I wouldn't know; I've never Kippled.

Boing dish: to quote Bruce Sterling, "I don't know why, but I sure want one."

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I mentioned in my Peter Pan entry my love of "fun light Victorian repartee." (Most immediate example from the film: John says to Pan "You defy reason, sir. I should like to defy it with you." Also bits about Wendy wanting to become a novelist.) At the time, the only other example I could think of was The Importance of Being Earnest ("I always carry my diary when I travel. One should always have something sensational to read on the train").

Somehow I'd forgotten the earliest example I'd seen of such: Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories. "He was grey and he was wooly, and his pride was inordinate: he danced on a sandbank in the middle of Australia, and he went to the Big God Nqong. . . saying, 'Make me different from all other animals, make me popular and wonderfully run after by five this afternoon." (from "The Sing-Song of Old Man Kangaroo.") The whole thing is just so smooth, so much fun. . . I've finally got around to bringing back my copy from home (featuring Kipling's illustrations, notes, and poetry-- "I keep six honest serving-men" is appended to "The Elephant's Child" for no readily apparent reason), and I may have to take the couple of hours to reread it. "For I am the cat that walks by himself, and all places are alike to me."

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It's snowing. Actually it's probably stopped by now, but there's around an inch out there. So of course today I get to go to work. Yay fun.

So far I'm the biggest nerd I know. I WIN! . . . or something.

A stupid day

( Stupid )

Monarch of the Glen / Zits

Neil Gaiman, "The Monarch of the Glen"

I'd thought it would take me awhile to get into this story (it took two reads for me to really get into American Gods, after all) but right on page two Gaiman is making fun of either Texans or Scots. So, hey. It's an American Gods story, and (despite American Gods feeling like the end of the tale) it works pretty well. If I'd paid more attention over the summer I might even have picked up on some elements as fast as I should have, instead of waiting for them to be spelled out for me. Oh well.

Shadow's a much better character than I originally thought he was. I've said that before, but it bears reiteration.

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Jerry Scott & Jim Borgman, Humongous Zits / Big Honkin' Zits / Zits: Supersized

Three treasuries, comprising the first six Zits collections. It's amusing, it's occasionally brilliant, it's got bits I relate to all to well and bits I don't. I prefer Foxtrot but Zits is still decent stuff. Beats the sappiness of For Better or Worse hands down. (And we've got several other Zits collections at work, giving me plenty to do during kiosk shifts.)

Hey, it's a comic strip. You want detailed character analysis? Go read someone's master's thesis on the subject. (Or maybe just Pearls Before Swine from the week of Christmas '03 if it's still in their web archives.)