropped some jollies. LOL SOCIAL INTERACTION MECHANIX

On the other end of the nerd spectrum, Blizz introduced the Neural Interface, E-Peen Meter, and Battle.net MatchMaking, which would be less hilarious if something more pathetic didn’t exist already.

Best thing I’ve seen today was via Joe: Man arrested at Large Hadron Collider claims he’s from the future. It’s great because, in the horrible future where the world is destroyed, people can travel through time. The world is fine now, and we don’t even have clean water.

The brits know how to All Fools’. Flying penguins, diet water, spaghetti trees, smell-o-vision.

Also Gunshow:

Goodbye, Hair.

Alternatively: Get in the back of the van.

Subalternatively: A poem by Josef Kaplan.

The Stripper should be here Friday morning – just enough time to swap parts, get Ericat’s Pake up and running, and take an inaugural ride down to Coney. In a perfect world, I would complete her with iMiNUSD cranks and matte black wheels. In this perfect world, I also may not be riding a Mercier Stripper.

I will love her regardless.

Perfect world or not, I’m making the switch to pursuit bars. Risers just aren’t cutting it without a straight fork or a 650 barspinz. I still can’t get the hang of skidding in drops. It makes me feel like I’m riding a Light Cycle or something.

Since I don’t trust UPS to ring the bell, I will be sitting on my steps with the door open waiting for their truck.

Aside: Looks like Bike Snob is now also all about transparency.
Thanks to Candy Cranks for the heads up.

I took two pictures at PAX East.

These were the best parts of my weekend.

Empire is the only reason I moved to NYC.

Also, I heard there were pretty good cats here.

• joe: i gotta read scott’s comic now
• joe: oh man he got the ladybugs
• joe: he said it was terrifying

This was the best idea I’d heard in amount of time. Scott is like the Manchurian Candidate of ladybug receiving.

Arkady continues to be my favorite FreakAngels character.

RIP Phil Wood.

How predictable the follies of the sons and daughters of Adam. How typical the seeds of their transgressions. How obvious the symptoms. Would that we did not blindfold ourselves, so much more readily would we anticipate our disappointment.

Contracts 4:18

Transparency has been on my mind lately. It’s something we demand with ease from institutions and public figures, but not our peers. We call out media outlets, corporations, and governments for their doublespeak then turn around and use it with each other. Tim and I talked about how the threats of shame and violence probably contributed to the rise of proto privacy rights or at least the rise in the clamorers for those rights. Understandable. The general lack of transparency, however, among individuals – especially regarding our desires, valuations, and fears – often among those closest to us is simply jarring.

The whole mess strikes me as doubly odd given our obsession with the unknowability of the other. Defending a right to opacity helps alienation along its little path, inevitable or not.

I guess the quote from Contracts isn’t actually about opacity. I’m didn’t think that the Book of Contracts even had whole sentences in it (with the exception – maybe – of the very beginning). I’ll have to go to the source on this one.

The rest of the dogs are here. Or also on Facebook where everyone has already seen them.

Also the Yukon.

New life was breathed into threebyfive today. I say that once every two months during periods in which I betray my laziness. At least it’s prettier now, instead of totally nonfunctional.

Incase you hadn’t noticed, everything is now justified.

After spending the past two weeks with my nose in a book, I realized what an atrocity it is that I waste a good couple of hours every day not reading. Therefore, potential 2010 reading list:

• The Book of the New Sun – Gene Wolfe
• The Dream of Perpetual Motion – Dexter Palmer
• Murphy – Samuel Beckett
• Gravity’s Rainbow – Thomas Pynchon
• Moby Dick: or, The Whale – Herman Melville
• The Digging Leviathan – James P. Blaylock (and the rest of the trilogy)
• Additions:
• The Barrytown Trilogy – Roddy Doyle (Cormac)
• Reading in the Dark – Seamus Deane (Cormac)
• Motorman – David Ohle (Tracy)
• Goodbye to Berlin – Christoph Isherwood (Tracy)
• The Boy Who Set Fire – Mohammed Mrabet (Tracy)

Before I start on those, I’m reading Mike Carey’s Lucifer, courtesy of Ericat.
So far, so good.

If anyone has any suggestions or vetoes, let me know. I hunger. I have appetites.

Don’t worry Shakespeareans, the Amazon links are only for reference. I wouldn’t dream of ordering from anywhere but Kit Marlowe & Co.

Harry Potter said right into Ron’s soul, “You know what we are, baby? We are wizards. We are finally what we were always going to become. We are wizards, and the world better get ready because I have just begun.”

Max Riffner’s Drunk Elephant Comics

My drunk elephant sketch finally arrived just before yesterday’s game. Hanks depiction above is pretty analogous to my day. Not drunk – anxious with fists clenched, which sucks because I have blisters on every finger where I picked up the hot baking sheet of waffles fries last night.

Current Employer #1 is currently holding my paycheck, and Current Employer #2 never pays me on time anyway. Rent is due in 7 days, and I still owe @jondowner $500.

Prospective Jobs A and B – both of which I had phone interviews with last week – have not gotten back to me at all. The interview, complete with tests and lesson plan presentation, for Prospective Job C is tomorrow. My sweater vest is prepped and ready.

We’ll be talking about compound words.

Tim is here.

Actually, he’s staying at Rachel’s tonight, but I have all of his stuff. Custody will be mine.

Phone interview with TFA on Thursday.
News back from Unity at the end of the week.
NYCTF interview next Tuesday.

It’s slowly becoming a real possibility that my future could hold a legitimate, full-time job.

I also eat crimini mushrooms and had guacamole at the restaurant last night.

Sometime last/this week, everyone decided to take ill and hole up in their rooms for a few days. This behavior is unacceptable, and all will be present and accounted for on Sunday under pain of pain. Chris Dane Owens has made the Unbreakable Vow.

Tonight was our first Eos game in weeks. Due to a last-minute dropout, Will rolled up another character and defended us while simultaneously wielding the cleansing flame. The campaign feels fresh. I’m digging the setting more this time around. Might also be excited about playing someone who pretty much just cuts things in half and teleports around the room.

PAX is closing in and the pressure is on – just a little – to make sure I’ve got enough money for a smooth trip + my normal monthlies. I wanted to sneak a few parts onto the Pake while Erica wasn’t looking, but it might have to wait until April.

3:47am – the prince’s bed

I cut the tip of my finger off.

That “sweet vignette” is due to the Samsung’s flash, not my wicked PS post-processing. Bro.