Soldier Ant 

Oops. Dubberley.com is nowhere near the same thing as Dubberly .com

I know I was griping about my crappy morning last week, but Derek must've been having a bad day to inspire The Shaft. Here's hoping things have gotten better for him.

And in other comics news.. Jessica Abel's Artbabe does her McCloudian turn in trying to explain What is a Graphic Novel? (over on ArtBomb.net.)

Doesn't exactly add much to my understanding, but then McCloud never looked that cute in a tanktop, either...

So far, it been a colder-than-average summer (thank God -- give me a brr-chill SF-like gray summer any day.) And I've been posting... well.. not much to Soldier Ant.

But that's okay -- there's still a raging thread going on in one of my old posts. Wouldn't you know it -- the Rayment twins have quite a following. Thus proving my theory that nothing brings the traffic like a couple of hot twins.

Must publish more beefcake...

(Strangely enough, I get a lot of Search referrals for both Kevin Tighe and Randolph Mantooth, sex symbols for a more mature generation.)

And I get almost no referrals for this post. I suspect it's because I don't refer to them by name. I've been told by others that if all you're looking for is traffic, those 3 little words work like a charm...

“The state can't give you free speech, and the state can't take it away. You're born with it, like your eyes, like your ears. Freedom is something you assume, then you wait for someone to try to take it away. The degree to which you resist is the degree to which you are free...”
— Utah Phillips

2 things I've learned about gardening this summer:

1. If your newly-laid mulch suddenly starts sprouting doggie-dicks, you've probably got a case of the Mutinus elegans or dog stinkhorn fungus. (Scroll down to see the orange one.)
2. It's called Clematis. Not 'Chlamydia'. Especially not when you're asking your Mother-in-law “how hers is doing this year.”

This has been in the works for a couple of weeks now - an idea my friend Rob had after my very weak review of the new Apple Music store. Signal to Noise is my new column on Donewaiting.com. I'll be desperately trying to keep up with P2P, file-trading, the legal front and the Winds of Change. And I'll have to post more often than I do here.. cause now I'm on payroll.

And by 'payroll', of course I mean - 'Rob bought me a coffee today'...

I caught Peter Gabriel live for the first time this past Saturday. I tell you what, that boy knows how to put on a show. Good music, well performed, actual engagement with the audience ... and eye candy. Videos, lighting, a giant (12' diameter) inflatible plastic ball he rolled around inside while performing and/or trying to crush his lead guitarist. And, not one but two Segways.

Which got me thinkin' ... what could possibly be on the Amazon wish list of a man who already owns two Segways? (OK, maybe one was his, and the other was his daughter's. Maybe.) So, I check it out.

Can the really Peter Gabriel step forward? Are you into Pokemon and Battlezone 64, or working on your Yu Gi Oh figure collection? Or perhaps you're too ashamed to walk into a Virgin Megastore and pick up Godsmack or Papa Roach, and expect a friend to do it instead? Do you secretly want to retire and do some serious gardening?

And, Peter, fill in a shipping address already! Jeez!

The etymology of the term 'dashboard'.

He hasn't posted anything in weeks. Do you suppose 'the Zionists' finally came after him?

Okay, once you start looking for Criminal Masterminds, it seems that contenders just come out of the woodwork.

“The prime suspect in a vandalism spree in Bloomingdale has red hair, a prominent nose, and stands about a foot tall. Police haven't been able to catch him because he flies away so quickly after committing his crimes.

[...]

Apparently, the bird thinks he's pecking away at a rival woodpecker. But it's his own reflection that sends him into a fury. And that's making his human neighbors furious, too.”

Jersey represent!

American Heritage Dictionary lists 10 Words Every Graduate Should Know.

My own ten-word suggestion? “Would you like cream and sugar in your coffee, Sir?”

Lame, I know. Leave a comment if you can do any better...

A recent Handspring News Alert pointed to a sneak peek at the new Treo 600 line, and I gotta say they look pretty sweet, and god knows my Treo 180 is getting a little long in the tooth.

I'd been considering one of the new color Sidekicks, but the final decision might come down to 2 factors: hand-feel, in a side-by-side comparison between the 2 devices; and exactly what kind of upgrade deal Handspring will offer to current Treo holders. That teaser page mentions a plan for current holders (it also mentions a cheaper price point for the line in general, which will be welcome.)

This great site offers 5005 corporate logos in “vectorial format.” Here are a few random searches, just to test the depth of the collection:

1. Bayer Aspirin
2. 3 Subaru logos
3. AOL
4. "tobacco"

Soldier Ant will lie dormant for a few days. A little travel, a little training, a little Summer.

In 312 AD, the (soon-to-be) Roman Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity and eased the long-standing persecution of Christians by the Empire.

Now, a team of geologists believes they've discovered the cause of Constantine's conversion. A meteor that impacted in central Italy. From the article, here is the historian Eusebius' contemporary (to Constantine, that is) account of the cause:

“...while he was thus praying with fervent entreaty, a most marvellous sign appeared to him from heaven, the account of which it might have been hard to believe had it been related by any other person.

“...about noon, when the day was already beginning to decline, he saw with his own eyes the trophy of a cross of light in the heavens, above the Sun, and bearing the inscription 'conquer by this'.”

A great story on AlterNet discusses the growth rate of Starbucks (would you believe that the chain is just getting started?)

From one coffee-bean store in 1971 (the outlet still in Pike Place Market), Starbucks now has 6,458, mostly in the U.S. and in all but one state (South Dakota) -- so far. That number will click relentlessly upward, as steady as an atomic clock, advancing at least once every eight hours, three times every day, 23 times in a week, 100 times a month. By the end of this year, during which Starbucks expects a record $4 billion in coffee, tea, and merchandise sales, the company will have opened at least 1,200 new stores, similar to the number opened last year and the year before. That will reconfirm the Seattle corporation's place as No. 1 specialty coffee chain, accounting for close to half of the globe's 15,000 specialty coffee stores and doing its part to make the world an even more jittery place to live. (full story)