Curious.

A seminar called "Windows Presentation Foundation and the Next Generation of Online Comic Book Reading?"

What is Microsoft up to?

Went Up To Virginia Tech Yesterday.

It's a five-hour drive, but it seemed like the thing to do. Lots of people I know went to Virginia Tech, including my marketing professor, and with a few twists and turns of fate I or my brother could have gone there.

The campus shows signs of getting over the shooting by now-- lots of people playing outdoors-- though I did see a couple of I'm-not-gonna-cry faces in the bookstore, and a crowd still gathers at the memorial.

Said memorial contains markers for everyone who died that day, including the shooter. Or used to. It appears that the shooter's memorial marker was stolen from the display last week. Not too hard to figure out the point the thief is making there.

As I left, I got spattered when a male Asian student laughingly tried to splash a black girl with soda, in retaliation for some teasing slight.

Life goes on.

Todd Goldman, Read This. Or Don't: It's Your Life.

Over the last week, I've tried repeatedly to get in touch with Todd Goldman, because I believe there's got to be another side to this story. No, not the story that his company has plagiarized Dave Kelly's design-- that's an open and shut case. Goldman more or less copped to the charge, shifted a little blame to subordinates, but pledged to donate all profits from the shirt straight to Dave Kelly, which was certainly a step in the right direction.

Unfortunately, Goldman has two feet, and the other story is the minefields he's stepped in before and since said confession. He or someone claiming to be him has accused Kelly of pedophilia, posted pornographic images to defame Kelly which ended up being seen by minors, hijacked the MySpace account of the person who originally reported the theft, openly mocked anyone who expressed concern about this...

...and, now, enlisted his lawyer to threaten anyone who reports on any of the above, even when such reportage sticks to verifiable facts.

Hey, see what I just reported on, there?

Bring it, Felix. That's right. I said come and get me. I support Gary Tyrrell to the point of putting my neck out right alongside his.

Now, I say "or someone claiming to be him" because, well... it's the Internet, the land of identity theft. There's still the shadow of a doubt. Someone else could have been acting in Goldman's name to make him seem worse than he is. The shadow grows fainter with time (that e-mail was tagged as coming from smtp.davidandgoliathtees.com? The MySpace hijacking used an image privately hosted on the davidandgoliathtees.com server? UH-OH), but a shadow remains. Tyrrell was responsible enough to raise that possibility, not that Felix or Goldman seem to care.

But if Goldman is being misrepresented... why hasn't he stepped forth to denounce these actions? Don't tell me he's not aware of them, not when this story has already affected his bottom line.

Well, Mr. Goldman, if you can read this, I'm giving you one more chance. I can't pretend to be on your side, but I can promise you an interview where you can tell your side, uninterrupted and unedited, to a comics news source. In terms of public relations, that's probably the best offer you're going to get at this point. Contact me here.

I don't expect a response to this. My gut tells me that everything "Todd Goldman" does and says is indeed Todd Goldman-- the persona is just too internally consistent with the guy whose most famous quote is an incitement to violence. But this is one time I'd be happy to be wrong.

Prove me wrong, Mr. Goldman.

Poor Randy.

"I hated the storylines you wrote for 'Penny and Aggie,' but when I heard you didn't write them I realized they were actually really good."

I've been there, man.

Blowing Bubbles (The List)

People I'm inviting to Blowing Bubbles today:

Jeremy Ross, Jon Rosenberg, Joe England, Joey Comeau and Elizabeth Horne, Josh Blaylock, Josh Lesnick, Kazu Kibuishi, Kristofer Straub and Scott Kurtz, Logan DeAngelis, Mark Mekkes, Maritza Campos, MC Frontalot, N!cholas Gurewich, Owen Gieni, Paul McSpadden of the Harvey Awards, Paul Southworth, Pete Abrams, Phil and Kaja Foglio, Randall Munroe, Randy Milholland, Randy Waxman, Regis Maher II, Rich Burlew, Richard Bruning, Ryan Estrada, Ryan North, Sarah Ellerton, Seraphim, Shaenon K. Garrity, Starline X. Hodge, Thin Slice, Tim Berners-Lee, Tim Demeter, Tom Siddell, Tracy J. Butler, Wendy Pini, Xaviar Xerexes, Zach Miller, Zach Weiner...

Greg Dean, Scott Christian Sava...

...and representatives of Mars, Inc., Jeep, Wal-Mart, Google and Microsoft.

Note this isn't a list of promises. Some of these guys may be podcast-shy, even though they couldn't possibly be worse speakers than I am. Others might be waiting for the call from Jon Stewart's people. Others may have become my archenemies for the year and forgotten to tell me. I'M SORRY, BUT AFTER THE SECOND OR THIRD TIME THAT HAPPENED, YOU'D GET PARANOID TOO.

EDIT: This was meant to go out last night but both it and the invitations got delayed by sweet, sweet sleep. Invites are going out today-- Friday.

Blowing Bubbles: Daku the Rogue, Bernie Hou

Two more interviews, one with webcomics' longest-lasting podcaster and one with one of the more inventive webcartoonists.

The current plan is to do 100 of these and then either end the series or change its focus. I've got a long list of people I want to invite! I'll share it with you later today.

A couple of people have asked if there's an RSS feed for them and all I can answer is "not for a couple more weeks at least." Both this blog and Broken Frontier have RSS feeds, though, so you can use those.

Podcaster Tip: Start Using Pamela Immediately

Pamela is an MP3 recorder that bonds seamlessly with Skype 3.0 and offers a host of extra features. When you start, it announces that the call is being recorded, so you're covered legally, and-- oh, yeah-- unlike HotRecorder, it doesn't pretend to record and then turn a 15-minute conversation into 3 KB of nothing. I had no warning of this problem before it developed, and HR's tech support was spectacularly unhelpful.

No regrets about switching at all.

Thanks to Daku for his patience in being interviewed twice. Unfortunately, I think the Dan Slott interview is no longer timely enough to run, so thanks to Dan for the interview that no one will hear.

Blowing Bubbles: Brandon "Enigma" "Scrubbo" Sonderegger

Two new webcomics pieces in Broken Frontier today. One is a review of Life's A Bluff by Matt Koelbl... the other is the fulfillment of a two-month-old ambition.

Thanks to Enigma for his forbearance and his perspective on the much-talked-about and little-understood Anna Nicole Smith.

Back In The Saddle!

My computer problems are finally well and truly banished, my schedule problems are also behind me, and with a mighty heave-ho, Blowing Bubbles is back in action with installment #10. Thanks to Eric Burns and Wednesday White for classing up the effort.