Steven Howell Wilson's Blog, page 44

MIA

I suddenly realized this morning that I'd posted no blog entry on Monday. I was surprised, as I had what I wanted to post all planned out. I just... hadn't posted it. I wish I had some really clever excuse, like alien abduction or a rare, previously undiscovered brain condition that would give me the ability to see alternate realities and describe them in prose worthy of EA Poe in exchange for making me forgetful.

But now. I just frickin' forgot that it was Monday last... when was...

Support Your Local Bookstore!

I made it pretty clear when I took this blog weekly that I love bookstores, especially those who sell used books, or make an attempt to keep up with the backlists. ("Backlist" refers to books still available, but not recently released. According to the New York Times in 1990, it is the "financial backbone of the book industry." This doesn't seem to be a widely-accepted belief any longer, as most of what you'll find on the shelves of a typical bookstore are the late...

Introducing: ContactZine.com

I bought this domain name back in 2008. It just auto-renewed for the fourth time, and, until this week, it only pointed to an out-of-date, static HTML version of the Farpoint website. The purpose for buying it? To build a website to memorialize a Star Trek fanzine which ceased publication 25 years ago this Christmas. The reason I bought the domain name when I did? One of its two editors had just died, having survived her sister and co-editor by five years. Both died before they hit retirement...

Pallas and Ceres - The Ngu Family Saga by L. Neil Smith

Neil Smith is one of those authors. By that I mean he’s an author who sold quite a few books and amassed quite a resume in the 1980s, when Science Fiction publishing seemed to be a really going concern, kept writing to this very day, and discovered that Science Fiction publishing was no longer a going concern, even though he, himself, was still both going and concerned.

Star Wars fans and collectors should know Neil’s name. He authored, back while the original trilogy of films was...

Things your IT Professional Would Probably Like to Tell You (But he figures you don’t want to hear)

Reader’s Digest does this feature called “Ten (or however many) Things Your (Professional Service Provider) Won’t Tell You.” I’ve seen them for Doctors, Nurses, Auto Mechanics… They may have done one on IT Professionals, but I haven’t seen it. Having been in this profession longer than I care to contemplate, though, I can tell you there are things we probably haven’t told you. It’s not that we don’t want to, or we’re hiding th...

Aquaman - A Correction

My oldest son pointed out to me an error in last week's blog, and I though, since I'm a bit pressed, that it made a good subject for a brief entry this week.

Last week I said that Arthur Curry, Jr., son of Aquaman, who was slain in an issue of Adventure Comics in 1977, had to wait three decades to be resurrected via the magic of animation, as part of the series Batman: The Brave and the Bold in 2009. Well, I was partly right. He did have to depend on animation to restore him to life, b...

Review – Aquaman’s Last Stand

Aquaman is lame. So I’m told. And yet I’ve always had a special admiration for the King of the Seven Seas. The fascination began with his appearances on television in the 1960s, as produced by Filmation. Filmation was one of the top producers of Saturday morning cartoons (before anyone in the audience ever thought of calling them “animated adventures.”)

By today’s standards, or even Disney’s standards of the time, their animation was week: lots of stock back...

Taking a Break from My Labors

Not that I consider blogging LABOR, really, but I have enjoyed the three-day weekend, which included an anniversary / birthday crab feast and Saturday night at the Wine Bin watching Groundhog Day. I'd never seen it. My cousin who lives in Arizona dropped in on us Sunday and today we decided to move the family room into the dining room and the dining room into the family room. 'Cause... well... we decided to do that.

So my  week's blog will be here tomorrow. Hope you all enjoye...

REVIEW – The Little House by Virginia Lee Burton

Okay, baby steps… my reading and even listening time has, as previously stated, not been there lately. So, while getting back on the horse, I may move a little slowly and not be overly ambitious. This week, I begin with a picture book.

I love this book. I’ve loved it as long as I’ve been able to read, and for some time before that. You needn’t be able to read, you see, to share in its magic. I used to spend hours just staring at the complex and detailed pictures which...

Oh, Jesus, it’s Ayn Rand!

So, yeah, see, the trouble is that I've been too busy to do much reading lately. If I sit down and pick up a book, I just fall asleep! So here's yet another non-review...

Okay, let’s by up-front and honest. I hate these things. Is there a term for them? These photos that get posted on Facebook, and presume to present the wisdom of the ages in sound bytes so simple that even a TV news anchor could repeat them and pretend to understand them. I’ve often been tempted to create...