Glenn Hauman: A View From Above

"Whenever I Leave You", from the Harris Papyrus, 500 Song Cycle 2, 15th Century BCE, Egypt.

Whenever I leave you, I go out of breath
Death must be lonely like I am
I dream lying dreams of your love lost
And my heart stands still inside me
I stare at my favorite datecakes
They would be salt to me now
And pomegranate wine, once sweet to our lips
Bitter, bitter as birdgall


Touching noses with you, love, your kiss alone
And my stuttering heart speaks clear
Breathe me more of your breath, let me live!
Woman, meant for me!
God himself gave you as his Holy gift
My love to outlast forever

Congratulations, Tia and Jet, on a wedding with no casualties and only one major injury. I'll email you my toast, you'll have it by the time you get back from your honeymoon.

You read a few articles about ComicMix and you get all whispery.

"What are they doing over there?"

"Is it just a news site? If so, why are so many comics creators like Mike Gold and Dennis O'Neil and John Ostrander mentioned?"

"It's not just writers, that first column by Gold mentions a lot of artists too, guys like Truman and Gibson, Grell and Von Eeden -- jeez, even Skip Williamson and Jay Lynch!"

"Are they going to be publishing comics?"

"What? What? WHAT???"

"Hey, I've seen that Hauman guy's blog... maybe he said something there!"

And so you find your way here, perusing over old posts, seeing if there's anything I hinted at or some such.

Nope, not me. I ain't talking. Go run a search on the other folks involved, maybe you'll have better luck. (Hmm. This guy already did research on Brian. Smart thinking.)

It's not that I don't want to talk about what we're up to -- you know me, occasionally I'll say the wrong thing, or say something I ought not to, so coming here wasn't a bad idea. But mainly, it's just because I'm too dang busy. This startup is time consuming, and I've got a lot of work to do here -- blog entries to write and edit, photos to take, images to scan, artwork to color, and anything else that hasn't been covered.

All I'll say is: The crew we've assembled is not noted for being timid or for hewing to the status quo.

I feel really sorry for anyone who just spent a few thousand dollars on a new HD TV just in time for the game just so they could watch all the raindrops on the camera lenses.

And we're losing.

Saudis reportedly funding Iraqi Sunni insurgents:

CAIRO (AP) %u2014 Private Saudi citizens are giving millions of dollars to Sunni insurgents in Iraq and much of the money is used to buy weapons, including shoulder fired anti-aircraft missiles, according to key Iraqi officials and others familiar with the flow of cash.[...]

In one recent case, an Iraqi official said $25 million in Saudi money went to a top Iraqi Sunni cleric and was used to buy weapons, including Strela, a Russian shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missile. The missiles were purchased from someone in Romania, apparently through the black market, he said.

(Via TPM.)

$25 million. That's the same money we offered for Hussein's head, the top guy in Iraq; and what we were offering for a long time for Osama (it was doubled to $50 million in 2005).

And some folks were happy to pony up the same amount of money to shoot at Shia and US forces, cash upfront, with no guarantee of success, just the hope you'd get maybe a hundred or so men and take out a decent number of helicopters.

I say we up our bid, taking the balance out of Halliburton's hide. They overcharged us, we take it back.

I swear, this place is possessed. There are days I think I should just start a new blog and be done with it...

This is surprisingly good news:

Bypassing the Legislature altogether, Republican Gov. Rick Perry issued an order Friday making Texas the first state to require that schoolgirls get vaccinated against the sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer.

I applaud Rick Perry for taking this step to wipe out a killer disease.

No, I'm not talking about the blog outage from my upstream provider a few hours ago. I'm talking about this:



Go ahead, use it and see for yourself. Apparently, I don't exist, but am simply a metaphor in the mind of God. Who might not exist either, which means I'm really screwed.

It also seems my parents don't exist either. Somebody's being very thorough with that time machine, making sure I'm not around. I wonder why?

Because it's really the Green Hornet's birthday.

Today, January 31, is the day that the "Green Hornet" radio show was first heard on WXYZ Radio in Detroit, way back in 1936. The Gorilla Suit lobby is merely trying to piggyback on this sacred holiday.

So happy 71st, big guy. Here's hoping that Kevin Smith will have the Green Hornet screenplay done in time for the hundreth anniversary.

Just call me Fester Bestertester, I'm not participating. I know that it's all a scam by the Acme Gorilla Suit Company and the Ajax Gorilla Suit Company to sell more of their products, and I'm too busy prepping for Groundhog Day.

Ain't going to do it. Wouldn't be prudent. Steadfast, that's me.

What am I talking about? Why, National Gorilla Suit Day, of course!

But don't fall for it! No matter how many of those big pleading eyes look at you, no matter how many bananas they offer, do not celebrate National Gorilla Suit Day! Don't acknowledge it, don't get drunk and party, and certainly don't put up banners celebrating it like these...



...no matter how desperate you are to get traffic from Mark Evanier.

Ask the New York Times:

Stephen King's Midnight Madness

Every week comic book fans look forward to Wednesdays, the day new issues go on sale. On Feb. 7, one of those comics will be the first issue of a new seven-part series based on the Stephen King novel "The Dark Tower," above, from Marvel Entertainment. To commemorate the event, almost 150 comic book retailers across the country will begin selling the issue at the stroke of midnight. A list of participating stores can be found at www.marvel.com/news/comicstories. Fans who flock to Midtown Comics in Manhattan will see a couple of special guests: Peter David, who writes the dialogue for the series, and Jae Lee, the book's artist. The store will open for one hour.

GEORGE GENE GUSTINES

That's what George W. Bush proposed spending tonight in the State of the Union. Where? He said he wanted to double the size of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Here's the math:

The current SPR holds 727 million barrels. Multiply that by the current price of oil, $55/barrel, and let's add a $7/barrel surcharge because of the newly increased demand, increasing scarcity, and other fun shocks. That's $45 billion going to oil companies.

One last payoff to his buddies in the bidness while he's still got the chance.

Oh, and Rich Little will be there too. Take it away, Mark:

As mentioned in a recent link here, the White House Correspondents Association has selected Rich Little as the entertainer at their 2007 dinner. Here's part of this article about it...

Rich Little won't be mentioning Iraq or ratings when he addresses the White House Correspondents' Dinner April 21. Little said organizers of the event made it clear they don't want a repeat of last year's controversial appearance by Stephen Colbert, whose searing satire of President Bush and the White House press corps fell flat and apparently touched too many nerves. "They got a lot of letters," Little said Tuesday. "I won't even mention the word 'Iraq.'"

Little, who hasn't been to the White House since he was a favorite of the Reagan administration, said he'll stick with his usual schtick — the impersonations of the past six presidents. "They don't want anyone knocking the president. He's really over the coals right now, and he's worried about his legacy," added Little, a longtime Las Vegas resident.

...Of course, if Rich Little has any guts at all, he'll get up there and say, "Thank you. I'd like to start with my newest impression...Stephen Colbert!" That would make for quite an evening.

(Via news from me.)

Day 7: Jack Bauer goes to the bathroom, has three solid meals, and gets a good nine hours of sleep after working on various hobbies and home improvement projects all day, having turned off his magic cell phone and gotten a restraining order against Chloe, Kim, anyone else from CTU, and anyone named Palmer.

Because, of course, on the seventh day, he rested.

Stolen with a complete lack of shame from Tom Galloway. More takes on 24 can be found here, here (see, he did have enough popularity!) and here.

This zen question was first posed to me by the great Robert Anton Wilson, to whom we must now append the prefix "late".

I had the privilege of hosting and introducing him at a lecture at NYU back in May of 1990, a lecture entitled "From Psychedelics to Cyberspace" which was noteworthy for being the first public demonstration of VR technology east of the Rockies. Being able to converse, before and after the show, with him and Timothy Leary was a truly unique experience.

I'm sad, in a way, that he didn't live long enough to the movie "The Number 23", but I will happily note that he passed away on 1/11-- which, of course, if you add 1+1, gives you 2, and if you add 1+1+1, you get 3. 23. Of course.

Hail Eris. All Hail Discordia.

...and then listening to the pundit's talking about doubling his bet, I realized what we actually have is a President who's actually dumb enough to be using a Martingale system, because he thinks that he has the infinite wealth required to make a Martingale work.

Except, of course, that the odds aren't in his favor, and the dead soldiers and their families have no way to recoup their losses. But those losses aren't Bush's losses.