Month: September, 2007

More about WordPress 2.3

I’ve already written about my frustrations with the newest upgrade to WordPress, Version 2.3. I haven’t really changed my mind. If anything my level of frustration has only increased.

Most of my frustrations center around how the new version handles tagging. It heavily incorporates the use of tags. In the process, it makes many popular tagging plugins incompatible. Tagging plugins such as Ultimate Tag Warrior. I used that particular plugin for my tagging and I really loved it. Now it doesn’t work. Not only can I not tag new posts with the plugin, none of the existing posts that were tagged with Ultimate Tag Warrior have tags now.

They are now tag-free. Now if I want these posts to have tags, I must go and edit each and every post and ad tags.

Not only are most of these older posts tag-free, They don’t have categories either. While upgrading WordPress, I had an option of converting existing categories to tags. This is what I read Convert Categories to Tags screen:

Howdy! This converter allows you to selectively convert existing categories to tags. To get started, check the checkboxes of the categories you wish to be converted, then click the Convert button.

Keep in mind that if you convert a category with child categories, those child categories get their parent setting removed, so they’re in the root.

I screwed up and pressed the button. It didn’t occur to me that when I converted categories to tags, I would be deleting the categories from existing. That’s precisely what happened. All of my existing posts (over 300) were left without an assigned category. Why couldn’t WordPress convert categories to tags and leave categories intact? I now have over 300 posts labeled as “Posted in Uncategorized”. I now have to go and manually edit each and every post if I want to change this.

Upgrading sucks.

The kooky wisdom of Roscoe Bartlet delivered straight to my email inbox

Roscoe BartletI got an email from my draft-dodging nutball of a representative Roscoe Bartlett last night. Evidently Roscoe wanted to explain to me why he voted against the State Children’s Health Insurance Programs bill. Not that I needed any explanation. Of course Roscoe would vote against a law providing better health care for children.

What cracked me up were some of the reasons he came up with. Check out reason #8:

Dramatically Increases Taxes on Working Families. The Democrats’ bill hikes tobacco taxes by 61 cents per pack, once again proving that Democrats are harming low-income families they claim to want to help. In April, 15 Democrats acknowledged this fact when they sent a letter to Budget Committee Chairman John Spratt (D-SC) encouraging him not to raise the tobacco taxes in the budget resolution because they were not only regressive but a declining source of revenue. (Section 701)

Smoking is a disgusting and a severely unhealthy habit. I think everyone that smokes should quit, especially people in low-income families. The only thing wrong with a 61 cent per pack tax is that it’s far too low.

It ought to be at least $10 a pack.

I used to smoke. Quiting was probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done. The high price of cigarettes was one of the main reasons I didn’t take the habit back up. I thought cigarettes were expensive when I was addicted, but I was addicted. Once I was no longer addicted to nicotine, the high price of cigarettes seemed absolutely ridiculous. It really made me stop and think.

The truth is that if cigarettes were cheap, I probably would have started up again.

If Roscoe Bartlett is going to vote against a bill that helps provide health care for children, it shouldn’t be because it would make it harder for poor families to buy smokes. Once again Roscoe Bartlett uses the power of his office to vote against the best interests of the people in his district.

WordPress version 2.3 blows

The WordPress folks have released the newest version of the popular blogging platform, Version 2.3 “Dexter”. They named it after saxophonist Dexter Gordon. How appropriate that they would name it after a man that blew for a living.

Version 2.3 blows.

The new version does away with Categories and instead incorporates the use of “Tags”. Too bad these royally farks up just about every plugin and every theme available for WordPress. My normal theme will no longer work. Most of my favorite plugins now produce database errors. Even the default WordPress theme was producing errors.

If I didn’t know any better, I would guess that the people of MovableType helped with the development of this new version of WordPress. This new version makes changing over to MovableType look like a good idea. Granted, none of my favorite plugins work with MovableType, but they aren’t working with WordPress now either.

The government already runs health care

Supposedly the Democratically-controlled Congress and President Bush are heading to a showdown over the future of health insurance for more than 10 million children. Not that I doubt for a nanosecond that Bush is against the idea of health insurance for poor children. I just don’t know if I’m ready to believe congress is willing to actually fight for anything unless it’s a worthless non-binding resolution.

This from the New York Times:

The president says the measure, which would renew and expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, costs too much and would be “an incremental step toward the goal of government-run health care for every American.”

An incremental step toward the goal of government-run health care for every American? The government already runs health care in America. They control everything related to our health care. They control who can become a doctor. They control what drugs or procedures a doctor can administer to a patient.

There is a reason doctors in this country cannot prescribe marijuana to their patients suffering from glaucoma. It’s not because marijuana has not proven to be highly effective in treating glaucoma. It’s because the government wont allow doctors to prescribe it.

Americans are already used to having their health care micromanaged for them. The difference is that health care in this country is run by corporations interested in profit, not in the health and well being of the insured.

There is a reason every other country in the industrialized world has national health care.

Michael George waives extradition hearing, will go to Michigan

In a surprising move, comic book retailer and Pittsburgh Comic-Con organizer Michael George is waiving his extradition hearing and will go to Michigan where he will stand trial for for the 1990 slaying of his wife.

George had been fighting the extradition from Pennsylvania. No word yet why he is waiving the right to a hearing that would force the Michigan prosecutor to present the evidence they have connecting him to his wife’s murder.

This whole story just gets weirder and weirder.

Link

My new PC monitor

I bought a new 22″ widescreen LCD PC monitor yesterday. It’s a Samsung SyncMaster 226BW. I really like it. I had to do some stuff on Sheri’s PC yesterday and it took me about 90 seconds before I got completely fed up with her clunky 19″ CRT monitor. I decided to get myself the new 22″ monitor and replace her 19″ CRT beast with my 19″ LCD monitor.

This widescreen monitor makes it feel like I have twice the screen size. The difference is really remarkable.

Samsung SyncMaster 226BW Specs

  • Viewable size: 22 inches
  • Pixel pitch: 0.282 millimeters
  • Brightness (typical): 300 cd/m2
  • Contrast ratio (typical): 1000:1 (DCR 3000:1)
  • Viewing angle (H/V): 160/160 degrees
  • Response time: 2ms
  • Horizontal frequency: 30-81 kHz
  • Vertical frequency: 56-75 Hz
  • Maximum resolution: 1680 x 1050
  • Maximum color: 16.7 million
  • Input video signal: Analog RGB, DVI
  • Sync type: Separate H/V, composite , SOG
  • Input connectors: 15pin D-sub, DVI-D
  • Plug and play: DDC 2B
  • Special features: MagicBright3, DVI (HDCP), Vista Premium certified
  • Dimensions (with stand): 20.3 x 16.6 x 8.6 inches (WxHxD)
  • Dimensions (without stand): 23.9 x 6.2 x 19.2 inches (WxHxD)
  • Weight: 10.8 pounds

The easy way to a leaner meaner css stylesheet

If your blog or website uses a css stylesheet, chances are it’s not as neat and tidy and it should be. It’s probably bloated with code it doesn’t need. The larger the css stylesheet, the longer it takes to load and process. Manually editing a css stylesheet for neatness can often times be a real pain. Worse, it’s entirely possible in the name of optimization to accidentally delete needed code. I know this because I have done this.

Not anymore. Clean CSS is a web based tool that cleans your css stylesheet. Simply paste the code from your css style sheet and then select the options you need. Press a button and Clean CSS does all the work for you. It cleans and simplifies your css code making the end result a smaller sized, more efficient file. I was able to compress the size of my css style sheet by 17%.

Teacher loses job after assigning adult comic to 13-year old female student

In Connecticut, Guilford High School English teacher Nate Fisher gave a 13-year old girl a copy of EIGHTBALL #22 as an individual reading assignment. The book contains adult content including references to rape, various sex acts and nudity. Upon learning about the book’s content, the girl’s parents complained to the school. They believed it was inappropriate for a male teacher to give this type of book to their 13-year daughter, especially when she was the only one to receive the book.

The parents felt that they were brushed off by the school. They then took the matter to the police. Upon learning that a male teacher gave a 13-year old female student a comic depicting nudity and various sex acts, the police went directly to the principle. The school’s administration then launched an investigation which resulted in the teacher resigning.

The mother of the girl has weighed in over at The Beat in the comments section with her side of the story including many of the details the newspaper reports lack.

The girl is now the target of harassment from fellow students. Teacher Nate Fisher was popular with the other students and they now blame the girl for Fisher resigning. This from the New Haven Register:

The girl’s mother said her daughter has been “crying every night” and asking not to go to school because students who liked the teacher are blaming her. The mother said that some students set up a group on Facebook, the social networking Web site, calling for Fisher to be reinstated and criticizing the student. The family called the police when, they said, a video was posted on the site with a picture of their daughter and a song with the lyrics “Don’t hesitate to exterminate.” The Facebook page has since been removed.

Nate Fisher doesn’t have a job right now because of the actions of Nate Fisher. It’s not the fault of the girl, her parents, the police, or the school.

The girl and her parents deserve no blame in this whatsoever. The parents acted appropriately. The teacher had a responsibility to know what was and was not appropriate.

He clearly didn’t.

If only Saddam didn’t have all those weapons of mass descruction


If only Saddam Hussein didn’t have all those weapons of mass destruction mothers wouldn’t have to leave their young children for months at a time and go to Iraq. Terri Gurrola comes back from Iraq and embraces her daughter. Gurrola served in Iraq for 7 months.

Link

I have no business questioning the spelling of others

If you are regular reader of this blog, you know that spelling is not one of my strong suits. Chances are if you are in the habit of reading my blog and you have never noticed any misspelled words, it’s probably because my lovely wife has already read what I wrote and corrected my mistakes before you got a chance to see it. She’s really good about that.

That’s why I can’t believe what I did today. I actually criticized the spelling of someone else. Not just anybody, but an actual editor for Marvel Comics. A guy that feeds his family by correcting the mistakes of others. It’s how he makes his living.

I was reading a Blog@Newsarama post that linked to a blog post written by Marvel Comics Tom Brevoort. He was trying to defend the fact that CIVIL WAR #1 actually won a Harvey Award. This is from Tom Brevoort’s blog post:

I know it’s not popular to believe, especially online, but plenty of people really did like CIVIL WAR–both readers and retailers. And while it certainly had no pretentions towards being “art”, it was very much dedicated to being a crackling good super hero story. And people responded to it, in a way they haven’t to anything else the majors have produced in the past few years. That’s the reality–get over it.

Though I found most of the above to be ridiculous, what really got my attention was Brevoort’s use of “super hero”. I thought it was superhero. As in one word. Not two. Tom Brevoort was the editor of Marvel’s CIVIL WAR. In CIVIL WAR, it’s one word – superhero. If it was constantly expressed as one word in CIVIL WAR, why then did Brevoort write it as two words in his blog post? It seemed, I don’t know, inconsistent.

I then remembered what I hated most about CIVIL WAR. It was the inconsistency.

For example, in CIVIL WAR #4 we see Sue Richards leaving her husband Reed Richards in the middle of the night. She didn’t tell him that she was leaving him. She wrote him a note. In FANTASTIC FOUR #540, we see Sue Richards leaving her husband in a much different way. They have a huge knockdown argument that culminates in Sue leaving Reed. There is no note and we don’t see her slinking off into the night.

The two events did not match. They were inconsistent.

I left a comment on the Blog@Newsarama pointing out Brevoort’s use of “super hero” instead of “superhero”. I was taken to task for pointing this out because it seems either “super hero” or “superhero” is correct. In fact, it can even be hyphenated. I guess that is correct. It can be properly conveyed either way.

It was the consistency I was questioning.

Update: I totally forgot about something until DJ Sloofus made mention of it in the comment section. Marvel and DC Comics jointly own the trademark to the word “SUPERHERO”. Not “Super Hero”. Not “Super-Hero”. They actually legally own the word “SUPERHERO”.

Link

If you cut in line you deserve to get shot with a Taser

I’m sure everyone by now has heard about the college student that got shot with a Taser when he tried to ask Senator John Kerry some questions. It pains me to admit this, but I think campus police officers did the right thing when they repeatedly fired a Taser at college student Andrew Meyer. Not because he was asking dumb questions of Senator John Kerry and then not allowing him to answer his questions, but because he was a line jumper.

I hate line jumpers.

Andrew Meyer cut in front of a bunch of other people to ask his “questions”. What makes him so important and so special that he placed himself squarely in front of other students that wanted to ask the good Senator a question? He was being obnoxious and he was being a jerk. The Washington Post is reporting that he may have set the whole thing up. He supposedly brought a video camera with him and handed it to friend before asking Kerry his “questions”.

I hate line jumpers. I only wish I could personally Taser people that cut in line. In fact, I think the only time a Taser should be used on a person is if they cut in line. And people that talk loud in movie theaters. They too should feel the sweet embrace of 1,000,000 volts.

I feel sorry for John Kerry. He didn’t need something like this added to his Wikipedia entry. The man has gone though enough.

Barry Manilow is a dick

Barry Manilow is refusing to go on The View because he says he wont share the stage with Elisabeth Hasselbeck, the girl that was once on Survivor and is currently The View’s lone token conservative. Evidently he doesn’t appreciate her conservative views.

Not to say that I do either, but the show is called The View for a reason. She is there to express her viewpoint on things. What Manilow is doing is a form of censorship. If he doesn’t agree with her opinion about the Iraq war or her opinion that life begins at the moment of conception, he should go on the show and confront her about it. Not that I believe either topic would come up on the view during a Barry Manilow segment.

I don’t like Barry Manilow. I never have. I hate to judge a man by his physical appearance, but he looks too much like my middle school vice-principle. I never liked her.

Nightwing #135 error

I saw this on this week’s Lying in the Gutters and found it to be hilarious.

Iraq to expel Blackwater mercenaries

This from the Associated Press (Via Yahoo! News):

The Iraqi government Monday ordered Blackwater USA, the security firm that protects U.S. diplomats, to stop work and leave the country after the fatal shooting of eight Iraqi civilians following a car bomb attack against a State Department convoy.

The order by the Interior Ministry, if carried out, would deal a severe blow to U.S. government operations in Iraq by stripping diplomats, engineers, reconstruction officials and others of their security protection.

The presence of so many visible, aggressive Western security contractors has angered many Iraqis, who consider them a mercenary force that runs roughshod over people in their own country.

The reason many Iraqis consider them to be a mercenary force is because that is precisely what they are. They are mercenaries. They are professional soldiers that perform military work for money. They are often referred to as “contractors” because it sounds better.

Contractors usually need a contractors license. Mercs don’t.

RIP Robert Jordan

Robert Jordan, author of the bestselling fantasy series The Wheel of Time has died, succumbing to a chronic illness. He was 57.

In 2006, Jordon (real name James Oliver Rigney, Jr.) had been diagnosed with primary amyloidosis with cardiomyopathy. The disease was attacking and weakening his heart muscle.

Unfortunately for his many fans, he was unable to finish the The Wheel of Time series. He will be greatly missed.

Link

Alan Greenspan admits the Iraq invasion was about the oil

Not that this was news to me. Of course it was about the oil. It was always about the oil. This from

AMERICA’s elder statesman of finance, Alan Greenspan, has shaken the White House by declaring that the prime motive for the war in Iraq was oil.

In his long-awaited memoir, to be published tomorrow, Greenspan, a Republican whose 18-year tenure as head of the US Federal Reserve was widely admired, will also deliver a stinging critique of President George W Bush’s economic policies.

However, it is his view on the motive for the 2003 Iraq invasion that is likely to provoke the most controversy. “I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil,” he says.

Greenspan, 81, is understood to believe that Saddam Hussein posed a threat to the security of oil supplies in the Middle East.

Britain and America have always insisted the war had nothing to do with oil. Bush said the aim was to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction and end Saddam’s support for terrorism.

Not only was the invasion about the oil, but the continued occupation of Iraq is about making money for Halliburton and KBR. Money from the U.S. taxpayer. Where are all of the fiscal conservatives when you need them?

A recent congressional analysis shows the Iraq war is now costing almost $2 billion a week. It might be different if we were actually getting something of value for our money. The middle-east is more unstable then before. There are more Islamic fundamentalist terrorists now then there was before Bush invaded Iraq. One of the goals in The War On Terror™ should be to make the number of terrorists go down, not go up.

I’m old enough to remember when being a Republican was all about fiscal responsibility. That seems like a long time ago.

Awesome illustration of Mary Marvel fighting a killer robot


I saw this killer art from Colleen Coover this past Thursday and then I couldn’t remember where I saw it.  I finally found it again and promptly stole borrowed it.  Isn’t this cool looking?

Technically, this isn’t really a robot.  It’s appears to be remotely controlled by the dorky looking girl in the plaid skirt.

Link

The al-Qaida in Iraq is not the real al-Qaida

Our illustrious president spoke last night on the television about his most favorite subject – the Iraq war. From his speech:

Anbar province is a good example of how our strategy is working. Last year, an intelligence report concluded that Anbar had been lost to al-Qaida. Some cited this report as evidence that we had failed in Iraq and should cut our losses and pull out. Instead, we kept the pressure on the terrorists. The local people were suffering under the Taliban-like rule of al-Qaida, and they were sick of it. So they asked us for help.

The al-Qaida he should be worried about is the al-Qaida in the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan. That is the real al-Qaida. That is the al-Qaida that attacked the United States on 9-11. The al-Qaida in Iraq? They just call themselves that to give themselves some cheap terrorist credibility. Everyone knows that al-Qaida attacked the United States six years ago and Bush has failed to bring them to justice. Bush has failed to make them pay. Bush and his inability to make al-Qaida pay turn them into the terrorist organization that every two bit terrorist wants to be apart of.

Just because they call themselves al-Qaida doesn’t make them al-Qaida. The al-Qaida in Iraq is as much al-Qaida as American skinheads are Nazis. Sure, they may have a photo of Hitler in their mom’s basement, but that doesn’t mean they are the same bunch that fought Patton’s Third Army in the Battle of the Bulge. Those were real Nazis. They weren’t pretending to be Nazis.

Just because someone identifies themselves as a Nazi on their MySpace page doesn’t mean they are a Nazi. Just because someone in Iraq says they are al-Qaida doesn’t make them al-Qaida.

Does Christian Finnegan get jokes from The Onion?

Yesterday’s Keith and the Girl podcast featured special guest comedian Christian Finnegan. He has been on before and he is really quite funny. They were talking about the recent Dragon*Con convention where both Keith and Chemda (The Girl) attended for the very first time. They were talking about how funny it was to see all the nerds in attendance when Christian brought up Blizzcon. It’s a convention held by the software maker Blizzard for people that play their games, mainly the popular World of WarCraft.

Christian was hired to do stand up comedy for the people in attendance. He mentioned that Jay Mohr was the guest at the most recent Blizzcon and people heckled Mohr’s act. Some got angry that there weren’t any World of WarCraft centric jokes. Jay Mohr simply did his normal stand up act and some in attendance were not impressed. Christian said that when he did Blizzcon, he “wrote” new material for his act.

Did he write it or did he borrow it?

He said that he included a joke about the women in attendance at Blizzcon maybe thinking that they are better looking then they really are. He told the women in attendance that though they may be hot for Blizzcon, they probably were not that hot in the real world. The world outside of Blizzcon. Just because you are Blizzcon hot doesn’t mean you are regular hot. He said that it went over pretty good and I am sure it did.

It was a funny bit.

I thought it was funny when I heard Christian talk about it and I thought it was funny when I read it back in 2004 in The Onion. It was the basis of a hilarious The Onion story about a mildly semi-attractive woman that attends a Farscape convention and walks away mistakingly thinking she is one hot babe. She is one of the few women in attendance and gets a lot of attention from the horny nerds in attendance.

Does Christian Finnegan read The Onion? I think he does.

Oprah loves Obama

Oprah Winfrey can tell people what book to read and they turn it into a best seller. Can she do the same thing with a Presidential candidate? She is backing Barack Obama instead of Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination. In fact, she held a massive fund raiser for Obama this weekend at her Santa Barbra mansion in California.

Does she risk alienating any of her viewers by backing a candidate? I don’t remember Merv Griffin or Mike Douglas endorsing a political candidate.

Will she actually vote for him in the Democratic Illinois primary? If she does, it will be the first time she has actually voted in an Illinois primary election since 1988. [Link]

They may have a weirdo for a Senator, but Idaho has a sweet looking quarter

The third commemorative quarter-dollar coin released in 2007 honors Idaho, and is the 43rd coin in the United States Mint's 50 State Quarters® ProgramI think this is my favorite of the United States Mint’s 50 State Quarters Program. I like the bird (a Peregrine Falcon) and I like all the open space on the coin. Less is more I think.

I guess in the DC Universe the earth is flat

The Earth is flat

One of the kookiest moments in DC Comics's recent AMAZONS ATTACK mini-series was when Superman was in Washington D.C. and he could see the island of Themyscira appear some 93 miles off the eastern seaboard. Forgetting for a moment that one does not have a direct view of the ocean from where everyone was standing in Washington D.C, the earth's surface curves making visualizing something 93 miles away all but impossible. 

The rule of thumb is that line of sight at sea level is 12 miles.  After about 12 miles, objects at sea level fall off below the visual horizon.  The curvature of the earth obstructs the view.

Even if you have x-ray vision.   

For being the second smartest person in the D.C. Universe, Batman fails to call Superman on this.  Instead he goes along with what the Man of Steal is saying.  World's Greatest Detective my ass. 

Comic book sales charts are meaningless

Ever month, ICv2 puts out a list of the Top 300 comics.  They are estimates of the "sales" by Diamond U.S. to comic specialty stores for that month.  Even though they are only estimates, some people take these numbers and make far reaching conclusions about comics that may or may not be true. Specifically, whether a comic book is a success or not.  If it sells a lot of copies or not.

These numbers only reflect what comic book shops are ordering from Diamond Comic Distributors.  That's it.  These numbers don't reflect what is actually getting sold to customers.  With that said, some people still insist on treating them as some sort of comic book best seller list. 

Brian Wood, writer of DEMO, LOCAL, and DMZ responded to one of these sales charts posted to Comic Book Resources:  

I and many others have spoken about the inaccuracies inherent in the comics sales charts that are released – basically they are good for the simplest of general trending and not much else. I've learned to ignore them for the most part.

Then this one pops up on CBR, that is supposedly the cumulative sales on graphic novels to-date this year. Sounds good, right? Well, the only number that I myself can verify is DMZ Vol.2's, which this chart claims has sold so far this year:

5,488

I look through my emails and find the number of initial orders that DMZ v2 got back in early February:

5,489

So it seems like from February to now I have sold -1 copy of DMZ v2.

Somethings fishy, right? So I check my royalty sheets, and the most recent statement I've received for this book reports sales through April of this year. So three months of sales. Wanna know the number?

9,798

Year-to-date my ass. I get so sick of these charts and flawed estimates and subsequent analysis. They aren't just off – sometimes they are WAY off.

These comic book sales lists are simply retarded.   The only thing worse then no information is the wrong information and these lists are always constantly wrong.

Certain comic books are constantly referred to as top sellers even though we have no real way of knowing if they are selling a lot of issues or not.  Just because a retailer orders a certain number of copies doesn't mean anything.  There can be a whole host of reasons a retailer orders a certain number of copies.  Reasons that may or may not have anything to do with the fact that customers are actually buying them or not. 

Maybe a retailer is having a cash flow problem and has to cut down on his or her orders.  Maybe their tax bill is coming due and money is tight.  We simply don't know why a retailer may order fewer comics then they did before.  We shouldn't automatically attribute it to reader dissatisfaction with a new creative team. 

We also don't know how many retailers are ordering comics each month.  If the total number of comic book shops in the country fluctuates from month to month or from year to year, this will be reflected on the comic book sales chart.  We just won't know it. We will look at the sales chart and attribute either a rise or fall in the amount of comics sold not to an increase or decrease in the number of comic book shops ordering books, but to the amount of readers.   

I used to buy my comics at a shop that never ordered enough copies of the type of comics I enjoyed reading.  If I wanted to make sure I got my copy of FABLES or Y THE LAST MAN that month, I had to get over to the store on the Wednesday it came out.  By Thursday, the one or two copies on the shelf would be gone.  Even after I eventually started a pull list it was hit or miss.  Sometimes they would "forget" to put my copy of FABLES or Y THE LAST MAN in my box.  Even though this shop under ordered most of the non-superhero books, they over ordered everything else.  They had copies of WOLVERINE, AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, UNCANNY X-MEN and just about every other mainline superhero book published in the last three years sitting in stacks on the shelves.  

By looking at the charts, these superhero books gathering dust in the comic book shop were all top selling books.  The non-superhero books that were shown to be low selling books on the charts were in fact selling out in a couple of days. 

Marketing the Fantagraphics way

Eric Reynolds, marketing manager for comic book publisher Fantagraphics blogs about a recent visit to a comic book shop. Eric and his wife were in Pullman, Washington and decided to stop in at 4 k r a z y k a t z to see what the shop had to offer.  Eric writes:

Sadly, they didn’t have a single independent comic at all, despite a captive and diverse student population (none of which were actually in the store when I visited) and plenty of empty space in the store. Their “mature readers” section amounted to a copy of WATCHMEN and a few Vertigo comics. The guy behind the counter could see my dissatisfaction, and asked, “Can I help you find anything?” I told him I was looking for indie comics, stuff like Fantagraphics and Drawn & Quarterly publishes. “Are they still around?” he asked. I assured him they were and then told me, wait, he might have something I want, it was a comic he’d mistakenly received from Diamond. He then went flipping through the back issue bins and pulled out a single copy of Gilbert Hernandez’s SPEAK OF THE DEVIL #1 from Dark Horse. Mind you, this is a brand new comic, which he immediately filed in a back issue bin. What a fucking tool. And this is a comic book shop in a college town, IN OUR HOME STATE, AND NAMED AFTER A COMIC STRIP THAT FANTAGRAPHICS PUBLISHES. And yet the owner (yes, he mentioned to me that he was the owner) didn’t even know we were still in business despite the fact that we solicit books and comics every single month in the very catalog he orders from. And people wonder why the direct market often seems utterly doomed.

I guess Eric could have responded to this situation in one of two ways:

Option #1 – He could have taken the opportunity to educate the comic book shop owner about what a fine and diverse publisher Fantagraphics is and told him about some of the fantastic books Fantagraphics has to offer.

Option #2 – He could have said nothing to the store owner and instead waited to blog about the store and call the owner a "fucking tool".

Unfortunately, Eric chose option number two. 

I went to the 4 k r a z y k a t  website.  I wanted to see if in fact the owner was indeed a "fucking tool".  There are a few things Eric Reynolds left out in his blog post.  First of all, the shop stocks over 1,200 foreign movies in the store.  The reason I point this out is because this store is clearly more then just another small town dumpy comic book shop.  It looks like a interesting place to visit.  I would go there.

Eric said that the shop didn't have "a single independent comic at all".  They publish their weekly shipping list.  There are independent comics on the list.  

The shop didn't get it's name from a Fantagraphics comic as Eric wrote in his blog post.  The before mentioned newspaper article explains the origin of the store's name. 

It doesn't have anything to do with Fantagraphics.

There are photos of the shop on their website.  The shop looked like a nice place to visit.  It didn't look like a dump.  It didn't look messy or cluttered.  It didn't look like it reeked of cigarettes or stale body funk.  I don't think anyone sleeps on the floor in a Wolverine sleeping bag.  

The thing I found the most interesting from Eric's blog post was the not that he would publicly call a comic book retailer and a potential customer a "fucking tool".  No, what I found the most interesting was the implication that since the shop is located in the same town as Washington State University, it was some sort of given that comics published by Fantagraphics would do well there.  The inference was that college kids are the type of people that read Fantagraphics comics.  The type of comics published by Fantagraphics.

I'm not so sure I agree with that.  I'm more inclined to believe that a 20 year old college kid would be more interested in reading the latest Spider-Man or Green Lantern story then something published by Fantagraphics.  Just like I think the typical college kid would rather watch Spider-Man 3 then Ghost World.  Not that 20 year old kids attending college usually have money to blow on comics, especially the higher priced stuff from Fantagraphics.

But that's just my opinion. 

I cannot afford to be a Maryland Democrat

Last year I did some volunteer work for Andrew Duck, a Democratic candidate for the United States House of Representatives. He sought to represent Maryland’s 6th congressional district against Republican incumbent Roscoe Bartlett. Normally I would automatically support anyone running against Bartlett. Duck was different in that I really thought he would make a good Representative. Unlike chicken-hawk Bartlett, Duck served over 20 years in the United States Army, serving three tours in Bosnia and one tour in Iraq in 2003.

I wasn’t voting against Bartlett, I was voting for Duck.

I guess because of my volunteer work, I ended up on a Maryland Democratic email list. Tonight I received an email inviting me to a special Maryland Democratic Gala event in Greenbelt, Maryland. The keynote speaker at this Gala will be Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley.

To be honest, I don’t really know what a Gala is.

If I want to go to this Gala, I have two options. I can pay $250 and be a regular Gala Guest or I can pay $500 and be a VIP guest. As a $500 VIP, not only would I be attending the Gala, but I would be able to attend the special VIP Reception held prior to the regular old Gala.

The $250 guests don’t get to attend the Reception. I guess they have to sit in their cars and listen to Air America Radio.

There is something horrifically wrong with our political system. I volunteer to deliver VOTE DUCK yard signs to old people and now I get emails from my political party offering to let me hang out with them if I agree to pay enough for the privilege. I should not have to pay $500 to listen to my governor give a speech.

This isn’t how the political process is supposed to work. It is broken.

A Klingon Stormtrooper hybrid

This photo all but destroys a theory of mine. It used to be that when you went to a comic book convention, you would see dozens and dozens of Klingons in attendance. Now instead of Klingons, you see lots of Stormtroopers.

I had a theory that the Stormtroopers killed off all the Klingons. That was until I found this photo on Flickr. This appears to a hybrid Klingon-Stormtrooper. Perhaps the Stormtroopers didn’t kill off the Klingons. The Klingons may have instead evolved into Stormtroopers. Or, when the Stormtroopers started to show up at comic book conventions, the Klingons may have just killed the Stormtroopers with their bat’leths and took their plastic Imperial Stormtrooper armor as their own. That would explain why this Klingon Stormtrooper is not wearing a Stormtrooper helmet. He may have lopped off the Stormtroopers head with this bat’leth and in his battle frenzy, forgot to retrieve the head.

This would certainly explain a lot.

There very well may be inside every Stormtrooper, the beating heart of a Klingon.

Photo by Flickr user carencey

Man is arrested after refusing to show his receipt at Circuit City

A guy named Michael Righi was arrested after shopping at a Circuit City in Brooklyn, Ohio. His crime stemmed from making two separate purchases while in Circuit City and upon leaving, refused to allow the Circuit City loss prevention employee to search his bags or look at his two receipts. When he left the store and got into his father’s car, the Circuit City employee followed him and would not allow the car to leave.

Righi asked the Circuit City loss prevention employee if he was being accused of shoplifting. He was told that he was not, but that he would not allow him to leave the parking lot until Righi produced the receipts and allowed him to search his bags.

Righi refused and since the Circuit City employee was physically blocking him from leaving, Righi called the police.

When the police arrived, they told Righi that Circuit City had the “right” to inspect receipts and bags of customers leaving their store. They don’t have this right. The police then demanded to see Righi’s drivers license. He refused. He was not driving a motor vehicle. The officer had no right to ask him for his license to drive a motor vehicle. The police reacted to this refusal by placing him under arrest.

After taking Righi into the police station, they realized they had no business demanding that a person who was not driving a motor vehicle to produce a license to drive a motor vehicle. It would be like stopping a car and asking the driver to produce a fishing license. Not having anything to actually charge Righi with, the police found something vague enough to satisfy a reason for the arrest.

ORD:525.07: Obstructing Official Business (M-2)
(a) No person, without privilege to do so and with purpose to prevent, obstruct or delay the performance by a public official of any authorized act within the public official’s official capacity shall do any act that hampers or impedes a public official in the performance of the public official’s lawful duties.

Righi was able to pay the bail ($300) and he was released. His trial will be September 20. He will undoubtedly beat the charge, but he shouldn’t have to. Righi did the right thing in not showing the Circuit City employee his receipts and not allowing him to search his bags. Righi did the right thing in refusing to show the police officer his drivers license.

That doesn’t mean I would have done the same thing. I wish I could say that I would, but I know how I would have responded. I made a vow to myself a long time ago to never be placed under arrest in the United States. Other countries don’t count.

Its important to point out that at no time did anyone from Circuit City accuse Michael Righi of shoplifting. If they had, they could have legally demanded to see his receipts and to search his bags. They had no reason to suspect him of shoplifting.

The reason stores do this type of thing is because they don’t trust their own employees. They lose more money every year to their own employees stealing then they do to shoplifters. Employees have their friends come in and purchase things and they covertly place items in their bags without scanning them into the register. If stores like Circuit City want to stop employee theft, they should hire better employees. They shouldn’t coerce their customers into producing a receipt or consenting to having their property searched.

Its degrading and annoying.

Update: Michael got so many hits to his blog about this story that he had to move his blog to another server. He also has posted a PayPal link if you would like to donate to his defense.

Link (newsite.michaelrighi.com)

Apple removes NBC television episodes from iTunes

Apple has removed NBC Universal television episodes from the iTunes Store.

The move follows NBC’s decision to not renew its agreement with iTunes after Apple declined to pay more than double the wholesale price for each NBC TV episode, which would have resulted in the retail price to consumers increasing to $4.99 per episode from the current $1.99. ABC, CBS, FOX and The CW, along with more than 50 cable networks, are signed up to sell TV shows from their upcoming season on iTunes at $1.99 per episode.

Personally, I think even $1.99 is actually a bit too pricey for TV episodes that you can watch for free on television. But $4.99 for a 22 minute sitcom? Thats just silly. Its especially silly when you stop to realize that this was free money for NBC Universal. These were television shows they produced for their network. Allowing Apples to then go and sell the shows on the iTunes Store after they had already appeared on their network was a win-win for NBC Universal.

Greed and stupidity are a dangerous mix.

Its not like people wont be downloading NBC Universal programing. They just wont be paying for it. People will simply download NBC Universal television shows on bittorrent.

Link (marketwatch.com)

1/18 scale diecast Mad Max Interceptor


This is a 1/18 scale diecast model of the car used by Mel Gibson’s character in the movies Mad Max and The Road Warrior. Its made by the Japanese company AutoArt.

The Mad Max Interceptor started out as an Australian 1973 XB GT Ford Falcon Coupe.

roadwarrior6.jpgLike all diecast cars made by AutoArt, the car appears to be very detailed. In fact, it even has a 1/18 scale machete. From the looks of it, the machete appears to come out of it’s scabbard. I wonder if its sharp? Knowing AutoArt’s eye for detail, I wouldn’t be surprised.

Link (HobbyTalk)

Is this a Muslim woman or a Ninja?

Like a lot of people, I sometimes have a hard time telling the difference between Ninjas and Muslim women. In this case, I feel fairly confident that this is a good Muslim woman and not a Ninja.

How did I arrive at this conclusion? First of all, she is not holding a Chinese throwing star. Second of all, she doesn’t appear to be killing this bearded Arab looking man. In fact, she appears to be affectionately embracing the bearded Arab looking man.

That is something no good Ninja would ever do.

Amazons Attack #6

Amazons Attack #6I just got done reading Amazons Attack #6. In hindsight, I wish I’d done something more constructive with my time and money. Like maybe reading old phone books from cities I have never been to.

I hate to say that Amazons Attack sucked because the artwork was really very good. The artist for this series was Pete Woods and the writer was Will Pfeifer. It would be easy to blame how bad this series was on Will Pfeifer. I normally blame the writer when I read a comic I don’t like. I don’t feel that I can do that in this particular case. Since this is one of those Major Comic Book Events™, its not like Pfeifer had many choices in how this thing ends. That is the main problem I had with this book. The ending.

I didn’t understand it.

The book ends with the Goddess Athena on Mount Olympus (?) with many of the Greek gods (??) chained up behind her while she stares down into a basin of water and speaks about justice. One of the Greek goddesses (???) starts to give Athena grief over her use of the word “justice”. The unnamed Greek goddess points out that she stole Athena’s identity and left her for dead. What? This isn’t Athena? Well then who is this mystery woman? The fake Athena’s face begins to melt away and I have to turn the page to see what happens next.

The first thing I see upon turning the page is Clark Kent with a 6-foot long golden necktie wrapped around his neck with one end of the necktie being held by a cyborg Sinestro Corp Superman. Clark Kent’s shirt is torn open exposing his Superman costume underneath. Worse, he’s not wearing his glasses. Without his glasses, people will know that Clark Kent is Superman! The cyborg Sinestro Corp Superman is wearing Clark Kent’s glasses. I then realize that this isn’t part of the Amazons Attack story. No, this is just an extremely poorly placed advertisement for yet another DC Comics mini-series that promises to be just as retarded as this one.

The continuation of the story is on the next page. Talk about destroying the pacing of the story. Its a one-page splash showing someone who I assume is Bea Arthur all decked out in armor and laughing her fat ass off. Whats Bea Arthur doing in Amazons Attack? Thats it. The End.

I didn’t actually think this was in fact the actress Bea Arthur. Who then was it? After some searching on the Internets, I found out that it was someone called Granny Goodness. Who is that? What a ridiculous name. I’ve never heard of this character. I went to Wikipedia and did some research on Granny Goodness. It turns out she is a character created by Jack Kirby in 1971. She is part of Kirby’s New Gods series. How am I supposed to know that? I don’t mind having to do some post-comic book reading online research after reading a comic book. I really don’t. I cannot count how many times I’ve had to go to Wikipedia and look up something I wasn’t familiar with (father box). I just don’t know how I am supposed to know that a woman that looks like an actress from Golden Girls is a character created by Jack Kirby. In 1971. How about at least showing her name? It would make the required Wikipedia search so much easier.

And to think some people wonder why kids today shun comic books yet devour manga. You don’t have to know obscure manga trivia from over 30 years ago to read manga.

In Harms Way

In Harms Way

Update (9 Jan 08) – Bob Deasy, the Radar Nav on board this aircraft the night it took a missile was kind enough to stop buy and correct me on some some of the things I got wrong about this story in the comment section. Specifically, that the gunner had locked onto the Wild Weasel. He had not. I apologize for the mistake.

I was going through some old pictures of my Air Force days and found this. It’s of aircraft B-52G 0248. It’s probably too small to see, but the nose art shows that this aircraft had the nickname of “In Harms Way”. There is a story that goes along with the nickname. Then again, don’t most nicknames have a story? This is the B-52G that was accidentally hit with an AGM-88 HARM anti-radiation missile fired from an F-4G Wild Weasel on the first night of operation DESERT STORM. The B-52’s tail gunner mistakenly locked his anti-aircraft radar on the Wild Weasel thinking it was an Iraqi MIG. The Wild Weasel immediately detected the B-52 tail gun radar locking on to him and misidentified the radar signature as that of an Iraqi anti aircraft artillery (AAA) site. The Wild Weasel crew fired a HARM missile and watched in horror as it headed not towards the non existent Iraqi AAA site, but to the very B-52 is was trying to protect.

Luckily the missile failed to hit the plane, but instead detonated directly behind the bomber. These missiles are designed to hit nonmoving ground targets, not moving airplanes. The resulting shrapnel and missile debris caused an excessive amount of damage to the tail section of the B-52. It ripped off everything aft of the vertical stabilizer. This included much of the tail gun system, the aft electronic warfare suite, and the drag chute. The B-52 was able to land safely on the island of Diego Garcia at Jedda, Saudi Arabia.

It was then sent from Diego Garcia to Anderson Air Force Base on Guam for repair. I was in on the repair of this aircraft shortly after is was damaged. During the first Iraqi war, I was assigned to a squadron that was responsible for repairing B-52’s being used in Iraq being flown from Diego Garcia. I spent four months back on Guam. I had been stationed there prior for almost three years. I could have been sent to places far worse then Guam. I could have gone to Saudi. I could have spent four months on Diego Garcia. I spent two weeks there once and that was long enough for me. As it was, I loved Guam.