http://www.somethingpositive.net/sp11122009.shtml If you're in Dallas, come see me today at Dallas Webcomics Expo - http://dwex.info for info - 11am to 6pm. I'm at table six.
If there are any problems with the comic or website, or if you have any questions, comments, or complaints you would like to address directly to Randy, please email him at choochoobear@gmail.com.
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http://www.newsfromme.com/archives/2009_11_14.html#018056 A few weeks ago here, the surviving Monty Python guys gathered in New York for, among other activities, a half-hour Q-and-A session. I embedded a video here at the time but it was fuzzy and not altogether in sync. Here's...
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http://www.newsfromme.com/archives/2009_11_13.html#018055 My pal Nat Gertler writes to remind me that Carrie Prejean was not Miss California. She was Miss California USA. Nat also adds... Oh, and I should follow that up with a note that if you ask anyone to name...
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I could say a lot about this, but in the end you can all probably guess what my words would be. So I'll just say this boy motivates me.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8357011.stm
There were five people who came after me from a place in Bajaur. They tricked me. They told me they were going to behead my father.
I went with them but my father wasn't there. They tied me up.
They said: 'You have two choices. We will behead you, or you will become a suicide bomber.' I refused.
There were two more guys of my age. They were also training to be suicide bombers. If we refused they would tie our hands behind our backs, blindfold us and start beating us.
They brainwashed us and told us we would go to heaven. They said 'there will be honey and juice and God will appear in front of you. You will have a beautiful house in Heaven'.
We used to ask them to let us out to pray. They would reply 'you are already on your way to heaven. You don't need to pray.'
They beat me hard for five days. I wasn't given any food. While they were beating me I agreed to become a suicide bomber. They separated me from the other boys.
They took me to a dark room and started giving me pills. I was handed over to Maulvi Fakir [the Bajaur Taliban commander]. After all this preparation they said I was to go and do the job in a mosque.
It was an ordinary mosque but the cleric there used to talk against the Taliban, and they declared him their enemy. They told me the cleric was a non-believer, a non-Muslim.
They took off my shirt and put the jacket on my shoulders. There were two hooks on my chest. They told me that when you go there you say 'Allahu Akbar' [God is Great] and then you pull apart these two hooks. Then they took me there, showed me the mosque and went off.
I was drugged and I couldn't feel anything. I only came to my senses when I arrived in the mosque. I saw the peaceful kind face of the cleric, and I saw the mosque was full of holy books. I saw the people praying. And I thought, they are all Muslims. How can I do this? I decided not to and I came out.
I sat under a tree outside the mosque and waited for prayers to be over. After that I made my way back to the Taliban. Then they called me 'a son of a bitch' and asked why I had come back without doing it.
I told them I could not do it because they were carrying out body searches of all the people entering the mosque. They took off my vest and handed me over to Maulvi Fakir.
They tied me up but I told them to give me another chance and I would do it. They trusted me. I was roaming around with them for a couple of days. I got to the road, found transport and came home. They followed me to my house. They wanted to know if I was still there or had run somewhere else.
The Taliban had beaten me so harshly my back was scarred. When my parents saw that my mother started to cry, and told me not to go back to them. My father asked them why they were after his son. One day he took his weapon and went after them. But they wanted to kill him so he came back home and closed the door.
Before the Taliban came we used to enjoy freedom. We used to play, and go to our schools. There were no restrictions on us. Morning and evening we used to play games, and sit and chat with friends. We used to listen to music on our mobile phones. They banned that. They stopped us doing anything. They stopped us playing cricket and going to school. We felt like prisoners.
I want to join the army because they are the defenders of the land. They are fighting for the right cause. I want to fight against the Taliban. I have no other intention except to defend my country. The Taliban should be eliminated.
I want to tell the Taliban that they are cruel, and what they did to me was unjust. I can't kill innocent Muslims.
I am not afraid of them. I am only afraid of God. I am answerable only to Him.
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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/wwdn/~3/EbqZTXOu1nA/what-on-earth-did-nerds-do-in-the-1980s-to-figure-this-all-out.html I'm way late to the party on this, but I just started reading Spook Country this week. Unlike most Gibson books I've read, it doesn't ramp up slowly, and instead hits the ground running (that's not a bad thing). I'm only 30 pages in (it's been a busy week without a lot of time to read) but I'm pretty sure I'm going to like it; I can easily connect to the tone, the characters, the setting, and the storytelling style he uses.
When I logged into Goodreads this morning to put it on my bookshelf, I saw that people had Memories of the Future on their lists, and a few readers had reviewed it (overall, they seem to like it, which pleases me.) One of the readers mentioned that my book was recommended to her by a blog called Stacked. I took at look, and here's what I found:
Christina [Stacked's editor] is watching the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation for the first time ever and reviewing episodes in conjunction with Wil Wheaton's book Memories of the Future.
Christina calls the project Amnesia of the Future, which I just love because it's clever, and I enjoy clever things, as you may already know. I've just read the posts she's done so far (she's up to Code of Honor), and I really enjoyed them. Allow me to share some highlights:
Farpoint
Episode: If someone were to tell me that in a few hundred years humans will regularly be traveling vast swaths of space and encountering other intelligent life forms, I would not at all be surprised to find giant. space. jellyfish included amongst the aliens. Actually, I think it’s kind of cool and in my next life would like to come back as one.
MotF: Post entertaining recap of the episodes, was the “Behind the Scenes Memory” which brings a rather cool dimension to the show. Despite the faults Wil Wheaton points out about the two part episode, they were obviously doing something right. I didn’t notice the repetition of background actors during the mall scene and, even after having it pointed out, re-watched the episode and still missed them despite telling myself “Hey, self, look out for the repeat actors!”
The Naked Now
Episode: ...the assistant engineer is acting like a five-year-old attempting to master Jenga and Wesley Crusher is speaking way to coherently for a drunken fourteen-year-old. In fact, he doesn’t seem much different from the previous episode’s overly-exuberant puppynerd self. Shouldn’t a normal drunk teenager be slurring and trying to get laid? Dear Wesley, I hope you enjoy being a virgin for the rest of your life. You might want to start stocking up on pocket protectors now.
MotF: I’m so smart! Wil Wheaton also feels that this episode came too soon. I definitely think that moving it back to a later spot in the season would have been a wise move and an opportunity to play with the repressed desires of the characters that would be bound to come out when intoxicated.
Code of Honor
Episode: Ultimately, the episode was just as hokey for me as The Naked Now. I appreciate the analogy and moral questions raised and the set-up for what happens rolls out very nicely. But where is the Jell-O? If you’re going to have juvenile boy-thoughts about a girl fight, shouldn’t they be in bikinis and Jell-O? Give them such “advanced” weaponry and have them fight on the set of Flashdance, but Tasha gets to remain in her uniform with her communicator on? At least Yarinna got to wear a pink lamé bodysuit and come out like the reigning champion.
MotF: Really Wil Wheaton? Pillow fight was as good as you could come up with? Were you afraid of trademark issue in mentioning Jell-O? Because Jell-O fight trumps pillow fight any day. At least you had the Beavis and Butthead running joke. I found that to be infantile and pointless at first, but you pulled it off nicely.
Now I kind of can't wait for her next bout of amnesia (cue the All My Circuits theme) because it's interesting and entertaining to read the first-time impressions of a new TNG viewer 22 years after we made the show, especially when that viewer is reviewing my book in tandem with the episodes. It's just so delightfully meta, I couldn't not link to it. I'll be interested to see if she gets the same facepalm fatigue I started to get, and when it arrives if she does. Speaking of Memories of the Future, I thought some of you may like to know that work has begun on Volume Two; Angel One is ready to go beneath Andrew's Red Pen of Doom.
 
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http://www.newsfromme.com/archives/2009_11_13.html#018053 The other day, I posted a link to the great folk singing trio, The Limeliters, on The Ed Sullivan Show. The clip was promptly taken down by the company that controls the rights to the Sullivan show...which is, of course,...
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http://www.newsfromme.com/archives/2009_11_12.html#018052 Ah! Jeffrey Trexler explains to me how it is that the photo of Shel Dorf accompanying his New York Times obit sports a copyright for DC Comics even though the photo contains no DC properties. I've been looking at the...
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http://www.websnark.com/archives/2009/11/for_the_record_2.html It is well known that Friday the Thirteenth is the birthday of King Friday XIII of the Neighborhood of Make Believe. Every time this day rolls around, we are to enjoy ourselves and make merry on this most lucky of days, by Royal Decree.
Which isn't enough writing for an actual post, mind, but it'll do.
For the record, I've had a rather... interesting autumn, health wise. Writing isn't happening except in convenient five panel format -- coincidentially, The Adventures of Brigadier General John Stark has started updating again. For some weeks now, even.
Happy birthday, King Friday!
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