Better Dating Through Geekery

Scott Kurtz has announced that Dino Andrade, the voice of Skull in PvP Animated, now has a geek-centric dating site, Soul Geek. I've seen a similar concept at Otaku Booty, but I haven't done enough online dating that I could tell you which service is better yet.

This may change. :)

Professors Are UNFAIR.

I should not have had to bail on family yesterday to finish an assignment for Small Business Management Sunday evening. Who assigns homework right on Labor Day? (Hell, not really her fault. I should have finished it weeks ago.)

Aw, well. I got in five good hours with 'em yesterday, at least, plus dinner the night before. Skip the rest of this post if you're not interested in their doings...

Cousin Lizzie and her boyfriend Jeremy are looking well and moving forward quickly in their chosen professions, design and financial planning.

Cousins of my parents' generation Doug and Brenda Kincaid are always good to talk to, whether we're discussing things like Harrison Ford in The Witness or what books I'm reading or the status of Brenda's father, who has Alzheimer's but is holding onto basic functionality right now and at war with his power-mad neighbor.

Doug and Brenda's son Douglas was there, looking well; he asked me some questions about my job that were fun to answer.

Their daughter Sara, her husband John Martin Lesko and their children Hardt (4) and Crawford (2) are all settled nicely into Lynchburg. John, Jeremy, Hardt and I had a good time with a kid's foam football, even though its aerodynamic fins barely lasted through the game.

Uncle Jack and Aunt Sally are always good to see. Sally had prepared another DELICIOUS dessert, of course. Jack and I had a neat conversation in the ocean about A Clockwork Orange, 2001 and existentialism. And their sweet puppy, Winston, is wearing down Mom and Dad's resistance to getting a dog.

Mom's party-planning skills are impeccable as usual. (Mine need work: I'd wanted to get my buddies Greg, Charles and Jeneen out to meet some of these people and failed on all counts.) During our cookout lunch, Daddy took the role of master chef while Mom took the role of chief flyswatter.

Seeing extended family always leaves me with two bittersweet thoughts. I feel so bad for people who don't have this. And... how long do I want to stay in my ivory tower before getting a family of my own?

They Call Him THE KING

Skipped out tonight to see B.B. King perform with Dad and Graham, and oh I was so glad I did. Consummate showman. So, so joyful. He's 81 years old and he can still growl so hard your spine feels it.

My Uncle Arthur's Scrabble Solitaire

"This verbiage's a zealous attempt in reeling play, but I would be considered a quirky fox for having one weak card to join me."

A self-reflexive metacommentary using every tile on the Scrabble board. Arthur gets bored when he has no Scrabble sparring partner.

Also On Friday The 13th...

I learned that Margie, the woman who helped my parents raise me, is finally responding well to her eye surgery. Margie's left eye can see me again.

Publishing has its ups and downs. There are more important things.

Old Friends

Looking at Fans' dedication for the first time in years made me decide to track down the people who helped inspire the series, back in the day.

Greg Eatroff and I still see each other frequently, his Livejournal is here. Sara Cole and I do, too, but Sara doesn't have much of an online footprint outside of what I put here.


Chris Siefert: Busy at Sandia National Laboratories. Chris is such a great guy that he never even saw fit to bring up that Mobil had acquired a program he was working on in college. I didn't find out for years. Looks like Chris is doing really interesting research; I'm gonna have to spend more time looking it over. Hmmm, he has an e-mail addy...

David Larochelle is, or at least was, a PhD student at UVA. I can't find anything about his activities post-2003, but he and I saw each other after that. We'll see if his e-mail address still works.

Hunter Keeton is still in my call list; I attended his wedding and I've enjoyed the occasional visit with him and his lovely wife. Looks like he helped do a speech on the risks of giving sweepstakes recently. He and I could stand to catch up.

Matt and Liz Brooks maintain photo albums of their lives and family. I just found out they're expecting again. Liz does most of the albumming, really. Liz's journal is here, with miscellaneous additions here and another one here. She's one of the most prolific autobiographers I know.

Matt is here. He recently shaved his head to raise money to fight childhood cancer.

KT Hicks, married to Kevin Hicks (who seems altogether offline). Older Livejournal here. I saw Kevin and KT at Sara's baby shower for a bit, which was nice, though we don't sync our nerd wavelengths as easily as I do with Greg. (Things bogged down in a "Thundercats v. Transformers" debate.)

Ashby Gunter: mostly offline now. I last wrote about him here.

I have no idea what happened to Marc Cassell or John Baird. Their names are too common for me to be sure of any of the Google hits.

Colleen Cawood is in the periphery of my circle; last I heard, she was married with a child. I'll probably see her at a reunion sometime. Very hardworking person, was juggling two jobs on top of college courses. I should just ask our mutual friends about her.

Hug a friend today! You won't stay close to everyone you know!

San Diego Memories 2003

I wish I still had those photos of Tom the Fanboy, one of Fans' biggest fans, back when he dressed as "Timmespin" for San Diego Comic-Con '03.

My Famous Parents

From left and center. Pictured with Kathie Moore at the Contemporary Art Center of Virginia, for which Dad does a lot of interesting work. Via the Virginian-Pilot.

Sevensevenseven

I miss the days when I could spend a full hour reflecting on the mystic convergence that took place on August 8, almost 20 years ago: 8/8/88. Apparently there was a big celebration back then in Eighty Eight, Kentucky. I remember a news article that said there was a similar celebration in the town of Sevens, back in 7/7/77.

Today is 07/07/07. I wonder what the mood is like over there now.

I miss Oxford, too, a little.

My Fourth

Had a nice cookout with watermelon and a few of Sara's friends, then caught the fireworks from the fourth-story window of my apartment complex. I had a hard time staying away from the Matrix for very long, though. (Phase Three only 1% complete so far, but I'm accelerating.) I'm a workaholic, I think.

Aaaand I'm Off!

After two sixteen-hour days in front of the keyboard, I need this holiday like I need carbohydrates. Have a happy Fourth, Americans, and I'll see you tomorrow.

Off to Ethel's Funeral...

Blog and Broken Frontiersmanship when I return.

How'd I Miss This?

I'd heard Paris was freed after three days but not that she was sent back to jail afterward. I guess that Doonesbury sequence would work after all.

And I don't know whether to be embarrassed about not knowing that...

...or proud.

UPDATE 6/27/07: Phil Kahn informs me she was re-freed late yesterday. I guess that's an example of the problems of doing a topical strip. And, oh yeah, an example of injustice.

Goodbye, Ethel.

Ethel Gibbs passed away this morning.

I've written about her before, here and here and here and here (caution: comment links on older posts do not work).

She turned 102 last month.

I visited three times after she'd been laid up in a hospice with a bruised leg. The first two times, she was lively and chatty, although I think she was kinder to her visitors than her caregivers. ("She loves men," one of those caregivers said, a bit ruefully, as I walked in.)

The third time I visited her was the day of her fourth stroke. It took me a while to realize her condition, and a while longer to understand that it had changed since the last time the hospice workers had checked on her. She couldn't speak well, but they had pointed me to her matter-of-factly. I assumed everything that could be done for her was being done.

As the hospice workers and I finally realized something was wrong, I tried to keep talking until the ambulance arrived.

I told her everything I could about my life and the world around us, the world she always took such an interest in. But we only had one meaningful exchange that day, if you can call it meaningful:

"Ethel, can you hear me?"
[with difficulty] "I reear oo, T."

She took hold of my arm a couple of times as the paramedics arrived. Slurring unintelligibly.

Trying to tell me something.

I only saw her once after that, in the hospital bed. The TV was on and turned to Cops, of all things. She was fast asleep and stayed that way. I couldn't bear to wake her.

Her family saw to it that she died at home in bed, not in a hospital. I have faith that this made her happy. It was always the way she wanted to go, surrounded by loving family. She never regained the power of speech, but my parents visited her four days ago and said that she seemed to understand them.

One hundred years and more.

Life is valuable no matter how much of it you have.

Companies Are Not Moral.

Mike Sprang airs his bitter disappointment in Platinum's work-for-hire policies here, Joey Manley responds with artful metaphor here.

I still work for Platinum, and Tokyopop for that matter, so I obviously don't think quite like Mike and Joey do. But I think it comes down to one question. The question is: Can you live with losing control of this work?

I long ago decided my answer was "yes," as long as I had other work that remained my own. Now I have some projects like Divalicious of which my creative partners and I have surrendered some or all control, because there are other benefits, financial and creative. (We never could have gotten Diva into bookstores under our own power at that point in our careers and the market.) Others like Penny and Aggie are all ours.

But if your answer is "no," then don't work for hire. Nothing personal against Platinum, or Tokyopop, or Marvel, or any publisher. Companies are not moral.

Hope Y'All Had A Happy Father's Day...

Daddy and I had ours a week early. Didn't plan it that way-- I just forgot which week Father's Day was supposed to be, and Daddy'd been vacationing out of the country so he was a little off his calendar too. We went to see Ocean's Thirteen, a thoroughly faithful sequel that gave us the dependable guy's good time we were looking for.

And I got to give him a card that Gisele and I made together.

It was a good day.

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.

Treecomics?

Actual quote: "What better way to pay tribute to Cap than to have his Marvel Zombies counterpart taking the battle to a group of evil fascist Zombies! Take that, Zombie Hitler!"

...I'm speechless. Movin' on.

Great new interview with a couple of cartoonists whose new strips I hadn't even heard of three months ago: JJ Naas and Elanor Cooper.



My business final went well, too.

Hm. Think webcomics will become so widespread that the word "treecomics" will go mainstream? Probably not, but why should that stop us from using it?

Barely Coming Up For Air!

Wow, this weekend didn't go as expected at all. My brother suddenly flew into town, fresh from his spring break in the Caribbean, so we spent the afternoon on our usual pastimes-- movies, board games, Arrested Development. Good times. More good times followed on Sunday, as my oldest friend Beth Fine and I stood on the curb to cheer on her husband in his race through the 26-mile Shamrock Marathon, and as Greg and Sara turned up for my Sunday afternoon housewarming. These were all rare opportunities to spend time with friends and family, and I'm not sorry I took them.

But it did mean becoming one of those guys who gets behind, and I hate being that guy. Last night, I barely had time to look at a couple of documents and do some bare essentials before bed. And today was my take-home finance final, so that shot the day right there.

So-- many apologies to those who have been waiting for material from me. I'll turn this around as quick as I can.

And here's a couple of things for ya right now: interviews with Christopher Hastings and Brad Guigar. Brad's runs a bit long by the guidelines I'm trying to establish, but frankly, it's just too good to cut.

More soon.

I Need Time!

(This post is dated yesterday 'cause that's when I made it, but it didn't go up til Thursday for the reasons spelled out below.)

Sorry if you've been trying to reach me but my Internet connection isextremely spotty and my #1 priority is finishing up my financial studies, which goes a lot slower when the Internet goes down for hours. I'll be rushing to catch up in the next couple of days, so... patience, please. :-)

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Post Operations Recovery... (BF Mission Statement, 4 of 3)

Thanks to the concerned friends who've provided some support during the last difficult week. I'm sorry if it made this blog a slightly depressing read! Occasional crippling self-doubt is a part of the writing life.

At least one person pointed out to me that it probably isn't wise to use one project, which was so ambitious it was almost designed to fail, as a measure of my overall abilities. I'm feeling a lot stronger about my future in nonfiction-- in fact, I've got at least one nonfiction project in the works now, outside BF. I think you'll be interested.

Other than that, though, I think the mission statement still holds up. Just because periods of self-doubt feel crappy, you can still learn something from them. The hard lessons are supposed to be humbling.

So, let's put that nonfiction-writin' confidence to the test, shall we? And let's get back on track. Coming up later today, three make-up posts originally intended for Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

Lose Any Friends Today? (My BF Mission Statement, 1 of 3)

EMO POST AHEAD! FLEE WHILE YOU CAN!

So, yesterday wasn't the best. Less than a week into my tenure at Broken Frontier, I've had someone sever ties with me over something we featured. I'm not gonna get into further specifics about that here or anywhere online: fighting this guy in public is a lose-lose proposition, no matter which of us would "win." I mention it here because it didn't feel awesome, and it made me ask myself questions about why I'm still doing this and my approach.

Writing about comics isn't nearly as much fun as writing comics. It doesn't pay as well. I look back on my old comics and still smile sometimes-- I look back on my essays from a couple years ago and feel mortification. When I write an unpopular comic-strip episode, people get angry with the characters-- when I write an unpopular comics commentary, people get angry with me. I got more praise for Search Engine Funnies, a strip which didn't last thirty installments, than for the 192-page History of Webcomics. I'm not as good at nonfiction as I am at fiction, and I don't know if I ever will be. [Last sentence edited slightly for the permanent record.]

It wasn't always like this. Back in '05 I was losing more than I was making writing comics, the "History of Online Comics" series seemed almost-- almost!-- universally well-regarded, and I felt like I was at the top of my essayist game when I got the call from Antarctic Press. Writing the History stuff was damn hard, harder than anything I've done before or since, but I went into it convinced that it would be worth it, for myself and for the medium.

If you've read anything about it, you know how that worked out. The book does seem popular-ish among comic-book professionals still learning the digital space, but it has fewer fans in the webcomics community, and I'm no longer one of 'em. I still sort of like the ideas behind the thing, the facts are still true, but the execution, the tone, the predictions, the examples, the research mix, the writing-- I've got all these copies in storage and I don't even know if I can keep selling them in good conscience. I may just hold a bonfire.

So why the hell am I still in this?

Next post: the answer.

NYCC Con Report, 2006: Just TOO Popular.

Got to the con in the absolute nick of time to cover the much-discussed "Web Comics Panel without webcartoonists." Writeup to follow shortly!

Divalicious' initial orders were a little too good. Borders snapped up the entire initial 4,000-copy print run, leaving me and Amy without any copies of the book to promote. But Amy soared to the rescue. You've already peeked at our convention exclusive minicomic, but I didn't know she was planning to put them in a signed goodie bag along with customized buttons and magnets.

Then again, I shouldn't have been surprised. Amy brings a Tina-like energy to the whole creative process. Taking in the Oscars with her and talking plot points over chicken and pork were loads of fun. The whole Tokyopop crew was good to spend the day with.

I alternated between the T-Pop booth, hustling for work elsewhere, and sitting in "Podcaster's Alley" (like a suburb of "Artist's Alley," but with people who podcast). All three were nice experiences, especially since I got to share space with the Digital Strips boys. But there was a complication to the Podcaster's Alley experience... which deserves its own post. Tomorrow.

Enough vagueries! Beginning promised writeup now!

The Elephant Roadblock.

So, yesterday, as I was moving in? Had to take a five-minute break to let elephants pass.

Elephants! The circus was in town, and the elephants needed to walk past the intersection. They were followed by tiny ponies. Sorry, I didn't have my camera with me.

I think I'm going to like the new digs.

Today, My Only Business Is Business

I'll be spending most of the day writing up a profile of Marvel's financial picture for business class, with a quick break to bring my mattress into the new place. The warehouse where I got the mattress may have need of a webmaster, and since I currently own a lot more Internet real estate than I'm using, maybe we can work something out.

Yes, I know, this post is TOO exciting. If you've survived the thrill of reading it, stay tuned tomorrow.

The Dead Man's Coat.

No post yesterday! At least one make-up post this weekend. Sorry, but it was a busy day and most of it was offline.

I wrote about the departed Charlie Taylor a few days back, before I realized that I would be inheriting his coat. Unlike his son and wife, I have the build for it. There were still personal effects in its pockets, including a court summons, and, I believe, a dentist's appointment for today.

It's a very warm coat. The Taylors were quite kind to give it to me.

I imagine this superstitious feeling will fade with time.

We all miss you, Charlie.

RIP Charles Vernon Taylor

A couple of duties conspired to keep me from moving to my new place last week-- one happy, one sad.

Charlie Taylor, 61, was a friend of the family. His health had not been good for the last ten years, but he was flanked by two energetic presences: his loving wife Kay, who recently helped me in the discovery of my new apartment, and his sometimes mischievous, always good-hearted son Wade, who seems to have inherited Charlie's wit in the face of adversity.

I did not know Charlie as well as I would have liked. At his funeral, I was surprised when they played Eternal Father, Strong to Save. I later learned from Marion, his stepmother, that the hymn was one of his favorites because his father was a seaman. If you want, you can listen to it yourself here.

Sail on, Charlie.

Finance Day...

Some genius thought it would be a good idea to schedule my most difficult class on a Monday, starting the second week of the year, so that we'd have to skip our second class and do a double batch of homework before we'd gotten a chance to do a single batch of homework. I've been tunneling through my finance book since Sunday morning and still have three chapters to do in the next eight hours.

So I'm likely to be dead to the world today. Check out Saturday's entries instead.

My New Digs.

What can I say? I'm a sucker for a complex with a cartoonist-designed homepage.

Don't be fooled by the word "luxury." My earnings have improved, but I'm still lucky to be able to move into the smallest accomodations this place has to offer:





Still, I'm excited. It's a chance to make a space fully my own, which you just don't get with live-in landlords from Oxford or Washington, D.C. And cozy though it is, I'll be happy to entertain visitors, as long as you call first. :-)

Finance Terms I'm Supposed To Learn For Class This Week:

Pray for me.

Real asset
Financial asset
Common equity
Common stock
Par value
Retained earnings
Additional paid-in capital
Debt
Debt priority
Principal value
Face value
Maturity value
Discounted securities
Maturity date
Voting rights
Treasury bills (T-bills)
Repurchase agreement (repo)
Federal Funds (fed funds)
Banker's acceptance
Commercial paper
Certificate of deposit (CD)
Eurodollar deposit
Money market mutual funds
Term loan
Issuance cost
Bond
Coupon rate
Government bonds
Treasury notes (Treasury bonds)
Muncipal bonds
Revenue bonds
General obligation bonds
Corporate bonds
Mortgage bonds
Debenture
Subordinated debenture
Income bonds
Putable bonds
Indexed bonds (purchasing power bonds)
Floating-rate bonds
Conversion feature
Original issue discount bonds (OIDs, zero coupon bonds)
Junk bonds
Indenture
Trustee
Restrictive covenants
Call provision
Call premium
Call protection
Deferred call
Recall
Sinking funds
Conversion feature
Investment-grade bonds
Bond ratings (Moody's: Aaa, Aa, A, Baa, Ba, B, Caa, C; S&P: AAA, AA, A, BBB, BB, B, CCC, D)
Preferred stock
Cumulative dividends
Call premium
Income stocks
Growth stocks
Proxy
Proxy fight
Takeover
Poison pill
Preemptive right
Classified stock
Founders' shares
Closely held corporations
Closely held stock
Publicly owned corporations
Publicly owned stock
Derivatives
Option
Call option
Put option
Striking price
Exercise price
Convertible securities
Futures contracts (futures)
Swaps
Plain vanilla swap
American depository receipts (ADRs)
Foreign debt
Yankee bonds
Samurai bonds
Bulldog bonds
Eurodebt
Eurobonds
Eurocredits
LIBOR
Euro-commercial paper (Euro-CP)
Euronotes
Euro stock
Yankee stock

Operation: Comix Relief

I'm moving soon, and I had a surplus of copies in stock of Faans comics from way, way back in the day.

So this Christmas, I sent them to the troops. Despite Will's anti-military stance, I've seen a lot of troops in my native Virginia Beach that get a big kick out of the series.

If you have a similar surplus, or want to find out more about Comix Relief, the organization that helped me get them overseas, click here.

You may also be interested in Heroes4Heroes, a less comics-specific organization but no less worthy.

Behind The Scenes...

Sorry, I know this is kind of a last-minute-of-the-weekday post. A lot's going on. I'm gearing up to take a set of small-business classes over the next six months. I'm also trying to beef up my knowledge of programming languages and basic accounting. I'm essentially my own boss again, and so I want to be the best boss I can be.

Working on a lot of invisible stuff to prepare Penny and Aggie for the coming year. I'll share some of it when it becomes visible, which won't be long now.

I'm spending as much time as I can with Little Brother, who's set to head back to Duke University in a few more days.

Talkin' with artists about projects. Talkin' with clients about contracts.

And I'm looking for a new place in Hampton Roads. Today was mostly apartment-hunting. I drove around with Mom and Kaye Taylor, an old family friend who used to live in the area and who's quite the font of information about it. I saw a pricey place I really loved, which means the weekend will probably be crunch time. I want to have all the information I need to make a move before that place vanishes, and there are a lot of places to see!

The Family Wiki

One of my Christmas gifts this year: a little wiki to help my closely related family members keep track of one another. Definitely still a work in progress, but what wiki isn't?

To The Lovers, To Make Much of Time.

I'll keep this vague, in order to respect the privacy of those involved.

Earlier this month I found myself single again. It was not entirely unexpected. She and I had been long-distancing for most of our time together.

There were no flashpoints like a screaming argument or an affair. In fact, it's hard to pin down exactly when I became single. I had been almost sure before. But earlier this month is the first time I knew I was, beyond all doubt.

vacationship: A long-distance relationship in which the couple only gets together for idyllic vacation-like excursions, therefore avoiding the "real-life" issues of dating.

I don't regret the "vacationship," nor do I regret its end. It seemed we'd gone as far as we could go. We're still friends.

But I do regret all the vacation-like excursions we could have taken that we didn't take. Are you in love now? Make much of time, whether you worry if your love will last or not.

In the end, this too shall pass.

Merry Christmas!

To one and all.

I'm going to take at least the next three days off from blogging, possibly as much as a week. See you all soon!

Meanwhile: Hollywoodland Kryptonite

Dave Belmore and I interviewed Nancy Schoenberger, one of the authors of Hollywood Kryptonite, a book about the life and death of George Reeves which bore, shall we say, a suspicious similarity to the later movie Hollywoodland. She also happens to be my old creative writing professor. I honestly loathe my delivery in this one even more than usual, but listen for Nancy!

I'm listening to that delivery now and rehearsing my old speech therapy lessons in preparation for my first Broken Frontier interview. It'll be with these guys, and hit the site early next year.

Lifelock

At the instigation of a trusted friend who uses it, I signed up for Lifelock. It's a good choice for me, because, well, I'm an absentminded sunuvagun about some things and I need to systematize. If you're concerned about your identity, you might want to check it out.

"Gunman, 3 others die in Chicago office tower"

That kind of tragedy always feels unreal unless it happens near someone you know.

An Investment Kind of Day.

Some days you may be in a whirlwind of activity, but don't get any one thing done so much as set up future accomplishments. Today has been such a day.

I've decided I don't have anything to say right now about the webcomics fascination of the week, PvP Animated, except that I wish all the principals well and I'll be watching with interest. Webcomics coverage is so quick to jump the gun-- I'd rather keep my initial impressions to myself and wait until there's more to cover than the mere idea of the series and its first 60 seconds. But yeah, I'll be subscribing.

My Hearing Disability.

It's slight, but I seem to have a much harder time with ambient noise than the average person. This makes it tough to follow the conversation in a crowded room, as I learned for the hundredth time at a creative-person mixer tonight.

What really annoys me about it isn't the conversations I miss, it's the way that I look so rude when people have been talking for several minutes and see my eyes and mind wandering. Sorry, world! The offense is not intended!

Someone Tried To Steal My Identity Today.

The enterprising thief had my ss# and my birthdate. The credit card issuer only smelled something was up when he gave my hometown as "Orlando, Florida." (HA I WISH.)

I've talked to the credit people at Experian, and they've taken steps to make sure this doesn't happen again, at least for seven years. Thing is, they'll only do this for people who've had their credit threatened, not for the merely paranoid.

If you're worried about this, maybe you should try to steal your own identity. Then bust yourself, but escape your own vigilante justice, and enlist Experian to protect yourself from your own rampant criminality.