I <3 Webcomikz

Most of the time I try to pretend to be grown up and responsible and all that stuff I am supposed to be by now. But I have an admission to make. I love comics. That is nearly the only section I read in the newspaper, I have a morning ritual when I check my e-mail I also read webcomics.

I don't know what it is but I love webcomics. As I am sure you can tell by the extensive list off to the left. I was first introduced to them around 2000 by my former brother-in-law Robbie. He, of course, knew that my husband and I were old school geeks, and he frequented a comic book store, and one thing led to another. He introduced me to Dork Tower. Old school pen and paper roleplaying and computer gaming. Wonderful stuff. (but I think that John has been doing too many other projects for the past couple years so they quality has backslid a bit.) I followed the links from Dorktower.com to see what he liked, and so on and so forth. A couple of my favorites were recommended by friends. But most of them were listed by other webcomic artists.

Now, not everything on that list is an actual webcomic, a lot of them I discovered in my newspaper, and are syndicated. But I am pleased as can be to find them online as well.

I have, of course, investigate others Webcomics, There are a TON of them available. But I only put links to the comics where I had read the entire archive. I figured that if I didn't care enough about it to read it all it wasn't worth listing. I have literally wasted days just sitting in front of my computer reading as much as 10 years worth of comics.

Every artist has a different ideas when it comes to what to publish in books, and what to publish online. Some keep the two completely separate. Having the philosophy that you won't buy the cow if you get the milk for free. Some publish the online comics but put extras in the books to encourage you to buy them. Some brave souls put everything that is available in print online as well. I only own trade paperbacks from three sites, Dork Tower, Girl Genius and Order of the Stick. Sadly I do not have all the volumes, and I really want to get PS238 also, but the budget is a little tight at the moment. However, that is not really on topic. Order of the Stick prints everything from online, but has also printed a couple volumes of backstory. Girl Genius is an interesting story. they used to publish only in the traditional comic books, but made the jump to online, and made everything available on their website. Now that they are giving it out for free, they are making so much more money. Because so many more people are finding out about them and how great their story is. I own four out of the seven volumes and am hinting at Santa to bring me the rest this Christmas.

Politics & Religion

I have been sitting on this for a few days. It is a very sensitive issue, and I wanted to put a lot of thought into it. It concerns three of the most personal issues I can think of offhand. Politics, religion, and sex.

A couple weeks ago I heard that my church was looking for volunteers to call people in California about the Homosexual marriage amendment. Now, my Church is normally very good about staying out of politics, they say that we need to exercise our civic responsibility to vote, and that we need to choose who will best represent what we think is important. No names, no parties, and that is the way I like it. So I was rather disturbed when I heard this, the rationalization was that they take a stand on moral issues not political ones, but it still felt off somehow. thankfully on Sunday they withdrew that request.

But that got me thinking... the separation between religion and science is easy for me to understand. Science asks how and religion asks why, they are two different questions so of course they have two different answers. But the separation between church and state is a little more fuzzy. I guess for me church is private, and needs to be taken care of in your household and in your heart. Whereas politics needs to be public, and take care of all those public things.

So really, morals should only be used to tell if the politician is honest (good luck there) and will legitimately represent the majority he/she is supposed to represent. A politician's personal views really don't matter too much to me, what matters is their personal integrity. (Also a rousing good luck there.)

Also central to today's rant is the idea of Homosexual marriage. My father-in-law is homosexual, I love him, and happily spend time with him. I do not approve of his lifestyle and he knows that. He is still a wonderful person. I just do not approve of his choice. This word I have used "choice" is going to cause some trauma. I have no idea where the feelings come from, they may have some natural cause, they may be learned, who knows. I know that they are there, but I also know that everyone can decide what to do with the feeling they have. If I had been taught differently I am pretty sure I could have chosen to be bisexual. I have never been massively attracted to a woman, but then I am not terribly attracted to many men either. for me it would have been very easy to go one way or another, or both. People can become attracted to all kinds of things, small children, farm animals, farm equipment, the list is endless. Thoughts never have to translate themselves into actions, unless we let them.

that being said, I do think that people in steady relationships, who have built a life together on whatever grounds need some kind of legal protection. Unraveling that type of situation is messy no matter who is involved. I just do not think that we need to give it the name of marriage. Legal protection, sure why not, for me that is firmly in the politics area. Trying to call it marriage, seems I am being forced into a position where I have to approve. and I do not. And that takes it back over to the religion side.

I do not want my morals to become legislated. I do not want approval forced from me. Politics is for things like taxes and police and major things that any society needs to function. What happens in my house, and my neighbors house (As long as no one is getting victimized) needs to be left out.

Bodily Fluids

I am sitting here breastfeeding my infant son and I am struck by a strange thought.

We are taught from a very early age that ANYTHING that comes out of or off of the human body is completely disgusting. From loose hairs to toenails, from crusty gunk in your eyes to toe jam, blood, sweat and tears. Gross, right? Well, not only is this precious child sucking fluid from my body, I think it is a wonderful and amazing thing. I am feeling sad because I am going to have to wean him soon.

It is some kind of intellectual disconnect. I am having a hard time reconciling the two concepts.

When we are young we have to be taught basic hygiene, in order to preserve our health. Sometimes it is hard to teach the right message. The proof of that is in how funny most of society thinks fart and toilet jokes are. Since we are most likely to try and laugh at what we fear. In order to learn to take hygiene seriously we learn to fear it. I only pray I can teach my children the right message. I know that I am having a horrible time with my oldest, but that is probably just because she is far, far too much like me.

The nature of Man versus the nature of Children

It is amazing, I have learned more about the nature of the universe and Man's relationship with God in the past decade then I learned the previous two. How is this possible, you may well ask... I had kids.
After that, it all became easy. I look at my children, I see how the act towards each other, and how they act towards me. It all becomes so clear.
I plan, and I struggle to make sure that everything I give them is balanced. That everything my children have is fair and even. I wonder why I bother since it never seems to fail that they find SOMETHING to get upset over. There is a millimeter more milk in one glass. There are different colors, and, the world id ending, I chose the wrong one. One child accidentally bumps into a block sculpture and knocks it down, then I have to quickly intervene to stop a war from erupting. Then the rest of the day I have to watch closely, to make sure that the grudge they are holding close to their hearts does not cause the war to erupt again. Or even worse they hold a grudge against me for some odd thing, and take it out on each other.
this much is obvious, even easy to see. Adults often act like babies. Just look at politics and marriage. But there is a less obvious parallel. In this house, I am God. Sounds vain I know, but it is not my point of view. I am not all powerful, but as far as my children can see, I am. I do everything for them, yet the seem disappointed if here is something I cannot do. I am not all knowing, far from it, but as far as my children know, I am. I answer all of their questions, and they act so confused when the answer is "I don't know." Because I have unwillingly become a household God, I have a small glimpse of what the Universe is like for our Eternal Father.
Squabbling children fighting over shiny toys. Pushing and shoving until it escalates to a fish fight. Whining and demanding ice cream before they have finished their dinner, then screaming about how things are so unfair if the answer is no. crying because you won't let them have a cookie when you were never asked in the first place. The bizarre jumps of logic that leave me blinking in confusion.
I am so glad that God has infinite patience, I know that I sure don't.

I guess it is one of those Gang Aglay days

You know the saying "the best laid plans of mice and men..."

I was going to be so good and update this one a week. Really. And here I am on the third post, late. However, I cannot claim full credit for this. I was intending to get started every day last week, and it never came to pass. Then, on Saturday when I finally got myself in line, for some reason I could not log in. And I got to spend the past couple of days figuring out what the problem was. Huzzah.

I will have a post soon, I promise.