Driving into work about an hour ago, I was caught in a traffic jam. Now, I've driven down Baker Street maybe a hundred times and been caught in jams probably about a third of the time, but I'd never noticed this before.

I'll preface the following by saying that yes, of course I know that Sherlock Holmes is a fictional creation and that there's not actually a 221B Baker Street. I'm also aware, thank you very much, that if it did exist as an address, there'd be something fairly nondescript, maybe a Building Society or a shop, instead of the successors to a private consulting detective.

And yes, I knew there was a museum in Baker Street dedicated to all things Holmesian, and that the fictional address of such a place is in fact 221B Baker Street.

However... (yeah, you knew one was coming, didn't you?)... for some reason, I'd never actually made what is the logical conclusion arising from the foregoing facts... that of course wherever the Museum is, it's going to screw up the numbering of the addresses in Baker Street.

Until this morning, that is.

Here's a picture snapped while I was in the traffic jam:



See what I mean?

Here's a closer shot:



You can just see the "221B" above the policeman's head. See the door number to the left?

Here it is:



So, 221B Baker Street is actually next to 237 Baker Street. And yes, although you can't see it, the street number to the right of the museum is 241, Which means, with an inevitable elegance, that the address of the museum must be 239 Baker Street.

Which gives the glorious image of the letterhead of the museum reading something like:

The Sherlock Holmes Museum
221B Baker Street
239 Baker Street
London

All of which reminds me of the questions asked by Hugh Dennis: "Why do people stand in a lift watching the numbers change? Do they expect them to light up in a different order?"

I may have downplayed this a bit when it first "technically" happened, but now that I've actually received payment - however small it is - for a fiction story I sold, I'm bursting, baby . . . BURSTING.

My short horror story Loose Thoughts on a Light Rail appears in the latest issue (Volume 11, Number 5) of The Harrow: Original Works of Fantasy and Horror, an online publication.

I've had a few nibbles on submissions from other potential publishers, but nothing that offered any sort of cash payment, so to have this happen - actually HAPPEN - just fills me with an AMAZING feeling of somehow being a bit more of a "real" writer.^*

This also inspires to get out there and start throwing more material about to see if I can land something else (and maybe even see about getting that novel finished I keep pushing around).

---

^*Technically, I've long been a "real" writer. I've written fiction for years, and I've got the various columns and reviews I'm regularly contributing to places liked Deadpit.com and Paperback Reader, but to receive actual payment for imagined characters doing imagained things . . . ? This is a first for me . . . !

Last night I worked from 6pm until past midnight on training new directors for Pendant and editing "Calls from the Public", which is thankfully only once a month now but still takes me over three hours to edit. That pisses me off to no end, let me tell you.

But because of that, I was too busy to stop and eat dinner, and didn't think to eat until I was on my way to bed. And I can't very well eat a big dinner and then go right to sleep, I'd be puking in the morning.

So today I've been ridiculously ravenous (even for me). Went to In-N-Out for lunch and ate a 3x3 (three beef patties, three slices of cheese) Animal Style and fries.

And then went back up and ordered another cheeseburger (no onion) and another order of fries.

Ate it all.

Thought to myself... yeah, I could eat more.

RRROWR!

Oh super-metabolism, how do I love thee?

AUGH!

COME ON WINGS!

WHAT THE HELL!

Back to Dallas.

The last few days have been a bit busy. But I've really enjoyed it all

I finished up my last couple of days at Maple Lane. The boys on friday were very sweet, begging me not to leave, asking for a hug, when I'll be back and so forth.

Friday I started at my new job as a social worker. It was very odd, I showed up around 7:50 and waived someone down to let me in. My supervisor was there and she showed me my cubicle, said peole should be rolling in soon, and 'does anyone work at 8 anymore?!' laughingly. It's a bit slow on fridays I guess. The intensity level I was used to at my job was just not there. I mean, I sat with them and had breakfast and chatted about the latest goings on. I went along on a couple of home visits (follow up stuff) and observed, read case files, got into the computer system. I set up my voice mail because I've got my own line. How strange, my own office number. I don't entirely understand everything about it yet, but hey nothing makes sense in the first 8 hours.

So I'm excited for a new adventure.

I noticed a few birthdays worthy of note, and since this is a long weekend for Canadian purposes to celebrate our founding monarch's official birthday...

Shoutouts to pulsejenc, dduane, and Steve Lieber and a couple of belated shouts to thothmeister and Sandy Carruthers as well!

Off to buy yet another replacement umbrella before the haircut of the month...

If you have a studio, with a website, or even just a sign on your door, or really, anywhere that lists your opening times, then you would be well advised to make sure your studio is open at something close to those times. And at the very least, if it isn't, you might stick a sign in your window to explain that.

Living Image in Greenwich don't seem to feel they need to bother with such basics as that, the dozy fuckers. I showed up there at 1pm, an hour after their listed opening time (on both the website and the door) and they were shut. "Fair enough" I thought. "Maybe the trains are being a bastard, and they'll be along in a bit." So I waited about for a bit, encountering 2 lads who, like me, were along to book an appointment, and one slightly addled chap who said he'd popped along to get a barcode done. Or may just have been high. He certainly admit to serious drug use when younger, and I'm not entirely sure he'd given them up.

Alarmed by the slightly addled chap who would not stop talking to me, I decided I go and get lunch, and then pop back, hoping that he'd be gone, and they'd be open. A fryup and a pint later, I returned at about 3 pm. He was gone, buy they were still shut. So I fucked off to Into You, instead, where I now have an appointment for Tuesday 24th June. (Must book afternoon off.)

All in all, not terribly impressive - that's two hours out of my day they wasted by not having any sort of sign anywhere obvious that they were going to be closed today. Still, they lost my business, and that of at least two, possibly three, other people today, so I guess what goes around comes around.

I know that Bevis will get a kick out of this; I hope others will as well...

As previously mentioned, the proceeds of Finland, Finland, Finland 'sales' (the comics was free, but we asked for a £1.00 donation to charity) were going to a specific charity.

Some people reading this know that Philip was very ill when he was born and he spent some time in the Special Care Baby Unit after birth; he was under the hospital's care for some years after that as well.

On the inside back cover of the Finland, Finland, Finland version given to purchasers at Bristol was the following legend:

This has been done for fun - no other reason; any and all donations or proceeds given to the creators will be passed on in their entirety to The Special Care Baby Unit of Chase Farm Hospital, in grateful thanks for the current well being of the youngest of the creators.

Today Laura and I took Phil to the unit to hand over the funds. We spoke to a very nice junior sister named Deborah Hodge, and well...



Inside the container held by the sister is the £73.42 collected. There's a photo of Phil in the package as well; they asked if we could bring one, as seeing how children that were previously under their care have turned out can give, as they said, "hope and encouragement to new parents..."

• 13:57 GUH so our summer is over for now, then... 2 in the faternoon and it's DARK #
• 13:57 faternoon? that sounds ominous doesn't it? I meant afternnon obviously #
• 13:58 OH GOD OBVIOUSLY I JUST CAN'T TYPE TODAY #
• 13:59 And now I must wrack my brains to try and think of a stand-alone strip for the GSP #
• 16:39 @pauljholden Why hello sir, I am honoured by your attention. I am a fan of your work. #
• 16:42 @happymrlocust Jesus howq do you find time to do actual COMICS? Oh the energy of youth, I miss it so... #
• 17:11 Just sketched out rough idea for GSP. TERRIBLE punnage is involved. #

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This past Friday and Saturday night, Brother D spent his evenings at the Third Annual Zompire, The Undead Film Festival. Three feature films and several short movies later, he reports on the zombie offerings and includes words and thoughts from other festival goers as well. We'd never skip the Zombie Beat, and Brother D actually gets excited about something Richard Rubinstein might be putting together. Bren' drops in to go over the week's feedback, and two winners are drawn from the correct submissions to the contest for the Evil DVD and Chicken Zombie mini-comic. What was the correct answer to the question, "What will be so special about Episode 25 of Mail Order Zombie?" Listen to this episode to find out! Email the show at MailOrderZombie@gmail.com, or leave a voicemail at 206-202-2505.



http://www.mailorderzombie.com

So, we have an external 500GB western digital hard drive. been working very nicely.

Today, it seems to have disappeared. My computer thinks it no longer exists. I've restarted, reconnected and repowered the drive... nothing. I've never had something like that happen before. Ever.

Any ideas?

At some point during recent lunch talk about movies, the subject of David "Fuckin'!" Mamet came up and I decided I should see Glengarry Glen Ross again. Hadn't seen it since the mid-90s. Sat down with it last night and enjoyed it as much for my different reactions to it, fifteen years later, as for the film itself. ( Should a 15-year-old film really need spoiler warnings? I'll cut anyway. )
------
For consideration: feeling like maybe I should go back to DOG DAY AFTERNOON now

Head immediately over to Jerwa's long-neglected blog and enjoy the Complete Awesome that is his Tokyopop project, Jason Mason And The Ghosts He's Chasin'.

Complete win. I'm dying to do an all-ages book.

So. Jealous.

Go there now. Bask in the greatness.

That is all.

I went ahead and created a "Jess Knows Best" LJ.  Add me here if you like: http://jjblackshear.livejournal.com/

Marvel has apparently decided to engage in a game of oneupsmanship with DC to see who can take a character of color, specifically black characters, and draw them as white people. In other words, subtextual racist bingo.

I was looking at the new covers solicited for all the endless Secret Invasion tie ins, and something LEAPED out at me right away.

What's wrong with this picture?





That, my friends, is the cover to the Secret Invasion issue of The Initiative. That's supposed to be Ryder in front there, standing with the chain gun. Ryder from the Skrull Kill Krew, of course.

Ryder who normally looks like this:




When Skrull Kill Krew was first published, Ryder had outrageously long and wild hair; it always looked to me like he had long dreads, and they looked fantastic.

Compare that to The Initiative cover.

What in the HOLY HELL is wrong with you, Marvel and DC? With your talented stable of artists who no doubt see people of color every single day, are you constitutionally incapable of drawing black people with anything but ultra straight hair? What's the matter? Is it too "ethnic" for you? Like hugging?* Are you afraid your covers featuring black people or people with "ethnic" hair won't sell unless you straighten their hair to within an inch of its collective keratin-rich life? Are dreads suddenly too political and threatening for you when combined with a very outspoken and defiant black male character?

At least he's not lily white. But on first take? I thought that was the Ultimate version of Forge on the cover, not Ryder.

The last time I saw non-straightened black hair on a Marvel comic cover was during the Daughters of the Dragon mini in 2006. The new Heroes For Hire covers don't count because they all gave Misty Knight those highly improbable straightened bangs in front of her glorious textured 'fro, a fro which, by the way, has looked smashingly gorgeous on her since 1976.

Debate has raged back and forth recently about Misty Knight's hair. She had the big afro in the seventies and eighties, very close-cropped hair in the late nineties (another gorgeous look for her), then she went missing from continuity, then she showed up back with her longer natural in the mid 00's, then she...well, look for yourself:

Straightened hair and BLUE eyes in the new Iron Fist book:




That's from the newest issue of Iron Fist. David Aja, Kano, and Matt Hollingsworth are responsible for this atrocity.

Yep. That's supposed to be the same person as this Misty Knight from 2006, who is black, beautiful, and about to rip out your viscera:



We just saw this happen with Vixen. There was outcry. There was a LOT of outcry in the comics blogsphere, and apparently no one at Marvel or DC bothered to take any of the complaints seriously, because look at that panel of whiteified Misty up there in the Iron Fist book, with her oddly straight hair and blue eyes. It's a particular slap in the face because right at the beginning of the new Iron Fist run, a mere year ago, Misty DID have an afro.

Anyone who is tempted to argue "LOL, it's just that not big a deal!" and who also happens to be white, don't. Until you've walked through the world and had the experience of repeatedly being shown in media and popular culture that your natural, unaltered beauty (and HAIR) is undesireable, until you've had the experience of rarely if ever seeing yourself represented in the highest echelons of popular culture under the category of "beautiful," you don't have any right to diminish the experience and perception of those who do have that experience.

As digital_femme once cogently (and rather brilliantly) pointed out, there is no shortage of sources for artists to look at to see how men and women of African descent wear their hair the world over. For fuck's sake, you can look out the window and see a cavalcade of beautiful hair in real life. There are entire publications devoted to the care, maintenance, and styling of black hair that feature scads and scads of hairstyles, textures, colors, and arrangements. People of all colors wear their hair in a diversity of styles as personal preference, whim, and money dictate. That means people of African descent, too. Maybe you should take that into consideration, Marvel and DC. Believe it or not, some PoC actually don't straighten their hair into something Gwyneth Paltrow would sport on the red carpet.

This is racism. It's the most insidious kind of racism, because it's so deeply internalized and subtle. It's not overt. It's the kind of racism that says characters like Vixen, Storm, Misty, and Ryder are only visually palatable to mainstream audiences if their "ethnicity" is toned down. (I've put "ethinicity" in quotes because that's the code word you occasionally see from the whiter portions of comics fandom when a desire is expressed to embrace universalism rather than acknowledge a thorough history of probelmatic portrayals of PoC in the medium.)

Marvel did a better job with visual depictions of black characters twenty years ago. How sad is that? How truly, truly sad is that?

* Not so gratuitous 30 Rock reference

Yes, I know that you've been waiting almost a week, and the report from Bristol Comic Expo is coming... promise.

In the meantime though, you may remember that the plot of Finland, Finland, Finland involved zombie Batman, one of, it has to be said, the most popular parts of the story. For the artist for a start!

At Bristol, when I went to pick Philip up, I saw the following, just completed by Bevis:

I bought it on the spot.

The Zombie Bat Family by bevismusson

So, unless you’ve been hiding under a rock the past couple of years (or are merely very adept at avoiding the media), you know about the evil sweetener used in so many US food products that’s called “high fructose corn syrup” and which converts to fat much faster than sugar, doesn’t stimulate insulin production (which means you don’t feel “full” as fast), and also kills small kittens simply by being within a 5-foot radius.

Now, ever since I spent most of 2004 on Weight Watchers, I regularly look at the packaging of what I eat; calories, fat, ingredient listings, and so forth. So while I knew that I don’t eat many things that have HFCS as an ingredient, when Butch and Chris mentioned they were cutting it entirely out of their diet I found myself a little curious as to what I still ate that had it these days. (It does help that I’m not a big soda person.) So, I went through the fridge and pantry, because there’s a certain appeal in the idea of striking the last bits of HFCS out of my life. (After all, if it’s easy to go from “some” to “none” then why not?)

The end result? Only a few things, happily.

• Box of individual Kellogg’s cereal servings
• Pepperidge Farm 100% whole wheat bread
• Kudos granola bars
• 100-calorie snack packs
• Gatorade

The nice thing is that all five of those are pretty easily replaced. The other cereals in my house (Kashi Strawberry Fields, and various varieties of Puffins) don’t have HFCS and I really eat them more often these days, anyway. Bread is easily switched back over to Nature’s Own 100% Whole Wheat, which I used to buy anyway but had only hopped brands because I could get the Pepperidge Farm bread at CostCo. The Kudos and 100-calorie snack packs are a little frustrating to go because they were also regular CostCo purchases, but similar alternatives from Trader Joe’s are a-ok. And with Gatorade, I switched over to buying the powder (which doesn’t have HFCS) and am going to just keep a pitcher in the fridge. Less plastic being used that way, really.

It does help that I shop a lot at Trader Joe’s, don’t really drink soda (happily my one occasional vice of Jones Soda Cream Soda uses sugar cane), and also enjoy doing some shopping at H-Mart/Han Ah Reum where the products just don’t seem to use it.

Do I think I’m going to magically drop weight from eliminating HFCS? Probably not. (Besides, I still have to eat what’s left of those snacks. That may take a month or so. But as they run out they aren’t getting replaced.) But it is nice to know that it’s pretty easy to cut that substance out of my home. It does make me wonder how easy it is for others to do it, too. And I do plan on writing letters to the makers of the products I will miss (Kudos in particular (*sniff*)) to let them know that I’m not buying their stuff anymore and why. Hey, it can’t hurt, right?

(And no, I’m also not going to go crazy about this. I know that sometimes you’re out and there’s nothing you can do to avoid it. I’m not worried about that.)

Just don’t tell the corn farmers about this. Between talk about switching ethanol from corn to things like sugar cane or switchgrass, and now this, they might get a little pissy at me. I promise that I’ll buy a lot of corn this summer, though. Mmmm, black beans and corn and avocado and tomato… Now I’m getting hungry.

[Originally published at gregmce.com. You can comment here or there.]

This man makes me hope against my will, against the fear of failure.

The red band trailer for The Happening is... Ummmmm. Disturbing. There is a reason this is a red band trailer. Dear Lord. This movie just got a lot more interesting and a lot more likely that I'll see it and try not to tweak.

It looks like The Dark Knight is PG-13 from the ads I'm seeing on TV. Innnnnnteresting.

It looks like Sony is getting ready to start moving forward with Spider-Man 4 and 5. There are rumors of a two movies shot at once deal out of the script they have. We shall see.

Nice final Hellboy poster - http://www.aintitcool.com/node/36784

"And has Marius found love at last?"

You ARE trying to kill me. Or least make people stare at me on the bus as I cackle. Did you name him just for that or did it come later?

News update. It is 78 degrees in my office. Usually it is FAR TOO COLD in here. Not so this morning.