| Links | Podcasts |
| Because every site needs a links page, right? | Before I got my iPod I didn't think I'd be so into them. |
| Books | Webcomics |
| Read something, dumbass. | \/\/3bc0m1>< 0\/\/n, j0! |
World Wide Internets
Shite of interest to anyone on the planet.
Local Internets
Stuff in or about Portland, Oregon
Personal Internets
People I know, or at least people I've met a time or two.
Impersonal Internets
People I don't really know but have communicated with at least once.
World Wide Internets
Powells
The City of Books, a Portland institution, the world's largest independent bookstore (I think) and best place to buy books online. Really. No, really.
MC Frontalot
Nerdcore hiphop could reign supreme! A lot of his raps are about stealing other rappers' beats but he's been branching out lately. I have it on authority from rap fans and an actual rapper that he is very talented. Which is good because I really don't know shit about rap apart from what I like and what I don't. Which is most of it. (Doom trivia, Doom's iTunes rap folder is titled: "Anomalies" if that gives you an idea of what kind of fan he is)
World Clock
Handy for those of us who have net.friends all over the world. Stops you from having to ask "What time is it there?"
All Music Guide
Best. Music. Website. Ever. EVER!
All Movie Guide
Not as fact-packed as IMDB but useful, has information about actors and stuff. Has an editorial staff, too.
WOXY
Formerly an FM station in Cinncinatti, with an audiostream. One of the last indie FM stations, but they sold out. They're back streaming, tho. Great music, most of my mp3s are recorded from this stream. This station is so awesome it's come back from the dead three times.
Digitally Imported
If you like the beepy stuff, this is your audiostream. They have a multitude of streams from classic techno to goa. Is awesome.
Grey Matter
The Grey's Anatomy's writer's blog. Oh, yeah. (There's a podcast, too)
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Local Internets
Belmont Computers.
The place to have your computer fixed in Portland. More for PCs, but they work on Macs, too.
The Mac Store
Duh. Also in Seattle and Eugene.
Boly/Welch
Of all of the (nearly a dozen) temp agencies I've signed up with over the years, B/W is the only one that's ever produced for me.
Jax
Some friends of mine own this bar. They didn't make me put this up. I promise.
Sassy's
A strip bar I used to attend regularly. If you're an old, old blog reader of mine, this place is "strippaz". One of the bartenders and a friend of mine just bought the place. It's not one of the flashy lights places TV shows like to go to, more like a neighborhood joint that went smutty. Can't wait to see what she does with it.
Barfly
A local magazine (I haven't seen the dead tree edition around in a while, tho) with a ton of info about bars in and around Portland. Is pretty awesome.
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Personal Internets
Chan
Buddy of mine from a succession of bars. Okay, two. One of which is Jax. I think he designed that website.
Dana
A former Portlander, a former model, a good photographer and hot, now an apprentice tattooer. I used to run into her around town once in a while before she moved.
Paul
My host, a homie from a Sarah McLachlan fan list and the guy who converted me to Macs. Fsck j00, man.
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Impersonal Internets
Girl
A sex blogger who got published. Very smart and a great short form writer. Claims to be a feminist, but she doesn't seem to hate men, so I don't think she means it.
Eliza
A photographer who lives in Portland (she's from somewhere else). Very good, very interesting imagery. She also tends to use beautiful women as models which is always a plus.
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Dreaming Metal
by Melissa Scott Science Fiction One thing I love in a story is a setting you can tell the storyteller really put some thought into making unique and real. Which is the reason I stopped watching the new Battlestar Galactica. Melissa Scott has done that and the results are incredible. There's established ethnic and political and artistic histories and conflicts that are not only detailed and completely natural but actually impact that characters and story. Speaking of which, fortunately, the story is good, too. I think it's a stand alone sequel and I missed the first one, which sucks, but the world Scott has created is so compelling I think I'm going to read it even though I know how it ends. Roughly the story is about the conflicts surrounding the possibility of a true sentient artificial intelligence (think Cybernetic Samurai vs. "computer" from Star Trek) arising. It's rich, it's detailed and very, very compelling. And it's a multi-POV story a la GRR Martin, with some changes in person (first to third) between POVs, which is interesting once you realize it. Doom says read this book. |
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Monstrocity
by Jeffrey Thomas Science-Fiction/pseudo-Horror Think middle-far future cyberpunkish SF meets Lovecraft, and it works. The early part of the story is told in retrospect after a cold open, not my favorite structure, but as the story develops it works in some pretty interesting internal monologues that are balanced, okay, almost balanced, by pretty good scenes of tension and action. There's a love story but it blends well with the main tale. Good read, I need to seek out more by this author. Doom says check it out. p.s. about the "psuedo-horror", Lovecraft's entire milieu is pretty much describing things that are terrifying to his characters without actually being scary to readers. Don't think that I don't enjoy them. And horror sucks, anyway. |
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L.A. Confidential
by James Ellroy Crime epic. One of the few books on here I actually own, I read LA Confidential after the movie came out. I've read it four or five times and just finished again a week or so ago. A fabulous read. Dense, layered, complex. The screenwriters won the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar and they fucking deserved it. Entire subplots were excised, the characters were made quite a bit less unlikeable, supporting characters were merged, most of the major turning points were cut out to focus on the Nite Owl because there was just too much. A making of... (more like a "development of..." on the DVD has James Ellroy talking about how he and his agent laughed as they sold the movie option. This book is dying to be turned into an HBO series. It would take several seasons. It's that dense. Read this book. |
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Banewreaker
and
Godslayer
by Jacqueline Carey High fantasy, (good) Tolkienian with a (good) twist. Jacqueline Carey is best known for her "Kushiel's..." series, an alt-history trilogy about a woman (from post-puberty to early middle age) who is feels pleasure from pain due to some semi-divine tinkering. I really enjoyed the series, which is a cross between those near-pornographic historical romance novels and legitimate writing. She breaks from all of that with these novels, which at first I was disappointed in because it's clearly derivative from Lord of the Rings. However it discards the strict good vs. evil story of that watershed work for a much more nuanced tale about a disagreement between two gods that pretty much fucks up the world. I really, really enjoyed this book. I'm glad she's returned to Terre d'Ange, but I'm also glad she stretched herself with this. However one thing does bother me about Carey's writing and that's the fatalism I find implicit in it. In these novels, it's actually explicit. In Carey's mind, apparently, there's no escaping one's destiny and everyone's road has been excruciatingly plotted well in advance. It's troublesome to me (I've always swung more Chaos theory) but fortunately her talent and skill keep me from thinking overmuch about it while I'm actually reading.
Doom says check it out.
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Eastern Standard Tribe
by Cory Doctorow Near future fiction (not really science fiction). Maybe I just don't "get it", but I honestly don't see what's the big deal about Cory Doctorow. He can write decently and he's imaginative but Eastern Standard Tribe is a pretty boring read (and I couldn't get into Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom at all). There's not much drama, very little action and it all resolves through a deus ex machina. I mean, it's not a terrible read but I'm glad I checked it out from the library instead of buying it.
Can't recommend.
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Fitzpatrick's War
by Theodore Judson Science fiction, post-apocalyptic (retro tech) First I want to say that Theodore Judson is a good writer. The writing in his debut novel is solid and I look forward to his next book. But I hope he realizes that Machiavelli's advice to princes applies equally to protagonists. You can be loved or hated, but you must never be despised. For much of this book, I despised the protagonist. He's naive, he's got no people smarts and he's just a damn pushover. I almost gave up on the book several times thinking: "I wish this guy would grow some balls!" Well, he did, but shortly after that the story went off the rails. The book smells like allegory, especially the actual war part. But I can't figure out exactly what he's getting at. The protagonist's state is different enough from the US that I don't think it's a W bash, it's a carbon copy of Victorian Britain (the flag of this state is the Union Jack for crying out loud).
I can't recommend this book but I will encourage you to keep your eye on the author.
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ACIDplanet Electronica Podcast
This is pretty cool. The podcasts feature one genre of electronica (they've done downtempo, several house and trance sub-genres, DnB & breakbeat so far), a DJ (CJ?) intros the tracks and the information on each podcast is what the guy says. I dunno if the text comes before or after.
Canton's Electronic Noizums
I think this is just one dude. They don't come out regularly, or often. The stuff that's there isn't bad at all, tho.
Dave's Lounge
Really awesome, very professionally produced. Trip hop and downtempo stuff. Dave introduces each one which are sometimes themed, sometimes not. His taste in music is pretty good. He gets a wee bit ranty about digital delivery of music but it's okay. I definitely recommend this one if you like the trip hop.
Downloadable Content Gabe & Tycho from Penny Arcade's podcast themselves creating each strip. Really, that should be enough. These two guys are not only funny, but smarter than 65.7% of the people you're likely to meet in daily living. If you read the strip, you should listen to the podcast.
Drum & Bass Arena
Can you handle 200+ bpm? Fuck, yeah. Video podcasts appear quite often. Almost entirely limey stuff. Might be part of BBC, I dunno. The website seems to be heavy on the streaming media. Definitely recommend if you like the drum n' bass.
New 9/22/06
Geek Corps Radio
Three geeks, one of whom is a chick. She's married to one of the two dudes and normally the wifey butting in annoys me but all indications are that she's a legitimate geek and she gets a recurring segment called Girls in Gaming (the intro music says "now it's time for a little science fiction and fantasy...") that has some interesting stuff. Production is pretty good but they tend to get rambly. Plus it's kind of long, but I think worth a listen.
Grey's Anatomy
Usually has an actor and someone from behind the scenes, although a bunch toward the end of Season Two were the creator/show runner and one of the producers. A must for fans.
IndieFeed: Electronica/Dance
Unreleased stuff. One track per podcast. Starts with a "brought to you by..." message, ends with info about the performer. The site has other genres, too, but I haven't checked out those podcasts yet.
KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic
KCRW is a college radio station in California. I guess it's kind of famous, or imporant or whatever. They have a morning show that is apparently impressive. Sometimes during the happening of this morning show, bands come on and play songs and talk to the host. This podcast is that. S'ok.
Percussion Lab Presents
Another music podcast. I'm not sure what's up with this one. It's mostly electronica but there was one of rap from the '90s (which fucking sucked, BTW).
Webcomics are almost certainly what grabs the lion's share of my online attention. They probably don't take up the most of my time, blogs do that, but oh how I love the webcomics.
Here's a selection of what I read, including a list of what I've tried and didn't like.
Real Life
Probably my consistent second favorite. Goes from continuity to one-offs, and even some recurring stuff. Greg seems like a cool dude. There's also more than two characters. All of which are human. Not that I mind two character strips or non-human characters, but it's noteworthy.
Goats
Ahh, Goats. A rather large cast of characters, mostly non-human. Very dry humor which unfortunately has a tendency to veer towards the "ironic" (which as near as I can tell really means sarcastic). But good. Continuity more often than not. Not always with humorous intent. There's a cast dumbass (Phil) although the putative star of the comic (Jon) has his moments of idiocy.
Questionable Content
To my knowledge one of the few longform narrative comics out there and definitely one of my favorites. In fact, when I was working on a webcomic project QC was my main inspiration. Jeph has a tendency to let snark overwhelm storytelling (fucking indie kids) but I'm willing to let it slide as long as he keep making with the character development. And he has been.
Angel Moxie
This is an odd one, for me at least. It's manga style (I don't like anime/manga) and it's about three sixth grade girls. But it's awesome. All continuity, frequent non-humorous and always great. It's a saving the world comic and honestly, I'm kind of sick of them. Just once I'd like to see a smaller scale adventure/drama comic. But Angel Moxie kicks ass. Don't be intimidated by the archive, it's great.
Angel Moxie has completed its run, but the archives are still up and still worth a read.
Bunny
Guess you might call it surrealist, but it's smart and very, very odd. It's about a pink rabbit and the various things he does, and/or has done to him. Almost all one shots. It's hard to describe, something you just gotta check out.
Wigu/Magical Adventures in Space and Overcompensating
Jeffrey Rowland is bug fucking nuts and these two comics are proof of it. Wigu is the story of Wigu Tinkle and his family, JRow discontinued it and started drawing Magical Adventures in Space, which is Wigu's favorite show about a super hero duo of a potato made of poison (Topato) and his horse sidekick (Sheriff Pony). Yeah. Now he's kind of going back and forth, with a few other things (including what would have happen if Jor-El landed in Compton). Overcompensating is much more random, I guess Red Meat is the closest thing I could compare it with. Recurring characters, very little continuity (but more than RM). Both are very funny.
The Whiteboard
Don't run away when I say this, but I guess you'd have to call this a furry paintball/manufacturing strip. I know, but it's great. The characters are all humanoid animals, starring Doc (a polar bear) who runs a paintball gun repair shop. Doc is a real person in Alaska who runs a (surprise!) paintball gun repair shop and tinkers with other stuff. He seems like he'd make a great addition to Mythbusters with his tinkering. Anyhoo, a good portion of the humor involves paintballing but I don't paintball and I still love the strip. There's also a lot of geek humor and a good bit of non-geek humor. Cameos from other webcomics are frequent guests at parties the crew throws.
Unshelved
It's set in a library. Awesome, and I mean that. All human characters (the giant woodchuck is a guy in a suit), and 4 or 5 of them. Most of them are relatively one note but doesn't detract from the reading. Archives are extensive and well worth going through. Plenty of laugh out loud moments.
Clown Samurai
Again, don't run away. This is the story of an Englishman raised with bushido and clown, uh, clownery. But for some reason he's not funny, he makes kids cry. So one day a mobster offers him a contract and he takes it. Wacky hijinks, of course, ensure. Illustration style is interesting, pacing is good. It's not a comedy, although there's some humor. This is an action comic, something woefully underrepresented in my opinion. For some reason it hasn't updated in a long time, but it's worth checking back. This would make a great movie.
Orneryboy
The story of Orneryboy, his girlfriend Dirtygirl (reference to her housekeeping abilities, not her sexual proclivities), their pet cat and pet zombie (yes, zombie). Kind of a slice of life type comic, but on the absurd style. Clean, cartoony illustration, updates regularly. The humor can be somewhat grim (they have a pet zombie!) not unrelentingly so.
Least I Could Do: the main character is insufferable and always wins.
Megatokyo: I don't dislike Megatokyo but I only read it monthly or so. The two main characters are pretty annoying and after a while they get on my nerves. Come to think of it, most of the characters are annoying in one form or another. It's a manga type comic so I'm guessing it has a lot of Japanese pop conventions, I know the author/drawer is a big fan of Japanese romantic video games. Yes, romantic video games. *shrug*
Something Positive: People say I'm negative and abrasive, but R.K. Milholland's characters are just fucking intolerable. And there's nothing even remotely resembling character development, except Davan gets screwed over in new ways and two of the other characters hooked up. That's it. Even I can only take so much concentrated, unbroken bad.
Control Alt Delete: I just got tired of this one. The characters are pretty static and, I dunno. I just got tired of it.
Sinfest: Tetsuo has been bad on the updates lately and this comic has been pretty flat for a while. I'll probably come back to it but for now Sinfest is off my bookmarks.