Love Blog for March 11

Ah, Friday! Ah, links!

For ways to help victims of recent earthquakes: New Zealand Red Cross, Global Giving project for Japan

For ways to keep informed: AlertNet; BBC Breaking News; National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

For something beautiful in the way of Bridges from Veronika Von Volkova

For something sketchy and refreshing in the way of known characters from Scott and Skottie

For something less expected and more carefully built from Nest of Wonders

For the joy of sharing and because it's freaking brilliant from Happle Tea

BookViewCafe because I said so

For the love of librarians and articulate presentation Librarian in Black

For Aubrey and voodoo TPD (don't ask, just go with it) from Three Panel Soul

For the love of people I haven't seen in 20 years or more - I'm off to Kansas City next month to see my friend Shaun's show! Go to his website. Go to his show. If you are in Kansas City for the show, follow the sound of the barking otter laugh and you will find me. I expect to make this sound frequently. Dude is fucking funny.

So, in case you ever wondered How to Turn a Film into a Web Series, I totally know a dude who's involved in one! No Clean Break episode 10 right here, and I'm only linking to this one because the image you see is Matthew Jones, another someone I've known since I rode the school bus, and also awesome. Offical No Clean Break website here with all the episodes. So good. (also, now I'm all nervous and curious about episode 11! GAH!)

(Geez, what is it with MPA alumni, anyway?) No one wonders why I am totally writing a character that looks exactly like him.

Oh, yeah. Um, Matthew? ....

What would Friday be without me sharing Freakangels? A Monday, that's what.

I Want FELT ALIEN ASTEROIDS

Cayenee Mocha! CAYENNE MOCHA! I was just talking about doing this at my work!!!

I heart Jagermonsters so hard. It's kind of ridiculous.

So one of the things that I truly love about Wapsi Square is that I have to let it sit for a week or so before reading to catch up again, because it's so relatively complex and told very specifically and that makes reading the archives again and again very much like reading a novella. I know that I found the comic through another comic or through an archaeology supplies website (Ninja? help?) - it wasn't something that I just 'found' through Stumble, I mean. Possibly a Whitechapel recommendation. I add weight to those, because there are rarely shitbombs on lists and I'm pretty picky, so between us, I get good stuff. Not the point, the point is that it's a fantastic story about a bunch of flawed and intelligent women and other paranormal beasties. I do miss the museum/thinky/artifacts stuff, but, as I've said, the archives are right there and reading them is the visual equivalent of a rose petal bath.

Health Care is the Issue. The ever brilliant Coilhouse magazine posted a video made by a bunch of

"Wesleyan University students, determined to speak out against extreme conservative members of the House of Representatives’ recent attack on Planned Parenthood, have presented this straightforward, sex-positive rallying cry to fellow young people across the country"

Yesterday found me in conversation with a person whose beliefs are almost diametrically opposed to my own. It was wonderful. He is a person who believes, as do I, that faith cannot be legislated, and that health care and the right to medical care ought to be legislated, not the morality. It was a beautiful conversation and yet another reminder to me why I do so love people of faith, even though I am not of them.

Fundamentalists do more to hurt their own belief systems than they can ever seem to understand.