Blógünder Schlock

It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these. DJ Delorie on the Nightstar forum demanded a desktop background from today’s strip, and (as is rarely the case) it was fairly easy to format it. Of course it was also very tedious since my upgrade to Photoshop CS3 ate the macros I’d created for automating this stuff.

The desktops are available in three aspect ratios and several resolutions, shown below:

• 4:3

• 5:4

• Cinema (1.6:1)

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Thanks for your support!

I owe you some blog posts. I still haven’t written up my LepreCon adventures, and here it’s been almost three weeks. CONduit was this weekend, and I skipped most of it, but got to meet (and converse at length, and record a podcast with) Michael Stackpole. Oh, and speaking of Podcasting, there’s a new Writing Excuses up, and it’s a pretty good one. I suppose this mention qualifies as blogging THAT.

I test-drove, bought, and beat the Penny-Arcade game, but I blogged that over on my LiveJournal, so I’m off the hook there.

I finished coloring the Bonus Story for Schlock Mercenary: The Teraport Wars. My goal for the next two weeks is to finish the rest of that book — text tweaks, image edits, the cover — and get it sent off to the printer. I suppose working on that is more important than blogging stuff… at least that’s the excuse I’m using.

Perhaps it could go without saying that I honor and respect the men and women who have given their lives to keep me free. It should not, however. Though I believe my support is obvious, it can never be so obvious that it goes without saying.

It must be said. It must be said aloud, and publicly. It must echo.

I weep over our nation’s noble dead, not just because I have missed the opportunity to know them in this life, and not just because I mourn the loss of their earthly futures. I also weep because I feel unworthy of the great gift they’ve given me. They inspire me to be better. What have I done with the freedoms I’ve been afforded? What more can I do in the future?

You who currently serve, who live on, kneeling among fallen comrades… my prayers are with you. Stand proudly with my blessing, but don’t forget to duck. Know that whether you come home with your shield or on your shield, I’ll be working and praying to live worthily of the service you give me and my family.

Thank you.

There has been a minor production delay on the Ringer-style Rule 37 shirts. The 5XL regular-style Rule 37 shirts are delayed as well. If your order contains one of these type of shirts, it will be delayed. Hopefully we’ll be able to ship these in about a week. All the other orders have either shipped already, or are going out in tomorrow’s mail.

I just got word that Robert Asprin passed away yesterday. The full text of the article on the SFWA website can be found here.

Asprin was a great writer, and I count his comedic works (especially the Phule’s Company series) among my strongest influences. I loved the Myth Adventures series with Aahz and Skeeve, and Phil Foglio recently sent me the graphic novel he and Asprin collaborated on.

I’m especially saddened because his writing career had lapsed for years, and it’s only recently that he was rebounding from that long, rough patch.

Goodbye, Robert. We’ll surely miss you.

I don’t usually plug stuff I’m being paid to run ads for, but I LOVE the designs over at Retropolis Transit Authority. Visually, these things are a dream come true — literally, they are the future-dreaming of the 1930s-era scientifiction set.

My only regret is that I can’t afford to buy swag for myself right now. (Okay, my REAL regret is that I didn’t twig to this uchronic design years ago, and fill the Schlockiverse with it.)

Even if you’re not shopping, go have a look at Bradley Schenck’s work. It’s gorgeous.

Schlock has his own twitter page, and he’ll be twittering in-character for a bit. Once a day, no more than that. Don’t expect big punchlines or anything. It’s just an experiment.

If this works well, I have NO IDEA how I’ll format it for inclusion in a book…

Saw some films in the last few weeks. My thoughts in short:

1) Iron Man was wonderful. Robert Downey, Jr’s interactions with the assembly-bots were inspired. I’ve only seen it once, but I’d see it again if I had time.

2) Sci-Fi Channel’s Tin Man was a visually enticing re-imagining of The Wizard of Oz. Unfortunately, the end is kind of unsatisfying. Our heroine spends the entire miniseries (6 hours?) following a path someone else laid out for her. Neat plot twist in Part II, fun villains, cool heroes… and an ending with about as much punch as warm, flat Diet Sprite.

3) Prince Caspian was also visually very enticing. I haven’t read the book in years (decades?) so the inevitable compression of events and abridged storytelling didn’t grate on me. My biggest gripe (and it’s a gripe that applies to a lot of the Narnia books) is the quite literal deus ex machina Lewis employs. Fortunately the stories are redeemed (hah! See what I did there?) by the fact that the heroes don’t just wait around for Aslan. They strive, struggle, and yes, some of them die (just not the ones with names.)

4) Speed Racer… okay, it’s tanking hard at the box-office, and if you’ve seen the trailers you’re probably thinking “stupid movie.” This, fair reader, is my runaway favorite of the bunch. I’ve seen it twice. I laughed. I cheered. I cried. It was corny enough and cheesy enough to open its own Tex-Mex chain, but it worked. I think the Wachowskis may have extended cinematic syntax a bit (or at least pushed the envelope) and I KNOW I’ll be picking this one up on DVD for the kids. And then watching it with them. No, this isn’t nostalgia speaking. I couldn’t remember much of the original series, and what I could I didn’t really like.

I have a list of summer movies I plan to see. I’ll let you know what I think of ‘em, though I’m sure there will be plenty of other folks yammering about ‘em too.

This week the Writing Excuses team discusses magic again, this time focusing on the cost and ramifications of magic. Whether or not your magic system has internally-consistent rules your readers can follow (per Sanderson’s First Law and last week’s ‘cast) you need to consider the ramifications of using magic in the worlds you create. Or at least, that’s what we think. Have a listen and find out why.

Also, this week I attempted to create “Tayler’s First Law” using a donkey. It can’t have gone too well, since by the end of the podcast I am clearly trying to give the donkey away.

Twitter forces you to say whatever you plan to say in 140 characters or less. That’s not much room. It’s like a diet for verbose writers.

(The above paragraph can be twitted with just 3 characters to spare.)

That got me to thinking about diets in general, and how I have a hard time keeping track of what it is I actually eat and when. So… Twitter to the rescue. Starting Monday I’ll be twitting (or is it “tweeting?”) my meals, my gym trips, and my daily weight and body fat (as measured by the scale in my bathroom.) I’m going to try it for at least a week, and we’ll see how it goes.

If you’re following my tweets (www.twitter.com/howardtayler) then I expect this will get quite boring for you. It’ll probably be boring for me, too. This is an experiment, and experiments often are.

In the past I’ve found that the most effective diets for me are those which cut simple carbs to below 30g per day. I’ll be trying to eat the same way this time. From a scientific method perspective, since I lack a true control group, the easiest way to test something’s effectiveness is to only change one variable at a time. The variable here is “reporting.” I’m testing Twitter, not low-carbing. I already know low-carbing works.

For the record, this is not an invitation for any of you to start offering me diet advice. If even one reader out of a thousand decides to email me with suggestions, I’ll be buried in unsolicited advice on weight loss (read: SPAM.) If you’re an MD, a PA, or an RN, I ESPECIALLY encourage you to not send me advice. If I want it, I’ll pay you for it.

Okay, let the tweeting begin (in about 15 hours.)