There’s flickr for images and YouTube for video, but does anyone know of a site that’ll host podcasts (large audio files) w/o laying claim to them?

It’s no secret that I’m a fan of Rachel Bellinsky’s music [listen at site & myspace page].

Sometimes I play her CD backwards, it grants me dark powers and whispers secret messages. Like this one:

I’ve got some shows coming up at Twiggs here in San Diego (4590 Park Boulevard, SD, CA 92116).
December 30th, 7:30pm
January 28th, 9:00pm
February 25th, 8:00pm
March 25th, 8:00pm

It’ll be just me and my guitar and my allergy medicine working to entertain you. The first show is this Friday and features other performers as well. Come keep me company and have a cup of coffee while you’re at it.

I added a few things to my Projects Page.

All four issues of Seize Him! are now up since they’re not going to get published any time soon.

And a five page story I plan on pitching to 2000 A.D. called Perfect Stratagem.

From now on, Christmas just won’t be Christmas unless a mechanical dog humps Steve’s neck.

[Quicktime]

Support Pirate Radio in San Diego – 106.9FM Benefit – Dec 17th

Anyone who uses Myspace knows that errors aren’t really “unexpected”. It’s like roulette, on the rare occasion that my number comes up I feel like I’ve won something.

Only to discover that I’ve just received another invite from another shitty band that I have no interest in.

It was one of those I-needed-a-chair, she-had-an-extra-seat-at-her-table situations at Lestat’s. We get to talking, the conversation’s great which is hard to find in this town. And as is required by natives and semi-natives we exchange high school information.

“Really? My brother and sister went there about that time.”

This turns to that, and I’m picking her up on Thursday. In the intervening days she’s picked up her brother’s yearbook from 1989. To taunt me, of course.

Point to one of the pictures she says, “Here is my brother. I don’t know if you recognize him.”

Oh, I recognized Gregory W-. “Wait. Your last name is ‘W-’?”

“Yeah.”

“And your sister is Kathy W-?”

“Oh my god, you know my sister?”

I was on a date with the little sister of the subject of my first pointless, high school crush. I’d been in her house seventeen years ago when she was in the fifth grade. It’d be creepy if it hadn’t all been coincidence.

Four days and two dates later she breaks up with me. (She wants kids and I’ve taken steps not to.)

Driving home, it occurred to me that I’d just been jilted by one of the W- girls: Again.

I’d be scared of some of these Santa’s too. Especially 7 & 9.

It’s not accident that so many bad guys speak in formal, precise language.

“Look, buddy, you can’t get away with this,’ says the hero.
“Do you think not?” says the villain, raising an eyebrow. “Do you fancy you can terrify me with your absurd threats?”
“There’s too many people already on to you,” says the hero.
“Do you mean the police? Those pathetic bumblers?”

It isn’t just the villains vanity that makes us dislike him. It’s the fact that he talks in an educated manner, using big words. You can almost hear him dropping r‘s as he speaks. No doubt he attended Harvard– if not Oxford.
This isn’t true in every culture, but certainly the American audience resents any character who is smarter and better educated than other people. Robert Parker can only get away with having his detective, Spencer, quote poetry because he works so hard to establish Spencer as a tough guy. For every line of poetry, Spencer has to work out half an hour in the gym to win our forgiveness for his erudition. We’re afraid of and resentful of people who know more than we do, and when they act as if they think it makes them superior to us, we hate them.
-Orson Scott Card from Characters & Viewpoint

…which made me wonder, “How much is America’s anti-intellectualism a product of our pop culture?”

Any serious discussion of the arts must begin with comic books. Of the four most popular American superheroes; Superman, Batman, Wolverine and Spider-Man. Only Spider-Man regularly uses scientific knowledge to defeat his bad guys.

Wolverine is a adolescent-male power fantasy. An indestructible killer who can’t be beat and solves his problems by cutting them open. For years he was directly opposed to any orders given by Cyclops the tactical brains of the X-Men.

Batman is supposed to be a detective, but his methods usually involves scaring homeless guys until one of them says where the Joker’s been hiding.

And Superman? Take a look at his rouges gallery: Lex Luthor (mad scientist), Toyman (mad inventor), the Ultra-Humanite (Superman’s first arch-enemy. A mind switching Nazi scientist) the alien android Brainiac. Brainiac can that be any more obvious?

The Flash used to be a strong science hero back in the sixties, but when Wally West took up the title that’s not as often the case.

Many team books will have a “science guy” on board. The Avengers have Henry Pym, Legion has Brainiac 5, and The Fantastic Four has Reed Richards. But Pym has a history of beating his wife, Brainiac 5 is a jerk and Reed Richards is good at getting the team into trouble, but it’s usually up to the rest of the team to get them out.

The comic book writers from England are some of the most pro-science. Warren Ellis’ Transmetropolitian had some of the best “Hard” science fiction stories I’ve read lately. Alan Moore’s Tom Strong is probably the least apologetic science heroes (Heck Alan came up with the term “science hero” to describe him) and Grant Morrison seeds just about everything he writes with abstract science principles.

But England is also the culture that gave up Judge Dredd, Sherlock Homes (intelligent yes, but also a raging jerk), James Bond (brutal, sexy and cunning, but never really smart), and Harry Potter.

Sure Harry’s a nerd in glasses but does he ever really think his way through a problem? Isn’t it Hermione that hits the books, does the research and finds the solution? [note: I'm probably being unfair since I haven't read past the first book nor seen past the second movie.]

And this is a genre that was created by and for nerds?

I remember when sick days were kind of fun.

I’d lay around all day watching daytime TV and reading my dad’s Playboys. And since I never did any school work I didn’t have any catching up to do when I got back.

Now, the fun’s all gone.

Since Tuesday I’ve been in a NyQuil induced stupor. As an adult I have to go out and get my own Sudafed, orange juice and chicken soup. I’m old enough now to know that daytime TV sucks. And when I get back to work I have to make up for the last four days.

One thing that hasn’t changed: I’m still resentful of any illness that encroaches on my weekend. If I don’t feel 100% by noon I’m giving this flu a kick in the nuts.

I wish I had extra arms, so I could give the flu four thumbs down.