Selkie

I don't know how you all manage to know of all the bad comic writers.  I can't think of the name of one who deserves to be on the most hated list.  But only because I don't keep reading books with writing I dislike, and without monthly contact I forget those bad writers' names....

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Some experiences are so awful they are permanently seared into your mind.

Quick Selkie! Seperate it from the rest of the group, it's making the rest of your comics sad. :icon_cry:  Begin quarantine procedures immeadiately, before the infection spreads.

Now that you mention it, that's probably a wise move. I should put the copy of the last issue of Mutant X in there with them.

Everytime I tried to read Cerebus, I was instantly turned off. I must have tried to read that first trade over a dozen times, and could never force myself to finish it.

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If it's any consolation, I still don't know how I made it through Jaka's Story. I always hear about how brilliant Cerebus is, but that trade certainly didn't make me a believer.

Yeah, but it gave us the funniest reviews ever written on the "X-Axis" web-site!

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Oh gawds yes. The reviews of the final two issues are classics, and it's difficult to choose a favorite.

Lest we forget how truly awful Howard Mackie can be, don't leave out his Rogue miniseries, which I'm ashamed to admit I still own. Even though I own it solely to mock, having it in my collection downgrades the collective quality level of the whole.

Is not liking Pratchett grounds for being declared to have no soul? I read one of his Discworld books ages ago and thought it merely OK. I have a copy of Good Omens that was given to me by a kind soul , and after two attempts I can't get interested in it.

Should I be worried? :D

Purchased half the SS gift I'm giving yesterday, and the other half is warming in the kiln as I type this. Hope I'm not the only pathetic soul who searched old messages posted by the recipient to glean an idea for a suitable gift.

How is everyone handling return addresses? Putting your name, or something clever like "STH Member"? I assume this is an A to B, B to C, exchange, so that our partners don't necessarily know from whom they are receiving their gifts.

Pleased and relieved to hear the good news, Mark. Fingers, toes, and puppy dog tails crossed that your good fortune continues.

Kate Millett's The Basement: Meditations on a Human Sacrifice

I don't know why I checked out this book from the library when I was a child of maybe eight or nine years old. Certainly I knew nothing of its author or its place in feminist literature. Reading it is one of the few events in my childhood that left lasting scars on my psyche. It's definitely the first book (or movie or anything else for that matter) that left me feeling unclean, and its indictment of the role of women as key figures in repressing other women over the ages left a deep impression on me. Although I'd forgotten the book's name, I remembered disliking the repetitive writing style and authorial interjections yet finding myself unable to put it down. A thread on another message board lead me back to it (and apparently, I'm far from the only person to be so affected by it), and I'm hoping that re-reading it as an adult will rob it of some of its power over me. My library no longer carries a copy, but strangely enough a friend of mine - who was considering donating an entire feminist book collection to a nearby shelter - turned out to own a copy, and willingly loaned it to me.

Thus far, it's exactly as I remembered it - and I'm reading it while soaking in the bathtub with plenty of soap handy, thankyouverymuch. Part of me longs that this true crime story was retold in half as many words and one tenth the attempts at lyricism, but if that's the approach Millett had taken, I suspect I wouldn't have been able to get through as much as I have.

I'm cold, I'm tired, I hurt all over, the doctors are still useless, I'm reasonably sure I've reinjured the fifth metatarsal I broke in two places five years ago and the pain is causing me to limp noticeably, and from the sounds of things some of my cyberfriends are going through really rough times. And you know what? I'm in high spirits, of the non-alcoholic variety.

Cally has improved markedly, and although she's obviously still a sick dog (as in, don't let ayone see her through the window lest they call the humane society) she's also a much happier, more comfortable dog than she was just a few days ago. The improvement is so dramatic that if I didn't know better, I'd swear someone had swapped her for another Greyhound.

And .... I took a new sculpture up to my mentor's house late Sunday afternoon and dropped it off while he wasn't home, with the hopes he could mold it and use it in his pottery. Wasn't my most accomplished or detailed piece - I've used up three hundred hours on a single sculpt, and this one probably took me two - but somehow I liked the way it went together. Apparently he did too. He's already gotten three molds made and test samples from each sitting on his workbench. It looks terrific - much nicer than even I had hoped for! I'm doing an artistic happy dance. Gingerly, because of the metatarsal, but still, a happy dance.

Hugs to everyone who needs one. Pooka, STAY WARM! Being cold absolutely sucks (and I have the recent experience to understand completely) Get that young honey of yours into your bed to warm you up, and distract you from your woes!

Selkie's designated victim had best brace him/herself, especially if the mold for the latest sculpture is done in time.... bwa ha ha ha ha!

Selkie, I'm sure we will enjoy it very much. Just have to wait for the kid to get down to bed and then, what, you just stick it in, right?

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Men. The equipment is just not that difficult to operate!

You play with the button (you do KNOW about the button, right? I'd hate to have to draw a diagram; I'm sure Laurie can show you), then stick it in the slot, and play with the button some more.

For those seeking 13th shirts, looks like Glarkware/Television Without Pity will be offering some soon.

Lou, Tower's web site lists the 18" battle damaged Hellboy. Today's also the last day of their "toy blowout" sale, although he doesn't appear to be one of the marked-down items.

Thanks, Selkie, and in such a cute little package, too! Plain brown wrapper and everything.

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Discretion is everything when a Cthulhu fan sends adult entertainment to a married couple, after all.

Do let me know whether ythe two of you enjoy it. {;enty more of an identical or similar vein is available.

Glad to hear the package arrived! It contains some of the finest entertainment two adults can share, particularly when they have a spare hour or two away from a little one. I hope you and Laurie both enjoy it.

:cool:

You people showing off your giant Hellboys are killing me. I don't even have room to display my Sideshow pieces, let alone a humungous Hellboy, but OH, how I want one too.

At least my little Hellboy-and-corpse survived the carnage of a recent shipment full of toys broken due to bad packing. Any mention of how that thos items were packed, or what happened to my long-awaited BtVS Gentlemen, will result in hissing and spitting that would do a ringhal proud. Darkman survived too ... mostly.

My lover presenting me with the warm, still-beating heart of my enemy.

The act of creating something. In my case, specifically, it's opening the kiln after a long, slow firing and seeing something shiney, beautiful and new, made entirely by my own hands.

And, of course, my hounds, cat, frogs, and assorted household denizens.

So....is "Epileptic" worth my money?!

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OH HELL YES!!!

Epileptic is an amazing work, right up there with the best in the medium. There's been some mad love from Forumites about it before, back in this thread somewhere.

Mark, my deepest sympathies for everything your grandmother and you are going through. I'm sure words can't adequately convey the stress everyone's going through. Hang in there, and let us know if there's anything we can do, 'k?

Quick Cally update: Emergency visit to the vet this morning (don't ask why it become an urgent necessity) revealed not one, not two, but THREE conditions plaguing her above and beyond the asthma and congestive heart failure we already knew about. In isolation, or in a young healthy animal, any one of the new problems would fall in the "treatable nuisance" to "of concern, but not terribly serious" categories. In combination, in a thirteen year old Greyhound with a history of problems handling medication .... we'll see. She has now exceeded even myself for the number of pills to be swallowed in the course of a day, and the timing of each is critical. There goes my out of town visit to friends next week. Fortunately they are dog people and will understand.

I picked up one of the snails that survived and carried it outside onto a tree.

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Good on ye!

My venerable greyhound Cally could use some good wishes from the Forum. She's the real love of my life, and there'll never be another like her. All dogs are special, but she's one-of-a-kind. At thirteen years of age she's well up there for a greyhound, but her health has taken a precipitous decline over the last few days, and at this point I'm just hoping for a peaceful end. I'll most certainly take her to the vet to ease her passing, but she's still at the on-again, off-again stage, and I'm crossing my fingers that I recognize the right time before her failing lungs take the decision out of my hands. I know she doesn't have long, but I'm determined to give her whatever quality time she has left.

It's like bohemian robots programmed to act like real people by aliens who have been watching us for centuries and still feel pretty confused.

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

And the ending is just flat-out insulting.

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Oh great Og, are you telling me that ending is faithful to the play? For the brief interval of time I thought about it, before blocking it from my conscious memory, I assumed it was tacked on for the film. Eeewww.....

Saw Pride & Prejudice this afternoon. It's exactly what one expects it to be - nothing more, nothing less. Can't decide whether to complain about how the lingering shots of the houses and grounds slowed the pace, or be grateful for this distraction from the weepy melodrama. I'm not a big Jane Austen fan (understatement alert!) but even I recognized the American ending was a terrible mistake.

Happy birthday, Josh!

Without a computer, Internet connection, and the Web, I would almost certainly be crippled and probably dead by now (and I mean that literally, not figuratively). So those are definitely life essentials for me.

My DVD player, although not not as essnetial to my immediate survival, has done a lot to preserve the small, reaming shreds of sanity I cling to. I know, you guys have seen no evidence of this sanity of which I speak, but trust me, there are still a few tattered remnants floating around in my brain.

Twin Peaks. The episode in season 2 when you find out that...

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Oooh, excellent call, Mark.

kinki, I understand why the marketing of the show might not have made it appealing, but it contained a lot of really good television. Lost me part way through the second season, but that doesn't negate the stuff it got right.

For as religiously as I used to watch X-Files, one would assume I could nominate something from it. Sure can't think of anything, though "Eve" and "Home" certainly have some high creep factor.

Oh yes, TV episodes, anything basically that seriously scares you shiteless! For instance Salem's lot, when it first came out, had me scurrying behind the sofa.

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Definitely BtVS "Hush", then, with "Conversations with Dead People," "Forever," "Same Time Same Place" and "The Wish" also well worthy of mention. Hmm, for a show I don't consider scary in the freak-out sense, that's a fair number of episodes. (Most of which are available in this overpriced-compared-to-buying-the-whole-series-"Chosen"-collection set called "Curse of the Hellmouth").

Hmm, trying to think of contenders from Angel, but drawing a blank....

Although I didn't find The Grudge scary, I have to give it props for the excellent idea of how it isolated the victims from their potential rescuers. Much more clever to use a language/cultural divide rather than a physical barrier. I find the idea of being surrounded by people who can't help you because you can't communicate with them infinitely scarier than trying to crash down a tangible hindrance of some sort.

kinki, would a scary television episode count? Buffy the Vampire Slayer's "Hush" and "Conversations with Dead People" episodes might work for your purposes. The former, is particular, is damn scary and it's more-or-less a standalone episode with little to no continuity knowledge required.

cough

 

The head spider has always been one of my fvorite bits, and for someone to immortalize it in plastic is a dread come true

 

NECA also makes a mean "McReedy versus fucked up dawg" box set

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<assumes the "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil position>

I didn't see those. I didn't see those. You're trying to make me spend money again, aren't you?! Not going to work this time. (If I tell myself that often enough, perhaps I'll believe it).

At least the Nightmares of Lovecraft set has been delayed for a year.... not that I'm happy about that, but my wallet sure is.

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Has anyone seen the Call of Cthlulhu silent film recently produced by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society? I've been hearing some rave reviews, and some reports of it being genuinely scary. I think it's a brilliant idea doing the film in th style of a silent movie prodcued right after publication of the story, and given how wonderful the same group's "A Very Scary Solstice" Christmas carols are, I'm tempted to try it.