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Critters

Her royal floofiness

Floofy

Sunlight? Check.
Open window? Check.
Telling gravity to take a hike? Check.
Reveling in one’s own floofiness? Abso-floofin’-lutely.

Next weekend is the sixth anniversary of Olivia’s adoption day. As you can see, she’s already practicing for the gala celebration to be held in her honor. (For comparison, see her Humane Society kitten mug shot: believe it or not, my wife saw this little bundle of spaz and said, “Yes, THAT’S THE ONE.”)… Read more

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Serious Stuff Toiling In The Pixel Mines

Welcome to the Guilt By Assoc.

Blank RegWhen I was going into high school, there were two shows that had my full and undivided attention: Max Headroom and Star Trek: The Next Generation. Not necessarily in that order. Trek was more escapist, and I was more than happy to lose myself in it. Max Headroom, of course, was escapism of another kind, with a day-glo facade of more gritty down-to-Earth reality. Edison Carter always got the Big Story, and always Caught The Bad Guys In The Act. For a kid who was on the journalism track that everyone expected him to be, you couldn’t ask for a better hero. Little did I know that I’d later find myself identifying much more with Blank Reg. Played by the instantly-familiar-and-yet-nobody-remembers-his-name W. Morgan Sheppard, who has had a guest starring role in everything (seriously: check IMDb to see if there’s ever been a show called “Everything.” I bet he’s been in it…), Reg voluntarily lived on the outskirts of society, a kind of hi-tech gypsy running his own pirate TV station from an impossibly spacious VW minibus, refusing to buy into society – or to sell out to it. (Seriously, that minibus was bigger on the inside than the outside – it’s only fitting that he finally got a chance to guest star in Doctor Who not so long ago.) Now that I’m closer to 40 than to 20, I realize Blank Reg was the real hero of the show.

The thing about being in your 20s and finally moving out of your parents’ house is that you’ve got an opportunity, should you wish it, to replace your family with a whole different one, only this time your family’s not related to you by blood. I found that family, if a frequently dysfunctional one, at work. Working in broadcasting in any part of Arkansas that wasn’t Little Rock in the ’90s was an adventure, because you were already budget addled. You either fell into a tight-knit group determined to overcome that, or you found yourself in backstabbing bedlam. I served tours of duty in both situations before achieving escape velocity from the gloomy gravitational pull of the Fort Smith broadcast market and going to Wisconsin. … Read more