Finding It

The Phillies won last night — and it had nothing to do with this post.

I wrote a blog entry titled “Losing It” upon their dropping the first game of the
season, you see. And while I’m not superstitious it’s curious that right after that all of my entries to date here disappeared. Never mind that the rest of the post was positive, despite its name.

So as I retyped lost entries, I decided to see whether I could turn the tides of fortune. The only question was, Should the opposite of “Losing It” be “Finding It” or “Winning It”? The Phils were down 3-0 going into the 9th inning when I began writing the meat of this post, so “Winning It” felt inappropriate, and I definitely had some material on the subject of finding.



My friend Tony Isabella has a book coming out in November called 1,000 Comic Books You Must Read. I was recently one of several people helping him dig up several bits of data needed before publication — the kind of help I’d give nearly anyone who asked if able, but the least I could do for the first comic-book professional I ever formally interviewed and someone who’s shown me many kindnesses over the years. Tony is fast approaching the 20th anniversary of Tony’s Tips, his Comics Buyer’s Guide column, and presides over a lively online forum hosted by World Famous Comics (where you can read Tony’s Online Tips, a combination of new and reprint material posted each weekday). He created Black Lightning at DC, enjoyed a long run on Marvel’s Ghost Rider, and has written Star Trek in comics and prose.

Among the fun things in his forum this week was a link to Daniel Baxter’s How It Should Have Ended series on YouTube. The actual linked cartoon, “How Star Wars Episode IV Should Have Ended”, was all right, but I preferred “How Willy Wonka Should Have Ended” and “How Superman Should Have Ended”. Each video runs two minutes or less.

Having decided on “Finding It” over “Winning It” and writing much of the above, I discovered that Philly had turned it around to win 7-3. The last four runs came all at once on a grand slam by Shane Victorino. I can literally hear the late Harry Kalas calling the shot, a bittersweet conjuration that will likely last the season. Now they've won tonight’s game in the 10th inning, too, another come-from-behind effort.

Like I said, however, this post had nothing to do with either Phillies win, lest the spirits of karma or fate decide to jinx me for hubris. I wouldn’t mind learning what caused those fifty posts of mine to disappear, though.

What nifty Internet diversions have you come across lately?


Related: 1 for 1 • Uh-Oh • R2 Details • Amped Up • Hello, Goodbye