I told you a little while back that my old computer died. What I didn't tell you was that it was the doing of Dell service techs. I was having a slight problem with the computer freezing at odd times, all of a sudden. It's been a dependable machine so I figure maybe I should call Dell, ask if they can help me fix that. By the time they were done and I had followed their directions to the letter, my computer's OS was wiped and the computer itself stuck in endless rebooting, the OS impossible to reinstall.
They took absolutely no responsibility for having done this, and today actually had the nerve to do a generic follow-up call. The best part is that this rep was very familiar with the case, and yet I had to explain everything to him again. Without me asking, he stressed they will not reimburse me for what they did, despite it being their fault. Again, I didn't even ask. Now however, he's making me think about calling the Better Business Bureau. Or further.
You should take from this to never, ever buy a Dell computer. Even if it works, and mine did fine for a very long time, the service techs will make you suffer as they did me. (I haven't even mentioned the hours and hours wasted on the phone with them even before they murdered my computer) I imagine they were hoping to force me to buy a new one from them. I did, but it was from HP. I will never buy a Dell again.
Did you know that Grant Morrison was in an indie band before being a comics writer, and actually wasn't bad at all? Named the Fauves. (notthe Aussie band of the same name) Sounds a bit like the Hoodoo Gurus. Here are two songs. The first, "Tortured Soul."
One of my favorite tunes. The lyrics sync up perfectly with Flex Mentallo and certain parts of The Filth and The Invisibles. And it's Beatleriffic!
Oh, by the way, today I posted an excerpt(the first of a few installments) from Grant Morrison and--Fauves bandmate, coincidentally--Daniel Vallely's excellent and unreprinted strip from CRISIS in 1991, "Bible John: A Forensic Meditation," at Scans Daily, which you'll find here.
Saturday, and here is LULU, page one of Chapter 2, or rather, p. 21. Technology and the fact it still breaks has stood in my way, but at last it resumes.
This will soon be where the really racy stuff begins. I know you're appalled. Click and read! And please comment on what you've thought of it so far. I want to bloody hear from you!
You'll find chapter One(now offline) in THIS SICKNESS #6--available only at Createspace/Amazon.
You sheep with your "boards" and your "rules." Pfah! RAND PAUL SHALL ONLY BE JUDGED COMPETENT BY RAND PAUL. He is not a number. HE IS A FREE MAN!
Which is to say not that he's a liar, not just. It's also that, given he has made up a medical credential that patients might have, for instance, used as a factor in choosing him, he's what they call a "fraud." It's a legal term.
Next he can make up patients, and sit in a little room alone, asking them to read from the chart while sharing tea.
Digging through my archives, which is to say a large red trunk I've owned since I was 7 which is covered with worn Wacky Packages stickers, originals; imagine if I'd saved them. I had Art Spiegelman and Jay Lynch all over my trunk as a kid, it seems, and had no idea. The underground found me early.
Anyway. I came across these two embarrassing relics of my past for you to enjoy.
The first is from 1990. A cartoon done for a protest rally flier(I thought it hadn't been used, but my friend Marc tells me it was) just prior to the first Gulf War. I didn't draw anything else for a long time afterward... Click to enlarge
And 1996-this was a rough for a cartoon I never drew. At this time I was a confirmed Luddite and had not actually used a computer for more than word processing, which changed the following year because of my job. Though I didn't actually own one till 1999.
Click to enlarge
Speaking of computer problems, mine are solved for now, so you'll be seeing more LULU soon. Thanks for your patience.
I also may have new Vladrushka for you in the near future. Keep watching this space.
I was a late adopter with computers, and was deliberately very slow to become dependent on them. Like us all, though, eventually, slowly I got to the point where I could not function without them. So it's very annoying that mine, which has been the best PC I ever had for over three years, died the miserable death of a pig this weekend, causing me much distress and derailment from a lot of work I had to do.
Not to worry, I still own paper and pencils, so this, it appears, will be my offline week, but it doesn't mean I can't have things ready to type up & scan by the time I get a new machine. ARGH, though. This is why LULU did not resume this week--I have no FTP access nor access to my files. Which are safe because, being paranoid, I use an external drive for those. They're just locked away for now.
Speaking of getting a new machine! You can help me with that and get cool and rare stuff!
Toward that end, I have some stuff up at Ebay, including some classic issues of ACME NOVELTY LIBRARY, EVERGREEN, and NATIONAL LAMPOON, plus a piece of my artwork. Do buy some and help Daddy get functional again...
James. Cameron. As though he were a scientist, or engineer, or marine geologist, and not a director of fucking movies. Whose movies I will confess I do not even like. An Oscar apparently makes what he has to say on this important.
Okay, Stewart, normally I love you, but this time you're off-base. The point is not that we're supposed to be all sad for the hermit crabs. The point is that their coming to the surface is a bad sign for all the other wildlife in the ecosystem(which, by the way, is the basis of that area's economy, did you know or care?).
If we were in a coal mine, would you take it as any warning when ithe canary we had along died? Would you think we'd only had it along because it sang nicely? This is not the point: it's a clue. What it means in this case is that it's completely impossible to breathe or draw any oxygen below the surface of the water, even for something as small and durable as this. It's a sign the marsh is being choked to death on a very deep, and irreparable, level, and that the oil has gotten further inland than anyone predicted it would. That's what it means, Jon. Get it now?
Sorry, Stewart, but this time you missed the point. Seriously, with all the stupid shit Tony Hayward, Bobby Jindal, Scott Ritter, Sarah Palin, and others have been saying, you picked this detail to mock?
Which implies the soldier was going for a head shot, it seems. Not something you do when merely acting defensively.
Not surprising, as the soldiers claim to believe these were terrorists, and so were acting on that. Of course, the Israeli government was aware they were not and had been planning this action for months. So this just gets dirtier.
And dirtier. According to this story by Ronen Bergman, an investigative journalist for the Israeli news organization Yediot Ahronot, when this was actual Palestinians, Israel was not as harsh. As Joe Conason summarizes it:
Bergman points out that when Palestinians and their supporters sought to reach Gaza by ship on previous occasions, Israeli leaders were careful to avoid direct confrontation.
The intent here was to deepen Gaza's isolation and frighten activists from helping. This was intimidation of outsiders, much like the murders of northern civil rights workers in the South way back when.
This makes every lie BP tells obstruction of justice from this point on. A good start. Next step, in my opinion: seize all their US operations, right now. Make them pay, right now, the royalty on the oil we already know has been leaking. Pin them to the wall.
By the way, heard anything from the Teashirts outraged at BP's crimes against the working people of Louisiana?
Of course not, because they're a corporate front organization. You don't go against the family, ever. And besides, its candidates, like Rand Paul, are too busy fretting about the injustice of discrimination being illegal to care.
But famous whoremonger David Vitter bravely stood up for BP today. Against his constituents. What a guy. "What? Someone did something awful to my constituents? And I'm a Republican? Who is this fine organization I must defend now?" It's particularly brave of him when you consider his own dad was a petroleum engineer and, in an earlier time, might have been among those killed on the rig because of BP's negligence. What a noble, noble man, sticking up for the underdog.
Or maybe when he was with prostitutes, he was only associating with his own kind.
Oh, and did I mention they also killed four Turks? Turkey wasn't an enemy of Israel before. Apparently Israel didn't think they were hated enough in the region.
Total, unmitigated mess that Israel didn't have to get itself into, but did.
Netenyahu, one hopes, will suffer for this and be driven out of power for good. Yeah, I'd also like a pony, while I'm wishing.
"Eternity in the company of Beelzebub, and all of his hellish instruments of death, will be a picnic compared to five minutes with me & this pencil." --E. Blackadder, 1789 Questionable
words & pictures from John Linton Roberson