As some of you may know, DC Comics has decided to branch into the webcomics business, with the launch of their Zuda Comics imprint at http://www.zudacomics.com/. Some of the comics there are quite interesting, and nothing would please me more than to influence the voting on the monthly winner and possibly even submitting a comic of my own.
Unfortunately, I can't.
Why not?
Simple. To become a registered Zuda Comics member, submission is required of one's name, username, birthday, and e-mail. Then, an e-mail is sent to you containing your shiny new site password. At least in theory.
I have tested this theory three times and it has failed.
I have also sent two Feedback messages. I have received no answer.
How the heyheyhey am I supposed to cast votes and win competitions if you people won't send me a password to my e-mail address???
I know that the e-mail exists. It is used, may I note, quite frequently. Without it I would not be able to sign in to work on this blog; or chat on the IMDb, TGN, or FanIQ.
So what exactly is the problem here?
I have only encountered this problem in one other instance, and that is in the voting for MLB.com's This Year in Baseball awards. This is surmounted by giving a different e-mail address (my father's at work, actually), but OK because that is the entire extent of its use--votecasting. How am I to receive messages and notifications from Zuda if I use a different account? Answer me that!
Just for the record, my favorite comic was Battlefield Babysitter. The eventual winner, High Moon, was close but lacked a really coherent intro to the storyline (if you hadn't read the blurb about it). Alpha Monkey didn't appear to aim very high and might someday morph into a Saturday morning cartoon. Leprenomicon had okay art but confused me. And I stopped halfway through reading This American Strife, it was so bad. All the rest I didn't read because they didn't interest me.
* EDIT - I recently found this page which basically says exactly what I think, and that what I skipped wasn't worth reading. I feel so connected!

TODAY'S BOOK: "My American Adventure", by Amy Burritt ((c) 1998)

Labels: biographical

Disney.com is now even less easily navigable than before, if you can believe it ... MBTN.net was supposed to have their redesigning done by August, instead they're at the supposedly temporary domain of http://www.metsbythenumbers.com/ ... A-Z Lyrics's search engine is pretty low-tech ... SoundTrack Lyrics got a simpler and easier-to-use homepage ... with the end of the Harry Potter series, Beyond Hogwarts has had a much lower output ... the Marvel Universe has become a victim of its own complexity, now bloated, barely navigable, and above all plagued with a new and supremely unattractive layout ... Overture has stopped being a search engine and shall be stricken from the record ... for the first time I can remember, MLB.com has not made any major layout changes over a 12-month period ... DC Comics replaced their clunky old "Series Adverts" section on their homepage with a higher-tech scroll-through selection of on-the-shelf titles, and added a helpful section featuring bite-sized bios of selected heroes and villains ... Web Sudoku comes with more options than ever, including Jigsawdoku and other variations ... in case you haven't noticed, the links list has meanwhile been modified ... JKRowling.com has become a case study in inertia ... I can no longer enter Razzies.com because every time I try a virus attacks my computer ... Peekvid offers more choice than ever but I no longer use it ... just checking to make sure you're still paying attention ... I'm pretty sure Dav Pilkey has not updated his website since 2005 ... Yotzma.com has stopped hosting Google's search engine and shall join Overture in the dustbin ... Dark Roasted Blend now offers "Biscotti Bits" as well as Link Lattes; each one comes with a series of pictures that, amusingly, all link back to the bottom link on the list ... Cartoon Network takes a bleep-load of time to load pages, so enter at your own risk

TODAY'S BOOK: "Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage", by Alfred Lansing ((c) 1959)

Labels: the blog

Labels: random

Labels: cartoon

Seventy-eight twice thirty-nine Lamed Tet Avot Mel'acha prohibitions the Prohibition Era alcohol drinking water fish school of fish high school Never Ends songs singing folk songs traditions "Tradition" Fiddler on the Roof musicals Broadway street streetwise smart brains Braniac ENIAC computer Microsoft Bill Gates geek nerd Dr. Seuss children's literature children's television CPB Sesame Street Muppets Kermit the Frog amphibians salamanders lizards geckos Geico insurance evil Zurg Darth Vader James Earl Jones Mufasa The Lion King lions pride of lions pride goeth before a fall Aesop the Greeks "It's all Greek to me" incomprehensible reprehensible disgusting gross G.R.O.S.S. secret clubs secrecy spying the CIA screw-ups screws nuts and bolts bolting running racers marathon runners Bodton Marathon Boston Red Sox the Red Sock legendary George Washington president chairman of the board leader in charge electrical charge wall socket shocking incredible The Incredibles superheroes heroes NYPD September 11th terrorism terror fright scary horror film genre type typewriter obsoltete ancient pyramids triangles geometry mathematics school subject school jail dungeon Dungeons & Dragons fantasy Terry Pratchett comedy duos twos twice as nice polite kind well-brought-up up high flying airplanes rocketships the Moon white pale blood loss anemia disease measles mumps swelling balloons bright colorful crayons boxes cardboard brown Brown vs. The Board of Education segregation racial violence Watts Los Angeles Hollywood movies studios artists painters gouache clay models model trains transit transitory fleeting passing ephemeral seasonal Four Seasons Holiday Inn hotels motels cheap pawnshop fences good fences make good neighbors peacefulness Camp David Accords 1978 seventy-eight.

TODAY'S BOOK: "Uncle Misha's Partisans", by Yuri Suhl ((c) 1973)

Labels: free association