Tuesday, November 04, 2003

Mostly Random Thoughts (and First Returns from the Election)

Will Pfeifer's Weekly Reviews, all collected into one page for your reading pleasure.

I don't really feel like tackling the two biggest stories in the comics blogosphere right now, especially since Sean Collins does such a good job of it. Basically, I think Sean is completely right on the Black Lightning flap, with the addendum that I thought the Green Arrow story was tastefully done. As for the "comic pimp" bit, well, I don't have any problem with the guy. He's just another side of fandom. More power to him, but that doesn't mean I worship him. I don't even understand why it's a problem. He never claimed to be speaking for every comic book fan, did he?

The Friends of Lulu have turned their main page into a blog, thus making it easy to see what's up in the world of women in comics. via Elayne Riggs

Fanboy Rampage directs us to an article about Malinky Robot, and notes that the book is dissed by a poster in the thread simply because the poster recognized the literary reference of the title. Very strange.

Olsen Ross has turned into Aquaman.

Amazing. Get Fuzzy has received death threats for implying that Pittsburgh stinks. I admit, when I read the strip in question, I didn't get the implication (if they'd been talking about Tacoma Washington, I would have gotten it). But, c'mon, death threats? The word "stinks" doesn't even appear!

WAHOO!!! Edgar isn't retiring yet! One more year of chances to see my favorite ever baseball player in action! Oh yeah, and four M's got Gold Gloves. Good team... right up until the end of the season.

Another bit in the "good news" department: Virus kills 2/3 of cancer in tests, without harming healthy cells. This article includes a link to a couple of pictures of a visible neck tumor that was "cured" with the virus. If this is true, if this works as well as it seems to, this could well be the biggest news of the year. Found at Slashdot.

I just found out (I could have found out sooner if I'd checked) that my home county (King County, Washington) is using the flawed Diebold voting machines. Because I vote by absentee, I didn't know they'd switched over from the punchcards system that was in use the last time I set foot in a polling place. Time to write a letter to the folks in charge of elections, I think. King County has had some serious election problems recently, including two cases where absentee ballots were messed up (once they were sent out late, once they were sent to the wrong places). Luckily, I haven't been affected by those problems, yet. But knowing that my county is using a poorly designed system that doesn't provide a hardcopy back-up upsets me. Gads, I can't believe they would do this. King County Elections Website. Stupid stupid stupid.

Speaking of elections, the first set of results are in, and the non-incumbents are leading in all three races (60%!) with about 20% of the votes counted. Fingers, toes, and eyes are crossed. Hoping that the trend continues. I may update this entry later with more on this. If I don't have a heart attack from the waiting first.

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