Q: Why do people study dead languages?

A: To experience what it was like to live in the past.

Same thing with programming C-64 games, they’re like archaeologist engineers working with sticks, stones and mud.

Creating Guitar Hero for the Commodore is quite impressive:

(source: Toni Westbrook via Fark)

Could this be the future new Lego video game from Traveler’s Tales?

Image source: Flickr

From the San Diego Union-Tribune, Friday, January 7, 2000:

#1
Only in Minnesota…

Imagine, calling your business insurance company, and having to explain the basis of your claim:

… can a rampaging deer cause thousands of dollars in damage to an office building.

Source:  Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Sunday June 7, 2009

Ben Heck is at it again:

I am always amazed at other people’s modding skills.  Wow.  I can’t even put together a kid’s model of a Ford Thunderbird.

Great attention to detail, including the color scheme of the early 80s C-64.  I also love that it uses SD cards.

(via Fark and Make Online)

I was checking out at the store the other day, and this caught my eye:

Yowsa!

And Elaine couldn’t find anybody that was sponge-worthy?

If you put me in a room with Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Megan Fox, seriously, I couldn’t be sure who I’d gawk at more.

For those hopeful of maintaining health and vitality at age 48, it might be a good read.

link

This is big news, because I have been working on this for two years, and the end is in sight!

I have just posted Episode 7 of Dan Touchette’s Timebox.

My original plan was to force myself to write and edit and publish every two weeks back in May 2007 – but then I learned I just don’t work that way.

So I’ve taken my time, and I think I’m more satisfied with the result.

The end of the story is coming soon!

***

In order:

1. A package arrives.

2. A simple plan.

3. Terms of service.

4. ßiography.

5. A punk’dystopia.

6. Turn me on, dead man.

And the new episode.

7. Something no one else can give her.

As always feedback is appreciated and acknowledged. I still consider the story rough,

but above all, I am writing this to be a light, fun read.  Please enjoy!

Dan

IDW to Publish Entire Run of Bloom County (IDW website via Fark.com)

IDW Publishing is pleased to announce the forthcoming release of The Bloom County Library. Beginning in October 2009, each of the five volumes will collect nearly two years worth of daily and Sunday strips, in chronological order. This will be the very first time that many of these comic strips have been collected, and the first time in a beautifully designed, hardcover format. The books will be part of IDW’s Library of American Comics imprint, and designed by Eisner Award-winner Dean Mullaney.

Wow, this will be an essential part of my library… definitely.  As much as I love Calvin and Hobbes and The Far Side, I think I’m more influenced by Berke Breathed’s sense of humor and story style.

In theory, this collection would reverse the edits and mixed-up chronology of the Little, Brown paperbacks.

For example,  in the book Penguin Dreams and Stranger Things, the Platypus Comix website notes:

This collection’s strips were purposely arranged out-of-order. Opus’ trip to Antarctica (some of which was from December of 1983) is first; this happened in pieces through the course of months but is lumped together in print. In the newspapers, the “Survivalist” sequence is the actual first week of 1984 strips. In the book, that story doesn’t appear until page 21.

Breathed’s strip was quite topical, so it made sense to edit them for book form.  The beauty of the IDW release will be sidebar notes explaining some the blatant 1980s references such as Caspar Weinberger and Mary Kay Cosmetics.

Well, I have added a CSS sheet to o, MacGuffin! and now I can present it to the world.  Sort of.

I’ve been having all sorts of problems adding blogging software.  In a perfect world, I would be able to use WordPress,

but NOOOOOOOO – you have to lay down $1100 the first month to become a VIP WordPress user in order to accept advertising.

***

o, MacGuffin! is Bronwynn and my attempt to create commercial content on the Internet to alleviate some of our expenses at home like ivory backscratchers and NFL Sunday Ticket.  Maybe we can get a few hundred dollars out of it each month, and that will help.

http://www.thelennonprophecy.com/media/coasttocoast.mp3

Ian Punnett on Saturday night’s Coast-To-Coast AM,  interviews Joseph Niezgoda, author of a book called The John Lennon Prophecy, suggesting that the Beatle sold his soul to the Devil.

Lately, the show has been dry and boring, so it was nice to hear something lively for once.

Niezgoda claims John Lennon knew when and where he was going to die – something I deal with in Dan Touchette’s Timebox Episode 6.

Like the subtext in my story, all the clues from the 1960s “Paul is Dead” meme actually refer to John Lennon’s future death.