Daymented has hooked up with SJ of “I, Asshole” and is plotting some sort of encounter session with Heather of le petit chou (UPDATE: here’s Heather’s report).

Now, Heather is friends with Ken, via some circuitous acquaintanceship deal (curiously, not involving blogs); SJ is currently terrorizing the i-school at UW, (currently my front-runner grad school option) and is the sort of fearless being that posts photos of her and her teenage sister engaged in the 24-hour blogathon, or possibly tells many stories involving drunkenness and wild behavior of punk rock moments who also has a child and keeps chickens in the back forty while prompting her sax-playing hubby to get gigs.

Daymented’s web presence hints at her own terrible energy. A Seattle Times article I shan’t link here and attendant fallout confirms it.

Heather has recently shared photos of the fireplace she works in at the enormous limestone mansion overlooking the water (possibly pulled as it was pretty clear where the pics were taken, I thought), her soccer team, and can be relied upon for blow-by-blows of her own high academic standards and also explained the recently-discussed preponderance of underwear moments in Lost in Translation.

Well, honestly, I have to say, this is the sort of thing that leads to unknown, possibly dangerous, highly-energetic social events.

Furthermore, while I am a retiring sort of local blogger, who politely realizes that tonight is the night I must polish the silverware on being encouraged in a neighborly fashion to drop by at the Meetup or what not, I feel that should point out to SJ and Heather that daymented is someone I knew when she was fourteen.

At that time, my interactions with her were largely confined to sleepily picking up the phone bright and early on select weekday mornings in my college dorm room, whereupon a young girl’s voice would respond to my bleary, pot-smeared “Hello?” with the unsettling sobriquet “Dad?”

She would then blithely instruct me to call her high-school principal posing as her father in order to enable her to play hooky that day.

Being a bear of very little brain, I certainly did as instructed, several times.

My understanding is that a few years in Vegas straightened her right up, and today she’s a fine, upstanding young woman. A fine, highly energetic, upstanding young woman.

The things you people could get up to frighten me, slightly. But it could be a really great thing, too: like, you could invent a cheap, reliable source of non-polluting energy that’s easily manufactured from chicken poop, and thereby bring about world peace and a universal expansion of family-based agriculture. Or something.

Is it just me, or is there a lull?

I mean, Jim took the month off to climb burning mountains, and Ken took a break. They both came back and are conspicuously wordy. Logorrhetic. Long-winded, like. Charged up, really. Rarin’ to go.

But, geez, I’m missin’ days – B² uses the exact same words I did. The cheery bullets in my blogroll are fewer, somehow, than I expect them to be.

Sigh.

Is it the weather? The war? The end of Bennifer? Where has the flow, flow, flow gone?

Ah well.

Analytically, for me personally, it’s a combination of things – September always blows for me, in greater or lesser degree. I’m working on an ongoing project which included signing an NDA, which I hate to do and don’t worry about consciously but it ain’t like I’m blabbin’ about it here.

Then there’s the whole keeping-my-powder dry issue regarding pieces I’m working on for outside of blogland… It seems that in the past when I’ve blathered on in undisciplined fashion here as I’m prepping a piece, the piece benefits later as my angle and some hooks and stuff often get worke out here instead of in the first draft.

Humina.

The Gizmos Songbook has been made available for the perusal of the one or two of you who care about obscure pre-hardcore American punk bands.

Also, due to unforeseen technical difficulties which will crop up at the last minute, I will NOT be able to appear at the Illuminated Donkey Festival, as scheduled:

“Reformatting the Server Whatsits to Clear the Flibber-Flabber” 9:00 P.M. Brunswick Towers Conference Center. Panelists: Michael Whybark and Paul Frankenstein.

Longtime Illuminated Donkey contributors and associates Michael Whybark and Paul Frankenstein discuss the latest Internet technology and why it always seems to be crashing. Attendees are guaranteed that at least one-third of all words used will be intelligible to the general public.

It was sweet of Ken to book me. I really appreciate the effort and expense involved (whooee – last minute one-way nonrefundable first-class tickets in and out of Newark will run ya, just ask Ken). I’m particularly sorry to be missing Ken’s sure-to-be-a-wowser one man panel, “Thirst, Alcohol, and the Single American Woman,” but, being happily married, realize my personal interest in this was a reflection of both prurience and cruelty and so will sleep very well indeed in its’ lack.

Oh, the puzzlin’ I been doin’ over why I ain’t been feelin’ it of late.

I been a-puzzlin’ ‘cuz I’m a dumbass.

It’s September, as you well know, Mike!

I’ll be right as rain agin in a few days.

My folks are getting ready to ride out the hurricane in North Carolina. They are well inland, but the projected track of the storm takes it quite directly to them. Prior hurricanes since they’ve lived in North Carolina have all come ashore in South Carolina and swung back to the north and east after encountering the Appalachians; thus there’s a real possiblity the storm might be more intense than those that have come before.

I think I’m basically behind the curve, but I’ve just spent the last forty-five minutes laughing my ass off about this. I stumbled into this brilliant lunacy by way of the Big Green House, who also snogged it from somewheres or other.

To boldly go: the Sacramento News and Review goes in depth on the Sacto Star Trek band scene.

Excerpt:

Marooned in this hot, humid, backwater town on an insignificant planet, the Klingon Capt. pInluH approaches the cluster of puny humans who are taking in the action. The captain is nearly 7 feet tall, his left arm is amputated at the elbow–lost in what must have been one glorious battle–and his gut hangs pendulously over his belt. He’s an aging warrior, but he’s bad news to be sure. He swaggers up to the earthlings, humans and some Vulcans, steadily swigging from cans of Old Milwaukee.

pInluH queries, “Are you ready to rock?”

The crowd is pensive. The Vulcans just stare at the spiny carapace of his forehead. Some smirk.

“I said,” he bellows, “are you ready to rock?” More smirks.

“I do not believe you are ready to rock,” pInluH says with a huff, and then he strides off.

pInluH is the lead singer for Stovokor, a Portland-based Klingon heavy metal band (see this Portland Mercury article). There is a glorious photo of the warriors on stage in the News and Review article. That article, it should be noted, is a fine piece of writing by one Cosmo Garvin that covers the strangeness without condescension, I thought, and also decodes the bits of Trekanalia ebedded (such as the source of one of the band’s names, for example).

But wait! There’s more!

The grand-daddies of the scene are the long running No Kill I, a band that sounds like it would be great fun to see. They have a cross-town rival band, Warp 11, whose music sounds much less like something I’d be interested in, from the article’s description of it.

Both bands have music available online:

No Kill I and spinoff band No Kill I: TNG

Warp 11: Red Alert.

Elijah Brubaker is the guest in the “Five Questions” section of Ink and Pixels in the current issue of Tablet, number 76.

In the reviews, I take quick looks at Elijah’s most recent mini-comic, Tatiana Gill’s Midnight at the Oasis, and vet Richard Sala’s tenth (!) issue of Evil Eye.

JerryKindall.com: Jerry’s gathered up some 9-11 links to peruse in thought and sadness tomorrow (I’ve pestered him for a permalink). Naturally, I can’t say I share the political perspectives prominently reflected in his selections, but that’s all right.

Note the neat image.

See you on September 12. Hope your day is meaningful and productive. I’m certainly feeling more chipper this year. I suppose the respite from war talk has something to do with it.

I Don’t Want to Grow Up!

Celebrated by market researchers and fretted over by social scientists, rejuveniles come in all ages but are mostly a product of the urban upper classes (free time and disposable income being essential in their lifestyle). Evidence of their presence is widespread. According to Nielsen Media research, more adults 18 to 49 watch the Cartoon Network than watch CNN. More than 35 million people have caught up with long-lost school pals on the Web site Classmates.com.

Good freaking jebus h. pogostick. What’s next? Does the Times own stock in some firm that makes this kind of stuff up?

Let’s make up some catchy marketing terms ourselves.

Hm, how about pudgy suburban technophiles – up and comers if there ever was! I think we shall refer to them as bigendians or perhaps rotuneers.

Ah! Multiply divorced marketing professionals sporting leathery artificial tans, stinking desparately of aromatic Calvin Klein unisex personal hygeine products: brass coiners or perhaps counterfitters. Nice Bruno Maglis!

Angry, economically displaced persons domestically and internationally: grumpies. Cheer up! You’re sure to die eventually, and then, none of this will matter!

Apartment dwelling dog-owners: commandogs. Sit, Fido. STOP BARKING! I – I don’t know what’s come over her, usually she just loves children!

Apartment dwelling cat-owners: pussyfeet. Dear, will you tell the upstairs neighbors to make the dog be quiet? It’s – it’s giving me a headache. I – I think I might cry.

Rural admirers of hard-core urban rap music: crystal mesh-backs. Because nothin’ sez lovin’ like four on the floor, a DeKalb cap, and NWA blastin out into the humid midwestern night. Oh, that, a case of Bud, a shotgun, and about a half-pound of crank.

Tablet‘s posted my first comics column, Ink and Pixels. Sadly, a major section of the piece was cut, probably for space reasons. I spoke with an organizer of the InkSpot zines-and-comics forums at Bumbershoot, and really regret that the section didn’t get included in the article.

I interviewed Tatiana Gill for the article and reviewd Dave Cooper’s Ripple.

I think I like the format – but I’m still wavering about running straight Q&A versus rewriting the interview into 400-word features to lead the column.

Finally, I also secured the domain name “inknpixels.com” with the intention of doing some archiving and incorporating more material – such as regular capsule reviews and introductions to web comics site – but need to discuss this with the Tablet folks, I think.

The next installment of the column should include more substantal review material as well. One of the challenges in attempting to feature younger, self-published artists will be familiarizing mysef with their work. Fortunately, most of the people I’m coming across have websites.

HumanDescent.

Human Descent. Human descent, descent. Human human descent. Human; descent – human descent human descent.

Hu man des cent hum and esce nthu. Man de scent hum. An de sce nth. U.

Man de scent.

(via April Winchell, fount of worry and fear)