1. In ComicRack, I start by creating a list folder called Comics I Follow.
2. Inside that folder, I create individual Reading Lists for each ongoing series I’m following. I usually go with a Smart List, which will automatically pick up new issues as I add them to the database.
3. Next I set up non-Smart Lists (Dumb Lists?) for older runs/series/events that I want to re-read or catch up with… just create the list, and drag-n-drop all the relevant issues into the list.
4. If there are single issues/graphic novels that I’m wanting to read, I toss them into a Miscellaneous list.
5. Now the most important step: I add a new root-level Smart List (outside the Comics I Follow folder, in other words) that has two features: (a) it uses Comics I Follow as its source, and (b) filters out all comics that I’ve already read. This Smart List gets labeled Comics To Sync.

So that’s the setup. Now here’s the usage:

1. Every week or so, when I’m ready to move new content on to the iPad, I run ComicRack and view the Comics To Sync list.
2. I also open up iTunes, and size both windows for easy dragging-and-dropping. Within iTunes, I select my connected iPad, click the Apps tab. scroll down to the file syncing section, and click my reader app of choice.
3. Back in ComicRack, I select the comics I want to read, and drag them into iTunes.
4. Immediately after kicking off that copy operation, I return to the ComicRack window, right-click on the selected comics, and select Mark As Read. (Remember the “unread only” filter I set up? The combination of this step and that filter means that we won’t waste space/time copying the same files to the iPad over and over again.)

That’s pretty much it. In my experience, this process makes keeping up with a steady flow of creatively collected digital comics relatively easy. The flaws in the system are entirely on the reader side, really… Comic Zeal fails to group issues of the same series between syncs, for example, while Comic Reader Mobi doesn’t group anything at all. But those are wrinkles that will work themselves out eventually, and the present situation is still better than any other alternative I’ve seen.

[amazon-product align="right" bordercolor="ffffff"]B001TODCII[/amazon-product]Sadly, Taken‘s commercial success is misleading. No, it isn’t a horrible film, but it’s pretty lame. Everything good about it can be found in the trailer, primarily Neeson’s “I will find you” speech. To his credit, Liam elevates what would otherwise be a wretched mess of a flick into something mostly watchable, but there’s only so much he can do. The thing is even competently photographed and edited… the problems all sprout from a plot and script that try to substitute acts of surprising brutality for characterization and momentum for story.

Random thoughts:

• Accepting Maggie Grace as a seventeen year-old after watching her on Lost is difficult at best. She sells it as best she can, but I never fully bought in.
• Famke Janssen‘s ex-wife/mother character is one of the most mono-dimensional shrews in recent movie history. She exists solely as an emotional shortcut for the audience, making it clear that we’re supposed to sympathize with Neeson’s character. Yawn.
• SPOILER: If I ever find myself needing to extract information from a heroin-addicted sex-slave, it’s nice to know that she’ll have perfectly reliable recall after sobering up. It would suck if the whirlwind of abduction, sexual abuse, and drugs rendered his recollections hazy.
• SPOILER: It’s handy for Neeson’s character that his daughter ends up the big prize in the slave auction, since that means she received better care from her captors. But it raises the question of why her prettier friend ended up a corpse in what appears to be a Parisian slave sorority house. I mean, shouldn’t heads roll for killing off such a valuable asset?
• The moral of the story? Daddy is always right. Even when he’s an absentee, controlling, secretive, and apparently obsessive/compulsive bastard.

]]> http://roger.agincourtmedia.com/2009/06/03/taken-well-that-was-something/feed/ 0 http://roger.agincourtmedia.com/2009/03/09/snl-cathy-vs-jessica-rabbit/ http://roger.agincourtmedia.com/2009/03/09/snl-cathy-vs-jessica-rabbit/#comments Mon, 09 Mar 2009 22:20:00 +0000 roger http://roger.agincourtmedia.com/?p=1126 Continue reading →]]> How has it come to this? How is it that the highlight of any given season of Saturday Night Live ends up being the episode where Justin Timberlake decides to show up? It’s like a sign of the apocalypse or something.

]]> http://roger.agincourtmedia.com/2009/03/09/snl-cathy-vs-jessica-rabbit/feed/ 0 http://roger.agincourtmedia.com/2009/03/09/helpful-tips-for-half-naked-drunks/ http://roger.agincourtmedia.com/2009/03/09/helpful-tips-for-half-naked-drunks/#comments Mon, 09 Mar 2009 21:52:47 +0000 roger http://roger.agincourtmedia.com/?p=1124 Continue reading →]]>

Let’s set aside for the moment the fact that she looks like some stylized, hyper-cute manga character brought to life. (That’s a compliment.) There is simply some bad-ass talent locked up in that tiny body, and I hope to see a lot more of her.

Last month, someone stumbled across the video, and taken aback by the charming/annoying qualities of its creator, posted it to an online forum. This being the Internet, and the Internet being packed to the gills with lonely, physically impotent, and yet aggressive teen boys, the forum devolved into a civil war between those trolling the joint with inane tributes to Boxxy and those who felt (with a conviction you only get from the socially desperate when foxholed in their sphere of empowerment) that she was a new corner in the Quadrangle of Evil and Must Be Stopped.

Boxxy did not understand this, didn’t get the true nature of the situation. She’s a teenager who made a couple goofy videos for her friends, and found out that she had somehow become “popular” thanks to these strange forum people. So she posted there and created a response video:

The results are documented here. It’s an unpleasant, slightly frightening, depressing story, one that makes me want to kick the asses of a whole lotta parents for not instilling silly things like empathy in their offspring.

It’s all in the music. Yeah, the visual editing plays with your head to suggest something creepy, but none of it would work without that ominous music. Reminds me of how silent movies may have gotten by without dialogue or sophisticated editing, but every theater had at least a piano player to cue the audience’s emotional state.

It’s easy to forget how powerful music can be, so thanks, Molester Stallone Guys!

Star Wars: Retold (by someone who hasn’t seen it) from Joe Nicolosi on Vimeo.