I was thinking about how much I enjoyed the MLLL at Reed in my formative years. We had every issue of every Marvel and DC comic from their first publication. Bound into hardback volumes. This ruined their collector's value but made it very easy to read an entire character's corpus in the course of a week or two of wasted evenings. Didn't help that the pool hall was right next door.
Anyway, floated into my head tonight that maybe someone enterprising has done a modern compilation, except this time putting them onto CD. I imagine it must violate some copyright laws, but this chap here appears to be doing this. Not in any organized matter but there look to be some gems in what he is offering.
Oh. My. God. I just googled "MLLL" to find a chap who appears to still be running it at Reed. Life is good. I'll like go back to the summer reunion and find it.
Yes, going to SXSW. For the nth time, this is on my own nickle but it's been generally worth it. Two years ago was a re-hash of the panels three years ago and that was a pain. Missed last year's because I was interviewing for a post in Amsterdam (which I sadly didn't get - their loss).
This year, it comes in the middle of a release cycle for a large project I'm managing for Microsoft. However, I'm determined not to miss it. So I cut the annual vacation to the bare bones and will only miss four days of work - actually, I'll likely have to dial in and deal with work when I'm there. I'm hoping not.
The side benefit is that I get to see some of my cousins who will be putting me up and who serve up fantastic dinner and conversation. So, for my part, I'll bring single malt scotch and cigars. Austin can be lovely in March and I'm hopeful that this will be another great trip. Weird routing, through Santa Ana in CA, but at least I avoid travelling on Frontier Airlines - hardest leather seats I've ever sat in.
Now I just have to work on my latest startup idea and see if I can get a draft of my business plan done while working 80hr weeks at MS.
Better than being idle, I guess.
I'm enjoying the heck out of Smallville. I've been catching a couple of episodes a week on HDNet - they broadcast in 1080i (I think) and edit out the commercials for the re-broadcast so it's a pleasure to watch.
The show itself would have to be characterized as an evening soap I think. What interests me is that I'm catching episodes from the 1st or 2nd season and then from last season and the progression of the characters and the storyline is fascinating.
They've introduced a few hacks (some meteor shower of Kryptonite hits Smallville and endows some of the town folk with unnamed, frequently wacky, superpowers for Clark to deal with.
The current season seems to be introducing some of the League of Justice cohorts - just saw both the Green Arrow (always a favorite) and the Flash. This really has promised.
What I don't know is whether the show is continuing or whether it's dead.. have to investigate. I wonder if anyone is actually going back and reading all the comic books on which it is based. I had the pleasure of going through most of the them in my college's "Mill" (music listening and lending library), now defunct. The student body had funded, for quite a few years, the purchase of every Marvel and DC comic book. Once arrived, they were bound into twenty-issue volumes. Lost much of freshman year's little spare time reading every issue of comics like Spiderman and Superman from issue one onwards.
One heck of a way to waste one's time.
I'm kind of enjoying the HBO series Deadwood. A friend just loaned me the whole first season and while I'm working late at night the last couple of weeks I catch an episode or two. I have a thought that the language is anachronistic, full of what seems like modern obscenities. Strikes me as quite incongruous - really seems to be the only lack so far.
The writing is pretty good, with some unusual turns and twists. I'm about halfway through the first season and it's just getting better.
The Purpose of Practicing Kendo
To mold the mind and body,
To cultivate a vigorous spirit,
And through correct and rigid training,
To strive for improvement in the art of Kendo,
To hold in esteem human courtesy and honor,
To associate with others with sincerity,
And to forever pursue the cultivation of oneself.
Thus will one be able
To love his country and society,
To contribute to development of culture,
And to promote peace and prosperity among all peoples.
So I took my Dovo razor back to the chap who sharpened it (Daniel at the Epicurean Edge) and he demonstrated to me that one side of the blade was sharpened differently than the other. All the years of sharpening knives and I never realized that one "side" could be razor sharp and the other less so.
A microscopic view of the blade will show what looks like saw teeth, splayed to either side. Stropping brings the teeth - but only of the side that is against the strap - into a more vertical alignment. So one can make one side of a blade sharper than the other.
Revolutionary to me. So I've come home and tested both sides of the blade and figured out what strop direction sharpens which side of the blade.
And of course, lost a lot of hair on my forearms testing. But I finally get how much to strop and have an accurate measure of sharpness.