Trust the Ferret, the Ferret is Wise

So, I just read Dreamwidth's 101, and the other things like that they have, and they're totally a slice of the old web, the web that was about connecting people and enhancing human potential and stuff, rather than selling eyeballs and info to marketers and the NSA.

It's...refreshing, really.

So, after the latest TOS changes, I'm officially pulling the plug on this. I think for now I'm going to migrate it over to Dreamwidth, beyond that, I need to figure out what I want to do.

And what the kinda old people are at these days. Is it still Tumblr? I'm not worried what the kids are up to, I'm old now.

Maybe when I set up the DW, I'll try and reach out to a bunch of people who I've not talked to in far too long.

That moment when Pandora interrupts the punk station with an ad for BMWs.

Yeah, I know, I'm way behind on movies, what can I say? So I just finished watching Hellboy II, and it was pretty good. There was one major thing that bugged me though, the part where (spoilers) Hellboy rescues the baby and defeats the giant forest god thing, and... the cops and the lady whose baby he rescued turn against him because something something. I mean yeah, there was just this huge wrecking of that street, and they all witnessed something miraculous (in the sense of divine/supernatural intersecting the regular world) but I'm not sure why they turned against Hellboy.

There were some other bits kinda like that, where things just seemed a little sloppier than necessary. And I really with the princess had challenged her brother at the end, or done something a little more than she did. Or if they'd just made her into something more than Ms. Exposition and a girl for Abe to moon over. Maybe they're not really flaws, just places I would have done things a little differently.

Somehow, I still manage to be surprised when Cracked.com has an article that's got pretty good science and pretty good advice in it, like What is the Monkeyspehere?.

So, I saw this bumper sticker promoting people buying products made in the USA. It was text, and a photo of the top of the Statue of Liberty. Which was made in France.

(The actual issues of trade balances, manufacturing, etc, are More Complicated Than That, and I'm not getting into them, I was just commenting on the disconnect between the message and the image. And yes, I know the Statue of Liberty is an iconic American monument. One that was built for the US by the government of France.)

Well, since our dear leaders have decided that interest rates (that are exceeding low), and "crowding out", and Very Serious Invisible Bond Traders, which all allegedly come from federal deficits, as opposed to say, the unemployment rate that's up around 9%, it's very hard to find a job. So that's led to thinking about ideas on what kind of job I can make. Now, while I'd much prefer a job saving the world, and doing the stuff I spent years going back to school for, that's not worked so far.

Well, what about starting an engineering company? Well, there's issues there with getting a license, which requires working with already licensed engineers for a length of time, plus getting contacts for jobs, and starting something without a reputation or experience. So for the moment, that's not really looking practical.

Computers? Well, I know them, but I'm not a hardware guy, and I haven't kept up at all with programming languages, network stuff, or anything like that. So I could learn it, but I don't have any of the credentials or experience there.

Working for somebody else in retail sucks, especially in a crappy economy, which is where I'm currently stuck.

So, what kind of retail could I do? Well, the most obvious is a nerd shop, probably comics and games. I worked at a game store for five years, I've been friends with people who ran comic shops, I know both those markets pretty well anyway. And it'd give the possibility of creating a place for people to come and meet and have fun and interact, and that'd be good.

Comic/Game shops are hard, though. They're operating in a relatively small market, comics are non-returnable for little guys, and costs four bucks and up each. That aside, there's also a lot of stereotypes about comic and game shops, like they're essentially some dude's basement. And there really are ones like that. Or just look at The Ferrett's column about his FLGS. There is a comic shop chain here in Savannah, but as their webpage shows, they have a bit of hoarder in them too. Plus there's nothing else to that site besides that page. But the pictures, with the T-Shirts hanging from the ceiling and the confusion, that's not so appealing. The hobby shop I worked in had some of that too. We kept it mostly clean, but it was piled with stuff, especially trains, almost to the ceiling on a lot of shelves. So, obviously, I wouldn't want to do something like that. Running somewhere clean, safe, and welcoming to everybody would be the goal. There's no point in turning away customers by having the store look bad.

The problem there, even in a city like Savannah, with SCAD having its art college with a sequential art series, the market for comics isn't always that big. and the comics don't always help with that. And that's a little scary when looking at opening a shop. Comic stores are always shoestring businesses, which is part of the reason so many end up messy. There's lots of other things out there, and there's lots of TPBs and the like that provide more value for the money, but I'm not sure how easy it would be to try and change all of that. Or if I'd make any money doing it, and not just end up owing even more money when it failed.

The thing that's always bugged me the most about predicting the end of the world (besides the zillion times it's been wrong) is that the kind of God who'd blow up the world and make everybody's last days full of pain and suck is, by definition, a bad guy. Which sorta works for the early Old Testament God that's all "Sacrifice your kid! Flood the world! Knock down those walls and kill everyone inside!" but is pretty out of character for most non-vengeful turbolaser versions of Jesus. So, yes, a lot of these prophecies are bad biblical fanfic.

Of course, Fred's already covered this over at slacktivist with "goofy hat Jesus".

Oh, and no, the world's not going to end tomorrow. We'll still be here for my regularly non-updating blog. But just in case it does, I'm gonna be out where things are fallen down and trying to fix them, and rescue people. Because that's what good guys do. They don't sit back and laugh at other people's misery.

I'm just gonna link this post of UrsulaV's, where she talks about just wanting to grow a garden with hummingbirds, and the trip down the rabbit hole this led her on through all the dysfunctional systems we have in the world.

And if you're interested in a field guide to this particular rabbit hole, I recommend Worldchanging, the new 2.0 updated book, or the website, with its archives of solutions and more.

Time to get fixing things. Even if people look at you like you're crazy.