Workin’ at the Internet Cafe — Laptop Dilemma

Have I spoken of Kate Beaton before? I think I have not, and that’s sad.

Here’s how good Beaton is: I’m not much of a history buff, and I know next to shameful nothing about Canadian history in particular. Nonetheless, when she puts up her history comics, many of which are specifically about Canadian history, I enjoy them very much the comics. Then I go learn about whichever historical personage she’s talking about, and then I go back and read the comics again and they’re even funnier. What dozens of edutainmentful cartoons couldn’t do in my childhood, she does with jokes about French mistresses and Canadian basketball pioneers.

In addition to her history comics she has lots of great stuff involving her family, her friends, and a back-from-the-dead playa pontiff I like to think of as “Pope John Paul 2pac.” Also she has “Conversations with a Younger Self” which I’m pretty sure unconsciously inspired my conversation with a cartoon self.

My link list is kind of a mess at the moment, eventually I’ll get it to reflect my actual comics trawl, but for now check her comics out and remember to always, always need these baskets back.

Sad Explanations for Supernatural Phenomena

Stan Lee Is a Ladies’ Man in Iron Man Cameo

Holy craponi, I’m caught up for one brief, shining moment.

Okay, if you want to be Mario Kart Friends and race against a little cartoon Lore, add my code — 1547-5605-9856 — to your list, then either post your friend code in the comments, or mail it to me, so that I can add it as well. Might help to give me the Mii name you’ll be using, so I can match reader to rider.

I have a bad habit of posting this sort of thing just before I stop playing a game, but I’m pretty sure I’ll be playing Mario Kart for at least a week or two, it’s much the fun.

Trying the Wired video again. If you can’t see the above, or if it doesn’t work, do me a favor and tell me what OS and browser you’re using.

(And you can always check out the YouTube version.)

Originally this was going to be the Alt Text, uh, text as well, but I came up with the Iron Man thing and decided to strike while, uh…anyhow. If I had to do it over I’d probably do the Iron Man bit as video as well, maybe save the May Day bit for next year. But hey, you get twice as much material.

Iron Man Battles vs. Nefarious Ferrous Adversaries

Ever since I started using Twitter, I’ve wanted to use it for something more interesting than just pointing out that I can’t think of anything more interesting to do than post to Twitter. My best attempt so far involves shredded potatoes, and I think that says something about me.

However, I think I’ve come up with something scary and exciting, at least to me. I hope it will be scary and exciting to the people following me as well: I’m going to use Twitter as my idea notebook.

Like most writers, I have various ways to keep track of potentially interesting ideas I have. Like most writers, I lose many good ideas to inefficiency, because I have various notebooks, recording devices, e-mail depots, text files, and carved cuneiform tablets scattered across my life, and I don’t always get back to actually reviewing the ideas I had during the day.

It seems like a good idea to keep everything in one place, but I’ve never been able to settle on which place. Twitter seems like a good choice. As long as I have my cell phone with me, I can log an idea to Twitter. My computer is only about ten feet from my bed, so if I can drag myself into the office I can log those going-to-sleep and just-waking-up ideas. It’s free, searchable, and unlimited in size. But it’s also public.

I am not an idea fetishist. I don’t think the secret to creative success is having a big brilliant idea. I think you need to have a lot of ideas and the ability to do something with them. I’ve had great ideas that I had to abandon because someone higher-profile than me thought of them independently and used them first. I’ve had great ideas that I used, then smacked myself in the head because someone else thought of them independently and did a much better job with them than I did.

In short, I don’t think ideas, in and of themselves, are that big of a deal. They are to writing as tires as to cars: you need them, and it’s better for them to be full and robust than thin and flat, but it’s what you put on top of them that matters.

In spite of this, the idea of throwing my dear careless ideas out into the world for anyone to see shoots some adrenalin into my bloodstream. The secret preservation of ideas is so reflexive that it feels like something’s going to go wrong. And maybe it will, but that’s okay. I’m not promising I’ll do this forever, and if it ends up being terrible on some level, I’ll stop.

Before I start with this, I want to make a couple things clear. First off, I’m not doing this to prove that I’m wonderful and creative because I have ideas. I’m not really trying to prove anything, but I think the opposite is closer to the truth: ideas are common, implementation is everything.

Secondly, I’m not saying “These are free ideas for anyone to use! Go nuts!” Nor am I saying “I’m staking a claim to these ideas, so don’t steal them!” I’m just putting it up as a log for my own reference, and maybe people who are interested enough in the minutiae of my life to follow my Twitter stream will find it interesting. If I end up tossing out hissy fits because someone used an idea that’s similar to mine, then the experiment is a failure and I should stop.

Final ironic note: Before I started writing this, I had an idea that was going to start off my Parade of Notions. I have forgotten what it was. Ah well, it’ll come back to me. Maybe.

So here’s the interesting commentary I’ve been overselling for a couple days.

Many people have mentioned that my video game reviews were funnier the worse the game was. And it’s true. It’s a lot easier to come up with funny insults than funny praise or funny ambivalence.

In addition, the Internet has really perfected the art of the rant. I’ve always felt about two wide steps to the left of the zeitgeist on this. The Ratings have covered old cartoons and old video games like many other sites, but I’ve always talked about stuff I liked and stuff I didn’t like. Most other humor sites, at least the ones I see linked, are resolutely negative, with articles like “The Ten Stupidest Video Game Characters” or “The Superfriends: Why They All Suck Real Bad All the Time.”

And I want to be clear here: I’m not bagging on this. Negativity is funny. All things being equal, “The Ten Stupidest Video Game Characters” is a more promising premise than “The Ten Most Popular Video Game Characters.” But I’ve got my own approach, and at this late date I don’t think I need to supply the Web with yet another “cranky guy who hates everything” persona.

Nonetheless, as a mental exercise, I wrote the first draft of my Twitter essay from a cranky guy perspective. I thought you might like to see how that went. The text thereof is after the cut.

Read on …