Today I soft-relaunched my webcomic Neat Hobby! after a year-and-a-half hiatus! The first order of business is finishing out HTMLOSPHERE, the story arc I started in late 2014 and more-or-less abandoned in 2016.
Only a few pages left in this arc so I'm using it as a runway to build up speed again. So much has happened since I started this arc I doubt the in-jokes are even relevant any more. WHATEVER. EXCELSIOR.
But don't get too excited! (I'm not!) Neat Hobby! probably won't return to a weekly schedule. That's because I have some new web comic projects I hope to launch later this summer. Hopefully, by the time HTMLOSPHERE wraps up and I return to "jokes that don't require knowledge of the W3C specs to understand," there'll be several webcomics I'll be rotating through. So look for an announcement here for those, or gimme your email address.
Posted July 26, 2020
My boss's boss's boss is famous for stating that good intentions alone aren't enough. You need a mechanism to enforce those intentions. Because intentions don't matter, outcomes do.
As a newly-minted 50-something white guy who spent his childhood in rural West Virginia, I haven't felt my voice is one anyone should be hearing from right now. I don't intend to be seen as staying silent -- but that's an outcome I want to avoid.
So, three short observations:
Black lives matter.
If you're going to be around other people, you should wear a mask.
And if you're looking to make an impact with your wallet rather than your voice, I'm a big fan of Charity Navigator which makes it easy to manage multiple, recurring charitible donations.
Posted June 20, 2020
We rely on big organizations like credit agencies to keep our personal data secure, but they don't always do a great job. It's wise to build a firewall between your accounts, and between those accounts and your online identities. Some tools and reading to help:
Posted May 31, 2020
I recently discovered the YouTube channel of "BlackNeptune," aka Derek Poindexter, one of my musician friends from my Cleveland days.
Derek played bass with The Waynes, one of the most promising bands of Cleveland's indie rock scene. But he also played with a ton of other local bands (including one with me, on guitar). Everyone wanted Derek in their band. He was a professional, a badass player, funny, preternaturally unruffled, and rose above any scene drama. He passed away a few years ago from a lung disease.
I don't think I'll ever get used to looking at old social media posts and seeing comments left by friends who aren't with us anymore. It weird and unsettling to be able to see their last post or Tweet. But I guess it's inevitable, now that we all can leave a public digital footprint.
But sometimes, it's okay -- Derek's channel is a treasure trove of candid moments in Cleveland's vibrant music scene of the mid-90s.
I moved away decades ago and rarely saw Derek on visits -- he usually had a gig. Sometimes I think about the lost opportunities to talk with him again as older adults. I wonder what it was like for him to be a black man in the predominantly white indie rock scene. I wonder how he met his wife after years of being (seemingly?) notoriously single. I wonder about his transition to being an educator and a session player in musical theatre. I think about all the secondhand cigarette smoke he and I inhaled playing those Ohio clubs in the 90s long before any smoking bans. And while I don't dwell on it, I wonder how things might have gone differently.
Here is an early demo of "Swerve" by The Waynes, circa 1995. Putting an aggressive, popping bass line down on a strummy indie tune was something Derek excelled at.
Posted May 27, 2020
I strive for excellence in all things.
Posted May 20, 2020
