jr conlin's ink stained banana

Turns out i was right and now i'm very depressed about it.

i've mentioned before the fact that as a nation Americans don't want anything new. We generally avoid smaller restaurants and stores in favor of big national chains. Folks will line up for miles to see some generic action movie, but avoid seeing a better "art house" flick, and a good many folks will never consider a book unless it's premiers as a #1 best seller on the New York Times list. (Anyone want to explain that to me?)

Well, i finally read the Slate article about Garfield. In a nutshell, he's popular because he's bland. Jim Davis very carefully crafted Garfield to appeal to the generic more forgettable elements, going so far as to pull the suckerfooted doll when it threatened to become a craze. He copped stylings from all the post-peak comics that were out at the time, mostly Peanuts, and started the strip with a stable of five jokes he could constantly rely on. ("i hate Mondays","He sure is fat and lazy", "He's so cruel to poor Odie", etc.)

Davis doesn't want a funny clever movie. He wants a bland, forgettable movie that will net him lots of money in marketing tie-ins. And he's going to get it.

And we only have ourselves to blame.

You know what i'd love to do? i want to start up a grass roots campaign to put an edge back into comics. Start a letter writing campaign to insist that formulaic, safe comics like Garfield are deeply offensive and how we are planning a public boycott of the Picayune Post unless they run comic strips that make people think. Pull the pabulum and replace it with something local that isn't afraid to confuse the hell out of people.

And then i want a magic pony that gives me ice cream, but knowing my luck, it'll probably be just vanilla.

Of course he's happy.

i've yet to be able to sign on and beat him over the head with a bus or two. For whatever reason, City of Heroes refuses to let me enter a game (even though all the ports are open and happy. My friend Perl proved that.)

It looks like a fun game. Wish i could play it. And yes, i'm working with their tech support to figure out why.

(i'm still working on the rest of the Furlong, sadly no capes are available. i did figure out that:
Myron's a natural controller, Becky Sue is a magic blaster, Karl is a mutant tanker, and Roger is a mutant defender. Really need to figure out a way to work that in somehow.)

Yay! i'm on-line! Turns out i needed to upgrade the driver for my Linksys Router. (In the process, i also upgraded my video drivers but i don't think that was the problem.

Last night i got Salad Barbarian up to level 3 on Pinnacle, and discovered that i really need to build a few macros. Mostly to do things like bind "Salad Barbarian thank masked person" and "Salad Barbarian have owchie" and "Salad Barbarian need learn key controls".

Ok, i also need to figure out a quick key to get "Salad Barbarian …." into the local chat window.

That and Salad Barbarian need find way to get big pretty lady in Atlas City to be Salad Barbarian date. Big pretty lady not talk much, but always stand in lobby with both hands raised up. Salad Barbarian not sure what big pretty lady try to catch, but Salad Barbarian figure big pretty lady too busy to chat.