I levelled my rogue to level 58 in World of Warcraft at Tim's house last night, then drove to the grocery store and on the way back received a call from my sister, who'd just gotten back from working at BlizzCon. Con, apparently, being the operative word--the last time my sister had worked at a BlizzCon, part of her job was handing out glowing pendants from her booth. This year, people waited in line for nearly two hours to receive that same free pendant. There was also a "quest" handed out to con goers--a sort of scavenger hunt, it sounds like, my sister took part in. The end prize turned out to be a sew-on badge. She said getting in to see Tenacious D, who were performing at the Con, was practically impossible because seeing Tenacious D was really the only thing to do, so everyone was crowding into that room. So people were basically paying 150 dollars, the price of a Con ticket, to maybe see Tenacious D. I told my sister waiting in line for hours to get a tacky badge or pendant would give me a lot of time to bitterly contemplate what else I could've bought with 150 dollars.
Hmm. "Tacky badge." What does that remind me of?
"Sickening greed"--that's Blizzard all over, and a lot of video game companies. Yet I keep playing that game.
I also bought the remastered Bona Drag, actually--it is a little ironic hearing Morrissey sing about "reissued, repackaged" and "extra track and a tacky badge." But, fuck, the remastered tracks sound really good, and while most of the extra tracks aren't especially great, the extended version of "Let the Right One Slip In" is probably worth the price of the whole CD. I sort of wonder if Morrissey was compelled to release it by the success of Let the Right One In, the book and film named for the song. It's one of the reasons I knew the American remake, Let Me In, wasn't worth my time. As a title, Let the Right One In is more interesting and appropriate because it conveys the idea of a choice and that the person choosing might be in danger of making the wrong choice because the "right one" might seem wrong. Let Me In is a bit ham-handed, by comparison, though I guess one could say it's a reference to "The More You Ignore Me, the Closer I Get."
To-day I need to write the script for the final Venia's Travels chapter. I spent most of yesterday reading back through the comic, to make sure I'm not forgetting any loose ends and to pick out the items I want for my agenda on the last chapter. I have to say, I'm really proud of this comic. I don't think it's enough for me to say I have nothing more to say as a story teller, but I think it's the best thing I've made so far. Though I guess artists often seem to prefer the newest things they've done. I heard about a recent interview with Woody Allen where he said he thinks his newer films are much stronger than his older ones, and I heard Billy Joel on The Howard Stern Show a couple days ago saying he doesn't like his early stuff as much as his later work.
I also corrected a bunch of typos--or I guess they'd be "write-Os"--in older chapters while I was at it yesterday, including a few in the early chapters that I guess have stood all this time. I also noticed that for some reason Chapter 37 was all low quality jpgs. I'm not sure how that happened, except that was one of the chapters I did while I had the urinary tract infection and was on antibiotics. That whole period is a bit of a haze, but I am rather happy with the chapters I somehow produced in that time. I uploaded higher quality jpgs, so check out 37 in its proper form, if you like. It's a big improvement, in my opinion, since there's a lot of red in the chapter and red seems to suffer most from higher compression. Though, as usual, the images aren't anti-aliased, so if you're an impotent, amateur critic with the kind of axe to grind that looks for problems no-one else can see, you may be disappointed. Or pleased, depending on how you look at it.
The chapter's title, "Dirty Water," is a reference to a Jesus and Mary Chain song. The newest chapter's title, "The Girl in the Red King's Dream," is of course a reference to Through the Looking Glass and the famous bit with the sleeping Red King and the question of whether or not Alice was a part of the Red King's dream or he was a part of hers. Of course, in lieu of this, Tim Burton, in his new film, had the Red Queen reference having murdered her husband at some point, which I'm sure is so much better.
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