Goose over at Veritas Lux Mea added me to his sidebar. Which is quite cool. I consistently get great music from his site, as I've mentioned before. I need to redo all of my sidebars, honestly. I'm thinking of adding a music one, and at that point I'll slap Goose and VLM in there as well as the other ones that are all in a conspiracy together to make my hard drive explode. Not to mention make me spend more money on music. Sneaky bastards, the lot of them.

On the newness front, I've got two more pages of Next Wave #4 up, as well as the latest chapter of Overkill.

I've got to get some infrastructure bits done on Needcoffee, so I'll be taking a few days to put full focus over there. No need to fear. Speaking of fear, Bloggie voting ends today. So head over and do that thing. It would be much appreciated.

What else? Oh, I've got a bit I want to write about the horror genre. And that will lead straight out of Episode 51 of Something Else, which is already about ready to pop. No rest for the wicked.

Well, it was a crazy damn week. Barely kept my head above water with everything going on, so I apologize for the lack of posts and new content. Here's what I did manage to get up:

Something Else's 50th episode is now online. I'm jazzed as hell. Thanks for everybody who's supported it, both in its original home and now here. Many thanks.

The latest chapter of Overkill is up here.

The third page of Next Wave #4 is up here.

Tee's latest segment of his DBM "Ginger" story is online here.

And here's the new music that helped fuel this stuff:

• Polloxniner tipped me off to Okkervil River's "For Real."
• Gorilla vs. Bear has a sweet track by Gnarls Barkley
• Between Thought and Expression pointed out a nice Ludacris/White Stripes mashup…and you know how I am about mashups…
• The ever helpful Aurgasm provided Hanne Hukkelberg's "Ease" and (in a separate post) Lhasa De Sela. Very nice.

It's funny…I find out after Monday's over that Monday, January 23rd, is supposed to be the most depressing day of the year. I'd vote for April 15th, myself, but regardless, my most depressing day of the year started off with finding out Needcoffee's been nominated for a Bloggie for Best-Kept-Secret Weblog. So that's incredible. Our readers are amazingly wonderful people, no matter what the rest of my staff thinks about them. I kid. Mostly.

So if you like our stuff, since NC is our biggest One Tusk hydra-head, please give us a vote.

In other news, I'm working on a new short story, independent of Something Else, that has a working title of "The Invasion at Nick's Place." Don't ask.

Lastly, latest amusing song I recommend to you is "Plea From a Cat Named Virtute" by the Weakerthans. Found yet again thanks to Goose at Veritas Lux Mea. Get the info there.

An open letter to Steve Jobs and all the fine folks at Pixar:

Dear Folks:

I understand you are looking at being taken over by Disney. My case will be made crystal clear after I read you the back of the upcoming DVD Bambi II:

One of the silver screen's most cherished characters makes his triumphant return in Disney's spectacular all-new movie, Bambi II. The eagerly awaited next chapter of Bambi's unforgettable story continues for a whole new generation in a film that's sure to delight your entire family.

Join Bambi as he reunites with his father, The Great Prince, who must now raise the young fawn and teach him the ways of the forest. But, in the adventure of a lifetime, the proud parent discovers that there is much he can learn from his spirited young son.

Okay, so…let's consider this for a moment. Bearing in mind that I have not yet seen the film, but based on the back cover copy and the pictures, it's pretty well established that Bambi II is the "untold story" of what happened before the end of the first film, in which we see the matured Bambi become His Father's Son. The Great Prince, if I remember correctly, appears just a few times, and seldom in the midst of the action. He's sort of there when Bambi is born, he's there to give the "Life Sucks" speech to Bambi after Bambi's mom dies, he helps Bambi get out of the burning forest, and then at the end.

Now, in this sequel/midquel/whatever, all that is brushed aside as the absent father figure is replaced with a Dad who not only will "be there" for Bambi, but will learn things from his son.

To me, this kind of blows the first film all to hell. Maybe I'm overreacting, but based on the previous Disney sequels, I doubt it.

So, Pixar, I think it's cool that such a deal would make Steve Jobs the mondo stakeholder in Disney, but do you really think that you are immune to the power of Disney's suck? Don't you think it will corrupt you and destroy you from both within and without, while we, your fans, can do nothing but console each other and sob into our espressos? If they'll do this to one of their all-time classic hits in the name of a few bucks, you don't think they won't hesitate to roast all of you on a spit?

But hey, maybe I'm just a doomsayer who can be dismissed. After all, look at the great job they've done since taking over the Muppets.

Hugs and espresso,
John/Widge

…after reading about the Campaign For A Commercial-Free Childhood over at Reason and their plans to sue people for making their kids fat, I decided to visit their website.

You know, it's funny, but in their Take Action section I don't see anything as profound as "Turn off your goddamn television and make your kids read a book." So that would lead me to believe these whackjobs think they should be able to plonk their kids down in front of the boob tube and have the whole thing be commercial-free lest it warp their kids fragile widdle minds. Which means, from what I can tell,that we have yet another group of people having no clue that running a network costs money. And that money comes from advertising.

I'm sorry, but if you don't have enough control over your children that you can counter commercials for sugary breakfast cereal, then you really, honestly, should go get neutered and/or spayed. Because the idea that we should make the whole world safe for children who don't have parents that can actually parent is ludicrous to the extreme. I grew up and had all manner of commercials aimed at my head for the whole time I was a kid, and yet somehow I'm still alive and moderately well-adjusted. Your inability to do your jobs as parents is not my problem, nor is it the problem of corporations. I can only pray that our judicial system laughs your ineffectual asses out of court. Once that happens, I suggest you find a solution here.

You're welcome.

Well, it's new to you…Issue #4 was half-finished when I pulled the plug on Next Wave the first time around. So you're seeing pages I wrote over five years ago. Pleased as hell to finally be putting them online. So enjoy.

In music news, discovered and recommend to you Tom Vek and his song "C-C" (found here) along with Carpark North's "Human" (found here).

The latter song starts off sounding like something odd from the 80s, but just bear with it.

I put up audio versions of the first two episode of Something Else a day ago, and got buried under something…so didn't post the headsup here. So…headsup.

Also, the latest chapter of Overkill is up.

Lastly, whatever you do, stay the hell away from The Hype Machine. It's a gigantic audio blog aggregator that churns out a couple hundred MP3s a day that I feel compelled to download and sample. It will consume your world. And your ears. Best so far is Chixdiggit's "I Remember You." Found that via Veritas Lux Mea. That and a picture of midriff licking. Just don't go to the site while nuns are watching you netsurf and you'll be fine.

Anyway, stay away from that aggregator, no matter what you do. It's a timesuck of unbelievable proportions. You've been warned.