Back of the Envelope

This past Saturday I went to see the third X-Men movie, subtitled "The Last Stand," with some friends of mine. Overall, I enjoyed it, but it was the least faithful to the X-Men continuity of any of the movies.

In the world of X-Men, mutants are the ultimate minority group. Some of them are born with obvious deformities, others with superhuman powers, and others with both. Because people fear mutants, they are highly discriminated against. However, mutants have stronger means to fight back than most minority groups. Thus the mutants as a whole divide into two groups. Professor Xavier, a mutant with the power to read and control minds, runs a school to train mutants to use their powers responsibly. He and his X-Men want to peacefully coexist with the human race, procuring mutant rights through legal, political means. Magneto, a mutant and Holocaust survivor with the power to control metal, leads a band of rebels who believe they must subjugate or even exterminate the inferior humans in order to live in peace.

When the third movie starts, things seem to be going fairly well for human/mutant relations. The president is sympathetic, and has formed a cabinet-level Department of Mutant Affairs and appointed a mutant (nicknamed Beast) to run it. Of course, it wouldn't be much of a movie if things stayed that way. Conflict quickly comes about with the development of a cure for mutation by a pharmaceutical company. Some mutants are desparate for a cure, while others are offended by the very idea that their mutation is something to cure. Even the X-Men are divided. At first, the drug is introduced as a purely voluntary cure for any mutant who wants it, but when the government develops it into a weapon against the more violent mutants, then things go crazy. When Jean Gray, the psychic X-Man who apparently died at the end of the second movie, returns as the uberpowerful and insane Phoenix, things get even more interesting.

There are some spoilers in the rest, so click show to see more:



Still, while the movie isn't big on character development, it's fun, with lots of action and plenty of destruction. Not a bad way to spend a few bucks.

I had a rather sleepless night on Sunday. This happens every once in a while, and I hate it, but it's hard to avoid. I guess I have a sleepless night once a month. Generally, when I'm having trouble sleeping, it comes in stages:

1. There's an initial reason for my sleeplessness. I'm not always aware what it is, while sometimes it's obvious. Last night it was mostly temperature. Right now Boston's hovering between hot and cold, which makes it difficult for me to get comfortable, as I can never decide whether I need a blanket or a fan or both or neither. For some inexplicable reason, both seems to work best, but it didn't work last night.


2. After about an hour, I get frustrated at my inability to sleep. This gets me wound up, which makes it even harder to sleep.


3. After another hour, I give up trying to sleep and get up and do something, usually read or websurf, hoping to wear myself out.


4. After another hour--and yes, it really is three hours since I started--I try to go to sleep again.


5. If I'm lucky, I actually fall asleep. If not, I return to step 1.

And yes, I do sometimes try medication to help me sleep. I took some melatonin on Sunday, but it didn't help. I ended up getting a total of three hours. Fortunately, it was a holiday, rather than a workday, so hopefully, it won't strike on a workday anytime soon.

Do you use your blog to share fiction? Then the Storyblogging Carnival is an opportunity for you to share examples of your storytelling in blog format. If you're curious about what this looks like, have a look at some examples of previous storyblogging carnivals. The next Storyblogging Carnival will be the forty-sixth, and it will be going up June 5th. It'll be hosted right here at Back of the Envelope.

If you'd like to participate, please e-mail your story submissions to me at dscrank-at-alum-dot-mit-dot-edu (or post in my comments), including the following information:

• Name of your blog
• URL of your blog
• Title of the story
• URL for the blog entry where the story is posted
• (OPTIONAL) Author's name
• (OPTIONAL) A suggested rating for adult content (G, PG, PG-13, R)
• A word count
• A short blurb describing the story

The post may be of any age, from a week old to years old. The submission deadline is 11:59 PM Eastern time on Saturday, June 3rd. More detailed information follows (same as always):

1. The story or excerpt submitted must be posted on-line as a blog entry, and while fiction is preferred, non-fiction storytelling is acceptable.
2. The story can be any length, but the Carnival will list them in order of length, from shortest to longest, and include a word count for each one.
3. You may either send a complete story, a story in progress, or a lengthy excerpt. You should indicate the word count for both the excerpt and the complete story in the submission, and you should say how the reader can find more of the story in the post itself.
4. If the story spans multiple posts, each post should contain a link to the beginning of the story, and a link to the next post. You may submit the whole story, the first post, or, if you've previously submitted earlier posts to the Carnival, the next post which you have not submitted. Please indicate the length of the entire story, as well as the portion which you are submitting.
5. The host has sole discretion to decide whether the story will be included or not, or whether to indicate that the story has pornographic or graphically violent content. The ratings for the story will be decided by the host. I expect I'll be pretty lenient on that sort of thing, but I have some limits, and others may draw the line elsewhere. Aside from noting potentially offensive content, while I may say nice things about stories I like, I won't be panning anyone's work. I expect other hosts to be similarly polite.
6. The story may be the blogger's own or posted with permission, but if it is not his own work he should gain permission from the author before submitting to the Carnival.

If you'd like to be added to the e-mail list, please let me know. Finally, I appreciate folks promoting the carnival on their own blogs, and I'm always looking for bloggers willing to host future carnivals.

Sluggy Freelance — Stick figures wrap up just in time to check up on how Gwynn's doing at work. Her reluctance to wear her glasses when hot guys are around results in it not going very well at all. Then Pete's down for a few days of vacation, instead putting up some images from his Megatome's additional Sluggy storyline.

Day by Day — Congress is in for a lot of abuse this week. It seems their consistent arrogance is getting a lot of negative attention, especially in light of the current scandal, and their insistence on the "separation of powers" protecting them from criminal investigations.

Scary Go Round — And while Ryan's still missing, Tim's having trouble with his inventor chums. It seems they don't appreciate being left out in the cold while Tim's become mayor.

College Roomies from Hell!!! — Dave disappears right in the middle of his and Roger's standoff. It appears his mutant powers now allow superspeed in response to buffets.

General Protection Fault — The team's under fire, the home base has been destroyed by evil Fooker's brother, and evil Fooker himself has come for the team. Fun!

Schlock Mercenary — And Pronto guts the building without actually destroying it, bankrupting the reality television network. Everything would be going swimmingly if the local police hadn't come knocking.

As I have family in Louisiana, I paid a lot of attention to Katrina. By the middle of the week, it was all everyone was talking about, how badly [Bush/Nagin/congress--choose your political preference] had failed. Every time I tried to turn attention towards doing something (say, donating to Red Cross), I'd find my words falling on deaf ears, as they all seemed more interested in using the situation in their political arguments rather than doing something about it.

Anyway, I've known for a while that the situation, while bad, wasn't as terrible as the news media made it out to be, and I'm always interested in reporting which gives a more balanced view of events. This report from Real Clear Politics demonstrates once again why bloggers do better than the MSM every time:

Remember the dozens, maybe hundreds, of rapes, murders, stabbings and deaths resulting from official neglect at the Superdome after Hurricane Katrina? The ones that never happened, as even the national media later admitted?

Sure, we all remember the original reporting, if not the back-pedaling.

Here's another one: Do you remember the dramatic TV footage of National Guard helicopters landing at the Superdome as soon as Katrina passed, dropping off tens of thousands saved from certain death? The corpsmen running with stretchers, in an echo of M*A*S*H, carrying the survivors to ambulances and the medical center? About how the operation, which also included the Coast Guard, regular military units, and local first responders, continued for more than a week?
Click Here

Me neither. Except that it did happen, and got at best an occasional, parenthetical mention in the national media. The National Guard had its headquarters for Katrina, not just a few peacekeeping troops, in what the media portrayed as the pit of Hell. Hell was one of the safest places to be in New Orleans, smelly as it was. The situation was always under control, not surprisingly because the people in control were always there.
...
Except for the Coast Guard's brilliant performance, which saved up to 30,000 lives, most of the rescue operation was run by local National Guard middle management, combat tested in Iraq, accustomed to hardship, and intimately familiar with the city. (In fact, as I previously reported, Guard members rescued other Guard members, who then reported for flight duty.) The junior officers munched the same unappetizing but adequate rations as everyone else at the Dome. They were struggling to catch a few winks when they could in the garage level under the LZ, with concrete chips raining down on them when the Chinooks landed and rattled the decking.

Like everyone except the TV anchors, they squatted to do their business in the nearest stairwell. "You just walked down the steps, and when you hit water, there you were," Major Dressler recalls fondly. "We had a little boy's stairwell, and a little girl's stairwell."

They were, in other words, on the scene, and they knew exactly the grotesqueries in the Dome and in the rest of the city. The priorities were search, rescue and lifesaving, not the comfort level of survivors they rescued who they knew would survive somehow if they sorted out the sick from the healthy. It looked brutal on TV, but it was effective, giving a whole new meaning to that venerable military cliché "quick and dirty."

Now why didn't we hear about this when it happened?

A friend let me know that the RSS feed for my site is broken. I looked into it, and it appears that Powerblogs simply changed the way it does the RSS feed, but since my sidebar isn't set to the template, it didn't update automatically (eh... I'm not so sure it would have updated automatically anyway). In any case I'll try to keep on top of this from now on. The sidebar's been corrected, and please update the address if you use the RSS feed to keep track of this site (unless you use it exclusively, in which case you won't see this post).

Welcome to Storyblogging Carnival XLV. Unlike the last carnival, it can't be pronounced, but it's still a collection of storytelling in blog format from around the blogosphere. We've got a total of ten entries this time.

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Gator
by Andrew Ian Dodge of Dodgeblogium
A 100 word brief story rated PG.

Killer alligators explained.

[One hundred words of creepiness...] -DSC]

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The O.J. Case
by David N. Scott of Pererro
A 384 word brief story rated G.

Dreams from the future?

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Keeping up with Mr. Jones
by Mark Rayner of The Skwib
A 500 word brief story rated PG-13.

The ultimate data-miner discovers he has other things to think about.

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Kidney Failure
by Corman of Creativity Dies
A 791 word brief story rated R.

A cautionary tale of the power of Robitussin.

[According to the author, when he sent this story around to some of his friends and family, they thought it was non-fiction. -DSC]

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Pancho Villa Avenged, Part 1
by F. Scott Sinclair of Novelist F. Scott Sinclair's Blog
A 954 word excerpt of a novel rated R.

A Novel of Macho Mexico Versus the United States

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An Unimportant War
by Goemagog of this space for sublet
A 1061 word short story rated PG.

A parable for our time.

[I think goemagog's short stories are getting longer. -DSC]

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Ink Magic, Chapter 12 (Beginning)
by Dave Gudeman of Doc Rampage
The next 1,121 words of a story in progress rated PG.

Steven finds out what's really going on, what with the monsters and the dead guy calling his cell phone.

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The Lady in the Painting
by Wichi Dude of Storyman
A 1,474 word short story rated PG.

"You never know where the mind will take us. And when we get back from the trip, it makes us wonder, 'Just who is crazy?'"

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Boys Don't Cry
by Postmodern Sass of Postmodernes Sprachspielen
A 1,500 word short story in two parts rated PG-13.

"The story of a young man named Paco, whom I never met, but who nevertheless existed."

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Hot Pursuit, Chapter 28 of Part 3 of The Child (Beginning)
by Sheya Joie of Tales by Sheya
The next 4,153 words of a 151,627 word novel in progress rated PG-13.

"I liked the cooks. And the deep-fried demon-head."

---

If you'd like to take part in a future carnival, please contact me. I am also looking for hosts. Other carnivals can be found here.

The Storyblogging Carnival can be found at The Truth Laid Bear's ÜberCarnival.

Sluggy Freelance — Torg works up the nerve to call Zoe, and manages to crash his car while trying to plug in his cell phone's handsfree device. Then it's a week of "Stick Figures in Spaaace!" It's surprisingly good for stick figures.

Day by Day — The Immigration Plan gets a lot of criticism this week, as might be expected, but there's still room for Jimmy Hoffa, that gun-testosterone study, and Patrick Kennedy.

Scary Go Round — Ryan's tossed out the back door, mostly dead, where his body's picked up by satanic nuns. Shelley and Amy are sick with worry at not being able to find him in the dumpster.

College Roomies from Hell!!! — Mike lands in the pool (Go Chester!), where he finds out that the werecoyote isn't as forgiving as Roger. Dave's about to learn that lesson as well, when Roger learns why Diana wants payment.

General Protection Fault — And it all goes crazy, which is what we were pretty much expecting. Dexter runs into his alternate self, who proves to be quite dangerous, and the rest of the gang runs into imperial stormtroopers.

Schlock Mercenary — The mercenaries evacuate the building, with a little firepower, as might be expected. It looks like things are going fine.

I don't believe I know Jane Park, but I've hung out with the Harvard Graduate Christian group with which she was involved, so it's quite possible I've met her before. At least one of the pictures I looked at seemed familiar. She's been missing for about three weeks now. I know that only a small number of people who read my blog actually live in the Boston area, but every eye helps. From the Cambridge Chronicle:

Somerville Police are asking the public for any information about a missing Berkeley Street woman who has been missing for about two weeks.

Jane Park, 23, who graduated from Wellesley College in 2004 and attended classes at Harvard University last fall, has not been seen or heard from by her family since May 5.

Park was preparing to start graduate school in the fall, and was about to fly to Maryland for the summer when she went missing.

The picture I'm including came from the Missing Person poster. I don't know how recent it is.

I mentioned a while ago that I was writing poetry for an out-of-genre writing assignment. A lot of what I wrote was pretty bad, but here's one that wasn't quite as dreadful as the others. It's a sci-fi poem, as it seems I can only go so far out of my usual genre.

Beyond the Stars

Do we stare into the ceaseless black
With the echoing silence in our ears?
Should we stretch to fill our lack,
Driven by the ambition of the years?

Across the blackness of its face
We seek a glimmering light.
But find nothing but empty space,
Nothing to ease our needless fright.

Though we have come so far
Our search has come to naught,
When every new discovered star
Reveals nothing we have not brought.

We gave up God so long ago,
And turned to the Universe.
Not wanting in death life’s truths to know,
We grasped at space to find answers.

Eternal life we dared to claim
Hoping that time this void would fill.
Instead we found more of the same
No joy, no peace, just empty will.

Fear now clutches clockwork hearts.
Iron breath mists in deadening cold.
Some say that divesting our mortal parts
Will bring the freedom of the bold.

But I—I think that I shall sleep,
And in that sleep there may be dreams.
And though I won’t survive that leap
Perhaps death is more than it seems.

The Storyblogging Carnival is an opportunity for bloggers to share examples of storytelling in blog format, whether they are fiction posted online or something else. If you're curious about what this looks like, have a look at some examples of previous storyblogging carnivals. The next Storyblogging Carnival will be the forty-fifth, and it will be going up May 22nd. For the second carnival in a row I'll be hosting it here at Back of the Envelope.

If you'd like to participate, please e-mail your story submissions to me at dscrank-at-alum-dot-mit-dot-edu (or post in my comments), including the following information:

• Name of your blog
• URL of your blog
• Title of the story
• URL for the blog entry where the story is posted
• (OPTIONAL) Author's name
• (OPTIONAL) A suggested rating for adult content (G, PG, PG-13, R)
• A word count
• A short blurb describing the story

The post may be of any age, from a week old to years old. The submission deadline is 11:59 PM Eastern time on Saturday, May 20th. More detailed information follows (same as always):

1. The story or excerpt submitted must be posted on-line as a blog entry, and while fiction is preferred, non-fiction storytelling is acceptable.
2. The story can be any length, but the Carnival will list them in order of length, from shortest to longest, and include a word count for each one.
3. You may either send a complete story, a story in progress, or a lengthy excerpt. You should indicate the word count for both the excerpt and the complete story in the submission, and you should say how the reader can find more of the story in the post itself.
4. If the story spans multiple posts, each post should contain a link to the beginning of the story, and a link to the next post. You may submit the whole story, the first post, or, if you've previously submitted earlier posts to the Carnival, the next post which you have not submitted. Please indicate the length of the entire story, as well as the portion which you are submitting.
5. The host has sole discretion to decide whether the story will be included or not, or whether to indicate that the story has pornographic or graphically violent content. The ratings for the story will be decided by the host. I expect I'll be pretty lenient on that sort of thing, but I have some limits, and others may draw the line elsewhere. Aside from noting potentially offensive content, while I may say nice things about stories I like, I won't be panning anyone's work. I expect other hosts to be similarly polite.
6. The story may be the blogger's own or posted with permission, but if it is not his own work he should gain permission from the author before submitting to the Carnival.

If you'd like to be added to the e-mail list, please let me know. Finally, I appreciate folks promoting the carnival on their own blogs, and I'm always looking for bloggers willing to host future carnivals.

Sluggy Freelance — Bun-bun convinces nerdboy to face his fears, and Torg finally realizes that there is something he can do about Oasis. About darn time. He should have figured that out years ago. With that knowledge, they pass the test, and the shadow-guy gives them instructions to dig up the Book of Wayang. If only they could read those instructions. Despite of this, it seems like this was a pretty short storyline, considering the usual epics Pete likes to throw at us these days.

Day by Day — The press, and their weird relationship with Rumsfeld, gets some time this week, followed by a timely reminder of Afghanistan. The Iranian President's letter receives the attention, and targetting lasers, it deserves, as does McCain and liberal conspiracy theories.

Scary Go Round — Ryan spends some time with a drowned girl named Mary, although he doesn't seem crazy about her appearance. Just as things get interesting, his ride back to the land of the living arrives. Meanwhile, Shelley pretends to be possessed in order to find him.

College Roomies from Hell!!! — Dave runs off to kill Mike, and instead runs into Diana. True to form, Diana wants to charge him for his accident. Unfortunately, Dave doesn't have any money.

General Protection Fault — And the assault on the fortress is on. The GPF crew is off to rescue Nick, with a little help from Alt-Sharon. It turns out that Alt-Sharon is working for the enemy, however.

Schlock Mercenary — Petey throws some weight around, including an entire battleplate into orbit around the planet where Tagon's Toughs is running their "destroy a television network" op. Aside from a battleplate's unexpected appearance, things seem to be going all right.

Every once in a while, a post becomes a spam magnet. I'm never really sure why that happens, but when it does, I sometimes delete the original and repost it, in order to put an end to the spam. This is one such post. It was originally posted at 12:45 pm on Wednesday, December 8, 2004.

8-bit Theater is the first webcomic I ever read. I came across numerous mentions of it in an online forum I used to frequent, and the quotes amused me, so I checked it out. I hadn't been reading it recently, but I've just gotten caught up, and I'm glad I have. Since it only published three times a week (Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday), it didn't take as long to get caught up. It is a Sprite comic, which means that it uses computer graphics lifted from something else, in this case Final Fantasy, and creates situations and humor from that. (The web being the web, and computer geeks being computer geeks, making fun of computer games is the purest form of web comedy.) This doesn't sound very creative, until you actually read it. It is simply hysterical. For example, you might read this recent comic:

Red Mage: Hey, BM, what makes your hadoken [a very powerful, destructive spell] work, anyway?

Black Mage: Promise not to tell anyone?

Red Mage: For the purposes of this conversation, yes, I do.

Black Mage: (looks around) Love.

Red Mage: Love.

Black Mage: Love is a very powerful force. Even moreso when it's focused into a coherent beam of destruction. Every time I cast hadoken, it siphons away some of the love in the universe. I'm not sure how much, but I'm given to understand the divorce rate goes up with each blast.

Red Mage: ...

Black Mage: What!

In case you haven't guessed, Black Mage is evil. As usual, I recommend starting from the beginning.

Doc has one of the most cogent explanations of why excessive amounts of immigration, even legal, is a dangerous thing:

Large immigrant groups form ghettos. They all move in together into communities where everyone is from the same area and they all speak the same language. There are strong practical reasons for this, but it slows down assimilation. This is a problem for several reasons. First, it is a drain on the economy to have populations that can't speak to each other. When was the last time that you tried to tell your office janitor about some special cleaning that needed to be done? If your office is like ours, you eventually had to call the building manager, who had to find someone who spoke Spanish, turning a one-minute conversation into a twenty-minute project involving four people. Ghettos also lead to organized crime because these communities tend to be insular and untrusting of the police and other government workers (who often don't understand the community anyway). This often leads to people living in America under the same kind of oppressive and violent patronage system they came here to escape.

But most importantly, assimilation into American culture is important because these people come from failed cultures. After all, if their own culture had produced security and freedom and wealth like our culture has produced, why would they be flooding in here? So we have millions of people flooding into this country from failed cultures and bringing their failed culture with them. They bring tribal loyalties and feuds, they bring nepotism and cronyism, they bring bribery and other forms of official corruption, they bring racism and sexism (I mean real racism and sexism, not the minor complaints that pass for racism and sexism in the US), they bring oppressive and intolerant religions (again, the real thing, not what whiny leftists complain about), and they brig a lax regard for honesty in business dealings and a lax regard for law. I'm not saying that all immigrants bring all these things, but all immigrant groups from failed cultures bring several of these things.

He continues: "I'm probably going to be called racist by people who can't distinguish culture from race so I'll just say (vainly, I suspect) that I do make that distinction." I think he's wrong here, as the multi-cultural set do make a distinction between culture and race, it's just a distinction without a difference. They believe that all culture is inherently good (except Western culture), and must be preserved, and that trying to change someone's culture is an inherent evil. As a Christian, I take the opposite view, namely that all culture is fallen, and thus it is incumbent upon us to reform our culture, never perfecting it but surely improving it. The multiculturalists believe that there is room in the US for all cultures, but I agree with Doc. While I think some aspects of culture can co-exist (I don't think anyone needs to give up their religion to come to the US), some cultural aspects are inherently incompatible with American culture, and anyone who's not willing to give them up shouldn't come here. (For example, Islamist imperialism just doesn't work with religious freedom.)

That said, I'd rather be dealing with our immigrant difficulties than what Europe's dealing with right now. I'm not even sure it's as much of a problem as Doc believes, as I think that these immigrant groups can be assimilated over time. Of course, I also think annexing all of Mexico is doable, if probably unwise.

I've neglected to clean up my trackback spam recently, which is always a mistake. There were almost 800 trackbacks, all but 3 or so spam. You know the sites. They want to sell you music, refinance your mortgage, help you with your taxes, or offer you online gambling opportunities. Their link leads back to their front page while saying something like "Poker." I delete the trackback and ban the site immediately, usually banning the domain. I had to ban all of myspace.com, since it had a whole slew of sites selling music spamming me with trackbacks, and I just did not have the time to go through and delete each trackback and ban its site separately. Meanwhile, I noticed an oddity, in the form of a lot of links apparently leading directly to Google's or Yahoo's or MSN's homepage. Since I'm pretty sure search engine's don't use trackbacks, and I'm not certain what's up with these, I banned those domains as well.

There is lots of comment spam as well, but I don't get anywhere near as much, and I get an e-mail whenever that happens.

Welcome to Storyblogging Carnival XLIV (pronounced "xliv"), a collection of storytelling in blog format from around the blogosphere. I've let this blog sink into obscurity for the past few weeks, but what better way to signal a return to the norm than with a storyblogging carnival? So let's dive right in. There are five stories this time, most of them super short.

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Sinking
by Andrew Ian Dodge of Dodgeblogium
A 100 word short story rated PG.

There is a reason Wembley is sinking...

[There's not much I can say about a 100 word short story without giving it away, so please go read it yourself. -DSC]

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The Twin Lights of Life and Liberty
by Lyn Perry of Bloggin' Outloud
A 250 word brief story rated G.

My entry in the "Two Lights" contest recently hosted
by Clarity of Night blog.

[250 words? That's barely more than 100. Once again, you better read it yourself. -DSC]

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Jack and Diane
by Postmodern Sass of Postmodernes Sprachspielen
A 660 word brief story rated PG.

This is one of my earliest stories, which explains who Jack is, and sets the stage for our continually evolving and mostly dysfunctional relationship.

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Thag do revolution!
by Mark Rayner of The Skwib
A 700 word brief story rated PG-13.

The continuing (humorous/satirical) story of Thag the caveman. This time, there is a shakeup in the clan power structure.

[And yet another really short story. -DSC]

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Cubicles
by Goemagog of this space for sublet
A 1008 word short story rated G.

"He was trapped, he knew it, he was required to explain the obvious to the oblivious via reports and assessments, and he was powerless to change anything.

"On the plus side, his keyboard clicked, so he sat back down and began typing again."

[Those two lines remind me why I always find goemagog's very short stories so much fun. Although a mere 1008 words, it's longer than his usual entries. -DSC]

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The Diary by Kris Mallory of Stealth Fiction
A 2,377 word short story rated R.

Some books shouldn't be read.

[Interesting premise. -DSC]

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If you'd like to take part in a future carnival, please contact me. I am also looking for hosts. Other carnivals can be found here.

The Storyblogging Carnival can be found at The Truth Laid Bear's ÜberCarnival.

Update: I managed to overlook one of the entries, Jack and Diane, by Postmodern Sass. Go read it.

Sluggy Freelance — Torg kills Oasis with his magic sword of killing! This would be more traumatic if it weren't a dream world where he's already killed Alt-Zoe and Val, and let Zoe die. Even so, it's pretty disturbing, watching him actually kill the people he cares about. I know it demonstrates how his running away really harms them, but still! Bun-bun's trying to force him to face his fears, but Torg's awfully good at running.

Day by Day — Old jokes never get old. At least when they're directed at someone else. Also this week, McCain has stuck his foot in his mouth, saying that clean government is more important than Free Speech. That's always a mistake in this country. It may contribute to why both Damon and Jan are tired of their respective parties.

Scary Go Round — Ryan has finally tracked down dead Natalie. Being a grim reaper has changed her, and not for the better.

College Roomies from Hell!!! — Only two comics this week. Mike tosses Dave into the pool after Roger. The cold must be throwing Dave's aim off, as he misses when trying to laser Mike for revenge. Fortunately, Chester comes in for the save, pouncing on Mike from above. Go Chester!

General Protection Fault — Evil Ki's rather taken with good Nick. That's probably because Nick's an awfully decent guy who doesn't believe in the death penalty, which she obviously deserves.

Schlock Mercenary — The police come to arrest Elf for illegal mods. They seem to have taken on more than they can chew however, especially when Captain Tagon sends additional help. Petey, meanwhile, has an appointment with the UNS military.

I've been in New Mexico all week, and I just arrived back yesterday. I've been neglecting this blog for the last couple of weeks, maybe even months, but I expect things to let up soon, and I'll try to breathe some new life into this blog. For a start, we have a storyblogging carnival tomorrow. Come by around noon and see what we have!

The Storyblogging Carnival is an opportunity for bloggers to share examples of storytelling in blog format, whether they are fiction posted online or something else. If you're curious about what this looks like, have a look at some examples of previous storyblogging carnivals. The next Storyblogging Carnival will be the forty-fourth, and it will be going up May 8th.

If you'd like to participate, please e-mail your story submissions to me at dscrank-at-alum-dot-mit-dot-edu (or post in my comments), including the following information:

• Name of your blog
• URL of your blog
• Title of the story
• URL for the blog entry where the story is posted
• (OPTIONAL) Author's name
• (OPTIONAL) A suggested rating for adult content (G, PG, PG-13, R)
• A word count
• A short blurb describing the story

The post may be of any age, from a week old to years old. The submission deadline is 11:59 PM Eastern time on Saturday, May 6th. More detailed information follows (same as always):

1. The story or excerpt submitted must be posted on-line as a blog entry, and while fiction is preferred, non-fiction storytelling is acceptable.
2. The story can be any length, but the Carnival will list them in order of length, from shortest to longest, and include a word count for each one.
3. You may either send a complete story, a story in progress, or a lengthy excerpt. You should indicate the word count for both the excerpt and the complete story in the submission, and you should say how the reader can find more of the story in the post itself.
4. If the story spans multiple posts, each post should contain a link to the beginning of the story, and a link to the next post. You may submit the whole story, the first post, or, if you've previously submitted earlier posts to the Carnival, the next post which you have not submitted. Please indicate the length of the entire story, as well as the portion which you are submitting.
5. The host has sole discretion to decide whether the story will be included or not, or whether to indicate that the story has pornographic or graphically violent content. The ratings for the story will be decided by the host. I expect I'll be pretty lenient on that sort of thing, but I have some limits, and others may draw the line elsewhere. Aside from noting potentially offensive content, while I may say nice things about stories I like, I won't be panning anyone's work. I expect other hosts to be similarly polite.
6. The story may be the blogger's own or posted with permission, but if it is not his own work he should gain permission from the author before submitting to the Carnival.

If you'd like to be added to the e-mail list, please let me know. Finally, I appreciate folks promoting the carnival on their own blogs, and I'm always looking for bloggers willing to host future carnivals.

I've been travelling a lot, and working hard when I'm not travelling, so I missed last week's update. I'm still here, though, so here is two weeks worth of updates in one.

Sluggy Freelance — Just as Bun-bun's about to find the book, he's tossed into the realm of shadows along with Torg and Kiki to face his fears. Bun-bun doesn't have much trouble facing his fears, but unfortunately he has to help Torg and Kiki through theirs. Between Alt-Zoe, Zoe, and Oasis, and even a little bit of Val thrown in, Torg has plenty of fears about causing the deaths of the women he loves. I'm not sure how Bun-bun will help Torg through his fears. I'm even less sure how he could help Kiki through her fears of Boisenberry sandwiches.

Day by Day — Illegal immigration is the big issue these weeks. It's making me wonder whether we really should go ahead and annex Mexico. Meanwhile, there's still plenty of fun left over for Cynthia McKinney playing the race card, overweight body armor, Neil Young's "Impeach the President" song, and a bit of Darwinism.

Scary Go Round — Ryan's temporarily dead as he tries to determine what happened to Natalie. His friends are worried, but not worried enough it seems.

College Roomies from Hell!!! — Few comics these past two weeks, but some good one. April's still trying to one-up Marsha, and even manages to sway IFWA. Dave's unhappy over being happy. And Mike tosses a bongo playing Roger into the pool.

General Protection Fault — I still don't know who the mysterious stranger giving evil Nick advice is, but he seems to want chaos. Ki confronts Trudy, who's less evil than she used to be but is still untrusted. It looks like they've reached some level of understanding. Alt-Trudy then proposes trading places with our Trudy as a diversion.

Schlock Mercenary — So Elf gets more hair and a cool looking uniform. She looks pretty good, but it's not very practical for a mercenary.