Michael Hutchison: September 2007 Archives

I've ironed out some problems with the blogging software, but we're having a major difficulty with our site host. Something's wrong with the database.

The only way we can post is to do the post, get the 500 error, THEN I manually rebuild the main page index file. And we're lucky when that works! I've got a letter off to support, of course.

Please bear with us! The new blogging system is going to have podcast support, and photo galleries, and gumdrop houses and rivers made of chocolate. As soon as it works, it'll be awesome.

Alan Kistler is working on a huge Thor piece. And I'm working on a G.I. Joe article.

In the meantime, please enjoy our new Author archives. Alan, thanks to his login name, is now first. (Maybe I need to rename myself AAA111)

Mime Legend Marcel Marceau Dies at 84

Our site was disabled for several days, and I had this entry drafted but not posted. This morning I awoke to hear Bob and Tom mentioning this and then saying something to the effect about how every lame would-be comedian was making an "Invisble Box" joke and we should try harder.

Sorry.

Never give a crackhead the chance to speak at a funeral. Never.

For over 15 years, I've wanted a jacket like The Rocketeer wore. It was just an awesome jacket. I remember checking out leather jacket stores and never saw anything even close. Disappointed, I gave up the search and got a generic leather jacket (which I, ahem, "outgrew" a decade ago).

Of course, that was before the Internet. It just occurred to me tonight to Google "Rocketeer leather jacket".

BINGO!

This person sells Rocketeer Leather jackets, custom-made, for under $200! After you buy/win the auction, they take your measurements and make it for you. Awesome! And look how beautiful that jacket is. Oh sweeeeet! I am so there --

Oh.

Measurements.

Ahem, again.

I can think of nothing more pathetic than a fat comic geek in his late 30s getting a form-fitting Rocketeer jacket. I don't want to be that guy.

OK, this jacket just became my incentive reward for when I lose 80 pounds or more.

(I sure hope this guy's still in business in 2027.)

Good news for everyone who has wanted to comment but didn't want to sign up with TypeKey! Typekey is now only one of six methods of signing in, including the new Movable Type system method.

Do you have an AOL account, or an AOL Instant Messenger ID? Sign in with that! If you have a LiveJournal, Vox or Open ID account, you can sign in that way.

I'll be looking to add more methods (they're plugins made for the new Movable Type 4.0). I hope this helps you to enjoy our blog and give us more feedback!

Back when the cartoon wars swept Europe, the cartoonists who drew the Mohammad cartoons had to go into hiding, fearing for their very lives, all for the crime of doing some mostly-innocuous drawings of the Muslim prophet. It was now an established taboo that no one, no matter what their faith, could render Mohammad. And this was a new taboo; only a few years prior, South Park featured Mohammad as a member of the Super-Best Friends, fighting a magician alongside Jesus, Buddha and Joseph Smith; a few years later, Cartoon Network refused to show even the most basic image of Mohammad for fears that it would lead to violence against Viacom employees.

Now Lars Vilks, a Swedish cartoonist, has a bounty on his head for a new cartoon. This has prompted Chris Muir of Day By Day to debut an outright challenge: drawing the head of Mohammad on the body of a pig as a character in his strip.

Take that, ya Comedy Central pansies!

Let's hope this isn't just an isolated incident. In the words of Mr. Stotch:

Stephen Stotch: Now wait, this is ridiculous. What we need to do is just the opposite. Freedom of speech is at stake here. Don´t you all see that if anything, we should all make cartoons of Muhammad. And show the terrorists and the extremists that we are all united in the belief that every person has a right to say what they want.

Look people, it´s been real easy for us to stand up for free speech lately. For the past few decades we have not had to risk anything to defend it. But those times are going to come. One of those times is right now. And if we aren´t willing to risk what we have, then we just believe in free speech, but we don´t defend it.

I hope you can make it. FallCon is hands-down my favorite convention that I attend every year. This convention is held on the Minnesota State Fair fairgrounds, in what I believe is the biggest building there. It's a two-day event. Every year they invite a few major pros, usually including at least one giant in the industry. They cap off the event with an auction of donated art and collectibles that raises thousands of dollars for charity. And I have to say it again: MCBA puts together one of the guest-friendliest conventions I've ever attended. Their henchmen circle the floor constantly, making sure all of their guests have refreshments, helping to carry your gear, willing to watch over a table while ya make a bathroom run...they're the tops!

If you haven't attended a FallCon before, why not try to make it this year?

Here's all the info you need.

MCBA FALLCON UPDATE! October 6 & 7, 2007 10AM to 5PM Both Days! Minnesota State Fairgrounds Education Building 1372 Cosgrove Ave St. Paul, Minnesota 55108

Admission: $10.00 ($1 off with a canned Food Shelf donation)
Children ages 9 & Under are free!
Tickets available at the door!!!

Free MCBA Grab Bags for
The first 500 paid admissions on Saturday October 6th
The first 250 paid admissions on Sunday October 7th.

1) Certified Guaranty Company CGC At FallCon!
The foremost authority in comic book grading (CGC) will be on hand at
FallCon 2007! CGC will be accepting submissions and offering
opportunities for the prestigious CGC Signature Series. The CGC staff
will be on hand to answer any of your questions. Look for special
items donated by CGC in the Charity Art Auction! For more info about the
CGC checkout: www.cgccomic.com

2) Invasion of the 501st Vader's Fist
FallCon welcomes the arrival of the 501st Star Wars Club! "...The Legion
is a volunteer club formed for the express purpose of bringing together
costume enthusiasts and giving them a collective identity within which
to operate. The Legion's aims are to celebrate the Star Wars movies
through the wearing of costumes, to promote the quality and improvement
of costumes and props, and most importantly to contribute to the local
community through charity and volunteer work..." Bring your camera and
look for the great costumes! For info about the 501st checkout:
www.501st.com

3) Super Gaming Computer Raffle!
In addition to all of the free door prizes and raffles, this year there
will be a $1.00 Per entry super special computer raffle! Awesome
fully-modded PC with windows on all sides of the case, lighted fans,
sound-activated neon tubes, and a handy carry handle for getting to the
gaming party! This machine sports solid gaming performance, a DVD
burner, memory card reader, and more! It comes fully loaded with all the
software you could ever want, including anti-virus, anti-spyware, word
processor, spreadsheet, etc. - and of course, GAMES! Dozens of
mind-blowing games are pre-installed and ready to go, including
favorites like Babylon 5, Cellfactor, FEAR, Far Cry, and tons of FREE
online MMORPG games too! The system comes equipped with a gorgeous 19"
widescreen LCD monitor, speakers, optical mouse, mouse pad, 13-button
gamepad, and a lighted keyboard that's handy for your spooky gaming
sessions with the lights turned off! Nothing is missing from this killer
gaming system...just plug it in and GO! This stellar machine comes with a
1-year parts & labor warranty. A $1,000 value that could be yours for
the cost of one measly raffle ticket! All proceeds go to benefit the
Comic Book Legal Defense Fund and the Lupus Foundation. Donated by
www.northruppsystems.com

4) Super Hero Clix Tournaments!
Back by popular demand! There will be ongoing hero clix game tournaments
at FallCon! Watch the web site in the next few weeks for all of the
details!

5) Volunteers Needed!
The MCBA is looking for volunteers to help set up and run FallCon!
Benefits of volunteering include a limited edition FallCon T-Shirt, free
early admission and food! If you're interested, please e-mail us at:
MNCBA@aol.com and write Volunteer in the header line!

6) Art Show!
A FallCon tradition! We're looking for artists and/or collectors who
would like to share their collection with the general public! Over the
years we have had a wide variety of very cool and interesting items. We
have a limited number of spaces available and will award them on a first
come, first served basis. Join a FallCon tradition by e-mailing us
at:MNCBA@aol.com for all of the details and special benefits!

7) Please Help!
The Midwest Comic Book Association is an volunteer group dedicated to
the world of Comic Books and any help you can give us by helping spread
the word about FallCon would really be appreciated! We want FallCon to
be the very best it can be and the more people that we can get
participate in our community will make it better for all of us!

8) Official Fallcon Hotel
For those of you traveling to FallCon here's the info regarding the
Official FallCon hotel. Raddison Hotel Roseville, 2540 Cleveland Ave S.,
Roseville, MN. 55113, 651-636-4567
Discount Code: FallCon

9) More FallCon Info:
MNCBA@aol.com
www.fallcon.MNCBA.com

Not too shabby.

Okay, okay, it's shabby. I'm using the default templates for the moment, and there's still a lot of work to do before it's up to my standards, but I thought I'd make the site live this way so that we can make use of the functionality. You'll notice the new tag cloud (rendered oh-so-usable by Blue Spider's use of the word "me" as a tag, but we'll get the hang of it) and the ability to peruse any images loaded with the new image functions. (Sadly, all the older images aren't perusable, but I'll work on that.)

Feedback? I know that this new system allows users to log in via several feedback systems, and I've installed a plugin that should allow users to log in with their AIM ID, though I may not have the right prerequisites for that.

To be honest, Movable Type is a very difficult system to work with. The same goes for phpBB, our bulletin board system that I've also spent the last two months struggling to upgrade. It's not just that I'm not a coder for their respective languages, but it's as if they intentionally make it inaccessible for a newbie non-user to just plug-and-play. "User-friendly" it is not.

For example: both Movable Type and PHPBB employ message boards as their main interface for problems with upgrading and questions about using plug-ins. A wiki would be a much better reference, rather than having to scroll through pages of a message thread to find an answer.

Ah well, enough griping. Back to work!

This is one of my favorite fan films. One of the first ones, really, considering it came out after Titanic and before the Prequel trilogy. The video quality is relatively poor because it was the late 90s and a 50 meg download was a killer size back then, but the production quality is still amazing.

Breaking News: All Online Data Lost After Internet Crash

The new blog system has a flaw that, I suspect, is shutting out the other authors. It's nothing I can solve; we have to wait for the bug fix. I may just give the other authors admin authority so they can get in until Movable Type fixes the bug.

However, some good news: I have resolved one technical problem and just need some time to do some template work. Maybe Tuesday night. (I spent the whole weekend canning spaghetti sauce. Barely had time to check my e-mail.)

We're missing some choice comic news, particularly Chuck Dixon's return to the pages of Robin in January. I'm so happy for Chuck, though I don't envy his trying to salvage a character who has been pretty much wrecked since his leaving. There's a thread on his message board right now to bring all the readers who deserted the book in the last five years up to speed. (Essentially: everybody's dead.)

This is the first post since installing MT 4.0.

It will either work great...or crash and burn.

Gneee!

FYI: The good news is, it seems to have retained the templates for our site.
The bad news is, it seems to have done so by sacrificing all the new fluidity the blog is now supposed to have.

I imagine ironing out all these new errors will take some time. In the meantime, all of Monitor Duty's authors may begin posting. I'm sure they'll love the new functions, particularly the automatic saving of posts.

For you guys out there, that means more pictures, better layouts and some new cool add-ons. OH, and comments are now open again (supposedly).

I'd better correct that. Again, it looks like some of these cool new functions won't show up unless I restore all the default templates. That will have to wait for the weekend. Sorry guys!

I was home with a rare cold today (I mean, it's rare that I get a cold... not that it's some bizarre, unheard-of kind of cold) and after doing some telecommuting I spent the rest of the afternoon getting around to some old Monitor Duty business.

You may remember that back in 2005, when I updated the site to the latest version of the blog, I lost all the archives. Everything from 2003-2005 was gone. However, I did have a local copy of the HTML... but it couldn't be imported in that format.

So...

Today, I began the tedious work of converting 2500 HTML entries, with the "data" all in the wrong order, into TXT files with the data formatted correctly and then merging those TXT files into ONE TXT file.

Phew! Done.

I'm not going to try importing it all until I've updated the site's software tomorrow, but it's one more thing to look forward to.

IF it works.