Pointless Man

It is a shame for fans of westerns, great film, or Nick Cave that The Proposition has not been given a wider release. It is awesome, and deserves greater attention than it has been afforded. The score, acting, cinematography, sound editing, and direction are all masterful. The script's not bad, either. If you have the chance to see and don't, you will be doing yourself great disservice.

What happened to Nightcrawler? There's no Nightcrawler in this one, and no one says why. You've got hundreds of mutants in this flick, but one of the most important characters in the second movie doesn't once get so much as mentioned? This is the sort of thing you can almost expect X3 to do to itself, and there are moments, at least, where it does just that. The terrible writing and lackluster direction make this not quite worth seeing in the theatre, while it is too special effects driven to be viewed on the small screen. There are some disappointing moments even in that area, where certain characters are given digital skins, and it looks like something from 1999. Outside of that, the movie has the makings of a great camp adventure. Oh, and if you have young children and want to talk to them about issues like racism, homophobia (I wish there were a better, recognizable word for that), self determination, and various other ethical issues, this might not be a poor basis for...

Last night, there was an electrical overload resulting in a blown out fuse, and a flaming outlet in my brother Devin's bedroom. He used a fire extinguisher and called the Seattle Fire Department. A truck showed up, they went inside, took out much of one of the walls, and decided everything was cool. So we all went back inside, and tried to get some sleep. Two hours later, I find I'm unable to sleep because Devin's roaring explatives downstairs. When I finally can't take anymore, I open my door only to be accosted by smoke, once again. Great. This second flare up was aroung 2 AM. So we call the FD, and they show up this time with five trucks, 3 command cars, two medic units, and some sort of back-up team in case anybody has been exposed to smoke. And the fire is serious, bursting out of my brother's basement room to lick the sides of our house. But it doesn't require all these guys. They're just there because their buddies fucked up. Then City Light shows up,...

Quite a feeling slipping into and through the heavy fog of mental fatigue crossing iced streets in search of an open door only to fall on your ass again.

The tune is called 'expansion' . I thought I had linked to it previously, but I'd gotten my files mixed up. So there it is, now.

This Penny Arcade strip has a much repeated stylistic error in comics layout. Notice the two panels at the left of the bottom row. They actually comprise a single picture of one point in time, without motion or change of perspective between panels. These should be a single panel. There is little reason for the split. The artist may realize this, but wish to keep the integrity of his unimaginative 2x3 panel layout--and that is the mistake. Bad artist. Bad. If it was just this once that they made this amateurish layout mistake, or if it weren't a widespread problem, I wouldn't make an issue out of it. But the ideas that panels must be consistent and must be so in this very patterned manner is something I see far too often. Sequential art is a visual medium, and an important part of that is composition of art and words within panels, of panels as they relate to one another, and of each page (be it on the web or in print) as a whole. These factors are what make comics unique, a...

Law and morality are separate, though obviously related, concerns. There are books recording stupid and silly laws held by American localities at one time or another. These books suggest that said laws were not something one could take seriously in a moral or intellectual sense. There are also many administrative laws without apparent moral intent or character. And then there are the laws most people have no problem ignoring when convenient. There is arguably nothing wrong with me taping a Mariners' game for personal use (or even for showing at large parties at my house) without checking with anybody if I can. There are variously more controversial issues when it comes to 'intellectual property', but it is obvious that many don't feel that a law proscribing something is enough to make it morally wrong or otherwise distasteful. People jay walk all the time. This is against the law. Does anybody really think this is something one shouldn't do when there are no cars or...