Waffle

This is not good. Macromedia had been up and coming as a competitor to Adobe in the fields of vector art and movie-making software, and now Adobe has flat-out bought this competition, once again bringing them closer to a monopoly position in those fields. Not good. Of course, they're not quite up there with Microsoft yet as Adobe actually comes out with decent products, but they'll be in a position to charge whatever they want, which for those of us who use graphics software is not good at all. (Via Webgraphics)

While I was waiting for my cold to go away, I started up a Deviant Art thingummybob! Dunno what I'll do with it just yet, I just thought I'd test it out a bit and slap my name on a website that has a big community attached to it. I'm sure there will be more art on there soon-ish!

I got yet another cold! What a time to get sick. Two weeks before Clickburg with endless stuff yet to do. I started feeling the problem late yesterday afternoon, towards the end of the cycling trip I took with Sidsel. That sore throat, was it due to the chill in the morning, or the sign of something more sinister? As it turned out, as it nearly always turns out, "something sinister" was the correct answer. I can now confidently blame Jeroen for infecting me; he got it from a friend and has already passed it on to his girlfriend. He's a regular Typhoid Mary, is he! But he's made it up to me by getting me oranges. Lots of them.

On the basis of past experiences, I predict that the sickness will take me one week of being a walking snot factory,followed by another week of bronchitis, so preparing for Clickburg will be very hard. Courtly Manners will be delayed for a little longer. I can do some work, for now (I'm still getting worse), but not if it requires me to get out of the house, so I concentrate on what I can do from home.

Today, Sidsel and I resumed Sunday Cycling! We were going to have only a practice trip, but as usual, our actual trajectory bore only a passing resemblance to our "planned" itinerary.

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Upbeat Flemish emo. Think Deus meets Franz Ferdinand, with a touch of the Delgados, that's Confuse the Cat. Former Reiziger frontman Geert Plessers' influence is very audible, the songs still have those rough edges and eerie repetitive guitar riffs. But Confuse the Cat manages to take the songs beyond where a lot of emo bands get stuck in soundscaping: adding melody and up tempo rythms make the songs much easier to digest and far more diverse. When I saw them live yesterday at the Vera downstage bar, they had just played another gig for a enthusiastic crowd of 600. This didn't stop them from going all out for the measly 30 or 40 people that had patiently awaited their arrival at half past midnight. It was well worth the wait, though, as they put on an energetic live performance that even survived the lousy accoustics of the room. Rests me to recommend their new album "New medicine" that I bought at the show yesterday, and that hasn't left my cd-player since I put it there this morning.

No Stereotypes (no link because I haven't got one handy right now for reasons mentioned below) is leaving Modern Tales. This was supposed to be a bit of a secret, but the crash of late March ate the NS archives and forced creator Amber "glych" Greenlee's hand. She has now admitted her intentions on the forum. No Stereotypes joined Modern Tales about six months after Rogues of Clwyd-Rhan did, with a restart of the main storyline. And now it's gone already. Kind of makes me wonder if Modern Tales is delivering the goods, really.

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Episode 4 was another solid one, written by Russel T. Davies again. It's the first of a series of at least two parts, so I won't comment too much on the plot. Instead I want to propose an alternative ratings system for the episodes. Instead of using points out of 10, I want to rate episodes on the basis of postulating a family with a mom, a dad and, let's say five kids ranging from 4 to 12 with two years between each of them. Out of these, the number of kids cowering behind the sofa will be the rating. I reckon at the end of this one, it got 4 out of 5.

It will be possible to get more than 5 out of 5, but this will not be a good thing. If Dad also cowers behind the sofa, the episode gets 6, meaning it really is unsuitable for family viewing as apparently some people have complained. Because Mom has given birth to five children, it will be assumed she fears nothing, so six out of five is the maximum any episode can get.

The look on Rose's face after she'd been ranting on how she was the only human ever to have seen alien civilisations and the spaceship showed up was priceless. So was the Doctor's expression resembling that of a baby who'd just been given candy.

I wouldn't say Nine Lives, Many Masters is a great strip, but from what I've read so far, it's got a few things going for it. For one, it actually has a sense of humour about paganism in its many, often quite silly, variants. For another, it has a nice perspective on a large part of fan culture, especially that part that uses the M-word to denote people with lives. So far, I've gotten quite a few chuckles out of it. And the author gives good lines to unsympathetic characters like the toad.

I just noticed that the comic on the front page is the first episode, not the last as is common with many webcomics. This is because the series has ended. Its 53 episodes will make for a nice, quick read, with gags that would have many a pagan demand R.K. Milholland's head if he used them. (via Amanita's Pagan Place)

(Via Shot By Both Sides, which I will take the trouble to visit even if Bloglines isn't working). According to <a href="http://www.politicalsurvey2005.com/scripts/quiz?s=CAHBCAEGCBBDABDCDBACBDDBDBCDBBBDBBBDBCBCDB"Chris Lightfoot's political survey, I am somewhat to the right on economic matters and pretty far to the left on social issues. This translate into a match with the Green Party, which I'm about as pleased with as SBBS's John Band must be with his match with the Conservative Party. Oh, wait...

By the way, Chris's own explanation of the survey is well worth a read, and made me laugh a few time by its references to policital stereotypes. From reading it, I get the idea that UKIP have no real reason for existing: on their core issues, their core voters put the same answers as voters for the Conservatives. For historical reasons, many people in Britain don't trust the Tories no matter how much they agree with them on substantive issues. But in the long run, one of the two parties will have to go.

My account seems to have disappeared from Bloglines, and with it the published blogroll on the Waffle front page. Until Bloglines has answered my query about the problem to my satisfaction, I won't comment much on stuff found on other blogs, unless someone sends me links. If they don't answer my query to my satisfaction and I am forced to rebuild the blogroll and the loooong list of blogs I read, I might as well take the opportunity to rebuild it at a competing provider, if one can be found. Send hints and tips to reinder@despammed.com.

This could be a blessing in disguise, really, as it's one less distraction for me to be distracted by.