Funny comics, angry birds, and other random stuff

In the spirit of always being late, let me share yesterday's (or perhaps it was the day before that) book-release news. Eric Luper's latest book, Jeremy Bender vs. the Cupcake Cadets, just hit the shelves. I enjoyed Eric's previous book, Seth Baumgartner's Love Manifesto. The new one sounds like Ferris Bueller meets Bossom Buddies. (Side note for those who remember the latter show -- Bronson Pinchot narrates my story in the audio version of the Guys Write: Funny Business anthology.) I'm sure Eric's new book will be a great read.

Yesterday morning, I was in Landisville, PA (near Lancaster), speaking at the intermediate school. The kids were great. Then I drove 95 miles home, grabbed dinner, and went with my wife to the very first comedy show at the new Arts Quest Center in Bethlehem, to see Miq Kaplan. He was amazing. After the show, he was at a table, selling CDs. He was gracious enough to let me chatter at him for a while, telling him how much I enjoyed the performance while also telling him far too much about myself. Having been on the other side of the table fairly often, I did have some empathy for what it feels like to be engaged in conversation by enthusiastic fans. But I'm such a big fan of standup, and I was so impressed by his performance, that it was difficult trying not to stay too long and chat too much. I think I pulled myself away before his eyes glazed over.

I bought Angry Birds for the PSP a while ago. (The "while ago" is intended to be an ironic wink aimed toward anyone who belongs to the Playstation Network, since nobody has been buying anything there recently -- except, perhaps, the people who hacked all the data.) Anyhow -- I can see why the game is popular, and I intend to play through the whole thing, but I can also see that it isn't for serious players. The game is just too fuzzy. Trial and error isn't a bad thing in itself, but this feels more like trial and luck. There aren't crisp answers to most of the puzzles. When I finish a screen, I don't feel clever -- I feel lucky. The funny thing is that the game doesn't anger me. I know a lot of people find it frustrating. But I spent so many years debugging games, an exercise that often required me to replay some tiny segment or repeat a single action over and over for hours, that the whole exercise has a nostalgic feel to it.