davextreme

Christmas Playlist 2008

I've been very carefully building a Christmas playlist for the past few years. I only add one song a year, and I only listen to the songs on the list between Thanksgiving and the Epiphany. There are now eight songs on the list.

1. The Fairytale of New York by The Pogues
2. Hallelujah by Jeff Buckley
3. New: Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas by Judy Garland
4. Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow! by Dean Martin
5. Baby It's Cold Outside by Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Jordan
6. Peace On Earth/Little Drummer Boy by David Bowie & Bing Crosby
7. Merry Xmas Everybody by Slade
8. New: Happy Xmas (War is Over) by John Lennon

Bending my "only one new song a year" rule slightly, I'm substituting Judy Garland for Blink-182, and adding John Lennon. I like Blink-182's I Won't Be Home for Christmas, but I felt like the list needed more classic songs on it and that the punk song was moving too much to being a list of alternative Christmas songs, rather than just really good Christmas songs that I like, which is my goal. I chose Judy Garland instead of Frank Sinatra for Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas because I prefer the slightly bleaker lyrics which fit in better with the first two songs. (Both versions are good though.)

I've moved the order of a few songs around to give it a better flow. The first few songs are darker, and the lists gets lighter as it goes, ending with children cheering at the finale of Happy Xmas. Let It Snow! is the most saccharine of the lot, especially compared to Hallelujah, but I think it works in the middle of the list, and it makes a nice narrative to follow that with Baby It's Cold Outside.

A final note: I'm always happy to take suggestions for next year's list.

TypePad and (Finally) OpenID

Six Apart has finally released good OpenID support for TypePad. This means that if you'd like to comment here, you can sign in using any other account you'd like rather than having to create and remember a password with TypePad. When commenting, choose "Sign in with..." and select "OpenID". Then, just enter in most any other blog or account you have, like the address to your LiveJournal, Vox page, openid.aol.com/yourAOLscreenName, etc. They seem to have some other nice comment tracking features I haven't played with yet, too.

Also they seem to have figured out how to pass OpenIDs through domain mapping transparently, so I can use david.ely.fm as my OpenID and it figures out for itself that it's a TypePad-authenticated OpenID. Neat.

$3.99

Marvel's February solicitations are out. While the content of the book is still "classified" until after Secret Invasion 8, you'll notice that Brian Michael Bendis's new series Dark Avengers is priced at $3.99 for a 32 page comic. The first issue will also cost $3.99, but I was hoping that the price bump was due to the first issue being over-sized or something. Nope. They're just raising the price a dollar.

I've read everything Brian Michael Bendis has written for years, from Alias to Ultimate Spider-Man to Powers, but this is the line for me.

Other Marvel books that will cost you an extra dollar in February but won't have extra pages:

• Dark Tower: Guide to Gilead
• Ultimate Fantastic Four 60
• Ultimate X-Men 100
• Franklin Richards: It's Reigning Cats and Dogs
• Hulk 10
• X-Men Origins: Sabretooth
• X-Men: The Life and Times of Lucas Bishop
• X-Men: First Class Finals 1 of 4
• Punisher: Frank Castle 67
• Models, Inc. 1 of 4
• Plus 14 mini-series issues that have either been $3.99 all along or have raised in price.

Diction Choices when Discussing Interactive Media

Here's a headline from GameSpot yesterday: Beatles rocking original IP in Q4 2009. It's a story about a game from Harmonix (who make Rock Band) that will feature Beatles music. So why does the headline read like a stock ticker? Games "journalism" has a lot of these bad habits. I guess the writers use "IP in Q4" instead of "new game late next year" because they want to make their writing sound smarter? Instead, it reads like they're eating out of the patent lawyers' hands. Game companies don't make "games", they make "intellectual property", a term designed to keep focus on the author of the work and not on the owner. I can own a book, and when I'm done reading it I can sell it to a friend. But if a book is "content" that's the "intellectual property" of its author, it creates an impression that I'm not its owner. Ironically, the gaming community is railing against copy protection like that used in Spore, which prevents people from being able to run a game they've bought on too many of their own computers.

See also David Pogue's Tech Terms to Avoid and Kotaku's Note to Internet: Stop Using the Term "SKU".

Barack Obama Has Read Harry Potter

In last night's Barack Obama Variety Half-Hour, Michelle Obama mentioned that her husband read all seven Harry Potter books with their daughter.

Has John McCain read Harry Potter?

Whom do you trust to protect America from dark wizards?

We need to know the full extent of the relationship between John McCain and Tom Riddle. Frankly I just don't think he has the experience to lead us through any sort of dementor- or inferius-based terrorist attacks.

Sexy Halloween

It used to be that women were limited to a few choices for Halloween costumes: sexy nurse, sexy cheerleader, sexy kitty cat. Nowadays, there are lots of options for the discerning woman-about-town to slut it up. See Sexy Halloween for some ideas, Mena Trott's list for actual costumes you can buy, and, of course, the Sexy Judge (via Katherine).

Why I Don't Think Apple Will Ever Release a Tiny Laptop

Whenever Apple has a big product event coming up, rumors inevitably swell about the company releasing a tablet computer or, more recently, a "netbook". People want Apple to put out a tiny laptop that costs well under $1000. I don't see them ever doing this. At least, not the form the PC-minded tend to expect. Why not? Keyboards.

Steve Jobs's Apple will never release a computer with tiny keys. He frequently mentions the high quality of the keyboards on their laptops, and often makes fun of the cheap keys on their competitors' machines. During the most recent iPhone event he mockingly referred to the "tiny plastic keys" on the Blackberry. Jobs doesn't like cheap, tiny keyboards. This limits the physical size of any Mac Apple ever releases to a little over 12" across. Any smaller and the keys will have to shrink which, I think, sets off an alarm in Jobs's head that screams "cheap". For all the neat things the Kindle might have going for it, do you ever see Apple putting out a device with buttons on it that look like they came from a plastic calculator or a TV remote?

I can see Apple releasing a tablet device that's all touchscreen. Picture a Star Trek PADD: like an iPhone, but with a screen the size of a novel. I don't know that Apple will--they'd have to come up with a marketable reason to release such a device--but I can see something like that coming from the company. Maybe it can stand up on its own and connect to a wireless keyboard. May Apple would even add a book and magazine store section to iTunes for it. But there has to be a reason for it to exist other than just that the press thinks it might be cool. Likewise for touch screens on their Macs. It'd be cool, but I'm not sure it'd improve your productivity any, and it would probably create an entire new category of repetitive stress syndrome from having to hold your arm up all day to operate the screen.

A Coke is A Coke

I love this Andy Warhol quote that John Gruber uses in this Daring Fireball article:

What's great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you know that the President drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke, too. A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it.

I read an article recently (which I can't seem to find now) about how class in America is becoming harder to define because their aren't any key products that most people can't afford. You used to be able to separate lower from middle class by whether or not a family had a telephone, or a TV, or air conditioning, etc. Even internet access and cell phones are becoming ubiquitous.

Supergirl 34

(This is turning into a comics blog I guess. /shrug)

One of the things I liked at the Superman panel in Baltimore was the focus placed on Supergirl's new creative team of Sterling Gates and Jamal Igle. They seem to really want to work to make Supergirl a good title in DC's stable, and to make Kara Zor-El a cool character. Their debut issue, number 34, succeeds at this. Cat Grant's attacks on Supergirl are mean but seem true. Kara has powers but doesn't know how to use them well, so she breaks a man's arm accidentally when she saves his life. Clark advises her that she'll figure that stuff out over time, but that she needs to have a life outside of being Supergirl. Her reactions seem honest, and Gates does a nice job with the stock "hero goes to talk to other heroes" scenes.

Igle's art is nice here. Here's a preview of the first few pages. Kara feels strong but believable as a 16-year-old girl, with a figure that's not outrageously curvy. A touch I particularly liked is that he illustrates the shorts Kara wears under her skirt, rather than just having her show way too much leg or putting her in skimpy underwear.

Also, for all the evil that Superman has defeated in his world, the DC Universe's MLB still seems to have inter-league play. This issue features a game between the Metropolis Meteors, the city's National League team, and the American League Monarchs. Just for kicks, here are the other baseball teams in the DC Universe, presumably in addition to those in our world. And here are some other things to do in Metropolis.

Baltimore Comic-Con

DrOct and I went to Baltimore on Saturday for the 9th Annual Baltimore Comic-Con. We decided not to get there too early, but didn't foresee the need to buy tickets online ahead of time. There are only three people selling tickets at the door, so we had to wait in line for 45 minutes before getting in. Usually this would have given us a good opportunity to see people in costumes, but there wasn't much to see. A few requisite Jedi, one of whom was an Obi-Wan in his outfit from the new cartoon, which is bizarre given that fans really didn't like the movie. Saw a Storm Trooper, a Scout Trooper, and a Tie Fighter Pilot. Saw one Harley Quinn and a bunch of Heath Ledger Jokers. I guess that's going to be the Joker for a few years? Maybe it's just an excuse to smear your makeup instead of taking time with it (or getting a girl to help out). (I didn't bring a camera, so links are to others' photos from Flickr.)

Inside we didn't have too much time to talk to artists, but I had success in the dollar bins, filling out almost all of Mark Waid and Mike Wieringo's Fantastic Four and picking up Grant Morrison's Spawn issues, ¾ of his Swamp Thing, and two issues of Aztek. Excepting the British stuff, I just need the rest of Aztek, Kill Your Boyfriend, The New Adventures of Hitler, The Mystery Play, and Skrull Kill Krew and I'll have everything he's written.

Baltimore Comic Con, 09/27/08
Originally uploaded by ashcrowe

We made it to two panels, the Kirkman vs. Bendis and DC's Superman panel. Robert Kirkman and Brian Michael Bendis were very entertaining and had a lot to say about the industry. It's unfortunate that business factors got in the way of Kirkman being able to share his trade paperback sales, but I agree with him that more people should focus on creating their own characters rather than working with DC and Marvel's icons. Matt Fraction's work on Casanova outshines his X-Men and Iron Man in every way. But Bendis had a good point that creators can do both.

The Superman panel was less entertaining, but they made a good plug for Sterling Gates and Jamal Igle's new run on Supergirl. Geoff Johns as always displayed his encyclopedic knowledge of the DC Universe but was outdone by Igle's speech about why Superman is an inspiring character. James Robinson looked bored for most of the time. Fan questions ranged from the irrelevant to the inane.

I did get to meet Scott Kurtz this year, having been blown off by him last year. He was friendly and only a little bit cocky.