ABEHM
A Brown Eyed Handsome Man

NOTE: I'm not using any templates, and my HTML coding skills are rudimentary at best. Therefore, there are no permalinks. If you look under ARCHIVES, to the right, you'll generally find an active link to a copy of the current day's page. If you want to link to something on this page, you should, instead, link to the archive copy, under this day's date. The stuff on this page changes; the archive copy should stay put.

The ARCHIVE heading itself is a link to a page where you can see what's become of my two previous blogs, MAJOR ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT'S WEBBLOG and DOC NEBULA'S EASTERN OREGON DUM DUM DEPRESSION BLOG.

Due to some publishing stuff that may or may not actually happen with some of my writing, I recently got a PAY PAL account, and since I got a PAY PAL account, and I'm currently unemployed and broke, and I think I'm a good writer and my writing should be worth money, I figured I'd stick a PAY PAL button on this site. Obviously, its use is entirely optional, but hey, if you feel I provided you with something of worth and you feel moved to make a donation, knock yourself out. I wanted one of those cool little 'don't forget to tip the website' buttons all the big kids seem to have, but I guess they aren't available as one of Pay Pal's free options. The button is at the top of my links list on the right of the blog itself. Go nuts.

And if you think I'm a soulless mercenary or just, you know, dreaming that anyone is gonna PAY me for this nonsense, you're probably right. There's a comment thread below. Go nuts there, too.

* RED ALERT *

Because I'm an idiot, and got busy on Tuesday doing other stuff... shopping and cashing checks and seeing a movie... I completely spaced on what day it was and FORGOT BUFFY WAS ON TUESDAY NIGHT.

If anyone reading this taped the Series Finale, and can make a copy or will loan me their tape, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE email me at docnebula01@juno.com and let me know. PLEASE.


Frey’s Day May 23 2003

If you think I’m real happy that it’s May 23, you’re crazy. This month has just been flying by, and frankly, I could stand to have someone invent an entropic brake just for me. I don’t necessarily want to stop time (although if I could paralyze everyone in a large area like Professor X does in X-2, that would be cool) but I’d sure like to slow down its madcap breakneck rate of passage some.

In another week I have to write another rent check, and if you think I’m looking forward to that, well, see my first sentence.

There’s not much news, but, let’s see what we got:

* Following cuz in law Mel’s sage advice, I got the plumbers who are still hanging around my apartment complex to show me how to dial up the thermostat on my new water heater. It wasn’t easy; the damned thing is hidden behind a screw on panel. You need a Phillips head screwdriver to get that panel off, and then you need to poke around in there a little to find the thermostat dial (and there are bare wires in there; I got a little shock, but as you’re reading this, you can tell I didn’t die, and apparently, I didn’t get super powers either… the speed and strength of a water heater, maybe?… so let’s move on) and then you need a normal screwdriver to reset the thermostat. But I dialed it up and now my water is nicely hot, for the first thirty seconds or so it comes roaring out, after which it goes lukewarm again, just like it always has ever since I moved into this apartment. A 30 gallon water heater just doesn’t cut it for the kind of showers I like to take. And thank God I don’t have a girlfriend to shower with; a 90 second hot shower just isn’t all that romantic.

But, anyway, I got the water heater reset more to my liking, and if you knew how badly I usually get along with all technology, you’d understand how much of a personal triumph that is for me.

** Speaking of my lack of technological acumen, my computer just froze up on me and had to be rebooted. That happens when I have a lot of windows open at once, and it happens every time, and yet, when I get back online to post this, I will once again open a lot of windows at once, because it’s just so damn handy to have six or seven websites open at once, plus Microsoft Word (where I do my writing, and then cut and paste when I post to this site, or any of my many other sites), plus Juno, so I can access my electronic address books, and Paint, where I draw porn for my own amusement, because I’m not good enough to draw a comic book page I’d like. And eventually, if I open enough windows at once, my damned computer will freeze and I’ll have to reboot it again. Some day when I’m rich, I’d like to have a computer that isn’t at least two years obsolete, but that doesn’t seem likely to happen soon.

***If any of you reading this are thinking about moving to Tampa, don’t. Unless you’re a beautiful woman who wants to have sex with me, in which case, move here now and call me. But the rest of you shouldn’t, because Tampa sucks for many reasons, not least of which, you cannot get any kind of food delivered here except pizza, wings, and Chinese. Now, I like pizza and Chinese fine (can’t stand wings), but occasionally I’d like something else, like barbecue, or fried chicken, or a goddam cheeseburger, and in Tampa, nobody delivers that kind of stuff, unless you use Dine-1-1, the delivery service that picks stuff up from restaurants that don’t normally deliver. But they bring you your food cold (because it always takes them forever to get there) they charge a huge delivery fee, and on top of that, they guilt trip you relentlessly about tipping your ‘waiter’, which I’m goddamned if I’m going to do when I’m already paying a $15 delivery fee for cold food.

Also, Tampa’s pizza sucks. All you have, pretty much, are the chains… Domino’s, Hungry Howie’s, Little Caesar’s, Pizza Hut, Papa John’s. No really good local pizzerias at all, and honestly, I’m so sick of corporate pizza I could choke. In Syracuse, there were three local pizzerias I really liked. Down here, nada.

There are, as I’ve noted, many other reasons Tampa sucks (although it’s a beautiful city, and would be Paradise if it were, say, ANYWHERE EXCEPT FLORIDA), but the food delivery situation is just pissing me off.

Of course, I can’t afford to order food anyway, so I should be grateful.

****I’ve had a lot of email lately, and thank you one and all. I believe I am pretty much caught up except with Hartmut, who could not make my life easy by sending one 8K email, but instead had to send me 4 2k emails, which are much more of a pain to answer. But I’ll get to it. Scott S. also tells me he put a Buffy tape in the mail to me yesterday morning. However, he’s Canadian, and it may well take that tape eight to 12 months to get to me, so if anyone else out there wants to mail one as well, feel free.

*****I haven’t heard anything from the Australian fellows who are supposed to be serializing Warlord of Erberos in their e-mag, Thrilling Mysteries In Space. However, if any of you want to read it, you should follow that link I just copied into this paragraph and start reading now, because, if they do start serializing it, I’ll take the copy off my website so as not to compete with their e-mag. TMIS costs $2 a download, so, as I say, if you want to experience the genius that is me (at least, as my genius is reflected in an Edgar Rice Burroughs pastiche) and not pay me a damned thing for it, this may be your last chance.

It seems like there’s more of at least mild interest going on in my life, but right now I honestly can’t think of what it might be. I’m making my slow way through another St. Germain book, Come Twilight, in which, at some point, St. Germain will turn a very annoying woman named Csimenae into a vampire, for no apparent reason, since she’s really not someone you’d want to make immortal, much less a monstrously powerful predatory creature of the night. I know he’s going to do it because there are frequent references to the obnoxious bitch in other St. Germain books, but at this point, I’m really baffled as to why he’s going to do it.

All the shows I watch have had Season Finales, which is annoying, since now there’s nothing on TV to watch. I’m hoping to catch up on West Wing reruns over the summer, but NBC may not run any West Wing reruns, opting for reality shows instead, because West Wing hasn’t been doing well in its timeslot. I find that very exasperating, but there’s nothing I can do about it.

I used to read a lot faster. I mean, when I sit down to read, I still read fast, but I just don’t spend the time on it that I used to any more. I do this blog (and waste a lot of time on the Internet) and watch TV and videotapes and DVDs and listen to music (RadioParadise.com is awesome, but I can’t listen to it during the day, I have to stay offline in case my agency calls with a job) and the days go by… and I just don’t read, except when I go out to the pool, because I can’t take my TV or computer out there with me. (If I had a laptop I’d never read at all.)

And I hate not reading; I feel like I’m betraying my essential geekiness or something. Geeks are supposed to read. I used to read all the time. If not reading is one of the things that’s going to happen to me as I get older, well… I wish it was for a better reason, like, you know, suddenly having a sex life.

Barring that, I’d like to run my RPG again, but Tampa is even worse than Syracuse for finding dependable players. Ah, well.

Okay, RadioParadise is playing a bad Beatles song, but you know, no radio station is perfect.


I want the things that I had before
Like a Star Wars poster on my bedroom door
I wish I could count to ten
And make everything be wonderful again
Promises mean everything when you’re little
And the world’s so big
I just don’t understand how
You can smile with all those tears in your eyes
And tell me everything is wonderful now


DEFENDING YOUR LIES

I recently bought and rewatched the Albert Brooks movie Defending Your Life on videotape. While I was watching it, I remembered watching it twice back when it was in the theaters... the first time by myself (I was living with Kristy at the time, and it wasn't something she wanted to see) and the second time with Lynn, an ex lover I'd happened to run into a few days previous, who mentioned she'd like to see it.

Nothing happened between Lynn and me on that ‘date’… I’m not sure if it counts as a ‘date’ when two people go to a movie if they’re both seeing other people, even if they have history… although I think something might have if I'd pushed a little. Lynn took me to Victoria's Secret with her after the movie because she wanted to shop for lingerie, which I have to imagine is one of those bafflingly oblique and subtle signals that women seem to think are so astonishingly obvious. I suppose it certainly reminded me of the single weekend years before that Lynn and I had mostly spent in bed together, but I'm here to tell any women who happen to be reading this, taking a guy lingerie shopping with you is not a clear enough signal. Now, had she modeled the lingerie for me, even I would have gotten that. In general, though, ladies, if you'd like to have sex with a guy, say so. That's the signal we understand.

On this signals thing... as in, the oblique and insanely impossible to read ones that women insist are extremely clear signs to men that they're interested in sex... I do more or less understand the psychology behind this. Women in our culture, regardless of what we overtly tell them here in the modern era, are still raised to very much believe that if they want to have sex, and especially if they initiate sex, they're sluts. Now I personally like sluts, but I've never yet said that to any woman and gotten a positive response. Women, at least some of them, do like sex, and occasionally they want to have it (even with me, or, you know, they used to, in my younger days) but if they simply say "I want to have sex" (outside a monogamous relationship, anyway), then, well, they're sluts. They want to be able to maintain a facade that they didn't really want to do it, they were persuaded by the guy, against their better judgement and high moral inclinations, and in the end, they only did it to make us happy, anyway.

Or as some male philosopher once noted, "I have never in my life been to bed with a woman who did not like to have her hands pinned above her head while she was being screwed". Women like to feel like sex isn't their idea, they didn't initiate it, they aren't in control of it, and they can't help it or prevent it. If sex actually occurs involving their sacred female persons, it is in no way their fault or their responsibility. When it happens, ideally, it just happens; something bigger than both people involved, something neither of them could fight, just swept them off their feet, and sex occurred, and no one has to take responsibility for it... but, if someone does, then by God, it's the guy, because, hey, guys are always horny and all we ever want is sex, anyway.

I should say 'most' women up there, because if so much as ten women ever read this thing, I'm pretty sure at least nine of them will say to themselves while reading it 'well, okay, maybe a lot of women are like that, my girlfriend Dierdre, for example, or my sister Susan, they're the sort of silly, weak minded girls he's talking about who can't admit to themselves or anyone else that they like sex and they get horny and when they do, they want to get laid, but hey, I'm more liberated than that, I initiate sex all the time, even outside a monogamous relationship... by God, if I get horny and there's a good looking stud handy, I'll just walk up to him and let him know what I want'.

I don't know why, but it seems to be important to a lot of very smart, competent women to tell themselves this... that they don't play these sexual games with always forcing men to make the advances and take all the risks, no, they're Modern Women and they take responsibility for what they want.

And it could just be that I'm not a very attractive guy and never have been. But I can only speak from my own experience, and in my experience, women simply do not take the initiative... not with sex, and not in starting relationships. What women do, if they're interested in a guy, is they contrive ways to give this guy plenty of opportunities to ask them out or make a pass, and they will also do everything they can to make this guy think of them as a sex object... but they always do it in ways that they can deny if they're called on it. “Just because I put on an outfit that you happen to think is sexy doesn’t mean I’m saying I want sex!” says the goddess in the halter top and leather mini skirt. And just because she keeps walking by the cutest guy in the office’s cubicle and dropping stuff so she has to bend over to pick it up and flash him some cleavage while she does it, that doesn’t mean she wants sex either. Well, it doesn’t mean she wants sex with me, anyway. But that goes without saying.

None of which is news; women have been making men do all the work so they can feel innocent and overpowered and helpless for thousands of years. But I am here to say, and I do not hesitate to speak for my fellow men in this... it would be a relief if every once in a while, a woman would simply say, "you know what, I'm horny. Let's go to bed.".

But, I don't know. Maybe women do say that, a lot, here in the 21st Century... just, you know, to guys who have better jobs and much nicer cars than I do.

While I’m on this subject, let me also add that I’ve had a few relationships, and one of them lasted, on and off, for six years. (Hi, Kristy!) And one of the many, many things I learned from that relationship is that the reason couples stop having sex after they’ve been together a while… or one of the reasons… is not necessarily lack of excitement. It’s because most women never initiate sex, and, well, that’s annoying enough… but what really causes the sex life to dry up is when the guy tries to initiate sex and gets shut down a couple of times.

Ladies… rejection sucks. It sucks from a hottie we don’t even know in a bar, it sucks from the babe receptionist where we work who only dates guys who make $60,000 a year and drive Jags, it sucks from a cutie we try to chat up at the bus stop. But you know who it especially sucks from? OUR GIRLFRIENDS. That’s who rejection especially stings from, because you know what? The basic deal is, you guys get the relationship, and WE GET SEX. This is the exchange that men and women have been making for millenia. This is the unspoken bargain, and you all know it, but you’ll deny it forever. Nonetheless, that’s the deal… you get the monogamy, which we pretty much fucking hate, and we get sex (which, apparently, a lot of you girls hate, a lot of the time).

When our monogamous girlfriend shoots us down because she’s not in the mood (and, ladies, we guys simply do not understand this… we may pretend to, but honestly, we don’t… we are NEVER ‘not in the mood’, or, if we happen to for some four second interval not be in the mood, trust me, if our girlfriend wants sex, we damned well GET in the mood pretty much instantly), it’s a pain in the ass. It hurts and it’s aggravating. Not least of which because, well, this is supposed to be the deal… we don’t date everything on two legs, and, you know, you give us sex.

And it’s not fair when you don’t give us sex, because you know what? We don’t get to go get it somewhere else when you’re not in the mood. We can’t say ‘okay, you’re not in the mood to fuck me, I’m not in the mood to be your boyfriend right now. I’ll be your boyfriend again when you want to get into bed with me’. Oh no. That would be horrible, and only a shallow selfish prick of a guy would even think such a thing.

So chicks get to say “I’m not in the mood right now honey” and then go into work the next day and talk about their boyfriends, and we still have to remember your birthdays and Valentine’s Day, and put up with you bitching at us if you catch us checking out your hot sister in her tank top… even if, you know, the last three times we asked for sex, you shot us down.

So, rejection sucks… and believe me, after a guy has tried to get sex off his girlfriend three or four times and gotten the ‘I’m not in the mood right now, babe’ spiel, or, worse, the “holy shit don’t you ever think of anything else my GOD what’s wrong with you” speech, well… we’re going to stop asking. And since most women will nail their own hands to a table rather than initiate sex, even with their boyfriends, well… after the guy stops initiating sex, sex stops happening.

And I’ve alienated all my female readers quite enough at this point, so I’ll stop now.


And ain’t it good to know that you’ve got a friend
when people can be so cruel
they’ll hurt you
yes, and desert you
they’ll take your soul if you let them
oh, but don’t you let them


THE INEVITABLE DISCLAIMER

By generally accepted social standards, I’m not a likable guy. I’m not saying that to get cheap reassurances. It’s simply the truth. I regard many social conventions in radically different ways than most people do, I have many many controversial opinions, and I tend to state them pretty forthrightly. This is not a formula for popularity in any social continuum I've ever experienced.

In my prior blogs, I took the fairly standard attitude: if you don’t like my opinions or my blog, don’t read the fucking thing.

Having given that some more thought, though, I’m not going to say that this time around, because I’ve realized that what this is basically saying is, ‘if you don’t like what I have to say, tough, I don’t want to hear it, don’t even bother to tell me, just go away’.

And that’s actually a pretty worthless attitude. It's basically saying, 'I don't want to hear anything except unconditional agreement and approval'. And that's nonsense. This is still a free country… for a little while longer, anyway… and if you really feel you just gotta send me a flame, or post one on my comment threads (assuming they actually work, which I cannot in any way guarantee) then by all means, knock yourself out.

Unless your flame is exceptionally cogent, witty, or stylish, though, I will most likely ignore it. You do have a right to say anything you want (although I’m not sure that’s a right when you’re doing it in my comment threads, but hey, you can certainly send all the emails you want). However, I have an equal right not to read anything I don’t feel like reading… and I’m really quick with the delete key… as various angry folks have found in the past, when they decided they just had to do their absolute level best to make me as miserable as possible.

So, if you don’t like my opinions, feel free to say so. However, if I find absolutely nothing worthwhile in your commentary, I will almost certainly not respond to it in any way.

Stupidity, ignorance, intolerance… these things are only worth my time and attention if they’re entertaining. So unless you can be stupid, ignorant, and/or intolerant with enough wit, style, and/or panache to amuse me… try to be smart, informed, and broad minded when you write me.

Like it? Hate it? Hit me with your best shot.


 

ALL DONATIONS GRATEFULLY ACCEPTED


WHO IS THIS IDIOT, ANYWAY?

ARCHIVES:

Friday 4/18/03

Saturday 4/19/03

Sunday 4/20/03

Sunday, later, 4/20/03

Monday, 4/21/03

Tuesday, 4/22/03

Wednesday, 4/23/03

Thursday, 4/24/03

Friday, 4/25/03

Monday, 4/28/03

Wednesday, 4/30/03

Friday, 5/2/03

Sunday, 5/4/03

Tuesday, 5/6/03

Thorsday, 5/8/03

Frey's Day, 5/9/03

Day of the Sun, 5/11/03

Moon's Day, 5/12/03

Tewes Day, 5/13/03

Woden's Day, 5/14/03

Thor's Day, 5/15/03

Frey's Day, 5/16/03

Satyr's Day, 5/17/03

Tewes's Day, 5/20/03

Woden's Day, 5/21/03

Frey's Day, 5/23/03

OTHER FINE LOOKIN WEBLOGS:

Pen-Elayne on the Web

Inkgrrl

Blue Streak by Devra

Emily Jones (nee' Hawkgirl, she doesn't seem to be using that blog name anymore, but I'm a geek, I really like it)

Notes On The Atrocities

Tom Tomorrow

Mark Evanier

MaxSpeak

Dean's World

BROWN EYED HANDSOME ARTICLES OF NOTE:

ROBERT A. HEINLEIN, MARK EVANIER & ME: Robert Heinlein's Influence on Modern Day Superhero Comics

KILL THEM ALL AND LET NEO SORT THEM OUT: The Essential Immorality of The Matrix

HEINLEIN: The Man, The Myth, The Whackjob

BILL OF GOODS: The Words of A Heinlein Fan Like Nearly Every Other Heinlein Fan I've Ever Met, But More Polite

FIRST RAPE, THEN PILLAGE, THEN BURN: S.M. Stirling shows us terror... in a handful of alternate histories

DOING COMICS THE STAINLESS STEVE ENGLEHART WAY!by "John Jones" (that's me, D. Madigan), & Jeff Clem, with annotations by Steve Englehart

JOHN JONES: THREAT OR MENACE!

FUNERAL FOR A FRIENDSHIP

Why I Disliked Carol Kalish And Don't Care If Peter David Disagrees With Me

MARTIAN VISION, by John Jones, the Manhunter from Marathon, IL

BROWN EYED HANDSOME GEEK STUFF:

Doc Nebula's Phantasmagorical Fan Page!

THE OMNIVERSE TIMELINE

World Of Empire Fantasy Roleplaying Campaign

BROWN EYED HANDSOME FICTION (mostly):

NOVELS: [* = not yet written]

Universal Maintenance

Universal Agent*

Universal Law*

Time Watch

Endgame

Earthquest

Earthgame*

Warren's World

Warlord of Erberos

Return to Erberos*

ZAP FORCE #1: ROYAL BLOOD

Memoir:

In The Early Morning Rain

Short Stories:

Positive

Good Cop, Bad Cop

Leadership

Talkin' 'bout My Girl

No Good Angel

No Time Like The Present

Pursuit of Happiness

The Last One

Pursuit of Happiness

Return To Sender

Halo

Primogenitor

Alleged Humor:

Ask A Bastard!

On The Road Again

Meeting of the Mindless

Star Drek

THE ADVENTURES OF FATHER O'BRANNIGAN

Fan Fic:

The Captain and the Queen

A Day Unlike Any Other (Iron Mike & Guardian)

DOOM Unto Others! (Iron Mike & Guardian)

Starry, Starry Night(Iron Mike & Guardian)

A Friend In Need (Blackstar & Guardian)

All The Time In The World(Blackstar)

The End of the Innocence(Iron Mike & Guardian)

And Be One Traveler(Iron Mike & Guardian)

BROWN EYED HANDSOME COMICS SCRIPTS & PROPOSALS:

SERAPHIM 66

AMAZONIA by D.A. Madigan & Nancy Champion (7 pages final script)

AMAZONIA (Alternate Draft 1)

AMAZONIA (Alternate Draft 2)

AMAZONIA (World Timeline)

TEAM VENTURE by Darren Madigan and Mike Norton

FANTASTIC FOUR 2099, by D.A. Madigan!

BROWN EYED HANDSOME CARTOONS:

DOC NEBULA'S CARTOON FUN PAGE!

DOC NEBULA'S CARTOON FUN, PAGE 2!

DOC NEBULA'S CARTOON FUN, PAGE 3!

WEIRD WAR COMICS COVER ART.

ULTRASPEED!

Help Us, Batman...

JLA Membership drive

Don't Leave Us, Batman...!

Ever wondered what happened to the World's Finest Super-team?

Two heroes meet their editor...

At the movies with some legendary Silver Age sidekicks...

What really happened to Kandor...

Ever wondered how certain characters managed to get into the Legion of Superheroes?

A never before seen panel from the Golden Age of Comics...

BOOM!

E-MAIL