Betty or Veronica? Who cares? The real question of which comic chick is the hottest has always been the perplexing plight posed to Superman: Lois Lane or Lana Lang?
Well, unlike our buddy Archie Andrews, it looks like good old Kal-El can have his cake and eat it to.
--Superman's Girlfriend Lois Lane no.78. Oct. 1967
Mar 31, 2008
It appears that there's a major travesty being perpetrated by our dear ol' DOD and, as usual, the MvC gang doesn't approve. Since our hard earned dollars gotta be spent on building robots, we figure it's only proper that we get a say in how the robots are going to look. Now, the MvC gang ain't a buncha sissies, but it's pretty obvious that a robot that walks like a dog, jumps like a dog, and gets scared of a well-placed Mike Vick boot to the ribs like a dog should look more, well, like a dog. Which is to say, give the freaking robot a head!
Therefore, without further ado, we will kick off the official MvC Give Poor Li'l BigDog a Head Contest. Just click on the picture below to open the bigger version, right click on it, and "save target as" to get started. Whoever pastes the prettiest puss on Li'l BigDog wins!
Hey, SiZzle, you are to Eminem as the rest of us are to D12. So when you get the book deal, remember to share the upward mobility with your coconspirators.
Mar 30, 2008
Robotic research company Boston Dynamics has built a prototype for a robotic pac-mule that may be used by the military to help lighten the load that soldiers must carry into battle.
Freaking crazy.
Mar 26, 2008
Mar 25, 2008
Mar 23, 2008
A dumb contrarian with bad analysis.
No.
The evidence supports what's fairly obvious: mVc bloggers are more white than black (& educated).
Check how well each frequent mVc bloggers fits the stereotypes listed in this website.
Rankings for educated blackness:
1. Lankownia 55%
2. Jay Gee 45%
3. Space Zombie and Benny (also typical PDX's score) 36%
5. Joker 18%
6. Moon Tramp 9%
Science confirms my hypothesis. Moon Tramp is the whitest white man there ever was!
So White.
In addition to the mVc bloggers I included a category for a stero-“typical” 30ish Portland resident.
And just so no ones thinks its arbitrary, the comments include the conclusive rationale used to categorize each person.
Check the evidence:
The scientific method has worked again!
Overall, over 2/3s of the stuffs that white peoples likes fits mVc bloggers ( a conservative estimate if anything.)
The stereotypical white person from PDX is a great fit at 86% of SWPL categories fitting pretty well.
Individual whiteness rankings:
1. Lankownia - 76%
2. Moon Tramp - 71%
3. Jay Gee - 70%
4. Space Zombie - 69%
5. Joker - 56%
Man! Thats some white people for ya.
Mar 22, 2008
You can play the classic game for free here.
The one problem is that it seems not to work in Firefox, but it does in IE.
I can't freakin' believe that I made it all the way to the Columbia River, just to wreck my raft and kill myself. I survived three bouts of dysentery and a broken arm for that?
Mar 21, 2008
This website has a lot of interesting information if you like seeing Portland's past.
Watch the video below of Interstate and Broadway and notice how the cars make left-hand turns. Looks like something you'd see in the 3rd world today.
Mar 20, 2008
Lank,
As long as you are scientifically determining which of us is the whitest, could you also please reveal who is the most educated black person.
Thanks much.
Now you too can enjoy all of the awesome work that Richard and Wendy Peni did on the Elfquest series. It's being digitized as we speak...
elfquest.com
(I owe boingboing.net mad props for breaking this story for me)
I know--you read the title and thought "Ugh fantasy. That's the stuff with mighty-thewed barbarians, elves and goblins, evil wizards and forgotten towers. Lame."
You can't be blamed for such thoughts, for many such cruddy examples do exist. However, the field of speculative fiction has vastly improved since the 80's. There are many very good series and books out there now; it's sort of a golden age for the field.
But the best of the best is still: A Song of Ice and Fire by George RR Martin. That's the series title; the first book is called "A Game of Thrones." Pick it up.
This series is difficult not to like. It is loosely based on The War of the Roses and thus free of most of the above mentioned tropes of fantasy. There are some good and bad guys, but most are shades of grey. No character, no matter how beloved, is safe from death or dismemberment. Enough political machinations go on to make Machiavelli seem a bleeding heart-liberal. A wide variety of characters are given the chance to "voice" their chapters, leading to a diverse world filled with even more diverse people. There are surprises after surprises, and characters you loathe end up becoming some of your favorites.
Okay, it's not a perfect book. The first book, in setting the stage, is a little slower, especially compared to the second and the third. There are some characters whose POV chapters will drive you crazy, and one character in particular whose story is so far removed from the others that it's tempting to skip over. The prose is good but not overwhelmingly so.
However, if you enjoyed good writing, muli-faceted stories, brilliant use of subtext, or things that don't suck, start reading this series. HBO bought the filmes rights a year or so ago, so get ahead of the game and start reading now.
Mar 19, 2008
Remember how much you all liked the cool graphic of the liberal brain? Well, Space Zombie's got some good news for you:
you can get that same graphic on your very own t-shirt here. That's right, now you can show everyone just how stupid those darn liberal Democrats are.
I personally prefer the muscle-T.
Also, the folks at thepeoplescube.com, who brought us the original Liberal Brain also have a Conservative Brain for us to look at here:
www.thepeoplescube.com
Mar 18, 2008
Check out this Victorian-style keyboard and monitor set up--it's awesome!
More Pictures at the original site:
steampunkworkshop.com
Mar 16, 2008
Here's a panel from a story in Betty and Me where Archie and Betty stay the night in a motel together after they drive their car into the lake. It gets kind of crazy when Betty's dad finds them
and accuses Archie of taking advantage of his daughter.
Read the whole article here.
Mar 15, 2008
Dwarfstar Games was a small-time publisher of board games in the early 1980's that put out eight games between 1980-82 before going out of business. Somebody decided that it would be cool to scan in all of the game parts and put them on the web for all of us to play. Today's game, Goblin, 
is a fantasy game of raiding and plunder for two players where the player who amasses the greatest amount of plunder as Goblin King, before being killed in battle or deposed by his own goblins, is the winner. Sounds fun to me.
Download the .pdf here.
"I'm writing about the white people who think they're absolutely unique and individual," Lander told me. "I'm calling them out and poking fun of myself. The things I post are all the things I like too!"
It turns out the author of STWPL is a white Canadian living in LA.
By "white people," Lander doesn't actually mean the more than 221 million Americans who check that box on the decennial census. But that's part of the fun. Lander is doing to whites what scores of journalists and politicians do to non-white minorities every day, "essentializing" complex identities -- that is, stripping away all variety and reducing them to their presumed authentic essences.
One irony-deficient reader complained that the blog was less about white people than it was about yuppies. And without knowing it, she was cutting to the heart of the joke. Lander is gently making fun of the many progressive, educated, upper-middle-class whites who think they are beyond ethnicity or collectively shared tastes, styles or outlook. He's essentially reminding them that they too are part of a group.
Still, Lander is less concerned with cross-ethnic and racial relations than he is with how whites treat each other. As a onetime graduate student in the Midwest, he got tired of coastal condescension of the fly-over states and the glib assumption that "red staters are evil and stupid."
"Too many white people don't like to be reminded that they're white. They like to think that white people are those evil corporate right-wingers or the uneducated masses who vote the wrong way. But 'enlightened whites' are white people too and have just as much of a group mentality as they think the red staters have."
Still, Lander doesn't want you to think he's angry or taking himself too seriously. "First and foremost, it's satire; it's funny," he says. "I'm trying to make people laugh."
NPR interview if you're so inclined.
Mar 14, 2008
This lady sat on the toilet for two years. She sat there so long that her skin formed around the toilet seat. So gross.
Mar 13, 2008
Each “Stuff White People Like” posting is listed in the spreadsheet below. The columns represent a generalized group:
-Money/Trendy($)– Poor people would generally not buy this or pursue this activity. Yuppie might be another name for it (depending on your definition)
-Young(yng)– This means under 40. (i.e. not of particular interest to your parents generation) and again, American.
-Educated/Arts(ed)– Americans who are probably college educated and have some interest and hobbies beyond having fun and making money. (i.e. interested in culture)
-Liberal(lib)– Progressive, not conservative.
-Urban/Blue State(urb)– Think of a stereotypical person from Vermont, or a big city in California or NYC vs. someone from Alabama, rural Indiana, or the Dakotas.
-White(W)– This means it applies to white people more than others. White Americans, not Europeans. It does not mean it ONLY applies to white people, just that a disproportionately high % of white people like it or are represented by it. If you prefer to think of it as "some white people like it", I'd prefer that to deciding to interpret it as all white people and only white people like it.
If a 1 is marked that means it applies, otherwise its blank.
There are overlaps and exceptions. I'm aware. Just trying to illustrate a simplified version of my Venn Diagram concept.
What this deeply scientific study will hopefully show us:
a) How accurate the stuff white people like blog is.
b) What groups it represents.
If you cant see it very well, you can download the file by clicking save.
Results:
The blog, it turns out, should be called stuff liberals (70% applicable) like or perhaps urban (66%) liberals (are there any other kind?). Money(35%) and being young (37%) are least applicable. While educated and white (about 55% each) fit more often than they don't.
mVc, once again, proves that science works.
This is the best online RPG ever--move over WoW, there's a new king in town!
http://www3.kingdomofloathing.com/
Seriously: create an account, log in, and play for a while. If you remember the old text-based Dungeon game, this is taking it to the next level. Now you've got a whole new way to waste away your work day.
Mar 12, 2008
This game makes no sense...try it out!
http://www.secrettechnology.com/gamegame/gamegame.html
Mar 11, 2008
Why can't I get YouTube to share videos on our blogs anymore?
If you haven't seen it, this is the montage from the end of Spike Lee's Bamboozled: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C45g3YP7JOk
I think it's awe striking to watch - so sad and unbelievable that this was the norm just a few generations ago.
Stuff White People Like! Hurrah!!!
#85 The Wire
Best show on TV I say!
"For white people to like a TV show it helps if it is: critically acclaimed, low-rated, shown on premium cable, and available as a DVD box set.
The latter is important so that white people can order it from Netflix and tell their friends “they are really into
#82 - Hating Corporations
Oh you know you do!
"When engaging in a conversation about corporate evils it is important to NEVER, EVER mention Apple Computers, Target or Ikea in the same breath as the companies mentioned earlier. White people prefer to hate corporations that don’t make stuff that they like."
#81 Graduate School
You been?
"Being in graduate school satisfies many white requirements for happiness. They can believe they are helping the world, complain that the government/university doesn’t support them enough, claim they are poor, feel as though are getting smarter, act superior to other people, enjoy perpetual three day weekends, and sleep in every day of the week!"
Sounds good to me. Where do I sign up (again)?
#84 T-Shirts
You might be wearing one right now!
"The second category of t-shirt is new and there really are only two options. The first is American Apparel, a company that constantly reminds you it is based in downtown Los Angeles. They are considered an acceptable white company since they produce things that are very simple, but also very expensive. The second acceptable new shirt is Threadless. This Chicago-based company produces artistic and funny t-shirts that are acceptable for concerts, Whole Foods and 80s night. White people like these shirts so much because they are designed by white people, for white people. Sort of like a white FUBU."
"The shirt cannot contain a current sports logo. Shirts with sports logos are acceptable, but they must contain a logo that hasn’t been used in 15 years. Last and not least, it cannot be baggy. Your t-shirt must be tight-fitting for both style and mating purposes."
#86 Shorts
"It is a known fact that white people believe that they can bring spring early by wearing a pair of shorts on any day that is above seasonal temperatures. This myth runs so deep that they will often wear shorts the following day when temperatures drop, at which point they will refuse to recognize that it is cold."
I tried this this weekend. It seems to be working so far.
"When you encounter a cold white person in shorts it’s best to say “I can’t wait until it’s warm enough to go windsurfing.” They will likely give you a high five.""
#83 Bad Memories of High School
Some like it so much they will pay money to hear other people talk about their own bad memories!
Mar 10, 2008
My favorite font resource on the web is the Blambot Custom Fonts website. I'm sure one of the reasons why I like it so much is that the fonts there are intended for comics, but Nate Piekos, the brainiac behind Blambot, also makes a lot of fonts that are just plain cool. You have to pay for most of the best fonts (at around $20 a piece, they're still a good deal), but Piekos also offers a lot of free fonts that are simply awesome. Today's free font is called You Murderer and is a header or design style font. Check it out.
Mar 7, 2008
Mar 6, 2008
Geekdom took a major blow today...Gary Gygax, creator of the Role Playing genre died at the age of 69.
Thanks for helping me stay a virgin so long, GG.
Wait...what's the roll to save vs. abdominal aneurysm?
Hells Yeah!
Star Trek.
Kirk.
Spock/Sylar.
Eric Bana.
J.J. Abrams.
I'm in.
Mar 5, 2008
While browsing through a stack of old comics, I came across a copy of Elfquest #18. You probably were not a fan of the series--you probably haven't even heard of it before today. Warp Graphics, the company that was founded by Peni and her husband to publish their comics, was hardly ever a comics powerhouse. The subject matter--elves, trolls, and magic, were not popular comic book fare in the 80's. And the weird hippy-inspired themes of non-violence, love, spirituality, and a merging of cultures were not exactly the stuff that appealed to kids.
If you were one of the few who were fortunate enough to get a taste of the Elfquest Saga, you would probably agree that this is one of the most underrated and under appreciated comic book series of all time. The writing, while sometimes a bit heavy with Richard Peni's moralizing was head and shoulders above anything that was being done at the time--groundbreaking in its scope and its approach to the medium.
But the art is what really set this comic apart. Wendy Peni's control of light and shadow is masterful. Her use of line perhaps the best I have ever seen. She is equally as capable of expressing a soft tenderness that is sorely lacking in comic book art as she is scenes of brutal harshness. The simplicity of her medium does not detract from her mastery of emotion, which is rarely matched in comics. In fact, I would say that Peni was a good fifteen years ahead of her time with the artistic integrity and technical precision that she brought to the craft.
Definitions counter to conventional thinking, like the interpretation Space Zombie gave are intriguing:
“Racism generally implies an unfair power balance in favor of the party committing, perpetuating, or directly benefiting from the racist act so that usage of that power favors one race above others..”
My understanding of racism was always that action was what separated it from simple stereotyping on the basis of race (i.e. you actually had to treat someone differently). But now that I think about it that sounds like discrimination, not racism.
The Oxford and Merriam-Webster both seem particularly narrow.
“According to the Oxford English Dictionary, racism is a belief or ideology that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specific to that race, especially to distinguish it as being either superior or inferior to another race or races.”
Does a racist really need to think that ALL members of race posses those qualities. Can’t one be a racist and just think something negative about a majority.
“Merriam-Webster's Dictionary defines racism as a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race, and that it is also the prejudice based on such a belief.”
Does a racist need believe race is the PRIMARY determinant? This AND this AND this? This seems like especially restrictive logic.
The Macquarie Dictionary seems better worded to me:
"the belief that human races have distinctive characteristics which determine their respective cultures, usually involving the idea that one's own race is superior and has the right to rule or dominate others."
I wonder if some of these definitions weren’t created to make some people feel more comfortable about their beliefs. I'm interested in other interpretations and definitions.
Sidenote: A 30-second internet search is better than nothing, if you ask me.
If you're going to use a phrase like "for the record" or a word like "actually" you should probably find some evidence to support your claim. It comes off as arrogant to put your interpretation above someone else’s without bothering to explain why it might be so (not that I haven’t been guilty of this in the past…)
Mar 4, 2008
It turns out
that blind faith in personal opinion is no match for scientific fact. Who knew? The below picture, taken on day 6 of the experiment, shows three distinct foreign bodies growing on the surface of the beer. I guess I won't be drinking this one after all.
Mar 3, 2008
This blog is funny. It is probably misnamed a bit. Really it should be renamed "stuff you young, white, and progressive people like" or perhaps just "the Bourgeois Portlander"
Anyway I didn't know I was so white until I read it.
If more than 2/3 of the entries apply to you, you are most certainly a yuppie. Sorry if this disappoints some of you.
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