Watching the third season episode of Star Trek: TNG called "Ménage A Troi", the subplot about Wesley Crusher receiving a field promotion to Ensign struck a funny chord in me.

Seeing his gelatinous face warming with boyish blush in response to Picard's fondling gaze, I couldn't help but wonder at the state of Picard/Wesley Crusher slash fic on the net.

My searches first yielded this result. I particularly liked the haiku;

Pert arse through jump-suit
Commander badge of red gold
Long nimble man legs

Or perhaps;

Fuck me senseless, Wes
Beam me with your Star Trek sperm
Kling on to me, boy

I never liked Wesley when I was a kid watching TNG. But now that I'm older, although I do not share in it, I can at last understand somewhat the forbidden man/boy-pupil love that inspired Wesley's character. For truly, the only people who could possibly have an interest in Wesley Crusher are people who are sexually aroused, whether they're aware of it or not, by stupid pretty children. His vague technical genius only conveniently serves to stave off full self-awareness of an attraction to his impenetrable naïveté. The only level on which his character can function is as a player in a wet dream. Not that there's necessarily anything wrong with that, it just makes him boring to any of us who aren't attracted to that.

Well, I suppose that's hardly a revelation.

I'm gonna have a lot more time to-day than I was expecting, so I think I shall work on the Nar'eth winter special. And perhaps I'll watch a movie.

A few days ago I watched 1942's Somewhere I'll Find You. In spite of the fact that I could not find a single positive review for it on the internet, I rather enjoyed it. Sure, it was war propaganda, but in the middle of it Clark Gable and Lana Turner were captivating and the dialogue was decently witty. Not exceptional dialogue for back then, but if it were written to-day I bet it'd be hailed as startlingly ingenious. Certainly it's as good as anything Kevin Smith's ever written.

I woke up two hours ago, after having fallen asleep at around 10:30pm. You see, Sunday began for me 10pm Saturday. So now I find myself suddenly cast into another strange new schedule. Let me explore this wondrous plane.

The new Boschen and Nesuko chapter is up. Little happens in it. Or maybe a lot happens. Depends on how you look at it.

I say, have I ever expressed a dislike for Thursdays? Well! What a horrid day is Thursday, I mean, really!

Broad ambitions did I have yesterday. I planned to draw from dusk 'til dawn. But in all, I only managed to draw and ink two comic pages and colour three. That's because at about 2am I was feeling wretched and antsy, and generally in need of inspiration.

So I watched 1931's Inspiration, starring Greta Garbo. I was foolishly pleased by this standard, MGM melodrama vehicle. I could go for some quality time with Garbo.

Anyway, that and eating were the only things I stopped for until 6:30am, when I decided it was time to go to bed. And in bed, I read The Amazing Spider-Man Annual number 1, with the Sinister Six. And at around 8am, I decided I wasn't going to get any worthwhile sleep before the maids arrived at 11am. Oh, well. I just hope I'm not too wrecked to-morrow to do the last two pages of the new Boschen and Nesuko chapter.

And when I say "to-morrow", don't worry. I don't have any idea what I'm talking about, either.

I've been rather clumsy to-day. I keep bumping into things, tripping on the various bags, CDs, and books stacked about the room. It's becoming distracting.

Looking over hits I've gotten at Boschen Nesuko lately, I saw that yesterday someone submitted it to a web comic site called The Web Comic List. Apparently someone called "zonarius", and I can't find any information about him or her.

I'm not sure how I feel about this. I suppose it's a good thing; I've already gotten some hits from it. But I kind of would like to've been told beforehand, so I could attach a graphic to the profile.

I didn't even know about this list page until this incident. Maybe I would've found it eventually . . . The gods know I could go a significant ways further in promoting my site than I have been. I keep meaning to, but I forget. Honestly, my brain is too, too cluttered.

I hope I'm more energetic after I've slept. To-morrow I don't just want to do a Boschen and Nesuko page. I want to do Nar'eth pages. And maybe some of the other projects I've had bouncing around my head lately.

And I want to pick up the new Tori Amos album. It’s true that I haven't been as enthusiastic about her newer stuff. I still haven't finished watching the Welcome to Sunny Florida DVD, and I wasn't very fond of the new mixes on the Tales of a Librarian collection. But I'm a Tori fan, and one can't be a Tori fan without being at least a little zealous.

Well, it's 6am. I think I'll have some cereal and then see if I can actually get to sleep early.

A few days ago I read this article by Hunter S. Thompson. And to-day he's dead, reportedly having shot himself.

Maybe I'm naive, but this didn't seem like him. Of course, I didn't really know him, but great writers live in your brain, and are real there. This feels a damn nasty trap door.

This is simply, plainly awful. That man deserved better. He, after all, was great.

Last night I saw a commercial where a little girl, obviously reading off a cue card, informed the world that smoking killed her dad, who was her best friend. And then a snappy "act-now-wait-there's-more" man's voice talked about a wondrous and affordable new method for breaking a cigarette habit. From admonishment to enticement in ten seconds. Now that is wondrous.

A couple days ago I saw three cars stop in the middle of the street to form a blockade against a fire truck with its sirens blaring.

That same day I also came across a young man with a Jamaican accent who asked me where he'd get if he kept walking north of Santee. I told him "Nowhere. There's nothing north of here." Which is perfectly true, but he didn't seem satisfied.

My point is no one knows what they're doing. I think that's my point, anyway.

Em, I seem to be quite back to my old schedule. It's about 6:30am and I haven't gone to bed yet. I did make a quesadilla with a crumbled up hard boiled egg in, and hot sauce.

And then I put in a tape.

The RKO logo came up and I thought, "I bet this'll be a Fred and Ginger picture! Please be Fred and Ginger, please be Fred and Ginger, please be Fred and Ginger . . ."

It was Fred and Ginger. Two people who definitely knew what they were doing. The movie was Swing Time, the plot was simultaneously slightly silly, slightly witty, and thoroughly sweet. Fred follows his lucky quarter to a dancing studio, leading to a really great moment where he saves Ginger her job by--what else?--dancing with her. Ginger Rogers looked particularly cute in this movie, with soap suds in her hair or dressed in a translucent cape. When Fred sang he loved her just the way she looks to-night, I agreed with him.

Fred had an amazing solo dance with three shadows of himself projected in the background. His ability was so keen that at first it appeared to be three copies of the same footage--but then slight alterations reveal otherwise. The whole sequence was startlingly good.

The final big dance number is delicate, and lovely. Performed to a song involving Astaire singing about how he won't dance without Rogers, the whole thing travels among just the perfect magnitudes of hints. Oh, it was too sweet. So, yeah, Swing Time's a good movie.

You know, these days I'm noticing what a profound effect great art can have on my entire disposition. Well, I've always been that way, but lately I've been thinking about it. So now I think I'll go read some Spider-Man.

Hiya.

So, let's see . . . I've been working on the Nar'eth winter special, I've been watching movies, I've been reading, and I've been walking. I keep saying, "Oh, it's bloody well time I looked into getting car insurance again," and then I keep not doing it. One thing leads to another, you know . . . I don't even like thinking about the car and what sort of little grand breakdowns I'm likely to experience once I do have it up and running again. But, hey, that's what being part of civilised mutant art farms is all about.

Last night I watched Bela Legosi and Boris Karloff in the 1935 film The Raven. Having little to do with the Poe poem for which it's named, the story involves a mad doctor (Legosi) torturing people with a pit and pendulum, and a room with crushing walls. Yes, it was a perfect movie. Quite unpredictable, really, moving from cool mood moments with an interpretive dance based on the poem while Legosi recites part of it in voice-over, to Karloff having half his face disfigured so he's forced to act as Legosi's henchman, carrying people off in the night to be tortured. It doesn’t get better than that.

Looking at the manga section at Barnes and Noble yesterday, I released that most manga provokes a tingling sensation in my sinuses, making me feel like I might sneeze. There's just such a sweet uniformity to it all, adorable large-eyed androgynous creatures drawn precisely the same way, over and over, with the passion of a mechanic. Don't get me wrong, there's good manga. But looking at that enormous section, I can't help feeling like I'm looking at an army of howitzers in lingerie.

Chevrolet reaches out to a new market:

I've updated Boschen and Nesuko a day early. Boy, this thing goes much better when I'm not sick, and I have a whole day to concentrate on each page.

You know, now that I think about it, it's kind of an anti-Valentine's Day chapter.

Hey, I hate Thursday. And yes, it's because the maids are here. Spoiled brat, am I? Well let's see . . .

Advantages of having maids here; floor gets vacuumed, the little table next to the bed gets dusted, and the sheets might get washed.

Disadvantages; I only get four hours of sleep, I have to somehow get everything off the floor and stuff it into my closet, I have to hide my coffee thermos so it doesn't get washed and all coffee put in it taste like soap for days . . . Okay, the worst part is the sleep thing, not merely for the lack of sleep. But because it bisects my day; I'll spend the time wandering listlessly, until I come back and fall asleep again, often times getting nothing done all day, never actually feeling rested. But, hurrah, the floor's vacuumed.

In better news, I picked up the 1938 Robin Hood DVD a few days ago. Just gorgeous; impressive, lush Technicolor. And Errol Flynn is such a wonderful bastard--I believe he really could waltz in and have a smug little dinner conversation with President Bush--I mean, Prince John--before handily escaping his guards (Marion; "You speak treason!" Robin; "Fluently!").

To think Jimmy Cagney was originally up for the role! I'd have been waiting the whole movie for Sir Guy to get murdered while Robin cackles away into the night. Still, Cagney, who at least was a good actor, would've been better casting than, oh, say, Kevin Costner.

The DVD came with a lot of bonus features, including a wonderful 1938 Movie Experience thing that had a bunch of the shorts and news reels that were typically shown before a movie in 1938. A lot of really sweat swing stuff.

Anyway, I oughtn't even to be pretending wakefulness right now . . . Better start walking . . .

Last night I finally had a dream that didn't end in misfortune somehow--which has been the trend for some time, now. Last night I simply dreamt that Warner Brothers, in the 1930s, was trying to come up with an efficient method of manufacturing magma and using it in movies. I woke up feeling gloriously neutral.

I dunno what sparked the trend. Some of the dreams were fairly innocuous, like the one where I went back in time to try to save Jack Kerouac, and failed. The night before last's was pretty interesting, though. I dreamt I could levitate, which made me safe from the queen alien (from Aliens), who was living in a cave just west of my old neighbourhood. While she was making ready to attack, I visited her to waylay her with a philosophical discussion about the usefulness of having living, happy people around you. I was somewhat dismayed that I couldn't even provide an argument that satisfied myself. So the queen alien, with an army of wolves, managed to devastate the world. I hovered through the empty cities, finding the occasional furtive survivors.

My sister had managed to survive--I noticed her with a group of five other people in front of a church. In fact, I noticed groups of about five people in front of nearly all churches. And all of these people had very tan skin and pale blonde hair. The wolves completely ignored them, and they moved in these odd, meaningless gesticulations, speaking gibberish like Sims characters.

I got a lot done yesterday. And now I want a bagel . . .

I walked from downtown to Hillcrest (that's a long way, up a hill) a couple days ago just to get a Dresden Dolls CD I already had (but my old copy was disintegrating). I'm very glad I got it, but I have to say I think, in some ways, their "A" is for Accident is a better album.

And is the "Girl Anachronism" the very model of a modern Major General? I don't think it's a bad thing, really, if she is.

I seem to be entirely on schedule with Boschen and Nesuko this week. But I'm also working on the Nar'eth winter special, which I was delayed on a bit for one reason, and am now delayed because I'm puzzling out a technique to use on a certain thing . . . Jeez, but I'm sure I'm boring everyone with all the details.

I thinking I'm getting back to my old sleeping schedule, which makes me happy. And I've been looking everywhere for a copy of Alfred Hitchcock's Notorious on DVD, and am about to concede defeat and admit I'll have to order it online.

Have I got anything else to say? Not at the moment but, then, I am very sleepy . . .

This really is good coffee.

Forgot to mention that, a few days ago, Tim simply gave me a set of Japanese weapons; a katana, wakizashi, and tanto. Just gave 'em to me. I mean, they're not Hatori Hanzo blades or anything, but he spent good money on them long ago and the fact that he gave them to me simply because he wanted more room in his closet was just plain extraordinary.

Then again, that boy has built himself quite an arsenal for some reason. He still has another katana with a beautiful snakeskin scabbard and ornate tsuba, a gladius, a used machete from India, an antique kukri, a modern military grade kukri, a modern military grade tanto (yes, they actually make those. Apparently some Navy Seals carry them), a crossbow, and, of course, the perfectly crafted reproduction of Glamdring. And I'm sure I'm forgetting something.

I'm certainly happy with what he gave me. He even gave me the display stand that goes with them. They're quite nifty looking. Next time I need to get the cellophane off something, or break down boxes, or fend off a rabid opossum, I know I can now do so in style.