Notes From a Day

Something happened during my lunch hour that I can't recall ever happening to me before at any time in my 51 years -- a pigeon crapped on me. Hit my foot. The pigeon poop wiped off nicely from my shoe (guess the waterproofing stuff I sprayed on my shoes works on that, too), but my pantyhose at the ankle was a mess until I got back to work and could wash it off. Yuck.

Found this on a few blogs already today: William Gibson started blogging again. Now that's good news. He's one of my favorite writers. Which isn't all that a select group as it sounds. I have a lot of favorite writers.

A big topic in the comic book world is the revelation at the end of the new issue of Green Arrow (#43) that Mia, a girl Ollie "Green Arrow" Queen took off the streets, is HIV positive. People on comic book message boards seem split between wanting to see how it plays out/it's an important storyline to Judd Winick (the writer) sucks. Since the Judd Winick Sucks contingent has been around for a while and hasn't been shy about expressing its collective dislike for his writing, this was no surprise to me. Personally, I'm intrigued and am hoping he does something meaningful with it. Green Arrow has a tradition of socially conscious storylines dating back to the Green Lantern/Green Arrow comics of the late-'60s/early-'70s. In that short-lived and much lamented series, Green Arrow's ward Roy "Speedy," now "Arsenal" Harper was revealed to be a heroin addict who kicked his habit cold turkey. That history has remained part of Roy's background through all the various rebootings DC Comics has undergone since and it's made him a stronger character. Judd has the chance to do something special with Mia; I hope he doesn't blow it.

The NY Mets are looking to start their own sports network a la the Yankees YES network to broadcast their games and those of other local teams. I've seen at least one comment online deriding this as an attempt by the Mets to be more like the Yankees, but it's really good business sense and the Mets are going about it smarter than the Yankees did, working with TimeWarner and Comcast. With luck, this will keep the nonsense that occurred this season among the Mets and the cable companies that kept a week or so of games off the TimeWarner system (given the Mets' poor play this year, hardly anyone noticed). (I suppose I could look up the details that I've clearly already forgotten, but I'm too lazy.) If the new network does the right thing and doesn't hire Fran Healy to do the broadcasts, it will be a good thing. But I'm not holding my breath. Meanwhile, I'm hoping Yankees' coach Willie Randolph gets the Mets' managerial job.