Hello all and welcome to my most excellent web page! My goal in adding this page to the WTS is to entertain my fellow toasters, and maybe even a small segment of the rest of the Web. I'll endeavor to add something new every week, so keep checking in, or look for any announcements about my pages in The Wunderland Weekly News. My offerings will fall into two categories: First, original works; artwork, music, photos, or writing that I'm collecting here for self-publication on a scale unimaginable a few years ago. Hopefully, the world's collective yawn won't totally blow me over, but I think you'll enjoy it if you've gotten this far. Second, Stuff I Found On The Web, brought back and held up to the light for your enjoyment. There's a whole underground world of music publication on the Web through a device called "MIDI", and I have a link page or two of my favorites for you to cruise. Also, in commenting on an issue or interest of mine, I'll write some essays filled with links for you to read. Go directly to the corners of my electronic world by using the navigation bar appearing at the top of this page, or jump down below this section to find out what I've added this week. I'll also be experimenting with time, allowing you to scroll through previous weeks' versions of my pages where appropriate.
This week's comic reviewLiving In Greytown embodies everything that is great about what quaintly used to be called "underground comics". It's an explosion of surreal and slightly disturbing characters, art, and stories made sense of by reading the character bios or just reading the entire archive from the start (the latter strongly recommended). There's only one premise here. Greytown is a town from which there is no escape, thanks to a particular devil, "Phil". Phil is too unimaginative to actually torture the people and talking animals who are unlucky enough to enter or inhabit Greytown; fortunately they are all too willing to do that themselves. All the characters are terrifically cute, which makes the drama of their wretched lives all that much more heartbreaking. In the story, Phil recently faced down a much more evil demon for control of the town, so it's hard to say where this story will go, but I check it every day in total anticipation that it will be great. Also, be sure to check out the author's other project, Otaku Feh!. If you find Living In Greytown to be too burdened with plot, Otaku Feh is just what's on the artist's mind this week. It recently ran a thorough a hilarious parody of Sinfest which ended in controversy, so you'd better check it out before it vanishes for some reason. How To Get Space NewsHello, freaks and geeks who I call my friends. I've recently noticed that a few of you are feeling out of touch with the latest space news, maybe even wondering if anything at all is happening. In fact, amazing things are happening in space, NASA, and astronomy in general on a daily basis. But you don't need to have a NASA job to keep up with all the industry dirt. Since my last trespass through the cushy world of employment I've discovered all the news resources anybody could need, right on the Web. I find it great fun to keep up to date, and it takes only minutes a day. Did you know that the Iridium constellation, once doomed to an insanely wasteful planned deobit plan, has been saved by a web of back room deals that has found uses for the satellites in the DoD and as ionospheric weather mappers? Want to know what names are being floated this week for Dan Goldin's replacement? Did you know that the Hubble constant is being measured with an accuracy that increases an order of magnitude practically every month? The following three or four links are for my money one of the best entertainment channels on the Web:
Spaceflight Now. The best space information site I've seen. Reasons? 1. Coverage of every launch, manned or unmanned. 2. Full coverage of the science and astronomy, in-orbit or ground. Breathtaking advances in cosmology and planetology are occuring every day, and this site always has the breaking news and analysis of what it means. 3. Whoever's behind this site works hard. The news is always reported as it's breaking; for some launches on a minute-by-minute basis. I've seen many stories here that have taken days or weeks to filter into the mainstream media. Perhaps most amazing, the stories are on the whole written by Spaceflight Now staff, and full of great images. Compare that to many other sites, where generally the most you can expect is a text-only article or a link to a press release. Lastly, the site is brilliantly well-organized, loads quickly, and is full of goodies like the rocketcam archives. Nasa Watch. This modest looking text-heavy site is the best clearing house of links to NASA and world space news you can go to. It's how I found Spaceflight Now. Apparently a one-man organization, it's primary mission is as a "watchdog" of NASA and Washington politics that affect it. Which is not to say that's all that's there; it's full of relevant and timely links gathered from news organizations all over the Web, the fruits of the author's well-tuned talent for internet cruising no doubt. However, no other site can deliver the dirt like Nasa Watch on what's happening *behind* the scenes. From anonymous tips on shocking program cancellations not yet announced to exposes of congressional and administrative monkeyshines, with a strong and unapologetic dose of the author's personal opinion on the same, this site helps you see the news long *before* it happens. In many recent cases this web site has played an important role in essential public involvement in the space program (for instance in preventing the news of the cancellation of the Pluto-Kuiper Express from being buried and reporting on the groundswell of response to the news). Florida Today. The website of the Brevard County newspaper, with an all-local (to Cape Canaveral) flavor of space news. Covering the world and providing links to many other sites, Floriday Today's "Space Online" also has up-close and personal views of how things are going at NASA's main launch facility. Major milestones in each shuttle mission are reported, as are local launches and politics. This site has suddenly entered a state of transition after being available for years. Due to recent mergers in the print news world, the old "Space Online" site has been vastly cut back, and moved to another location from it's old URL, with a lot of staff cutbacks and basically being absorbed into "Space.com". Unfortunately, it looks like Space.com is about to be axed by its investors over reported poor performance, so it remains to be seen if Florida Today's site will be cut loose again to resume it's old life or will simply disappear. Space.com. The top dog in URLs if not in news quality, this site has been a bold attempt to reach out and generate public interest for space news. Consequently, the site is loaded with stuff other than news. There's a strong and informative educational spin to the articles they have, and there's lots of good features. Personally, I find this site best for the cheerful and topical "science fiction" section, containing the absolute best TV show episode reviews I've ever found.
Other corners of my annex:Play my MIDI links! (why and how) f1.7, Charles Dickson's Photo Essays Future Links:
The Lisa Joy Adulation Page
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