July 2001

Comic-Con is pretty cool so far. Hooking up with friends, drooling over expensive merchandise, laughing at my own age and nostalgia (I get all wispy when I see things like the Micronauts, which are these cool toys from my youth which I can’t afford now).

The best thing I picked up was a book—The Busy, Busy World of Richard Scarry—a biography of an artist / author whose work had an impact on me as a child. His best books are oversized, superdense with words and text, very innocently drawn, but definitely educational. I loved the details in his work. I loved the fact that there were always things going on on the page which were not referred to in the text. For me, a visual child, always, this was a special treat. Words and pictures can interact – this is a core principle of comics. It’s not simply illustration. It’s not merely writing. Comics happen when you multiply the two together!

...

I was reading the biography last night. I got it from the booth of Bud Plant (a great comics and culture book dealer). The book is out of print on amazon, but they have it at budplant.com and they have it at the Con.

Unexpected things delight.

Last night as I was making my way from work to my car I was greeted by the sight of Lara Croft and Indiana Jones—apparently now a couple—moving northeast in the Gaslamp Quarter. They looked great, Lara even had her sunglasses on. I’ll admit that her windbreaker didn’t help my suspension of disbelief, but still.

The only explanation of these fictional characters coming to life is San Diego Comic-Con!. I missed Thursday and Friday. But I’ll be there all day today and Sunday. Should be good. Toss me a message if you’re in town!

My goatee is getting long. I can’t figure out whether this is good or bad, but it makes me think of ZZ Top. This is bad inasmuch as ZZ Top is kind of a joke as a band. Like a musical footnote in the latter 20th Century. They do play some mean guitar though.

What do I know from guitars though. I think my musical taste is atrophying. This is my playlist this morning: The Gourds: Gin and Juice; Dynamite Hack: Boyz N Tha Hood; and Pink / Mya / Lil’Kim / Christina Aguilera: Lady Marmalade.

I used to passionately follow Talking Heads, Joy Division / New Order, They Might Be Giants, Matthew Sweet, Tori Amos, Morrissey. I think I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t take popular music seriously enough. When people recommend bands to me I’m usually unimpressed.

For me I think it’s got to be be either Zappa: vast Antarcticas of history and complexity in a huge body of work … or it’s Christina Aguilera: aesthetically pleasing, with an underlying vocal talent, and evidencing hard work – but ultimately the judgment of history will probably be that her work was overproduced.

Maybe I’ll get into Gilbert and Sullivan. That music has lasted a hundred years already. I did really Like Topsy-Turvy. I could definitely see myself in the depiction of Mr. Gilbert.

Lab time again! This time I’m addressing the question of the dotted lines in Windows MSIE. It’s titled: Why not to use blur() to make dotted lines go away in MSIE for Windows. The cousin of this entry is outline: none CSS property.

This is my favorite search today: google search: java applet site:microsoft.com.

Why?
See: Java is Essential to the Software Ecosystem by Clay Shirky. See also: Call to Action for the OEMs (about Windows XP support for Java or lack thereof).

Will will be playing at Lestats Coffeehouse (here in San Diego, yes) on the 24th of July. I work with Will, and have heard him play. He proves that a killer ASP (and Cold Fusion, and SQL Server, and Flash) programmer can be a sensitive singer / songwriter / guitarist. Go to his site.

You might also want to harangue him into putting some darn audio files of his work up. Heh heh.

New gizmo – put it up on my members.evolt.org account – PHP Image Size Grabber.

Have I ever mentioned that evolt.org rocks?

No?

Well it does.

Happy Hour #8 is totally tonight. Hope to put some faces to names and email addresses.

AuctionMart seems to be an excellent application of the internet to an old problem. Seems like every Respiratory Therapy Department I ever worked in had equipment which was in disuse, but was perfectly functional. These were untapped resources, which could be easily sold to other facilities which could use them. In return the selling department can use the generated revenue to get equipment they can use. The internet enables geographically distant places to carry out these transactions.

And yes, eBay does the same thing with, say, Beanie Babies.

Beach party! Silver Strand State Beach – absolutely lovely time with family. The water was hideously cold though – even by my standards – I personally require 63 degrees Fahrenheit before I go in. But the waves were excellent. Big. Powerful. nice bodysurfing.