Whistling in the Dark

(Yeah, I know the mood says depressed. It's not uncommon these days. We move on, right?)

So, I've dropped Megatokyo from my daily Webcomics.

I have a billion webcomics I follow. I use Camino's "save all tabs" bookmark function to call up whole blocks of them at a time. I organize them haphazardly. "Keenspot comics," "Evening Comics" for evening updaters, "Gamecomix" for things like Dork Tower or Penny Arcade, and "Comicpalooza" for pretty much everything else. I bury my newspaper strips portal page in the latter. I read a lot of stuff, in a lot of genres. And I look forward to every last one, from /usr/bin/w00t to Goats to the very obvious.

Except Megatokyo.

I like Megatokyo. I think it's beautifully drawn, in particular. However, since Largo stopped chipping in on writing, it's become entirely too... well....

Piro's been trying for 'a comic about a dating sim addict living a dating sim life,' and he's pulled it off, to the point that it either aggravates me or bores me to tears. After reading faithfully for many, many months, I couldn't tell you the names of at least three of the female characters who appear regularly. Even his attempts to counterpoint with Largoish insanity seem forced and disconnected, like it's just interrupting the story, and God knows when the story will be finished.

This sounds like a lot of complaints. This sounds like I dislike the strip. I don't. I like it. A lot.

And I will truly love it when in a year or so I come back and read through from where I left off until the new present, and get to see the storylines develop and the characters grow, rather than simply bashing my head into the wall because nothing happening!

Of course, in a year there will only be twelve new pages....

I'm not Jewish. Hell, I'm not even Christian. I'm oldschool, hardcore Agnostic. (It wasn't too long ago that I had an excellent In Nomine conversation with a devout Christian who was truly stunned that 'Agnostic' in my case honestly meant 'I don't know and I'm keeping an open mind' and not 'antiChristianity.')

And yet, I note that it is Passover. dansr's latest post put me in mind of it, and of the one major regret I have in not being devout: ritual.

I adore ritual. I always have. And the whole concept of the Seder is one that appeals greatly to me. A dinner that is also a ritual. A dinner where one teaches the children the importance of the event.

I've never been to Seder. The only time I've seen it enacted was the episode of Sports Night when Jeremy and Dan held a highly unorthodox Seder for the crew of the show. And yet, the ritual appealed and appeals to me.

"Passover is supposed to be a time when we teach the haggadah to children," Jeremy said. "I think Gentiles count, don't you?"

Azezin Pesach.

From the perfection that is gwenix.

The bunny is Oolong, the star of a mostly Japanese site of some truly excellent -- and often hilarious -- pictures of a very patient (and very sweet) pet bunny.