Stuff to read, Monday edition

[yendi]

1. Jim MacDonald's ongoing series of "Trauma and You" posts continues with "The Squishy Bits," covering sucking chest wounds, the tournequet controversy, degloving, and other stuff you'll hopefully never have to deal with.

2. A brief history of Hellboy, discussing where Mike Mignola's creation comes from, and where it's going (useful for me, as I'm a few years behind on the guy's comic-book adventuress).

3. Scrapple Fried Rice! If this isn't the greatest idea ever, it's surely in the top ten.

4. The return of Hepcats! Really. Actual new comic material, written and drawn by Martin, even.

5. Sarah Langan on why she writes horror.

And five short takes/items:

1. Jordana Brewster will be appearing on Chuck! As the infamous Jill!

2. Empire ranks the 50 Greatest Comic Characters of All Time. With a list this large, everyone can have something to bitch about (and there's plenty, including the "fun but not nearly in the top 200" Scott Pilgrim, although there are also some surprisingly accurate inclusions, not least of which is Deena Pilgrim (no relation)).

3. I know it's old news, but who doesn't want to see a housecat taking care of a baby red panda?

4. Top ten things an author should not do at Amazon.

5. Finally, in light of the summer heat, how about the Best Ice Cream in New England? JP Licks only gets a 3/5, but in light of they way they do ratings (like the NYTimes restaurant reviews, actually), that's not shabby, and Rancs gets a 4/5 (those two places cover about 95% of my ice cream purchases, not counting gelato, of course).

Comments

[corwinok.livejournal.com]

I discovered that reading MacDonald's latest trauma post while listening to Mark Yoshimoto Nemcoff's Diary of a Madman will give you some seriously messed up dreams that night.

[ex-yakaveng.livejournal.com]

...Noooooooooooo! Good god, not scrapple! I've watched that made, starting from the pig. *shudder* If you're going to have it, at least make your own, so you know it's not the odd scraps of meat.

(Full disclosure: One of my father's favorite foods is toast with apple butter and boiled scrapple, or perfectly fried scrapple. He's written poems about it.)

[crwilley.livejournal.com]

I felt validated by Jim MacDonald mentioning the anecdote about the firefighter who passed out during a presentation on the topic. I didn't get much farther than that before the queasies overrode the "This could save a life!" factor and I stopped reading...

[unwilly.livejournal.com]

Judge Dredd? I wouldn't put that character on my top 1000.

[yendi]

Why would you want to watch it get made? I want to imagine that all my food gets created by a Star Trek process, and that the bacon materializes out of thin air, the way God meant it to.

[yendi]

Yeah, it's hard to talk about trauma without getting into some very disturbing details.

[yendi]

In fairness, he's an icon of British comics, and his success drove 2000AD (which in turn provided spotlights for a number of other creators, including Alan Moore). And Empire is a British magazine.

[yendi]

Heh. I am not surprised.

[feste-sylvain.livejournal.com]

3. Scrapple must be made of odd bits. Responsible carnivores do not let any part of the animal go to waste, so scrapple is a vital part of butchery. And yummy, too!

2. I know I've been away from comics too long when I don't recognize a good number of Empire's "Top 50". Now granted, a Dan Dare villain wasn't likely to ring any bells with me, but when I see Preacher and Warren Ellis characters in there, I at least know enough to know that I want to know them.

5. The dim-glows managed to put Kimballs' Carlisle location on the list, but not the larger Westford location where the ice cream is actually made?! Tell you what: let me know what flavor of theirs you'd like, and I'll bring you some. Some day. They're not exactly on my way from work, so it would have to be a weekend.

[ex-yakaveng.livejournal.com]

Because I was at that point being subjected to the Goschenhoppen Folk Festival (http://www.goschenhoppen.org/festival.htm) by my parents. I had to turn away.

I agree on the Star Trek process. I think I'd also like the transporter, rather than driving the 12 hours each way to Detroit at the end of the month...

[ex-yakaveng.livejournal.com]

2. It is indeed good to see some part of our culture avoids the waste. That was always one of the most fascinating things about Iron Chef (the original)-- watching them use _every_ part of the animal. Still, scrapple tends to cover up the taste by drowning it in spices, rather than making the flavors appetizing.

5. Dude! You all should go to Kimball's and play some mini golf. That was one of the better bachelor/bachelorette parties I've been to...

[litch.livejournal.com]

heard about this cool little tool?
http://www.filleritem.com/

[yendi]

Yeah, but since I use Prime, I don't have to worry about getting over $25. When I did, I still preferred using my wishlist to find cheap items that I really wanted (although it meant taking the order up to $30 or so).

[sbisson.livejournal.com]

4. The return of Hepcats! Really. Actual new comic material, written and drawn by Martin, even.

Fuckin' A! (as Deborah Morgan would so politely put it.) I just re-read Snowblind the other day.