• Kalinara revisits her love for He-Man and the Masters of the Universe and the empowering messages she found in its female characters.

• Vote for this year’s Bay to Breakers t-shirt design. (via)

• Cracked magazine comes up with a Snakes on a Plane FAQ. (via)

• Next time I make it to Vegas, I’ve so got to check out the Las Vegas Pinball Hall of Fame. It sounds like a hoot, I’ve always loved pinball games with their bright lights and flashy spinners (which, I suppose makes Vegas the perfect location).

• Oh, nifty. I want an avenging unicorn, too!

Supplemental tags: He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, San Francisco Bay to Breakers, Snakes on a Plane, Las Vegas

I’m starting getting very excited that next week, I’ll be attending my other regular comic con the Alternative Press Expo.

Every year, I find myself drawn to two Comic Cons that best suit my temperament. At San Diego, I get the buffet offering plenty of everything. Meanwhile, at APE I get the intimate gathering of one of my favorite types of comics, the small press and self-published.

It’s not that I find these kind of comics better than ones coming from larger publishers. The hit and miss rate is probably the same for me, regardless of the size of the company behind it. However, when I find a good small press title there’s an additional satisfaction in being able to tell someone who put their passion into their work that I enjoyed their effort*, that the emotion and skill they’ve invested has paid off. While I’m sure that even the most praised creators appreciate hearing that their work has connected with a reader, there’s an especially intimate feeling at APE that makes that connection feel even stronger.

Hopefully, I’ll be able to post a few reviews of some great books that (I’m hoping) will be available at APE. At the very least, I’m hoping the event will motivate me to bump some titles off of the list of titles I’m meaning to review.

* Okay, that would be excepting those oddly awkward moments when creators recognize me, like during my last trip to San Diego when I was unintentionally rude to Dave Roman. He said something about appreciating how I’d frequently show up to support their work. I didn’t know what to say so I panicked, turned away and told Raina Telgemeir in the next booth how much I loved her story about riding on BART. Aaaaagh!

The short version of the above anecdote is that I’d like to apologize in advance to whichever creator I end up treating rudely at APE. I sometimes get flustered like a lame sitcom character.

Supplemental tags:Dave Roman

Oh, hell, I’ll risk sounding stuffy here, but I figure this is worth sharing because it’s the basis of a lot of my motivation in writing about various forms of discrimination.

My sophomore English teacher noted that she found left-handed students to be more easily frustrated and quicker to give up. This wasn’t a slam against southpaws, but an observation she made in observing her students. She continued by summarizing the southpaw experience with the punch bowl ladle.

Punch bowl ladles, she explained, are designed to be comfortably used with the right hand (probably by someone who could never imagine why anyone wouldn’t use their right hand to pour punch). So. When a left-handed person tries to pour punch at a party, no matter which hand they use, the experience is awkward and often ends in punch being spilled on oneself. No one (not even the southpaw) thinks of how the ladle works better for a right handed person and, upon seeing the punch stain, thinks of the leftie as clumsy and awkward. Because things often worked out poorly for the left-handed, my teacher noted, they were more easily resigned to seeing things not-quite-succeed and quicker to move on from frustrating activities.

Afterwards, I realized that her observation really made an apt analogy for most disenfranchised groups, one that was easy to understand since it had a physical illustration. Imagine a world where everything is designed in a way that it doesn’t work properly for you and everyone thinks that the problem is you, never considering that the problem may be something other than you.

• Awww, drat. When I saw the post title and the first few words of David Welsh’s review for Man Enough, I thought I found something cool to add to my APE shopping list.

  But I had no such luck since “more cool comics from Bill Roundy” is already on my APE shopping list. I enjoyed the issue I bought from Bill last year and have been looking forward to the chance to buy more of his work.

• Brian Cronin also reminds me that I want to look for Ryan Clator’s And Then One Day, having enjoyed the sampler issue I picked up in San Diego.

• Aaaauuuuggghhh! Xanadu as a stage musical? I’d have to see it alone (the spouse leaves the room if I put that movie on) but I’m kinda excited. That shows perfectly suited for the kind of big production that’s running on Broadway now. (via)

• Over at the Church of the Customer Blog, Jackie Huba sees YouTube as a sign of advertising reaching customers.

• How shallow am I? I can read a pro-choice blog post and think “Hey, that’s the medical twist in Omen IV!” Does anyone else remember that train wreck of a sequel? (No, I’m not talking about The Final Conflict, I’m talking about the one with Faye Grant — of V fame — as stepmother to devilchild Delia.)

Supplemental tags: Bill Roundy, You+Tube, Ryan Clator, And Then One Day, Xanadu, Omen IV: The Awakening

Aaaaauuuggghh!

Oh for petes sake, do any of the people on Top Chef know bumpkiss about the city where they’re filming? Twice they’ve had to make food for locals and twice they underestimate their audience.

This is a region where people love food and try to be a little educated about what we’re putting into our bodies. Parents here pressure the snack bars at family attractions to include healthier offerings. We like our brussel sprouts because we’ve figured out how to cook them properly. Our idea of fast food includes one place that serves grilled veggies, taquerias and have you seen what sells as ball park food in these parts?

So. Please. Stop condescending to the kids and the mothers. You’re trying to impress people who get exposed to a fairly wide variety of foods.

I’m just dying for next week’s show, where the contestants are challenged to identify various flavors while blindfolded. Considering how he made a dish with yuzu and shiso leaves, I’m very curious to see if Stephen can identify flavors tamarind from cardamon.

• Johanna’s right, that is one cute story about an Owly reader. I found it most interesting, though, was the contention that sequential art is more challenging because, with words and art, one has to engage multiple parts of the brain.

• Why every public figure who knows what’s good for them wants to get themselves some of that Colbert cachet. (Or, all the things I’ve been saying about why anyone important would agree to sit down with either Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert.)

• Gayprof hilariously compares discovering a new blog with the phases of a romantic relationship.

• Best name for a docu-soap ever. I suspect the actual show will let me down, but I’ve got to check out a show called Tuesday Night Book Club.

• The next time the spouse and I become slaves to the PC games, we’ll have a few more choices than to just order pizza thanks to resources that track delivery areas and restaurant menus.

Supplemental tags: Owly, Stephen Colbert, The Colbert Report

I’ve just sent off a check to renew my Shojo Beat subscription, which makes it feel like a good time to mention how much I’ve enjoyed the magazine.

To some degree, my affection is due to the format. I’m always feeling behind on my manga reading, with plenty of titles I’d like to get around to picking up. (Am I the only one who’s reading slowed due to blogging? I spend a lot more time on a comic these days because I’m trying to figure out why I’m enjoying — or not enjoying it. It helps further my enjoyment, but leaves me spending less time reading.) Shojo Beat offers me a convenient little package to keep up with a bunch of titles I enjoy.

I’m not sure if I’d be buying any of Shojo Beat’s series as digests. Nana would sound cool, but would be one of those titles I never get around to opening (like that copy of Tramps Like Us I have, I know I’ll enjoy it but I keep putting it off for something else that’s top-of-mind). I might check out Absolute Boyfriend, since I tend to check out titles with guy-objectifying premises out of curiosity, though I never get around to the second volume. Godchild would catch my attention for the premise and themes, but would probably remind me that I haven’t picked up a volume of Pet Shop of Horrors in a while, especially since Godchild has clunky dialogue that Pet Shop doesn’t. I probably wouldn’t even give the enjoyable Baby & Me or Crimson Hero a second glance on book store shelves.

As a consumer, I’m finding that my choices have suddenly boomed. The list of series I want to read (but can’t find time for) keeps growing. Shojo Beat gives me a package that makes it easy-to-follow these series. Plus these stories work really well serialized in small bits, a format I rather enjoy.

Besides the manga, I’m enjoying Shojo Beat for the articles as well. The articles are largely focuses on Japanese culture, Japanese pop culture and stories examining the topics addresses in that issue’s manga stories — they complement the manga well. My only complaint is that I always wish those articles were longer. There written at the right intelligence level for my tastes, but I always find myself wishing the article went a little longer and gave a little more detail. Most of the articles seem to stop right after getting me interested in a topic.

Thankfully, I haven’t lost my rights to be a bit haughty on the internet, even though I seem to have a bizarre tendency to write in broken english in IM (for some reason, my fingers just can’t type the ’s’ or ‘d’ to make a proper verb tense, making me sound like Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany’s).

Your result for The Commonly Confused Words Test…

English Genius

Take The Commonly Confused Words Test at HelloQuizzy

(via Kethylia)

I’ve slowly grown addicted to Keith Olbermann’s MSNBC show, Countdown, sometimes to the point of still watching the old episodes I recorded and didn’t watch the same day. As someone who reader a decent amount of news, I still get some interesting perspective from Olbermann’s show, something I haven’t gotten out of TV news for ages. He comes off as a critical thinker, genuinely interested in gathering information to better understand current events.

Yeah, sure, I started watching to see him chronicle O’Riley’s breakdown, which is entertaining, but somewhere in the blowhard schadenfreude, I got addicted to Olbermann’s reports.

So, I was pretty thrilled to see a press release trumpeting strong ratings for Olbermann (via), giving MSNBC its first prime time victory over CNN (in viewers 25-54 years old) in five years. He’s also got the network’s most-watched program.

For the first quarter, Olbermann’s "demo" viewership is up 41% versus the previous year. More importantly, Countdown’s "demo" audience was up by 63% in March. The March number is the more important one, to me since MSNBC got a bump in February due to Olympic coverage, seeing a strong performance in March suggests that this isn’t a short-term bump owed to the Olympics but part of a greater trend.

(Tosses papers in the air and dances.)

Supplemental tags: MSNBC

• I’ll miss Steve Pheley’s Gutterninja, as Steve bid the blogosphere adieu earlier this morning.

• Lovely. A Tennessee Congressperson, Debra Maggart claims that gay couples want adopt to have "unfetered access" for child molestation. (via) Who still thinks that "reality based" is supposed to be a mockery of "faith" as opposed to making fun of people who can’t grasp reality?

• Kethylia Duuk’Tarquith writes about gays as cultural gurus, like the Native American berdache.

• Inspired by recent Sopranos episodes, Pop Candy remembers dream sequences in TV shows.

• I am sooo looking forward to the fifth season of Footballers’ Wives now, even if the season will lack for my favorite, Hazel.

  Supplemental tags: berdache