1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first article title on the page is the name of your band.

2. http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four words of the very last quote is the title of your album.

3. http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days/
The third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4.Use your graphics programme of choice to throw them together, and post the result as a comment in this post (optional).

( Mine is under the cut. )

I'm proud to announce the release of DIAPERMAN ISSUE 13, written by me with art by original artist Mike Rieger. The Black Whip faces off against Sleepers! But where is Diaperman? What's happened to The Spanker? And who are... the fearsome Fetish Five? Order now from lulu.com and find out! Only $7.00, full-color cover and 28 pages of black and white interior art.

Check out the Diaperman Website for details on this and the full-color graphic novel, order them online and have them delivered right to your door!

IF YOUR LIFE WAS A MOVIE, WHAT WOULD THE SOUNDTRACK BE?

So, here's how it works:
1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that's playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button

Opening Credits --------------------- Zuco 103, Q Baiano
Waking Up ---------------------------- Pet Shop Boys, It's A Sin.
First Day at School ----------------- Ram Jam, Black Betty
Falling In Love ---------------------- Green Day, Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)
Fight Song ------------------------- Stevie Nicks, Edge of Seventeen
Breaking Up ------------------------ The Bangles, In Your Room
Prom --------------------------------- Gladiator Soundtrack, Now We Are Free
Life's OK ----------------------------- Stockard Channing, Look At Me, I'm Sandra Dee
Mental Breakdown ----------------- Alicia Bridges, I Love The Nightlife (Disco Round)
Driving --------------------------------- J. Geils Band, Freeze Frame
Flashback ---------------------------- Buddy Wasisname, We Talks Quare
Getting Back Together -------------- Otis Redding, I Can See Clearly Now
Wedding ---------------------------------- Duran Duran, New Religion
Birth of Child ------------------------- Don Henley, Dirty Laundry
Final Battle --------------------------- Pink feat. Scratch, Respect
Death Scene ------------------------- Great Big Sea, Jakey's Gin
Funeral Song ------------------------ Cyndi Lauper, The Faraway Nearby
End Credits --------------------------- Belinda Carlisle, We Can Change

HOW DO YOU INTERPRET YOUR MOVIE'S MUSIC? (Added by me)

My general overview is that this is a movie about a former 80's star's latter life; like if one of the kids from The Breakfast Club was followed through their life AFTER high school.

The opening credits lead you to believe this is going to be some kind of Urban Hipster alternative lifestyle film, but right from the wake-up scene the Pet Shop Boys let you know this guy is from the 80's and is cynical.

From his first day of school Ram Jam warns us that this child gone wild. Especially when for him, Love begins with Green Day's Good Riddance. Only Stevie Nicks, that Pagan folk rock queen, could choreograph the anger of his fight scene. The break-up scene has even less meaning to him than the original falling in love scene, it's so tongue in cheek. I believe we're thinking he's sad all alone in his room, depressed and alone, then he turns on the Bangles, relegating the emotion so cartoonishly to the 80's -- again -- that we see his cynicism for what it is.

The Freedom theme for the Prom spells it all out: Thank God High School is done. Now we can move on to real life-- a giddy self-deprecating Sandra Dee-- and inappropriately comic choices for the rough spots. We allude to his small-town upbringing with the Buddy Wasisname flashback, then come forward to a kind of honesty when Otis Redding interprets the return of the relationship.

The birth of the child, however, brings back the cynical note; he knows what life holds for the baby and one of the only modern songs, Pink, handles the angry fight scene that ensues.

Death is a welcome release, sung by folksy Great Big Sea, which only underscores the Cold War backdrop of the 80's upbringing: We all expected to die young. A quirky and strange Cyndi Lauper tune holds a "better luck next time" feel for the funeral, and as we leave dazed and confused and wondering if we learned anything at all, Belinda Carlisle, former Go-Go girl, sees us out exhorting us to change. But from what INTO what? We're not sure, it's up to individual choice. Again, VERY 80's.

And that's my life's soundtrack. Apparently.

Current Mood: working

This is a copy of a letter sent to a friend of mine, a small business artist, named Donna Barr. She, like me and so many of us creative types now, is in the self-publishing biz and got this litter from another creatore: It's from a fellow named Charles Sheehan-Miles and I feel this issue is important enough that I've copied and pasted Charles' email here:
----------

I don't normally send out an update more than once a quarter or so, but an issue has come up which I felt was important enough to disregard that. In any event, I'll try to keep this short.

One of the great things that I've watched develop over the last ten years or so has been the connection of amazing new technologies which have made it possible for people to organize in ways they never could before.

It made it possible to organize Gulf War veterans in the mid-nineties, and Iraq War veterans since 2003. It's made entire small creative industries possible, particularly in the arts. That, connected with digital printing, has made it economically viable for small, creative and independent presses to publish books that would never have made it through the corporate gatekeepers of the huge conglomerates in New York. Musicians have made entire careers boosted on the internet, and small-time authors who podcasted their books have become mega-bestsellers. In other words, regular folks like you and me have the opportunity to find and build an audience in ways never before possible! Digital printing, the Internet, social networking -- things few of us even imagined as little as twenty years ago.

Unfortunately, these trends seem to be threatening to some of the market leaders. This week we learned that Amazon.com, the 800 pound gorilla of the online sales world, is threatening hundreds of small, family owned independent presses in a way which may or may not be illegal, but is certainly just plain wrong. The long and short of it: if you want to be sold on Amazon.com (and stay in business), you have to give them higher discounts than any other retailer gets, plus you have to use their printer to print the book in the first place. The irony, of course, is that Amazon was one of key factors that has made this renaissance of micro-publishers possible.

Why is this a big deal? Because it's a huge, incredibly profitable corporation directly threatening the livelihood of hundreds of small businesses. Play ball our way, or we'll put you into bankruptcy.

Sad, isn't it? You can check out the ugly details on my blog (along with links to coverage in the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal). But that's not why I'm writing. I'm writing to ask you: do you care about the ability of independent artists and writers to reach their audience without having to pay a 90% premium to a huge corporation? If so, there's a couple simple things you can do to help, that will only take about five seconds of your time.

Help Me Spread the Word About This

1. Visit my blog entry about the issue and click on the "Digg It" link at the top of the page. Just a couple hundred diggs from you will drive it to the top on Digg, where the issue will be exposed to hundreds of thousands of visitors.
http://www.sheehanmiles.com/Amazon_declares_war.html

2. Forward this on to your friends, and let them know they can help too.

3. Send an email to Amazon's customer support. You can do so through their online webform at: https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/contact-us/general-questions.html. They'll almost certainly email you back some inane response that has nothing to do with the issue you are writing about (kind of like writing Congress, I know), but a landslide of bad customer responses over this can make a difference.

4. Finally, and most importantly: if you keep a blog, post something about this issue. Companies are pretty sensitive to bad online press these days, and a lot of negative blog entries about this could really put some pressure on them to reverse themselves. After all -- one of the great things that distinguishes Amazon in the first place is the availability of books you just can't find at a big-box retailer. What happens to that when small, unique publishers are put out of business?

Thanks for listening, and best regards! You can always post comments about the issue here:

http://www.sheehanmiles.com/Amazon_declares_war.html

And, as always, it's not too late to unsubscribe from my list! If you get tired of hearing from me, just click the unsubscribe link at the bottom of this page, or send me back some hate mail.

Take care, and best regards,

Charles



P.S. Just a reminder that I'm now sending out the chapters for my new book Insurgent. I just posted Chapter Two and got the second episode of the podcast online. You can check it out and subscribe here: http://www.sheehanmiles.com/Insurgent_Chapter_Two.html

ganked from lots of people.

Your Score: The Frog

You scored 44% domestic, 42% gregarious, 39% trickster, and 44% intellect!

Wild, Solitary, Serious and Emotional: you are the Frog!

Sensitivity, regeneration, renewal. In many cultures, frogs are a strong symbol of luck and wealth. Frog medicine teaches the power of transforming oneself, a natural path of change that occurs over a lifetime. Frog is also a symbol of femininity and fertility, and natural healing. Frog people tend to be pleasant, positive, and well in-tune with the energies around them.


This test categorized you based on four different axes of personality, which were then associated with a different animal. The four axes, as well as all possible results are explained below.



Wild/Domestic: This first axis categorizes you based on how much you are drawn to the outdoors, versus how much you are drawn to civilized situations. Domesticity has many shapes and forms, and varies from the joy of dolphins leaping next to a ship to the steadfast loyalty of a family dog.



Gregarious/Solitary: This axis measures how solitary you are. If you scored high, it means that you enjoy the company of other people, while a low score indicates that you prefer a more solitary lifestyle.



Trickster/Serious: This axis measures how well you line up with conventional trickster archetypes. People who fall into this archetype have a sense of humor and an excitable, highly chaotic streak. Scoring low doesn't mean that you don't have a sense of humor; it just means that you probably don't think dynamite is very funny.



Intellectual/Emotional: This last axis determines whether you are more emotional -- acting based on feelings and instinct, or rational and intelectual -- acting more on thought than on your gut feelings.

Wild	Gregarious	Trickster	Intellectual	The Hyena
Wild	Gregarious	Trickster	Emotional	The Otter
Wild	Gregarious	Serious	Intellectual	The Antelope
Wild	Gregarious	Serious	Emotional	The Wolf
Wild	Solitary	Trickster	Intellectual	The Weasel
Wild	Solitary	Trickster	Emotional	The Coyote
Wild	Solitary	Serious	Intellectual	The Raven
Wild	Solitary	Serious	Emotional	The Frog
Domestic	Gregarious	Trickster	Intellectual	The Fox
Domestic	Gregarious	Trickster	Emotional	The Dolphin
Domestic	Gregarious	Serious	Intellectual	The Horse
Domestic	Gregarious	Serious	Emotional	The Dog
Domestic	Solitary	Trickster	Intellectual	The Rat
Domestic	Solitary	Trickster	Emotional	The Ferret
Domestic	Solitary	Serious	Intellectual	The Cat
Domestic	Solitary	Serious	Emotional	The Squirrel

Current Mood: tired

I passed my Annual Exam yesterday. I'm now able to remain employed as a Flight Attendant for another year.
My heart just can't take this stress every single year! :)

March? I'm in Hawaii practically ALL of March.

EARNED MY REWARD.

That is all.

Current Mood: cheerful

Because I need to blog SOMETHING, here's a meme:

Every person who wants to gets to request a drabble (real drabble: 100 words exactly) from you. In return, they have to post this in their journal and write a drabble for you. (While I wouldn't require that of anyone, you KNOW I love it when people write stuff for me ^___^.) Post all fandoms you're willing to write for. Your friends can pick a relationship, a story arc, a missing scene, or pretty much anything they want, unless the author has previously mentioned that they will not write it. They comment with what they want, and you write drabbles and post it in your LiveJournal.

Fandoms I can write about:

DC Comics universe
X-Men
Doctor Who
Gargoyles
ReBoot
(...and if you know I'm into something I haven't listed here, go ahead and shoot. 100 words isn't too hard.)

1. Do you have a tattoo?
2. How old are you?
3. Are you single or taken?
4. Fish?
5. Do you dream in color?
6. Ever seen a corpse?
7. Hipsters or Hillbillies?
8. How did we meet?
9. What's your philosophy on life and death?
10. If you could do anything with me, and have no one know, what would it be?
11. Do you trust the police?
12. Do you like musicals?
13. What is your fondest memory of me?
14. If you could change anything about yourself what would it be?
15. Would you cheat?
16. What are you wearing?
17. Have you ever peed in a pool?
18. Would you hide evidence for me if I asked you to?
19. If I only had one day to live, what would we do together?
20. Which do you prefer - short or long hair?
21. What's your favorite day of the week?
22. What's your favorite color?
23. If you could bring back anyone that has passed, who would it be?
24. Tell me one interesting/odd fact about you?
25. What was your first impression of me?
26. Have you ever done drugs?
27. Will you post this so I can fill it out for you?
28. John or Paul?
29. Favorite thing about your oldest child (or pet)?

Current Mood: curious

A buddy of mine on Facebook sent me this link. It's long, but hilarious. Imagine if someone tried to introduce Lord of the Rings to a bunch of D&D gamers who had never read Tolkien.

hawkstone and kyohazard, this is SO TOTALLY right up your riffing ALLEYS.

Folks, I give you The DM of the RINGS.

Also, check out the artistically simple but hilariously truegaming story of

The Order of the Stick.

Current Mood: amused

Friends, gather round the lectern. Reverend Michael here with your latest Mac Evangelism Sermon, and friends, I'm here to tell you about the miracle of Delicious Library.

Don't have a Mac? Wail and mourn, friends, wail and mourn.

Brother hawkstone of the Church of Where-Have-You-Been? put me on to this, brethren and sistren. Using the iSight built into my laptop, I can barcode-scan my extensive collection of graphic novels, DVDs and video games (even my CD's if I wanted to but haven't yet) and create a beautiful GRAPHICAL libray clearly showing all my books at a moment's notice.

I can put them on different shelves if I want, to represent where they are in real life. I can lend them to friends with the checkout system, to show who has had them and for how long. canadianknight, your six Ultimate Fantastic Four graphic novels are overdue.

SO WONDERFUL.

And, I can also put my collection up on the web. Why? I suppose mostly to show off, but also for reference's sake, insurance purposes, any old reason at all!

Please, visit the M Files Library. Come back soon!

Current Mood: ecstatic

Seriously, go read this. Ganked from roscoreis.

The Saddest Day At The Happiest Place On Earth

Current Mood: amused

So there was this project I got wind of through Donna Barr; she e-mailed me about the "Dave Sim Celebrity Roast, celebrating 30 years of Cerebus."

Basically, creators would create small 1-4 page comic stories roasting Dave Sim and celebrating the long-lived fantasy series Cerebus and the comic proceeds would all go to benefit the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.

So my buddy kyohazard and I got together, I threw together a script, he provided art magic, and voila! We had our one-page gag using my tried-and-true little Canadian webhero, Diaperman.

Regrettably, although Kyle and I busted our butts to get this thing in under deadline, after sending it off last night I received this reply:

"...Unfortunately, the Roast project was cencelled. After informing Dave of the project, he became very uncomfortable with the whole thing. So much so, that the project ended before it began."

Well, suck.

But never let effort go to waste! So therefore, I present to you all the Page That Would Have Been. Congratulations on thirty years of Cerebus, Dave Sim...you uncomfortable bastard.

( Under the cut, of course. )

Current Mood: disappointed

I have the most amazing friends. Now, I'm sure you think your friends are great and all, but they're not as great as MY friends.

I am, of course, biased.

You may recall me briefly mentioning something about not being able to make it to Comicon this year. Yeah, it was a tough decision and all that-- but Mike and Lisa IM'ed me to tell me that they picked me up some swag-- there was a TARDIS coin bank that Mike told me about, and I begged him to pick it up for me. Wonderful-- a little souvenir that feeds my inner geek! Great, hey?

But when M and L got back into town and had me over to pick up my swag, it was so much more than I expected:

Instead of the coin bank, Mike had (very thoughtfully) got me a TARDIS USB hub. Much USB plugginess and it lights up and ah-ooh-gahs whenever you plug a USB item into it.

SQUEE.

But not just that. NOT JUST THAT!

He and Lisa also got me a Sonic Screwdriver-- better than the one I've got now, it makes noise, writes in invisible ink and has a blacklight to reveal the messages!

SQUEE part deux.

I'm not done yet.

They ALSO GOT ME a red ROBIN t-shirt, red with the R logo on the left breast. Utter SQUEE! I'm Robin.

And OH MY PANTSWETTING GOD they got me a ROBIN patch I can put on a jacket-- in fact, I'm going to BUY a jacket just to put my ROBIN patch on! I get to be ROBIN!

SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeee!one1!

THere's more. They got me some lovely comics and stickers for my boys and it's all packaged with friend love. I mean, man, friends are the people who PAY ATTENTION to stuff you like and remember that shit later on. So when they come back with Comicon Swag you are CRYING at the end of the presentation.

I love my friends. I love you guys. I'm going to make little plushie versions of you and carry you with me everywhere.

Love! And a huge THANK YOU for everything. You made my decision most definitely the right choice-- talk about feeling rewarded. Thank you.

Current Mood: grateful

I'm the kind of guy who believes in portents.

Therefore, when I went to book my air tickets for my flight down to San Diego for the Comic Con, I was a little nervous at having to come back FOUR TIMES. For various reasons it was never the right time for me to get my ticket issued. They were busy, there were aircraft on the ground with mechanical problems, they could issue a ticket for ONE leg of flight but not the second, etc.

Needless to say I was beginning to wonder just WHY this little process, which I've done dozens of times, was so hard.

And I began to wonder if perhaps there might not be a reason for it. I'm uneasy when it seems as though circumstances are conspiring to prevent me from achieving a goal-- it makes me step back and re-examine it.

But nothing seemed to come to mind immediately.

And then the email came. My two British friends that were supposed to be rooming with me were now not coming-- they were a mated pair that had broken up the night before.

This was fine, as taeha and hawkstone had space in their room for me. But it still made me wonder-- there were all these things happening that were really putting a damper on things.

Finally, yesterday morning I got my ticket as far as Seattle, whereupon I would have to get a ticket for the rest of my flight to San Diego. Confusing, annoying, but hey.

I told my wife, and she nodded at me, her face tight.

I looked closely at her. It was the face of a woman trying not to cry. See, Marci and I have had a very busy month-- I moved all my work-flying to the beginning of the month so I could have this last week off, so I've been gone this whole time; plus, in the first weekend, she had a convention she had to travel for. So she and I haven't seen a lot of each other PLUS when she hasn't been away she's been at home, alone, with our kids.

And when I saw her face last night I knew she'd reached the end of her rope. I was going to go away for five days and she was going to be alone with the kids again, our boys who are at the very demanding ages of four and two years old.

And I realized in that moment that my wife needed me, needed me very, very much. And I asked her: "Do you need me to stay?" And she shook her head and said "No, it's fine."

Men who are smart know how to read wifespeak. And they know how to interpret the phrase "I don't want to ask you to stay because I don't want you to resent me but at the same time I don't know how I'm going to cope with this alone." when it is phrased as "No, it's fine."

So I made a Very Hard Decision.

I'm not going to Comic-Con this year. I've been waiting all year to go, I've been excited and longing to go, but one look at that red-headed angel's face and I realize that I'm the Daddy now, the Husband, and just once in a while I have to be the Pillar, and the Rock.

It was hard to make this sacrifice. And yesterday, I was very sad about it. But today, my wife smiled at me and I know I've made the right decision. I will mourn the loss of my trip, but I will celebrate the joy in my family.

Current Mood: peaceful

I am the MIGHTY FINDER!

So I just got my new laptop.

It's a MacBook, 2.16 GHz, 2 GB RAM, 200 GB Hard drive, dual-layer DVD burner-- it's like a Tiny God, to quote Penny-Arcade. It's sleek and black and OH SO LUSCIOUS. Yeah, the one on the far right on the page via the above link.

But, as with every Mac I've ever had, it comes with a problem.

What the hell do I NAME it?

I'm now soliciting names for my hot-ass new black MacBook. Tell me something sexy. Tell me something hip. Tell me something nerdy. Give me pop culture references, classic literature, song lyrics, I don't care. Give me names. Help me work this out.

Love,
M-book

EDIT: invisiblewolf wins for best suggestion! My new little black MacBook shall be forever known as the small, black and full of energy Espresso.

Three of you suggested BlacBook. Shaft! I liked, too. But Marci pointed out that our Mac Mini is named PopTart, her old tangerine iMac is called "Sunkist," and that Espresso just fit. Small cup of powerful energy, sleek, black, chic. Espresso!

I don't know how widespread this is. When we arrived in Saskatoon, we were hustled into a van whose windows had been blacked out and driven to a hotel; they told us the airport was shutting down. No traffic in or out. Rumor has it that it's happening all over the country, maybe the world, I don't know.

I don't like to look out the window. It looks quiet at first but then you see one of them, shambling along aimlessly. And I think this CAN'T be happening. Zombies DO NOT EXIST. But they've SHUT DOWN the airport.

God, I think we hit a few of them in the van ride. The driver kept telling us to shut up, be quiet, keep our heads down.

At first I thought it was some terrorist thing. But people smell differently depending on the type of fear. Nervous anticipation is different from the rank, metallic tang of actual terror-- especially terror that is sustained over a long period of time. And that's how I knew the situation was much, much worse than some random bomb threat.

We can't leave the hotel. We can't go anywhere. There's food and everything in here but how long will that last?

My god, I don't want to die in Saskatoon. For god's sake, not SASKATOON. It's too surreal. It's a nightmare. And yet I'm sitting here BLOGGING about it hoping like hell that my friends aren't dead.

I can't think about my wife and children. I'm terrified to phone home-- scared that there'll be no answer... or worse, that there WILL be.

My world has shrunk to the size of a small room with a television that doesn't work anymore, and a microwave oven.

I can hear them now, outside. My god, there's a GROUP of them in the parking lot. They're starting some kind of chant. They're looking directly at the building; it's like they're calling to us. Calling us to come out.

God, they're getting louder. WHY WON'T THEY SHUT UP?

http://myelvesaredifferent.blogspot.com/2007/05/blog-like-its-end-of-world-bliteotw.html

I think, for those of us that are fans of any sci-fi show or book or movie, that we share a common vibe about the gadgets FROM said media. To actually have, say, a wand from the Harry Potter universe or a sword from Lord of the Rings or a flight ring from legion of Super Heroes is just cool to us all.

I'm guessing it's all for the same reason: Because, contained within these replicas, these representations of the fantasy worlds we enjoy, is the possibility, however fantastic, that somewhere, the worlds we imagine are real.

There's also a corollary to cool gadgets from our chosen fictional worlds: If you have a piece of that world, it then logically follows that you have a connection to that world, and it is therefore easier to imagine yourself in it.

Ever since I was a kid, these objects have fed my creativity. How much easier to imagine myself as the hero of a story with an authentic prop from the world! When you're really young, a simple stick or towel-cape will do. As you get older, and your thoughts more complex, you seem to require more complex or "real" props to assist the make-believe-- at least, this has been my observation.

Every animator whose workspace I've been privileged to see is always cluttered with action figures from various comics and movies; posters of comic book art and sketches of their own and other people's. Inspirational stuff, stuff that reminds them who they are, what their goals are, perhaps even to remind them of their own creative impulses.

I'm kind of like that too; my personal space in my studio has carefully-chosen knick-knacks and art that helps my creativity, that reminds me of ME, the ME I would like to create and put into all my works.
( More under the cut, with exercises in creativity and pictures. )