busy busy

Too busy to do a real update, so here's a lazy link. I get a lot of good recipe ideas from Cooking for Engineers, despite being a lit-geek/history dork. Enjoy.

gyahh!

I've never gone swimming in the ocean. My teenage distaste of lake swimming at summer-camp ("but fish fuck in it..." I'd mutter while reluctantly toeing the icy embrace of an Ontarian lake) evolved into a terror of being at the mercy of an environment with that many slimy, poisonous, bitey, and disgusting things living in it.

The only ocean I've closely regarded is the part that surrounds Vancouver Island, which might make my disgust a little more understandable. I think anyone who has actually seen what washes up the beach can empathize with my position. The ocean is beautiful, but so are avalanches. It's a powerful, frightening, and lovely thing in which I have no desire to be submerged. I'm a great swimmer, but I'd probably start shrieking like a five-year-old with a skinned knee if a fish touched my foot.

Sometimes I look at pictures of tropical, turquoise waters, clear and inviting. It's hard to reconcile that image of the water with the dark, oily and impenetrable depths that lap up against the sides of the Spirit of British Columbia, and imbue the rocky beaches with the faint tang of rotting seaweed.

However, after reading today's news, I'll take the waters of Southern BC over those of warmer climes any day. Should you chose to swim in the murky waters off Vancouver's coast, the most unpleasant things likely to happen include hypothermia, being seriously grossed out by seaweed sticking to your leg, and being run over by a rowing team.

Australia, despite possessing some of the most beautiful seascapes on earth, has 20-foot long fucking SHARKS.

Let's put that in perspective. A handball court is 20 feet long. Two stories of a house is about 20 feet tall. More than three times the height of an average grown man equals 20 feet. That's bigger than the U-Haul truck I moved in. 20 feet is 6 metres.

And apparently, this 6 metre monstrosity, gliding through water like birds fly, surfaced and snapped a man in half on a whim.

Excuse me, I think I need to go pull a blanket over my head, curl up in a corner, and whimper quietly for a bit.

peripheral axis

As I may have passingly mentioned awhile back, I'm creating a web publication out of thin air. It's a directed study project for me in the Journalism program here at UCC/TRU.

And now, my beloved readers, I'm running out of time. The basic web design is done, but now I need text! Lots and lots of text! I know some of you are talented writers, and all of you have interesting things to say when cornered or plied with enough alcohol.

Acceptable subject matter runs a HUGE spectrum. I just want articles about culture and life. Write about your hobbies, your family, your work, your childhood, your health, your life. Just write it so that someone who has never stood there can read it and say, "oh hey, that's interesting."

If you think you have a great story idea, but are insecure about your writing ability, give me a poke. If a story has promise, I'm happy to help polish it till it says what you really want it to say.

Have a look at the submission guidelines at Peripheral Axis and please PLEASE pass this information on to anyone you know who might write.

life of riley

I'm happy to say that Life of Riley is back.

Life of Riley was one of the top-notch webcomics out there. I started following it a couple years ago because it focused on a group of 20-something gamers, both male and female, who all seem to be based on real people. They were into paintball, anime, computer games, goth-rock, and kilts. Not unlike finding a Floridian parallel to various geek-cliques I've drifted through.

The storyline, which went from silly to somber, came to a screeching halt about six months ago. On a cliff hanger. Mid-epic battle, with the good guys mauled but defiant in the face of ultimate evil... then *screeeech* First the comic wasn't updated, and then the site itself poofed into nothing.

A month or two ago, Clan Bob (the group who do Life of Riley) came back online with a series of humourous World of Warcraft videos. Just recently, they posted the first new comic.

Current high quality webcomics, at least in my books, include Penny Arcade, Something Positive, and Megatokyo.

As far as popularity goes, all three of these have serious awards of merit; Penny Arcade is organizing their 2nd annual expo, where thousands of PA fans and gamers revel for three solid days. Something Positive creator Randy Milholland challenged his readers to provide him with a year’s salary (a response to complaints that he wasn't updating often enough) so that he could quit his job and write the comic full time. To everyone's astonishment, it worked. Megatokyo is also flying on its own wings, supported by fans, site advertisements, and some very successful merchandizing.

Life of Riley could probably keep pace with those illustrious names in webcomics, if Clan Bob can crank it up again. I hope they do, but mostly because I really really want to know what happens next. Damn cliff-hangers!

advice on vices

For magazine class, we're putting together an online publication focusing on Vice and Excess... some of the story proposals sounded really interesting. Mine, not so much, but I'll try to keep up. However, I'm also working on one of campy features... adVice. If anyone out there would like to help us out, please submit a sincere question for our advice column.

Looking for advice on vices? XS Magazine (Jour 454) will run an adVice column to offer tongue-in-cheek assistance for navigating that fine line between indulgence and destructiveness. Please submit your anonymous anxieties or questions about sin.

The seven “deadly” sins are, of course, Pride, Envy, Gluttony, Lust, Anger, Greed and Sloth. At XS Magazine, we believe that a little sin can do you good. But sometimes, you might need a little help figuring out where that line is. Don’t hold back, give us the best of your worst.

Please make your questions real, but we encourage anonymity. Feel free to e-mail your questions to me (ferric_feline@lycos.com), but if you’d prefer to really put some distance between your name and your question, you can go to this forum and leave a message.

XS Magazine – coming to a computer monitor near you in April 2005.

hey geeks...

For the gamers amongst my devout readers (all five of you): have a look at these ebay auctions and see if there's anything appealing. The seller is a friend, and if you don't believe his 350 positive ratings, I'll vouch for him.

I'm not much into miniatures (too many of the dang things cluttering up my space already, and I weep when I think of all the unpainted lead I have in the garage) but I figured I'd post this on the off-hand chance one of you is.

For everyone else, gamer or non, check out the USB memory duckie. Along with the USB sushi and a grand piano, it ranks among things I appreciate but will never actually spend money on. However, I have one of these, so there's no accounting for my taste.