I have new pictures up! Check ‘em out.
Monthly Archive for September, 2009
So a buddy of mine posted his desktop. Well I have decided to do the same.
But first, a little about my system. My desktop is a 24″ iMac (Late 2008, if you care) with a 22″ Westinghouse monitor that is directly to the left. (Yes it is plugged in, and is a second monitor, even.) I am kind of a desktop elitist. There are certain things I want in a desktop image, things like Simplicity, The Stuff on the Right, Imagination, and Striking. Now in this particular iteration of my desktop, I broke one of my own rules. The main screen is all in the center. Shame on me. On to the images..
My main monitor..
My secondary monitor..
Notice the Penny Arcade theme? (If you read PA, you’ll understand, If you know who PA are, but don’t follow, go, start, you won’t be sorry.) If have no idea who PA is, I am sorry. Believe me when I tell you your life is less for it.
If you look closely, you will see in my menu bar (from left to right), Dropbox, Quicksilver, iScrobbler, Adium, Time machine, Scripts Menu, iStat Menus, and Spotlight.
Adium is in my Dock AND my menu bar, only because if you remove the icon with the .plist hack, you get rid of the menu as well (the File, Edit, View, etc., which includes the Options, and we can’t have that, now can we.).
I also use Twitterrific to keep up with Twitter. I like it a lot, a whole lot. If you Twitter, (Tweet?) look into it.
Raise your hand if you live under a rock, with no contact to the outside world via the internet, television, or smoke signal. No one? Okay, then you all most likely have heard of the Disney – Marvel buyout. The one that cost Disney $4 billion dollars, and cost Marvel any hope of future innovation. I hope I am wrong.
Call me cynical if you will but I don’t see this as a good thing for Marvel. You might be have read about how Marvel gets to use the Disney Marketing Machine. I think the DMM will have no idea how to advertise Marvel correctly. I am 31 years old, and the last time Disney marketed to me was Aladdin. I was 14. I saw The Lion King, two years later, but I don’t recall any of their advertising being pointed at me. I don’t actually recall seeing and of the advertising at all, actually. As some one who love himself a good comic book (Be it the Ultimate Universe, or Civil War) I just don’t see how the DMM will work for comics that aren’t.., well, Archie Comics.
I think the future Spider-Man, X-Men, and Fantastic Four cartoons will have the last once of dignity FINALLY removed. (Seriously, I am afraid we will see Spider-Man start to sing ‘Paint with all the Colors of the Wind’, or worse yet we might find out that Wilson Fisk killed Bambi’s mom.)
BUT there is hope. Look at the Disney/Pixar deal. Disney is essentially Pixar’s distributor (Disney gets to put it’s name ON the movies, but in truth that’s all the influence Disney get’s) and advertiser. (I might have fudged a bit earlier, I loved WALL-E’s ads, as well as Up’s). You can also look at the deal between Disney and Studio Ghibli deal. Literally all Disney does (and this is more work than you’d think) is localize, and distribute the Studio Ghibli films. The advertising is almost non existent. That means that Marvel might get left alone. Hopefully that means Marvel will get left alone. The were doing alright on their own, if you ask me.
The other thing that scares me about the deal is that the big events like Civil War won’t happen anymore. More-so now, than before Marvel is beholden to the bottom line. You might wonder why I use Civil War as the event that might not have happened. I can’t imagin Mark Millar went into Joe Quesada’s office and said ‘I am gonna fuck your world up’ and Joe said ‘Okay,’
I bet that was the hardest sell ever in Marvel. No other huge crossover in Marvel History had the implications on EVERYONE that Civil War did. (Yes I know there was Mutant Massacre, but who did that affect the Avengers, or Spider-Man, or Ghost Rider, or.. you get the point) As such it could have gone horribly wrong and lost a bazillion dollars. As it happens it didn’t it was fantastic and generated a bazillion dollars. BUT selling that much havoc to the board of directors, or whoever has that control now, will be nearly impossible.
Now I hope I am wrong, I hope that Marvel DOES benefit from the DMM, and the dedicated television stations, and the movie making machine (Has anyone ever done the math on how frequently Disney drops a new movie?). I hope Disney does let Marvel stay Marvel. My gut (who has no tract record to speak of) tells me it is the end of Marvel as I know and love it.
For now, make mine Marvel, and Excelsior!