Or maybe “tumble” would be more appropriate…
Needless to say, the dryer was out of order. I mean, seriously, when was the last time you saw a 16-sided die?
Author Archives: Kelson
Books of Laredo
As I walked out on the streets of Laredo,
As I walked out in Laredo one day,
I stopped in the mall just to visit the bookstore.
The bookstore was closed, it’s been taken away.
The only bookstore in Laredo, Texas, a city of 250,000 people, has closed. The nearest one is 150 miles away in San Antonio.
Unexpected Shower
Bad idea of the day: “I’ll be back before the rain starts again. No need to bring my umbrella.”
I’m sure you can see where this is going.
I actually would have made it if I hadn’t decided to finish re-reading The Briar King. Three pages from the end — WHOOSH! Instant cloudburst!
So I finished the book, zipped the full-sized hardcover into my jacket, and proceeded to run from Coffee Bean to the parking structure, pausing under overhangs when I found them. There’s a surprising lack of shelter at the Irvine Spectrum, not counting the stores themselves. It wasn’t until I got to the structure that I realized I’d been running with a coffee cup in my hand.
Amazingly enough, even though I got soaked, I managed to keep the book dry!
(Reposted from LiveJournal.)
1…2…3…4…5.
If Your Password is “123456”, Just Make it “HackMe” (New York Times). Security researchers examine a list of 32 million passwords stolen from RockYou, and the most common are…well…pathetic. Things like “123456” (the most common), “abc123”, “password” and even “rockyou” (seriously!)
There’s been some slight improvement in the past decade, when the most common password was “12345” (the kind of combination an idiot has on his luggage). Now it’s got a whole extra digit. (Whee.)
Hmm, I wonder where “Chuck Norris” appears on the list?
(via @dixonium)
Myth-Quotations
Myth Adventures, Phil Foglio’s comic-book adaptation of Robert Asprin’s fantasy/comedy novel, Another Fine Myth, is being serialized as a free webcomic [Edit: no longer available.], in the same format as Girl Genius. I remember spending a lot of effort tracking down the mid-1980s books on eBay, before they finally reissued the collection.
The title of that first novel was originally going to be Another Fine Mess, from the Laurel and Hardy catch-phrase, but someone misheard it and Robert Asprin decided he liked that version better. It turns out that “Another fine mess” is actually a misquote itself, according to this the New York Times article on why we misquote movies (via @johannadc). It was originally “Here’s another nice mess you’ve gotten me into.”
Midday Thunderstorm & Rainbow
WTF?!? CNN reports: Tornado warning in effect for south central Los Angeles.
It turns out there’s a tornado warning in Orange County too. I can believe it.
Drove past Blizzard HQ during a thunderstorm. Saw a really nice lightning strike a few minutes later.
Got soaked walking out of the parking structure. Wouldn’t be so bad if the rain was coming straight down. Ducked into first restaurant I saw.
Oh, NOW the storm lets up while I’m INSIDE. Rain & sky are both lightening up, & I haven’t seen any lightning in at least 10 minutes.
Aaaand we now return you to your regularly scheduled California sunshine!
I glanced out the window while eating lunch at Johnny Rockets and saw this brilliant rainbow. I hastily told the server that I would be right back, and was just going to look at it, and left some of my stuff at the table while I came out and snapped a picture. A passing security guard remarked that he had the same idea, but didn’t have his camera. When I went back in, two of the employees were staring out the window at it.
Moon Girl Fights Time!
In the 1940s, comic book publishers would often re-purpose an old series to avoid postal fees for launching a new one. For example, the super-hero book All-Star Comics became All Star Western.
EC’s Moon Girl was infamous. It launched as a superhero title, became Moon Girl Fights Crime! by issue #7, and A Moon…A Girl…Romance with issue #9 as they tried to figure out just what genre audiences wanted.
Eventually it became Weird Fantasy, then Weird Science-Fantasy, then finished its run as Incredible Science-Fiction. It ended with the story, “Judgment Day,” an allegory against racism which the Comics Code Authority tried to censor.
I just read that someone’s reviving it. The original super-hero character has fallen into the public domain, and the new series, described as “‘The Dark Knight’ meets ‘Mad Men,” is being published through comiXology’s iPhone comics…60 years later.