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I am wearing a black shirt today.

This, in and of itself, is hardly noteworthy. I wear this shirt about as often as I wear any of my other shirts to work. What made me think about it is that Ted Danson, on Becker as Becker (reruns, of course...they play while I'm running out the door), mentioned to a woman that black was very slimming.

I've heard this before, but I never really thought about the context. I mean, let's say I go up to someone and say, "Hey, nice shirt. Black is very slimming." What I've really just said is, "Hey, you're fat. That shirt makes you look slightly less so."

And then, I get slapped.

I suppose I get the principle behind the idea. I mean, black shadows less on itself and so it creates more of a silhouette of you and leaves out some of the 3-dimensionality (but, let's face it...even black has its limits) making one look like they might, in fact, be a bit more slim. I, for one, don't think it works in profile, though. At least, it doesn't on me.

When I was working at Wal-Mart, one of my coworkers and I had a running joke (?) that we were actually in a paper and pencil RPG. I'm sure we weren't the first to say such things, but we both decided that we'd fumbled a roll getting a job there. To carry that idea on, I wonder if black clothing items would then give you a negative bonus to your girth attribute, which would, inversely, affect your charisma. I imagine that a shirt made from carbon nanotubes would be some sort of quest item, giving a -5/+5 to girth and charisma respectively. Of course, there would probably be some sort of off-set to that, since black draws in light and heat like Britney Spears does crazy. Maybe over time the charisma bonus would start ticking away because the user gets sweaty.

Of course, no amount of black clothing created charisma could erase the stink of having played a Britney Spears song in a band, regardless of intended irony.

Fortunately, no one here has ever done that.

No Fuss? Make One!

I'm all for sensitivity. Really. Well, due sensitivity, anyway. I mean, you just don't go up and ask someone if they want to go back over puppies with you just after their dog has been run over. You don't ask a widow how single life is at her husband's funeral. And you certainly don't surprise a soldier fresh from Iraq with some leftover Black Cats from July 4th. Why? Because it's insensitive. And unduly so. Eventually, though, the dog owner will get over the loss of a pet, either through time or replacement, the widow will hopefully accept the loss (though respect for the dead is still a good plan) and, God willing, the soldier will not suffer long term trauma due to his service.

That said...you had to see that coming...I think Fox News needs to man up. While doing my daily Google news check on the WGA strike (I needs mah TV, mayn!), I came across an article about JJ Abrams new movie Cloverfield. Thanks to clever marketing, I was intrigued by the movie around the time the first trailers ran. I probably won't ever see the movie because Andria thinks it looks stupid and our movie watching time is limited anyway, so I try to subject her to as little crap as possible. I don't feel like this has lessened my enjoyment of anything, though. I'll just read the plot summary on Wikipedia and call it a day. What got me was how the article said, and I quote:

Cloverfield also inadvertently disses New York for what happened on Sept. 11, 2001, by re-enacting scenes of buildings exploding and massive clouds of debris for fun and profit.

Does no one recall what was said following the World Trade Center disasters? There was such sensitivity about the huge human losses that images of the Twin Towers were erased from movie posters and excised from films.

Like I said, I'm all for sensitivity, but is it really necessary that we call a moratorium on destroying New York because of what happened? I mean, if we follow that logic, shouldn't Peter Berg and the people at Universal be called insensitive for protraying an attack on Americans on foreign soil. I mean, the US embassy attack in Kenya happened in '98, only three year before the September 11th attacks. And I am Legend has WAY more dead New Yorkers than Cloverfield, if that's the bar for sensitivity that we're setting. I mean, ALL of them are dead except Will Smith. And The Bourne Ultimatum has Matt Damon, which is insensitive to Ben Affleck, because Matt still has an acting career.

Now, hyperbole aside, it's not like Abrams and Co. are pulling a Uwe Boll and making light of the attack. They just have a movie that a) is set in New York and b) due to the plot has scenes of New York's destruction. They could have set it elsewhere and nobody would've thought a thing about any relationship between the attack and the movie. The clouds of debris would be just that. Clouds of debris. If they'd been left out, someone, maybe even the writer of the same article, would've cried foul over the lack of realism in the mayhem. But, they didn't. NYC got the spotlight. Why? Because the city itself is an icon. No other city is as recognizable as "America". Not only is it culturally significant, though, but it's also geographically prime. The 1998 Godzilla movie also took place in New York and also featured he destruction of the city. Now, I don't expect that anyone should've been offended preemptively, but the reason New York was chosen as a replacement for Tokyo (once again, beyond the cultural significance) is that New York is on the coast. Unless something is coming from space and lands in a cornfield, it has to go through some coastal area. And if it's going through a coastal area, why not someplace where it can trash things? I'm not a monster, I don't know how they think (ok, how they WOULD think, since they're not real), but I assume that a monster worth its salt would probably bypass someplace like Holly Ridge, North Carolina, in favor of the Big Apple. What would it do, kick over the Faith Harbor United Methodist Church, trip over Danny's Welding and Crane Service, then head back out to sea, bored to death? Please!

I'm not presuming that Cloverfield will be a good movie. It's a giant monster flick made by a guy who couldn't keep people interested in a bunch of castaways long enough to match Gilligan's Island!
(Ok, Gilligan only made it three seasons and Lost will be starting number four soon, but Gilligan died so that Gunsmoke could live and Lost is really only on life support because JJ and crew promised to wrap up that mess in 2010)

What I am saying is that the victims and families of the September 11th attacks should be treated with respect. However, that doesn't mean that we should automatically shy away from telling a story just because a minority of people who MIGHT go into the movie completely unaware of its subject matter and be offended by it. If Hollywood would like to do something to keep a majority of people from being offended, instead, they should try to stop making crap.

Cataloging

My musical quest continues. At my current position, I've gone through the vast majority of my own collection and have put a sizeable dent in my wife's when it comes to loading them onto the iPod. The current length, if playing every song until they were all played once, hovers at just under 40 days of music. Theoretically, I could ride out The Flood. Well, the flooding part. Not so much the floodED part. I might have to hear a song more than once, may God have mercy upon me. I was a bit worried, though, because a lot of stuff that I consider to be essential, along with some stuff that isn't, was MIA until late last night. As it stood, I was going to be without Soundgarden (not to be confused with Savage Garden...gah...my wife scares me sometimes...*shiver*...) and the MTV Unplugged disc was my only Nirvana. I still had AiC to up the Seattle count, but From the Muddy Banks... was unaccounted for and there's a lot of good Cobain stuff on there. Live tracks, no less. I'm considering the amount of work involved in creating a Live Tracks playlist, among others, and it would be hurting without some Heartshaped Box. Beyond that, I was also missing Jars of Clay's Much Afraid and a couple Beatles CDs. There may have been a logic to placing all those in the same case, the one that was hidden until last night, but it escapes me now.

They'll have to wait until I finish my wife's collection, which should take only an hour or two more. That's helped by the fact that, even though I'm endeavoring to load most everything on, there are certain things I will not abide. Savage Garden being one. I don't remember seeing any in her stacks, but if it is, it's getting bypassed.

My wife doesn't see the point in all the effort I'm going to get it ALL loaded on, but I think she'll appreciate it the next time we have to iPod it across the country to Idaho. I mean, not having to lug a CD case of the things we thought we might want to listen to, having it jammed in the front seat, taking up precious real estate, these all appeal to me greatly. Even if I have to have The Dixie Chicks on there.

Yeah, I managed to let them pass my crap filter. I don't feel good about it, but I did.

I've been lying to her, though, about how I just need to finish loading them, because unless we want to listen to them shuffled randomly or sorted by artist, album or whatever, there's no appreciable way to hear what I want to hear in groups. I mean, REALLY the way I want to hear it. Smartlists are fine, but somehow my Sinatra CD got into the 90's list I have going. That was a strange one.

It occurs to me that the Seinfeld CD is probably in there, too.

The problem with playlists, like mixtapes, is that they're just snapshots. Now, I'm not going to wax poetic on the subject, Cusack did that well enough, but finding a way to meaningfully divide music in a way that will remain relevant in the coming days, weeks, months, whatever...you know, when I'll actually be listening to it...seems daunting. I mean, it's not permanent like a tatoo (I had a hard time with that one...), but the active time committment of wading through thousands of songs to piece together a list (versus the passive time committment of loading them in the first place) is serious business. On the upside, I won't be dominating the DSL by that point (I should've put a wireless router on my Christmas list...).

By the by, if anyone knows of a way I can import cover art for the CDs iTunes couldn't find art for, I'd love to hear about it.

I suppose that, really, the playlisting is something I should consider a work in progress. I mean, I really don't need to become obsessed with that after I finish this.

Who would've known that taking my music into the 21st century would be so much work?

Capacitor

I recently acquired an iPod in a game of chance. Rest easy. I didn't kill anyone you know for it. The iPod, as a status symbol, never much appealed to me. I mean, I remember when the Walkman was the cool thing and the iPod was just a new iteration of that idea. I mean, I'd had an mp3 player and gotten maybe 10 or 12 hours of use out of it before deciding it was too much trouble.

You'll have to forgive my ignorance.

The strength of the iPod lies in the fact that it doesn't just hold the music you put on it from A playlist and, possibly, shuffle them in different, random, yet oddly repetetive orders. Instead, it holds all the lists you can devise. I wish someone would've been kind enough to inform me of this. Also, the click wheel interface didn't much make sense to me at a glance. So you can skip forwards and backwards. So you can play and pause. So what? I didn't realize you could actually wheel about! Why is it that no one lets me know when I'm thinking something stupid?

...Wait, they do.

Why is it that people don't let me know when it's something I care about?!?! It's reintroduced music into my way of life.

Now, the one I own is a 5th generation 30gb, making it tiny by current standards. That's fine with me. First of all, it was free. Second of all, it's better than the iPod I had before. You know, none. Plus, as I am blissfully ignorant and don't know if it's a bitrate matter or one of file format and compression, I'm finding that at this point, after uploading at least half, if not 2/3 of my CD collection, I'm just barely cracking 2.5gb. And I've loaded EVERYTHING.

Well, not EVERYTHING. I did leave a couple tracks out from a CD or two that I copied because the tracks were bad. They never played right. I assume that my CD burner was faulty. I also skipped a couple compilation CDs that came in some magazines because I wasn't ready to weed out the feces from the good stuff at the time. I may just go back and load the whole thing later. Who knows. And I also skipped a couple entire discs that I bought cheap because they were CDs that my brother owned when we were both at home still. Had I taken into account that his tastes are wildly different from mine, I might've saved my $1.50.

I may load those on, as well. You never know when I might want to listen to crap.

On a whole, though it's been a pleasant experience, the main lesson I'm carrying away is that I don't own enough music. It's like a challenge to fill it up, and at this point, I don't think I can without cheating and loading tons of videos or something on it. I mean, my wife says I'm displaying obsessive behavior, which is kind of true, but loading CD after CD onto iTunes takes a while. After I get it all loaded onto that, one sync and I'm effectively finished (except for when I get new CDs...at Christmas and birthdays...) and the only other things I'll need to do with it (besides listening) are when I get an idea for a new playlist or something.

The lack of fillage (not a word) is rather annoying, though. I mean, according to the iTunes library, I've got 35+ days, DAYS, of music loaded currently and that's only 8.3% of it's total capacity. It suddenly makes sense that so many people are illegally downloading music. I mean, who has the time, let alone the funds, to continually shop for new music to fill these things? I think Steve Jobs is in cahoots (I despise that word) with the RIAA and probably the courts. He throws down the gauntlet by continually upping the capacity on his players. The User has to find methods to fill the player. The RIAA takes them to court for the illegal methods they use. The RIAA, the lawyers, and the courts collect their respective fees and winnings, and Jobs probably gets kickbacks or something. I don't know.

Now, lest ye think that I'm making some lame, old guy grab at the last vestiges of cool available to him, I should mention that of the non-music files on the iPod, which I named iPodicus Maximus...ironically, I think, I have pictures and videos of Aaron.

Sweet, but not cool. Because I was never that to begin with.

Powerless

synchronicity

Main Entry:
syn·chro·nic·i·ty
Pronunciation:
\ˌsiŋ-krə-ˈni-sə-tē, ˌsin-\
Function:
noun
Inflected Form(s):
plural syn·chro·nic·i·ties
Date:
circa 1889

1 : the quality or fact of being synchronous 2 : the coincidental occurrence of events and especially psychic events (as similar thoughts in widely separated persons or a mental image of an unexpected event before it happens) that seem related but are not explained by conventional mechanisms of causality —used especially in the psychology of C. G. Jung

It's funny. Well, really it's irritating to the point that I just want to punch someone, but that would be funny. Not for me, because I'd probably get beaten up, but funny for someone.

Anyway, having chased that rabbit, let's get back to the blog at hand.

So, the Heroes Volume 2 finale, titles "Powerless" was on last night. I know this in an academic sense. There is evidence it happened. I can cite sources and, were I inclined, give a close approximation of the plot. I cannot, however, give a first-hand account. Last night was the second night I stayed at my parents' because the power company was supposed to switch off the power to my house and connect some new stuff so that the old crappy stuff can go away.
I say "supposed to" because they didn't. Actually, today, the chances of it happening were, in their minds, slim. That was just information I didn't have. What they did today was send a woman with a spyglass-like measuring tool and a stake to mark where a new pole will go.

In two weeks.



Or whenever they get to it.

Beyond that, there's still no word on exactly how soon the new wire will be coming in along with all the switching off and on of power. April, I'm thinking. And what really bothers me is that there's nothing I can do but yell at people who 1) have no control over the situation and 2) aren't responsible for the mess, anyway.

Well, that, and I can watch Heroes....finally...

Strange Things

It occurs to me that, generally, it's considered bad form to do things that cause others to to incur debt. The larger the debt, the more inconsiderate the offense. There appears, however, to be a break-off point where the debt becomes so large that, under the right circumstances, it becomes welcomed.

I'm referring to the cost of an ambulance. In almost, but certainly not all, cases where an ambulance is warranted, people are more than fine with you calling one for them, running up a tab in the thousands of dollars for a five minute drive. Ten if you count the trip to pick up the patient. But, in most cases, the person calling, or someone in the area, who is certainly closer than an ambulance (because, really, who ever has a medical emergency as one is driving by?), has access to a car that could drive the person in to the hospital.

Not into a hospital.

You've got to watch those prepositions. Go driving someone into a hospital and they're going to need a hospital worse than before. And you'll be needing a new car.

I realize that there are situations where medical professionals need to be on scene taking care of the patient, but I'd personally much rather have someone drive me to the hospital if, say, I got my arm chopped off than wait for an ambulance to arrive. Screw the upholstry! This is my life we're talking about. I'll spring for the OXY activated cleaner if I make it. It's got to be cheaper than an ambulance. That's for sure.

Time to Take a Stand!

I just had a brilliant idea. One of the major complaints that older people make, especially those who grew up in the sixties, is that my generation (X) and subsequently the batch of kids running around today (they get a new name every time you turn around...I prefer "Infants"...you know who you are) is that we don't care about anything. Sure, we grumble about things like injustice and various political ideals, but compared to those who marched with Martin Luther King, Jr., those who held sit-ins or those who were eventually shot at during the Kent State fiasco...we're not even playing the same game.

That's when it hit me. You see, there are just so many causes, so many things that need to change, that it's hard to find something to really get behind.

That's why I suggest we all get behind no cause at all! We take part in what I have labelled "Non-objective Activism". We'll stage marches and protests. We can have sit-ins and letter writing campaigns. We'll finally make the older generation proud of our effort by protesting...stuff! We'll have slogans on our signs like "Boo!" or "Down with that!" or even "Things gotta change!" It doesn't matter what, because something will! The problems with objective activism is that sometimes you don't get your way and eventually the cause dies because people give up. Not so with non-objective activism. When you protest nothing in particular, you protest everything! If something you're not happy about gets fixed, hooray! But keep protesting because surely something else isn't right, eh? Non-objective activism is the ultimate answer to those who claim that nothing is being done because you're always doing something about it. Whatever it is. Which doesn't even matter!

So, grab some posterboard and giant markers! Start a petition! Picket something! You don't need to be mad about anything in particular, you just need to be mad enough to desire that something changes! Or, as my all-purpose sign will read: This ain't right!

The Iron Cliche

Let me preface this by saying that I really like The Iron Giant. I'd managed not to see it until this weekend, but having remedied that, I'm pleased to have watched it.

Ok, so what's up with single mom's working in diners. Almost every tv/movie mom who is without husband (for whatever reason) works in a diner. Do they hand these things out at the hospital? When some girl who gets knocked up by her boyfriend who skips town comes in, do they hand her, along with prenatal vitamins, a handful of applications to Waffle House and such? Is there some arcane law I don't know about? Should something happen to me, would this be Andria's fate?

The diner, as a source of income, seems to be an especially poor choice for a woman on her own with child. First, the hours, as put forth by tv and movies, are inconsistent. Apparently, they only ask the woman who has no one to take care of her children to cover extra shifts. On one hand, I could see that being helpful...more hours = more money. On the other hand, the kid is probably burning the apartment down while she's at work. That or befriending an over-sized robot and bringing nuclear holocaust to your small New England town. Whatever.

The second issue is that, apparently, people who eat at diners are either apt to sexually harass their waitress or they're up to no good in a way completely unrelated to anyone else in the diner but will end with someone driving a truck/bus/SUV through the wall. Or they're carrying a bomb. This isn't what you would call favorable working conditions.

Lastly, no one gets paid well at a diner. The kind of people who eat at diners, according to movies and tv, are not the kind of people who leave big tips. They may even end up robbing the place, only to have Samuel L. Jackson, in his underwear, to force them to return his wallet bearing a rather distinct, expletive filled label embroidered on it. But still, no tips.

If I were Hogarth's mom, or any of the others in the army of single fictional moms, I'd start looking for employment elsewhere.

Should You Ever...

If, at any time, you are ever interrupted, say, by a knock at the door, in the midst of a delicate moment...er...a private time...ok, if you're in the middle of sex...don't answer the door. But if you must, don't answer the door in your underwear. And if you must also do that, don't answer the door in your underwear and try to carry on a conversation with the interrupter whilst "hiding" behind your near-nakedness behind a glass door. I don't care if it's frosted glass. It's still bloody glass. Besides, they'll probably put together what you'd been doing and they're certainly uncomfortable about the fact. There's no need to add to the awkwardness by prolonging the moment.

I'm just saying...if that should ever happen to you...

And if you're the interrupter, it's probably best just to run away.

Note from Monday

Ok, so Monday was the 3rd anniversary of my marriage to Andria, which was pretty cool. We spent it in a rather unorthodox fashion, but a good time was had.

First thing, which is to say after we crawled out of bed around noon, we went to White Water, a water park in Branson, Mo, which is where we were staying. Conveniently, White Water was located straight across the street.

And we still drove there.

Anyway, what amused me most about it all was that apparently Germ-X has sponsored the park because outside all the restrooms there are rather large stations with Germ-X hand sanitizer for you to use and, on the backdrop for it, some slogan about preventing the spread of, you got it, germs.

I laughed when I saw it because we were LITERALLY swimming in each other's filth and they expect us to believe that a little squirt of Germ-X on our hands is gonna make everything ok.

And next time a dam breaks, you should go throw a bath sponge at it.

That'll help.

Vacation Particles

Death Drive

I find, as I age, that I'm less and less capable of staying up past the grandfatherly hour of 11pm (or even up to it at times). This is probably due, in no small part, to the fact that I've been getting less sleep since Aaron was born. You'd think that, having a baby, this would be expected. You'd be right, but wrong in assuming that he was the cause of it. In fact, I can find no particular reason why I've been missing sleep of late and it's somewhat alarming. Of course, he was at fault the night before we left for Vegas, so that made driving to Amarillo (our first stop) tricky. However, there were far less occurrences throughout the trip of the dreaded asleep with eyes open condition that I've experienced in the past. Far less. That, however, didn't make the couple that did happen any more comforting.

More alarming, however, was when my car unexpectedly overheated at Cuervo, NM. I hadn't noticed the temperature gauge spiking, so I was surprised as I pulled into the gas station for a refill to see the water and coolant my car so desperately needed gushing onto the pavement. The day before our return trip ('cause I put everything off to the last minute) I replaced the thermostat with the help of her cousin. That is to say, I watched as he did the real work.

I did burn my thumb, though.

Vegas, baby! VEGAS!

Suffice to say, Vegas has earned every last bit of it's reputation. Andria and I lost a combined total of $9 (unless you count the $10 she was up on the slots at one point) and that even includes her $5 bingo game (her grandmother's choice). I got to play Empire Strikes Back on the slots at the Stratosphere, which was cool, though not being able to go up to the top of the tower because we were 3 minutes late to the ticket counter (we'd passed it before, but the shrouded kiosks blocked our view of it as we rushed to the elevator at the end of an extremely long walkway) because nobody at the elevator up knew where we'd get tickets.

Morons.

Andria's family was great, as usual. We had a few minor comfort issues (apparently, most houses are not built to sleep an entire familial group with ease), but that was hardly a bother. It was nice eating at Jack-in-the-Box, too. We need one of those around here. They have a bacon variant on almost all their items.

Including their shakes!

Ok, not really the shakes.

The two things that did bother me were that, first, my brother-in-law's girlfriend stated that she would in no way take $1 million dollars from Donald Trump, were he to offer it, merely because she didn't like him, and second that he referred to the Bush divorce while speaking of his personal feelings about George W. Honestly, I can let the second slide. I mean, when you watch almost no news, sometimes it's hard to remember where you saw what headline and something from The Globe might sneak in. It's really the first that blew my mind. If Osama bin Laden himself offered me $1 million, no strings attached, I'd be running to the bank. Mind you, I'd turn it down in a heartbeat if even someone generally considered to be a saint offered it with the stipulation that I do something I would feel to be wrong.

Well, maybe two heartbeats...I got bills, man...

The Devil be my Guide

I love technology. I do. Anything that can remove some of the tedium from life and free up some time to do something preferable is a good thing in my book. Unfortunately, anything new can cause problems. If the technology is new, it often has glitches. If the user is new, well, I'm sure we've all seen the effects of inexperience before, even when the user is quicker on the uptake than the standard.

That said, our trip was guided less by a printed map from Yahoo! along with ye olde Rand-McNally, and more by my father's Palm with a GPS....er...doohickey (totally technical). Most of the time, it was great. However, when Andria and I decided at the last minute to take a side trip up to Las Vegas, NM, things got a little weird. Our little detour looked innocent enough, at first. I mean, you could see the road on the map, which seemed like a good sign, so I wasn't too worried when it turned out to be a windy two lane road with no shoulder. Indeed, I wasn't even bothered when we entered a small town either called Villanueva or El Cerrito (Yahoo maps has it listed as both in the "hybrid" view). I even tried to stay optimistic when we turned onto a dirt road, though as the rocks grew larger and the hills and valleys steeper I found that to be a bit more difficult. Then, we hit a gate. The road went through private property and had been locked off.

Huh?

After a moment or two of consideration, we headed back until we saw a guy in a truck coming from a side road. He seemed rather eager to help, probably because we were the first people he'd seen all day, and gave us new directions. It turns out the road DID at one time go off in our previous direction, but then they closed that road off in favor of a newer version of the same road. So, we headed off in the direction he pointed and the road continued with it's rocks the size of a jet ski. This was no longer new to us, so we weren't concerned until we saw "The Hill". I'd been warned about the hill by the friendly rancher, but he said it was nothing we couldn't handle, so long as we took it slow. He failed to mention that it was a gravelly mess, at a 45 degree angle and that the road was no wider than our car as it wound down the side of a mountain with a 100+ foot drop where the shoulder would be.

So, yeah, that sucked.

Then, it turns out that if we'd just set the preferences to "real road" or "don't kill me, please" we might've taken an actual highway. Silly technology...

Truth in Advertising

My mouth is on fire.

Of course, I am not literally emitting flames from my oral cavity, merely expressing via word picture that the chips that I just ate are, indeed, spicy, but you knew that. What you may not have known is that my vacation hate list was also not meant as expressed. I do hate most of the country I have to drive through while on vacation, a major reason for why I opt to do a lot of night driving, but I haven't ever, in memory, had a vacation where I didn't visit some family. Unless you count the honeymoon or our brief anniversary trips, which I don't.

Family most certainly isn't invited on those.

What may come as a shock to you is the fact that I am often given to hyperbole and, when that isn't enough, lying for effect. I'm not a funny man, but that doesn't stop me from trying. In fact, I've nearly completed my transition from "guy who thinks he can draw" to "guy who thinks he can write," though I'll likely always dabble in both.

Mostly, though, I'm just covering my butt so that no one thinks that I'm not looking forward to going on vacation this weekend. Frustrating as it has the possibility of being (based on the few based-in-reality gripes from before), it sure beats hanging around here for the week.

Vacation of Folly

People have such odd ideas about vacations. They spend the whole year looking forward to them, saving up their time and money so they can go some place and do some thing. They treat it as if that week or two a year is going to undo the other 50 weeks worth of trauma caused by the crushing reality of adulthood.

What they fail to remember is that the vacation itself is more apt to crush souls than the job could ever.

Allow me to explain:

First of all, you have to plan for a vacation. This involves investigating destinations, plotting courses, figuring out what you're going to do when you're there and deciding whether or not it's worth it to take a vacation at all. That last one usually comes up near the end of preparations. Not only that, but this is when a large chunk of change gets dropped. If you fly, you've got to pay for your ticket ahead of time. If you drive, you've got to make sure your vehicle is in working order. You need to check and see if you have a swimsuit for warm climates, heavy coats for cold. You have to invest in sunscreen, snacks, travel games, and various other things that you don't just have. A cooler, for instance.

Then, you have to pack. Nothing sucks more than packing. It isn't JUST that you have to figure out a way to fit enough clothes to live in for the time you'll be gone, because there's no telling if you'll find facilities to launder them and spending vacation time at a laundromat is no fun. No, it's also that you have to decide what it is you'll need to have packed, just in case. For instance, you may be going to sunny Florida, but what if a hurricane blows in? Do you have a heavy-duty raincoat? And what if you forget your toiletries? Those little bottles of hotel "shampoo" (which is more like corn syrup mixed with your grandmother's perfume) and the disposable razors you can obtain at the front desk (or at Wal-Mart if you're staying at a Super 8) are hardly a substitute for what you usually use. And it gets worse if you accidentally leave your good stuff there!

Once you leave, it doesn't get any better. People always say they want to "go to..." (insert location here). What they mean is, they want to be in (same location). Airports are a nightmare. The threat of a full cavity search is enough to put anyone on edge, and that can be bad news for people who say inappropriate things in stressful situations. And it's not like traveling horror is limited to the airways. Nobody enjoys long distance driving unless they're an AARP member and they're in an RV.

And those are the people ruining it for the rest of us.

Even with the interstate system linking all the places you'd want to go, you don't want to actually have to see them. This isn't only due to anticipation of the destination. Sure, that's a large part, but, seriously, it's boring out there!

Which brings up another annoyance: those games people play on the road. It's bad enough you're crammed in a four foot by five and a half foot space with people who also don't want to be on the road for hour. Why would you want to add in a six hour marathon of I Spy or license plate Bingo? And slug-bug (aka punch buggy to some of you weirdos) always degenerates into a fight.

This, of course, is only broken up by the occasional pit stop. This is not without its own complications. First of all, one restroom is almost always out of order and, for some reason, women don't like using the men's room almost as much as they don't want men using theirs. This is, I suppose, due to the fact that women are ashamed of how nasty they make their restrooms (the atrocities I saw in the women's room at the grocery store I worked for shall haunt me the rest of my days). That, or they don't want to share the couches.

What's that all about anyway? Women sit down to pee already! Do they really need to take a load off before they take a load off?

And there's those four words that haunt any driver..."Are we there yet?" It's not like the driver isn't also ready to be out of the steel and fiberglass deathtrap that is a modern motor vehicle. Usually, the driver has some sort of time investment in the trip, such as vacation days, which would be better spent being somewhere, so the added question of whether or not the group has arrived, which it clearly hasn't, is almost enough to make anyone swerve into the nearest gas tanker.

Then, you get there. Sure, you have the opportunity to do the things you planned for in the beginning...half of which won't pan out...but it's going to cost you the other arm and most of the other leg to do those things. And that's to say nothing of having your sleep disrupted. Nobody goes to bed, eats, pees, whatever...on the same schedule as they do at home. I'll bet Ex-Lax makes a killing in the post-vacation market. And hotel pillows are bad, almost across the board. Not as bad as the rolled sandpaper the leave for you to wipe with, but still pretty bad. Of course, you could stay with family (should you have family where you're going), but that means you have to put up with family and that's just the kind of stress that makes us need vacations in the first place. I mean, not only are there the usual personality conflicts, but also the conflicting interests and schedules. If one group is on vacation, the other's presence in their own home usually means that they are not. Do you wait for them to get free so you can hang out, or do you do your thing and see them on your way to bed? Is it rude to want to have your bloody vacation when you're on vacation?

And then it's time to pack. Again. Of course, now you've not only got all your dirty clothes, but all the crap you bought that will be taking up space in a closet at home because God only knows what you were thinking when you spent $50 on a water bong shaped like the Dali Llama.

Finally, you get home, worn out from either driving too long or sick from sitting in an airplane, trapped for hours with some outbreak monkey who didn't have the good sense, or the common courtesy, to stay their butt home. But, the good news is, it's back to the grind tomorrow! You can just make up for the lost rest next year!

That Doesn't Work!

Item #1: The dog likes cat food and the cat likes dog food.

To be honest, I understand where the dog is coming from. The cat's food is like the forbidden fruit, except that I give her some every time I feed the cat, so, of course, she's going to go crazy for it. The cat, on the other hand, doesn't make sense. She eats the dog food just because. Well, I suppose, it could be out of spite. She does hate...everything with a fiery passion, but without her claws while being saddled with the inborn need to remain immobile as often as possible common in cats, even the effort it takes to eat the dog's food seems a bit much for her.

Item #2: That's TV for you...

I was watching an episode of The Dead Zone this morning as I gave Aaron his early morning bottle, the bottle I get up at 6am for, and I noticed in the conclusion that there was an oddity. Apparently, wherever the show is set (I've only seen a handful of episodes and never the old movie), vandalism and terroristic threatening are NOT offenses which can land you in jail. The basic story for this episode, for those of you who don't watch it, was that Johnny the psychic guy's son, JJ (who does not recognize him as "Dad" but as a genetic donor), was skipping soccer to stalk an acrobat girl at the local circus (let's forget for a second that this town doesn't look like it could sustain a continuous circus, yet the owner talked like it had been there a while...but it was early and I may've misunderstood). So Johnny goes to see what's up and ends up meeting an old friend who, in the time since they knew each other, killed a girl. Another man, who had gone to jail for the murder, was back and kept shattering mirrors and doing things to spook the real murderer into confessing. This brings us back to the end where, after the vandal was captured, the real murderer confesses and is arrested. Just before his capture, vandalman had messed with the rigging on a swing knowing that as soon as murderman's weight was on it, it would snap, falling all of a couple feet, since it wouldn't hold him long enough for the swing to be raised by the pulley. Well, since murderman was in jail, the acrobat girl and went to show off in front of JJ who, thanks to Johnny, had ceased his stalking and tried talking to the girl. Well, the rigging starts snapping and vandalguy was trying to fix it and then trying to hold the cable with his bare hands and does so long enough for Johnny to lend half a second's help before the girl falls and lands on JJ. All this to say, vandalguy should've been back in the pokey and the girl should've ended up dead. Thankfully, laws mean nothing on TV.

Item #3: Feh, coworkers.

I work with this unbearable woman...well, no...that's not entirely true. She works here. I work here. But, we don't work at the same time. Usually. Anyway, she somehow tricked some higher ups into having her come in during the summer (she's usually off) a couple days a week, this month and next. Tuesday was supposed to be the first, so, of course, she called in sick. Apparently, she just needed to have more days she could not come to work on, since there are only so many days during the rest of the year. So much truancy, so little time.

Item #4: Auto-NO-bile

My vacation plans changed, rather suddenly, last week. Originally, Andria and I were going to use my one week (I used the other one I'm allotted last year with its 2 weeks) to...well, I'm not actually sure. But, we weren't going anywhere far or for all of the time. Just enough to enjoy our 3rd Anniversary. Now, we're going to Vegas (baby! VEGAS!!!! ) . Unfortunately, that means getting the car checked and then repaired, because it can never NOT need repairs. So, I'm staring down the barrel of $300+ bill and I know it's got another $150 in tires still in the cartridge.

C'est Fini

I managed to complete that massive project Saturday night around midnight. Actually, I think it was afterward, making it, technically, Sunday, but that may've been when I finished taking pictures of the drawings

Drawings, I might add, which are NOT feature on this post.

Instead, I have a picture of my son contemplating the wonders he might find inside the large beverage container in his grasp. I am sure he was unaware of the possibility that he would more than likely be wearing the contents if he attempted to partake of them, but since he didn't try, he didn't find out.

That may be because I took it away from him. After the picture, of course.

I'm a little nervous about the drawings, though. Not only because I'm not 100% thrilled with them (I could've finished more faster and with better quality if I'd been able to do them on the computer), but also because, as it turns out, I may've gotten carried away and drawn one TOTALLY wrong. I'll find out when I get home and compare what I know I drew to what the list says I was supposed to have drawn and then see how I can cover my butt. If I can get the computer to cooperate, I'll have an image heavy post with all of them here in the next couple days.

Let's just get it out of the way now, though. I am not happy with the cow in the least. That was one of the victims of working on such a large scale in such a short time. There are others, but I think it is the most glaring.

C'est la vie.

P.S. French is a stupid, stupid language. It's like Spanish, only unnecessarily complicated.

Fashion

Dressing, for my mother, is a marathon event. It requires training and self-discipline and denial of all else in favor of it. She can be so late to an event that she misses it entirely because she was fine-tuning her outifit.

This seems like a colossal waste of effort to me.

This morning, she was 15 minutes late to work because she couldn't get her outfit perfect so that she could secretize* for a handful of science professors who, other than covering their nakedness, have no idea how to use clothing.

Thank God they got that much.

.....Eughhhh....

This isn't to say that I can fault her for caring about her appearance. I mean, a little moderation would be nice; a little recognition of the fact that nobody really cares 99.54% of the time, but a lot of people don't really put much effort into looking like they WEREN'T just backed over by a dump truck. Of course, this has made its way into my life, as well. I don't know that I've ever been late because of getting dressed, but I don't like going out in public if I haven't shaved, for instance. There have been a few odd mornings lately where tiredness and time worked against me and I went to work without combing my hair (good thing it's really short), and I'd fix it at lunch time. Mostly, I'm just especially self-conscious about my thinning hair. I don't at all relish the prospect of being bald. Most guys who look young do not look good bald. Ron Howard has only recently aged into his baldness, for example.

I do like wearing fashionable clothes, though. Granted, the fashions I tend towards are usually those of a high school kid, not that I wear that stuff that often, but I've always been a t-shirt and jeans guy, so it only stands to reason that advances in that area would pique my interest.

I guess this means that if you ever see me wandering around in a bath robe, the world is probably going to end.

Unless someone buys me this bathrobe, which I would gladly wear even to work.


*Secretize - What one does when they are a secretary

Inviso-Monkey

It occurs to me that my presence here is almost as unnecessary as it is unnoticed. I haven't properly drawn a comic in nearly a year and a half now. What I did draw has shuffled off to that place where things go to die in obscurity.

You know, that same place where all the comics I've almost done in the aforementioned year and a half have gone.

I keep holding out hope that somehow I'll start making comics again, but it isn't happening. The only story I'm particularly interested in (working title: The Art of Self-Destruction) really wouldn't work as a comic. At least, not as I've conceived it. For comics, I don't have the time to tell the stories I want to tell. The first chapter (especially) of Troubled Times shows what happens when I try to rush a comic book-style strip.

It's pretty ugly.

That leaves shorter strip-style comics, like Vapor Lock. Except, at the end, I was working VL away from that. The thing is, I know exactly where it would pick up. I knew it a year ago. I even drew up new character designs for the cast reflecting that things had changed in the interim. I don't have time to draw them in that style, though. In fact, chances are that artistically, VL vol. 3 would be a step backwards as far as where I want to go is concerned. The same would be true of almost any strip I could do.

So, I'm still stuck.

Fortunately, I'll at least have something artish to do for the next couple weeks (probably). My preacher asked me to draw some illustrations for a camp he's speaking at. A little short notice, considering how many he wants. Heck, short notice for me, no matter the number, but I think it sounds fun.

Plus, he offered to pay. And, to quote Cutler Beckett, "Currency is the currency of the realm."

Solutions Abound

I've been hearing a lot about how they're going to change the movie ratings system so that movies with "excessive smoking" will get a higher rating like movies with people getting disemboweled do. At first, this struck me as a bit silly. I mean, sure, I'm as anti-smoking as the next guy (unless that guy is a smoker...then it just doesn't work), but...well...it seemed like maybe they're a bit...I dunno...crazy about it. However, after having a few days to mull it over, I came up with a better solution, and it's all thanks to Steven Spielberg.

For those of you who just didn't care, when they re-released E.T. a couple years ago, they digitally editted some scenes. In some cases, it was to make E.T. seem more realistic, like a bathtub scene where the pores on the rubber puppet were releasing bubbles. However, the scene that made the biggest splash as far as the news was concerned was the chase scene where the Federal agents were trying to catch E.T. and E.T. makes Elliot and his friends fly to get away. In the original, the agents all had guns. Spielberg thought, as he was preparing the new version, that it seemed unrealistic and excessive to have all these grown men with guns trying to stop a few kids.

Apparently, Spielberg doesn't think that they might want the guns for the alien who can make kids fly.

Anyway, since he didn't like the idea, he got rid of them and gave the agents hand-held radios. A little wussy, but a good solution. And that got me thinking. Instead of changing the ratings, we can just take out the cigarettes and replace them, too. At first, I thought it would be a simple matter of replacing all the cigarettes with these:


And that seemed like a good idea, at first....but then I thought about it. Sometimes a sucker isn't appropriate. For one thing, they aren't very manly. Can you imagine Humphrey Bogart sucking on a lollipop in The Maltese Falcon? Sure, Bogey would certainly lend a bit of toughness to it, but not everyone could pull it off. Jean-Claude Van Damme certainly wouldn't.

Does he ever smoke in movies? ...What am I saying, he's French...of course he does.

Actually, that raises a lot of questions about the tough image associated with smoking, but I digress.

So I began to think of alternatives. A couple sprang to mind:



Now, I have to admit, they still lack that je ne sais quoi that's necessary to convey the Bogey image, but for most actors, it'll do. Plus, it sends a healthy message to the kids about eating their veggies. But, it would be irresponsible of me to have left it at that, since Bogart was my example and I had yet to find a cigarette replacement for him.

Then it hit me.

Only one substance could possibly match that no-nonsense attitude and overall manliness that Humphrey Bogart exuded.

Feh, Art...

I mentioned before how I was an art major in college. Got my BA, which, as is proven by not having a job in art, is BS. The thing about art is that, while I enjoy drawing (and to a lesser degree, photography, sculpture & painting...in that order), I don't care for art.

Or, really, I don't care for artists and art lovers. I'm talking about high art, here. Popular art is more real to me. Graphic design, cartooning, that sort of thing...that's unpretentious art. The problem is (generally) people who make gallery art (and the people who fawn over them). I watched a video with Andria last night (after ER but before I turned on the end of Wednesday's Jericho episode) on John Cage, a "composer" and general flake responsible for the "musical" abomination 4'33", a piano piece which is four minutes and thirty-three seconds of whatever the crap happens to be going on in the room except the piano. The pianist approaches the piano, sits down and then, for the next four and a half minutes, keeps an eye on his watch.

This is EXACTLY why I hate art. You can do the stupidest crap and call it art and people will think you're some sort of visionary. That's just screwing around!

In short, the emperor's freaking naked!

I propose a piece of performance art. Go down to the busiest part of the town you live in or nearest to. Scream, as loud as you possibly can, "I'm Henry the Eighth, I Am!" Then, when people are gawking at you, run over and suckerpunch the nearest one. Then, when the cops come, tell them it was art.

Great News...pbbbttt!

Just found out that NBC will not be airing The Black Donnelly's again. Soon or ever. Good thing, because we need more vapid shows like the waste of airtime that is Thank God You're Here.

Ok, that might've been a bit harsh. I didn't HATE the show, but other than the possibility of someone marginally famous making a fool of themself by not being funny (which is probably the funniest possible outcome), there isn't much to it more than a bunch of adults playing pretend. Wayne Knight, Seinfeld's nemesis Newman and Jurassic Park's thieving programmer Dennis Nedry, was good, but the others in the two episodes that aired were....meh. I mean, Bryan Cranston was fine until I realized that his whole bit was making out with everyone. Like Michael Scott's gun, how do you top a guy who makes out with everyone? And Mo'Nique, good grief...I totally lost respect for Dave Foley for picking her as the best in the second show...her entire comedy is based on being fat and, when that fails, black. OOOOOOH. Edie McClurg was at least able to rise above using the same crap that she rose to fame on (unless you count her appearance as a nice normal lady clashing with her behavior...but it's not like she's going to have plastic surgery just so she can escape THAT), but what the heck happened to Richard Kind and Kevin Nealon? Apparently, Nealon lost his ability to be amusing sometime after SNL, and Richard Kind...man...he failed, but in the least funny way possible. The first episode was vastly superior, and...well, that's pretty dang sad. Dave Foley, other than his award screw-up (which I suppose I could give him the benefit of the doubt and say was due to fear of Mo', since she could probably take him in a fight), was somewhat amusing in his brief parts, but more because he seemed to be laughing at himself for sinking to being a second-fiddle host on a show where the host isn't even on that much. The highlight for the whole thing had to be the audience. Not the whole audience, but the people that sat behind Dave Foley, because they didn't seem to be into it, either, which pleases me greatly. Before writing off the series entirely, I'll hang around long enough to see Angela Kinsey, who plays Angela on The Office. I don't know that she'll be any better, but she's on The Office. I watch things those people are on, such as when Rainn Wilson was on SNL.

Ugh.