Blue Monday, Oni Press. Imagine "Betty and Veronica" in Veronica was a punk, Betty had a Britpop fixation, and everyone was drawn Japanese manga-style. Chynna Clugston-Major earns major bonus points from the admittedly-small market of comic-reading Mods by bringing both Blur and THE MAN, Paul Weller, in for a dream sequence. Clugston-Major must be one of us, for the multiple Weller/Jam/Style Council references I spotted. I'm still not real big into the manga, but I liked this comic pretty well.

I am also an overnight fan of Garth Ennis' "Preacher." I inadvertently began with the second collection, "Until the End of the World," but was sucked in pretty quickly anyway. It's the best bad-ass shit-kicking double-barrelled good-and-evil homicidal-redneck-fighting conspiracy-exposing bitch-slapping action movie that I have ever seen, except it's not a movie. It's a graphic novel. And I am going to have to buy the other issues as quickly as I possibly can.
I just loved the dialogue in this. I found myself mouthing it as I read. Okay, will stop gushing... NOW. Here's a Preacher fansite, seeing as this is a weblog and all. (Warning. Spoilers.)

Henry Rollins scores the Quote of the Day -- Friday, March 31, 2000

"Punk rock can kiss my ass," he says. "That's Johnny Rotten and heroin and speed and a bunch of dudes posing and really not doing a lot. That's what punk rock means to me. In the Black Flag days, we thought punk rockers were slackers..."

It's a Shame about Mariah -- Friday, March 31, 2000
Wall of Sound reports that the live show is just... bad.

Goin' to City Club -- Saturday, March 25, 2000

It's Friday night, and it's time to go to the cavernous Motown dance club for spooky girls and the skinny, emaciated guys that dig them. And the comparatively chubby industrial kids who trample them (that'd be us). If you're not reading this right now, look for me, Kevin, and Morme in the "pit." And Donna, but she doesn't have a web page.

Unholy Unions of Pop Music found on Napster -- Saturday, March 25, 2000

These aren't really links, but sort of a guide to suggested listening.

* Everything But The Girl's "Missing" played over ATB's house hit "9pm (Til I Come)"
* Backstreet Boys' "Larger Than Life" with the legendary break from Rob Base's "It Takes Two"
* Eminem's "My Name Is" over AC/DC's "Back in Black"
* Eminem's "My Name Is" over Mulder's Urban Takeover remix of Fatboy Slim's "Rockafeller Skank"
* Eminem's "My Name Is" over Britney Spears' "Crazy (Stop Mix"
* Kris Kross' "Jump" mixed half-and-half with Britney Spears' "Crazy (Stop Mix)"
* An a capella of Eminem's "My Name Is" so you can put it over whatever you want.

Space Channel 5 -- Saturday, March 25, 2000

So much for colossal media-group synergy. Above link from All-Game Guide reports that Michael Jackson is making an appearance in Sega's "Space Channel 5," which must delight the bean counters at Sony, who distribute his records and videos.

This hasn't stopped Rupert Murdoch from trying to buy the largest single company in the world so he can get at one of its subsidiaries' subsidiaries. I picture him rubbing his hands together and cackling "I'm your daddy now! Hahahaha..."

Larry Augustin and Donny Osmond: Separated at Birth? -- Saturday, March 25, 2000

The CEO of VA Linux Systems.

The singer/TV host/possible future resident of Kolob.

A co-worker saw the 1/24/2000 issue of quality CMP product Information Week, with the above portrait, and asked me if I was into Donny Osmond. What do you think?

Critics slam "Here on Earth" -- Saturday, March 25, 2000
You can't make a teenage romance these days without a spooge-consumption joke.

Beck Being Deconstructed -- Friday, March 24, 2000

Part I

Part II

ASCII Art: Back? Never Left? Sigh -- Friday, March 24, 2000

New sites bringing back old-school ASCII art include Soulbath and a promo site for Eidos' game Omikron: The Nomad Soul. Sadly, both these sites create their lo-tech splendor with Flash 4, which is not so lo-tech.
Fortunately, the biggest next-generation enhancement over at Chris.com's depository is (gasp) FRAMES!

Also worth checking out: Pictext, which is terrific when it can understand your image, and, uh, this thing, which is mostly useless but pretty to look at if it doesn't crash your browser with its hundreds-of-K HTML documents made up of skillions of subthly shaded letters.

Radio Paradise -- Friday, March 24, 2000
The Adult Album Alternative format gains legitimacy on ShoutCast! Guaranteed to probably not offend your coworkers, unless they hate Dave Matthews or Tori Amos.

Anti E-Conomy Propaganda -- Thursday, March 23, 2000
Some of these are just dumb, but some of them are kind of funny.

Have you ever experienced DHTML? -- Thursday, March 23, 2000
A demo/tutorial site. Brattli reproduces some very Flash-esque tricks without any browser plug-ins -- you will however need a browser of at least 4.0 vintage. NOTE: the link to "scriptomania" script archive is busted on the page linked above: here's the correct link.

Details Magazine folds -- Thursday, March 23, 2000
As an off-and-on reader of Details since they turned it from an NYC nightlife mag into the Ur-Maxim in '88, I must say I will miss it, but not much. I am really pissed about how I will never receive the two issues left on my POV subscription, though -- it's the only men's mag I've read that features women prominently without making them seem like story problems ("Could you lay this actress?" "Can you outwit your wily girlfriend?"). Kee-rist.

Gerrit Goossen talks about Mac 3D cards -- Thursday, March 23, 2000
I like the smug tone he takes here. As the writer of one of the first N64 emulators to present sound, though, I think he's almost earned the right to make observations like "i don't believe there are any ixMicro products that work with sixtyforce. this is probably why they went out of business."

I am looking forward to running this on my G4, which I will be purchasing any week now, hopefully.

Nice Going, Herbert. (mirror site) -- Thursday, March 23, 2000
If you had "hacked" ubiquitous MTV ambush comic Tom Green's web site and could do anything you wanted to the front page, wouldn't you have gone absolutely crazy? I mean, come on, it's Tom Green. Is there anyone who's earned a bigger can of karmic whoop-ass lately than him?

Fifty years from now, Herbert is going to be sitting on his front porch drinking cheap alcohol and ruing his safe, simple little life. "I c0u1d'v3 0wn3d T0m 6r33n. I could've been '133t."

Go ahead and scoff, but the new Tom Jones CD ROCKS -- Thursday, March 23, 2000
New album is called "Reload." Remember back in the eighties when he did that remake of "Kiss" with the Art of Noise? This is sort of like that, in that all the songs on this album are remakes of recent and not-so-recent pop hits. Go check out the site for the complete lineup, but I am liking his renditions of "Mama Told Me Not to Come," Portishead's "All Mine," and "You Need Love Like I Do" best.

Henry Ford doesn't have the only IMAX theater in Detroit! -- Thursday, March 23, 2000
I was delighted to discover that the once-struggling Detroit Science Center is currently as busy as ever. In particular, the DSC had one of the earliest IMAX theaters, and still one of the few that is dome-shaped.

Most IMAX screens these days are just REALLY TALL flat screens. This would include the ones at Navy Pier Chicago, Cedar Point, and Henry Ford Museum. But in the DSC's theater, the giant film image is projected onto a dome, and the seats are built for you to look up at the dome, which heightens the elimination of peripheral vision.

I hate to sound like an ad, but I have fond childhood memories of this theater. And the funky neon escalator, while appearing in photographs throughout this site, is much cooler in "person."

Very catty synopsis of Junos -- Sunday, March 19, 2000
Canadian music awards receive comic once-over from the Joan and Melissa Rivers of Rollingstone.com. Way to stick it to those Moffatts, guys!

Some Kind of Metaphor -- Sunday, March 19, 2000
Will Oldham's most memorable lyrics? Certainly the ones most quoted out of context.

Les Rhythmes Digitales release live album exclusively in MP3 -- Wednesday, March 15, 2000
This reminds me of recent Least Essential nominee, the Depeche Mode "Songs of Faith and Devotion LIVE" album. But NME reports this live rendition is better than the version released on CD.

Don't Go Here. -- Tuesday, March 14, 2000
A toy-store domain squatter snapped these up and linked them to a day-glo Flash4 technicolour FREAKOUT! It's a travesty. They got encyclopediabrown.net too, the jerks. I was tempted to sign up for their free-crap club box, but then I realized that would be REWARDING them... for SQUATTING. But maybe if I signed up my "8 year old nephew, Terrance."

Encyclopedia Brown parody -- Tuesday, March 14, 2000
This was not the only Encyclopedia Brown parody I found on a collegiate website. But it's the only one with faithful illustrations that was mostly written just like one of the stories I loved so well.

Encyclopedia Brown poetry -- Tuesday, March 14, 2000
Cute poetry. Mostly rhymes. Third grader?

Various Kids' Book Bibliographies -- Tuesday, March 14, 2000
This page has short bios on both Donald J. Sobol (Encyclopedia Brown impresario) and Clifford Hicks, who wrote the terrific Alvin Fernald books. Most kids give props to Judy Blume, but Clifford Hicks, Donald J. Sobol, and to a lesser extent, the sci-fi works of sports author Alfred Slote (who lives or lived here in Ann Arbor) helped make me into the scared-of-cooties gadget freak I am today.

Tales of Consumer Tragedy -- Tuesday, March 14, 2000
Mister Pants' recent feature on Little Marcy religious records inspired me to search for some more. This isn't about that, but is nonetheless a gripping story of the cutthroat fake persian rug business from the perspective of its casualties.

Yeah, whatever.

Something's Missing --
After the addition of a pot-smoking "God" character and an accompanying slight name change, this show was greenlighted by NBC and promptly killed dead.

George Foster Gets a WebCam --
And, amazingly, I still don't have one yet. Sadly, it appears not to have been updated in almost two months, and the frame up there now is just him sacked out in front of the computer. I always imagined George Crazy Skydiving Foster's life to be more actionpacked than that.

[UPDATE: the "image" is "broken." Yes, George, your image is very broken.]

get excited about coffeeandcream.com -- Tuesday, March 7, 2000
"So what do you do?"

"I write ad copy for domain squatters."

"Sounds interesting. What are you buying the gun for?"

BANG

"Oh."

One of those javascript art sites -- Tuesday, March 7, 2000
Enter there.

Elly Jordaan's Greatest Hits -- Tuesday, March 7, 2000
Elly got in an argument with Chuck, who has an semi-ongoing quasi-feud with my homeys Godfrey and Doctor Cliff. This page did not let me down until Gus stopped archiving her posts.

Madonna Gets a Retrospective -- Tuesday, March 7, 2000
You will want to at least to see the title of the article. Go ahead, click.

At Long Last, Legit -- Tuesday, March 7, 2000
Walter Miller finally has a .com URL. Unfortunately, it's almost as long as his old GeoCities address, but at least the pop-up ads are gone. As for the humor: well, it's still Walter Miller's homepage. I never dreamed it would last this long. I would probably pay $20 for a book version of this now.

Wired article on Kleiser-Walczak Construction -- Thursday, March 2, 2000
Heavily anticipating Millennium Force (below) is causing me to reminisce on possibly the coolest thrill I rode last December on my trip to Florida -- "Spider-Man," at Universal's Islands of Adventure. This is a long, detailed article on the ride, from an old issue of Wired magazine.

Some stills from the Spider-Man ride's stunning animation appear at the new site of former Kleiser-Walczak collaborator Jeff Lew.

Did you catch the reference to a "Hello Kitty vs. Godzilla" ride? What's THAT all about, then?

Someone reviews the OmniSky modem -- Thursday, March 2, 2000
OmniSky is a wireless internet service that gives the PalmV (the smaller, metal one) similar net capabilities to the PalmVII (the chunky one with the built-in antenna). I just got one but I've been too busy working and being sick to mess with it much. More updates as I can make them up.

UltimateRollercoaster.com Previews Millennium Force -- Thursday, March 2, 2000
The new Cedar Point coaster is always one of the biggest things to look forward to in the wintertime, and this one, from all the advance hype, will be no exception.

As seen previously on this page -- Thursday, March 2, 2000
Older entries. You could end up wasting a couple of hours in here.

nobody ever subscribes to this thing, and hence I never post to it. break the cycle?
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