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I know I've been working in the computer business for too long when I keep finding new areas of application for RFC 1925. Protocol design, novel-writing, child-rearing, public policy — it has a million uses.
I also know I've been living in California too long when a 6C change in temperature is a startling development.
I discovered some 100% rye bread at the Milk Pail Market, from Cinderella Russian Bakery, and was overjoyed until I discovered buttermilk among the ingredients. This might explain the skin problems I noticed after having toast every day for a week. Bah.
Dramacon vol. 3, Svetlana Chmakova, Tokyopop:
This really puts the "Drama" in Dramacon, gearing up rapidly into a story so fraught that I was reluctant to read it at first. Chriss's and Matt's and Emily's situation comes to a head along with Bethany's and her mother's and her aunt's, while the usual gang of co-congoers look on and/or meddle with varying degrees of concern, empathy, and glee.
The art continues excellent, whipping back and forth between crisp realism and rubbery cartoonishness without missing a beat. The story itself veers towards soppiness, but characters like Matt are a deterrent against melodrama, most of the time. I haven't been to an anime con since, well, ever, come to think of it; when I was an active fan of any kind at all, they were still calling it "Japanimation". From what I recall, though, and from what I've heard, the scenes of con life are only somewhat over the top. I particularly liked a relatively understated bit, when everyone's getting up on the morning of the second day.
Kabuki: the Alchemy #9, David Mack, Marvel:
Yet another collage of images and words, designed around folding paper boxes and paper dolls. M.C. Square's schizoid meanderings about the polarization of water molecules are kind of aggravating, and I find Akemi's notion of revolutionizing the world by creating art rather too good to be true, but it's still interesting to look at.
Princess at Midnight, Andi Watson, Image:
This is one of those stories about a kid who spins elaborate fantasies to escape their boring life, except there are a bunch of odd background details that are never really developed. Holly Crescent's house is really tiny ― but it doesn't really make any difference. Her father home-schools her and her brother ― but he's just as boring as a regular teacher. The imaginary kingdom she rules over actually is more interesting than her real life.
Go Go Heaven vol. 5, Keiko Yamada, DC:
Either I've expended way too much energy trying to make sense of the story or Yamada hit a groove somewhere, because this volume actually works for me, dramatically. That doesn't mean the series has stopped being ludicrous, mind you. Your butt-monkey and mine Green gets into an idiotic set-piece with an idiotic cake in the shape of Shirayuki that Prince made, complete with underwear. Green gets banished to Earth, and falls into a career as a rock star, which has been engineered by Prince and his other aides Page and Blue just so as to pull the plug on it as some extravagant working-out of pique over Shirayuki's expectations for humane treatment of servants by the ruler of Hell.
The perennial dispute with Heaven revolving around Prince's bringing Shirayuki back to life in volume 1 interrupts this passive-aggressive nonsense long enough for Green to put on a farewell concert just before his time-limit as a walking dead man expires, with some help from Shirayuki's evil-angel "dark half", a little side-effect of having absorbed 13 kisses (that's what the chapters are called) from Prince, and along with them more life-force than should be given to humans. After an intermission for Christmas, she gets hauled off to stand trial before a court of angels as a witch. Prince runs down his life meter more than he can really afford to get her back, and probably wouldn't make it except that the dark half pops out again, and causes Heaven to freeze over.
On his way back to Hell, Prince serves notice that he's declaring the revolution, and for the first time, too; apparently this version of Christian mythology doesn't include Milton.
B.P.R.D.: Hollow Earth & Other Stories, Mike Mignola et al., Dark Horse:
This comes across as a sort of Hellboy after-party, which is a strange thing for me to say because I've never read Hellboy. Fish-man Abe falls into the role of leader and does a pretty creditable job of it, getting fire-starter Elizabeth away from the hollow-earth upstarts who are using her as a battery for their ancient war machines. Having written that, it just now strikes me how similar this is to what happens with Caroline and the Cubists of Parma in Savage Henry, except for all the ways that it's totally different. Abe gets help from Roger, a golem, and Johann, a spiritualist who went out-of-body at a bad moment on the astral plane and is now walking around as ectoplasm in a containment suit.
Anyway, reading this convinced me to check out Hellboy itself.
