Tuesday, April 09, 2024

Twitter is over, and I need a junk drawer

Remember when you'd be over at your friend's house and they'd want to show you the groovy light their parents kept by the water bed in their room?


I have multiple social media accounts, but I don't really want to engage with humanity much on them.  

Engage with people on a topic for a particular issue or topic?  Especially responding to a post on movies or other things I want to talk to people about?  Sure.

But I think we all learned a lesson leaving twitter:  do not actually engage.  Do not start talking to people you do not know in an uncontrolled, anonymous environment.  Do not get into internet fights where you will prove someone wrong.  Do not get mad when someone points out you are wrong.  

But, also, you know, you don't need to live your life out loud on social media.  You don't know those people.

I am currently using my accounts the following ways:

Threads:  a quick scroll and mostly disappointment, but to get the basic gist of what the internet is thinking (last week I pieced together: What does Beyonce know about being Southern? is a racist dog whistle!*  What a time to be alive.)

BlueSky:  I see some Cubs chatter, which is nice.  But mostly I follow it for FilmSky, ie: people who are true weirdos about film who don't give a shit about film twitter, and are opining, posting links and living their best movie-nerd life.  Very friendly, unpretentious and lovely at the moment.

Instagram:  Initially I kind of used it not at all, despite having an account for years.  I am not trying to frame my life as exotic and exciting, and I don't particularly care if actors get to eat spinach salad in countries they don't live in or which fashion company gave them sunglasses.  But I've now followed enough people I know, and I just use dlvr.it it to send Signal Watch blog posts.  I also like to find silly stuff and repost it on Reels.  

Tumblr:  I use dlvr.it to repost stuff from the blog, and reblog funny pictures and some classic film stars.  I also know what people in their 20's who live with their parents and don't seem to have jobs think about the world.  It is wiiiiild.

Facebook (Blog-related):  I use dlvr.it to send Signal Watch posts to the official League of Melbotis page.  People still seem to use it.  I think this page is also linked one way or another, and I'll be looking into that.

Facebook (Personal):  I wouldn't even say this is a curated view of my exciting life.  I do still use it because it's the only way I'm in touch with many people, or the best way for me to reach some people.  A bit like why I still have a landline - because I had one in 2006, and that is where people find me, so I can't get rid of it.  Plus, I do get news, weather and other things there.

I do not do politics, or anything remotely, actually "personal" on facebook.  My parents, relatives, former teachers, bosses, etc... are all on there.  So I used to post things that were intentionally obnoxious and silly, but now I mostly use it to be silly.  Or mark "hey, it's Jamie's birthday!".  That sort of thing.

LinkedIn:  I actually kind of do use this at the moment as I'm between gigs.  I hear from recruiters there, and talk to colleagues, plus see what those colleagues are up to.  It's not all bad.  But I don't read those "thought provoking" articles that get reposted.  You know they aren't.

Slack:  I'm on a social slack.  It's all right with like four people.

But the thing I don't really do that I used to do when I was on Twitter is just put a short thread together, and I don't really have a place for things like "hey, remember the weird fluid and light things our parents had?  That was weird, right?"

So, initially I thought I'd use a return to League of Melbotis to do some personal journaling, but I don't know how into that I am as a concept.  Instead, I'm going to try to use it for a goofy junk-drawer for a while, which was often how it was used back in the 00's.  Signal Watch can continue on as a media review site, and I'll put other stuff here.

Deal?  


*our friend Bae is from Houston, and if you wanted to raise the collective dander of everyone in Texas, challenge if we know what the fuck country and cowboy culture are

Monday, April 08, 2024

A Total Eclipse of the Sun..!

taken with my Pixel 4



Well, here in lovely Austin, Texas, we were on the edge of the total solar eclipse.  Around 1:36 PM Central, we experienced about 90 seconds of totality.

I was, honestly, pretty excited about the eclipse.  I've seen probably 4 partial eclipses, including one last summer.  And one lunar eclipse back in middle school when my family was on vacation in Mexico and a guy from a restaurant was standing there looking straight up, and because I am that guy, I looked straight up, and me and that guy stopped and enjoyed a lunar eclipse together.

Austin was a big destination for the eclipse, because we are a very hip town for reasons that escape me, but for weeks we've known it was going to be cloudy here.  A month ago, to get ahead of how crazy things would get, local and state government got involved and declared a "state of emergency" so they could handle the influx of people supposedly coming in.  I heard crazy stories about no way to get a flight in or out for days on either side of today.  But I live here, so I didn't really see anything different.

We're expecting usual Austin-Springtime horrible weather over the next 24 hours or so, and so there was a chance we'd all be standing out looking up at the sun getting hit with hail.  

But that didn't happen.  

The weather sort of held on and we were able to head out to the field and retention pond area in our neighborhood where folks brought camp chairs and blankets.  

I will be honest and say, I also brought a box of Moon Pies and distributed them to folks who wanted one.





Folks were kind of quietly excited, and I realized, thanks to my daily viewing of KXAN news and the breathless reporting they'd been doing on the eclipse for what had to have been six weeks in advance, I was quite the know-it-all about the cosmic event.  

Do bats come out for an eclipse?  NO.  It turns out that they work on an internal clock and are not paying attention to the sun.

I tried to take pictures to show the difference in how very dark it did get, but my camera auto-corrected, and you can't see the change.

I've been fighting allergies, so sitting outside was a bit concerning, but given this was a possibly-once-in-a-lifetime event, I girded my loins, and - giving Jamie a headstart to go chat with neighbors, eventually I headed out.

Honestly, it was an amazing event.  Writing it down is a little meaningless.  You've probably seen plenty of pictures or video.  And I'd argue being there with other people to witness the same thing is part of it.  For the people who were at big civic events, etc... I get it.

As the moon got into position, the sky absolutely got darker and the temperature dropped several degrees.  I wouldn't say the birds went completely quiet, but they certainly toned it down.  During totality, a small bird, maybe a finch? flew weirdly close to us, I would guess a bit confused and looking for cover.  I'd argue I noticed when the birds came back to making noise again a lot more than when it went away, which might have been gradual.

Likely because we were so close to the edge of the event, and because clouds would disperse light, we didn't experience the same total darkness I saw in Indianapolis or other locations on the same path.  I'd say it got as dark as twilight during summer when the light hangs on a long time and you can still see a bit down the street.  But the change was *fast*.  I was pulling my cardboard glasses on and off to look around, and every time I did, it was noticeably darker in the minutes leading up to the grand event.

My neighbor, Michelle, and I were pondering "oh, yes, you can see exactly why ancient cultures lost their minds about this" and I need to look into what another neighbor was describing about the ancient mounds built by the First People on North America, because I was vaguely aware of them for ceremonial purposes, but not their astronomic/ astrological significance.  

As the news had said, the totality was brief, maybe 90 seconds.  You can get a rough idea of what the corona or ring looked like in my pics.  



And, of course, these pics do it no justice.  It was genuinely beautiful and unlike even the partial eclipses I'd seen before.  And, due in part to the totality and the clouds, if you weren't just staring, you could look at it with the naked eye.

The sliver of light left just before totality is kind of lovely and almost sad, and then... the ring.  In our case it was white light shining through the clouds, just shimmering around the perfect circle of the moon.  Then, when the event is passing, you get the diamond on the ring as the first real rays of the sun break out at the edge and a spot of light formed on, to my eye, the lower left angle.  And it's really kind of lovely.

Did I eat a Moon Pie during totality?  Friends, you know I did, and it was perfect.

I don't know that I'm ready to chase eclipses around the planet, but it was something that will be locked up in my mind's eye, ready to remember.  Glad I saw it with Jamie and our neighbors.  

Sunday, April 16, 2023

Birthday 2023 - The Anti-Vibe, Very Good B-Day Week




Wednesday was my birthday.  The celebration lasted a full week as we had some neighbors over last Saturday, and this week we went to see Austin FC play Vancouver.  In the middle was the big day.  I'm now 48.  

Holy cats.

Monday, April 03, 2023

20 Years of Blogging, Part 2 - Together, We're a League of Something!





Editor's note:  This is Part 2 of a series.  You can view the first part with just the click of a button.  

also, this is a cross-post with media review site and PodCast, The Signal Watch.

So, yeah.  

By April of 2003, we were blogging.  For a look at the initial form of League of Melbotis on Blogspot/ Blogger, click on over to The Wayback Machine.  

As mentioned in the first post, soon I was emailing and managing comments from friends and strangers.  But, also, some of those pals already had their own blogs or quickly started one.  It was easy, often free, and gave folks a chance to speak their mind.  People were religious about their choice of platform.  Livejournal people developed quite the mythologizing about themselves that arguably continues to this day. WordPress users constantly complained about what they were using but refused to change.  

JimD started his first blog of many.  RHPT joined in.  Soon I was aware of Maxwell (she of the podcast) starting up Cowboy Funk, which detailed her life as a Texas ex-pat in NYC.  I knew her husband before we met via his own web-presence and mentions on the blog.  

20 Years of Blogging. No, really. (Part 1)




So, twenty years ago Jamie and I were living in the wasteland suburbs of Phoenix, Arizona in a town-turned-bedroom community name of Chandler.  We'd moved out to Phoenix in pursuit of a new job for Jamie.  But, also, we figured we were young and didn't have that many roots down in the years after college and marrying fairly early (2000).  Now seemed a good time for trying new places and things.  

It didn't work out.

You can visit Jamie's occasional remembrances of our time in Phoenix, and that's a goodly part of the story.  But, also, between Jamie's health, the fact I was working crazy hours, and a general lack of opportunity to meet people, we just didn't know many folks in town that we could call "pal".  I either managed or was supervised by the people I worked with, and Jamie mostly worked with men - so she wasn't meeting many women she could pal with-  and everyone she worked with seemed to be at a different point in their lives from hanging our with two 20-somethings.  That, and, man, if you asked me what the culture was in Phoenix in 2003, I'd say "strip malls and pretending you're rich".  We just didn't click with many folks.

So, that's where we were at in some ways.

Thursday, March 16, 2023

Jason: Half a Century of Rocking America

I have no recent photos of Jason and Family




March 17th marks my brother's 50th birthday.  

That's a peculiar milestone, because I can remember his birthday parties from elementary school and taking him for a beer while he was just finishing law school and I guess maybe he was turning 25 at the time (we were under the tent at Dog & Duck).  

Jason's birthday was always tricky as it falls on St. Patrick's Day.  In recent years, he's had his own way of keeping his birthday (pizza and beer, essentially) and it's worked well til Covid hit.  Also, he's got kids that went from small and distractable to elementary school age, and I think there's a different gameplan.

Monday, February 06, 2023

Ice Like a Hurricane




We just had a few days of weather here in Austin, Texas.  It's left the city a wreck.  Again.

To understand what happened, my memory of the days as they unfolded went a bit like this:  

Around Saturday January 28th, we knew we were getting a cold front and that the oddly warm weeks of January we'd been experiencing would soon end  (the 28th had a high around 60, but we'd seen the 70's several times during the month).  On Sunday the 29th, suddenly the "it'll be cold and just over freezing, and it will rain" forecast we'd been hearing changed.  Suddenly we were to expect freezing temps, rain and ice.  

I work from home these days, and I didn't think much of it.  It sounded like a pain, but this wasn't the same as the multi-day freeze in the teens and 20's we experienced in February 2021 that took out the city and led to PTSD for almost all of us who sat in the dark, trapped in our houses for days, wondering if we'd die in our own homes.  This would be 24-48 hours of nasty cold and some wet and then we'd be back to normal temps.  We do this every other year or so.

But then on Monday the schools started closing early and planning closings on Tuesday and Wednesday.  

What happened, starting Monday evening and through Wednesday, was that Austin received a tremendous amount of rain, ice, grapple and other precipitation and the temps fell below freezing.  My own measurements tell me we got something like 2.5 inches of moisture.

Tuesday, November 29, 2022

My Uncle Donald Pearce has Passed


On Thanksgiving night, Thursday the 24th, my uncle, Donald Pearce, passed.  He was 94.  

Donald was married to my mother's sister, Violet.  Violet, seventeen years older than my mother, passed before I was born.  But together Donald and Violet produced my cousin, Susan, who is more a big-sister to me as she lived with us on and off while I was growing up and she's lived in Austin since 2000 or so.   Donald remarried, and so I grew up with an Aunt Vivian, who passed away when I was in college.   

My earliest memories include Donald visiting us when we still lived in Michigan, so I was 3 or 4.   But he was a fixture in my life as we'd visit he Upper Peninsula of Michigan every summer where he and Vivian lived, and they were avid road travelers, so you never knew when they'd roll up in the driveway and we'd get to have them for a while.  He was always quick with a joke and to make observations that hilariously cut to the point with a matter-of-factness that hit just the right note.  

Wednesday, November 23, 2022

Thanksgiving


This week we celebrate Thanksgiving in the United States.  It's a Federal holiday established for Americans to take a moment with family and friends and consider what good fortunes they've had over the year.  Or maybe count blessings in a year that wasn't so great.

 As kids we get a "teach the legend" version of Thanksgiving and believe that we're celebrating a feast partaken of by the weird-o's who were so miffed they couldn't comfortably be uptight enough in 17th Century Europe, and so essentially moved to an equivalent of what would be a moon colony for us, just so they could burn women as witches in peace.  They happened to have their asses saved by some locals, and giving Thanks seemed like a keen idea.

That comes loaded with the egregious history of how Europeans would then colonize and wage 300 years of war on the people already living here.  So, understandably, if that was what we were celebrating, I get how one would pause to reflect and wonder how this led to finishing dinner quickly to watch The Dallas Cowboys and/ or seeing how much wine is in the remaining bottles and keeping a slow burn til it's all over.

But that is not what we're celebrating.  This isn't Christmas which has deep roots in Christian history, or Hannukah which refers to a specific moment in Jewish history.  I don't think most Americans really think of Thanksgiving as a specific day to sit down in honor of Pilgrims and Native Americans.  That would be particularly weird.  

From the earliest days of the U.S., Thanksgiving was a tradition in regions, but not universally celebrated.  While some Presidents observed the holiday, as early as Jefferson, the holiday was eschewed as religious and therefore not a National holiday.    

Wednesday, October 19, 2022

The League Goes to Austin FC's first Play-Off Match



Sunday, October 16th, I attended my first Austin FC match at Q2 Stadium here in sunny Austin, Texas.  

This was a somewhat unlikely event.  I've tried many times to get into soccer, but it never really worked for me.  European leagues play on European time, and I don't speak Spanish to keep up with the best soccer in my hemisphere.  And, honestly, cable has usually done a terrible job of covering MLS, the US's soccer equivalent of the NBA or MLB.  Over the years I was more interested in the US Women's National Team - because of the best sports-watching moments of my life is and always will be Brandi Chastain's penalty kick in the 1999 FIFA World Cup (yeah, the one that ended with Chastain whipping off her jersey).  That moment made a 24-year-old me cry.

Anyway, I was astoundingly skeptical of Austin taking on an MLS team.  It was originally pitched very badly by the owners looking to move here,  They made some weird moves along the way - like trying to just say they were going to build their stadium on highly utilized public land in incredibly dense areas of town, something not agreed upon by City Council or anyone else.  It would have created innumerable issues from traffic to environmental, and was kind of ugly and brazen, demonstrating they did not know Austin and did not share the values of Austinites.  

You don't just drop a massive stadium on Town Lake and think no one will notice.

Sunday, August 28, 2022

So. Where were we?

Your blogger and Andre the Dog, New Year 2022



Hi.

How is everyone doing?

It doesn't make much sense to breathe life back into a blog that's sat dormant for thirteen years, but, then again, League of Melbotis never made much sense, anyway.  

We kicked off League of Melbotis in April of 2003, after a move to the greater Phoenix area in early summer of 2002.  We were young, trying a new adventure, and by the time of the start of League of Melbotis, having some serious doubts about the decision to live in a sun-bleached hellscape.  It would take until 2006 for us to extricate ourselves from our desert surroundings and return to Austin.  

In the interim, the blog allowed us to ponder imponderables, engage in discussion of a wide range of topics, share enthusiasm about comics, superheroes and science fiction, and try to make the best of a weird situation.

Initially, the primary function of League of Melbotis, for me - your blogger, was to talk about those bits of then mildly popular cultural ephemera.  But it quickly became a method of keeping in touch with friends who were now spreading across the country in an era so far in the past now that facebook, twitter and social media as we know it did not yet exist.  I believe we were on the edge of Friendster and a few other sites, but they weren't particularly useful except for finding the email address of your friends from college and sharing your awful taste in music.  And, of course, we were five years away from Robert Downey Jr. putting on an Iron Man helmet.  Let alone wrapping up one Superman TV show, the launch of a series of iffy movies and the debut of an all new Superman TV show.

Saturday, August 27, 2022

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

The further adventures of...

League of Melbotis Volume II can be found at: The Signal Watch

Sunday, December 20, 2009

End of the Golden Age

Neverending Battle





In closing...

So I wish I had some sort of terrific way to wind things up. Maybe some "Ocean's 11" ending (the remake, not the original) where you guys realize that this has been a 6+ year scam, and that I've secretly been using League of Melbotis to clean out your bank accounts, and just as you look at this final post are you able to put all the pieces together. That would be awesome. And I could certainly use the money.

Alas, I'm not that clever, and robbing my readership blind via a blog seems to be challenging at best. But if you wake up tomorrow to find yourself destitute and me driving a BMW around with a stack of Jimmy Olsen comics and smoking a cigar, well, we'll both know what happened.

I've already done my fair share of "wasn't it great when" and "aren't you people all great?" posts. So, you know, refer to those if you'd like. I suspected I'd have more to say for a final post, but I don't, and that's sort of the thing.

Two months was probably too long, but, heck, its over now, so we can turn the chairs over and shut off the lights. We'll worry about sweeping up some other time.

I literally have no idea what my life is going to look like now, which is part of the fun. I have many good things going on which I don't wish to screw up. I've not got too much a self-destructive streak in me, but like anyone else, I get uneasy when things are going a little too steady-state. Add in misguided visions of what I c/should be doing with myself and my time, and its sort of now or never. I'm too old to say I'll try new things when I'm older, and don't wish to look back and wonder where the time went.

I expect you guys to hold me to being productive one way or another.

In an odd bit of synchronicity, just after I announced the conclusion of LoM, I learned that Leaguers Steven and Lauren were moving back to the Bay Area. Perhaps not forever, but I'll be shocked if they ever return to Texas for more than a visit. Steven waxed a bit rhapsodic and brought the eloquence to the conclusion of chapters in a way fitting and with that flair of which I've always been envious. Read here.

It's also JimD's birthday (and I started this blog awfully close to my own 28th birthday). It was JimD who instigated the thing.

This evening we raised a glass with Steven and Lauren to join with friends and bid them adieu. Juan and Letty were there, as were Julia and Alfredo. And I won't share the conversation, but I had a few minutes to speak with Alfredo, and he remarked upon the impending closing of this blog, to which I gave the same smile and a shrug I've given most who've asked. As you do with these things, I laughed it off. Alfredo begged to differ, and I was reminded that from time-to-time, it wasn't all just Superman pictures and talking about awful movies.

Anyway, thanks, Alfredo. I am, and always shall be, grateful. You have no idea.

I don't know why, but I am also reminded of a moment from a year or so back, when I was at a comic shop here in town (now closed), and was looking at discounted paperbacks, when a person I didn't know looked at me across the table and said "You're that League Guy".

And that's the sort of thing I think I'll miss most of all. The never-knowing of being connected to people in such odd and different ways, whether its the random person in the comic shop, or wishing once-were-strangers-and-now-they're-friends the best of luck while they embark on their own next chapter.

But that's kind of how it works, isn't it?

A special thank you to Jamie, who has been an often silent partner, but one who has been remarkably supportive, and who is a remarkable person in every way. She has enjoyed being partners in The League since its inception, and has often been a writing partner in the ways that count. I love you, sweetie.

Let it never be forgotten that this started because of friends. And it was dreamed up and cared for in the name of the best pal on four legs you could ever have. The four-color adventures of a dog and his boy, indeed.

Be well. Be safe. We wish you the best, always.

I'll see you in the funny pages.

Up, up and away.

Saturday, December 19, 2009

UT Longhorn Volleyball Fought Hard

Man, that was a heart-breaker. Not only did we have to say good-bye to Steven and Lauren, but the National Volleyball Championship was on TV with our UT Longhorns. Unfortunately, despite winning the first two games, Penn State came from behind to win. Here.

I say... oh, well. UT kicked ass. They played amazingly well against an equal opponent, and the games were very close.

I've been pretty focused on football, but the Longhorns had an amazing season by any standard. Heartbreakingly close to a National Title, but they made a fan out of me. Next year, I'm definitely hanging out on Wednesdays to go to the games.

Keeping Up With The League

So, as of midnight tomorrow, that'll be it.

Not to fret, The League of Melbotis will carry on in a limited capacity over on Facebook. And to a more limited extent, over on Twitter.

The site will remain up, but I don't plan to update links, etc...

The site already rolls overfor approval on comments after a week, but I may be shutting comments down all together. I foresee a future in which Chinese spammers are flooding my inbox and I keep having to reject comments.

Also, I imagine the email address associated here will be good for a long, long while.

Anyway, don't be a stranger.

Friday, December 18, 2009

WW Christmas

Normally I don't post cheesecake comic art, because I find it distasteful and believe it just reinforces some negative stereotypes about comics. But... Ah, heck. Why Not?


Wonder Woman for Christmas is okay by us

Happy Birthday JimD


Our Birthday Boy Stands in Repose