Reading Is Dangerous

Reading, man. That stuff'll mess you up.

One Last Time — "Net Neutrality: What It Is & Why You Should Care"

Man, aren't you going to be so happy when I stop posting / talking / raving like a lunatic about this, and it's all become a distant memory of the past, a "haha remember that time the government was going to allow corporations to control the flow of information access and eviscerate our society hahaha good times bro" rather than becoming a HORRIBLE DYSTOPIAN FUTURE that we'll all be forced to live in?

Of course you are. Today's your last chance to make your voice heard before Congress and the FCC reconvene to discuss these newly proposed laws. So if you haven't taken action yet, this is my final attempt to make you change your mind. After that, it's back to your regularly scheduled programming of indie rock bands and geek culture and other obscurely insular humors. That is, unless I find another political topic du jour to be passionately outraged about. Who, me? Nahhh...

And in case you somehow missed this, to sum it all up...

Don't Get Crabs Or They'll Steal Your Beer. Just Ask This Guy.

Look at that crab and his smarmy little smile. He knew exactly what he was doing. What a little jerk! At least the crab, I don't know, trick the poor guy with a stick of dynamite and shout something obscene like "You've got crabs, ass-face!"

Oh wait...

Pizza vs Bictoin

I'll be honest I'm not even sure what this has to do with Bitcoin but damn if it ain't the most beautiful vision of a utopian future that I have ever seen. (hat-tip to BoingBoing)

A Modern Leper, On His Upright Dulcimer

Back in March when I posted my St. Patrick's Day cover songs, I started thinking about other fun arrangements I could do with my woodrow / upright dulcimer. Since it's already tuned to an open D5, I was particularly curious to try and translate songs from Drop-D guitar into dulcimer tunes — and so, for my first demonstration, I chose "The Modern Leper" by Frightened Rabbit, the song which first made me fall in love with that band.

Here's the original version for comparison, in case you're not familiar (unfortunately, my Scottish accent is not nearly as good as Scott Hutchison's, but I do my best):

I Watched a 17-Minute Preview of "Guardians of the Galaxy" So That You Didn't Have To

Let me tell, it was a tough sacrifice to make, but I was willing to make a martyr of myself for the betterment of all humanity and write about it on Tor.com, like a herald for the quippy James Gunn-ian world soon to come.

So I DID IT FOR YOU, OKAY?! You're welcome, by the way.

Kindergartener In The Town Of Surprise, AZ Accused of Sexual Misconduct

A 5-year-old boy in Arizona was accused of sexual misconduct for pulling his pants down on the playground.

I mean okay I know I shouldn't be making light of this but the kid pulled his pants down in a town called SURPRISE. Even as someone with a last name that lends itself to bad jokes (and a life-long friend with the last name "Surprise" who similarly suffered), that's just too perfect. Man, Arizona is awful.

In all seriousness, this is pretty messed up. Kids do stupid stuff like pull their pants down all the time, and while I'm glad our culture is becoming more aware of issues falling under the general umbrella of "sexual misconduct," this is pretty clearly a kid pulling his pants down because he's five years old and it's funny 'cause they're pants and the poor kid doesn't have a firm grasp yet on acceptable societal standards*. But that does not a sex offender make.

Also in the future, if the situation ever arises, I would advise that you not do what I just did, which was Google Image search for "funny pictures of little kids with their pants down" in order to find a thumbnail image for this post. Because if I wasn't already being watched by some acronym'd government organization, now I definitely am. 

*And I hope he never does. Keep fighting the power, little dude. Pants are the oppressor.

"Life Begins At Fermentation"

I'm not sure how I discovered the work of Richard Stevens, but I've been immensely enjoying his cartoons. Maybe it's the self-aware pretentious nerd inside of me, but this one...this one speaks to me, man, you know?

Updating the Classic Captain America Theme for the Modern World

Because America needs a new national anthem.

Sadly, this is still better than the jingoistic Cap from Mark Millar's Ultimates...

PULLMAN FOR PRESIDENT 2016

Today, we gather together to celebrate the greatest speech ever in the history of dramatic writing.

Two Men Arrested For Talking About Nickelback

That's what you get for listening to crappy music...

A nickel sack would be about $5, or a gram of marijuana, which is an absurdly miniscule amount. In Idaho possession with intent to distribute, which this would presumably fall under, provides for up to five years or a maximum $15,000 fine for less than 1 lb. or 25 plants.

The men were not charged with any crime, so presumably their story checked out. But, perhaps the funniest takeaway here, aside from the joke that is our criminalization of marijuana and the waste of time and resources we spend policing it, is that to be on the safe side, we had better all just stop talking about Nickelback altogether, joking or otherwise, just to be safe.

Courtesy of Mediate

Remember Ripley's Power Loader Suit From ALIENS? Yeah, That's A Real Thing Now

You had me at "Robo-suit lets man lift 100kg" (and I don't even know how heavy that is because I'm an ignorant American!)

I mean, James Cameron is a gazillionaire, and he already did that whole ocean exploration thing just because he could, so wouldn't it stand to reason that he also secretly funded the invention of one of the coolest parts of his second-best film?

One man's "Body Extender" is another woman's "Kick The Crap Out Of The Queen Alien & Send Her Out The Airlock," as the saying goes.

Of course, if we consider his underwater adventures to be an extrapolation of his cinematic work on Titanic and The Abyss, the next logical progression from here would be for Cameron to sink his funds into the development of a time-travel robot assassin made of liquid metal. Which, considering how this whole drone thing has been going, is a frighteningly realistic possibility and maybe I act so flip about it and 'cause now maybe the liquid metal time traveling drones are going to come after me next in order to stop me from making this blog post and revealing their secret plans for world domina

How To Speak Scottish, According To Karen Gillan

I love her. Please don't tell my fiancé.

(Actually ya know what on second thought, it's probably fine. They pretty much look the same anyway.)

When "GOP" Stands For "Grand Ol' Pod-People"

"It is widely known Rep. Frank D. Lucas is no longer alive and has been displayed by a look alike. Rep. Lucas’ look alike was depicted as sentenced on a white stage in southern Ukraine on or about Jan. 11, 2011. I am contesting that this matter has happen [sic] since his election was blocked, because of the U.S. Defense Department’s use of Mr. Murray's DNA. To my knowledge, the U.S. Defense Department has not released to the public that information, as it is their confidential information about many people." — GOP Congressional Candidate Timothy A. Murray

Don't get me wrong, I totally understand political maneuvering and smear tactics but...Invasion of the Body Snatchers here takes the game to a whole new level.

Free eBook of "Stuff Every Geek Should Know" (featuring an essay from Yours Truly, because 'natch)

The fine folks at Quirk Books have just released Stuff Every Geek Should Know, the latest in their ongoing sampler series of free eBooks. These samplers often feature snippets from Quirk's other offerings, along with fun little teasers and games, but Stuff Every Geek Should Know is chock-full of brand new content from writers including Eric Smith, Kyle Cassidy, E.C. Myers, and, oh yeah, me! I've had comic books and scripts published, and plenty of non-fiction, but this is technically my first eBook from a real official fancy publisher. Here's the official blurb from Quirk:

Packed with tips, articles, and how-tos on everything from performing Jedi mind tricks to creating your own cosplay gear to wooing the geek of your dreams, Stuff Every Geek Should Know is an indispensable guide to life, the universe, and everything geeky. Featuring content from Quirk's nerdiest titles plus all-new, never-before-seen good stuff from the geekiest bloggers in the known universe. Chapters include: 

GEEK SKILLS FROM POP CULTURE: How to survive a haunted house, perform the Vulcan nerve pinch, decode ciphers, and master other survival skills. 

GEEKS IN ACTION: How to make amazing YouTube vids, create comic books, handle yourself in an online multiplayer game, and generally get your geek on. 

THE GEEK GATHERING: How to have the best convention experience of your life. 

GEEK LOVE: How to craft an online dating profile, plan a geeky marriage proposal, pass on geek wisdom to your kids, and otherwise enjoy the human emotion of "love."

You can download the book on Scribd, Amazon, Nook, Kobo, or iBooks, for all your e-reading pleasure — and tell your friends to do the same!

Download the First Album from They Might Be Giants for FREE!

They Might Be Giants are one of those bands that everybody knows, but not everybody realizes how familiar they actually are with the band. Some people just think of them as "Those Guys From The Tiny Toons Music Videos" or "The Band That Sang The Malcolm In The Middle Theme Song" or just "Those Two Weird Guys With The Accordion And Nasally Voices." But if you give 'em a chance, and embrace all the weirdness that their catalog has to offer, you'll quickly come to understand just how great this band really is.

And to help with that discovery, they are currently offering a free download of a live performance of their complete debut album, which includes such gems as "Don't Let's Start" above. What have you got to lose? Download away and give it a chance, and I suspect that you'll soon find yourself unable to resist their quirky charm.

Also, Thom Dunn Fun Fact: I once played in a They Might Be Giants tribute band with Jacob Wake-Up called "Your Racist Friends." We played one show ever, mostly to entertain our friend Flood (which is actually his name, despite also being the name of a TMBG album), who now distributes vinyl re-pressings of classic They Might Be Giants albums on his record label.

The 'Stretch DeLorean', For When You Really Want To Time Travel Back To Your Mom's Prom...In Style!

This crazy custom job was made by the Doc Brown triplets with the help of their trusty Flux Capicator from three salvaged, junked Deloreans. You can follow the mod process here, which I assume is really cool and impressive and technical and stuff but I don't know anything about cars.

What I do know is that I've always wanted a Delorean of my very own, if for no other reason than that it could give me an excuse to cruise around town pickin' up chicks by using "Flux Capacitor" as an innuendo, and be all like "I bet you can handle 1.21 gigawatts of power, baby," which totally would have worked every time. Right, ladies?

...Right? Hello? Anyone?

I swear that I was cool in high school.

(Also: friendly reminder that Today is not the day that Marty McFly travels to when he got in the time machine, and tomorrow doesn't look so good either) (Unless you're reading this on October 21, 2015, in which case it is)

If This Doesn't Convince You Of The Importance Of Gun Control, I Don't Know What Will

Remarkably, I never actually engaged in a dildo-lightsaber-battle as a child — but as anyone who knew me at that age could attest, I definitely would have, if the opportunity had presented itself.

Maybe I shouldn't be admitting that on the Internet? I'm talking about the beautiful bliss of combined childhood ignorance and creativity, people! Jeez!

(Video courtesy of Gawker)

#ProtectTheZone

If you care at all about human rights — and in particular the rights of women and their respective partners and their freedoms of individual choice and access to healthcare — please take a minute to sign this petition to re-instate the "Buffer Zone" 

Review: TRANSHUMAN by Jonathan Hickman

In Transhuman, writer Jonathan Hickman uses JM Ringuet's gorgeous artwork to tell an original story about the rise of Transhumanism as a corporate pissing match, and it embodies everything that is wrong with Hickman as a writer.

Don't get me wrong, Hickman is incredibly creative and kind of a mad genius — he's just a terrible storyteller. I've come to accept this fact. Transhuman is told as a "documentary" about the rise of the 3 largest Transhumanist corporations, which I guess is a clever conceit, except (1) why make a fictional documentary as a graphic novel? Why not, ya know, write a screenplay? and (2) the nature of those 60 Minutes-style factual reporting documentary is, by nature, a summary, and therefore not a story. The story is told through interviews with a narrator and the people involved in the story, but they are literally just TELLING the reader what happened. It's almost remarkable that a graphic novel — a medium which is visual by nature — could rely so much on telling and not showing, and therefore breaks one of the cardinal rules of fiction writing.

Sure, there are some interesting characters, and probably some cool dramatic, personal moments between them — namely, the divorced couple who end up working together on the Transhumanist project despite their mutual hatred for one another, who ultimately backstab each other again — but frankly, it's not very interesting to just see someone tell you that. It doesn't matter how witty or clever the commentary and writing is, I want to see it happen, I want to witness their interpersonal relations. If this were a real-life documentary from 50 years from now, and it aired on 60 Minutes or whatever, it would probably be great, because investigative journalism can get away with digging deep and just reciting facts (although I'd argue that most award-winning works of investigative journalism still manage to find a compelling human angle, something for the audience to emotionally engage with that makes them follow the story through to the end). In Transhuman, we just get a bunch of talking heads telling us what already happened, and a narrator / director to steer us away from any unreliable sources. There is literally nothing compelling or human to pull you through the story. There's a clever (albeit overwhelmingly cynical) twist at the end, which I guess is fun. But you can't build a story off a twist.

When Hickman first broke out onto the comics scene, I thought he was fantastic, but the truth is, he's good at creating the ILLUSION of good story telling. Everything he writes is done in summary, with a few cool moments in between to make it feel human. A friend of mine summed it up well as citing the difference between The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion — one is a story about characters that we care about, the other is a play-by-play history book, and Hickman writes the latter. I think Hickman would be better off as an idea man, leaving other people to actually execute these epic stories of his. Because the worlds he creates are always unique and fascinating, full of complex politics and otherworldly visions. But saying "HERE'S THIS CRAZY WORLD I CREATED AND THERE ARE THESE GUYS AND THEN THESE TWO FOUGHT AND THEN THIS GUY BETRAYED THIS GIRL AND THEN THIS PERSON WON, THE END" is really not a fun story to read.

I mean, okay, this was a fun moment. But not worth the wait.