MuppetMuppetMuppet!

A classic Sesame Street song about the diversity of human experience.

With the notable exception of the lactose intolerant. Heavy. ;p

Test drving the 1.23 viewer.

So after much hype and ballyhoo, the 1.23 viewer is upon us, tool of the Great Sanitization, wherein all of SL's adult content has been moved to its own continent. This puzzles me because, well, SL is only meant for adults anyway. Why are we protecting adults from adult content?

My personal theory, uncontaminated by research or verified facts, has less to do with any squicky feelings residents might have regarding the more intimate side of the human experience than it does with corporate sensibilities. Coca-Cola isn't going to want Jodi's Fetish Castle as a neighbor in the virtual world anymore than in the real one.

Hence the new zoning scheme, which is all the new continent really is.

So what about the viewer itself? Well, the Linux version is still in beta, so not everything is smooth sailing in it regardless. But there seems to be a general cleaning up of the interface and it certainly presents better than previous versions.

Search is now divided into "PG," "Mature," and "Adult" (here we go again). One has to go into Preferences to enable "Adult" search (which I did immediately; I have no business in the adult sphere, but it grinds my gears to think, at my age, that someone is trying to tell me where I can't go).

My favorite new feature, so far, is the ability to set default permissions for uploads.* No more digging into each file to set permissions on a poster before passing it on to Karine, or, embarrassingly, getting the message "full perm please" when I forget to do so. So that'll speed things along nicely.

I have found one bug, and it's rather significant. I don't know yet whether I'm the only one who's experienced it (doubtful). Sometimes, when changing my av's clothing, rather than the usual changeover, I'm treated to the sight of my av disappearing entirely. If it's just changing pants, then it's just the lower half that vanishes leaving me a floating torso. This has never happened to me in previous versions.

Rebaking or going into Appearance mode sets things right, but still, it's an odd thing.

* - For the non-SLers in the readership: Graphics and other uploadable items can be assigned any, all or none of three permissions having to do with how you want others to treat your items. "Perms" can be allowed or disallowed for the ability to modify, copy, or to send them to someone else ("transfer").

'Ere, 'e says 'e's not dead!

He was being led down the courthouse steps in handcuffs. A hero to the nation for longer than most Americans had been alive, he was now a prisoner. All that was certain in his future was his day in court, and then, most likely, prison. He knew this, but, like the soldier that he was, he vowed to face the future fighting.

That future was suddenly shattered by the report of a high powered rifle. The prisoner fell, his life bleeding out at the feet of his captors. There was nothing anyone could do.

Captain America, the Living Legend of World War II, the Sentinel of Liberty, was dead.

And across the country, millions of comics fans rolled their eyes and said: "Yeah, right!"

Sure enough, two years later, the cynics have been proven right. Cap is back as of this week. Apparently for superheroes there's little to no difference between death and an extended sabbatical.

I'm sorry, but both Marvel and DC have drawn from this particular well too often for me to care anymore. Too many characters, major and minor, have gotten up from their dirt naps, brushed themselves off, and continued business as usual. It's past the point where nobody but the entirely uninitiated (like, say, the staff at The New York Times, who wrote Cap a nice obituary) can take a character's death seriously, especially if said character had a fetish for Spandex and liked to hit people.

Whether shot, stabbed (Elektra), blown to bits (Green Arrow), run down to a skeleton (the Silver Age Flash), or blasted with lethal energies (Supergirl, Jean Grey), and no matter how long they have been dead (Captain America's sidekick, Bucky, dead since World War II and one of the few characters defined in the Marvel Universe as being absolutely, definitively dead... isn't), sooner or later they're carrying on like nothing had happened.

It's actually gotten to the point where the characters themselves, heroes and villains alike, recognize that the Reaper is a round-trip local ride rather than a one-way express. In Brad Meltzer's Identity Crisis miniseries, he plays with this a bit, as three villains at an underworld gathering discuss the passing of one of the white hats:

VILLAIN 1: Your'e sure Troia's dead?

VILLAIN 2: Dead.

VILLAIN 3: She'll be back...

Elsewhere in the room is a formerly-deceased time-traveling villain who claims to be a version of himself who slipped away a few seconds before he was killed. The headache you're experiencing now is a normal side effect of exposure to time-travel-related plot points. Just shake it off.

After the courthouse assassination, there's an entire issue of Wolverine working out his denial of Cap's death by infiltrating the secure facility where his body is being held to determine if he's morally, ethically, spiritually, physically, positively, absolutely, undeniably and reliably dead.

And of course, he is. That's actually part of the problem. Cap's death was so transparently a marketing strategy, meant to boost sales as Marvel paved the way for his eventual return, that it was impossible to take his demise seriously. No amount of histrionics over his departure from this mortal coil can obscure the fact that he has a guaranteed return ticket.

Really, it just needs to stop.

As a plot device it's become blunted and stale. There's no sense of tragedy (though the publishers treating us like we'll fall for this chestnut again is pretty tragic in its own way), and the drama of the moment is retarded by the fact that we know it just won't stick.

So the publishers have two options: One is to reserve killing a character for when they know they can deal with the actual consequences of keeping him or her dead. I don't think they can help themselves at this point, though. It's become a compulsive behavior to stand them back up after an appropriate mourning period.

The other is to just take it off the table. Stop killing the characters. It doesn't mean anything anymore and we're tired of it.

Case in point: Guess who's dead, right this very second, in the DC Universe?

Batman.

You think he's going to stay that way?

Debuffed.

One of my favorite presents from last Christmas was a copy of Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Long Way Home, which was the first chapter in the ongoing "Season Eight," a continuation of the tv series in comic book form. I was eager and curious to see how characters I had known and loved had progressed since the destruction of Sunnydale, but I was also a bit worried. Would the things I had loved about the show translate over into comic form? God knows I'd seen some horrific adaptations in my day. Did Joss Whedon still have the touch?

Happily, he did. It was like meeting old friends again (though I'm still pissed about Anya getting killed off in the last episode of the show). Jokes, terror, one-liners, and head kicks were served up in their proper portion sizes as Whedon once again showed that he knew how to keep me both entertained and guessing.

So you can imagine my surprise when I learned that, though he is credited as Buffy's creator, Whedon doesn't actually own the rights to the Buffy franchise.

That honor belongs to Fran Rubel Kazui and her husband, Kaz. As you've no doubt heard from the wailing and gnashing of teeth of fans of the series, they plan to do a movie relaunch of the franchise without Whedon or any aspect of tv's "Buffyverse."

That is to say, no Angel, no Willow, no Xander, no Spike. No Giles, no Drusilla, no Cordelia, no Oz, no nobody, no how.

It's probably clear from my tone that I think that as ideas go, this one sucks more than every vampire on the show put together. I know, the Kazuis probably saw all of that Twilight money and decided that they wanted some of that cash flow, and figured that their original movie was at least as bad as Stephenie Meyer's bestselling literary turds. They probably felt entitled.

Oh, and that original movie? The 1992 damp squib that disappeared from the box office like a vampire in sunlight? Fran directed it.

Suffice to say that I don't think the current rights holders have their fingers on the pulse of what will sell.

"I'm Zippy! Who are you?"

The source of this clip,1988's Comic Book Confidential, was on the Ovation Channel on Sunday night. If you haven't seen the Ovation Channel, think of it as a sort of an A&E Lite: Highbrow programming combined with the usual basic cable commercials for quickie loans, herbal male enhancement, and other dubious pursuits. What might be easily overlooked on, say, the E! Channel is rather jarring when intercut with a performance of Bizet's Carmen.

The movie starts off as a fairly comprehensive history of American comics, right up to the Congressional investigations of the 1950's. The best parts, really, are the interview segments with William Gaines, publisher of EC's horror comics, like Tales from the Crypt, and later, MAD Magazine. Combined with footage of said hearings and a piece of "investigative journalism" linking comics and juvenile delinquency (replete with a good ol' fashioned book burning), one gets a clearer idea of how much comics as a medium were stunted and censored just as they were beginning to move beyond superheroes.

That story alone would have made for a great movie, but, alas, that wasn't meant to be. Instead we get the longest piece of the film (or did it just seem to go on forever?) revolving around the underground comics scene of the 1960's. I got the impression that the entire movie was leading up to this.

So after spending time with Harvey Pekar and Robert Crumb, I would have been content and ready to move on to the next subject, with Art Spiegelman as an extra treat.

But sadly, no. This was not meant to be. I mean, you also need to see Lynda Barry! And Victor Moscoso! And Sue Coe! And more and more!

Mainstream comics rate an occasional "meanwhile" as the indie parade marches on. I admit that I boiled a little when I saw titles like Matt Wagner's art deco crime drama Grendel: Devil by the Deed and Mike Baron and Steve Rude's slick science fiction saga Nexus being lumped in (via montage) as more of that silly superhero stuff. The project seems to quickly devolve into promoting a film student's vision of the future of comics: Artsy, experimental, and often impenetrable to the casual reader.

Needless to say, it gets old with a quickness. Pity, too. It was such a promising start.

There's unintentional irony at the end, where Frank Miller pronounces the inevitable doom of the superhero, this two years after he helped change the game with the publication of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns.

The Dark... Knight? I seem to have heard that somewhere before. Oh, what does it matter, twenty years after the predicted demise of superheroes...

Breaking Radio Silence

Fifteen days without blogging seems like long enough. Let's see... any news?

• Well, for the Friday Tournament on the 8th I had the honor of being on the receiving end of Abbiee Benazzi's first win as a heavyweight. I feel I put in a good effort, keeping pace with Abbiee for four out of five rounds, but it was the last one that killed me. It was a good match, and Abbiee is good people. Look for her to be going for Cal's title before long.
• In more recent developments, I see that Representative Barney Frank (D-MA) has introduced legislation to revoke the ban on online gambling in the US. Despite its global reach, Linden Labs was subject to the ban as an American company. I remember a lot of SL casinos going poof as makers regrouped to figure out games that wouldn't be in violation of the letter of the law. It remains to be seen if a change in the law would also result in a change in Linden Labs' policies, but I'll bet some current and former casino operators are going to be watching this new legislation closely.
• I've been re-officed. I found some low-prim yet nice-looking houses at Yadni's Junkyard, and Karine took the beach house and Egyptian models and added them to the landscape at Averlast Vegas. The beach house I occupied as office/studio space was a bit of a fixer-upper (no connection between the floors, so Karine added a teleporter), but as prices go, it's hard to argue with "free." Plus the builds are so nice you wouldn't think they were freebies. Other models include a lighthouse (tempting, but the interior was too small for my purposes), a SoHo artists' loft (two variations, one with graffitti and one without), and a Japanese tea house. My personal favorite is the mini movie theater, which includes a media screen, seats four, and has a classic sign on the outside. They were built with tiny plots of land in mind, which explains their size.

I know Trekkies.

And I say to them, with love, that when Life Imitates Onion, it's time to pause and reflect.


Trekkies Bash New Star Trek Film As 'Fun, Watchable'

I'm serious. The only people I've heard from who don't like the new Star Trek movie are hardcore, exclusionist Trek fans and Daniel Holloway, the putz reviewer in the Daily Metro who likes nothing anyway.