Max Riffner

The Parlor

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Stray Bullet Points

• I really, really need to redesign this site. I have about 30 odd ideas I want to do to fix this whole place up with a new coat of paint and some new rooms, with improved insulation? I don’t know how much further I can take the home improvement/remodeling metaphor…
• One of the things I would like to do is just post. I think blogs like this got me thinking that I, too, should be focused, when ironically one of my favoritefavoritefavs is FTrain.com. What happened, Blogging Internet? Why do we have to laser-focus on a topic anymore? Why can’t we just write?
• Speaking of just writing, what happened to the short story? Stephen King has a good explanation at the NYTimes.com. I miss writing short stories. I wrote many short stories in college when I switched majors (from Art Education [dear god, I was triple majoring at one time in Art, Graphic Design, and Art Education], so I picked up a minor in English). You could do worse than publish short fiction like Ftrain. DaringFireball.com (a blog which I seem to have just rallied against and has insanely good writing) pointed me to the link.
• Not that I’m getting much writing done; blame Tivo. I finally got one. I get it now. Oh sweet Jesus, I get it. Life is my new favorite series that it suggested. I like it quite a bit. I’m in a TV lull since getting every episode of The Wire in a mere two months.
• That’s where Netflix comes into play. Hello Dr. Who. You’re next on my queue.
• Thinking about design quite a bit this week (it’s award season). Khoi never said it better than with this article. I have some illustration work to show at this one, or else I wouldn’t even bother to enter anything exactly because I can feel my webwork be admonished because it isn’t letterpressed.
• However, speaking of Khoi and design: A Brief Message delivers. With mustard.
• Other web content I love: I finally have a subscription to The Comics Journal. The online subscriber area is a nice touch.
• Some might take this to mean that I will only be doing mini-comics forever now.
• Which if you think about it is nothing more than a short story.
• See how it all came around somehow?
• And back to the very beginning: I would like to post smaller pieces, like, each of these bullet points could be a post instead of making me seem like an insane recluse who has been using PowerPoint too much (or Keynote, I guess, I’m a Mac user).

The Nature of Linkblogging

• The dichotomy of man is truly strange. The other night I almost ran over a family of little baby bunnies with my lawn mower. Part of me was like “Well, they shouldn’t have been in my way,” but the other part of me was all “NOOOO! Little bunny brudders! (sniffle) TEACH ME HOW TO LIVE! I’m sooo sorry I almost killed you all!”
• Yes, I am aware that since I mowed the tall grass they were hiding in that an owl has probably come and ate them all.
• That ain’t my fault. Nature’s fault there. Survival of the fittest.
• I may have gotten drunk that night, thinking of the bunnies.

Moving on…

• I’m doing an interview with Sequential Tart. It is weird to think that people will be reading my words.
• This fill in strip of Dinosaur Comics is goddamn fantastic. Plus it features a lengthy discussion of Ant Man. And of course, it has God and a tyrannosaurus rex discussing things, like the nature of Ant Man. You had me at T-Rex.
• I’ll be at I-Con this weekend in Des Moines with brand new copies of Quick Step for sale. If you are in the area, stop by and say hello!
• On a web geek note, this post from long-time Textpattern user Drew McLellan really made me sad. The comments in response made me sadder still. This site runs Textpattern. I like it.
• It is almost time for the College World Series. Since I have been building the new website for it (not the current, existing one), I am totally going this year. I love college ball. I want to be at Rosenblatt all day for a few games and get all drunken sunburnt.
• I could get all drunken sunburnt at home, but I’m not in college anymore. It takes a special occasion for that event.

Looks Like A Case Of The Monday Linkblogs

• Ben updated his blog. That made me really happy this morning.
• First mow of the year yesterday – just to even things out. Threw down the fertilizer and crabgrass preventer. Something about the first mow is just so damn satisfying.
• But now it is getting cold this week. Which I’m okay with; I like the cold. But I bought a pair of shoe covers tonight because I’m tired of my feet getting cold on longer rides. Wool socks just don’t cut it in 30° weather.
• When I’m in all my cold weather cycling gear, I kind of look like the Ben Riley/Scarlet Spider, except with a dorky helmet. So, more like the Special Scarlet Spider.
• I’m probably going to have to draw this out, because my digital camera is broken. Who wants a Max in cycling gear?
• Speaking of seeing weird stuff, I watched Delicatessen for the first time. It only took me 16 years to get around to it. Worth the wait. It is hilarious and I will be purchasing it soon. Because, you know, the apocolypse looks like 1950’s France.
• That got me thinking of the proposed Watchmen movie, and how it is the future of an alternate 1986. Follow me: what if I took this story I’ve been working on in my head and set it in an alternate time/future scenario? And then don’t even explain it? I’ve been thinking too linear on it, and that is my hang-up.
• Quick Step got mad props from Johanna. This also made me happy.
• I want a new tattoo. Something with color (I have a lot of black/tribal work already). Suggestions?
• BTW, I don’t have a tribal barb wire around my arm. That bugs me.
• You know what else bugs me? The Miller Lite Man Law thing. Is there a bigger bunch of douche bags? Burt Reynolds?!? With that rug?!?. Eddie Griffin, the douche bag who just wreaked his Ferarri “worth 1.2 million dollars” Enzo? No thanks. My man law table would consist of the likes of Steve McQueen, Clint Eastwood, and Wilt Chamberlain. They would talk, I would listen.

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