So yeah

I haven't posted in a while WHAT ELSE IS NEW? It seems as though the blog is transitioning from a nerd culture report to a crazy person's photocopied newsletter. I'm not sure I mind. I'm not quite well-versed enough in the unknown and bizarre to run a gig like the late, great Encyclopedia Obscura, and I don't really feel like I'm bringing much to the table comics- and gaming-wise. My instinct is to once again delete all that has come before, except that this time I feel that the writing is a couple tiers above terrible, and the post on Spy Groove brings in something like 90% of the traffic. Unfortunately, obscure MTV cartoons provide only so much mileage, and anyway I've only seen one episode of The Head. Does anyone remember the old Superlemons? The one that actually used the Meta-Cookbook review system? I thought not.

So yeah, I've had a lot going on recently. Coming up, probably a series of posts about going sane and having to rethink all assumptions.

A frequent element in my dreams is smoking. I have an overwhelming desire for cigarettes but am unable to get any for some reason. I get so desperate as to consider smoking half-finished ones I find in ashtrays. When I wake up, I think, hey, I can just go out and go buy some. Wait. Eww, I don't want to do that. My friend Kyle is getting all Freudian about it. Sidebar: when I was with Ben he was always a huge jerk to me in dreams and would try to get me to smoke, but I didn't want to.

Newsy Bits

Sorry it's been a while, I've been a bit lazy lately. I was going to do an exciting theremin build series of posts, but I got my hands on my state income tax refund and it wasn't quite enough. It will buy me college applications though, and that's a whole bunch of adventures waiting to happen. For those not in the know I'm wanting to go back to school for textile engineering. It's a fascinating field and I truly believe that high tech fibers are going to be the next big thing. Also, I wouldn't say no to a job in the fashion industry.

Picked up the first issue of the Doom Patrol relaunch this week. Not only is it Doom Patrol but there's a Metal Men side story in each issue as well! It started out a little slow but I'm going to pick up the next one for sure!

Now, I had a whole host of problems getting my laptop into working order. It's a Toshiba Satellite about six years old and I had stopped using it when I had a hard drive failure a few years ago. I picked up a new hard drive and a power cord to replace the one I lost, but once it was up and running it wouldn't stay on very long. So I had to get some Torx screwdrivers to open up the panel with the CPU and the heatsink (Phillips is good enough for every other panel on the thing) and cleaned it out and put in new thermal grease. In my infinite wisdom I put Ubuntu on it, which is a whole 'nother set of problems, but it's running great now. Unfortunately, no sooner did I get it into shape than the desktop developed a problem. A "won't turn on and smells like burning" problem. I don't have the parts to diagnose it but I suspect it's the power supply. Ah well, at least I have some way of getting my sweet, sweet dose of forums and hilarious videos.

On the gaming front, I resumed my third playthrough of Fatal Frame III, which deserves a post to itself, and realized just how nice it was to have someone in your bed at night after getting molested by the grim specters of sacrifice victims.