Audience of Strangers

I am sure most people who would care would know, but...

There are nails in the coffin of the CCA.

(reserving the right to turn her head and spit at the name of Dr. Frederick Wertham since the early 90s)

Dental work's finally done.

Went looking for Christmas cards today, and could not find anything that didn't have preprinted sentiments. Got some of my yarn weighed.[1] Watching The Walking Dead; I keep getting a bit of déjà vu from when I read the comic, but it's not spoiling the show any.

(Speaking of comics, rediscovered 100 Bullets in collection at the library. Noir series, very neat concept that allows for one-to-three issue stories while unfolding an overarching plot in the background. Worth checking out if you like that kind of thing.)

Hoping to get out to see RED before it leaves the theatres, but keep doing other things instead. And I need to get started on Christmas presents, too. (Possibly not knitted ones. I tried swatching the See You Later socks (Ravelry link), and I... well. I did not do so well.)

Looking for ways to sync Thunderbird between my laptop and my PC[2]; found a couple of options, not sure how much trouble they'd be to implement. (I want to do the same thing with Firefox, but that is much less trouble.)

Looking for work continues. One possible job to be hopeful about, but they are saying they need information to give me a T4 for the work on the contract, and this is leaving me unoptimistic.[3]

S'yeah. Not exciting, but mostly pleasant and productive.
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[1] Do not laugh. First, it gives me yardage. Second, it lets me know how much postage I need to use.
[2] Oh, and such a PC I have! It is... delicious.
[3] People contracted to do work? To the best of my knowledge (since I had to look into this sometime last year), they are not employees. They do not get a T4.

Nazi... undersea... werewolf.

(I contemplate this and giggle.)

Also, watched Alien vs. Predator last night. Never has a movie given my husband such justification to repeat the phrase "face full of alien wing-wong". I'm just sayin'.

Besides that, he complains about the guy reading Predator heiroglyphs as if they were English. I, however, simply want to know why the Predators are using the Gregorian calendar (and, not incidentally, whether they go day-month-year or month-day-year. The hatching date being October 10th neatly prevented me from discerning this.)

Computer not working this morning (hopefully fixable with a fan-cleaning, possibly eventually a new fan). Did not get to see the last twenty minutes of Teeth.

Tried Possets' Eve and BPAL's Black Lotus and Cobra Lily. Black Lotus is lovely. Cobra Lily is an overstrong floral that fades quickly and is going on the swap pile. Eve is a *very* evening scent, grounded sweet musk and heavy. Not unwearable, and enjoyable, but I'm not sure how much I'd ever wear it.

Got Wet Moon 3 at the local comic book shop. It wasn't in my subscription bag, and I never got volume 2. They're looking into finding it for me. Meanwhile, am reading through volume 3.

Spent until 2:00 p.m. by office phone, with insufficient coffee and no breakfast or lunch. Managed to be polite and get stuff done regardless.

My husband understands.

He comes bearing gifts.

Like Watchmen.

It's so beautiful. I've watched it twice. Will watch a third time as soon as I've posted.

On the flipside, it is occasionally important to poke at one's own sacred cows.

Stopped by the Comic Book Shoppe. Flipped through a couple of horror comics (migod, there are so many more than there used to be, back when I started reading...); one the first issue of something called Bump from Fangoria--clearly I have been not paying much attention to comics lately, since Fangoria putting out comics came as a complete surprise--and one the fourth issue of Secret from Dark Horse.

( Spoilers. )

( Impressions. )

Interesting.

It's putting me oddly in mind of Fred Clark's post here, on how One Does Not Do Such Things even if They Do--not because they are a good person or a fragile flower or any such reason, but because One Is Not Bad. Dammit.
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[1] Ah, bless you, decade of the oughts. How *would* we properly express concern about strange savage degenerate outsider cultures without your movies?
[2] Yayyyy! Freddy!
[3] Oh, hell. That's a decent idea, actually--I can see it in Deadlands. Yank that setup, have dead victims as well as the killer's body hidden away, and have the victims rising from where they were left angry because just retribution was never exacted. Sure, the Sheriff's daughter was protected, and justice was done for *her*--but what about the unnamed, unburied, unavenged others? How are *they* going to rest easy?
Reminds me of the suggestion that a proper fair and legal trial, followed by a sanctioned hanging, might be enough to put down a Harrowed. Social ritual, justice acknowledged, secrets brought to light, memoriam. All that good stuff.
[4] This is notable only because they are human to start with. Freddy Kruegar or Pinhead may be expected to not participate in normal human society. Slasher movies often have a villain who is superficially human--it's the buddy or the cop or the rejected girl or the boyfriend who can function in society, and breaks out the butcher knives on the sly. What I'm talking about is different: the idea of someone who *obviously* doesn't meet society's norms, who clashes with the existing culture--a barbaric archetype.

I picked up Gary A. Braunbeck's In Silent Graves at the library's used book store, and started reading it the other day.

First, I was actually disturbed. (That doesn't happen often. Pleasantly creeped out, grossed out, annoyed, disappointed (all too often), mildly sad or happy, those I get a lot. Disturbed, not so much.) It was a brief scene and a relatively mild effect--nothing as intense as reading "The Screwfly Solution" or watching the end of Hannibal--but damn. I am not used to novels that can do that. I am impressed.

Second, it comes across as *intelligent*, which is different from simply smart in some way I cannot put my finger on. Very information-rich, and I am not seeing any of the talking-down-to-the-audience or playing up of shared assumptions that I usually spot in horror.

Worth picking up.

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If cropped shots of underwear models are NSFW, then so's the link. But as Leigh Walton says:

Jeez, Chris, if we wanted REALISM in our comics we’d go to Alex Ross or something.

What? Oh.

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So apparently the Governor of Oregon is trying to live on $21 of groceries for a week. This has stuck in my brain as a rather neat factoid (yes I know that he's got help not typically available; I still like the idea), and I am moved to go home for lunch. The weather's nice outside[1], and the walk would be not bad, and all such small practicalities.

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Is it just me, or are there a lot more facial piercings out there this year?
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[1] Cloudy, cool, chance of rain, filthy daystar not immediately visible.

I do believe I'm getting old.

( Boring knee pain. )

S'yeah. I'm waiting for my doctor's office to call back. I'm going to Victoria on Wednesday unless they say something like "My god, you've got knee cancer and we *absolutely* have to operate on Thursday! Knee cancer can only be excised by the dark of the moon!"[3], but it would be nice if she (or someone in her office) could take a look at that and possibly prescribe a brace[4] or anti-inflammatories or something before I go.

*sigh* I just want to go home, put my leg up, and curl up with a nice chunk of horror fiction.

In other news, my sister got a job (yay!), I'm pretty sure I didn't (but there will be another), and some of H.P. Lovecraft's poetry has this really catchy beat, like Poe. I think "The Bride of the Sea " is rapidly becoming my favourite. Grimjack is still entertaining, Katharine Dunn's Geek Love is engaging, the French rugby team (and guests) quietly blew my mind, and I still don't hate my job.
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[1] During which I did not actually get coffee, but a jumbo pack of TicTacs. I've developed this weird fondness for them as a snack, which given how cheap they are and how many you get in a box is something I am simply not going to question.
[2] Of course, if I had indications that one of my *cats* had been having trouble putting their weight on one leg for a day and a half, I'd've been calling the vet by then.
[3] Actually, if they say *that*, I'm getting a second opinion. But you take my point.
[4] Although I think braces are over-the-counter, I am happy to take recommendations from health professionals.

So I woke up this morning (yes, this early), and in the predawn stew of my brain, the name "Edgar Vargas" is kicking around. It sounds like it should be something more than a character name, somehow. Faintly referential.

Edgar Vargas, for those either looking blankly at the screen or going through one of the "Agh! Where do I know that name from? Curse you, brain! Spit it out!" moments of life, is a character in Johnny the Homicidal Maniac. It's a comic about a guy named Johnny (Nny for short), who's a homicidal maniac. Written and drawn by Jhonen Vasquez (yes, that Jhonen Vasquez), pre-1997. Wonderfully scratchy B&W art, like a switchblade trying to draw something cute. Edgar shows up for all of four pages. It ends as expected, and it ends badly, and Edgar comports himself with quiet dignity throughout, and Johnny gets nothing out of it.

Edgar Vargas. Sounds like it should be the name of a nineteenth-century somewhat obscure painter, perhaps one who dealt a lot with city sunlight or brickwork.

So I Googled. And I didn't get any references (although Alberto Vargas is technically a nineteenth-century pin-up artist), but dear god--there's fanfic. And fanart. And yes, while I know that somewhere out there someone has probably devoted pages and pages to the fanfic of any short-lived character you can name and the internet lets people hook up with each other, I'm still somewhat surprised.

I'm trying to figure out why it feels like a pleasant surprise.

Going out biking now.