Various

[richardf8]

First:

This has to be the most linked to entry on LJ right now. It is a delight for any of us who has been trapped on any form of public transit with someone whom The Spirit has moved to Testify. My personal hell: Stuck on the E Train under the East River with a train broken down in front of us and a pinstripe-suited african-american, gold-rim-spectacled gentleman delivering his gospel of hellfire, brimstone and perdition for all of us sinners and NO ESCAPE. The stuff he was telling us would happen to us if we did not repent was NOT WORSE than what was happening to us then and there. So it is with pleasure that I provide this link to Koaloaha's journal wherein an altogether satisfactory solution to this vexing problem is proffered.

Cat-Tharsis for Tuesday is in the hopper. It feels good to have that in the bag. I might even be able to get a bit ahead.

kelloggs2066's 21st Century Fox has awakened within me a nostalgia for Gilbert and Sullivan, so I picked up a cheap Greatest Hits and have been pencilling and inking to it since.

I have dropped Pete Abrams' Sluggy Freelance from my links page on Cat-Tharsis. I stopped reading it a few weeks ago because Abrams has lost control of his universe. The cardinal sin: using a device for interdimensional travel as a Deus Ex Machina when your plot has become too confused for even you to follow. Robert Heinlein's career jumped the shark in precisely this same way with The Number Of The Beast, so I guess Abrams is in good company. Such devices are fine, in and of themselves, so long as respect is given to causality within the timelines they create.

Comments

[athelind.livejournal.com]

The stuff he was telling us would happen to us if we did not repent was NOT WORSE than what was happening to us then and there.

Proper response: "Will YOU be there with us?"

(Assume self-rightous negative reply)

"Then it's GOT to be better than THIS! Where do I sign up?"

[deckardcanine.livejournal.com]

I wonder if such people could be lumped with the scribes that Jesus accused of going by the written word and not the spirit. These people do not do a good job of advertising the God who wants you to accept his infinite love. A double negative does not a positive make.

[richardf8]

They're worse than that. In most cases, we're dealing with people who snag a single verse - Lev. 18:22 is the one most in vogue now, I think - and preach that your eternal destiny turns on that one verse. These are usually the same people who conveniently ignore the fact that Leviticus constructs a theocratic state in which debts are forgiven every 7 years, and in which one is required to leave enough food in the field so that the poor can harvest enough to live. Would that they obeyed the letter of the WHOLE law; the world would be a better place.

[timtylor.livejournal.com]

Yikes. I've never run into that myself - all the screechy-preachers I've run into had the decency to restrict themselves to the open air. If I do get so assaulted I'll turn on "Under Your Spell" from the musical Buffy episode - a lesbian witch love-song should settle matters quickly. >:D

[morgan1.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... almost makes me wish I knew some show tunes. I wonder if folk songs would work as well?

[timtylor.livejournal.com]

"John Barleycorn", maybe. Or "Jug Of Punch".

[richardf8]

Oh, we can fix this, heheheh!

Rogers and Hammerstein usually works best, because it has an especially high insipidity factor.

But Lerner and Loewe musicals usually have a darker, edgier quality to them that make them less likely to kill brain cells in innocent bystanders.

Then of course there's always Andrew Lloyd Webber. You can expect me to pick up a CATS soundtrack soon, I've been missing it greatly. (And yes there is more to it than the maudlin "Memory," much of which is sure to delight even you!)

[level-head.livejournal.com]

It is ... ineffable. I have more than a little empathy for Old Deuteronomy

===|==============/ Level Head

[timtylor.livejournal.com]

The act I really remember is Gus the Theatre Cat.

Sluggy Freelance

[lordrunningclam.livejournal.com]

I was wondering if it was just me. First, I stopped reading Dimension of Pain Saturdays and I've been wondering when the rest of it would start to make some kind of sense again.

Re: Sluggy Freelance

[richardf8]

Thank you! I was afraid when I penned that I would get "How could you speak ill of the seminal, canonical webcomic, Sluggy?" I'm relieved also that it's not just me.

[timtylor.livejournal.com]

I think it's a bit too early to dump SF on this. If he's using it to send Torg home and drop the whole "Demons in the Nice Dimension" storyline then fair enough, but I don't think that's likely. From the news section I gather he's still partway through a plotline he's feeling ambitious about and unlikely to press the panic-button on. The DoP Saturday just seems to be a running guest-feature playing in the margins of the SF cosmos; not really a serious part of the story, but fun and better than leaving the day a complete blank. And anyway I'm an Ian McDonald (http://www.brunothebandit.com/) fan. ;)

[richardf8]

I felt he punted the Holiday story-arc with the Deus ex Ovum and thought the whole "Evil-Aylee was a clone" notion to explain the Heretic Industries deal was a bit of a cop-out.

[timtylor.livejournal.com]

He did give due warning in the Holiday arc by bringing up the egg well ahead of time. And at least he brought things up to a decent climax, with a logical and morally satisfying plot-twist that forced the egg's use, rather than just having it go off by accident.

[c-eagle.livejournal.com]

Indeed... I've never seen so many comments, unless on LJnews postings :>