Convention guests I completely failed to see: Joss Whedon (too popular, room closed by fire marshall hours in advance); Judd Apatow, Seth Rogan, Michael Cera (panel scheduling conflict, although Kristie saw them); Zach Galifianakis, Leonard Nimoy, Steve Carell, The Rock (unannounced and therefore not on my radar).

Most cognitively dissonant panel guests I actually saw: Robert Downey Jr, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Terence “Hard Out Here For a Pimp” Howard at the Marvel movie panel because they’re all starring in Iron Man. Aren’t these people far too cool and indie for Comic-Con? Incidentally and perhaps not coincidentally, the Iron Man footage looked fantastic.

Most cognitively dissonant panel guest I actually saw (runner-up): Edward Norton, on the same panel, who explained his great geekery for The Incredible Hulk as the reason he’s starring in and wrote the screenplay for the next movie.

Artwork scored for free: A Pizza Girl sketch from Questionable Content and the original art for this strip from Narbonic.

Artwork scored for a price: A drawing of Kristie as a zombie, which I will scan and post soon.

Comics scored for free: Neil Gaiman’s 1602 trade paperback; Texas Strangers #2.

Comics scored for cheap: Volumes 2-7 of Sin City for $30 total; Lenore: Noogies for $5; Girl Genius for $10.

Total number of coughs due to allergy-based respiratory illness: 32,458,921 (and counting).

Total number of times I made a spectacle of myself in a swanky steakhouse by trying to shovel a chunk of beef down my windpipe: one.

Total number of days Comic-Con sold out and halted ticket sales: two (Saturday and Sunday).

Total number of nights I was able to hang out with my online forum buddies: one (Saturday).

Judgment of my weekend anyway: swell… and I’m not kidding.

Chances I’ll do it again next year: slim to none.

Just returned from a Rasputina concert. Tomorrow morning we’re off to San Diego Comic-Con, aka Nerdi Gras. Tis a busy time.

We should have an internet connection at the hotel, so I may check in, but I wouldn’t count on anything new on the blog until next week aside from some cameraphone pics.

A week ago, I got the email confirming what I had already assumed: my submission to the Machine of Death anthology was rejected. I thought it turned out well, maybe better than anything else I’ve written, but it wasn’t good enough to make the cut out of 685 entries.

Know who did make it? Shaenon. Heh.

I dunno, maybe short fiction isn’t my thing after all. Still, I might as well publish it here. First read the introduction necessary to understand the story, then continue on…

Read the rest of this entry »

The best show in the history of television had its best season yet last year. Surely it would be recognized by the Emmy Awards, right?

But no: The Wire received a grand total of zero nominations. After four seasons and a shift in focus from “cops vs. gangsters” to a powerful look at corner kids in West Baltimore and the failings of the public school system, the cast and crew have to face the fact that their work will never be recognized with awards.

Watched and processed and dissected by fans for years to come, sure. But no awards. (TV critic Tim Goodman shares my pain, incidentally.)

You can find coverage of the nominations here and a full list here. Actually, the Comedy Series list isn’t bad, although I’d swap out Two and a Half Men for How I Met Your Mother, the only traditional laugh-track sitcom I still enjoy.

It’s the Drama Series nominations that piss me off. Even fans of Grey’s Anatomy — and I’m not one — were upset at how awful it was this season. So why even nominate?

If I Ran the Emmys:

- Grey’s Anatomy: swap for The Wire, which is a bit like swapping a sack of dung for a sack of shiny gold coins.

- Boston Legal: swap for Friday Night Lights. I add FNL based on reputation alone since I missed out on it and have to wait for the DVDs, but it must be better than the entertaining-but-empty Spader-Shatner Hour.

- House: swap for Lost. I gave up on House after the interminable Tritter storyline, while Lost rewarded my patience through one and a half seasons of mediocrity by delivering its best episodes yet.

- The Sopranos: Keep. I stopped watching around season 2 or 3, but hey, it’s an acclaimed show in its last season, so whatever.

- Which leaves the final spot a tossup between Heroes and Battlestar Galactica. BSG slowly declined in quality over its third season, culminating in that shark-jumping Watchtower moment in the final episode. But I have to give it the edge, given two seasons of Emmy snubs and the outstanding “New Caprica” story arc that opened the season. Besides, I got bored with Heroes after a handful of episodes and gave up on it.

I also note with amusement that “Dick in a Box” earned a nomination for Outstanding Original Music And Lyrics.

One of the longest-running, most common, easily mockable cliches of the Internet is the overwhelming preponderance of cat owners who post cute photos of their cats for the world to see. I mean, how lame and stereotypical is that?

With that in mind, meet Clem:

And Peter:

Sincerely,

Mr. Lame Stereotype

• Chapter one of Warren Ellis’ Crooked Little Vein is now online. I think Ellis is the only person who can get away with writing like that — profane, hard-boiled, and over-the-top silly. When I try to ape it, I get in trouble, as those who read early drafts of Rogue Systems can attest.
• Comedian Louis CK investigates the Catholic Church.
• A British journalist goes on a National Review cruise to learn what the Crazy 27% talk about when no one else is around. Apparently, the neocons want to execute me along with every Muslim in the world. Fun.

I now have a live-in girlfriend.

And two cats, to whom I am still allergic.

And many, many boxes to unpack.

More later.

• AVClub interviews Patton Oswalt, whose excellent new album just came out on Tuesday. I found the link via Fraction, and I’m going to pull the same quote he did because it applies to me, too:
  

  Everyone thinks, “You guys are movie snobs—you fucking love to hate movies.” No, no, no. We’re actually disappointed all the time, because we love movies and want them to be better. We want them to all be great.

• On that note, the films of 2007 I can recommend without reservation (so far): Idiocracy (not a great film, but a perception-altering one), Hot Fuzz, Knocked Up, and Ratatouille. It’s either a great year for comedy or a lousy one for drama.
• As much as I enjoy goth stuff — the look (especially on girls), the strange and cynical humor — I own precious little of it myself: some comics and music, a Gir doll, a Halloween costume. Anything more just doesn’t fit me or my personality, somehow. But after visiting Pushin Daisies, I’m tempted to buy up half their catalog. Chocolate brains! Anubis nightlights! Coffin flasks!

The programming schedule for SDCC is finally up. If the lineup of Whedon, Ellis, Gaiman, and Doctorow wasn’t enough for me, I can now add Apatow, Nelson, Murphy, and Corbett. The latter three are MST3K alumni who now do Rifftrax and the Film Crew.

Would anyone else from my book and DVD shelves care to announce an appearance? Some of my favorite bands, perhaps? Because it’s starting to look like this Comic-Con was designed entirely around my interests.

Well, almost. The Superbad panel with Judd Apatow and Michael Cera overlaps both the Whedon and Film Crew panels, so I’ll probably have to skip it in what Kristie has deemed a “Sophie’s Choice” of epic proportions.

We’ll survive… somehow.

I’ve been sitting on a blog entry about this blog entry about a book for a few days now, trying to figure out how to write it and failing. Instead of summarizing, just go read it and I’ll expound on my thoughts when you get back.

No really, go read it. I’ll wait.

Back? Good.

I’ve believed for some time that our country’s privatized health care system is holding back economic growth. I can think of several people offhand — myself included, maybe — who would work for themselves if they didn’t have to worry about insurance for themselves and their families. The moment the US institutes universal health care is the moment scores of frustrated cubicle workers finally give their corporate overlords the finger and start that freelance or small business they’ve always wanted. Instant economic growth.

Now I wonder if I should put college loans in a similar category. How many college grads would be doing something risky or altruistic if they weren’t afraid they couldn’t afford their loan payments?

My girlfriend is facing both pressures right now. She racked up an intimidating amount of debt pursuing her PhD, and she has several regular medications that require a good insurance plan. She also wants to teach, a rather altruistic profession given the high hoops and low pay we force on our teachers. Even when she finally finds a full-time teaching job, I wonder if the pay and benefits will be enough.

Until then: rock, meet hard place.

This is one of the conclusions of Sicko, incidentally — the twin pillars of debt and lack of insurance keep us too scared to quit the rat race and too demoralized to demand better. I’m honestly starting to wonder if the US is irrevocably broken compared to other Western societies, and perhaps emigration is the answer. Living in Vancouver or the UK would remove one of those two worries (in exchange for slightly higher taxes), and with what I do for a living, I can find work in almost any city.

The downside, of course, is that if we leave the US, we’ll become subject to US foreign policy.

I dunno. I just signed a lease that guarantees we’ll be in Tucson for the next year regardless, so we’ll have plenty of time to think about it.