Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Broken Hip
OK, I was going to come home and write an extended review of the new Indiana Jones movie, but it's late. So I'll give you the short version now:
Karen Allen reprising Marian Ravenwood = +50 cool points.
The dialogue and general level of ridiculousness = minus several million bajillion cool points.
Seriously, I'm pretty tolerant and I did have fun watching it--but holy shit, did the scriptwriter for the first couple movies die in the intervening decades? You could have fit all the clever repartee in this one in a teacup and still had room for milk and two sugars. Sigh.
Sunday, June 01, 2008
Not Dead
I'm not dead, but my comments appear to be so. I'll try to sort that out later, I think it's got something to do with my old comments system (enetation) still being invisibly linked here via code... but not sure how that's bollocksing up the new comments system (Haloscan.) Oh well. Y'all didn't want to say anything anyway, right?
I'm not dead, but my comments appear to be so. I'll try to sort that out later, I think it's got something to do with my old comments system (enetation) still being invisibly linked here via code... but not sure how that's bollocksing up the new comments system (Haloscan.) Oh well. Y'all didn't want to say anything anyway, right?
Monday, May 26, 2008
Dooooommmmm.....
I would have blogged more about the con, but the main exciting event here was an outbreak of norovirus or something like it. I started feeling like crap when I'd been here about 24 hours; by 36 hours I was deep in the throes of stomach flu, and spent a good deal of yesterday being both miserable and pissed off. I woke up yesterday feeling kind of ick, and then when I went down to the front desk there were signs everywhere warning of an outbreak, and I was all "God DAMN it!" I'm not looking forward to the drive home, to say the least--while I'm better this morning, I wouldn't say I'm out of the woods yet. Gah.
I would have blogged more about the con, but the main exciting event here was an outbreak of norovirus or something like it. I started feeling like crap when I'd been here about 24 hours; by 36 hours I was deep in the throes of stomach flu, and spent a good deal of yesterday being both miserable and pissed off. I woke up yesterday feeling kind of ick, and then when I went down to the front desk there were signs everywhere warning of an outbreak, and I was all "God DAMN it!" I'm not looking forward to the drive home, to say the least--while I'm better this morning, I wouldn't say I'm out of the woods yet. Gah.
Saturday, May 24, 2008
It's a Mad Mad Madison...
Well, I'm up in Madison for the weekend, as I am every year at this time. I'm rooming with my good friend Mr. Noz. Sadly he has not left his blog logged in and unattended like he did last time, so I have not been able to sabotage his template or alter his link roll. He DID manage to leave his key in the room once already, and I could have let him howl miserably in the hallway, begging for the use of the bathroom, for a lot longer than I did a bit ago. But I let him in. Because that's the kind of friend I am.
At least he didn't spray seltzer water on me when he woke me up this morning at 6 am. That happened last time we roomed together, too....
Well, I'm up in Madison for the weekend, as I am every year at this time. I'm rooming with my good friend Mr. Noz. Sadly he has not left his blog logged in and unattended like he did last time, so I have not been able to sabotage his template or alter his link roll. He DID manage to leave his key in the room once already, and I could have let him howl miserably in the hallway, begging for the use of the bathroom, for a lot longer than I did a bit ago. But I let him in. Because that's the kind of friend I am.
At least he didn't spray seltzer water on me when he woke me up this morning at 6 am. That happened last time we roomed together, too....
Saturday, May 17, 2008
The Cold Grey Light of Dawn
So I went to my 20 year high school reunion two weekends ago. I have no problem with reunions, for the most part--thanks to my ridiculously poor memory, I don't really carry a lot of grudges for anything that happened during high school. There's no one likely to show up at our reunions who would make me go all cold with dread. Mind you, I had plenty of intense and damaging experiences in high school, just like everyone else; but time takes the edge off, plus most of them involved people I didn't end up graduating with anyway.
When I was in middle school, I had a couple of best friends. By high school, I had a completely different set of friends, because the first set had discovered the joys of substance abuse. Now, I'm the first to admit to being a bit of a straight-edger about drugs... but it's a chicken-and-egg thing, did I stop being friends with these people because I was so put off by their drug use, or was I so put off by seeing the effects of drug use on my friends that it cemented my opinion that it wasn't a place I wanted to go in my life? Drugs (and we're talking here about the gamut from pot to shrooms to acid to heroin) universally seemed to bring out the worst in my friends--if they were already depressed, lazy, uncommunicative, bad-tempered, forgetful or spacey, it just made them more so. They may have felt better on the inside, mind you, but for me on the outside looking in, it was annoying at best and completely maddening at worst. I had to fight down constant strong urges to punch them in the collective face. So, not surprisingly, those friendships died off. New ones took their place--and Mara, just so you know, thank you thank you thank you for being my pal for the past 25 years. :)
Now, the interesting thing about all of this is that I bopped along quite happily without those people for some time. When I went to college, NONE of my friends were into the drug scene in any substantial way. We didn't even drink that often. I'd occasionally run up against one of my old homies in one context or another, but it was obvious we were still not remotely on the same path. And I don't think I worried about it too much, other than still being annoyed that they'd changed so radically from the people I remembered.
Sometime in the late 1990's, one of those people--my best friend from Kindergarten through 6th grade or so--started contacting me again. She'd been through a lot of shit, come out the other side, and while I never got too many details about those intervening years, she wanted me to know she was sorry she'd been a jerk back then. And so we made up, and we visit now and then, and things are--while not the same as they might have been--are really very nice. About 6 months ago, the miracle of MySpace led to a reconnection with my first boyfriend/close friend from grades 7-9. He emailed me out of the blue to say he was sorry he'd been a jerk back in high school, and would I like to be friends again? Again I said, sure! He's married now, expecting a kid, and I'm looking forward to meeting up with him when I'm out in California sometime in the coming year.
The other most important person in my Lost Friend triumverate was a guy named Paul. When he dropped out of school, he almost completely dropped out of my life. He got into the indie music scene, and spent the subsequent decades doing the two things he loved--heroin, and playing the drums. Not necessarily in that order. In 2003, I heard from him via Friendster--he wanted to say he was sorry he'd been a jerk (you sense a theme here? apparently your 30's are all about the nostalgia and regret.) He told me he had seen me at the State Fair that year, but he'd been tripping at the time and hadn't wanted to try to talk to me. He seemed embarassed--and in the few subsequent email exchanges we had, he talked about trying to kick the drug habit, but it was apparent that things weren't going well in that area. So we didn't email much; we still didn't have a lot in common or a good frame of reference for each other's lives. We didn't really reconnect... but I always sort of assumed we would when he was ready and able.
So when Paul died of a heroin overdose last week, it was affecting on a lot of levels. On one hand, I mourned the loss of a guy who obviously meant so much to so many people in the here and now--there were about 200 people at his memorial service, mostly his pals from the music scene and from his years of wandering aimlessly around Broad Ripple, getting high, and having those endless conversations with friends and strangers that you have when you're young, or high, or both. I mourned the loss of a very talented musician; though his music in recent years wasn't to my tastes, I know that he devoted his life to creating sound in new and amazing ways, and I don't even pretend to understand what he achieved in his 25 years of making music. But mostly, I mourned the loss of my friend, who remains frozen for me at the age of 14...never aging, never going on to achieve the things he might have done if he'd made different choices way back then. I had forgotten how much I liked that guy, and it's like I lost him all over again--only now it's permanent.
Dammit.
So I went to my 20 year high school reunion two weekends ago. I have no problem with reunions, for the most part--thanks to my ridiculously poor memory, I don't really carry a lot of grudges for anything that happened during high school. There's no one likely to show up at our reunions who would make me go all cold with dread. Mind you, I had plenty of intense and damaging experiences in high school, just like everyone else; but time takes the edge off, plus most of them involved people I didn't end up graduating with anyway.
When I was in middle school, I had a couple of best friends. By high school, I had a completely different set of friends, because the first set had discovered the joys of substance abuse. Now, I'm the first to admit to being a bit of a straight-edger about drugs... but it's a chicken-and-egg thing, did I stop being friends with these people because I was so put off by their drug use, or was I so put off by seeing the effects of drug use on my friends that it cemented my opinion that it wasn't a place I wanted to go in my life? Drugs (and we're talking here about the gamut from pot to shrooms to acid to heroin) universally seemed to bring out the worst in my friends--if they were already depressed, lazy, uncommunicative, bad-tempered, forgetful or spacey, it just made them more so. They may have felt better on the inside, mind you, but for me on the outside looking in, it was annoying at best and completely maddening at worst. I had to fight down constant strong urges to punch them in the collective face. So, not surprisingly, those friendships died off. New ones took their place--and Mara, just so you know, thank you thank you thank you for being my pal for the past 25 years. :)
Now, the interesting thing about all of this is that I bopped along quite happily without those people for some time. When I went to college, NONE of my friends were into the drug scene in any substantial way. We didn't even drink that often. I'd occasionally run up against one of my old homies in one context or another, but it was obvious we were still not remotely on the same path. And I don't think I worried about it too much, other than still being annoyed that they'd changed so radically from the people I remembered.
Sometime in the late 1990's, one of those people--my best friend from Kindergarten through 6th grade or so--started contacting me again. She'd been through a lot of shit, come out the other side, and while I never got too many details about those intervening years, she wanted me to know she was sorry she'd been a jerk back then. And so we made up, and we visit now and then, and things are--while not the same as they might have been--are really very nice. About 6 months ago, the miracle of MySpace led to a reconnection with my first boyfriend/close friend from grades 7-9. He emailed me out of the blue to say he was sorry he'd been a jerk back in high school, and would I like to be friends again? Again I said, sure! He's married now, expecting a kid, and I'm looking forward to meeting up with him when I'm out in California sometime in the coming year.
The other most important person in my Lost Friend triumverate was a guy named Paul. When he dropped out of school, he almost completely dropped out of my life. He got into the indie music scene, and spent the subsequent decades doing the two things he loved--heroin, and playing the drums. Not necessarily in that order. In 2003, I heard from him via Friendster--he wanted to say he was sorry he'd been a jerk (you sense a theme here? apparently your 30's are all about the nostalgia and regret.) He told me he had seen me at the State Fair that year, but he'd been tripping at the time and hadn't wanted to try to talk to me. He seemed embarassed--and in the few subsequent email exchanges we had, he talked about trying to kick the drug habit, but it was apparent that things weren't going well in that area. So we didn't email much; we still didn't have a lot in common or a good frame of reference for each other's lives. We didn't really reconnect... but I always sort of assumed we would when he was ready and able.
So when Paul died of a heroin overdose last week, it was affecting on a lot of levels. On one hand, I mourned the loss of a guy who obviously meant so much to so many people in the here and now--there were about 200 people at his memorial service, mostly his pals from the music scene and from his years of wandering aimlessly around Broad Ripple, getting high, and having those endless conversations with friends and strangers that you have when you're young, or high, or both. I mourned the loss of a very talented musician; though his music in recent years wasn't to my tastes, I know that he devoted his life to creating sound in new and amazing ways, and I don't even pretend to understand what he achieved in his 25 years of making music. But mostly, I mourned the loss of my friend, who remains frozen for me at the age of 14...never aging, never going on to achieve the things he might have done if he'd made different choices way back then. I had forgotten how much I liked that guy, and it's like I lost him all over again--only now it's permanent.
Dammit.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Greetings from the 9th Circle
I spent the weekend at a medieval studies conference in Kalamazoo. This is always a good time, even when I'm only there for 1 full day. But this week has been a long series of bad news from multiple directions, which I'm not really prepared to blog about just yet, and while I'm glad I went, I'm still kind of in a fog. When I'm depressed or under stress, I tend to slip into a purely functional mode; I get things done on a purely mechanical level, can still hold conversations and make jokes, but I can't really think or concentrate beyond a certain depth, and that's kind of where I am at the moment. A 4 hour drive each way to and from Michigan is, unfortunately, way too much time for contemplation when I'm in a Mood. As my friend Ellen said, "Thank god your car radio works, at least!" True dat! I can't imagine where my head would be if I hadn't had a few worthwhile CD's in the car--the stretch between Battle Creek and Ft. Wayne is one long, lonely string of country/western stations...
I spent the weekend at a medieval studies conference in Kalamazoo. This is always a good time, even when I'm only there for 1 full day. But this week has been a long series of bad news from multiple directions, which I'm not really prepared to blog about just yet, and while I'm glad I went, I'm still kind of in a fog. When I'm depressed or under stress, I tend to slip into a purely functional mode; I get things done on a purely mechanical level, can still hold conversations and make jokes, but I can't really think or concentrate beyond a certain depth, and that's kind of where I am at the moment. A 4 hour drive each way to and from Michigan is, unfortunately, way too much time for contemplation when I'm in a Mood. As my friend Ellen said, "Thank god your car radio works, at least!" True dat! I can't imagine where my head would be if I hadn't had a few worthwhile CD's in the car--the stretch between Battle Creek and Ft. Wayne is one long, lonely string of country/western stations...
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Look! Some Comic Books!
Exhibit opens May 3, and I am apparently too busy/addled to post. But I do have time to make a Flickr photoset. Will be adding to it all this week... Hope you like it!
Exhibit opens May 3, and I am apparently too busy/addled to post. But I do have time to make a Flickr photoset. Will be adding to it all this week... Hope you like it!
Friday, April 11, 2008
At Long Last
Spring arrived, for a total of one day; tomorrow, we are back to 40 degree temperatures and a chance of snow for the weekend. But the promise of spring is in the air, and along with spring comes the Indianapolis International Film Festival. Last year I missed most of it, but I'm thinking this year I may try to catch a few films; year before last I bought a 10 ticket bundle and saw several really good things. But I was also a volunteer that year, and it wasn't a good experience--the IIFF is not a well-oiled machine, or at least it wasn't back then, and IFS (the Indiana Film Society, of which I'm a board member) actually got the short end of the stick from our linking up with IIFF that year. So in 2007 I still had a bit of a bad taste in my mouth regarding the IIFF. I'm still not offering to volunteer for them, but I'm perfectly happy to go see some cool films in a few weeks. The run of the festival includes the weekend of our new exhibit opening, and coincidentally my 20 Year High School Reunion falls on that very same day. Hell, I may need a little escapism that week...
Spring arrived, for a total of one day; tomorrow, we are back to 40 degree temperatures and a chance of snow for the weekend. But the promise of spring is in the air, and along with spring comes the Indianapolis International Film Festival. Last year I missed most of it, but I'm thinking this year I may try to catch a few films; year before last I bought a 10 ticket bundle and saw several really good things. But I was also a volunteer that year, and it wasn't a good experience--the IIFF is not a well-oiled machine, or at least it wasn't back then, and IFS (the Indiana Film Society, of which I'm a board member) actually got the short end of the stick from our linking up with IIFF that year. So in 2007 I still had a bit of a bad taste in my mouth regarding the IIFF. I'm still not offering to volunteer for them, but I'm perfectly happy to go see some cool films in a few weeks. The run of the festival includes the weekend of our new exhibit opening, and coincidentally my 20 Year High School Reunion falls on that very same day. Hell, I may need a little escapism that week...
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Limited Engagement - One Night Only!
So you all know how much I love circus posters, and circus wagons, and the circus museum in Baraboo, right? (Mind you, I don't actually like circuses themselves, at least not the modern version of them--but that's a paradox for another day.) Anyway, check out this beaut of an original half-sheet poster I bought at the antique advertising show last weekend! Dates from 1938, I'm fairly sure--after Sells-Floto was bought out by Ringling Bros but before the Ringlings had completely absorbed them and discarded the Sells name. The "Portage" is Portage, Wisconsin. The rip in the corner is the only reason I was able to afford it at all... and it still wasn't cheap. But no buyer's remorse here, I love it.
So you all know how much I love circus posters, and circus wagons, and the circus museum in Baraboo, right? (Mind you, I don't actually like circuses themselves, at least not the modern version of them--but that's a paradox for another day.) Anyway, check out this beaut of an original half-sheet poster I bought at the antique advertising show last weekend! Dates from 1938, I'm fairly sure--after Sells-Floto was bought out by Ringling Bros but before the Ringlings had completely absorbed them and discarded the Sells name. The "Portage" is Portage, Wisconsin. The rip in the corner is the only reason I was able to afford it at all... and it still wasn't cheap. But no buyer's remorse here, I love it.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
My Checkered Past
We have a new employee at work. She and I are getting along quite well, she responds effectively to my sarcastic and abusive tendencies with same. But the other day I said something about my teaching job, and she said (essentially) "WTF?!?! How many jobs have you HAD? You talk about working in retail, working for a game company, going to grad school, blah blah blah--how many career changes can one person have?" How many, indeed. I realized I had no idea how many different jobs I'd had, so I thought I'd count it out.
Game store clerk/manager/ubermanager - 1987-1996, 1998-2002.
Campus Patrol - 1989.
Costume seamstress - 1989-1992.
Comic Book envelope stuffer - 1988-89. (thanks for the reminder, noz)
Apprentice Personal Property Appraiser - 1993.
Freelance set construction and run crew work, various local theaters - 1992-1996.
Grad school - 1996-1998, 2003-2006.
Pet store clerk - 1998.
Teaching assistant, World History 105/6 - 1996-97.
Research Assistant - 1997-98.
University office assistant - 2003-2005.
Seasonal gardener at the zoo - 2004, 2005.
Animal care volunteer at the zoo - 2003-2007.
Game company sales director - 2004-2007.
Teaching assistant, Art History 101/102 - 2005-2007.
Adjunct professor, art appreciation - 2006-2007.
Web page content developer - 2006-2007.
Contract worker, various local museums - 2004-2007.
Miniature painting artist - 2004-present (though I really started informally back in 1988 or so.)
Museum exhibit developer - 2007-present.
My god, is that really everything? Seems short, somehow.... How many varied jobs have you had?
We have a new employee at work. She and I are getting along quite well, she responds effectively to my sarcastic and abusive tendencies with same. But the other day I said something about my teaching job, and she said (essentially) "WTF?!?! How many jobs have you HAD? You talk about working in retail, working for a game company, going to grad school, blah blah blah--how many career changes can one person have?" How many, indeed. I realized I had no idea how many different jobs I'd had, so I thought I'd count it out.
Game store clerk/manager/ubermanager - 1987-1996, 1998-2002.
Campus Patrol - 1989.
Costume seamstress - 1989-1992.
Comic Book envelope stuffer - 1988-89. (thanks for the reminder, noz)
Apprentice Personal Property Appraiser - 1993.
Freelance set construction and run crew work, various local theaters - 1992-1996.
Grad school - 1996-1998, 2003-2006.
Pet store clerk - 1998.
Teaching assistant, World History 105/6 - 1996-97.
Research Assistant - 1997-98.
University office assistant - 2003-2005.
Seasonal gardener at the zoo - 2004, 2005.
Animal care volunteer at the zoo - 2003-2007.
Game company sales director - 2004-2007.
Teaching assistant, Art History 101/102 - 2005-2007.
Adjunct professor, art appreciation - 2006-2007.
Web page content developer - 2006-2007.
Contract worker, various local museums - 2004-2007.
Miniature painting artist - 2004-present (though I really started informally back in 1988 or so.)
Museum exhibit developer - 2007-present.
My god, is that really everything? Seems short, somehow.... How many varied jobs have you had?
Sunday, March 09, 2008
Back to Normal
Well, my finger is, anyway. I seem to have not done any permanent damage, as usual... But otherwise, not a lot to report. I'd like to do one of my long ranting posts on why I hate DST today, just to celebrate the joy of having to suffer several weeks of painful internal clock adjustment; but out of consideration for my readers, such as they are, I'm instead doing another webcomic post. This week's bundle of joy is "How to be Happy," by Shannon Wheeler. I met Shannon at Comic Con this summer, and he's a fabulous guy, very friendly and enthusiastic--about his own comics, but also the topic of comics and comic books in general. He made me wish our upcoming exhibit weren't limited to comic books, I'd have loved to get him involved. Maybe the next time around.
As usual, you can click to view it big. Shannon's mainly known for his cult-status comic character, Too Much Coffee Man; but "How to be Happy" mostly centers on a guy, his cat, and the occasional giant space squid. I love his art. I love the very simple, very expressive black linework. The cat in panel 2 is awesome, with only a few lines and dots we have a very earnest expression as the cat peers down at his owner--"You awake? Hello?" The cat flying out the door in panel 6, with his little stick legs crossed as he flails (just as my cats do in this exact situation)--and then the completely unexpected punchline. Perfect. One of my complaints with some webcomics is the failure to understand timing between panels--building up to a good solid punchline isn't easy, after all. Standup comedians have trouble with this concept all the time, it's not surprising some cartoonists do too. But "How to be Happy" consistantly delivers, whether he's doing a serial plot or a one-off. Even when he's doing a "god, I have writer's block" comic, the art never fails to charm me. So this is another one I strongly recommend checking out, if you're up for another webcomic in your life.
Well, my finger is, anyway. I seem to have not done any permanent damage, as usual... But otherwise, not a lot to report. I'd like to do one of my long ranting posts on why I hate DST today, just to celebrate the joy of having to suffer several weeks of painful internal clock adjustment; but out of consideration for my readers, such as they are, I'm instead doing another webcomic post. This week's bundle of joy is "How to be Happy," by Shannon Wheeler. I met Shannon at Comic Con this summer, and he's a fabulous guy, very friendly and enthusiastic--about his own comics, but also the topic of comics and comic books in general. He made me wish our upcoming exhibit weren't limited to comic books, I'd have loved to get him involved. Maybe the next time around.
As usual, you can click to view it big. Shannon's mainly known for his cult-status comic character, Too Much Coffee Man; but "How to be Happy" mostly centers on a guy, his cat, and the occasional giant space squid. I love his art. I love the very simple, very expressive black linework. The cat in panel 2 is awesome, with only a few lines and dots we have a very earnest expression as the cat peers down at his owner--"You awake? Hello?" The cat flying out the door in panel 6, with his little stick legs crossed as he flails (just as my cats do in this exact situation)--and then the completely unexpected punchline. Perfect. One of my complaints with some webcomics is the failure to understand timing between panels--building up to a good solid punchline isn't easy, after all. Standup comedians have trouble with this concept all the time, it's not surprising some cartoonists do too. But "How to be Happy" consistantly delivers, whether he's doing a serial plot or a one-off. Even when he's doing a "god, I have writer's block" comic, the art never fails to charm me. So this is another one I strongly recommend checking out, if you're up for another webcomic in your life.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Last Aid
I was going to write another post on webcomics, but then I shut my finger in a door and severely limited by typing speed (already pretty piss-poor.) So instead I offer you this gem of a video, which I found via SirValence.
I was going to write another post on webcomics, but then I shut my finger in a door and severely limited by typing speed (already pretty piss-poor.) So instead I offer you this gem of a video, which I found via SirValence.
Thursday, February 07, 2008
Why I Love Webcomics.
OK, this is going to be a completely wasted post for anyone who is not particularly into comics, comic books, or the idea of sequential visual storytelling. But I'm thinking about it a lot lately--"it" being, what makes a good comic good, at least for me? I've been working on a project involving comics at work for the last 6 months As part of that project I've had a couple of really entertaining and fruitful chats with Scott McCloud, whose books Understanding Comics and Making Comics have comprised a huge portion of the background research for the project. One of the things that keeps coming up in these conversations is the place of the webcomic in the world of "Comics" with a capital C. I love traditional superhero comics and the graphic novels they've spawned in the last 20 years; but as Scott has pointed out, some of the most inovative, crazy, and wonderful stuff out there in the first part of this new century has sprung not from pen and ink, but from stylus and Wacom. (Yes, I know many webcomic artists do still use pen and then scan it in. Shut up.)
In the last couple weeks, I've become aware of a blog called "PvP Makes Me Sad," which is a panel by panel critical deconstruction of one of the most popular webcomics out there. I started reading it regularly, not because I am a meanspirited brute who hates Scott Kurtz, but because--like the blog's author--I used to be a big fan of PvP, and now I hardly ever read it anymore. It's not just the material--which is admittedly often same-joke-different-day--but the fact that it's basically a 3-4 panel standard comic with predictable punch lines and somewhat repetative art. (I think of this as KoDT syndrome--Knights of the Dinner Table was damn funny for about the first year I read it. And then it was the same characters, doing the same things, in essentially the same drawings--I think they were often actual photocopies of earlier panels--and I started to think, WTF? Where's the fun in that? And I stopped reading regularly. So it's been with PvP, though admittedly Kurtz is a far far better artist than Jolly Washburn.) I've been enjoying "PvP Makes Me Sad," partly because its author has managed to put a finger on why PvP doesn't work for me anymore. The timing is often off. There are places where just a tiny adjustment of phrasing or attention to a detail of line would turn an OK comic into a pretty funny one, and it's not happening. This kind of analysis is always interesting to me, again in light of McCloud's books--a well-crafted comic requires those kind of fine-tuning adjustments to go from good to great. Some webcomics are brilliant because of this... and instead of spending a blog post trashing on a webcomic I find disappointing, I'm going to spend a couple looking at webcomics I think are amazing, and trying to sort out why.
The first one I'm looking at is a comic that only updates about once a week these days, if that. I bring this up because I don't have it on RSS; I just pop on the site and check it every few days. And even when it's not a new comic, I will always scroll down and re-read the present post, because Beaver and Steve always makes me laugh. Even when I've read the same panels 5 times before, I'll read it again and snicker, because James Turner is a freakin' genius. Beaver and Steve tends to be a bit surreal in its plotting, which is one of the things I like about it--all you really need to know is that Beaver is sensible and practical, and Steve is a creative thinker. In the present storyline, he has started a sweatshop factory to make Steve Brand tennis shoes in the arctic, using the local workforce (seals) as cheap labor. Here's this week's offering (click to view big):
First of all, I like how the panels are laid out, with the tall one in the center; the artist gets to really create a swirl of chaos around Miss Jones, with seals flying every which way, mixed in and around with Turner's trademark onomotopoeia sound effects. It's a great panel. The seals look so shocked. And the spilled coffee creates a sense for us of what happened outside Steve's door between panels 1 & 2--Miss Jones GOT the requested coffee. She was on her way to his office, when suddenly nature got the better of her and GRAAAARRRRR ark ark ark!! Monty Pythonesque in its hilariousness. And then her expression in Panel 4: embarrassed, apologetic--"I don't know how this happened, I'm soooo sorry Mr. Steve," and the little detail of the nervous gesture of her tapping fingertips/claws. And best of all, the seal in panel 5 has, not stars, but little tiny fishes swirling over his head. Almost unnoticeable, it's like an easter egg within the drawing. And so Steve learns that it's so hard to find good help these days... Anyway, Beaver and Steve is one of my very favorite webcomics for just this reason--it's always visually rich, yet subtle in its humor. If you're inclined to go through the archives, you'll see this is just the tip of the iceberg--Turner pushes all kinds of limits in his plotting, sequencing, and drawing style, in ways that I've never seen in print comics.
Next time: I blather on about some other comic I like. Maybe.
OK, this is going to be a completely wasted post for anyone who is not particularly into comics, comic books, or the idea of sequential visual storytelling. But I'm thinking about it a lot lately--"it" being, what makes a good comic good, at least for me? I've been working on a project involving comics at work for the last 6 months As part of that project I've had a couple of really entertaining and fruitful chats with Scott McCloud, whose books Understanding Comics and Making Comics have comprised a huge portion of the background research for the project. One of the things that keeps coming up in these conversations is the place of the webcomic in the world of "Comics" with a capital C. I love traditional superhero comics and the graphic novels they've spawned in the last 20 years; but as Scott has pointed out, some of the most inovative, crazy, and wonderful stuff out there in the first part of this new century has sprung not from pen and ink, but from stylus and Wacom. (Yes, I know many webcomic artists do still use pen and then scan it in. Shut up.)
In the last couple weeks, I've become aware of a blog called "PvP Makes Me Sad," which is a panel by panel critical deconstruction of one of the most popular webcomics out there. I started reading it regularly, not because I am a meanspirited brute who hates Scott Kurtz, but because--like the blog's author--I used to be a big fan of PvP, and now I hardly ever read it anymore. It's not just the material--which is admittedly often same-joke-different-day--but the fact that it's basically a 3-4 panel standard comic with predictable punch lines and somewhat repetative art. (I think of this as KoDT syndrome--Knights of the Dinner Table was damn funny for about the first year I read it. And then it was the same characters, doing the same things, in essentially the same drawings--I think they were often actual photocopies of earlier panels--and I started to think, WTF? Where's the fun in that? And I stopped reading regularly. So it's been with PvP, though admittedly Kurtz is a far far better artist than Jolly Washburn.) I've been enjoying "PvP Makes Me Sad," partly because its author has managed to put a finger on why PvP doesn't work for me anymore. The timing is often off. There are places where just a tiny adjustment of phrasing or attention to a detail of line would turn an OK comic into a pretty funny one, and it's not happening. This kind of analysis is always interesting to me, again in light of McCloud's books--a well-crafted comic requires those kind of fine-tuning adjustments to go from good to great. Some webcomics are brilliant because of this... and instead of spending a blog post trashing on a webcomic I find disappointing, I'm going to spend a couple looking at webcomics I think are amazing, and trying to sort out why.
The first one I'm looking at is a comic that only updates about once a week these days, if that. I bring this up because I don't have it on RSS; I just pop on the site and check it every few days. And even when it's not a new comic, I will always scroll down and re-read the present post, because Beaver and Steve always makes me laugh. Even when I've read the same panels 5 times before, I'll read it again and snicker, because James Turner is a freakin' genius. Beaver and Steve tends to be a bit surreal in its plotting, which is one of the things I like about it--all you really need to know is that Beaver is sensible and practical, and Steve is a creative thinker. In the present storyline, he has started a sweatshop factory to make Steve Brand tennis shoes in the arctic, using the local workforce (seals) as cheap labor. Here's this week's offering (click to view big):
First of all, I like how the panels are laid out, with the tall one in the center; the artist gets to really create a swirl of chaos around Miss Jones, with seals flying every which way, mixed in and around with Turner's trademark onomotopoeia sound effects. It's a great panel. The seals look so shocked. And the spilled coffee creates a sense for us of what happened outside Steve's door between panels 1 & 2--Miss Jones GOT the requested coffee. She was on her way to his office, when suddenly nature got the better of her and GRAAAARRRRR ark ark ark!! Monty Pythonesque in its hilariousness. And then her expression in Panel 4: embarrassed, apologetic--"I don't know how this happened, I'm soooo sorry Mr. Steve," and the little detail of the nervous gesture of her tapping fingertips/claws. And best of all, the seal in panel 5 has, not stars, but little tiny fishes swirling over his head. Almost unnoticeable, it's like an easter egg within the drawing. And so Steve learns that it's so hard to find good help these days... Anyway, Beaver and Steve is one of my very favorite webcomics for just this reason--it's always visually rich, yet subtle in its humor. If you're inclined to go through the archives, you'll see this is just the tip of the iceberg--Turner pushes all kinds of limits in his plotting, sequencing, and drawing style, in ways that I've never seen in print comics.
Next time: I blather on about some other comic I like. Maybe.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Have Stone, Will Curl
In my endless quest to participate in the most bizarre and esoteric sports on the planet, I have added yet another notch on my metaphorical bow:
CURLING.
Yes. A sport involving brooms, giant heavy rocks, and ice. If you were not sucked in by the 2006 Olympic Curling championships on TV, then here is a YouTube video showing the Canadian Men winning with what can only be described as a perfect shot. The narration in Russian just makes it all the more entertaining. (At least, I think it's Russian.) Anyway, after almost 2 years, Indianapolis finally has its own curling club and I am THERE.
I suck at it, of course. Here are the things I've learned:
1. Many things can affect where the rock ends up stopping, including how hard you throw it, how much English you put on it, how hard your sweepers are sweeping, and how the ice is running.
2. I am completely incapable of perceiving ANY of these factors when I am actually the one throwing the rock. I'm too busy wondering if I'm about to fall over as I launch myself forward out of the hack. But I'm hoping to get the hang of it.
So if you're in Indy and you want to try curling, here is a basic primer:
The point of the game is to score points. You do this by sliding a granite boulder with a handle on top along a sheet of ice toward a target at the other end. After each team has slid 8 rocks down the sheet, you look to see who's got a rock closest to the center of the target, and that team scores. It's called curling, because the rock usually doesn't slide straight, but curls in one direction or another depending on which way it's rotating as it slides and how melty the surface of the ice is beneath it. Your teammates may attempt to affect the speed and curl of your throw by scrubbing the ice in front of the moving rock with brooms--this melts up the ice just a tiny bit and makes the rock speed up and curl less. When to sweep and how hard to sweep is one of the subtleties that will only come from experience; likewise which way to spin the rock and how hard to throw it. All my throws seem to cruise straight through the target and out the back, or else fall short and are taken out of play. But I've only done it twice. There's always room for improvement...
In my endless quest to participate in the most bizarre and esoteric sports on the planet, I have added yet another notch on my metaphorical bow:
CURLING.
Yes. A sport involving brooms, giant heavy rocks, and ice. If you were not sucked in by the 2006 Olympic Curling championships on TV, then here is a YouTube video showing the Canadian Men winning with what can only be described as a perfect shot. The narration in Russian just makes it all the more entertaining. (At least, I think it's Russian.) Anyway, after almost 2 years, Indianapolis finally has its own curling club and I am THERE.
I suck at it, of course. Here are the things I've learned:
1. Many things can affect where the rock ends up stopping, including how hard you throw it, how much English you put on it, how hard your sweepers are sweeping, and how the ice is running.
2. I am completely incapable of perceiving ANY of these factors when I am actually the one throwing the rock. I'm too busy wondering if I'm about to fall over as I launch myself forward out of the hack. But I'm hoping to get the hang of it.
So if you're in Indy and you want to try curling, here is a basic primer:
The point of the game is to score points. You do this by sliding a granite boulder with a handle on top along a sheet of ice toward a target at the other end. After each team has slid 8 rocks down the sheet, you look to see who's got a rock closest to the center of the target, and that team scores. It's called curling, because the rock usually doesn't slide straight, but curls in one direction or another depending on which way it's rotating as it slides and how melty the surface of the ice is beneath it. Your teammates may attempt to affect the speed and curl of your throw by scrubbing the ice in front of the moving rock with brooms--this melts up the ice just a tiny bit and makes the rock speed up and curl less. When to sweep and how hard to sweep is one of the subtleties that will only come from experience; likewise which way to spin the rock and how hard to throw it. All my throws seem to cruise straight through the target and out the back, or else fall short and are taken out of play. But I've only done it twice. There's always room for improvement...
Sunday, January 20, 2008
I MADE YOU A QUIZ...BUT I EATED IT.
My score on The Which Lolcat Are You? Test:
**************************************
Lion Warning Cat
(51% Affectionate, 63% Excitable, 46% Hungry)
You are the good Samaritan of the lolcat world. Protecting others from danger by shouting observations and guidance in cases of imminent threat, you believe in the well-being of everyone.
**************************************
Take it!
http://www.okcupid.com/tests/6348388576689378978/Which-Lolcat-Are-You-
The problem with LOLcats is that I'm completely at a loss to explain why I find them so hilariously funny. I think it's a cumulative effect from having spent a sick day paging through the archives of I Can Has Cheezburger. Or maybe I'm just easily amused these days...
My score on The Which Lolcat Are You? Test:
**************************************
Lion Warning Cat
(51% Affectionate, 63% Excitable, 46% Hungry)
You are the good Samaritan of the lolcat world. Protecting others from danger by shouting observations and guidance in cases of imminent threat, you believe in the well-being of everyone.
**************************************
Take it!
http://www.okcupid.com/tests/6348388576689378978/Which-Lolcat-Are-You-
The problem with LOLcats is that I'm completely at a loss to explain why I find them so hilariously funny. I think it's a cumulative effect from having spent a sick day paging through the archives of I Can Has Cheezburger. Or maybe I'm just easily amused these days...
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Who Put the Goat In There?
I can already tell that Netflix is going to change my life for the better. I am one of those people who hardly ever sees movies in the theater; I like documentaries, foreign and independent films, and I've got a long list of things I've seen reviewed which I'd like to watch.... but since Rhinebeck is really too far a drive now, and the Indianapolis arts theater is expensive, and I'm spacy and forget to check what they've got on... I miss stuff. One of the things I missed, way back in the day, was Earth, the second film in Deepa Mehta's Elements trilogy. I saw Fire when it first came out, when Upyernoz and I were still doing our near-weekly trips to the Music Box to catch whatever cool foreign flicks were on offer. I thought it was fantastic, hands down, and made up my mind to catch the other two films which were (we thought) to follow shortly. Earth did come out in 1998, the year I left Chicago, and no opportunity to see it arose, and it didn't show up at my local rental place, and I forgot about it. The third movie met with difficulties--the first two were not popular in the areas of India where Mehta was doing her filming, and as I understand it, a lot of her equipment was destroyed, workers threatened, etc. So the production ground to a halt, and the film was eventually finished in Sri Lanka and released in 2005. I caught Water at its Indianapolis premiere in 2006, and my review of it is here. But the whole point of this is--I did HAVE a point--that shortly after signing up for Netflix I realized I could finally see Earth and complete the trifecta. GOOOOOO ME!
Earth was very, very good. It's a story of what happened in Lahore in 1947, as the British were pulling up the stakes and saying "see you later, and oh by the way, this is now Pakistan and that's India, have a nice day!" The resultant rapid and gruesome explosion of Lahore's formerly closely knit community of Hindus, Sikhs, Moslems and Parsees forms the backbone of the film. I thought it was better than Water, personally; and like all of the trilogy, it was wrenchingly painful, beautiful, and funny all at the same time. It was not as visually lush as the other two films, I didn't feel overwhelmed by the visuals. Both Earth and Water are told through the eyes of children who don't really grasp the significance of what is going on around them, and I think this is why the latter two lack the intimate feel of Fire. But at any rate, I highly recommend all three films.
So I also like Indian cinema--and by Indian cinema here I don't mean Deepa Mehta. I am an unashamed fan of Bollywood musicals, and they are the sort of thing where you either think they are fantastic and amazingly hilarious, or you think they are bizarre and annoying. There is very little middle ground. So if you are in the second category, I strongly recommend that you NOT watch This You Tube Video. I found this link via Jane, literally minutes after finishing watching Earth, and I laughed so hard I cried. One thing to note, if you've never encountered this genre of films before, is that while Bollywood musicals are generally subtitled, and the dialogue is usually in Hindi, the musical numbers are almost NEVER subtitled, and the lyrics are frequently in another language like Urdu. So you--the average American viewer--will NEVER know what the FUCK they are singing about, and frankly this video pretty accurately simulates what my brain is filling in when I am watching one of these films. I love it.
I can already tell that Netflix is going to change my life for the better. I am one of those people who hardly ever sees movies in the theater; I like documentaries, foreign and independent films, and I've got a long list of things I've seen reviewed which I'd like to watch.... but since Rhinebeck is really too far a drive now, and the Indianapolis arts theater is expensive, and I'm spacy and forget to check what they've got on... I miss stuff. One of the things I missed, way back in the day, was Earth, the second film in Deepa Mehta's Elements trilogy. I saw Fire when it first came out, when Upyernoz and I were still doing our near-weekly trips to the Music Box to catch whatever cool foreign flicks were on offer. I thought it was fantastic, hands down, and made up my mind to catch the other two films which were (we thought) to follow shortly. Earth did come out in 1998, the year I left Chicago, and no opportunity to see it arose, and it didn't show up at my local rental place, and I forgot about it. The third movie met with difficulties--the first two were not popular in the areas of India where Mehta was doing her filming, and as I understand it, a lot of her equipment was destroyed, workers threatened, etc. So the production ground to a halt, and the film was eventually finished in Sri Lanka and released in 2005. I caught Water at its Indianapolis premiere in 2006, and my review of it is here. But the whole point of this is--I did HAVE a point--that shortly after signing up for Netflix I realized I could finally see Earth and complete the trifecta. GOOOOOO ME!
Earth was very, very good. It's a story of what happened in Lahore in 1947, as the British were pulling up the stakes and saying "see you later, and oh by the way, this is now Pakistan and that's India, have a nice day!" The resultant rapid and gruesome explosion of Lahore's formerly closely knit community of Hindus, Sikhs, Moslems and Parsees forms the backbone of the film. I thought it was better than Water, personally; and like all of the trilogy, it was wrenchingly painful, beautiful, and funny all at the same time. It was not as visually lush as the other two films, I didn't feel overwhelmed by the visuals. Both Earth and Water are told through the eyes of children who don't really grasp the significance of what is going on around them, and I think this is why the latter two lack the intimate feel of Fire. But at any rate, I highly recommend all three films.
So I also like Indian cinema--and by Indian cinema here I don't mean Deepa Mehta. I am an unashamed fan of Bollywood musicals, and they are the sort of thing where you either think they are fantastic and amazingly hilarious, or you think they are bizarre and annoying. There is very little middle ground. So if you are in the second category, I strongly recommend that you NOT watch This You Tube Video. I found this link via Jane, literally minutes after finishing watching Earth, and I laughed so hard I cried. One thing to note, if you've never encountered this genre of films before, is that while Bollywood musicals are generally subtitled, and the dialogue is usually in Hindi, the musical numbers are almost NEVER subtitled, and the lyrics are frequently in another language like Urdu. So you--the average American viewer--will NEVER know what the FUCK they are singing about, and frankly this video pretty accurately simulates what my brain is filling in when I am watching one of these films. I love it.
Monday, January 07, 2008
30% in Common with Huckabee? Dear God.
Here's how my own political convictions line up with the available candidates, more or less.
81% Chris Dodd
79% John Edwards
78% Barack Obama
78% Bill Richardson
73% Hillary Clinton
71% Joe Biden
69% Mike Gravel
62% Dennis Kucinich
45% Tom Tancredo
39% Rudy Giuliani
37% Mitt Romney
33% John McCain
30% Mike Huckabee
29% Fred Thompson
26% Ron Paul
2008 Presidential Candidate Matching Quiz
This is interesting--it's more or less exactly what I anticipated (Edwards over Obama over Clinton) but the % of agreement with the weirder GOP candidates surprises me a little. There were a few questions I felt could have used another answer option--like the illegal immigration one. I firmly believe that illegal immigrants should be deported, because they've broken the law by arriving illegally in the first place. Many immigrants bust their asses to arrive here legally; what's their incentive to do so if arriving illegally gets you benefits or a path to citizenship? However, I also think that our current immigration laws obviously aren't working all that well, and we need to find a way to grant worker status to more people so that they can work here legally (which will help the economy in their home countries, if they're sending money back to family) and put some serious energy into helping improve the infrastruture in central and south american countries so that there will be less incentive FOR people to come illegally to the US. But that wasn't an option on the quiz.
I wonder if it's notable that both my top democrat and top republican have already dropped out of the race...
Here's how my own political convictions line up with the available candidates, more or less.
81% Chris Dodd
79% John Edwards
78% Barack Obama
78% Bill Richardson
73% Hillary Clinton
71% Joe Biden
69% Mike Gravel
62% Dennis Kucinich
45% Tom Tancredo
39% Rudy Giuliani
37% Mitt Romney
33% John McCain
30% Mike Huckabee
29% Fred Thompson
26% Ron Paul
2008 Presidential Candidate Matching Quiz
This is interesting--it's more or less exactly what I anticipated (Edwards over Obama over Clinton) but the % of agreement with the weirder GOP candidates surprises me a little. There were a few questions I felt could have used another answer option--like the illegal immigration one. I firmly believe that illegal immigrants should be deported, because they've broken the law by arriving illegally in the first place. Many immigrants bust their asses to arrive here legally; what's their incentive to do so if arriving illegally gets you benefits or a path to citizenship? However, I also think that our current immigration laws obviously aren't working all that well, and we need to find a way to grant worker status to more people so that they can work here legally (which will help the economy in their home countries, if they're sending money back to family) and put some serious energy into helping improve the infrastruture in central and south american countries so that there will be less incentive FOR people to come illegally to the US. But that wasn't an option on the quiz.
I wonder if it's notable that both my top democrat and top republican have already dropped out of the race...
Tuesday, January 01, 2008
Thanks For Playing!
The fascinating thing about blogging, for me, is not just the fact that I'm casting my life upon the waters of the internet for anyone to read, but that I can go back at the click of a mouse and find out what I was thinking on this date in history, from 2003 onwards. I know other people have been keeping personal journals all their lives; but despite various attempts at diarying at points in my life, I've never been able to do it with any consistancy. Why? I think because I don't like writing for myself. I like writing for other people to read. I like choosing my words carefully in order to make you laugh when you click my bookmark and see a new post. It doesn't matter that there are only about 10 people who read this thing regularly--even if it was only 2, or 1, or just someone randomly Googling the words "Cautionary Tale" every week or so, it still provides more motivation for me than just writing something for myself. Must be the Leo in me.
Anyway, so the ability to go back and check on my state of mind on New Year's pasts is quite a feature. I generally tend to be depressed on New Year's, but I note that I only posted about being depressed twice in the last 5, which is impressive. Maybe because depression isn't all that funny, and I strive to stay funny so that all 10 of you will stick around for another year! But this year, I'm not depressed at all. For the first New Year's since I started the blog, I'm gainfully employed, full time, in a job that I really love and am passionate about. I'm in a good place with family and friends, and we have again the hopeful prospect of political change in the wind for 2008. (Mind you, if we get a Democrat in the White House the "good place" with my family may change--my mom holds me personally responsible for betraying the Republican party at times like this.) I'm in reasonably good health mentally and physically, as are my pets and family. This may be one of the best New Year's in the last decade for me, simply because I don't have anything to dwell on while listening to Pink Floyd's "Time" in a darkened room. Go, 2008!
So how did I start this new year on a high note? By getting completely cleaned out at penny poker. Jesus, my luck was just awful, and I had a great time. We pulled out This Book, and I got to call some great variants like "Liz Taylor" and "Rescue 9-1-1." As you might expect from a book authored by Phil Foglio and James Ernest, these variants are wild and brilliant and hilarious, resulting in huge pots. If you like poker and don't take it too seriously, you should add this book to your library. Just to give you a taste, here's the two games I called last night:
Liz Taylor. 7-Card Stud. Queen of Hearts is wild, and starts in the middle of the table. First person to get a jack or king face up gets "Liz." She stays in his hand until a new man comes along--ie, someone else is dealt a face up jack or king. So until the last faceup card is dealt, you don't know for sure who's going to end up with the wild card. Prevents early folding, builds the pot, and carries a nice suspensful jolt.
Rescue 9-1-1. 5-Card Draw. Natural 9-A-A beats all hands. Everyone's discards after the first betting round go into a pile in the center called "The Media Crew." The injured cards (one-eyed jacks and the suicide king) are wild. Play is as normal, but before the winner collects, all the cards in the media crew are revealed. If a 5-card hand can be made from that pool of cards which beats the winning hand, then the Media Crew has arrived at the emergency first! All cards are reshuffled, another hand is dealt to all live players, and the pot stays. Play continues until a player has a winning hand that isn't trumped by the media. Last night we had two full houses beat by the Media Crew before someone finally won with a 7-high straight. It was awesome, the pot was enormous and there was a huge tension each time we flipped the media hand and started sliding cards around to see what we could make of it. Totally worth the $3 I lost last night.
So...Happy New Year, y'all!
The fascinating thing about blogging, for me, is not just the fact that I'm casting my life upon the waters of the internet for anyone to read, but that I can go back at the click of a mouse and find out what I was thinking on this date in history, from 2003 onwards. I know other people have been keeping personal journals all their lives; but despite various attempts at diarying at points in my life, I've never been able to do it with any consistancy. Why? I think because I don't like writing for myself. I like writing for other people to read. I like choosing my words carefully in order to make you laugh when you click my bookmark and see a new post. It doesn't matter that there are only about 10 people who read this thing regularly--even if it was only 2, or 1, or just someone randomly Googling the words "Cautionary Tale" every week or so, it still provides more motivation for me than just writing something for myself. Must be the Leo in me.
Anyway, so the ability to go back and check on my state of mind on New Year's pasts is quite a feature. I generally tend to be depressed on New Year's, but I note that I only posted about being depressed twice in the last 5, which is impressive. Maybe because depression isn't all that funny, and I strive to stay funny so that all 10 of you will stick around for another year! But this year, I'm not depressed at all. For the first New Year's since I started the blog, I'm gainfully employed, full time, in a job that I really love and am passionate about. I'm in a good place with family and friends, and we have again the hopeful prospect of political change in the wind for 2008. (Mind you, if we get a Democrat in the White House the "good place" with my family may change--my mom holds me personally responsible for betraying the Republican party at times like this.) I'm in reasonably good health mentally and physically, as are my pets and family. This may be one of the best New Year's in the last decade for me, simply because I don't have anything to dwell on while listening to Pink Floyd's "Time" in a darkened room. Go, 2008!
So how did I start this new year on a high note? By getting completely cleaned out at penny poker. Jesus, my luck was just awful, and I had a great time. We pulled out This Book, and I got to call some great variants like "Liz Taylor" and "Rescue 9-1-1." As you might expect from a book authored by Phil Foglio and James Ernest, these variants are wild and brilliant and hilarious, resulting in huge pots. If you like poker and don't take it too seriously, you should add this book to your library. Just to give you a taste, here's the two games I called last night:
Liz Taylor. 7-Card Stud. Queen of Hearts is wild, and starts in the middle of the table. First person to get a jack or king face up gets "Liz." She stays in his hand until a new man comes along--ie, someone else is dealt a face up jack or king. So until the last faceup card is dealt, you don't know for sure who's going to end up with the wild card. Prevents early folding, builds the pot, and carries a nice suspensful jolt.
Rescue 9-1-1. 5-Card Draw. Natural 9-A-A beats all hands. Everyone's discards after the first betting round go into a pile in the center called "The Media Crew." The injured cards (one-eyed jacks and the suicide king) are wild. Play is as normal, but before the winner collects, all the cards in the media crew are revealed. If a 5-card hand can be made from that pool of cards which beats the winning hand, then the Media Crew has arrived at the emergency first! All cards are reshuffled, another hand is dealt to all live players, and the pot stays. Play continues until a player has a winning hand that isn't trumped by the media. Last night we had two full houses beat by the Media Crew before someone finally won with a 7-high straight. It was awesome, the pot was enormous and there was a huge tension each time we flipped the media hand and started sliding cards around to see what we could make of it. Totally worth the $3 I lost last night.
So...Happy New Year, y'all!
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