Allison Asks

Originally published at my site. Please leave any comments there.

• Congratulations to my buddy Jeff Newberry on the birth of his new son, Ben. Ben entered this world on April 9 and immediately rolled off an impassioned version of Stevie Ray Vaughan’s cover of “Little Wing” on the miniature Stratocaster Jeff paid dearly to have the doctors insert into his wife’s womb. I hear tell she was not happy about that procedure, and less happy to have to birth the guitar as well as her son, but obviously all worked out well in the end. Congrats, Jeff and Heather, and welcome to the world, Ben!
• Superhappy 38th to Tim “Timmy B.” Bishop, who carries in his head the entirety of the info what can be found at allmusic.com and then some. Only 731 more days until we get into whatever debauchery you decide is appropriate for your 40th, homes. You’d best get to plannin’.
• Want some help reading your way through the interwebs more quickly? Check out Spreeder, a handy little tool which scrolls chunks of text by your eyes at whatever size and speed feels comfortable to you. They’ve also got a handy bookmarklet so you can select a hunk of text, click the link and go straight to reading said hunk at speeds heretofore undreamed of by man. Or at, like, 500 words per minute, anyway.
• Next time I need a lawyer, I know exactly who I’m hiring to represent me: Lawyerbear.  Let’s just see the judge try to haul me off for contempt of court next time!  Ha!  Not with Lawyerbear on my side!
• I’m not sure I have much to add to the Kathy Sierra conversation that hasn’t been said to death already, but there’s one big question that’s been bugging me: why her? What about Kathy’s site — one which existed only to help its readers, to inspire them and help them create products that would work better for their users — could inspire the hatred and death threats that ended up directed toward her? She doesn’t seem to be a particularly controversial figure and didn’t put forth the kinds of vitriolic political screeds which engender flame wars, even modest ones — especially not when compared with so many other prominent bloggers toward whom these hateful people could have targeted their bile. I haven’t read enough on the topic yet, and I’ll admit that I don’t know all sides of the story (though the pro-death-threat side would have to work awfully hard to convince me of their rightness), so please feel free to correct me if I’m wrong here. But from what I know of the situation, the answer seems to be: these people essentially destroyed a meaningful chunk of Kathy Sierra’s life because she’s a woman, and because they could. That sickens me. (I’m feeling a larger First Amendment post brewing. Stay tuned.)
• On a directly related note: The Blogger’s Code of Conduct? Yeah, good luck with that.  Getting more than a couple of bloggers to agree on anything is like counting grains of sand in the Sahara — practically impossible and ultimately futile.
• Also, this seems like a great time to link to one of the most insightful and profound Penny Arcade strips ever.

Originally published at Do Or Do Not.. You can comment here or there.

I’m a 35-year-old man. I have a family, a good career, a nice house in the suburbs. Regardless of how I may feel inside sometimes, I haven’t really been the fat, greasy, nerdy geek I was as a teenager for a long, long time. So I feel like I shouldn’t really still like anything by Weird Al Yankovic, should I? I mean, c’mon… shouldn’t I have outgrown him by now?

Apparently not. Every now and then he does something like “White and Nerdy,” a video that just friggin’ nails me on so many levels: it’s not just speaking to me but speaking about me as well. (But before you ask, no — though I might speak fluent Javascript, I can’t speak a lick of Klingon. (And how’s that for an image for you? “Lick” and “Klingon” so close together in that sentence? You see how I did that? That was cool, huh?))

You certainly can’t say that Weird Al doesn’t know who his target audience is and just how to play to them — while I have absolutely no data to back this theory up, I’d imagine that geeks in their thirties who’ve grown up with Al make up an even bigger part of his audience than the geeks in their teens who would seem to be the most natural fit for Al’s shtick. Weird Al happened to luck into a unique situation and has ridden it to a career far longer and more successful than I think anyone (including Al himself) ever could have imagined: a large segment of the nerdy crowd who latched on to him originally grew up to use the skills and interests which got them mocked as kids to become reasonably affluent adults. And many of those adults are still Weird Al fans, so he has a dedicated, well-off following who’ve been with him (even if, like me, it’s just occasionally and somewhat passively) for twenty years.

There’s something about the video I wanted to point out, because if I’m gonna be a big geek about it I might as well go all the way: I paused the clip to check out Al’s “top eight friends” on his MySpace page. Completely unsurprisingly, his top friends include Albert Einstein, Bill Gates, Pee-Wee Herman, Screech from Saved By The Bell, Frodo Baggins, Napoleon Dynamite and one I can’t read. But then there’s also “Tom” — the creator of MySpace, the guy who every single user gets by default when they create their account… and even moreso than the nerd shoutouts listed above, a very, very nice visual way of indicating that this guy has no real friends. It’s that kind of subtle attention to detail (and this particular detail will only be visible on your screen for less than two seconds, if that) that I appreciate, and something Al’s always really done well — when someone puts the effort into crafting details you’re either going to have to work hard to catch or possibly never catch at all, that’s usually a damn good sign that the crafter really and truly loves what they’re doing.

Originally published at Do Or Do Not.. You can comment here or there.

This cartoon makes me inexplicably sad.

Originally published at Do Or Do Not.. You can comment here or there.

I might not have the love for Spider-Man that I do for Superman, but I’d be seriously remiss in my geeky duties if I didn’t let you people know that the first teaser trailer for Spider-Man 3 was released today. And while I’ve never been a fan of Venom, what they show of the alien symbiote does actually look pretty sweet… as does the black costume. And the Sandman.

It’s certainly not enough to distract much of my attention from the fact that I’ll be watching Superman Returns in <checks watch> 28 hours and seven minutes, but it’s nice to know that I’ve got what looks to be a kickin’ superhero epic to look forward to next summer.

Unlike, say, 2008’s Iron Man, which I have a feeling is going to suck hard enough to pull my stomach lining out through my mouth.