Author Archives: Allyn Gibson
Boldly Going Where No CoCo Has Gone Before
It is the year 2025. I am playing Mike Mayfield’s original 1972 Star Trek game in a TRS-80 Color Computer 3 (released 1986) emulator on my Linux Mint Debian Edition machine. I did not have a CoCo 3. I wanted a CoCo 3. I had a CoCo 2, and I loved it. My first computerContinue reading “Boldly Going Where No CoCo Has Gone Before”
A Warm January Day
Today was the first day with temperatures above freezing in about a week and a half. I drove over to the state park overlooking the Susquehanna to get some photos of the river, the bridges, and the hills beyond Columbia before the snow started to seriously melt. It was a nice drive. The road throughContinue reading “A Warm January Day”
On a Bright, Hawaiian Mets Shirt
I am not a fan of the New York Mets — the pain of 1969, years before I was born, is still too near — but as a student of history, I am pained on their behalf by this ad that I saw on Facebook yesterday. The Mets. 1962. Shea Stadium. Set aside the factContinue reading “On a Bright, Hawaiian Mets Shirt”
Empathy Is Not a Sin
A deacon of a church in Utah weighs in on the prayer service at the National Cathedral to mark the inauguration of convicted felon Donald Trump as president of the United States where Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde exhorted the president to show mercy on migrants and the LGBTQ community. Let me reiterate the Community NoteContinue reading “Empathy Is Not a Sin”
Random Screenshots from My Travels
I take screenshots of things I see while surfing the web. On my phone, on my desktop. Doesn’t matter. “Oh, that’s interesting/amusing/weird/useful.” I take a screenshot, because I might want to come back to it later. Of course, then I never do. And the result is a folder full of screenshots on my hard drive,Continue reading “Random Screenshots from My Travels”
Diamond’s Bankruptcy and My Future
Tuesday, Diamond Comic Distributors filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protections. For almost eighteen years–212 issues, counting the unpublished (though finished) May 2020 COVID issue–I’ve been the copywriter on Diamond’s monthly PREVIEWS catalog, though that only scratches the surface of what I do. I wear many, many hats at Diamond, and I have joked my businessContinue reading “Diamond’s Bankruptcy and My Future”
The Neil Gaiman Thing
I have been thinking today of an essay Neil Gaiman wrote almost thirty years ago, for an edition of Fritz Leiber’s The Swords of Lankhmar. It begins: “It is too often a sad and unwise thing to go back and read a favourite book. Favourite books are the treasure-chests of memory; just thinking of theContinue reading “The Neil Gaiman Thing”
Winter’s Arrival
I didn’t get the two inches of snow yesterday that was possible, but what I got isn’t nothing. It’s very cold, blustery too, and the dry snow blows everywhere on the howling winds. And 8 to 12 inches are in the forecast for Monday-Tuesday. Spring is only eleven weeks away. Sigh
Winter Solstice
It’s a cold one today! The winter solstice. “Halfway out of the dark.” It snowed furiously all day yesterday, and this morning everything was icy and frozen. I like seeing the snow on the hills over Red Lion and Windsor way, shining white in the sun. I really should have gone Thursday night to seeContinue reading “Winter Solstice”