Archive for September, 2007

My Sweet Baby

Tuesday, September 11th, 2007

My Sweet Baby is awesome.

Into the longbox reviews

Sunday, September 9th, 2007
  • Jonah Hex #23: Another perfectly reasonably executed western tale. The thing about Jonah Hex that’s going to kill the series is that there’s no story. Every month something bad happens to some one, Jonah’s involved (and a cipher) and he rides off. There’s no inkling that there’s a story behind it all, or that anything different is going to happen in the book. It’s Gunsmoke with slower moving pictures. To an extent, that’s fine, but I may have seen enough Gunsmoke.
  • Doktor Sleepless #2: Now, things are moving along. I found issue #1 not to be very enticing, but this issue’s worth it for the Transmetropolitan-esque commercial on page 1 alone.

    More importantly, Ellis and Rodriguez are starting to build a complex world up where it seems not even our protagonist understands it all. Seeing a villain’s face doesn’t hurt the dramatic tension level, either. There’s still a lot of scene-setting and exposition, but the creepy, incongrous bits are starting to burrow into my subconscious and look for things to connect to. I expect I’ll be surprised by what they find.

    Reading Doktor Sleepless is starting to feel like reading The Invisibles did; like Grant Morrison was distilling a mad worldview into pictures and beaming it into your brain. That beam, and I suspect Ellis’s and Rodriguez’s, was like a locked missle. After a certain point escaping it was impossible. Issue 2 may be that point for Doktor Sleepless.

    I don’t really understand how Ellis and Rodriguez picked up so much speed between the end of issue #1 and the end of issue #2, but it’s got the ugly feel of an exponential curve. If this title keeps getting stronger at this rate, the first trade paperback will be classified as a munition.

So Long, Michael Jackson

Friday, September 7th, 2007

When I began trying to enjoy beer rather than just swill it, my guide to the beer world was Michael Jackson’s Beer Companion. It’s a great book for the aspiring beer connoisseur, or anyone who wants to know the basics about study of a beverage. It did a great job explaining everything without talking down to you, and communicated Michael’s enjoyment of the wide range of beers in the world.

Michael Jackson died last week in London, and the world is a poorer place. Lift one in his honor.

Überlingen verdict

Tuesday, September 4th, 2007

A Swiss court has handed down a verdict against air traffic control managers in the mid-air collision over Ãœberlingen. That the verdict cleared the controllers and found the managers guilty of manslaughter should give those who want to privatize ATC something to think about. If you don’t remember this accident, let Don Brown tell you all about it.

Slaughterhouse-Five review

Monday, September 3rd, 2007

My review of Slaughterhouse-Five is up on Bell, Book, and Candle.

Most pages re-styled

Monday, September 3rd, 2007

I’ve restyled all my pages to more closely match the look of the blog here. I’ve got more stuff up than I remembered, including a couple rants from the past that I liked some.

Let me know if anything’s illegible.

New Theme

Saturday, September 1st, 2007

Looks a little more lunar here today. I finally found a look for the blog that I like. I’m sure I’ll occasionally tweak it some more.

I should mention that I was just flailing around until I fired up the old POVRay ray tracer to make the banner. From there it was pretty easy.

You may want to check out their Hall of Fame to see what the serious folks can do with it.

If you see something I missed, please holler.

Server upgrade

Saturday, September 1st, 2007

Ylum is now running Apache’s http server version 2.2.4.  So far only a few minor bumps.  Let me know if you see something unusual.